If you have a Bible, let's open up our Bibles to the book of 2 Kings tonight as we continue our study through 2 Kings. We're going to be in 2 Kings and we will be in chapter 3. Just to get started, let's read the first five verses and then we'll kind of start getting into the chapter. It says, now Jehoram The son of Ahab became king over Israel at Samaria in the 18th year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and reigned 12 years. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like his father and mother, for he put away the sacred pillar of Baal, or Baal, that his father had made. Nevertheless, he persisted in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin. He did not depart from them. Now Meshach, king of Moab, was a sheep breeder, and he regularly paid the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. But it happened when Ahab died that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. And let's start there and we'll just kind of lay a foundation. Now, in our previous study through the first kings, what we learned going through first kings, and now is, and we see it as a continuation into second kings, is that the nation of Israel, especially the northern kingdom of Israel, was plagued with one wicked king after another. And so evil leaders equals You know, a lot of problems came about because of their evil leadership. Now, it began with Jeroboam. He was the first king, the northern king of Israel, and all the way through to who we saw in our previous studies with Ahab and his wife Jezebel, who we were told about those two that they did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than all of the rest of the kings before them. And so they became notorious. Now this evening as we come to the third chapter here in 2 Kings, we again focus on another king, this time Jehoram. Now Jehoram is Ahab and Jezebel's second son, and he's the second son to become king. Now what's interesting to me, thinking about Jehoram, I looked up his name and his name actually means Jehovah is exalted. Which is kind of mind boggling because we know that Ahab and Jezebel totally rejected the God of Israel and embraced all the gods of the nations around them. And that was part of the reason that they died the way they did. Now, remember in chapter one, Ahaziah was king. He fell and he got severely injured and then he tried to inquire of the idol Beelzebub to see if he would get better. Now remember when we read that, God then intervened and sent Elijah to rebuke him. Basically he said to him, you're a dead man. And you will not recover and Ahaziah did die. And now his younger brother comes into power. His younger brother Jehoram. And he comes to the throne. And he was in power for 12 years. Now remember, when we look at these kings, and usually they'll tell us how long they were in power, they didn't have term limits back then. The only term limit they might have had is if someone assassinated them or God took them out. That became their term limit sometimes. But they didn't really have term limits, and all I can say is, here in America, I'm glad there are term limits. at least for some of the presidents that we've had, eight years max, and sometimes even that might seem like an eternity. Now imagine some of the leaders that we've had over our lifetimes maybe, imagine if they were in power for 12 years, or what if they were in power for 20 years, or for 30 years, or 42 years, as some of these kings were. The Lord help us. So Israel had Ahab and Jezebel, We've had some of those, I guess, similar types in our nation as well. But I think when it comes to, just to get a tiny bit political here, when it comes to politics, I think term limits are a good thing. They're a good thing for Congress, they're a good thing for Senate. What's interesting to me is that a lot of these folks that go into politics, who become congressmen or senators, Their salary is $174,000 a year, which is a pretty good salary. I mean, it's not like you're going to get super rich at that salary. The irony is, if you look up the salaries or the net worth of most of those folks up there, many of them are multi, multi, multi billionaires. So something's pretty fishy going on. If you look at how are they getting so much money doing what they do up there? Well, there's a reason that they like being up there, I'll tell you that. Now, verse 2 gives us some insight into the kind of king that he was. Notice verse 2, what we're told here in verse 2 about this king. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. But not like his father and mother, for he had put away the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made. Now, first of all, when we look at this king, first off, we see that he too was evil. He was an evil king. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. Now, notice it doesn't say he did evil in the sight of men, or he did evil by men's standards. And we know that evil can be, it might not seem, and it says here, he wasn't as bad as his parents. I mean, right off the bat. He did evil, but he wasn't as bad as mom and dad. However, a little bit of leaven can leaven the whole lump. And so he still did evil in the sight of the Lord. And it's God who sets the standard for what is good and what is evil, not men. It's really important to understand that. God decides what's right and wrong, not men. And if God says something is evil or something is wrong, then it is evil and it is wrong, period. Whether we like it or not. Now, I see a lot of people who are trying to make up their own standards of what is right and wrong in our culture today, what is good and what is evil. And of course, because we ourselves are fallen, sinful humans, our view often of good and evil is distorted and tainted because of our own sinfulness. We tend to grade on a curve, especially when it comes to our own sinfulness. But anytime men try to say what's right or wrong, and they leave God out of the equation or they leave God out of the picture, that's always a dangerous thing. And that's kind of what's happened in our culture in the United States of America now. And so people make up their own rules, their own standards, and you can be sure that When you're following what men call evil or good or good or evil, it's probably going to be pretty darn messed up. Case in point, I'll just give you an example. In the last 10-15 years, maybe 20 years, We've seen a lot of evil judges giving their stamp of approval to things that the Bible very clearly tells us are sinful or evil. And I'm speaking about one in particular law that was passed, the same-sex marriage. And saying that it's good or lawful from a man's perspective doesn't mean that it's good or lawful from God's perspective. In fact, you know, you have to think about it, when men start to define or try to redefine what God says very clearly is good, and redefine it, and throw away God's definition and the biblical definition of marriage, you know there's a problem. You know, Jesus himself said, And then Jesus said, Or the Creator created them male and female, and that is God's and Jesus' definition of marriage, between a male and a female. And it's never been changed for thousands of years. God never changed it, but then all of a sudden, wicked judges, wicked lawmakers came along and tried to change the meaning or redefine it. But in God's eyes, by God's standard, It is evil to do something like they've done, and it's evil in the eyes of the Lord. Now, one thing I love about God is that God is not interested and worried about being politically correct. And his word is always going to be fixed, but it's not always gonna be popular with the culture. You know that Jesus said something, and it's really, really powerful what he said. In John chapter seven, verse seven, Jesus said this. He said, the reason the world hates me is because I testify that what it does is evil. Pretty heavy, huh? When you think about why was Jesus so hated? Well, Jesus was hated back then and he's still hated today, and even his messengers who deliver his message, if they deliver it purely, are often hated as well. Why? The reason the world hates me is because I testify that what it does is evil. So it's God's standard, not ours, or not what is preferential to us, or what feels good, or popular, or convenient to us. That is the truth. The bottom line is that God has declared to us many things that are black and white, and God tells us what is right, and God tells us what is wrong. It's not relativistic. Now the Bible is clear When you begin to read the Bible and study through it, it's very clear that there are many things that God says are good and there are many things that God says are evil. Now the question is, is do we agree with God or do we gonna agree with sinful man or the culture of the world? Now, Jehoram says he did evil in the sight of the Lord and ultimately, It will be in the end God's judgment and standard that we must all give an account to. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. But notice, look at the second part of verse two. It says in the second part of verse two, but not like his father and mother, for he put away the sacred pillar of Baal that his father and mother had made. Now his father and mother, remember, I just said it a while ago, were the epitome of evil. You know, there's gonna be, I believe, when we stand before God, and especially at the Great White Throne Judgment, At the Great White Throne Judgment, everyone whose names are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, who were not believers, who were not forgiven, who were not washed and cleansed of their sins through faith in Christ, will stand before God at a different judgment than the Christian will. The Christian will stand before God at the behemoth seat or the judgment seat of Christ, not for salvation, but for rewards or loss of rewards. Their salvation was sealed when they were sealed by the blood of Christ and by the Holy Spirit. So they're saved and they're going to have eternal life given to them as a gift, they received it. The unbeliever, however, is different. They rejected Christ. They rejected the gift of salvation. So on the day that they die, having no savior, they will meet God at the end of the thousand years, a thousand-year reign of Jesus at the Great White Throne Judgment. And in the Day of Judgment, how is God going to deal with evil? Well, there's something interesting here, because in this sentence, we kind of get a little glimpse of it. Because it says, look at verse 2, the whole thing. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like his father and mother. For he put away the sacred pillar of Baal, that his father had made. Now, what we see here is that there's a different measurement, seemingly, of evil here. Mom and dad were much more evil than the son. So in the day of judgment, how will evil be dealt with? Well, some, we're told, according to Jesus, will be beaten with many blows, and some will be beaten with fewer blows. So justice is going to be delved out fairly on the day of judgment. And so he wasn't as evil as his parents, yet he still did evil. So God sort of gives him a little credit here, it seems like. Now, why did he do what he did? Well, maybe the reason he did what he did with the sacred stone of Baal is he saw perhaps how his parents worshipped this idol and What happened to his parents, that it cost his parents and his brother their lives. God's judgment fell on them. So we see this word in verse three, it says, nevertheless, he persisted in the sins of Jeroboam, the first king, the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin, he did not depart from them. So his was only a partial reformation, we might say, and maybe it was done out of a selfish or a hypocritical reason. Maybe he did it for self-preservation because he saw what happened to his parents and how God dealt with his parents and his brother. But it doesn't seem like he had a genuine change of heart towards God or a true repentance toward God. Matthew Henry, one of my all-time favorite commentaries, what did you say, Mike, you lived in the 1600s? Yeah, Mike's an interesting guy. I love him. But we always say, Mike, you should read this book. He goes, is the guy alive or dead? And if he's still alive, he goes, I won't read him if he's still alive, because he might fall or whatever. But if he's dead and he hasn't fallen, and he's solid, then Mike says, I'll read what he has to say. So that's his reasoning, and so, anyway. But Matthew Henry is one of those guys we both like a lot, and his commentary's really awesome, but here's what he said about this situation. He said, those do not truly or acceptably repent or reform who only part company with the sins that cause them loss or pain. but who still continue their affection for the sins they seem to gain by. So in other words, half-hearted devotion isn't acceptable or good in the eyes of God. So this guy, he gives up Baal worship but he still kept worshiping the idols of Jeroboam that he had set up in Dan and in Bethel, the golden calf worship up there in northern Israel. Kinda reminds me a lot of what I used to do, and I'm not saying every Catholic did this, but I did, and so did all my Catholic friends that I knew, we all did this, so I know a lot of us thought this way. But we would do stuff for Lent. Did any of you guys ever practice Lent? Right, so you kinda know. But what we would do for Lent, me and my friends, is we would give up, like let's say we would make a vow to God to give up drinking maybe alcohol for Lent. So we would give up, for 40 days we'd stop getting drunk. But we'd keep smoking pot, you know, we'd keep smoking hash, we'd keep snorting cocaine, but we gave up drinking. Or we might give up drinking whiskey. but we would still drink beer. Or, you know, all these crazy things that we would do. And I remember when I came to the Lord, and it was during that time of the year, on Good Friday, I thought to myself, man, why, well even during that period of Lent, I thought to myself, I'm not gonna give up anything. Because why should I give up something I'm just gonna go right back to on Easter Sunday? So I started thinking, I know that God wants my life, but I wasn't really willing to give up my sin yet. So I just thought to myself, I'm not gonna do that. And then when I get to Good Friday, I finally said to myself, man, I'm gonna not party this weekend, because I know Jesus died on the cross. I know he rose again on Sunday. I'd been reading my Bible. I wasn't saved yet, but I was like, I should at least do these three days in honor of the Lord, right? But what the Lord really showed me is he didn't really care about me giving up smoking pot or drinking for 40 days, what he really wanted was my life permanently. I should have not been doing those things in the first place. And so the Lord showed me, Joseph, if you're gonna be my disciple, you have to be willing to deny yourself, take up your cross daily, 365 days a year, and follow me, not just for 40 days or not just for Good Friday and Saturday and Easter Sunday. And so I made that commitment to follow the Lord. But you see, partial repentance or partial reformation, kind of like what was going on with this guy, this character here, is a common occurrence with humans. Yeah, I heard a guy say one time, I gave up drinking after my second DWI, he said. And after I almost lost my license and my freedom, but I still smoke my pot, he tells me. I'm like, oh, interesting. My thing is, is that God showed me, and I think a lot of people try to do this, they try to play games with God. And I don't think it's okay to keep holding on to certain pet sins or partial repentance. It's really no repentance at all. In fact, turn over to look at James. I wanna show you something in the book of James. This is a little bit of a different twist on it, but look at this in James chapter two. If you'll turn over with me to James chapter two. It's near the end of the New Testament. kind of near the end. So James chapter 2 beginning at verse 8. Listen to what James writes here concerning those that might give up some sins but not all sins or you know maybe certain sin but they don't see other things as being all that big of a deal. James chapter two, beginning at verse eight. He says, if you really fulfill the royal law according to scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law And yet stumble in one point is guilty of all. For he who said, do not commit adultery, also said, do not murder. Now, if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So the idea here is like, well, yeah, I give up that, but I'm still doing this. Well, you know, the Lord's saying, look, you can't just pick and choose. If you're gonna serve me, serve me. And that's, you know, the thing that was going on with this guy is he was like, he wasn't as bad as his parents, and maybe he even thought that to himself. Look, my parents did all these evil things, I'm not that bad. But here's what God wants. God wants our heart completely not a portion or a part of our hearts or our lives. It's like a person might say, yeah, I had cancer in my right lung, so they removed the tumor. And now my right lung is healthy and strong, but my left lung also has a tumor. It's cancerous, but I'm just gonna leave it there because I got one good lung. It's like, what kind of reasoning is that? Right? It's gonna kill you. And that's how sin is. And so partial repentance of sin, partial reformation, the wages of sin is still death. You know, you gotta get rid of what the Lord is showing you to get rid of because the consequences of sin are not good. And so he persisted, verse three says, according to the NIV, he persisted or he clung to the sins of Jeroboam. Persisted or clung is not repentance. He persisted, he clung to, he did not repent. And what's the gospel message? The gospel message is a message of repentance. You know what Paul the Apostle preached? I love what he says. He said, I preached that they should repent. and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. And again, Paul says, God commands all people everywhere to repent. And then when the Lord sent Paul out with a gospel message, here's what he said. I am sending you to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. So there's a transformation that takes place when we come to Christ. We are to come with a repentant heart, we're to turn to God, but we're also to turn from our old lifestyle. And so he says, I'm sending you to open their eyes, turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, so they can be forgiven of their sins and be sanctified by faith in me. So this didn't happen here with Jeroboam. Jeroboam kept on worshiping idols. He clung to, he persisted, not as blatant as his mom and dad, but here he was, you know, if he was graded on a curve or a sliding scale, maybe he was not so bad, but that's not how God grades. So in reality, God's standard, and I tell people this all the time, we're doing this evangelism class. By the way, the evangelism class is on again this Saturday morning at 10 o'clock in the fellowship hall. And the evangelism class is kind of neat because they use the law as the standard or the springboard for witnessing. And it's really kind of a neat way to share the gospel because one of the things that we find, and people do this all of the time, is that people will say, if you start talking to them about God, a lot of people will say, yeah, I believe in God. Even as an unbeliever, a non-Christian, I was religious, but I would have said to you, yeah, I believe in God. If you would have asked me, I would have said, sure, I believe in God. But if you would have pressed me, you would have found out that I wasn't living at all my life for the Lord. But a lot of people will say, well, I'm a good person. and that's the standard that they're believing is gonna get them into heaven. I'm good, therefore God's gotta let me in. But I tell everybody that says that to me, God's standard is total perfection. Heaven is 100% pure and perfect. And one sin, even one sin, let's say you were 99.99% good, which nobody is, but just for the sake of puffing up your own little head, okay? I'm so good, you know? Well, even if you were that good, that one-tenth or one percent would still keep you out of heaven because if God let you in, heaven would be defiled. And so, you're disqualified from heaven from one sin just as much as you are with a hundred sins. And some people say, well, I'm not that bad of a sinner. Yeah, but you're still a sinner. And all sinners without a Savior end up in the same lake, the lake of fire. All sinners, even good sinners and bad sinners, without a Savior end up in the same lake of fire. And so if you can get a person to at least admit they're a sinner, then you can say to them, well, that's why the Lord sent Jesus, because now you as a sinner need a Savior. and the Lord is the only one that can deal with our sin. And if we ever want to make it to heaven, if we ever have a chance of even being led into heaven, we have to have the cure or the antidote for our sins or we're doomed. And the cure and the antidote is the blood of Christ applied to our lives. And so, if you will, the disease of sin will kill you and condemn you, and Jesus is the antidote. He's the cure. Now Jeroboam only put away some of the sin, but he clung to and persisted in others, and thus God says he did evil in the sight of the Lord. That still says it. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. Look at verse four and verse five. Oops, I'm in the wrong book. Let me jump back where we are. Look at verse four and verse five as we continue on. Now Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheep breeder. and he regularly paid the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. Look at verse five, and it happened when Ahab died that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. Now, if you look back at chapter one, verse one, Moab was subjected to Israel's rule and they were made to pay taxes or tribute during Ahab's rule, but now Ahab, the one that put that on them, is gone, he's dead. And so now they rebel. They said, that's it, we're not gonna do it, no more lambs, no more wool from the rams, and it's over. Mesha, their king, puts down his foot, and he said, you know, it's over. Now, we see what happens here. Jehoram, he responds by saying, okay, those are fighting terms. No sooner had he got the scepter in his hand, then he takes the sword into his hand. And this was in essence, it's interesting, what causes fights, what causes wars? If you look throughout history, you'll come up with a myriad of reasons, looking at history, why wars have started. This one is a war over wool. They're getting in a battle, they're gonna kill each other over wool. And in recorded history, some almost 6,000 years, 5,560 years worth of recorded history, there have been some 14,531 wars, averaging a little over 2.6 wars each year. Someone said that in all the generations that have ever existed, I talked about this a little bit last Sunday, but in all the generations that have existed, only about 10 generations have witnessed some peace. And in light of man's horrible track record when it comes to fighting, it's pretty clear that we're incapable of self-governing in the fallen sinful world that we live in. And I don't put any stock in man ever achieving peace on earth on his own or this utopian society. I think that's a pipe dream. It's a figment of the warped imagination. I remember growing up in the 60s and one of the big things were peace, man, peace. Remember? Peace, right? Everyone's peace. And they were protesting the wars and all of that. And now, here we are, 2024, and what's going on? As of late, Israel, Iran, Russia, Korea, the rumors of wars. And wars, unfortunately, are part of the fallen nature of man. And because man is sinful, man fights. And ultimately, Jesus, even when Jesus returns, he's going to return with a sword. Read Revelation 19 and 20. He's gonna return with a sword to fight his enemies. as I was sharing this last Sunday. And it tells us that he will fight and destroy his enemies at the Battle of Armageddon. Now the Bible tells us even that there was war in heaven. Isn't that crazy? There was war in heaven. Revelation 12, seven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. And Michael and his angels prevailed. In fact, this is kind of interesting. A little Bible trivia, most probably none of us would ever guess it, but the word war is found from Genesis to Revelation some 662 times. from Genesis to Revelation. And it's interesting, you know, because here's all these people stewing and getting upset and protesting war and being angry about it, and yet Jesus said, one of the marks of the last days, there would be wars and what? Rumors of wars. Nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom. And the thing is, some of the nations that are out there today, their motivation for what they do is their religious system. And I've met some really nice Muslim people, but Islam itself, the religion of Islam has been and has a history of being a religion of war, a religion of violence. And you can't make friends with a rattlesnake. If you try to make friends with a rattlesnake, you can expect to get bit. And we were in the Middle East, and it was kind of scary. It was funny. The trip before last, we went to the Middle East, and we took the senior class. One of our seniors, he's part of our fellowship pretty much now, Josiah, he bought a hat in Israel, and he was so proud of his hat. It's a nice hat. The thing that says Israel on around the front, you know, and we get to the border to go into Jordan, which Jordan is a Muslim, predominantly Muslim country. And, you know, none of us thought to tell him, you better take your hat off. But we get to the border and we're getting ready to cross in and we go into their side and one of the soldiers looks right at him and says, you better put that hat away and you better hide it. He said, I wouldn't wear that if I was you in this country. Because they hate Israel. They don't like each other. And there has been conflict in the Middle East forever and ever. And it's funny because a lot of the mindset there that they have is that they want America, they call America the great Satan, and they call Israel the little Satan, and they want them wiped off the face of the earth, and they want Sharia law. So as long as that kind of mindset exists in the world, there's going to be wars. That's not the only reason wars start. This one started over wool, for crying out loud, but there's lots of reasons that people fight. I'm not for war at all. I wish we could live at peace, but if you're gonna fight, you should win. That's all I say. Jehoram plans his war strategy here. The problem is that we're gonna see here, he doesn't seek God, and why should he? He's godless. Right, big mistake to have God, leave God out of your plan making no matter what you're doing. Look at verse six, let's continue to read on and we'll kind of comment as we go. So King Jehoram went out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel. So okay, so why is this war starting? Because the King of Moab said no more wool for you guys. So he mustered all of Israel. Then he went and sent to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. Apparently they're kind of getting along, the northern and the southern kingdom at this time. Jehoshaphat is the king there in the southern kingdom of Judah. So he went and he sent to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, saying, the king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab? And he said, I will go up. So he yokes himself together with this bad king, and then he says, I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses, and in reality, the nation of Israel, the 12 tribes, they were one family, right? So even though they had split and they were struggling and fighting with each other a lot, they still came together in situations like this. So he says, look, my people as your people, my horses as your horses. Then he said, which way shall we go up? And he answered, by way of the wilderness of Edom. So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. And so they went and they got Edom to fight with them as well on their side. And they marched on that roundabout route seven days and there was no water for the army nor for the animals that followed them. So they miscalculate, they plan badly, they get out there and they find they're in the middle of nowhere and they have no water. There's no water for themselves, there's no water for their animals. Because they were trying to ambush them and go the long way. And so, verse 10. So right away, the king of Israel, who doesn't even ever trust God, he's an idol worshiper, he starts to blame God. Oh, God has just brought us out here to kill us, right? It was your knucklehead plan, not God's, in the first place. Isn't it funny how people will do that? They'll do something dumb, and then they'll turn it against God and blame God for it. Well, that's what he's doing. But Jehoshaphat, okay, Jehoshaphat, he has a better head on his shoulders. But Jehoshaphat, the king of the southern kingdom said, is there no prophet of the Lord here that we may inquire of the Lord by him? I love what Jehoshaphat does here. He says, wait a minute, Jehoram, he said, put the brakes on. He said, let's stop and ask God what to do. Let's ask him, and he said, is there a prophet that we can inquire of the Lord by him? So one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, Elisha, the son of Shaphat, is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah. Now remember, Elisha got a double portion of Elijah's spirit. Elijah was taken up into heaven. Now we have Elisha that took his place. And so this guy, when they inquire, do you have a prophet? This guy knows about Elisha and he recommends him. In verse 12, and Jehoshaphat said, the word of the Lord is with him. So the reputation of Elisha already had preceded himself and everything and so they knew who he was. It says, so the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him. They stopped the battle plan, they're out there, they have no water, so they go down to him. Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, I love this, what have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother. He's basically saying, look, man, you don't even trust in the God of Israel. What are you doing coming and asking him for help? Why are you asking me? He goes, why don't you go to your own false prophets? The false prophets that your mom and dad served. I love this. He's not worried about, let's be friends. Can't we all just get along? No, he doesn't say that. He goes, what are you doing here? You're a dirtbag, pretty much is what he's saying. I'm paraphrasing, you're a dirtbag. Why are you here? But the king of Israel said to him, no, for the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab. And so now, again, he's saying, look, God's done this, and now we're gonna be delivered, to deliver them into the hands of Moab. And Elisha said, as the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regarded the presence of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, I would not look at you nor see you." He goes, it's like, you make me sick. But since Jehoshaphat is here, I'll deal with you guys. I'll talk to you. And so Jehoshaphat apparently had a relationship with God or believed in the God of Israel. And he says, for the sake of Jehoshaphat, Okay, let's talk. And then he says in verse 15, now, bring me a musician. I love how God does stuff that's like, what? How does that have to do with the battle or war? Now bring me a musician. Then it happened when the musician played that the hand of the Lord came upon him. This is cool, it's like, he goes, I wanna spend some time in worship. And so he's like, let's just spend some time before the Lord. And so as he played, the musician played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him. Then he said, thus says the Lord, make this valley full of ditches. For thus says the Lord, you shall not see wind, nor shall you see rain, yet that valley shall be filled with water. so that you, your cattle, and your animals may drink." Now, why did they take cattle into the battle? Probably because that was their food source, one of their food sources, right? So they have cattle, they have horses, all this stuff going into the battle. And then Elisha tells them, this is what you guys are to do. That big, dry, desolate place that you're at, camped out, dig a ton of ditches all over the place. and then water is gonna fill, that all of its value is gonna be filled with water so you can all drink. But he said it's not gonna rain, there's not gonna be wind, there's not gonna be a storm in verse 18. And this is a simple matter in the sight of the Lord, I love that. I love how Elisha says nothing's too hard for God. It's no big deal. God will take care of it. God will provide. Because He's the God of the universe. He's the God of creation. And so, it's a simple matter in the sight of the Lord. He will also deliver, and He adds this, He will also deliver the Moabites into your hand. And you shall attack every, and now He gives them instructions. about the battle. You shall attack every fortified city, and every choice city, and shall cut down every good tree, and shall stop up every spring of water, and ruin every good piece of land with stones. So he's saying, man, you're gonna go in there, and not only are you gonna beat them and defeat them, but then you're gonna make it very hard on them to recover. They won't have any trees. Their springs of water will be all clogged up. Their piece of land will be full of rocks. They're good land. And so he says, now it happened in the morning when the grain offering was offered that suddenly water came by way of Edom and the land was filled with water. So water just came. You know, it wasn't a storm right there, but it came from somewhere else and filled up the whole place. All the ditches they had dug, everything. The land was filled with water. So now they're provided for. God does a miracle for them. It was when the grain offering was offered and apparently there was a remnant of the godly, maybe the southern kingdom guys are offering something to the Lord and it's then that the Lord sends this miraculous abundance of water, verse 21. And when all the Moabites heard that the kings had come up to fight against them, Now word gets to the Moabites. All who were able to bear arms and older were gathered and they stood at the border. So they gather all the young fighting men and even the older guys like Mike. Even though he could probably only fight with one arm. Just kidding, Mike. We're good friends and we tease each other all the time. Right, Mike? sorry my brother anyway so he'll get me back later i already know it but we were able to so all those and the older who were gathered and they stood at the border so they get ready to fight then they rose up early in the morning and the sun was shining on the water This is cool, what God does here. And the sun was shining on the water, and the Moabites saw the water on the other side as red as blood. So the way that the sun was coming up, or the way that it looked, like the whole valley looked like it was covered with blood, not water. It was water, but it looked like blood. And they said to themselves, And they said, they came to a wrong conclusion. And they said, this is blood. The kings have surely struck swords and have killed one another. Now therefore Moab to the spoil. So they think they're all dead. The Israelites are dead down there and that's blood. So they all start running down there all happy. Let's go get the spoil. Let's go get the cows and the horses and everything and the chariots, whatever. Moab to the spoil. So when they came to the camp of Israel, Israel rose up and attacked the Moabites so that they fled before them and they entered their land killing the Moabites. So God's strategy on behalf of Israel worked fantastic. How cool is that, right? They came to the end of themselves, we're out here, we have no water, we have nothing, we better inquire of the Lord. God says, okay, do this, and then boom, it all falls into place because God was the one directing them. And so they fled before them, and they entered their land, killing the Moabites. Then they destroyed the cities, and each man threw a stone on every good piece of land and filled it. And they stopped up all the springs of water. Notice they're doing everything God told them to do. Not like Saul, when Saul went and defeated the enemy and came back and brought all kinds of stuff back he shouldn't have brought. These guys obey. And they stopped up all the springs of water and cut down all the good trees, but they left the stones of Kir-hares intact. However, the slingers surrounded and attacked it. And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him, he took with him 700 men who drew swords to break through to the king of Edom, but they could not. Then he took his, now this is sad what he does here. He couldn't defeat them, he attacks them with his best fighting man to get to the king of Edom, but he couldn't do it. So then, verse 27, sad thing that this guy does. Then he took his eldest son, who would have reigned in his place, and offered him as a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel, so that they departed from him and returned to their own land. And so he sacrificed his own son, probably hoping that his gods would rescue them, and ends up, his own flesh and blood sacrifices him as a burnt offering. And then so it says they departed from him and returned to their own land. So that was pretty much the end of the battle. And you see that it went really bad when they left God out and it went really great when God was involved. And it's kind of like our lives too. It's so wise for us to stop, pray, seek the Lord, ask for direction. And it's unwise for us just to try to live our lives and leaving God out. So many times, sadly, and we Christians do this sometimes too. I've been guilty of it in the past myself. Things are going great, things are going well, and we forget about God. We forget to seek Him, we forget to inquire of Him, we forget to read our, we don't read our Bibles, we're not praying, everything's going good, and then everything falls apart or everything falls out from underneath us and all of a sudden we're there desperate. And then what do we do? Well, a lot of times we'll call on the Lord and we'll cry out to the Lord and we'll say, Lord, I'm at the end of myself, what do I do? And then the Lord says, glad you asked. I was wondering when I would get your attention. And so, you know, it's better to seek the Lord first and not end up in a mess than to get into a big mess and then have to seek the Lord. Right? Don't you think? Wouldn't it be better if you sought the Lord and he kept you out of the mess? I think so too, right? Then not seek the Lord, get into a giant mess, and then be like, God help, 911. This is God, you know, kind of thing. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for this time in your word and the things you teach us, Lord. And Lord, we all are learners. We're all learning. We're like little kids still. A lot of times, Lord, we don't get it. But Lord, we're trying to get it. And I pray you'd help us to continue to grow. Continue to learn, continue to be teachable. Help us, Lord, to not be satisfied where we're at, but, Lord, to desire to draw closer, to seek you, to learn of you, to become more like Jesus. Forgive us for all the times we fail to do that, Lord, which is probably pretty often for most of us, and for the times we fail to ask you and seek your counsel first before we decide to do things and sometimes they turn out dumb. Help us, Lord, to be wise and to seek you first and your kingdom and your righteousness and then you said everything else will be added onto us. Help us to do that, learn how to do that all the time. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Kevin, you got a song for us? All right, let's all stand and sing the Aaronic Blessing. the blessing that they would sing to the nation of Israel. I was just, interestingly enough, this morning I was listening to the radio, our radio station, and I was teaching, and it just happened to be that I turned it on when I was teaching at 8 o'clock this morning, and when Zechariah went in to the temple, to light the incense and all that. His job in going in there to light the incense was a pretty routine job that they did every day in the temple. But when he went in, he didn't come back out because an angel appeared to him, the angel Gabriel, and started talking to him and said, you're gonna bear a son and blah, blah, blah. They were having this conversation. And Zechariah didn't believe him and then he came out and he couldn't speak. But what he was supposed to do when he came out is to give them the Aaronic blessing. That was the normal thing that they did, and he was not able to speak, and so they knew something had happened to him. But anyway, hopefully I can sing this, and I won't be like Aaron. I mean like, what? Zachariah. Yeah, like Zachariah. But this is what they would say and sing or say to the people when they would bless them. So let's sing it. ♪ The Lord bless thee ♪ ♪ The Lord bless thee ♪ ♪ And keep thee ♪ the Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee and be gracious unto thee the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace. God bless you guys. Have a great rest of the week and hopefully we'll see you Sunday. God bless. Oh yeah, communion Sunday. God bless you guys.