When the Wrath of God Comes to Bear

Man, I'm always encouraged when one is so excited for the preaching of the Word. Well, you know that 247 years ago, on this very day,

July 2, 1776, it was on this day when

Continental Congress officially voted for independence from Great Britain.

Now, that would be publicly known as on July 4, but many of the founding fathers thought

July 2 would be the day, you know, that we celebrate our independence, but it'll actually be a couple of days away,

July 4. But we should not forget, on a day like today, it's even appropriate in the

Lord's Day worship to remember the nation in which we live and to be grateful for the nation in which we live.

None of you woke up this morning and were concerned about any kind of secret passage that you needed to take to church so that you could avoid detection.

You were not worried about needing to come in the cloak of darkness. You come today in the broad daylight and worship

God openly, and we should not take these blessings lightly.

We live in a land that has been tremendously blessed by our great and holy

God, and we should be grateful for these blessings. We should love our country, and we should seek the benefit of our country, and we should seek revival for our country.

And then also, as a Baptist church, we love the

Bible. We love God's Word.

This is His book. This is His authoritative, sufficient, necessary, clear, inerrant, infallible, trustworthy,

God -breathed Bible. I hope that everyone listening to me here this morning is a daily

Bible reader. I encourage you, if you're not a daily Bible reader, figure out what habit it is in your life that either needs to be let go of, or what habit it is that needs to be formed, so that you can be a person who takes advantage of the country in which you live in, and the freedoms that you have, and the blessings that you've been given, and read the

Bible every day. If you haven't read through the whole Bible, I encourage you to make that a priority or a commitment to do so over the next maybe year, two years, possibly even three years.

But be a person who has read the entire counsel of the Word of God. And what you'll notice when you read through the

Bible, this will bring us to this morning's text. We're taking a break from Ephesians, by the way. What you'll know, you'll come to know when you read through the

Bible, is that sometimes you come upon interesting passages in the

Bible. You come upon passages that make us think to ourselves, okay, why is this in the

Bible? Why did this event happen this way?

What is it that I am supposed to think about this passage? What is it I'm supposed to learn from this passage?

When we turn to one of those passages this morning, I invite you to take your copy of God's Word and turn to 2

Kings 2. 2 Kings 2.

We consider this morning one of those interesting passages, and we'll talk about the prophet

Elisha. I want to assure you, in case you think I have some sort of ulterior motive this morning, this has nothing to do with Brother Jacob.

It has nothing to do with the way my hair is receding. Nothing to do with that, and you'll notice that in just a moment.

Instead, I want us to consider very soberingly and seriously, why is this passage in the

Bible? And what is it that we are to learn from such a passage?

And so the title of this morning's sermon is simply this, When God's Wrath Comes to Bear.

When God's Wrath Comes to Bear. Let's stand this morning and please turn your eyes to verse 23.

The he in our text is talking about Elisha. Elisha went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying,

Go up, you bald head. Go up, you bald head. And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the

Lord. And two she bears came out of the woods and tore 42 of the boys.

From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria. Let's pray. Father, what a passage to consider this morning on this day.

Help us to understand the truth of this text. Help us to not make light of the truth contained therein.

Help us to see what it is that we need to see from the text. Oh God, may

Your Holy Spirit be upon this place in a special way. Holy Spirit, may You bless us, strengthen us by Your Word, convict us, challenge us, quicken us, feed us.

May we understand what it is that You have for Your church, and why it is this passage is in the

Bible, why it is this happened the way that it did. Teach us, O Lord.

Feed us. May Christ be exalted. We pray it in His name. Amen. You may be seated.

I'll give you a little bit of context. So by the time we get to 2 Kings, you understand that Israel has split in two.

So you have King Saul, and then you have King David. After David, you have

King Solomon. After Solomon, you have the kingdom split between Jeroboam and Rehoboam.

And you have the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, and the ten tribes in the north. And then you have the kingdom of Judah and the two tribes in the south.

And so you have a splitting of the kingdom. And you have God sending

His prophets. One of the more well -known prophets you remember is the prophet Elijah with a

J. And then after the prophet Elijah, you have the prophet Elisha. And we have, during this time period, a battle over worship.

So think for just a moment. You probably remember this. You have the people worshiping a false god.

And so you remember the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 18 versus the prophets of Baal.

And you have this great showdown where the prophets of Baal are cutting themselves, and they're calling upon Baal.

And Elijah mocks them. He's like, where's your God? Is He going to the bathroom? That's really in the

Bible. And obviously, Baal never answers. But Yahweh answers by fire.

And they understand, once again, that Yahweh is the true God. And so you have this battle over false worship, worship of a false god.

But something else you have happening during this time period is not only worshiping a false god, you also have the people of Israel worshiping the right

God, Yahweh, in a false way. So keep your place and turn over to your left to 1

Kings 12 for just a moment. I'll set a little bit of context for our story.

So in 1 Kings chapter 12, you have the worship of the right

God in the wrong way. So you have Jeroboam, the king of Israel, in verse 25.

Now the kingdom is split here. And so Jeroboam comes up with this thing he believes is necessary.

Verse 25, Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and he lived there, and he went out from there and built

Penuel. And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David.

If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their

Lord, to Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.

So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough.

Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And he set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.

And then this thing became a sin for the people went as far as Dan to be before one.

So turn back to second Kings now. But here's what happens. We're in Bethel in our text, right?

You see that? Verse 23, Elisha went up there from there to Bethel.

By the way, Bethel, Bethel in Hebrew means house of God. Elisha goes to Bethel.

Bethel is the place where Jeroboam had set up one of these false idols to worship.

Similar to what happened in Exodus, where Aaron sets up the golden calf and says, Here, here's Yahweh, worship

Him. And so now they're worshiping, as it were, the right God, yet in the wrong way.

I want to mention two brief things before we get into an outline. First, you need to understand that people get really upset when you tell them that how it is they are worshipping

God is not right. When you confront people on how it is they worship, and you begin to tell them,

You're not worshipping right. I don't care if that's how your grandparents worshipped. I don't care if that's how you've always worshipped.

I don't care if this is what makes you feel really good. According to the Bible, the way that you're worshipping is wrong.

When you tell people that, it's very offensive to them.

The second comment to make here is this. It's basically guaranteed that these small boys learned this behavior that they have towards Elisha from their parents.

So verse 23, He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys, now you think some small boys,

I think in my mind when I immediately I read that, three, four, five, you know, a group of small boys, but it was a lot.

How do we know? Because apparently not all the boys were mauled to death, but 42 of them were.

So there were at least 43 boys, right? This was a whole passel of boys.

They say that one young boy is a good help. You know, you're going out, you're doing work, and you get one boy, he's a good help.

You get two boys, you wind up cutting your help in half, right? And then you get more than that, and you just descended into chaos, and that's what happens.

But these boys come to Elisha, and they mock him. They mock the prophet.

You understand by making fun of his baldness, they're doing more than just mocking his appearance.

We'll talk more about that later. But the brief comment, it was brief, right? I was going to make, is these boys most assuredly learned this behavior from their parents.

You understand that when a child sees or hears their parent mock the things of God, it's only natural for that child then to also mock the things of God.

But do you want to know the difference is? You don't see the adults out here in this scenario. The difference between parents and children is children haven't learned yet.

Parents have learned how to be hypocrites. Parents have learned how to mock God inwardly, but outwardly to present it one way.

Children don't know that yet. So when children see the hypocrisy of their parents, when they see their parents behind closed doors mock the things of God, mock the church, mock the people of God, mock the

Bible, when children see that, they're going to mimic that behavior. Except they don't know how to hold it in so well.

And so children will mock openly what parents mock sometimes secretly.

So parents, let me just issue a counsel and warning. Our treatment of the ways of God, our treatment of the church, our treatment of the

Bible, our treatment of the attributes of God, our treatment of evangelism, our treatment of the

Gospel, our treatment of holiness, our treatment of the way that we listen during the sermon, our treatment of these things will inevitably impact our children.

So consider that. Now with that being said, I want to give you five observations from our text today.

Why is this in the Bible? Why is this story? Why did it happen the way that it did?

By the way, this isn't parable. This isn't allegory. This is historical narrative. This really happened.

Why? What should we learn? Well, I have five observations, and I hope this morning you'll take these seriously.

This is very important. This is a message that we need in the church. It's a message our nation needs to hear.

It's a message that you need to meditate on even today after church and to consider.

Now point number one is this. First observation. Justice amazes us.

Okay, observation number one. Justice amazes us. He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, go up, you bald head.

Go up, you bald head. He turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of Yahweh.

Two she bears came out of the woods and tore at his mauled, ripped apart 42 of the boys.

Now here's the reality, friends. Every day, we wake up and we breathe

God's air. We walk upon God's earth. We eat

God's food. We spend God's money. We enjoy God's time.

We are blessed by the riches of what theologians have referred to as common grace.

That is the grace of God that we have every day that we get so accustomed to in which the sun rises every day upon the just and the unjust, and the rain falls upon the righteous and the unrighteous, and the seasons change, and we bask in the grace of God every day.

And what happens is then we grow accustomed and presumptuous upon such grace. And it's no longer this grace that amazes us every day, but it's justice.

So just consider this passage for a moment. What is your response to verse 24? And Elisha turned around, and he saw them.

That is, he sees these small boys, and he curses them in the name of the Lord. And all of a sudden, ferocious she bears, as though robbed of their cubs, come flying out of the woods, and they rip to shreds.

Forty -two of these boys. What is your response? It's shock. It's amazement.

I'm putting my hand over my mouth. I'm not amazed at the grace of God.

I'm amazed at the justice of God. Why? Because I've grown too presumptuous and accustomed to the grace that God shows me every day.

Interestingly enough, this word for tor in our text, the Hebrew word for tor, it's used in two other passages about judgment.

One we read this morning, Genesis 7. Let's turn there. Genesis 7 and number 16. Genesis 7 and number 16.

Genesis chapter 7. We heard this read in our, not accidentally, by the way, but we heard this read.

And I'll just read verse 11. The Hebrew word for tor is used in verse 11 of Genesis chapter 7.

And the 600 year of Noah's life, and the second month on the 17th day of the month, on that day, all the fountains of the great deep, and here it is, burst forth.

And the windows of the heavens were opened. This Hebrew word has a connotation of opening up, right?

Number 16. Flip over a couple more books there. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers 16.

It's interesting that this same word is used in a few different passages of judgment. But in number 16, you will remember

Korah's rebellion. And here's the judgment. I'm going to start in verse 25 for context.

Then Moses rose. So, number 16, verse 25. Then Moses rose and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him.

And he spoke to the congregation saying, Depart, please, from these tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be swept away with all their sins.

So they got away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. And Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the door of their tents, together with their wives, their sons, listen, and their little ones.

And Moses said, Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord.

If these men die, as all men die, or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind, then the

Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth, and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the

Lord. And by the way, our word is in verse 31. And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them, and here it is, split apart.

As soon as he finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart, and the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up with their households, and all the people who belong to Korah, and all their goods.

Okay, listen to me, church. It's passages like this. It's passages like Genesis 7,

Numbers 16, 2 Kings 2. A flood wipes out men and women and babies.

The ground opens up and swallows up alive men and women and children.

And bears come out of the woods, and they maul 42 small boys.

These passages on the justice of God tend to amaze us over and above grace.

And here's a reason. We grow accustomed to grace, but we also tend to view mankind as morally neutral.

We tend to think of man as more highly than we ought. We tend to think of man as more noble than how the

Bible describes him. When tragedy strikes, when a tornado destroys a town, when we see evidence of God's judgment upon our nation, these things shock us because we're so accustomed to the grace of God.

So when we read a passage like our text this morning, verse 24, and he turned around and when he saw them, he cursed them.

By the way, this is not the context of passage. This is not like you're driving down the road, right?

You've experienced this. You're driving down the road, and some knucklehead cuts you off.

And if you had it within your power, you wouldn't mind maybe if a she -bear would run out of the woods and jump in the cab with that man or woman.

That's unrighteous anger usually. You're just mad because they cut you off.

This is not Elisha. By the way, Elisha is a prophet known about his great, usually his great patience, or shown great patience often in his ministry.

But here he turns, almost seems on a whim and curses these boys.

But this is not an indictment against Elisha. It's an indictment against these boys.

And so my question for just a moment is, what is your response to something like this?

Do you want me to tell you what one of your responses ought to be? Did you know that when you read a passage like this, one of your responses ought to be worship?

Worship. Why? Because God is worthy of worship, not in spite of his justice, but because of his justice.

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. He is a just God.

His judgments are true, and he must be worshiped for his justice. And when we see evidences in our world today of the judgment of God, we ought to be like Jesus in Luke 13.

We ought to preach repentance. That's what Jesus did, right? He preached repentance.

Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. So the judgments we see in our world today are but birth pains of the judgment of God that is to come.

So first observation, we are amazed at justice. Second observation,

God's warnings must be taken seriously. God's warnings must be taken seriously.

We're going to go back to the Pentateuch again. Leviticus. Turn there. Leviticus 26.

We want to read here warning. Leviticus 26.

Very interesting how the Lord is faithful to his warnings.

Interesting is not the right word. It's praiseworthy. But it's interesting, I should say, what God promises here.

Leviticus 26. And go down to verse 21. So God promises if you will obey, here's the blessings.

If you disobey, here's the curses. And notice specifically what he says in verse 21 and 22.

Then if you will walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you sevenfold for your sins.

And I will let loose the wild beast against you which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number so that your roads shall be deserted.

Friends, God warned his people. If you do not obey me, this is what will happen.

And so what's happening now in our passage in 2 Kings is that these boys are fulfilling exactly what

God promised would happen to a people who disobey Him. And we love to sing songs about God's faithfulness.

Great is thy faithfulness. And that's right, and that's true, and it's good. But included in God's faithfulness is not just His faithfulness to His promises of mercy.

We sing about His mercy, and we should. But also included in God's faithfulness is

His faithfulness to His wrath. Have you, friends, taken the warnings of God seriously?

Children, consider this morning for a moment. Have you taken the warnings of God seriously?

He not only promises mercy for those who fear Him, He promises His judgment on those who disobey.

Have you taken God's warnings seriously? That the unrighteous will not inherit the

Kingdom of God. That the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the

Kingdom of God. Have you taken God's warnings about the lake of fire seriously?

That the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, here's the word again, the idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Have you considered this morning God's righteous indignation against sin and sinners?

That He is angry with the wicked every day. Even children, even the sins of young people, offend a high and holy

God. I'm going to just be frank with you for a moment. Most people in the

Bible Belt do not take these realities seriously.

We've created a gospel inoculation, if you will. That is, we convince a young boy, a young girl to walk the aisle, to pray the prayer,

Dear Jesus, dear Jesus, enormous sinner, enormous sinner, forgive me and come into my heart, come into my heart.

And help me be a Christian, whatever. And then we tell that young boy, young girl, okay, come here, come right here, little

Johnny. We're going to put this date in your Bible, July 2nd, 2023. You are saved.

Don't you let that devil ever one second in your life make you doubt that salvation.

And then a gospel preacher comes along. The gospel preacher says you're living with your girlfriend.

The Bible says if you don't repent and you continue in that, you are not an inheritor of the kingdom of God.

And they say, no, no, no, no, preacher, get behind me, Satan. You're not going to try to twist the

Bible with me because I know I'm saved. Because when I was 10 years old, I walked an aisle, I said a prayer and the preacher told me

I was saved and to never doubt it. And if I ever doubted it, it was Satan making me doubt it.

Get away from me. And we don't take the warnings of God seriously. And so we hear these messages that judgment is coming, that the

Revelation 21, 8, the cowardly idolaters. We don't take idolatry seriously in the church.

That these people are going to be cast into the lake of fire and we don't take them seriously because we say,

I've already got my shot. There's no way I can catch hell because I've been inoculated, right?

Like I have the shot and I'm not going there. And we've convinced ourselves of a lie.

And we're not taking the warnings of God in his word seriously.

That's not my intention to come in here and scare you or anything like that. That's not my intention. But my intention is this, to preach the word of God rightly in such a way that we'll do what the

Bible says, which is to examine ourselves and to consider. Friends, have you grown weak and immune, as it were, to the warnings of God?

Do the warnings of God not stir anything within your soul this morning? Are you not thinking this morning that hell is a real place and there's real people that we see in the

Bible that really go to hell? That God, He could even this morning if He wanted to, open up the ground and cast you off into hell alive, just like He did

Korah and his rebellion. Are your sins any less wicked than the things that Korah did against God's servant

Moses? Have we forgotten that hell is real? That it's eternal and the judgment of God is coming, and yet He graciously has given us warning after warning.

I'm pleading with us, friends, not to treat sin lightly. Not to treat idolatry or disobedience to God as something trivial.

God is holy, holy, holy. He will not have fellowship with your sin.

And what amazing power and control God has over everything. God, at a word, at a word, here come the bears out of the woods.

Why? Because God is sovereign over the bears. God's sovereign over the ground.

God, if He so desired, could drop a rock. You walk out this church building,

God could drop a rock on your head or a hailstone. He could stop your heart from its next beat like that.

And evangelicalism as a whole and the vast majority of Americans treat our high and holy triune

God far too cavalierly. As though He is obligated to put up with our sins.

Especially in the light that we're living right now. It's undeniable, if you're confused about what

I'm saying, I'll talk to you after service, would love to. But it's undeniable that in this nation right now we are living under God's judgment.

We consider the rampant absurdity that permeates the highest offices of power and institutions today.

It is only by God's grace, I'll make this one political comment and then come back. It's only by God's grace that the

Supreme Court is the state that it is today. You look at the executive branch and the legislative branch and you're like, what incompetence and foolishness and absurdity.

And then somehow the judicial branch, you look at it and you see the rulings that they've made in June, they're not perfect obviously, but you look at these things and you see that there's a modicum of rationality left.

That's only by the common grace of God. But the point is, we look at our nation today and we see the unchecked sexual immorality, we see disobedient children, we see the unreserved killing of pre -born children, we see greed, we see false teachers having notoriety, we see false teaching permeating so many places and the list goes on and on.

And what I'm saying to us is these are all evidences of the judgment of God upon our land. God is judging our nation today.

And yet, even in light of this, so many are willing to ignore the warnings of God.

It's like you're having chest pains, intense chest pains, and you just say, no, no,

I'm not going to go. I'm not going to go to the doctor. I'm not going to go to the doctor. I'm not going to go to the doctor. And then one day you pass away.

Why? You ignored the warnings. And what I'm saying is, friends, we must take seriously the warnings of God.

Third observation. God's patience has a stopping point.

God's patience has a stopping point. We've looked at a lot of passages. We're going to look at more. 2 Chronicles.

2 Chronicles chapter 36. The end of 2 Chronicles. It's just an interesting passage to know and it's an interesting parallel in our day.

2 Chronicles chapter 36 verse 15 and 16. The Lord, 2

Chronicles 36 verse 15. The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by His messengers because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place.

But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising

His words. Pause. They weren't despising the words of the prophets, right?

They were despising whose words? God's words. So they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising

His words. And scoffing at His prophets. Until the wrath of the Lord rose against His people, until there was no remedy.

God had been so patient with Israel. He sent them prophet after prophet.

He was not hiding from them. He was not hiding His will from them. He was not hiding His word from them.

He sent preachers upon the land. He was patient. But the people ignored them and they continued on in sin until one day

God brought forth His judgment on His people. Now, back up a little bit in history and think about these young boys.

How patient God had been with them and their parents for years. I'm not sure how young these boys were, but they had made it this far and God had been patient with them and their parents for years until one day

His patience stopped and He brought forth His judgment upon them. God is patient.

God is patient today with the sins of the world. But His patience will not be forever.

Think about today, how God has still, even though our nation is under judgment, think about how

God has still blessed our land with gospel preachers. How is it that there are gospel, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, faithful gospel preachers in America today?

There are faithful churches in America today. What a blessing it is today that you have in your possession probably more than one, probably three, four, five, maybe more

Bibles in your possession that you can read in your own language. How good God has been to you!

How good God has been to our nation! How patient God has been with the rebellion and sins of our nation and He has continually sent gospel preaching men and faithful churches and evangelists and the

Bible in our language and He has been so patient with us. Will we heed such patience?

Or will we presume upon it thinking that God's patience endures forever, not realizing that there will come a time in God's predetermined counsel when

His patience will be no more and His wrath will come. Consider 2

Peter, let's turn there. 2 Peter chapter 3. 2

Peter chapter 3 and verse 9. 2

Peter chapter 3 and verse 9. The Lord is not slow to fulfill

His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you.

That's important. Not wishing that any, I'm going to supply this here, of you should perish, but that all of you, that's the context.

So He's patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, that all should reach repentance. But the day of the

Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

So God is patient right now with the world so that all of His people, all of His elect will come to repentance.

Today is a day, it is an age if you will, of the patience of God.

But the text goes on to say that His judgment is going to come like a thief in the night.

That is, quickly and righteously upon sinners. And so the greatest enemy to many people in the

Bible Belt, many people in our nation today, the greatest enemy to many of them is simply tomorrow.

Oh preacher, I hear what you're preaching and I agree with it. And there are things in my life that I need to get right, but there's just some more things that are coming up and then

I'll get right. I'm not going to change today. I'll get right tomorrow. I'll get serious about following Christ tomorrow.

I'll get serious about being the godly husband and father I need to be tomorrow. I'll get serious about the wife and mother

I need to be tomorrow. I'll be serious. You know what? Tomorrow's Monday. That'll be a good day to start getting serious about prayer.

I'll be serious about reading the Bible tomorrow. I'll be serious about my holiness and sanctification tomorrow.

I'll care about the church tomorrow. I'll think about theology tomorrow.

What if God's patience ends today?

What if God's wrath comes to bear today?

Then what is it that you're going to do at the judgment seat of Christ?

The little ones hear my voice on this as well. You think to yourself, when

I get older, next year, five years, when I graduate, when I have a family of my own,

I'll get serious about the things of Christ. And I say to you, you have no guarantee of the patience of God tomorrow.

You do have a guarantee of it right now in this moment. And it's today the day that you must not take for granted.

Do not treat the day that you've been given lightly. It is a day of patience.

May all of us use it as a day to deal with our sin and our souls now. This day now, not a second longer.

Fourthly, do not mock God's Word. Now we come back to our text, and we consider,

He went up from there to Bethel, and while He was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at Him, saying,

Go up, you bald head, go up, you bald head. And He turned around, and when He saw them,

He cursed them in the name of Yahweh. And two she -bears came out of the woods and tore 42 of the boys.

Now we come to really, I think, the heart of the text. And that is,

Elisha is a prophet of God. The problem is not that they called him a bald head, right?

The problem is that they're mocking Elisha, and Elisha is connected to the

Word of God. Because Elisha, as a prophet of God, when he speaks to the people of God, he says,

Thus saith Yahweh. Thus saith the Lord. Therefore, follow the logic, for the boys to mock

Elisha was for the boys to mock the Word of God. And for the boys to mock the

Word of God is for the boys to mock God.

And Elisha has no qualms here about calling a curse upon these boys. I mean, the narrative actually is pretty nonchalant about it, right?

It's like, this happened, this happened, and then you get to verse 25. No reflection. It's just, from there, he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there, he returned to Samaria.

But this is because there is just and serious consequences for those of us who mock

God's Word. Now, listen carefully here, because initially, you're going to say, that's not me.

But most of us have learned we live in Arkansas. We live in rural

Arkansas, right? Thank you, God, that I'm not like those people in Conway, right, or whatever. We live in rural

Arkansas. We live in the very heart of the Bible Belt. And so we have learned not to openly and defiantly mock the

Word of the living God. So with your lips, you say the right things. I trust the

Bible. This is God's Word. I need to do what it says. But then, do you not mock

God's Word by affirming these things with your lips while not reading it daily?

Do you receive with meekness the Word of God? In fact, we've looked at so many passages, but it's okay.

We're going to go to James 1 for a second. And listen to what James says in James chapter 1. We're considering for a moment mocking the

Word of God. And James says this in James 1. The Bible is so relevant. He says, know this, my beloved brothers,

James 1 .19. Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted

Word, which is able to save your souls. Are you receiving with meekness the Word of God?

Are you slow to speak and quick to listen when it comes to the preaching of God's Word? Are you slow to anger when

God's Word comes upon us sometimes and it just hits us like a ton of bricks? And you know what our first reaction is when the preacher preaches something from the

Word of God and it hits us right in our heart, right between the eyes? Our first reaction sometimes is this.

We're going to get angry. He's got no right to talk about that to me. I know his life.

Well, he's not perfect. Who is he to talk to me about these things? James says, the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Are we willing to receive with meekness the implanted

Word? Are you slow to anger when God's Word addresses your sin? Do you humbly submit your life to what the

Bible teaches? Do you sit under biblical preaching hungry to learn?

Are you here this morning just playing on your phone or daydreaming or thinking about lunch or thinking about what you got to do tomorrow?

Are you here physically but spiritually? Your heart is far from God? If so, you mock the

Word of God. Not outwardly. You're not outwardly like these boys. You're not standing up saying, you're dumb, preacher.

Your hair's fading away, preacher. We ain't even listening to you, preacher. You're not doing that. You're too smart to do that.

But inwardly, inwardly, you reject what

God has to say to you from the Bible. And I say to you, friends, in love, as one of your pastors, as one who will stand before God to give an account for your souls, you must not mock the

Word of God. To confess with our lips the truthfulness of scriptures while living our lives contrary to what it teaches, that's mocking the

Word of God. And to mock the Word of God, we're mocking God. How can you ignore what God's Word has to say about the local church?

How can you ignore what God's Word has to say about being the wife that God has called you to be? About being the husband that God has called you to be?

About leading your family? Or about integrity at work? Or about killing sin?

Or about walking the narrow way? You may not be openly jeering at Elisha, but to ignore the plain teaching of the

Bible is to mock the Word of God. And to mock the Word of God is to mock God.

To dismiss what God's Word has to say about your humble involvement and service to the church, or the mission of Christ, or worship in the church, or worship in the home, or sharing

Christ with others, or the mission of the church, all of this, this is to revile the scriptures. Are you a mocker?

This is not the way of truth. The mocker's end, friends, is destruction. No matter how well you can outwardly tell me the ways of God, when you get to heaven,

God is not going to hand you a piece of paper and say, let's see if you can complete this seminary exam.

No, your life is what will be weighed in the balance.

And if your heart is far from Him, then your end is eternal death and hell. So I wonder if you're a mocker of God's Word, but I also wonder this, what is your response to those who do mock

God's Word? Now again, our response, we're not Elisha, we're not allowed to call she bears upon people.

But I wonder to you, I wonder if verse 24 has a word for us in this way.

And he turned around and we saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. In other words, Elisha would have no fellowship with those who mock

God's Word. He did not laugh at these boys' joke. He did not enjoy their little game.

Instead, he saw them as those who mocked the Word of God and he was filled with righteous indignation.

We cannot be people comfortable in the presence of those who mock the

Word of God. There must be a measure of righteous indignation within the people of God when we hear the

Word of God being mocked. The mocking of God's Word cannot be entertainment for the people of God.

When someone makes a crude joke about the Lord or about His Word or about the people of God, we ought to be filled with righteous indignation.

When they mock holiness or sanctification or faithful Christianity, we cannot join them or give a pass to their debauchery.

We must call upon them in love to repent. There should be righteous indignation in the people of God when we see those who mock the

Word of God. Fifth observation then.

I wonder this morning, soberingly and seriously, if you'll consider for just a moment, these things that we've talked about, do you find yourself indicted in any of these?

Because the fifth observation is this, we have two options before us today.

Option one, if you find yourself indicted, meaning guilty, there is a righteous charge against your account.

Let's be honest, would there be one single soul in this room that would stand up and say, blameless, when it comes to these things that we've talked about?

Presuming upon God's grace, ignoring His warnings, despising His patience, mocking

His Word, is there one of us here that would say, never at all, at any point in my life, am

I guilty of any of these things? If you would say that, I hope you'll meet with me after, because you're wrong.

So the first option we have is this, we can bear the curse that we deserve, just like these boys did.

Verse 24 says that, Elisha cursed the boys in the name of Yahweh, and as a result, two she -bears came out of the woods, and these boys met their righteous end.

They were mauled to death. They were ripped, 42 of them.

We who have presumed upon God's grace, ignored His warnings, despised

His patience, and mocked His Word, we can be like these boys.

And when God's wrath comes to bear, we too can be ripped to shreds, and we can face a fate far worse than merely the bears in our text.

We can face the everlasting judgment of God in the lake of fire.

This is just, and I need to remind you, that when we get to heaven, when we get into our eternal state, we will worship

God for punishing people in the lake of fire. Because God is worthy of worship for His holy wrath.

God, some people are like, I can't serve a God who sends people to hell.

Let me put it this way, a God who won't send people to hell is not worthy of worship.

Because of hell, God is worthy of praise.

Because He is just. So the first option that we have before us this morning, and the option that many in our nation are going to exercise, the option that some of your grandparents, even the sweet little grandmother has already exercised, or your neighbors, or your friends, perhaps, sadly, even one or more in this room will choose is to just bear the curse that we deserve.

But hear me real quick. These bears came upon these boys swiftly.

Before they were ready, before they could prepare, before they could give any sort of defense of their lives, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Similarly, and yet far worse, will be the fate of those who choose to continue in sin and face

God's wrath in the day of judgment. Oh, God's judgment, I'll deal with that later. I'll deal with that tomorrow.

It won't come upon me yet. It won't come upon me this year, or this decade, or maybe even this century.

I'll deal with God's judgment later. But when God's judgment comes, and come and will, it will come upon you swiftly and more severe than you could ever be prepared for, and you will regret that day.

So I implore you in this room, all those listening to my voice, not to choose this option, but instead, run to option two.

Option one is we can be like these boys and we can choose to bear this curse ourselves. Option two is this, we can go in faith to the

One who became a curse for us. Elisha rightly cursed these boys in the name of Yahweh.

This was just the Lord's curse. Today remains, not because of this, but even before this, remains upon this fallen world.

The curse of sin, that is, remains active in a fallen and broken world and in our lives.

But here's the Gospel. You can leave 2 Kings for good now and turn to Galatians.

Galatians 3. Elisha cursed these boys in the name of Yahweh.

But in the New Testament, we have this account of Yahweh cursing not a young boy, but a young man.

Galatians 3. Verse 13. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law.

How? Sweeping it under the rug. Eliminating. Snapping His fingers.

Pitting law versus love. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. Christ, who never presumed upon the grace of God, who never ignored the warnings of God, who never despised the patience of God, who never mocked the

Word of God, gave His life on Calvary as though He had. The eternal

Son of God, co -equal with the Father, co -equal with the Holy Spirit, humbled Himself by taking upon human flesh.

He was born of the Virgin Mary. He lived a perfect life of righteousness. When He was a small boy, He never mocked the

Word of God. He was deserving of no curse. But on the cross, He became a curse for us.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

He suffered our curse in our place. We who have despised and mocked and rejected and presumed upon God, we who have done all these things and more,

Christ suffered our curse in our place. For all those who will repent of their sins and believe the

Gospel, that curse should rightly fall upon us. We should be mauled and mauled and mauled again by these bears for all eternity.

That curse should rightly and justly fall upon us, but instead, it fell upon Christ. Verse 14,

So that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.

By the way, that's you we might receive. So that we might receive the promised

Spirit through faith. The curse of God has fallen upon His own

Son. We who should have been looked upon by God and the curse of God should have fallen upon us like it fell upon these boys.

Instead, God looked away from us and He looked to His Son and the curse of the law was placed on His Son and He was punished under the law, under the retribution of the law, so that you and I could go free.

In Spanish, the phrase is glorioso intercambio. That is glorious exchange.

That the Son of God would take my life, my sin, my rebellion, my mockery, my disobedience, and He would say,

It's mine. And He would become a curse for me.

And He would bear the punishment owed to me.

Righteously do me in my place, so that by faith in Him, God would declare me just.

Friends, this is the Gospel. Your sins demand the justice of God.

And the wrath of God will either come upon you or it will come upon Jesus and those who repent of their sins and believe the

Gospel can be assured this morning that Christ has bore the curse in our place because Jesus rose again from the dead and He is ruling and He is reigning over this whole universe even now.

What will it be for you? I have so much to grow in in my preaching.

I pray I'd be a better preacher. God's flock.

This precious flock of God. You deserve better preaching.

But if I may say so, I believe that you do sit under faithful preaching from your pastors.

And I wonder, my friends whom I love, what will you do with such preaching?

Will you hear these things from the Bible? And will you consider them foolish or fanciful?

Or will we take them to heart? What will it be for you?

Will you bear God's curse upon yourself and stubbornly resist the

Spirit of God? Or will you run in faith to your mediator?

To Christ who is your King. Not tomorrow. Not when you get things figured out.

Not later. Not next week. Today. Now. In faith. Christ receiveth sinful men and women.

And He receives too little boys and little girls. Those who have mocked Him and disobeyed their parents and dishonored their parents and those who are righteously due the judgment of God.

Christ receives them. He receives those boys. He receives those girls and those men and those women and all those who repent of their sins and believe the

Gospel. Will you trust that only Christ can save you? And only He can forgive you of all your transgressions.

And in Christ, we are forgiven of all our transgressions. Only He can restore you to a right relationship with God.

Only in Him, only in Him, can we be this people that do not presume upon God's grace.

Who do not ignore God's warnings. Who do not despise God's patience. Who do not mock

God's Word. Beloved, will we take these precious truths to heart today?

Amen. Father, bless the preaching of Your Word.

Bless the preacher. Bless those who have heard. And we pray, oh

God, that Your Word would not return void. You're sovereign. You're able to use

Your Word this morning, if You so choose, to simply harden hearts. And in that case,

You're just, You're good, and we give You glory. But in the spirit of the

New Covenant and in the age in which we live, in the day of grace and patience, it is our prayer, our great and holy

God, that You would use Your Word to break hard hearts, to tear down fortresses of rebellion, to quicken dead hearts, to raise up dry bones.

Spirit of God, we pray that You would blow up on this place and send us revival.