Horses and Chariots of Fire (2 Kings 8:6-22)

A Story of Divine Power, Spiritual Discernment and Christian Wisdom

Introduction

The establishment of God’s chosen people in the Land of Promise might have seemed like the final fulfilment of God’s purposes

The book of Joshua describes their entry into the land, and by the end of the book all looks well. We read in ch 21 that ‘Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass’

However, even then there were ominous warning signs: more than once we read of their inability to drive out certain of the inhabitants of the land

And Joshua’s final charge to the people included the warning ‘that you may not mix with these nations remaining among you or make mention of the names of their gods or swear by them or serve them or bow down to them’

Idolatry was an ever present danger

And while the monarchy under David and Solomon may have seemed to be the pinnacle of a return to a new Eden, the cracks were beginning to appear

Solomon’s many foreign wives turned his heart away from the worship of the one true God

The kingdom divided upon his death, his son Reoboam ruling the southern tribes of Judah & Benjamin while Jeroboam ruled the 10 northern tribes, collectively known as Israel

The kings of Israel were unremittingly bad, and their main failure was to embrace Baal worship - Baal being the primary deity of the Caananites, a pagan religion that involved among other things fertility rituals and accompanying immorality

So God raised up prophets. Elijah famously confronted the prophets of Baal at Carmel

Elisha succeeded him, and quickly demonstrated that the mantle of God’s power and authority had fallen upon him as it had upon Elijah

Narrative

This tightly worded episode contains drama, comedy, absurdity, wisdom and folly within its compass

It begins with the king of Syria from the north waging war against Israel - a conflict whith is a small microcosm of the overarching Biblical theme of the conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan

But the king of Syria is frustrated in his purposes, as the Israelites always seem to be giving him the slip

He is also insecure and paranoid in his outlook, suspecting he must have a mole in his camp

Until it is explained to him that it’s down to the prophet Elisha who is telling the king of Israel the words he speaks in his bedroom - ie God was revealing to Elisha his most intimate thoughts and words

The king’s response is absurd - to capture one man, he sends ‘horses and chariots and a great army’

It is a classic Biblical example of human folly contrasted with divine wisdom

It is absurd from his own perspective because sending a whole army for one man is absurd

It is absurd from our perspective because compared to the power of God, a whole army isn’t enough

And thirdly it is foolish in the light of what he already knew about Elisha - because if Elisha knew what he said in his own bedroom, Elisha would know he was coming for him, surely?

The picture takes my mind forward to the occasion when a large mob armed to the teeth came to arrest One who had spent his life doing good, healing the sick, and raising the dead, One who pointed out that he could have called 12 legions of angels to deliver him - the same heavenly host that had surrounded the Syrians at Dothan - but who chose not to because his hour had come

To Elisha’s young assistant, the situation seemed hopeless

But is that not how it has persistently seemed in the whole history of redemption?

As our first parents are banished from the garden, it looks hopeless

When the people of God are oppressed in Egypt, it looks hopeless

When they persistently fall into idolatry and are exiled from the land of promise, it looks hopeless

And supremely, when the promised Messiah is crucified on a Roman cross, it looks hopeless

Then throughout the history of the Christian church the situation has often seemed hopeless - from persecution under Nero through all the others since - to the modern seemingly unstoppable rise of secularism

The truth, however, is that on this occasion, as ever, hopeless was only what it seemed on the surface

The young servant could see on one level - he had seen the Syrian hordes after all - but on another level he was blind, so Elisha prays that he might see at that other level - and his eyes are opened to see the mountain ‘full of horses and chariots of Israel - the powerful emissaries of the God who is often called ‘The Lord of Hosts’ in the OT

Having prayed that his servant might see, Elisha now prays that the Syrians will be struck with blindness, and they are

And we have the almost comical sight of this mighty army being led by the man they had come to capture, right into the heart of the capital of Israel, where it is likely that there was a standing army large enough to put the Syrians to the sword

But Elisha, exercising more authority than the King, counsels against that and instead treats them to a great feast

Lessons for Us

God’s gracious limitation or prevention of suffering and evil

10: God’s people are spared by the knowledge given to Elisha of the king of Syria’s plans to attack them

22: The Syrians are spared by Elisha counselling against butchering them on the spot

The Bible is peppered with instances of God putting limits on evil, pain and suffering

He restrains Abimelech from doing something he shouldn’t with Sarah, wife of Abraham

Through Reuben, he restrains Joseph’s brothers from murdering him

The list is almost endless thereafter

So when people ask, ‘Why is there so much suffering?’ with the subtext of ‘If there was an all-good, all-powerful God, would he not stop it? - the better question is, why is there no so much more evil and suffering than there is?

Why is there only one virus out there, and why is it not lethal to all those who contract it?

We do not have complete answers to the question of pain and suffering, but there are plenty of things to be said

And that must always include pointing people to the One who willingly became one of us, in order to bear our sins, defeat our enemy, and restore all things, ultimately inaugurating - as he will - a greater Eden that does not have even the possibility of going wrong again because, as John writes in Rev 21:27, ‘nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does anything that is destable or false’ - there will be no slithering serpents there

It reminds us of the ‘Unseen Realm’

Trevor is making this one of the highlights of our studies in Ephesians, with its emphasis on spiritual warfare and on those ‘principalities and powers, spiritual forces of wickedness in high places’

We should live our lives mindful that what we can see with our physical eyes is not all there is

I am not given to favourites of any kind, but if pressed I would say that one or my favourite verses is Psa 34:7: The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.

Sometimes it is only in retrospect that we discern God’s delivering hand

Many are the times I suspect when we will never realise it, but we should persist in praying, ‘deliver us from temptation’

It reminds us of the reality of the power of God

Nations and rulers to this day behave like the king of Syria, trying to put their great power on display and swaggering across the world stage

Sometimes it is with their military parades, or their naval exercises, or showing off the sophistication and power of their weapons

But there is absolutely nothing to fear - they are as foolish as the King of Syria was

Rom 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

It shows us how to treat those of less spiritual insight, experience, or wisdom - and what to do when we feel a lack of it ourselves

Elisha does not criticise his servant

Instead he prays for him to receive the same insight that he had

James 1:5 ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given to him’

It shows us how to treat those who oppose us, those who are enemies of God and of his people

Elisha’s advice fully accords with Paul’s instruction in Rom 12:19: Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

I used to struggle with the ‘heap burning coals on his head’ part - the quotation from Proverbs begins with acts of kindness - providing food and drink - how do burning coals fit with that?

Until I learned that it has the sense of acts that bring a person to repentance, coals that melt a man’s heart and mind

As Matthew Henry puts it, ‘The most glorious victory over an enemy is to turn him into a friend’

So, whether it is through the ministry of a work like Quench cafe in providing people with food and drink, or through the way we react to people we rub shoulders with in daily life, we are to endeavour to do as Jesus said - ‘love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven’