The Unfailing Help

The Unfailing Help

(No. 3162)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1909.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
20, 1873.

"And the King said, If the Lord does not help you, where can I find
help for you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?" 2 Kings
6:27.

I READ in your hearing the very horrible incident connected with the
siege of Samaria. I do not wonder that when the poor woman applied to
the king he should have been horrified. He felt that her case, and the
case of all about him was a desperate one, so he said, "If Jehovah does
not interpose, what can I do?" The winepress is dry and the threshing
floor is empty–there is nothing left to alleviate the horrors of
famine. "If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you?"

I. Now the CASE OF EVERY UNSAVED MAN IS A VERY TERRIBLE ONE. He is not
in dread of immediate death by famine, but if he is at all awakened to
know his true condition, he will labor under a fear of something worse
than death, and worse than the need of bread. There is many a sinner
that I have met with (and I know the feeling myself) who would be glad
if death could end it and if that were all. But "there is the dread of
something after death"–that wrath to come of which the Word of God
speaks in such solemn tones–that fire that never shall be quenched,
that worm that dies not–it is that which haunts the sinner's
conscience when he is once awakened to know his condition! And horrible
as the story was in Samaria, it is not worse than the horrible fate
that awaits every man who lives and dies unsaved!

Now it is no wonder at all, that when a man is awakened to see his
great danger, standing as he does upon the edge of a precipice with a
frightful gulf beneath him, he begins to appeal to anybody and
everybody and to cry for help. So, tonight, I am going to begin by
saying that in the case of the sinner, it is vain to look to man, for
every honest man will have to say to such an one, "If the Lord does not
help you, how can I help you?" You feel that you are in dreadful danger
and you want to be saved–I beseech you, do not look to any of us, or
to any of your fellow creatures for help, for we are quite powerless in
the matter! God must save you! He must give you Christ or else you must
die. We have no power to forgive your sins. There are some pretenders
who surely ought to feel themselves out of place in this age, like owls
in daylight, who still profess that they can pardon sin. It is a
strange country, this. If a poor woman in a red cloak passes a farm and
for sixpence tells a servant girl her fortune, she is put in prison.
And I will not say but what she deserves it–yet a gentleman may stand
up before his thousands and pretend to turn bread and wine into the
flesh and blood of God, and to have power to pardon sin, and I have
never heard of any punishment for so gross an imposition! It is
infinitely more gross than anything the poor ignorant witch has ever
practiced! It is not in us to pardon sin. If you had offended us, we
might pardon your offenses against ourselves, but offenses against God
must be forgiven by God, Himself.

"Does not the power which rested in the Apostles to forgive sin still
rest in the Church?" I think it does, but no Apostle ever had the power
to pardon an impenitent soul! No Apostle ever had the power to pardon
one who did not believe in Jesus. All that an Apostle could do was to
say that he was pardoned when he saw that he believed and repented–and
that same power belongs to us to this day–to declare, in God's name,
that HE THAT BELIEVES IN HIM IS NOT CONDEMNED and that he that
confesses his sin to God and forsakes it, shall find mercy–but with
this exception (and it is no exception, at all) all power in the matter
of pardoning sin rests with the eternal God and with Him, alone. It is
certainly not in the power of any man to renew your nature! You cannot
enter Heaven except you are born-again. Unconverted man, you must be
made a new creature in Christ Jesus, but there is no man under Heaven
that can create in you a new heart or a right spirit! Let a man first
create as much as a fly and send it winging its way in the sum-

mer's air and then let him talk about regenerating a soul. It is a
stupendous work–a work to which only the Deity is equal! God alone
creates or re-creates the soul of man! You look in vain, then, to
any–even though they call themselves priests or bishops or Doctors of
Divinity! Your fellow men cannot help you in the matter! You must be
born-again from above, and the Spirit of God must do it, or your case
is hopeless.

But it is said, "Can we not pray for sinners?" Yes, blessed be God, we
can, and THE PRAYER OF A RIGHTEOUS MAN AVAILS MUCH. During this week I
have had very many requests for prayers, and some of them from some of
you now present. Such prayers as mine, indeed have gone up to Heaven
for you, that you might find peace. But I charge you before God, put no
superstitious confidence in myprayers or in the prayers of anybody!
What could your mother's prayers do for you? Nothing at all unless you
pray for yourself. If the Apostle Paul were here and pleading to God,
what would be the use of his prayers? Just nothing unless the Lord
moved you to make a personal confession of your sin and to believe
personally in Jesus and personally to pray to Him! Now there is a great
value in prayer. I value the prayer of a little child. The poorest
Christian has power with God in supplication. We do not undervalue
that, but still, if the Lord does not help you in answer to those
prayers and if it does not become a personalmatter with yourself so
that you pray, you will be guilty of a superstitious reliance upon the
prayers of others–having made a god of them–and God will be grieved
with you for having done so. No prayers of all the saints on earth
could save a single soul unless that soul fled for refuge to the hope
set before it in the Gospel in the Person of Jesus Christ.

But perhaps there may be some persons here who will say, "Cannot you
help me by giving me the ordinances of the Christian religion? Will not
they help me?" Ah, Beloved Friends, if you are continually here in this
place, I am sure you are not under that delusion! There is no ordinance
in the Christian religion that belongs to unconverted people. Can you
not be baptized? you ask. No, you have nothing to do with Baptism until
you are a Believer in Jesus Christ! Perhaps there is no Popish error
which has done more mischief to the Christian Church than that of
giving baptism to unconverted persons–to persons who have no faith in
Jesus–under the notion that it does something, for if it does
nothingat all of any good! Why is it given? And to the extent to which
it is believed that there can be any efficacy in it–to that extent it
is mere Popery and Sacramentarianism and ought to be abandoned by the
true Believer in Jesus Christ! I believe we should increase sin by that
view, but certainly not wash it away, for you would have been guilty of
having dared to take to yourself an ordinance which belongs to none
except to those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all their
heart. "But may we not come to the Communion Table?" No, NO, NO! And if
we dared to permit you–if we said, "Unconverted man, you may come to
the Table," we would certainly be doing you no service whatever. On the
contrary, we would be doing certain injury. Remember that dreadful
text–"He that eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks damnation to
himself–"condemnation" it ought to be, for that is the real word
there! The other is too forcible and I do but give the correct
rendering. But I would not ask you to come and eat and drink
condemnation to yourself, "Not discerning the Lord's body." Why I know
unconverted people who seldom go to a place of worship all the year
round and yet will go and take what they call, "the Sacrament," on Good
Friday–choosing that day which they receive as the memorial of
Christ's death in which especially to insult the Savior, for He never
asked them to come to His Table living in sin, living in constant
neglect of all religion and then to do Him this piece of
impertinence–to go and intrude themselves into that sacred feast to
which they are not bidden and to which they have no right to come!

Oh, believe me, if you rely on Baptism and the Lord's Supper, you might
as well rely upon the incantations of a witch or upon the spell of a
Hottentot! There is nothing in a sacrament that can, in itself, save a
soul! When you are saved, then these outward emblems remind you of
Truths of God and help your memory and stir your minds. But until you
are saved, to partake is profane! You must not touch these things! They
are for the children, not for you–for those who are saved and not for
you who are unreconciled to God! We may say, therefore, when you talk
to us about coming to what are called sacraments–"We cannot help you.
If the Lord does not help you, we cannot help you there."

But there are some who will say, "But may we not join the Church of
God?" I hope none of you, my brethren, are under the idea that if you
are unconverted and join a church, that will help you. Oh, how I have
wasted my labor here if I have led any of you to believe that! I charge
you, if you are not a friend of Christ, not to come among his friends
or declare yourself to be one by a lying profession! It is "a
superfluity of naughtiness," for there can be NO EXCUSE FOR A

MAN TO BE SERVING THE DEVIL AND THEN TO MAKE PRETENCE OF BEING A
SERVANT OF CHRIST. A

man may be damned fast enough without being a hypocrite! What need of
that? Join yourselves to God's people when you have joined yourselves
to Christ–but not till then.

I fear there are some of you that make a profession and ought not to
have done so. We labor with all our might to keep the Church pure, but
what can we do? There was a Judas among the Master's twelve and we have
Judases here and some whose lives are inconsistent–and glaringly
inconsistent, I do not doubt–and yet they profess to be the people of
God! O, dead professors, I would warn you! I desire to speak most
solemnly and earnestly to you. Of all those who perish, it must go
hardest with those of you who had a name to live and were dead, who
said you were the servants of Christ while you were the enemies of the
Cross of Christ! Be what you profess to be, or else give up your
profession. Don't cry unto the Lord and insult His gracious name by
making professions which you afterwards, by your life, deny. No, we
cannot help you by receiving you into the Church. There is nothing we
can do for you. And I venture to say this, unconverted man or woman–if
we were, all of us who love the Savior, concerned about your soul–if
we were to summon all the saints on earth to one general conclave and
they were all at once to pray for you, (and God knows your soul is
worth all that, for if all the Church labored but for one soul, it
would be well repaid by winning that one soul), yet if the Lord does
not help you, all His people cannot! It is not in the angels in Heaven,
nor the white-robed hosts above, nor the saints below to do anything
for a soul unless God, Himself, shall interpose to blot out that
sinner's sin, to renew that sinner's nature and to lead the sinner
personally to pray for himself! There is the case then.

II. That leads me, secondly, to call every unconverted person's
attention to the fact that he lies in the hands of God. "If the Lord
does not help you, where can I find help for you?" You lie in the hands
of God. Let us take you by the hand, now, and speak to you earnestly,
my brother, my sister, whose conversion I anxiously desire, but whose
conversion I cannot work, for God alone must do it.

I remind you that you are in the hands of One whom you have offended.
You have grieved God. From your youth up, perhaps, you have been
indifferent to Him. You have used His name, perhaps, to curse with. His
day has been the one above all others which you have chosen for the
pleasures of the world. You have offended God and He is angry. This is
not my word–it is written here–"He is angry with the wicked every
day. If he turns not, He will whet His sword. He has bent His bow and
made it ready." You are in the hands of the God whom you have offended!
Just as a moth is beneath your finger and you can crush it or not, as
you will, so are you absolutely in the hands of God–and in the next
moment He can send you to Hell–and who would be able to say to Him,
"What are You doing?" Or who would say that He was unjust?

Remember next, that you have no claims whatever upon this God. He made
you and as a creature, you might claim that He should treat you justly.
I would not advise you to urge that claim, however, for JUSTICE IN YOUR
CASE WILL MEAN DESTRUCTION. There is nothing due from God to you except
anger. You deserve nothing at His hands. You are altogether in His
hands, then–in the hands of an angry God and in the hands of One on
whom you have no claim.

And I should like you to feel the next thing I am going to say. Oh, if
you were to feel it, it were enough to make you

spring from your seat! THAT GOD IS LOOKING AT YOU NOW AND IS NEAR YOU
NOW. Your elbow touches the

next person in your seat, but that person is not so near to you as God
is! In Him you live and move and have your being. It is not a case of
God's coming to be with you. He is here–reading that thought that
flitted through your mind just now and knowing the thoughts that you
have before they are your own–thinking of you as if you were the only
being in the world and He gave all His attention to you. Well now, such
is the Omniscience of God, that He sees you as though you were His only
creature and He had nothing else to do but to note your follies and
faults. But, oh, while I thus speak, let me remind every man who thus
feels that he is in the hands of God–you could not be in better
hands–for God is very merciful and full of compassion! It will be no
delight to Him to crush you. Sinner, it will give your God no joy to
curse you! "As I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death
of him that dies, but had rather that he turn unto Me and live." That
is God's heart speaking out to you! You are in His hands and those are
the hands of mercy.

And let me remind you that He can save you though no man can. At this
very moment HE CAN FORGIVE YOUR SINS and supply to you the new nature
which you need–and everything that can make that new nature perfect
and fit to dwell in Heaven! You have not gone too far in sin for His
power. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. "All manner of sin and of
blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." "Though your sins are as scarlet
they shall be as wool." "Though they are red like crimson they shall be
as snow." And everything is provided in order to this. Since God could
not be unjust, it was necessary, if He pardoned sin in your case, that
He should somehow or other vindicate His Law–and He has done so by
giving His own Son to bleed and die on the Cross of Calvary! Jesus
Christ has made it right with the Law of God! The Justice of God is
magnified and the Mercy of God is now unfettered! And God can deal with
sinners and blot out their sins like a cloud and their transgressions
like a thick cloud.

Let me call your minds back to Samaria. There was a poor woman whom the
king could not help, but God could help her, for the very next morning
after she met the king, there was such plenty in Samaria that they were
selling fine flour dirt-cheap! It seemed as if God had literally pulled
up the windows of Heaven and rained down plenty for them to eat, there
was such plenty there! And so, poor starving dying Sinner, it is in
God's power in a moment to fill you with the bread of Heaven, to give
you such abundance of mercies, such a store of Grace and love, that you
shall feel as if the windows of Heaven were opened on your account!
Yes, God will give you what He never gave the people of Samaria–give
you His own Son to be your soul's continuing, everlasting bread–and
you shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness! GOD CAN DO IT. You
are in His hands I say. He can leave you to perish, but, on the other
hand, He is a gracious God and He has given His Son to die for you–and
He is able to save!

Now I think if God the Spirit is blessing the Word this moment, some of
you are saying, "Then I will ask Him to have mercy upon me." Do so,
dear Friend–do so! "I will wait till I get home." No, don't! Breathe
the prayer now. Let it drop as a liquid prayer, if it will, from your
eyes into the pew. God has a bottle for such tears. Ask Him now. Say,
"Lord I am in Your hands. I know I cannot save myself. My fellow men
cannot save me, but You can. I hear You have given Your dear Son to
bleed for helpless, lost and ruined sinners. O, God, have pity upon me!
If You do, I will bless You for it as long as I live! It is a poor
thing to say, but yet it is all I can do. I do not deserve it, Lord. If
You cast me forever from Your Presence, You will be just when You judge
and just when You condemn. But save me, Lord, for Your sweet mercy and
let me live and not die!" O, Souls, you shall not cry in vain! From the
ends of the earth shall such a prayer be heard! You shall yet say like
Jonah, "Out of the belly of Hell cried I and You heard me." God grant
you Grace so to cry!

III. Now my last point will help more fully to open up the way of
salvation. There is one thing–this is the last point–there is only
one thing which will prove fatal to all hope of God's saving you. There
was one man in the city of Samaria that was not the better for flour
being sold at so cheap a price. That poor woman who had complained to
the king went and got her share of the meal. The poorest beggars in the
darkest lanes of Samaria went swarming out and satisfied their hunger.
And even lepers whom men would not touch–defiled and filthy–went into
the tents and feasted to the full! There was only one man in all the
city to whom that day, instead of being a blessing and a festival,
became a funeral–one man–and that one man's story we read just now.
He was a lord, so that it is not always the poor who are lost. I am
afraid that there is a larger proportion of the lords lost than any
other class. He was a lord. But it was not his being a lord that
destroyed him–it was his being an unbelieving lord. He mocked the
promise. He said it could not be. He jeered, jested, insulted–"If
Jehovah should open windows in Heaven, might such a thing be?" But no
one else. I do not find that anybody else was permitted to die or
starve that day except that unbelieving man–and he was trampled to
death in the gates of the city.

Now I come here tonight to say, Beloved, guilty as we are and deserving
God's wrath, yet the MERCY OF GOD IS

EVER MORE ABUNDANT THAN THE MEAL WAS IN SAMARIA'S GATE. Every soul here
that believes in Jesus

shall have a share in it and the only man who shall not have a share in
it is the man who will not believe, for, "He that believes not shall be
damned." If you believe not, you shall not be established. To believe
means to trust in Jesus. And none shall perish but those who refuse to
trust Him. As many as shall rely on the Lord Jesus shall have their
needs supplied even to the fullest.

Now remember, I pray you, and very solemnly lay it to heart, that this
man who died saw the provisions of mercy with his eyes and yet never
tasted of them. Oh, I cannot bear to contemplate it–that I should have
some here who have heard for many and many a Sabbath all about the
Savior and His wounds and griefs and death for sinners–and should
never have a share in the atoning Sacrifice! That they should hear
about the Spirit of God and His regenerating and quickening influences
and should never, themselves, be born-again–should hear about the
pardon of sin and yet die un-forgiven–should hear about the justifying
righteousness of Christ which is the most glorious of robes and should
perish in their nakedness of their sins! It is a dreadful case to
starve with bread within sight. The punishment of Tantalus was

well conceived by the old heathen poets when they wanted to describe an
unbearable torture. The water came up to his lips, but when he tried to
drink, it receded. The bread was close against his mouth and fruit hung
from boughs above his head, but the moment he lifted his hand to grasp
it, the windswept the boughs away and he remained in perpetual hunger
and thirst!

Oh, it will be a shocking thing for us to live in that state! "You
shall see it with your eyes, but shall not eat thereof." You shall hear
of Jesus but not have Him because you would not believe! You shall
die–a Savior's name being whispered in your dying ears and yet no
comfort shall come to your conscience in that Savior because you
rejected Him. You shall wake up in another world and see Him on His
Throne, but only to be condemned by Him! You shall look up from the
bottomless pit and see the saints–only see them–but not partake of
their bliss! God grant this may not be a prophetic declaration of what
your future doom will be. May you not be unbelieving! Remember this
man–he kept the gate and they rushed out, poor hungry starving souls,
to get bread. They poured out like a mighty torrent so they could get
food to eat, but there he stood, meager and gaunt, until he was
trampled down and died! And to live in a revival, unmoved, seems to me
to be the climax of misery–to hear, one after another, that people
have come to Jesus and not to have come yourself! As I look round upon
these seats, I bless God and thank Him that so many of you are putting
your trust in Jesus for salvation. Yet if I kept on putting my finger
along, I would have to stop here and there and say, "Ah, there is one
that has not believed!" And there has been a rush to Christ in this
Church–a mighty rush to Christ of poor sinners–yet some have not
come! Truly, they might well say–

"Lord, I hear of showers of blessing

You are scattering full and free,

Showers the thirsty land refreshing.

Let some droppings fall on me!" "Even me." I hope they will pray that
prayer tonight–"Even me." It would be a sad thing to see others saved
while they are lost!

One thing more and that is–remember that this man kept the gate. He
was nearest to the outside of the city, but it was an unfortunate honor
that the king should appoint him to keep the gate. I am always thankful
when pew-openers are converted, and people who have to do with the
management of a congregation. I am sure if they are not before they
take office, they will not be afterwards. They have so much to do with
thinking about other people and where to put them, that they cannot so
well enjoy the service–and if they have not got a grip of the Gospel
before they undertake such an office–I am often afraid they never
will! And yet, surely, to be employed about the House of God, to be
always there and to be helpful–to keep the gate and not get food
ourselves seems a dreadful thing! I daresay you have often thought of
what became of Noah's carpenters. They helped Noah to build the ark. He
paid them wages, I do not doubt, and they built it–stout and trim
vessel as it was. Very likely some of them, when the rains descended
and the floods came, as they were sinking in the waters, could say, "I
helped to build that ark, yet I am lost. I helped to caulk her and to
tar her. I helped, when the beasts were coming in, to take fodder into
the ark–and now I am lost." You subscribed to the building of a House
of Prayer and never pray? You help to support the ministry, yet have no
share in the good Truth of God? Oh, you will die–I am sure some of you
will die with this upon your hearts–that you were made helpful
outwardly, but inasmuch as you have never given your souls to Jesus and
been led to trust in Him, you will perish as Noah's workmen did, having
no part nor lot in this matter!

Oh, when I see you all gathered together here, Sunday night after
Sunday night, I call myself to account and ask,

HOW LONG, HOW LONG WILL THESE PEOPLE REMAIN WITHOUT CHRIST, without
God, without hope? Is

there any part of the Gospel I leave out? Is there any flaw in my
ministry that prevents their coming to Christ? Do I consult my own
repute and try to make my words fine and polished? Now I think I can
say before the Lord–if I knew any other style of preaching likely to
bless you–whether it were the most refined, if I could reach it–I
would try it! And if it were the most vulgar, I would not be ashamed of
it though all the old reproach and rebuke should come upon me again–if
I might but win your souls! Why will you die!? Young man yonder, why
are you doing that in London which you would not have dared to do at
home? Young woman yonder, why are you shaking off all serious thought
and casting the reins on the neck of folly to run after destruction?
Gray-headed man yonder, if you have not made peace with God, how can
you delay? You have not many days to live, yet you are lost!

Oh, all of you, what shall it profit you if you gain the world and lose
your soul The sun has gone down–let it not rise again until you have
sought the Savior! This is all you have to do–to confess your fault
into the great Father's bosom and say, "I have sinned against Heaven
and before You." And then to stand and look to Jesus bleeding and dying
AND TRUST HIM WITH YOUR SOULS. God help you to do this for Jesus' sake.
Amen and Amen!

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 2 KINGS 6:1-23.

Verse 1. And the sons of the Prophets said unto Elisha, Behold now, the
place where we dwell with you is too small for us. It seems to have
been a habit of the Prophets to gather about them companies of young
men whom they instructed in the Holy Scripture and in the truths of
Revelation. Many of these young men became Prophets and were the
instructors of the people. Elisha, then, was the President of a College
for young men who were being trained for the sacred ministry of God.
They had grown so numerous that they were cramped in their lodging and
they said, "The place is too small for us. Let us go, we pray you, unto
Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make us a fit
place there, where we may dwell." They were ready to work to build
their own lodging. They do not appear to have gone into debt for it,
and to have saddled themselves and the institution for many years
afterwards, but they put their own shoulders to the wheel as good men
should do when there is any work to be done for the cause of God!

2, 3. Let usgo, weprayyou, unto Jordan, and take there, everyman a
beam, andlet us make us aplace there, where we may dwell. And He
answered, Go. And one said, Be content, Ipray you, and go with your
servants. And he answered, I will gc. His presence would be an
encouragement to them. His holy conversation would make their work more
pleasant. They would also feel as if they were more truly working for
God when they had the presence and the patronage of God's servant. He,
on the other hand, was quite ready to go. God's ministers, if they are
what they should be, are quite ready to help in any kind of work. We
find Paul the Apostle picking up sticks to make a fire and we find
Elisha going with his dear friends to the forest when they would cut
down timber to make a house. We sometimes regret that spiritual work
should so often have to come into contact with commonplace things and
yet, so it is. Young Prophets must have a house and when we gather a
congregation we must build them a meeting house. In this country we
cannot meet every day in the open air, and we often regret this, yet I
believe it is meant by God to be a discipline for His Church. If the
Church cannot come into contact with common life without its
spirituality being endangered, so much the worse for its spirituality.
It must be flimsy stuff if it cannot bear the wear and tear of common
life.

4, 5. So he went with them. And when they came to Jordan, they cut down
wood. But as one was felling a beam, the axe-head fell into the water:
and he cried, and said, Alas, Master, for it was borrowed These young
men were too poor to buy tools of their own and they, therefore, asked
for a kindly loan of an axe-head that they might use it in the Lord's
service. It was very natural, therefore, that this young man should
regret that the axe which he had borrowed should fall off into the
water. This made him say–"Alas!" Be very careful about loans. Be sure
to repay them in due time and be very particular that nothing happens
so that you cannot. He said, "Alas, Master, for it was borrowed!"

6. And the man of God said, Where did it fall? And he showed him the
place. And he cut down a stick, and cast it in there; and the iron did
float God can do all things! He can make iron float–we cannot–and yet
you see the Prophet did it and he did it by the use of a stick. He cut
down a stick. Was there any connection between the stick and the iron?
I can't see any and yet God does use means, and He would have us use
means. "He cut down a stick and cast it in there, and the iron did
float." If you're in great trouble tonight, have confidence in that God
who can make the iron float! If you have some worry and you do not know
how to meet it–some work and you do not know how to do it–look to Him
who made the iron float and He can do the same for you. Trust Him, rest
upon Him and see if He does not do it!

7, 8. Therefore said he, Pick it up for yourself And he put out his
hand and took it 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. Of course, he wanted to keep it secret and pounce upon Israel
here and there without notice and so win an easy victory.

9-11. And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware
that you pass not such a place for there the Syrians are come down. 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. Therefore the heart of the
king of Syria was sorely troubled by this thing. He could not
understand how all his well-laid plans were baffled.

11-12. And he called his servants and said unto them, Will you not show
me which of us is for the king of Israel? And one of his servants said,
"None, my lord, O King. There is no traitor here. But Elisha, the
Prophet that is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you
speak in your bedchamber. For the Lord knows what we say in the
bedchamber when no ears can hear! If we speak to ourselves, He hears
it, and if we whisper in all quietness into the ear of one who will
never repeat, it is written in the book of the Divine Record. "Elisha,
the Prophet that is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that
you speak in your bedchamber."

13. Andhe said, Go andspy where he is, that I may send and fetch him.
Not a very wise project, for if Elisha knew all about the words of the
king, it was not very likely that he would catch him!

13-15. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Do than. Therefore
sent he there horses, chariots and a great host and they came by night,
and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God
was risen early, and gone forth, beheld, an host compassed the city
both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my
Master! What shall we do?That is a question we have often asked, "What
shall we do?" We shall do nothing at all! What shall we do? If that
were the question, we might sit down in despair! The proper question
is, "What will God do? How will God deliver us?" But it is only the man
of faith who thinks about God at all. How many there are of you who are
in trouble and you are wondering how you shall get out of it. Poor
things! Poor things! Oh, if we had but faith to look to that Omnipotent
arm that is moving among us–and to that great and wise heart that is
thinking of us–and then trust our case with Him!

16, 17. And He answered, Fear not: for they that are with us are more
than they that are with them. And Elisha prayed, andsaid, LORD, Ipray
You, 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. More of the horses of fire
than there were horses of flesh–more of the chariots of flame than
there were chariots of iron!

18, 19. And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the LORD and
said, Smite this people, Ipray You, with blindness. And He smote them
with blindness according to the word of Elisha. 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 you seek. But he led them to Samaria. In
all which–though I grant you it seems a stratagem–Elisha spoke
neither more nor less than the truth. Dothan was not his city. Samaria
was the city where the man of God dwelt. He was then outside Dothan and
he said, I will bring you to the man whom you seek. He did lead them to
him–took them to his own home, to the very place where he lived. I
think I see him leading all these blind men–they had come to catch
him–and he had caught them. And 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. In the central square of the city. They opened their eyes and
found themselves caught like rats in a trap. What cannot God do?

21. And the king ofIsrael said unto Elisha, when he saw them, My
Father, shall I smite them? Shall I smite them? His hand was on his
sword. He would call his men to come forward with their lances. "My
Father, shall I smite them?" See the fine spirit of the Prophet, the
magnanimity of the man of God!

22. And he answered, You shall not smite them: would you smite those
whom you have taken captive with your sword and with your bow?For if
you had conquered them in fair fight you would not think of killing
them! I have captured them by God's power. I have taken them prisoners
and they will not be put to death.

22. Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and
go to their mastei. This is the way of carrying on war, the best way in
all the world–to conquer by Divine Grace, to conquer by kindness!

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.Now mark
the consequences.

23. So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel.No, they
could not come any more to vex a people who had treated them so
generously! And thus the man of God was master of the situation. His
noble spirit was put to the front, and God was glorified!