May 8, 2016 The Horror of Unbelief by Pastor Josh Sheldon

As we read in 2 Kings, we will read of two mothers and we will be rejoiced that our God loves us more than any mother could. Amen. But our scripture reading for this morning, it is 1 Kings 6 -24 -7 -20.

That is found on page 312 of the Black Pew Bibles in front of you. And then we will be reading Matthew 24 -29, the end of the chapter, which is on page 830 of the Black Pew Bibles. And when you are ready, and if you are able, please stand for the reading of God's Word.

The Siege of Samaria and the Horror of Famine

2 Kings 6, starting in verse 24. Afterward, Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, mustered his entire army and went out and besieged Samaria. There was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a calf of doves' dung for five shekels of silver.

Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, Help my lord, O king. And he said, If the Lord will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?

The king answered, What is your trouble? She answered, This woman said to me, Give your son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, Give your son that we may eat him.

But she has hidden her son. When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now he was passing by on the wall, and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body.

And he said, May God do so to me, and more also, if the head of Elisha, the son of Shabbat, remains on his shoulders today. Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Now the king had dispatched the man from his presence, but before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, You see how this murderer has sent to take off my head?

Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door, and behold the door fast against him. Is not the sound of his master's feet behind him? And while he was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him and said, This trouble is from the Lord.

Why should I wait for the Lord any longer? But Elisha said, Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, Tomorrow, about this time, a sea of fine flowers shall be sold for a shekel, and two seas of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria.

Then the captain, on whose hand the king leaned, said to the man of God, If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could this thing be? But he said, You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.

Now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance to the gate, and they said to one another, Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say, Let us enter the city, the famine is in the city, and we shall die there.

And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall but die. So they arose at twilight to go to the camp of the Syrians.

But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army.

So that they said to one another, Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us. So they fled away into twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was and fled for their lives.

When these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank. They carried out silver and gold and clothing and went and hid there. When they came back and entered another tent, carried off things from it and went and hid there.

Then they said to one another, We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go and tell the king's household.

So they came and called to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, We came to the camp of the Syrians and behold, there was no one to be seen nor heard there, nothing but the horses tied and the donkeys tied in the tents as they were.

And the gatekeepers called out and was told within the king's household. The king rose in the night and said to his servants, I will tell you what the Syrians have done to us. They know that we are hungry.

Therefore they have gone out of the camp to hide themselves in the open country, thinking, when they come out of the city, we shall take them alive and get into the city. One of the servants said, Let some men take five of the remaining horses, seeing that those who are left here will fare like the whole multitude of Israel who have already perished.

Let us then go and see. So they took two horsemen and the king sent them after the army of the Syrians, saying, Go and see. So they went after them as far as the Jordan and behold, all the way was littered with garments and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away in their haste.

The messengers returned and told the king. And the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So a sea of fine flour was sold for a shekel, and two seals of barley for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.

Now the king had appointed the captain on whose hand he leaned to have charge of the gate. The people trampled him in the gate, so that he died, as the man of God had said when the king came down to him.

For when the man of God had said to the king, Two seals of barley shall be sold for a shekel, and a sea of fine flour for a shekel, about this time tomorrow in the gate to Samaria, the captain had answered the man of God, If the Lord himself should make windows in heaven, could such a thing be?

And he said, You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it. And so it happened to him, for the people trampled him in the gate, and he died. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

From the fig tree learn its lesson, as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaf, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near at the very gates.

Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the sun, but the Father only.

As for the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day our Lord is coming.

But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not let his house be broken into. Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Whodun is a faithful and wise servant whom his master has set over his household to give them their food at the proper time. Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.

But if that wicked servant says to himself, My master is delayed and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Please be seated. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the Word that you have preserved for us in so many thousands of years, and that you have blessed us with a man who proclaimed these words to our ears.

We pray your Holy Spirit would be with us to open our ears and our hearts to receive the message. We pray your Holy Spirit would be with our pastor as he preaches the message, and holds forth the Word of God that we might see Jesus.

We pray in Christ's name, amen.

Amen. Thank you, Dale. If I ask you, awful is unbelief.

What is God's view who refuses to believe in Him, despite all He's done in the heavens, in the firmament, in creation as we see it? Despite what He has done in history? Despite His Word that He has given?

How does God view those who will not believe His Word, who will not trust Him and His integrity simply in what He says? What is God's view of the believer in Jesus Christ, who in that moment of decision forgets God?

And as it were, and I say as it were for that moment, is an unbeliever. What is God's view of unbelief? How awful is it in God's view? We can barely imagine the answers to questions like this, because we are limited, we are finite.

God is infinite. We are not God, therefore we are not holy. God is perfectly holy. So the divine attitude towards unbelief is something that we can only scratch the surface of understanding. But unbelief is one of the things that comes up over and again in this passage that Dale read to you from 2 Kings, our text this morning.

A rather long one, I admit that. And there's a lot there. But I want us to come away with a better understanding of what it means to disbelieve God, how God looks upon it, when His word is simply ignored or actively set aside.

We've seen this before, what was read to you a moment ago from 2 Kings. We've seen this before in the history of Elijah with a J, Elijah, and our current subject, Elisha. Wayward as they were, Israel were still God's people in their descent from Abraham.

They had willingly followed their kings in idolatry, we know that. All Israel was at Carmel to see if Baal, who most of them seemed to favor, if Baal or Yahweh was God. And we know, of course, after Elijah called upon God and the sacrifice was consumed, they all said, the Lord, He is God, the Lord, He is God.

And yet, all Israel had to assemble and be a part of this decision process because they were all given over to the other. It was a backslidden nation. Yet, they were those whom God had taken from the land of Egypt.

God does not easily or quickly turn away from His children. Standing against God's people is the world at large, the followers of the prince of the power of the air. And here, in this passage, represented by who?

By Syria. By Syria. And as wicked as were the practices of Israel's kings, and as willingly as the people followed them, yet, this is that people whom God, when He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, drew them out of Egypt.

This is that people. Well, not the very people. It happened a long time before. But in God's view, they're the people promised to Abraham who will be as the sand of the shore. God has no tolerance for sin.

We know that. And yet, God does not easily set aside the people He had redeemed. Who is attacking Israel? Israel. God's children being attacked by Syria. Representing the world. The world just cannot live at peace with God's children, even those as far from a proper worship of God as these were.

Syria had just been treated to a lesson in divine mercy and forbearance. We did this, we preached this last week. When their blinded army was fed and allowed to return to Syria in safety. And now here they are once again in Samaria, once again intent on subjugating them.

In the last campaign, it was a raiding force. Now it's an entire army. Israel's previous restraint is not met with any gratitude, but was probably viewed as a sign of their weakness. And whatever the case, our passage takes us immediately to the siege in Samaria.

Now it had to have gone on for some time to get to the incident which was just read, where this woman going before the king asking for this justice, if we can call it that. To have gotten to that point, the siege had to have gone on for some time, but the author simply says, now Ben-Hadad attacked, Syria is besieged, and here's the result of it, this horrible, horrible starvation.

It also tells us immediately, very quickly, that their privations within the city, their suffering was so extreme that animal parts that would normally be revolting, commanded these huge exorbitant prices.

Something you might otherwise have reserved for luxuries. The price you'd pay for fine jewelry, just to get a bite of something that perhaps your body could digest and give you a bit of strength. That's how bad it was.

This morning we'll go through this history in order, ending where the reading stopped at verse 720. The lesson here is about unbelief. Why was God allowing such horrors upon his people? It was to show them the worst horror of unbelief.

Why did God deliver the city from impending doom? To convict them of their folly, of unbelief. The unbeliever, if you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ today, right now, the unbeliever, you are here warned of the eternal destitution that awaits those who leave this world without faith in Jesus Christ.

An eternal destiny awaits that this siege in Samaria and the horrible suffering that was just read to you can't even begin to approach. Unbelief. The same warning must ring through the ages to the church today.

Unbelief is an insult to God which he simply will not wink at. The believer is warned that the Almighty will not tolerate their unbelief but will bring chastisement upon chastisement until he hears true and heartfelt repentance.

If there is faith in Jesus Christ, then we can take strength in knowing that our sins were judged in Jesus Christ on the cross and that God's only begotten Son will usher us into paradise. But let us not think that God's correcting rod upon the back of a true believer is a mere slap on the wrist, where repentance is the goal God in his mercy might bring upon us even to the travails of Samaria in the siege that was read to you.

This morning's passage warns us, believer and unbeliever alike, of the horror of unbelief in God's view. How does God see it? It's Israel. Samaria. They mean the same thing, Israel, Samaria. Unbelief.

Unbelief in their king Jehoram. Who is he? He's Ahab's son. This king who's supposed to lead his people in a godly way. He represents the rule of God on earth. He represents the rule of Jesus Christ on earth.

King Jehoram refuses to call upon God for help. He will not humble himself before the Almighty. Unbelief. Unbelief in the king's official who questioned whether God could actually even deliver. He hears the word from a prophet whose prophecy had always come true just as he said because God was working through him.

Unbelief in this king's official, the man upon whom the king leaned, asking, could God even do that? Unbelief again in Jehoram who denied the report of God's deliverance. They said God has sent this army away and the camp is left full of not just gold and silver but more important at that moment, food.

And how hard it is for us to believe that God would actually forgive a sinner in Jesus Christ and promise him heaven because of and for the sake of his son's sacrifice for that sinner. How hard that is for us to believe that God Almighty would do that for such as me.

It's all about unbelief. The king will be judged when a man named Jehu is anointed. We'll come to that in a few weeks, Lord willing. Jehu will be anointed king of Israel and he will carry out God's final vengeance against the house of Ahab which is where Jehoram came from.

The official, the one who questioned God, he will be judged when God's deliverance is confirmed. You heard this. He's trampled in the gate just as the word of God said he would be. We begin this morning with the siege.

The first two verses are very short. They come right to the point. In verse 25, the Syrian army has surrounded Samaria and in verse 26, there's a great famine in the city. As I said, there's a lot of time between the initiation of the siege and this horrible famine that they had.

But again, just as in the other campaign that we preached about last week, it seems like Jehoram and his commanders are caught unawares. They had no stores brought into the city. It seems like all of a sudden, there's the Syrian army.

They had no warning. All they could do is get themselves inside and shut the gates. Have you ever heard the expression, I'm so hungry I could eat a horse? I know I used the World War II battle in Stalingrad last week as an illustration, but bear with me for one more.

Because as the Germans were caught inside the city of Stalingrad and less and less food could get in, one of the signs of their desperate plight was that they were forced to eat horse meat. As starvation set in, they found no part of the beast too unappetizing.

Here in Samaria, it was even worse. It was even worse than that. A piece of refuse like a donkey's head sold for about the equivalent of two and a half months' wages. Two and a half months' wages to get a donkey head.

Dove droppings, maybe used for food, maybe used for fuel, maybe for both, they were all so exorbitant. There wasn't anything in there it was so bad. Then the next portion of this record, verses 26 to 31, they bring us to this gruesome incident of this woman crying out for justice.

She had shared her son for food with another woman. The agreement was that the next day they would do the same with the other. Of course, that one gets hidden away. Before we get to the king's answer when she calls out for justice to him, as you might expect, or might have expected, he was no Solomon.

I need for just a moment to defend God's name here. Not that God needs our help, but this is a horrible incident. This thing that the woman says she needs justice for, it's like what are you doing this in the first place?

This is beyond gruesome. Why would God do such a thing? How could a good God allow such depravity? In defending God's name for just a moment, I want to read just a couple of verses that these Israelites, these Samaritans, these people in Samaria would have known.

God had told them that exactly this horror would be the result of unbelief. Deuteronomy 28, 47 and 48. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything.

And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. And then just a few verses down from that. They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trust come down throughout all your land.

And they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you. You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you.

Now I say this only to defend God against the accusation of foul play somehow. You see, he had warned them specifically and explicitly of this very thing. Doesn't Amos tell us this? That the Lord God does nothing unless he tells the people what he's going to do through a prophet.

Now you're saying I added a little bit. I didn't quote the verse exactly but I'm true to what it's saying. The Lord warns. The Lord warned. They should have read the scripture. They had read the scripture.

So what's missing? Faith. Faith. They were told that this would happen but they didn't believe it. And here it was. Back to our text. The king is on the wall in the sight of all the people as where a leader should be at such a time as that in the sight of the people giving them strength just by his presence.

By his courage to stand on the wall and be seen by the enemy. That's what a king should be doing. You know what the woman asked for and I don't want to read it again. But I'll follow this and see how unbelief once given ground is never satisfied but it demands more and more and more.

She says, help my lord oh king. Well so far so good, right? In the old dispensation the king represented God's rule and no aspect of that was no important than to dispense justice. But even before he hears her case he shows us just how empty his heart really is.

He says, if the Lord does not help you where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the wine press? You see what he meant was first seek help from God not from me which is true enough my help comes from the Lord who made the heavens and the earth.

So yes, let us point those in need to the one place where help in time of need could be found and should be found. The throne of grace. Someone says help. It would be right to say help comes from the Lord.

What can I do? What he's really saying is leave me be. There's nothing to be done. God has left us in this horrible position. The wine vats are empty. The threshing floor is bare. What are you coming to me for?

We're all suffering this together. Just leave me be. What can I do seeing that God who by the way I neither love nor follow but he has forsaken us. And then he asks her what the problem is. Now I don't know if I would keep going if I went to someone for help and he shrugs his shoulders and says nothing I can do.

We don't have any resources here. I don't have a God to turn to for you. I think we'd be through. But he goes ahead and he asks her what the problem is. And I want you to understand why he even asks that.

Because I don't think he cared. I think he's the true son of Ahab which means he cares about himself. He cares about his own luxury. His own safety. I want you to understand why he even asked her what the problem is.

What is it you seek? You see when the two women came to Solomon we all know that story. It's the two harlots they come and one son had died and this is the other one and he takes the sword. And he says okay we'll find out which mother is real because they're both claiming the same one.

And the one who wasn't the true mother says go ahead and kill him I'll take my half. And the one who was the true mother said no give him to her. Solomon figured it out. Divinely with God's help he figured it out.

I bring that up just to point out to you if you recall that everybody marveled at Solomon's wisdom. It was very public. It wasn't just in a meeting room with Solomon and the two ladies. Everybody was in attendance.

Remember when Nathan confronted David over Bathsheba and Uriah that was public. Nathan didn't take him in a room and let him work this out privately. This was in the presence of all the emissaries who would be there.

You see when the woman cried out to Jehoram Jehoram was on the wall. He was seen by the people. He was on the spot. He had to reply. But he was like the unjust judge that Jesus speaks of in Luke 18 who was only willing to even speak about justice just to get the woman off his back.

She's a nuisance. She's in my way. She's bothering me. Jehoram's no better than that. He's saying what do you want? Why? Why is he asking? Because everybody's looking at him. He's on the wall. He answers for appearance's sake not for any care for her not because of any care about God.

He was the ultimate fearer of men and not a fearer of God at all. So ultimately no matter what he would say God is going to take no pleasure in it because all that is not of faith is sin. And he had no faith because he had no view of God.

He didn't believe in God. And when he hears her tale he has no answer except for a show of remorse and anguish with all the substance of a puff of wind. He tears his clothes. He had done the same when Ben-Hadad asked for Naaman's leprosy to be cured.

Do you remember that several chapters ago? He gets this letter from this Syrian king. Says I've sent to you my servant Naaman. I want you to cure him of this leprosy. And the king tears his clothes. He says look he's trying to pick a fight with me.

How can I do this? Notice what he doesn't do which is to go to God in prayer. King David tore his clothes when his commander Joash was killed. Josiah tore his clothes when he heard the words of the law and perceived the nation's guilt before God.

Hezekiah tore his clothes when Assyria attacked Jerusalem. But you see Josiah's was a spontaneous act of repentance and humility. David's was heartfelt sorrow. Hezekiah's was a sign of complete dependence.

What was Jehoram doing? Jehoram was all show. He was the hypocrite praying on the street corner that Jesus speaks of. Says surely they have their reward. Why? Because they're doing it for men not for God.

Their eye is on the horizontal plane looking to see who's watching and answering because of their being watched. Jehoram was all show. And his first response is a complete failure. He named the Lord as the one who could provide for them.

If the Lord doesn't do this what can I do? But then what does he not do? He doesn't call on God. And then he puts on this hypocritical show of this holy anguish and tearing his clothes and now his complete lack of faith in the God of Israel rises to a crescendo.

Because what does he do? Doesn't pray. Doesn't offer any comfort to the woman. Doesn't rebuke her for this horrible thing she had done and is planning to do again if she can only get the king to condone it.

None of that. What does he do? He threatens the life of Israel's only prophet. May the Lord do to me and more also if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today. Now we're not told exactly why Elisha should have been blamed for the afflictions that are brought on here by Syria's invasion.

It seems most likely that the reasoning was if Elisha could blind the Syrian raiders and leave them away captive why didn't he do the same with this army? Therefore he is to be blamed. Something like that.

Whether or not that was his reasoning his response was typical. He threatens the man of God with death just as his father had done to Elisha's predecessor when he warned of the coming drought. Just as his mother Jezebel had done when Elijah in a wondrous display of God's power executed her pet prophets, the prophets of Baal.

So now Jehoram, death to the messenger. Death to the man of God. Death to anyone that reminds me of God. Curses upon God for not giving way to my whims. You know in Revelation 16 we're told three times about how men while suffering the awful wrath of God the boils, these hail pieces coming down from heaven and they know it's from God.

They know their suffering is from God. And they know it. Why? Because they won't repent. They know this. And yet what does the scripture say? Still, knowing it was from God, knowing this, no doubt, they refused to repent but instead blasphemed the name of God.

So often we find ourselves in this same mess. We press down our own path. The warnings of God are there before us but our pride has overcome our senses so we ignore it. Or we force fit God's word to fit our own desires.

Then we stand on the wall and we see the rebuke of God. We look down and we see those who have suffered for our error. Children who refuse God's grace. Pocketbooks that seem to have grown craterous holes.

Not so different, really. But why is it so hard to repent? It's because like Jehoram, pride defeats the stirrings of humility. Arrogance rises up and stifles repentance. Self-sufficiency replaces our need for God's power by His Holy Spirit.

Brothers who would guide us back to the narrow path are suddenly dim-witted in our eyes. Churches that won't bend to our whim and agree with us are suddenly not good enough for us. And so we lash out at God's people.

We lash out at God. We blaspheme His name by our vitriol against His blood-bought children. We join Jehoram. May God do to me and more also if His head remains on His shoulders today. I will do anything.

Any amount of violence. Any amount of cursing. Any amount of blaspheming. I will do anything but give in to the humility needed for repentance. To fall down before God. He wore sackcloth. Remember when He tore His clothes?

He said the people saw He had sackcloth on His body. So what? Sackcloth indicates what? Humility before God. In Jehoram what did it indicate? It's just itchy stuff on His skin because there is no truth to the emblem.

The symbol meant nothing. The next scene we come to is at Elisha's house where he is sitting with the elders. He knows who's coming and why before they arrive and he tells the men to hold the door against the king's messenger because Jehoram is right behind them.

There is one difficulty in the text I want to talk about. It's in verse 33. If you look at that again, verse 33. And while he, meaning Elisha, while he was still talking with them, which is the elders, the elders of the city, there was the messenger coming down to him and the paren, someone, said, this calamity is from the Lord.

Why should I wait for the Lord any longer? The question is who said that? Who asked that question? If you look in your New King James, it says it was the king but in the New King James where it says the king said it is italicized because the original language is sort of ambiguous.

We don't know who exactly said it. The NET and the ESV say it was the messenger speaking, of course, for the king. I think it was Elisha. I think it was Elisha who said this calamity is from the Lord.

Why should I wait for the Lord any longer? You see, first, King Jehoram seems an unlikely candidate to suddenly name the God he refuses to worship as the agent behind his kingdom's distress. I don't think Jehoram is the guy who would say something like that.