Asking God for Big Things

Welcome to our Women's Bible Study on 1st and 2nd Kings, entitled Learning from Leaders. And today we're going to cover 2nd Kings chapters 1 through 5, learning mostly from the prophet Elijah, and also a little bit from the king Jehoshaphat. And so we're beginning today the book of 2nd Kings in this series. And I think these three lessons are the most challenging lessons of this entire series for a couple reasons. First of all, I gave us a really quick pace, five chapters for this week and for next week, but you're doing a good job. Second of all, they are some really complicated stories, some confusing narratives. So I feel like I want to say what I said to my kids when my kids were at home. I want to say to you, listen, here's what I said to my kids. If you will do a really good job cleaning up your rooms, we'll go do something fun. We'll have a good day. And I want to say to you, if you'll stick with it through these next three challenging weeks, we're going to do something fun because the last two lessons are amazing. Hezekiah and Josiah are coming up. They're fantastic. And I want to promise you, this is like the Dairy Queen, our next series will be Esther. And that will be our reward for persevering through this. So Esther is up next. So let's take a look here at the kings that we have for this week. The kings of Judah, Jehoshaphat, and then his son, Jehoram. We already, Ahab has passed from the scene, so we have his two sons, Ahaziah and Jehoram. Also sometimes the EH is in there and sometimes it's not. So sometimes Jehoram is Joram. It gets confusing. And then I've told you in your study guide, sometimes you go to Chronicles and there's just a different name for the king, but we'll try our hardest to sort it through. But really, regardless of those kings, our focus is on Elisha. He's not even a king. He's the prophet. But before we get to Elisha, we got to deal with Elijah just a little bit more. So second Kings chapter one, verse one starts this way.

Now take that phrase and just put it up on your shelf because we don't need it until chapter three. Okay. Now, Ahaziah, who is Ahab's son, he's the king of Israel now. He fell through the lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria and he lay sick. So he sent messengers telling them, go inquire of Beelzebub, which might be pronounced Beelzebub, Beelzebub, the God of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this sickness. So the king of Israel is telling his messengers to go inquire of a demon God that's in the Philistine territory. He's one of the Balaam, one of the Baals. That's what's going on. But God had other plans, verse three.

And this message was relayed from those messengers back to the king and the king figured out right away, I'm sure it was Elijah that ran into you and told you this. And so the king sent a group of 50 soldiers with a captain and went out to talk to Elijah. And twice the king sent these 50 soldiers to bring him back to Samaria. Twice Elijah said to that group, if I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50. And twice, that is exactly what happened. And isn't that interesting because we learned that Baal was this demon god depicted by holding a lightning bolt. Lightning brings fire, if you will, from heaven down to earth. But here it is Elijah, the prophet of Yahweh, that does exactly that. So the third group of soldiers comes and they just plead with him, please, please, please, please. We see what happened to the other two. Would you have mercy on us? And so he did and Elijah went with them to the king and delivered the message in person and Ahaziah died just as they said that he would. So we have this strange repetition in this prophecy that makes us wonder some things because the writer made a pretty big deal out of this. And so it makes us wonder for one thing, if there's a parallel that we are to see and understand between Ahaziah, the representative of Israel, the king of Israel at this point, who had a fall from which he will not recover. And Elijah told him three times or he was told, relayed three times, you will not recover. And we wonder, is there a parallel there between the entire nation that he represents who has taken a fall from their god from worshiping Yahweh? And we wonder if there's not a message, this is made for certain. You will not recover from this. You will be taken into captivity. That doesn't mean God's throwing them away. It just means this is set for sure that you will be taken away from this land. We wonder about that. But Elijah has been such an important part of God's plan here. So the next chapter is very important because the prophetic mantle goes from Elijah to Elisha. And we want to see how that happens. So we're in chapter two.

And on each of these three journeys that we read about, each time Elijah tells Elisha, stay back. Don't follow me. And each of the times, it reminds me of Naomi saying to Orpah and Ruth, go back. Don't follow me. And each of the three times, Elisha says to Elijah, I am going to follow you. I will not leave you. Similar to what Ruth said to Naomi, right? That's just what it reminds me of. So they went down to Bethel.

Direct communicator. Journey two to Jericho. Elijah said to him, Elisha, please stay here for the Lord has sent me to Jericho. And Elisha follows and the prophets asked the same question and he tells them to keep quiet again. And so we're wondering what's going on. What is going on with everybody telling him? Do you know? Well, I don't, we don't know. We're not told what's going on. And I speculate these journeys are all to the schools of the prophets, that these three journeys and we wonder if Elijah is going to tell them, every group, the Lord's taking me. We wonder if Elijah's maybe even imparting part of his ministry to them and he talks to them and they come out to Elisha, did you know about this? Maybe. And he goes, yes, I know. Just let's not talk about it. I don't know. Journey number three to the Jordan, Elijah said to him, please stay here for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan and Elisha follows. But this time the prophets merely watch from the banks. And what I want to do here is now I want to start building a chart for us for this week. I want to build a chart that's going to begin with three simple lessons that we learn from Elisha. And this is all going to be application stuff for us, which I love this. So here's the first one. Lesson from Elisha is perseverance. And this is the lesson that we learn. Why did Elijah repeatedly tell Elisha to stay back? Don't follow me. You know, he seemed almost to be pushing him away. That's the way I would, I would get a little, not feel so good about that, but we're not told why Elijah was telling him to stay back. But what we're told, Elisha had perseverance. He would not leave Elijah's side. He would not leave where the spirit of the Lord was. And so we see the perseverance in him from the very beginning of their ministry transfer. Elijah didn't ever seem to coddle Elisha. He didn't ever seem to say, oh, you have so much potential. Come on, if you really, you know, he didn't, there was none of that. But from the very beginning, Elisha established a pattern of coming alongside, staying with him, not leaving. Maybe he sensed from the beginning that this was his future, that God was actually going to transfer this important prophetic ministry to him. But what I want to do is just for a moment, I've put the verse on the screen so you don't have to. to look it up, but we never really handled this when we went through this chapter, but 1 Kings 19, 19, I've summarized what that initial contact looked like. Elijah found Elisha who was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen, and Elijah passed by him and he cast his cloak upon him, and that's a very strange way to communicate something. You just walk up to somebody you've never met and you just throw your jacket over him, but that's the way it was, and Elisha left the oxen, he quit farming, he ran after Elijah, he took those oxen, he sacrificed them as if to say, I am done, I'm closing the door on this season of my life, and then he arose and he went after Elijah and he assisted him. Now, this happened a long time ago, and I wonder how many other hurdles there were in their relationship for Elisha from that time until now, because what we just read about was a bunch of barriers, like Elijah was putting up, stay back. I'm sure there was all kinds of barriers that required perseverance for Elisha. And have we ever found this to be true in our own lives as well? We start on a certain track and there is hurdles and there is barriers that require perseverance, perhaps even loyalty sometimes, to fulfill the ministry for which God has called us. When God gives us something to do, I'll call it a calling, okay? It very often requires from us a season of testing where the Lord is saying, you gonna stick with it? Are you gonna stick with it? Are you gonna jump over the hurdles? Because there's gonna be lots of them, there's gonna be a lot of barriers. And so we don't wanna make the mistake of viewing these barriers and these hurdles as a sign that God is redirecting us, but yet it's just like a track, running hurdles in our own lane. It's like, oh, here, I'm running in my lane, there's a hurdle, I gotta jump over it. It is not a sign that I'm supposed to turn back and do something else. That's what I see in Elisha. He leapt over the hurdles. Perseverance, okay, verse eight.

And so I wanna put up the next lesson that we learn from Elisha, and that is the lesson of boldness. We don't have a lot of examples in the Bible of transfers of leadership. We do have Moses to Joshua, we have David to Solomon, but Elijah to Elisha is a transfer of leadership that I think has the most texture to it and depth. Elisha had to want it. He had to want it, and he did. And he asked for a double portion. And I think the lesson of boldness here is that it reminds me that it's okay to ask big things of God. It's okay. We can ask big things of God. In fact, I think he likes it when we ask big things of him. And so the question that we should ask is, am I bold with the Lord? Am I bold to ask for things? You know, this double portion question. So I don't think I've ever shared this before, but in many ways, I do, this story resonates with me because I feel like we were those kids in the early 80s that somehow, in some way, somebody just came and threw a cloak over and said, ministry. And we're like, okay. And we pretty much like burned everything and said, that's what we're gonna do. And you know, it's not an easy path. There's plenty barriers, plenty hurdles to go over. But about 20 years into that, I personally was at a pastor's wife's retreat and someone was teaching this passage. And I felt like the Lord just like turned my spirit kind of upside down. And I went up to the, during a response time, I said, Lord, I want a double portion. I don't even know what you have for me in ministry, but I want a double portion. And double portion, I don't think here means like twice as much as Elijah. I think it's like the firstborn. You know, in the Bible, how the firstborn got a double portion, it was like more than the other brothers got. I don't know. I don't even know what double portion means. But in that moment, 20 years ago, I asked the Lord, I said, I want a double portion. And you know, I think that pleases the Lord to when we ask big things and when we see, look, you threw the cloak over me. I didn't go buy a cloak, you did it. So now I need what it takes, you know, to do that. And when we ask those things of the Lord, I think it's good. But one thing we have to remember is it doesn't, I don't think we see the results the next Thursday. I think God's timetable is sometimes decades longer than our timetable is. And, but sometimes the Lord, you know, he'll help us to remember, what did we ask for? I have other things in my life. I have a lot of stories I haven't shared yet. We'll get to them, things that I've asked for. But anyway, the big question is, do we ask for big things? Because there's all kinds of transfers of leadership happening in our lives and in the world all the time. You have all kinds of transfers of leadership. From one generation in family life, from one generation, they raise their kids, and then it's up to that generation to raise their kids. That's a transfer of leadership that requires the boldness to ask of the Lord what is required. In church life and in ministry life, in 33 years, we've had all kinds of transfers of leadership in different ministries and that sort of thing. And it requires a boldness. So we should ask the Lord, am I the next generation to nurture? I need to ask the Lord. Like, I don't know, I'm just gonna tell you, go around asking for double portions. Like, just do it. Why not? It didn't cost you anything. Well, it might cost you something. Let me backpedal on that one. I'll guarantee you, it will cost you. But anyway, let's be bold with the Lord.

Verse 14,

And this brings us to our third lesson we learned from Elisha, and that is faith, okay? It seems apparent, it seemed apparent to him in the moment that the mantle from Elijah had completely transferred to Elisha, but how would he have known that unless he tested it by faith? He had to step out in faith and take that cloak and hit the water and part it to see, and so we need that test of faith. We need to step out and say, okay, I have persevered in following the Lord. I have been bold to ask that he would enable me to have what I need. Now's the time I gotta step out and try it, because otherwise you never know if you don't step out and try it. So the faith that enabled Elisha to move forward in this moment demonstrated now in the coming chapters God's hand of ministry in the lives of ordinary people, because God is still on this rescue mission that we've been talking about from the deception of demon gods. He wants to rescue people from deception, and so God is going to demonstrate that he's still around, he's still working on this by what he does in the lives of ordinary people. But in our lives, before we get to that, we need to find a way to exercise our faith as well. After the boldness, after the perseverance, there comes a time for us to exercise our faith and presume that God will do exactly what he said he will do. So as chapters one through five continue to unfold, now we see that Elisha's perseverance and his boldness and his faith is lavishly rewarded by the Lord, and he allowed Elisha to be part of God's demonstration that he was still around in Israel. And what I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna just verbally list eight of those demonstrations. I didn't even make a slide for it because I didn't want you all busy writing these down. You already studied them. I'm just gonna review what you studied this week. And so first in chapter two, right after this event, God, Elisha, demonstrated that the Lord could heal the water for an entire city, that had apparently somehow been. corrupted to cause death and miscarriage. And God demonstrated he could heal that. And then also in this last chapter, Elijah demonstrated that the Lord protects his word with that really strained incident with the gang of boys. And we're gonna leap over chapter three for a moment because I'm gonna end with that. But in chapter four, I'll just review this. Elijah demonstrated that God could provide financially for this destitute widow by miraculously supplying oil that she could sell to pay the debts her husband left and that she could live on. And Elisha demonstrated that God could provide an heir for a couple who had plenty of money but had no son. And so God allowed this barren woman to miraculously have a child. And then when that child died, Elisha demonstrated that God could breathe life into a place where there was death. That would be a good lesson. We should pause there and move on, but that's not what we're gonna do. Also, Elisha demonstrated that God could protect an entire school of prophets in their lunchroom by healing the stew that had death in the pot. And then Elisha demonstrated that God could multiply even the smallest of resources to feed a hundred prophets when he wanted to. And then finally in chapter five, you studied that Elisha demonstrated that God was willing to even heal a Gentile, someone outside of Israel, when we had the story of Naaman, who was a commander in the Syrian army. Now we didn't hear about the Syrian army in this whole week's lesson, but we know that God is using them in this story. They are an enemy. So Naaman is the leader of this and God heals him of leprosy. And that story has so many great facets. I thought that's where we were gonna settle today, but no, all of those are great Sunday school lessons and they are fantastic lessons to inspire us. But I feel like what the Lord wants us to do is go back to chapter three. And that is gonna be our final lap for this morning, is chapter three, how God demonstrates his help in the midst of a battle. So second Kings chapter three, verse one starts this way.

Now here comes the trouble. Verse seven, he sent word to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, the king of Moab has rebelled against me. Okay, that was the phrase I asked you to put up on your shelf because that's how this whole book started. Moab rebelled. And so that's what's going on. Why did Moab rebel and what's going on? Well, Ahab had been the king. He was a pretty big deal. He was a pretty big kid on the block. Moab was in subjection to him. Moab happened to have sheep. And so they brought tribute. The whole life of Ahab, they brought their sheep. Ahab dies. And now they're like, I think we'll just forget about this little thing that we've been doing. And so they stopped bringing their tribute. That's what it means to rebel. They no longer brought that. But Jehoram probably was sitting around saying, I sure miss those lamb chops at dinner. How come we don't have those anymore? And then he figured out they're not bringing them anymore. It's a problem. And he's like, well, we're gonna show them what's what. So he goes to get Jehoshaphat to help him. That's what's going on. Middle of verse seven, he says, will you go with me to battle against Moab? And he said, that's Jehoshaphat, I will go. I am as you are. My people is your people. My horses is your horses. Does that sound familiar? It's exactly what he said to Ahab in our last lesson. And then he said, you know, by which way shall we march? And Jehoram had it all figured out. And he said, by the way of the wilderness of Edom. Now you have to know this is the long way to get there. This is like going kind of around the block and sneaking in the back door. So it's gonna take longer than that. So verse nine, the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. They collected him as well along the way. And when they had made a circuitous march of seven days, there was no water for the army or for the animals that followed them. And then the king of Israel said, alas, the Lord has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab. And Jehoram does right there something that we do sometimes too. Jehoram looks at his circumstances and decided that God has planned this all along because he's out to get him. And he trapped him into this. And he's like, God brought us here. Yahweh brought us here to deliver us into the king of Moab. And he interpreted his circumstances as a sign of what he believed about God anyway and that it was his malevolent character. He believed that God was serious and fierce and just waiting to trap him. So he saw his circumstances to prove that. And sometimes the dark space in our heart does the same thing. Maybe it depends on if you have a naturally positive or negative personality, I don't know. But sometimes we get into circumstances and there's something inside us that just whispers to us, see, God brought you here to show you a lesson or to worse, you know, destroy you. But we have to remember that in life, the Bible even teaches us, Jesus even taught this, the storms come on the righteous and the unrighteous, okay? Things happen to everybody in life. In this moment, like, what would you expect if you take an army the long way through the desert, would you maybe expect you might run out of water? Probably, you know, if we procrastinate to put fuel in our tank and we take a trip and we end up, you know, stranded on the freeway running out of gas, it's like, well, what did you think was gonna happen? You don't wanna sit there on the side of the, I knew God's trying to teach me something. Well, he may be teaching you not to procrastinate, but it's not, he's not out to get us. Things just happen in life. But this is the way Jorm thinks about things. And so I wanna contrast this now with how Jehoshaphat thinks about the situation, okay? Verse 11, on the other hand, Jehoshaphat said, is there no prophet of the Lord here through whom we may inquire of the Lord? And then one of the king of Israel's servants answered, Elisha, the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah, reminding him that he was Elijah's protege. 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 so now on our chart, what I wanna do is I wanna add two more lessons now that we can learn from Jehoshaphat. So we really are learning from Elisha and from Jehoshaphat today, okay? So the first lesson from Jehoshaphat is seek the Lord. Seek the Lord, that's what's going on. Jehoshaphat was already known as someone who would seek God's guidance and seek God's help. We learned that about him last week in the battle that he was in with Ahab. Remember when Ahab said, I have a good idea. Why don't you dress up like me and we'll go out into battle? And Jehoshaphat said, yeah, sure, that sounds good to me. And then they're all after him and he cries out to the Lord. So we know that he was a man who sought the Lord's help. Also before that battle, when all the prophets of Asherah were saying, you guys are good, you're golden, you're gonna win. Jehoshaphat was the one that said, isn't there another prophet here that we can inquire of? So we know this about his character, but I also wanna show you what 2 Chronicles teaches us about his character too. And so you don't have to turn there, I'll put it on the screen. In 2 Chronicles 7, 3, that tells us the Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he walked in the earlier ways of his father, David. He did not seek the Baals, but he sought the God of his father. And what was his reward? It says in verse five, therefore the Lord established the kingdom in his hand because he was someone who sought the Lord. And so we see cause and effect here. And the same is true in our lives. And that's why I put this as inspiration from a leader, the inspiration for us to seek the Lord. There's nothing wrong for us to gain knowledge from what's going on around us. There's nothing wrong for us to gain knowledge by talking to people, even asking advice, but the best way to gather information is for us to seek the Lord. Seeking the Lord, the act of seeking the Lord, is what enabled the Lord to establish Jehoshaphat's kingdom. So is it fair for us to say that the act of seeking the Lord is what allows God to, enables God to establish our lives as well? I think it's fair. I'm going to give you another, a list of three scriptures that I really like that are related to this, and you might want to jot down just the references so you can add them to your notes, but Isaiah 55 6 says seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he was near. He is near. It's an invitation for us to do that. Psalm 105 4 again says seek the Lord in his strength, and it tells us how often should we do this? Seek the Lord continually. And then I like this last one because of the word established in it. That's what we were pointing out about Jehoshaphat. Proverbs 16 3, commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established. Okay, that's what we're after. We want the Lord to establish our lives, establish what we're doing. So simple inspiration for us. So back in our story, first Elisha looks at the king of Israel, and he says to him in verse 13, what have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother, meaning this is your family tradition, you're no different. You guys have been seeking help from the Balaam for years. Why don't you just go do that? And he continues in verse 14, as the Lord of hosts lives before whom I stand, were it not that I have regard for Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would neither look at you nor see you. And that sounds a little bit harsh, but you know what? Prophets use direct communication sometimes, do they not? But look, there's something here that I want to see, and I want us to think about what's going on in our lives, and I want to call this the sanctifying effect of Jehoshaphat in this moment. That's exactly what Elisha says. He's saying to Jehoram, you know what? I wouldn't even be talking to you if it wasn't for this guy over here who seeks the Lord. He's the reason I'm even helping. Okay, in a lot of situations in our lives, we are the sanctifying effect in whatever circle we're in. You might even have an unbelieving husband. You are the sanctifying effect in that marriage. You might work completely among non-believers. You are the Jehoshaphat. You are the sanctifying effect in that. Holidays come, and you're at a family reunion. There's gatherings. Every single one of us experiences this, you know, and you are the sanctifying effect. So there's a couple ways we can look at belonging to the Lord. We can look at it by thinking about whatever realm we're in and saying, I'm the only one. It's so hard to be the only Christian wherever. You know, I get it. That's how we think sometimes, but I wanted to draw this out because I want us to remember this, and I want us to be able to go into a situation and say and walk in, not prideful, but just say, I am the sanctifying effect in this situation. I am the one bringing the Spirit of God into this room, because you are. You are the one that sanctifies a group of people, sometimes enabling the Lord to work, and that's important for us to realize. But verse 15, Elisha says, Now bring me a musician, and when the musician played, the hand of the Lord came upon him. And this is our final point of inspiration here, is the power of worship. Elijah, I'm sorry, Elisha sought a musical worship environment in order to hear from God. And perhaps there's a lesson there for us to learn or to relearn in our lives, the power of associating music and worship with our battles, with our perplexities in life, with our complicated situations. And this isn't the only instance where music and worship were associated with a battle. There had been a previous battle that Jehoshaphat was involved with, with Moab, that is not recorded for us in 1 Kings. It's only given to us in Chronicles. You don't have to turn because I made the slides, but I want to take us through a little bit of that battle because it emphasizes even more what I am saying here about the power of worship. In this moment, Jehoshaphat had been completely overwhelmed as he saw his enemy, his battle. He called him a horde of Moab, and so he already had employed lesson number one that we learned from him, seek the Lord. He had already sought the Lord. So now I wanted to show you 2 Chronicles 20 verse 12. And by the way, just write chapter 2 Chronicles 20 in your notes because I think every one of you this weekend sometime will want to just go and read through that chapter for the Lord to speak to you on something that you see that he shows you there. But verse 12 says, we're powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. And we find out that all Judah stood with him, with their families, it says, with their little ones. And then the Spirit of God came upon one of the Levites who said, thus says the Lord, do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God's. So let's see what happens. Verse 18, then Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. Everybody, they're all worshiping the Lord. And the Levites of the Kohathites and the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice. And this was the appointed song, give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love endures forever. See, Jehoshaphat had been told God's in this, you're gonna be okay. And so they just begin praising him, give thanks to the Lord for his love endures forever. Verse 22, and when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. And in verse 30, so the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for his God gave him rest all around. All right, that's a great lesson. How does that translate into our lives? I think that once we establish the pattern of seeking God, this is the very next thing that the Lord might want to, might want us to resurrect in our lives. Maybe this has been put in the closet in your life. Maybe you have not truly like worship the Lord in your own private world alone for months, years. And so this is a good inspiration. No, no, no, this is a fantastic part of not only just fighting our battles, you know, sometimes don't you think we think of worship as this is our meditative, you know, process. And it's good, yes, that is a good thing. But these passages help us to associate the power of music, worship, and praise with our complicated life situations. With our hurdles and our barriers that we have in life. With those things that we don't even have the words to say to God, you know, maybe we want to tell him how to fix it, but we don't even tell him, we don't even know what to say to fix it, because it is so complicated. Or our grief, the complication of our grief, or when we just don't have anything left in the tank. So this is a lesson that I think we learn from our leader, Jehoshaphat, that we probably need to relearn in our lives and put into practice. So this morning, of course, since I had to teach this lesson, I'm up in my bonus room singing to the Lord. And so that was good. Back to our text in 1 Kings chapter 3 verse 16, Elisha said, Thus says the Lord, I will make this dry streambed full of pools. You shall not see wind or rain, but that streambed shall be filled with water, so that you shall drink, you and your livestock. You remember where we're at now again? We have this problem, they've been through the desert for seven days, there's no water. We've talked about a lot of things, so I have to bring us back to the problem. And then he says, This is a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will also give the Moabites into your hand. And so the next morning we find out that the the Moabites, they woke up, they looked over there, and they're like, Whoa, there is blood all over the place, because sun was shining on this water that mysteriously God had mysteriously caused to come from Edom. And they're like, What happened? I guess everybody fought against each other. All we have to do is go in and take their stuff. So they head in, and they go in to take their stuff, and then it says in verse 24, But when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose and struck the Moabites till they fled before them. And they went forward, striking the Moabites as they went. And now I would love to report that Israel had a great victory that day, but history is sometimes complicated and confusing. And the king of Moab wouldn't not back down or admit defeat. So we get to verse 27 and it says he took his oldest son who was to reign in his place and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall, which emboldened Moab to fight even harder because see they believed in that kind of sacrifice to their demon God. But it sort of horrified Israel and Judah and they just sort of retreated and the war just ended. Okay now there's a remarkable archaeological discovery called the Moabite stone. Don't you love when when archaeology confirms what we read in the Bible? And it contains a record of this very battle and it says that the Moabite king claimed to have been delivered from the Israelites by his God Chemosh, who is a God associated with child sacrifice. And so they, the Moabite king, claimed well since Israel retreated Chemosh allowed us to win the battle. And this is the type of deception that these demon gods bring into a culture. Now that's not what happened at all. It's like two players playing a chess game and one of the players gets up and just walks away. Did the other one win the battle? No the game just ended. It was just over. That's what really happened. But because of the deception and you know then then the king writes and says Chemosh allowed us, I sacrificed my son and so he allowed us to win a great victory. And I just, that is a terrible place to end a women's Bible study. But I wanted to mention that because that's the path that we're on through 1 Kings. This is why it was so important to the Lord to rescue his people from the deception of the Balaam, the deception of demon worship. This is why he's taking so much time and next week we get a partial rescue from that when we finally get the house of Baal destroyed. But it also reminds us something else that's difficult for people to understand and that is why did God continually say to all the patriarchs go into the promised land and wipe them out? This is why. It's because the stronghold of these demon gods and the deception of them pervert the entire thinking of human beings. And so it helps us to have a little better understanding of why they were not to get involved in the first place. But in order to end on a happy note, let's just, I want to verbally review the things that we have learned from Elisha and Jehoshaphat and that is perseverance. To live our lives with perseverance. God has given you a lane. There's hurdles in the lane. Jump over the hurdles. Don't jump out of the lane. Okay? And boldness. Are you bold to ask God for the things that you need to enable you to do things that you need? And I think one of the very best applications is that is sharing the gospel. That's just hard for most people, isn't it? So just go and ask the Lord. I want a double portion. I need a double portion. Because see, he has all the resources. We just do the asking. And then we have to operate by faith. We have to test by faith. Has God, look, when I asked God for a double portion, there came a day then that I had to start doing women's Bible studies. I had to start teaching. I had to test it and say, okay, I asked, so now I'll just see what happens. It wasn't all good, but God is good. And then from Jehoshaphat, seeking the Lord and the power of worship. Lord, we thank you for the lessons that we learn. Lord, I know that your Spirit is always working among us when we're in these passages and what you highlight for one woman is different for another. And that is the beauty of the Holy Spirit working in our lives. So I just pray, Lord God, that you would help us to take whatever you have spoken to us and take it out from here, Lord, and act upon it. We love you, Lord. We thank you for your word. And we're excited to gather again next week. In Jesus' name, amen.