2 Kings chapter 3, and we're going to read from verse 1. It's another quite long reading, but it's a very interesting story as well, and I think that we will learn much, I trust we will, from this chapter today.

Now Jehoram, the son of Ahab, began to reign over Israel in Samaria, the 18th year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and reigned 12 years. And he wrought evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like his father and like his mother, for he put away the image of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless, he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin. He departed not therefrom.

And Mesha king of Moab was a sheep master and rendered unto the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams with the wool. But it came to pass when Ahab was dead that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.

And king Jehoram went out of Samaria the same time and numbered all Israel. And he went and sent to Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, saying, The king of Moab hath rebelled against me. Wilt thou go with me against Moab to battle? And he said, I will go up. I am as thou art, my people as thy people, and my horses as thy horses. And he said, which way shall we go up? And he answered, the way through the wilderness of Edom.

So the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah, and the king of Edom. And they fetched a compass of seven days' journey. And there was no water for the host and for the cattle that followed them. And the king of Israel said, alas, that the Lord hath called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab,

But Jehoshaphat said, is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may inquire of the Lord by him? And one of the king of Israel's servants answered and said, here is Elisha, the son of Shaphat, which 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.

Delisha said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? Get thee to the prophets of thy father and to the prophets of thy mother. The king of Israel said unto him, Nay, for the Lord hath called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.

And Elisha said, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee, nor see thee. But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him.

And he said, Thus saith the Lord, make this valley full of ditches. For thus saith the Lord, ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain. Yet that valley shall be filled with water that ye may drink, both ye and your cattle and your beasts. And this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will deliver the Moabites also into your hand.

And ye shall smite every fenced city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all wells of water, and mar every good piece of land with stones.

that came to pass in the morning, when the meat offering was offered, that behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water. And when all the Moabites heard that the kings were come up to fight against them, they gathered all that were able to put on armor and upward, and stood on the border. And he rose up early in the morning, and the sun shone upon the water, and the Moabites saw the water on the other side as red as blood. And he said, This is blood. The kings are surely slain, and they have smitten one another. Now therefore, Moab, to the spoil. And when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and smote the Moabites, so that they fled before them. But they went forward, smiting the Moabites even in their country. And they beat down the cities, and on every good piece of land cast every man his stone and filled it. And they stopped all the wells of water and felled all the good trees. Only in Kirhar, Aseth, left thee the stones thereof. Howbeit, the slingers went about it, and smote it. And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew swords, to break through even unto the king of Edom. But they could not. Then he took his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel, and they departed from him and returned to their own land.

Amen. May the Lord bless this reading from his word.

My reason for reading these chapters to you and for spending time thinking about these old prophets is so that we have a familiarity with the times and the works of these men and not just to know them by name. Now it's true that we learn our doctrine and we gain our instruction mostly from the Gospels and the writings of the New Testament apostles. But these passages in the Old Testament also teach us about the person and sacrifice and significance of the Lord Jesus. and they provide lots of lessons concerning God and man, judgment and forgiveness of sin.

When we read the books of Samuel and Kings and Chronicles, We are studying the writings of faithful men who wrote down these facts as a historical record for future generations about God's dealings with his people. And we, you and me, we are those future generations for which these things were written. We don't always know who the writers were, but these men, and Peter tells us that they were men, speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. So that when we read or when we hear these accounts, we are hearing God's word, which is as true today as when it was first spoken.

Now we're not called to reenact or repeat the instructions given by God to these old prophets. They were for a certain time and place, but the lessons that they teach remain relevant to us all.

The land of Moab had been under the dominion of Israel in the time of Ahab. Remember Ahab and Jezebel. So we've kind of passed by them now. They are dead. Their sons have come to the throne in Israel. But Moab, during the time of Ahab and Jezebel, had been under the dominion of Israel. But when that wicked king died, Ahab, the king of Moab decided it would be a good opportunity to rebel against the new king and stop paying tribute. Let's see what he does if we don't turn up with the sheep and the lambs that we are supposed to deliver to him. weak kingdoms used to pay a kind of protection money to their stronger neighbours. We won't come and take all your sheep if you send them to us without a fight. And that's what they did.

Well, Jehoram was now king in Israel after the death of his brother Ahaziah. And his first job was going to be to have to subdue these Moabites. Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, was going to assist him. And they also got help from a third king who was really a vassal, another one of these smaller nations that paid homage and paid protection money, as it were, to Jehoshaphat. And that was the king of Edom. Now, Jehoshaphat of Judah was faithful to God, but Jehoram was still an idol worshipper. And he was not so open and brazen about his idolatry as his father Ahab and his mother Jezebel had been. But Israel was still in a bad place spiritually.

Nevertheless, these three kings went off to fight against Moab. And interestingly, Elisha seems to have travelled with them, though he did so in secret. We don't know why he went, but perhaps it was because previous to this, the Lord had showed the prophet that he needed to be there because God planned to bless his servant Jehoshaphat of Judah and he planned the destruction of the Moabites. For whatever reason, Elisha decided that he would go along.

The three kings decided to take the long way round to attack the Moabites. I think they were probably hoping that this would be a surprise attack and they could kind of attack Moab from the back door or at least through a side window. They would go through the wilderness. Trouble was, the wilderness was desert. and there was very little water available. And because of the king's lack of preparation, the whole army was soon desperately thirsty. and they were stuck in the wilderness without water. They were effectively, for all their attempts to be clever, they were effectively at the mercy of the Moabites. And as soon as the Moabites realised that they were there and the predicament that they were in, they would be able to attack Israel and Judah and Edom, the three kings, and destroy their armies. And that would soon become very clear because the armies, if they were thirsty, would just start to disintegrate. They would break up. The men would go looking for water and they would be weak and they would not be thinking about battle at all.

It's interesting, Jehoram, the king of Israel, he had the audacity to blame God for this state of affairs. The king's own stupidity in not being prepared, and he thought that he would blame God. He said, oh, God has got us together in order to hand us over to Moab. Jehoshaphat was a little bit wiser. He asked, is there not here a prophet of the Lord that we may inquire of the Lord by him? I think Jehoshaphat ought to have inquired of the Lord before heading off on this grand adventure. But nevertheless, he asked in the end. Jehoram had no idea. In fact, none of the kings knew that Elisha was present in the camp. But one of Jehoram's lowly servants knew. Here was a man who knew. The whole of the camp, here was a man, a servant that knew that Elisha was present amongst them. And I think that's still often the case. The Lord Jesus and his gospel are hid from the wise and the prudent and revealed to babes, hidden from the high and the mighty and shown to the poor and the meek.

The Lord Jesus said in Matthew chapter five, verse seven, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. There is a blessedness that comes to the poor. And this was the case here in the camp of Israel and Judah and Edom. It was a servant man who knew that Elisha was present in the camp.

Out of respect, the kings went to Elisha. They didn't call Elisha to them. Their need made them anxious and they went to Elisha for help. Elisha was in no hurry to help Jehoram. He told him to go and ask his own prophets, the prophets of his own idol gods for help. He said boldly, what have I to do with thee? Get thee to the prophets of thy father and to the prophets of thy mother. Go and see if they'll help you.

Jehoram had no desire to do that. He knew very well that these prophets would be of no help to him. So instead he points out to Elisha that he was not alone in his need. Jehoshaphat was here too.

Elisha agreed. He says, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee nor see thee. The Lord is only helping you, he says to Jehoram, for the sake of Jehoshaphat, his elect.

Elisha asks for a minstrel to be brought. Perhaps, we don't know why, but perhaps he was upset by Jehoram and he wanted to be calmed down. Perhaps he called for David's Psalms to be played, which was a nice way of doing a little bit of evangelism, hearing the word of the Lord. The entrance of thy word giveth light.

Elisha listened to the music. It calmed his spirit and they all waited for the Lord's word. When it came, it was a command to dig ditches in the valley bottom. There would be neither wind nor rain, so there wouldn't be any evidence of a storm, but the valley would be filled with water, sufficient water for all the soldiers and all of their animals to drink, be satisfied and live.

Furthermore, Elisha tells the kings, the Lord will deliver the Moabites into your hand. The kings were instructed what to do when the Lord did that. They were to utterly rout the army, destroy the cities, scar the land with stones, chop down fruit bearing trees and block the wells. This defeat of Moab would lay waste to the country for many, many years.

Now the way in which the Lord was going to accomplish this was not explained. The method of the victory was not explained. But the kings did not have long to wait. The following morning, at the very moment of the morning sacrifice in the temple, The Lord caused great quantities of water to flow into the valley and into the trenches, there to remain and refresh the armies.

Note the time when that took place. It was at the time of the morning sacrifice back in Jerusalem. So at the very time that the Lord's faithful people were praying back in Jerusalem, when they were worshipping the Lord and the sacrifice was being made, the Lord supplied Jehoshaphat's need, thereby linking prayer with the provision of salvation and the deliverance of his people.

Across the border, the Moabites were watching. They'd risen early to prepare for battle, but what was this that they saw? The sun, the rising sun, was reflected in the water and it looked like blood to the Moabites. That suggestion that the valley was filled with the blood of the nations, the Israelites, the people of Judah and the Edomites, that suggestion became a rumour and the rumour became a belief.

The kings had surely fought each other and their blood now filled the valley bottom. Without waiting for the command, greed seized upon the Moabites. There was plunder to be had from the dead bodies down in the valley, and they ran to collect what they could gather.

But the armies of the kings were waiting for them. They were refreshed, they were alert and they were battle ready. They slew the Moabite rabble and they chased them back into their own country where they continued to rain havoc upon them. The three kings destroyed the walled cities of the land. They cut down the trees, they stopped the wells as they had been told. The Moabite king fled to the last stronghold. He attempted a final assault against the king of Edom with 700 men, but he was repulsed. Returning to the city in hopelessness, he took his eldest son, who would have succeeded him to the throne, and he slew him on the city wall, burning his son's body to his gods. At the sight of this madness, the three kings gave up the siege and returned to their own cities, believing, perhaps, that no one else need die to overthrow this final city and this mad old king.

There are a few lessons from this passage that I want to leave with us today. The first is this. I want to return to the fact that it was a servant of Jehoram who saw Elisha and knew of the prophet's presence in the camp. Despite long service in Jehoram's palace, the servant knew well Elisha, the son of Shaphat, which poured water on the hands of Elijah. Despite all the years of idolatry, the Lord had still preserved his people, his own people, among the servants of these idolatrous kings of Israel. And this one knew all about Elisha. He knew his name, he knew his family, he knew his service to Elijah. Perhaps he thought if he poured out water for Elijah, perhaps the Lord will enable him to provide water for this people.

You see, the Lord puts his people in places. He puts his witnesses in places, in certain places for certain times. And we are all God's people, links in the chain of God's purpose. And it is our privilege and it is our duty to speak up and speak out when the time to testify comes. This man, this servant probably had been a secret follower of Elijah and Elisha and of God, perhaps for many many years, but now came the time to declare himself because he knew there was salvation to be had through God's prophet on earth and he pointed out Elisha to the kings. We cannot speak of Elisha but we can speak of Elisha's Lord. We can speak of the Saviour, Jesus Christ. We can speak of the living water, the water of everlasting life that flows from Christ to poor servants, poor sinners like us. When all seemed hopeless for the army, one lowly servant was able to tell these fearful kings that a Saviour was near at hand. And likewise, when all seems hopeless to an anxious soul, we shall be able to tell them that Jesus Christ is near to save.

Another thing that we learn from this, and I was impressed at Elisha's bold speech to Jehoram. The prophet showed that he was not afraid of this devious man. He told him that God would preserve his people for the sake of Jehoshaphat. And this continues to this day. Why has God not already destroyed this world of sin? He has said that he will. Why is he being patient? Why is he being long-suffering towards this world? Why is he not already destroyed it? Because he is patient for the sake of his elect and his promises of grace and mercy. It is for Christ's church that the world is upheld. When the last chosen and redeemed soul is gathered into the family of God, this old sinful world will come to judgment. People may oppose the gospel and they may mock the church, but the truth is that believers in Christ are the salt of the earth, which preserves it from total corruption and instant destruction. Somewhere, Someday the Lord will call his final child to himself and begin the consummation of all things. What a great and terrible day that will be.

And then just one more point and that's me done. The deliverance of the armies took place at a particular time. It was the time of the morning sacrifice, the time when the sacrifice was made in the temple. And what does that tell us? tells us that God had respect to the meaning of the sacrifice when he saved these men. The sacrifice spoke of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And old Israel, the old people of Israel and Judah, they saw the morning and evening sacrifice point every day to the coming Lamb of God. the Redeemer of His people, the Saviour of the church. And every time that sacrifice is mentioned in the Bible, it points to Christ. Is Christ in the Old Testament? Yes, in thousands and tens of thousands of places. Christ's death on the cross is what the scripture is all about. And even here, Elisha is teaching the church to be on the lookout for Christ. May we all have eyes to see. Amen. Thank you for your attention.