By: Gen. Deborah Green
PRAISE GOD. Welcome to this broadcast. The name of this message is, “A Light Thing.” Now, what this term “light” means here—not the bright brilliancy of the sun, or the neon lights flashing—what this means is it’s not heaven. It’s like when Jesus said, “My burden is light.” In other words, it’s not so WEIGHTY that you can’t bear it. It’s not so HEAVY that it’s pulling on your shoulders and dragging you down…but it’s a light thing.
In other words, it can be easily managed, it can be easily taken care of, it’s not burdensome, it’s not something that when you’re done with it, you just feel, “Oh, thank God that’s over!,” but it’s something you can get through without any trouble. And this is how the description comes of what God did for His people, in this chapter, because it is definitely a miracle of God, and it is definitely a manifestation of the intervention of God in the process of Holy War.
Now, when you read the Old Testament, you find again, again, again, and again, that the Lord brought Holy War. He brought forth Holy War because He defended His own righteousness, His own holiness. And God’s people, oftentimes, fell completely short of what it was that God wanted of them. And they fell into darkness, or idolatry, or iniquity…but when they TRULY REPENTED, cried out to God, and sought the counsel of God, God intervened.
Now, am I saying that we should go wallow in sin, and cover ourselves in idols, and go afar off from God in order to get God to move? No. I am saying that we serve a God who is merciful if we truly repent. But we don’t need to grieve God, and we don’t need to tempt God, and we don’t need to get God to withdraw His grace from us—because we do the same thing again, again, and again. But, we need to walk uprightly, and we need to thank God.
But, getting back to OUR FOCUS, WHICH IS HOLY WAR, AND A LIGHT THING, let’s begin here in chapter 3 of 2nd Kings. Now, keep in mind that this is a situation where Israel—God’s people, were headed to destruction. Because in this life, and in this walk with God, there are times when enemies far greater than we can even dare to meet come against us—forces of darkness, forces of witchcraft, forces of oppression, forces of filthiness and vileness.
Now, we, as Christian believers, have seen that transpire here in America—under the previous perverted covering of the presidency—that the homosexualization of America became the primary target of that wasteful reign of the emperor. In other words, the whole goal was to make everybody a pervert, and make everybody walk in uncleanness, violation, and transgression against God; and it was demanded and commanded by the law.
And then the culmination of the whole reign of homosexual jihadism was, “Where can you go to the bathroom,” not, “Let’s restore America;” not, “Let’s get out of the most unfathomable debt that any nation has ever been in;” not, “Let’s quit fighting endless wars that we intend to lose;” not, “Let’s quit financing jihadist murders under the ISIS banner and claim we’re fighting them.”
None of these things were relevant, all that mattered was, “Where can you go to the bathroom?,” and, “Are you able to put a condom on a banana so you can be trained for the homosexual lifestyle?” Now, that’s pretty cheap, base, and vile. AND IT SAYS WHEN THE WICKED ARE IN RULE, IT BRINGS ALL MANNER OF RUINATION…AND WE’VE SEEN THAT.
So, definitely the Christians—the true Christians of America—have been groaning in the spirit, crying out, “We can’t do anything God. No matter how much we try, no matter how much we speak against it, no matter how much we write against it, no matter how much we even have fellow soldiers who go to the streets and scream against it, the iniquity is pressing the needy into obliteration, to nothingness…it’s destroying.”
So, when God comes in, we have to trust that God will do what He will do, and that’s where we’re at. We’re going to trust God, to see what God does, just as these people, despite their own failures, and their own inadequacies, when they became needy and cried out to God, He intervened. Amen.
Ok, it says, “JORAM SON of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years. He did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like his father and mother; for he put away the pillar of Baal that his father had made.” So we see we’re continuing, you might say, with the house of Ahab, the son of Jezebel. “Yet he clung to the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not from them. Mesha king of Moab was a sheepmaster, and paid in tribute to the king of Israel [annually] 300 lambs and 200 rams, with the wool. But when Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. So King Joram went out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel. And he sent to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, saying, The king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to war against Moab? And he said, I will go; I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses. Joram said, Which way shall we go up? Jehoshaphat answered, The way through the Wilderness of Edom. So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. They made a circuit of seven days’ journey, but there was no water for the army or for the animals following them.”
So, that’s quite a long time for the animals to be without water, to be on a trail that obviously was dry, arid, and with no kind of water to come up. So it says, “Then the king of Israel said, Alas! The Lord has called [us] three kings together to be delivered into Moab’s hand!” So we can see that Joram, son of Ahab, appears to have the same characteristics of his father—unbelief.
And then it says, “But Jehoshaphat said, Is there no prophet of the Lord here by whom we may inquire of the Lord? One of the king of Israel’s servants answered, Elisha son of Shaphat, who served Elijah, is here.” So, Jehoshaphat has the sense, in this condition that they are in, in this situation, to realize they need to inquire of God, they need to beseech God, they need to find out if God will help them.
In other words, they need to be needy of God, and confess that to God. See, because we can think that we don’t need God, we can think we can do it on our own, we can think that we’ve got so many tributes, or so many funds available, or so this, or so that we get our reliance off of God. Now, everybody is capable of that.
The whole Church in America has gotten its reliance off of God, and on to the world, and on to greedy gain, and on to promoting numbers that aren’t even people who are saved, and all kinds of foolishness, and it’s a weak and enfeebled entity that has no power in God. And it’s because of a shift of being needy of God, to other gods, other lovers, other dependencies.
So, we have to be aware of that, and mark that, so we don’t fall prey to that—that we start looking here, that we start looking there. Even worshiping the works of our hands is transgression against God. “Look what I can do! Oh, look what we’ve done! Oh, aren’t we great?!?!” No, we’re not. WE’RE A PEOPLE WHO ARE WRETCHEDLY NEEDY OF GOD. Amen.
Ok, so going on it says, “Jehoshaphat said, The word of the Lord is with him. So Joram king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to Elisha.” Now, I think it’s even significant that they had to go “down” to Elisha. In other words, they had to come DOWN off of their great war plans, which obviously were going to end in defeat, which obviously were going to end in the Moabites prevailing, and all their animals dying of thirst, and their men too, probably, because the water would be gone, and they had to go down to Elisha.
Now, when we become aware that we are needy of God, do we know what we have to do? We have to go down, we have to humble ourselves, we have to come off of our proud throne of “I can do it,” to admit we can’t do it, that we need God, that we are frustrated in our efforts and we desperately need Him, or we are done for…plain and simple.
So they went down, it says, to Elisha, “And Elisha said to the king of Israel, What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your [wicked] father Ahab and your [wicked] mother Jezebel.” So in other words, the curse has remained, and the prophet is aware that this offspring is from a line of witchcraft workers. So he’s saying, “Go on back to that.”
And then it says, “But the king of Israel said to him, No, for the Lord has called [us] three kings together to be delivered into the hand of Moab.” So we see he’s operating in the same unbelief of his father, he does not believe in the power of God to the sense that he is DEEPLY REPENTING AND CRYING OUT, he’s just saying, “No, we’re just going to lose, it’s obvious.”
And then he says, “And Elisha said, As the Lord of hosts lives, before Whom I stand, surely, were it not that I respect the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would neither look at you nor see you [King Joram].” So, he only got in on Jehoshaphat’s coattail. In other words, because the prophet would honor the one who was not of the lineage of witchcraft. But he wasn’t going to honor the descendant of Ahab and Jezebel.
“But now bring me a minstrel. And while the minstrel played, the hand and power of the Lord came upon [Elisha]. And he said, Thus says the Lord: Make this [dry] brook bed full of trenches. For thus says the Lord: You shall not see wind or rain, yet that ravine shall be filled with water, so you, your cattle, and your beasts [of burden] may drink.”
Then it says, “This is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord. He will deliver the Moabites also into your hands.” Now, you stop and think about that! It’s saying, “Dig some trenches, and there’s not going to be any wind or rain, and yet the ravine is going to be filled with water!” That is a miracle. That is an absolute miracle that only God could do; and it takes confidence in what God says, and obedience to what God says, to receive the miracle.
Now, they could have said, “We’re not going to dig trenches, it’s too hot out here. And why do we want to dig trenches when there’s not going to be any rain, there’s not going to be any wind, there’s not going to be anything that would bring the water in. What are we going to do—lay down in the trenches and die?”
Did you know that we can be that unbelieving towards God—God can say “Do thus and such,” and because it seems stupid, or absurd, or senseless to our carnal minds, we believe the liar of our own carnality rather than God? And we lose out, and we don’t see the miracle.
Going on, “This is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord”—no problem, no problem!” It’s like if you ask somebody, “Can you do thus for me?” and they say, “No problem. Sure I can do that!” That’s what God is saying, “It’s a light thing. It’s a light thing—it’s not a burdensome thing. It’s not a big chore.” But, for God to make water to come there, it is.
Then it says, “You shall smite every fenced city and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree and stop all wells of water and mar every good piece of land with stones. In the morning, when the sacrifice was offered, behold, there came water by the way of Edom, and the country was filled with water. When all the Moabites heard that the kings had come up to fight against them, all who were able to put on armor, young and old, gathered and drew up at the border. When they rose up early next morning, and the sun shone upon the water, the Moabites saw the water across from them as red as blood.”
THIS IS HOLY WAR, THIS IS GOD CONFOUNDING THE ENEMIES, THIS IS GOD DOING MIRACLES FOR HIS OWN, THIS IS GOD WORKING WHAT NO MAN COULD DO. He didn’t have to call for missiles, He didn’t have to call for drones, He didn’t have to call for more troops. It was God.
“When they rose up early next morning, and the sun shone upon the water, the Moabites saw the water across from them as red as blood. And they said, This is blood…” So they thought there was a whole reservoir, so to speak, a lake, of blood. “the kings have surely been fighting and have slain one another,” oh great! “Now then, Moab, to the spoil!”
So in other words, “Here we go! They did it to themselves, we have them in our hands, now all we do is take the spoil—because they suicided (so to speak) themselves, in the sense that they turned on one another, murdered one another, and there’s all of this blood that signifies that.” So, what was that? Divine deception. It’s a light thing to deal with these Moabites.
It was DIVINE DECEPTION where God confounded the enemies. See, so often, we have this little self-righteous set of rules that God’s supposed to operate by, and I can tell you, having been in the war a long time: God doesn’t play by our rules or anyone else’s. Do you know why? Because He’s God. If He says, “Do thus and such,” do it! And if the enemies don’t like it, too bad. God is not in this Holy War to accommodate the enemies of his purpose, He is in Holy War to defeat the enemies of His purpose.
And that’s exciting because you would say, “Well, God never deceives.” He did deceive. They are the ones that assumed it was this huge mass of blood, and assumed they had killed one another. But IT WAS GOD WHO SENT THAT WATER THERE, and it was God who caused the sun to rise and reflect on that water at just the right time to bring the divine deception that originated from Almighty God.
Then it goes on and it says, “to the spoil! But when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and smote the Moabites, so that they fled before them. And they went forward, slaying the Moabites as they went. They beat down the cities [walls], and on every good piece of land every man cast a stone, covering it [with stones].” And it’s just like God said in the strategy that they were supposed to do and mar the good land with stones, and fell the trees, and break down the walls of the cities.
And then it says, “And they stopped all the springs of water and felled all the good trees, until only the stones [of the walls of Moab’s capital city] of Kir-hareseth were left standing, and the slingers surrounded and took it.” So, they followed God’s strategy. They did as the Lord had ordained, and God put the Moabites right into their hands, rather than them being delivered into the hands of the Moabites.
And then we go on and it says, “And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was against him, he took with him 700 swordsmen to break through to the king of Edom, but they could not.” So we see that the Moabites ended in complete defeat; the ones who were crying out to God got mercy, and got strategy of victory.
Now, don’t you believe that when these Moabites thought this was a great reservoir, or lake of blood, and they charged head-on towards the camp of the Israelites to take the spoil, don’t you think that they were gripped and paralyzed and overwhelmed by GOD-FEAR when they found all the men of battle there, when they found that it wasn’t just women and children that they could go and take the spoil from, and easily subdue and overwhelm?
But when they found out that the men of war were there, and that they were attacking them because they had come right unto them, and that they were being defeated right before their own eyes, don’t you think that was the power that God has told us of?—-He is unleashing the power of God-fear—God fear!—whereby the enemies are so overwhelmed by fear they cannot do anything. Oh yeah they may have put up a feeble effort to fight, but I’m sure that all of them wish that they could take to flight.
In other words, that they could get the Hades out of there, that they could depart, that they had never tried to go after the spoil, and they were deceived. They were deceived by the power of God, by divine deceit, by God making them think that those three other kings had warred against each other, had killed each other, and the great pool of water that they had beheld in the morning sun was blood. IT WAS GOD WHO SENT THAT DECEPTION, it was God who made that sun to rise and give forth the rays to such a degree that it was, in their vision, a pool of blood.
So we see that this is one of the strategies of war—that God, and only God can do. And when God is declaring to us that He will do miracles of Holy War, this is a miracle. This is a miracle and it was performed by the power, by the strength, by the glory of Almighty God, and it was done because number one, God honored Jehoshaphat, and number two, they humbled themselves and cried out to God.
Now, the sad thing is that they didn’t seek God before they started, but we all can be foolish, we all can be assertive, we all can be assuming, and we all can be asses. But, if we’ll HUMBLE OURSELVES, if we’ll humble ourselves, and we’ll go down before the Lord, if we’ll inquire of His Word, of His prophet, of His truth, of His light, it’s the Lord who can give us victory, and it’s the Lord who can do great and glorious miracles in our behalf—because we’re looking to Him.
Now, we are believing God to continue His Holy War. We don’t want to be on the side of enemies, we want to be on the side of the Lord. That means that WE CONTINUE TO LOOK TO THE LORD. We don’t get our confidence in chariots, we don’t get our confidence in nations, we don’t get our confidence in presidents, we keep our confidence in God—because it is the Lord who can give great victory, and it is the Lord who does these mighty miracles and even brings divine deception upon the enemy camp.
So, what do we do? We give thanks to the Lord, we give praise to the Lord, we give honor to the Lord, because of who He is! And it is to the Lord that we bow down to, it is the Lord that we offer thanksgiving to, it is to Lord that we serve each day with gladness because He is the Almighty.
Now, going on it says, “Then he [Moab’s king] took his eldest son, who was to reign in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall.” Now, do you know what that means? Death. And it was his oldest son who was to be the king of Moab. So, what is Moab doing? Basically he is giving, I believe, a manifestation of utter defeat—because he’s pulling down the hope, he’s putting the son as a sacrifice. In other words, finishing off the reign that was meant to be triumphant, that was meant to take these other territories, was meant to rule invincibly.
And then it says, “Then he [Moab’s king] took his eldest son, who was to reign in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall [in full view of the horrified enemy kings]. And there was great indignation, wrath, and bitterness against Israel; and they [his allies Judah and Edom] withdrew from [Joram] and returned to their own land.”
So what do we see? That the Moabites were convinced they would reign, they would rule, and they had to admit and demonstrate in the sight of these three kings utter defeat—because it ended their plans, it ended their domination, and it ended their rule in the sense of a conquering force. So we see that God did mighty things, He did glorious miracles, He did wondrous deeds, because why? BECAUSE THEY SOUGHT HIS COUNSEL, and He honored the one who was true to Him and He gave a glorious victory in Holy War. Amen.