In the Bible, the book of Second Kings, the sixth chapter, there is a story that I love to read. It is a story that sends a powerful message of truth to the hearts of all who are troubled beyond measure and outnumbered by overwhelming circumstances.

The king of Syria was angry with the prophet Elisha. He wanted to take the prophet prisoner. The king learned that Elisha was in Dothan, which was in an upland plain in the caravan route from Syria to Egypt, approximately eleven miles north of Samaria. Royal orders were issued. Troops marched. Chariots thundered out. Great clouds of dust rolled behind. This army marched for one reason: not to take a city, but to take a man. Elisha.

The soldiers marched all night. The charioteers guided their stallions through the darkness. A light came from the brilliant stars that seem so close to the earth in the East. Flickerings of other lights came from torches held by those who served as standard bearers in the daylight hours. It was an impressive, almost eerie, sight: cadence being called through the night; whinnying horses; the creaking of a thousand wheels; the clank of swords on shields; spears against armor . . . Finally, they arrived. Dothan was surrounded long before the sun reddened the sky.

Inside the city, Elisha and his young servant stirred from their sleep and arose to make ready for travel. By the first gray light of dawn, they were ready. They passed through the great stone gates and stepped forth on their journey. Before they had gone but a few hundred feet, they saw the solid wall of troops and horses that encompassed the entire city. Literally hundreds of spears shone dully in the early light. North, south, east, west--everywhere the two men turned--ranks of warriors in battle gear stood like an impenetrable forest.

The young servant with Elisha began to tremble with terror. Hope drained from his heart and, with it, strength from his limbs. He became weakened in his knees and sick in the pit of his stomach. Fear coursed through every fiber of his being; his mind was consumed with fear. His heart pounded like the beating hooves of a hundred wild stallions in a panic stampede. Visions of pain and death flashed across his mind. All the stories that he had ever heard of slow torture crowded everything else out of his brain. He saw himself impaled on every gleaming spear, hacked asunder by every curved blade, hanging at the side of every Syrian warrior. His imagination raged with the wild fire of terror. He saw his family alone, mourning and weeping over a father who was murdered brutally in the Dothan plains.

How would it feel when well-honed steel disemboweled him alive? What heavy enemy hand would strike the final death blow? Why, of course, to him, there was absolutely no thought of escape, of getting out alive, of breathing the air of another day, or of waking up to another dawn. This was it. His time was up!

He turned and almost whimpered to the man who walked with Elijah's mantle--Elisha. He said, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?" Elisha did not look upon the young man's fear with scorn. He did not try to comfort him with a wise saying. Instead, he told him a fact. It was a faith fact, not a mere platitude, although it would sound like it to some. He said to the trembling youth, "Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them."

Oh, this sounds like an empty, groundless hope. This sounds like the murmurings of a man trying to block his own heart and deceive away his own fears, because anyone standing there would have seen two men facing thousands. Two unarmed persons standing before a multitude of hardened veterans. Yet Elisha said, "they that be with us are more than they that be with them." He turned his eyes to heaven and spoke, "Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see." And the Bible goes on to say, "And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."

If you read on, you will see how God delivered His servants. However, I want you to stop here and think. Think about all those fiery horses and chariots around the servants of God. The young man trembled with fear when he saw the Syrian troops; and all the time he trembled, there was a powerful heavenly host right around him. He could not see them until Elisha prayed and his eyes were opened to those supernatural beings.

I have a deep belief in angels, in the ministry of angels. I have always wondered why there isn't more teaching on this subject. I suppose it is because old traditional concepts make the idea of angels seem so childish that many ministers are somewhat hesitant about mentioning them. You know what I mean. When you say the word "angel," people think of some kind of a long-haired being with wings. Others think that when people die they turn into angels, that they grow wings and become musicians, sitting on a cloud, plucking away on a harp.

Oh, this is just a very materialistic concept dreamed up by the natural mind, not the spiritual mind. A man is a man, and an angel is an angel. Man can never turn into an angel. When he goes on into the next world, he will be a man and not an angel.

If you want to know what angels are like, what they do, what forms they take, it is all there in the Bible for you to read. It is important for a Christian to know. The army that was standing ready around Elisha was made up of angels. When the enemy of your soul besieges your life, it is angels that come from God who protect you from evil.

I have heard much preaching on devils and demons, as if we were abandoned to a world full of evil spirits. But this is not so. There are other spirits--angelic beings, spirits from God--surrounding the children of God, like the fiery chariots that kept Elisha from being taken captive. The Bible says in Hebrews 1, verse 14, concerning angels, "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?"

When you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and your sins were purged with His blood, you became an heir of salvation. You became a partaker of the new covenant and the benefits of that covenant. You can come boldly to the throne of grace. That's not like coming to Mt. Sinai of the Old Testament where even a beast died if he touched the holy ground. You can approach God. Your presence is accepted, because you have been washed in the holy blood of Jesus Christ.

Another benefit of this sacrifice on the cross is that you become an heir of salvation and receive the ministry of angels. The Bible puts it this way in Hebrews 12: "For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest . . . so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to AN INNUMERABLE COMPANY OF ANGELS. To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel" (Verses 18-24).

This is directed to those now born again--born of the flesh once and born of the spirit unto spiritual life. You have come to the place of purging of sin by the blood, and protection of the innumerable company of angels. You live by the spirit and walk in the spirit, and you receive of spiritual things. When you call on the name of the Lord, He is swift to hear and answer. Many times an angel will be sent to minister to you, bringing faith, hope, joy, wisdom, healing, strength or some other thing from the hand of God to you. These things are not of angels, they are of God. Angels are not to be prayed to or worshipped in any way. The Bible tells us in Colossians 2:18 not to do this. But angels minister to us.

Someone might say, "If I have received Christ into my heart, if I have the Holy Spirit within me, why do I need the ministry of angels?" The only way I can answer that question is to show you that Jesus Himself was helped by angels. In the fourth chapter of Matthew, after His wilderness temptation, the Bible says, "Then the devil leaveth Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him" (Matthew 4:11). Here is Christ Himself, full of the Holy Spirit, receiving the ministry of angels.

In Acts, Chapter 5, we read where the apostles were put into prison for preaching Christ. The Bible says, "The angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth" (verse 19). In Acts 8 an angel told Philip to go to a certain place and speak to a certain man. Peter was in prison, as recorded in Acts 12, and an angel came; the apostle's chains fell off, the door opened, and Peter was set free.

You may be surrounded by evil forces like Elisha and the young man, or you may be crammed into some dark prison cell experience like Peter. It seems to you that you stand alone. You are thinking the worst, like the young man with Elisha. Things look so bad that you cannot even imagine the possibility of relief or release. Your mind is filled with thoughts of fear and despair. Your thoughts are crowded by visions of defeat. You are just sure there is no way out, because you cannot see a way out. You cannot devise a way. I pray, in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that your eyes will be opened. He has not left you alone. You have not been abandoned by God to be consumed by the torment of a thousand demons. Your fears are outnumbered by God's hosts; your troubles are outnumbered by ministering spirits. Heaven has not turned its back upon you; there is a way out.

Have faith in God. You have lifted up your voice in prayer. Though it was the faintest, most feeble prayer, it brought chariots thundering from heaven. The moment you cried, that cry unloosed a command in heaven in the spiritual realm: "Go, go and help My child!" A thousand angels moved to your assistance.

Sometimes it takes a while for the battle to be won, even for angels. It took an angel three weeks to overcome the rulers of darkness and minister to Daniel (Chapter 10). But the angel told Daniel that he had been sent the moment he began to pray. There is conflict in the spiritual world. There are hindrances, but God responds the moment His children set their faces toward Him and seek Him. You think you are alone, but you are not.

Whether the young man could see the angelic beings or not, they were there. You don't have to see a way out. You don't have to see how God is going to deliver you. You can just rest assured that He will, because He said He would: "It shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered" (Joel 2:32). And although you seem to be surrounded on every side and actually on the brink of defeat right now, do not judge by appearances. Stand confident and assured that your Heavenly Father will not fail you.