Transcript
...sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless he persisted in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin. For he did not depart from them.
Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheepbreeder. And he regularly paid the king of Israel one hundred thousand lambs and the wool of one hundred thousand rams. But it happened, when Ahab died, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel.
So King Jehoram went out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel. Then he went and sent to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, saying, “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab?”
And he said, “I will go up. I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.” Then he said, “Which way shall we go up?” And he answered, “By way of the Wilderness of Edom.”
So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. And they marched on that roundabout route seven days. And there was no water for the army, nor for the animals that followed them.
And the king of Israel said, “Alas! For the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”
But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of the Lord by him?”
One of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, “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.
Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother.”
And the king of Israel said to him, “No, for the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”
And Elisha said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you, nor see you. But now bring me a musician.”
And it happened, when the musician played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him. And he said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Make this valley full of ditches.’ For thus says the Lord, ‘You shall not see wind, nor shall you see rain. Yet that valley shall be filled with water, so that you, your cattle, and your animals may drink.’ And this is but a trivial thing in the sight of the Lord. He will also deliver the Moabites into your hand. Also you shall attack every fortified city and every choice city, and shall cut down every good tree, and stop up every spring of water, and ruin every good piece of land with stones.”
Now it happened in the morning, when the grain offering was offered, that suddenly water came by way of Edom. And the land was filled with water.
And when all the Moabites heard that the kings had come up to fight against them, all who were able to bear arms and older were gathered. And they stood at the border. Then they rose up early in the morning. And the sun was shining on the water. And the Moabites saw the water on the other side as red as blood.
And they said, “This is blood. The kings have surely struck swords and have killed one another. Now therefore, Moab, to the spoil!”
So when they came to the camp of Israel, Israel rose up and attacked the Moabites. So that they fled before them. And they entered their land, killing the Moabites. Then they destroyed the cities. And each man threw a stone on every good piece of land and filled it. And they stopped up all the springs of water and cut down all the good trees. Except that they left intact the stones of Kir Haraseth. However the slingers surrounded and attacked it.
And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too intense for him, he took with him seven hundred men who drew swords, to break through to the king of Edom. But they could not. Then he took his eldest son who would have reigned in his place, and offered him as a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel. So they departed from him and returned to their own land.
Paramedic Charles Shepherd believes in miracles. In fact, he believes that he was summoned to the scene of a miracle just last December.
You see, in December of 2000 on a highway outside of Louisville, Kentucky, forty-two-year-old Mr. Boaventura was driving a tractor-trailer rig. Apparently the truck struck a piece of ice and it jackknifed. As it happened, in the sleeping compartment there was a woman who was eight months pregnant. Her name was Olga Maria Bera-Cruz.
When the truck jackknifed she sat up. When it subsequently hit an embankment she was literally torn apart as she was hurled through the windshield to her death.
Charles Shepherd and the rescue team reached the scene of the tragedy. They found the dead mother. They found the father, Mr. Boaventura, sobbing hysterically. But most surprising of all, underneath a blanket they found a little baby boy still attached to the umbilical cord of its mother.
The baby was blue and motionless. But when Mr. Shepherd pulled on the cord it began to cry. So according to the newspaper account Mr. Shepherd said, “I praised the Lord and started to work.” He cut the cord. He administered oxygen. He had the little baby transferred to a hospital.
Fortunately an eighteen-year-old teenager, along with some relatives, had heard the crash from her grandfather’s house. And they had been the first to reach the scene. And they were responsible for covering the infant with the blanket which probably saved its life in the fifteen-degree cold weather.
The next morning the hospital reported that the baby was in fair condition. And its only wound was a scratch on the knee. One of the paramedics said, “For all the ways that this baby came into the world, from the hardships that it suffered, it’s a miracle baby. This child will be something special.”
Mr. Shepherd himself reported that they had actually found an open Bible near the crash. And then he said of the little boy, “He is truly a miracle of God.”
The headline in the Dallas Morning News which reported this story said, “Miracle Baby Lives After Crash.”
Now I don’t know about you. But when I hear a story like that the word “tragic” struggles with the word “miraculous” to describe that story. In the story that I have just told you there is something profoundly and deeply sad. And at the same time there is something that is wonderful and marvelous.
And I’m wondering if we realize that there is a sense in which our human life and human experience, our experience of Christian living here in the world, is very much like that. It’s a mixture of things that are sad and things that are joyful. It is a mixture of deep sorrow and deep tragedy combined with the marvelous and miraculous power of God.
That’s something we tend to forget. That’s something we tend to ignore. Therefore this morning that brings me immediately to the title of my message to you today. Which happens to be, “You Shouldn’t Have Been There to Begin With.”
Now you may be asking the question, “What in the world does a title like that have to do with what you’ve just been talking about?” Well let me assure you the answer is, “It has a lot to do with it.” And I want to be sure that I have fastened the title on your mind. So I’m going to repeat it to you again.
The title of my message today is, “You Shouldn’t Have Been There to Begin With.”
Have you ever attended an event, a party, a celebration, a reception? And after you had been there only a short time you said to yourself, “Why did I come to this? Why am I here?”
Well I suspect that all of us have had an experience like that at some time or another. And therefore we are prepared to sympathize with the man that we read about in our passage of Scripture this morning. A man whose name was Jehoshaphat.
Of course Jehoshaphat was a king. He ruled the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the kingdom of Judah. And he was also a God-fearing king. He was a king that had reverence for the Lord as God. In New Testament terminology we would undoubtedly think of him as a regenerate man.
And yet at the same time Jehoshaphat had a bad habit. And his bad habit was that he had a strong tendency to hook up with ungodly kings and to participate in their projects.
In fact that is what he had done with the ungodly King Ahab, who had invited him to go to battle with the Syrians. And Jehoshaphat had gone with him. And Jehoshaphat had almost gotten killed. And Ahab had gotten killed.
And you would have thought that after that experience that would have been a lesson that Jehoshaphat never forgot. But it wasn’t. And when Jehoram, the son of Ahab, came to the throne, Jehoram was not quite as bad as Ahab.
And the Bible pays him a very backhanded compliment. It says he did evil in the sight of the Lord but not like his father and mother. He took away the image of Baal that his father had set up. But he nevertheless stuck with the idolatrous worship that had been instituted by King Jeroboam.
And very early in his reign Jehoram had a major problem. You see, the king of Moab was subject to Israel. And every year as an expression of his submission to Ahab he was in the habit of sending to Israel a hundred thousand lambs and the wool of a hundred thousand rams.
I don’t know about you. But that sounds like a lot of rams and a lot of wool to me. And I suspect that the merchants of Israel made money hand over fist with this raw material that came into their hands in which they were able to dispose of in sales.
But when Jehoram came to the throne Mesha the sheepbreeder, king of Moab, thought he saw his opportunity. And so he decided maybe Jehoram will be too busy getting his kingdom established. And I won’t give him his tribute this year. And he rebelled against Israel.
But Jehoram was not going to take that lying down. And the Bible tells us that he went out of Samaria, his capital city. He mustered his armed forces. And then he sent a message to Jehoshaphat down in Jerusalem.
And he said to Jehoshaphat, “The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight with Moab?” And I wish I could tell you that Jehoshaphat said, “No way, José. Absolutely not. I went into battle once with your father. And I almost got killed. And your father did get killed. And there is no way I’m going into battle with you.”
But unfortunately that is not the way that Jehoshaphat responded. In fact he almost sounds like a broken record. Because his words to Jehoram were similar to his earlier words to Ahab.
And he says, “I am as you are, my people as your people, and my horses as your horses. Sure, I’ll go with you.” And so they develop a plan that’s pretty clever.
They decide that their two armies will march south into the Wilderness of Edom. Where they will be joined by the king of Edom, apparently an ally of Jehoshaphat. They will go down under the bottom of the Dead Sea. And then they will march up and attack Moab from the south. A very clever plan.
And I’m sure that Moab was looking for an attack if it came from the north. And so they set out on their journey. And as they are marching up toward the southern border of Moab they encounter one little problema. No water.
Now mind you we have three armies here. We have all their horses that drew their chariots. We have all of the pack animals. And there’s no water for anybody.
And so Jehoram kind of throws up his hands. And he says, “Alas!” He says, “The Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.” It sounds like he has a guilty conscience.
And if I had been Jehoshaphat maybe I would have said to Jehoram, “Thanks a lot, Jehoram. I appreciate bravery in the kings that I go to battle with. And I admire a king who’s not daunted by any of the problems that he faces.”
Or maybe I would have said to Jehoram, “What’s wrong with you, Jehoram? Why do you feel so guilty? Why do you think the Lord has called us together to defeat us at the hands of Moab?”
But of course Jehoshaphat doesn’t say either of those things. And what Jehoshaphat does say, my friends, is something that reflects a mistake that is made over and over and over and over again by Christian people down through the years.
Jehoshaphat says, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here that we may inquire of the Lord by him?” Wait a minute, Jehoshaphat. Why didn’t you ask that question when you got your message from Jehoram? Why didn’t you ask that question when your army started off to battle?
Do you know why Jehoshaphat is asking that question now? The reason he’s asking that question now is because now he is in a great big mess.
And over and over and over again Christian people rush into decisions, big decisions, important decisions, maybe about their job, maybe about their school major, maybe about their marriage partner, maybe about their families. And they fail to even turn to God for wisdom and direction, for the assistance of His Word.
And then they wonder why it is that they landed in a great big mess and have to turn to Him for help. It happens over and over and over again.
There was a medical student in a medical classroom one time. And the professor said to him, “What is a dose of…” and he gave the technical name of a strong poison. “And what is the dose of this strong poison?”
And so the medical student promptly spoke up and he says, “A teaspoonful.” The professor didn’t say anything and continued with the class.
About a quarter of an hour later the student realized he had made a mistake. And he spoke up and he says, “Professor.” He said, “I would like to change my answer.”
The professor looked at his watch. And he said, “I’m sorry, sir. It’s too late. Your patient has been dead for fourteen minutes.”
And you know the fact is that when we fail to seek the wisdom of God, when we jump into something without consulting Him, we often kill the chance to avoid a serious mistake.
Billy Burke was in the dining room of the steamship Uruguay one time. And sitting right next to her at another table was a man who was having a lot of trouble sneezing and sniffling.
And Billy Burke looked over at him. And she said, “Bad cold, eh?” And the man kind of nodded like that. And so then Billy Burke said, “I can tell you just exactly what to do for it.” She said, “Go back to your stateroom.” She said, “Tell your steward to get you a lot of orange juice. Drink a whole lot of liquid. Pile on the blankets till you can’t stand anymore. And sweat it out. I know what I’m talking about. I am Billy Burke of Hollywood.”
And the guy at the next table smiled warmly. And he said, “Thanks.” He says, “I’m Dr. Mayo of Mayo Clinic in Rochester.”
And isn’t it surprising that we human beings know exactly what we ought to do sometimes? And we even know what other people ought to do a lot of times. And may the Lord forgive us. Sometimes we even know what God ought to do.
And we fail to turn to the God who is right next to us for the insolent wisdom that He has and which He has shared with us in His Word.
But I’m happy to tell you something. I’ve got good news for you. Even though you may have rushed into a decision, even though you may have landed in a horrible mess, it’s never too late to ask God for wisdom and help.
And wouldn’t you know it? God had arranged it for these armies to run out of water when they were right in proximity to the prophet Elisha. Then somebody comes and informs the kings that Elisha is there. And Jehoshaphat knows that Elisha is a man that God has raised up with His prophetic Word even though he had been a servant, a butler, to Elijah.
And Jehoshaphat says, “The word of the Lord is with him.” So they go down to Elisha. And remember that Elisha’s ministry was primarily to the northern kingdom.
And the first thing he does is to address Jehoram, the king of Israel. And he says, “What do I have to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and mother for advice.”
And Jehoram, with his guilty conscience still working overtime, says, “No, no, no, no.” He says, “The Lord has brought these three kings together to deliver them into the hands of Moab.”
And then Elisha says, “As the Lord God lives before whom I stand, if it were not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat here, I would not even look at you or see you. I wouldn’t even pay attention to you,” says Elisha. “Only Jehoshaphat commands my interest.”
Let me pause to say something here. If you are a Christian, and of course by “a Christian” I mean that you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for the absolutely free gift of everlasting life and you know for sure that you’re going to heaven, if you have made a bad decision, if you have landed in a mess, and if you do not repent of the sins that are in your life that does not affect your salvation.
But if you do not repent of the sins that are in your life it’s no use calling on God for wisdom and for help. The Bible says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”
“If it were not for Jehoshaphat I’d look right through you,” says Elisha. But Jehoshaphat was there. And so he calls for a musician, probably somebody who played the harp or the lyre.
And as the musician plays, Elisha prophesies. And he says, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Make this valley full of ditches.’ For thus says the Lord, ‘You won’t see wind. You won’t see rain. But the valley will be full of water so that you and your cattle and your animals may drink.’ And that’s just a small thing for the Lord. That’s just a trivial thing. God will also give the Moabites into your hands. You will attack every fortified city. You will cut down every good tree. You’ll stop up every spring of water. You will mar every good piece of land with stones.”
Thus says the Lord: ‘Make this valley full of ditches.’ For thus says the Lord, ‘You shall not see wind, nor shall you see rain. Yet that valley shall be filled with water, so that you, your cattle, and your animals may drink.’ And this is but a trivial thing in the sight of the Lord. He will also deliver the Moabites into your hand. Also you shall attack every fortified city and every choice city, and shall cut down every good tree, and stop up every spring of water, and ruin every good piece of land with stones.
Wow! Wow! Is that a great prophecy or what? For a man who didn’t even ask advice when he came out to this war.
Did it happen? You better believe it happened. The next morning a flash flood came from the higher ground in Edom. And it poured down into the valley.
And of course over there the land beneath the flood was kind of reddish. And the sun shone down. And the Moabites, who were mobilized by this time on their southern border, looked out. And they thought they were looking at blood.
And they said, “Good. The three kings have fallen out with each other. They fought with each other. We just have to go in and clean up the spoil.” And they rushed into the valley only to discover that it was their blood which was primarily going to be shed.
And the Israelites defeated them and pursued them. And they did all the things that Elisha had prophesied that they would do.
Isn’t the grace of God wonderful? Jehoshaphat rushed out on this campaign without asking the counsel of the living God. And God gives him not only the provision for his needs and the needs of those who were with him but victory over his enemies.
Captain Johnson was a chaplain in World War II stationed out on an island in the Pacific Ocean. On one occasion he was in an American bomber that was returning from a successful bombing run. But then the bomber began to lose altitude. And it was running out of fuel. And they were forced to land on a strange island.
And later they discovered that the enemy was about a half mile away in both directions. While they were stranded there the staff sergeant came to Captain Johnson. And he said, “Chaplain,” he says, “you’ve been telling us for months the importance of praying and believing that God answers prayer in time of trouble. Well,” he says, “we’re out of gas. We’re hundreds of miles from our home base. We’re almost surrounded by the enemy.”
Captain Johnson began to pray and began to claim the promises that God had in His Word. And continued his prayer into the night. And about two o’clock a.m. the staff sergeant wakes up. And he feels compelled to walk down to the water’s edge.
And he gets down to the water’s edge. And he finds a metal float. And on the metal float there’s a cargo of octane gas. And it turned out that the skipper of an American vessel that was carrying octane gas was sailing through submarine-infested waters. And in order to minimize the danger of the possible striking of a torpedo he jettisoned his cargo of octane gas, putting the barrels of octane gas on metal floats.
And that was six hundred miles away from where the airmen were stranded. And God took one of those metal floats. And He guided it through the wind and through the currents. And He beached it about fifty steps from where the aviators were.
And needless to say they refueled the plane. And the plane and its entire crew returned safely to home.
And we have such a wonderful God, my friends, that He can look down upon us when we have buried ourselves under the consequences of our poor decisions. And His power and His provision are more than enough to meet our need.
So what happens next? Do the triumphant armies turn around and march home? Not exactly.
You see there is one city still left standing, Kir Haraseth. And the king of Moab decides on one last desperate effort to turn the tide of battle. He chooses seven hundred Moabite soldiers. And these are swordsmen.
And he orders them to try to break through the ranks and get to the king of Edom. He probably thought, “This king is the weakest of the kings.” And they can’t break through.
And then something horrible, something tragic, took place. Mesha takes his oldest son, the son who would succeed him as king. Took him up on the wall. And in the sight of his own people, in the sight of the invaders, he killed his son and offered him as a sacrifice to the Moabite god whose name happened to be Chemosh.
And the Bible says that when that incident occurred there was great indignation against Israel. By whom? By the Moabites? That goes without saying. But apparently this act broke up the alliance.
And I suggest to you the members of the other armies saw it as a horrible conclusion to this whole campaign. And they blamed Israel for getting them involved. And all three armies turned around and started home.
And so did Jehoshaphat, of course. And I don’t claim to know what Jehoshaphat was thinking as he rode home. But I think I know what he should have been thinking.
He should have been thinking something like this. “That was a horrible and repellent and unforgettable incident. A king killing his own son as a sacrifice to his god. I should never have come to this battle. I should never have been involved in this war. I shouldn’t have been there to begin with. I shouldn’t have been there to begin with.”
And listen closely. Yes, God in His magnificent grace and power can lift us out of the messes into which our poor decisions have brought us. But this almost never happens without leaving behind a genuine residue of sorrow, tragedy, and regret.
On February the twenty-first, 1995, a little girl named Jasmine was born to Juan and Marina Claudio. She was premature when she was born. And almost unbelievably she weighed only one and one-half pounds.
She spent almost the rest of the year in the hospital at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, California. Like most premature babies she had trouble because her lungs were underdeveloped. And she had to be put on a respirator.
She had a heart murmur. She had trouble fighting off infections. She had a narrow trachea. And they had to insert a trachea tube.
The doctors corrected the heart murmur in May surgically. Little Jasmine turned out to be quite a fighter. She fought off a series of respiratory infections. She learned to adjust to the trachea tube.
She became a real favorite of the nurses in the hospital who started referring to her as Princess Jasmine after a character in Walt Disney’s Aladdin. Finally on December the twenty-second, three days before Christmas, the time came to go home.
And by this time Jasmine weighed ten pounds. And I think maybe best of all she went back to a household where her father and mother were properly married and where they could provide for her the two-parent family that all children need.
And I happen to think that the Christmas that year at the Claudio home was full of joy. And as far as Jasmine was concerned I think there were no regrets. No sorrow.
And yes, it’s always wise to obey God. And it is better to obey Him later than never. But best of all is to obey Him up front, to obey Him from the very start. And then you won’t have to say to yourself when it’s all over, “I shouldn’t have been there to begin with.”
Shall we pray? Father, for the solemn lesson that Your Word contains we thank You. And we pray that we may take it to heart and make it a part of our daily lives. We ask this for the honor of our Savior who bought and paid for our salvation with His blood. We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.