Take your Bibles with me tonight and turn to 2 Kings chapter 6. 2 Kings 6.

Have you ever found yourself feeling completely surrounded and outnumbered?
Have you ever felt like you were just in an impossible situation?
Maybe you kind of gave yourself some grace because of how hard your situation was and gave yourself an excuse to maybe do things you probably shouldn't have done?

We're gonna look at a really cool story tonight, kind of an obscure one but an awesome one that I've always loved. This is a story about Elisha. Remember Elisha was the young prophet that took over for Elijah and ended up doing twice as many miracles as Elijah the prophet. Elisha's ministry spanned some forty to sixty years. During all that time God used him as the voice for God in Israel.

Our story today takes place sometime after the events of chapter 5, where Elisha healed Naaman, the Syrian general that had leprosy. Remember, Elisha's servant Gehazi went and took some things that he shouldn't have from Naaman and God gave Gehazi Naaman's leprosy.

Well in this chapter the Syrians are still very much in the picture. They're still Israel's enemies. They're still battling back and forth but Gehazi is out and Elisha has another young servant that he is pouring his life into. The Syrians would still very much like to take over Israel and they are attacking Israel.

Let's go ahead and start by reading verses eight to twelve.

8 Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp.
9 And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are come down.
10 And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice.
11 Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, Will ye not shew 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 that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber.
2 Kings 6:8-12 (KJV)

Can you see what's happening here? The Syrian king really wants to get to Israel. And he's sending out these kinds of groups of his army to come and ambush Israel. But he's not being successful because what's happening is Elisha, who the Bible here calls the man of God (interesting title), is sending messages to the king and warning him and saying, "Don't go to that place because the Syrians are going to ambush you there." And the king has the wisdom to at least check out the situation and through this he saves himself several times.

Now back in Syria, the king of Syria is very mad about this. He gets all of his servants together and he's demanding, "Which one of you is the spy? Which one of you is working for the king of Israel?"

And the servants are like, 'None of us, Lord, none of us are doing it, but you know who it is? It is Elisha the prophet in Israel. In fact, whatever you even say in the privacy of your bedroom, Elisha can hear that word from God and he can share it with the king.’

Now where do you think these Syrian rulers, these servants of the king, heard about Elisha the prophet? I'll tell you what I think. I think it was from Naaman, the Syrian general and servant of the king that we learned about in the last chapter. Again I think he was truly converted and I think he shared this word with the leaders in Syria. I think he was a witness in Syria.

So what do we learn in these first four verses? I think the first principle that we learn here is that

God sometimes gives His servants special insight.

You know I remember my parents when I was a kid. They would tell me sometimes when I would get in trouble, "You know God will tell us things sometimes. God will tip us off to things sometimes for your sake. God will give us special insight." And sure enough sometimes they caught me doing things. I don't know how they did it but they did. God gave them special insight.

I remember I had a pastor and he would say the same thing. He would say, "Sometimes God just lets me know about things and I figure things out that probably I shouldn't have figured out and God is just giving me special insight into a situation."

I believe the Lord does this. I can tell you times where God has just sort of revealed things to me or given me intuitions about people or things that turned out to be true. I didn't have any other way of knowing they were true but I just felt like the Lord was letting me know. When you walk with the Lord, he gives you that advantage. He gives you sometimes that insight.

Well back to our story. The Syrians are trying to get into Israel. Elisha the prophet is the one that is stopping this by getting this special insight from the Lord. What's gonna happen next? Let's keep reading. Verse 13.

13 And he said, Go and spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan.
14 Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about.
15 And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?
16 And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
17 And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
2 Kings 6:13-17 (KJV)

So the king of Syria wants to find out where Elisha is and says, "Go figure out where this guy is." They come back and they say, "He's in this place called Dothan."

Dothan is an interesting place in the Bible. That's actually only mentioned two times. The other time it's the place where the children of Israel threw Joseph in a pit. Hold on to that for a little bit.

Dothan was about 12 miles north of Samaria, the capital city of Israel, on a trade route there and apparently that's where Elisha was living.

And so the king of Syria decides to go down to Dothan and send our army there to go get Elisha. Let's nip this in the bud! Let's take care of the problem.

So at night time they sneak into this area and they surround the whole city of Dothan with chariots and armies and horses. They just overwhelm this city.

And Elisha's new servant, he wakes up early in the morning and he goes out, maybe to fetch the water or whatever, and he looks around. And oh my word, he sees a giant army. And they're not our army. And he is rightly terrified.

So he goes in to talk to Elisha and tell him what he saw and he is flipping out. I just love what Elisha says. Elisha says, "Fear not, there are more with us than there are with them."

Now if I was a servant, I'd be like, "What are you talking about? Just me and you! There's thousands of them out there, or at least hundreds of them out there. What are you talking about?"

Of course he was talking spiritually here. There is a wonderful principle here. A wonderful principle.

When we are serving God, we are never in the minority.

When we are serving God no matter how bad it seems, we are never the underdog. God is the greatest force multiplier that ever existed.

• God plus slave boy Joseph saves Israel and Egypt.

• God plus David whoops Goliath and the Philistines.

• God plus twelve ordinary disciples turns the whole world upside down.

Listen, it doesn't matter how many of them there are. If we are on the Lord's side and we are doing the Lord's work, then we can count on the Lord's help.

But there's something else that we can learn from this little part of the story, and that is that…

We are surrounded by an unseen realm.

I remember in college we used to sing this song in choir about the unseen realm. Pretty words. I didn't quite give a lot of thought to what they meant at the time but here's what I think it means here. There really is an angelic world that we can't see. There really are angels and there really are demons. They are all around us and they are very, very real.

Remember that movie that came out in the 90's? Angels in the Outfield? It was such a cute movie. I watched it a couple years ago with my kids, again about these orphan boys and these angels that went to help the Anaheim (at the time) Angels baseball team.

I'm sure there was a lot wrong with that movie, but one thing that it got right was that these angels could not be seen by normal people. They were out there doing things, in this case helping them win a baseball game, but regular people couldn't see them.

And I don't know that it's great for us to dwell on this all the time but it is encouraging to know that God has hosts, thousands of His servants, these powerful angels that are there and they are protecting us.

Which brings me to another principle that we can see in this story…

God is watching and protecting His people.

God was looking out for Elisha. God was looking out for the servant. God was looking out for Israel even though at this point Israel was not great. God is watching his people.

It reminds me of that great verse in Romans chapter eight that we quote so often.

28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28 (KJV)

and a few verses down it says:

31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Romans 8:31-32 (KJV)

If you are in the middle of God's will, you are practically invincible. Nothing that is not God's will for you is going to happen to you.

Now that doesn't mean bad things don't happen but those bad things are things we can take comfort in knowing they are part of God's plan.

• God is watching and protecting his people.

• He surrounds us with an unseen realm.

• With Him we are never in the minority.

Let’s keep reading. I just love what happens next in this story.

18 And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the Lord, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.
19 And Elisha said unto them, This is not the way, neither is this the city: follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom ye seek. But he led them to Samaria.
20 And it came to pass, when they were come into 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, behold, they were in the midst of Samaria.
21 And the king of Israel said unto Elisha, when he saw them, My father, shall I smite them? shall I smite them?
22 And he answered, Thou shalt not smite them: wouldest thou smite those whom thou hast taken captive with thy sword and with thy bow? set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master.
2 Kings 6:18-22 (KJV)

So remember the Syrian Army is surrounding Elisha and they come down to him. Elisha should be terrified; he should think he's in big trouble but instead Elisha prays. He asks God for something very specific. He asks God that God would strike the Syrian army with blindness and God grants the request.

Then Elisha says to them, "This isn't the way; this isn't the city. Follow me; I'm gonna show you where you need to go." I don't know why but this Syrian army, who is blind, can't see where they're going. I think God gave them some mental fog or something. This is some kind of Jedi mind trick or something. But they follow Elisha.

And Elisha leads them 12 miles over hill and dale. 12 miles. That's not a short walk with an army. For context when I was in great shape, I ran a half marathon, which is 13 miles on flat ground, and that took me an hour and 45 minutes. You have to assume this is at least a three-hour walk. Elisha leads them for hours until they are right into the middle of the capital city of Samaria.

And once they're in the middle of the city, no doubt the army of Israel surrounds them. They see what's going on and they get their swords out and then Elisha prays, "God, open up their eyes." And they open up their eyes and they are surrounded by their enemies right in the most helpless position, right in the middle of the capital city.

Don't you just love this story?

So the Syrian army, the enemies of Israel, are right there and they're vulnerable and the king begs Elisha, "Can I smite them? Can I smite them?"

What's he want to do? You can just almost feel the excitement in his voice.

He's asking if they can kill these people. And what's Elisha's answer? No! Don't do that! Elisha says, "That wouldn't even be right if you captured them in war." If you went out and fought against these people, it wouldn't be right to kill them when they've already surrendered. You can't do this when God just brings them into your possession with no bloodshed.

Elisha says, "Don't kill them; feed them, give them a drink, and then send them home."

Now what does that teach us? What is the lesson here? I think it's this.

** God cares about the life of our enemies.**

As Christians, as believers, as followers of God, we don't get to go scorched earth on our enemies. When we fight, we have to fight right? And we have to remember that the people that we're fighting against are also God's children. They're also people who Christ died for.

You know I'm way more political than I should be. I know that. One of the most discouraging things about the modern political climate is that, more and more (and this is on both the right and the left), more and more people are seeing each other as enemies to be destroyed. They're not fighting fair.

There are many Republicans that gloat when bad things happen to Democrats and there are many Democrats that gloat when calamities happen to Republicans. And I don't think that represents the heart of God.

Remember the story of Jonah? Very similar story to this. Jonah is sent by God as a prophet to go to the city of Nineveh. Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrian Empire were the ones that came and wiped Israel out. God sent Jonah to that city, to Israel's enemies, to preach to them, to give them the opportunity to repent.

And they did. They turned their heart back to God. And God forgave them. That book ends with Jonah sitting outside the city, having a pity party over a gourd that dried up. It ends with a rhetorical question: Jonah, you care more about this stupid gourd than you do about the souls of the millions of children that are inside that city that I just spared?

And what's the point? The point is that God cares about people, even people whose heart is arrayed against Him. And it's a good thing God does care for his enemies and God does love his enemies because the Bible teaches that all of us were there. All of us were there before Christ saved us. If you are saved today, God loved you when you were his enemy. It's good for us to remind ourselves of that when we have skirmishes with other people.

So Elisha tells the king, "Feed these people, give them something to drink, and send them home." Let's read what the king does in the next verse, the last verse we're going to read tonight.

23 And he prepared great provision for them: and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel.
2 Kings 6:23 (KJV)

The King, against every human instinct and desire, does what Elisha says. He feeds these people, he treats them well, and he sends them back to their master. But notice what the last phrase of verse 23 says. It says, "The bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel."

Think about that. These armies have been fighting each other for probably decades at this point. They've had this ongoing war between each other for decades and no amount of military might and effort has put an end to this war.

But do you know what did put an end to the war? Doing what God said.

Church, I think a final principle to end on tonight is this:

Doing things God's way always leads to the best outcome.

Very often what makes sense, what is practical, and what God tells us to do are two completely different things.

Turn the other cheek does not make sense. Go the second mile is not a practical instruction. Giving 10% of your income to the Lord, that is not a practical command.

But there are these things and many other things that God tells us to do. I don't know if He's testing our faith or if this is just the mind of God and we're too small to understand it. Probably both.

But when we do things God's way, it always leads to the most blessed outcome.

Conclusion

Elisha's servant in this story asked a terrific question. He asked, "What are we going to do?" Or in the words of our King James: “How shall we do?”

I think all of us are asking that question: "What am I going to do? What are we going to do? What are we going to do in this situation? What are we going to do when the world seems to be falling apart? What are we going to do when the doctor gives us bad news? What are we going to do when we feel crushed by terrible loss?" What are we going to do?

And I think we can find the answers in our text. We go to the Lord. We understand that God is doing things that we can't see. God is watching out for us. God is protecting us. God is working things out for His good.

And we determine we're going to do things God's way, even if it makes no sense to the outside world.

Now at the beginning of the message, when I was first introducing this, I said something about the city that Elisha lived in, Dothan. I told you that Dothan only shows up in the scripture two different times: here and in a little story where a boy named Joseph is thrown into a pit.

So both the times that Dothan shows up in our Bible, it is a terrible circumstance.

How many of you would say it's a terrible circumstance to be almost beaten to death by your brothers and thrown into a pit and then sold into slavery?

How many of you would say it's a terrible circumstance to wake up one morning and be surrounded by the total force of your enemy's army?

Terrible circumstances but you know what? In both cases Dothan shows up in the Bible. God is about to do something great and God is using those terrible circumstances to work things out for good.

And maybe just maybe you're in Dothan right now. Maybe you are finding yourself in a terrible circumstance and things look really bleak. Can I remind you that God is still in control and God is still good and we can trust him? There is more with us than there is with them. We just need to trust him and do what he says and things will work out for good, will have the best outcome, because nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Let's stand together and pray.