Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: INSOUCIANT (06/02/16)
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TITLE: The Valiant | Previous Challenge Entry
By Robert Johnston
06/03/16 -
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Surrounded by the Syrian army and cut off from all the necessities of life, four lepers accepted their death as a fact, and fearlessly left the gates of their city to enter enemy territory. The story is found in 2 Kings, 7. Accepting death as a friend instead of an enemy releases a freedom, which cannot be experienced by those clinging to their perishing lives. Mostly though, it releases God’s power to direct one’s steps without interference from the flesh.
We are not privileged to the conversations of the four lepers as they traveled from their besieged city into enemy territory, but we can imagine that their newfound freedom was somewhat carefree and lighthearted. They were free from anxiety and the distressing images as they left a place of misery, pain, and unimaginable cruelties experienced by people trying to cling to life for one more day. The air was fresh and he sky was blue outside that city.
In step they walked, bound together by their venture into the unknown. As they walked the Lord magnified the sound of their steps to sound like a thundering army of horses and chariots, which caused the Syrians to flee for their lives leaving their food and supplies behind. The lepers became heroes that day, but what had they done? They had simply allowed God to move by losing their fear of death. William Shakespeare once described those engaged in war saying, “The coward dies a thousand deaths; the valiant dies but one.”
As surely as there is a life in the flesh there is a life of faith, which cannot be experienced if fleshly self-will interferes. Demonstrated in the lives of these four lepers, who did nothing but accept their death as a known, is that it opens a world of unknown adventures. The apostle Paul tried to explain this to his still self-controlled converts who were trying to hold on to life in the flesh. In Romans 6 and Galatians 3 he reminded them they had been crucified with Christ. As it was with the four lepers, God often uses trying circumstances to cause us to abandon the known for a venture into the unknown.
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