So our text for tonight is 2 Kings chapter 3. 2 Kings chapter 3. And on a side note, there really is only one book of Kings. It only got separated later. So always think of it as one book of Kings. But we still have to go by the references here. But 2 Kings chapter 3. Hear the word of the Lord. In the 18th year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Ahab became king over Israel and Samaria, and he reigned 12 years. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, 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, Masha, king of Moab, was a sheep breeder, and he had to deliver to the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs and the wool of a hundred thousand rams. And 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 he 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 what 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, the Lord has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab. And Jehoshaphat said, Is there no prophet of the Lord here through whom we may inquire of the Lord? 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 the Lord 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 to the prophets of your mother. But the king of Israel said to him, no, it's the Lord who's called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab. And Elisha said, as the Lord of hosts 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 the Lord came upon him. And he said, thus says the Lord, I will make this dry stream bed full of pools. For thus says the Lord, you shall not see wind or rain, but that stream bed 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 the Lord. 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 stomp 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 then 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 filled all and felled all the good trees till only its stones were left in Kir Horesh. 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. Thus ends the reading of God's Word. Now, in your reading of the book of Kings, as I'm sure you all regularly do, you may have noticed that a large part of the book of Kings focuses on Ahab and his family. And this is also really the Elijah and Elisha narratives, because there is this conflict between Ahab and his family and Elijah and Elisha. And we can see this, for example, in the account of Jehoshaphat. He's mentioned here, but he gets his own account. But his account is only 10 verses long. Whereas Ahab in his account is over five chapters. And Jehoram, who we read of here, he also gets something similar. So why did the author of the book of Kings highlight this time in Israel's history so much? It was really a low point for Israel, for this northern kingdom that had split off from Judah. Now, it wasn't a low point politically. They seem to be fairly powerful. They have decent armies and all of that. But it is this low point spiritually. That during this time, God's word was not valued. That during this time, these leaders and the people, they were looking, looking to something other than God for their security. Now, does that sound familiar? Certainly, it is in our time also as we see nothing new under the sun. And so why would the author want to focus on this low point in Israel's history? Well, I think we can see part of it in who it was originally written to. It was for those exiles. Pastor Gordon talked a lot about those exiles this morning. And what they needed. The encouragement they needed. The reminders they needed. And that's what we find in these accounts. Is that even in these low points, God is still powerful. So God is still working, even if it's not in our timing, but in his timing. And so we need to see that this account as part of this larger narrative dealing with Elijah and Elisha and Ahab and his family. It was this encouragement for those people and still an encouragement for us that likewise live in a world that has very much deemed God as irrelevant. Now, our particular passage here is an interesting, complex, maybe even confusing account as we read through it. It raises a number of questions. As we went through, you maybe thought, did Elisha's prophecy come true? Did it actually get fulfilled here? Well, we'll look at that. And maybe most confusing, many find the end rather disturbing almost. What happens? The king of Moab sacrifices his son and then wrath goes out against Israel so that they give up the battle. What are we to do with this connection? Well, as we look and address those issues, we remember, we need to remember, this is, as we said, this time of conflict, this time of conflict between God and His rebellious people and especially their king, their rebellious kings in Israel. And God was demonstrating through this conflict the power of his word. And in that, we'll see especially that he won't be mocked. That he will bring judgment on those who stubbornly remain in their sins, who openly oppose God. And we'll see there may be ways they try to trap and trick God, but he in the end prevails. And so he was revealing to them, revealing to us his nature as the only true God. And so as we look at this text, we're going to find a number of reversals that help emphasize this point where we see one interpretation and it's proved wrong so that in the end it's shown that God is the one, the only one who knows the future even controls it and his word will prove valid as we look through. But we'll also find there's not only judgment in our text. Our powerful God is not only powerful to judge, but also to save, to bring life out of certain death. And so it is this thing set before those who need to turn in repentance and faith. And so we really only have those two points tonight, judgment and salvation. But I think there'll be enough. Now, on another side note, another interesting thing about this text is not actually what's in it, but what we've found outside of it. In 1868, there was a missionary who found a large inscription. It's about four feet tall, about two and a half feet wide on this, what we call a stele. And it's written by none other than Masha, king of Moab. And so if you want tonight, you can go look up the Masha stele. And on there, he recounts what in many ways ties in with our text here, how he had served Israel for a number of years and then was able to successfully rebel again. And so it's this helpful reminder that as we read the Bible, these are not cleverly made up myths, but this is, this is real history. So as we think of judgment, our first point there, we must remind ourselves where we are in the book of Kings. We're in the divided kingdom, Israel separated in the north, Judah in the south. And as we said, we have this line that Ahab, it's Omri who actually begins it, but Ahab, his more famous son. And what happened with Ahab? Well, he married maybe his more famous wife, Jezebel. And with her, this daughter of the king of Sidon, comes the worship of Baal into Israel. And that is why this is this low point in Israel's history. And so God raises up his prophets. And so Elijah was the first raised up to confront Ahab for being unfaithful to the Lord. But Ahab would not repent. And so eventually Elijah, through God's word, tells him that his line would be cut off. Not in his time, but in the time of his son. Now Elijah's not around anymore. We could actually look at the chapter earlier, chapter 2 in 2 Kings. That's when he's taken to heaven. But now we have Elisha, his successor on the scene. And so as we have that in mind, we come to our text and we read about Jehoram, this son of Ahab. And we know he's a marked man. that God had said he will cut off Ahab's line in the time of his son. And so we know the clock is ticking. And so I think there may be some irony that Jehoram, we could say who's this rebellious vassal from the Lord, what's the first thing he does? He goes after his rebellious vassal, Masha the king of Moab. And so our text is following that campaign. So what does Jehoram do? Well, he needs those who will support him in this. And so he gathers his allies. And the biggest one is Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. And they say, well, which way are we going to go? And we could do a geography lesson up here. But anyway, they're going to go the southern route. That would be this way of Edom that's talked about. And if you've ever gone in the southern part of Israel, you know it's not very lush. In fact, it's a very dry, dry place. A dry land, this wilderness as it's called, it's part of, could easily be part of where Israel wandered in their 40 years in the wilderness. And so, in some sense, it's not surprising that this excursion ends in a crisis of water. They're out there marching around, and this seven-day trip, it ends in this lack of water. They are in trouble. And this is where we find Jehoram lashing out at God. As he sees this situation, he cries out, alas, the Lord has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab. And so he looks at this situation and his analysis is that God is trying to kill us. And as we look and see, we'll see that his statement is wrong in one way. but it is this attack on God, questioning His actions and His motives. But it's more than that. As we look in context, we'll set it up. It's a claim to know what God is doing. It's really a claim to being a prophet, if you will, for telling what God's will is. And so that's setting up this confrontation that we're going to come to with Elisha. And if we looked back, we would see some illusions that he's making because the setup is very similar to what we find in 1 Kings 22. And in there, Ahab had come to Jehoshaphat and asked him to go to war. And Jehoshaphat had responded identically to what we find in verse 8 of our passage, or actually verse 7 of our passage, right? I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses. And so there's this parallel that's being made. But it's not only that. As they go out with Ahab to war, Ahab gathers his false prophets around. And they all say, oh, you're going to be victorious. You're going to win. And what does Jehoshaphat do? He says, isn't there a true prophet here? Isn't there a prophet of the Lord? And hopefully that sounds familiar because that's exactly what we find here in verse 11 of our passage. And Jehoshaphat said, is there no prophet of the Lord here through whom you may inquire? And so what it does is it sets up Jehoshaphat in, right, as Jehoram has made his pronouncement, Jehoshaphat is saying, no, we need a true prophet, not you, Jehoram, in what we're doing. And so we're being set up in that to see who really has been in God's counsel, who knows God's will. And as this happens, verse 12 there says they go down to, they go to Elisha. Now, Elisha doesn't give them a very nice reception. verse 13 we said elisha said to the king of israel what have i to do with you go to the prophets of your father the prophets of your mother and jehoram responds again with his accusation and then elisha says as verse 14 as the lord of hosts 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. And so what we find here, Elisha, recognized by Jehoshaphat as this true prophet, that his call, his service to the north, has already in one sense come to an end because judgment has been proclaimed. And so he says, I wouldn't speak to you except for this king from the south. This king who is this descendant of David. This one who is in the line and in the step of David. And so the only reason he gets this hearing, and we could say in the end the only reason he comes out of this alive is because of Jehoshaphat. But what we need to see with Jehoram, that in this crisis, he's rightly recognizing God as sovereign, but he's making these accusatory statements, and it's the opposite of a humble cry of faith in a time of trial. The crisis has caused Jehoram not to repent and to plead for mercy and for help, but instead to lash out, to even try, as we'll argue here a little bit, to control God by his words, in many ways to trap him. For what will God do? Will he bring the judgment that Jehoram's foretelling and therefore prove him right? though in a limited sense, or will he reverse Jehoram's fortunes and bring him victory? And that also would make Jehoram happy, blessing on this rebellious vassal. Well, first we should say that God was not trapped. He didn't have to respond. But what we read in Elisha's prophecy, we see that he does come up to come in conflict here with Jehoram. So we get this prophecy in 16 through 19. And so he says there, Thus says the Lord, I will make this dry stream bed full of pools. For thus says the Lord, you will not see wind or rain, but that stream bed 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 the Lord. He will also give the Moabites into your hands. And you shall strike. We'll see that's important there, the word attack. We'll say strike. You will strike 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. and then we get the start of the fulfillment. And so here Elisha, he gives the true word, the true word of what will happen and it deals first with this problem of water and we'll return to that at the end. But he over goes on and talks about Jehoram's, he overturns, we could say, Jehoram's prophecy or so it seems to be. Jehoram had said, you've brought us out here to kill us. Well, no, he says that's not the way it's going to be. Instead, these things will happen. And as we read, they seem to happen. Just as Elisha had said, the next morning as the water comes, the sun hits it, the Moabites are out there, and they look down and they think there's been a battle that everybody else has shed the blood of the other king. They fought against each other. And so all we need to do is go down and get the plunder to the plunder Israel. But this is not a proper understanding. God was using this to begin the other part of delivering Moab into their hands. And so as they run down, they meet Israel who rises up and they begin this defeat, fighting against them. And then we hear this interesting record of what they're doing as they're basically causing all of this permanent damage to Moab's land. They're destroying cities. They're throwing stones on the land so that they can't be used for agriculture again. They're stopping up the springs so they can't be used for irrigation for cities to be by. And they're felling trees, these things of agriculture that took years, generations to grow up and be fruitful and now are being ruined in a day. And as we read all of those, then we come to the end and this is verse 25. They did all of this to the whole land till only its stones were left in Kir Horesh. This was the capital of Moab. And then it says, and the slingers surrounded and they struck it. Now, as we read that, we look and we know the end, that they end up not taking that city. But we wonder about whether God's word was true. Did everything come to pass or did it fail? And as we look at that, this is where the author has been very specific in something of what he's done. In verse 19, when Elisha was giving the prophecy, if you look there, he gave the order of what would happen, the attack striking the fortified cities, then the felling of good trees, then the stopping up of springs, and then the ruining of every good piece of land with stones. Now look at verse 25. What do we get there? We get the opposite order. Verse 25, they overthrew the cities. That seems to be up for it. But then we get, right, they stopped every good piece of land a man threw a stone on. And then they stopped up every spring. And then they felled all the good trees. And so then at the end, we get what should be the first one there in 19. They struck every city. And here's where the Hebrew word for struck has some ambiguity in it. Often it means to defeat, but it can also just mean to hit. And that's what we find here because Elisha's word is fulfilled because what happens right at the end of 25? You have the slingers surrounding the city and striking it. And so Jehoram, I'm sure as he heard this prophecy, was thinking of a defeat of Moab. But what God was actually saying is, I will bring you to the brink of that and then I will take it away. He was merely throwing stones at the most important capital city. God is not going to bring this blessed victory on his rebellious vassal Jehoram. Instead, just as it seems inevitable, he will snatch it away. That's what Jehoram undoubtedly expected. What the situation seemed to be, his sure victory, though, turns into a hasty retreat. And this then deals with those last two confusing verses. though now we see it from not the perspective of the king of Israel, but the king of Moab. And so verse 26, 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. Well, as we read these, we at first wonder, is there some sort of connection between human sacrifice and this wrath that came against Israel? As they are there, right back against. He offers, this king of Moab offers his son, and then wrath comes against Israel. Well, this is where you can ask all your students who have been in logic class, the fallacy of correlation does not equal causation. Just because two things are together doesn't mean that the one caused the other. And so it's best to read, as we see here in 26, there's two events that are showing the desperation of the king of Moab. The imminent defeat that he is facing. The first thing he does is he takes the last men that he has available, these 700 men, and he tries to break out. He tries to just run because he knows the city is about to go down. But he's not able. And so then when that fails, he takes in desperation his son. The one who's going to be king after him offers him up as a sacrifice to a false god, depriving himself therefore of his heir, ruining his family line. And so I think what we're to see in here is the level of desperation that he had. How sure that he was that the enemies were about ready to break through. And defeat him. And so they are to set us up. For the surprise there at the end. As this great wrath. Comes against Israel. And if we look elsewhere. These words are only used of God. He is this unnamed one. Who is bringing judgment on Jehoram. He is removing victory. At the last moment. Jehoram has challenged him. And the Lord has shown. that he is able to prevail. His prophets through their word, he will overcome this one who pretends to know the word of the Lord. He's not trapped by Jehoram's word, but he sends him home with his tail between his legs in a sudden retreat. Not because Moab was such a mighty adversary. Their whole land is in ruin. Rocks cover their ground. All of their springs stopped up. Their trees cut down. They were ready for defeat, but instead it's an act of God. The God who made the universe, who made you, who made me, who made Israel, Judah, He's not to be trifled with. He's all-powerful and holy. He's the only God. He's the one who's worthy of fear. And just as Jehoram had to account to Him, we need to give an accounting. He will come in judgment. He will bring judgment on those who are in rebellion, as He does here. It may not seem like it as we look at this world where evil and sin often goes unchecked, unpunished in our view, but we best not trust our own understanding, lest we fail in that. Instead, we need to trust in His Word and what He tells us. But the thought of God as this judge doesn't need to frighten us if we've come to Him in humble repentance, in believing faith. If we've humbled ourselves and accepted the salvation found only in Jesus Christ, there is no fear. And as we said, that's what Jehoram needed to do. That he needed to humble himself before God, Turn to him in repentance and look to salvation, but he would not. Instead, as you read on in 2 Kings, what does Joram do? He continues in his sin, in his rebellion, and God brings what he promised. Wiping out his family, his line as foretold. And so, what he shows us is this God, if you continue in that rebellion, God, even though he shows that he can save, if you reject that, there will be judgment. Now, in the Old Testament, often the most important part of a passage is right in the middle. And I think that fits what we have here in many ways. Because what do we find right in the middle? We find that the God of Israel is the one who can provide life and salvation. Throughout Elijah and Elisha, their time, their accounts, there is this conflict, as we mentioned, with the false god Baal, who was introduced by Ahab and Jezebel into Israel. And there's this conflict of who is God? Who is the one who is the giver and sustainer of life? Because Baal was believed to be the God of rain. He was the one who rode the rain clouds. He was the one who his voice was thunder, who threw his bolts of lightning from the heavens. And so there's this question, Who really provides water in Israel? In our text, we could look at a number of things, but it contains a number of allusions back to the first account that we get of Elijah, his contest on Mount Carmel, where God showed to all of Israel through this contest that He is the only true God and the giver of life. As He answered from the heavens with fire, And consumed that offering. And what did that lead to? The return of rain. The return of rain to Israel and what it sustains. The end of the drought. And this account at the beginning of Elisha's ministry should be seen as parallel. Because really their whole ministries are very parallel if we looked at what's there. And so what we find here is God bringing water. But even more, because Mount Carmel, where Elijah had his standoff with the prophets of Baal, that's a usual place to get rain, to have water. But as we said, our text takes place in a dry and a desolate land. And in it, we see the power of God to provide water even in the wilderness. As Elisha says there, you'll see none of what you expect. Verse 16, thus says the Lord, I will make this dry streambed full of pools. For thus says the Lord, 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 animal. This is a light thing in the sight of the Lord. And so we find here that God demonstrated that He not only had the power to judge, but the power to save. He could provide water in the wilderness for His people. He could give life in a place of death. And that connects us through the Old Testament to the New Testament. As we see in Jesus, God incarnate, death being conquered, that His resurrection is showing us that those who are in Him will never rise to never die again. And Jesus uses many images to show this life-giving power that He has in one of those most powerful ones is with water. As Jesus says in John 7, 37-38, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. Now, in many ways, it's not hard to believe in a God who's powerful to judge. We suppress that knowledge. Our world suppresses that through our sinful hearts and desires. But we always know that our sin will have consequences. Everyone knows that. But the surprising thing is a God of grace. It's not what we expect. A God who would love us enough, sinners, that we are to send His Son to suffer and die for us. And so as we think of that, as we think of His power shown here, May it cause us to humble ourselves in response. Humble ourselves before such a God. Claim Him as our God. Claim Him as our Savior. Believe in Jesus Christ. And know that He provides for us. And this evening, He provides for us through His table. As we eat and drink, He promises to nourish us. And so, let us now approach that, approach it in faith, as we think on what Christ has done.