There are
a few chapters in the Bible that still surprise me from time to time in that I
simply don’t remember the stories that they contain. This chapter happens to be the case for me. I’m pretty good at remembering the stories
contained within the Bible, but this one felt brand new to me today. What was really new to me was the water
appearing as blood. But we’ll save that
for the end.
Jehoshaphat
Let’s
begin with Jehoshaphat, the son of Asa and the good king of Judah. Although he is a good king, he makes a mistake
here. Jehoshaphat aligns himself with a
godless king Jehoram of Israel. What’s
worse, both of these kings align themselves with the godless nation of Edom –
one of the enemies of the Hebrew people – although somewhat kin due to the
Jacob and Esau connection from many generations back. Jehoshaphat is taking up some strange company
for some strange purposes. He seems to
be choosing physical blood relationships and their goals instead of the
spiritual relationship of God.
This
passage reads dangerously close to Jehoshaphat making alliances with worldly
kings and relying upon the Lord less and less.
Fortunately, before it can go too far down that road God withdraws water
from them and causes the kings to question whether what they are doing is
really a good thing. It is at this point
that Jehoshaphat comes to his senses and asks for a man of God. Jehoshaphat is reminded that he needs to
depend on God and he makes the necessary course correction to reflect this
truth in his actions.
This is a
really cool point today. How many times
do we go off on our own expeditions in life, forgetting to check with God? I know I do it all the time. As we see here with Jehoshaphat, God comes to
us and places reminders in our life to remember to check with Him. Here we see Jehoshaphat begin to wander a
bit, but he correctly identifies his error when God gives him the
opportunity. Well done,
Jehoshaphat! We would be wise to also
learn this lesson. We will wander, but
God will desire to draw us back to Him.
Elisha’s Involvement
So Elisha
comes before Jehoshaphat and the two godless kings. For the sake of Jehoshaphat, God uses Elisha
to bring water before the army so that they can be victorious. God desires to save His people, but He wants
to make sure that they recognize their need for Him and learn the lesson first.
We can
gain two really neat understandings from this part of the story. First, as we discussed earlier, human beings
make many mistakes – even good godly people.
So long as we are still alive it is never too late to turn to God,
repent of the times we have forgotten Him, and continue in the relationship
that He so much desires.
Second, we
can also learn that those in leadership need to take their spirituality
seriously. Had Jehoshaphat not called
for a prophet of the Lord, would the armies have been saved or would they have
gone so much without water that they would have been easily destroyed by the
Moabites? The godless following worldly
behaviors almost went forth into peril.
It is the faith of the sole spiritually attuned leader who responds to
God’s lesson and begins the path back to God’s blessing.
The Battle is Joined
Now let’s
shift gears and talk about the end of the story. The Moabites hear about the army marching
towards them. They muster their troops,
see the water that they knew hadn’t been there before, see that the water was
red like blood, and assumed that the armies who had initially come to defeat
them had turned on each other. They
think the battle will be easy. In fact,
they are so convinced of their victory that they go out to claim spoil rather
than to fight. They are routed hard.
What can
we learn from this story? First,
expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies.
The army of Moab thinks the battle will be easy and they are not
mentally prepared for the tough battle ahead.
They go into the battle with a half-hearted effort and they are routed. We must be careful not to fail because of our
attitude.
Furthermore,
we can learn that God fights our battles for us in ways that we cannot
imagine. There is no way that the trio
of armies could know that God was going to use the color of the water to set
the tone for the battle, but that is precisely what God does. God can use the most seemingly unrelated
influences to bring about His will. God’s
use of the water in this way is simply unpredictable, but that is how God works. God’s ways are great, glorious, and not at
all ways that are comprehensible and predictable to mankind. Just look at Christ for proof of that
concept!
Finally,
we also learn that desperate men do desperate things in desperate times. The king of Moab sacrifices his own son upon
the wall of the city. The battle is
going poorly and the king starts panicking.
Human beings typically make poor decisions in the moment of panic.
Historical Footnote
I would
encourage you to look up and research the Moabite Stone, know within archaeological
circles as the Mesha Stele. A stele is
an object with an inscription upon it – often a stone. On the Moabite stone we have the account of
this very story from the perspective of the king of Moab (King Meshe)! How cool is that! We have discovered an extra-Biblical archaeological
artifact affirming that this story in 2 Kings 3 is an actual historical fact! I love it when we find things in the world
that show that what the Bible talks about actually did happen.
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