The Arameans lay siege to Israel’s capital, Samaria. The residents of the city were slowly starving to death. Some even ate their own newborns. The king of Israel became enraged with the LORD and His prophet and resolved to kill him. When he arrived in the prophet Elisha’s room, he prophesied that there would be an abundance of food the following day. That was difficult to believe, but the monarch backed down.
A group of lepers decided to travel to the Aramean camp. They determined that whether they stayed or went, they would most likely perish, but going might lead to mercy. When they arrived, the troops had already left, but all of their belongings remained. They began raiding the tents, hiding the stuff, until their conscience overcame them. They understood they needed to inform the city’s starving population.
The king of Israel suspected it was a trap and dispatched a small detachment of chariots to investigate. They tracked a trail of abandoned items all the way to the Jordan River. The LORD had used the roar of a massive army to scare the Arameans away.
We are like those beggars when we come to Christ. We’ve lived in a land starved for the truth. People are desperate. We discovered an abundance of answers and began to hide the truth in our hearts. Then our conscience comes to us. What about the rest of them, who are holed up in the city, slowly dying, waiting for someone to break the wonderful news, “The enemy has been defeated!”? We are not doing the proper thing by keeping this revelation to ourselves.
2 Kings 7:8-9 8The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also. 9Then they said to each other, “We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”
Consider: Today is a day of excellent news… Let’s go right now and report this.
