12/6/2015 Is There No God? – I Kings 22:41 – 2 Kings 1:18 Pastor Josh Sheldon

But now you're stuck. Today's sermon will first come from the New Testament. The first epistle,

John chapter 2, verse 15 through 23, which you found on page 819 if you read the

New Testament Bible. If you go right there, it says, First John, chapter 2, starting at verse 15.

It is the last hour. And as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many

Antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us.

For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no liar is of the truth.

Who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. He is Antichrist who denies the

Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. He who acknowledges the

Son has the Father also. If you would please now turn with me to the

Old Testament reading at verse 15, chapter 22, beginning at verse 41.

And we are going to go all the way to the finishing of the first chapter in the 2nd Kings. So if you would please turn to 1st

Kings, chapter 22, verse 41, on page 253, if you are refusing to read from the

Bible. Jehoshaphat, the son of Esau, had become king over Judah.

In the fourth year of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoshaphat was thirty -five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty -five years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Ezekiel, the daughter of Sheolih. And he walked in all the ways of his father

Esau. He did not turn aside from them, believing what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away, for the people offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.

Also Jehoshaphat made peace with the king of Israel. Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, the might that he showed, and how he made war, are they not written in the book of the

Chronicles of the kings of Judah? And the rest of the perverted persons who remained in the days of his father

Esau, he banished from the land. There was then no king in Judah, only his deputy of the king.

Jehoshaphat made merchant ships to go to Ophir for gold, but they never sailed, for the ships were wrecked at Azeon Gabor.

Then Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, said to Jehoshaphat, Let my servants go with your servants in ships.

But Jehoshaphat would not. And Jehoshaphat rested with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, his father.

Then Jehoram, his son, reigned in his place. Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, the king of Ophir, Israel, and Samaria, in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, and reigned in his place over Israel.

He did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nephi, who had made

Israel sin. For he served Baal and worshipped him, and provoked the

Lord God of Israel to anger, according to all that his father had done. In the second king's note,

Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria, and was injured.

So he sent messengers and said to them, Go, inquire of Baal who is above, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from my injury.

But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the fish -bite, Arise, go out to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them,

Is it because there is no god in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal who is above the god of Ekron?

Now therefore, thus says the Lord, You shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.

So Elijah departed. And when the messengers returned to him, he said to them, Why have you come back?

So they said to him, A man came up to meet us and said to us, Go, return to the king who sent you, and say to him,

Thus says the Lord, Is it because there is no god in Israel that you are ascending to inquire of Baal who is above the god of Ekron?

Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.

Then he said to them, What kind of man came up to meet you and told you these words?

So they answered him, A hairy man wearing a leather belt around his waist. And he said,

It is Elijah the fish -bite. Then the king sent to him a captain of fifty with his fifty men.

So he went up to him, and there he was, sitting on the top of a hill. And he spoke to him,

Man of God, the king has said, Come down. So Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.

And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty men. Then he sent to him another captain of fifty with his fifty men.

And he answered and said to him, Man of God, thus has the king said, Come down quickly.

So Elijah answered and said to them, If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.

And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. And again he sent a third captain of his fifty and his fifty men.

And the third captain of his fifty went up and came and fell on his knees before Elijah and pleaded with him and said to him,

Man of God, please let my life and the life of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your sight. Look, fire has come down from heaven and burned up the first two captains of fifties with their fifties, but let my life now be precious in your sight.

And the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, Go down with him. Do not be afraid of him. So he rose, so he arose and went down with him to the king.

Then he said to him, Thus says the Lord, because you have sent messengers to inquire about the king of Ekron, is it because there is no

God in Israel to inquire of his word? Therefore, you shall not come down from the place to which you have gone up, for you shall surely die.

So as I died according to the word of the Lord, which Elijah had spoken, because he had no son,

Jehoram became king in his place. In the second year of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah.

Now the rest of the acts of that Isaiah, which she did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

Please be seated as we pray. Precious Father, we thank you,

Lord, for your faithful provision, Lord, and your son, Father, we thank you,

Lord, that he has come down and is our salvation, Lord, and we thank you, Father, that he is truly the one whom we have to fear,

Lord, and we ask you, Father, that this very day, Lord, we also might depend on you for our salvation, and you would strengthen our pasture,

Lord, and you would help me to proclaim your word with clarity and boldness, Lord, and conviction, and that your word would find our hearts,

Lord, here among us to receive your word and to not only be hearers of your word, Lord, but to pray the same

Lord Jesus. Amen. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, John. Is it because there is no

God? The action of this king, Ahaziah, this king of Israel, would say that he believed otherwise, implicitly, in his inquiry to this other

God, he's saying there is no God, and so this question comes to him. Is it because there is no

God in Israel that you've done this other? The question posed to this wicked king, it hurls down the ages, and it lands right here in our own laps.

We have before us, really, a lesson in what it is to be a practical atheist. This is practical atheism.

Ahaziah is condemned for consulting Beelzebub rather than Yahweh. And this ought to strike us with some wonder, if not downright trembling,

God holds him guilty here even though he never professed any affinity to God. He never made any profession of faith to the

God of Israel, to Yahweh. Even so, he's held responsible as king to represent the

God of the people he ruled over, and that God was Yahweh, not Baal.

Ahaziah certainly had to have been aware of the mighty acts of God that God had done through the prophet Elijah, our narrative makes it clear that he was familiar with them, though he seems to have cared for the prophets no more than had his father

Ahab. Is it because there is no God? We must let this question, as Jesus said, sink down into our ears, take some root in our souls.

As we go through this text, we look at Ahaziah and this practical atheism that he did, and ask ourselves, do we do the same?

At any point, when the road is left or right, what do we consult?

Where do we go? And if not God, then we need to ask ourselves about our faith.

Is it because there is no God in Israel, in the

United States in the 21st century? Is it because there is no God in Sunnyvale?

Is it because the Holy Spirit is not residing in my heart? Why did

I use this or that or whatever source is not God in His Word?

Is it because there is no God? Ahaziah had seen enough of God for the

Lord to judge him for not coming to him. He had seen plenty. He had been raised in the palace.

He obviously knew who Elijah was, so we can presume he knew the works of Elijah. Romans 1, verses 18 and 19, in that passage,

Paul says that God's wrath is justifiably revealed from heaven because men willingly ignore what

He has testified of Himself through creation. Ahaziah had more than just creation revealed to him of God and who

He is. He and all the kings who ascended to the throne, by whatever means,

He was responsible for the first kings for Jeroboam's commission. And this king,

Ahaziah, being raised in the palace, knowing what God said to that first king back in 1

Kings 11, Jeroboam, we covered him some weeks ago, the one who introduced the initial idolatry into Israel.

Ahaziah had seen, as it were, up close and personal, the works of God. Here's just a small portion of what that first king was told.

It would hold you responsible even if he hadn't seen the works of a prophet like Elijah.

God told Jeroboam, and this goes to all the kings who would take that throne after the kingdom split, so I, meaning

God, I will take you, he's speaking to Jeroboam, through the prophet Ahaziah, and you shall reign over all your heart desires and you shall be king over Israel.

Then it shall be if you heed all that I command you, walk on my ways and do what is right in my sight to keep my statutes and my commandments as my servant

David did, then I will be with you and will build for you an enduring house as I built for David and give

Israel to you. What's the commission to these kings of Israel, this northern 10 tribes?

Well, it's to walk in the ways of God. It's really no different than Judah. They just have a different promise because the promise to the king of Judah was made to return to David, which of course flow forward to the

Lord Jesus Christ himself, but this commission, with what

God had shown of himself to Ahaziah's father Ahab through the prophet Elijah, it gives

Ahaziah a close, an undeniable display of the reality of God.

When he asks from heaven whether there is not a God in Israel, he means to say there is a

God in Israel whose works you have seen and you have seen the works of Baal whom you go to for counsel.

And you have seen that in Baal there are no works. There is no voice. There is no sound.

There are not eyes that see anything. There's no power to do anything. Certainly, this young son of Ahab was aware that when the prophets of Baal danced and cut themselves and begged

Baal to do anything, there was no voice. There's no sound, says the scripture.

And yet, to him, to that God, to this assemblage of wood and stone and jewels and metal, whatever it was made out of, there he goes.

As we look into this text, we need to ask ourselves, has God revealed himself to you? Scripture says he has.

Scripture actually says he has. In what you see in the world, he is revealed as its creator.

I mean, when you look at the stars, whether you know Jesus Christ or not, if you just look at the stars, you are responsible that there's a

God behind them who put those in place and named and numbered every one of them and put them in place exactly where he wanted them.

The sky, what the psalmist calls the firmament, it proves that he made it For others, he's revealed himself much more closely as he had to Isaiah.

Why or what then do we look to for answers? If God would hold a person accountable just because of the stars, just because there's a firmament, just because trees grow as they do, if that makes you responsible to repent, how much more then?

We who've been given faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to ask ourselves, is it because there is no

God that we go this or that direction? That we look on Amazon .com

to find this or that self -help book? Who or what do we look to for answers?

How closely do we follow a Isaiah condemned here for seeking after Baal and not the

God who had so closely to him revealed himself? And as we look at this text,

I tell you, if we do not go to God, if we do not go to Yahweh, the king of the universe, the father of our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, if not him, then it may as well be Baal or a

Ouija board or a tarot card or your local palm reader. I think

Ahaziah's history here will serve as a warning.

It should bring us great humility as we'll be careful how we stand lest we fall.

The text actually begins in 1 Kings 22 -41. From there to the end of that chapter, there's just a quick summary comparison of these two kings.

Jehoshaphat, just after his unsuccessful campaign with Ahab, which we covered last week, and Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, who died in that final battle.

And then verse 1 of 2 Kings says, And that seems to me to fit better at the end of 1

Kings. That's the opening verse of 2 Kings. I think it should be the last verse of 1 Kings.

And I'll tell you why in a moment. Before I do, I want to tell you that we do have freedom to make those kinds of determinations because verses and chapters were added by man.

Those were not part of the original inspired text. Very helpful. And in 99 % of the cases, they're right where they should be.

This one I sort of disagree with. Jehoshaphat's considered one of the good kings of Judah.

Now, he had some problems, obviously. In 2 Chronicles 19, a prophet rebukes him for having tried to help wicked

Ahab in his war against Syria, which we've already preached about. And the prophet also said to him in that same discourse,

Nevertheless, good things are found in you in that you have removed the wooden images from the land and prepared your heart to seek

God. After the war, that final battle with Ahab where Ahab died, he,

Jehoshaphat, he goes home in peace. And that he had learned his lesson is clear from his refusal to become

Ahaziah's, Ahab's son, Ahaziah's partner in a venture. I want to look at verse 47 a little bit and then we're going to go to Ahaziah.

Verse 47 of Jehoshaphat says, There was no king in Edom, only a deputy of the king.

See, Jehoshaphat had inherited from actually King David the vassalage of Edom, been subjugated long before by that great king of Israel.

And he had managed to keep it. There's no king in Edom. There was Jehoshaphat's deputy ruling things, running things there for him.

Ahaziah, beginning in verse 51, is described as having done evil because he follows after Baal.

He follows the way of Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, and the way of his father, the

Baal worshiper. He continued the bad practices of both of them.

And he especially embraced that special brand of depraved paganism introduced by Jezebel, his mother, and institutionalized by Ahab.

And then 2 Kings 1 .1, and this is, you'll see why I think it should be at the end of, it should be verse 52 of the previous chapter.

2 Kings 1 .1 says, Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. And when there's a change of rulers, it was common for a vassal state to rebel, to refuse to give the tribute that they had previously.

They're hoping that the, just everything being changed at the top would cause some lack of continuity and they'd be able to cast away the cords, to break the bonds that constrain them, that sort of thing.

That rebellion of Moab, Lord willing, as we go through 2 Kings, we'll get to when we get to chapter three, which is where we get quite a bit more detail.

The point for now is that Jehoshaphat kept control of the foreign nation that David had conquered while Ahaziah was contested.

And now we're gonna go all the way forward to Ahaziah's accident. It says he fell through a lattice and was injured.

Now I'm not gonna take any time to try to describe what that lattice was like. I've heard different descriptions and where it was in the house and what it would have looked like and which law in Deuteronomy would have required a walk of some sort.

I think that gets too intricate. The point is, in the text, the point is that he fell.

We don't know why he fell. He might have just tripped. We don't know what happened.

But the point is, he had a severe injury and it was so severe that he thought it might be fatal.

It was more than a sprained foot. It was more than a twisted ankle. It was so bad, he sent someone to go to this god to find out if he's going to survive or not.

You see, his first thought is, what's going to happen? Which is sort of a natural response to a trauma, to having something wrong with us, to a malady.

You know, when we're sick, we want to know how long it's going to last. I mean, even here at this church, I hear this sometimes when you catch a cold.

You want to know which cold you caught. And I hear this sometimes. Oh, you've got my cold.

You've got the one I had. Really? Well, do I want to work on a stuffy head or a runny nose?

What am I, a sore throat? Which cold is this? What's going to happen? How long is it going to last? That sort of thing.

But with Ahaziah, it's not just something somewhat casual like the other

I was talking about. There's so much wrong here, it's hard to know where to start. He's asking, am

I going to recover? Before we even think about who he's trying to consult to find out about that,

I want us to remember what Jesus says about tomorrow. What does

Jesus say about tomorrow? To put it bluntly, he says it's none of our business.

It's none of our concern. Therefore, this is Jesus speaking, therefore do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about its own thing.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. And as my dear friend Mike Phillips points out, if sufficient for the day is its own trouble, then sufficient today is also the good in that day.

But don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about its own things, meaning, clearly, tomorrow is in the hands of God, your father.

And if he's not revealed it to you, it's not for you to know. Jesus says, therefore, refers back to the fact that God knows what we need.

He provides what we need. If we need clothes or if we need food, if we need anything like that, ask him, says the

Lord. If we need knowledge or wisdom, same thing, ask him. As James says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to them.

The answer is in the word of God, the repository of his wisdom. Everything we need to know about tomorrow or for that matter, today.

And very little is said about tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow is

God's business alone. Again, to quote James, whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow, for what is your life?

It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.

If you want an excellent exposition of that verse, ask the men at the sound booth at the end of services to give you

Steve McSell's message from James on that very verse and you can have 45 minutes of quite a bit more enlightening detail.

But the first answer to Ahaziah is or should have been, not your concern.

Take as good a care of yourself as is appropriate and trust God. Instead, he sends his servants off to Ekron, a city of the

Philistines, to ask Beelzebub. That's an interesting name we have. It's the first time we have this name,

Beelzebub, in scripture. It's the one that Jesus was accused of being in league with. By Beelzebub, he casts out demons, which you remember how the

Lord tore that ridiculous statement apart. It was the first time this particular abomination is named in scripture.

Baal is a generic name for the Canaanite God and it goes all the way back to Israel's wanderings when it was first noted back in Numbers 22.

Now according to one commentator, Beelzebub is an intentional corruption of the name

Beelzebul. Beelzebul means something like Lord of Princes or Prince of Lords, some high, mighty sounding name like that.

But our inspired author couldn't bring himself to show that much respect and so he called him

Beelzebub, which means Lord of the Flies. Lord of those disease and dirt -carrying insects that love to land on things that animals leave on the ground.

Swarming, maggot -borne type of things. That makes some sense to me.

I would hold that with about a 90 % confidence level, but it does make sense. But I want to note carefully how

God feels about this false god. We will see how he responds to the king's deference to Baal.

Any knowledge we seek that goes beyond what is written is really an inquiry of Baal. To many this will sound infantile, but it bears saying if God hasn't revealed it, we don't need to know it.

And more than that, if we seek after knowledge we don't have in God's word, we're essentially asking

Baal or Shemoth or Ashtaroth, horoscopes, astrology, they all come under the same rubric.

As we go through this, it doesn't mean that we can't ask questions. It doesn't mean we're not supposed to explore our world.

I would say we have a biblical charter to explore our world, to ask questions, to be inquisitive. It doesn't mean that experiments are sinful.

It means that when we seek to know what we've been told, God keeps as his own and doesn't choose to reveal, we are peering into the secret things that belong to God and God alone.

That's Deuteronomy 29, 29. Back to Ahaziah.

Ahaziah's emissaries are stopped on their way by Elijah. Once again, his trademark way of just sort of showing up.

He had been told of their mission by God. He'd been commanded by God to stop them. The king wants to know about tomorrow.

Well, God, in his decree, God by his own will has decided to tell him, which is actually kind of rare.

I mean, Moses was told when he'd die. Hezekiah was, though he prayed for and he received an extension, but there's not many times that we have this kind of information being revealed by God.

And in any event, the answer is given to him. The answer and the reason, you will surely die.

Go tell the king, you will surely die. And this from the

Lord of the universe, from he who declares the beginning from the end, not from a piece of wood and metal, but from the eternal and living

God, tell the king, he's going to die. You will surely die.

This is a phrase used 13 times in the scripture. Three of them right here in 2

Kings 1. It's exactly the same as in Genesis 2 .17 when Adam and Eve are warned of the penalty for disobedience.

The day you eat of it, says the Lord, you will surely die.

Exactly the same Hebrew translated the same way in our English. In the

Hebrew, you will surely die is mot tamot, a repetition, sort of in dying, you will die.

And in Hebrew, repetition means emphasis, and that's true in almost any language, right?

But it's even more so in Hebrew because it's used that way less often. So when there's a repetition of something, especially when the same word is used, not a different word to mean the same thing as we have so often in Proverbs, but dying, you will die.

This is extreme emphasis. When there's a triple repetition, it's even more so, as in Isaiah 6 when he hears the seraphim calling out, holy, holy, holy is the

Lord of hosts. How holy is God? He's holy, holy. That would say a lot. He's holy, holy, holy.

And that says infinitely more in the original language. In 1

Kings, or excuse me, in 2 Kings, we have both. The oracle, with its repeated you will surely die, is itself repeated three times.

You will surely die is extreme emphasis. That is then repeated three times.

There's no way out of this. Ahaziah hasn't a chance. First, God tells it to Elijah.

Tell the king he will surely die. Second, the messengers hear it from Elijah, but then they tell it to Ahaziah.

That's what we have in the text. He says, you will surely die. And then finally,

Elijah, when he comes to the king, he tells him, you will surely die. So there's dual emphasis emphasized three times.

Now when he hears it from his servants, he being the king, when he hears from his servants, his first question is, who told you that?

Who told you that? What kind of a man met you? Not, why didn't you continue to where I sent you, which

I should think would be the king's first question. Why didn't you do what I told you to do? Okay, you got stopped by this guy, you could've listened to it, gotten the message, written it down, brought it back to me.

Why didn't you continue on and go to Ekron and do what I sent you for? Well when they describe the prophet's attire, the way he's dressed, the way he looks,

Ahaziah knew right away that it was Elijah. We need to ask for just a moment, why did they obey

Elijah and not the king? Why did they turn from Elijah and go back to the king and not go past Elijah to Ekron?

Well, the first answer is kind of simple, because God didn't want them to. God did not want

Baal to be consulted at all. We're not going to have a prophecy out here that's not going to come true. We're not going to have anything at all.

God in his sovereignty didn't want that to happen. And in fact, he never was consulted.

And this whole text that was read to you by Jesus, Baal is never actually consulted. Second, Elijah knows where they're going and why.

I mean it would be awfully hard to just go past him, wouldn't it? You got this man, I don't know what he looked like actually, we know what he was dressed like, we knew he was hairy, pretty intimidating presence.

But he knows who sent you, he knows where you're going, he knows what you're up to. He gives you the answer your king wants.

It'd be pretty hard to just walk on past him or ride on past him. And that's really kind of the third reason they didn't go on.

They do have the answer to the question the king wanted answered. Not from the source he wanted, probably not the answer he was hoping for, but it is the answer to his question.

Shall I survive? No, says the Lord. Baal might have given a positive response like the 400 who promised

Ahab victory when God had decreed defeat. But that easily digested answer would have only made him feel good for a moment.

When death took its irreversible hold on him, the truth would be known but it'd be too late. Clearly, as we said before, clearly

Ahaziah knew Elijah or knew of him. Right away he knew who was being described. He had to have known that they had been intercepted by the true prophet of the true

God. His decision? What do you do with that? Well, let's arrest him.

Let's send arrest parties after him. Three, in fact. Two are consumed by fire from the

Lord, the third group of 50 by their captain's good sense and submissive and respectful approach.

Well, they survive and they bring him to the palace. But notice the respect shown to the

God of Ekron compared to what he did to the God of Israel. To the one, he sends emissaries to politely inquire.

To God, by which I mean, of course, the prophet Elijah representing God, he sends soldiers and makes demands.

Now, we need to take care of how we approach the

God of gods. He's king of kings. He's lord of lords. If we have

Jesus, we approach with confidence, but let's never degrade that confidence to being informal or casual about God.

Certainly not imperious and saying, man of God, come on down, as we know what

God's response to that was. I want to deal with the first two arrest parties as one because their demeanor and their fate is really one in the same.

They come to the mountain where they know Elijah is and without fanfare, without introduction, they say, in essence, hey, man of God, the king of Israel wants to talk to you and we need you to come down here right now.

Sneer intended. They say man of God. They acknowledge that he speaks for Yahweh.

They must have known about the drought then about the rain, both by his prayer. They must have known about Carmel.

They must have known about his stay in Zarephath, about the oil on the bread that kept going for the widow and kept her and her son from starvation.

They must have known about the son who was brought back to life. No matter how clear, how obvious is

God's revelation, men are going to deny him. For we who believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ, for us this is sometimes mind -boggling. How can you see all this? How can you see the works of God in creation?

The perfect balance of all that is. The unlimited extent of space and man, with all our technology, our inability to get to the extent of it.

How can you see all that and not believe? How can you look at the lives of people changed by the spirit of Christ and not account it to Christ?

No matter how clearly God reveals himself, men will deny him.

God's name will be blasphemed either directly or by the abuse of his servants. Well twice,

Elijah answers the summons the same way. If I'm a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men, which of course happened immediately.

You say I'm a man of God? Well let's see. You're going to give orders to a man who you admit is a man of Yahweh, the

Lord God Almighty? Okay. Let's put it to the test, here and now.

I mean they want something to come down and they got it, though not what they wanted.

The third party of course survives. The captain bows, he addresses Elijah with deference and respect and fear and trembling really.

And he and his men survive. And we can again stop and we can ask the text.

Why do you think they were spared while 100 of their fellows were killed, consumed?

Were the first two contingents worse sinners than the other men? I mean were the first two 50s worse than the last 50?

Is that why God spared them? I tell you, no. They survived their mission for one reason, one reason only.

God chose. They lived because God chose that that was the time for Elijah to go down.

Elijah didn't call for fire again, not because the captain's effort was meritorious. The reason he and his men lived to tell about it was because God told

Elijah to go to them without fear. Much as the Spirit of Christ told

Paul and Corinth, do not fear, for I have many people in this city. And that's when he continued his work, just as Elijah, when the

Spirit of Christ told him, now go down, do not fear, go with them, he went immediately. I want us to note and note rather carefully who spoke to Elijah here.

It was the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord, the A in angel, I think ought to be capitalized.

This is not an angel simply doing God's bidding as tremendous as that is.

This is not an angel simply repeating the Word of the Lord. This is the pre -incarnate Christ speaking.

He's not repeating the Word of God, he's revealing it. He doesn't just bear God's Word. What do we read in John?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word, of course, has Jesus, the eternal

Son of God, that's who was meant. The Word was, and is, and will be, and forever can only be,

God. That's who's speaking to Elijah here. That's who the angel of the

Lord is. And now we can pause and we can look and wonder at how clearly

Jesus is displayed everywhere in the Scriptures. There's hardly a greater joy than to see him there.

He's not hidden away, he's not buried in the abyss, he's not up in heaven where he can't be accessed. He told the disciples on their way home to Emmaus that this entire revelation is about him.

And I don't think you have to be particularly clever to find him. Just believe what he said, that everything in this

Scripture is about him. The Lord Jesus, who will have

Elijah with him at the Mount of Transfiguration, is with him here. It is Jesus who said, do not be afraid of him.

Not that he feared the others, it's now time to go. You see,

Elijah has, at the Lord Jesus Christ's command, allowed himself to be arrested.

This is really an arrest party. And Elijah goes with them. This whole

Scripture, not just 2 Kings 1, this whole Scripture is about the Lord Jesus Christ.

But right here, in this first chapter of 2 Kings, do you see how clearly

Jesus Christ is being displayed in the work of the prophet Elijah? Oh, Elijah is not

Jesus. He's nowhere near Jesus. Elijah can save no one. Jesus can save anyone.

But what we call topology, this foreshadowing, this prefiguring, do you see how clear it is here?

How much honor is being heaped upon this prophet to show forth so much of our Lord Jesus Christ?

I mean, he spoke the Word of God to kings and to man without fear, in which all of us should imitate the

Lord Jesus Christ. He performed miracles by the power and to the glory of God.

He didn't hide. Elijah didn't hide, but he sat right where he was expected to be, and there he met his enemies.

Now think of Jesus here. Didn't Jesus say when he was arrested, have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to take me?

I sat daily with you, teaching in the temple, and you did not seize me. But all this was done that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.

Elijah didn't hide any more than Jesus did. What's Jesus saying? I was sitting in the temple. I was right there.

You knew where I was. I wasn't hiding. Where's Elijah? Most commentators think, and I think there's good evidence for it, he was on a hill in the

Carmel area, if not Carmel itself, where he'd had the great battle with those prophets of Baal.

The point, though, is they knew right where he was. They didn't have to put out warrants or search parties to go here and there.

They were going right to him. Elijah, like Jesus, no more hiding the word of God than the

Lord Jesus Christ did. Elijah could have called down fire again, just as Jesus could have called more than 12 legions of angels to come to his rescue.

But like Jesus at Gethsemane, and think again of the honor being put on this prophet who would appear at the transfiguration.

Like Jesus at the garden, what does Elijah do? He bends to God's will and puts himself in the custody of these men.

Do you hear a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ saying, not my will but yours be done?

Elijah goes to Ahaziah, who now hears the oracle of judgment with his repeated, you shall surely die, this mote to mote.

Three times it is stated. Now we've already discussed the significance of these repetitions, this dual and then this triple repetition and how intense that makes the revelation.

But there's something else that is thrice stated here. I don't know if you picked up on it, but there are three 50s.

There are three different arrest parties that go after Elijah. He sends out, he being the king, sends out three companies, each with the same order.

Bring Elijah here, arrest him. He's really a struggle of wills. Ahaziah, his name means

Yahweh holds up or Yahweh sustains. He's pitting himself, his own will against almighty

God's. It's just what Stephen said at the end of his last sermon in Acts chapter seven.

You stiff -necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.

They resist the Holy Spirit. What do we do? We set our desires ahead of God's.

You put your own agenda before that of Jesus Christ. With triple emphasis, we all at times deny

God's will revealed in his holy word. God spoke three times to Ahaziah.

Rather than repent, he spoke three times back to God. Elijah comes, not at the king's imperious bidding, but by the command of Christ.

And now Ahaziah has the truth before him, truth from a God whose works he has seen. Now he knows what he said he wanted to know.

Will I survive my injury? He has his answer. And now he has time to repent, as even his evil, male -loving father had done and saw a delay in judgment.

God's truth is always a merciful revelation. Even when it's hard to take, it's a merciful revelation.

Even when it's a difficult truth, such as impending death, it's a truth that can be fully trusted and relied upon.

And it's a truth delivered by a good and a just and a holy and a trustworthy

God. There's something he didn't ask for that's revealed to him.

And again, this is the mercy of God. We're going through difficult times.

When God has put hard providences in our life. Again, in the preaching series that we just finished with Steve preaching it on the book of James.

Our first task is to go to God and find out what do I need to learn, Father? Why are you chastising me with this?

What is this hard providence to teach me? Isaiah could have done the same.

Why must I die? Well, this dual condemnation thrice repeated, leaves very little room for God to change his mind.

That's another matter. He's told the reason. And this is

God's mercy when he reveals to us either through a brother or sister in the Lord or by his

Spirit as we pray and as we study the scripture as we go to God and say why is this happening to me, Father? I know you're doing it for my good.

Tell me, Father, the lesson I need to learn. He tells us. Isn't that not mercy?

Isn't that not because we serve a good and loving Father? And Isaiah gets just that.

He didn't ask for it. He's not spiritually bright enough to ask for it. Because you sent messengers to inquire of Beelzebub, the

God of Ekron. Is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word? Therefore, you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.

Because you sent messengers to inquire of Beelzebub, the God of Ekron.

Stop. Father, I'm sorry. Father, I repent.

This is a grievous sin. Forgive me of this. I was out of my mind, Father, as you well know.

I beg you to forgive me of this. No interruption of the oracle against himself.

He refuses to acknowledge God. We have to ask, what does it take?

Fire from heaven just consuming his men at the word of the prophet? What does it take?

It's the same for any of us. The Spirit of God must regenerate the soul. That's what it takes. Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us.

By the washing and regeneration of the Holy Spirit. That's what it takes. Without that, without the regeneration of the

Holy Spirit, without God remaking the soul, giving us a new heart to believe, even if one should rise from the dead, as Jesus said in Luke 16, even if one should rise from the dead, they will by no means believe.

I mean, Ahaziah saw enough to incite faith.

Ahaziah saw enough to incite faith. Have you? Do you have faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ? Have you not seen enough? Ahaziah thumbed his nose at the

God who had shown himself. Have you? Have you ignored him?

Ahaziah refused to repent. Have you? Despite all that God has done, perhaps bringing you this place to hear the gospel of the

Lord Jesus Christ, that God saves sinners of whom I am the chief.

It's a trustworthy and faithful saying. God saves sinners. If you will but repent,

I would suggest if you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, if your faith, your hope, your trust is not in him, that you are thumbing your nose at him.

You are joining Ahaziah. You are refusing to acknowledge that it was God Almighty who decreed you to be in this place at this moment hearing the gospel as well as I can put it out to you.

Whatever clarity I'm able to give it, I believe it was God who said you should this day hear it in this place.

Ahaziah refused to hear it. He refused to repent. We must ask ourselves the same.

There is something that is just as certain as Ahab's doom. Excuse me, Ahaziah's doom.

If we have this repetition, mote to mote you will surely die and that itself repeated three times,

I want to give you something just as certain, if not more certain, more certain than that.

Salvation is certain. The scripture says, whoever calls on the name of the

Lord shall be saved. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

The name of the Lord is Jesus and to be saved as salvation is to know what was won when he died on the cross because on the cross he suffered

God's wrath for your sin. Ahaziah declined repentance and he died in his sins.

I ask you, will you do the same? Your end is then no different, no less certain than Ahaziah's.

Ezekiel put it this way. He said, repent and turn from all your transgressions so that iniquity will not be your ruin.

Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

Of course, elsewhere he says that God gives that new heart and that new spirit as an act of his sovereign grace.

For why should you die? O house of Israel, why should you die?

Tim or Paul or Peter or Mary or Jane, why should you die but turn and repent and acknowledge the works of God, acknowledge the gospel of the

Lord Jesus Christ and his death for your sins and forgiveness with God that is in him,

Christ's son. The question we began with, the question that was three times asked of this king, is it because there is no

God in Israel, is that why Ahaziah turned to Baal, Baal's above, the

Lord of the flies. Is it because there is no God in the

United States of America, no God in Sunnyvale, no God in this place, no

God who gave us his scripture from Genesis to Revelation that we might know him, all scripture being inspired by God, useful for rebuke, for growing in holiness.

There is a God here, there is a God and he's proven himself. The scripture says he condescends to even notice us, but more than notice us, he's shown himself, he's given undeniable evidence and proof of himself.

Psalm 95 verses 8 and 9 say this, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion as in the day of trial in the wilderness when your father tested me.

They tried me though they saw my work. Do you hear the connection?

They tried me though they saw my work. They saw the 10 plagues against Egypt.

They saw the sea collapse on top of the Egyptian army. They saw bread come from heaven.

They saw their enemies destroyed. They saw water come from rocks. They looked upon a bronze serpent and were healed of their bites.

They saw this. They tested him.

They tried him. They denied him. They rebelled against him just as Ahaziah had seen and yet he also rebelled.

My question is, and with this we will close, where do we go?

Where do we go? Do we open the scripture to find out what stock to buy to get our

IRA or our 401k to get its maximum return? I don't think so.

That's not the purpose of scripture. Where do we go to learn, to discover, to find anything that is a subject that is all touched upon by the word of God?

That's really the question. That really narrows it down for us I don't have to go to God to find out how often to change the oil in my truck.

God just says, be a good steward of the things that he has allowed me to have. I follow the manual. Where do we go to find out about sin, righteousness, judgment, what the fruits of the spirit of God are, what it means to show

Christ forth in our life, in our body life here, both individually and separately? Do we go to the

God of this age His answer will be pleasant. His answer will tell you that you can. His answer will tell you that you are powerful.

His answer will be a lie. Ahaziah, his first inquiry, was really asking for a lie.

Really, I think what he's saying is, go find somebody to tell me something to make me feel good and hopeful. He didn't want the truth.

Where do we go? Go to God who cannot lie. Go to God who is by nature love itself.

He is truth. He is honesty. Nothing he says is but perfectly reliable. Go to God who even when his truth is hard, tells it to us for our good.

Amen? We give you thanks, Father, that we can come together.

We give you thanks, Father, for your word, this revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ through so many histories, through every book, every page, we see him displayed.

We thank you for the history we have on the prophet Elijah and how much,

Father, he teaches us about the Lord Jesus Christ who was in his time to come. In our time,

Father, we can look back and know that he has. Father, maybe when we have inquiries, when we need knowledge, maybe we go to the fount of all wisdom, which is none other than your