2006 The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc.

Transcription

1 Title: Flaming Chariots 1 (OPENING SONG) BOOK: Our story for today: The Flaming Chariots. At the house just down the street and around the corner, Chris is about to discover a new skill. Okay, my serve, Chris. Uh.. OTHER: MOTHER: Uhh-ahh - Huh? Aaahh, what do you say we take a rest, Joy? Why? We just started. We started about two and a half hours ago. Chris, honey, I m going to go do my shopping now. Hope you remembered to take your pocketbook. Oh.. my purse? I did forget it, Chris.. Good thing you reminded me. Thank you. PROF: PROF: Guess I called that. (LAUGH) Well, what in the world could I have done with it? Your shovel s in the garage, Father. Yes, you re right, son. Weird. How d you happen to know your mother forgot to take her purse and your father forgot where his shovel was? Well, guess I m a prophet who can see into the future. See it s easy because my parents always forget what they do with their stuff. Ohh, you had me fooled. Huh? What s Ruffles barking like that for?

2 Title: Flaming Chariots 2 Ah, poor Ruffles got underneath the blanket and got trapped. BOOK: She s just playing. She likes my bed. Huh? Goody. It s SuperBook! Today s story begins in ancient Syria. See the man in the chariot? He s General Naaman. BOOK: Is Naaman going on some kind of journey? Yes. He s on his way to Israel. You see, he s very ill. He s heard there s a great prophet there who can cure him. Let s go along. Ready..set WIFE: Go! You know you ll be allowed to meet the great prophet? Um-mm. A request was sent to the king to let me see the prophet but that doesn t mean he can cure me. LEENA: Please, don t worry sir, because everyone in Israel says Elisha can cure diseases. Well, it s worth a try and if I m cured I ll have you to thank because you re the one who told me about the prophet Elisha. LEENA: Yes sir, because I think you re a good man and I want to help you so you ll get well again. Even though I m just a slave that you brought from Israel to be a maid or your wife, you ve still been like a father to me. Well, I know you ll take good care of your mistress while I m away. LEENA: Yes, sir.

3 Title: Flaming Chariots 3 Chris, shall we go over there and meet General Naaman now? Yeah. Count me in, too. Excuse me. Excuse me, sir but you re General Naaman aren t you? Yes, I am, but who are you? My name s Chris. Joy, is my name. I m Gizmo, how do you do? I m glad to meet you. Was there something you wanted to see me about? I heard that you re going to visit a prophet and I wondered what his name is. LEENA: LEENA: Leena, what is it? His name is Elisha. Is that the same as Elijah. No See, Elisha became the new prophet of God after Elijah went up to heaven. Ohh.. (OVERLAP) I see. CHARIOTEER: Whoa, team, whoa. The sun is climbing high in the sky, General. It s time to go. Wow, what a terrific chariot. Just like in the picture.

4 Title: Flaming Chariots 4 CHARIOT: C&J: BOOK: Shhh. Goodbye, hope for the best. Let s go now. Forward! Hey! I wish that we could go with him to Israel. Huh? No sooner said than done. This is the palace of the king of Israel. By the time you receive this, General Naaman will be on his way to visit you. He has a serious illness. I m sending him to you to be cured of it. Sincerely, the King of Syria. (RISING) Hmmm. Here s the letter, your majesty. Hm? Give me that. (GROWL) (GROWL) Hmph! So the King of Syria expects me to cure his general. The king seems to think I m God. Why did he write and ask this impossible task of me. Perhaps the King is looking for an excuse to make war on us again, your majesty. Hm. That could be so. You know as well as I do we re not prepared for an enemy invasion. (SIGH) God help me, why did this have to happen now. Hmp. Wait a minute! How about the prophet Elisha, maybe he can help you. Why Elisha might help! Yes, sir.

5 Title: Flaming Chariots 5 Go tell the prophet that the king requires his presence. Your majesty! Well? I spoke to Elisha. He says you should send General Naaman to him. Does he understand what we re up against? Yes. I explained the problem and Elisha said that you should leave it up to him. As soon as General Naaman arrives at the palace I want you to make sure he s taken directly to the house of Elisha. Yes, sir. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said: Let there be light and there was light. CHRIS Look, think that man could be Elisha? Him? Yes, I m Elisha. Come on in. Sorry to interrupt your class. I m Christopher. Hello. I m Joy. I am Gizmo, Crusader Robot. We want to ask you a question. Well, what s your question? If you don t mind, would you please tell us what happened to the prophet Elijah? All right. I ll tell you about him.

6 Title: Flaming Chariots 6 I was a young man, when God commanded Elijah to anoint me as the new prophet to replace him. He asked me to follow him to the River Jordan. At the river, a whirlwind suddenly sprang up between us. As it rose into the sky, chariots of fire drawn by flaming horses appeared in the whirlwind. And then to my great astonishment I saw my master Elijah carried by the whirlwind up into Heaven. Elijah was taken away from me, but he left me his cloak of authority. God not only passed on the great gift of prophecy to myself but he gave me twice the power. Wow. G STUDENT: Excuse me, master. General Naaman of Syria has just arrived. He wants to see you. Fine, I ve been expecting General Naaman. Elisha, when we were in Syria we met General Naaman and his wife. His wife was worried about him cause Naaman s very, very sick. Yes. He s come to ask me to make him well. Inform the General that he must do exactly what I tell him. I advise him to go and bathe in the waters of the River Jordan seven times and then he will be healed. Every bit of his illness will disappear and he ll be as healthy as he was before he was stricken. G STUDENT: Yes, master, I ll tell him what you said. If you ve never even seen him. How do you know what to tell him to do? The Lord works in mysterious ways. G STUDENT: Follow his instructions exactly. That was his message.

7 Title: Flaming Chariots 7 His message? Do you mean that after I ve come all this way the Prophet won t even see me? Now why should I bother to go bathe in the Jordan? If it s rivers I need we have perfectly rood rivers back home in Syria. If you ask me I don t think the Prophet can cure my disease. I m going back to Syria right now! G STUDENT: No.. Please, sir! Mount your chariots, we re leaving at once. OLD TIMER: Now, wait just a minute. Hm? OLD TIMER: Excuse me, General, but you had enough faith in the Prophet to come all the way here from Syria and yet you don t have enough faith in Elisha to do a simple thing like taking a bath in the Jordan? Mm... I see what you mean, but.. OLD TIMER: But the fact is your pride has be hurt because you thought the Prophet should see you. Naaman, why do you want to be stubborn? Hm? Why, I m not. OLD TIMER: For your own sake sir, please follow the Prophet s instructions; there s nothing to lose by trying them, is there? Such a simple thing to do And you might be cured. Mm. Yes, you re right. I was foolish to be angry with Elisha. OLD TIMER: Right, sir. I got upset because he didn t come out and cure me right on the spot but who am I to judge the ways of a prophet, right? Men, we re on our way. Follow us to the shores of the River Jordan; let s go! CHARIOTEER: HEY!

8 Title: Flaming Chariots 8 Good! Right! All right men I m ready. (LAUGH) Have some dinner, little friends. (CHUCKLE) STUDENT: Hello, Elisha. Mm. Hello, there. Elisha, if Naaman was cured wouldn t he be here by now? I suspect that Naaman is arriving this minute. Master, General Naaman and his officers have just returned. I know. Ask him to come inside. Huh? Hmm. COMMERCIAL BREAK Elisha, my heart is so full of gratitude that I can barely speak. I went to the River Jordan where I washed myself in the water. OLD TIMER: One.. two.. three.. four.. five.. six.. (ON SOLDIERS) SEVEN. SOLDIERS: Look. I m cured. (GASPS) Ah -- hooray etc. (LAUGHING) Ahhh---- I had to come and thank you for the miracle that s helped me to completely recover. Um-hmm. Excuse me. Glad to hear that you re well. Me too. Congratulations. Why, thank you. I remember meeting your children back in Syria. This experience has taught me something important. I realize now there s no true God in the world except for the God of Israel.

9 Title: Flaming Chariots 9 Good. I am very glad.. because I wanted convince you, it is the God of Israel from whom all blessings flow. Elisha, believe me I shall worship your God from now on. Thanks. Um-mm. Officers bring in the gifts, please. Set them before Elisha. That looks like real gold. Um-mm. And a genuine antique vase. And Persian carpets. Tell me General Naaman what are these for? I want you to have these gifts as tokens of my appreciation for what you ve done for me. Please accept them. What I ve done? I see that you don t understand; it is God that cured you, not I. Please, take them... I refuse to accept these gifts because gold cannot buy favors from God. I hope Naaman isn t angry. Yeah. Ahhh! Now I understand, Elisha. I can show my appreciation to the Lord by giving him love not riches. Mm. Love and devotion are what He wishes. Hmm, forgive me. But there s something I d like you to give me that I want to take back to Syria, two bags full of the earth of Israel. Earth? What an odd request. Just enough earth to make a little mound, and I will build an altar on it where I will worship the Lord God.

10 Title: Flaming Chariots 10 I see, in that case you re certainly welcome to take as much as you want, my son. Oh, thank you. God bless you, Elisha. Farewell, dear master. CHARIOTS: Go in peace. Forward. Yi! He s become a friend of Israel even though his country s our enemy. But I m afraid it won t be long before Israel will be invaded by our foes. Huh? What did you say? That Syria s going to start a war with Israel? Yes. And if I m to save my country I m going to have to move to the city of Dothan. Oh! Dothan? Huh? Uh-oh. We re going forward in time again. And I ll bet that s the city of Dothan. We are coming in, for landing. Think this is Dothan? If it is then maybe we re gonna meet Elisha cause he was gonna come here. BLUE MAN: GREEN MAN BLUE MAN: We did not find out, his address. Disaster! Disaster! Huh? Let s get away from here as fast as we can. Hurry! Excuse me, what are you running for?

11 Title: Flaming Chariots 11 BLUE MAN: There s thousands of Syrian soldiers headed for Dothan to capture Elisha. Elisha? What do they want to capture him for? GREEN MAN: He s a prophet. That means he can tell us what s gonna happen. So he warns us what they re planning. They wanna stop m. BLUE MAN: With Elisha s information we ve anticipated all of the enemy s moves. Unfortunately the king of Syria heard about Elisha and sent his troops here to Dothan to capture him. GREEN MAN: Look, the enemy troops are coming! BLUE MAN: BLUE MAN: GIZM0: (GASPS) Agh.. flee! Wait, tell us where to find Elisha. Look in the white house at the end of the road. Come on let s go find Elisha and tell him about the Syrians! Okay! Elisha! Elisha! Mm? Why, hello..nice to see you, children. Nice to see Gizmo, too? Elisha, you ve gotta run away right now. There s a million soldiers after you. Thank you, you re very kind to be concerned but the Lord already told me the Syrian forces are at hand. G STUDENT: But master now it s too late to send someone to bring the Israelite army to Dothan to protect you. B STUDENT: What are we going to do?

12 Title: Flaming Chariots 12 Please, be of good faith. Have you forgotten that the Lord God of Israel is with us? Now look up into the sky, my friends. You will see the greatest army, the army of our Lord. STUDENTS: Hm? Huh? G STUDENT: Ah, the chariots of God! STUDENT: SOLDIERS: Praise the Lord! Hey, they re chariots of fire. And flaming horses and horsemen too. Packman, should see this. Look. Do you wanna go with him? Um-mm. Charge! Forward! etc. It looks like Elisha s just standing there waiting for the army to catch him. SOLDIERS: SOLDIERS: BOOK: I think I hear your mother calling. Better go home. Sh. I think that Elisha wants to pray. 0 Lord God of Israel blind the eyes of the Syrian forces. Elisha, let s get him come on, etc. Ah Help! I can t see! My eyes!! etc. The Lord answered Elisha s prayers. A great light appeared and every soldier of the Syrian army became blind and dropped his weapon. Elisha seized a spear and made a great noise. He told the Syrians that they had come to the wrong place. He would lead them to the man they were looking for if they would follow him.

13 Title: Flaming Chariots 13 Blind and helpless, the entire Syrian army followed Elisha. He led them to Samaria, the capital city of Israel. When the huge army was assembled in the square of the city Elisha commanded them to open their eyes. SOLDIERS: SKI NOSE: Yessir. Mm Ah I can see Where are we?.. etc. Wait! This is Samaria, the capital of Israel! WART NOSE: No! We ve walked right into the hands of the enemy! CROOKED NOSE: What a trick! They ve got us completely surrounded! SOLDIERS: He s right we ll be killed, etc. Gee, Elisha s really smart. He trapped the whole Syrian army. He won the war for the Israelites all by himself. And he did it without fighting a single battle. Look! Elisha! What a wonderful thing you ve done; because of you our country s been saved from the enemy invaders. Thank you. I did nothing. It s the Lord you must thank. Mm, you re right, of course we must. Do you know if the Lord wants us to destroy these captives? Or make them slaves? What s the best thing to do with them? SOLDIERS: ELISHA Oh no... please.. etc. These captives are no different from any other prisoners of war. Sire, the Lord doesn t want us to kill them nor does he want us to make them slaves, but only to give them food and drink and send them back home to their king. Really? But if we let them go free, won t they come back and invade us?

14 Title: Flaming Chariots 14 Don t fear, the people of Syria will show kindness and mercy to us, if we re merciful to them. Still Shouldn t we do unto others as we would have them do unto us? Oh. Um-hum. I agree. Officer, see to it that the Syrian soldiers are given food and drink. SOLDIERS BOOK: Yes, your majesty. Mm. I d call that a happy ending. Yep. That s because Elisha s a great prophet. Israel profits, by having prophets, like him. (HAPPY EATING AND DRINKING) The king of Israel obeyed Elisha and made a great feast for the Syrian captives. Then, he sent them home to their king unharmed. Afterwards, Elisha s prediction came true, for the Syrians stayed at peace with Israel. For the rest of his life, the great prophet continued to deliver God s messages to the people of Israel, and to save them from sickness, famine, and war. Look! Doves of peace! (CLOSING SONG)

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