The Lord’s Day Evening
II Kings 6:8-23
“The Eyes of Faith”
The Reverend Mr. Jeremy H. Smith
Please be seated…and as you are, I’d invite you to turn with me to the Second Book of Kings, and to the sixth chapter. And as you’re turning there, we are flipping back in history not just from tonight, but from the study that we have been engaged in on Sunday evenings with Derek in the book of Ezra thus far. We are moving back in time to that point. There has been no return from exile because there has been no exile yet. This is probably the middle of the ninth century, as we come to the Second Book of Kings and to the sixth chapter. While the captivity and return are still in the future, the days of David and Solomon are significantly in the past. Elisha is the prophet. He has taken up the mantle from Elijah, and he is ministering especially in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and that’s where we are as we come to II Kings 6.
Let’s pray before we look at God’s word.
Heavenly Father, You have recorded for us this remarkable account that took place so many centuries ago, and yet, heavenly Father, You have recorded in that a great truth for us even tonight. And so we pray that You would help us; that You would open our eyes that we would be able to see those that are for us; that in fact they do number more than those who are against us. We pray that You would bless us this evening by Your word, and we ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
II Kings 6, and beginning in verse 8:
“Once when the king of Syria was warring against Israel, he took counsel with his servants, saying, ‘At such and such a place shall be my camp.’ But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, ‘Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are going down there.’ And the king of Israel sent to the place about which the man of God told him. Thus he used to warn him, so that he saved himself there more than once or twice.
“And the mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled because of this thing, and he called his servants and said to them, ‘Will you not show me who of us is for the king of Israel?’ And one of his servants said, ‘None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.’ And he said, ‘Go and see where he is, that I may send and seize him.’ It was told him, ‘Behold, he is in Dothan.’ So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city.
“When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, ‘Alas, my master! What shall we do?’ He said, ‘Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.’ So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. And when the Syrians came down against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Please strike this people with blindness.’ So He struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha. And Elisha said to them, ‘This is not the way, and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.’ And he led them to Samaria.
“As soon as they entered Samaria, Elisha said, ‘O Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.’ So the Lord opened their eyes and they saw, and behold, they were in the midst of Samaria. As soon as the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, ‘My father, shall I strike them down? Shall I strike them down?’ He answered, ‘You shall not strike them down. Would you strike down those whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow? Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.’ So he prepared for them a great feast, and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the Syrians did not come again on raids into the land of Israel.”
Thus far the very words of our God.
There are a number of things about this passage which we don’t know. There are a lot of things left unsaid by the recorder of this passage. We don’t necessarily know which of the kings that Elisha is dealing with, whether in Samaria or in Israel. They’re not named in this passage. Elisha had a ministry to more than one king in Israel. If we had to make an educated guess, it would likely be the king Jehoram. The Syrian king was likely the king Ben-Hadad II, and thus we’re likely in the 840’s B.C. But this section of II Kings isn’t necessarily laid out in strict chronological order; but it’s a fascinating passage, even as we don’t necessarily know all the details of it. It’s a passage full of irony – those who can see, but not see; and then see for a while, and are blinded, and see once again. We have an army coming to capture one man, only to be defeated by an even greater, though unseen, army. It’s a passage full of irony and dangers…an international spy caper of sorts, with a little Keystone Cop and even some Obiwankanobe thrown in there in the midst! (I had a time not reading that in a certain way as we came to that portion!)
The events, though, are easy enough to understand. This is one of those times when Israel is at war with her neighbor to the north and to the east, Syria. The Syrians are coming down in raids against Israel. They are coming south and they are causing trouble. The king of Syria, likely this Ben-Hadad II, decides that his strategy will be that he will capture and likely take back to his capital city or perhaps even kill the king of Israel. That’s going to be his great military strategy. And so he calls his servants together, he calls his leaders together, he calls his military commanders together and says, ‘This is what we’ll do. We’ll set a siege at this place for the king of Israel.’ Apparently he knew the travel patterns…at least, he has a good idea of where the king of Israel would be from time to time, and so he would set these traps in order to capture the king of Israel. And Elisha would somehow discern the plans of the king of Syria and he would let the king of Israel know. He said, ‘Listen, you really ought not go to that place right now. The king of Syria and his army is lying in wait there. There’s an ambush set.’ And so the king of Israel would send his spies to that area and confirm that Elisha was once again correct, and he would avoid capture in that way.
We’re told “this happened not once or twice”; it was a pattern that went on. It was such that the king of Syria became frustrated, and he was angry. He even wondered if there was one within his court who had turned, who was perhaps a spy, or one who was loyal to the king of Israel. So he gathered his people together and said, ‘Listen, we’ve been laying out these beautiful plans. We should have captured him by now. It’s no coincidence that every time we lay in wait here, he avoids that place; and every time we go there, he doesn’t pass by as we expected him to. Something is amiss. Something is wrong. Tell me, which one of you is actually loyal to the king of Israel?’ And one of the servants pipes up and says, ‘No, king. It’s not we who are disloyal to you. It’s actually this prophet, this prophet in Israel…this prophet who can see things, and he can hear things, even the things of secret that you would whisper in your bedroom. He is able to hear those things, and he sees and he hears your plans. And he warns the king and tells him not to pass by.’
And so the king says, ‘All right, let’s have a change in our military strategy. Instead of going directly after the king of Israel, let’s now go after this prophet. Find out where he is.’ And so spies are sent out to see if they can determine where Elisha lives, and the report comes back, ‘He’s in the city of Dothan.’ So the king says, ‘Dispatch troops there immediately. Send out our chariots and our horses, and our foot soldiers. Arm them, take them, send them there under the cover of darkness and surround the city. Lay siege to the city of Dothan and let’s take this prophet captive, and let’s end these charades so that we can get on with our war.’ And so the troops go out under the cover of night and they come south, and they come into the territory of Israel, and they come to the city of Dothan. And they surround the city where Elisha is sleeping.
And as Elisha’s servant awakes in the morning, he perceives something is not quite right. His eyes begin to adjust, he shakes off sleep, his mind begins to get a little more crisp, and he looks out and can see this army – this Syrian army that’s now camped about the city. They’ve laid siege. He rightly perceives this as extraordinarily bad news. He may not know exactly what they are there for, but it can’t be good! This foreign invading army is now camped around his city, so he wakes Elisha and he says, ‘What are we going to do? We’re undone! There’s nothing to be done…look out there! There’s this tremendous host of Syrian horses and chariots and armed foot soldiers. Whatever will we do?’ And Elisha looks at him and says those memorable words, ‘I understand that the Syrian army is out there, and it’s a big army to be sure. But, you see, there are more here who are for us than are for them.’ He asks that his servant might be able to see this reality…this reality that was not apparent to the naked eye. His servant is given that ability, and he looks out and he sees horses and chariots – only not of a Syrian army, but of fire! And not camped around the city, but there surrounding Elisha himself. He rightly sees that he is safe.
And Elisha goes out to this army. This army comes down to meet, and he says, ‘Lord, would You grant them to be blind.’ And the Lord does exactly that.
Now the nature of that blindness is not exactly clear. The word here is a not very common word for blindness, and it wouldn’t seem to appear that they were struck with complete blindness. After all, Elisha will lead them out of the city, and he’ll lead them south some five, seven, maybe even ten miles down to Samaria. It would have been a hard thing to maneuver horses and chariots with completely blind riders and foot soldiers who could not see at all. And so there’s some sort of blindness, but maybe it’s a metaphor for fuzzy thinking.
He goes out, and he meets this army and he says, ‘Listen, this isn’t the city that you want. And the guy that you’re looking for – he’s not here. Here, come with me and let’s go to another place.’ (Fuzzy thinking on an army’s part indeed to take the word of a local helping them capture the man they are after!) So they follow him, and they follow him from Dothan and down to Samaria, where once again their senses are regained. They wake up and they realize they are in the capital city of their enemy, and they are surrounded. This is no Trojan horse incident. They haven’t gained the upper hand. They are apparently surrounded by the forces of the Northern Kingdom, and they know that they are at the mercy of their enemy. And the king of Israel looks at Elisha and says, ‘Shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?’ And Elisha says, ‘No. You wouldn’t put to death a prisoner of war that you captured on the battlefield; how much less these people that I’ve brought into your town? Instead, feed them and send them on their way.’ And so the king does. And for a period of time there is peace between the Syrians and the Northern Kingdom. It’s quite a story; chock full of excitement, twists and turns.
There are particularly two things that I want us to see this evening…two realities that I think are pressed home by the accounts of II Kings 6, and the first is this, and it’s very simple. II Kings 6 reminds us of the realities of the unseen. You can’t miss it from beginning to end, can you? From the very beginning of the account to the very end of the account this is chock full of examples of God’s working in unseen ways. You have Elisha, who is able to listen in on the very plots and plans of the enemies of God’s people and is able to thwart the king of Syria because he is given some sort of special understanding into what is going on in their war room. Elisha is able to see and to discern…he’s given this apparently from God. It defies natural explanation. There’s not a double agent who’s at work in the Syrian camp; instead, Elisha the prophet – the seer – is given this ability to see into Syria.
And then of course you have this tremendous account of when Elisha looks out from Dothan and sees the Syrian army, but he also sees another army: this army of fire; this army of chariots and horses; this angelic host, perhaps; this legion from God’s own army who is there set to fight and deliver, set to take up for Elisha. You have this account of one man deceiving an entire army, telling them ‘This isn’t the right place, let’s go over here.’ And they follow him. Then they are miraculously given their sight again.
From beginning to end, this is a story about the supernatural – the unseen realities. And stories like this are particularly difficult sometimes for Christians in the twenty-first century in the Western world to really get their minds around…to apprehend…to come to grips with, for so much in our own experience argues against this kind of reality, this unseen reality. We are, after all, living on this side of the Enlightenment. We are on this side of the advances in science of Koeppler and Copernicus and Galileo and Newton, and others who brought us into a much greater and firmer understanding of how this world works. Any who are in this room today have a significantly, remarkably, substantially more profound understanding of the laws that shape our universe than Elisha did.
There has never been a day in my life when human beings were not space travelers. We landed on the moon before I was born. Now, some of you might think, ‘What a baby is standing up here in the pulpit this evening!’ [Laughter] Perhaps, but that was…well, I suspect a growing trend among those who would be in attendance here…that there has never been a day in so many lives when we were not space travelers; when we had not sent somebody from this planet …strapped them to all sorts of fuel, and sent them hurtling into space only to land on another terrestrial ball. And in order to do that, you have to have a significant grasp of the natural laws of this universe. You have to understand physics and chemistry and astrophysics, and all sorts of things which I have no comprehension of whatsoever. But there are people who do. And by figuring out such things, we can actually send people from this planet and land them on the moon, and maybe someday on another planet. We have come to quite a grasp, quite an understanding of this natural world around us.
But even our own experiences give us difficulty sometimes in apprehending the truth of these unseen realities that are on display in II Kings 6. This was quite a day for Elisha. He had once again thwarted the efforts of a king in Syria by supernaturally understanding their plans. An army had been dispatched in order to capture him, and he’d looked out and he had seen angels; and then, he had led a foreign army away from Dothan and down to Samaria, and had single-handedly brought this army into the captivity of the nation of Israel. That’s a pretty good day!
It’s a day unlike most days that I have…it’s not often that I encounter these kinds of things. Typically when I get up, I make the coffee. I go to the pantry and I find one of several items that I might have for breakfast. And I come to work, and generally speaking I understand what makes a successful day at work and what doesn’t; and I know when I come home there’ll be something again for me to eat…something will have been taken out of the freezer and thawed and prepared, and again I’ll be able to eat and not be hungry. And such it is with the experiences of your life: you get up and you go through the routine, and you understand the day to day realities, and you understand how things work. You understand what makes you successful; you understand oftentimes what makes you unsuccessful. The realities of your life are taken up with the things that you can sense through your five senses, and even the day to day experiences that we have speak against the recognition of these unseen spiritual realities. It gives us the impression that that which we experience by touch or taste, or sound or smell or sight are somehow more real than the things which we encounter in II Kings 6. But every once in a while in Scripture God pulls back the veil between our world and heaven, between that which we know in this material universe and that which is around us that we cannot see or touch, and God gives us a sense, God gives us a picture, of these working, real, unseen realities.
Now you might wonder, 'What difference does it make? What difference does it make if we understand that there are unseen spiritual realities that are even more real than the realities that we know through our five senses?’ We could answer that question in a host of ways, but let me suggest just two.
First, when we don’t recognize the unseen, when we forget the unseen realities, we have a tendency to give a disproportionate and unhelpful level of attention to the less important. There’s a tendency for us to give an unhealthy and disproportionate level of interest in the things that are less important.
I was just reading this morning the reflection of a young man, and he was thinking about his own son, and he was thinking about how he would raise his son in this world. And he said, ‘One of the things I struggle with, one of the things I wonder about, is how to raise my son in this world in such a way that he will not give undue and unhelpful amounts of attention on things which are not lasting.’
Now, in his mind there were two things: there was on the one hand sports or athletics; and on the other hand, video games. He said, ‘You know, a lot of kids today I see…and what I see is them spending an awful lot of their lives taken up with sports and with video games.’ Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with sports or …a lot of video games today…though some – less than helpful! I grew up in a sports-playing and sports-watching house. My wife will still tell you there is a sports-playing and sports-watching house that I occupy! There is nothing inherently wrong with sports. But he was saying, ‘You know, it’s unlikely that my son will grow up to be a professional sports player, and I can almost guarantee that he won’t make his living playing video games. There’s not much of a market for that.’ He was saying, even relative to the things of this world, sports and video games are relatively low on the scale. There are things far more important even under the sun than being a great twelve-year-old baseball player and the best Guitar Hero player you know! There are things that are more important than that. But in the light of unseen realities, in the light of eternity, there are things even far more important. And sometimes we’re not thinking about those things. Sometimes by forgetting those things we give undue attention to those things that are less important.
I had a very good friend in college. We were roommates for a number of years…very close friends. And as he came to the end of his college career, he was ….well, he was not striving. He was not thriving. He was really stumbling, and maybe just falling towards the finish line. It was unclear whether he would even make it to the end. He had been a bad student for some time, and especially in his last semester, and even the final weeks of his semester. He was delinquent in papers, and he had not performed well in tests, and it was unclear whether he would be able to graduate. But after some discussion with his professors, and after some work on his own part, he came to an understanding with his professors that yes, he could graduate. And he completed the course requirements for the two or three courses that he was taking in his final semester as a senior. Except for one. He had a philosophy course. In order to finish, he had to write a relatively minor paper. Didn’t have to be great. Didn’t even have to be good. It just had to be mostly competent…something that a senior in college would be capable of writing. It didn’t have to be insightful; it just had to be done. And if he could complete that, he could finally complete his college requirements and get a degree. And as college students are wont to do, he procrastinated and he let days and weeks pass by until he finally came to the night before the final-final-final- deadline-no-extensions-further-will-be-granted. And all he had to was write paper…a five-page paper…a couple of hours’ work. And he sat down with some of his friends who were down the hall in one of the rooms playing video games, and he started playing. And he figured, well, I’m a college student. I can spend all night working on this paper. I’ll just delay a little bit longer. And he sat down there a little bit longer, and he played a little bit more. And he played all through the night, until the morning. He played even through the deadline given to him by his professor. And my friend, instead of writing a paper and graduating from college, played video games all night and did not graduate from college. It was one of those things that was so absurd it’s almost hard to even believe. But that’s what he did.
And I often wonder that when we come to the end of our lives whether or not we will look back on some of the things that we did – some of the emphases that we had, some of the places we spent our time – and wonder, ‘Did I not spend all night playing video games? Putting my attention and my resources and the things that were fleeting and unimportant, ignoring the things that are most important?’ That’s one of the things that we lose when we fail to see the unseen.
But there’s a second thing, and it’s this: that when we fail to see the unseen realities, we actually miss a blessing for ourselves. We serve and worship a supernatural God who works in supernatural ways, and when we forget that, when we fail to see that, we miss out on seeing the blessing of how God works in this world. Sometimes God delivers miraculously. Sometimes God works above and against and in contradiction to the natural laws of this universe. Sometimes God does that. There are times even in our own experience, even in our own days, when we can see a God who is at work in a supernatural way.
It wasn’t that many years ago when Christians in the West looked out and wondered how it was they could be effective in their spreading of the gospel in places like mainland China: ‘How is it that we’ll be able to send missionaries there? How can we spread the gospel into that place? It is by and large closed to Western missionaries. How will the light of the gospel break in?’ Now of course we understood that missionary efforts were taking place, and we understood (or at least suspected) that there were Christians in China, and Christians in China in underground and home churches. We looked out and said, ‘When will the Lord grant to us the opportunities to go into China and to minister in His name?’ And even this year, following the terrible earthquakes, on national news stood one of China’s top officials…standing next to a host of Christian…well, they were missionaries who were doing relief work in the various cities and countries around the place where that earthquake took place. And he was there congratulating this Christian organization for their efforts and giving them permission that…once the Chinese officials had been to a place, they were given a pretty well blanket permission to follow along and do whatever relief work they could do…an almost unheard of admittance by someone from the Chinese government. And here it was following the disaster of the earthquake that Christians were granted ability, and even in some ways state sanction, to go in and to minister in Christ’s name. It’s remarkable.
Come here on a Thursday night. Come here on a Thursday night when some of the best and brightest from China who are in this city studying at our universities…they get on an airplane and they fly, they land in Jackson. They come and they drive down North State Street, and they knock on our door, and they ask us, “Would you teach us the gospel, please?” It’s happening. It’s happening on Thursday nights in our international ministry as we teach English as a second language to folks who have come from China. It’s almost unimaginable fifty years ago that God would have worked in such a way. And when we forget that we serve a supernatural God, we miss out on the blessing of seeing how God works.
I suppose you could explain such things away through the shifting of global markets, and the natural movement of communism towards capitalism. You might explain those kinds of things away through geopolitics and a host of other sources, but when you forget that God works in supernatural ways, you miss out on the blessing of seeing how it is God works.
One final thing. On the first hand, this passage reminds us of unseen spiritual realities. The second thing it does, it reminds us that the plan of God is unchangeable.
This is just one man, Elisha, standing against this king of Syria. And you can almost hear the frustration in his voice as he plots and he plans in order to bring to the end the king of Israel, and then Elisha. He’s got every resource. He apparently has outstanding intelligence. He knows where the king of Israel is going to be – or at least, likely will be – and he can set traps for him. He’s got an army who can come into Israel and can even surround the city of Dothan and not be deterred. He’s got resources and abilities, and yet at every turn he’s thwarted by this prophet. Not by some great military strategy, but by some prophet who is able to deliver God’s word. It almost reminds you of Peter’s words…Peter, in Acts 4, right after they get out of prison, when Peter and the other disciples are praying. They’ve just been released from prison and been given the instruction that they may not tell other people about Jesus, and the disciples pray, ‘Lord God, why do these nations fight and rage against You in utter futility? You know, it looks from one perspective like they’ve got everything, but in reality they’re fighting against You. And because they’re fighting against You, they have no chance. They have no hope. There’s nothing that they can do.’ This king of Syria seems to have every card in his favor, but in reality he never had a chance, because he was fighting against God’s specific plan. When he sends out his armies, his armies are outnumbered. When he plots in his bedroom, his plot is heard. He is fighting against the plan of God.
You know, I can’t help but notice something. When Elisha asks his servant to look out and to see this angelic force that is standing there ready to deliver them, that it’s not actually the angels, it seems, who are the material cause for the deliverance of God’s people. Do you see what Elisha actually does when he comes to thwart the army of Syria? It’s not that the angels unsheathe their swords and begin to do battle; it’s actually that Elisha prays. Deliverance in this case looks not like a warring angelic host, but a man on his knees. That’s what deliverance looks like in this instance.
But of course it’s true that God does not always deliver in this way. It’s true that sometimes …sometimes that legion of angels stands there, and they do not intercede. They do not come to our rescue. That’s true. Sometimes God delivers a miraculous action, and sometimes He doesn’t.
You know, there were no fewer angels just a hundred or 150 years beyond this passage when the Assyrian army came calling. There were no fewer angels then when Assyria invaded and in fact captured and hauled off the king of Israel. It reminds you of Jesus’ words, doesn’t it? Jesus’ words to Peter in the garden? As Peter took arms to fight against the Roman captors who had come to take hold of Jesus, he unsheathed his sword and cut off the ear of a man, and Jesus reminds him, ‘Do you not think that there are thousands and tens of thousands of angels who stand ready and willing to come to My deliverance?’ And in that case, they too watched and did not. But in both cases, whether God would deliver in a miraculous action or whether those angels would just stand by…in both cases it is God’s plan. It is God’s purpose. It is what God has foreordained to do that stands and does not fall. It’s not now many angels are there or not there. Those seem not to change. But it is where these things fall in the plan of God. It is an immutable plan of God.
You know, it’s easy to understand the servant’s reaction in this passage, isn’t it? You know, he looks out…gets up, and he looks out and he sees that Syrian army, and he’s afraid. It’s a natural response, and in fact I don’t think Elisha here rebukes him for that. The problem is not that the servant sees the Syrian army; the problem is instead he’s not seeing the real reality. Oh, the Syrians are there, to be sure. The problem with the way the servant sees is that he only sees the Syrians. And because he only sees the Syrians, he doesn’t see reality at all.
So it is with you and I, that through the eyes of faith we might apprehend the fact that God is a supernatural plan; that His plan and His purposes cannot be thwarted.
Let’s pray.
O Lord, God, we are amazed by who You are and what You do. O Lord, we find great security in knowing that we are in the palm of Your hand and there is no safer place that we might be. O God, we confess that at times we allow the things of this world to occupy a disproportionate and unhelpful amount of our time. Lord God, we pray that You would press down upon us the truth of eternity. We pray that You would do these things for Christ’s sake. Amen.
Will you stand for the benediction.
Grace and peace be multiplied to you all. Amen.