| 2 Kings 2:23 An Athiest Stronghold |
Intro:
It's come to my attention that the Athiests have won another great victory in their quest for truth. Yet another Bible verse has come into disrepute. They think it justifies their moral superiority over God and everything Christian.
Here's the verse:
It's about Elisha, just after his master Elijah had ascended up to heaven in a whirlwind. The children were commanding him to do likewise.
Of course this verse isn't quoted outright on the web sites I've seen. They first like to embellish it. A story where children smacking bubble gum are met with a hail of bullets from machine guns. They then quote this verse and with great glee on their faces go their own way, for they have finally defeated God.
It's really a shame these people don't study more. I could make a landlord evicting people look bad. Or perhaps start a rally against the man who throws the switch down at the courthouse. What we're missing here is the chain of events that leads up to things in the first place. This is what liberals love to overlook when they make their emotional appeals.
I didn't see any of the people who proudly promulgate this verse shedding any tears when Janet Reno was toasting Marshmallows down in Waco. In fact they applauded that; made a movie about it portraying her as a hero, even though so many children died. Nevermind the fact that she could have avoided the whole thing by staking out a Quick-E Mart and making her arrests there.
And what about her going into the home of a small boy in Florida, with machine guns ablazing, to "rescue" him. I only mention these because liberals like to hold onto simultaneously contradictory viewpoints. This makes sense to them. They'll defend Janet Reno to the last, saying she had no choice, that circumstances forced her to act. But when it comes to God and his judgements, it's a whole new set of rules. Then suddenly, there is no defense.
The liberals counter that I'm being too critical of Janet Reno, while at the same time they claim they are being totally fair to God. Mountains and mountains and reams of papers justifying Janet's every action, running to her defense, while at the same time they only quote partial verses from the bible in isolation and out of context. They accompany them with voluminous accusations and insults. Accusations more telling of them then anything they would have us believe about God.
They scream that this verse IS in context. They look a verse before it and a verse after it, and it seems pretty clear. I've got to admit it. For once they've actually found something compelling. Instead of verses quoted in a context that is easily identifiable, like most of their shallow attacks are, this one takes some searching. And hence their glee.
But that is not enough. In true liberal style they have to embellish it. They never appeal to logic or stop to make an analysis. Instead they just jump right in and start making assumptions before they've heard all the facts. Very reactionary indeed. Like I said, they could have the guy at the court house swinging from the rafters. Never mind the fact that the state pays him to carry out sentences handed down by a court and a jury of peers.
They give us the picture of a decrepit dottering miserable old harsh vindictive bald man with no sense of humour and a wretched savage bitter cruel sadistic barren merciless heart, being lightly teased by some polite gentle sweet pure innocent young wholesome adorable children, who happened to be playing by the side of the road, and Elisha stumbling up on them, and instead of loving and embracing them, he instead has them ripped to shreds by 2 grizzly bears in order to satisfy his black dry empty dead cold malignant sterile hardened heart. All with God's blessing of course.
Sounds like the typical liberal argument to me: Logical, well thought out, very deductive.
That pretty much sums it up. I do hope they will tell me if I'm leaving anything out. I do so much want to be faithful to their enlightened viewpoints, especially since they know more about the bible then anybody else.
One guy's web site said he's going to spread this story to the whole world, to show how cruel God is, that it's his duty.
Notice how open their hearts are to God and how they are always striving to present him in a positive light. They are truly the followers of Reno. Clinton has nothing to worry about, he will always be portrayed as a dignified and honorable man.
You'd think they'd worry if they had gotten their facts straight. That before slandering God they'd first check to see if there was even the slightest possibility of error. I mean in a court of law you'd have to have evidence, enough to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt.
But this isn't how liberals think, is it?
They give Janet Reno the benefit of the doubt, but because this is God we're talking about, they don't give a moment's hesitation to slander. Such boldness, such confidence.
Let's begin our case:
To begin with; they came out to meet him. He didn't just "happen" up on them. Elisha wasn't an old man either. He had just started his prophetic ministry and lived another 55 to 70 years after this. Scholars put him at around about the age of 25 at the time (Hard Sayings of the Bible, Kaiser/Davids/Bruce/Brauch, IVP:1996)
Second, it was customary for men to cover their heads in that day, so it's doubtful children would have been able to see if Elisha was bald at all. It was more an expression of contempt and not a reference to any physical attribute of a 25 year old man.
And these children were mocking in a very strange way. They were mocking Elijah's ascent into heaven. They were telling Elisha his disciple to "go up, go up" if he could. Mocking the very power of God and calling into question the ascent of Elijah. Hardly an innocent taunt, and hardly the words of children. These were well directed taunts.
This leads me to some conjecture:
We all know today that liberals are always crying about children. And we see people like Yassir Arafat using this to their advantage every day by sending out hoards of children to stone armed guards at Israeli checkpoints; hoping with all their might that they might catch something on camera to use against Israel. In effect throwing children in harms way in the hopes they might be shot in order to make Israel look bad.
And the media loves that kind of footage too, never stopping to ask how the children got there or who bused them in. We are told to believe the children are self organizing and that they are not being used as pawns.
These are the kinds of games that go on as unseemly men use children as living shields from which behind they can strike.
I don't think this is a new phenonmenon either.
Earlier in 2 King 2 we see that Elisha has recieved a double portion of the annoiting that was on his master Elija. And we also have a solemn warning from the Old Testament:
People knew this verse well, and what it meant. It's probably why they sent out their children to assualt the prophets instead of coming themselves. God might smite them but he would never harm their children.
How many years this must have worked. Assaulting the prophets as often as they pleased without any consequences.
We read that 42 of them were killed. That leaves us just two questions: How come so many? and Why didn't they run?
Were they too busy mocking to notice the bears? or were there too many in the crowd to mobilize that quickly? (kinda like when people get trampled at a rock concert) . We don't know for sure just how many children there were, but to give 2 bears enough time to mual 42 people, it must have been a large crowd.
Not quite the picture the liberals paint is it? A 25 year old man being rushed by a mob of angry children that were jeering the insults of their parents. A scene that had probably been played out many times before.
Things like this go on in Israel today. It's well orchestrated and you don't dare raise a hand to them for fear of all the cameras. Assulted but defenseless, you're bound by your morales, and yet the enemy is bound by nothing at all as it pummels you, that's the intent.
I think Elisha handled himself well. He pronounced the judement of God and left. What else could he do?
The judgement might have acted on their parent's too and perhaps it did. We just don't know.
As to why God responded the way he did, well...now we are getting to the crux of the matter:
This is God's covenant with his people Israel. You can see it's pretty sweet. All they have to do is love righteousness and obey the Lord's statues and he will bless them. I don't think any liberal would complain about this.
However:
That's sounds pretty bad. I don't think anyone would go for this one, or at least once having tasted it they would certainly go back to the other deal.
Or would they:
Right at the end of the second set of chastisments. These people had been rebelling for that long.
God had probably spared the children on more then one occasion. But his patience were wearing thin. Things were escalting and these people weren't changing. They had sent their children to jeer at yet another prophet.
This jeering was being made on the crumbling precipice of a false misconception, that they could hold back God's judgement forever, and they were not on solid ground. They had pressed God's patience to the limit. I'm sure if their parents had come themselves, they would have faced a lot more then bears.
They knew the scriptures:
God had clearly spelled out the penalties for them in his convenant. Did they not believe him? Did they not know they were under certain obligations and God was under certain obligations. That's what a contract is.
If they had been good they would have had full legal right to claim all the blessings God had promised and God would have been honor bound to bestow them, but instead they were invoking the cursings clauses and trying to find ways to trick God into not carrying out the sentences. They were trying to outwit God.
Sounds to me like these people just weren't taking God seriously, nor his warnings about their impending judgement.
How could they possibly not expect God, who had been fully bound by the blessings clause, not to be fully bound by the cursings clause? They read the terms. It's like they were trying to rewrite the contract.
I can imagine how absolutely shocked they must have been that God's judgements were beginning to fall despite their use of their children. How many warnings was God supposed to give before he acted.
The time had come that nothing could hold God's judgement back.
They had ignored warning after warning and the kids were still out there. The swiftness of God's response to the taunters shows just how precarious a position they were in. They were out on a limb. They had no cause to cheer.
Why do you think the prophets were there in the first place? They were there to issue warnings. This event was just another in a long series of events in which God had been dealing with his people, and apparently to no effect.
Let's pick up from where we left off:
Would you believe that all of this actually happened, that they were that stubborn.
So once again the critics have isolated an event from it's context.
What's intended to be a somber warning that God will always carry out his judgements, they use to mock instead.
They would do well to heed the words of the bible becuase yet another round is just ahead.