“Alas” Recovering what has been lost
2 Kings 6:1-7
The word Alas means “Pain” and it is the root word where we get the word in English, Ah. It is a word that demonstrates a shout of pain for a tragedy that has happened.
In this chapter it so happens that while a man is cutting down trees in a certain field, the axe head of the axe that he was using fell into the Jordan River. When this happens the word of God says in verse 5 that this man cried out “Alas, my master, it was borrowed! This incident caused this man great pain and all the more given that the axe was borrowed.
An axe in the time of this chapter was a tool of great value and of great importance, especially when it was borrowed, given that there were laws established for when someone had lost something borrowed and the consequences many times were of extreme punishment.
When the axe head fell into the river this man did not say carelessly, I’m going home and the owner can figure out what to do about the situation, instead he cried out “Alas” (pain), with the intention of recovering what had been lost.
The axe head can signify many things for the man and women of God and for the church of Christ, but for the purpose of this article I would like you to see the axe head as representing Revival and the Anointing of God.
Sadly the church of today has lost the reality of genuine Revival and the true Anointing of God, they have fallen and disappeared to the extent that religiosity, tradition, excess entertainment and luke warmness have been accepted and become a normality in the church. What the early church and the Christians of the great awakenings had has been lost and in place of salvation of souls, healing of sick bodies, deliverance of the oppressed in our churches, we have replaced them with entertainment, humanism and worldliness just to mention a few things.
The saddest thing of all is that no one or at least very few are crying out “Alas”. There is no pain for what we are seeing take place before our very eyes. An everything is ok attitude has crept into our churches, when in reality things are not ok. Preachers keep on preaching soft messages that make the people feel good and give them a false sense that they are just fine how they are, while all around us people are going to hell and the church grows colder and colder.
The time has come for us to have great Pain for what we have lost as a church, we are in need like never before in the history of the church for an old fashioned, Holy Ghost Revival, where repentance, salvation of souls, deliverance of the oppressed and the baptism with the Holy Spirit is normal, as it was in the book of Acts.
We desperately need the true anointing from on high, upon the church and the believer. Today in the church we depend more on methods, talents, money, buildings, music than we do on the Anointing of the Holy Spirit. We have lost the anointing that breaks the yoke of bondage and so few are worried, we continue on with our spiritual partying, concerts and conferences as if everything is just fine, all the while Revival and the true anointing have evidently disappeared. Oh yes there are churches and ministries that are experiencing genuine Revival and ministries that have the anointing, but they are very few.
So, How do we recover what has been lost? How do we recover the Revival that God desires us to live in and the yoke destroying Anointing?
After Elisha found out what was happening, in verse 6 it says “he cut off a stick”, this stick symbolises the cross of Christ, he threw the stick in the water and made the iron float and then said to the man, take it up and he took it.
Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary and the clear preaching of the Gospel that is Christ centred we will recover what has been lost (Revival and the Anointing). The church is trying to recover Revival and the Anointing with every type of method other than the cross and the simplicity of the Gospel. Every method under the sun is used in order for the church to recover what is established in the book of Acts, we have 3 points and 6 points and even 10 points on HOW TO!! And sadly as is obvious nothing of substance is recovered, given that only through the sacrifice of Jesus and the Gospel can we have genuine God sent Revival and the true Anointing. You just have to read the book of Acts and you will see how the preaching of the Gospel and it was an anointed preaching was at the root along with prayer of everything that happened.
It is time to hurt and have pain for what we are witnessing and put the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the Gospel into the great problem that we are in, doing this and only this, will the axe head float, in other words the impossible will become possible. We will and I stress that point “we will” recover genuine Revival and the anointing that we so desperately need.
We will be able to take it with our own hands and say thank you Lord for your faithfulness.