2 Kings 6. This is lesson 16 in the studies of
Elisha. It finds us in 2 Kings 6 starting
in verse 8 and up to verse 23. Starting in verse 8 for this
next miracle. Finishing up in verse 23. Let's look at this together. Then the king of Syria warred
against Israel and took counsel with his servants, saying, In
such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God,
Elisha, sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou
pass not such a place, for thither the Syrians are come down. And
the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told
him and warned him of, and saved himself there not once or twice. Therefore the heart of the king
of Syria was sore troubled for this thing, and he called his
servants and said unto them, Will you not show me which of
us is for the king of Israel? And one of his servants said,
Nay, my lord, O king, but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel,
telleth the king, of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy
bedchamber. So the king said, Go and spy
where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told
him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan. Therefore sent the king
thither horses and chariots and a great host, and they came by
night and compassed the city about. And when the servant of
the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold, a host
compassed the city, both with horses and chariots. And his
servant said unto him, Alas, my master, how shall we go? Or how shall we do? And Elisha
answered him and said, Fear not, for they that be with us are
more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord,
I pray thee, open his eyes, my servants' eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes
of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was
full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. And when they came down to him,
that is, the enemy, Elisha prayed unto the Lord and said, Smite
this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them
with blindness according to the word of Elisha. And Elisha said
unto them, This is not the way, neither is this the city. Follow
me, and I will bring you to the man to whom you seek. But he
led them to Samaria. And it came to pass, when they
were come to Samaria, that Elisha said, Lord, open the eyes of
these men, that they may see. And the Lord opened their eyes,
and they saw, and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria. And the king of Israel said unto
Elisha, when he saw them, my father, shall I smite them? Shall
I smite them? And Elisha answered, thou shalt
not smite them. Wouldst thou smite those whom
thou hast taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow? Set
bread and water before them that they may eat and drink and go
to their master. And the king prepared a great
provision for them. And when they had eaten and drunk,
He sent them away, and they went to their Master. So the bands
of Syria came no more into the land of Israel." Bruce, would
you pray for us, please? Our Heavenly Father, we come
here tonight to worship You and pray that You be glorified in
all that we say and do. Lord, we ask that You would give
us an understanding of Your message and each one of us Understand
that we all have things upon our hearts and our minds that
do trouble us. In this world, we are always
troubled in some way or another. Lord, we pray that you would
have the words to deliver to us and give him the spirit, Lord,
that you desire to deliver. Lord, thank you for a place for
us. Well, this has got several very
interesting thoughts and points. The first thing that I see is,
then the king of Syria warred against Israel. Now, you don't
have to go back, but a couple of lessons that we've spoken
in the miracles and life of Elisha to note that Nahum was, I don't
know if he was second in command, but he was somebody who was very
He was captain of the host of the whole Syrian army. So he
was somebody, something. The king knew about him. The
king sent him into Israel. And the Lord healed them. Healed them. But the enemies
of grace, the enemies of God and the enemies of His Gospel,
this is what they do. You would think he would say,
For his sake, for my servant, my glorious captain of hosts'
sake, I'm not going to make war. But here we are, the king of
Syria warred against Israel. He's taking counsel with his
servants and saying, I'm going to do this, I'm going to ambush
the king of Israel, I'm going to ambush them to kill Israelites.
The enemies of God's people, first thought, and God's gospel,
and God Himself, did He not Did he not see, behold,
the restoring of this leper tenfold, however many times you want to
say how glorious that would have been. Now, nevertheless, the haters of gospel always hate
the gospel, unless God does something to work for them. May we never
underestimate the haters of all things Christ, all things grace,
and all things graceful. Be them our neighbors, our friends,
or family. But we'll see, we're not to hate
them back, we'll see what we're supposed to do, which is exactly
what happens in this passage. The only true remedy for this
unwarranted hate is the sovereign love and grace of God in Christ
Jesus. Then the king of Syria, notwithstanding,
and we could say the same thing about Gehazi. Gehazi had seen
He had seen the miracles of the man of God. He had seen salvation
in type and picture with these miracles that his master performed,
and he still was covetous, and his heart went out after the
gold. And so it's not unusual to see these things. But this
is somebody who hates the Gospel. These are God-haters, which we
all were. We know that. But that's the
first thing I see is it doesn't matter unless God does a work
of grace in them, it doesn't matter if they're religious or
not religious, if they're family or friends or neighbors or whatever,
it wouldn't take just that much for them to turn and turn on
the people of God. But the second thing I see in
here is in verse 9, the man of God, Elisha, he's concerned about
his own king, so he says unto his king, beware that you don't
pass this way because you do, the king of Syria is waiting, But does he believe them? Doesn't
look like it. Oh, unbelief. Unbelief has no
foundation. I know we can justify what we
do and say, well, I, you know, I, this and that, all these different
things, but if it's, when it comes down to it, if we're doing
something out of unbelief, it has no foundation. There's no,
it's sandy ground. So here's this king of Israel,
He says, the man of God says, don't go this way. Verse 10, he sends men down to
check out his story. That's what he's doing. He's
sending his men to check out his story. He didn't simply believe
the prophet of God. God's men, God's man, believers,
are truth seekers and truth speakers. It is not our word, our bond,
We won't talk much about the date, but the believer's word
is to be believed and that's his bond. Listen to the truth and believe
it. Or as simply as the Bereans, perhaps search the word and confirm
what's being said is true. We are not to walk by sight or
visual aids to prove the grace of God. The man of God said,
don't go there, and he goes there. He sends some people out. You
say, well, he was being prudent. Well, I'd say he was in unbelief,
because the preachers of God and believers are truth speakers
and truth seekers. Not once or twice, it says, did
the king, was he spared, saved himself? Not once or twice, but
numerous times, God showed this king, the king of Israel, his
protection and his care. I say to ourselves, to me, O
we of little faith, let us simply trust God's naked truth to our
souls. If we don't have direction and
we're reading in direction or somebody, we talk to a believer
and they seem to share some things that gives us direction, let
us simply obey. Let us not go down and check
this out. I'm going to go see with my own eyes. No, that's,
didn't Thomas say that I'm not going to believe? And the Lord
was gracious to him. I'm not saying he's going to
cast us off or anything. He was gracious and the Lord
is ever gracious with us who stumble time and time again.
But let us just simply believe. Let us walk in faith. That's
the second thing. The third thing I see, if our
enemies cannot get to God, they will come for us. Verse 13 and
14. Okay, so the king of Syria is grieved. Because Elisha knows
what he's thinking when he's sleeping. And he's told this
by one of his servants. So he goes, now let's set a trap
for him. We can't get to God, but we can get to God's messengers.
If our enemies cannot get to God, they will come for us. Such
is man by nature. We are enmity with God. We have
all gone astray, says the Scriptures. There's none that seek God or
follow Him. But, fear not. Fear not. Even though, whatever
it may be that's heading our way, verse 15, this young man, it's
not Gehazi, it's a different servant, he says, what are we
going to do? Don't fear them, brethren. God
is able to deliver us from these lions, like He did Daniel, or
these threats, and if not, As one writer says, He will usher
us to glory. And then we will be at final
rest and peace. Now here's a key thought as far
as I'm concerned, as far as what I've seen and what I've been
looking at over the last couple of weeks and hopefully being
taught of the grace of God. Verses 15 through 18. The servant
of Elisha rises up early, sees he's surrounded by an army. But
Elisha says, look at these words, verse 16, I'm gonna read them
all. And he answered, fear not, for they that be with us are
more than they that be with them. And that's the same today. This
is Old Testament, it's the same today. It's the same today. Bruce talked about in Sunday
Bible class, Job, he's got a hedge, the Lord has a hedge about each
of us. Nothing can get through, material, Whether we can see
it or not, nothing's going to get through if God doesn't allow
it. He says, don't fear, because
there's more that are with us than they with them. And then
Elisha prayed, and here's what I pray for myself, here's what
I pray for each of us here tonight, and for those who haven't seen
the grace of God, that the Lord would do this. This is almost
a universal prayer. I think this is so aptly This
is so timely and Elisha prayed and said this is what he said.
I pray thee open his eyes That he may see let's stop right there.
You could you could pray that for everything You have a brother
or sister who stumbling? Lord open their eyes that they
may see give me a word of compassion all these different things you
have a children, you have a mother, father, you have parents, you
have neighbors that don't understand the gospel, God, open their eyes
that they may see. It's short, compact, and simple. Open their eyes. This is what
we all need continually, daily. Give us this day our daily bread.
In the midst of fear, whatever that fear, whatever the name
of that fear is that you have right now or I have right now,
In the midst of fear, God opened my eyes that I may see. I may see I'm protected. I may
see they can't do anything outside of His governing hand. Melinda
and I, we spent quite a bit of time in the last three or four
days talking about do we really believe God is sovereign? I mean,
do we really believe? that God is sovereign. Do we
really believe in predestination? We talk about it all the time,
every Sunday in the week, mid-week. We talk about predestination,
we talk about this, we talk about that. Do we really believe it?
Do we really believe that it's appointed unto man once to die
and then after that to judgment? So, like that song says, we are
immortal until He takes us home. And that's
when I was talking to Bruce Crabtree, and I said, well, I said, Claire's,
Claire, her work must not be done. Because the Lord's going
to, he looks like he's going to bring her out of all this
stuff. But they had committed her to
the Lord. They said, you know, whatever
the Lord's will is, we'll submit to that. Do we really believe
that God is sovereign? In the midst of fear, this is
what we should pray for one another. Open our eyes, their eyes, my
eyes, that we may see. In the midst of trial, in the
midst of hardships, in the midst of our warfare, we must have
faith and grace to help the Hebrews in the time of need. We must continually, daily, weekly
have God open our eyes of faith, strong faith, to see all our
foes, whatever they are, financial, physical, whatever they are.
Defeated under his mighty arms. Open our eyes to see that. It
doesn't look like, it doesn't look good. A lot of things don't
look good with the eyes. A lot of things don't sound good
with the ears. But this is scripture. I'd say
this is my trump card. This is my trump card. It trumps
everything. And I'm telling myself this because
I struggle just like you do. As Tim James would say, we're
all cut from the same cloth, definitely. Open our eyes that
we may see a very good prayer to humbly ask for guidance, courage,
strength, life, joy, salvation in every state we find ourselves
in. This would be a very appropriate
utterance or groaning unto our God. The last thing I see is
in verse 19-23. They're blind. They follow Elisha. He leads them to Samaria. He asks God to open their eyes. They're opened. They're surrounded
by their enemies, which would be our enemies. you know, our
enemies of great whatever. These are Assyrians. They wanted
to kill them. They wanted to kill all Israelites. They bring them
into the camp of the Israelites, and now they're surrounded. They're
open their eyes. The king says, what do I do with them? And Elisha
said, show mercy. Now, if this isn't, first of
all, a good picture of salvation, we're blind. There's sure death. They're surrounded. They can't
get out. But they received mercy instead
of judgment. Yeah, they were guilty. Yeah,
they are confessed enemies of the Israelites. Confessed enemies
of the grace of God, of the man of God, of the gospel of God. But mercy instead of judgment.
Grace, full and free. Nourishment. After they were
there, He says, no, feed them. So they ate. And they drank,
and then they went away to their home. There's nourishment after
blindness, after the blindness is cured and healing, and that's
what the Gospel does. That's what salvation is. We're
healed. We don't deserve it. They didn't ask for it. They've
got it. And we know it's through the
Lord Jesus Christ, through His blood and righteousness, through His
just dying for the unjust, And yet, He doesn't leave us alone.
There are these things that take place after salvation, and one
of them is, we eat and drink, like Mephibosheth. Just keep
eating and drinking. Keep eating and drinking. And,
there's peace, which is had, are known, in the last part of
verse 23, so the bands of Syria came no more into the land of
Israel. Peace. That's what we have after we've
been through the mill, so to speak, after we've been through
what the Lord shows us what we are, what we're capable of, chaos,
murder, harm, everything, everything against God. He does it on His
own mercy, saves us and calls us and quickens us through the
merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. We feast on His Word, drink on
His Word, we feast and He gives us peace. Peace that passes all
understanding. The second thing I see in here,
it's a good lesson in our response to our enemies. Though they hate
us, though we are under different orders, we're under different
orders from our King. We're not to know vengeance. We're to live
peaceably, we're to do good, we're to pray for them, we're
to show them kindness. The third thing I see in this last section
is the King of Israel. He learned something. We have
to look at it in verse Verse 21. Here's what we call, as Bruce
would say, shooting fish in a barrel. They're right there. Your enemies,
we can wipe them out, and then we know we would have peace,
because we have the upper hand. But that's human logic. The biggest
gun wins, that's human logic. The king of Israel, he learned
something. And this is what he learned. The king of Israel said
to Elisha, when he saw that my father, shall I smite them or
shall I smite them? He asked this time. He asked. Elisha came to him the first
time. He didn't believe him. He sent some... Elisha says,
don't do it. And he doesn't do it. So what
that tells me here is the king learned something here. He grew
in grace. He asked the prophet what to
do before just doing it his own way or his own will. And I would
say that's what... a sign or a symbol or a picture
of growth and grace in each believer as we, in all things and in all
manner of life, and its daily decisions that come upon us,
we are to submit to God's perfect, glorious will before our own
will. Before we just go do it. What
is it saying, James? If the Lord wills, we'll go into
town. This is going in the country market, shopping. If the Lord
wills. That's where I'm going to go.
Because this air conditioner may break down, you may not make
it. We get so ahead of ourselves, we think too much of ourselves.
In the end, what He's saying is, Thy will be done. Lord, Thy
will be done. And it sounds like it's a small
thing. But I believe it shows maturity and grace. I believe
it shows growth and grace. It's when we can just, let's thank the Lord, It doesn't
have to be a big production or any of that kind of stuff. It
could be in the secret chambers of your heart. Lord, this is
what I would do. But you know what? Your will
be done. Your will be done. And at least He learned something.
And if we're His, we will. He has us. He's not going to
let go of us. He's not going to forsake us. We will learn
daily, I hope. That song that Matt and Tara
love, and that passage of Scripture and Lamentations that I love,
we all love. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. Are we looking
for mercies? Are we looking to do and honor
His will? I pray it be so. Matt, would you close us?