OK...so Jehoshaphat has come home from Israel to the rebuke from God. " Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD? Because of this the wrath of the LORD is upon you. " (2 Chronicles 19:2) And, in response, he did a GREAT job cleaning house...calling the people back to GOD, sending out judges and priests and elders. But what the prophet told him was that because he had gone to war with Ahab (the wicked man who hated the LORD) that Jehoshaphat was under the wrath of God. I bet he dreamed about that word...like in movies when the dreams replay like a psychedelic broken record: "wrath..wrath of God..wra-wra-wrath of God, the wrath of God is UPON you". So one morning a messenger comes in with a grim face and Jehoshaphat's stomach fell -- the armies of the Moabites and Amnonites and some of the Edomites were on their way, and in fact they were already in the En-Gedi -- in Judah and only a few hours away. And Jehoshaphat does exactly the rig...
In the Northern Kingdom ~ Israel ~ the king, Jeroboam, has a son named Abijah. He is sick. It must have been really bad because he tells his wife to disguise herself and go to Shiloh to talk to the prophet Ahijah. He says, "Go to Shiloh, Abijah the prophet is there -- the one who told me I would be king over this people." That tells me that he must have told his wife about the prophetic encounters he had had: ripped cloak, dried up hand and broken altar. I wonder about her...what did she think? Did she know God at all, or just 'about' him? She goes to this prophet and gets "schooled" -- as they say. She disguises herself as her husband asked and is greeted with, " Come in wife of Jeroboam. Why the pretence?" The prophet proceeds to tell her MUCH more than she, I am guessing, expected to hear. He tells her what God thinks and feels -- here are some of the 'high-lights': ~ Go tell Jeroboam that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel s...
i betcha watching gives you a few blogging ideas!
ReplyDeleteYeah . . . you are blogging . . . that makes me happy! I'll put you on my "roll" :)
ReplyDeletegarth