2 Kings 3:21-27
"21 When all the Moabites heard that the kings had come up to fight against them, all who were able to put on armor, from the youngest to the oldest, were called out and were drawn up at the border. 22 And when they rose early in the morning and the sun shone on the water, the Moabites saw the water opposite them as red as blood. 23 And they said, “This is blood; the kings have surely fought together and struck one another down. Now then, Moab, to the spoil!” 24 But when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose and struck the Moabites, till they fled before them. And they went forward, striking the Moabites as they went. 25 And they overthrew the cities, and on every good piece of land every man threw a stone until it was covered. They stopped every spring of water and felled all the good trees, till only its stones were left in Kir-hareseth, and the slingers surrounded and attacked it. 26 When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going against him, he took with him 700 swordsmen to break through, opposite the king of Edom, but they could not. 27 Then he took his oldest son who was to reign in his place and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath against Israel. And they withdrew from him and returned to their own land."
We are always glad to come to a story like this, because it demonstrates the effortless ease with which the Lord sets at nought the wiles of His enemies. There is a certain thrill in trying to anticipate how God will perform His will, and this is what should occupy our minds in time of crisis far more than it does. Too often we are fearfully concerned with the possibilities of danger or disaster that face us, when the real question is not whether God will deliver us - has He not promised? - but how He will do it. He is such a surprising God and always so original in the way He gloriously turns the tables on His foes. Who would have thought that so simple an expedient as making the sun shine on the water in a certain way would have so completely misled the Moabites? But it did, and they were routed. It is as if God were showing His people that it is the merest child's play to Him to discomfit those who oppose Him and His chosen ones. 'O Thou God of the surprising and unlooked for, help us to trust in Thee more!'