Joash

The Lukewarm Warrior

For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.—1 John 5:4

Fred Binns

On many occasions Jesus told his followers about the effectiveness of an overcoming faith. This type of faith has served the saints well down to our present time. And we have numerous examples of this same faith from the lives of holy ones in almost every book of the Old Testament. However, as this issue of The Herald demonstrates, there is another body of Scripture almost as extensive and just as instructive provided by those who showed a marked lack of faith. This additional testimony has a long history, including Esau who was indifferent to the promise of his Creator, and King Saul who so often ignored the plain direction of the Lord, preferring instead to try to accomplish the Lord’s purpose in his own way. The experience of Joash, king of Israel, provides an instructive lesson in this former, and fatal, form of failure.

It hardly need be said that all the enemies of ancient Israel and of the patriarchs personified the present enemies of the Lord’s people, including the world, the flesh, and the devil. It is on this account that the Old Testament record has proven to be such an indispensable aid to Christ’s footstep followers during the Gospel age. King Joash, realizing his need of divine assistance, made his way to the home of the prophet Elisha, a man who had already proved himself greater even than his predecessor Elijah. King Joash knew Elisha had received a double portion of the spirit, for he addressed the prophet with the very words that had come from Elisha’s own lips when he saw Elijah taken up: “O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof” (2 Kings 13:14; see also 2 Kings 2:12).

So where did Joash go wrong? The record is revealing in its brevity: “Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down unto him … And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands upon the king’s hands. And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the LORD’s deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them. And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice, and stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice. And Elisha died, and they buried him.” (2 Kings 13:14-20).

The account speaks volumes in its simplicity. King Joash was guilty of the cardinal sin that has dogged the steps of Israel to this day. He judged the Lord by natural sight and not by the eye of faith. The sign itself was clear. The arrows of God had ever been “sharp in the heart of [the king’s] enemies” (Psalm 45:5), but the king’s eyes were not on the promise but on the dying prophet too feeble even to act out the sign in the customary manner. There was the token touch of Elisha’s hand to seal the sign, but Joash felt only the cold hand of death. What should he do other than give token acknowledgment to the prophet’s instructions and leave? The matter was sealed, and the sign was good: Joash did indeed smite the Syrians successfully three times, but because of his lack of confidence in the word of the prophet, he failed, whereas he could so easily have “smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it.”

We need to grasp the fundamental reason why King Joash went wrong. It can be simply stated: because the king judged by sense and sight, he fell into the cardinal error of taking the means for the reality. He saw only the feebleness of the messenger and could not appreciate the power of God’s Word. He saw not that the arrows he held represented the Word of God and were really the promises of divine victory. If he had done so, he would have grasped them in both hands and with vigor struck them on the ground just as many times as the divine purpose required. The power of God did not rest with the prophet but in the Word, as the final recorded event in the record reminds us: “It came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet” (2 Kings 13:21).

Of course one might naturally assume that when the corpse touched the bones of the prophet, power came out of them and revived the dead, but such a conclusion only falls back into the old error; worse, it misses the deeper lesson. This lesson has to do with the double measure of the spirit; it is a lesson preserved these many years for the benefit of the saints of this age (Romans 15:4).

Because he received a double measure of the spirit granted to Elijah, Elisha performed twice as many miracles as his predecessor (eight for Elijah and sixteen for Elisha). Elijah and Elisha had each raised one person from death, and then we have this last event of a second awakening from the tomb, again bringing the “double measure” to our notice.

If we are to benefit from the deeper lesson of how King Joash went astray, we must look then for these arrows of the Lord, the words of our dear Lord himself. Whatever helpful lessons are gained from the useful application of various sections of the household of faith to the persons of Elijah and Elisha, it is plain that in the presence of the Lord we are in fact in the presence of one far greater than Elisha. As the “firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18) Jesus is the true inheritor of the double portion, not just heavenly power but the infinite power of one born into the New Creation.

Lessons for Us

On the day of Pentecost the apostle Peter began to shoot forth the arrows of the word: “Him [Christ] being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain … Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:23,37). So “sharp in the heart of his enemies” (Psalm 45:5) are the arrows of the Lord that three thousand hearts were turned that same day into the way of the Lord (Acts 2:41).

The culmination of this warfare of the present age must now be close. It may indeed fall to the present generation to seal the victory. The enemies of the world, the flesh, and the devil are still before us. Let us then firmly grasp his arrows and strike with all our vigor.

Once: “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (John 14:13, ASV).

Twice: “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it” (John 14:14).

Thrice: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you” (John 15:16).

Shall we “stay our hand” at this point, even while the double portion lies within our grasp? Surely not!

We strike again the fourth time: “In that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you” (John 16:23).

And a fifth time: “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24).

And the sixth: “At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God” (John 16:26,27).

Shall we yet “stay our hand”? “Nay, [for] in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Romans 8:37).