Jehoshaphat returns and is rebuked by a prophet, Jehu. He should not have gone to war with Ahab for Ahab was a wicked king. As a result judgement would come upon him.
Notice how Jehoshaphat reacts. He organises things so that people were instructed in how to follow the Lord. He also appointed judges. Now there is a very important point about the judges here and something that we as leaders, whether in churches of civic life, need to get a hold of. They were exercising judgement on behalf of the Lord. Now this can be so easily be taken wrongly, thinking it bestows some privilege upon them. This is precisely the wrong thing to do, it bestowed a responsibility upon them. They were not judging on their own behalf, or even on behalf of the people, but on the Lord's behalf. In the same way if we have a position of leadership we have a responsibility first of all to the Lord and are servants of the people.
All leaders will have to answer to God for what they do. The priests were further organised to administer the Lord's justice.
An attack was then imminent from the Moabites and Ammonites. Jehoshaphat reacted in the right way, he turned to the Lord and led the people in a fast. Remember that he is doing all this after having been rebuked by the Lord, he does not respond by going in a huff.
So Jehoshaphat led all the people in turning to the Lord for help.
The Lord uses a prophet to speak to Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat urged the people to have faith and made a praise a key part of the battle plan. So victory ensued.
Jehoshaphat reigned over Judah, yet right at the end he repeated his Ahab mistake, making an alliance with Azariah of Israel. Accordingly he received another rebuke from a prophet. We see the weakness of human nature here. Even such a good king as Jehoshaphat had repeated human failings.
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