Pastor Nelson, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
It has been a joy and privilege for Fran and me to be part of this congregation since we came to Denver several years ago. Thank you for the fellowship of believers we have enjoyed in your midst.
It also has been deeply satisfying for us to be part of Colorado Christian University. There it is our institutional ambition to be profoundly Christian and truly a university in the best sense of both words. Every day I see God undeniably transforming the lives of students during their time at CCU. Your support of your local Christian university is very much needed as we battle increasing infringements upon religious freedom. Please visit our information tables in the foyer to learn more about our program for young adults, working adults, and graduate students – as well as our lawsuit against the State of Colorado on behalf of our students.
Pastor Nelson has been teaching in Exodus. Today I want to share with you some reflections on an Old Testament passage of scripture, depicting a later period in Jewish history. I want us to study a story set during the era of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the early to middle part of the first millennium before Christ.
This story, involving the prophet Elisha, who followed the prophet Elijah, is striking to me in several ways. First, its context hints at one of the paradoxes of human existence. The story even suggests that this paradox extends beyond the human race. Finally, the story offers encouraging pointers to God’s ultimate solution to that paradox. I will explain my meaning as we work our way through the text. Let’s read it together from 2 Kings 6, verses 8 through 23. As is our tradition, would you please stand in honor of God’s word?
Now
the king of Aram 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 [that is Elisha] 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
[disclosure of his plans] 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 [the king] sent
horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded
the city.
When the
servant of [Elisha] 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 they entered the city,
Elisha said,“LORD, open the eyes
of these men so 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.
Look again at the opening verse:
“Now the king of Aram
was at war with Israel.”
The Arameans correspond to modern-day Syrians and their King was named Ben-Hadad II. He and his army were sometimes at war and sometimes at peace with Israel during the years of Elisha’s ministry. At the time of this particular incident the Arameans were making profitable surprise raids into Israel – that is, they had been profitable until Elisha got into the act.
Yes, the context for this story is WAR, because the context of human civilization is WAR.
“Reporting for duty!” was the line that John Kerry used to accept his party’s presidential nomination. He and President Bush were competing for the responsibility of serving as commander-in-chief of the US military forces that are now engaged in war.
When I attended the US Military Academy at West Point as a student, it became clear during my cadet years that I would serve in war in Vietnam, as I did. Later, serving on the staff at West Point, I had occasion to wonder how many of West Point’s graduates might have served a full career in the Army without hearing the war tocsin sound. How many do you think I found? None. I discovered that our nation has never had a 30-year period without war. And, we are supposedly a peaceful nation – one that does not initiate aggression against innocent victims, a nation that does not make war without cause.
War, perhaps more than anything else in this life, reminds us that this life is not as it should be. We as humans hate war, but we still engage in it. Yes, we can justify it under some circumstances. While on the faculty at West Point, I taught cadets how to think through going to war, to decide for themselves when it may be justified as a “just war” and when it cannot be. Nevertheless, the very need for such justification still arouses a disjointedness in our spirit, a sense that war itself – even when justified – still shouts to us that something is deeply wrong.
My experience of war was well portrayed in an old movie, titled “Good Morning, Vietnam.” Robin Williams plays the part of a soldier, Adrian Kronauer, whose job in Vietnam is to be a disc jockey for the Armed Forces Radio Network. As the songs he plays on the radio are heard in the background, mixed scenes of US soldiers and Vietnamese citizens appear on the screen. The first such scenes are happy ones, but eventually the harsh realities of war begin to intrude. The most ironic, poignant of these scenes is one I want to show you. As this plays, think about the disjuncture between the words of the song in the background and the pictures on the screen, as Louis Armstrong sings, “What a Wonderful World.”
[Show the VHS
videotape clip.]
This is the paradox of the human condition: We human beings are both remarkably good and terribly bad. As Solzhenitzen put it, “The line dividing good and evil runs not between nations and states, but through the center of every human heart.” And, we live in a world that is also both good and bad. It is indeed “a wonderful world,” full of God’s glory for which we worship Him, but also full of sorrow and shame, of wickedness and violence, of injustice and oppression.
Even our psalms and hymns, while assuring us of God’s protection, remind us of “the valley of the shadow of death” or “the stormy blast,” or times “when sorrows like sea billows roll.”
Yes, something is wrong, terribly wrong.
We see a sample of the problem, a symbol of the problem, showcased in our text. The Aramean king, Ben Haddad, is told that Elisha, the prophet of Israel, gives away his military plans. So, Haddad orders,
“Go, find out where [Elisha] is,” the
king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is
in Dothan.” 14 Then [King Haddad] sent horses and
chariots and a strong force there.
Ben Hadad, having been told that Elisha foretells Ben-Hadad’s every move, still assumes he is in charge. The implication is clear that Israel’s God reveals Haddad’s plans to Elisha. But, Hadad assumes that, God or no, he can still have things his own way. He assumes that, if God exists, he can just ignore God, or even get the better of God. So, he simply orders his men to go capture Elisha. That will solve that problem. Haddad has set himself against God – knowingly or unknowingly.
It was not rational. Think about it. If Elisha was really able to know Ben Hadad’s every move, then his attempt to capture Elisha was doomed to fail; Elisha would know from God that Ben Hadad was coming. But, if Elisha was not able to do this, then Ben Hadad had no need to worry about Elisha. So, either way, Ben Hadad’s action does not make sense.
But, if we are honest with ourselves, our own rebellion against God does not make sense either. It makes just this same kind of non-sense. That is because the choice is not a rational one; rather, it is a willful choice.
So, the problem? In a word, it is US! We are the heart of the problem, the source of the paradox. This “wonderful world” is marred by creatures who want to be king, in place of the rightful King. Ben Hadad willed that he, not God, would be king. Like Ben Hadad, we all believe that, God or no, we can have our own way. And, in a sense and to a degree, we’re right.
Ben Hadad and all of us have been created by God with the power to choose to acknowledge God – or to ignore him. I am free to worship the true King or, instead, to insist on being the king of a kingdom of one, thumbing my nose at the true King of the universe. Some of us are stretching this God-given privilege pretty far. It should strike terror into our souls to realize that God will ultimately give us what we choose.
Fortunately for us, God is patient to tolerate our rebellion, patient with each one of his rebellious creatures, as He invites us, urges us, to lay down our arms and make peace with Him.
We begin by choosing sides. Through Jesus, we may make our peace with God. We may be reconciled to our true king, to worship Him and to trust in Him alone. That relationship is from God, by his grace, through the channel of faith in His messiah, Jesus the Christ.
But, this is not an invitation to “easy beliefism.”
The breadth of the conflict is revealed to Elisha’s worried servant in our text. When his servant sees the enemy forces arrayed around the city, Elisha reassures him,
“Don’t be afraid. … 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.”
God answered Elisha's prayer and the servant's eyes take in a whole company of innumerable angelic soldiers who stand ready to intercede for Elisha.
We see from this text that this conflict is not just at the human level; rather it is a cosmic conflict, taking place in the heavenlies, in that realm which our senses cannot detect. So, we discover that this matter of rebellion by God’s creatures is not just a human problem; rather, it extends beyond humanity even into the heavenly realms, the spirit world.
That being the case, one
question engages the entire cosmos:
Who will serve the true King?
This question, and the ensuing conflict it creates, are the primary themes in the overarching story of God’s creation. It is the “big story” of all creation. It is the meta-narrative that secular postmodernists claim does not exist. It is the meta-narrative that Pastor Nelson described to us in a little booklet he handed out a few weeks ago. It is the bigger story of which our lives are a tiny but not insignificant part.
When we recognize the true reality, the one that God revealed to Elisha’s servant, we find courage for the cosmic conflict.
“Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
Similarly, when King Hezekiah was threatened by invasion by Sennacherib, he encouraged the Jewish people to remember,
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles.”—2 Chr 32.7-8
While he did not know Jesus by name, Elisha was already confident of the inevitable victory of God. Indeed, Jesus the Messiah has already inaugurated the new age of the Spirit. The conflict is not over, but the outcome has already been settled.
Elisha’s servant was not so sure, and he needed to have his awareness of reality broadened. How do you experience our world? As Elisha’s servant did, seeing only the immediately visible? Many of us Christians go through life as practical atheists. We put our confidence in horses and chariots, metaphorically speaking – that is in personal power, affluence, science, technology.
But, it is as true for the Christian today as it was for the Jews in
that day: “Those who are with us are more
than those who are with them.” “With us
is the Lord our God.”
I too am called, like Elisha, to accept a mission, to take up arms to serve my King as his foot soldier in this great, cosmic conflict. But, what arms does God provide?
Look at the next verses in our text for today.
Elisha told [the temporarily blinded soldiers], “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.
Elisha relied on God to blind the soldiers, but he also relied on deception. Technically, he did not lie to the soldiers, but he purported to be someone he was not to the Aramean soldiers, saying in effect, “Hi, fellas. Hey, you’re in the wrong town, but no problem with you guys being lost and blind, because I’ll take you to the guy you’re after.”
Elisha was cleverly subverting the mission of the soldiers and the intentions of Ben-Hadad. Indeed, Elisha modeled for us the tactic of subversion. Pastor Eugene Peterson, to whom I am indebted for this point, contends that Jesus himself was a master at subversion. For example, until the very end, most people still thought of him as merely a teacher, a Rabbi.
Peterson also points out that Jesus’ favorite speech form, the parable, was subversive. Parables sound absolutely ordinary: casual, wholly secular stories about soil and seeds, meals and coins and sheep, farmers and merchants. Then suddenly, like a hand grenade, they explode in the unguarded heart as a message from God.
I faced subversives, insurgents, in Vietnam, just as today’s soldiers face them in Iraq. The Viet Cong were combatants, but they dressed and looked like non-combatant villagers, until they were in a position to strike a blow for their side.
I, too, as a subversive in the great cosmic battle, may go through my daily life looking just like other human beings around me—going to work, buying groceries, chatting with neighbors. Then, at just the right time, I strike – with the good news of Jesus’ love and forgiveness. I reveal my true identity, my true loyalty to the invading King. At just the right moment, I bring other people into my confidence that there is a better way to live, and I reveal to them the plans for the cosmos that my King is already executing.
For us to engage the cosmic conflict in our post-Christian, pluralistic, highly-secularized society, the tactics of the subversive are the most effective.
… then the weapons we are to use are even more surprising. Look again at our passage.
When the
king of Israel saw them [the Aramean soldiers], he asked Elisha, “Shall I kill
them, my father?”
“Do not
kill them,” he answered. … “Set food
and water before them so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their
master.”
Elisha has led the enemy soldiers to sure destruction in a stronghold of the king of Israel, and then, of all things, he instructs the king, “Don’t kill them. Feed them!” … a surprising answer that echoes the character of God revealed in both Testaments:
Proverbs teaches us, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat…. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.” – Pr 25:21-22 The metaphor of the burning coals implies heaping kindness and generosity upon one’s enemy.
Jesus likewise teaches us, in his Sermon on the Mount:
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” – Matt 5.43-45
To actually love our enemy is so like Jesus and so unlike our norm that we call it by a special word: GRACE.
The story is told of C. S. Lewis entering a pub in England where some learned gentlemen were arguing about what was distinctive about Christianity among the world’s religions. Lewis replied, “That’s easy. It’s grace.” He was on point, wasn’t he? Undeserved beneficence from God – grace – is what is different.
“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” – John 1.17
What was the result of the application of grace in our text for today?
“So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territory.”
If God had used the Israelite army and traditional human means, then defeating Ben Hadad would have required much fighting and loss of life. Instead, God did it peacefully through one man armed with very non-traditional weapons: grace and truth.
The victory of God will be won “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” – Zech. 4:6b
This is Jesus’ way by which we are to engage the conflict. Jesus’ way of fighting for the new Kingdom is the way of feeding one’s enemies, the way of turning the other cheek and going the extra mile, the way of losing one’s life to gain it, the way of taking up one’s cross daily, the way of forgiveness and prayer, the way of forgiven hearts renewed by the living God.
This truth is so difficult for us to believe – and to practice – that I want to describe a couple of local examples of the power of grace and truth.
Currently a staff member at Focus on the Family, Mike was drawn deeply into the homosexual lifestyle by his late teens. He was in deep! But, he was befriended by some Christian men who were willing to express both grace and truth to Mike. As hard as Mike tried to drive them away, they continued to care about Mike, to express God’s grace to him, and to tell him the truth about his lifestyle, that it was destructive and that God could help him recover from it. Mike finally accepted Christ’s forgiveness and promise of new life. The battle was on. He agreed to enter a halfway house and three Christian men agreed that for a year they would not let Mike out of the sight of at least one of them – for an entire year – so as to prevent temptation getting the better of him. Their sacrificial love for Mike was God’s weapon that finally prevailed. Mike is now happily married to a former lesbian woman and they have two children. He works full-time to assist others caught up in homosexuality.
Jeff was deeply upset a few years ago by the teaching of some subjects in the local public schools that his children were attending. He responded in anger. He was also well aware of the tactics that some Christians were using to express their opposition to abortion. As he thought through his own behavior – and that of other Christians as they reacted to issues that indeed should grieve Christians – he decided that our weapons were wrong: anger, hatefulness, self-righteousness, violence. He began considering the teaching of scripture and studying how Jesus dealt with his opponents. As Jeff practiced using Jesus’ weapons – grace first and then truth as his relationships earned him an opportunity to be heard – he began having more success. He finally was really being heard, changing hearts, transforming resistance into cooperation, and effecting real change.
Out of that experience has come a book written by Jeff, published by NavPress, and a ministry led by Jeff, dedicated to teaching Christians how to effectively engage those with whom they may disagree. Jeff has taught his seminar in many churches and ministries including Colorado Christian University.
This incident did NOT bring to Israel an end to war. At a later date, Ben-Hadad again invaded, and war resumed.
We too have not seen the end of war – it is the human condition, for now. Indeed as we let the Spirit open our eyes to see reality as it truly is, we realize the problem extends into the heavenlies. “What a wonderful world” it is, as Louis Armstrong sang, but it is terribly marred by rebellious, willful creatures – both human and heavenly. Each one of these creatures must decide, “Will I serve the true King?”
If anyone here today has not yet made that decision to make peace with God and serve the true King, don’t put it off. Meet with a member of this church in the prayer chapel after this service.
For a large number of us here today, we have made our peace with God. So, the question for us is this: Will we faithfully serve the true King? And employ his tactics and his weapons? Will we trade in our human tactics of power politics or blunt force for that of quiet subversion? Will we trade in our human weapons for the weapons of heaven: grace and truth?
While the conflict to which we are called is real and ongoing, the new age of the Spirit has already been inaugurated by Jesus and the outcome has already been determined.
In the hymn by Horatio Spafford that I quoted briefly earlier, the hymn opens by speaking of times when “sorrows like sea billows roll.” But, it concludes by assuring us of that time when “the trumpet shall sound, the Lord shall descend. It is well, it is well with my soul.”
Come, Lord Jesus. May it be so, Amen.