Gustafson, Don: Dig Ditches-2 Kings 3

Might remember that today is Flower Fawn Sunday, and if you'd like to participate in this worthwhile activity, see our sister Flo Albury after the service is over. Our study this morning is entitled Dig Ditches. That seems like a strange title, but I think as we go on in our study, we'll find, uh, how that fits in with the subject at hand. Might open our Bibles to the book of Second Kings, chapter one, and we might read verse one before returning to chapter three. Second Kings, chapter one, verse one: Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. Moab rebelled against Israel. Now chapter three, verse one, And Jehoram, the son of Ahab, began to reign over Israel in 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, for he put away the image of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless, he cleaved under the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin. He departed not there. Now Mesha, king of Moab, was a sheep master, and he rendered unto the king of Israel a hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams with the wool. And it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. And King Jehoram went out of Samaria the same time and numbered all Israel. And he went and sent unto Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, saying, The king of Moab hath rebelled against me. Wilt thou go with me against Moab to battle? And he said, I will go. I am as thou art, my people as thy people, and my horses as thy horses. And he said, Which way shall we go up? And he answered, The way through the wilderness of Edom. So the king of Israel went, and the king of Judah, and the king of Edom, 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 said, alas, that the Lord hath called these, uh, three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab. But Jehoshaphat said, is there not a prophet of the Lord that we may inquire of the Lord by him? And one of the kings of Israel's servants answered and said, here is Elisha, the son of Shaphat, which 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. And Elisha said unto the king of Israel, What have I to do with thee? Get thee to the prophets of thy fathers and to the prophets of thy mothers. And the king of Israel said unto him, Nay, for the Lord hath called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab. And Elisha said, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would not look toward thee nor see thee. But now, bring me a minstrel or a musician, that it may come to pass when the musician played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him. And he said, thus saith the Lord, make the valley full of ditches, for thus saith the Lord, ye shall not see wind, neither shall you see rain, yet the valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye and your cattle and your beast. And this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will deliver the Moabites also into your hand. And you shall smite every fenced city and every choice city, and you shall fell every good tree and stop all the wells of water and mar every good piece of the land with stones. And 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. And when all the Moabites heard that the kings were come up to fight against them, they gathered all that were able to put on armor and upward and stood in the border. And they arose up early in the morning, and the sun shone upon the water, and the Moabites saw the water on the other side as red as blood. And they said, This is blood. The kings are surely slain, and they have smitten one another. Now therefore, Moab, to the spoil. And when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and smote the Moabites so that they fled from before them. But they went forward, smiting Moabites even unto their country. And they beat down the cities and every good piece of land, cast every man his stone and filled it. They stopped all the wells of water and felled all of the good trees. Only in Kehar Asheth left they stones thereof, howbeit the slingers about smote it. And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew storage to break through even unto the king of Edom, but they could not. And he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel, and they departed from him and returned to their own land. This is a striking and most interesting portion of the Word of God in relation to Elisha's ministry among the people of Israel. You will recall that last week we learned that Elijah was carried by a whirlwind and not a Titan rocket up into heaven. And as he went, he dropped his mantle, and Elisha picked up that mantle, smote the Jordan River as the sons of the prophets watched, and he walked across on dry land, and they said that the Lord's hand rests now upon El- Elisha, and they followed him. It's a most interesting thing to bear in mind that the events that occurred, of which we have read, came about in about the year eight hundred and ninety BC, and yet there are principles in this chapter that affect your life and mine even today. I think in order to understand something of this portion, we must remember that the nation of Israel was divided at this time. There was the northern kingdom that consisted of ten tribes, and their capital was in Samaria. There was a southern kingdom that consisted of only two tribes, and their capital was in Jerusalem. And this breach that took place in the nation of Israel was never healed. It's far, far easier to cause problems than it is to heal them. And so these problems came about. The nation was divided right down the middle, as it were, and that breach was never, never healed. Actually, we are told that there were nine dynasties in the northern kingdom with some nineteen kings. Uh, generally speaking, these kings were idol worshippers, and they were wicked individuals. They had the office and used it for their own, uh, well-being. We need to remember also that in Judah there was only one dynasty, and that was the Davidic line. There were some twenty kings that came from the seed of David. These kings ruled together for a period of some three hundred and thirty five years, and generally speaking, these men were God-fearing, honorable kings. Now, the northern kingdom was riddled with Baal worship from the very top to the very bottom. If you will do a little background study on the, the worship of Baal, you will find it is one of the most vile and filthy forms of so-called worship that this world could ever, ever know. Many of the people and, uh, some of the priests that found themselves in the northern kingdom were so disgusted with this idolatrous worship that they left all that they had and traveled south to the southern kingdom, where Jerusalem was the center and where the offerings were offered up there in the temple. Now, understanding that, uh, background, basically the division of the kingdom, the northern kingdom, Israel, the southern kingdom, Judah, the events that take place that we're reading about happened primarily in Israel, the northern kingdom. Looking at our chapter, we can divide it in several ways. First, we have Moab's rebellion. Second, we have man's military procedure. Thirdly, we have the miserable results. Fourthly, we have the ministry of music, and lastly, we have the madness of Moab. Now, we're not going to be able to, uh, talk too much about each of these individual subdivisions, but we would like to touch briefly on some of them. The first is Moab's rebellion. One of King David's successors had captured Moab. And I think it would be well if we could consider how these countries were situated. For example, if we were to think about, uh, say Pembroke Pines here and Miami to the south, and then going around the bay and coming up the other side, we would have Miami Beach. And so what we would have here in Pembroke Pines would be somewhat like Israel, Miami would be somewhat like Edom, and then as you go around Biscayne Bay and come up the, uh, Miami Beach side, that would be Moab on the other side of the Dead Sea. And so you can see the Israelites to the north, and here we have the southern kingdom of Judah, and then Edom southern, m- most, uh, more than that, and then around the bottom of the Dead Sea, and then coming up on the eastern side, the, uh, city of Moab. The descendants of Moab were a strange and, uh, unusual lot. They, their forefather, or the founder of the Moabs, was born in the cave. It was associated with lust and with drunkenness, and they were characterized by greed and idol worship of the vilest and basest sort. The judgment of God was long overdue, we might say, on the country of Moab because of their rejection of the truth of God. The people in Moab, however, were wealthy people by and large. They were ranch owners. They had a tremendous flocks of sheep, and according to the, uh, treaty that had been signed with Israel, with the Moabites, the Moabites had to pay to the king of Israel each year one hundred thousand lambs and one hundred thousand rams with the wool. That is a tremendous levy, a tremendous tax to be placed on any nation. However, the people were able to pay it and did pay it for a number of years. If the rams came and had been shorn, they would have been rejected. The treaty called for one hundred thousand lambs, one hundred thousand rams with the wool, and they held the people of Moab to, uh, this treaty. However, when Ahab died, they said, this is the opportunity, while the country will be unsettled, to rebel and refuse to pay the tax. You can imagine what King Jehoram must have, uh, felt when he said, we have trouble enough with the national debt. We have difficulty enough trying to balance the budget, and here now, one of the chief sources of our income has been cut off. And, uh, what are we going to do about deficit spending? We can't continue in this way. What now? So there we have, uh, the rebellion of Moab and its effect on Israel, and particularly on King Jehoram. Now, his desire was to cause a military gathering or a military alliance to go against Moab. But there was one fatal flaw in Jehoram's plan. He did not consult the God of Israel. It was a man-made plan. It seemed to be militarily sound, and it apparently assured them a victory. But we need to bear this thought in mind that he did not consult the God of heaven. The scripture says, lean not to your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy paths. But Jehoram thought he knew better and that he would launch out on his own military tactics. I think our life basically is filled with problems. It doesn't make any difference where you go or where you're at. Problems are common to the sons of men. It is, uh, exceedingly difficult to find answers to many of life's problems. And when we, uh, think about this, the older we get, the more complex life seems to become. There are problems on every hand and in every area, and one scarcely knows which way to turn. However, I think in the midst of all of the problems and the perplexities of life, there is one chapter that, to me, is a source of comfort and consolation, and that's the thirty seventh Psalm. And I think there are at least five words in that thirty seventh Psalm that end in the letter T. Most of you, I'm sure, are well aware of that. But if we look at those five words, and then we look at the perplexities and difficulties of this life. I think we can begin to get things in balance, and we can begin to see things as God would have us to see them. First of all, in the thirty seventh Psalm, we read, fret not thyself because of evildoers. Fret not. You know, it's a tremendous thing just to be able to sit down in the midst of our troubles and struggles and trials and fret not. Not to blame God, not to blame others, but just to fret not, to sit down quietly in the presence of God and let him speak to our hearts. The next word is trust, T-R-U-S-T. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. Don't fret, but on the positive side, trust in the Lord, and he will bring these things to pass. Then he says, delight thyself also in the Lord. Think of that wonderful word, delight. Is it possible for a Christian to be happy? Absolutely. God intends that his people should be a joyful people, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. And thus, as we rejoice in the Lord and his greatness and his goodness, why we ourselves are picked up and buoyed up and are able to press on. Then it says, commit thy way unto the Lord. Commit. In other words, to have that ability to say, Lord, I'm not sufficient for the problem. I don't know the answers, but what I can do is this, I can commit it to you, and, uh, you will be fully sufficient to work it out for your good and for my glory. And then last, but probably the most difficult of all, it says, rest in the Lord and wait patiently on him. Think of that, rest in the Lord and wait patiently on him. I think in the midst of the problems that Jehoram had, in the midst of the problems that we have, if we read the thirty seventh Psalm, I believe it will bring solace and encouragement to your heart and to mine. Now, King Jehoram is a man of action. He goes out and he numbers all the people in Samaria, and then he sends down to Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, and, uh, tells him his plan and asks him if he will join him in this endeavor. But, uh, it's an interesting thing here that Jehoshaphat made a s- split decision, and in that decision he made a mistake. He aligned himself with an evil, idol-worshipping king, and it caused him a lot of grief and a lot of heartache. And in turn, Jehoshaphat, who was over Edom, pulled Edom into the struggle. And so we have a strange alliance of three different kings. The king of Israel, we might call a professing believer. Jehoshaphat, a true servant of God who had missed the way, and the king of Edom, just a heathen worshiper. And so here the three of them combine their forces, and they decide to go against Moab. The question comes up, how are we going to, uh, array the battle? Where are we going to meet Moab at? To the northern part of the Dead Sea? That would be much, much closer and far easier to get there, but the Syrians were behind them, and they were afraid that between the Syrians and the forces of Moab, they would be pressed in and would be defeated. And so Jehoram says, let's do this. Let's take that long, arduous seven-day journey all the way around the Dead Sea and come up on the other side and meet them in a position that they are not prepared to, uh, defend because they thought no one in their right mind would, uh, go that way. And so they said, this is it. This is the way we'll go. So this, uh, the three kings meet together. They travel to the south for seven days, and eventually they come to the river or the brook that is supposed to divide Edom from Moab. But when they get there, to their utter amazement and to their surprise, the, the river or the stream was bone dry. Not a drop of water for the soldiers, for their horses, or for their cattle. Not a drop of water. And here they were in this position of, uh, absolute destitution, not knowing which way to turn. When we think about this fact, we need to bear this thought in mind that when they got there, there was absolute and utter failure stirring them in the face. He had counted on that water to be there, but it was missing. I think it's somewhat like we have in northern Texas. The Trinity River flows through there, and, uh, I've seen the time when you could walk across the riverbed of the Trinity River, and grass would be growing, uh, completely across the riverbed. But I've seen other times when there would be twelve feet of water in that same riverbed. And so this is what happened in the case of these three kings when they arrived at that point. We're told that, uh, travelers on one occasion were in that area, and a Bedouin was, uh, their guide, and they came down in there, and without seeing any rain, a flash flood occurred that sent waters down from many miles away, swept them off of their feet, and many lives were lost. And so what you're finding is a situation where there could be no water at one time, great water at another time, and these men arrived there when there was no water. I think, uh, someone has pointed out that in Texas they have, uh, the largest state with the least to see. They have the most cows that give the least milk, and they have the most rivers with the least water, and so on and so on. But if you mention this to a Texan, I'll guarantee you he won't appreciate it any way, shape, or form. They think that's the greatest state that there ever was or ever will be. But be that as it may, that's one of the things that characterizes some parts of Texas, too much water or not enough. I recall when we were in the service out there, there was a story going around of a mountaineer boy from north Carolina, came out in Texas, he got a three-day pass on one occasion, and he was going to cross Texas and go out west. And, uh, he, he hitched a ride, and this person left him off out in the middle of the desert, and he made a turn. And while the fellow was waiting there, an old Texan came along in a pickup truck, and, uh, he had these bullhorns, you know, mounted on the radiator and the rifle rack, you know, across the back window of the pickup truck, and the Texan stopped and picked him up and said, uh, Texan, the driver didn't say anything. The boy said, I'm going out west. Could I ride with you? He said, yeah. So they rode along, and the fella didn't say anything for a long time, grunted now and then again, and finally, after mile after mile of desert, they saw a beautiful bird cross the road. The young fella just went wild, and he said, say, what kind of bird was that? The Texan said, that's a bird of paradise. The boy said, he sure is a long way from home. And you know, when you think about some of these countries, you know, they're filled with water at times and barren at other times. There's no production of any kind, but that's what the kings ran into. And so they decide now that, uh, this is it. Uh, King Jehoram said, uh, the Lord's hand is against us. He's not talking about Baal that he worshipped, he's talking about the Lord's hand is against us, and we're going to be delivered into the hands of the Moabites. But, uh, the interesting thing is that, uh, Jehoshaphat said, is there not a prophet? And, uh, someone who has the mind of God. And that's exactly what one of the servants of the king came up with. He said, yes, there is a prophet, and his name is Elisha, and actually he's here among the troops. And so what we come to consider is that Elisha must have been among the soldiers in his own little tent, waiting to be used of God. He didn't know what the situation was, but he was available, and he was on hand, and when he was called, he came up with the answer. And, uh, when the Elisha moved forward, he spoke against, uh, King Jehoram, and he said, if you've got a problem, go to Baal. He'll give you the answer. He's the god of the rain and the storms and the winds. Go to him. Uh, but Je- Jehoram had reached the bottom line. He had to confess that there was no help to be received from the idol Baal, and he said, if we're going to get help, it has to be from the Lord. And the interesting thing about Jehoshaphat when he spoke of Elisha was this, it says the word of the Lord is with him. In other words, the prophet has the message from heaven that we need for the occasion. Let's see what he says to do. And so, uh, Elisha appears on the scene. He challenges, uh, Jehoram to call upon Baal for help, and uh, then there's the acknowledgement that Baal can't give the help. And then Elisha said, if it wasn't for good King Jehoshaphat, though he got himself in this bind, nevertheless, for his sake, I'm going to try to find out what the mind of the Lord is for this situation. And what he says, he calls for a musician. And uh, the situation was such confusion and turbulence and undercurrent and all that type of thing, just a rolling over and over and over. And Elisha said, nothing can be done as long as this situation exists. Bring me a musician. And a musician is brought, and as that musician plays, the mind of Elisha begins to settle, and he begins to commune with his God. I'm sure the music wasn't rock and roll. I'm sure the music wasn't he- heavy metal. It was a different type of music. It was the melody of heaven. And, uh, I thank God for those hymns of the faith that we have, that bring us doctrine concerning the person and work of Christ. Hymns that are absolutely packed with, uh, scriptural teaching that we can learn, that we can memorize, that can minister to our hearts. And as we sit down and think of some of these hymns of the faith, we bless our God for the message and for the truth that they contain. And so here, Elisha, his mind is soothed, things are straightening out, and then the message comes as to what they should do. And Elisha says, thus saith the Lord. Isn't that amazing? Not what I think, not what the kings think, not what the people think, but thus saith the Lord. And there's the authority, and there's the power to carry out that which will be given. He says, make the valley full of ditches. In other words, stop the warfare for the moment and dig ditches. Now, I think the lowest and the humblest type of work that one could do was to be, to dig ditches in a valley. That's probably the lowest spot geographically one could find at the bottom of the Dead Sea. Over a thousand feet lower in elevation than the city of Jerusalem. And yet, he told them to dig ditches. Dig ditches for what? There's no water, there's no clouds, there's no wind, there's absolutely no indication of any water coming from any direction. He said, don't worry about that, dig ditches and make the valley full of them. And it's like in Noah's day, he built the ark. The people said, well, it's never rained. There's no water here. You're missing the mark. But listen, thus saith the Lord, make the valley full of ditches. Now they have the opportunity of either obeying the message or rejecting the message. They have the opportunity of realizing that thus saith the Lord, and the Lord who cannot die, who cannot lie, who cannot go back on his word, knows what was needed for the situation. Then in verse seventeen he says again, for thus saith the Lord, ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet the valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye and your cattle and your beast. Think of that. No water, no rain, no sign, no wind, but nevertheless, dig these ditches and ye shall see rain, that yet the valley shall be filled with water. And then he goes on to say that they're going to have victory over Moab, but it was going to be a clouded victory. It wasn't going to be a clear-cut victory, as we'll see as we come to the end of the chapter. In verse twenty it said, and it came to pass in the morning. I think that's a tremendous statement. The day before had been filled with utter confusion. There had been fear. There had been, uh, unrest. There had been everything that was contrary to the mind and will of God. But here it says it came to pass in the morning. Look at the situation the day before. The men were dehydrated. The water supply had been long gone. The animals were beginning to collapse. Perhaps the vultures were beginning to circle, expecting, you know, to have a feast. Absolutely no hope that day, but the word of the Lord had come. Thus saith the Lord, make the valley full of ditches, and it came to pass in the morning. We thank our God that situations can change overnight from that which seems to be absolutely without hope and with no answer. In the morning, we find a different situation. Why? Thus saith the Lord. And the interesting thing is, not only in the morning, it says, but when the meat offering was offered. A new day, in the morning at the time the meat offering was offered on the sacrifice a- of altar in Jerusalem. And we know that if blessing is going to come, it will be typified by a substitutionary death that atones for the sin of the people. It was a new day when the meat offering was offered, and as that animal was slain there on the altar in Jerusalem, and its blood was shed, and as it was consumed, and as the smoke ascended up to God, it was the basis whereby God could cover the sins of the people, and they could be accepted, looking forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Lamb, who would put away the sin of the world by the sacrifice of himself. The blessing came in the morning at the time that the meat offering was offered. And at that very moment, when the substitutionary, uh, animal, uh, its life was taken and its blood was shed, behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water. You know, the King Jehoram wasn't so much interested in God, he was interested in water. But Jehoshaphat was interested in God, and the water came. And there's a tremendous difference in this. Some people are taken up with their problems and forget God, but when we're taken up with God and his son, then the problems can be worked out for his glory and for our good. There came water. You will recall that on one occasion, the Lord stood up at a great feast and said, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. In other words, these men thirsted physically, and God met their need with material water. We thirst spiritually, and God meets our need with spiritual water, and that spiritual water is pictured in the person of Christ who can meet our thirst. We have a thirst for God. We have a thirst for the things of God. We have some thirst for truth, in measure at least. There's something lacking in our lives, and we're yearning for that, and only God can supply it, and it's supplied in the person of the Lord Jesus. One is written, I came to Jesus as I was weary and worn and sad. I found in him a resting place, and he hath made me glad. He gives water to the thirsty. He gives rest to the weary. He gives quietness of heart to that troubled individual. Our needs are fully found in one person, and that person is Christ, typified here by the meat offering offered in the morning on the altar there in Jerusalem. I recall some years ago hearing an illustration that I've never forgotten. It took place in World War II, and the conflict, of course, at this particular spot was between the Germans and the Allied forces. And after the battle was over, a lieutenant and an enlisted man went out to look over the battlefield. As far as they knew, all the wounded and dead had been removed, but as they were walking through a bushy area, they heard a voice, and they listened, and that voice said, Wasser, Wasser. And they immediately believed it must be a German soldier. And they winded their way over there and pulled back the weeds and saw a German soldier. And as he looked into their eyes, he said, Wasser. And the lieutenant said to the enlisted man, give him a drink. And as the enlisted man unloosed his canteen to pour water into the lips of this dying German soldier. The German soldier lifted a revolver from his side, tried to pull the trigger, but was knocked aside by the enlisted man. And the enlisted man looked at the officer and said, what shall I do now, sir? And the officer said, give him a drink of water. Now, mercy preserved him from getting what he deserved. He deserved to die, but the grace pres- gave him what he did not deserve, and, uh, they gave him a drink of water. These, uh, three armies that were met here with a place of no water, they were there at their own choosing. They had, uh, gone against, as it were, the revealed will of God in relation to, uh, idolatrous fellowship. But God in his goodness, instead of giving them judgment and letting them die of thirst, he came in and supplied their need one hundred percent through that water that came, as it were, from heaven. In verse twenty two, we have another morning. It stands in sharpest contrast to the morning of verse twenty. For in verse twenty two it says, and they, the Moabites, rose up early in the morning, and the sun shone upon the water, and the Moabites saw the water on the other side red as blood. We understand that there's a red sandstone, uh, material that covers the ground in that desert area. And as the Moabites looked down at that sandstone area from their mountain, uh, eminence, and the water covered that area, the sandstone shone through it in the sun, and it looked like it was blood. And they immediately surmised that these three kings have had a falling out among themselves, and they begin to fight among themselves, and they've killed one another, and this is the blood that flows down through this water. It's time for us to move. And we have reason to believe that they didn't even pick up their arms, but they moved down into that area thinking that they would pick up the spoil for something like this had happened not too many years prior to this. But when they arrived there, they met the, uh, uh, Israelites and the, uh, armies, and they rose up and smote the Moabites so that they fled before them, and they continued to go forward into Moab, and they took the country, except one spot, and that spot was called the fort of Kirharshath. It was on a high, uh, cliff-like area, and these thousands of soldiers are sweeping up now on the east side of the Dead Sea, and they're working up into the, uh, country of Moab, and this is, everything has fallen before them, but there's one place. And as these thousands of soldiers look on, to their utter amazement, they see the King of Moab. And the King of Moab is not only on the top of that eminence, on that flat area of the wall, but his son, who was to reign in his stead, was with him. And they hastily erect an altar to the idol Shemoth, and there the king offers his own son as a human sacrifice to appease their god, whom they believe is against them because they are losing in the battle. And the scripture tells us there was great indignation against Israel, and they departed from him and returned to their own land. You know, it's a striking thing to think that men, generally speaking, believe that God is angry with them and is willing and ready to judge them, and he needs to be appeased. There needs to be some offering brought, something that would satisfy him. But this is absolutely contrary to the mind and will of God. He's already been satisfied. He's already been, uh, uh, have the, the offering of his own son, so that now there's nothing else that can be brought. There's nothing we can possibly do, even to the offering of human flesh. Nothing else is needed. The work has been done. God has been satisfied, and the proof of that satisfaction is he raised his son, the Lord Jesus, from among the dead on the third day. And so this morning, there's, God doesn't need to be appeased by what we do or what we think or what we strive to do. He's satisfied totally, uh, and only with his own son. He that hath the son hath life. He that hath not the son hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. And the children of Israel, as they saw that human sacrifice offered absolutely to no avail, a young man in the prime of his life, giving his life to an heathen idol. You know, it's an interesting thing that the children of Israel were called to be a witness to the nations of the world, but instead of building bridges toward them with the truth of God, they built walls and isolated themselves. And having isolated themselves, I wonder if the children of Israel may have thought, if we had only gone out with the truth of God, it may have been this young man's life could have been saved. I do not know, but I do know this, that as we think about this portion of the word of God, we see that God's hand is in the movements of men. And even though we fail sometime, as these three kings are brought to a very place where they could have lost their entire armies, nevertheless, God in his goodness moved in and met their need. And God is still able to meet your need and mine today, whatever it may be. If it's for salvation, that need has already been met. Nothing else is required, just simply to recognize your need as a sinner and to recall that Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures, was buried, rose again the third day according to the scriptures. May the Lord then bless these few scattered thoughts on two Kings chapter three to your heart and to mine. Perhaps in closing, we could just sing one verse of three hundred and twenty two. Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan. Oh, the grace that brought it down to man. Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary. We think of this span between God and man, and it's been bridged. It's been bridged by the substitutionary death of Christ. We thank our God for that love that can be known in your heart and mine today through simple faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. The last verse only, three twenty two.