The stories of Elijah and Elisha give us a picture of what it will be like in the days to come. Elijah and Elisha lived in days of famine, days when people had problems surviving. Elisha dealt more with kings than did Elijah: the king of Syria, the king of Israel, and the king of Judah. Elisha had a great deal of counsel and wisdom to give them.
Once, Ben-hadad the king of Syria, thought that a spy for Israel was in his council. He said, “Who is for Israel here?” Every time he planned a raid his army was circumvented completely because Elisha would send a full report of the plan to Jehoram, the king of Israel (II Kings 6:11, 12).
Elisha lived in Samaria at this time, and Jehoram lived in the capital of Samaria. The king of Israel was the second son of Jezebel and Ahab. Elisha called him a “son of a murderer” (II Kings 6:32). Jezebel had killed Naboth and many of the prophets of the Lord (I Kings 18:4; 21:11–14).
The story we are interested in begins in II Kings 6 and continues into the seventh chapter. Now it came about after this, that Ben-hadad king of Syria gathered all his army and went up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria; and behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a fourth of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver. Dove’s dung was a small pea that was given its name because it looked like dove’s dung.
And as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” And he said, “If the Lord does not help you, from where shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the wine press?” And the king said to her, “What is the matter with you?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son and ate him; and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.” And it came about when the king heard the words of the woman, that he tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body. Then he said, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today.”
Now Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. And the king sent a man from his presence; but before the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, “Do you see how this son of a murderer has sent to take away my head?” Elisha had the capacity to see what was happening. He had in his spirit a projected consciousness to see what was happening. “Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door shut against him. Is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him?” He did not want to be executed before he gave the word to the master. And while he was still talking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him, and he said, “Behold, this evil is from the Lord; why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”
Then Elisha said, “Listen to the word of the Lord; thus says the Lord, ‘Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.’ ” And the royal officer on whose hand the king was leaning answered the man of God and said, “Behold, if the Lord should make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” Then he said, “Behold you shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” II Kings 6:24–7:2.
In this story we see a pattern that applies to us today. The siege on Samaria is parallel to the satanic assault that is coming against the word of God. Amos prophesied that there would be a famine in the land, a famine not for bread, but for hearing the words of the Lord (Amos 8:11).
Wherever there is a prophet of God, a word of God, Satan starts a siege. God gives a word, and it seems that Satan sets up many obstacles to hinder or delay the people from moving into the fullness of it. Satan is raging because he knows his time is short (Revelation 12:12), and he knows that the word that is coming forth is shortening his time. When the word of the Kingdom is preached unto all the world for a witness, then the end will come (Matthew 24:14). We have a word to speak; Satan will attack the word and do everything he can to lay siege to it, to keep the people of God hemmed in.
We are being hemmed in on every side, and we need to break out. How can we do it? By pure faith. During the time that Satan besieges us we see the true intents of our hearts exposed. What came from Elisha’s heart was pure faith. What came from Jehoram the king, Jezebel’s son, was murder. Jehoram voiced what was in him. He wanted to kill Elisha and blame him for everything that had taken place.
One of these days the world will find a way to blame the Christians for all the evils that have happened. Nero blamed the Christians for Rome being burned. Christians have been singled out for harassment and persecution throughout history. When the world turns on those who walk on with God, they will have the scapegoat that they are seeking on which to place all the responsibility for what they have brought upon themselves.
The satanic siege is not only on God’s remnant, but on Babylon as well. It will be more difficult for people to get out of Babylon than we realize. Only the voice of the Spirit calling them will bring them out. All the people are not entrenched in Babylon; some of them want out very badly; but Satan is laying siege to Babylon. He wants to keep everyone in Babylon and hem in all God’s people. What happens under this siege? The people who are not walking with God become self-consuming. The mothers of Samaria were willing to eat their sons. This is exactly what Babylon is doing.
Great mystery Babylon is drunk on the blood of martyrs (Revelation 17:6). If a child begins to come forth in Babylon who could walk with God, he is devoured. Babylon is a city of spiritual cannibals. As soon as a young man or woman becomes full of zeal, buckets of cold water are thrown on his fire. Babylon is filled with cannibals. They destroy every bit of life, every bit of fervor. The people of Babylon are self-consuming in their apostasy. Under siege, they start to destroy one another. You might think that if their situation gets bad enough, they will repent. If it gets bad enough, they will eat and consume one another. Galatians 5:15 states, But if you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another.
The royal officer on whose hand the king leaned presents a good picture of the contrast between faith and unbelief. Do not get the idea that a man full of unbelief will never see God’s truths. He will—too late. That officer was literally stomped to death when the people left the city. He saw the fulfillment of Elisha’s word, but he did not live to partake of it. The people who are presently filled with doubts about our walk with God and about what God is saying will see the truth of it when it is too late.
Sceptics say that they will believe if they are given some evidence or some sign. No, the signs comes to those who believe. If God would show them signs so that they would believe, they would be following signs instead of following Him. Christ told His disciples that signs would follow those who believe (Mark 16:17). We are not to be a people who follow after signs. If that were the case we could easily be deceived into following after Satan when he comes with lying signs and wonders (Matthew 24:24). Unbelief will demand evidence and look for a reasonable doubt. But God gives a word and says, “Believe; then you will see the glory of God” (John 11:40).
Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate. The people of the city, even though they were dying, still did not want to be around lepers. The same is true of Babylon. They have spiritual death in them, but they do not want any sinners around, none of the obnoxious type. They want to be separate from riffraff, but the riffraff turn out to be the ones who save their lives.
God is a great equalizer. He takes the poor of the world and makes them rich in faith (James 2:5). He did not deliver Israel from the giant through Saul, who was a head and shoulders above everyone else; God’s deliverance came by the hands of a young boy with a slingshot. When God wants to work deliverance, He does it in a way that is humbling.
The lepers looked at one another and said, “Why do we sit here until we die?”
“If we say, ‘We will enter the city,’ then the famine is in the city and we shall die there; and if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare us, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die.” And they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians; when they came to the outskirts of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. II Kings 7:3–5.
The problems that you anticipate rarely happen. It is those unexpected ones that upset you. The lepers thought they had their plan all worked out; but when they reached the camp, the enemy was gone. For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear a sound of chariots and a sound of horses, even the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.” They had the situation all reasoned out. Therefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents and their horses and their donkeys, even the camp just as it was, and fled for their life. When these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they entered one tent and ate and drank and carried from there silver and gold and clothes, and went and hid them; and they returned and entered another tent and went and carried from there also, and went and hid them. Verses 6–8.
Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is the day of good news, but we are keeping silent; if we wait until morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go and tell the king’s household.” Verse 9.
This is a truth that is often missed. The lepers received so much that they said, “If we wait until morning’s light, then punishment or judgment will overtake us.”
You will be a partaker of the judgments to come upon this world if you just keep quiet about God’s provisions. If you want to escape the judgments that are coming upon the whole world, then you must fulfill the purpose for which Christ raised you up, and that is to send the gospel of the Kingdom to the ends of the world. If you fulfill God’s purpose for your life, you will miss the judgments; you will be preserved. If you do not fulfill God’s purpose, then He will deal with you as He deals with all the world.
The Syrians fled from their camp. Very basic to the man of the world is his fear; very basic to the child of God is his trust in God. The wicked flee when no man pursueth… Proverbs 28:1. Terror fills the hearts of the fearful and the unbelieving.
The lepers told the gatekeepers of the city about the empty Syrian camp. And the gatekeepers called, and told it within the king’s household. The king’s reaction was what could be expected of a son of a Jezebel. Then the king arose in the night and said to his servants, “I will now tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry; therefore they have gone from the camp to hide themselves in the field, saying, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall capture them alive and get into the city.’ ” And one of his servants answered and said, “Please, let some men take five of the horses which remain.” Verses 11–13a. All the other animals had died or been eaten. The people were so desperate for food that a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels, and it would not have much meat.
The servant reasoned that the scouts would be in no greater danger than anyone else: “Behold, they will be in any case like all the multitude of Israel who have already perished, so let us send and see.” The scouts took two chariots with horses and went to see what had happened. They found the way was full of clothes and equipment which the Syrians had thrown away in their haste (Verse 15).
So the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. Then a measure of fine flour was sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord. Now the king appointed the royal officer on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. Can you picture that pompous man trying to tell the people what to do. Those people were starving to death. He was not a good judge of what God would do, nor was he a good judge of what the people would do. But he was a good politician. He was the one on whom the king leaned. He had worked his way right up to the king.
The king appointed his royal officer to have charge of the gate. But the people trampled on him at the gate, and he died just as the man of God had said, who spoke when the king came down to him. And it came about just as the man of God had spoken to the king, saying, “Two measures of barley for a shekel and a measure of fine flour for a shekel, shall be sold tomorrow about this time in the gate of Samaria.” Verses 16–18.
The prophet had said to the officer, “Behold you shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” It happened; the people trampled on him at the gate, and he died. You do not want to see God’s truths too late. The man of the world, as well as the religious man, doubts the validity of a walk with God, prophecy, and revelation. These truths must become a revelation to his heart, and he must believe.
The days will come when people will seek out the records of the prophecies that have come. They will marvel at what has come to pass in the lives of the people who have believed; they will marvel at how accurate the prophecies were that predicted the trends. We are in a place of revelation. Those who say that they have to see it before they believe it will see the truth too late to partake of it. We want to believe now.
Very few people walk with God by what they observe. The Kingdom of God is not coming with observation (Luke 17:20). Men are not brought into it because they see certain events coming to pass and realize that the Kingdom of God is coming. No one walks with God as a result of what he sees in the natural. You are in a walk with God because the Lord revealed it to your heart. As it became a revelation to your heart, you prepared to walk with God. If you believe, you will see. God gives a special sight to the man of faith. By faith he understands; by faith he perceives; by faith he is able to see what is taking place.
I can rejoice when I read the newspaper because I see what is really happening. Other people read the newspaper, and they become like the wicked who flee when no man pursues (Proverbs 28:1). Their hearts begin to tremble, and they become fearful. We are not fearful because we know God has spoken to our hearts and we know what is going to come to pass.
“And these signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it shall not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Mark 16:17, 18. If human wisdom had given that commission and promise, it would have reversed it to say: “First, we will heal the sick; second, no deadly thing will hurt us; third, we will pick up serpents; and last, we will cast out devils.” But in the spiritual realm that is not the order.
When the Lord places you on a new plane, you enter into a new realm to possess it, and you might be surprised at the inhabitants in it. It is a land flowing with milk and honey, but there is also a giant. The Lord did not mention anything about that giant. God let him stay in the land to take care of the vineyard for you so that the wild beasts would not multiply (Exodus 23:29). What will you do about that giant? You must battle him and take the vineyard away from him. First, you face giants and warfare. The last thing you face is the milk and honey.
If you preach the gospel unto all the world, what will happen? First, in Christ’s name you will cast out demons. What will happen if you try to walk with God? First, you will meet the devil. Spiritual warfare is an integral part of a walk with God. You might as well understand that. Satan will battle every new area into which you move. The first thing you find is the usurper dwelling at that spiritual level to hold out the people of God.
The sons of God come forth to release the spiritual world from its futility and from the demonic harassment and oppression. Demons have no authority; they are usurpers. They have had powers to resist and reject, but all authority in heaven and earth is ours. We must realize that Satan does not belong; it is our territory. We have the authority as kings and priests of the Lord to move in and possess it in the name of the Lord Jesus.