Well, this evening I'd invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Kings. Together we're going to be looking at the concluding portion of chapter 3, 2 Kings 3, 21 through 27, as we continue on in the book of 2 Kings. Now, I should comment But one of the, well, there are two things that I've always striven for whenever I am putting together a sermon. One, to remember Luther's admonition to not stop searching a passage for Christ until you find it, and then make him clear to the people to whom he needs to be proclaimed. And I will say that there are some portions of Scripture where that is easy, even in the Old Testament. And there are some portions where it is more difficult. And then there are some portions of Scripture where if I was a real jerk as an Old Testament teacher, I would assign it and say, find Christ in this passage. This is kind of one of those passages, I would say. I would not be assigning this to any first-year exegetical students or anything like that. And I also will warn you that near the end, there is some confusion amongst the commentators as to exactly what is meant. But hopefully together we can come to some at least understandings of what the passage means and perhaps an application of it for us that is Christocentric. So let's go to the Lord and let's ask for his blessing. Sovereign Lord, I do pray that as we together look at your word, that you would be the light of our minds and that you would help us to remember that these words were not written merely to record the decline of Israel and Judah long, long ago, but rather these things were written for us as well. They were written to guide us and also to show us our need of Christ. I do pray, Lord, that you would help us, therefore, to understand them and to see the way that human nature in so many instances has not changed. And, oh Lord, to take warning of being compromisers ourselves. I do pray also, Lord, that you would help me to bring these truths home to your people, that I would not go astray to the left or the right, but would cleave to your highway, Lord. Help us now to hear and to grow. And we pray this in Jesus' holy name. Amen. Second Kings chapter three, verses 21 through 27. I do remind you, this is the word of the Lord. And when all the Moabites heard that the kings had come up to fight against them, all who were able to bear arms and older were gathered, and they stood at the border. Then they rose up early in the morning, and the sun was shining on the water. And the Moabites saw the water on the other side as red as blood. And they said, this is blood. The kings have surely struck swords and have killed one another. Now, therefore, 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. 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 and cut down all the good trees, but they left the stones of Kir Haraseth 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 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 they departed from him and returned to their own land. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Well, those of you who are familiar with the Book of Acts and Paul's own writings in the epistles know that he was frequently in desperate straits. He was often faced with things that could easily have led to his death or his being executed in various circumstances, and he did not hold that back. Writing to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11.24, he records, for instance, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside the other things, what comes upon me daily? My deep concern for all the churches. And yet Paul had been delivered from all of those perils, all of those difficulties, all of those persecutions time and time again, often miraculously. And he had been not just the recipient of God's amazing grace when he had stopped him on the road to Damascus, knocked him off of his donkey. and revealed himself to him as Jesus, the one whom he had burdened persecuting, who was indeed the Lord and Savior himself. But far beyond anything he expected or certainly deserved, the Lord had been with him in his ministry. And so to the Ephesians, he referred to God in Ephesians 3.20. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Now remember these three kings had attacked, I wish the map was still up, oh well, had attacked Moab. This was the king of Israel, that is Jehoram, the king of Judah, that is Jehoshaphat, and then with them both there was the third king, the king of Edom. And unfortunately, of course, Jehoshaphat had allied himself with this false king, a king who had not worshipped the Lord, had not stayed true to him, a king who had created, or rather continued on in that syncretistic religion, that had been passed down to him, the worship of God through golden calves in places that he had not ordained by men whom he had not ordained worship from. And they found themselves after coming through the wilderness of Edom without water. The wadi that they had probably expected would be filled with water was in fact dry as dust. And so there they were, they were going to die of dehydration on the borders of Moab without ever succeeding in their attack plan. But what had happened, of course, is somebody had remembered after Jehoshaphat asked, is there not still a man of the Lord with us? And someone had remembered, yes. Elisha is with us. And so they had gone to speak to Elisha, and Elisha had treated Jehoram, this evil king, with disdain. Go to the prophets of your mother and your father, he had said, referring to the way, of course, that they had gone to the balls for their help. but he eventually had helped them because Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, this true descendant of David, had been with them, and he had promised that he would give them water. But he had promised that he would give them more than water. He had promised that he would give them victory, and that their victory would actually come by means of the water that he would provide for them. So, in the midst of that desert, they were suddenly deluged with water, which had flown down, or had, what is it, had come down from the mountains of Eden. It had quenched their thirst in their dire need. Now, the Moabites had heard that these armies had drawn up on their borders. They might have expected that they would come more directly over the Jordan and attack them in the north, but they didn't. They came around through Edom and attacked them from the south. And they had moved their army in that direction. In fact, they had gathered up everybody they thought could bear arms. And Russell Dilday, one commentator, makes this point about it. He says, there's an interesting glimpse of Semitic culture in verse 21. All who were able to bear arms and older is literally everyone girdling himself with a girdle and upwards. Instead of using numbers to designate ages of persons, the Semites often used descriptive phrases. An activity or a feature characteristic of a certain age would therefore represent how old a person was. For example, a very young child, under five years old, was described as chasing the hens from the door of the house. Isn't that interesting? If you were under five, you were there to chase the hens from the door of your house. A girl of 10 or 11 years of age was one who gathers sticks and carries water. So, girls, if you are within that age range, you know what you're supposed to be doing for your parents. Gathering sticks and carrying water. Incidentally, the funny thing is if you go, it's not funny, but if you go to Africa, they're still doing that during that age period. And then one of 13 or 14 years was marriageable. So I knew that certain people in the congregation would enjoy that one. So here, in this passage, a young boy was considered old enough for military services if he had given up running around in a childish loose shirt and started wearing a girdle or a belt like a grown-up. You remember, we are told frequently in the KGV to gird up our loins. There are some wonderful phrases. Gird up the loins of your mind, for instance. The idea is to prepare yourself and to be prepared for battle. A boy who was ready to gird up his loins was a boy who was now old enough to go to battle, old enough to set himself in the battle array. Now, they had come to the border, and they knew that the wadi was empty, and then they suddenly see reflected in the morning light, they see these pools of red, and they assume that the three kings, because of course, Edom they knew was a vassal king in the first place, and they knew that there was bad blood frequently between Israel and Judah, They assumed that these kings had come up to the border and then had attacked one another. And so there were these giant pools of blood. And obviously, the tents would be empty and full of spoil. So they had dumped their equipment and gone running into the camp, expecting to load up their arms full. of food and equipment and things like that and carry it back to Moab in victory. Instead, they had found that all of the members of these three armies were still very much alive and they were caught at that point and they were routed in battle. They all went fleeing back. destroyed as an army, no longer able to protect the land of Moab. They rushed fatally to their defeat as the Lord had promised they would. He had done abundantly above anything that they could expect. And then these three armies enter into the land and they devastate the land. You remember Elisha had told them, let every man pick up a stone and throw it in the fields. It was very difficult clearing fields at this point in time. You had to remove all of the stones before you could begin the process of tilling and then harvesting. And now they're filling the fields with stones, cutting down all of the non-fruit trees, and absolutely setting it into a place of destruction. They had destroyed the land and they finally surrounded the capital city. The capital was the only walled city left and it's called Kir Hereseth. I am told that it's identified almost certainly with modern Karak in Jordan, a strong city on the highland immediately east of the southern part of the Dead Sea. And the name of the capital, the Jews called it Kir Hereseth, was probably not the actual name of the capital. Kircherischef means literally wall of potsherds, wall of broken pottery. This is a defamatory name for it. It was probably more likely the original name was Kircherisch, which means fortification of the watch. In German that's Wartburg, incidentally, if you know. of Luther's background. Or possibly it was cured Hadassah, meaning new castle, but they gave it this derogatory term implying that they would be able to overcome it as easily as a man would be able to break a pot shirt. They would be able to break the walls. Well, they invested it, they besieged it, and it became so hard to fight against them because obviously they had a position where they could sling stones into the city. They were killing people on Misha. The king rallies 700 of his best troops, and he attempts to sally forth to break through the besiegers. And, I mean, he's not an idiot. Apparently, Misha was a great warrior, and he aimed at the Edomites. He figured they were the weakest part of the alliance, so he tries to break through them, but he fails to do so, and he then returns to the city. At this point, he's in despair. The outcome of the siege, although it may take a long time, unless there was an army that was able to raise the siege, eventually you would be starved out. As the siege progressed, obviously the conditions within the city got worse and worse. There would be less and less food and there would be more and more virulent sicknesses going about as people were jammed in together and becoming weaker and weaker. And so, what were they going to do? Well, Misha offers this sickening sacrifice to his demon god, Chimosh. Now, while the Moabites were not well known for human sacrifice, we do know that they still, they offered human sacrifice in times of difficulty to their god, Chimosh. And it was not as common as it was in Molech worship. The offering of your children to Molech was actually a part of their worship. They used to create their idols of Molech with hands outstretched, and then they would build a fire in the center of this idol, which was made of clay, and the parents would literally place their children in the hands of Molech, and they would roll down into the fire as part of their worship. But it was common enough in times of difficulty within Chimash worship as well. And in this case, though, he doesn't offer an infant. He offers his eldest son or firstborn son, the Prince of Moab. He sacrifices him as a burnt offering, a whole burnt offering on the top of the wall, which means he would have slit his throat and then burned his body in full view of the besieging armies. And the onlookers would have been appalled Certainly, the men of Judah watching a human sacrifice, which was absolutely forbidden within their religion, an abomination before God would have been appalled. Even the inhabitants of Israel would have seen this as something terrible. The Edomites, well, we don't know how they feel about it, but apparently, The inhabitants of the city were enraged by this. Now, what happened next is difficult, as I said, to interpret. Commentators differ, and everyone admits they're not quite sure. This is verse 27. And there was great indignation against Israel, so they departed from him and returned to their own land. What does that mean? Well, there are two major possibilities. The first is that it could mean that the Moabite defenders were so indignant Because the enemy had, in a sense, taken their prince from them, that they rose up with renewed determination. We are never going to surrender to you men. And they threw off the besieging armies and they sent them home in defeat. That would be in keeping with the text of the Moabite stone or the Misha stela that we talked about before. Misha talks about beating off these armies and defeating them. But obviously these stones were well known for their propaganda. Nobody in the ancient Near East erected a stela saying, and there I was defeated by the armies. They didn't want to record that kind of thing, so they would record some sort of great victory. It may have been that he eked out this almost Pyrrhic victory. Obviously, the land was devastated by the invasion, but it seems like they may have won. Or it may also mean that the Israelites were shocked by these sacrifices, and somehow they felt that their actions were to blame, that they had brought this about. They assumed, therefore, that God's displeasure was actually upon them, and that forcing human sacrifices would bring his wrath down upon them as well as the Moabites, so they voluntarily gave up the siege without having finished without having fully subjugated the people of Moab. That would be in keeping, incidentally, with the first century interpretation of Josephus. You remember the historian who was captured by the Romans in the first century after the rebellion, and he wrote, one of his books was called The Antiquities of the Jews, and he writes in book nine, chapter three, for he took his eldest son, that is Misha, who was to reign after him, and lifting him up upon the wall that he might be visible to all the enemies, he offered him as a whole burnt offering to his god. whom when the king saw they commiserated the distress that was the occasion of it and were so affected in way of humanity and pity they raised the siege and everyone returned to his own house. So that might actually have been what had happened. I tend to think that regardless of whether option one or two is true, Israel had intended by their invasion to reduce Moab once again to vassal status. We remember that when Russia invaded Ukraine, their intention was not to utterly devastate the land. Their intention was to reduce Ukraine once again to vassal status, so it would be a satellite state of them and not of NATO. However, they continued on in their war, and now it's become a war of annihilation, a prideful war, a war of attrition that seems to be going nowhere. Well, the Israelites and the men of Judah were not going to engage in this war of attrition with a people who had said, we will not be subjugated by you. They had indicated by the sacrifice of this prince that they would rather be utterly destroyed then serve Israel once again. I tend to think that was what was happening here. But whatever happened, Elisha's prophecy was fulfilled. The Lord had, of course, provided them with water. The armies of Moab had been destroyed by means of the water that they thought was blood. And the people had been devastated, if not utterly destroyed. The Moabites had, if they won any victory, as I said, it would be Pyrrhic. The nation had been devastated in this. But what can we learn from all of this? Well, it seems to me we have three kings here with three faulty views of God, and it indicates the kind of leadership that we've seen time and time again in human history. First, we have the view of Misha. This is the pagan view, the way he ruled. Now, Misha was apparently a man who was very astute. He wasn't dumb. He was a great warrior as well, a man who served his people also very faithfully. Misha was a patriot, we might say, but he was also a pagan. and he had very pagan views of the gods, in particular his god, Chimosh, this demon god. He believed that in order to have success in war or harvest, they had to, he had to make some sort of sacrifice, something that was of great worth, that God operated on the means of, what have you done for me lately? In other words, If you wanted favor from God, you had to make these sacrifices yourself on a regular basis. Otherwise, God's wrath would be upon you. And Chimosh, being in actuality a devil, delighted in blood and murder. He was after the destruction of mankind, the taking away of that which gave joy. Now, the worshipers of Chimosh obviously believed that the dearer something was to them. the more acceptable it was to their God. So therefore, their firstborn child, and certainly the one who would inherit the throne, that would be the greatest sacrifice they could possibly make to their God, and that he would be well pleased with it. And so therefore, they were willing, he was willing to sacrifice his child in this attempt to win a victory against Israel. Well, that's awful, we might say. What society would sacrifice their own children for success? Ours. our own society. We have leaders who tell us that we must do this, that it's the greatest thing that we can possibly do, that in order to advance our careers, in order to save the planet, we are like those people who, ah, the weather god is angry with us, we must throw maidens into the volcano. We are literally at that stage. We have to abort our children. We have to make sure that we don't have them in the first place in order that Gaia, the goddess of creation, is not angry with us and does not destroy us. And if that doesn't work, well, we'll eat bugs and live in tiny pods. That's really the direction that we're moving in. We're moving back towards paganism. And regardless of how great a warrior a man is or how patriotic he is, if he leads us in the way of paganism, if he leads you towards doing things that are based upon this faulty presupposition about the nature of creation and whom we should serve and how we should serve, if his worldview in a word is not biblical, then that is not a good leader. And so we must be wary of having those kind of leaders over us, and not just in the nation, brothers and sisters, but obviously within the church. We need men who have a fully biblical worldview. We also need, within the family, we need husbands who are committed to the Bible and who will lead their family according to what it says rather than pragmatically. There are many men in this world who unfortunately have sacrificed, and I've made this point before, sacrificed their families on the altar of their careers, and that should not be the case. And increasingly, unfortunately, there are now women who sacrifice their families, sometimes literally, on the altar of their careers. This is paganism, root and branch. It's this belief that for a good harvest, in one sense, everything else that's precious can be sacrificed. Children, we remember, are a heritage from the Lord, and it is God's desire that we would raise them up to Him, They are the most precious thing that He gives us, aside from faith uniting us to the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, they are to be nurtured and not sacrificed for anything. Well, we also have Jehoram's view of God. Jehoram, the leader of Israel. Now, this is... a Bible-ish religion, we might put it. He obviously was following the Samaritan religion that had been established by Jeroboam, this worship of God, Yahweh, who had led them into the promised land, but in ways that were specifically, the Lord had said, don't worship me this way. Do not worship me using images. He had violated the second commandment, and they had set aside all of the rules, all of the instructions that God had given for his worship, including, of course, the people who would lead it. No longer were the Levites in charge of their worship. They picked people. Whoever wanted to be a priest could be a priest. It was a mishmash of traditions and whatever came to mind, but it certainly was not the biblical religion. Now, the interesting thing is, note that when they were in that hard place where there was no water, they had gone to Elisha. Elisha had said, of course, why don't you go to the prophets of your mother and your father? And the answer is, well, because they can't do anything. They can't give me true instruction. The funny thing is, when it came right down to it, Jehoram understood that only the true God and his true prophets could get them out of that jam. But that is the way that he looked at him. The God that he had gone to was like a lifeboat in a jam, but not a map to guide you for your entire life. And there have been many leaders who have operated that way. For years and years we had within the United States of America, before we began to move in a deliberately pagan direction, we had that awful civil religion. We had a Christian-ish religion without Jesus at the center of things. It was God save America. It was, you know, God get us out of this jam. God bless America. But never asking the question, how should we serve the Lord? And never fully submitting ourselves to Him. It's a religion that's kind of Bible-ish, but has more to do with the culture, and that obviously is something that has affected the church as well. We've turned away from following the instructions of God, and have instead embraced the traditions of man all over the place. And we become less and less biblical. And so God becomes somebody who we expect to serve us. We have even theologies that are designed specifically to meet our felt needs. We have the health and wealth theology, which unfortunately is not only rampant. but has infected Africa, the idea that God is here to provide us with health and wealth, to fill a place that used to be filled with an African culture by the witch doctors. Now we go to the man of God and he prays for us and God will give us definitely these things that we have need of, material wealth and so on. But we are not looking to him as our Lord and Savior. We are not saying, command me to do what thou wilt, Lord, and then following the instructions that he gives within his word for us. This is not an obedient faith. This isn't a full-hearted faith. This is a half-hearted, man-centered faith that looks upon God as a vending machine in the sky and only turns to him when we are in terrible straits. One of the things that may be very, very sad I remember after 2001, after the attack on 9-11, the churches were full. I don't know if you... Sometimes I forget that that was so long ago that there are people who weren't even alive when it happened. But the churches for a time did fill up. And a lot of people were very optimistic about this. America, having been humbled, will come back to the Lord now in their time of greatest need. And my pastor at the time, we were in seminary just finishing up when it happened, and our pastor said something. He said, you watch. Once those feelings of anxiety, those feelings of fear and uncertainty begin to be reduced, you will see that the people who aren't really followers of Christ will leave. And unfortunately, that's exactly what would happen. Well, that's the Jehoram approach to religion. We turn to God when we're in a jam. and then turn away from him when things seem to be better. And then we have Jehoshaphat, the third example here. Here we have biblical religion. We remember that Jehoshaphat was the king of Judah. He was a man who honored God in the way that he served him and worshiped him. But he is continually entering into these compromises, doing things that the Lord said don't do. For instance, the Lord had said specifically, do not marry your children to unbelievers. And then what had Jehoshaphat done? He had wed his son to Athaliah, this unbelieving woman, the daughter of Jezebel. This is something that no believer should ever have done. He did it. And then he had made alliances. You remember, first he had made an alliance with Ahab. And God had specifically sent a prophet, Jehu, to rebuke him for this. Should you make alliances with unbelievers? Should you treat men who are evil as though they were good? And the answer, of course, is no. You shouldn't be making alliances. But he had made that alliance with Ahab, and then he had now made this alliance with Jehoram. And what had been the outcome? The expedition had been unsuccessful, although the Lord had saved him from destruction, just as he had saved him. And you notice that happened before, in battle. He is barely saved by the goodness of God from being destroyed on the battlefield because of his foolish compromise. And then here he marches the armies into the desert and once again is almost destroyed but is saved and is returned home to die with his fathers. That's the grace of God. More than once, he had compromised his religion. And the effect of those compromises was devastating. Obviously, it would have resulted in dead men in both battles from Judah. But also, the effect of having wed his son to Athaliah, we're going to see, was almost terminally devastating, if I can put it that way. Athaliah attempts to wipe out the bloodline of David. And having succeeded in doing that, she would have wiped out the bloodline of who else? Jesus, and it's only by God's grace in saving one of the, I don't wanna give the story away, I'm ruining the book of Second Kings for you, but I'm hoping you've read it already. But it's only once again by God's grace that his foolish compromise is turned around. So here we have a third example. We have biblical religion, but not really doing what God says, not following him fully. loving him, but not keeping his commandments. And the effects in his life and in his family's life as a result were devastating. Well, what does this tell us, brothers and sisters? Political leaders are not the answer. We need a better king. Who do we need? We need the God-man, we need Christ, ultimately, to be our leader, to be our Savior, our Lord, the one who directs us. If you will turn with me in your Bible to Hebrews 10.7, here we will see the confession of the man who is both qualified, biblical, selected, and obedient to the will of God. In Hebrews 10.7, Now, let me start in 10.5. Speaking of Christ, O God, previously saying sacrifice and offerings, burnt offerings and offerings for sin you did not desire nor had pleasure in them, which are offered according to law. Then he said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God. He takes away the first that he may establish the second. By that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins, but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, and from that time, waiting till his enemies are made his footstool, for by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us, for after he had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them. Then he adds, their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more. where there is remission of these there is no longer an offering for sin therefore brethren having a boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh and having a high priest over the house of God let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from the evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. The one in whom we are called to place our faith is our perfect prophet, priest, and king, the one whose once-for-all sacrifice washes our sins, the one whose lordship is perfect, the one who will rule over us for all eternity. It is in Christ that we must put our ultimate, ultimate trust. We were warned in the Old Testament not to put our trust in princes or horses. I find that so often we think that one man, one candidate, one politician will save us. And this is not to say that some politicians are not more godly than others. They are. I mean, we see in the list of kings, there was the pagan, the almost a Christian, then there was the Christian, but the imperfect one. And, you know, I'm in an election between the three of them. Yeah, I actually pick Jehoshaphat every single time. Jesus is not on the ballot, unfortunately, except in terms of our hearts. It should be the case that he is the one who you pledge your ultimate truth to, that he's the one you've closed with by faith, that he is your Lord and your Savior, that you would never be willing to burn the pinch of incense and say Caesar is Lord, because you know that your ultimate confession is Jesus is Lord, the Lord of your heart and the Lord of your destiny. Let us put our trust in Him, not in men, and wait for that day of His certain return. our great confidence should be stored up in the promises of Christ and his completed work. Let's trust in him. Let's live as best we can. We were reminded by Sinclair Ferguson to live as good citizens in the meantime, but let's look for the king in whom there is no shadow of turning and who is that perfect sacrifice once for all. Let's go before him. God, our gracious Father, we thank you, oh Lord, that although men fail in all things, The best of men are men at best, as the saying goes, yet there is one who is better than all. There is one who you sent, your son, great David's greater son, the God-man, our Savior Jesus Christ. Help us to put our confidence in him fully, to follow him fully as your servants, the Puritans, desired. We know we will never be able to keep his laws. perfectly, or to love Him as much as we should. There are, in so many different ways, things that we fall short in doing. But help us to remember that He came to give us grace and mercy, and that it is by His once-for-all sacrifice, the blood that alone has the power to wash away sins, that we are healed. And, O Lord, we need that healing, for we were born dead in sins and trespasses. Unless He gives us life, we are lost forever. Help us then, O Lord, to love Him, to serve Him, and if we have not yet done so, to close with Him by faith. Let none who hear me tarry any longer. There is nothing they can do to save themselves. Let them know that. Let them flee then to Christ and know the salvation that only He can give. We pray this in Jesus' holy name.