THE WEAPON OF RUMOURS - The Preacher

I never knew that rumour is one powerful weapon with which God fights, especially against kings and their ferocious hosts; and Satan uses it, too.

Against The Assyrians

6 And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master  Thus saith the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

7 Behold, I will send A BLAST upon him, and He SHALL HEAR A RUMOUR, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land (2 Kings 19:6-7).

That was how God brought to an abrupt end the arrogant king of the Assyrians, who had been intimidating the Israelites and Hezekiah their king. God sent a rumour that turned him back home to the place of his death. No arrow was shot, no chariot stirred.

 Against King Saul

When King Saul the demons-possessed, with his army, had almost caught up with David the anointed of the Lord, to kill him, God used the same weapon against the mad king.

26    …and David made haste to get away for fear of Saul; for Saul and his men compassed David and his men round about to take them.

27 But  there came a messenger unto Saul, saying, Haste thee, and come; for the Philistines have invaded the land.

28 Wherefore Saul returned from pursuing after David… (1 Samuel 23:26-28).

 Against The Syrians

A classic case of the rumour-weapon against God’s enemies is found in 2 Kings 7:6-7. The Syrians had besieged the capital city of Samaria for so long that a famine had ensued in the city and the Israelites had begun to prey on their own babies for survival (2 Kings 6:24-33). That was when Elisha issued the word that fired the prophetic ballistic missile of rumour against the formidable army of Syria.

6 For the LORD had made the host of the Syrians TO HEAR A NOISE of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and THEY SAID ONE TO ANOTHER, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hitties, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.

7 Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight… (2 Kings 7:6-7).

It was the footsteps of four daring leprous men that God amplified in the form of all sorts of fearful cavalry sounds, until the ballistic rumour burst and scattered the army that had resolutely entrenched itself around Samaria for several months. Just one early morning rumour, and the siege was over; thereafter, the abundant food that the enemy had intercepted at the gates of their city while they starved to death, came into their land, and for the first time in many months, they greeted one another with a very meaningful “Good Morning.” A rumour from God had done in one early morning what the whole army of Israel had been unable to do for many months.

It was “the LORD” Himself that “made”the Syrians to hear the sounds. What they did with the sounds was something else. They began a rumour “one to another”; they ascribed an interpretation to the sounds and began to act, based on their own rumoured interpretation of the sounds they had heard.

A Prayer

Even now, there is hunger in the city. While we prey on one another (and never still have enough), the besieging Syrians gorge themselves with the abundance that should have been ours. Also, there be proud emissaries from the king of Assyria, that have brought in scrolls that mock our God and challenge our faith. O Lord our God, send them a rumour now. Scatter them. Break up their siege against our land. Put the Arabians to shame. And when King Senacherib is gone back to his land pursued by the rumour, may the sword of his own sons and bodyguards slay him in the house of the god in whom he has put his confidence for protection and the perpetuation of his throne (2 Kings 19). Then may singing break out again in the gates of Samaria in the twilight season of abundance of bread, in that inevitable morning of a new coming grace upon our land.

O Lord our God, may the heavens now send forth a sound that their ears will hear, and may they rumour among themselves their dispersal, defeat and death, and may they flee without a pin of our wealth with which they have decked themselves outside our gates while the land mourned and famished and died (2 Kings 7). O Lord our God, against the hosts of wicked politicians and Islamic cohorts, who now gather their siege without our gates, fortified by Ishmael and his sons, send a rumour. Turn them back. Deliver your anointed David in the caves of Adullam as he looks upon Your face. May Senacherib not survive his boasts against Your name. May Syria not see another sunrise at our gates. O God, send them a blast. Cause them to hear a rumour. Scatter them. Destroy their king. Save your anointed. Amen.
Some months ago, the rumours killed a man who once ruled. He had travelled out to a far land for dire medical attention. To that land the rumours pursued him, that his dead and buried sins some merciful tenures ago had been dug up in UK, and the gaoler was coming back for him, helped by the New Chief; also, that his sister faraway there, who used to keep the oil-lamps here, herself had been awaiting him in the dungeon. There was nothing of the sort. He fled back home, to less able medical care. He died, his dirge ironically more loudly sung by those who had fired the missile. That is not the last. While they shall spread the rumours to kill, they shall gag you to silence, that no voice might question when the army begins to move to deadlier weapons than rumours.

1 He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.

2 And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar (Ezekiel 9:1-2).

That was what Ezekiel saw: killers from the Lord. What I see is different, killers from the crowned. They have been dispatched: killers through the land, to spare those that would be muffled, but silence those that would choose to scream, until a silence by fear, a blanket of silence enshrouds the land; a stillness like death in which Herod might be unfettered by prying tongues. It is time now to cry before tears become a crime. It is time to stop the swords before the brothers of the many slain are forced themselves to seek other crowned heads also. (Did I call any politician’s name? Did I ask Opposition to wear a helmet?) Then the land shall dance the dance of reprisal troubles in the darkness of which the others already with their “slaughter weapon” in hand shall go through the cities again, the snare snapping.

May God grant discerning ears when the missiles of rumour begin again to fly. Amen.

Amen.