2 Kings 4:38-41
And Elisha came again to Gilgal: and there was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him: and he said unto his servant, Set on the great pot, and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets. And one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered thereof wild gourds his lap full, and came and shred them into the pot of pottage: for they knew them not. So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof. But he said, Then bring meal. And he cast it into the pot; and he said, Pour out for the people, that they may eat. And there was no harm in the pot.
There was famine in the time of Elisha.
He had some prophets with him, and he bid his servant to prepare a meal.
Now the servant went and gathered gourds from a wild vine.
The problem was he didn’t know what they were…
The servant cooks them and feeds them to the prophets, to whom they say, this is deathly awful!
Talk about a bad review, ha.
But seriously, the gourds were probably poisonous and not edible.
What do we learn from this bad pot of stew?
When you are used to good cooking, bad cooking sticks out real quick...
When we are used to the nourishment of the Word of God, and we encounter some “bad cooking,” we quickly recognize the “death” in it.
And we should speak it out of our mouths.
The more we taste of God’s goodness, the more sensitive we are to unbiblical teaching.
David said:
"O taste and see that the LORD is good:
blessed is the man that trusteth in him." Psalm 34:3
What do we need to learn? Spending faithful time in the Word of God helps us know when another "truth" is actually false and not good for the eating. The more we know of God, the more sensitive we are to the things that are not of God.