THUNDERING FEET

What mental image do the words “thundering feet” bring to mind? Maybe you think of hundreds of soldiers marching in unison across a parade ground, each step sounding like “thunder.” Perhaps it’s a picture of the beautiful and huge Clydesdale horses as a team of six pulls a wagon on a snowy, wintry night. Or maybe it’s a picture from a western movie as a gang of bad guys rides through the night to attack the remote home of the “good guy” rancher.

In 2 Kings 7 we see another picture of “thundering feet.” The king of Aram, Ben-hadad, had laid siege to Israel in the city of Samaria. Trapped in the city was the royal household of Israel and the prophet Elisha. The Arameans had cut off all food supplies and the situation was getting desperate; the people of the city were resorting to increasingly terrible and uncivil behavior.

Just when things were at their very worst, the unexpected happened and the massive army of the Arameans fled. Verses 6 and 7 say: “For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses—the noise of a great army; so they said to one another, Look, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us! Therefore they arose and fled at twilight, and left the camp intact—their tents, their horses, and their donkeys—and they fled for their lives.”

The Arameans (Syrians) had been frightened by the “thundering feet” of what they thought was an approaching army. The noise was so deafening that terror gripped the Aramean soldiers and they fled, leaving their equipment, weapons, food, clothes and animals. The “thundering feet” of the approaching army had overwhelmed them and they went AWOL.

Now let’s rewind the tape and see what really happened. Remember, there is a famine in the besieged city of Samaria. The people of the city are behaving badly. Out by the main gate of the city four men are dying with leprosy and they agreed among themselves, “If we go into the city, we will die and if we stay here and do nothing, we will die. Let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender; the worst thing that can happen to us is that we will die. Maybe they will take pity on us and spare us and give us a little to eat. So what do we have to lose? Nothing! Let’s go!”

It wasn’t a great army that caused the Arameans to flee, it was the shuffling footsteps of four sick and dying lepers walking across the desert sand. How does God take the muted footsteps of four men who are sick and hardly walking and make it sound like the terrifying march of thousands of armor-clad warriors ready for battle? How does God do that? I don’t have a clue. Heaven’s technical abilities are far beyond anything any of us can understand. I just know that God can do things like that.

The “thundering feet” of the lepers became the point of deliverance for all of Israel. When the lepers discovered that the enemy had fled, they began to plunder the tents and supplies of the encampment. It wasn’t long before the lepers realized that what they were doing was not right and they said, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent” (2 Kings 7:9).

The lepers rushed back to the city as fast as their shuffling feet and sick bodies would take them and reported the good news. After some initial disbelief, the people of the city came out and joined in the plundering. In one day they had gone from “The cupboard is bare and I may eat your left leg today” to “It’s party time!”

Today is a day of good news for us. God loves to confound our enemies and that’s good news. I call what happened with the four lepers “the confounding effect.” I base this on 1 Corinthians 1:27: “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.”

Our acts of obedience and steps of faith are the fuel that releases the “confounding effect.”

In Joshua 6, the children of Israel were confronted with the impenetrable walls of the city of Jericho and the haughty arrogance of the people of the city. But God gave them instructions and under Joshua’s leadership, the children of Israel followed them exactly and released the “confounding effect” on Jericho.

For seven days the children of Israel marched around the city of Jericho. One time each day they marched and said nothing. On the seventh day, they were instructed to march seven times around the city and at the end of the march to break their silence by shouting. What did their marching do to the walls? Nothing! What did their shouting do to the walls? Nothing! But their obedience and faith did; it released the thunder of God’s “confounding ” and down came the walls.

Our acts of obedience and steps of faith are the fuel that releases the “confounding” to work on our behalf.