Message at Honolulu Bible Church
October 18, 2009 Morning
2 Kings 6:8-23—What Do YOU See?
About three weeks ago (23 September), one of the readings in the morning was II Kings 6:1-23. The last part of that passage, verses 8-23, caught my attention and stayed with me. It is the passage we’ll be reading this morning.
So much of it has to do with what various people saw, so this morning we will consider one question:
What do you see?
It is sometime around 850 B.C. Israel has been in Palestine for about six centuries. The great king, David, ruled over all twelve tribes and subdued the surrounding nations. He has been dead for about a hundred and twenty years. The grand king, Solomon, David’s Son, continued his father’s rule over a united Israel. He has been dead for about eighty years.
Now, the grandeur of Solomon came with a price: forced labor and heavy taxes. When Solomon dies, his son Rehoboam cannot see why he should follow the advice of his father’s advisors. Instead, he listens to his friends and arrogantly decides to increase the burdens on his people, and ten tribes rebel. The kingdom is divided. Ten tribes in the north become Israel. Their king is Jeroboam. They make Samaria (Shamrōn) their capital city. Judah and Benjamin remain loyal to Solomon’s son and become the southern kingdom of Judah. Its capitalis Jerusalem.
In the north, Jeroboam pretends that he cannot see why the people of Israel should still worship at the temple in Jerusalem. He sets up new places of worship and new ways of worship for the northern kingdom: altars, priests, and golden calves at Dan and Bethel. So in the north one wicked king succeeds another. Not one of Israel’s nineteen kings is commended by God; all are condemned for leading Israel into idolatry,into the beliefs and practices of the nations around them.
By 850 B.C., Jehoram is the ninthking of the northern kingdom. He is the son of Ahab, who was perhaps the worst of the nineteen kings ofIsrael.
With the division and a disastrous succession of wicked kings in the north, the surrounding nations, among them Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Syria, see the opportunity to defeat their once great neighbor. At one time, they had been subdued by David and Solomon, now they rise up, sometimes separately and sometimes in league with other greater powers to attack Israel.
So we read 2 Kings 6:8-23:
Now the king of Syria was making war against Israel; and he consulted with his servants, saying, "My camp will be in such and such a place." (9) And the man of God [Elisha] sent to the king of Israel, saying, "Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are coming down there." (10) Then the king of Israel sent someone to the place of which the man of God had told him. Thus he warned him, and he was watchful there, not just once or twice.
(11) Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was greatly troubled by this thing; and he called his servants and said to them, "Will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel?" (12) 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." (13) So he said, "Go and see where he is, that I may send and get him." And it was told him, saying, "Surely he is in Dothan." (14) Therefore he sent horses and chariots and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city.
(15) And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?"
(16) So he answered, "Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." (17) And Elisha prayed, and said, "Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see."
Then 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. (18) So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, and said, "Strike this people, I pray, with blindness." And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.
(19) Now Elisha said to them, "This is not the way, nor is this the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek." But he led them to Samaria. (20) So it was, when they had 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 there they were, inside Samaria!
(21) Now when the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, "My father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?"
(22) But he answered, "You shall not kill them. Would you kill those whom you have taken captive with your sword and your bow? Set food and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master."
(23) Then he prepared a great feast for them; and after they ate and drank, he sent them away and they went to their master. So the bands of Syrian raiders came no more into the land of Israel.
(24) And it happened after this that Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria.
The history is simple, but a few points might need clarification.
Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, decides to go to war against Israel. Apparently, he plans to set up a number of attacks against Jehoram at various places within Israel’s border. However, God gives Elisha, His prophet in Israel, knowledge of these traps so Elisha can warn Jehoram, not once or twice, but several times.
This frustrates Ben-Hadad. What does the king of Syria see?
His sight is limited to the earthly. He is engaged in warfare against a people, whom God for His good pleasure and out of sheer grace has chosen as His own. But Ben-Hadad does not see it that way. He is intent on doing things that earthly kings do to win wars and gain territory and subjects. No doubt, he has his own gods with whom he is in covenant.
But Yahweh has made promises to Abraham and to the descendants of Abraham. One of whom was David. God made covenant with David and the descendants of David. There will be a king from the line of David who will inherit all the nations of the earth. He will be the Messiah, the Anointed, the Christ, who brings peace and righteousness to all peoples. And of His reign there will be no end. [Isaiah 9:7, Luke 1:33, spoken of the Messiah, spoken of Jesus to Mary by the angel]
No warfare is purely earthly warfare. When the kings of the earth rise up and take counsel together, they do so against the Lord and against His anointed. And unless you have eyes to see spiritually what is happening, you don’t know what is really going on, and you can’t make wise decisions. Witness Ben-Haddad.
Ben-Hadad only knows that he has cleverly laid military traps for his adversary Jehoram, but Jehoram seems to know beforehand where the traps are and either avoids them or figures out where the Syrians are going establish a stronghold and prevents them from doing so.
Ben-Hadad logically concludes there must be spies among his own men, betraying his plans to Jehoram. But his servants convince him that this is not so. They tell him about Elisha. The prophet is somehow overhearing what the king of Syria says even in his own bedroom, and Elisha is passing that intelligence along to the king of Israel.
And oddly enough, Ben-Haddad is convinced. Maybe because earlier Ben-Haddad himself had sent his commander Naaman to visit this same prophet, and Naaman returned to Syria, to be the support of his king, miraculously cured of leprosy by Elisha.
[By the way, do you see what is happening here? The military commander of Syria was cured of an incurable disease by Elisha, God’s prophet in Israel, and Ben-Haddad is using his military to send expeditions into Israel.]
But if Ben-Haddad knows who Elisha is and if Ben-Haddad is convinced of Elisha’s power and the power of Elisha’s God, then what Ben-Haddad does next seems EXTREMELY STRANGE and rather foolish.
Ben-Haddad decides to capture Elisha. He will send in a large army—high tech, with chariots—secretly in the night and surround Dothan, where Elisha is staying.
What’s wrong with his thinking?
How is this Syrian army going to sneak up on the prophet, who has been telling Jehoram every move that Ben-Haddad has been planning?
And, of course, the plan doesn’t work.
Elisha’s servant is surprised. He wakes up in the morning and sees the Syrian forces and cries out, “Alas . . .”
But Elisha is not surprised. Instead, he prays for his servants’ eyes to be opened, and the servant can see horses and chariots of fire on the hills: another army. We understand it to be an army of angels, and they outnumber the Syrian forces.
Then when the Syrians descend on Dothan, Elisha prays for the Syrians to be struck with blindness. I don’t think this blindness was a total blindness or an inability to see. The Syrians are told by Elisha that they are in the wrong city and that Elisha is actually in another city. Elisha then tells them that he, Elisha, will lead them to Elisha. And they go along with him. For one thing, I don’t think that if they were totally blind they would still have cared about trying to capture Elisha.
Moreover, Dothan is about thirteen miles away from Samaria. Why orhow would hundreds or thousands of totally blind men even attempt to grope their way over miles of unfamiliar road to accomplish this mission?
The Syrians seem to be blinded in a peculiar way. They are blinded to what is actually happening in front of them. They do not see that they are in the right city. They do not see that Elisha is Elisha. They do not see that they are marching into Samaria, the capital city of their enemy. The capital city would be guarded by a huge numbers of troops. While the Syrian force is large, it was put together to capture one man, not the capital city of Israel. They Syrian force would be no match for the troops in and around Samaria.
Here are two observations. One about the Syrians and one about the Elisha’s servant.
The Syrians could see what was before them and around them even as Elisha’s servant could see the surrounding countryside and the surrounding Syrian army. They could obviously see the countryside and even the town as they charged down into it. They could see Elisha and his servant even after they were blinded. They just didn’t know what they were seeing. They could not tell where they were, who they were talking with, or where they were going.
And this is the state of man without the grace of God and the Spirit of God. This is man in the flesh and of the flesh.
Ben-Haddad, the king himself, could not see the foolishness of what he was doing. Remember, he was planning to sneak up on the prophet who had been foretelling his every move.
Isn’t this the way of the world? It cannot see the spiritual underpinnings of what is present to the eyes and seems absolutely stupid about the consequences of not seeing.
[Consider the issue of education in America—the declining going rates, graduation rates, and quality of education. The attempts now to reinvigorate education and get students to continue with schooling.
The beginning of wisdom, God tells us, is the fear of the Lord and knowledge of the Holy One [Proverbs 9:10].
Not so, the world says. The most important thing is free inquiry and getting more and more knowledge about things and about each other. We end up with a tyranny of knowledge empty of wisdom. Really we do not live or die for free inquiry. We live or die for the truth.]
[Consider the problem with falling birth rates and high abortion rates in the industrialized nations. We call them industrialized when we look at them with eyes focused on business and money and things. But spiritually, these are the nations that once had a Christian heritage and threw it away.
God tells us children are a heritage from the Lord and the fruitful womb a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth; happy is the man who . . . etc. [Psalm 127].
Not so, we say to God. We know better. Children are a burden and an inconvenience. We need to kill them in the womb.
Consider Britain, France, and Germany. With the falling birth rates and increasing abortion rates, what has been the consequence? Let’s not even consider the spiritual issue of the murder that is being committed. Let’s just look at what we can see. Because here, the world has been acting against what it can’t see and the consequences are not just spiritual but also visible.
With declining birth rates and as people continue to age and die, the supply of younger people who will continue to work and provide for the welfare of society grows smaller. Who will work at the jobs that society needs to function well, who will care for the older generation that aborted its infants?
Then there is this sweetly ironic situation. Besides the economic and social consequences, what are these nations worried about?
The very nations that rejected their Christian heritage are concerned about the growth of Islam. Muslims do not abort their babies. And as Muslims emigrate to these western, formerly Christian nations, they carry with them Islam. So these clever humanists who could not stand the Word of God are not concerned about living under Shariah Law.]
[In our own lives, we are busy buying, selling, and getting—whether it’s money, pleasure, control, sex, power.
Seek first, God tells us, the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other things will be added to you.
Not so, we say. We want the right career, high technology, round-the-clock purchasing power, the sexual partner we think we deserve [I was going to say marriage partner, but that really doesn’t matter, does it?], we want, we want, we want . . . We even want spirituality in the form that we want when we want.
We want what we want when we want it, regardless of God’s Law, and then we are surprised by the consequences of getting what we want.]
So we think to prosper without God, and our economy is ruined.
So we think we can commit adultery and fornication with impunity, and we are beset by diseases, divorce, broken families, empty hearts, perversions, and bad romantic novels and movies.
So we think we can tell our children generation after generation that there is no truth, no absolute truth, no certain knowledge. Then we wonder why our schools are failing and our children are becoming fools.
We act on what we see. But we don’t see the spiritual underpinnings of everything that we see with our eyes.
And one of the greatest blindspots we have is death.
[Consider the Pilgrim’s Progress and the section on crossing the river of death. How death is all around us, and we hide from it. Remember Keith Hock’s presentation on Uruguay—its atheism and its high suicide rate. How Bunyan’s view of death is so sober while even we Christians take it too lightly.
Death, Scripture tells us, is the wages of sin. It is the last enemy. For sinners, there is a second death, which is the lake that burns with fire and brimstone (Revelation 21:8).
Not so, we say. Death is part of nature. Death is a transition. Death is a great adventure. Death is a continuation of life only better.
What do we see? It is as if we were all together placed in a room and every so often, someone joins us in the room and every so often someone comes into the room and takes away one of our companions. Sometimes the one taken goes off kicking and screaming. Sometimes one goes off weeping and wailing. Sometimes laughing. Sometimes quietly, as if resigned. But we do not ask (as the people in Pilgrim’s Progress), Where doyou come from? Where are you going? It is almost insane that this would go on and you would not ask seriously.
But this is how it is in reality with death. It is happening exactly like this, only in slow motion.]