11/02/2016 SITTING
2 Kings 7:3-8 Now there were four lepers sitting outside the city gates. “Why sit here until we die” they asked each other. “We will starve if we stay here and we will starve if we go back into the city; so we might as well go out and surrender to the Syrian army. If they let us live, so much the better, but if they kill us, we would have died anyway.” So that evening they went out to the camp of the Syrians, but there was no one there.
For the Lord had made the whole Syrian army hear the clatter of speeding chariots and the sounds of a great army approaching.…So they panicked and fled into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys, and everything else. When the lepers arrived at the edge of the camp they went into one tent after another, eating, drinking wine, and carrying out silver and gold and clothing and hiding it. [Living Bible translation]
Summary:
In Biblical times leprosy was a terrible thing. It was incurable. It was contagious. And, it forced its victims into social isolation, outside the city gates. Lepers were not allowed to attend “church.” The religious leaders of that time wanted nothing to do with them because they were considered ritually “unclean.” In fact, a person with leprosy was required to yell out “unclean, unclean” wherever they went, so that others could avoid contact with them. Lepers often had to rely on the charity of others for food and water.
In 2 Kings, four lepers, who had banded together outside the gates of their city, found themselves in what seemed to be a hopeless situation. Not only were they lepers, driven outside the city gates, with a dreaded disease but their city was in the midst of a famine. Moreover, an enemy army, the Syrians, was camped nearby. As the men sat, they considered their alternatives but each one seemed to lead to death. They reasoned that if they went into the city, which they were forbidden to enter, they would die from the famine like the other city inhabitants. If they stayed where they were, sitting by the gate, they would starve to death. If they surrendered to the Syrian army, they could be killed.
Their choices seemed difficult. But, they decided that they couldn’t just “sit out” the war. They couldn’t just “give up” and do nothing. So, they got up and got moving.
When they started moving they discovered that GOD had not forgotten them and that just as HE promised in Psalm 23:5. The LORD prepared a table for them in the presence of their enemies. GOD frightened the Syrian soldiers (because of the loud noises GOD created) into thinking they were being pursued, which caused the whole Syrian army to flee, abandoning everything --their food, their clothing and their wealth. So, when the Lepers walked into the Syrian camp, there was no one there---only evidence of the GOD’s goodness to them. By not sitting it out and moving in faith the lepers discovered GOD’s blessing.