Chapter 3

Concerning the Scope
of Divine Intervention
in History

and the Special Significance of

ELIJAH AND ELISHA
 

LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY
OF THE PEOPLE AND PROPHETS OF THE LORD
and in the MEANING of DIVINE INTERVENTION

These lessons are first of all to encourage KNOWLEDGE of this period of Israel's history, since it is closely allied to words of counsel and evaluation from the Lord. It also enables us to raise the crucial question of HOW and HOW OFTEN the Lord intervenes in human history. It will be shown that this is discretionary, multi-level, sometimes judicial, merciful, and yet always it is guarded from spoliation of the significance of earth's ways and their outcome, as also from ruin through effectual obscuration of the witness to the divine in His ways, words and oversight.

Thus it is a wise and gracious way, like a mother, sometimes with many protestations, actions to change, sometimes with watchful patience; sometimes like a father, dire, sometimes tender and solicitous: sometimes there is a terminal connotation for some people or place, sometimes a flurry of fatherliness, before doom, or inviting and invoking blessing.

When the central phase, specialising in these two prophets as illustration,  is complete, we are then enabled to consider the prelude to our current Age, in those days where Israel (the Northern kingdom, then separate from Judah) became subject to exquisite divine dealings, with astonishing power, considerable perseverance, expenditure of patience and numerous calls and appeals, translated into the history of that kingdom and its eventual decline to ruin. After this, we seek to consider the MEANING of divine intervention in this world's history, and of the forbearance of God from so doing, at other times, in the scope of history.

I

FROM FIRST THINGS, TO ISRAEL AND JUDAH,

 and the days of the

TWO PROPHETS, ELIJAH AND ELISHA

How discrete has been the way of the Lord in the dealings with His creation, neither to annul its reality by governing it like a child, nor to evacuate it of the testimony of His power and will, like a drunkard trying to find his way home in the dark! ^*1

The Lord in His creation made the preliminary movement to institute history with our kind of time. When man became intensively wicked, the flood was a further intervention. Abraham was selected as a standard bearer, and through him came the race which would be the repository for the scriptures, the word of God to man, with all their precepts and predictions, their covenants and their orientation for man.

To the promised land went Abraham, and there the patriarchs eventually found themselves leading a considerable nation. Famine led them to Egypt where the considerable endeavours of the blessed Joseph, elevated to become in effect Prime Minister under Pharaoh, helped the people of Israel to have ceded to them a rich pasture land. Several hundred years passed, so that a new ruling set decided that the Jews should become slaves, being now so numerous as to constitute a real force. Moses, who had access to the court, was called to deliver them, and with direct confrontation with Pharaoh, did just that, the famous ten plagues partially destroying Egyptian society, as well as giving a delicious irony at the expense of the Egyptian gods! (See The Exodus Escape.)

The Exodus of Israel was one of the most amazing episodes in world history, leading to an equally famous failure of Israel to have the courage and faith to ENTER their promised land, even after such miracles as that. For 40 years they therefore walked in the desert, until God, who insists on FAITH in all dealings with man, allowed the next generation to go in with Joshua, in which there were some miracles of the first order, including the timely stopping of the Jordan for their national transit towards the assault on Jericho (for which see SMR pp. 1185ff.), the falling of the walls of that city at the time required as the army marched under divine direction through Joshua, this providing a vast triumph, and later the elongation of the day of their triumphant warfare (cf. Joshua Chs. 3, 6 and 10) by supernatural means.

Thus there were continued, but not grossly numerous, episodes of divine intrusion, especially at crucial phases of the assault.

In the days following, with Judges to rule, there were many failures to complete the conquest, many errors in religion, but again and again God raised up people with power to accomplish things to ameliorate the judgments which arrived according to covenant, for their remissness. Samson is one of the more famous, Gideon another. Each had a combination of strength or wisdom, and divine assistance on occasion, or in terms of particular spiritual gift, in Samson’s case, predicted, with the requirements for its operation divinely specified.

Eventually Samuel anointed a king who failed in faith and obedience, Saul, and then David, whose faith access to God was of the most intimate.

In David's day, the Lord on occasion intervened with wise counsel that led to victory (cf. II Samuel 5:23ff.) or led to deliverance (II Samuel 23). His presence was sought by David, more than water for life! Hence a cherishing intimacy was made manifest in ways that are deep and wise. Of this, much is seen in the Psalms, many of which are written by David in the various stages of his illustrious career, from shepherd boy to shepherd under God, to Israel itself!

Vast developments in organised worship came in the time of the godly King David who did not cease to seek the Lord with sensitivity and reality in these developments. However, as is so often found in the word of God, though this King was a wonderful example, he did not fail to fall ONCE with special  vigour for all that, a slip for which he paid in the coin in which he gave, but this amidst the mercies of the tender-hearted Lord, who does not willingly afflict His people, and is slow to anger. After his most blessed day, in which the Lord was sought and found freely,  many crucial developments came.

Solomon, his son, inherited the results of David's faithfulness, energy and devoted heart as King, his father having kept nearly all the time exceedingly close to the Lord. Wealth and power were his. Like many a rich son, however, while Solomon utilised the power his father gave, gradually he allowed inroads of self-indulgence or inappropriate majesty.

Hundreds of wives may have been a status symbol, but of what was it a symbol ? Certainly not of godliness (cf. Proverbs 5:15-20). In that they had false religions, he allowed personal satisfaction to eclipse spiritual purity, in this, and paid heavily - of course! (cf. the account in Barbs, Arrows and Balms 31). He built them places for their worship, and even made an altar to Chemosh (I Kings 11:5-7). In seeking to satisfy them, he was disloyal to the Lord! That is a good example of the need, in this by default, for Christians to marry or become business partners ONLY with those of like faith, since otherwise the Lord's work suffers, as does unity and purposeful alliance! (II Cor. 6:14).

These sins, amidst all the glory of his kingdom, and despite the great wisdom in practical affairs which he asked for and was given, led to opposition arising in the kingdom (I Kings 11:26ff.), one part of which led to an eventual rebuke from the Lord, who allowed Jeroboam who left the service of Solomon, to be prophetically given 10 of the 12 tribes, if they might seek the Lord and do right. When Rehoboam, son of Solomon, took power, his lack of wisdom and restraint, in such marked contrast to that of his grandfather David, led directly to a rebellion in which the prophecy of Ahijah the prophet, was fulfilled, and the 10 tribes left with Jeroboam as king. His lack of care is shown in his famous answer to request for a lightening of the taxes which Solomon had levied as the magnificence of the kingdom was built up. His doltish reply ? This: "My little finger shall be thicker than my father's waist" (I Kings 12:10).

Thus divided, the kingdom now lacked the great power it had gained, just as Britain did after World War I, and especially World War II, this kingdom alike having compromised increasingly with the word of God and true adherence to it, even in the Church of England (cf. A Question of Gifts VI, The Other News 13). Just as Britain is now increasingly merging with the thought patterns and ways of Europe (cf. Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming ...Ch. 3), so Israel then merged in spirit increasingly with the foolish ways of surrounding nations. It is not that they formally renounced the Lord, but that they frequently actually compromised His truth, multiplied worship to add other gods and ways, and became so accommodating to other nations' religious proclivities and indeed declivities, that they brought on the one hand weakness in battle, and on the other, pliable vagueness on the other.

Numbers of excellent kings came, some outstanding, but the drift was all too apparent over time. Right at the start of the Northern Kingdom, there was a deliberate and impactive miracle, showing the end from the beginning (cf. Isaiah 46:10), one of God's unique prerogatives (and there are many more!).

A prophet was sent to stretch out his hand, prophesy against the new idolatrous altar built in Samaria, the northern capital, so that ashes would pour out. He was also to announce the coming in due time, of a king, whose name was even given, JOSIAH (II Kings 23), of the house of David, who would burn on this altar men's bones, sacrificing priests in their falsity, upon it (cf. Deuteronomy 18). This announcement the prophet duly made, and of course, this deed Josiah in his time, duly executed, for the word of the Lord is ALWAYS done (cf. II Kings 23:15-20). The sign to the listeners in Samaria, who heard his announcement, was that the altar would split apart and ashes pour out; and this happened.

It was thus a spectacular and an historic announcement of the eventual end of this pagan outrage in the newly appointed site for reformation! Instructed NOT to stay or share with those to whom he would make this announcement, and provide this display of divine intention and power, the prophet refused all refreshment and set out to return to his place, his work done.

However, another religious person hearing of it, went to meet him as he was returning, pretending that an angel had instructed him to invite him to take refreshment with him. Foolishly, the prophet allowed this talk of angels to lead him astray, did as he had explicitly been warned not to do, himself attesting it earlier, and was eaten by a lion.

In this way, God was making it expressly clear that

1) idolatry is intolerable, especially if possible the more, if it is MIXED with His own worship, as if a man could be a bigamist!
 

2) when you deal with it, take heed not to MIX WITH IT AT ALL. Jude  17-23 is extremely clear on this point similarly. You cannot work WITHIN a church which has openly flouted the commandments of God! The fact that this is now becoming quite a highway to many, among neo-evangelicals and other bodies, this very thing, is one testimony of the eclipse of the times, as if the sun had grown dark before the storm, and it is no minor one to come! (I Thessalonians 5:3).

Eventually Israel, the Northern Kingdom, fell. It was this that which had gone with Jeroboam, the ten tribes minus Jerusalem and the temple, which FORMALLY DID have their own manifest reliance on fraudulent religion, even being equipped with golden calves for worship, in a way rebelliously and impudently reminiscent of the religion of Egypt from which they had been delivered when God Himself, the living God, had rescued them from literal slavery in that land. For all that, they would not infrequently call on the Lord in trouble, and their baneful influence had often touched Judah in the South.

Before however this calamity befell the North, as a formal unit in the Lord, as a kingdom, to be exterminated (some of course would go later to Judah to continue their Jewish inheritance), God sent two amazing prophets. It is not to be thought that He did not send many prophets; but it is on these two, for the moment, that we wish to dwell, for they exemplify some important aspects of divine intervention in the history of this world.

It is apparent that if He obviously and directly (as in the case of Christ, in the feeding of the 5000 miraculously, which led to a desire to make him a political king, which He did not desire, for His kingdom is not of the type of this world - John 6), were to to perform routine miracles, then many would be impelled to follow Him merely for His power. If on the other hand, He hardly ever intervened at all, in any obvious fashion, then some might be inclined to favour the other line of 'criticism' and pretend He did not care or even could not act.

In fact, God acts in multiplied ways in answers to the prayers of His saints, often most dramatically as this writer can empirically attest, but as to the most publicly manifest ways, He acts at times with enormous manifestations of His will, but at others, He does not so 'perform', just as Christ did not perform for Herod, who for the mere sense of the spectacular, vainly sought from Him that He should do miracles. The wickedness of that king showed the insincerity of his religious excursions, and God is not mocked. Christ was silent there (cf. Luke 23:6ff.).

Let us, however, return to the particular case of the spiritually and indeed militarily declining Kingdom of Israel, in the North, and her 'sister' to the South. The follies in Judah were somewhat slower in developing, as they had the Temple with its crucial patterns of what God was planning to do, and did at the date prescribed (Highway of Holiness Ch. 4), in the way defined in the Messiah,  and with the data supplied beforehand, incorporated now into actual history and with some little clumsiness from Rome in its day, providing our major date structure of A.D., 'in the year of the Lord'.

As is apparent from the Bible, when Elijah and Elisha came, there was a mighty explosion of divine power, to a level rarely seen at least in such a sustained way over years of involvement with His people, indeed such that one is forced to recall the days of the Exodus for parallel! This manifestation in such detail and clarity of the divine will, through these two prophets, served as an antecedent to the declines coming, from which eventually the notable and in some ways notorious history of the Jews has sprung.

As to that, if you look at the Middle Ages and beyond, right up to the days of Hitler, Europe in particular has not seemed especially superior in many ways, being like the school bully in its ceaseless depredations, persecutions and assaults on Jewry, the thing merely summitting in Hitler, until for many, one has had to wonder how human beings could, over the centuries, have remained worthy even of that name, with such sustained practices of gross and revolting evil so much practised. But to all this there was a hinterland, climaxing, on the other side, in the crucifixion by national authority, of Christ Himself.

These things did not come in a moment, but their trend had been set centuries before. In that day, they culminated, after many further episodes for Judah, but far more quickly for Israel of the North, in such a hissing, such contempt, in their first dispersion (Judah) in the 6th century B.C., and in their far greater one following the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome in A.D. 70,  that the story of the Jew is surely one of the most gripping, just as it is one of the most severely predicted, to amazing depth and detail (cf. SMR Ch. 9, Galloping Events, The Biblical Workman et al. ).

For the Gentile world of today, similarly, there is such an outpouring of fulfilments of prophecy, made millenia ago (cf. Matthew 24, Luke 21, SMR Ch. 8, Answers to Questions Ch. 5), that it is like having the word of the Lord through Elijah and Elisha,  not in a letter, as came once from Elijah to a wicked king (II Chronicles 21:12ff.), but in the Bible itself, kept for so long, that being unleashed in all these data now, as was the word of God in the days of those two prophets, it is a stark warning as well as a heart-warming manifestation of mercy to the people of the Lord. This, it is now. But let us return to the illustrations from the past, the better to comprehend the ways of the present in setting and significance.

This parallel from ancient times shows one of the vast purposes of God in the Jewish preliminary to the dispersal of the world-wide Gospel among Jew and Gentile alike. We must at that, remember, how often in the Old Testament it has spoken most clearly of this day, then to come (cf. Isaiah 42:6, 49:6, Psalm 2, Jeremiah 16:19-20, Isaiah 66).

What then must be said of this ? Israel is a TEACHING NATION for non-Israel (cf. I Corinthians 10). What happened there, is a lesson for the present. As such, it is in its parallel testimony to the clear, coherent enterprise of God Almighty towards man, in this, that He not only predicted what has come to pass, for both the Jew and the Gentile (cf. SMR 8-9), but He has exhibited the Jew both as ground of testimony and appeal to the Gentile (I Corinthians 10, Romans 10-11), first because His words have indeed taken hold there, as they will with the Gentile, and secondly that His words should be heeded.

But what has 'should' got to do with Christian Apologetics here ? This: that the love of God which has been stressed repeatedly on this site, in Biblical terms (cf. The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 4, directly, Ch. 8 indirectly, and Spiritual Refreshings ... Chs. 9, 10, 11, 12, 15), is here exhibited yet once more in practical terms, all being consistent, persistent, like the knocking on the door of one who is debarred, but who, for all that, carries the one antibiotic which could cure the rebel within.

• He speaks IN PRINCIPLES, He speaks in PROPHECIES, being most diligent to ensure that without exception they are PRECISELY fulfilled, and protesting to hard-hearted man this fact as a ground for turning to Him (Isaiah 41:21ff.,. 43:8ff., 48:3ff.) and He speaks through people, until Christ and unto the apostles and their entourage, inscripturating His will, so that in one place, one book, one volume, what is His will, what are His dealings with man, what are His intentions, what is His mercy and where it may be found, are all clearly, consecutively and essentially presented.

 

• Thus also He speaks in ONE PERSON, as in one book, and the two mutually attest each other (cf. Isaiah 52-53, Matthew 5:17-20). Of this, see SMR Ch. 9 at the outset.

When He speaks, He does not remove the natural order. The laboratory for life, the testing ground for man, is not voided by interference. He does however, like a Father visiting his son's school, make His presence felt, his wishes known and His eye apparent! Miracles are such because they are NOT the way the natural order proceeds; and because, secondly, they ARE the way the Lord chooses to proceed, at His own will and discretion, keeping the testing ground stable, but not allowing any thought that it is sovereign, rather than a stage setting for all that!

Let us now consider our two chosen prophets for special attention at this time, Elijah and Elisha.
About this time, at the outset, Judah had a fine and remarkable King, Jehoshaphat, who had a weakness in allying himself with the Northern Kingdom, at a very zenith of wickedness morally, religiously and regally. He even married into it, yes into a family whose religious adventuring included the daughter of the king of Sidon, Jezebel, fully equipped with zeal for her idolatrous religion, a queen famous in the chronicles of unremitting evil. Was she not a type for Lady Macbeth, this as if Ahab needed anything more to make him yet more obtrusively foul.

We shall now follow some of the developments of the scene, scenario and spiritual movement.
 

A. ELIJAH - "The LORD is GOD"! - I Kings 17.

That is the meaning of his name, just as one of the basics of the Gospel is this, that the LORD (Jesus Christ) is GOD (John 8:58, Philippians 2). It is always the same, the LORD having now come to earth not only in revelation of word, but to make manifest His very life (I John 1:1-4). Let us however resume with Elijah's great work.

Ahab was confronted by the prophet Elijah who advised him that rain would cease until he, Elijah said so, this being the word of the Lord to the sinning King of Israel. After years, and much impoverishment of the nation, years during which Ahab unremittingly sought to find the prophet Elijah, for no good purpose, and failed to do so (I Kings 17), Elijah appeared to the King. YOU troubler of Israel! ranted the King, on seeing him. YOU are the one who through your sins, and those of your fathers, have troubled Israel, retorted Elijah. Quickly to the point, he sought and obtained an engagement with the false prophets on Mt. CARMEL.

The thing was to be put to a simple test. After all, was not the Kingdom of Israel at last ostensibly committed to the Lord ? Was there not a recognised law in Deuteronomy 18, allowing for the slaying of false prophets misleading the people, as these of Jezebel undoubtedly were ? Was not God the One who had brought the Jewish people out of Egypt ? Was not Israel of that day the direct descendant of those who came out ? Was God changed ? Could not He who acted then, act now ? Was it not a national emergency ?

Was not Israel descending to the point even of conforming to the evil practice of such false religions, even having child sacrifice, putting children in the fire before the idols ? (specifically forbidden, Deuteronomy 18:9 cf. II Kings 17:17, 16:3, Psalm 106:37). What more could be
asked ? The case required action, and if there was any who would in the name of the Lord act and speak, now was the time. Of course, for that, commission is required, and Elijah had it. Indeed, if he did NOT have it, then HE would be one of those falsely speaking in the name of the Lord, and would deserve death (Deuteronomy 18:20).

The case was clamant, the conflict inevitable, and faith rose to meet it. Elijah delivered the challenge. To Mt Carmel then, and let us see which 'god' will bring fire from heaven, so that man need not light the fire to burn the sacrificed animal ? That god would be God indeed.

The case is famous, was public, notorious. 400 of Jezebel's religious dervishes ranted away at a Baal, or lord of their religion, who was not there, and he accomplished all that nothing can. He neither heard nor concerned himself, as is the nature of nothing. "But there was no voice; no one answered. Then they leaped about the altar which they had made." Elijah drifts around about noon of that day, and ironically questions them: "Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened."

At light grew dim, Elijah came, asked for much water to be poured in trenches about the sacrifices, a good experimental safeguard, and then asking God to bring repentance to the people, sought the fire which of course came, just as the plagues of the Exodus had come, and then the false prophets were killed, right under the eye of the King! Elijah of course then had to have the rain resume, which was a labour and a test in itself, but it came after a waiting on God, and a number of sendings of his servant to look for the tell-tale small black cloud. Indeed, it came in torrents, and Elijah had reason to move with some speed down the mountain, and not to avoid getting wet!

Here then, we have seen DEATH to 400 prophets by Deuteronomy 18:20

The case: Elijah in the name of the Lord versus King Ahab, and Jezebel. The action, notoriously public, decisively dramatic, simple and clear, demonstrative and double-edged, fire and rain in that order!

 

B. CHALLENGE TO ELIJAH

after Mt. CARMEL, then, rain comes, Queen Jezebel raves SHE will bring a quick end to this detestable prophet who has caused the death of the priests of her vain religion.  Elijah flees from the murderess (from SIDON!) to Mt Sinai (otherwise called Mt Horeb), where he has an interview with the LORD, not found in tempest or fire or earthquake, but in the STILL SMALL VOICE. Here (I Kings 19), God directs Elijah on the scenario: he must anoint someone king of Syria (Hazael by name), something to be for confrontation with the erring Israel, anoint a new prophet as well, to serve as initial apprentice (Elisha), then to continue his own life's work, and Jehu, to become a new king of Israel (one at the first, equipped with reformatory zeal!).

The test for Elijah himself was his loneliness in his spiritual mission. I ONLY AM LEFT! he mourned to God, at Horeb. In fact, the Lord showed him, He still had 7000 who had not followed the idolatrous religious invasion, who had not bowed the knee to Baal. On reflection however, one cannot but consider how TINY a percentage that represented of those free from idolatry in the failing land at that time, of Israel, the North!

Small wonder that action in mercy would help people to consider. After all, if you son is on a skiff wandering while he croons of his lady love, or latest guru, down the Niagara River, even if you had often enough warned him, you might be inclined to try once more, if not in certainty that he would hear, yet in the tenderness of a vast concern! If your action were manifest and clear, then that would be a parallel to what in divine things, is called a miracle! In fact, sometimes people have heard literally thousands of times, nations been exhorted millions of times, and there is always the divine discretion, which knows what mercy would do, and what mere repetition will not. It is for His own wisdom, and He acts as He pleases, being longsuffering, merciful with intensity, loving with passion, but not at all susceptible to manipulation, or folly.
 

C.   AHAB's LAND GRAB
by social murder of NABOTH  - I Kings 21

This action of God in rebuking the evil and showing His power once again, was not met with repentance by Ahab, just as many will respond neither to power or tenderness, to things evident or things more subtle. Ahab wanted a particular piece of land, was denied by its owner, was in a royal pout about it, found his Lady Macbeth, Jezebel, willing to help her 'lord', and leaving it to her, he finds that she engineers the death of the land owner, by calling a public meeting ostensibly to praise him, securing false witnesses to intrude with condemnations while he is in focus, then causing him to be stoned for the imaginary offences.
 

and ELIJAH's PROPHECY
against the house of Ahab

I Kings 21:19-24
While Ahab is thus supported by his able but thoroughly evil wife, he moves to the plot of ground to gloat in his attainment of his desire. GOD MEANWHILE, telling Elijah, whom Ahab had already had cause enough to know quite well ... to go and meet him at that very time in that very place where he was, engaged in royal solace that murder had gained him his regal desire.

Have you found me, my enemy ? asked the aghast and annoyed king. Elijah started his answer with these words: "I have found you because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord" (I Kings 21:20). Elijah proceeded to tell Ahab that his entire royal house, his progeny, would be cut off, and where he was gloating over the blood of Naboth, the landowner, where dogs licked that blood, his own blood would also be licked by dogs. This was very thoroughly fulfilled, as of course true prophets' words had to be, in attestation of their infallible source (Deuteronomy 18:22). If it does not happen, the Lord did not speak it, and if that is so, then the prophet is false, misleading, speaking NOT in the name of the Lord, while ostensibly doing so; and for that, the penalty is death!

Before we look at the Lord's further intervention with Ahab and his family, let us look at the Kingdom of the South, the land of Judah as it was called, where lay Jerusalem and in which was the temple, filled the patterns of salvation (cf. Hebrews 7-10).
 

D. CHALLENGE TO JEHOSHAPHAT

married into the house of AHAB!

a) This fine king exhibited his one known great weakness, for false unity with the enemies of the Lord!

This, it is as common as dirt in our own generation amongst the churches (cf. News 121). It was so then also, with many. It had its results then; it will have its results now (Revelation 13 illustrates well!).

Illegally and immorally, then, King Jehoshaphat mixed life with Ahab first by marrying into his family, and then by helping him in battle against the king of Syria.

He was betrayed by Ahab, who put off his royal robes for the battle. Left alone as a special target, Jehoshaphat was nearly killed, and when surrounded, called on the name of the Lord, and escaped by the skin of his teeth. Ahab however, for all his subtlety and guile, was killed, starting the impact of the sanction against his house, for its extermination, already noted above. MICAIAH the prophet showed the true way most pointedly in this battle, predicting that Ahab would die in it!

In this, he spoke contrary to all the false prophets of Ahab. IF YOU COME BACK AT ALL, he said, THE LORD HAS NOT SPOKEN BY ME! This he said when confronted by Ahab who could have had him put to death. Truth, however, in the Lord, is not afraid to speak out. What, after all, as Isaiah 2:22 tells us, is man, whose breath is in his nostrils. If you have work for the Lord, in all truth and consistency, then do it! It is this which makes glory in the history of the church, for all the Judases. These are the weeds. There is still plenty of wheat.

Then we find that Jehoshaphat is challenged again.
 

b) He foolishly married into the house of Ahab, complete with Jezebel of Sidon! He was already rebuked for his alliance with Ahab, in the nearly deadly betrayal. Now he acted in unity with Joram, Ahab's son, king after sickness-slain Ahaziah. This is precisely the sort of evil which the Uniting Church and many others have followed, towards Rome and other bodies. It is forbidden in Romans 16:17, I Corinthians 5:11, 6:9, II Corinthians 6:14.

Thirsty animals dramatised the fact that the Lord was not with them, but Jehoshaphat again had the wisdom to seek a prophet of the Lord. Elisha was aghast, sought music in his horror, sought the Lord however, and  the answer came and they were delivered.

But Jehoshaphat was REBUKED by JEHU son of Hanani - II Chronicles 19:1-3. Not being a hypocrite, Jehoshaphat now put things to rights on all sides, being a zealous, capable and godly king, knowing how to arise when he fell, and trusting in the Lord. We shall return to his mighty victory after all these things, and this godly living, in II Chronicles 20, shortly. Here it is the REBUKE which is the divine intervention. GOD ACTED specifically by a person, no less in this Jehu, than the King Jehu, for a time. Rebuke can be sweet: it shows personal care, concern and opportunity; for who rebukes dirt for being dirt!
 

E. ELIJAH CONFRONTS                  

Ahab's son Ahaziah and helps deliver Jehoshaphat in a further false alliance: but rebuke is coming

 intercepting Ahaziah, in his efforts to apply to a Baal for help in his sickness, Elijah meets the messenger sent for this religious fraud. Death is divinely proclaimed for the sick King, as Elijah is sent to meet the messenger.

"Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that you send to enquire of Baal..."  The battle on the hill of Samaria ensures, groups of 50 men being sent to capture Elijah, resulting in their incineration until one captain has the wisdom to seek mercy. Ahaziah dies. II Kings 1.

This is yet a further divine intervention. When there are so few left, He uses what He will to ensure in His mercy that the realities are kept before the people. After all, not Twin Towers are here in question, but the entire NATION, which would come to entire destruction at the hands of Assyria, though Judah with a king who sought the Lord was at that time delivered, again by specific divine intervention, associated with a ringing word of challenge from the Lord (Isaiah 37). The result, again, was of the order of the Exodus, for it entirely ruined the invading Assyrian king's army (II Kings 18:17-19:37).

You might have thought that Jehoshaphat, seeing wicked Ahab's death, nearly finding his own in the betrayal in battle, and noting the arrow which being sent vaguely into the battle by an enemy soldier, amazingly hit and led to the death of King Ahab, while perceiving perhaps Elijah's meeting of sick Ahaziah, Ahab's son as he did, would take heed and cease his erroneous ways, his wrong alliances. But no! In almost the same words that he had used to Ahab, in consenting to fight WITH him against an enemy, he agreed to fight with his son, Joram (II Kings 3:7 cf. I Kings 22:4).

TEXT: Then Jehoshaphat the king of Judah returned safely to his house in Jerusalem. And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to King Jehoshaphat (II Chronicles 19:2-3),

'Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord?
Therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you.
Nevertheless good things are found in you,
in that you have removed the wooden images from the land,
and have prepared your heart to seek God.' "

See Isaiah 55:6-7.

As we shall see, Jehoshaphat, being a man of God, though slow to realise his error, DID DO SO, and changed radically, with tremendous results. The power, principles, precepts and presence of God DID avail for some! He IS interested in sheep and goats, and the finding of the former. Such is the transformative power of God, that some animals (in the figure) change their nature before judgment!
 

  NOW WE LOOK AT THE FRUITS of these ERRORS and EVILS

F. THE FAMILY FOCUS

JEHORAM, Jehoshaphat's son is a COMPLETE ROTTER.

Killing all his brothers, he pursued evil with both hands and received a letter from Elijah (II Chronicles 21:12ff.), and was told of his coming death from intestinal troubles. These duly developed and the death proceeded. It should be realised that this too was a divine intervention, making the future plain that the present should be the better interpreted, not in some outlandish way, but according to the always clear word of the Lord, whose commands were written and chronically being violated.

Like the case of Judas Iscariot, this murderous Jehoram ended with his bowels out, as if the "bowels of mercy" being forgotten, so the sin was exposed!

He died after a sickness of intense pain. So the judgment from the Lord through Elijah continued on the house of Ahab, for Jehoram, Jehoshaphat's son,  thus appears to have been a descendant of Jezebel! The marriage affinity and the walk affinity between Jehoshaphat and Ahab was leaving a strong black mark on the road of life! These frank histories are given, enabling some understanding of the ways in which the Lord may intervene, or stay His hand, as you see later in the case of Jeroboam II, the last stand of any kind before Israel was demolished (that is, the Northern Kingdom, at that time, so named).
 

 G. MORE FRUITS

AHAZIAH of JUDAH, corrupt Jehoram's son, Jehoshaphat's grandson, heeded evil advice and came to a dramatic, famous and pathetic death. This happened while he was helping JORAM of ISRAEL!

II Chronicles 22.  This was the notorious death of the two kings, Joram and Ahaziah. It leads as we shall see to the slaying of Ahab's 70 sons and Ahaziah's 40 brothers (II Kings 10). The whole house, near and far, of Ahab was being exterminated. The word of the Lord was having its effect, as always. Sometimes mercy, sometimes judgment is to be seen. Appeals in the prophets are numerous, as later at length seen inscripturated in Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel for example; and earlier in Micah, Amos, Hosea, Joel, Samuel and I Kings.

The review in I Kings 17, when the end for the North comes, is correlative to the divine action in word and deed, beforehand. It is all of one piece, showing the same principles, whether in action, or waiting, in rebuke by word, or by being far away, while the people ponder their paths, if perhaps they might seek Him (cf. Isaiah 32:14-17, 27:5, Hosea 5:15).
 

 H.   STILL MORE FRUITS FROM THOSE ROOTS

JEHU - THE WHIP AND THE WOE!

It was, as noted earlier, Jehu who was to be anointed king of Israel by prophecy, and this was done through Elisha (II Kings 9). In his great early zeal, it was this king who exterminated many of the Baal worshippers in his own not so pleasant way (II Kings 10), but himself went from moral reformer to religious idolater, moving from Baal to the old calves of Jeroboam in Samaria, where Jeroboam has erred, after being given the 10 tribes for a new nation! Soon it was worse, and went earlier to its own doom.

Meanwhile, however, Jehu, in view of his many early reforms,  was promised a line of 4 kings in his dynasty, who came and went, and with their going, the days of Elijah and Elisha past, Israel greatly warned and Judah cautioned, we find the downhill run in Israel accelerating. Soon the falls themselves would be its lot, all heed being discarded.
 
 

I. THE GOOD THINGS

JEHOSHAPHAT's REVIVALS
II Kings 19:5ff., and
HIS AMAZING VICTORY II Kings 20

These things together with some of the other works of Elisha.

They are gripping, instructive and dramatic. From these events, lessons and principles clearly emerge, and this is one of the stated purposes of God providing His word (cf. II Timothy 3:16). Let us consider them, in their impact, in accord with the coherent and unchanging revelation of God, found in the Old as in the New Testament. This, it is what you would expect of one God with total wisdom, speaking to man, and as such always provides verification. The case, logically, could have been far different; but it is not so.

It is the same.
 

LESSONS:

1. Don't forward what is wicked (remember the judgment on the house of Ahab).

 

2. Don't help someone you love to do wrong, as if this helped (Jezebel for Ahab with Naboth).

 

3. Don't take on the LORD by being defiant against what you know He wants (Ahab with Elijah, Ahaziah with Elijah).

 

4. Being corrected, don't repeat the performance (Jehoshaphat both ways, in II Kings 3 foolishly, but also on the good side, in II Chronicles 20).

 

5. Always expect the new step (II Kings 3). God specialises in DELIVERANCE TO LIVING FAITH. HE LIVES!

NOT RAMPAGING, NOT REBELLING
BUT REVIVAL IS THE NEED

THE TRAGEDIES FROM FOLLY.

Now we need TO DO A LITTLE MORE ON Numbers G and H above,

namely, the dual death of two kings, Ahaziah, the son of wicked of Jehoram of Judah, murderer of his brothers, and Joram of Israel, son of Ahab, whose other son had died as Elijah decreed from the Lord, when sick. You will recall that before that death, Ahaziah of Israel had sought to capture Elijah, but lost 100 men in the attempt, and fire from heaven, as at the sacrifice on Mt Carmel, showed in this case, whether or not he was a man of God, as he said (II Kings 1).

After battling together (again! and again as forbidden), the kings of Judah and Israel, this time against Syria, Joram being wounded, they were recuperating when Jehu, freshly anointed through the offices of Elisha (II Kings 9), approached. As he did so, he took the messengers sent from the 2 kings with him, collecting them on the way, so that instead of giving information of his coming to the two doomed kings, the messengers themselves increased the advancing troop!

Jehu, famous for his furious driving, shot Joram fatally as he sought to escape. Ahaziah of Judah fled, but was found, despatched and died in Megiddo. So this tragic insistence on false religion, false ties and doing what they willed, came to a single end, from a single work from Jehu, who slew as we have seen, 70 more of Ahab's house as well as more of the king of Judah's relatives, the two lines being alike related through Jezebel and her children.

Then came Jehu's trickery, not pleasant to behold, but perhaps in itself a moral judgment on the trickery of those who SAID they worshipped the Lord, but added their own devious other religious commitments, sometimes more, sometimes less openly. Pretending to join with Baal worshippers, he thus gathered them in a meeting place and set fire to it, incinerating them. The law rules such an end to them (Deuteronomy 18), but the manner of it was as crooked as the cause of it!

You see something similar in Jacob who, being tricky with his father, was tricked repeatedly by Laban! God likes people to be STRAIGHT as an arrow (cf. Hosea 7:16, Isaiah 33:14ff., and note especially 33:17, the blessing). Jehu's errors were advanced as the promised line of 4 on the throne continued to its eventually inglorious end. Impetuosity is not enough; it is patient perseverance which provides care for the people (cf. Hebrews 6:12, Colossians 1:11).
 

 

THE BLESSINGS FROM FAITHFULNESS

Now we come by contrast to the REVIVAL OF LIFE under Jehoshaphat. As it is an important topic we shall look back on it, for review.

This was noted in E) above.

The case starts here with the rebuke (E above, note the text, II Chronicles 19:2-3), from the prophet Jehu, son of Hanani for that King's second failure, fashioning his ways in a DUAL RELIGION, as if he had never read the text Christ used in rebuking the devil (Matthew 4:10, from Deuteronomy 6:13, 10:20 with Exodus 20:3-6, part of the 10 commandments!). YOU ARE TO SERVE GOD ONLY! Mixing God with others is abominable morally, gross spiritually, condemned divinely, like adultery in the prophets (cf. Ezekiel 23, Hosea), and one of the shoddiest, most slippery pieces of impudence towards the burning fire of divine purity that could be devised! It contradicts from the 10 commandments early, from the Lord late (Exodus 20, Matthew 23).

Note how Jehoshaphat had TWICE agreed, once with Ahab, once with his son Joram, that he was as they were, and they would go and act together as a matter of course (I Kings 22:4, II Kings 3:7).
In this case, he did not adopt their religion, or sanction it, or approve it as Bush appeared to do of Islam in his notable talk in a Mosque as he sought Moslem support! However, by fighting with them, against an enemy, he made their lot and his to be assimilable, whereas the Lord makes an absolute difference. This in the end comes to indifference to the difference, and the source of it, the Lord, which is simply a gratuitous insult as well as a spiritual deadness.

If you do not KNOW the One whom you are talking about, what is your interest ? But if you DO, then you will not talk about Him as if another, or equatable in any way. There is NONE like the Lord (Psalm 89:6-8), and imagining that the name 'God' in some way removes this fact, is as close to wilful blindness as one could imagine!

Thus when Jehoshaphat made his SECOND error in the same way, it was all too clear, when the kings lacked water for the beasts, the food source (as in II Kings 3) for their joint armies, on their way to battle, that ONLY ONE PROPHET would do from ONLY ONE GOD, and that their ways could go together ONLY if they ALL worshipped and FOLLOWED HIM! who alone COULD provide, since He alone is THERE.

On this, note the parallel New Testament principle in II Corinthians 6:14:

• "DO NOT be unequally yoked together with unbelievers:
  shall light have communion with darkness ?"

Paul remonstrates! Elisha’s actions implied rebuke, in his dismissal of Joram’s presence (II Kings 3), just as Jehu, son of Hanani’s earlier rebuke had been most forceful (II Chronicles 19).

The King, Jehoshaphat wisely accepted this rebuke of the prophet Jehu, son of Hanani, and sought to educate Israel in the word of God, to forward justice and care of his people. After thus seeking the Lord, and observing that clean fear of the Lord, it was that the next test came, Therefore Jehoshaphat was altogether ready in the Lord, for the challenge this time. It became an historic, spiritual and for that matter, military triumph! It reminds one of Israel in 1967, returned according to the word and will of God (as in Ezekiel 36-37), now fulfilling Zechariah 12-14 in detail!

In this battle, note the stages, as seen in II Chronicles 20.

• When Jehoshaphat heard of that armies of several nations were invading his country, Judah, he was

·       a) afraid and

·       b) ready to seek the Lord, which he did!

In 20:6-12, you see that he presents a sound and carefully thought out prayer, covering the reasons for his request.

 

• He finishes with this wonderful statement of faith:

"O our God, will You not judge them ?
For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us:
nor do we know what to do,
but our eyes are upon You ?"

Jahaziel then prophesied to them, as the Spirit of God led him, and said:

 

 

"Do not be afraid no dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's."

 

With words which relate even to salvation itself, in this image, he declared:

 

"You will not need to fight in this battle.
Position yourselves,
stand still and see the salvation of the LORD
who is with you …" (20:17).

Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground.
He worshipped the Lord in faith.

His next words are also wonderful:

• "Believe in the LORD you God, and you shall be established,

 believe His prophets, and you shall prosper" - 20:20.

That is like 20/20 vision! You have faith, but according to His