2 Kings 6:24-33 - Homiletics

Half-heartedness.

Jehoram was altogether half-hearted in his religion. He "halted between two opinions." While he paid a certain amount of respect to Elisha, as the prophet of Jehovah, he nevertheless allowed the worship of Baal to continue in the capital ( 2 Kings 10:18-28 ), if not elsewhere, and maintained the calf-worship also at Dan and Bethel ( 2 Kings 3:3 ). He had suffered himself to be guided by Elisha in respect of the Syrian prisoners captured by the prophet ( 2 Kings 6:23 ), and had evidently been in communication with him on the subject of the present siege, had probably been exhorted by him to repentance, and promised that, if he would wait upon Jehovah, in due time there should be deliverance. The prophet's words had made some impression on him; he had to a certain extent turned to God, had put sackcloth upon his loins, not ostentatiously, but secretly ( 2 Kings 6:30 ), had borne the privations of the siege without murmuring, had refused to surrender the town, and looked to Jehovah to deliver it. But there was no depth in his penitence, no surrender of the heart and the will to God, no firm and rooted faith in God's truthfulness, and in the certain accomplishment of his promises. His repentance was but a half repentance. A single incident of the siege, a horrible one certainly, but yet not without a parallel in other sieges and in shipwrecks, shattered the whole fabric of his repentance and his resolution, turned him against the prophet and against Jehovah, caused him to threaten the prophet's life, and to make up his mind that he would follow his own course, and not wait for the Lord any longer ( 2 Kings 6:33 ). He thus revealed the true state of his heart and soul, showed his spiritual unsoundness, revealed himself as one whose character was rotten at the core, who had never turned to Jehovah in sincerity and truth. What wonder, then, that God had not granted the deliverance promised to true faith and true penitence, that a half-repentance had not availed with him? So it had been with Ahab ( 1 Kings 21:27 ; 1 Kings 22:34 ); so it would always be with all those who, after Jehoram's example, should be half-hearted in religion, should at once " fear the Lord, and serve their own gods" ( 2 Kings 17:33 )—own for masters both God and mammon. A half-repentance is useless. Nothing avails but to turn to God with all the heart and all the soul and all the strength. God hates waverers. To such he says, "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth " ( Revelation 3:15 , Revelation 3:16 ).