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Welcome to the Stop It or Think podcast.
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I'm your host, Will Dole.
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Thank you for listening.
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And if you enjoy the show, you can rate and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
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What I'm going to do on the show today is something a little bit different from
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what I've done in the past.
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One of the things that happens as I read my Bible or as I'm reading in the
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afternoons or just walking around thinking is ideas pop into my head or strike me
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as I'm reading something where I think that would be
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a great newsletter post or at least an interesting newsletter post or maybe the
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start of a sermon or one of the various other things I do with ideas.
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But inevitably,
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those things then require a substantial amount of time to work on if they're going
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to be useful as a piece of written media.
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I don't often have those large two to three hour chunks of time to craft and shape
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things the way that they would need to be to be useful on the newsletter part of
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this substack.
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So...
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What I'm going to try today is take one of these outlines that I sketched together
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this morning and record it in audio form and hopefully use the transcript to turn
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it into something decent and written at a later point.
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But for now, it's just going to be an audio post.
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And what I want to think about with you today is the fact that the Lord is powerful to save.
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1 Kings chapter 20 and verse 27 says,
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The people of Israel camped before them,
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that is the Syrians,
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like two little flocks of goats.
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1 Samuel 14 and verse 6,
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Jonathan,
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as he's about to attack the Philistines,
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says to his armor bearer,
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Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.
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Now to set the scene for 1 Kings chapter 20, which is where our attention is going to be focused,
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Ben-Hadad, who is the king of Syria, is gathering his forces against Israel.
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Verse 1 of 1 Kings chapter 20 in the ESV says,
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Ben-Hadad,
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the king of Syria,
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gathered all his army together.
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And it's not just his army.
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It says 32 kings.
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were with him and horses and chariots.
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And he went up and closed in on Samaria and fought against it.
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Ben-Hadad is the mighty man of the world at this point.
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He is ruler of Syria, which is the big dog in the region.
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And they have come to bully and bowl over the kingdom of Israel, headquartered in Samaria.
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And king in Israel at that point is Ahab.
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And Ahab is a notoriously wicked king.
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His wife is Jezebel.
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Ahab is the great persecutor of the prophet Elijah.
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And yet, while he is wicked, he is still king over God's people.
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The ten northern tribes of Israel have Ahab as their king.
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And what we see in 1 Kings chapter 20 in the first 21 verses is a victory that God
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gives to Ahab and the people of Israel.
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Ahab, or rather Ben-Hadad and the 32 kings come up and essentially claim Israel for themselves.
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Ben-Hadad basically tells Ahab that, hey, this place is mine now.
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Verse 2 says,
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He sent messengers into the city to Ahab,
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king of Israel,
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and said to him,
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Thus says Ben-Hadad,
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Your silver and your gold are mine,
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and your best wives and children also are mine.
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And shockingly, or maybe not so shockingly, given it's Ahab, Ahab folds like a wet paper towel.
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He doesn't have any backbone, doesn't have any spine.
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He basically just says to Ben-Hadad, You know what?
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You're right.
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You know, anything you want,
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You can have it.
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It's all yours.
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And he sends these messengers back to Ben-Hadad saying, you can take what you want.
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But of course, Ben-Hadad actually wants the stuff.
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He just doesn't want words from Ahab.
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He doesn't want just verbal complicity with his rule.
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He wants the stuff.
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The king of Israel answered, verse 4, as you say, my lord, oh king, I am yours and all that I have.
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And the messengers came again,
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verse 5,
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thus says Ben-Hadad,
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I sent to you saying,
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deliver to me your silver and your gold,
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your wives and your children.
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Nevertheless,
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I will send my servants to you tomorrow about this time and they shall search your house,
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the houses of your servants and lay hands on whatever pleases you and take it away.
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At this point,
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Ahab calls together the leaders in his land,
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the elders of the land,
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and says,
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hey,
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you see,
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this guy's kind of looking for trouble.
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I told him that he could have these things, and now he actually wants them.
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And the elders say, verse 8, do not listen or consent.
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So...
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Ahab,
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blown about by the wind as he is,
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first saying to Ben-Hadad,
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yep,
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you can have what you want,
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but now following the lead of his own elders of his country,
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he says,
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tell my lord the king,
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verse 9,
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all that you first demanded of your servant I will do,
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but this thing I cannot do.
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I can't actually give you what you want.
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And the messengers take this back to Ben-Hadad, and Ben-Hadad is not particularly pleased.
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He is not happy with the response that he received from the king of Israel.
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And Ben-Hadad receives this message while he's trying to drink himself drunk.
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Verse 12,
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Ben-Hadad heard this message as he was drinking wine with the kings in the booths,
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in the tents that they had set up.
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And he said to his men, take your positions.
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He's drinking while in the war room.
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He's so confident about the power of his army and the weakness of Israel that he's
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not actually taking seriously the military part of this operation anymore.
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He's just there having a good time drinking with his companions.
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But given the fact that he is drunk, he is not, again, receiving well this message.
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Verse 10,
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Ben-Hadad sent to him and said,
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The gods do so to me and more also,
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if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people who follow me.
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He's saying, I've got an enormous army with me.
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How do you think you're going to stop me?
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And Ahab responds in this way that in worldly terms probably isn't real wise, but I love his response.
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Verse 11,
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Ahab says,
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tell Ben-Hadad,
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let not him who straps on his armor boast himself as he who takes it off.
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Don't count your eggs before they're hatched, Ben-Hadad.
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Do you really think you can take Samaria, Ben-Hadad?
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Do you really think you are just going to walk in here and waltz all over us?
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Well, in human terms, of course, Ben-Hadad thinks he's going to come in and waltz all over you, Ahab.
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You are terrified that he's going to come in and waltz all over you.
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I'm not sure why you're boasting.
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But Ben-Hadad keeps up his drinking.
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While he's in his war room, he's waiting to send his forces into battle.
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Verse 16, he's drinking himself drunk with the 32 kings who helped him.
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That's what verse 16 tells us.
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And in verses 13 and 14, a prophet comes to Ahab and tells Ahab that he is to initiate the battle.
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Ahab, who has these 262 elders of the land, governors of the district,
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and 7,000 men.
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7,000 men.
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Now, I'm not great at math, so I had to pull out a calculator, and I divided 7,000 by 232.
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It comes to about 30 men per governor.
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So these governors, these rulers of cities or small regions, each of them has got about 30 men with him.
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Altogether, they've got 7,000 soldiers, and they're about to attack mighty Samaria.
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With thousands upon thousands upon thousands of soldiers, not Samaria rather, Syria.
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The army, the might of Syria is arrayed at the door.
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But then Ahab and his army fall upon them.
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And the Syrians flee.
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You see that in verse 17,
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the servants of the governors of the districts went out first and Ben-Hadad sent
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out scouts and they reported to him,
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men are coming out from Samaria.
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He said if they've come out for peace, take them alive.
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Or if they've come out for war, take them alive.
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His assumption is these guys are coming out and they're going to plead for peace.
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And even if they don't, let's just capture them alive and then we can mock them.
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We can do whatever we want with them.
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Just take them alive.
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Well,
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as these men come out of the city,
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the servants of the governors of the districts and the army that followed them,
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verse 20,
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each struck down his man and the Syrians fled and Israel pursued them.
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Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, escaped on a horse with horsemen.
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The king of Israel went out and struck the horses and the chariots and struck the
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Syrians with a great blow.
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So these people who are great and mighty are overwhelmed by this tiny army of Israel.
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God works great salvation for the people of Israel that day.
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It's shocking as you read it to think that this mighty army of the Syrians is
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overwhelmed by this tiny force from the people of Israel.
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Now, anytime the little guy sneaks a punch in there,
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And knocks the big guy down.
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What you have to be ready for is that the big guy is at some point going to stand back up.
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He's not going to just take this lying down.
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And so verse 22, a prophet comes near to the king of Israel.
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Same prophet who likely earlier had told him that God was going to give the army of Syria into his hand.
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Verse 13 says,
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Now he says, consider, verse 22, strengthen yourself and consider well that what you will have to do.
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For in the spring, the king of Syria will come up against you.
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When it's wartime again, Syria is going to come and Ben-Hadad is not going to mess around.
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So you have that instruction given to Ahab.
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Gather your strength.
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Strengthen yourself.
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Consider well what is about to happen and be ready for it.
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Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, also receives counsel.
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And this is what his men tell him.
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Well, their gods are gods of the hills, that is the Israelites.
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And so they were stronger there than we.
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So as they came up towards Samaria,
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they're in the hill country,
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and oh,
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sure,
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they've got gods of the hills,
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and they were able to defeat us there.
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But if you pull together an army that's just as big and just as strong,
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and we meet them out in the plain,
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we will destroy them.
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So verse 26 and following, we see that the Ben-Hadad does gather his forces again.
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He does muster his army and they come out to meet Israel in the plain.
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And verse 27 says the people of Israel were mustered and were provisioned and went against them.
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And the people of Israel encamped before them like two little flocks of goats,
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but the Syrians filled the country.
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So imagine
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this army that is as vast as the sea in front of you.
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That's the army of Syria.
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And out there in front of this great wide expanse,
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you have two little flocks of goats and that's the army,
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the army of the people of God.
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And, and in,
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Any normal circumstance,
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you would look at that and you would say,
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the odds are stacked and not only are they stacked,
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they are overwhelmingly,
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impossibly in the favor of the people of Syria.
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And Ben-Hadad has every reason,
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humanly speaking,
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to assume there won't even be meaningful resistance to his power and to his might.
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Then verse 28 says, A man of God came near and said to the king of Israel,
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Thus says the Lord,
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because the Syrians have said,
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the Lord is a God of the hills,
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but he is not a God of the valleys.
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Therefore, I will give all this great multitude into your hand and you shall know that I am the Lord.
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Well, seven days pass between the word of the Lord given through this prophet and when battle is joined.
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And for seven days,
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You can hear in your mind,
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at least I can hear in my mind,
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the responses of the people of Israel murmuring and wondering what's going to happen.
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And is God there for us?
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And is God going to save us?
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And how will anything good come from this overwhelmingly bad set of circumstances?
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But then, verse 29, on the seventh day, the battle was joined.
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And the people of Israel struck down of the Syrians 100,000 foot soldiers in one day.
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And the rest fled into the city of Aphek.
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And the wall fell upon 27,000 men who were left.
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And Ben-Hadad takes off.
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He's running for his life.
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He's eventually caught.
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And they realize, hey, maybe we should plead for mercy.
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Maybe we should recognize the fact that the kings of Israel are merciful.
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But the point of this passage here, to this point, is that the Syrians had every earthly advantage.
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They had all the power.
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They had all of the superior weaponry.
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They had what it took to destroy the people of Israel.
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And yet,
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because they had mocked the God of Israel,
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the only true God,
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the God of Abraham,
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Isaac,
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and Jacob,
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Yahweh,
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God said, oh, they think I'm not God down here in the valley?
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I will show them who is God in the valley.
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These two little flocks of goats are going to demolish 127,000 men of Syria.
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So the point that we should gain from this, what we should understand from this passage is,
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is that it does not matter what is arrayed against you in terms of circumstances.
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It does not matter who is arrayed against you in terms of who are your enemies,
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who are the people who stand against you as you seek to stand for the Lord.
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It does not matter.
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Do not be afraid.
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Do not quake in your boots.
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Do not fear those who can kill the body only, but cannot kill the soul.
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Fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell, namely God.
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And if God be for us, who can be against us?
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Now,
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the chapter goes on,
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and it does not end so well as it had started,
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because Ahab is still a wicked king.
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Ahab spares Ben-Hadad.
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He's still thinking in human terms,
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like this is a powerful man,
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and if I show him mercy,
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it will be good for me in the long run.
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That's how Ahab is thinking.
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Instead of crushing the enemies of God, as the deliverers of Israel are supposed to do, instead...
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He shows mercy to those who are not to be shown mercy,
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those who have been delivered over to destruction by the word of the Lord.
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Ahab is saying, nah, I'm going to let it slide.
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I'm going to let him go.
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And so you have this strange prophetic action in verses 35 and following.
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A certain man of the sons of the prophet said to his fellow at the command of the Lord,
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strike me,
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please.
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But the man refused to strike him.
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Then he said to him,
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because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord,
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behold,
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as soon as you have gone from me,
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a lion will strike you down.
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And as soon as he departed from him, a lion met him and struck him down.
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In verse 37, he found another man and said, strike me, please.
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And the man struck him, struck him and wounded him.
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So the prophet departed and waited for the king by the way, disguising himself with a
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Ahab is that you have spared the one whom God has told you to kill.
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And now God is going to visit judgment on you for that.
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Verse 42,
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thus says the Lord,
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because you have let go out of your hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction,
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therefore your life shall be for your life and your people for his people.
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And notice again, this is the wickedness of Ahab on display.
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He doesn't repent.
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He doesn't say the Lord is right and I was wrong.
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Rather, verse 43, the king of Israel went to his house vexed and sullen and came to Samaria.
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So the other thing that we can learn from this passage is that God will use wicked
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instruments to accomplish his purposes.
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God wanted to display his power over the people of Syria.
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And so he used Ahab and his army to destroy Israel.
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the army of Syria.
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And at the same time, Ahab was still a self-willed, rebellious king.
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He was not serving the Lord, and so God promises judgment upon him as well.
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And this is a sober warning for each of us,
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because we should,
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when we hear these kind of rebukes from God,
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each of us deserves rebuke from God.
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Hebrews 12 says that he brings chastisement upon every son whom he loves.
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But we should not treat that lightly.
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Rather, we should receive it as his loving correction.
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We should not, as Ahab does here, pout away vexed and sullen.
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I have this conversation with my kids all the time, especially my boys.
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Do not pout over being corrected.
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Do not whine when you are told you are wrong.
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Repent and grow.
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Repent, receive forgiveness for your sins, and do not return to them.
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Ahab refused that, and God visited judgment on his house.
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So may we,
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as we think about passages like 1 Kings 20,
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trust in the Lord and in the power of his might,
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and also receive his correction with humble hearts.
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This has been the Stopping to Think podcast.
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I'm your host, Will Dole.
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Thank you for listening.
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