Okay, we'll try this newfangled contraption out. Yeah, it's gonna be plenty long
enough, Nathan, I don't think. I'm not Donnie Bell, so it won't
reel me in like it would him. Turn with me to 2 Kings chapter
3. 2 Kings chapter 3. And we're in 2 Kings 3 and the whole chapter
basically, the life and miracles of Elisha. This is lesson 4.
Lesson 4. We're going to break this down
into two sections. Verses 1-11 and then we'll make
some comments because there's a lot here. So we're going to
go through this slowly because there's a lot going on here. We'll go through it slowly, but
I'm going to break it down. Instead of reading the whole thing, we'll
read the first 11 verses, and then we'll stop, go through it,
and then go from verse 11, 12, or whatever, to 20. And we'll
look at that. Verse 1 of 2 Kings chapter 3. Now, Jehoram, the son of Ahab, began to reign over Israel and
Samaria the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and
reigned twelve years. And he wrought evil in the sight
of the Lord, but not like his father and like his mother."
Now his father was Ahab and his mother was Jezebel. You know
those two characters, they're diabolical. But, nevertheless,
verse three, he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam, the son
of Naphat, which made Israel a sin. He departed not therefrom. And Mesha, king of Moab, was
a sheep master and rendered unto the king of Israel, taxes basically,
a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams with
the wool. But it came to pass when Ahab, the current king's
father, was dead that the king of Moab rebelled against the
king of Israel. And King Jehoam went out of Samaria
at the same time and numbered all Israel. And he went and sent
to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, saying, the king of Moab hath
rebelled against me. Will you go up with me against
Moab to battle? And Jehoshaphat said, I will
go up. I am as thou art, and my people as thy people, and
my horses as thy horses. And he said, Which way shall
we go? And the king of Israel answered
and said, by the way through the wilderness of Edom. There's
a reason why they're going to do this. And this says in the
second verse, verse nine. So the king of Israel went and
the king of Judah and the king of Edom. Ah, they went by there
to pick up this third king. 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,
that is, Jehoram, said, Alas, the Lord hath called these three
kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab. But Jehoshaphat
said, Is there not a prophet? 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 poureth water on the hands of Elisha." We'll stop there.
There's a lot going on here. We're just going to kind of go
through it. There's very practical, obviously, lessons here, but
we're going to see the Gospel come full circle, full right
in front of our faces. But we'll look at the first 11
verses. And the first one through three
is the first part that I've got. There's this new king of Israel.
His daddy was Ahab. So he's already starting with
one foot backwards. Daddy was Ahab. His mom was Jezebel.
But it says very specifically he did evil. He did evil on the
side of the Lord. Nevertheless, he put away a few
of the gods that his father and mother worshipped. So here's
my first point. He was slightly reformed. He
wasn't regenerated. He was slightly reformed. If you have a friend or if you
have a relative or if you have a neighbor or whatever that cusses
up a storm and then all of a sudden They stopped cussing? Well, most
people would say, oh, they're a Christian now. But what we see is this man,
there's reformation. That's all there is. He was slightly
reformed. He was slightly cleaned up from
his wicked parents. Thus, reformation is not regeneration. We can clean the outside. Where's
that parable in the New Testament? you know, the house. The demons
leave the house and it's swept and cleaned, but it's not occupied. There's no new nature occupying
the new heart. It's just left alone. Anybody
that's reformed, and religion loves to reform people, law loves
to reform people, but then the demons came back worse than the
first. So thus, Reformation is not regeneration. We can clean
the outside, and it will look nice, but only where people can
see. All we can see is the outside.
And Reformation, that's what it's about. Catholicism perhaps, and then
you make a shift over to Methodism, and they don't do a lot of that
stuff. You've got to hear the gospel,
you've got to hear the truth, you have to understand who Christ
is. People can see this reformation, but God, we've got to remind
ourselves, God sees the heart. God must change our hearts and
then only then Are we converted? Now, I'm not an advocate of going
out and being as mean as you can. Don't sin that grace may
abound. We're not saying that. Like Maurice
Montgomery used to say, he said he would prefer living next to
a religious, moral man than a prisoner. You know, your kids and for your
safety, for all these different things. We understand that. But
as soon as they start attaching salvation and regeneration and
conversion, no, it works. So that's the first point. The
second point is this next king in verse 4 and 5, Misha. Okay,
he's another heathen king, and apparently he got tired of paying
Israel taxes. Once Ahab died, who was older
than his boy, and maybe had more authority, or appeared more authoritative,
he's like, I'm not paying them anymore. So he just stopped,
paying taxes. And this is what we have. When
you do that kind of thing, because Moab was held, they were one
of the tribes that were captive, and they were to be servants.
And they were to pay tribute. That's what happened when they
got in Canaan, they conquered them. But this king's like, no,
I'm not going to do it. So you have anarchy, and rebellion,
and revolution. Now, here's what I want us to
note. Let the potsherds Turn to Isaiah
45. I'll just read it. It's pretty
clear. I may mess it up if I try to quote it or say it the way
it's said in the Scriptures. Isaiah 45 and verse 9. Isaiah 45, and verse 9, Woe unto
him that strives with his Maker! Let the potsherds, or the clay
vessels, or human beings, let them strive with the potsherds
of the earth. Shall the clay say unto him that
fashioned it, What makest thou, or thy work, he hath no hands? Let them take care of this. That's
why we elect leaders. That's why we have governors.
That's why we have city council members. They're supposed to
be taking care of this stuff. Let the potsherds take care of
the potsherds. Let us who know the gospel and
know Christ be about our Master's business. This is what we are
called for. This is what our purpose is,
is to honor and glorify Him. And I'll tell you this, another
thing, and I'm not going to get political, in the text it's just
obvious, no matter who's in charge of this world, as far as the
countries, governors, presidents, dictators, this is what we'll
always have, what's going on right here. Oh, if we can just
get this person in, and we're not talking about believers,
we're just talking about electives, if we can just have this happen,
then all this is going to take place. No, this is what goes
on If you've lived a little bit, you see it's the same old, it's
the same old, same old. Sometimes it's better for believers,
like it was maybe when King Nebuchadnezzar was humbled, then he treated
the believers, but before then, it may be better for believers
in a certain decade or period of time than it is maybe the
last several decades or maybe to come. But no matter, we cannot
put our trust in man, no matter what happens, no matter who's
in charge, this is what we always have. Anarchy, rebellion, revolution. Nothing changes. All you've got
to do is watch the news and nothing changes. That's why our hope
is not with man. Okay, so now we've got three
kings, verses 6 through 11. Two of these kings are God dishonoring. Okay, the king of Edom, and Jehoram. Now, Jehoram, if we want to look
later on in 2 Kings, after all this was done, after the miracle,
after he saw all this, he went back just like he did, committing
evil in the sight of the Lord. So, we know nothing changed him. So, you've got three kings here.
You've got Jehoshaphat. You look up his history, he's
a godly king. He's the only one of the three.
Okay? So, verses 6 forward. Now, Jehoram went out to Samaria
at the same time he numbered Israel. I want to start a battle?
At least he's smart. He's counts his people. We don't
have enough people to beat Moab. So I'm going to have to do an
alliance here. So he gets an alliance with Jehoshaphat
and didn't tell Jehoshaphat and then they go by the way of Edom
and he picks up another king. You say, so we got Israel, the
King of Israel, King of Edom, and the King of Judah. And only
one of those, the King of Judah, is a God-fearing man. And you
can say this to me, and I will agree with you, that we are not
to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, like Jehoshaphat. And I will say you're right.
But let me ask you this, and let me remind myself this. How
many times have we walked in the flesh, How many times have
we sinned? How many times have we had weak
faith? How many times have we stumbled? How many times have
we fallen? And God was right there to pick
us up. So whether, I personally think
that Jehoram put forth his Reformation side in front of Jehoshaphat.
I don't know this. But when you say, well, I've
changed. And a believer is They want peace. They seek peace. This guy is automatically, okay,
he's not paying taxes, we're going to go to war. In Jehoshaphat,
I would like to say that he was deceived. I don't know. But here
he is with two other kings that are not, they're unbelieving
kings. They're God-hating kings, if we want to say that. So, if
he's yoked unequally together with unbelievers, how many times
have we done the same thing and God has kept us? So, I think
he preserves Jehoshaphat or us and God will still get the glory
for himself now look at what? So then we have this divine interruption
in verse They go through Edom in verse 8 in verse 9 At the
middle part of verse 9. There's no water for the host
and for the cattle that followed them So they got these three
armies and they got to feed them. So they got cattle and they got
provisions. There's no water and So that's by divine providence,
okay? Nothing happens by chance, there's
no such thing as luck. So there's a divine interruption
and it's bringing thirst. And what's the reply by the ungodly
king? Verse 10, the king of Israel
said, alas, the Lord has caused these three kings together to
deliver them into the hand of Moab. It's over. It's done. I'm not walking by
faith. I'm walking by sight. All's I can do is see. All's
I can do is hear. I hear the cattle. They're flipped.
They're falling over. There's no water here. We're
all gonna die. But then you got Jehoshaphat,
who's a God-fearing king, God-fearing man, and he's... I probably got
myself in a mess here. But look at what the God-fearing
man says. But, big but, Jehoshaphat said,
Is there not a prophet of the Lord that we may inquire of the
Lord by him? And one of the king of Israel's
servants answered, Here's Elisha, the son of Shaphat, which poured
water on the hands of Elisha. Now that would be a sore subject
to these other two kings, especially to the king of Jehoram, how Elisha
treated his parents. They don't have good history.
But this servant says, yeah, there's this prophet here. And
Jehoshaphat said the Word of the Lord is with him. He has
the truth. He has the Gospel. He could be
a type of Christ here. He has the truth. So now we're
going to look at the actual miracle that takes place. We're going
to read in verse 12 forward. 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 unto
the king of Israel, what have I to do with thee? Get thee to
the prophets of thy father. Get to the false prophets. You
don't want to hear what I've got to say. And to the prophets
of thy mother. And the king of Israel said unto
him, nay, for the Lord hath called these three together, three kings,
to deliver them, to deliver them into the hand of Moab. He's still
got the same story, still on belief. And Elisha said, as the
Lord liveth before whom I stand. Surely were it not that I regard
the presence of Jehoshaphat, another believer, the king of
Judah, I would not even look toward you nor see you." I wouldn't
give you the time of day. That's interesting. Okay, but
now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass when the
minstrel played and the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha
and he said, thus saith the Lord, make this valley full of ditches.
Make it full of ditches. But for what? Don't ask. Faith just does. Faith could
be contrary to reason. Noah, he built the ark, never
saw it rain like it did before. And in verse 17, For thus saith
the Lord, You shall not see wind, neither shall you see rain. Yet
the valley shall be filled with water, and ye may drink, both
ye and your cattle and your beasts." You're not even going to hear
it. It's not going to thunder like it normally does. And this is but a light
thing in the sight of the Lord. He will deliver the Moabites
also into your hand. This is a light thing to our
sovereign God. Not the God of your gods. You've
got to put their hands in, you've got to screw their feet in, you've
got to do all this. But it's a light thing in the sight of
the Lord. And you shall smite every fence city, and every choice
city, and shall fall every good tree, and stop the wells of water,
and mar every good piece of land with stones. And it came to pass
in the morning, when the meat offering was offered, and that's
crucial, that behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and
the country was filled with water." We'll stop there. Miracle. Miracle. Okay, here's the miracle
that we've been looking for. The prophet. The first thing
that Jehoshaphat said, he says, the Word of God is with him.
This man knows the Gospel. This man could be, as far as
we're concerned, a type of Christ because he performs a miracle.
He delivers. God's Son, delivered by the miracle
of His substitutionary death, delivers sinners. But let's look
at it a little more specifically. Only one king recognizes the
truth, he recognizes the man, and he recognizes the message.
I say, hail sovereign grace. I say, hail sovereign love. I
say, hail sovereign revelation of truth, Jehoshaphat. The truth
was revealed to him. that this man knew the gospel
and knew Christ and was a man of the truth. Second thing I see,
look at the boldness of Elisha. I want to read this again because
this is interesting. Elisha said unto the king of Israel to this
Jehoram, what have I to do with thee? Get back to the prophets
of your fathers and the prophets of your mother. Get back there. You don't want to hear the truth.
You're only coming to me out of desperation. Get back to your
false prophets. And then he says in verse 14,
as the Lord liveth before whom I stand, surely were it not that
I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, I wouldn't
even look towards you. This obviously was the Lord Jesus
Christ, and gospel preachers, I will say that, and you and
me. Strong in faith, okay? The Lord Jesus Christ, He says,
the pilot, He looked right at the pilot and He says, you couldn't
do anything unless God allowed it. Gospel preachers, they need to stand firm. They
don't need to back down at all. I need to do, and whoever the
Lord has in His pulpit, what Elijah did. You tell the truth. In some things, as Paul says,
we offend all. I do not want to go out of my
way to offend. I dare not. Woe is me if I do. But woe is me if I compromise
the Gospel and take it one step backwards. Thirdly, the qualifications
for pastors, elders, deacons, it's all the same thing for believers.
What you find for the qualifications, you can find for the life of
the believer. So we stand, our neighbor, the
community, whoever it may be, we say, I'm going to be like
Elisha. If it wasn't for the sheep of
God, for you all, there would be no need for me. And you could
say vice versa. It's the same thing. He says
it rains on the just and the unjust. And He says that for
the elect's sake, the days shall be shortened. God does what He
does in divine providence, whether it is thirst or refreshing, because
of God's people. I'm doing this for you, Moab,
for Edom, the king of Edom and his army, and the king of Jerusalem. I'm doing this because of this
guy. We don't realize How much mercy
this town, this county, whatever has been spared because he's
got a little group here. I believe that. I truly believe
that. We are his inheritance and he is our inheritance. Throughout
all of scripture, you read this phrase, for my people, for my
people. The third thing I see here, verse
15. But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass when the
minstrel played that the hand of the Lord came upon him. Music
does have a place in worship. Psalms 98. Sometimes we downplay music,
but it does have a place in worship. And it's going on right here
before our eyes in this passage in Kings. Psalms 98 verses 4
and 5. Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord, all the earth. Make a loud noise and rejoice
and sing praise. Sing unto the Lord with the harp,
with the harp and the voice of a song. And 1 Chronicles chapter 25. 1 Chronicles chapter
25 verses 1 and 3. We've looked at this a while
back. But, moreover, David and the
captains of the host separated under the service of the sons
of Asaph and of Heman and of Jethion, who should prophesy
with harps and with psalteries, with cymbals, and the number
of the workmen according to their service. In verse 3, and Jeduathin,
the sons of Jethuathin, Kildalai, These people say all these names,
but look at the last part, who praised with a harp to give thanks
to the praise, to praise the Lord. They were specifically
ordained for that office. So, I say it again, music does
have a place in worship. The man of God still worships,
now this is another thought, the man of God, Jehoshaphat, and Elisha. They still worshipped
God even if these two ungodly kings were present. Even if these
two ungodly kings were present. Now most of the time, evil communications
corrupt good manners. You want to know, like Bruce
made a comment a while back, you know, you hang around folks
who are cussed, the next thing you do is you do that. Okay,
here's my thought. Worship God. Worship God. Do not let anything get in the
way of worshiping God. And look at what Jehoshaphat
did. I just think this is so interesting. And Jehoshaphat
said the Word of the Lord is with him. So Jehoshaphat and
the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down
to him. He didn't stay with those folks.
He didn't stay away. He's like, there's a man of God. We can hear the truth. We can
hear the Gospel. Let's go there. And I've said this time and time
again. if your work. And I understand we have nurses
and they have odd hours and odd shifts and that's part of it,
I understand that. But to willfully avoid the truth, the gospel. He's like, no, you two kings
are ungodly, come with me. Come with me down to Elisha. So I just say, let us worship
God, brethren. And we can worship Him at home.
I'm not saying it can't be done. It can be done. It has been done. But there's something particular,
special about public worship. And I'm not ashamed to say that. I'm not embarrassed to say that.
I believe it's in the passage. So let us worship God. What a privilege to be numbered
among God's saints. Bring them like Jehoshaphat did.
I was talking to Matt the other day. I'm not going to mention his
name, but that's exciting. I'm excited what I heard. Bring them. Bring them. You can't force them. You can't force anybody. That's
why we've got these cards. Give them a card. Bring them, let's do like Jehoshaphat
did. The next thought I have is verses
16 and 17. And he said, thus saith the Lord, make this valley
full of ditches. This is Elisha speaking. For
thus saith the Lord, you shall not see the wind, neither the
rain, but the valley will be filled with water that you may
drink, you, your cattle, and your beasts. Matthew Henry said,
they that expect God's blessings must prepare room for them. Let me just say that again. They
that expect God's blessing must prepare room for them. Faith acts and faith expects,
especially when we have a word from our God regarding our situation. We just got done going through
on Wednesdays the promise of God. Ask God for a specific promise.
And if He doesn't give you a specific promise, you're still a believer.
All the promises are in Christ, are yea and amen. But faith acts
and faith expects. So they had to dig ditches. What
are you talking about? Make this valley, verse 16, full
of ditches. But I haven't seen any... We're
thirsty and you're asking us to do more work? Yep. Exactly. expects and faith acts. Especially when, in this case,
it was Elisha. He told him what to do. That's
a direct word from God. I can't say that and I won't
say that. But if you're reading the Scriptures and something
steps out, you take hold of that promise. That's a word from God.
And act on it. Act on it. Now, we see the miracle
in verses 18-20. But what God is doing here is
a light thing. And He says you're going to smite
everybody And the water is going to come and you're going to be
refreshed and you're going to go on to victory. So here's the
first thought about this miracle. To save any sinner is a light
thing for God, verse 18. And this is but a light thing
in the sight of the Lord. I'm not saying it's a light thing
as far as what it cost Him, because it cost Him His only begotten
Son. But as far as God's power and
might and dominion, All things are possible with God. He is
possible and is effectual. The flesh is crucified and grace
reigns and you shall smite every fence city and every choice city
and shall fell every good tree. The flesh is crucified when the
gospel is preached and believed and grace reigns. The second
thing I see here is the water of life. It goes out. Now, there
was these ungodly kings, two in their armies, and one godly
king. The water refreshed everybody. Now, I'm not saying that salvation
is not open to everybody. That's not what I mean. What
I'm saying is God sends the rain on the just and on the unjust. We've already seen that. The
water of life goes out to all, whether it's me, Brutus, whoever's
up here. We preach the gospel. We don't distinguish. No, we're
all sinners and we all need a Savior. Truly, but what I see is only
the elect will truly enjoy and see God's hand in it all. It's
personal to us, it's effective, and it's humbling. Like I said,
Jehoram and the king of Moab, as far as we know, they saw the
miracle right, the same as Jehoshaphat. that they didn't glorify God
in it. But the believer, the believer... So all that was...
We did what the man of God says. God might have been in it, but
I think we saw clouds. No, you didn't. I think we heard,
no, you didn't. Well, I'm just not going to admit that it's
a miracle. I'm just not going to admit that Mary conceived
Christ with no male influence. I'm just not going to believe
that. the believer understands, knows it, believes it, and is
humbled by it. Others, it's just a means to an end of defeating
the Moabs and then it's forgotten. There's three different kinds
of, four different kinds of hearers. Is that not correct in the parable?
The parable of the stony ground or the parable of the The sowing
of stony ground, you know, and Satan just snatches it and hits
the stony ground. It comes up a little bit, then
it goes away. You know, trial. And the third
one is that it comes up and it seems like it's kind of fertile
and then they get, I need to make a name for ourself. I need
to make more money. I need to lead the gospel. I
need to do everything. And it chokes them out. There's only
one that was saved. The one that was in good ground.
And to these other kings, this was just a means to an end. The third thing I see in here
regarding this miracle, the true gospel is always effectual and
serves the exact purpose that God intends. Verse 20, it 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. That's what the prophet said.
That's what the gospel says. God will save a people. He has
a people who he will save. They shall be saved. It cannot
be otherwise. His word does not come back void. And it came to pass when they
were offering the meat offering. That's a picture of Christ. So
when the gospel comes forth in power and authority, the gospel
of the meat offering, that's Christ. So Christ has to be preached.
It's not a false gospel, not a gospel with air, but with the
only true meat offering, and this shows forth Christ and Him
crucified. Christ is our offering, and He's
our offering unto God. Christ is our all in all before
a holy God. We thank God that He accepted
this one and only meat offering. He accepted Christ's work, and
He accepted Christ's person, And then there's a miracle. Now,
in closing, let's look at verse 22 through 24. Verse 21, the Moabites heard
that the kings were coming up against them. So they arose early
in the morning, and the sun shone on the water that just filled
the valley, and the Moabites saw the water on the other side
as red as blood. So they saw a mirage, or they
saw the reflection. The light reflected, and it showed
them blood. So they said, this is blood,
and the kings are surely slain, and they fought against one another.
And now therefore Moab to the spoil. So what they do, verse
24, they get on their horses, they come out of the camp, they
figure they're all going to be laying dead. But as soon as they
came into 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 into their country. We could read
some other stuff that's going on, but here's the thing. That
which is life to us, water. is death to the unbeliever. They saw it as red, the light
is Christ, it shined on it, shows us the blood, but they didn't
see red, they just saw a miracle, Jehoshaphat did specifically,
and he thanked God and it was life. They were going to die.
But this miracle provided life, but to the enemies it provides
death. Now what does the scripture say?
That which is life to us who have trusted Christ and the gospel
is death to all his enemies. What does the scripture say?
The gospel is a saver of life unto life and death unto death. Like I said, there was a lot
in here, but I think it was just a Tremendous lesson. Tremendous lesson. But the bottom
line is that these miracles that this man is performing, it shows
forth the grace of God. And this happened to coincide
with the sacrifice. And we know who that sacrifice
is. And we see Christ as altogether lovely. He's precious. He's one
among a thousand. And then you tell somebody, why? because he makes us to differ.
That's the only reason. Grace has made us different.
Nothing we've done ourselves. And that's the truth. Matt, would
you close us?