"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. Elisha said to the king of Israel, 'Why do you want to involve me? Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother.'" (2 Kings 3:12-13a) King Ahab and Queen Jezebel had maintained out of the royal treasury 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah. But as the author informed us earlier this week, Joram rejected the religion of his parents and reverted back to the religion instituted by King Jeroboam who set golden calves in place at Dan and at Bethel. These calves were intended to represent the Lord (though such representations of the Lord were forbidden by the Lord) and the religious sites at Dan and Bethel were sinfully intended by Jeroboam as substitutes for going to the temple. The author of 2 Kings said that Joram is not as wicked as Ahab and Jezebel were. But if Joram is worshiping the Lord at all he is doing it in ways contrary to the Lord's instructions. Elisha taunts him by saying, "Why ask me what to do when you have all of Ahab's and Jezebel's prophets available to you? Your parents trusted in them and not in the prophets of the Lord. Why do you not feel the same?"
I don't believe there's any way Elisha could not have known that King Joram has put away his father's monument to Baal and that he does not engage in the practices of Baal worship or in the worship of Baal's consort, Asherah. A prophet (and especially a major prophet like Elisha) would be wise to keep his finger on the spiritual pulse of the nation, so to speak. So I think he knows Joram has made some reforms, spiritually speaking, and perhaps his words to the king are intended to make him consider abandoning all of the wrong spiritual practices of his predecessors and give his heart fully to the Lord. If that's what Elisha hopes to accomplish with his words, it doesn't happen. Just as in yesterday's passage Joram accused the Lord of intending to kill him and the other men with thirst, he repeats this belief but not in the manner of a person who knows he should repent and ask for mercy. "'No,' the king of Israel answered, 'because it was the Lord who called us three kings together to deliver us into the hands of Moab.'" (2 Kings 3:13b) He clearly believes in the Lord and he clearly fears the Lord (in the way that a person living in the wrong ways fears the Lord) but he does not repent and ask for mercy. He doesn't make any attempt to forge a personal relationship with the Lord but instead asks the prophet to intercede for him.
We've all probably known people who don't want to give their lives to the Lord but who are quick to call upon the Lord's people to pray for them when they are in need of help. They believe the Lord exists and that He can do miracles. They also believe He can cause judgment to fall as recompense for sinful living. But somehow they just can't seem to take any steps toward the Lord to repent, ask Him for forgiveness and salvation, and begin forming a personal relationship with Him. So instead of calling out to Him themselves they call upon all their believing friends to intercede on their behalf. It's sad because they are so close to having their lives turned completely around by the Lord and having the eternal safety of their souls secured! I think this is where we find King Joram in today's text. He's not really that far from being able to be transformed by the living God but he just cannot make himself take that step. He never does, I'm sorry to say. And when Elisha sees he isn't getting through to him he points out that it's only for the sake of King Jehoshaphat---who has given his heart and life to the Lord---that he will do anything on behalf of the three kings.
"Elisha said, 'As surely as the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve, if I did not have respect for the presence of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, I would not pay any attention to you. But now bring me a harpist.' While the harpist was playing, the hand of the Lord came on Elisha and he said, 'This is what the Lord says: I will fill this valley with pools of water. For this is what the Lord says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other animals will drink. This is an easy thing in the eyes of the Lord; He will also deliver Moab into your hands. You will overthrow every fortified city and every major town. You will cut down every good tree, stop up all the springs, and ruin every good field with stones.'" (2 Kings 3:14-19)
The Lord speaks to Elisha through music this time; at other times He speaks to him in other ways. This is the same way the Lord relates to you and to me. He doesn't speak to us by the same method every time and I think it's a good thing that He doesn't or else our spiritual life would grow stagnant and repetitive. If He spoke to us by the same method every time, by habit we would seek Him in the same way every time. But the Lord wants us to seek Him in many different ways: through prayer, through praise music, through the reading of His word, through meditating on all the times He's helped us before, through talking about Him with fellow believers. A relationship with the Lord is never meant to be stagnant. He promised us that a relationship with Him was like being filled with a spring of living (continually flowing and fresh) water: "Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:14)
Perhaps to symbolize the spring of living water that is forever fresh and new within the heart of the believer, the literal springs of water arrive just as promised. "The next morning, about the time for offering the sacrifice, there it was---water flowing from the direction of Edom! And the land was filled with water." (2 Kings 3:20)
When our spiritual lives begin feeling stagnant and it seems like we are just going through the motions day after day, it's time to seek the Lord in a fresh way. Maybe that means praying to Him in a different place, like on a walk we take by ourselves. Or it may mean listening to some new praise songs we've never heard before and meditating upon His goodness while we listen. It may mean joining a new class at church or downloading a Bible study we've never read or listened to before. Our relationship with the Lord is never meant to grow old and unfulfilling, for we can never learn all there is to know about the Lord. I believe that even though we will spend eternity with Him, we will never learn everything about Him. His intelligence is so much greater than ours that even in our eternal, immortal bodies we will never be able to fully comprehend His mind. And that's a good thing! It means we can never grow weary of being in His awesome presence. We may sometimes grow weary of being in the presence of our fellow human beings here on earth (because their minds are so much like ours) but learning about our Lord will forever be an exciting experience.
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