2 Kings 7:12-16
"12 And the king rose in the night and said to his servants, “I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry. Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, ‘When they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city.’” 13 And one of his servants said, “Let some men take five of the remaining horses, seeing that those who are left here will fare like the whole multitude of Israel who have already perished. Let us send and see.” 14 So they took two horsemen, and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, “Go and see.” 15 So they went after them as far as the Jordan, and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste. And the messengers returned and told the king.
16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a seah of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord."
The unbelief of the king is, when its implications are realised, a fearful calumny on the goodness of God. Not only was he incredulous; he suspected that there must be a trick in it. It was too good to be true, it must have some hidden ambush behind it to trap and destroy him. In this he illustrates the attitude of the disbelieving in face of the gospel offer. The fact is, the mercy of God operates in a dimension to which man is essentially a stranger; he cannot appreciate free, undeserved mercy because he himself does not dispense mercy to others on these terms. With him it is all a question of deserving help and blessing. He cannot see the force of mercy, he is undeserving and so slanders God in his heart by thinking He has some ulterior motive in offering it. But God's mercy is too good not to be true, and when it is put to the test, we prove it so, we taste and see that God is good. Why should we assume, as we often do, that God is intent upon robbing us or depriving us of things we hold dear when He comes to us in the gospel? His will is to enrich, not impoverish us, and it is Satan who seeks to convince us otherwise, as he did of old in the Garden of Eden. We must learn to trust the goodness of God and believe the love He has for us.