In 2 Kings 6, Israel’s inveterate enemy, the king of Syria, had planned by wicked stealth to destroy them. But Elisha, God’s prophet, forewarned Israel’s king of the evil devices of his adversary so that the nation was delivered. Then Elisha seemed to retire into the obscurity of one of those many seasons of quiet communion with his God that so often intervened between the higher lights of his public testimony. The king of Syria, baffled at the mysterious frustration of his well laid plans, sent spies to find Elisha. They found him in Dothan, and that is quite striking in itself.
It calls to our memory at once Joseph, that beloved servant of God of many years before. When he was a lad of seventeen, Joseph was sent by his father to search out his brethren. In his lonely quest after their welfare, he found them at long last in Dothan. It was there that they so cruelly abused him, and sold him as a slave to the Midianites. Perhaps Elisha and his servant, as they rested among the quiet hills in the little city of Dothan, remembered that this town had been made famous because of Joseph and his brethren.
Elisha Prayed
Early one morning, as the golden sunlight splashed its rosy hues across the eastern horizon beyond the hills, Elisha’s servant stepped from the threshold of their humble dwelling to find to his astonishment that the city was surrounded by a host of Syrian warriors determined to destruction him and his master. He ran to Elisha and said, “Alas, my master, how shall we do?” Then his master, with that easy grace and calm courage that characterizes the true servants of God, answered the trembling young man in these magnificent words: “Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”
A look of incredulous astonishment must have come across the face of the young man as he heard these strange words from the lips of his master. As far as the eye could see around the city, there was an armed host of belligerent enemies with no sign of a friend anywhere. “Fear not,” said Elisha, “they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” But words alone were small consolation before the impelling force of the sight of all those enemies, and Elisha was not unsympathetic for the fear and dread that possessed his beloved follower.
Then the scripture says so beautifully: “Elisha prayed.” He did not pray for deliverance from his enemies because he knew that was sure. His prayer was on behalf of the young man, that the Lord would find a ready means of centering his confidence in Jehovah.
Elisha 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.”
“Fear Not”
In this wonderfully dramatic episode we have a scene which sets out in great grandeur some of the most encouraging truths for Christian hearts today. The devil, our arch enemy, has gathered his forces of belligerent power to surround the Christian camp at this very hour. His intention is to attack our faith. We are living in the last days when Satan is making one grand assault, not only on the citadel of Christian truth, but upon the people of God themselves. His passion is that he might destroy finally and completely every vestige of testimony for Christ from the earth. He has managed to create confusion and chaos in the world at large; the cruel scourge of war’s fear is laid across the backs of the nations; international tension is near the breaking point, but Satan’s one great desire, which tops everything else, is that he might destroy all Christian testimony. These are the days in which we find ourselves. We look across the spiritual landscape and we see our “city of Dothan,” the city of Joseph and his brethren, of Elisha and his servant, of Christ and His people, surrounded on every hand by the forces of Satan, ready to do battle against us. Much like Elisha’s servant, we tremble at the sight.
Yet we also have an “Elisha” to whom we can go. The Elisha of today sits on the throne of God on high, and as we come to Him, trembling and in fear sometimes, we hear His blessed words: “Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”
In the words of our Lord: “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” “What shall we say then to these things; if God be for us, who can be against us?” And “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
He who sits on heaven’s throne tells us with deepest affection as His voice comes to us through the shadows: “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” And, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age.”
These are but the living echoes of Elisha’s words to his servant in the town of Dothan: “Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” Not only did Elisha speak the reassuring word, but he retired to his chamber, and kneeled before the Lord and prayed for the young man, asking the Lord to open his eyes. How similar this is to the present session of our Lord Himself, our Great High Priest, who has gone into the peace and quiet of those celestial regions where “He ever liveth to make intercession for us.”
Our Great High Priest
There was an occasion in the life of Simon Peter when the devil and his legions surrounded him that they might make a grand assault on the citadel of his faith, just as the host of Syrians surrounded the town where Elisha and his servant lived. But the Lord said to Simon: “Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and when thou are restored, strengthen thy brethren” (Lk. 22:31-32).
How the devil must have laughed with complacent and evil delight when he heard poor Peter deny his Lord with oaths and curses! The battle was going against him that night as he sat in the courtyard at the high priest’s house and told them with ugly and unseemly language that he never knew the Man called Jesus. It seemed a great triumph for Satan to have this trembling disciple disown his Lord, but Jesus had prayed for him and the time came when the restored Peter stood valiantly on the day of Pentecost. Then it was his turn then to make a grand assault on the citadel of Satan’s domain.
In Acts 2, Peter stood up fearlessly amid the thousands who had flocked to Jerusalem that they might hear about this One called Jesus who had died and had risen from the dead. Then Peter gathered together all the armaments of the power of the Spirit of God and discharged a broadside salvo on the forces of wickedness, making such inroads on their battlements that he carried away three thousand prisoners into the camp of the Lord in one day. The devil’s temporary victory was turned into defeat and disorderly retreat, and Simon, the faltering, failing disciple who had denied his Lord, stood on the field of battle with three thousand new converts gathered around him as a witness that has shone like the noonday sun through the centuries. “They that be with us are more than they that be with them.”
Round about Elisha
The priestly service of our Lord is still available to us at present, but we do not properly estimate its value. Jesus the Christ, the Son of God has risen from the dead, the mighty Victor. All who stand by His side, as the servant stood by Elisha’s side, will be victorious. Elisha prayed for his servant. Jesus the Lord prayed for Simon Peter, and right now our Lord and Saviour, seated at the right hand of God on high, is praying for us. Not that we might be saved from defeat, because in Him we are already victorious. His prayer, like that of Elisha, is: “Open his eyes, that he may see.”
When the young man’s eyes were opened, he looked around. His vision had been shortsighted and blurred before, so that he was unable to see beyond the heads of the host that surrounded the city in which he stood. But now he looked beyond with divine perception to the hills that skirted the valley, and saw them alive with horses and chariots of fire, round about Elisha.
Notice that expression, “round about Elisha.” As long as the young man stayed close to Elisha there could be no question of his safety, for that armed host of divine might found its center in Elisha. The young man’s place of safety was by the side of his master, even as our place of safety is by the side of Christ our Lord.
Let us look beyond the murky fog that enswathes the earth about us, being less occupied with the devil’s prowess as he makes his assault on us from every hand in the world today. Let us look instead to the empyrean hills of heaven and see the celestial heights, peopled with a vast army of divine emissaries, and say with God-given confidence: “If God be for us, who can be against us?”