2 Kings 2:16-18
"16 And they said to him, “Behold now, there are with your servants fifty strong men. Please let them go and seek your master. It may be that the Spirit of the Lord has caught him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley.” And he said, “You shall not send.” 17 But when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, “Send.” They sent therefore fifty men. And for three days they sought him but did not find him. 18 And they came back to him while he was staying at Jericho, and he said to them, “Did I not say to you, ‘Do not go’?”"
This is an interesting incident. It is clear that the sons of the prophets were out of their depth here. They recognised that the Spirit of God was upon Elisha, obviously - how could they do otherwise, when he had demonstrated it so unmistakeably in the miracle at the Jordan? But they had failed completely to grasp the fact of the significance of Elijah's translation. But Elisha did. And that is why it was so wrong and so foolish on their part to put pressure on the prophet, to institute this fruitless search (16). They were so importunate that Elisha finally bade them go. It was not that they were not sincere; but they were sincerely and totally wrong and misguided. They were in the wrong dimension, spiritually speaking. This is the real danger-point in Christian work, when well-meaning folk determinedly pursue courses of ac- tion - and want others to follow them - that will surely come to nothing, if not do positive harm to the Kingdom, for the simple reason that they are in the wrong dimension and have no understanding of the things of the Spirit. Elisha allowed them to prove themselves wrong, and we hope they were suitably mortified and humbled when their search proved abortive. The trouble is, however, that all too often such people are unwilling to face facts, and persist in their misguidedness long after any rational estimate of the situation has shown them to be wrong. There is something very dogged and very stubborn about those who cannot, or will not see beyond their own limited spiritual horizon. Some folk never learn.