Through the Desert of Edom

william butt

Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

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Introduction

If you have your Bibles please turn to

2 Kings 3:11–20 (NKJV)

But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of the Lord by him?”

So one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, “Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.”

And Jehoshaphat said, “The word of the Lord is with him.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.

Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother.”

But the king of Israel said to him, “No, for the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”

And Elisha said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you, nor see you. But now bring me a musician.”

Then it happened, when the musician played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him. And he said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Make this valley full of ditches.’ For thus says the Lord: ‘You shall not see wind, nor shall you see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, so that you, your cattle, and your animals may drink.’ And this is a simple matter in the sight of the Lord; He will also deliver the Moabites into your hand. Also you shall attack every fortified city and every choice city, and shall cut down every good tree, and stop up every spring of water, and ruin every good piece of land with stones.”

Now it happened in the morning, when the grain offering was offered, that suddenly water came by way of Edom, and the land was filled with water.

As we move into a new year, a new year of 2024. Tons of people will make new year’s resolutions. Honestly, I love New Year’s resolutions, I always set a few myself. There is nothing wrong at all with setting goals and trying to better youself in some way. We should applaud people that take steps to better themselves, if you fail your resolution pick yourself up and keep going. However this morning I want to present to you an extra step. All of us go through the desert. We all have battles that we must face, some with demons, addictions, finances, ourselves. There is one thing that New Year’s resolutions are missing and that is the Lord. Victory is always achieved through the Lord. As we look at these verses, the King of Moab decided to revolt against the King of Israel. Moab had to pay tribute to Israel and Moab was done with that. So Israel and Judah. There was one problem though, as they were in the desert they didn’t have enough water. Now you don’t have to be expert to understand that having water in the desert is a pretty important thing. We are going to look at three lessons from these verses

The Old Ways

We’ve got some work to do

Victory is the Lord’s

The Old Ways

2 Kings 3:11–14 (NKJV)

But Jehoshaphat said, “Is there no prophet of the Lord here, that we may inquire of the Lord by him?”

So one of the servants of the king of Israel answered and said, “Elisha the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.”

And Jehoshaphat said, “The word of the Lord is with him.” So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him.

Then Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother.”

But the king of Israel said to him, “No, for the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab.”

And Elisha said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not look at you, nor see you.

We have to understand a couple of things. First Jehoshaphat was someone that was devoted to the Lord. Joram, the king of Israel however was a follower of Baal.

Now the armies were in serious trouble beause Joram wanted to go through the desert and Jehoshaphat’s first move is to call upon the prophet of the Lord. In those days, prophets always went with the army. Elisha was a great prophet of the Lord. Now Elisha looks to Joram, the King of Israel, and tells him to go to his prophets. Those would be the prophets of Baalm. In fact the only reason Elisha is there is because of Jehosphaphat. Imagine saying that to the King.

Joram has an important decision in front of him. What was working for him, isn’t working very well anymore. Moab is moving against him. It was his idea to go through the desert route and now here they are on the verge of defeat before the battle even begins. His only hope is the Lord and Elisha has only agreed because of Jehosphaphat. But here is the real lesson, the Lord is going to help anyway. The Lord is going to show Joram what a real God is and not a false idol. This is what we need to learn, whatever it was that we trying to do before, is never going to work in comparison to what the Lord can do. This is what we need to understand we can call upon the creator of the world when we need help. We can pray, we can plead, we can go to the Lord. It isn’t even being about a perfect Christian, it is just about realizing that we are in the desert without water.

We’ve got some work to do.

2 Kings 3:15–19 (NKJV)

But now bring me a musician.”

The first step that we always need to take is listening to the Lord. Here Elisha says to give him a musician , put yourself in his positions. There are armies, there are animals, kings. Basically there is a lot of distractions around him. Elisha needs to elinimate the distractions. We need to work on doing the same thing. We live in a world of distractions. From the time we wake up until the time we go to bed we can be surrounded by nothing but distractions. We must make our time with the Lord a priority in our lives. It must be a time every day that we spend in prayer, that we spend in reading the scriptures. Many times we want God to act and yet do not give Him the time of day that we give other things.

The next part is that God isn't a genie. We don't get three wishes and then just sit and wait. We ourselves must have investment in our faith. God does the heavy lifting but we must have some skin in the game. So God tells them to dig the ditches. We've got to do that sometimes, we’ve got to dig some ditches and then watch what God does. Being a Christian isn't meant to be easy. It is meant to help us grow towards Christ. Paul tells us in

Philippians 2:12–13 NKJV

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

It is meant to help us become the person that God wants us to be. Well we can't do that if we aren't willing to put in the work to do that. The victory is God's but we've got to listen and follow His commands.

Victory is the Lord's

2 Kings 3:20 (NKJV)

Now it happened in the morning, when the grain offering was offered, that suddenly water came by way of Edom, and the land was filled with water.

At the end of the day the victory always goes to the Lord. It is God who filled those ditches with water and delivered Moab. It was God who opened that tomb and raised Jesus on the third day. It is God who will prove the victor when New Jerusalem comes down from Heaven.

Our salvation is all due to God. We need to make sure that we recongize that. That it isn't our power but His power that leads to eternity.

Conclusion:

As we start the new year, and we look at our lives, let's look to the Lord. Let us look to the Lord for guidance in our lives and make sure we are listening.