From Famine to Feast

(I was asked to give an inspirational message in our local congregation; here’s what I shared)

Overindulgent Eating as a Sports

How was your 4th of July celebration?

When we think of 4th of July, the most iconic way to celebrate this here in America is with fireworks, right? Barbecuing at home or in the park is another way. But there is one odd tradition that has been famously connected to the Independence Day celebration. That is the Hotdog eating contest which has been a national spectacle every 4th of July. In the competition, contestants will gulp down as many hotdogs, including the buns, in 10 minutes.

The one who won the competition16 times and who holds the record in the most hotdogs eaten is Joey Chestnut, who by the way was not allowed to compete this year at the Nathan’s Hotdog eating contest due to contract dispute. In 2021, Joey Chestnut ate 76 hotdogs, buns and all, in 10 minutes which is the Guinness book record.

If you look at the contestants on this event, they are not heavy, in fact they appear to be in good shape. For like any sports, it takes practice and preparation. For Joey Chestnut, around 2 months before the event, he will start practicing once every week. But before every practice, he will fast for 2 days. And that’s what he also do before the actual competition, he’ll fast for 2 days where he’ll only drink water and lemon juice. For competitive eaters they are usually feasting or fasting. Feast or famine.

Our story is also about a famine and then turning into a feast.

Bible Story – 2 Kings 7: 3-9

³ Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? ⁴ If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they keep us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall only die.” 

⁵ And they rose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians; and when they had come to the outskirts of the Syrian camp, to their surprise no one was there. ⁶ For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses—the noise of a great army; so they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us!” ⁷ Therefore they arose and fled at twilight, and left the camp intact—their tents, their horses, and their donkeys—and they fled for their lives. 

⁸ And when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into one tent and ate and drank, and carried from it silver and gold and clothing, and went and hid them; then they came back and entered another tent, and carried some from there also, and went and hid it.

⁹ Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent. If we wait until morning light, some punishment will come upon us. Now therefore, come, let us go and tell the king’s household.” 

Deathly Famine

We were told that there was a famine in the city. What was the cause and how bad was it? Let’s look one chapter before, in 2 Kings 6: 24-29:

²⁴ And it happened after this that Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria. ²⁵ And there was a great famine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and one-fourth of a kab of dove droppings for five shekels of silver.

The Syrians sieged or surrounded the city of Samaria for several months, that they cut the food supply going in to the city.

The famine was so bad that they are eating donkey’s head. Donkey is an unclean animal, and I don’t know how much meat you can get from the head. But people resort to eating it. And how much would they pay for it? 80 shekels/pieces of silver. That is an exorbitant amount. Christ was sold for 30 pieces of silver.

I don’t know how much 1/4 of a kab is, but I know what dove’s droppings is, and it cost 5 shekels/pieces of silver! One shekel of silver is a month’s salary of a laborer. That’s how bad the situation was. But there’s more.

²⁶ Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”

²⁷ And he said, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” ²⁸ Then the king said to her, “What is troubling you?”

And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ ²⁹ So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”

What?! They were eating their own children! That must be really desperate times.

The reality is, there is still famine in our world today. Because of war, drought, pestilence, or just because of wrong choices, as many as 783 million people still go hungry. That is 1 in 10 of the world’s population. The sad truth is there is more than enough food produced in the world to feed everyone on the planet.

(Photo above is from Gaza; source: Associated Press)

Even in America, there are people that are food-insecure. Even in our own community. I am glad that our church has a ministry like Around Town Mobile Food Pantry, that is helping to alleviate hunger. I know some of our members here are already involve in this ministry. Last month we helped in packaging the food that will be delivered. Please plan to volunteer.

I don’t know exactly what your situation is, but I’m sure it’s not that bad. If you had dinner last night, and you did not go to bed hungry, then there’s a lot to be thankful for.

Deathly Leprosy

The main characters of our story are these four lepers. What was the condition of lepers during that time?

According to Jewish law, lepers were to remain at least 12-steps away from other people. That is a distance of about 30 feet; definitely more than the 6-feet that we know as social distancing during COVID pandemic.  

Nothing was more frightening than leprosy during Bible times.  It was considered highly contagious.  These walking dead were forced to live outside towns in wilderness colonies, caves, tents, or garbage dumps.  Lepers were required by law (Leviticus 13:45) to wear torn clothes and their hair unkempt and they have to put a cloth across their mouths, like a face mask, so face cover has been existing during the Bible times. And the lepers have to shout repeatedly, “Tame! Tame!” meaning, “Unclean! Unclean!” so people would stay away.

What is leprosy anyway?

It is a chronic infectious disease which is caused by a type of bacteria called Mycobacterium leprae. The disease affects the skin, the peripheral nerves, mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, and the eyes.

The disease is transmitted through droplets from the nose and mouth. Prolonged, close contact over weeks to months with someone with untreated leprosy is needed to catch the disease. The disease is not spread through casual contact with a person who has leprosy like shaking hands or sitting next to each other. 

In our current time, leprosy is a curable disease and treatment in the early stages can prevent disability. Recommended treatment regimen consists of three drugs, given for a duration of six months to 12 months.

But in Biblical times, there was no known treatment for leprosy. Even during the middle ages, if a man became a leper, the priest would conduct a prayer for the leper and read the burial service over him, because for all human purposes the man was dead.

Because the leprosy bacteria attacks the nervous system, the disease might begin with the loss of all sensation in some part of the body; the nerve trunks are affected; the muscles waste away; the tendons contract until the hands are like claws. This is followed by non-healing wounds of the hands and feet. Then comes the progressive loss of fingers and toes, until in the end a whole hand or a whole foot would drop off, or ears or nose would drop off. The duration of that kind of leprosy is from twenty to thirty years. It is a terrible slow death in which a man dies inch by inch.

(Photo below is a leprosy colony in Yeungkong, China, circa 1930’s; source: Library of University of Wisconsin-Madison)

For all these reasons, the condition of leprosy is like sin and its effects. Sin is a contagious, debilitating disease that corrupts its victim and makes him essentially dead while alive. This is why society and religious people scorned lepers during Biblical time. Rabbis especially despised lepers and saw them as people under the special judgment of God, deserving no mercy.

Yet in the Bible, we can read both in Old and New Testaments that people with leprosy getting healed. Like Naaman, when Elisha told him to dip 7 times in Jordan river. During Jesus’ ministry, several times he reached out to the lepers, like when he healed the 10 lepers though only 1 came back to thank Him.

Sin like leprosy is deadly, but Jesus can bring life and healing. Like leprosy, Jesus can cleanse us of all our sins.

Fighting our Battles

So these four lepers in our story were really desperate. Remember, lepers are beggars, they have to rely on others to give them food. And with the great famine and everybody were hungry, who will give them food? So they said to each other, why do we sit waiting and die? They decided that they should go to the enemy’s camp and beg for food there. If the Syrian soldiers get angry with them and kill them, that will be a quicker death, as they will die anyway, right?

Have you been that desperate? Going to the opposition for help? They probably thought that God can even use the enemy to give them food. Why not?

There’s a story of a Christian widow who lives in a basement of an apartment building. Every day she would open her upper window that opens to the street and and she would pray to God to give her her daily provisions. Her neighbor who lives on the first floor was an atheist man, and every day he would hear this widow praying. So one morning, to make fun of the woman while she was praying, the man threw a loaf of bread through the open window and it hit he woman. The woman realizing that a loaf of bread fell on her, blurted out, “Thank you Lord for giving me bread.” Then the atheist man laughed out sarcastically and shouted, that bread is from me. Without missing a beat, the woman continued her prayer, “Thank you Lord that you even use the devil to give me bread.”

Back to our story, the four lepers went to the Syrian camp at twilight, that is just after sundown, but it was not too dark yet. But as they approach the Syrian camp, what did they find out. The whole camp was totally abandoned. Why? Because the Syrian army heard a noise as if an army of chariots, horses, and soldiers are coming to attack them, that they got so scared and ran for their lives leaving their tents, their horses, their food supply, everything!

Brothers and sisters, God will fight our battle. Israel at this time was not very faithful to God. Their king, Joram, son of Ahab and Jezebel was a bad king, and yet, God saved Israel from the Syrian army. How much more if we remain faithful to Him?

Are you feeling troubled? Are enemies oppressing you? Is the world besieging you?

Psalms 50:15 says: “And call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

Overwhelming Abundance

The four lepers entered the first tent. What they found were lots and lots of food. Hotdogs, pizza, burgers, donuts, cookies……..oh, it must be the American army tent they entered.

Let’s do it again. They entered the tent of the Syrian army, and they found…..falafel, kibbeh, baklava, lamb shish kebab, and beef shawarma! For vegetarians here, that does not sound appealing to you, huh?

So the four lepers entered the next tent, the Syrian vegetarian tent, and they found…….eggplants, zucchini, chickpeas, figs, dates, and tofu!

You know I’m making this up, but you get the idea. There was an overwhelming abundance of food. Besides food, they also found silver and gold and clothing. I am not sure why the Syrians will bring gold and silver into the battlefield, but they did.

So the lepers after entering tent after tent, they ate and they drank and they had a feast. They took the treasures and hid them, and they kept all of these to themselves.

But after a while, something snapped in their brains. They came to a realization. They had a change of heart.

2 Kings 7:9 – they said: “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent.” That’s when they decided that they have to share the good news to the rest of the city of Samaria who were dying of hunger.

My friends we are like the four lepers. We are dead men walking. Like the rest of the world, we are sinners and are destined to die. We are not great bearers of the good news. But we have found the Savior. We have found the Hope that this dying world badly needs. Are we not going to share the good news that we have received?

Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find the bread.

A preacher named John Stott published a book on evangelism that he called Our Guilty Silence. Notice the title, not just our embarrassed silence or our awkward silence; it is our guilty silence.

Someday everyone is going to find out about the truth of the gospel, just as everybody in Samaria saw the abandoned camp of the Syrian Army when morning came and daylight returned. The day will come when every eye will behold Christ in his glory when He comes again, and the whole world will know who Jesus is. But for some it will be too late for them to believe.

Do we want to have to explain someday why we didn’t care about sharing the gospel with the world when it needed it most?

From Prisoner to Preacher

I would like to end with another story.*

Edier Osvaldo Ruiz of Medellin Colombia, began his life of crime at a very young age. He lived with his mother and six siblings, earning just enough to scrape by as a child. But at the age, 11 or 12 years old, he became a part of the Medellin criminal cartel, made famous by its leader, Pablo Escobar. By age 13, Edier quit school to dedicate his life to crime. He soon began to climb the ranks in the crime world. At 14, he met Pablo Escobar and was given a home as a reward.

From a young age, Edier served as a contract killer, murdering people in Medellín and beyond.

From 1990-92, Edier was one of Colombia’s most wanted criminals. In 1993, police killed Pablo Escobar in his hometown of Medellin. Within a couple months, they captured Edier in a huge sting operation.

Edier was indicted on many offenses, including homicide, possession of illegal firearms, drug trafficking, and kidnapping to name a few. He was sentenced to 60-70 years but eventually received a 48-year sentence.

In February 1994, Edier arrived at Bellavista Prison, where he had to constantly watch his back because he had so many enemies within the prison walls. He soon heard about the price on his head of $175,000, thus his life was in constant danger, even inside the prison.

After serving a few years, some Christians within the prison introduced Jesus to Edier. Several of the new converts included men who had once worked for him. He thought they were crazy.

After several attempts on his life, in where a couple times he was severely wounded, he was transferred multiple times to different prisons to protect him, he began to receive encouraging notes from those old friends who had converted. They shared that the Bible had transformed their lives. But Edier just laughed and made fun of their decisions.

The new believers continued to send him letters, telling him that Jesus loved him despite his past, but Edier thought, “How could God forgive a man as evil as I? How could a person who murdered so many, who had left mothers without their sons, wives without their husbands, children without their parents be loved and forgiven?”

Near the end of 1996, Edier got transferred again to the high security wing of Bellavista after another attempt on his life, where he reunited with those Christian friends. They faithfully shared Jesus with him. Then, in the middle of the night, he heard a voice. Edier thought he was going crazy. For two nights, the voice was constant, calling him, telling him that He was his Savior, that He created him with a purpose.

Here is the rest of the story in Edier’s own words:

“On the morning of November 27, 1996, I heard singing, and God told me to leave my cell and go to the singing. I arrived, and there were the “hallelujah people.” There were about 50 inmates praising, exalting, and glorifying the name of God. I stood at the entrance and started to shake. I just wanted to get out of there, but when I ran out, they had closed the gate so I couldn’t leave. The Christians came to me and prayed over me. While they prayed, I was stretched out on the floor. Then, they opened the gate, and I fled to my cell and began to cry … One brother brought me a Bible and said, ‘Look, boss, from now on this is your weapon. It has 66 shots. Take it! You will be alright, don’t worry. We are your brothers. We will help you. We will care for you in Jesus’s name. Press on!’ As I wept, I began to read the Bible. I spent the next 3 to 4 days reading it and praying about my shameful state before God, asking forgiveness, repenting of my sins, and all I had done.

“Then I heard God say, ‘If today you wish to believe in my beloved son Jesus Christ, you shall be a new creature. All the old things shall pass away from your life, and all shall be made new.’

“On that day, I surrendered all.”

In 2005, Edier was released from prison, after serving just 11 years. He reunited and reconciled with his family, got married, was baptized, and began to regularly share his faith. After a year of faithfully volunteering, Prison Fellowship offered him a role on the evangelism team to work in the prison, where he served for four years.

After that Edier, returned to school and studied at the Colombia Biblical Seminary to be a pastor. God also gave him the courage to face his victims’ families to ask for forgiveness.

Today, he and his wife leads a church. He accepts that he is not a perfect messenger, but he is sharing the good news that transformed him, to this world that is full of sin and darkness.

My friends, we are broken vessels. But we have found the Savior. Let us share Him to this dying world.

(*Edier story from One Mission Society; all photos taken from the web)