1 Kings 20:15-21
"15 Then he mustered the servants of the governors of the districts, and they were 232. And after them he mustered all the people of Israel, seven thousand.
16 And they went out at noon, while Ben-hadad was drinking himself drunk in the booths, he and the thirty-two kings who helped him. 17 The servants of the governors of the districts went out first. And Ben-hadad sent out scouts, and they reported to him, “Men are coming out from Samaria.” 18 He said, “If they have come out for peace, take them alive. Or if they have come out for war, take them alive.”
19 So these went out of the city, the servants of the governors of the districts and the army that followed them. 20 And each struck down his man. The Syrians fled, and Israel pursued them, but Ben-hadad king of Syria escaped on a horse with horsemen. 21 And the king of Israel went out and struck the horses and chariots, and struck the Syrians with a great blow."
It is amazing how topical and relevant the Scriptures can be: It would be difficult, in reading these words, not to think of our modern Ben-hadad, Nikita Krushchev, Ben-hadad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions with his satellites assuming with drunken, arrogant swagger, his easy superiority over Israel's armies, and Krushchev is drunk with nuclear power, strutting about on the stage of the world like (to change the illustration Goliath of old, challenging the nations of the west to a test of strength. But power-intoxicated men usually forget some vital factor in the situation, and Ben-hadad left the God of Israel out of the reck- oning, with fateful consequences, and the mighty Syrian came crashing down ignominiously from his self-made pinnacle and had to run for his life with the horsemen. 'He that is in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision' (Psalm 2:4). One would have thought that the recent history of arrogant dictatorships would be a sobering influence upon the blasphemous pretensions of the Soviet leader, but apparently not; and so, as surely as God's Word is true, he will be humbled to the dust, in a debacle which will perfectly match his pride and ambition. It will be grimly interesting to watch how God does it, and when.
(The above Note, written nearly eleven years ago, makes particularly interesting reading in the light of subsequent events. The fall of Krushchev is now past history, and if reports emanating from Iron Curtain countries are to be believed, it was caused through his having been converted to Christ. How sovereign is our God!)