July 21, 2025 • 36 mins
We end our Ultimate series with Israel's war against Aram. Surrounded by a mighty army, Elisha demonstrates through his faith that when our eyes are opened to the spiritual reality of God's ultimate power, fear dissipates. God will always triumph over evil and judgment, even using adverse situations for our good. How could a renewed spiritual vision transform your perception of present struggles and future hope?
Speaker: Justin White // Passage: 1 Kings 6:8-23
Key Points
- Introduction - 00:00
- God Delivers Us from Fear - 09:12
- God Delivers Us from Evil - 15:29
- God Delivers Us from Judgment - 23:42
Resources
- 2 Kings 6:8-23
- Next Steps (Aug 24)
- Acts 16:25-31
- Matthew 6:13
- John G. Paton: The Autobiography
- No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War by Hiroo Onoda
- Psalm 34:7-8
- John 13:35
Connect
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good morning again. My name is Justin and I'm one of the pastors here of our church.
And if you have a Bible, you can grab it now and turn to 2 Kings chapter 6.
If you're using one of the Bibles under the chairs in front of you,
2 Kings 6 will be around page 320 in those Bibles.
And just real quick while you're turning to our passage today,
I just want to highlight one thing here on our info card
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that you should have received when you walked in our front doors.
And that's a second announcement down our next steps meet up.
If you're new to our church or you've just never done this before, we'd love to invite you to attend this Next Steps gathering.
We do this once every two, three, four months, somewhere in there, where we just invite everyone who's newer to our church to come together and just learn about who we are, our core values, the things that we hold tightly and that we love here at our church,
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and the ways that God is using our church to bless our community and love the islands.
we'd love for you to hear more about that and see how you can get more plugged in,
more connected and involved in what God is doing here at Harbor West.
So if this is your church, if you believe that God's calling you to be here,
you'll learn about some of those things, meet some of our leaders,
learn about what membership looks like here at our church.
And so, man, sign up for that Next Steps meetup.
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It's coming up in August.
And so we'd love to see you there for that meetup.
You can sign up on our mobile app or send us an email at the top left of that card.
Okay, back in 1994, Danny Glover was managing a baseball team and they had a problem.
All right, their problem was that they were terrible.
And what happened was a little kid prayed about that baseball team and God answered that prayer
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by sending actual angels to come help that baseball team get better.
And so players on the team were able to do things that no other athletes could do.
They could jump higher.
A player would hit a routine fly ball and it would travel over the outfield for a home run.
I mean, it was just incredible, crazy, wild stuff that these angels were doing through these baseball players.
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They made a documentary about it.
You should check it out.
But that team had a problem and God sent angels to show up and do some incredible things for that team.
Here in 2 Kings 6, God's people have a problem.
There's a problem here.
They need to be delivered.
they need to be rescued from an invading army.
(02:17):
And God does the same thing.
He sends some angels.
And so let's pray and see how God does it.
God, we thank you that we can come today,
that we can study your word.
We pray that you would open our eyes to see what is true.
Pray that you would show us how you show up for us
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and how you are our ultimate deliverer.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
2 Kings 6, look at verse 8.
It says, when the king of Aram was waging war against Israel, he conferred with his servants,
my camp will be at such and such a place.
And so here's the problem.
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The relationship between Israel, God's people, and Syria, these outsiders, it had broken down.
And the Syrians were now coming in, pushing in, and trying to invade Israel.
The king of Syria has pushed in.
He's making camp in Israel.
And so the people of Israel, God's people, they have this problem.
There's a need.
They need to be delivered.
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We see this all over the Bible.
God's people were enslaved in Egypt and they needed to be delivered from slavery.
Joseph was trapped in a pit and then in prison and needed deliverance.
Daniel and his friends, captives of Babylon, thrown in fiery pits and lion's dens.
Jonah stuck in a giant fish.
Adam and Eve hiding from God, needing deliverance from their guilt and shame.
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The message we get all throughout the Bible is that we are a people who need to be delivered.
What do you need to be delivered, saved, rescued from?
Maybe for you, it's your job.
You just feel like your job, man, you need rescuing from that job.
You feel trapped, overwhelmed, stuck, heading toward disaster or failure.
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Maybe it's a relationship that's looming over you and feels like this oppressive cloud that you can't get away from.
Or maybe you feel like you need to be delivered from a health issue or financial strain.
Or maybe it's just you need to be delivered from not knowing what to do with your life.
Maybe for you, today you know you need to be delivered from your sin.
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From the guilt, the shame you feel from breaking God's law and not living in his world the way he designed you to live here.
Whatever it is for you today, the situation that we always find people in the Bible in and ourselves in
is that we are a people who need to be delivered.
And so look at how God does it, starting in verse 9.
But the man of God, that's Elisha, sent word to the king of Israel.
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He said, be careful passing by this place, for the Arameans are going down there.
Consequently, the king of Israel sent word to the place that the man of God had told him about.
The man of God repeatedly warned the king so the king would be on his guard.
Elisha, it has this unique insight that God has given him.
God has revealed to him where the enemy king's camp is.
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And so Elisha warns the king of Israel.
He says, don't go there.
That's where the enemy is.
And now, of course, the enemy king in verse 11, he was enraged because of this matter.
And so he called his servants and demanded of them, tell me which one of us is for the king of Israel.
He thinks there's a spy.
That one of his guys is an Israel spy.
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That's the only way this info could be leaked.
But look, one of his servants said, no one, my lord, the king.
Elisha, the prophet in Israel, tells the king of Israel,
even the words you speak in your bedroom.
So the king said, go and see where he is so I can send my men to capture him.
When he was told Elisha is in Dothan,
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he sent horses and chariots and a massive army there.
They went by night and surrounded the city.
So you can imagine it kind of like the scene of a movie.
Elisha is at home, asleep in bed, and the SWAT team just starts to get out.
You know, the white van parked out front.
It's like a florist or a house cleaning.
And all of a sudden, out pours out like SWAT team members.
And they just start to surround the house.
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And the camera keeps cutting away to Elisha, still asleep.
But it's not a SWAT team.
It's an entire army.
And it's surrounding a city.
The city, the city Dothan that's surrounded by mountains.
And the army comes in, surrounds the city, and soon they're going to start to creep in through the streets and arrive at Elisha's house and surround it.
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And it's going to be an entire army against one guy.
And so our guy, Elisha, man, he's cooked.
Like he's done, right?
I mean, Elijah got out of some hairy situations, but Elisha, man, there's no escaping an entire army.
It seems like all their exploits have come to an end now.
And Elisha's servant, he sees it first.
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verse 15, when the servant of the man of God got up early and went out, he discovered an army with
horses and chariots surrounding the city. So he asked Elisha, oh, my master, what are we to do?
Some other translations translate that first word, alas, alas, what are we to do? That word was
typically used to communicate the horror of facing impending death. Elisha's servant sees these,
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army. He sees the chariots on the ground and he comes up to a quick conclusion. We are dead men.
There's no way out of this. We're dead. We're done for. But Elisha wakes up, rubs the sleep out of
his eyes and says this outrageous thing. Don't be afraid for those who are with us outnumber those
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who are with them. Dothan wasn't a military city. It's not like Israel had a big military presence
there. Elisha and his servant, they don't have this militia behind them. It's just the two of them
in the house. And so the servant had to have looked around and thought, man, not only are we dead
because of this army, but my master, the old guy, he's lost it. He's senile. So what am I going to do
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now? But then Elisha prays, verse 17, Lord, please open his eyes and let him see. So the Lord opened
the servant's eyes and he saw that the mountain was covered with horses and chariots of fire.
all around Elisha.
You see, Elisha had the spiritual eyes
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to see the spiritual reality going on in this world
that his servant wasn't seeing.
His servant could only see the physical chariots
on the ground, but Elisha could see God's chariots
on the mountain in the sky all around him.
Spiritual sight changes everything.
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Having the eyes to see what God is truly really doing here in this world,
it changes everything for us.
And so what we see is that when God begins to open our eyes,
when God opens your and my eyes to what he's really doing in this world,
three things are going to happen.
And here's the first thing.
When God opens your eyes to what's really happening in the world,
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God's going to deliver you from fear.
God delivers us from fear when he opens our eyes.
we fear when we can't see or we don't believe what's real when we take our eyes off of god and
put them only on our circumstances our circumstances the the army that's against us don't you feel like
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there's an army of stuff in your life that's just against you do you ever have anxiety just going to
your mailbox to see what could be in it like i mean think about the army of stuff that's against us
bills and work and health and the future and aging and kids and other people, what other people think
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about us and the number on the bathroom scale and just like the unknown. Like life can feel like
there's this army, this overwhelming amount of stuff just against us. We go through each day and
see the army of stuff on the ground and it feels like an onslaught. It can feel overwhelming. Have
(10:22):
are you there right now?
Do you feel just like life is absolutely overwhelming
because all these chariots are surrounding you?
What you need is for your eyes to be open
to see something beyond your life circumstances.
You need your eyes open to see what God's doing
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with the chariots in the sky.
When we see what's really true,
the spiritual reality of who God really is and what he's doing in this world,
it absolutely drives out fear.
And one of my favorite pictures of this was Paul when he was in prison in Acts 16.
Paul's going around and he's telling people about Jesus and he gets thrown in jail
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and he would have every reason to be afraid there in prison.
He could have been beaten, he could have been killed,
but instead in Acts 16 verse 25, it says this,
that about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.
Now, a lot of times you look at that and you're like, man, was he delusional?
Was he just burying his head in the sand and ignoring his problems?
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Was he just escaping?
Was Paul an escapist?
I would say, absolutely not.
I don't think he's escaping reality.
I think Paul's actually had his eyes open to reality.
Paul knows the truth.
Paul sees the reality.
He knows that the chariots, that God's chariots that are surrounding him are greater than whatever the guards are keeping him in prison.
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And so his fear is just gone.
He's singing while he's shackled to the ground.
And man, if Paul can sing while his ankles are shackled in a prison cell awaiting death, then we can sing no matter what our circumstances.
I think the human default, our default is to think, to believe that we will sing.
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We can have joy in life.
We can have peace in life.
We can have rest in life.
Once our circumstances change, once the army of stuff that's surrounding us and is ready
to beat us down and is impending over us, once all that stuff clears up, then I'll sing and
be joyful.
So God, take my circumstances away, clear them up, give me what I want in life.
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Then I can sing.
Guys, listen, we don't need our circumstances to change.
We just need our eyes to be open.
Paul's eyes have been open to who God really is and what he's doing.
And so he could face the worst thing in life and still sing.
He could be totally overwhelmed with the impending army of life.
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And still he's singing praises to God so loud that all the other prisoners are listening to him.
Guys, we don't need a new set of circumstances.
We need our eyes to be open.
And so Elisha and his servant man, their eyes are open.
They see who God is and what he's doing and they don't fear.
They don't run.
They don't hide.
They just wait.
Verse 18, when the Arameans come against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord,
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please strike this nation with blindness.
So he struck it with blindness according to Elisha's word.
Then Elisha said to them, this is not the way.
This is not the city.
Follow me and I will take you to the man you're looking for.
and he led them to Samaria.
When they entered Samaria, Elisha said,
Lord, open these men's eyes and let them see.
So the Lord opened their eyes
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and they saw that they were in the middle of Samaria.
When the king of Israel saw them,
he said to Elisha, should I kill them?
Should I kill them, my father?
Now, biblical scholars believe that this blindness
that this army was struck with
wasn't actual physical blindness of the eyes,
but more of like a delusional blindness of their mind.
It's like God gave them this inability to think critically.
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They came to this city to kill Elisha and because they hated Israel and hated God.
And now Elisha comes up to them and says, hey, I'm your leader now, follow me.
And they're just like, oh yeah, yeah, let's do that.
Like it's just this kind of delusion that God struck them with where they couldn't think
about what they were doing.
And so they just followed Elisha 10 miles into the capital of Israel.
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This is what I think some people are struck with when they show up at Target.
Like some people go to Target and they're there for like one item, like a light bulb.
And then they cross the doors of Target and they're struck with some sort of inability to think critically.
And then they snap out of it at home with 15 items that they're like,
I didn't want any of this and I didn't even get my light bulb.
Well, what just happened, right?
2 Kings 6, here's the biblical evidence for what Target is doing to us right here.
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All right?
Just delusional thinking.
I don't know.
But this army strolls along with Elisha for 10 miles, comes to Samaria.
The confusion goes away and now they can see where they are.
And now they know that they're cooked.
They're standing right in front of the king of Israel who is ready to kill them all.
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They came up to Elisha.
They came to Dothan with this evil plan to murder God's man.
And God delivered him.
He's completely delivered now.
And that's what we start to see when God opens our eyes to what he's doing in the world and what he's doing in our lives.
what we see over and over and over again is that our God is a God who delivers us from evil.
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Our God delivers us from evil.
Evil people, evil plans, the evil within ourselves.
When Jesus taught us to pray, one of the things he made sure that we'd pray
is that God lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
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That's God's heart.
that's what he wants he wants you to be delivered from evil he doesn't want you to experience evil
he doesn't want you to experience the effects of evil he wants you to be delivered from evil that
is a prayer that God loves to answer there was a missionary named John Paton he was a missionary
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in the mid 1800s to the islands of Vanuatu and so he was on an island there and he was sharing
about the beauty of the gospel of Jesus with people. And there were some warring tribes in
Vanuatu. And one of them found out about John Paton and his wife. And they said, man, we're just
going to come and we're going to murder him. And so the chief of that tribe got a bunch of his warriors
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and they came over to John Paton's island and they were going to murder him and his wife one evening.
And John Paton and his wife, they saw this warring tribe coming. And so they were like, well,
this is it. We're not warriors. We can't fight this off. And so husband and wife went into their house
to pray. And they just started praying. And they prayed and prayed and they prayed all night.
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And they came out the next morning and the warriors were gone. So he's like, all right,
kept preaching, kept going. About a year later, the chief of that warring tribe put his faith in
Jesus. He became a Christian, a Jesus follower. And so he was talking with John Paton. They were
getting to know each other and it hit John Paton, man, this is the guy who tried to kill me that
one night. And so he asked him, are you the guy that tried to kill me that night? And the guy was
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like, yeah, that was me. You know, just over coffee at Starbucks, they're chatting. And John
Paton was like, well, what happened? Like, why didn't you kill me? You were there. You had all
the warriors. My wife and I weren't going to fight you off. Why didn't you murder me and my wife
in our hut? And he was like, oh, we were terrified at the army of men that were around your hut.
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He was like, what are you talking about? We didn't have an army of men. There was no army. There was
no one else. It was just me and my wife. And he goes, yeah, no, I showed up with my warriors and
we came to your hut and there was an army of giant men with their swords drawn ready to fight us.
So we got scared. We went back.
Second King six in the mid 1800s. God delivers his people from evil.
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Now, sometimes God does that immediately. Sometimes God's answer to that prayer,
deliver me from evil is immediate. Like with John Paton or like when Esther prayed the quick
prayer and God delivered her, Daniel in the lion's den, sometimes God shows up right away and just
makes sure that our enemy's plans don't work. But other times, God delivers us from evil over time.
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It may seem like for a season that evil is winning or has won, but God will always ultimately deliver
his people from evil. And we know it because of the city where Elisha was surrounded. Do you notice
the name of the city? Elisha was in a city called Dothan. In Dothan, Elisha was surrounded, was
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walled in on every side by an army and he prayed and God showed up immediately and delivered him.
But years and years before that, there was another person who was walled in in Dothan.
There was a guy named Joseph whose brothers threw him in a pit in Dothan and they said,
we're going to kill you in this pit. And you got to imagine that Joseph was in that pit and all he
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could see was the walls around him and he's praying, he's crying out and he's saying,
God, deliver me.
God didn't show up and deliver him that day.
Instead, his brothers sold him to a passing caravan
who took him down to Egypt, and he was a slave in Egypt.
And then as a slave in Egypt, he was wrongfully thrown in prison.
And you got to think while he was in prison, he was crying out,
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God, deliver me.
But God didn't show up and deliver him.
For years and years, he was in prison in Egypt.
And you know what?
If God had answered his prayer in that pit or had answered his prayer right away in prison,
if God had answered Joseph's prayer,
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then Joseph and his whole family would have died in the upcoming drought.
If God had answered Joseph's prayer,
then he himself likely would have remained spiritually blind
because Joseph was super arrogant and heading down a path away from God.
But instead, God delayed his deliverance.
And by the end, Joseph had rescued the whole world from a drought
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and is forgiving his brothers and telling them this, look at it,
you planned evil against me, God planned it for good.
God will always ultimately deliver his people from evil,
even by using the plans of our enemies for our good.
We may have to endure some suffering sometimes.
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We'll definitely have to cling to faith and trust him,
but he's promised to work all things together for our good.
And sometimes, sometimes it's the exact stuff that we go through
that he knows we need
in order to have our eyes open to who he really is.
If you're in a place right now in your life
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where it seems like evil has won,
where all you can see is evil having the upper hand,
all you can see are the chariots on the ground,
man, know this.
There are chariots in the sky.
God has not abandoned you.
He has not finished with you.
God's army of angels is surrounding you.
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And he's working everything together in your life for your good and his glory.
And so this enemy army, man, they're about to get what they deserve.
These guys, this army, they're murderers, they're rapists, they're child traffickers.
We've seen this last week.
We even saw how they would come into cities in Israel and they would murder.
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They would rape.
They would take children back to Syria.
And so the king of Israel sees a great opportunity to wipe out a bunch of his enemies,
to pour out some judgment.
He says, can I kill them?
Can I kill them?
He's ready.
Verse 22, though, Elisha replied, don't kill them.
Do you kill those you have captured with your sword or your bow?
Set food and water in front of them so they can eat and drink and go to their master.
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So the king of Israel prepared a big feast for them.
When they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away and they went to their master.
The Aramean raiders did not come into Israel's land again.
Wildly, man, Elisha asked the king of Israel to bless this enemy army
instead of giving them what they deserve.
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Now, can you imagine?
Can you imagine being someone who lived in Samaria, the capital of Israel?
A couple of biblical scholars, I mean, they just, as they write, they say,
The Arameans had done so much raiding and pillaging and murdering in Israel
that probably every single person in Samaria knew someone
whose lives had been affected by these terrorists.
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So imagine you're in Samaria and you see Elisha, your prophet,
parading into your city these captives, these terrorist captives.
Imagine how excited you'd be like, man, finally, we got the bad guys.
Justice.
They're coming in.
We're going to punish them, lock them away forever, kill them,
Whatever it is, they're finally going to experience what they deserve.
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And then a few hours later, they're walking out of your city.
Their belly's full of your food.
Walking out into freedom.
This is scandalous.
This feels horribly wrong.
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These sinners deserve judgment.
but what we see is this.
When God opens our eyes
and shows us what he's really doing in this world,
what we see is this,
that our God is a God who delivers us from judgment.
Our God is a God who delivers us from judgment.
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These guys, man, they deserve to be judged.
They deserve a guilty verdict.
They deserve punishment and death
but God delivers them
and instead they receive forgiveness.
They receive an innocent verdict.
They receive freedom and new life.
You see, Elisha asked the king a question.
He asked the king this, did you capture these guys?
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And the answer is no.
The king of Israel didn't capture them.
The king of Israel did nothing to capture these guys.
Who captured these guys?
God.
God captured these guys.
And Elisha wants to show them what happens when God captures you.
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What happens when God captures you?
When God captures you, he blesses you.
When God captures you, you experience his kindness, his goodness, his grace and mercy.
You see, these guys came into this city and in their minds, God was their enemy.
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They had made God their enemy.
They wanted to wipe out Elisha, wipe out God's people.
They wanted to wipe out God.
God was their enemy.
And Elisha says, okay, you've made God your enemy.
I want to show you what happens when the God who you've made your enemy captures you.
He's going to bless you.
He's going to love you.
And he's going to prove to you this, I am not your enemy.
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The God who is really there, here's what he's like.
He's not their enemy.
He's the God who's ready to bless his enemies and turn his enemies into his friends.
And so back in Acts 16, as Paul and Silas are there praying in the prison cell, verse 26,
suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the jail were shaken.
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And immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains came loose.
There's the immediate answered prayer.
God, deliver us from evil.
Boom, earthquake happens.
When the jailer woke up and God saw the doors of the prison standing open,
He drew his sword and he was going to kill himself.
That would have been just, right?
Like this guy deserved it.
They had imprisoned Paul and Silas wrongly.
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They were trying to squash out what God was doing in this world.
This guy deserved judgment.
But Paul called out in a loud voice, don't harm yourself because we're all here.
The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell down, trembling before Paul and Silas.
He escorted them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved?
They said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
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This guard who had made God and God's people his enemy, he deserved judgment.
But instead he met Jesus.
He deserved to die that night.
But instead God rescued him and blessed him and Paul went back to his house and he and his whole family were delivered, were saved.
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Do you see what Elisha said to the Arameans after they were delusional?
Did you see that?
He said, I'll take you to the man you're looking for.
And now we know what he really meant.
He was saying, I'll take you to the man you should be looking for.
Because when Elisha brought them into Samaria,
what he showed them was what Jesus looks like.
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Elisha showed them the man they should be looking for.
Jesus, the one who had every right to pour out judgment on us,
who crucified him to death and who rejected him in this world
and who have sinned against him, who instead laid down his life so that his enemies could receive
blessing. You see, God defeated these men, but it wasn't through his power or judgment. God defeated
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them with love and compassion and kindness, and it absolutely changed their lives. They never came
into Israel's land again. Did you see that? They no longer stood under God's judgment. So it says
they never came in and raided Israel again. They'd been delivered. They'd experienced who God really
was and they realized this God of Israel, he's not our enemy. He's more powerful than we could
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ever imagine, but he's not our enemy. He blessed us. He set us free. He's working for our good.
They'd been delivered. Has that happened to you?
Have you experienced the kindness, the goodness, the love of God? Has he captured you?
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Or are you still fighting against him?
There's a guy named Onoda Hiroo.
He was a second lieutenant in the Japanese army during World War II.
Maybe you've heard his story.
After World War II ended, he was serving out on a little island in the Philippines.
And he wouldn't believe the flyers that were falling from the sky
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and being passed around that the war was over.
He wouldn't believe people that even came from Japan to tell him that the war was over.
he just kept fighting with two other guys for a while, but then they left him and he fought alone
long after the war ended. You know how long he fought? 29 years. He kept fighting for 29 years,
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believing that the war was still going on. No one could convince him. He kept getting in shootouts
with local police and different things. And finally somebody had the idea, this guy's only
going to believe it if his former commanding officer comes and relieves him of his post.
And so they found that guy and he flew to this little island in the Philippines.
And he said, you're released.
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You don't have to serve anymore.
And he finally put down his weapon and came home and realized the war has been over.
Are you still fighting?
Are you fighting a war that doesn't even exist?
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See, I think what God wanted to show this Syrian army is this, that they had turned God into their enemy and they were fighting against him, warring against him, raging against God.
When God says, I'm not here to fight you.
I'm here to love you and bless you.
And listen, no matter what you project on the outside, no matter what you and I project to each other, only each of us individually know what's going on in our hearts.
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And so here's a question for you.
Are you still at war with God in your heart?
are you still fighting him pushing back against his goodness pushing back against his love have
you still picked up your weapon against him and made him your enemy and what we see here in this
text is that he wants to bless you he wants you as his friend and so Psalm 34:7 says this the
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The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them and so what do we need to do
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
How happy is the person who takes refuge in him.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
How do we do that?
We look at Jesus, God's son and savior,
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the author and finisher of our faith,
who by his life, his death, and his victorious resurrection
has delivered us, rescued us, and brings us into the party,
the feast that God has prepared for us.
He's the one who instead of calling down his armies of angels to rescue him on the cross,
he instead prayed that God would forgive us as he gave his life on the cross for us.
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He's the one who achieved our ultimate victory, a victory that didn't look like destroying his
enemies, but by turning his enemies into his friends. He's the one who won't abandon you.
Goodness, he was abandoned for you on the cross. Jesus was abandoned for you so that
now God will never abandon you.
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And man, one honest look at the cross,
one experience of you and I coming and tasting
and seeing God's goodness in what he did for us on the cross,
that's enough to open our eyes to a whole new reality,
a whole new life where we recognize that God is not our enemy.
God is our best friend.
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You can experience that today.
You can have your eyes opened to see Jesus's goodness to you and for you for the first time.
Or maybe you've done that, but you know you haven't been living in the deliverance that Jesus purchased for you.
Maybe you've come to him and you've been rescued by him.
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That happened at a moment in time in your life, but now you're far removed from that moment.
Time has gone on and you're like, man, I'm just struggling by.
I feel like I'm just barely surviving here in life.
My faith is barely surviving.
I'm barely surviving.
I'm just getting through one day at a time.
Guys, that is not living in freedom.
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That's not living in deliverance.
And so what do we need?
Those of us who maybe have been delivered by Jesus in the past,
but who feel like life is slavery now,
we need the same thing.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
That's not a one-time thing.
That is a daily thing.
we need to taste and see the goodness of Jesus the reality that he has loved us to death maybe
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we've let loads and loads of other pursuits and interests and passions and loves creep in and
choke out our ruthless commitment to tasting and seeing the goodness of Jesus so that man maybe we
started at one time we were in God's word all the time and excited about pursuing him but now we
haven't been in his word almost at all lately. And so we haven't been reading Romans 6.1,
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there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. We feel like we're still
under judgment because we haven't been reminded that there's no judgment for us anymore.
Maybe you haven't been in your word and you haven't been reading later in Romans where it says neither
height nor depth nor breadth nor length nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor anything
in heaven or earth could separate you from the love of God. You feel like God is against you
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but maybe it's because you haven't been in his word reading that man he is so for you
maybe all the other pursuits and things you've grabbed onto in this life you've tried to taste
and see that they are good instead of tasting and seeing that Jesus is good every day
maybe you've been skipping church or community group for reasons you never would have dreamed
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of before if you're like man I got the knowledge why do I need to just come and talk about it again
and again and meet with people. Well, why do I need to gather with other people? I've got this
knowledge of who Jesus is, but you've forgotten the reality that Jesus says, by this will all men
know you're my disciples. Not by the knowledge you have in your head, but by your love for each other.
You want to put on display the beauty of Jesus in this world? It's not by how wise you are and how
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many facts you know. It's by your love and commitment to the strange people in this room.
By this will all people see the beauty of Jesus, by your love for each other.
Maybe you've been skipping out on that, not been being a part of that.
Or maybe it's just been that you've stopped believing the truth of the Bible,
that you've been blessed by God to be a blessing.
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And so you've stopped serving, you've stopped giving.
I don't know what it is, but I know this,
that God has given us a lot of very plain, ordinary chariots
for us to taste and see that he is good.
A bunch of plain and ordinary things like our Bibles
and the church and each other and serving and giving
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us to taste and see his goodness. And so maybe life has felt more like slavery than it has
like freedom because you're looking at the chariots on the ground. You're looking at all the things
that are against you, or you're trying to taste and see that money is good and that experiences
are good and that other people are good when really we just need to taste and see that Jesus is good.
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And that's how we get in on the deliverance, on the freedom that God has for us. And so man, come
back. Come back. Come back and taste and see that Jesus is good. Come again and again to the good
news of the gospel. Relentlessly pursue Jesus who loves you to death and watch as he delivers you
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from fear and from evil and from judgment. Let's pray together.
Good morning again. My name is Justin and I'm one of the pastors here of our church.
And if you have a Bible, you can grab it now and turn to 2 Kings chapter 6.
If you're using one of the Bibles under the chairs in front of you,
2 Kings 6 will be around page 320 in those Bibles.
And just real quick while you're turning to our passage today,
I just want to highlight one thing here on our info card
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that you should have received when you walked in our front doors.
And that's a second announcement down our next steps meet up.
If you're new to our church or you've just never done this before, we'd love to invite you to attend this Next Steps gathering.
We do this once every two, three, four months, somewhere in there, where we just invite everyone who's newer to our church to come together and just learn about who we are, our core values, the things that we hold tightly and that we love here at our church,
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and the ways that God is using our church to bless our community and love the islands.
we'd love for you to hear more about that and see how you can get more plugged in,
more connected and involved in what God is doing here at Harbor West.
So if this is your church, if you believe that God's calling you to be here,
you'll learn about some of those things, meet some of our leaders,
learn about what membership looks like here at our church.
And so, man, sign up for that Next Steps meetup.
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It's coming up in August.
And so we'd love to see you there for that meetup.
You can sign up on our mobile app or send us an email at the top left of that card.
Okay, back in 1994, Danny Glover was managing a baseball team and they had a problem.
All right, their problem was that they were terrible.
And what happened was a little kid prayed about that baseball team and God answered that prayer
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by sending actual angels to come help that baseball team get better.
And so players on the team were able to do things that no other athletes could do.
They could jump higher.
A player would hit a routine fly ball and it would travel over the outfield for a home run.
I mean, it was just incredible, crazy, wild stuff that these angels were doing through these baseball players.
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They made a documentary about it.
You should check it out.
But that team had a problem and God sent angels to show up and do some incredible things for that team.
Here in 2 Kings 6, God's people have a problem.
There's a problem here.
They need to be delivered.
they need to be rescued from an invading army.
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And God does the same thing.
He sends some angels.
And so let's pray and see how God does it.
God, we thank you that we can come today,
that we can study your word.
We pray that you would open our eyes to see what is true.
Pray that you would show us how you show up for us
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and how you are our ultimate deliverer.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
2 Kings 6, look at verse 8.
It says, when the king of Aram was waging war against Israel, he conferred with his servants,
my camp will be at such and such a place.
And so here's the problem.
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The relationship between Israel, God's people, and Syria, these outsiders, it had broken down.
And the Syrians were now coming in, pushing in, and trying to invade Israel.
The king of Syria has pushed in.
He's making camp in Israel.
And so the people of Israel, God's people, they have this problem.
There's a need.
They need to be delivered.
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We see this all over the Bible.
God's people were enslaved in Egypt and they needed to be delivered from slavery.
Joseph was trapped in a pit and then in prison and needed deliverance.
Daniel and his friends, captives of Babylon, thrown in fiery pits and lion's dens.
Jonah stuck in a giant fish.
Adam and Eve hiding from God, needing deliverance from their guilt and shame.
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The message we get all throughout the Bible is that we are a people who need to be delivered.
What do you need to be delivered, saved, rescued from?
Maybe for you, it's your job.
You just feel like your job, man, you need rescuing from that job.
You feel trapped, overwhelmed, stuck, heading toward disaster or failure.
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Maybe it's a relationship that's looming over you and feels like this oppressive cloud that you can't get away from.
Or maybe you feel like you need to be delivered from a health issue or financial strain.
Or maybe it's just you need to be delivered from not knowing what to do with your life.
Maybe for you, today you know you need to be delivered from your sin.
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From the guilt, the shame you feel from breaking God's law and not living in his world the way he designed you to live here.
Whatever it is for you today, the situation that we always find people in the Bible in and ourselves in
is that we are a people who need to be delivered.
And so look at how God does it, starting in verse 9.
But the man of God, that's Elisha, sent word to the king of Israel.
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He said, be careful passing by this place, for the Arameans are going down there.
Consequently, the king of Israel sent word to the place that the man of God had told him about.
The man of God repeatedly warned the king so the king would be on his guard.
Elisha, it has this unique insight that God has given him.
God has revealed to him where the enemy king's camp is.
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And so Elisha warns the king of Israel.
He says, don't go there.
That's where the enemy is.
And now, of course, the enemy king in verse 11, he was enraged because of this matter.
And so he called his servants and demanded of them, tell me which one of us is for the king of Israel.
He thinks there's a spy.
That one of his guys is an Israel spy.
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That's the only way this info could be leaked.
But look, one of his servants said, no one, my lord, the king.
Elisha, the prophet in Israel, tells the king of Israel,
even the words you speak in your bedroom.
So the king said, go and see where he is so I can send my men to capture him.
When he was told Elisha is in Dothan,
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he sent horses and chariots and a massive army there.
They went by night and surrounded the city.
So you can imagine it kind of like the scene of a movie.
Elisha is at home, asleep in bed, and the SWAT team just starts to get out.
You know, the white van parked out front.
It's like a florist or a house cleaning.
And all of a sudden, out pours out like SWAT team members.
And they just start to surround the house.
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And the camera keeps cutting away to Elisha, still asleep.
But it's not a SWAT team.
It's an entire army.
And it's surrounding a city.
The city, the city Dothan that's surrounded by mountains.
And the army comes in, surrounds the city, and soon they're going to start to creep in through the streets and arrive at Elisha's house and surround it.
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And it's going to be an entire army against one guy.
And so our guy, Elisha, man, he's cooked.
Like he's done, right?
I mean, Elijah got out of some hairy situations, but Elisha, man, there's no escaping an entire army.
It seems like all their exploits have come to an end now.
And Elisha's servant, he sees it first.
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verse 15, when the servant of the man of God got up early and went out, he discovered an army with
horses and chariots surrounding the city. So he asked Elisha, oh, my master, what are we to do?
Some other translations translate that first word, alas, alas, what are we to do? That word was
typically used to communicate the horror of facing impending death. Elisha's servant sees these,
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army. He sees the chariots on the ground and he comes up to a quick conclusion. We are dead men.
There's no way out of this. We're dead. We're done for. But Elisha wakes up, rubs the sleep out of
his eyes and says this outrageous thing. Don't be afraid for those who are with us outnumber those
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who are with them. Dothan wasn't a military city. It's not like Israel had a big military presence
there. Elisha and his servant, they don't have this militia behind them. It's just the two of them
in the house. And so the servant had to have looked around and thought, man, not only are we dead
because of this army, but my master, the old guy, he's lost it. He's senile. So what am I going to do
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now? But then Elisha prays, verse 17, Lord, please open his eyes and let him see. So the Lord opened
the servant's eyes and he saw that the mountain was covered with horses and chariots of fire.
all around Elisha.
You see, Elisha had the spiritual eyes
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to see the spiritual reality going on in this world
that his servant wasn't seeing.
His servant could only see the physical chariots
on the ground, but Elisha could see God's chariots
on the mountain in the sky all around him.
Spiritual sight changes everything.
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Having the eyes to see what God is truly really doing here in this world,
it changes everything for us.
And so what we see is that when God begins to open our eyes,
when God opens your and my eyes to what he's really doing in this world,
three things are going to happen.
And here's the first thing.
When God opens your eyes to what's really happening in the world,
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God's going to deliver you from fear.
God delivers us from fear when he opens our eyes.
we fear when we can't see or we don't believe what's real when we take our eyes off of god and
put them only on our circumstances our circumstances the the army that's against us don't you feel like
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there's an army of stuff in your life that's just against you do you ever have anxiety just going to
your mailbox to see what could be in it like i mean think about the army of stuff that's against us
bills and work and health and the future and aging and kids and other people, what other people think
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about us and the number on the bathroom scale and just like the unknown. Like life can feel like
there's this army, this overwhelming amount of stuff just against us. We go through each day and
see the army of stuff on the ground and it feels like an onslaught. It can feel overwhelming. Have
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are you there right now?
Do you feel just like life is absolutely overwhelming
because all these chariots are surrounding you?
What you need is for your eyes to be open
to see something beyond your life circumstances.
You need your eyes open to see what God's doing
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with the chariots in the sky.
When we see what's really true,
the spiritual reality of who God really is and what he's doing in this world,
it absolutely drives out fear.
And one of my favorite pictures of this was Paul when he was in prison in Acts 16.
Paul's going around and he's telling people about Jesus and he gets thrown in jail
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and he would have every reason to be afraid there in prison.
He could have been beaten, he could have been killed,
but instead in Acts 16 verse 25, it says this,
that about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.
Now, a lot of times you look at that and you're like, man, was he delusional?
Was he just burying his head in the sand and ignoring his problems?
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Was he just escaping?
Was Paul an escapist?
I would say, absolutely not.
I don't think he's escaping reality.
I think Paul's actually had his eyes open to reality.
Paul knows the truth.
Paul sees the reality.
He knows that the chariots, that God's chariots that are surrounding him are greater than whatever the guards are keeping him in prison.
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And so his fear is just gone.
He's singing while he's shackled to the ground.
And man, if Paul can sing while his ankles are shackled in a prison cell awaiting death, then we can sing no matter what our circumstances.
I think the human default, our default is to think, to believe that we will sing.
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We can have joy in life.
We can have peace in life.
We can have rest in life.
Once our circumstances change, once the army of stuff that's surrounding us and is ready
to beat us down and is impending over us, once all that stuff clears up, then I'll sing and
be joyful.
So God, take my circumstances away, clear them up, give me what I want in life.
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Then I can sing.
Guys, listen, we don't need our circumstances to change.
We just need our eyes to be open.
Paul's eyes have been open to who God really is and what he's doing.
And so he could face the worst thing in life and still sing.
He could be totally overwhelmed with the impending army of life.
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And still he's singing praises to God so loud that all the other prisoners are listening to him.
Guys, we don't need a new set of circumstances.
We need our eyes to be open.
And so Elisha and his servant man, their eyes are open.
They see who God is and what he's doing and they don't fear.
They don't run.
They don't hide.
They just wait.
Verse 18, when the Arameans come against him, Elisha prayed to the Lord,
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please strike this nation with blindness.
So he struck it with blindness according to Elisha's word.
Then Elisha said to them, this is not the way.
This is not the city.
Follow me and I will take you to the man you're looking for.
and he led them to Samaria.
When they entered Samaria, Elisha said,
Lord, open these men's eyes and let them see.
So the Lord opened their eyes
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and they saw that they were in the middle of Samaria.
When the king of Israel saw them,
he said to Elisha, should I kill them?
Should I kill them, my father?
Now, biblical scholars believe that this blindness
that this army was struck with
wasn't actual physical blindness of the eyes,
but more of like a delusional blindness of their mind.
It's like God gave them this inability to think critically.
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They came to this city to kill Elisha and because they hated Israel and hated God.
And now Elisha comes up to them and says, hey, I'm your leader now, follow me.
And they're just like, oh yeah, yeah, let's do that.
Like it's just this kind of delusion that God struck them with where they couldn't think
about what they were doing.
And so they just followed Elisha 10 miles into the capital of Israel.
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This is what I think some people are struck with when they show up at Target.
Like some people go to Target and they're there for like one item, like a light bulb.
And then they cross the doors of Target and they're struck with some sort of inability to think critically.
And then they snap out of it at home with 15 items that they're like,
I didn't want any of this and I didn't even get my light bulb.
Well, what just happened, right?
2 Kings 6, here's the biblical evidence for what Target is doing to us right here.
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All right?
Just delusional thinking.
I don't know.
But this army strolls along with Elisha for 10 miles, comes to Samaria.
The confusion goes away and now they can see where they are.
And now they know that they're cooked.
They're standing right in front of the king of Israel who is ready to kill them all.
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They came up to Elisha.
They came to Dothan with this evil plan to murder God's man.
And God delivered him.
He's completely delivered now.
And that's what we start to see when God opens our eyes to what he's doing in the world and what he's doing in our lives.
what we see over and over and over again is that our God is a God who delivers us from evil.
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Our God delivers us from evil.
Evil people, evil plans, the evil within ourselves.
When Jesus taught us to pray, one of the things he made sure that we'd pray
is that God lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
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That's God's heart.
that's what he wants he wants you to be delivered from evil he doesn't want you to experience evil
he doesn't want you to experience the effects of evil he wants you to be delivered from evil that
is a prayer that God loves to answer there was a missionary named John Paton he was a missionary
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in the mid 1800s to the islands of Vanuatu and so he was on an island there and he was sharing
about the beauty of the gospel of Jesus with people. And there were some warring tribes in
Vanuatu. And one of them found out about John Paton and his wife. And they said, man, we're just
going to come and we're going to murder him. And so the chief of that tribe got a bunch of his warriors
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and they came over to John Paton's island and they were going to murder him and his wife one evening.
And John Paton and his wife, they saw this warring tribe coming. And so they were like, well,
this is it. We're not warriors. We can't fight this off. And so husband and wife went into their house
to pray. And they just started praying. And they prayed and prayed and they prayed all night.
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And they came out the next morning and the warriors were gone. So he's like, all right,
kept preaching, kept going. About a year later, the chief of that warring tribe put his faith in
Jesus. He became a Christian, a Jesus follower. And so he was talking with John Paton. They were
getting to know each other and it hit John Paton, man, this is the guy who tried to kill me that
one night. And so he asked him, are you the guy that tried to kill me that night? And the guy was
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like, yeah, that was me. You know, just over coffee at Starbucks, they're chatting. And John
Paton was like, well, what happened? Like, why didn't you kill me? You were there. You had all
the warriors. My wife and I weren't going to fight you off. Why didn't you murder me and my wife
in our hut? And he was like, oh, we were terrified at the army of men that were around your hut.
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He was like, what are you talking about? We didn't have an army of men. There was no army. There was
no one else. It was just me and my wife. And he goes, yeah, no, I showed up with my warriors and
we came to your hut and there was an army of giant men with their swords drawn ready to fight us.
So we got scared. We went back.
Second King six in the mid 1800s. God delivers his people from evil.
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Now, sometimes God does that immediately. Sometimes God's answer to that prayer,
deliver me from evil is immediate. Like with John Paton or like when Esther prayed the quick
prayer and God delivered her, Daniel in the lion's den, sometimes God shows up right away and just
makes sure that our enemy's plans don't work. But other times, God delivers us from evil over time.
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It may seem like for a season that evil is winning or has won, but God will always ultimately deliver
his people from evil. And we know it because of the city where Elisha was surrounded. Do you notice
the name of the city? Elisha was in a city called Dothan. In Dothan, Elisha was surrounded, was
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walled in on every side by an army and he prayed and God showed up immediately and delivered him.
But years and years before that, there was another person who was walled in in Dothan.
There was a guy named Joseph whose brothers threw him in a pit in Dothan and they said,
we're going to kill you in this pit. And you got to imagine that Joseph was in that pit and all he
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could see was the walls around him and he's praying, he's crying out and he's saying,
God, deliver me.
God didn't show up and deliver him that day.
Instead, his brothers sold him to a passing caravan
who took him down to Egypt, and he was a slave in Egypt.
And then as a slave in Egypt, he was wrongfully thrown in prison.
And you got to think while he was in prison, he was crying out,
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God, deliver me.
But God didn't show up and deliver him.
For years and years, he was in prison in Egypt.
And you know what?
If God had answered his prayer in that pit or had answered his prayer right away in prison,
if God had answered Joseph's prayer,
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then Joseph and his whole family would have died in the upcoming drought.
If God had answered Joseph's prayer,
then he himself likely would have remained spiritually blind
because Joseph was super arrogant and heading down a path away from God.
But instead, God delayed his deliverance.
And by the end, Joseph had rescued the whole world from a drought
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and is forgiving his brothers and telling them this, look at it,
you planned evil against me, God planned it for good.
God will always ultimately deliver his people from evil,
even by using the plans of our enemies for our good.
We may have to endure some suffering sometimes.
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We'll definitely have to cling to faith and trust him,
but he's promised to work all things together for our good.
And sometimes, sometimes it's the exact stuff that we go through
that he knows we need
in order to have our eyes open to who he really is.
If you're in a place right now in your life
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where it seems like evil has won,
where all you can see is evil having the upper hand,
all you can see are the chariots on the ground,
man, know this.
There are chariots in the sky.
God has not abandoned you.
He has not finished with you.
God's army of angels is surrounding you.
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And he's working everything together in your life for your good and his glory.
And so this enemy army, man, they're about to get what they deserve.
These guys, this army, they're murderers, they're rapists, they're child traffickers.
We've seen this last week.
We even saw how they would come into cities in Israel and they would murder.
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They would rape.
They would take children back to Syria.
And so the king of Israel sees a great opportunity to wipe out a bunch of his enemies,
to pour out some judgment.
He says, can I kill them?
Can I kill them?
He's ready.
Verse 22, though, Elisha replied, don't kill them.
Do you kill those you have captured with your sword or your bow?
Set food and water in front of them so they can eat and drink and go to their master.
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So the king of Israel prepared a big feast for them.
When they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away and they went to their master.
The Aramean raiders did not come into Israel's land again.
Wildly, man, Elisha asked the king of Israel to bless this enemy army
instead of giving them what they deserve.
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Now, can you imagine?
Can you imagine being someone who lived in Samaria, the capital of Israel?
A couple of biblical scholars, I mean, they just, as they write, they say,
The Arameans had done so much raiding and pillaging and murdering in Israel
that probably every single person in Samaria knew someone
whose lives had been affected by these terrorists.
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So imagine you're in Samaria and you see Elisha, your prophet,
parading into your city these captives, these terrorist captives.
Imagine how excited you'd be like, man, finally, we got the bad guys.
Justice.
They're coming in.
We're going to punish them, lock them away forever, kill them,
Whatever it is, they're finally going to experience what they deserve.
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And then a few hours later, they're walking out of your city.
Their belly's full of your food.
Walking out into freedom.
This is scandalous.
This feels horribly wrong.
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These sinners deserve judgment.
but what we see is this.
When God opens our eyes
and shows us what he's really doing in this world,
what we see is this,
that our God is a God who delivers us from judgment.
Our God is a God who delivers us from judgment.
(23:58):
These guys, man, they deserve to be judged.
They deserve a guilty verdict.
They deserve punishment and death
but God delivers them
and instead they receive forgiveness.
They receive an innocent verdict.
They receive freedom and new life.
You see, Elisha asked the king a question.
He asked the king this, did you capture these guys?
(24:20):
And the answer is no.
The king of Israel didn't capture them.
The king of Israel did nothing to capture these guys.
Who captured these guys?
God.
God captured these guys.
And Elisha wants to show them what happens when God captures you.
(24:41):
What happens when God captures you?
When God captures you, he blesses you.
When God captures you, you experience his kindness, his goodness, his grace and mercy.
You see, these guys came into this city and in their minds, God was their enemy.
(25:02):
They had made God their enemy.
They wanted to wipe out Elisha, wipe out God's people.
They wanted to wipe out God.
God was their enemy.
And Elisha says, okay, you've made God your enemy.
I want to show you what happens when the God who you've made your enemy captures you.
He's going to bless you.
He's going to love you.
And he's going to prove to you this, I am not your enemy.
(25:24):
The God who is really there, here's what he's like.
He's not their enemy.
He's the God who's ready to bless his enemies and turn his enemies into his friends.
And so back in Acts 16, as Paul and Silas are there praying in the prison cell, verse 26,
suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the jail were shaken.
(25:46):
And immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains came loose.
There's the immediate answered prayer.
God, deliver us from evil.
Boom, earthquake happens.
When the jailer woke up and God saw the doors of the prison standing open,
He drew his sword and he was going to kill himself.
That would have been just, right?
Like this guy deserved it.
They had imprisoned Paul and Silas wrongly.
(26:07):
They were trying to squash out what God was doing in this world.
This guy deserved judgment.
But Paul called out in a loud voice, don't harm yourself because we're all here.
The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell down, trembling before Paul and Silas.
He escorted them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved?
They said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
(26:31):
This guard who had made God and God's people his enemy, he deserved judgment.
But instead he met Jesus.
He deserved to die that night.
But instead God rescued him and blessed him and Paul went back to his house and he and his whole family were delivered, were saved.
(26:52):
Do you see what Elisha said to the Arameans after they were delusional?
Did you see that?
He said, I'll take you to the man you're looking for.
And now we know what he really meant.
He was saying, I'll take you to the man you should be looking for.
Because when Elisha brought them into Samaria,
what he showed them was what Jesus looks like.
(27:13):
Elisha showed them the man they should be looking for.
Jesus, the one who had every right to pour out judgment on us,
who crucified him to death and who rejected him in this world
and who have sinned against him, who instead laid down his life so that his enemies could receive
blessing. You see, God defeated these men, but it wasn't through his power or judgment. God defeated
(27:35):
them with love and compassion and kindness, and it absolutely changed their lives. They never came
into Israel's land again. Did you see that? They no longer stood under God's judgment. So it says
they never came in and raided Israel again. They'd been delivered. They'd experienced who God really
was and they realized this God of Israel, he's not our enemy. He's more powerful than we could
(27:57):
ever imagine, but he's not our enemy. He blessed us. He set us free. He's working for our good.
They'd been delivered. Has that happened to you?
Have you experienced the kindness, the goodness, the love of God? Has he captured you?
(28:21):
Or are you still fighting against him?
There's a guy named Onoda Hiroo.
He was a second lieutenant in the Japanese army during World War II.
Maybe you've heard his story.
After World War II ended, he was serving out on a little island in the Philippines.
And he wouldn't believe the flyers that were falling from the sky
(28:43):
and being passed around that the war was over.
He wouldn't believe people that even came from Japan to tell him that the war was over.
he just kept fighting with two other guys for a while, but then they left him and he fought alone
long after the war ended. You know how long he fought? 29 years. He kept fighting for 29 years,
(29:04):
believing that the war was still going on. No one could convince him. He kept getting in shootouts
with local police and different things. And finally somebody had the idea, this guy's only
going to believe it if his former commanding officer comes and relieves him of his post.
And so they found that guy and he flew to this little island in the Philippines.
And he said, you're released.
(29:24):
You don't have to serve anymore.
And he finally put down his weapon and came home and realized the war has been over.
Are you still fighting?
Are you fighting a war that doesn't even exist?
(29:45):
See, I think what God wanted to show this Syrian army is this, that they had turned God into their enemy and they were fighting against him, warring against him, raging against God.
When God says, I'm not here to fight you.
I'm here to love you and bless you.
And listen, no matter what you project on the outside, no matter what you and I project to each other, only each of us individually know what's going on in our hearts.
(30:11):
And so here's a question for you.
Are you still at war with God in your heart?
are you still fighting him pushing back against his goodness pushing back against his love have
you still picked up your weapon against him and made him your enemy and what we see here in this
text is that he wants to bless you he wants you as his friend and so Psalm 34:7 says this the
(30:37):
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them and so what do we need to do
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
How happy is the person who takes refuge in him.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
How do we do that?
We look at Jesus, God's son and savior,
(30:58):
the author and finisher of our faith,
who by his life, his death, and his victorious resurrection
has delivered us, rescued us, and brings us into the party,
the feast that God has prepared for us.
He's the one who instead of calling down his armies of angels to rescue him on the cross,
he instead prayed that God would forgive us as he gave his life on the cross for us.
(31:21):
He's the one who achieved our ultimate victory, a victory that didn't look like destroying his
enemies, but by turning his enemies into his friends. He's the one who won't abandon you.
Goodness, he was abandoned for you on the cross. Jesus was abandoned for you so that
now God will never abandon you.
(31:43):
And man, one honest look at the cross,
one experience of you and I coming and tasting
and seeing God's goodness in what he did for us on the cross,
that's enough to open our eyes to a whole new reality,
a whole new life where we recognize that God is not our enemy.
God is our best friend.
(32:06):
You can experience that today.
You can have your eyes opened to see Jesus's goodness to you and for you for the first time.
Or maybe you've done that, but you know you haven't been living in the deliverance that Jesus purchased for you.
Maybe you've come to him and you've been rescued by him.
(32:27):
That happened at a moment in time in your life, but now you're far removed from that moment.
Time has gone on and you're like, man, I'm just struggling by.
I feel like I'm just barely surviving here in life.
My faith is barely surviving.
I'm barely surviving.
I'm just getting through one day at a time.
Guys, that is not living in freedom.
(32:48):
That's not living in deliverance.
And so what do we need?
Those of us who maybe have been delivered by Jesus in the past,
but who feel like life is slavery now,
we need the same thing.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
That's not a one-time thing.
That is a daily thing.
we need to taste and see the goodness of Jesus the reality that he has loved us to death maybe
(33:13):
we've let loads and loads of other pursuits and interests and passions and loves creep in and
choke out our ruthless commitment to tasting and seeing the goodness of Jesus so that man maybe we
started at one time we were in God's word all the time and excited about pursuing him but now we
haven't been in his word almost at all lately. And so we haven't been reading Romans 6.1,
(33:35):
there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. We feel like we're still
under judgment because we haven't been reminded that there's no judgment for us anymore.
Maybe you haven't been in your word and you haven't been reading later in Romans where it says neither
height nor depth nor breadth nor length nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor anything
in heaven or earth could separate you from the love of God. You feel like God is against you
(34:00):
but maybe it's because you haven't been in his word reading that man he is so for you
maybe all the other pursuits and things you've grabbed onto in this life you've tried to taste
and see that they are good instead of tasting and seeing that Jesus is good every day
maybe you've been skipping church or community group for reasons you never would have dreamed
(34:21):
of before if you're like man I got the knowledge why do I need to just come and talk about it again
and again and meet with people. Well, why do I need to gather with other people? I've got this
knowledge of who Jesus is, but you've forgotten the reality that Jesus says, by this will all men
know you're my disciples. Not by the knowledge you have in your head, but by your love for each other.
You want to put on display the beauty of Jesus in this world? It's not by how wise you are and how
(34:44):
many facts you know. It's by your love and commitment to the strange people in this room.
By this will all people see the beauty of Jesus, by your love for each other.
Maybe you've been skipping out on that, not been being a part of that.
Or maybe it's just been that you've stopped believing the truth of the Bible,
that you've been blessed by God to be a blessing.
(35:05):
And so you've stopped serving, you've stopped giving.
I don't know what it is, but I know this,
that God has given us a lot of very plain, ordinary chariots
for us to taste and see that he is good.
A bunch of plain and ordinary things like our Bibles
and the church and each other and serving and giving
(35:25):
us to taste and see his goodness. And so maybe life has felt more like slavery than it has
like freedom because you're looking at the chariots on the ground. You're looking at all the things
that are against you, or you're trying to taste and see that money is good and that experiences
are good and that other people are good when really we just need to taste and see that Jesus is good.
(35:48):
And that's how we get in on the deliverance, on the freedom that God has for us. And so man, come
back. Come back. Come back and taste and see that Jesus is good. Come again and again to the good
news of the gospel. Relentlessly pursue Jesus who loves you to death and watch as he delivers you
(36:10):
from fear and from evil and from judgment. Let's pray together.
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