DON'T STOP SHORT OF THE VICTORY

In 2 Kings 13:18, 19 (ESV) the prophet, Elisha tells Joash, the king of Israel: "'Take the arrows,' and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, 'Strike the ground with them.' And he struck three times and stopped. Then the man of God was angry with him and said, 'You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you had made an end of it, but now you will strike down Syria only three times.'"

Men, we must maintain a vigilant fight in prayer, along with our families, in praying for the suffering, persecuted church, as well as many other national and international needs. Someone has said that "Quitters never win and winners never quit."

I think that Elisha wanted to end his life here on earth with another great victory for God and Israel, but sad to say, he died an angry and disappointed man. This was because of an apathetic king who lacked stickability in warfare. He should have struck the ground five or six times, especially as verse 16 tell us that "Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands."

King Joash lacked prophetic insight and perseverance. He only smote three times and stopped. Now Syria would only be defeated three times which would not be enough to consume them.

Perhaps the king only had three arrows in his quiver. He should have had more. Psalm 127: 4, 5 says, "As arrows in the hand of a mighty man so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gates." Men, we should desire, if possible, that God would give us a full quiver and that by His grace we should fire every one of our arrows into the battle of the Lord. We must not in any way take the weapon of prayer too casually. We must train each one of our children in the art of persistent warfare prayer.

ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, and the Muslim Brotherhood and many other terrorist organizations will win if we as families across the world to not persistently pray.

We need to ask ourselves the question: why should they win any victories at all when we have the Captain of the Lord's hosts on our side? We must never let them win one single battle simply because we are not persistent and quit praying.

"Pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell