And make sure and get the camera
up. Shouldn't be. It's pretty well
zeroed in right on me. One week, though it was that,
I don't know, well, actually I could see people from both
sides. You know, I went back and looked at the video. Oh, okay. All right. So everybody's hearing
our conversation. Okay. If you'd open your Bibles
to 2 Kings chapter 6. 2 Kings chapter 6. Oh, okay. Well, let's pray. Father, bless this gathering,
bless it with your presence, bless it with the Spirit's instruction. We pray this in the name of the
Lord Jesus, amen. All right, we're going to read
from verse 8 through verse 23. Now the king of Aram, and of
course that's modern-day Syria, was at war with Israel. After
conferring with his officers, he said, I will set up my camp
in such and such a place. The man of God sent word to the
king of Israel, beware of passing that place because the Arameans
are going down there. So the king of Israel checked
on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again, Elisha
warned the king so that he was on his guard in such places.
This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and
demanded of them, will you not tell me which of us is on the
side of the king of Israel? None of us, my lord the king,
said one of his officers. But Elisha, the prophet who is
in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak
in your bedroom. Go, find out where he is, the
king ordered, so I can send men and capture him. The report came
back, he is in Dothan. Then he sent horses and chariots
and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded
the city. When the servant of the man of
God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with
horses and chariots had surrounded the city. Oh my Lord, what shall
we do, the servant asked. Don't be afraid, the prophet
answered. Those who are with us are more than those who are
with them. And Elisha prayed, O Lord, open
his eyes so he may see. Then the Lord opened the servant's
eyes and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots
of fire all around Elisha. As the enemy came down toward
him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, strike these people with blindness.
So he struck them with blindness as Elisha had asked. Elisha told
them, this is not the road and this is not the city. Follow
me and I will lead you to the man you are looking for. And
he led them to Samaria. After he entered the city, Elisha
said, Lord, open the eyes of these men so that they can see. Then the Lord opened their eyes
and they looked, and there they were inside Samaria. When the
king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, shall I kill them, my
father, shall I kill them? "'Do not kill them,' he answered.
"'Would you kill men you have captured "'with your own sword
or bow? "'Set food and water before them "'so that they may
eat and drink "'and then go back to their master.' "'So he prepared
a great feast for them "'and after they had finished eating
and drinking, "'he sent them away and they returned to their
master. "'So the bands from Aram "'stopped
raiding Israel's territory.'" I've entitled this lesson, Mercy
Received, Mercy Shown, War Ended. By the way, did you check the
volume on it? Oh, okay. Now, this is another story
surrounding a miracle. performed through Elisha and
a miracle that benefited the northern tribes of Israel. Now
I find this an interesting thing that even though the king of
Israel and virtually all of the people living in that portion,
you know, those 10 tribes, they were in rebellion against God.
Yet, God still has his prophet there, and the prophet is still
working for the benefit of that nation. How merciful the Lord
was to the northern tribes of Israel. When he finally did send
in the army to destroy the nation and carry away the inhabitants,
they had been extended every opportunity to repent. They had been shown so much goodness
from the hand of the Lord. So here is Jehoram, I believe
the son of Ahab, and he's just as bad as his father was. He
had no real interest in the Lord, and yet one of the prominent
prophets Old Testament period. Certainly the one credited I
think with the most miracles done by any of the Old Testament
prophets. The Lord has put him there and
Elisha is informing him of the enemy's movements. Now so great
was this miracle of course the king of Aram and this is probably
Ben-Hadad He, like all non-believers, figured there must be some natural
explanation for what's going on. He said, who among us is
being an informant? We've got a mole among us who's
informing the king of Israel and telling him what our plans
are. And they said, no, it's none of us. It's that prophet
Elisha. And to drive home the point of
how they would look at it as how powerful a prophet it was,
but they says, even what you speak in your bedchamber, I think
is the actual word, the most secret place of all, probably,
in anybody's household, says what you whisper there is known
to the prophet, and the prophet tells the king of Israel. Once again, not understanding
that the power is not in the prophet, but in the God the prophet
worships, he thinks I'll capture the prophet and that will put
an end to it. And so he sends people to capture Elisha and
bring him up to Aram. Now, here's the interesting thing.
the same king that had given money to Naaman to give to the
king of Israel in order that Naaman might be healed. And Naaman
comes back with virtually all the money and none of the leprosy.
It shows you the blindness of a stubborn heart that with all
the evidence of the power of God they still resist him, they
still fight against him as though there's
some way for them to win. And, of course, among those who
were in the council that the king of Aram was talking to was
doubtless this Naaman fellow. Now, I'm not saying that he agreed
with them. You know he's not mentioned here
at all but unless for some reason he had died or quit the military
or whatever he would have been in that council. I imagine he
would have raised an objection. He should have said you don't
understand you're not going to win here. But if he did raise
an objection the king ignored it. Now this is also a good illustration
of what happened with our Lord Jesus Christ. Because he came
into the world. As God's prophet. And though
he spoke with tremendous authority and worked many more miracles
even than Elisha did, and they knew about the miracles.
They knew about Lazarus being raised from the dead, but they
thought that they could capture the Lord Jesus, eliminate him,
and it would stop the movement that was growing up around his
name. I know this. If I saw someone
raise someone else from the dead, even if I didn't choose to become
a believer, so to speak, I'd leave him alone. I figure either
he has great power or he's tied to some great power that I can't
deal with and it's just better to leave him alone. But that
is how blind the human heart is, how set against the true
God. They knew that he was supposed
to be in this city called Dothan, which is about 12 miles from
Samaria, and so he sent horses and chariots to surround the
city. Now, when Elisha's servant, and most assume this isn't Gehazi,
though Gehazi is later mentioned, I believe, as the servant of
Elisha. But whoever the servant was,
he goes out and he sees, well, to back up, they surround the
city at night. So early in the morning, the
servant gets up, he looks out, and the city is surrounded by
this battalion or whatever from Aram. Of course, that scares
him. You know, it's not like you could
call in an airstrike and they'd be there in a few minutes. If
they sent out a messenger right away, if he could get past the
line, it's still 12 miles to Samaria. Once he gets to Samaria
and talks to the king, the king's gonna have to get an army put
together and go 12 miles. Well, in that amount of time,
a group like that could do their mischief and be gone. So he goes
back to Elisha and he says, oh my Lord, what shall we do? Now, this could have been similar
to on the day of Pentecost when they, after Peter had said this,
Jesus whom you crucified, the Lord has made to be Lord in Christ. And the response was, what shall
we do? What are we going to do? And
it was kind of a rhetorical question. I don't think they really thought
that there was anything they could do about it. What are we
going to do now? And probably that's what the
servant of Elisha meant. You know, we're goners. There's
nothing we can do. But if he was asking a question,
he asked the wrong question. He said, what are we going to
do? Well, we aren't going to do anything. When these problems come up to
the church of the Lord Jesus, what are we going to do? Well,
nothing that we aren't already doing. The church does not have
to strategize. The church, when it's under persecution, it continues doing exactly the
same thing it was doing when it wasn't under persecution.
Because the hope of the church does not lie in what the church
can do. You say, well, the church can
pray. Yes, but the church should be
praying all the time. So that's why I'm saying we're not going
to be doing anything that we wouldn't already do. And Elisha
said, don't be afraid. This is verse 16. Now, this is
a very powerful statement here, and I preached from it, I remember,
fairly early on in my time here. And it's just, it's a truth that
the people of God can rely on at all times. He says, don't
be afraid, those who are with us are more than those who are
with them. Now if we look at Elisha as an
illustration of the Lord Jesus, well of course the Lord Jesus
knew this at all times. As powerful, as numerous as the
enemy may seem. They're nothing compared to the
power and number of those who are on God's side, for lack of
a better way to put it. Now, we can't see them. That
is, we can't see them naturally. And I don't know that Elisha
could at this point. Our Lord When he was on earth,
he did not see angels with natural eyes. He did not see the helpers
of the kingdom of God with natural eyes. He believed them. He, you know, the devil had said
to him, he will give his angels charge over you lest you dash
your foot against the stone. And the Lord already knew that.
Now, he wasn't going to put the Lord to the test by acting stupid
and, you know, jumping off the temple. However, he did not fear. Humanly speaking, he did not
fear to go forward with what the Father, what God had given
him to do, because he knew that there were many with him. But
Elisha, even if he could not see these horsemen of Israel,
You know, that was what he saw when Elijah was taken away. He said, the horsemen and chariots
of Israel, you know, and then Elisha was gone. Well, I don't
know if he could see them, but he believed they were there.
He knew that they were present. But Elijah prayed this in verse
17, O Lord, open his eyes so he may see. The Lord opened the
servant's eyes and he looked and saw the hills full of horses
and chariots of fire all around Elisha. Now, the battalion from Aram had surrounded
the city, but once the servant of Elisha
was given eyes to see, the hills all around them were full. so
to speak, of the army of the Lord. You know, Aram had the
city of Dothan surrounded. God had Aram surrounded. And it says this, that they were
on the hills, and the hills were full of horses and chariots of
fire all around Elisha. And so, once again, you see all
these angels these beings, whatever sort they were, they were centered
around Elisha. And we realize that all the helpers
of the church of God are surrounding Christ, and we are in Him. And therefore, they are all around
us. Now, it's unfortunate that the
concept of guardian angels has been mythologized to the point
that people don't really understand what's happening. Now, people
have asked me, said, you know, do you believe in guardian angels? I said, believe in them, I rely
on them. But we don't appeal to them. We don't pray to them. We don't communicate with them
at all. Why? Well, we're told not to. I mean, the Gnostics
who believed that they were communicating with angels, the apostles put
them down. They said they're filling their
heads full of nonsense. They're not under our command.
They're under the command of our Lord. They surround Him. And therefore, they are protecting
any who are with Him. Their allegiance is not to us. Their allegiance is to Christ.
Elisha knew they were there because they'd been sent to protect him.
That means anybody with him is likewise protected. Now, let's
notice this. He says, Elisha said, those who
are with us are more than those who are with them. There are
those who were with them, and by that I mean spiritual forces
that were aiding the king of Aram. They weren't seen either. You know, he doesn't say there
are more with us than there are them, meaning there's more spiritual
warriors on our side than there are soldiers out there. Paul
is careful to teach us that the people we see, no matter how
much trouble they may cause us, no matter how much it may look
like they are a threat to us, they are not the enemy. We do not wrestle, he says, against
flesh and blood. I am sure that those Gentile
Christians in particular who are suffering the persecution,
they thought Caesar was the enemy. as powerful as Caesar is. He
wasn't the enemy. The real enemy was much more
powerful than Caesar is. But he was no match for the Lord
Jesus Christ. Our enemies are spiritual. Because
that's where the war is being fought right now. The things
which are going on in the flesh are merely the stage upon which
this warfare, this spiritual warfare is being carried out.
Now, As the book of Revelation teaches us, there are many in
this world who are in league with the spiritual forces of
wickedness. They don't know it. They are
like, I remember it was, I think it was back in the 60s. Someone
was making some political comments about, well, it was the people
in the United States who were starting to think that communism
and socialism and stuff was really good. And somebody in the Soviet
Union said, oh, they're the useful idiots. That's what they were
called, useful idiots. He said, they're stupid, but
we can use them. You know? Well, the people of
this world who stand in opposition to the Lord's Church, who stand
in opposition to God, they're just useful idiots to the spiritual
forces that stand as the true enemies of the Church of God.
So how do we respond to them? Well, you notice at the end of
this story, they all go back home alive. One of the worst things that the church
has ever done. And I realize, you know, we consider
the Roman church not to be the church, but for a thousand years,
they were the biggest group that claimed the name of Christ. And
they used, as someone said, they used the steel sword to carry
out their agenda But the church has only been given the spiritual
sword of the gospel to fight with. But even in the Reformation,
some of those whom we look back to as our religious forebears,
they did some monstrous things to people. they persecuted others. Anabaptists suffered horribly
at the hands of the Reformers because Anabaptists were actually
there before the Reformation. If you talk to, well, Baptists
and any of the more obvious descendants of the Anabaptists, they'll say,
we are not Protestant churches. because we never were part of
the Roman church. We didn't come out of that. We
were there all along. That's just a historical matter. I get the thing that doesn't
matter a whole lot, but still, because they would not join with
the reformers. The reformers turned on them.
And the primary reason they would not join with the reformers is
that the reformers still thought that the state and the church
should be connected. The Anabaptists said no. So what did they do? They tortured them, they threw
them in prison, all kinds of things. And you know that, all
at once I can't think of his name, Servetus, who came in Geneva
and he was preaching doctrine contrary to what John Calvin
was teaching in Geneva. Well, because church and state
were joined, to come up against the church was to come up with
the state, and they ended up burning Servetus at the stake.
Now, Calvin regretted consenting to that, and it's good that he
did, but he still consented to that, as though Servetus was
the enemy, as though Anabaptists were the enemy. Even if the Anabaptists
were wrong, they weren't the enemy. And the Church of England,
when it was established, and it was established primarily
because Henry VIII wanted the right to a divorce, and the Church
of Rome wouldn't give it to him, so he said, well, I'll start
my own church. And he did, and he was the head of it, granted
himself a divorce and moved on, you know. But what did they begin
doing? Persecuting Catholics. And that
war's been, that's still going on. Still going on in Ireland.
The Catholic and the Protestant factions of Ireland still, you
know, how silly. There is no one in the world
who is truly the enemy of the church that we have to worry
about. They may be used by the enemy, but they are not the enemy.
But no matter how many, no matter how large and powerful the spiritual
forces of evil, they are not to be compared with those who
are part of the Lord's true army. Once again, that scripture from
the book of Revelation, chapter 19, I love the imagery so much.
And I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse. And he that sat
upon it was called Faithful and True. And all the armies that
were in heaven followed him upon white horses. And we were told in the first
part of the book of Revelation that the host of heaven can't
even be numbered. So here you got this ring of soldiers outside
of Dothan. The servant of God's afraid.
What the servant of God doesn't realize is there's more danger
out there than even he knows. Because there's forces of evil,
there are spiritual forces working with them. But then there's really
nothing to worry about at all, because there are spiritual,
heavenly powers engaged for the defense of the people of God. Well, Elisha prayed that he would
open the eyes of his servant. I want you to note this. He opened
the servant's eyes so he could see things as they really are
and not as they appear. And I make that point because
he's going to pray the opposite for the others. And if we don't
understand what he means about blinding these others, it's going
to make kind of a silly story. Because he goes on and he says,
Verse 18, as the enemy came down toward him, Elijah prayed to
the Lord, strike these people with blindness. So he struck
them with blindness as Elijah had asked. Now, while the scriptures do not say
so explicitly, we must conclude it was not like the blindness
that they simply can't see. They could no longer see things
as they are. What they were seeing and what
they were making of what they were seeing wasn't real. Because they still came towards
Elisha. And when they got to him, he
said, this is not the road and this is not the city. Well, just
a little bit before, they'd been pretty sure that this was the
road and this was the city. They knew where Dothan was. The Lord
made it look like it was somewhere else, I suppose. Also, they knew
who Elisha was. But they didn't recognize him.
He goes, follow me. Well, they'd not been sent to
follow Elisha, they'd been sent to capture him. So obviously
they didn't recognize him as Elisha. And he goes, I will lead
you to the man you're looking for. And he led them to Samaria. Now, they would have had to be
able to see, in the normal sense of the word, for him to be able
to lead them. This is an army with horses and
chariots, and they got a 12-mile march ahead of them. You know,
so we don't think he was just up there ringing a bell, follow
the sound of the bell, you know. They could see him, they just
didn't know who he was. They could see the road, and
as they approached Samaria, they could see Samaria, and they would
have known. what Samaria was. Had it not been they'd been stricken
with this peculiar blindness that they didn't see things as
they really were. It says, after they entered the
city, Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of these men so they
can see. Now what is his prayer? Lord,
show them what a mess they're in. They came down here thinking
they were somebody. you blind you in the in the natural
blindness of their hearts you issued a judicial blindness so
that they were in a whole lot of trouble and couldn't know
it now reveal that to them so the Lord opened their eyes and
they looked and there they were inside Samaria not outside Dothan
ready to attack probably plunder the place and get some money,
but most of all, grab Elisha and take him back and be applauded
by the king. They're not outside a small,
weak city. They are inside the walls of
the capital city of the nation which they were opposing, surrounded,
likely, you know, by soldiers. You know, it doesn't say so in
the scriptures, but I imagine Elisha sent someone ahead, said,
tell the king we're coming, you know. But things were made ready,
and so there they were inside Samaria. When the king of Israel
saw them, he asked Elisha, shall I kill them, my father, shall
I kill them? And that's a very natural response. Because also the king, who was
not a believer, he couldn't see any more than the servant of
Elisha could. And he looked at those men as
the enemy. And thought if he killed them, he had struck a
real blow to the enemy. But Elisha says, do not kill
them, he answered. Would you kill men you have captured
with your own sword or bow? Now, in other translations, the
question comes first. Would you kill men that you'd
captured with your own sword and bow? Which is a kind of rhetorical
question. He said, don't kill them. If
you wouldn't kill those that you had captured, why are you
going to kill those you had no hand in capturing? Others also
say this could be rendered as, you may kill those that you capture
with sword and bow. And there is a law in Deuteronomy
that said that. And maybe that's what the prophet
meant. But he was still saying to them, you didn't capture these.
The Lord just brought them in. And he brought them in as an
act of mercy to the King of Israel. That's mercy received. What is
the proper response to mercy received? Show mercy. James, I believe it was, says
that there shall be no mercy shown to him who shows no mercy. And we're not perfect in anything,
but How can it be that a man had been shown so great mercy
from God as we have, and yet we would turn right around and
show no mercy to anyone else? So he says, don't kill them.
Instead, go exactly the opposite direction. Set food and water
before them so that they may eat and drink, and then go back
to their master. Now he didn't say you know he
said don't kill them but he didn't say try to convert them to Jews. He just said feed them. You know
they journeyed here yes with bad intent but they journeyed
here and I made them do another 12 mile march. They're hungry. They're frightened, and rightly
so, but let's alleviate their fears, give them the food and
drink they need, and set them on their way back home to their
master. Now, at that point, any of those
of the Arameans, if they had wanted to, I'm sure
they could have said, I'm not going back to Aram. I want to
side with the king of Israel. Now, it doesn't look like any
of them did, But you know, this is how we're to treat those who
set themselves forward as the enemies of God. We feed them
the gospel. We don't wage war against them.
We give them the gospel, the food and drink of the gospel,
and then leave them free to return to their own master if that's
what they want to do. If the goodness of the Lord demonstrated
by the people of God is not enough, to make them willingly bind themselves
to the people of God and let them go back to their master.
Holding them hostage in Samaria would do no good. It'd just waste
your efforts trying to make sure they don't cause trouble in Samaria.
So if they do not willingly stay, you know, because their hearts
have been changed, let them go. But not only this, when they
went back to their master, they didn't have Elisha. But when they went back, they
had a testimony. First of all, they would have
a testimony of the undefeatable power of the God of Israel. and
they would have a message of the great mercy shown to them,
for they had presented themselves as enemies of Israel. But instead
of being killed, as you would expect, they were given food
from the king's table and sent on their way. So verse 23, the king prepared
a great feast for them, And after they had finished eating and
drinking, he sent them away and they returned to their master.
And of course, they would have been asked, why don't you have
Elisha? And they would have had to tell him the story. So he
heard the story. Look at the result of this. So the bands
from Aram stopped raiding Israel's territory. Now, remember we first
heard about these marauding bands in the story of Naaman, because
it was these marauding bands from Aram who had stolen that
young girl and sold her as a slave, and she became a handmaiden to
Naaman's wife. And it was doubtless a sorrow
to that young girl and to her parents. But the Lord has now
put a stop to those raiding bands. And he did not do it by a lightning
bolt, by a volcanic eruption, by an earthquake. He did it by
mercy. God reconciles people to himself
by showing them he has reconciled to them. You can preach law from
now to doomsday. And that's where the law will
take you, to doomsday. But the law will not reconcile
the heart to God. It will simply make it obvious
that we are naturally at war with God. But when the gospel
is preached and the Spirit of God is pleased to apply it to
a person's It changes that person's heart. It is that mercy that
causes him to surrender. And therefore, we, as those who
have received that mercy from the Lord, should take it to heart
that the way we deal with those who set themselves forward as
the enemies of the truth and of the gospel is to speak to
them of the mercy of God. We know that God has chosen whom
he'll say we know that Christ died for them and them alone
and we know that the spirit is only going to effectually call
those who've been chosen and redeemed. While we know all that
we don't have any idea who those people are until the Spirit of
God calls them and therefore we are to look at every person
in this world as one of God's elect and treat them as one of
God's elect. And if they need any other kind
of treatment than that, leave that to the Lord. We deal with
them in the mercy that the Lord showed to us. And that will result
in sometimes, even if they never become believers, they quit bothering
us. You know, even the human conscience
has a hard time being mean to those who are nice to them. But even more importantly, a plain but merciful face towards
the rebels against God is what God uses to break the
stubborn hearts of rebels and turn them into friends. So mercy
shown, mercy received, mercy shown, war ended. May the Lord grant us such mercy
and grant us the grace to show that kind of mercy.