2 Kings 6:8-23 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.… I. That the GREATEST FORCES IN THIS WORLD ARE THE FORCES WHICH WE CALL SPIRITUAL AND INVISIBLE, and the strong, brave, fearless men are the men who believe in these forces, lean upon them, and in a certain sense see and grasp them. It is not so with the man of facts and figures, with what the Bible calls the darkened mind of the children of this world. He sets at nought all that he cannot see and measure. He stupidly thinks that the five senses take in everything. He takes stock of his material resources, counts men, weapons, machinery, and money, throws in perhaps a little brain, scientific knowledge, intellectual smartness, and then concludes that he has all the equipment which he needs for life's battle, or at least all the equipment which it is possible to gain. Turn to the Bible, and you at once get into the company of men whose might is in other weapons, who are covered with the invisible panoply of God, and who see around them the spiritual chariots and horses. They take little account of material masses and numbers. They laugh at huge figures. A grain of faith outweighs the resources of a kingdom. And there is no question about their heroic strength and fearlessness. The sceptic would call it imagination, but it is the kind of imagination which invests them with wonderful power. For these men are the world's masters; they have all a touch of the superhuman. Moses defying the might of Egypt; Gideon with his little regiment charging the vast army of Midianites; Elijah in lonely grandeur challenging the furious rabble of Baal's prophets; Daniel setting at naught the king's princes, nobles, and hungry lions of Babylon; Peter and John scornfully resisting the browbeating magistrates. Magnificent figures were all these. We would give all our goods to be like them. Yet it was simply their belief in the unseen forces which made them what they were. They saw the fiery chariots and the armies of heaven. They knew that God and Omnipotence were on their side, and only the fickle whims and passions of men against them. II. IT IS ALWAYS THESE UNSEEN FORCES THAT WE RECKON UPON IN OUR CHRISTIAN WARFARE TO-DAY. What we call faith is just Elisha's vision and the steadfast heart which it brings. Faith, if not actually compassed about by invisible armies, is nerved, inspired, and energised by thoughts, upliftings, and confidences which make a man more than a match for his fellow-men. Without that, the battle for God's truth and roll, on would be a forlorn and wretchedly hopeless business. The valiant fighters in it are always outnumbered and overmatched. Religious censuses would fill us with despair if we weighed spiritual forces in ordinary scales. Where there is one man mightily earnest in this struggle there are ten standing aloof, and ten more lukewarm. The odds are all apparently on the evil side. Yet we never lose heart until we have lost all faith. We are always optimists until our eyes become blind to the unseen forces. These unseen forces are operating on every man. We have allies in every man's heart. When he is most against us, there is something in him that is for us. Every man has occasional visions of the fiery chariots. There is a judgment throne which he can never wholly forget. There is an eternal righteousness which he knows he must reckon with. There is something in every man which secretly sides with the good. There is conscience, and memory, and unrest, and a lurking fear of the very God whom he denies. The warfare is not unequal, as it seems. III. Remember that THESE AND COUNTLESS UNSEEN FORCES ARE OVER AND AROUND EVERY ONE WHO IS RESOLUTELY BENT ON LIVING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. We often hear of the difficulties of the Christian life. I think we hear more about its difficulties than about its helps. We get into the murmuring vein of the children of Israel, who were always magnifying shadows into mountains and ordinary fees into terrible giants. Yet surely there is another and brighter and diviner side to all that which the darkened eyes do not see, and which the despondent mind often forgets. There are many things against the godly life, but there are more things for it. Yes, we have more helps than temptations, more inspirations than discouragements, more incentives and wings than drawbacks and chains. (J. G. Greenhough, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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