You're listening to Mountain View Church Audio, Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City, Whitehorse, Yukon. Here's this week's message. It's good to see you this morning. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I'm here. We've had a great time these last few days in the Yukon. I'd never been here before. I met your pastor when he was two years old. And so I have known him longer than anybody else here has, including his wife and you and everybody. And it is a great joy. So come here for a minute, Jeremy, would you please?
This is the day. It's not just approximately. Steve said this is Jeremy's anniversary. It's not him and his wife. They've been married a little longer than that. They've got a 16-year-old boy, so I just want to clarify that. We're dealing with 10 years today. He came to be your pastor, and God has blessed him and blessed you through him.
So I just want to rejoice in seeing young guys from my church who have gone out into the Lord's work are serving him and being fruitful for him. And his parents still live just a few blocks from me. So God bless you, Jeremy. And thank you for your faithfulness here. And I trust God will give you another 10 years of fruitful ministry. That's the goal. You heard it here first. I like miracles. You like miracles?
I mean, what's not to like? Miracles are those things and those times when we see God intervene in our lives or in the lives of those around us in direct ways that show his power and show his deliverance and show his goodness in our lives and all that God is. And so as I look into the Bible, I was thinking about miracles and I went through the Bible in my mind and I realized this. There are just three periods in the scripture when miracles were what we might call common. And so when I say that, your mind maybe will go through the Bible and see. Let me think, when were three periods when miracles were common? Well, let's just take a look through. The first was Moses. Moses and then Joshua after him. The Red Sea parted. The plagues were dealt with in Egypt so that God delivered his people. The walls of Jericho fell down when they got there. Their shoes didn't wear out for 40 years in the wilderness. They had food for 40 years in the wilderness. God cared for them in miraculous ways, and it was amazing. And brought them into the land and gave them the land.
Then I'm going through in my mind, and they come to the time during the kings of Elijah and Elisha. Again, two generations. And both of those men saw by the power of God a child raised from the dead. They saw... But miracles in a variety of ways. Elijah called down fire from heaven on the sacrifices that were there. And then I pass on in my mind and I go on and I find Jesus and the disciples. Again, right? Two generations, Jesus and then after him, the apostles. And they did mighty miracles. There were many healings. Thousands of people were changed and delivered and had miraculous experiences. So I thought, let's look at one of those.
this morning because i like exciting things and i've got a really exciting story for you if you're not familiar with this story you're going to want to just jump out of your seat and holler hallelujah if you do it's okay if you don't that's still okay so i'm in second kings chapter six let me give you a little bit of background syria is warring against israel syria is warring against israel i'm not talking about today i'm talking about more than 2500 years ago nothing's changed if you check the headlines today you can find the same thing is going on today so It was a difficult time in the life of Israel and her prophets. So it says here in 2 Kings 6, I'm going to jump down to verse 8. Once when the king of Syria was warring against Israel, he took counsel with his servants, saying, At such and such a place shall be my camp. But the man of God sent word to the king of Israel, Beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are going down there. And the king of Israel sent to the place about which the man of God had told him. Thus he used to warn him, so that he saved himself there more than once or twice.
So on a regular basis, the king of Syria is trying to go down and sort of like chop the head off the snake, if you will. If he can kill the king, then everything else will fall into line for him. And so the king doesn't go where he would expect to find him because the man of God is continually telling him. So Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, is furious. He's livid. And he says, you know, somebody in my camp is a spy for Israel, and I'd like to find out who it is and how I'm going to deal with it. Listen to what it says. The mind of the king of Syria was greatly troubled.
because of this thing. And he called his servants and said to them, will you not show me who of us is for the king of Israel? One of the servants said, none, my lord. Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom. Your bedroom's bugged, boss. That's what's going on here. Well, if that's the case, then what are you going to do? If you've got a problem and you identify the problem, then the next step is we've got to solve the problem. So we're going to kill Elisha. Then I can kill the king of Israel and then I can win the war.
And so he sends his army to intercept Elisha. Well, let's just read a little bit about it and see what's going on. He said, go and see where he is that I may send and seize him. It was told him, behold, he is in Dothan. Folks, I want you to remember this. Dothan is only mentioned two times in all of scripture. So hang on to that thought and we'll come back to it. So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army. He sent everything but the air force and he would have sent them if he had one. So when the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out. Now I'm going to pause there for a moment.
I take this scripture, which I just read, as an indication that the man of God should have a servant. I've never been able to sell it, but I'm still trying to see if we can come to that place where the man of God would have a servant. And so we better move right on. He rose in the morning, went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, alas, my master, what shall we do? Now, that's a pretty good question. If you get up in the morning and you find encircling the city,
tanks, soldiers, the whole thing. And they're starting to move in before you. I think that question would come to your mind. What are we going to do? We're in trouble. Alas, my master, we're toast. And Elisha says to him, don't worry. Oh, don't worry. I am worried. Well, hang on. And let's see what happens. Elisha prayed. He said, do not be afraid for those of us who are with us, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Then Elisha prayed.
And he said, O Lord, please open his eyes so that he may see. So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. Wow, pretty cool, eh? You can't see them. But open his eyes, Lord, and show him what is around us here. And the hills around the city are filled with chariots of fire and angels. And wow, I'm excited. Excuse me, I get carried away a little bit. And God brought a miracle.
Elijah prayed again, said, Lord, blind them. Open our eyes, blind them. And he led them down into Samaria where the king said, shall I kill them all, Lord? Shall I kill them all? And Elisha said, no, give them dinner and go home and then they won't want to fight you. And that's the way it worked out. So, wow, that's pretty cool. I want to know, you know, what can I take and do with that? Because that's how I want my life to be. I want to look around. And when I see the soldiers around, when I see the enemy, when I see those who are going to attack me, when I see those who are against me, I want to be able to look around, see the chariots of fire and say, wow, bring it on, guys.
But we have some questions, if we're thinking. Now, this is a thrilling story, and there's many others like it. David and Goliath. Paul was shipwrecked, and yet he was saved miraculously. Peter was jailed, and he was delivered miraculously. And all through the Bible, all kinds of things like that are happening. But I have this question, because in my life, maybe you're here this morning and saying, in my life, I haven't seen that. So I want to know, is this the stated policy of God?
Is this the way God always works? If you're following him, when the trouble comes, the angels will come with the chariots of fire and deliver me. Is this a mathematical axiom? Is it a fixed formula for God, the way he works? Is it a set of rules by which God runs the world for those who love him and serve him? Is it his sure method? And if the answer to those questions is yes, many of us here this morning would hang our heads and say, that's not where I live. I prayed when I was in trouble and I didn't see any miracles.
When my spouse was sick, I didn't see God's healing hand. When I needed a job, I didn't see God showing me where I could go. When I had that heartache, when I had that physical illness, whatever it was, and you look down and you say, what's going on? I haven't seen that. I haven't experienced that. Why? Maybe I'm not living for the Lord properly. Maybe I don't have enough faith. Maybe I've got to find out how I can get more faith. I've got to figure this thing out because it's not happening in my life. You ever go there? You ever struggle and say, where's God in all of this?
Do you remember that a few minutes ago I said to you, Dothan is only mentioned twice in all of scripture. And the other time is quite fascinating in light of the one we've just seen. So I'm going to go back to Genesis chapter 37. And I should give you the background of this a little bit because I don't have time to go through the entire story. Jacob has big family.
And, you know, pastors love big families. I used to have two or three in my church had six kids each. He said, come here, fill out the whole row, you know, bring them on, bring them on. And so Jacob got lots of kids and 10 of his sons, he sends them out to shepherd the sheep. And the area around them has been kind of eaten up. So he sends them over to Shechem, another place in Israel. And they go there for a while. And after they don't show up for a while, Jacob's wondering, how's things going with the boys? So he says to Joseph,
I want you to go and find your brothers. They're at Shechem. Check them out. Bring me back news how things are going there. And so Joseph says, okay, dad, I'm off. And off he goes, comes to Shechem. And he's wandering around in a field looking for what isn't there. And a man finds him. He's 17 years old. He's just a kid. And the guy said, what are you doing wandering around here? He said, well, I'm looking for my brothers. They have the sheep. He said, oh, I remember those guys. They said, let's go to Dothan. So now let's pick up the story.
Verse 12. Now his brothers went to pasture their flock near Shechem and so forth. And when I come down to verse 16, they saw him from afar. And before he came near them, they conspired against him to kill him. They said to one another, here comes the dreamer. Remember, Joseph had some dreams earlier on. And in his dreams, he, the youngest kid, had dreamed that his brothers and his parents would bow down before him. Now, if you're an older...
sibling here, if you're the oldest sibling, I want you to think about this. If your brother comes along and says, you've been messing with me for all these years, you've been beating me up when mom and dad weren't looking, but someday you're going to bow before me. And what would you think, older sibling? Oh, I'll wait to see that day. And give him a couple right now just to remind him that day's not coming. And that's exactly what these brothers were thinking and doing. And they were to the point, they were so angry, they hated him so much because of this that they said, let's kill him.
And then one of them says, no, we better not do that. We don't want his blood on our hands. Let's just throw him in a pit. And then he dies. But we didn't kill him. So we're making headway here. We got one brother who's not willing to kill him. And he just wants to let him die on his own in the pit. Now, there is another brother that wants to rescue him. But he's off with the sheep while the rest of them are having supper. And they look up during supper. And what do they see?
They see camels coming down and heading for Egypt. And that caravan of camels has goods and spices and all kinds of things. And these are traders and they're going to make money. And so one of the brothers says, hey, I got an idea. Let's not leave him to starve. Let's get some money out of this. Let's sell him. And so they sold him. And this young man, whom the New Testament and the Old Testament both tell us was a righteous man, a godly man, a man who is committed to the Lord. And he goes off to a fate worse than death.
They put ankle irons around his ankles. They put a neck iron around his neck. And they put a chain on him. And he went all the way to Egypt like that. Can you imagine? It's not like they had put some cushioning on us. Imagine walking day after day. Your skin is being torn apart. He's off to what seems to him like a fate worse than death. And he gets to Egypt and they sell him to somebody. Now, soon it becomes...
Evident to his master. This guy's got skills. This guy's pretty smart. And he starts elevating him. And then along comes his wife. And she says, let's go have some fun. And he says, no, no, I can't do that. The Lord wouldn't be happy. And he flees from her. And she tells her husband, he tried to rape me. And boom, he's in jail. And so his life is like this. Only it's every time it goes down, it goes down farther. And he's in jail in Egypt. You're trying to tell me he's God's man? That God is active in his life? There's no sign of God doing anything. How do I see God in this picture?
I can't. I can't do it. And then things change. And you know the story probably of how he was in jail and two men came with dreams to him, said we had a really bad night. And he said, well, I'll ask the Lord about that. And he said, this fellow over here, I got bad news for you. I got good news and bad news. Bad news is for you. You're going to lose your head. The good news is for you. You're going to be elevated back to your position. And when you get there, by the way, remember me. Tell Pharaoh, there's a guy in here that didn't do anything. I'm innocent. I didn't do anything. Now everybody in jail says that.
First time I ever preached, I preached in a jail. Nobody left. And so after the service, the guy comes up to me and he says, I need to talk to you. I'm thinking, oh, wow, he wants to get saved. This is so exciting. My first sermon. He says, I shouldn't be in here. You need to help me get out. And that's the way Joseph was. I shouldn't be in here. Help me get out. And then I went and forgot it. And now two more years, he's in jail. Where is God? What's God doing? I don't know. He doesn't seem to be doing much.
By the way, let me take you over to Psalm 105 for just a moment, because some of you are thinking here. I didn't read about that in the scripture. I didn't read about those chains and all that stuff. Listen to this. The he is God. When he summoned the famine on the land and broke all the supply of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. His feet were hurt with fetters. His neck was put in a collar of iron until what he had said came to pass. The word of the Lord tested him. Lord, please don't test me like that. Joseph.
was the servant of God. Joseph was the one who, when tempted with evil, turned and fled. Joseph was seeking to honor God in all of his life. And he comes to Dothan. Dothan, the place of chariots of fire and angels. There's no chariots of fire and there's no angels. We see nothing. He goes off into this horrible life.
But then you remember something about the rest of the story, perhaps, and he comes and eventually Pharaoh has a dream and he needs an interpreter. And oh, now the butler remembers. Sorry, boss, there's a guy in jail. He'll tell you your dream. And finally, Joseph comes out. He interprets the king's dream. The king elevates him and says, you are the one to gather during these years of plenty. And then in the years of famine, you can sell it. And so Joseph, like almost instantly, is taken from jail. Has to go and shave, change his clothes. And he comes before the king. And before he's done, the king says, you're in charge. Oh, just like that, you're in charge. Instantly. It wasn't instant at all, was it? This had been in preparation.
For years, God had allowed Joseph to go through a fate worse than death, where there were no angels of fire, no chariots of fire, no angels, no deliverance. He went through it. And he didn't understand it. And he wept all the way to Egypt because of the pain and the suffering that he was going through and the knowledge, I'll never see my father again. I'll never know my family again. My life is over. But it turned around. And years later,
Let's go down towards the end of the story. The end of the story, by the way, is found in Genesis chapter 50. And his father dies. They go down, they bury his father. And they had a great retinue that went down with him in time of mourning. They come back. And now his brothers are waiting for their comeuppance, as they say. And they're terrified.
They know what they did to him, and they know now that he has absolute power. Dad's gone. He didn't want to kill us when Dad was here. That would make Dad sad, and he loves his father. But now Dad's gone. So they made up a little story. They said to Joseph, Dad said, just before he died, you weren't there, but the rest of us were, and he said, tell Joseph not to kill us. Because, you know, forgive your brothers for their sin. They acknowledge him. They had sinned against him, and they're terrified. And they come, and they beg him, don't kill us. Please don't kill us.
Now, I don't know about you, but if I've been through what Joseph's been through, and if I know who put me through it, I got some things for you. I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to keep you alive for a while and let you suffer. That's just me, you know. But the next sentence says, and Joseph wept. He wept. He said, oh, guys, don't you understand? You haven't seen the picture. I don't know how Joseph was able to see the picture after all he'd been through, but he did. And he says to them, do not fear.
Or am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. He's got it figured out now. He understands. God sent me here to protect your lives. God sent me here to be the one who enabled, from a human standpoint, the promises of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be fulfilled. God sent me here. How can I kill you? How can I hate you when what you did was God preparing me to save your lives?
Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? God meant it for good to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. So do not fear. I will provide for you and your little ones. Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. That's God at work in a life. You hated me. You sold me. You threw me in a pit. You despised me. But God sent me here to bless you and protect you. So folks, two men come to Dothan.
One man sees chariots of fire and angels and deliverance and the glory of God in a wonderful way and is sent on his way in power and might and glory. And another man comes to the same place, serving the same God, in the same spiritual place. And he goes off to a fate worse than death. But we can look back now and we can see that God was indeed active in both of these. By the time he came to the end of his life, Joseph had seen it. He saw it before his brothers did.
He understood God was there in the pit. God was there in the shackles. God was there in the jail. God was there in the abuse that I took. He was. And all of this fit together to save many lives. And that's the way that you see it this day. Now, folks, I really want to be Elisha. I don't want to be Joseph. But here's the thing. The one who's going to decide that is God. And so there's a few things I think we need to take home.
from this story. And we need to see and understand what's been going on and what it can do for you and me. The first thing I understand is this. I cannot pattern my life after others. We cannot pattern our lives after others. We have two men. We have two men who both love the Lord. We have two men who come to the same place and one of them is delivered and the other is not. And they're both men of God.
Back in the 1800s, there was a man named George Mueller. Some of you would know that name if you've been involved in Christian circles. And George Mueller started about four orphanages in England. He taught these street kids how to read and educated them and changed their lives in so many marvelous and wonderful ways. And he was an amazing man of God. And he had a principle that he operated on during his life that said, I will never ask anyone for anything. I ask God.
And so he would pray and say, Lord, there's nothing on the table here and it's suppertime. And some bread man would break down outside and bring in the bread. There were just amazing miracles like that. And he never asked anybody for anything. Just ask God. I like that. And so, you know, a lot of Christian leaders, when they saw how he lived and worked, they said, that's the way we should serve God. And even some mission boards said, we'll never ask for money. And tell the missionaries, you can't ask for money. You can't tell them your needs. You can only tell them about your ministry. And then the Lord will send money.
Well, that was the way George Mueller worked, but I read the whole Bible quite a few times, and I didn't find that command anywhere in Scripture. You see, that was God's working in George Mueller's life. That wasn't necessarily God's working in your life or your life or my life. You see, we can't pattern our lives after other people because God works in different ways at different times in different people. He also works in different ways at different times in the same people. You see...
Lazarus had a wonderful miracle, right? He's four days in the grave and he comes back. But he's dead. He's not with us. He's gone. All of the miracles that we experience in this world, they only last throughout this world. But the thing that God put Joseph through prepared him for a ministry that would be eternal and would change the course of the history of the world. He suffered. He lived in agony.
Two different people at two different times, and God treated them in two different ways. It's so easy for us to say, I'm hurting. I'm struggling here. Where is God in all of this? Maybe I don't have enough faith. Maybe I have to read more and pray more and be more righteous so that God can bless me too. Now, wait a minute. God works in different ways. I can't demand that others pattern their lives after me. I can't pattern them after them, but I can't ask them to pattern them after me either. You see, God does not...
lead all of us in the same path. I got saved a certain way. How did you get saved? Here's the date I was saved. I want to tell you about it now. What date were you saved? I had a guy in my church. He said, Pastor, I don't know when I was saved. I know I didn't believe. Now I know I do believe. I don't know when it changed. Oh, you can't be saved because here's how it happens. With me, I was maybe eight years old and I'm lying in bed thinking, what will happen to me tonight if I die? What eight-year-old thinks that? I jumped out of my bed.
kneeled down and I said, Lord, if I've never accepted you before, I knew I'd gone forward in a service, but I didn't know what it meant. I said, I accept you now. And I jumped into bed and I had the glorious, miraculous deliverance. I went to sleep. And that's the extent of my testimony of salvation. It enabled me to sleep that night. And I have never doubted my salvation since. So you have to be saved in the same way. And if you can't give a testimony like that, I question your salvation. Well, no, that's not how it works, is it? I know of people who have...
had dreams, a revelation from God, and brought them to Jesus. I had a woman in my church who heard an audible voice that led her to Jesus. I didn't have those experiences, so they must be more godly than I am. Well, they may be, but not because of that. You see, God is working in different ways. Don't go and expect everyone to have the same experience with God as you do so that you can have fellowship with them. No, God works in different ways at different times with different people. And the lack of deliverance also, I understand, is not to be interpreted as a disfavor of God.
We've got to remember that. The lack of deliverance is not evidence of the disfavor of God. And we could go through scripture. Let me take you to Acts chapter 12 for just a moment and ask, what's God doing? I don't have an answer for that, but I do know that God was at work in both. About this time, Herod laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. And when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. Wow.
This is a few months after the church begins. And James is one of the 12 disciples. Not only that, he's one of the inner circle. Peter, James, and John. If you've been to church three times in your life, you know that that's the inner circle of Jesus. He took them up onto the Mount of Transfiguration. These are the guys. And one of them is martyred. God, what are you doing? And Peter's in deep water too. But oh wait, Peter gets delivered. And the story goes on. I just mentioned it to you because I'm running out of time.
Angel comes along, gives Peter a boot. He's like, hey, get up. Peter thinks he's having a vision. So he gets up in the vision. Angel says, let's go this way. They come to the door of the jail. It opens. Didn't even have to push the button. Just open. And out he goes. And he's a block down the road before he realizes, hey, it's chilly out here. I'm not dreaming. This is real. And he goes, knocks on the door. The church is praying for his deliverance. Did they believe he was going to be delivered, by the way? No. He's knocking on the door. Rhoda says, Peter's out there. They say, we're praying. Shh.
James is martyred and Peter is delivered. Lives for years, but he still was martyred for Jesus. So the lack of deliverance is not to be interpreted as the disfavor of God or the absence of God in your life. And then there was one more man who approached Dothan. Only his Dothan was spelled C-A-L-V-A-R-Y. And he came and there was no deliverance for him. He cried out, God, deliver me from this, but your will, whatever. And God did not deliver him. He let him go to the cross.
through the cross, to the grave. Jesus prayed and his prayer was not answered. Jesus was in a good place with God, but he had to go through what he had to go through. He went through that that you and I might have eternal life, that you and I could know God, not because of our goodness, not because of the things we have done, but because of what he did for us on the cross by going through his dothan, his calvary. He opened up the door to eternal life.
Maybe if there's someone here this morning, maybe that hasn't made that decision, that commitment to trust Jesus as your savior. I can't promise you what kind of life he will lead you through, but I can promise you at the end, it will be to eternity in glory with him. And that is something to be looked forward to and to be willing for which to go through anything and everything that God puts in our path. Danger, destiny at Dothan. Two men. One gets a mighty miracle. One gets a fate worse than death. Both of them were used of God.
In amazing ways. God has something for you. It may involve marvelous deliverance and provision from him. It may involve the difficult heartache and time here. But it will lead to a glorious future with Jesus. And that will make it worth whatever we have to go through. Father in heaven, thank you. Thank you for Elisha, the chariots of fire. Thank you for Joseph and the things he learned through his suffering. So Father, open us to what you have for us in our lives.
So I pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. If you prayed to receive Jesus today, or would like to connect with our church community, visit mountainview.church and click the connect link. If this podcast and radio ministry has been a blessing to you, please consider partnering with us or making a tax-deductible donation at mountainview.church. Thanks for listening to Mountain View Church Audio. Join us next week for more Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City of Whitehorse Soup.