“The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.” (Psalm 68:17) “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” (Psalm 34:7) The chariots and horses revealed to Elisha’s servant were the angels of God, concerned for those who feared God. The incident demonstrated what another “man of God”, king David, well understood and which he described in the following Psalms:
Did their presence at Dothan achieve anything? Certainly it did, for in addition to saving the two men and the town’s inhabitants, the Syrian army was neutralised, their soldiers temporarily blinded and led away from Dothan into the hands of the king of Israel. They were more numerous than the chariots of the Syrian army they were powerful and like a consuming fire, and they were invested with the authority of the “King of kings” who sent them. The Dothan experience is an instructive revelation of how God works on man’s behalf through His hosts of messenger servants. Elisha knew from that experience that the angels were there, but the inexperienced young steward had not yet learned where true strength lies. Elisha had already experienced a similar thing a short time before, when his predecessor Elijah was taken up from him and Elisha had cried, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof” (2 Kings 2:12).
#Simple angel messenger full#
And the Lordopened the eyes of the young man and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (2 Kings 6:17)Įlisha was a man of God, and the Lord had sent his protective forces in the service of His prophet. “Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. Yet his master’s reaction was quite different! Calm and confident, Elisha’s response was: “Don’t be afraid!” Not be afraid? Who would not be, in these circumstances? The reason was: “They that be with us are more than they that be with them.” What did he mean? Could Elisha see something that the servant could not? All became clear when the prophet prayed to God:
Totally outnumbered by a cruel and sadistic enemy who would show no mercy, he might be excused for being terrified. When Elisha’s young servant looked out the next morning and saw this great host, he was terrified: “Alas, my master! How shall we do?” He dispatched a large army to capture the prophet, and surrounded Dothan with chariots and horsemen under cover of night. Being told that the informer was Elisha the prophet of God, his agents tracked down Elisha and his servant to a small hill town in northern Israel. In the days when the kingdoms of Syria and Israel were at war in the 8th century BC, the king of Syria was much frustrated by the constant discovery of the whereabouts of his advancing forces (2 Kings 6:8-11). The example we are to look at first is not the earliest occasion when angels are mentioned, but it is a particularly illuminating one. Let us go straight to the Bible, to remarkable evidence about these heavenly beings. The Bible is the inspired word of God and contains a whole library of information on the subject so where better to look? We have no other source of reliable information. Positive answers to such questions are to be found only in the Bible. It is all too easy to assume that what you do not see does not exist!ĭo you believe in angels? Do you know who they are, or what they do? Are they just figments of the artists’ imagination in religious paintings down the centuries? Is there really something out there we ought to know about? Is it important to know if they exist? Khrushchev is said to have replied, “Good, I knew you wouldn’t.
On his return he reported that he had seen no angels. THE story has been told of how the first Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, was instructed by Soviet premier Khrushchev to watch out for angels when he went into space in April, 1961. Bible teaching about God’s “ministering spirits”
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