Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #26 in Genesis 37, and we will begin in 2Kings 6, where we were in our last study.  It says in 2Kings 6:13-17:

And he said, Go and spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan. Therefore sent he thither horses, and 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, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, JEHOVAH, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And JEHOVAH 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.

We are going to try to understand some of the spiritual pictures that are happening here in Dothan.  We came here because this place is mentioned in Genesis 37 as the place where the brothers of Joseph had gone, and where they conspired against him, and it was the place where they threw Joseph into a pit and then sold him to slave traders that were passing by Dothan.

We also saw that the name “Dathan” is related to “Dothan,” and Dathan was a man who rebelled against Moses out of envy, and God also tells us that the brothers of Joseph envied him, as it says in Genesis 37:11.  So we learned that in Dothan the children of Israel were envious, and it led to them committing a horrible crime against their brother.

Now we want to learn a little bit more about Dothan.  In the context of 2Kings 6, the king of Syria was upset because he kept making battle plans (against Israel), but they were being revealed to the king of Israel.  At first he thought there was a spy within his camp, but then he was told there was not a spy, but there was a prophet in Israel whose name was Elisha, and he was telling the king of Israel the words of the king of Syria that he speaks in his own bedroom.  So the king of Syria said to find out where this Elisha was, and it was told him that he was in Dothan, and then the king sent  an army of horses, chariots, and a great host.  Notice that they came by night, as it says in verse 14, and they compassed the city about. 

I mentioned last time that the king of Syria would be a type and figure of Satan.  He was the king of the enemy army, and they were constantly coming against Israel, the outward representation of God’s kingdom on the earth.  It was like what Satan did in the New Testament era.  He was constantly coming against the church over the course of the church age.  He assailed and attacked them.  So here, the king of Syria would be a type and picture of Satan, and he sent a great host to Dothan to fetch Elisha, who would be a type of Christ.  Christ was in Dothan, and Satan wants him, so he sent his army, a great host, and the compassed the city round about.  And this reminds us of at least a couple of verses.  One is in Revelation 20:7-9:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

We understand that these verses are describing the loosing of Satan at the time of the end, at the end of the church age.  And there came his immediate assault upon the churches and congregations of the world, and Satan was victorious.  He won that battle, and we read that he compassed the camp of the saints about, which is similar to Luke 21:20-21:

And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.

Again, we see Jerusalem compassed about with armies.  In 2Kings 6, it is Dothan that is compassed about with the army of the king of Syria.  There are some differences.  We know that Satan was victorious over the camp of the saints (the churches).  When Jerusalem was compassed with armies, it indicated it had fallen.  It was just like when King Nebuchadnezzar compassed Jerusalem, historically, and it fell.  That is more of a picture of the judgment on the churches during the Great Tribulation when judgment began at the house of God.

But here, the king of Syria sent his army, and they compassed Dothan about, and they came by night, and that seems to fit with the idea of the time of the end, which is identified with “night.”  But we realize there are differences here because this army was smitten by blindness, which we will look at in another study.  When we look up the word “blindness,” we will be helped a little in understanding the overall passage.

So in 2Kings 6, the servant of the man of God would represent the elect, the servants of Christ, and it says in 2Kings 6:15-16:

And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

This Scripture reminds us very much of what we read in 1John 4:3:

And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

We read of the “antichrist,” and we know that is Satan.  I wanted to read that because it says in the next verse in 1John 4:4:

Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

I think the Lord did this intentionally as He first tells us of the antichrist in verse 3 regarding the power of the devil out there in the world, and then He tells us in the very next verse, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”  Greater is He that is in you than he (Satan) that is in the world.  And Elisha told his servant, “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” 

Yes, it was a great host that came against Elisha and his one servant.  It was far more!  They had horses, which are very powerful animals, and they had chariots, which were powerful instruments of warfare for thousands of years.  Armies that had a lot of chariots were a great force, and they were able to overcome their enemies.  And this was a great host, and they could have sent company after company, against that city. 

And the servant of the man of God  represents every child of God, and we are still in our physical bodies, and we have physical eyes that register the things around us, and we see the enormous clout of our enemies, and then we look at Elisha, and he is able to do some miracles, but he is just a single man, and what is that against all that enemy power?  But what this servant did – and what the child of God can sometimes do – is to take his eyes off the God of the Bible.  And what Elisha did was to remind Him: “Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.”   Basically, Elisha was reminding him of the Scriptures because the Lord declared this in Deuteronomy 20:1-4:

When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for JEHOVAH thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be, when ye are come nigh unto the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people, And shall say unto them, Hear, O Israel, ye approach this day unto battle against your enemies: let not your hearts faint, fear not, and do not tremble, neither be ye terrified because of them; For JEHOVAH your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.

Do you see how perfectly this fits as God is speaking to His people in all generations?  When His people go out to battle against their enemies, and see “horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou,” it is always the case in this world that there are more of them than there are of us.  It is because in God’s plan of salvation, “many are called, but few are chosen.”  God saved a remnant, just a few out of the whole of mankind, so the vast majority of people are unsaved.

And everyone is a “soldier” in this spiritual battle, and everyone has a camp, and they belong to a particular kingdom.  We are either in the camp of the Lord Jesus Christ, or we are in the enemy camp of Satan, and Satan’s army is huge.  That is what we saw in Revelation 20 when Satan was loosed, and he went to gather together the nations to battle to come against the camp of the saints.  Satan and his forces of “Gentiles” were coming into the churches and congregations, which is really pointing to those that are not circumcised in heart, and they overran and destroyed the church as they compassed it about. 

If we look out into the world today, how many people are in the world?  There are nearly eight billion.  Even if God’s elect were all living on the earth today…and they are not because many have died over the course of history, including some of the great multitude that were saved during the Great Tribulation.   Even if the entire 200 million of God’s elect were alive on the earth, that would still leave 7,800,000,000 that are not God’s elect.  There are just masses of people that are in the enemy’s camp, and here we are, and we can see them.  We feel the pressure of them.  We see them all about us wherever we go, when we go to work, when we take our family out to eat, or when we step out of the house for any reason.  And sometimes even in our own house, we see the forces of the enemy.

And we can easily forget and be deceived by our own eyes, and we might think, “This battle is hopeless.  We do not stand a chance!”  And we can be like the servant of Elisha, and we can get carried away as we see the hopeless situation we, seemingly, are in, until the Lord opens our eyes.  And that was Elisha’s prayer for his servant; “Lord, open his eyes.”  I want to read this verse again in 2Kings 6:17:

And Elisha prayed, and said, JEHOVAH, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And JEHOVAH 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.

And in the Bible, “mountains” represent kingdoms, and in this case, it is the kingdom of God.  There were mountains full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha, who is typifying Christ.  And there was far more power and might than the earthly army that was out there, and that is God’s point.  Lord willing, we will talk more about that when we get together in our next Bible study.