“Then they said to one another, ‘We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent, and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now, therefore come. Let us go and tell the king’s household.'”
– 2 Kings 7:9
I love this story. These four lepers in2 Kings 7:9 reason with each other saying, “If we stay in the city, we’re going to die of famine. If we go out to the camp of the Syrians, who have surrounded us, then maybe they kill us, which would be the same thing that’s going to happen to us if we stay here. Or maybe they spare our lives, and we live. So let’s go out to the camp of the Syrians.” And they do. And when they get there, they find that the Syrians have left behind all of their stuff: their tents, their horses, their donkeys; “leaving the camp as it was,” verse seven says, and leaving all kinds of food and drink.
God, we praise you for the good news we have to feast on today.
And so, these four lepers just start feasting on all the Syrians left behind, until they look at each other, and they say, “We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news. We don’t need to keep silent about this.” For a variety of reasons, including some selfish reasons that they point to, here. But when I read this verse, I cannot help but to think about the picture here of four people so overwhelmed by the goodness they have discovered, that they can’t keep it to themselves. Can I just say that one more time? The picture here of people who are so overwhelmed by good news, that they have discovered that they cannot keep it to themselves.
2 Kings 7:9 Leads Us to Praise God
And so, we pray based on this picture in 2 Kings 7:9, God, we praise you for the good news we have to feast on today. For your gracious provision, for your salvation in our lives. For your mercy, that’s new every single morning, including this morning. God, we praise you for your Word that we have to feast on. For your grace that sustains us. For your strength and your peace and your hope, God, far more than just some food and drink and tents and possessions. You have given us that which will never perish or fade.
God, we praise you for your goodness toward us. We praise you for the gospel that we feast on, day in and day out. And we pray, God, that in light of this picture in 2 Kings 7:9, that we would not keep it to ourselves, that we would not keep it to ourselves. Today, God, we pray for opportunities today to share the gospel, to share this good news with others who need it right around us. We pray that you would open doors for us to share the gospel with family members, with friends, with coworkers, with neighbors, with people we just happen to meet today in your sovereign providence, God, that you would use us to spread the good news of your grace to others today.
This Verse Leads us to Pray for the Unreached
God, we pray that this would be the story of our lives: not keeping this good news to ourselves; spreading it here, spreading it around the world. God, we pray for the Shi’a people of Oman today. No known believers among them; none of them know this good news of your grace in Jesus. God, we pray that the Shi’a people of Oman would experience this good news, that they would hear this gospel and believe it.
God, we pray for the spread of this good news to the nations. We pray that through our lives and our families and our churches others will see you. We pray for the 3 billion people who have little to no knowledge of this good news. And we pray that we would just sit back and feast on it. That you would use our lives to spread it. Oh God, we praise you for this grace that we have found, that we do not deserve, that has found us. And we pray that it wouldn’t stop with us. We pray that your grace, this good news, and your gospel, would spread through us today, and every day of our lives here, as we feast on the grace and goodness that you have provided for us. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
