Alright, we are going to be in 2 Kings chapter 3 this evening. 2 Kings chapter 3. And if the stories of the divided kingdom are not well known by many believers today, this story for sure is not well known. It is an account in the reign of King Jehoram of the north, King Jehoshaphat of the southern kingdom of Judah. During the service of the prophet Elisha, it involves the king of Edom and it relates to the king and kingdom of Moab. And so immediately you have a lot of names, different territories, different political sovereignties, some of which may be familiar, some of which may not. And it's easy to kind of get lost in the history of this period. Now I've been reminding you of the kings of the Northern and Southern Kingdom. And I want to continue to review this with you. Again, you'll get more out of these stories if you will do the hard work of learning these names and something about these characters. The first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel is Jeroboam. He is followed by his son, Nadab, who reigns only two years. Then there is turnover in the kingdom. Bayesha usurps the throne, conspires together to become the next king. He reigns for about 11 years and then is followed by his son, Elah. Both Nadab and Elah only hold the throne for two years, or a portion of two years. Then there is another usurpation, as it were. Bayesha Elah is followed by Zimri. Zimri, of course, has the inauspicious honor of only holding the throne for about seven days. And then we get to the first really significant king since Jeroboam I, and that is Omri. Omri is a very significant king, not so much in terms of the biblical narrative, but in terms of the extra-biblical literature relating to the history of the northern kingdom of Israel. He's important in terms of the scriptural narrative only because of his son. He establishes the first true dynasty in the northern kingdom. His son is Ahab, and of course Ahab is well known to us. Ahab is then succeeded by his son Ahaziah, who reigns only a very short period of time before he falls through the lattice and incurs a mortal wound that ultimately ends in his death. And then Ahab's second son, Jehoram, or in some of your versions and some parallel accounts, Joram. Joram or Jehoram takes the throne. Both of these are sons of Ahab. Now in the southern kingdom of Judah, and we can change the colors here just to make it easier, we have Solomon's son, Rehoboam. We have Rehoboam's son, Abijah, or in some cases, Abijam. And then we have Asa, a very good king, although one who has his own failures and weaknesses at the end of his life. And then his son, Jehoshaphat. Now, Asa is in some ways a reformer king. He does work, limited reforms, and the account in Chronicles deals with that. But Jehoshaphat is definitely a reformer king. He does far more. And he's the first, maybe we might say, major reformer or true reformer. He'll ultimately be eclipsed in that role by Hezekiah and then later by Josiah. Now, Jehoshaphat's reign is coextensive with Ahab, Abaziah, and Jehoram. And that's important to know because Jehoshaphat is going to be a major character both in the death of Ahab as well as in this account with regard to Jehoram. Jehoshaphat intermarries the two families of Ahab and his own house. So he gives his son to Ahab's daughter, Athaliah, and she'll become an important character during this time. So this is where we are. We're during the reign of Jehoram, and they are going to go to battle together, Jehoshaphat and Jehoram, against the kingdom of Moab. Let's begin by reading the text, and I'm going to read the entire chapter, although then we'll break it down for the purposes of our discussion tonight. 2 Kings 3. In the 18th year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, Jehoram, the son of Ahab, became king over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned 12 years. He did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, though not like his father and mother, for he put away the pillar of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless, he clung to the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. He did not depart from it. Now Misha, king of Moab, was a sheep breeder, and he had to deliver to the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. But when Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. So King Jehoram marched out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel. And he went and sent word to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, the king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to battle against Moab? And he said, I will go. I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses. Then he said, by which way shall we march? Jehoram answered, by the way of the wilderness of Edom. So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. And when they had made a circuitous march of seven days, there was no water for the army or for the animals that followed them. Then the king of Israel said, Alas, Yahweh has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab. And Jehoshaphat said, Is there no prophet of Yahweh here through whom we may inquire of Yahweh? Then one of the king of Israel's servants answered, Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah. And Jehoshaphat said, the word of Yahweh is with him. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him. And Elisha said to the king of Israel, what have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and of your mother. But the king of Israel said to him, no, it is Yahweh who has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab. And Elisha said, as Yahweh of Host lives before whom I stand, were it not that I have regard for Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would neither look at you nor see you. But now bring me a musician. And when the musician played, the hand of Yahweh came upon him, and he said, Thus says Yahweh, I will make this dry streambed full of pools. For thus says Yahweh, You shall not see wind or rain, but that streambed shall be filled with water, so that you shall drink. you, your livestock, and your animals. This is a light thing in the sight of Yahweh. He will also give the Moabites into your hand, and you shall attack every fortified city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop up all springs of water, and ruin every good piece of land with stones." The next morning, about the time of offering the sacrifice, behold, water came from the direction of Edom, till the country was filled with water. When all the Moabites heard that the kings had come up to fight against them, all who were able to put on armor from the youngest to the oldest were called out and were drawn up at the border. And when they rose early in the morning and the sun shone on the water, the Moabites saw the water opposite them as red as blood. And they said, This is blood! The kings have surely fought together and struck one another down. Now then, Moab, to the spoil! But when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose and struck the Moabites till they fled before them. And they went forward, striking the Moabites as they went. And they overthrew the cities. And on every good piece of land, every man threw a stone until it was covered. They stopped every spring of water and felled all the good trees till only its stones were left in Kir Haraseth. And the slingers surrounded and attacked it. When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going against him, he took with him 700 swordsmen to break through opposite the king of Edom, but they could not. Then he took his oldest son, who was to reign in his place, and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath against Israel, and they withdrew from him and returned to their own land. You know, right there at the end of the story, what is kind of an interesting account of, you know, the military campaign and then ultimately conquest, turns really dark. It just comes out of nowhere. Israel is experiencing this great victory, and then the king of Moab does something so barbaric as to offer his own son as a burnt offering. Now, I will mention this here briefly. We've mentioned before that Jehoshaphat is going to be succeeded. by his son Jehoram, and don't let this confuse you that Ahab's son Jehoram is presently on the throne and Jehoshaphat's son Jehoram is also hanging around. If you compare information from chapter 1, chapter 3, and then later in chapter 8, you'll notice through that parallel information that Jehoram is already reigning with his father Jehoshaphat. This is a co-regency that is actually pretty common in the ancient Near East, and that's why you'll find different dates associated with the beginning of their reigns. Jehoram is already on the throne, but he is serving essentially as the crown prince, and he is co-reigning with his father, who is in the closing years of his own reign. Now, when the text opens in the first three verses, we have an introduction to Jehoram, not the son of Jehoshaphat, but the son of Ahab. Jehoram, who is king over Israel and Samaria. He reigns, verse 1 tells us, 12 years. He does, verse 2, what was evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like his father and his mother. Now, when you recognize that his father and his mother are Ahab and Jezebel, you may immediately suspect that that's not saying a whole lot, and that's exactly right. To say, well, he's bad, but he's not as bad as Ahab and Jezebel were, that's true, but it's not really a compliment. One of the things, though, that's interesting about this is that verse 2 says, he put away the pillar of Baal that his father had made. Apparently, Jehoram is less committed to Baalism and to the religion that Ahab and Jezebel had institutionalized in the northern kingdom. He's less committed to that religious system than his parents had been. But it would be a mistake to infer from that that he is hostile to the religion of Baal. Jehoram is going to be the king who is on the throne when God raises up Jehu as the next king of Israel. And Jehu is going to be commissioned by the Lord to take the throne in Israel for one purpose, and that is to make war against the house of Ahab and his family and against the religion of Baal. And when Jehu comes and makes war against the family of Jehoram, you're going to find that Baalism is still flourishing. There is still a temple, there is still a very strong Baal cult. Whatever it was that Jehoram did in terms of putting away this pillar does not amount to an all-out deplatforming of Baal in the Northern Kingdom. He may be less of a proponent, he may be less personally committed to that religion, but he is by no means antagonistic to it in the way that Jehu ultimately will be. He is, however, verse 3 says, very committed to the religion of Jeroboam the son of Nebath. This goes all the way back to the first king of the northern kingdom. And you'll remember that Jeroboam created his own church. Now he does so in the name of Yahweh. He says, we're going to still worship the same God that brought us out of Egypt, the same God that gave us the promised land. But we are going to appropriate historical icons of Yahweh worship. You remember the great golden calf that Aaron made down at Mount Sinai and everybody's going, yeah, do you remember how that turned out? Well, never mind about that. appropriate some of these historical artifacts and he sets up golden calves at Dan and Bethel at the northern and southern borders of his kingdom. And Jehoram is very committed to that system. So whether Jehoram himself is just more committed to kind of a nominal Yahweh-type religion or whether he just simply rolls back some of the bailist programs that his father had put into place. In either case, he is by no means a faithful servant of Yahweh. He is a wicked and corrupt man who is rightly under the judgment of God. Well, in verses 4 to 8, we find the problem in Moab and the plans that Jehoram makes for war. And this is one of the places where the history of Scripture is confirmed and corroborated by extra-biblical historical accounts. The Moabite stone gives us some information about this war. And Jehoshaphat is recruited by Jehoram to participate in this war, and foolishly he agrees. We've already seen God send a prophet to Jehoshaphat to ask the question rhetorically, should you love those who hate me? Jehoshaphat is a good man. He's a faithful man. He's a good king. But like all good, faithful men, Jehoshaphat has blind spots. He has weaknesses. And in this case, Jehoshaphat's weakness is in this political alliance with the family of Ahab. He has married his son to Ahab's daughter, and therefore Jehoram has some kind of an in-law connection with Jehoshaphat. They are relatives of one another, not only by marriage, but ethnically. They're all Israelites, right? They used to be one nation. They are close neighbors to one another. And for whatever reason, all of those factors and maybe others that we haven't mentioned, Jehoshaphat just sees it as politically expedient to support the family of Ahab, the house of Ahab. He doesn't agree with Ahab's family. He doesn't agree with the worship of Baal. He doesn't agree with the calf worship of Jeroboam. He is a committed servant of Yahweh. But as so many Christians do, he kind of rationalizes a relationship as co-belligerence that actually amounts to a compromise of spiritual convictions and priorities. And we need to make clear that not every relationship with an unbeliever does so. It's not wrong to have relationships with unbelievers. All of us will. We live in the world. We don't expect all of our neighbors and all of our business associates to have the same faith that we have. But we have to be very careful with the type of relationships that we enter into. The nature of those entanglements. Because if we enter into a relationship that seems to support condone and encourage something that is antithetical to the God whom we serve and the God who will judge this world, well then we are compromised in our witness, we're compromised in our practice, and we are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers and unfortunately Jehoshaphat has been and continues to be unequally yoked in just that way. So Jehoram wants to go to war against Moab because the Moabites had been in subjection to the house of Ahab. You'll remember that Moab occupies territory to the southeast of Israel and Judah on the other side of the Dead Sea. They're a considerable nation in their own right. They are historically connected to the Israelites. But they have been placed in subjection to the house of Ahab some years prior, and this involved paying tax, paying tribute every year. 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams, and this is the tax money. And essentially the way this works in the ancient world, it's a protection racket. It says, you pay us this, and we promise that we will not come and destroy you. And sometimes, if it was kind of a benevolent sort of vassal relationship, then there would also be protection offered to say, not only will we not come and destroy you, but if you get into a bind, we will come and fight for you and we will protect you, at least if we're in a good mood. Well, Moab has had this relationship with the house of Ahab. When Ahab dies, Clearly, Misha, the king of Moab, is not as impressed with Ahaziah and the prospects of succession in the family, and so he refuses to pay the tribute. Now, the way this would work, because this isn't paid in quarterly installments, right? It's not like it's drafted every month out of the Moabite treasury, right? It would take a period of time for this to come to light, you know? Okay, it's getting to be that time of the year again, and the tribute is not forthcoming, and I wonder why not, and I wonder what's going on, and time passes, and maybe we send messengers, and we try to, you know, it's not like we can send an email or make a phone call. And so sometimes this would go on for a couple of years. We've seen this already earlier in our study of the book of Genesis in Genesis chapter 14. And so Misha has, placed Moab in a position of revolt. They're refusing to pay the tribute. And Jehoram says, this is intolerable. We want our lambs. We want our wool. We want to put Moab in their place. We're going to go and make war against the Moabites and subdue them. Jehoshaphat, will you come with us? And Jehoshaphat says, yes. My army is your army. My horses are your horses. It's a foolish statement, but you can understand why he would imagine it to be politically expedient. And then they're also joined by a third king, the king of Edom, whose territory is adjacent to Moab. They are going to travel through Edom's territory, and Edom is obviously, it's in their interest to have Moab subdued. They don't want a strong Moab, right? And so they're going to participate in the war as well. In verses 9 to 12, the armies are journeying together through a desolate land, and after seven days they run out of water. And now the soldiers are dry and parched, and the animals are dry and parched. They are in desperation in a dry land. Once again, Israel is in the wilderness. We'll come back to that before we're done. But it's at this point we meet the first really interesting point that will develop for application shortly, and that is in Jehoram's reaction to their circumstances, verse 10. The king of Israel said, alas, Yahweh, notice in your Bibles, the Lord, Lord is all in capital letters, so there's the Tetragrammaton, there's the covenant name of God, this is Yahweh, or Jehovah. Yahweh has called these three kings, in other words gathered them together, in order to give them into the hand of Moab. So what's fascinating about this is you have a man who at some level is nominally committed to worshiping Yahweh, albeit through this corrupted calf form, but who is certainly okay with Baalism and comes from a family of Baalists. So he's not a servant of Yahweh, and yet immediately, to whom does he attribute their circumstances? He immediately identifies this as Yahweh's work. He sees the sovereignty of the true God immediately in their own circumstance. Now this is amazing to me because they're not in the territory of Israel or Judah, they're in the territory of Edom and kind of the desolate area that's going to Moab, right, where the battle is actually gonna be joined. He doesn't associate it with the God of the Edomites. He doesn't associate it with the God of Moab. He doesn't associate it with Chemosh to whom Misha is going to attempt to make propitiation in the offering of his son. He attributes it to Yahweh. But how does he see Yahweh's sovereignty in this? He's right to see Yahweh as sovereign, right? He's right to say Yahweh is responsible for the predicament that we're in right now. He's correct about that, but he's completely wrong in his understanding and application of the significance of that, right? He says, Yahweh has obviously placed us in the fire here. He's gathered these kings together so that we can be defeated by the Middlemen. He looks at it through the lens of pessimism and unbelief. Jehoshaphat, by contrast, verse 11 says, well, is there no prophet of Yahweh here through whom we may inquire of Yahweh? Now I like this, because you don't actually have this contrast between the glass is half-empty Jehoram and glass is half-full Jehoshaphat. It's not as though Jehoram is just a pessimist and Jehoshaphat is an optimist. If Jehoram said, God has done this to us to give us over to defeat, and Jehoshaphat said, no, no, no, our God wouldn't do that. Oh, you better believe he would do that. I'd say he does that all the time, right? This could absolutely be a judgment of God because of the sin and rebellion of Jehoram and the foolishness of Jehoshaphat. Who's to say that God is not chastening both of these kings in this experience? But Jehoshaphat is more measured. He's more careful. He doesn't try to read the tea leaves of Providence. And this is not a point that we're going to make tonight, but I will make it now just briefly in passing. You cannot read the tea leaves of Providence. You can only see Providence in retrospect. Providence is not an interpretive guide to how you ought to live your life. You know, you say, well, I'm going to pray, and if they call and offer me the job, then it's God's will for me to take the job, you know? Maybe, but maybe not, right? That's not how decision making is done biblically. That's not how God's people are supposed to make choices in life. You're not supposed to try and read the tea leaves of providence and say, obviously God is pleased, or obviously God is displeased, or obviously God wants me to do this or to do that. I'm not suggesting that God does not providentially lead us. He does. What I'm suggesting is that you're not supposed to be trying to read the tea leaves as if you are some kind of an occultist. and interpreting the tarot cards of opportunity or calamity. And so Jehoshaphat is right. He does not look at the circumstance and say, obviously, God X. He simply says, we need a prophet. We need a word. We need God to speak. We don't know what's going on here. Maybe the Lord is chastening them. Maybe the devil is putting stumbling blocks in their path. Maybe God has ordained this for some other good purpose. We don't know and we can't know unless God speaks. So is there a prophet? And one of Jehoram's servants speaks up and says, Elisha, the son of Shaphat is here. Is here makes some commentators believe he's actually in the train with the army. Why in the world would he be there? Maybe because God told him to be there. Maybe because God ordained all of this from the beginning. Maybe he sends a prophet with the army for this very purpose. Or it may be that God has already positioned Elisha in close proximity to the army and he's staying... We just don't know. But he's in close enough proximity that this army that is out of water and can't go much farther is able to ask. a prophet of God. And Jehoshaphat knows who Elisha is. Even though Elisha is a prophet of the northern kingdom, he knows the name, he recognizes immediately that this is a man of God. The word of Yahweh is with him. Verse 12. Did you notice how the king's servant described Elisha? We mentioned this last week when we talked about Elijah's departure. Elisha is known as the man who poured water over the hands of Elijah. He is identified as Elijah's servant. You may say, well, why? Elisha is a great prophet in his own right. He needs to just step out of Elijah's shadow. That's thinking carnally. Elisha is content to be a Timothy to Elijah. He is content to be a servant. He is content to be known as a servant. That is one of the defining features of Elisha at this point in his ministry. And that's perfectly OK. It's an honorable designation. And so the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom go to see Elisha. In verses 13 to 20, God speaks to these three kings through the prophet Elisha, who just happens to be close by. They were very lucky in that. Luck had nothing to do with it. In verse 13, Elisha says, not to Jehoshaphat, but to Jehoram, what have I to do with you? Why are you coming to me? I've got nothing to say. You want a word from God? Go see the prophets of your parents. Now, that does suggest that Jehoram is comfortable with the religion of his parents, right? And what Elisha is saying here is absolutely appropriate. What business do you have as an unbeliever to presume to call upon God in crisis? You disregard the Lord, you break His law, you despise His name every other day of your life, and on the day you've got a problem, you're gonna cry out to Him and say, oh Lord, help me. The election says, don't even bother. Go see the prophets of your parents if you want a word from the Lord. Jehoram retorts, right, fires back, no, it is Yahweh who has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab. He's certain he's right. My sense, at least, is that Jehoram doesn't even know why we're here talking to Elisha. I mean, it's certainly not because he and Elisha are friends, right? This is Jehoshaphat's idea, but I already know what is going on here. I know what God is doing. He's brought us here to harm us. That's the kind of God that you serve, Elisha, right? Well, you wouldn't blame the Lord if he did, in fact, want to harm this kind of a king. But in verse 14, Elisha says, as Yahweh of hosts lives before whom I stand. See, he's in the presence of three kings, and he is unfazed. Do you see that? This is the boldness of a person who knows that he serves the King of all kings and Lord of all lords. Yes, he can stand in the presence of three kings, and he says, I stand in the presence of the Lord. I am his servant. Right? He is not overawed by this opportunity to address royalty. He says, if it were not that I have regard for Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would neither look at you nor see you. Now, we saw last week in the previous chapter that Elisha received a double portion of Elijah's spirit, and he just proved it. I mean, Elijah had some fantastic lines heaping scorn upon his spiritual opponents, but that was his anger. I mean, really and truly. If it were not for the fact that Jehoshaphat is standing here, I wouldn't even notice that you are here, right? That's how insignificant this king of Israel is. This prophet would not even pay attention to. He calls for a musician. Music begins to play. The Psalms, by the way, are an important part of prophecy in the Old Testament, right? And the psalmist who wrote the Psalms were themselves described as prophets in an earlier portion of history recorded in the Book of Chronicles. And so the music begins to play and the Spirit comes upon Elisha, and this is what he says. He says, I will make this dry stream bed full of pools, but not through a storm that is visible to you. You will not hear wind, you will not see rain, but I will fill the land with water." Now, some of your Bibles, if you're reading from the New American Standard or some other versions, you'll see that Israel digs trenches. Again, there's a little bit of a difficulty here in terms of how we translate the Hebrew. Either they dig the trenches or there is a dry stream bed already there. In either case, what you end up having is a trench that fills up with water overnight. And it does so without any visible storm. God sends water through the land of Edom that fills up, and this would have to be, I mean, you've got three kings represented here, you've presumably got three military divisions represented here, you've got a lot of men, you've got a lot of animals, and you need a lot of water. And this is a lot of water, which might be one reason to prefer the ESV's reference to the stream bed here. But he says, I will make water for you to drink, you, your livestock, and your animals. And then in verse 18, Elisha says this, this is a light thing in the sight of the Lord. That's not even a big deal, right? That's a piece of cake. But here's what I'm also going to do. I'm going to give Moab into your hand. You will attack every fortified city, verse 19, every choice city, fell every good tree, stop up all the springs of water, ruin every good piece of land with stones. Some people have questioned here whether this is actually a prescription or prophecy contrary to the rules of engagement given in Deuteronomy. I don't think it is, I think it's a misreading of what Deuteronomy says, but I would say even if you read Deuteronomy and concluded that ordinarily the Israelites are not supposed to cut down trees and to raise their enemies' fields, this is a prescription of judgment against the Moabites. This is the Lord actually pronouncing a curse. And he's saying, you're going to cut down their timber, and you're going to fill their fields with stones, and you're going to tear down the walls of their cities. And you're going to devastate this land. This is an exceedingly wicked land. By the way, God is not judging Moab for failing to send lambs and wool to the king of Israel. Right? That is just the reason that Jehoram is here. That's the reason he's interested in participating in this war. But God has his own reasons. God has his own ways. And when he makes war against the nation, he does so in vengeance for their sins. sure enough the next morning the land is filled with water now in the meantime the scene shifts verse 20 through 27 the end of the chapter we see moab campaign about these divisions of armies that are coming out against them. They muster all of their troops, their young men who are able to arm themselves. They go out, position themselves in proximity to the enemy camp. They're ready to do battle. And as the sun is coming up, they look out and they see pools of blood. Now, does God help them see things incorrectly? Sure. Fine, right? But there's also a natural phenomenon here. They know this is a dry, arid place. And they know that it's not rained. And there's not supposed to be any water out there. And as the sun is coming up, what does the rising sun make water look like? It makes it look red. It makes it look like blood. So as Matthew Henry says, what you want to believe, or what you want to be true, you can easily believe, in commenting on this passage. So whatever the circumstances are that lead the Moabites to jump to the wrong conclusion, that's exactly what they do. And they say, battle's over. This happens a number of times in the Old Testament, by the way. We've already seen this in the history that we've looked at so far, we'll see it again, where Different groups, different political entities form a coalition to go to war, but they don't get along with one another and they begin fighting one another and killing one another. That's what the Moabites think happened here. And so they rush out to the spoil, Moab. Let's go get the loot. Well, guess what? If you're running out to collect spoil, guess what you're not doing? You're not observing, like, good tactical protocol, you know? You're not walking out with your armor and your weapons at the ready and, you know, looking to the right and to the left. You're just putting everything down and saying, hey, let's go, you know, let's get some empty bags and let's get out there and find what's valuable on the dead bodies. And they go out completely unprepared and they walk into an ambush that Israel didn't even know they had set. God sets the ambush. And they began defeating Moabites, and killing Moabites, and chasing Moabites, and running all through the territory of Moab. This would take some time, right? This would be a campaign of at least several days, if not longer. Throwing stones into the fields, cutting down timber, breaking down fortified cities, just as the Lord had said. It was devastation that was decreed by God. At the end of the chapter in verses 26 and 27, Misha, the king of Moab, sees that the battle is going against him, and he makes two last-ditch attempts to survive. The first is to take 700 swordsmen to break through the line of the king of Edom. He felt like there was an advantage there, perhaps. And so he attacks the line of the King of Edom and he fails. It does not succeed. They do not break through. And so now he is literally besieged. He's in a fortified city and it's the last stronghold and he's going to be overrun. And so he takes his oldest son, the son that was to succeed him on the throne. And on the wall, in the sight of the armies, he offers him as a burnt sacrifice to his God. This would be Chemosh, who is the God who accepts child sacrifice. And then the text gives us the most difficult part of our study. In verse 27, it says, there came great wrath against or upon Israel. And there is a question about how you would render that. You could render it either way. The consequence of that is that they withdrew from Moab and returned to their own land. Now there are at least four different possibilities. This could be the wrath of Yahweh against Israel. If it is the wrath of Yahweh, then it's difficult to understand. Some commentators who say, well, they're violating the rules of engagement in Deuteronomy, and so now God is punishing them for that. Maybe, if that's how you interpret what they're doing, but I think they're doing exactly what the prophet said they were supposed to do. Again, it's possible that Elisha is simply predicting what they're going to do and not prescribing, but I take it as prescribing. I take it as Elisha saying, this is God's will. You're going to devastate Moab, and this is how you're going to do it. Now it is possible that this could be Yahweh's anger against Israel for some other reason that is unidentified in the text. And there are all kinds of reasons that we might speculate about, but that's all it would be. It would be only speculation. That's not an obvious, obvious interpretive option. It could be the wrath of the god of Moab. the wrath of Chemosh against Israel, the demon that stands behind that idol, stirring up and strengthening the people of Moab for the battle. But while I do believe that there are demons behind every idol, and I do believe that there is a false deity that is not a true god that was worshipped in that sacrifice, I don't think that that makes any sense of the text at all. It really doesn't have any explanatory power, and it raises more questions than it answers. Some would say that this is the wrath of Moab against the Israelites. Some commentators take this view and say essentially what happens is the Moabites are so stirred up by this, either encouraged or disgusted, that they rise up and make a really strong push that ultimately repels the Israelites and causes them to disengage. But it seems like the majority report, as far as I can tell, is that this is wrath that comes upon the Israelites. And maybe wrath is not even the best idea here. Maybe it would be indignation. that it's not so much wrath against them, but it is that their spirits themselves are indignant and wroth within themselves at this disgusting display of barbarity. Many commentators take this view, including Matthew Henry and Dale Ralph Davis, and I noted that this is also the interpretation that Josephus makes of this story. I pulled out his history of this period and found that that's how he read it as well. that the Israelites were so disgusted, they were so horrified at seeing this crown prince, however old he was, he may have been a grown man for all we know, right? But this crown prince burned alive in front of them on the wall, that they are so disgusted that they would rather flee. and say, we don't want anything to do with this. They're horrified, and they leave in that state. I have to tell you that if I have to take a position, that's the position I would take. It makes the best sense, I think, of the text. But even there, it still leaves me with questions. I think it's a difficult passage. All right, I want to offer in the time that we have remaining a few observations under the heading of four different applications, and they are not of equal weight. The first one is not super important, but I think it's an interesting observation that's worth giving some thought to, and that is that Elisha is being presented here as the new Moses. What you had in the preceding chapter, in chapter 2, is Elijah and then Elisha in his in his shoes, with his mantle, right, in his place, parting the waters of the Jordan. And we said we've seen this before, right? Not in the crossing of the Jordan where God stopped the waters upriver at Adam, but rather we saw this at the Red Sea. And that what God is doing is he is bringing a lawgiver to the people as they are in exile, right? They are in the wilderness of judgment because of their sin. That's the role that Elijah and Elisha are playing. They are the law speakers, the law givers, the prophets who are coming to a disobedient people under judgment in the wilderness, and you see it in the parting of the waters. And you see it here as well, because what happens to Israel under the leadership of Moses immediately after crossing the Red Sea? They run out of water, and they cry out to God. And what does Moses do? He pronounces the word of the Lord, and the Lord gives water to the people, right? So I do think that there are some deliberate parallels there. Now, by saying that, I don't mean in any way that this is not historical, that this is just mythological representation or something like that. No, no, no. What I'm suggesting is this. What if God made everything in the universe and all events and circumstances throughout human history in order to point to one central truth of his identity, sovereignty, and the glory that he would ultimately manifest in the sending of his son? And it's not a thought experiment, I think that's actually what's happened. I think certain events reappear in human history for the purpose of typologically pointing us to something else. And I think that what's happening here is we are seeing a representation of the authority of God's man. Moses, Elijah, now Elisha. And partly, he does that through some confirming signs that are reminiscent of the Exodus and wilderness experience. The more important applications, though, are this. First of all, the different perspectives that we see on divine sovereignty. That was the first application that we noted as we came through the text in verse 10. The king of Israel sees Yahweh's sovereignty. He admits it, but he interprets it as malicious. He says God obviously wants to harm us. Well, there's a good reason he would want to harm Jehoram. So he's not entirely wrong in assuming that God might be displeased with him. But that is how a reprobate views God. Psalm 2, let us burst their bonds. Let's cast their cords away from us. The kings of the earth and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. They know he's the Lord. They know his anointed is the enthroned king. They hate it. It's not that they don't believe in God. It's not that they don't believe he has a power and authority over their lives. It's that they know it and they hate it. And that's Jehoram. He says, I know this is God. Well, you're not wrong, it is God, right? But you are not an infallible interpreter of the circumstances of your life. And that's what we see in Jehoshaphat's case, is the humility to recognize, yes, God is involved in this, because it couldn't happen if God was not involved in it, but God has not made clear by this circumstance. what his will might be. We don't know why we're out of water. It may be our own stupidity, and God is allowing us to reap the consequences of our own foolishness. Or it could be that God has ordained us for some other purpose. I would say, interpreting this retrospectively, that it seems pretty clear that God ran him out of water in order to demonstrate the authority of his prophet. Why do you need Elisha in this story if you don't have a drought? If the king of Israel and Judah and Edom go to Moab, and because it's God's will to give them the victory, they just run all the way through the Moabites. They experience unhindered victory the whole way. So what? What does Jehoram do? He goes home and gives glory to his God. What does the King of Edom do? He goes home and gives glory to his God. What does Jehoshaphat do? Just whatever he does, right? But here, they have to go to the prophet. They hear expressly God's plan and purpose to give them this victory. But they don't have that conversation unless they run out of water. Now, it seems to me that retrospectively, that's part of the purpose of running out of water, right? God may have had more that he was doing there than what I'm mentioning. But you can't interpret the tea leaves of providence. You have to believe in God's sovereignty. And if you are a believer, you will see God's sovereignty as your security. Jehoshaphat is convinced that God has something to say here. We just need to get to a prophet so that he can tell us what it is. Jehoram is just as convinced that God simply seeks their harm, and that is the attitude of a reprobate. Be careful about how you view providence, be careful about what attempts you make to interpret providence, and be careful about how you judge the motivations of the Lord in the suffering and circumstances of your life, right? Don't judge it like a reprobate. Secondly, this is the point that Dale Ralph Davis in his commentary focuses on. It's an excellent observation. The only hope of these three kings is in God's word, and that is our only hope as well. That's an excellent observation, very, very good application of this text. They run out of water, and the only hope that they have to survive is to find a prophet who can pronounce to them some promise, some hope of salvation, right, through water. And so this is the plight of these three kings, God puts us in these positions in our life to remind us of what is true on every other day of our life. Right. So sometimes God ordains us to fall into sin to remind us what great sinners we are every other day of our life. Right. So you're struggling with sin and you say, oh, I'm really struggling with sin right now. No, you're just conscious of your struggle with sin right now. Right. You're more acutely aware of the problem of sin. than you were yesterday, but your sin was just as bad yesterday. You just didn't realize it, right? When we pray, we pray as desperate people, but it doesn't feel that way most of the time, right? Most of the time, you know, bow my head over a meal, and thank you God for this food, and I know God has given me this food, and I wanna honor Him as I enjoy it, but I don't really feel desperate because I don't realize that I wouldn't be able to breathe right now. I wouldn't be able to breathe. I would not exist. The molecules of my body and of this entire universe would fly apart and pass out of existence if it were not that he holds all things together by the word of his power, Paul says. So your only hope is in the word of God. That's your only hope. And we need to remember that when we get up in the mornings and everything is important to us except spending time in the word. Right? And I'm not trying to shame you into reading your Bible, but do you realize how often we minimize the importance of that? I'm not suggesting you need to get up in two hours every morning here to read 20 chapters of the Bible. You may get up and read a sentence of Scripture and meditate upon that as you prepare to go about your day. But you and I have got to realize we live and die by the Word of God. That is our hope. And that's the salvation of these three kings, is to find a prophet and get the word from the Lord. Now, as important as that application is, there is one that I want to focus on in just a couple of minutes that we have remaining. But this is one where I really need you to pay attention, because it's gonna be really easy to misunderstand what I'm saying here, and I don't want you to walk away with the wrong idea. The last application is this, that we see in the story the vanity and futility of child sacrifice that ultimately comes to a true fulfillment in the cross. And don't misunderstand this point. The king of Moab's offering of his son is abhorrent. It is not typological. Everybody hear me say that? It's not typological. It's abhorrent. It's wicked at an indescribable level. Yahweh's sacrifice of himself in the person of Jesus Christ on the cross is holy. That is the most beautiful event that's ever happened in the history of the world, and simultaneously the most terrible. The King of Moab's offering is ultimately futile, although at the time it appeared successful. After all, what happens? He burns his son, and what do the Israelites do? They leave. Seemed to work. Our God heard. Our God gave us deliverance. No, that's not what happened, right? But that's probably what the King of Moab thinks happened. It looks successful. It's ultimately futile. What about the cross? The cross appears futile, but it is ultimately efficacious. What are people saying at the foot of Jesus's cross? They're saying He saved others. He cannot save Himself. If you are the King of Israel, come down and we'll believe. And He doesn't. He dies. And He gets taken down from the cross and rolled up in linen and buried in a tomb and a stone is placed in front of that tomb and it's sealed and a guard is placed and that's it. He's not the Messiah after all. Or if He was, there goes the kingdom. It appears futile. It's ultimately efficacious. Paganism in the ancient world recognized the extremity of human crisis, could never be satisfied by animal blood. That's why you see human sacrifice in ancient religions. What, what, what? Again, peer behind the obvious disgust that we all should feel of this. What are pagans saying when they burn their children rather than an animal? What are they saying? They're saying the blood of bulls and goats cannot solve this crisis. They're saying a ram is not enough, a goat is not enough, a lamb is not enough. We need something more. Their child sacrifice ritual sought to earn merit by demonstrating to the deity their great devotion. That's what all paganism is about. It's all paganism is. Paganism and witchcraft is a crowbar. It's a lever. It's intended to manipulate the forces of nature. That's all it is, just technically speaking. And so they're trying to demonstrate to the deity how devoted we are to you so that you will move the levers of the world and save us or grant us the blessing that we seek. But by contrast, the gospel tells us of the offering of a son by the deity himself. to appease his own wrath because nothing that man could ever do or offer could satisfy. Do you see the contrast? So on the one hand, paganism is saying this crisis is so great an animal's life won't suffice. But if we show the God how devoted we truly are, he will count us worthy of the blessing. And the gospel says exactly the opposite of that. Exactly the opposite. That's why I'm telling you, this is not typological. But it still points us to Jesus. Because the gospel says, no, there is nothing you can offer to God that will prove your devotion. There is no sacrifice that you can make that can remedy this situation. God will have to propitiate himself because there's no other way for this crisis to be resolved. Misha's offering is not typological. It is actually against everything that is holy, righteous, and good. But in the context of pagan desperation and barbarity, we are able to see the marvel of God's grace all the more clearly. Because what does God do? God offers his son. He doesn't do so like Misha. Not remotely. But God offers his son because this is what it takes to save us from our sin. And the darker the context, the darker the environment, the more clearly the light of truth shines. We've used this illustration before. If I strike a match standing up here at the front, some of you can't even see the flame. because there's too much light in here. But if we turn out all the lights, and we cover all the windows, and the room is so pitch black that you can't see your hand in front of your face, and then we strike a match anywhere, it shines like a torch. Everyone can see it. Why? Because the environment is so dark. You don't get any darker than this. You don't get any darker than a society offering their children on the altar of their own need. But in that context, guess what you see all the more clearly? How great, gracious, good, and utterly, indescribably different the gospel is than every other religion of man and religious ritual that he performs.