Thursday morning. Jasmine Gardner was desperate to catch the #30 bus. For some reason she’d been forced off the subway. She had to get to work. She was already 45 minutes late. The bus wasn’t the usual for her, but rush hour traffic was, and she was all set to get on. The driver stopped and a few people got off. But he didn’t let anyone on. Why not? It didn’t seem completely full. She wrote, “As the bus driver closed the doors in my face at the stop on Upper Woburn Place I wanted to scream. Swarms of people had got off. I could see people standing on the lower deck, but I knew I would have fitted. I swore at the driver — too late for him to hear.” Angry that the bus pulled ahead, she started walking fast to catch it. Then, when she was about 30 feet from reaching it, not far from the British Museum, it exploded. She stuck up her umbrella to protect herself from a shower of debris that began to fall. Sheer chaos followed. About an hour earlier, 3 bombs had been detonated within a minute of each other in the subway. She had been kept off the subway because of the explosions. 56 dead; 700 wounded. Brits will remember 7/7 of 2005.
In a short time, the life of many people in London went from the normal morning rush hour routine to an uproar. It’s similar to the experience many of us had after the attacks of September 11. Life was changed in a very short time.
Some change happens to us in large doses. The doctor has you come visit him in his office, and in 5 minutes your future is turned upside down. In one bad day on the stock market, your investment is lost. You find out over social media that someone you thought was your friend is backstabbing you. Health turns into uncertainty. Security gets ripped away into fear. Friendship becomes distrust. Rush hour gets changed into a terrorist attack.
Now, think for a moment. Compared to a few years ago, is that more or less likely to happen to us? The terror threat is higher. Information and misinformation are moving faster. Pressure and violence against Christians is increasing. And Donald Trump is running for president!
I know that I’d like to be one of the people who doesn’t fall to pieces when everyone else does. Wouldn’t you? Now, the Bible is full of stories of people facing sudden change – sometimes with strength, and sometimes just falling all apart. It’s nothing new. There was a prophet named Elisha who experienced several times of difficulty, but there was one particular time when he faced a situation of horrible danger with complete calmness, and he was able to help someone around him too. I’d like to know how he did it. I’d like to know for the next sudden change that hits me in life. I’d like to know how I can look an impossible situation in the eye and not fold up into a ball.
How will we deal with what’s ahead for us, whatever it may be, big or small? I want to suggest to you that if God is with us, we can do it, and if we could somehow keep that truth in front of us, we can do it! Let’s look at Elisha and see how that works…
(I. God’s Presence With His People Is Often Not Realized by Outsiders)
The scene is set in the first verses of II Kings 6. Elisha is involved in prophet kinds of things: he’s helping build a new dormitory for the college of the prophets. He helps recover an axe head that had flown off into a stream. Sometime, in the midst of all this, he’s also providing insider information to the King of Israel, King Joram. Ben-Hadad is king of Aram, and the armies of Aram are taking advantage of some weak borders around Samaria, conducting ambushes and raids. The raids and ambushes aren’t going very well because someone is tipping off the Israelites before each raid…
2 Kings 6:8-13
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 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 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."
Things are about to heat up for Elisha. But even as they do, there’s this king who doesn’t seem to understand that Elisha is in tune with God’s presence. If it’s true that Elisha can tell where the king is moving his army, wouldn’t it also be true that Elisha would know the location of an army that’s being sent after him? Think it through, Ben-Hadad! But this isn’t someone who considers the God factor in life. This is a man who’s focused on troops and horses and armor and weapons. He isn’t overly thoughtful of the spiritual realm. But the race is not always to the swift nor is the battle always to the strong. In the case of the people of God, the deciding factor is the presence of God with His people. King Ben-Hadad is going to send in his troops to catch Elisha. Good luck with that.
Elisha has a communion with God that makes him steps ahead. It’s the reason he’s able to predict Ben-Hadad’s troop movements, but that king doesn’t consider that presence of God. He’s just going to send an army to stop Elisha. Spoiler alert: it’s not going to work.
There have been several who failed to consider the other factors:
• King Edward was surprised by the smallness of the Scots army he was about to attack. He also thought it was odd the way they all knelt together in prayer…right before they walloped him at the battle at Bannockburn.
• It also doesn’t make sense that a small, rag-tag, ill-equipped group of rebels would survive a harsh winter at Valley Forge and go on to win victory over the British – but most of us would recognize the picture of Gen. George Washington kneeling in prayer in the snow.
• Pharaoh didn’t know Who God was, and he didn’t see any reason to listen to what God said, so he wasn’t going to let God’s people go from Egypt.
• Herod heard there was a new king among the Jews, so he sent and had all the baby boys of Bethlehem killed to try to stop Him.
• Nero wanted to suppress Christians in the Roman Empire, so he did everything he could to terrorize and destroy them.
• Thinking he would stop the Huguenots, King Louis 14th revoked the Edict of Nantes, and made Protestantism illegal again in France. It didn’t stop them.
• Voltaire said he would end Christianity with one hand. He used a printing press at Fernery to print his anti-Christian writings. Later, the same printing press was used in Geneva to print Bibles.
Ill - Imagine taking your 4 year old to see Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” At the end of the play, the stage is littered with corpses. And your 4 yr old is looking at this, panicked, because he has just watched all of these people killed. They’re strung out on the stage, and the curtain closes. He’s in tears, and you’re wondering why you brought him in the first place. Then, there’s the curtain call, and all those dead people are standing in a line at the front of the stage as the curtain rises. They aren’t dead after all. They take a bow. People applaud. You say to your son, “See. They’re just actors. They didn’t really die. They have a life outside of this theater. Most of them have families, and they’re not dead at all. They’ll probably go home tonight and have a snack with their family at home.”
Like a child who accepts a play as reality, the outsider’s outlook on life is confined. Their world is so much smaller. Just like someone who lives in a 2-dimensional world on a piece of paper could never realize how much more there is to be experienced, people with a world-bound view of life are minus another dimension.
In sometimes ironic ways, God’ presence with His people gets overlooked by their enemies. We can take that to heart and learn to be comforted by it. I also wonder, though, if it’s not the reason that the Church has ceased to be taken seriously across our country today. Could it be that people outside the Church just aren’t convinced that God is present with His people? Could it be true that, from what they observe among believers in the world, outside these walls where they see their day-to-day being lived out, there’s nothing to convince them that God is among them in a way that’s distinct from others? Maybe a reason for that is this next point…
II. God’s Presence With His People is Too Often Not Realized by Many Among Themselves
2 Kings 6:14-15
Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of 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.
We aren’t given this servant’s name. He’s someone on the inside who didn’t recognize God’s presence. He may have professed his belief that God was there, but when it came time to practice it, he didn’t. He looked outside and saw the army of Aram surrounding the city. There’s no way the people of Dothan were able to stop them. So the servant looks and says, "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?"
You know what? Too many Christ followers live like that servant. We speak about God’s presence. We sing about Him. We pray to Him. But, one morning we get up, look outside, and we look surrounded. So we say, “Oh, no! What do we do?!”
Half-heartedness has always hindered God’s people when it’s among us:
• 10 spies came back from Canaan without thinking about the God factor, and they convinced the entire nation of Israel not to take the Promised Land.
• Barak was too afraid to provide leadership and take Israel’s army into battle, so the credit for victory was given to a non-combatant woman.
• People in Jesus’ hometown were so lacking in faith in Him that He could only do a few miracles there. Jesus was amazed – amazed at the way the people of His home town didn’t recognize God was among them.
• Look around you at the number of so-called “mainline denominational” churches that have chosen to forget God’s displeasure with sin. They forget that God is among them, and that God won’t tolerate what’s unholy, but the pressure to not counter our culture makes them fold.
After all, they look surrounded.
What do we do? Now, if this were a movie, the hero (Elisha) would say, “Just follow me and do what I do.” Not this story. It’s not a movie. And what’s needed isn’t a human hero to nuke the enemy. I wonder how different the Church in the US would look – how different CCC might look – if we wholeheartedly believed that God is right here, and that what’s really surrounding us are the armies of Heaven itself!
Psalm 34:7
The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.
You see…
III. God’s Presence With His People is Realized by His True Servants
Let’s go back to the text. Here’s Ben-Hadad, not thinking about the way God has been at work this whole time alongside Elisha. So, “Aha!” he’s going to get him at Dothan. Here’s Elisha’s servant, shaking in his sandals as he counts the number of horses outside the east wall and writes his last will and testament. And there’s Elisha, who has been showing an almost eerie calmness – the kind that makes you wonder if he hasn’t just “lost it.”
There’s one person in all this who wasn’t terrified by the enemy, wasn’t discouraged by difficulties: it was the man who was close to God and who realized that God was close to him. Notice what Elisha does – he prays – but not for God to show up, because God has always been there.
2 Kings 6:16-17
"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.
They were there all along. Why do we think that army of angels has been retired? Because we don’t see it, we sometimes live like there’s no spiritual realm. Because they don’t have physical bodies like our own, we tend to neglect the real presence of angels. If we could just develop a 6th sense that would allow us to see it, maybe we’d approach life differently…after we got over the shock. Daniel says,
Daniel 7:10
…Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him…
Or maybe we just think that they were there for people in Bible times, but not for now. The writer of Hebrews says,
Hebrews 1:14
Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
That’s you and me. We need to realize God’s presence among us, including the work of His angels that minister to us. I appreciate some of the artists who have tried to help us remember – works like “Spiritual Warfare” by Dicianni and “Watchers in the Night” by Blackshear.
Elisha didn’t have those. Still, he knew all along that they were going to be OK. What made the difference? Elisha was attuned to God’s presence. Just like the Psalmist…
Psalm 3:6
I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side.
Psalm 27:3
Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.
Elisha does a lot of praying in the 9 chapters he appears in the OT. He’s quick to speak to God. That’s what you do when you understand there’s someone bigger than you around who can take care of matters.
2 Kings 6:18-23
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.
Even the way Elisha let these guys go told everyone, Israel and Aram alike, that God’s the One Who was overseeing all this. His presence is the one that controlled the outcome that day.
God’s true servants have distinguished themselves through the ages as the ones who realized God’s presence was with them, so they overcame the greatest challenges, faced the most terrible dangers, fearlessly took on the worst opposition, and accomplished things that seemed impossible to worldly eyes.
Paul spends a bunch of time in Romans 8 talking about the work of the HS – that part of God Who comes to live inside those who accept Him. After talking about that presence of God he asks,
Romans 8:31
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
What shall we do in response to all this? What should we do about God’s promise to be among us?
1. Remember it’s good to be on God’s side!
The reason so many people don’t feel free to call on the Lord when they face something hard is because they ignore Him. They don’t have any confidence in their privilege as sons later. Don’t wait until hard times to look over your shoulder to see if God’s behind you. Be on His side now!
2. Undertake great things for God!
Do you know a person who goes into Baskin Robbins, the 31 flavors place, and orders vanilla? There ought to be a law against that!
Or, did you ever know a kid in school who had a 64 color box of crayons who choose to color only with black?
That’s kind of what we’re like when we fail to take on what God is waiting for us to do.
Undertake something great for God – something where you’re counting on Him being there when you’re surrounded and in a bad way; something that makes you turn to Him for help. Give more than you think you can. Plan something that stretches you. Put yourself in a situation where, if would be really scary, if God wasn’t right there with you!
3. Don’t allow difficulties to overwhelm your spirit!
Paul and Silas were beaten silly for preaching and put in stocks in a prison. It was the darkest hour of the night – around midnight – that their choice was to sing and pray out loud, to where everyone in the prison could hear them. They could have concluded that God had left them. They could have allowed it to overwhelm them. Instead, they showed their understanding of God’s presence and let others know about it. Whatever you’re facing, don’t allow those hard things to overwhelm you. Take it to God. Ask for own eyes to be opened to see that He’s there to help you. When Paul and Silas did that, it ended up saving the jailor and his whole household. When you choose to do that, who knows what lives will be affected for good?
Conclusion:
May of 1995, Randy Reid, a 34-year-old construction worker, was welding on top of a water tower outside Chicago. Reid unhooked his safety gear to reach for some pipes when a metal cage slipped and bumped the scaffolding he stood on. The scaffolding tipped, and Reid lost his balance. He fell 110 feet, landing face down on a pile of dirt, just missing rocks and construction debris. A fellow worker called 911.
Paramedics arrived to find Reid awake, moving, and complaining of a sore back. So, they loaded him up on a backboard. Apparently the fall didn't break his sense of humor, because as they carried him to the ambulance, he said, "Don't drop me." Amazingly, Reid came away from the accident with just a bruised lung.
It’s almost humorous the way we resemble that worker. We’re saved by God from a 110’ fall, but somehow we’re worried about 3 foot heights. Friend, the God Who’s able to save us from sin and eternity in hell is also able to help us through the relatively small dangers we’re faced with this week.
He who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not, also in Him, freely give us all things?
And now, you can have that. You can have the promise of God’s presence in your life from now on…
