May 15, 2016 God’s Word Is Final by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Good morning. Our scripture reading today will come first from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 32, verses 16 -43.

And that can be found under our Kew Bible, page 174. And then we'll read from John, chapter 12, verses 27 -36.

Again, Kew Bible, page 899. First, page 174.

If you are able, please stand for the reading of God's words. This is the word of the

Lord. You were unmindful of the rock that bore you, and you forgot the

God who gave birth. The Lord saw and spurned them, because of the provocation of his sons and daughters.

And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end will be. For they are the first generation, children in whom there is no faithfulness.

They have made me jealous with what is no God. They have provoked me to anger with their idols.

So I will make them jealous with those who are no people. I will provoke them to anger with the foolish nation.

For a fire is kindled by my anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth with increase, and sets on fire the foundations of Gnosis.

And I will heap disasters upon them, I will spend my arrows on them. They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured by plague, and poisoned, poisonous pestilence.

I will send a heat of beasts against them, with the venom of things that crawl in the dust.

Outdoors a sword shall be readied, and indoors terror. For a young man and woman have left them, the nursing child of the man of great errors.

I would have said I will cut them to pieces, I will wipe them from human memory, had

I not feared provocation by the enemies, lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say,

Are not these triumphal? It was not the Lord who did all this. For they are nations void of counsel.

There is no understanding in them. If they were wise, they would understand this. They would discern their latter end.

How could one have chased a thousand, and two have put ten thousand to flight, unless their rock had sold them, and the

Lord had given them up? For their rock is not as our rock. Our enemies are by themselves.

For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom, and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of poison, their clusters are bitter.

Their wine is the poison of serpents, and the cruel venom of asps. Is not this laid up in stone with me, sealed up in my treasures?

Vengeance is mine, and recompense for the time when their foot shall slip. For the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.

For the Lord will vindicate His people, and have compassion on His servants. When He sees that their power is gone, that there is none remaining bond or free, then

He will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge? Who ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings?

Let them rise up and help you. Let them be your protection. See now that I, even

I, am He, and there is no God beside Him. I kill, and I make a lot,

I wound, and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. For I lift up my hand to heaven, and swear, as I live forever, if I sharpen my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold on judgment,

I will take vengeance on my adversaries, and will repay those who hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and the sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the long -haired heads of the enemy.

Rejoice with Him who hath bowed down to Him, all gods, for He avenges the blood of His children, and takes vengeance on His adversaries.

He repays those who hate Him, and cleanses His people's land. Let us now turn to the book of John, chapter 12, verse 27 starting on page 899.

Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose

I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Your name. Then a voice came from heaven.

I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. The crowd that stood there and heard it said it had thunder.

Others said an angel had spoken to them. Jesus answered, This voice has come for your sake, not mine.

Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the rule of this world be cast out, and I, when

I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

So the crowd answered him, We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the

Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is the Son of Man? So Jesus said to them, The light is among you for a little while longer.

Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in darkness does not know where he is going.

But when you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. You may be seated.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for Your precious Word. Thank You for being a loving

God who orders all things. Be with us now as we focus on the message that You have prepared for us through Pastor Charles.

Most according to the truth we find in Your Word by the Holy Spirit. Give grace and strength to deliver the message and bless the ears of the hearers unto our sanctification.

May it be with us to bring the light of Christ to our families, our communities, and the world. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Thank you, Ken. You know,

Jesus said more than once that He would come, meaning He would return as a thief in the night.

That doesn't mean, of course, that He's going to break into homes, that He's going to sneak back to earth as it were, that He's going to remain hidden or do anything surreptitious like a burglar.

By likening His return to that of a thief, He means that it will be without warning.

He will come at a time when He is not expected. When men are not looking, suddenly there

He will be. And all people's fates at that moment, in that instant, will be sealed.

But all this is not to say, let it never be said that He didn't give notice, that He didn't give warning.

The lack of warning, the lack of not knowing speaks of the moment of His coming, not the fact of His return.

The time of Jesus' return is held by the Father and by no other. But let it not be said that the certainty of it has been made secret.

As Amos teaches us, surely the Lord does nothing except He reveals His secret to the prophets.

What do prophets do with the secrets of God? They proclaim them. In a word, they give the warning.

So even though we cannot say this is the time of Christ's return, and I think looking in the

Bible to find the signs of His return so we can read the headlines and say, well, this is the moment, or it's going to be next year, or this decade, or anything like that, is not just a useless endeavor, but an unbiblical one.

Because Jesus says be ready at any moment, from the time of His ascension back to the Father to the time the

Father sends Him back. This age in which we now are. We only know that we live with the fact, completely ignorant of the moment, but the fact of the

Lord's return. Let it never be said that God has acted without revealing

His intentions and everything that we need to know to prepare ourselves for that intended purpose.

We spoke last week about King Joram. You remember King Joram is

Ahab's son. If you're visiting with us, we've been going through the lives of Elijah and Elisha, the prophets, and we're now getting close to the end of Elisha's ministry.

Last week it was disbelieving King Joram, son of Ahab, who when he was given the prophecy of Samaria's deliverance from Syria, when that was reported to him by Elisha, when it happened, he refused to believe.

He wouldn't believe what God had so clearly revealed to him through a prophet who had proven over the years to be a true prophet of God.

He had to be cajoled into sending a scouting party to see if the report was true.

And of course the Syrians were gone. The Lord had scared them away by making them think the Hittite and the

Egyptians were coming with chariots against them. This all happened just as Elisha prophesied and just as Elisha had told him would happen.

The black market prices for food dropped in a moment. And people could once again eat and be nourished and sustained.

Elisha, who was Elisha's predecessor, he had received from the

Lord an oracle concerning Ahab and his house and all his legacy which would include this

King Joram, this unbelieving King Joram, this King of Israel in God's land over God's people who refused to believe the word of God.

But long before this, here is what God revealed to Elisha, Elisha's predecessor regarding this very house.

And whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. This morning we're going to be in two different texts which

I'll read in a moment. One on the anointing of this King of Syria, the soon to be King of Syria, Hazael, and the other on the anointing of Jehu.

And with God's blessing, when I come back to this pulpit next week we have a guest preacher as I'll be away at a conference on the 29th,

Lord willing, we'll talk about the actual execution of these prophecies.

This morning it's the anointing of these two soon to be kings. But I want to make a point before I read the first scripture which we'll be in.

That it's a great mistake to think of Elijah with a J, Elijah, as the stern prophet of the law, and then think of Elisha as the gentler man of grace.

Or perhaps Elijah is like Sinai with thunder and lightning and stern warnings and Elisha then is more meek and mild, more like Christ, if you will.

That's a very big mistake. Because you see what I just read to you. What did the Lord tell

Elisha? That Elisha would be the one to bring the sword of this terrible judgment to bear.

It's Elisha who anoints these kings who are going to bring such destruction. It is

Elisha who will cleanse and wipe out, as it were, whoever is left behind by these two.

That history, the actual things that happened after the anointing, as I said, in two weeks,

Lord willing, we'll get to it. But it's Elisha right now who's going to cede to the anointing of these two that were mentioned by Elijah, Haziel of Syria and Jehu of Israel.

And these two are going to work together, not as allies, they're sworn enemies.

Not as allies, but as God's chosen instruments to do God's will. They will bring cataclysm to Israel and total destruction to Ahab.

Our texts, our second kings, chapter 8, verses 7 -15 that's the anointing of Haziel.

And then chapter 9, verses 1 -13 which is Jehu. We're skipping chapter 8, verses 1 -6 because that little section is out of chronological order, is intentionally out of chronological order, and I don't want to take the time to bring it back to where it belongs chronologically because the author is making a theological statement by where he placed that incident.

We're moving on to something a little different this morning. But in Damascus, and then later at a place called

Ramoth Gilead, Elisha fulfills his purpose as the man of God in Israel.

We begin with Haziel, second kings, chapter 8. I'm going to read verses 7 -15 and set this for us.

This is immediately after this campaign that I mentioned where there was starvation in Samaria and the

Lord delivered them from the Syrian army and delivered the food to them so they could survive. This is immediately after that.

Then Elisha went to Damascus, and Ben -Hadad king of Syria was sick, and it was told to him, saying, The man of God has come here.

And the king said to Haziel, which by the way this is the first time we meet Haziel. We heard of him first in 1

Kings 19, which I read to you. That's where the name is first mentioned. This is where we finally meet him.

The king said to Haziel, Take a present in your hand and go to meet the man of God. Inquire of the

Lord by him, saying, Shall I recover from this disease? So Haziel went to meet him and took a present with him of every good thing of Damascus, forty camel loads.

And he came and stood before him and said, Your son Ben -Hadad king of Syria has sent me to you, saying,

Shall I recover from this disease? And Elisha said to him, Go, say to him you shall certainly recover.

However, the Lord has shown me that he will really die. Then he said his countenance and a stare until he was ashamed.

And the man of God wept. And Haziel said, Why is my Lord weeping? He answered, Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel.

Their strongholds you will set on fire, and their young men you will kill with the sword, and you will dash their children and rip open their women with child.

So Haziel said, But what is your servant, a dog, that he should do this gross thing?

And Elisha answered, The Lord has shown me that you will become king over Syria. Then he departed from Elisha and came to his master, who said to him,

What did Elisha say to you? And he answered, He told me you would surely recover. But it happened on the next day that he took a thick cloth and dipped it in water and spread it over his face so that he died.

And Haziel reigned in his place. Let's take a quick moment to pray once more for God to bless his word and then we'll move on.

Heavenly Father, now I pray you would bless the words of my mouth as they reflect your truth,

Lord, as I can make it clear and give grace to the hearers that as we look at this history which you by your spirit ensure that we would have for us in our scriptures, we would see

Jesus Christ, that he being the point and the total and the sum purpose of all that we have before us in your word.

Lord, may we see him more clearly this day in his name. Amen. You know the author intends a bit of irony here.

If you remember Joram, King Joram's brother Ahaziah, do you remember what brought his final condemnation is when he had fallen through the lattice and he was injured and he wanted to know much like this king of Syria wants to know, he wanted to know if he would live.

Will I die of my injuries? And so he, a king of Israel, inquires of Baal, the

Sidonian god that Jezebel and Ahab had brought in. And for that he is condemned. Is it because there's no god in Israel that you go to Baal is what he was asked?

Well now we have a Syrian king inquiring of a god no less foreign to him than Baal should have been to Israel.

I think it's intended to be a bit ironic. But what we have here is what you might call a foxhole conversion by this king.

A temporary dependence on God when he is desperate. Why did Ben -Hadad, this king of Syria whose god's name we learned earlier is

Rimon and we know it's a false god, an idol, why did

Ben -Hadad beg an answer from Elisha who represents the true and living god as Ben -Hadad was certainly aware?

Did he suddenly believe in Yahweh, the god of Israel? Even after the wonders he had seen, did he believe?

No, there's not even a hint that he's a man of faith. It's this foxhole kind of conversion.

It's a crisis conversion. I don't know where else to turn. I'll turn to a god even though I don't believe in him. If I just say his name right, maybe he'll give me some revelation or some special kind of help.

When things seem most hopeless, when we despair of life itself, then the insanity of false gods is abandoned.

Is it not? When there's nowhere else to turn, when our resources are completely depleted, when we have to know, will

I live tomorrow? Even though the scripture we must note says very clearly you don't know what tomorrow will bring.

You must say, Lord willing, I will do this or that. But you take my point that when all our chips are on the table and we have nothing left, that's when so many people will turn to God to suddenly say his name with some level of reverence.

But that's when people turn to God. Can you imagine a soldier in the foxhole, to use that metaphor, under severe attack from his enemy, calling out suddenly,

Buddha, save me. I've never seen a show where anybody calls out Allah, save me, let me live through this.

No, they call to God. Sometimes even Jesus. Here, Ben -Hadad, some serious illness, wants to know if he will live.

And who does he go to? The God who is antithetical to everything he and his nation and the gods of that nation stand for.

This is the first time, as I said, that we meet him. He seems to have been the king's commander in chief, this

Hazael. And in the case of going to Elisha to bring the king's query to him, he's more of his master's emissary.

He's sent with the king's question and he has 40 camels full of presents for the prophet. And he presents

Ben -Hadad's query and he expected maybe a yes or a no. Maybe, like Naaman, he expected some grand ceremony.

He'd wave his hand and call upon the God of Israel and in some magnificent ceremony bring an answer to him.

He gets a lot more than he bargained for, though. And I'll go through this in order. And the first thing is the question.

Your son, Ben -Hadad, king of Syria, has sent me to you. Shall I recover from this disease?

Now your son, your son, that's a sign of respect if not devotion.

It could be that after Ben -Hadad's two -fold defeats, both foretold by this same prophet, that he had good reason for some humility to lower himself a bit in the prophet's eyes.

It's more likely, though, that like Naaman when he first approached Elisha, he thought perhaps he could purchase the gift of God.

Forty camel loads of treasure. I read one commentator who says, well, it was really enough to fit on four, but it's an oriental practice to spread it out amongst many beasts so it looks like more.

And then he doesn't support it at all. No, I think it was 40 camel loads, a lot of treasure. Spices and fruits and food and gold, silver, that sort of thing.

Trying to purchase or influence the gifting of God. We can stop for a moment.

We can understand that free grace, absolutely free grace is a difficult thing to accept.

And why is that? Why is it for grace you've been saved by faith, not of works.

Nothing you add to it, meaning the salvation that Christ has accomplished for us.

By grace you've been saved through faith. And then people work so many things into that and get so many nuances out of it.

And all of a sudden we add something. Don't we add our prayer and our prayers of such efficacy that God must hear it?

Don't we do the good works in church? Didn't I come and help clean up? I was at the work day,

I swept the yard, whatever the case may be. It's because free grace, what does it mean?

Nothing from us. We add zero. And therefore we come beggarly as a maid to her mistress, as the psalmist says.

Free grace is hard. I mean, wouldn't it be easier if I could be saved, if I could know

I was saved, if I just put enough treasure on the camel that I made God so impressed with my generosity, my need for salvation, all these things, and I just wowed him with everything

I'd be willing to give him for it. Wouldn't that be so much easier than this? Swallowing our pride and coming humbly and confessing our abject inability, not just need, but need for something to which we can do nothing to gain but this, but believe.

And I think this is kind of what Ben Hadad is doing, like Naaman tried to do before, is to impress the prophet and therefore impress

God with everything I'm willing to pay for this thing I need from God, whatever it may be.

You know, pride is the hardest hurdle in the gospel. It's why so many churches water it down so much. I was saved in a church that only taught us that all we have to do is really say we believe.

God's sovereignty was implied there at most. Sin was barely touched upon, redemption but a cursory glance.

If by grace we're saved, absent any effort on our part but all the work of salvation to be found in another, in Jesus, then what are we?

You could have 400 camel loads of treasure and present them to God, and what are we? We are naked, blind, and beggarly.

Free will, baptist, godly, and I say proudly proclaim that God needs us to add something to what his son does to save sinners.

And I would say that that's no better a view of God than the Syrian king, Ben Hadad, with his 40 camels of treasure.

No, we don't want to be a

Ben Hadad. We don't want to be confessing our need but then bringing something, anything, no matter how minute it might be, no matter how large we could make it, bringing anything to the table.

But all left to God because of his son Jesus Christ. So I know we're not very far into our text yet, but those 40 camel loads of treasure just kind of drive me crazy.

What's he doing? He's going to the God of the universe. He's going to the God who made the treasure. What's he going to do with it?

Let us not be ashamed to confess our absolute need for Christ. Let us gladly boast in our

Lord that he accomplished our salvation entirely like that hymn we sang, number 580, it is well with my soul, my sin, not the part but the whole.

Let us rejoice that God the Father is satisfied with Christ's cross and demands nothing more for our sins than that.

We believe that Christ died for our sins and that God raised him up from the dead and that's enough. And what does

God ask from us any more than that? No. Nothing more than to believe that.

Let us rejoice that it's not our worth but Jesus' as the only thing that God considers.

Let's return to Elisha. That was a bit of an excursus. Elisha's answer is twofold.

Both halves being 100 % true. Of course he speaks for God and God cannot lie. First, yes.

Tell him he will recover from his illness and second, he will die. Say to him, certainly recover, however the

Lord has shown me he will certainly die. Certainly die is a very interesting syntax or grammar in the

Hebrew. It's almost exactly what God said in the garden in Genesis 2, I believe verse 17 about eating the fruit.

The day you eat of it you will certainly die. And it's literally something like in dying you shall die.

The dying you shall die shall be dead. Or something like that. Very intensive multiplication of the certainty of it.

And this is what he said here. And he actually said it twice. You shall certainly recover.

And it's sort of like in living you shall live. He shall certainly live or recover but he shall certainly die.

Now how do we take this? It's a bit of a riddle but it's a riddle for Hazael, not for us.

The answer comes actually in the prophet's unwavering gaze. His unwavering gaze.

And he said his countenance in a stare until Hazael was ashamed and the man of God wept.

Have you ever known anybody who has that stare that can just eat right through you? My mom had it.

She didn't yell much. She was much shorter than my brother and me. Was she 5 '3"?

It was my mother. She was 5 foot. My brother's about my height. 5 foot.

And when my brother and I were acting up which was not uncommon, she had this way of just looking at us. And I so much wish we'd get spanked instead because the stare would just melt you.

It'd bring shame. It'd bring agony. It'd bring repentance. It'd bring tears. All she had to do was look.

I don't think it was nearly as effective as Elisha's stare but something like it.

He stares at Hazael until he's ashamed. And why, Hazael asks, do you weep?

Remember this question comes after his embarrassment. The answer is because I know the evil that you're going to do. And another question is how?

How can a lowly dog like me do such a thing? And our King James, our new King James says such a gross thing but the

ESV and the Net, Bibles are much better, says this great thing, this great military victory. How can a dog like me do that?

I don't think he thinks it's gross. I think he thinks it's a grand thing that he's going to do.

There are two points that we can take from this part of their conversation. First that Elisha wept.

And second, Hazael's heart being exposed. The man of God wept. Elisha's prophetic purpose was to declare the man before him at that moment to be the next king of Syria.

That's what he was a prophet to do. That's what this was all building up towards. In 1

Kings 19, God said Hazael would be part of Elisha's ordained means for wiping out

Baal from Israel. And that with great violence. Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu, who will come next,

Jehu will kill. God's declared course of history is about to be set in motion. And yet Elisha weeps for those who will stand in the path of this killer angel.

He weeps. We worship a God who is sovereign in everything he does.

And all he does is good. We know that. He magnifies his glory, which is for our good, for him to be glorified.

And he works all things for our good. But that does not prevent tears of sadness for those who will one day face the consequences of their unbelief.

As a prophet, Elisha knew God in a special way. He knew that cleansing Israel from all the

Sidonian practices that Jezebel had introduced and that Ahab had condoned was worth any cost.

It's God's will. And God was going to accomplish his will through great violence. Yet the specter of Israel's coming hardship brings tears of grief to the prophet.

You know, he is like us right here in this church, reading with horror the eternal fate of our friends, our loved ones, our children, who refuse to seek

God's grace and his forgiveness in his son, who deny the gospel. And we know from the

Scripture what the end of that is, is should they leave this life in that spiritual condition.

And it's horrible. I don't mean it's not good or right. Everything God does is both good and right.

But their fate is horrible. And tears of compassion are completely appropriate.

No one knew God better than Jesus, yet he lamented the judgment coming to the great city.

Do you remember in Luke when he says Jerusalem, Luke and Matthew actually, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.

In other words, the one deserving of God's judgment. What have you done to his spokespeople? You murdered them, stoned them, persecuted them.

How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

See, your house is left to you desolate, for I say to you, you shall see me no more till I say to you, blessed is he who comes in the name of the

Lord. See, this is the mode Elisha is in. When he looks upon the one who is going to bring this suffering to God's people, knowing it to be

God's will, knowing that they had plenty of warning that this was God's will, and yet now that he's anointing one of the two men who's going to bring it to pass, and perhaps somewhere in his spirit, perhaps the scripture doesn't say so, but perhaps somewhere in his spirit rejoicing to see

God's will being worked out, yet weeping tears of grief, knowing the suffering that it's going to bring to the people.

Just as Jesus lamenting over Jerusalem, knowing the suffering that's going to come because of their deserved punishment for their knowing sin.

Just knowing our scripture, just being theologically astute should never prevent us from weeping for those who are one day going to face

God without Jesus Christ standing between them and him. Let's talk about Elisha's shame -inducing stare.

Why was he ashamed? Why was he ashamed? He stared at him, set his gaze steadfastly upon him until he was ashamed.

Why? Because the word of God, which at that time in Israel was

Elisha, the word of God exposed his heart. He had plans in his heart.

He had designs in his heart against his king. And even though Elisha, speaking for God, is saying, you're going to kill him, this is

God's will, this is God's decree, this is how you're going to become king, by murder, by assassination.

It exposed the evil of the plan that Hazael already had, just like Cain before he killed his brother

Abel. He asked, by what means would he do this? It's an interesting question.

Why would I do this? I love my king. No, no, no, I'm his commander -in -chief. I've been faithful to him for years.

Remember, Naaman just retired. I'm the next guy who's valorous and does wonderful things for my king. Why would I do such a thing as that?

I think he's asking something more like, how? Okay, this is good.

How am I going to get this thing done? But there's still a shame that comes from the exposure, that comes everything ripped away.

You see, this man already had treason and murder on his heart, which we can see in how quickly he moved against his king.

Do you remember what I read? The next day, and I'm going to read into that just a little bit, that he did recover from his disease, just as God said he would.

He didn't recover from the wickedness of Hazael, who smothered him.

Hazael was exposed by the steady gaze of Elisha, the word of God then in that nation.

For the word of God is living and powerful, let me read this whole thing, and sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing even the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Brethren, we open the scripture, if we read it rightly, it finds us, and it does violence to us, and it exposes what we're planning.

It shows us the brother that we're hating in our heart, the murder, Jesus says, we're committing. This word must find us, and cut us apart with great violence.

There's no creature hidden from his sight, all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

This is what happened to Hazael, when the word of God in Elisha just stared him down.

Shame, yes. Shame but not repentance, embarrassed that his plot was exposed, but seeing no need to alter his course, and how often we see people with their iniquities uncovered, able to show only remorse, or chagrin, or maybe even humiliation.

Anything that stops short of repentance. Anything that leaves our agenda in place.

Hazael leaves, he gives the king half of the answer, that he will recover from his illness, and then he accomplishes the second half, and the next day smothers him in his bed.

You know, it was God's will that he be king, yet he never was told to assassinate his lord.

We all stand guilty of our crimes. Judas was consigned by scripture as Christ's betrayer, yet he remains responsible for what he did.

Jesus said many times that the scripture might be accomplished, and yet woe to him by whom the son of man is betrayed.

Ben -Hadad, the same name as the murdered king, became king much later, his son.

Amos tells us, for three transgressions of Damascus, and for flour,

I will not turn away its punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with implements of iron, but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and the house of Hazael at that time was his son

Ben -Hadad, he named him after the king that he murdered, which shall devour the palaces of Ben -Hadad.

I will also break the gate bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Avon, and the one who holds the scepter from Beth Eden.

The people of Syria shall go captive to Kerr." In other words, there's a price.

There's a penalty. He's committed murder. Perhaps the question would be better asked of the prophet, if God wants me to be king, if that is

God's will, and it is the case, since I know you to be a prophet, how then should it be accomplished?

What then shall I do? Instead, he went on with the plan of his heart, which was to murder his sovereign, to bring this great violence upon Israel in a way that was far and away over the top from what was necessary, and beyond the charter he was given, and so as Amos tells us, the punishment will come upon the following generations.

So that's the anointing of Hazael. I want to move on to Elisha's anointing of Jehu.

If you want to follow along there, we'll read the first 13 verses of chapter 9 in 2 Kings. And Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets and said to him, get yourself ready, take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth, Gilead.

Now when you arrive at that place, look there for Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, and go in and make him rise up from among his associates, and take him to an inner room.

Then take the flask of oil and pour it on his head, and say, Thus says the Lord, I have anointed you king over Israel.

Then open the door and flee, and do not delay. So the young man, the servant of the prophet, went to Ramoth, Gilead, and when he arrived, there were the captains of the army sitting.

And he said, I have a message for you, commander. Jehu said, For which one of us? And he said,

For you, commander. Then he rose and went into the house, and he poured the oil on his head, and said to him,

Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I have anointed you king over the people of the Lord over Israel.

You shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the

Lord at the hand of Jezebel. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish, and I will cut off from Ahab all the males in Israel, both bond and free.

So I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah.

The dogs shall eat Jezebel on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her.

And he opened the door and fled. Then Jehu came out to the servants of his master, and one of them said to him,

Is it well? Why did this madman come to you? And he said to them,

You know this man and his babble. And they said, A lie! Tell us now. So he said,

Thus and thus he spoke to me, saying, Thus says the Lord, I have anointed you king over Israel. Then each man hastened to take his garment and put it under him on top of the steps, and they blew trumpets, saying,

Jehu is king. We have a great deal of detail here in this anointing as compared to Hazael just a moment ago.

Jehu, he's given no chance for Q &A like Hazael had. The young prophet delivers this word of God, and then he goes straight back.

So in a sense, it's God who does all the talking. His men insist on knowing what the madman wanted.

Jehu, perhaps still reeling from this unexpected promotion, he tries to put them off, but they're not going to have it.

He says, You know these crazy prophets. Don't worry about it. They're just the ramblings of a madman.

You know what it's like. They know better. They won't have any of this. They seem to have little regard for the men of God because they call them a madman, but they also seem to know that he wouldn't have come to a battlefield headquarters for nothing.

So he confesses to them what the prophet said, and all of a sudden, and with enthusiasm that must have been waiting for a chance to spill over, they find themselves in complete agreement with God.

Also they say, Jehu is king. Who said he's king? Well, God said he's king. Is it likely that they knew the

God of the Bible? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? That they really worshiped Yahweh and believed him?

There's almost no chance. But all of a sudden they're in line with God. Why? Because God's in line with them.

Jehu is king. They're all ready to go. So with this, in a very real sense,

Elisha has finished his course. We've been going for some time now. This is the 25th message in this series on Elijah and Elisha.

It's almost over because Elisha has accomplished God's purposes for him, which was, remember 1

Kings 19, to anoint these killer angels to bring God's judgment against the

Baal worship in Israel and the house of Ahab that introduced it. He's finished his course.

The avengers of God have been set in place. And I want to look next time at the actual events that these newly minted kings bring about, for now

I will only say about it that God's design, God's will in minute detail will be completed.

His will is sovereign. And Lord willing, on the 29th when I bring that to you,

I'm sort of excited about it because point by point by point, these two, Ben -Hadad and Jehu will accomplish all this, even though they're complete enemies and not working together in any way that they're aware of.

Notice also that while Elisha wept for the children of Israel and what they would endure from Hazael, there are no tears here in Jehu's anointing.

Because who's Jehu going to go after? Baal and the house of Ahab that introduced him into Israel.

There's no tears for that. Jehu's task will be entirely focused on that line and on that one

God, the head, Ahab's descendants first, then Baal as we Lord willing will see.

God's word is always a word of certainty. He doesn't speak and then manipulate events forcing them to somehow line up with his will.

He speaks from eternal decrees which are his counsel alone and they are shared at his discretion and when appropriate.

So we know what we need to know. And the secret things belong to the Lord and him alone.

What he's revealed is what belongs to us and the children after us. His word explains everything to us, not just because we then attribute events to a mighty power, but because he tells us why he moved.

He tells us why he acted and will act as he does and did. But what's the point of all this?

Pretty simple. His word gives purpose, gives meaning to events and to life.

Without his word we're just those little balls in the help me, what are those machines?

Thank you. The pinball machines. We're just getting knocked around haplessly and that's not the case.

God's word tells us why we're here. God's word tells us what is happening. God's word tells us where God is bringing events to, which is

Jesus' return and our final salvation. Ultimately, ultimately that's what it is. Without that word we're just in that machine getting knocked around.

But his word gives true meaning, gives true purpose to both events and to life.

He has spoken his word of judgment on Ahab and now in these anointings, especially

Jehu's anointing against Ahab the whole thing is initiated. And the following few chapters are going to show us how thoroughly this is carried out.

Once Hazael and Jehu were anointed and given their charters we need to notice something.

There's no more room for repentance. The wheels are now set in motion and they are not going to stop.

If Hazael said, you know I became king by murder and I don't want that, I repent it's all too late.

God has spoken his word through the prophets. God has shown at Mount Carmel the insanity of worshiping this false god that was so prevalent and the power of the true and living

God. And now he's done. His patience is at an end.

As I keep calling him, the avenging, the killer angels are set in place. There's another still to be sent.

There's another still to be sent not a man like Jehu or Hazael and we have no less notice of this coming and we've spoken of it already than when

Israel had of Hazael and Jehu's coming. I speak of Jesus.

I speak of Jesus who in chapter 6 of Revelation is riding a white charger followed by the dread consequences of war the black and the green and the red horses.

This is war falling behind the son of God. He's the harbinger of wrath that Jehu will only begin to typify.

Men will say of Jesus fallen us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb for the great day of the wrath has come and who is able to stand?

He has not been sent yet. If he were, if he had been, we wouldn't be here right now. But he has been anointed.

He sits now at the right hand of the father. Just as these two kings have been anointed and set on thrones in order to accomplish

God's will of vengeance so also the scripture says just as clearly perhaps more importantly that Jesus right now at a time when none of us expect will be sent by God and then fates are sealed.

Then he comes to bring judgment. We think of the wrath of God being poured out on Christ on the cross and it was a complete emptying of God's wrath on Jesus.

My sin, not the part but the whole God's wrath, not most of it, all of it.

So we have no wrath left to answer for as long as Jesus Christ is our answer. His coming has in the same scripture as we just read in 2

Kings but in a different part. I mean the same overall scripture. As we just read in 2

Kings. And once that wheel is set in motion history begins to wrap up entirely.

Hasn't been sent yet because we're still here. We know that. Has been anointed. He came the first time gentle and mild not to judge but to save.

And perhaps we can liken that period to Elijah and Elisha who came preaching against the false gods begging men to abandon them and return to the true

God. And here we are between his resurrection which is his crowning conclusion of his life on earth.

Here we are between that and his return. And his return is certain.

As certain as the vengeance that Jehu and Hazael by God's decree are going to bring upon the land.

Jesus Christ's return is also certain. And this is what we're warned of in 2

Kings. This is what we're encouraged to know. The certainty of God's word.

The certainty of his coming vengeance. And once he comes there's no turning back.

All his enemies will be destroyed. He'll be given the due recompense for their sins. And my question is as we close.

Are you ready? Are you ready for that? Israel as we'll see was not ready.

Though they had been told they weren't ready. And they suffered horribly as we'll see.

Are you ready? Have you repented of your sins? Have you sought God's forgiveness by turning to Christ and the work he did on the cross?

It is there. That forgiveness is there. The land was slain on Calvary. In him is forgiveness if you will but repent and put your faith and your trust and your hope in him.

In Jesus. Because once God turns him loose so to speak.

Once God turns him loose the way he does Jehu and Hazael. There's no turning back.

That's why these histories are in our scriptures. They typify something yet to come.

And once these two begin to move there is no turning back. There is no more room for repentance.

God has preached through his prophet. God has begged men to forgive through the prophets.

They've thumbed their nose at him. Are you ready for this?

Are you ready? Because Christ is going to return as certainly as these kings went out against Israel.

Christ is coming back and his work will be against all the inhabitants of the earth who stand against God.

Who have not repented of their sin. I will close us with the last two verses of Hebrews chapter 9.

And it is appointed for men to die once but after this the judgment. So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many.

To those who eagerly wait for him he will appear a second time apart from sin for salvation.

In other words his first coming was to answer our sins before God and his return will be to finalize the salvation that he won for all who have repented and turned to him.

I pray that that will be everyone who hears this gospel even today. Amen. Lord God again we thank you for bringing us together into this place.

And I thank you for the warnings of your scripture that tell us so clearly even as Emma said that you reveal your secrets to us.

That we can look at this history and see the certainty and the inexorable nature of your word father.

And know that a greater judgment is coming.

A more final sending of an anointed one is coming. Even Jesus Christ. Let's pray

Lord for all in this place who do not know you. That even now Lord your spirit will work in their heart.

Turn them away from themselves. Away from false gods. And to Jesus Christ and there seek forgiveness of their sins.

And know the atoning grace that you father worked in him.

For those who know you by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ may we take this warning to heart.

May we just expand our love for our savior who has rescued us from such things.

Lord may we be those who return just grace and worship to you for all these things.