The Three Stooges (Part A)

For the, even the Christian, it's so easy to blame God when something is really going bad.

And we have to sometimes fight it, not all the time, sometimes we're there, but other times it's, you know, it can just be the wrong buttons or the right buttons, whatever perspective you take have been pushed and it can be really tough. Anyway, his expression of dismay indicates that he considers Yahweh responsible for this situation that he got himself into. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 2nd Kings.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of 2nd Kings chapter 3 as he begins his message, The Three Stooges. 2nd Kings chapter 3. Three Stooges, The Three Stooges, that's the title of his message.

I tried not to be funny, but I kept coming back, or humorous I should say, I kept coming back to that theme. It is an amazing chapter offering lessons. We have kings, we have buffoons, musicians, soldiers, and a prophet, and of course all the other things that went into the ancient world of warfare. In verse 1, 2nd Kings chapter 3, Now Jehoram, the son of Ahab, became king over Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and reigned twelve years. In verse 2, And he did evil in the sight of Yahweh, but not like his father and mother, for he put away the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made. Well, there's, you know, you can get a study Bible or a commentary and a lot of discussion on the timetable of the kings just from that. Now Jeroboam, the son of Ahab, became king for eighteen years, but we're going to skip all of that.

We're going to stick with the applications, I think, that is going to hopefully better serve us as believers. Now, Jehoram, this king of the north of Israel, he is the son of Ahab and Jezebel. His brother Ahaziah, who was the one that fell through the lattice and died, so he has succeeded his brother. And we get that in chapter 1 of 2nd Kings. He did steer, this king did steer the northern kingdom away from the worship of his parents, Ahab and Jezebel, worshiping the Baal and the Ashtoreth, but what he did is not steer them to Yahweh, but steer them to calf worship, which Jeroboam started when the nation split, and that calf worship was really saying Yahweh is represented by these golden calves, which is an anathema.

And they were committed to this, and we look back at these stories and we just shake our heads. We say, how could they even think they could get away with this before God? So his reformation was worthless. He exchanged one fake god, or two fake gods, for two fake calves.

Quite a bargain on idolatry street. Jehoshaphat, the good king, he's going to be one of the stooges, too. As great of a king as he was, he's doing the biddings of another, which makes him the stooge, and that is of Jehoram. Remember, he did it with Ahab.

Hey, I got a good idea. Jehoshaphat, put this bullseye on you and I'll wear this camouflage and we'll go out into battle together. And he does that, and it almost cost him his life. Well, here he is again, lined up with another abject unbeliever. Verse 3, nevertheless, he persisted in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who had made Israel sin.

He did not depart from them. And it's just a thing, even in Christianity, where people are just, you feel like it's one of the, it's the 11th commandment, thou shall mix forbidden things with Christianity. They just do it with such abandonment. How unlike David. Why not emulate King David? All the kings of Israel, they could have looked on the list of kings and said, David's the one to follow. Back to this calf worship.

Well, again, at the split of the nation, well, let's go further back. Before the nation split, at the birth of the nation, when Moses was on the mountain talking to God, and the people were in the valley and they became restless, as people do. And they said, as for this Moses, we don't know where he is. Pick it up in Exodus 32 4, because the people then came to Aaron and said, make us gods.

And he received the gold from their hand and he fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a molden calf. Then he said, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. So at the birth of the nation, they were saying, Yahweh is to be represented by these calves, which is a forbidden practice. That's what, and I don't think I've been stressing that enough when we hit Jeroboam, sort of, I guess, subconsciously taking for granted that, well, we all know the story.

But maybe here I have an opportunity to revisit this. The Jews in the days of Moses, when he was on the mountain, were not saying that the calves led us out of Egypt. They were saying Yahweh led us out and he is represented by these little statues, which he clearly forbade. And they knew better.

They did it anyway. And the story with Aaron just gets further goofy. Moses, when he confronts Aaron and Aaron tells him, I threw it into the fire and these came out and Moses says nothing, which was eloquent. It spoke, it said everything. When he just kind of like, what do you say to that, Aaron?

Sit there and argue with him about that would be silly. Anyway, Jeroboam is reviving this calf worship. He started it to counteract the popularity of Solomon's temple, which was Yahweh's temple. This is where God wanted the people to worship, nowhere else. And so he creates, of course, a temple in the northern part of Israel and one in the southern most part of the northern kingdom. And that's where he wanted the people to come worship instead of going to Jerusalem, as God had said.

And I'm reminded of one of my favorite poems, Maud Muller, for of all the sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest of these it might have been. It might have been a great nation had they just followed the 10, just the first commandment would have been put them in such a better position as a people and as individuals. Oh no, that was too much to ask. Well, we come to verse four, keeping in mind now what we've got. We've got a king here who's abandoned mommy and daddy's religion for just as bad religion, if not worse, because Yahweh's name is attached to it.

It's more sinister. And we have the king of Edom, who is an unbeliever, and we have Jehoshaphat, a great man of God who just could not say no to bad people. Verse four, now Misha, king of Moab, was a sheep breeder, and he regularly paid the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams.

Well, this goes back now to chapter one, where we read that Moab rebelled after Ahab died and his son Azariah comes to the throne. They say, well, we can take this guy, and so they rebelled. Well, this is why. They just, we're not going to keep paying this, even if they could afford it.

It's just insulting to them to still have to do it. So there's been some time for the kings to get their forces together, their plan together, and here we are in the third chapter where this is now taking place. So this resentment, of course, is, they're not going to pay anymore, it's going to bring war. This king of the Moabites, there is a stone that has survived and it is said to have originated with him that tells about his father and him dealing with Omri and, or Omri, Ahab, and Jehoram, this battle here, and he centers it on Israel, he doesn't mention Judah, the stone still exists to this day, goes on to tell about how these three kings that come against him fail in the end, and he then talks about how he launches raids into Israel and uses many of the captured Jews as slaves to build and do other things for himself, and now that's kind of important.

So you can look that up, the Misha steel or the Misha stone, it's something that's historical. Well anyway, don't worry, the scholars debate some of it and they always do, because it's a very ancient language and they're not always sure of this and that, but they're minor points it seems. Anyway, the Moabites, these are descendants of Moab, the son of Lot and his daughter, of course, that incestuous relationship, they were just always against Israel. Now, of course, there are patches of peace between the two periodically, but also the struggles. In Judges chapter 3, it is the Jews dealing with the Moabites. They opposed Saul and they opposed the Jews in David's day also. Solomon has one of his many marriages to one of the Moabite women, princesses, and that brought some peace for a while. It was a false peace, it was a sacrifice, because what did he do? He put up shrines in Israel for Chemosh, their primary god.

So there's a lot of history here. There are other Moabites that we know about in scripture. Balak, he hired Balaam to come curse the Jews and, of course, every time he opened his mouth to curse them, he ended up blessing them.

That's in Numbers 22 and 24, through 24, very good section of scripture. Eglon, he was the king that was assassinated by one of the Jewish judges, Eud. Eud is a no-mess-with guy, you know, he hid that dagger and he stabbed. Eglon was really big. He was so big, the Bible tells us, that the fat just sort of enclosed around the dagger. It's a good children's story.

And then, of course, he leaves, he climbs out the window and they think he's in the bathroom and they were embarrassed to go in and by the time they go in, Eud is long gone. So, anyway, also Ruth, of course, the wife of Boaz, grandmother of David, she was from Moab, a little background information, refresher course for most of us, verse 5, but it happened when Ahab died that the king of Moab rebelled against the king. Okay, so that goes back to chapter 1, verse 1. A year earlier, before the rebellion in chapter 1, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and other surrounding peoples warred against Judah, King Jehoshaphat, and he soundly defeated them.

That's going to enter into this story. Now, 2 Chronicles, chapter 20, 2 Chronicles 19 and 20, read them together, they're really good chapters. It shows how this king just brought back the word of God, how he was attacked, you know, spiritually, they came against him after that, and how God defeated them, taking from 2 Chronicles 20, verse 4, so Judah gathered together to ask help from Yahweh and from all the cities of Judah, they came to seek Yahweh. So, Jehoshaphat mustered the people.

His love for Yahweh was infectious, it just caught on with all the people and they rallied behind him and there was a great victory in Israel. Now, Jehoshaphat has over a million man army. This is why Jehoram wants him to join him to come against Moab, to take back, to subject them again to tribute. Verse 6, so King Jehoram went out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel, that's the northern kingdom, 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. See, he's just this nice guy that just wants to please everybody instead of standing up against the people who need to be stood against. Now, Jehoshaphat's son, also named Jehoram, he married this, Jehoram's daughter, Athaliah, she's a monster and we'll get to her later, but that is sort of convenient for the northern king to say, hey, since we're, you know, in-laws, why don't you come to war with me and bring those million men?

I could use them. And, of course, he doesn't have to come out and say it because Jehoshaphat is just gullible and I don't know, maybe he was just bored sitting around the palace. Boy, I sure wish somebody would ask me to do something. Anyway, it just seemed right for Jehoram to ask Jehoshaphat to go with him to punish Moab and he said here in verse 7, I will go up, I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses. Well, you know, the Christian has to make, keep that distinction. I am not like you are to the unbeliever. Even if it's a beloved family member, you know, there's still that line.

You could be a child, a parent, it doesn't matter. I mean, we are, you know, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, yes, but spiritually we have different fathers. And we, this is not mean-spirited at all. In fact, to not keep this distinction would be mean-spirited because you're taking the truth and you're suppressing it.

Why do that? And you don't have to, you know, you know, bring it up every Thanksgiving, ha, my father's not your father. You don't pick fights and stuff like that.

But we still, you know, we keep our identity of who we are spiritually with the hope that one day we will be successful in seeing them come to Christ. Well, Jehoshaphat always wanting to do right but unable to filter out wrong and therefore he assisted bad people and that's why the prophet confronted him. You know, what is this you love, you hate, you know, you love the people that hate Yahweh. What is your problem? And you get that in 2 Chronicles 19.

I don't want to read it because I read it often it feels like. It's a good guy with bad friends. So just a quick review. He befriended Ahab, went to war with Ahab, was almost killed because of Ahab. He befriended and went into business with Ahaziah, the one that fell through the lattice, the son of Ahab and God destroyed his business, his shipping business. And now he is befriending and going to war with Jehoram and he's almost going to die of thirst. You know, you got this million man army and you guys die of thirst.

What is that? That's poor planning. We're going to come to that. Logistics is a big part of war. You can have the best army in the world. You run out of bullets or run out of food or water, you're done. You know, I couldn't understand when I was in the infantry why you're always running. Well, because you have to haul ammo and water and you've got to be in good shape to do that. You've still got to fight.

So most people don't think about that. Verse 8, then he said, which way shall I go up? And he answered, by way of the wilderness of Edom. So Jehoshaphat, he's letting the idolater plan the war.

And the plan actually was a good plan that was poorly executed. So there's Moab on the, if you look at your map and you see the Dead Sea, to the right, to the east, is Moab, east of Israel. So you can either cross over the Jordan to the north of the Dead Sea, and now you're between Ammon and Moab, which they did not want to be because Ammon would come and attack them from the rear. So the plan was, I'll march my army from the north of Israel, pick up your army at Jerusalem and in Judah, go past Sengedi, come around the Dead Sea, pick up Edom, who's to the south of Moab, and then we'll go north just a little ways and attack Moab at their weakest point, where they don't expect us to get the hit. It was a good plan, except, you know, halfway through the trip, who brought the water?

I thought you brought it. And it just killed the whole plan. So you have, I don't know that, I don't think Jehoshaphat brought his entire, of course he did not, he left garrisons behind to defend, not, he probably has 500,000 men on the battlefield, just his army.

A significant number to feed, and the livestock that you have to have to feed them, they need water too. So this started out as just a wonderful plan, it made sense, but the planning, the details, it failed them. And I've quoted this a lot because it's just a true part of life, you know, it's saying tactics are for amateurs, logistics are for pros. Well it's not entirely true, but there's truth in it, because you can have all the supplies you want, you don't have any tactics, you still lose.

You have to have them both. And I was just reading about, I can't remember the amphibious ship that burned up in San Diego a few, about a year or two ago, the ship burned up because nobody wanted to take command. I mean, it's like what? This is yours, no the ship's in dock, it's not ours, it's yours. That's not ours, it's under your, so these naval admirals are going back and forth, and the ship's burning in the meantime, they can't get a plan together. And there's a total loss, billions of dollars. So as a Christian, we look at this and we say, okay, there are lessons here for me, with battle plans, with going forward in life, with organization.

Even if it's not a fight, maybe it's just the fight of life to survive, to have resources, to not run out of water. You know, everybody walking around with water bottles now, that wasn't, when I was a kid, you wanted a canteen, you went to the fishing shop, hunting, fishing place, Army and Navy store, you got yourself a canteen, but you never used it. And by the time you used it, it was all rotten inside. But now everybody's got a jug of water with them. Does that sound like a criticism? Because there's criticisms in it, but you know, gotta have your water.

So I'm sorry, it was random, well I'm not sorry. It's just that observation. All of a sudden, people need a lot more water. Well, we're all closer to the sun.

Because when I was a kid, I was this tall, and now at this height, I'm closer to the sun. So anyway, back to this, verse 9, so the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. Now that makes three kings, three stooges. And they marched on a roundabout route, seven days, and there was no water for the army, nor for the animals that followed them. You know, it reads in the English as though the animals were just, hey, let's just follow them.

But that, of course, this was food and supplies being carried by the animals. Also, not water though, nobody, if you've ever been out of water, at the end of where you've got to have water, it is a mean situation. And it is a very volatile, at least my experience, I've had one experience that I can recall where there was no water and a lot of men, and very hot. And it looked as though you were walking through a minefield, the tension was very high. When the water showed up, everybody was controlled, but you could see that it was very fragile. You better get your water and move so the next guy could get his water. And anyhow, there's a lot of tension going to be with this.

This is a 70-mile trip for part of the army even more. The Edom doesn't have that far to go, but they're still out. Verse 10, and the king of Israel said, alas, for Yahweh has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab. This is an insult. A very foolish man he is to make such a comment. He fails to make plans and he's blaming God. Jehoshaphat said, what's the battle plan? Well, he took the lead. He was supposed to do the whole thing. I mean, it's very simple.

You're delegated to a junior officer and you say, put together a battle plan and I'll look at it and if I like it, we'll go with it or make adjustments or whatever. So it's all on him. No way is he going to admit that his false system of worship is going to work and Elisha is going to really take him to task on this. It's so easy to blame God for not answering prayer. I mean, amongst the righteous. Forget about this guy.

He's just a creepy guy. But for even the Christian, it's so easy to blame God when something is really going bad and we have to sometimes fight it. Not all the time.

Sometimes we're there, but other times it's, you know, it can just be the wrong buttons or the right buttons, whatever perspective you take have been pushed and it can be really tough. Anyway, his expression of dismay indicates that he considers Yahweh responsible for this situation that he got himself into. I wonder if God directed Elisha into that area of the world, which he would otherwise have no reason to be there, is pretty much desert because the Lord is anticipating that this is going to happen and he puts the prophet on standby because he's going to be there. I mean, they came to this battlefield and this route on their own accord, guided by their own views, their own policies. God never spoke to the kings and said, I want you to go do this. This is something that is all theirs. If Elijah is shadowing them following the army, the scouts would have reported it.

If he's just in the area, they would have picked that up. And that's how we get to verse 11. But Jehoshaphat said, is there no prophet of Yahweh here that we may inquire of Yahweh by him?

So one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, Elisha, the son of Shafat, is here who poured water on the hands of Elijah. Thanks for joining us for today's edition on Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today in the Book of Second Kings has been something to remember. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series, go to crossreferenceradio.com. Once more, that's crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. Our time is about up, but we hope you'll tune in again next time as we continue on in the Book of Second Kings. We look forward to that time with you, so make a note in your calendar to join Pastor Rick as he teaches from the Bible right here on Cross Reference Radio.