Chapter 20, and we're going to read the whole of the chapter, and it is a long chapter, so may the Lord help us to understand and to remember the things that we are reading.

And Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, gathered all his host together. and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses and chariots, and he went up and besieged Samaria, and warred against it. And he sent messengers to Ahab king of Israel into the city, and said unto him, Thus saith Ben-Hadad, Thy silver and thy gold is mine, thy wives also, and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine.

And the King of Israel answered and said, My Lord, O King, according to thy saying, I am thine, and all that I have.

And the messengers came again and said, Thus speaketh Ben-Hadad, saying, Although I have sent unto thee, saying, Thou shalt deliver me thy silver and thy gold and thy wives and thy children, yet I will send my servants unto thee to-morrow, about this time, and they shall search thine house and the houses of thy servants. and it shall be that whatsoever it is pleasant in thine eyes, they shall put it in their hand and take it away.

Then the king of Israel called all the elders of the land and said, Mark, I pray you, and see how this man seeketh mischief, for he sent unto me for my wives and for my children and for my silver and for my gold, and I denied him not.

And all the elders and all the people said unto him, Hearken not unto him, nor consent. Wherefore he said unto the messengers of Ben-Hadad, Tell my lord the king all that thou didst send for to thy servant at the first I will do, but this thing I may not do.

And the messengers departed and brought him word again. And Ben-Hadad sent unto him and said, The gods do so unto me and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me.

And the king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.

And it came to pass when Ben Hadad heard this message, as he was drinking, he and the kings in the pavilions, that he said unto his servants, set yourselves in a ray, and they set themselves in a ray against the city.

And behold, there came a prophet unto Ahab, king of Israel, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will deliver it into thine hand this day, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.

And Ahab said, By whom? And he said, Thus saith the Lord, Even by the young men of the princes of the provinces, Then he said, Who shall order the battle? And he answered, Thou.

Then he numbered the young men of the princes of the provinces, and they were two hundred and thirty-two. And after them he numbered all the people, even all the children of Israel, being seven thousand.

And they went out at noon, but Ben-Hadad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions, he and the kings, the thirty and two kings that helped him. And the young men of the princes of the provinces went out first.

And Ben-Hadad sent out, and they told him, saying, There are men come out of Samaria. And he answered, Whether they become out for peace, take them alive, or whether they become out for war, take them alive.

So these young men of the princes of the provinces came out of the city, and the army which followed them. And they slew every one his man, and the Syrians fled, and Israel pursued them, and Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, escaped on a horse with the horsemen.

And the king of Israel went out, and smote the horses and chariots, and slew the Syrians with a great slaughter.

And the prophet came to the king of Israel and said unto him, Go strengthen thyself, and mark and see what thou doest, for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come up against thee.

And the servants of the king of Syria said unto him, Their gods are gods of the hills, therefore they were stronger than we. But let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.

And do this thing, take the kings away, every man out of his place, and put captains in their rooms, and number thee an army like the army that thou hast lost, horse for horse and chariot for chariot, and we will fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they. and he hearkened unto their voice and did so.

And it came to pass at the return of the year that Ben-Hadad numbered the Syrians and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. And the children of Israel were numbered and were all present and went against them.

And the children of Israel pitched before them like two little flocks of kids, but the Syrians filled the country.

And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the Lord. Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

And they pitched one over against the other seven days. And so it was that in the seventh day the battle was joined. And the children of Israel slew of the Syrians a hundred thousand footmen in one day. And the rest fled to Afik into the city. And there a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand of the men that were left. and Ben Hadad fled and came into the city, into an inner chamber.

And the servants said unto him, Behold, now we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings. Let us, I pray thee, put sackcloth on our loins and ropes upon our heads and go out to the king of Israel. Peradventure he will save thy life. So they girded sackcloth on their loins and put ropes on their heads and came to the king of Israel and said, Thy servant, Ben-Hadad, saith, I pray thee, let me live. And he said, is he yet alive? He is my brother.

Now the men did diligently observe whether anything would come from him and did hastily catch it. And they said, thy brother, Ben-Hadad. Then he said, go ye, bring him. Then Ben-Hadad came forth to him and he caused him to come up into the chariot. And Ben-Hadad said unto him, The cities which my father took from thy father I will restore, and thou shalt make streets for thee in Damascus as my father made in Samaria. Then said Ahab, I will send thee away with this covenant. So he made a covenant with him and sent him away.

And a certain man of the sons of the prophet said unto his neighbor, In the word of the Lord, smite me, I pray thee. And the man refused to smite him. Then said he unto him, Because thou hast not obeyed the voice of the Lord, behold, as soon as thou art departed from me, a lion shall slay thee. And as soon as he was departed from him, a lion found him and slew him. Then he found another man, and said, Smite me, I pray thee, and the man smote him, so that in smiting he wounded him. So the prophet departed, and waited for the king by the way, and disguised himself with ashes upon his face.

And as the king passed by, he cried unto the king, and he said, Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle, and behold, a man turned aside and brought a man unto me, and said, Keep this man. If by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver. And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said unto him, So shall thy judgment be, thyself has decided it. And he hasted and took the ashes away from his face, and the king of Israel discerned him that he was of the prophets. And he said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people.

And the king of Israel went to his house heavy and displeased and came to Syria. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this reading from his word.

Now that was a long reading and I am very grateful that you've been patient with me as we went through the whole chapter. You will perhaps have noticed that this chapter does not mention Elijah at all, or indeed Elisha, although an unnamed prophet, and possibly a man called Micaiah. We're going to encounter him again in another chapter, and it's just possible that this is the man, but the Lord doesn't tell us in this passage.

This prophet, however, does bring God's word to Ahab. And prophets, or we might say preachers nowadays, They should never be jealous of one another. When the Lord uses one prophet rather than another prophet, we don't hear that either prophet was jealous of the other. And nor should the Lord's people be, and nor should preachers be, if the Lord uses one and not another. And actually, the very fact that this prophet is not named tells us that the Lord uses whomsoever He will to achieve His purposes.

It befits us all then to be humble in the work of the Lord because we're all servant ambassadors of Christ. That's what we are. We are representatives of our King with a message from the Lord. And may he grant us grace to deliver it humbly and faithfully to our age.

Now when I was thinking about the young people's address, I almost passed by this chapter with just a brief comment about Ahab's battles in which he defeated the Syrian king, Ben Hadad. Not once did he defeat him, but twice. However, there are matters here that I think are worth highlighting, because we all sometimes wonder, what is happening in the world around about us? What is happening in the wider world? We have our little areas of influence and our local area where we live and perhaps worship, perhaps study, perhaps go to work. And that's our little area. But what about what is going on in the wider world? And how is the Lord working at a national level or an international level, as well as at a personal level in his people's lives?

You might remember over the weeks that we've been speaking about David and Solomon and then Judah and Israel, how that under David and Solomon, Israel had been a mighty and prosperous nation. It established trade routes, it forged alliances, it brought peace to the whole nation. But when the nation had leaders who honoured the Lord, or when the nation had leaders who honoured the Lord, then the people were blessed. But when the nation afterwards split into Israel and Judah and fought battles with each other and veered away from God and worshipping God into idolatry, they lost their blessings. And that's what we see here.

Now, Judah and Israel, in their divided condition, were weak compared to the nations around about them. Neither of the two nations were strong enough to withstand the outside pressures or indeed the rise of these vengeful and bitter enemies. and these God used to punish his wayward people.

Syria was now a rising force to Israel's north and this man, Ben-Hadad, formed an alliance of 32 kings in order to destroy Israel. Ben-Hadad brought his army into Israel and he marched all the way through the country until he was at Samaria in the hill country. And he sent letters to Ahab demanding that Ahab become his servant and dedicate to Ben-Hadad all that was his, his silver and his gold, even his wives and his children. And Ahab, for fear of this powerful army, agreed that he would do it.

Now, it kind of seems as if Ahab thought that all he would be required to do was pay some annual tribute to Ben-Hadad and that Ben-Hadad would then go away back to his own country, take the money that Ahab paid every year and, kind of like protection money, he wouldn't disturb Ahab and Ahab could get on with his life. But actually, Ben-Hadad wanted more. He wanted to humiliate Israel. And he sent again demanding that his officers be allowed into the city to take from Samaria, from Ahab's palace, from Ahab's servants, anything that they thought desirable. He was pushing Ahab to the limit. And these demands were too much for Ahab and the leaders of Israel to take and they refused. And it seems as if this is what Ben Hadad wanted all along. So he ordered his army to besiege and to take the city.

Now Ahab was no friend of God. And yet we should remember that the Lord had amongst the people of Israel 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal. 7,000 faithful people. Well, they're called men. Faithful men who had not bowed the knee. And they were precious to the Lord. And they were under his protection. And they were under his preservation. And for their sake, and to show Ahab that God was the Lord, the Lord sent a prophet to tell Ahab how that with just a few hundred untrained men, these men are called the young men of the princes of the provinces, the Lord would deliver the army of Ben-Hadad into Ahab's hand. This would be a real miracle.

and with 232 young men because that was the number of them. at the head of the force and 7,000 people who seemed to have been soldiers following after them. These men went out to face the might of Ben Hadad's army and the 32 kings, they would just be vassal kings, maybe city kings, so it wasn't like 32 different nations. But 32 leaders, they went out to face Ben Hadad's army. Ben-Hadad was a careless and a proud man. It was only noon, but he was already drunk and partying with these fellow kings. And we are told that the men of Israel each slew the first man they came to. which suggests that 232 plus 7,000 which is 7,232 Syrians were killed in this first encounter. The Syrian ranks broke and fled and Ahab pursued and destroyed many Syrian chariots and slew many soldiers. It was a great victory for Israel.

However, the prophet was not finished. He came back to Ahab and he told Ahab that Ben-Hadad would be back the next year with an army of the same size and warned him to prepare for another battle. Ben-Hadad's advisors claimed that the king had lost because he fought in the mountains against a mountain god and they advised him to gather an army and fight Ahab in the plain of Jezreel. when he would definitely win.

The following year, there was a repeat of the scene, just a different place. And the same occurred as before. It seems like the 232 young men of the princes of the provinces and the 7,000 of the people were numbered and not one was missing. And they stood as two little flocks before the army of Ben Hadad. But again the Lord fought for them. And the children of Israel slew of the Syrians in one day a hundred thousand footmen. And again, the Syrian army was routed.

A large number ran to a little city, a fortified city, hoping that in the shadow of its walls, they might find some protection. But there was no hiding. And the Lord, perhaps by an earthquake, caused the walls to fall. And another 27,000 Syrians perished. It was a huge defeat. And the servants of Ben Hadad having no one left to defend their king, came out to Ahab with ropes, well, around their head or maybe around their neck and wearing sackcloth to show that they were subject and that Ahab could do with them as he would. And they asked for mercy for Ben-Hadad the king. and Ahab was eager to oblige. He called Ben Hadad his brother, he made a truce and he sent him back to Damascus. Now this is not what God had required. God had delivered the whole of the Syrian army, and that included Ben-Hadad, into the hand of Ahab and they should all have been slaughtered. That was what God had wanted because of the offence that had been caused against the name of the Lord and the glory of God.

In the final scene of this chapter, a prophet, perhaps the same one, confronts Ahab on his return from the battle and using a parable, chastens him for allowing Ben-Hadad to go free when the Lord had condemned him to destruction. Ahab's life, he is told, will be given for Ben-Hadad's life and his people's lives lost at the hands of the Syrians for Ahab's sin against the Lord. And all of this would happen shortly after a man called Hazel becomes king of Syria. We will come to that in another day.

But here are a couple of lessons that I want to leave with you from this chapter. It may appear to us that national and international events in this world have little to do with us and little to do with the church or individual believers. But that's not so. Syria tried to humble Israel and scorned the Lord by their words and their actions. But God is not mocked, and this is still true. And when this world tries to harm the church, we are to remember that we no longer look to the nation Israel, but rather we see that Israel as just a picture of the church of Jesus Christ. It is not Israel that's precious to the Lord, but the church that is precious. These 7,000 in Israel represented the church, and the church is precious to the Lord Jesus.

And the Lord orders and arranges the affairs of this world, national affairs, international affairs, in order to do two things. to dispense judgment on the wicked, and to care for and bless his church whom he loves. Ahab was a wicked king. He appeared to prosper for a little time in battle, but not because God loved Ahab, but because he loved the 7,000. And sometimes we worry about world affairs, about war, or climate change, or elections, or economics, or whatever it is that might be going on in the world, whether we'll ever be able to get a job, whether there will be nuclear war. There are lots of unknowns in this world. But the Lord's people are not to be afraid. You don't have to be afraid if you trust in the Lord because he will never let you down. He will never let you go. No matter how hard life becomes, the Lord will always take care of you because he takes care of his people.

And here's another point. I thought about these 232 young men of the province. I don't really know who they were. I'm not even sure what that description really means. Does it mean that they were the servants of the princes of the provinces? I'm not sure. But I do know this, that they proved to be brave young men as they marched out to face Ben Hadad's great army. And when we love the Lord, we should be ready to give our all in his service, as these young men were prepared to give their all for the protection of their country. We might wonder, What possible difference can I make? Can one person make? Can one small congregation make in this big wide world? But with God, we always have a majority. A huge army against a little flock. What a picture that is! And what an amazing victory the Lord gave to these young people who stood for Him against the might of the Syrian army. Let this be a picture of how the Lord will grant victory to His people. and his church and how he will have all the glory.

When we preach Christ, we are the means of building Christ's church and honouring the Lord. And that is our calling, not to fight, not to pick up a gun or to pick up a sword, not to engage with this world in worldly matters, but to stand for the truth and to stand for the Lord and for his glory. And he will vindicate his people and he will vindicate his church.

And just finally, this little point. I don't want to suggest to you that we always understand what is going on in the world or how to interpret it. Sometimes something happens. We hear about it in the news or we see it on our laptop or on our phone. Something happens. And when a news item breaks, I sometimes think, oh, that's a good development. And then I speak to another believer and he says, oh, that's not good. You see, Christians can have different ideas, different perspectives on a lot of things that are going on in the world at the moment.

But what is most important is that our trust is in the Lord. We are to trust the Lord for the salvation that he has accomplished on the cross, even if we don't understand what is going on in the wider world. And then we are to build on the promise that he has given to save us by trusting him day by day for health and strength, for education and family, for all the things that are going to affect us today and tomorrow and for the rest of our lives, until he takes us to be with him in glory.

Trusting Christ is not a single one-off event. It's a day-by-day, lifelong experience, even when we feel the world is crowding in upon us. And it's my hope that you will trust the Lord today, and then trust Him every day, and that you will prove Him to be faithful. For He has promised, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Amen.