Apparently you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. And sometimes we need to be reminded that you can't fool God - ever - at all - any of the time. But so often we think we can.
Elisha is the next prophet we looked at in our series 'From Empire to Exile' and in particular, a couple of weeks ago we looked at the story from 2 Kings 6:8-23. The king of Aram (we'll call him Bob) is an enemy of Israel, and is plotting to do harm to the king of Israel - possibly through setting an ambush. But God informs Elisha exactly where Bob and his army are - and so the king of Israel is on his guard. So Bob moves somewhere else - and again the same thing happens. In fact it happens so often that Bob assumes that he has a spy in his camp. But it is revealed that there is no spy - there is just Elisha who tells the king of Israel everything, even the secrets that Bob speaks in his own bedroom.
So Bob comes up with a plan - capture Elisha. I wonder if it ever crossed Bob's mind that Elisha might catch wind of the scheme and avoid capture - apparently not.
But how often do we think that we can 'pull the wool over God's eyes'. That we can do things, think things, watch things etc. and because no one sees, no one knows - but God knows it all and sees it all. Which brings us to two points.
1) We should be careful how we live. If we're serious about living for God then we need to remember that we're never off duty. God will hold us accountable for our actions.
2) God knows it all and sees it all - and yet he still loves us. He is gracious and forgiving. He knows when we mess up but has promised that when we confess our sin he will give us a new start, a fresh beginning.
There is no point trying to fool God - instead we should be open and honest and confess our mistakes and receive God's forgiveness.
