2 Kings, Chapter 6 - Open Your Eyes | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] Shalom friends. Welcome back to the Prophets of Israel Daily. This is the book of 2 [music] Kings chapter 6. I'm Jeremy Gimpel here with you know who, Arya Bramitz. [music] This series is brought to you by the land of Israel network at thelandis.com. All right, chapter 6 moves through three very different scenes from almost a humble, if you can say that, humble miracle to a war fought on a supernatural battlefield to one of the most harrowing moments in the book of Kings. It opens small. The Banim, this company of prophets around Alicia has grown and they go down to the Jordan to cut wood to build a bigger place to live. And as one of them is chopping, the iron axe head flies off and sinks into the river. Verse five, and he cried out and said, "Alas, master, for it was borrowed." Jeremy, I love that the chapter opens with this because it's such a small problem. And that's exactly the point. Think about the scale. We're used to Alicia's grand miracles, raising the dead, feeding multitudes, also the small ones as well, you know, but the text really slows down for a borrowed axe head that fell in a river. I mean, that's taking a small miracle to a an extreme degree, a lost tool. And the man is distraught, not because it's valuable, but because it wasn't his, it was borrowed, and now he can't return it. And instead of saying, "It's just an axe head. Don't trouble the greatest prophet of the generation," Alicia takes it completely seriously. He cuts a stick, throws it in the water, and the iron floats so that the man can lift it out. On top of wanting to investigate more deeply why he needed the spiritual dynamics of throwing that in so it would come up, which I want to do later. I don't exactly know the answer to that, but I want to investigate it. There's still something beautiful in that. You know, Hashem through his prophet cares about just this small little thing, the ordinary person's ordinary worry. And notice the man's integrity. His first concern wasn't the loss to himself. It was the responsibility of returning what he borrowed. The lesson for us, I think, is that nothing we carry is too small to bring before Hashem. and no responsibility is too minor to take seriously. It meant a lot to this man. And so it meant a lot to Hashem. It's it's about the heart. You know, the same God who parts the seas cares that an honest man can keep his word over a borrowed X. You know, our small worries are not beneath Hashem's attention. >> You know, it's really beautiful. But the rad points out, he says that had he would have been his his own ax, he wouldn't have troubled anyone. Um, but it was because it was specifically borrowed, he felt fully responsible. And it's also just such a cool imagery. The iron axe head emerging from the water, floating on the surface until the prophet in training picks it up. It's just cool. And so then the shift that the chapter shifts to war. It's like, whoa, what happened? The king of Aram is raiding Israel and he keeps setting up ambushes, but every time the king of Israel is mysteriously warned and avoids the trap. The Armenian king is convinced that there's a traitor in his own camp until an officer tells him there's no traitor. It's Alicia, the prophet in Israel, who keeps on telling his king, "The very words you speak in your bedroom, Alicia is tapped in. He can hear it all." So the king of Aram sends a huge army by night to surround the city of Dothan and capture one man, the prophet Alicia. And in the morning, Alicia's servants step outside. They see the enemy army encircling them, horses and chariots everywhere in panics. Alas, my master, what shall we do? In Alicia's answer is epic. Verse 16. Aeranum, do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And Alicia prays not for a miracle, but that his servants's eyes be opened to the reality that is the miraculous protection is already there. Verse 17. Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Alicia. >> Right. And Jeremy, that moment, open his eyes that he may see, is, I think, such an important verse, such an important moment for how we're meant to understand reality itself. Look at what's happening. The servant sees the Aramean army and he is terrified because by every normal measure they are hopelessly outnumbered, two of them against the whole army. His fear is completely rational. He's looking at the facts. But Alicia says something bigger, something deeper, something more transcendent. Those with us are more than those with them. And the servant must have thought, "What are you talking about? There's just two of us. And then Alicia prays and the young man's eyes are opened and he sees what was there the entire time. A mountain blazing with the fiery hosts of heaven. The the angelic army was always there. The servant just couldn't see it. And and Jeremy, I think that the deepest truth here that we're supposed to be learning is really about that the miracle was not that God sent the chariots of fire. They were already there. The miracle was that the servant was given the eyes to see them. And really, especially in our generation, it's such a lesson because so often we look at our situation and we see only the enemy army, only the threats, the odds against us, the reason to despair. And that fear is rational. It's rational. It makes sense. You can understand it based on what our eyes can see. But Alicia is telling us there is another layer of reality always present. And we usually can't perceive that the hand of Hashem, the help of heaven is surrounding us. Faith isn't pretending that the enemy army isn't there. Faith is knowing that what we can't see is more real and more powerful than what we can see. The whole spiritual life is really a prayer to have our eyes opened to see the chariots of fire that were there all the time or at least even if we can't see with our physical eyes to know in our hearts that they're there and what we've been going through in this war. Jeremy, I think every person in this country has experienced that they're there. >> Yeah, I love that. The chariots of fire are there all along. I mean that is just imagine if you can live with that reality knowing you would operate so differently in the world if only Israel really took that to the next level. We would just be done with the kamas and their evil. Anyway, let's get back to Tanakh. Then Alicia does uh something remarkable I guess with the reality that is he prays again but and this time Hashem strikes the Armenian army with blindness and Alicia walks right up to them and says this isn't the way. This isn't the city. Follow me. And he leads the entire blinded army straight into Samaria into the hands of the king of Israel. And when their eyes are opened, they're trapped in the enemy capital. The king of Israel is thrilled. He's like, "Shall I strike them? Shall I kill them?" But Alicia says, "No." Verse 22, "You shall not kill them. Would you kill those who you have taken captive with your sword and your bow. Set food and water before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master." And then the text says, "The raiding bands of Aram stopped coming into the land of Israel." >> And Jeremy, that is such an unexpected and I think powerful turn because Alicia holding total victory in his hand chooses mercy instead. Right? Think about it. The enemy army is blind, helpless, trapped in the capital. The king of Israel wants to slaughter them. At least he's open to it. And militarily, who could blame him? These are raiders who have been terrorizing the people of Israel. But Alicia says, "No, feed them. Give them a feast and send them home to their king." And the result, the raid stopped. The thing that years of warfare and ambushes couldn't achieve. An end to the Aramean raids was achieved through mercy. Sending the enemy home fed and unharmed. broke the cycle in a way of killing uh that the killing just never was able to do which is also by the way to me very confusing Jeremy because so often the king of Israel does the opposite and he's supposed to to go to war and he says oh no my brother and now he wants to go to war and it's no we're supposed to have mercy but the mercy of the prophet the mercy that Hashem says to show that was the mercy I guess he saw that that mercy would work >> I think that like every prophet has its their own truth. Elijah the prophet, you know, wanted fire to come down to kill the prophets of Baal. And Alicia is just the he was the prophet of water, just a lifegiving prophet. So, he was just acting in his own attributes and experiencing the miraculous hand of God through Alicia. Just that extraordinary kindness, it disarmed them literally and spiritually. And so what years of warfare couldn't solve uh the prophet solved in this one miraculous encounter. But the chapter doesn't end there. And it doesn't end gently because the final scene is one of the darkest that I can remember reading in many verses. Verse 24. Later Benhad gathers his entire army and lays a crushing siege on Samaria and a horrific famine sets in. It becomes so desperate that two women make an unspeakable agreement to eat their own children. One does and then the other one hides her own child. And when the king of Israel hears of this story, he just rips his clothes in anguish. And in his despair, he blames the prophet, vowing to kill Alicia that very day. And again, the king of Israel. Instead of introspection, the king blames the prophet, the source of truth in the world. And the chapter ends there on this knife's edge in the depths of suffering. And we'll have to wait for chapter 7 to see how Hashem answers. And friends, that's what I take away from chapter 6. first just for our own lives. The chapter is in a way all about vision. You know, it's about what we're able to see. The man grieved at this lost borrowed item. And Hashem showed him that it mattered. The servant saw only the enemy until his eyes were open to the fiery chariots of heaven surrounding him. And the king in the end saw only despair and couldn't see God's hand in all of it. And so the whole spiritual challenge of our life is right there. It's to see. It's to pray for eyes to see. Like Alicia, just to pray that our eyes would be open and to bring even small worries, bring those to Hashem. And then to see the chariots of fire behind our fears, to know that even if we can't see them, the chariots of fire, they're there all along. in what we see and how we choose to see things that's going to determine how we live. And for Israel today, this chapter is the truth that has sustained us through every exile in every war. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And so may the our generation have the eyes to see that, to believe that, to act like that, to see the hand of Hashem that's always surrounding Israel. My friends, I hope you join us at the Land of Israel Fellowship. Take your learning to the next level. Come to the live gathering. It's this coming Sunday. You can try it for free. [music] Just click on the link below. Visit the landofisrael.com. You don't want to [music] miss it. It's free. We're giving it away. Come to experience it. I'm telling you, you're going to really, really appreciate it.