1/21/24 2 Kings 6:8-23 “Your Invisible Protection”

18 Jan 1/21/24 2 Kings 6:8-23 “Your Invisible Protection”

1/21/24    2 Kings 6:8-23          “Your Invisible Protection”

You might not know this but I am an avid reader with strange reading habits.  I’m usually reading several books at the same time.  I have them in different parts of the house and I have sort of trained myself to only read them there.  However, sometimes I get to the point in a book where I just have to finish it because it is just too exciting.  Strangely, I have never had a text book capture me like that.  Anyway, that is how I read.  I also read the Bible once every year and there are certain parts that I can’t wait to read again.  Today’s reading is one of those parts.  We have been looking in a section of the Bible where all the kings were bad and the people had turned away from God but we found some good news.  This week we are looking at a time when Israel, the northern kingdom, was warring with neighboring Aram.  I would also like to remind you that Israel never had a good king who served God.  They were all bad.  At least Judah had a few good kings.  What makes this story so exciting for me is that every time I read it, I get the reassurance that Jesus is always there, even when I don’t notice it.  Let’s see if we can all get a little reassurance from this story.

I have read several true stories like this.  True stories like this happen and they happen every day.  So, listen up.  Two missionaries in Malaysia had to go to a neighboring town to get some money at a bank.  They were returning when darkness overtook them.  They were afraid because this was bandit country.  They couldn’t go on in the darkness so they prayed and went to sleep.  Several weeks later a man came to their mission hospital for treatment.  He studied the missionary doctor before saying that he had seen the doctor before.  The doctor replied, “No, I don’t think we have ever met.”  Then it came to the man and he said, “I have seen you before!  You were sleeping on a hillside.  We saw you withdraw some money from the bank and we followed you and were going to rob you.  But we couldn’t get near you because of all the soldiers surrounding you.”  “Soldiers,” the doctor exclaimed.  “There were no soldiers with us.”   “Yes, there were,” the man replied.  “My friends and I saw them.  There were 16 of them with their guns out and ready to use.  We ran away.”

There is another story about the man who was walking through a tough part of large city out east when he was confronted by a couple of muggers.  Suddenly, they got scared and ran away.  Later the man was called to the police station to identify the mugger.  He did and later the mugger told him that they were vastly outnumbered as the man was surrounded by big tough policemen.  The man thought he had been alone.  I know lots of stories just like these two where Jesus was there protecting one of his people.  This is what makes this story so exciting for me.  God is always there watching over us.  There is nothing that He doesn’t see.  Please, embrace Jesus all the time.

Our story today is about Elisha, the student of Elijah, and Elisha’s servant.  Elisha was a tremendous disciple of God.  He had performed many miracles such as raising a boy from the dead, feeding people with next to nothing, healing a man of leprosy and making an axe float, just to mention a few.  He was a man of God and he may remind us in some ways of Jesus.  However, he wasn’t Jesus as he was just a man and not God.

Anyway, this was a man of God and he had been helping Israel by giving them information on their enemies even though Israel was ruled by a wicked king.  By the way, the information he gave them was coming from God.  The king of Aram was getting really tired of having every one of his plans thwarted by Israel just because of this prophet.  Therefore, he sends his army to capture Elisha.  They surround the city and are ready to move in the morning.  Now we come to the interesting part of the story.

Elisha is a great prophet and all the people know this.  It is morning and he is probably lounging out on the patio having a morning cup of coffee, maybe with a piece of toast.  He is likely not even ready for the day as he is probably lounging in his pajamas.  His unnamed servant goes out front to do an errand and sees that the city is surrounded by troops.  He runs to his master and asks him, “What shall we do?  What shall we do?”

The first thing Elisha said was, “Don’t be afraid.”  We hear this phrase over and over in the Bible.  It is a phrase used when God wants us to let Him take care of things.  It is found from 100-300 times in the Bible depending on the interpretation.  Don’t be afraid.  Next time your biggest fear jumps up and bites you, don’t be afraid.  The only time that you need to be afraid is when you don’t have Jesus in your life as your personal Savior.  Then it is time to be afraid and really afraid.  So, if you don’t know Jesus, then confess your sins to Him today and ask Him to live and lead your life.  Then you will have nothing to fear.  Nothing!  This is another of those fantastic promises of God.  And God’s promises always, always come true.

This unnamed servant had nothing to fear but he was blinded and couldn’t see.  He was blinded to the presence of God.  Now I don’t know about this for a certainty but I think that many if not most people of this country are blinded to the presence of God.  One of the reasons I say that is because if I told one of these stories that I just told anywhere but here at church, I would get laughed out of the place.  I would be told that this was a dream or that this was just figurative speech on the part of the story teller in 2 Kings.  I would be told that no matter what I said, this didn’t happen because it couldn’t happen.  Well, let me just remind you here that when we are dealing with God, anything is possible, anything!  Ask the people in our opening stories if God does these things.  The evidence is overwhelming.  You need to remember this before it is too late!

I was talking about this very thing the one day with some pastors.  Others arrived and I dropped the subject so I didn’t have to go through with the ridicule.  Imagine that!  Being ridiculed by a bunch of pastors for saying that Jesus does the things he does.  At the time it just wasn’t worth pursuing.  But I did go in a different direction.  I asked them if it was possible for us to be in earnest communication with Jesus and still be afraid.  The answer is not likely.  If you are truly in touch with Jesus, then He will calm you.  I have never come away from a deep prayer time with Jesus where I didn’t feel a whole lot better than when I started.  So whatever else you do in life, always lead in prayer.

There is one more thing I would like to say about the presence of God.  You are always in the presence of God.  You all know that there is no where you can go or there is nothing you can do that God isn’t there.  You need to also realize that God is there like this for believers and non-believers alike.  It doesn’t matter who you are, He is there.  He might be there in different capacities for the non-believer but He is there.  For the non-believer, He will be trying to help him overcome his blindness.  In our reading God removed the blindness of the servant.  God can and does do this but the most common instance is where God will remove the blindness when the person asks that it be removed.  This is when you ask Jesus to live in your heart.

You see we really have to be careful here that we don’t try to put limitations on Jesus.  I say that He usually works this way but this is not the rule.  I have known about many people who have just come to Jesus out of the clear.  I read of a Muslim woman in the Middle East who became a Christian one day without the help of anyone.  Jesus just came upon her and she was receptive to God.  So, we really have to be careful that we don’t box Jesus in a corner because He will not be boxed.  He will do what He has to do to further the Kingdom.  The point of this is that Jesus never loses.  No matter how bad things get, He does not lose.  No matter how much Satan tells you that Christianity is obsolete, Jesus will win.  Satan loses.  Let me repeat that.  Satan loses!  Hopefully this will be a tremendous comfort to you as you live your life.  Jesus wins!  Jesus wins!

This is important as we look at our blindness in relation to the protection of God.  This poor servant of Elisha came out for some morning chores and finds he is surrounded by the enemy.  They are in trouble but he can’t see that help has already arrived.  Elisha asks that his eyes be opened so that he may see and what a sight he beheld.  Just think of it.  You are surrounded by your enemies.  They are everywhere.  Then suddenly God opens your eyes and you see the multitude of angels surrounding the enemy at a rate of let’s say 10 to 1.  These aren’t just angels; they are spiritual warriors that are ready to do battle with the enemy.  They are nothing to mess with.

There is a good writer on this subject, Frank Peretti, who writes wonderful fiction on the topic of spiritual warfare.  It has been suggested to me that I shouldn’t preach about this topic because, like Peretti’s books, it is very scary.  Unfortunately, it is also very true.  I don’t really know how it works but I know that I have been attacked numerous times by Satan.  The only way to beat him is to grab a hold of the protection of Jesus Christ.  Suppose today that our eyes were opened like that of the servant.  We would see many angels, dressed for battle, surrounding this church.  They are guarding us against the attack of the enemy.  That is why I cast the evil one out before each service!

Now imagine a group of demons gathered outside, (the casting out of demons) away from the church.  They are waiting to come in your doors and attack.  The attack comes in the form of sleep during my boring sermon.  It might be making our minds to wander.  It might be that you disagree with the Bible.  The point is that they will attack if given a chance.  That is one of the reasons why I decided to open your service with prayer.  Anyway, if you are not careful you will let in one or more of these demons.  Then they will not leave unless you call on the angels through Jesus Christ to be rid of them.  They are here to protect us in this messy warfare.  But you have to have Jesus living in your heart and you usually have to ask.

What I would like us to do today is to use our imagination a little.  I want you to ignore those ugly things outside on the fringes.  They are bad.  We all know about bad things and there is enough of that stuff everywhere.  Rather I would like you to focus on these good angels who are protecting you.  They are watching you with love and respect.  Imagine the most loving, kind image that you can.  Then use this image as a basic image of your angels.  Try to picture these angels all the time.  They are always with you so practice seeing them when you are away from church.  If you keep doing this, then when you are attacked, and you will be, you will have some sort of idea who you are calling on for protection.  God will always protect us if we call on Him earnestly.

There is just not enough time to cover everything today.  The last thing I would like to say about this is that we are blinded to God’s provision.  This servant couldn’t see that God would blind the enemy and take them to the middle of Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom, Israel, where they would feast in peace, yet another sermon topic.  The servant couldn’t see this ahead of time.  I doubt that Elisha could either but Elisha had the faith that all would be taken care of.

We are blinded to these provisions also.  Many times, we think that we are in charge and it is our decisions that make our world go round and round.  I’d be a rich man if I had a dollar for every time people talk about how faith is good for Sunday morning but we have to get real in the real world.  Or here is another one.  We have the faith side of church but we also have the business side that runs the faith.  This is so totally wrong.  The business side of the church should never try to run the church.  If a church is going to be strong and successful, then it will stress faith first and foremost.  30 years ago or so, we were told in West Fargo that we could never retire the building debt.  It just couldn’t happen.  Well, we were part of a campaign that was based on faith.  We were in charge of the faith end of it.  Everything we did, we did in prayer.  We went to Jesus first and business second.  And do you know what happened?  We raised that $100,000 or whatever it was and we retired that debt.  We had many naysayers but Jesus came through.  It was absolutely glorious to be a part of that.

I’m about out of time but I want to leave you with one last story.  A documented story from the old west in this country:  There was a shipment of gold or something precious moving on a wagon.  The bandits started to attack and then broke it off.  Later the bandits were caught and asked why they didn’t finish the attack and get the gold.  They said they were suddenly vastly outnumbered by soldiers coming to protect the gold.  There were no soldiers, only the driver.  People, these are true stories!

Next time you are up against insurmountable odds, remember who is in charge and call upon Him for help.  You don’t know how many times you have been protected already.  Go to Jesus in prayer.  Pray hard and pray often.  You cannot win in a spiritual battle without Jesus and that is a fact.  He is waiting to hear from you and help you.  I praise the Lord that He is all He says He is and more.  Thank you, Jesus, for watching over us and first loving us.  Let’s pray.