2 Kings 3 Wonderful thought. Always having a forgiving God. For the believer. Because our forgiveness is based on what Christ did 2,000 years ago. Once you have that, then you can always have forgiveness. But the lost world doesn't have that. They have a hard time figuring that out. How many people have you talked to and said, what are you going to do when you die? Well, just before I die, I'm going to ask God to forgive me. And the thief on the cross did that. But you ask people, on what basis should God forgive you? And they look like a barn full of hoot owls. On what basis should God forgive you? There's only one basis that God can forgive you, and that's the blood sacrifice that Christ made 2,000 years ago. If you have that, you can have forgiveness. If you don't have that, you have no basis to ask for forgiveness. Anyway, 2 Kings 3. We all there? All right, let's pray. Father, it's good to be in your house this morning. It's good to be with one another. Thank you for the beautiful singing we've heard, the wonderful song, and the chance to sing praises and fellowship around your Word and with each other. Lord, it's good. Good to be gathered together. Lord, we're here to hear from heaven. Lord, we need to hear from heaven. You need to speak to your children. And we came here today expecting to hear from heaven. And again, Lord, all you've got to work with up here is this piece of dirt. And me and my flesh dwells no good thing. Without you, it can do nothing. I just pray, Lord, you take this clay vessel and fill it with your spirit and your power and your passion and your words and your wisdom. Put a watch by its mouth and a guard by its lips and give it grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. so that you might be able to communicate to your people what you desire them to hear. Whether it be reproof, rebuke, exhortation, whatever it may be. But Lord, your children need to hear. And so we sit at your feet. Thank you for being our Father. Thank you for forgiving. Thank you for blessing. Speak to us now, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. 2 Kings chapter 3, we'll start reading Oh around verse 6 Says in King Jehoram went out of Samaria the same time and numbered all Israel And he went and sent to Jehoshaphat the king of Judah Saying the king of Moab hath rebelled against me wilt thou go with me against Moab to battle he said I'll go up I am as thou art my people as thy people my horses as thy horses And he said which way shall we go up he answered the way through the wilderness of Edom So the king of Israel went 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 three kings together to deliver them unto the hand of Moab. But Jehoshaphat said, is there not here a prophet of the Lord that we may inquire of the Lord of him? And one of the king of Israel's servants answered that 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 father, the prophets of thy mother. And the king of Israel said unto them, 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. So what an honoring statement that Elisha gave to Jehoshaphat. Three kings standing there. Three guys standing there. the other two were worthy of absolutely no respect from God and yet Jehoshaphat was and Elijah basically said you know if Jehoshaphat weren't here I wouldn't even lift my eyes and look at you other two so the story up to this point is that Ahab dies and Ahab being again one of the worst of the kings of the north Jehoram begins to reign. His reign was somewhere around 852 to 841 BC. Misha, the king of Moab, is rebelling. Now, under David and under Solomon, the Moabites were held in check. They were a defeated enemy, and they were made to be in submission. They were vassal states, if you will, of the kingdom of Israel. And when Misha becomes the king, he says, we're not going to be under Israel anymore. Misha, as we'll look at in a minute, thought himself to be some god in himself. And so he is going to take over and cause a problem. There is an alliance here that we see between Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom. Now, the king of Edom was technically not a king. Under the vassal state, they had no true king, but they had what was considered deputies that represented the king. And so basically, he's called the king, but he's not really the king. They will not really have a king until Edom, the following generation, the following, the king after Jehoshaphat, his son, then Edom will rebel. And when Edom rebels, he says, we're gonna have our own king. But anyway, you've got an alliance between Jehoshaphat, the king of Edom, and Jehoram, the king of the north. And so they're going to get together and they're going to try to fix this problem. Seven days journey they have to make. It's about 100 miles from where they start to go around the Dead Sea through that terrain, but they could only travel about 15 miles a day. 15 miles a day. So it's going to take about seven days. Verse nine is one of those, there's a phrase in verse nine that has caused such a perplexing dilemma with many of the Bible critics that the King James Bible can't be right, it's gotta be wrong. Nobody uses the term fetched a compass. Nobody knows what that means. I had one guy tell me one time, he said, you know, they didn't even have compasses in those days. Like he's talking about a handheld compass with the 36 points on it. Fetched a compass. Difficult, difficult, hard to understand. Let's see, how can we understand fetched? Anybody have a dog? Okay, you take a stick or a ball, you throw it, and you say, fetch. And the dog runs and gets the ball or the stick, and he comes back and brings it to you. Unless it's my dog. My dog will bring it so far back, it's like, okay, I'm not dropping it. And then I just have to chase him around to get it. But normally, when you play fetch with a dog, you throw something, and the dog goes this way, gets it, and he comes back. Okay, fetch, going this way, and coming back. That's a tough word, but compass, compass. What could compass possibly mean? How many remember, and I said this this morning, I know some of you don't, but how many remember when you were kids and you were going to school and you were in during the year when they had that, I enjoyed it, the subject of geometry. How many remember geometry? I love geometry because I like to draw stuff and what have you. The angles of, the degree of angles never was a problem. And the teacher would say, you know, you're gonna need for this class this thing. It kind of looked like this. It had a real pointy thing on this end and you could stick your pencil in the other end of that. And you could put it on a spot and turn it and it would make a circle. How many remember what that was called? That was called a compass. And what did a compass do? It made circles. And what did the circle do? It compassed the dot in the middle. Fetching a compass. Fetching a compass, you're making a little trip this way and that way, but if it's a compass, you're circling around something. So the term fetching a compass is I'm gonna go, but I'm gonna have to make a circular route and come past the land that I'm going by and then eventually come back. Is that so hard to figure out? But there are people that have thrown away their King James Bibles because of phrases like fetched a compass. I dealt with a guy one time, he wrote up this whole, you know, these anti-King James people, they write up these big papers, you know, with all the problems. And that was one of them, you know. And he was the one that said, you know, they didn't even have compasses in those days, like the Boy Scouts have. And the fact of the matter is they did. They're an ancient artifact. You'll find little things that appear to be compasses. But that's not what he's talking about here. He's talking about they're making a trip. They're gonna have to come pass the Dead Sea as they fetch this other king. They're gonna come pass the Dead Sea, fetch the compass. All right, I like to take care of problems as we run across them in the scripture. But here's the problem. As they come past the Dead Sea and they're heading for where they need to go to take care of Misha, they expected to find water. In fact, the brook Zerid ran in that area, dumping into the Dead Sea and coming out of the mountains. it was it's also known today as the wadi al-hasi and that's what they call them in the Middle East wadis that means basically a valley with a river in it they were expecting to find water there because they had a bunch of troops that they were needed to have water and there were cattle so why would you take cattle to go to war what are you gonna eat You know, I mean, an army travels on its stomach and when there's cattle out there that are full of T-bones and rib-eyes and what have you, that's a good way to go. Anyway, the river was dry. Perennially, it had water in it, the snow would melt in the mountains and the snow would come down and fill that valley up and you'd have a river there. Every year is expected to be there. I remember one time we were in Safford, Arizona. In fact, the last trip we made from Ohio out here, we had stopped in Safford to visit a church, Pastor McDonald Pastors, and he wanted to take the kids on a hike, and so he took them up. There's this mountain right across from the church. And they went up on this hike, and they came back and said, Dad, you wouldn't believe it. I mean, there was snow on the mountain. This was March. Snow on the mountain at the peak at the time. And they said, you wouldn't believe it. We were going up this, climbing up this mountain, and all of a sudden, we start to see these little streams of water. And so we travel farther up. We're actually walking in what appeared to be a riverbed and get farther up and there's more water to the point where we had to get out of it because the water was getting kind of deep. And as we got near the top of it, it was like a whitewater rapids. And what was happening was the snow was melting and coming down that river, but it never made it to where anybody knew that there was a river up there. This particular river was not like that. This was a river where there was enough snow and what have you that perennially that river would have water in it. And they expected that. They expected to get water there. And as a result, they thought, we're going to die. We've traveled this far. Remember, about 100 miles. We're getting near that 100 mile point. We've traveled this far. And now we have no water. And we can't fight in a condition like this. And the King of Moab is going to kill us all. We're all going to die. In 2nd Kings 3, verse 11, look what Jehoshaphat did. It said, Jehoshaphat said, is there not here a prophet of the Lord that we may inquire of the Lord by him? And one of the king 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 father and the prophets of thy mother. The king of Israel said unto him, Nay, for the Lord hath called these three things 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. we've got four men that are mentioned here I mentioned Misha the king of the king of Moab and we do know some things about Misha not strictly from the scripture but in 1868 there was a Anglican missionary I guess you'd call him named Klein and he was doing some missionary work in that area Jordan would be the area, Dabun the city, where he discovered intact, he discovered a stone that had a bunch of writing on it, it was about yea tall, about this wide and had that arch at the top so it looked like a tablet, he finds that and And he lets people know that he had found that. And the Ottoman Empire was in control of that area at that time. And they said, well, we need to give that to Germany. I guess Germany would be the area of museum for that. And I'm sure they had financial gains they would get from it. and so that was the plan to sell this stone to the Germans and the nomads of the area got wind of that and they said you know what we're not giving that that's ours we're not giving it to Germany and the Ottoman Empire said you're going to give that to Germany and they said okay we'll show you and what they did was they took this stone And they set it in a hot fire. And that fire got that stone hot. And then they took cold water, and they threw on that stone, and it just disintegrated. They said, you want your stone? Pick up the pieces. There it is. It's amazing what heat and cool can do. I had a place in Florida that I always liked to stop at, LaBelle, Florida. And the pastor there was always very gracious to us. And he was a welder. by trade, and he had a shop way in the back. He had one of those round steel buildings that you make, you put it together, and that was his shop. And every time I was there, there was something wrong with the bus. And nothing as far as engine-wise, but I had an airbag that needed to be replaced, and we've done a couple airbags there. And so we had to back the bus up partway into the shop that he had. And I don't know if you're familiar with airbags on a bus. That's the suspension. They don't have a bunch of shock absorbers, what have you. Well, they do. But the main thing of suspension was the airbag. And to replace an airbag, there were two bolts at the top. And you put a wrench on that, and you do everything you can. You're not going to loosen those things up. Which is normal for a vehicle that's on the road quite a long time, and for a nut that's on a bolt for a while, it just kind of, you know, it's there. And couldn't get it off, and he said, here, I'll show you how to get it off. And he got his welding equipment out, and he starts heating the bolt. Okay, you heat the bolt up, I understand that. He said, no, no, no. He said, watch this. He heated the bowl up until it got red hot. Then he grabbed his garden hose, and he hit that bowl with the water from the garden hose. He said, put your wrench on it now. Put my wrench on it, and it was like, just like that. Because the difference between the heat and the cold will do that. Somehow, this nomadic tribe in the BC area knew that also. They knew the effect of heat and cold, and so they grabbed that stone. It's called the Moabite stone. they grabbed that Moabite stone and they heated it up and hit it with water it disintegrated and so what the government did was they took it and there was a particular guy that had put it all together And here's the important thing is before they destroyed it, that missionary that found it wanted to make a copy of what was on that stone. So he took stuff like paper mache and he covered the stone with this paper mache stuff, pushed it in there real good, let it dry, and when he pulled it off, he had the imprint of the lettering that was engraved into that stone. So they had that. and so using that and gathering the pieces that were all broken up they reassembled that thing when you had to add some stuff here and there but they reassembled it I believe it's in a museum in France today I'm not sure about that but and it's called the Moabite stone and you know what the Moabite stone talked about it talked about the Moabites And part of the history of the Moabites had to do with Mesha. And so there is a section of that Moabite stone that parallels what we just read in scripture in 2nd Kings chapter 3. Now Mesha's version was a little different because Mesha doesn't lose on the Moabite stone. So he really doesn't mention the results of this encounter. But he always he talked about himself as being the son of some great God or what-have-you and really build it up and So it's just interesting. We've got that in history in archaeology and again archaeology Backs up the scripture. We don't change the scripture because of something found in archaeology But when archaeology backs up the scripture, it's it's just good to have that. So anyway, I In fact, this battle even tells the story of the horrible, heathenistic treatment he did to his son down in verse 27. Don't even have to look there. But because the battle didn't go well, he sacrificed his son to try to please the God that he was supposedly the son of. He sacrificed his own son, nailed him to a wall, killed him. So we've got Misha, he's the bad guy. We've got Jehoram, the king of Israel. Not much different than his dad. His dad was Ahab. 2 Kings 3 and verse 2, it said, he put away the image of Baal that his father had made. So we've got a real problem in Israel. Ahab is a terrible, terrible, terrible idolater and practices all the pagan practices. And his son is in his stead. And not good. Then you have the king of Edom. Again, unnamed because he was most likely a deputy. 1 Kings 22, 47 says, there was then no king of Edom, a deputy was king. 2 Kings 8, 20 says, in this day, in his days, the days after Jehoshaphat, Edom revolted under the hand of Judah and a king, made a king for themselves, what they considered a real king. So you've got that. Then you've got Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah. Jehoshaphat was one of the greatest kings in the history of Israel. Jehoshaphat is such a good king that when Elijah meets him, he respects him. And again, he says, if it wasn't for Jehoshaphat being here, I wouldn't waste my time even looking at you other two. In fact, Elijah said to the king of the north when it began, you know, we need your help. And Elijah says, go to your daddy's prophets. Your mama's got, remember who his mama was? Jezebel. She's got her prophets. Go to them. Go to your daddy's prophets. Why are you coming to me? And he basically said, because we're going to lose this battle, and we need some real help. But because of Jehoshaphat, because of Jehoshaphat's reputation, Elijah recognized him. So I would like to preach a little bit this morning about what made Joshua, Jehoshaphat, I'm sorry, a respectable individual. What gave him such a good reputation? What was he like? So first of all, 2 Kings chapter 3 and verse 11, Joshua said is there not a prophet of the Lord that we may inquire of the Lord by him and somebody there said yeah there's Elijah who was a servant of Elijah for a while and Joshua said he's a good one let's go get him let's go see what he has to say one of the things that makes a person have a good reputation in the sight of God is respect for the man of God Because the man of God represents God. And if you can't respect the man of God, you're gonna have a problem with the Lord. Now again, understanding that some of the men of God aren't worthy of respect, but their offices. The office always is. We respect presidents. It's a duty of a citizen to respect the president. You say, you expect me to respect that guy that's in the White House right now? You respect the office. You respect the office of the president. And you put up with whoever's in the office. But you respect the office of president. God's people out of respect the man of God and I know the Lord said in Mark chapter 6 and verse 4 is Jesus said a number prophet is not without honor prophets are honorable people but in his own country among his own kin and in his own house so many a preacher will find that out many a preacher finds out that he's respected well whatever conference he goes to or whatever meetings he goes to he's well respected until he gets home John Wesley was that way John was a great preacher what have you until he got home and his wife was chewing on him up one end and out the other all the time. Many a time a man of God is not respected by his children or even in the area that he is. But God said he's supposed to be respected. And it's sad how far we have come in this country as far as respecting a man of God is concerned. I looked at some statistics, and as far as respected occupations or professions, doctors and scientists and farmers are the most respected jobs. Doctors, scientists, and farmers have the most respect when it comes to a profession. Reality TV stars and politicians attract the least respect. I agree with that. And the top factors that make job respectable are caring for others, trustworthiness, and being essential to society. I guess preachers aren't essential to society anymore. Another survey saw that nursing was regarded as a highly prestigious profession. Public services like firefighter, police officer, teacher, military officer. Technical professions of any other group were highly respected. Engineers, scientists, architects. And if you take 10, the top 10, last on that list are preachers. Last on that list. Now, when it says that, it's including all clergy, whatever the denomination is. And I know one particular denomination has had a problem with young boys, I understand that. And I wouldn't trust a Catholic priest as far as I could throw one with my children, which I would never do to begin with. But that's all grouped in there. 20 of the most respected professions had environmentalists last. And if there was farther than last, I would put them there. Nurses and doctors, second and first respectfully. Clergy was 12th. Clergy was 12th behind psychologists and pharmacists. So clergy are trailing the shrinks and the drug dealers. We're behind them. Another one, another survey had doctors and lawyers at one and two, nurses at six. Clergy wasn't even in that one. And the Gallup poll did an interesting thing. They were rating the honesty and ethical standards of members of the clergy. In 1980, 67% of the people thought that was very high. By 2013, 47%. By 2019, 40%. By 2023, 32%. So between 1980 and 2023, which would be 43 years, it went from 67 to 32. So for some reason, preachers are not respected. And again, I can understand that. But in this church, in this church, we don't go by the Gallup poll. this church preachers are respected whether it's me or whether it's somebody coming in to have a meeting or what-have-you the ministry is respected and our deacons should be respected because they're the leadership of the church and so I'd never I'm never going to demand respect from you but if you're right with God I'm going to expect it okay Josaphat respected God's man as a speaker for God. Now Paul had some things to say about this subject if you'd like to turn to 1st Timothy chapter 5. 1st Timothy chapter 5 and again 1st and 2nd Timothy Titus are pastoral epistles in other words Paul is writing to a young pastor and giving him advice first time in the chapter 5 starting at verse 17 it says let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor especially they who labor in the word and doctrine now I'm gonna tell you what a preacher said about that I heard a preacher say this about that verse one time and I thought that sounds pretty good it says double honor right He said, I think every preacher should be paid twice, double honor, twice what the highest paid individual of the church gets. I heard that and I thought, yeah, that sounds pretty good. Is that what it's saying? No, but boy, that sure sounds pretty good. So if you're making 50,000, I would be getting 100,000. If you're making 100,000, I'd be getting 200,000. But it'll never happen. don't expect it to happen and I'm not complaining about what I get paid I appreciate everything y'all do for me I'm satisfied I'm happy but double honor not double pay double honor especially they who labor in the word and doctrine because believe it or not believe it or not it is work to prepare to do this It is work to prepare Sunday school classes. It is work to prepare what I do Sunday night. It's work. Say, Preacher, it's not work. You're sitting in front of a computer. I know, and I come from a construction background, and I used to have a problem with that, thinking, you know, it's not work if you're not sweating. And on the construction, I was in the roofing trade within the first half hour. I'm soaking wet in the summer, and I've got blood on me from something. In fact, if I would come home from work and I wasn't bleeding, my wife would say, where were you today? You know, and there's grit and dirt and all that stuff. So it's hard for me, it was, it was hard for me for a while to relate that kind of work with sitting in front of a computer and using this thing up here. But I have, I've handled that. It is work to sit in front of a computer and think about what you're reading and putting stuff together that is, believe it or not, that is work. It's much better work than being on a roof, but it's still work. But he says, double honor, especially those that labor in the word of God. And he quotes the Old Testament, verse 18 of a scripture saying, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. The laborer is worthy of his reward. Galatians chapter 6. Look at Galatians chapter 6. I should preach this a couple weeks before we have our business meeting. Galatians chapter 6 look at verse 6 Paul says this let him that is taught in the word communicate and you think about communicates is that does that just mean talk or what have you if I say something is a communicable disease what does that mean that means it's a disease that one person can pass to another person one person can impart to another person that's the idea of communicate him that's taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth and all good things so Paul is saying you know if you're getting fed the scripture if you're being taught the Word of God and it's profiting you then you should take that blessing and somehow impart something to the person that's doing the teaching That's Bible. And again, I'm not begging for money up here. I'm not asking for a raise or anything like that. I'm just saying that's what the scripture teaches. That's what it teaches. And Jehoshaphat honored Elisha probably in the same way. He realized Elisha was the man of God. He deserves double honor. He deserves something. And at least my respect. And so Jehoshaphat had great respect for Elijah because Elijah represented to him the Word of God. Elijah spoke, he spoke the Word of God. Joshua said, that's what I need. That's what I need. In fact, Elijah said, you know what? He probably did the other two guys. Let's go get Elijah because we need God. And that guy represents God and that guy represents the Word of God and we need God. We're in a mess here. We need God. And boy, it'd be great if one of our politicians would stand up and actually say that. You know, this country's in a mess and we can talk about what the mess is. We can talk about the judge in New York and all that stuff. We can talk about that. We can talk about the mess. But we need God because it's God that can fix the mess. That's as dumb as going into a junkyard and saying, yeah, there's a broken down car there and there's some broken down this. All you're doing is naming what's broken down. You're not fixing the problem. I'm tired again of talk radio that all they can do is name the problem. We need God because it's God that can fix the problem. So Jehoshaphat respected God, he respected the Word of God, he respected the man of God. Secondly, Jehoshaphat was gracious and forgiving, which are good characteristics, in his case to a fault, to a fault. Ahab, we talked about Ahab at the beginning, in fact the whole, all of Jehoshaphat's problems stem from a stupid decision that he had made in the past because there was a time in the past when Ahab the worst king of Israel contacted Jehoshaphat he said I've got some enemies I need your help Jehoshaphat went up to him and joined affinity to him so what does that mean that means they got as close as you can possibly get He joined affinity with the most pagan, idolatrous king in the history of Israel, and Jehoshaphat was a good guy. And you see that happening and you scratch your head saying, why? What did he do? And then he makes a statement, your people is my people, your horses is my horses. It's like, Jehoshaphat, have you lost your mind? and in the process of that his son also named Jehoram saw Ahab and Jezebel's daughter Athaliah and they fell in love with each other and he probably thought I can convert her and she converted him because that's usually the way it is and then they had a child that's where Ahaziah came from and the whole mess was pagan and the whole mess was heathen And when Jehoshaphat got done joining affinity with Ahab, remember the story? He almost lost his life in that battle. On his way home, God got a hold of him through a prophet and said, what in the world are you thinking of? And chewed him out good. I don't know if Jehoshaphat was just one of these people that was just gracious. There are people like that, that are just gracious. They're loving, they're kind and all that, to a fault. Maybe he was trying to be a bridge builder to the other side, I don't know. Maybe he didn't like to confront. He probably should have confronted Ahab. When Ahab showed up, he probably should have said, like Elisha said, why in the world are you coming to me? Go to your own gods, go to your own people. But he was non-confrontational. Sometimes it's good to confront. And this was a perpetual error with Jehoshaphat. you think he would learn after the first issue and God choose him out for that I'm joining affinity with Ahab you would think oh I'm never gonna do that again but he did he did because his grandson wanted to get into the shipbuilding business 2nd Chronicles chapter 20 and turn there if you like 2nd Chronicles chapter 20 and then I'm going to go to 1st Kings 22 would think after making a mistake like that where you almost lost your life and then on the way back a preacher shows up and says boy God is really upset with you he is so upset with you because of the stupid thing you just did you would think a guy would say I'm not gonna do that again like Tommy's mother said when his mother asked him that one time if everybody else jumped off the bridge are you gonna follow him he said not again you know I mean that's just you don't do some things twice but 2nd Chronicles 20 verse 35 after this did Jehoshaphat king of Judah join himself with Ahaziah king of Israel who did very wickedly there was no change he joined himself with him to make ships to go to Tarshish they're going to get into a shipbuilding business they're going to do a little maritime whatever and they made the ships in Ezean-Geber Then Eliezer the son of Dodabah of Marisha prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath broken thy works, and the ships were broken, that they were not able to go to Tarshish. The Lord said, We're not even going to get too far with this this time. In comes the wind, in comes the storms, and the ships smash into each other, and they're done. Well, if you go to 2 Kings 22, in that account, around verse 48, It says Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold, but they went not, for the ships were broken at Ezion-Geber. Then said Azariah, the son of Ahab unto Jehoshaphat, let my servants go with thy servants in the ships. We can fix these things up. We can put them back together. And Jehoshaphat said, ah, Jehoshaphat would not. It took two events for Jehoshaphat to finally figure out, you know what, I probably shouldn't be doing that. But you know what is amazing? And this is Jehoshaphat's biggest weakness. For some reason he can't figure out that we don't partner up with pagans, we don't partner up with heathens, we don't unequally yoke ourselves together with unbelievers. That was Jehoshaphat's problem, that was his weakness. And it's amazing when you go through your scripture that you'll find great men of God that have these weaknesses And they fall into him and they do it two or three times. You look at Abraham. Abraham went down into Egypt with Sarah the first time and said, you know, tell them I'm your sister or they're going to kill me and take you. And technically he was right, but it was a deception. And so, you know, that worked out and God got involved in that. And God kind of let Abraham know that he shouldn't have done that. And how long ago, how far down the road do they go? And they do it again. And it was the heathen king at that time, Abimelech, I think his name was, that said, why did you say she was your sister? You know what God would have done to me if I would have, and God kind of got the message from that. But here's Abraham, the father of the Jewish race, I'll use that term, Jewish race, the father of the Jewish race, who was a great, great man of God, who had a weakness that they fell into more than one time. that ought to be a warning to all of us how many how many of you here have made the same stupid mistake more than once I'll raise my hand and you would think we would learn not that we're great men of God or women of God or what have you but you still think we would learn but we don't we don't that's just I guess a human thing I guess you would call that and Jehoshaphat sin joining affinity with Ahab exposing his son to their daughter brought him into a relationship with the family of Ahab and the problems that follow were family oriented that's all what that is about it became a family issue and how many of you have struggled with family issues family comes into town well you can't come to church this week preacher families in town don't understand that I don't get that family came into town we're going to church want to go along with us I mean that's how that hand that's how that works my sister-in-law was here a few weeks ago and we were surprised that she would even step her foot in here wonderful wonderful person but And she did leave and go into the nursery while we were having our service, probably because she didn't want to hear me too much, which I could understand. Okay, I get that. But she was here. We never said, are we gonna go to church tonight? Well, so if you're the preacher, I understand that. But in any other account, it's always been an established fact that when there's church, that's what we do. And if you want to come along with us to church, we'd gladly have you come with us. But we're not gonna stay home because you don't wanna go to church. We're not gonna stay home because you traveled 1,500 or 2,000 miles to be here, do you wanna be with us? We'll be back, okay? We're gonna go to church, we'll come back. But we're not gonna miss church because of family. And Josaphat's problems had to do with this family he has now gotten into a relationship with. And I understand he's probably trying to be a nice guy, what have you. There's a fine line between compromise or compassion and maintaining standards and convictions. We've had that discussion time and again. How compassionate are we to be? How much would we compromise but still at the same time maintain our standards and maintain our convictions? You've got to find that fine line, okay? It's good to be compassionate. It's good to compromise a little bit here or there, as long as you don't compromise your standards and your convictions. Finding that fine line. Josaphat couldn't find it. Thirdly, Josaphat was a humble guy. For a king, he was a pretty humble guy. That's a good characteristic. He was humble. So how do you know that? He went down to Elijah's house, right? you know what Kings normally do they send somebody to go get the guy and bring the guy up go get Elijah and bring him up to me that would have been what normally a king would do because Kings had power if King said you know what you're gonna die you were dead that's the power in the hand of a king and yet here's this powerful King Jehoshaphat he says I'll go to where Elisha is I'll go down to his house that's humbling for a king there are benefits to being humble God resisted the proud but giveth grace unto the humble as benefits of being humble I know we live in a society where it says be proud of yourself and and to develop yourself pride and that's what the world says God says humble yourself God says he resists the proud but giveth grace to the humble I remember hearing one time a story about Jonathan Goforth. Jonathan Goforth was a great missionary in China. He was considered a revivalist. So he went around as an evangelist in China, and he preached like a revivalist would preach. He's holding basically camp meetings in China, and thousands of the Chinese are getting converted. He survived the Boxer Rebellion. He was injured quite severely, but he survived that. He was a great preacher. And he understood the dangers of pride, and he used an illustration that illustrated pride perfectly. He tells the story about a woodpecker. Now, woodpeckers are pretty cool. They're not too smart, but they're pretty cool. When I first moved to where I'm living at, I kept hearing them this morning. It sounded like a jackhammer. And I finally saw on a satellite dish was a woodpecker sitting up there. And every time he would bend over I would hear the jackhammer. That knucklehead was trying to peck into a satellite dish. And then you can ask Nate, by Nate's room, in the morning he would hear, there's a woodpecker trying to peck through the stucco in the wall. And he did, I got two holes in the wall where this stupid woodpecker is pecking, and he hits the wire mesh and he realizes I can't get beyond that. But they're not that bright. But they're cool, woodpeckers are cool. So Gopher tells about this woodpecker, gets on this big tree, one of the biggest trees in the area. He gets on this big tree and he starts pecking away. and he's pecking away and pecking away and pecking away trying to get a hold in that big tree and not realizing that there's a storm coming up and as the storm approaches he's pecking away and everybody knows that lightning strikes the highest thing in the area and so while he's pecking away and the storm comes up lightning hits that tree splits it right down the middle that little woodpecker goes flying off that tree and lands on his back and he finally wakes up and shakes himself a little bit and he looks at that tree split by the lightning And that little woodpecker thought, I didn't know I had it in me. And that's pride. And there's a lot of people that are filled with the same kind of pride. And Jehoshaphat wasn't that kind of a guy. Jehoshaphat was a great man. Jehoshaphat accomplished a lot in Judah. Take your Bible and turn to 2 Chronicles 17. I'm trying to get through this quickly, 2 Chronicles 17. What did Jehoshaphat accomplish in Judah? Starting at verse one. Jehoshaphat, his son, reigned in his stead and strengthened himself against Israel, the north. He placed forces in all the fenced cities of Judah and set garrisons in the land of Judah and in the cities of Ephraim, which Asa, his father, had taken. And by the way, a strong military is always a good thing. One of the best ways to keep a country from going from war is having a strong military. Verse 3, and the Lord was with Josaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David. He looked at David, notice it says first ways, because David's life is split right down the middle. because of one particular act that he did. You know what I'm talking about. Prior to that, David had a great, perfect life. And Joshua said, I'm following that part of David's life. Verse four, but sought to the Lord God his father, walked in his commandments, not after the doings of Israel. So he's walking right. Down in verse five it says he had riches and honor and abundance. Verse six, his heart was lifted up. So here's the pride, watch it. His heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord. Joshua was pride, prideful, but he was prideful about God. He was proud of God. end of verse 7, let's look at verse 7. Also in the third year of his reign he sent his princes even to Ben-Hel, to Obadiah, and Zechariah, Nethaniel, Micaiah to teach in the cities of Judah. Can you imagine that? He's sending people out to the cities of Judah to teach them. Well what's he teaching them? Look at verse 8. And with them he sent the Levites. verse 9 and they taught in Judah and had the book of the Lord law the Lord with them and went about throughout all the cities of Judah and taught the people he's having Bible studies get this government-sponsored mandatory Bible studies in all the cities of Judah what's that going to do that's going to get the people right and God is blessing that like crazy verse 10 and the fear of the Lord fell upon the kingdoms of the lands of around about Judah they made no war against Joshua fat verse 12 Josh Josh fat wax great exceedingly he built in Judah castles and cities of store he had much business the economy is booming prosperity is booming the men of men of war mighty men of valor and Jerusalem great military might he was a great king and he did a great thing for Judah so this is a great guy he knew how to run a country respected the man of God whoever the man of God might be he was kind caring and compassionate to a fault humble he made his mistakes but he had some further accomplishments he was one of only eight godly kings in Judah one of eight one of only three king is compared to David he set himself to seek the Lord in crisis and saw God delivered Judah he walked in the way of his father Asa doing what was right in the sight of the Lord this is a great guy he made his mistakes but he was a great guy he had a reputation and what I'd like to ask you this morning is what kind of reputation are you are you making for yourself kind of reputation you have yeah if you're young you're working on it if you're older I hope you have a good reputation living for God daily should give you a good reputation in the sight of God got a good reputation say preacher I've made mistakes we've all made mistakes and I know some of you are recovering from those mistakes to this day But you can still build a good reputation. You can make a legacy for yourself. Say, Preacher, I'm not a king. I'm not a famous person. Don't have to be. You're a child of God, right? You want to make a legacy. You want to have a good reputation. You know why? You have children that are going to be watching you. You have grandchildren that are going to be watching you. I don't know how my grandkids think about me. I don't know, per se. I hope that I'm held in a good reputation in their sight. A lot of them are too little, and they have no concept, but that's what we wanna have. We wanna have a good reputation. And I'll tell you what'll blow that. You know what'll blow a good reputation? Not blow it, that's not the right word. What'll damage your reputation? is some stupid thing that you do. Some stupid mistake that involves some kind of sin or just some kind of stupid mistake will terribly damage your reputation. That's why on Thursday nights we're going through Proverbs and all that stuff we're going through Proverbs is to help you not to do something stupid. Not to make the choices that are gonna damage your reputation. Because there are people that look up to you, or there will be people that look up to you, and they need to see someone with a good reputation. How's your reputation this morning? Got a good reputation? Good reputation at work? Good reputation in the neighborhood? Going to school, you got a good reputation there? Got a good reputation with your family? That's what you need to have. That's what we need to work on. And Jehoshaphat, in spite of his mistakes, continued to do what was right. When God rebuked him, he got it right. Even though it happened twice, he still got it right. And ended up being one of the greatest kings in the history of Israel. Simply following the Lord. How do you get a good reputation? Keep following the Lord and don't do something stupid. And that will give you a great reputation. And whether you know it or not, I know we're kind of low on children these days, but when children start coming into this church, you know who they're looking up to. And we want to see these young people looking up at people that have good reputations. How's your reputation this morning? Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, it'll be a wonderful time in heaven. We'll get to meet Jehoshaphat and get to talk to him. Maybe even ask him about that issue with Ahab or building these ships or what have you, probably won't. No need to talk about that up there. Just be good to meet him, get to know him. Lord, we would like to have a good reputation also. We would like to have a legacy in time, not for ourselves, but a legacy that honors you. That our children and grandchildren can look to and say, I want to follow that. I want to be like that. So Lord, help us in that way. Lord, I pray this morning, if anybody here does not know Christ as their Savior, that a good reputation starts at the cross, a legacy begins at Calvary. I pray, Lord, if anybody's like that this morning, that they would come to know you. With heads bowed and eyes closed, the altar is open. Christian, you might need to talk to the Lord about something this morning. If you're sitting in here this morning and you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, what are you waiting for? Life begins at the cross. Isn't that a ironic statement? Because the cross represented death, the cross represented bloodshedding, and yet the reality is life begins there, at Calvary, where Christ died in our place, where Christ shed his blood to cleanse us of our sins. And for the Christian, that's where life begins. Have you come to Christ as your Savior? Not a hard thing to do. We're all sinners, we cannot save ourselves. The only hope we have is what He did on the cross 2,000 years ago. That Christ died on the cross for our sin according to the scripture, that He was buried, that He rose again the third day according to the scripture. That's our hope. Have you come to Christ? The preacher, I'd like to get in on that. I've never trusted Christ as my Savior. I'd like to do that this morning. We ask you simply to come forward. We're going to be giving the invitation here in just a minute. People will be singing. We ask you simply to come forward. Somebody will meet you up here, take a Bible, and show you how to trust Jesus Christ as your Savior. If you've never done that, we'd like you to consider Christ this morning. The greatest thing in the world is to be a Christian. The greatest future that anybody has is the future of the Christian. Why don't you come to Christ today? Christian, you do as the Spirit of God would lead you to do. Brother Walter, come ahead. Let's go ahead and stand. Turn to number 218. Number 218. living for Jesus.