2 Kings 9:1-13

[0:00] Well, good evening, guys. It is good to see you this evening. I'm thankful to have the opportunity to be with you. I trust that you've had a good week so far and trust that things are going well for you today.

[0:14] Let's take our Bibles and go to the book of 2 Kings. We will be doing business meeting here at the end of, well, after our Bible study, so I've tried to keep that in mind, condensed where we would be at 2 Kings chapter 9.

[0:28] When you came in, you should have got a number of things. Sean was giving them out. He got most of them together. You should have had budget reports, minutes from last month's meeting, and then the prayer list.

[0:41] So you should have had those items when you came in. If you did not get them, then we can get them to you. Sean can get them to you here in just a moment. So 2 Kings chapter 9, we're going to limit ourselves to get down to verse 13.

[0:56] Verses 1 through 13 will be our text. Really, to carry the context a little further, you'd have to look at the entire 9th chapter, but I'm afraid that that would bleed a little bit too much into our time together.

[1:07] So for the sake of respect for your time and respect for the time of those in the back, we will confine ourselves to those first 13 verses and really just kind of introduce what is going on.

[1:19] But let's go ahead and go to the Lord in prayer, and then we'll get right into our text with one another. God, we thank you so much. So thankful for the opportunity we have of gathering, and God, thankful for the fellowship we can enjoy with one another, Lord, the encouragement it is midweek just to come and to spur one another on to Christ-like living and living for your glory and honor.

[1:42] We pray for those that are in the back. Pray for our children and our youth that are throughout this building. And, Lord, as they learn more and more of you, we pray that you would be exalted in their midst and that you would draw them closer to you through the word.

[1:57] Lord, we pray that you'd be with us as we open up the word. We pray that it would speak truth into our hearts and minds and that we would come to a greater understanding of it, that understanding would move from collective information to application.

[2:11] Lord, we pray that you also guide us through our business meeting tonight. We pray that you lead us as a church as we continue to make, hopefully, well-informed decisions, and we just lean upon you in your leading and guiding.

[2:25] Father, we just thank you so much for your love and concern for us. We thank you for this opportunity and this place you've given us, and we thank you for each one that's here, and we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. 2 Kings chapter 9.

[2:38] If you remember, in the 8th chapter, we found Elisha doing something which seemingly on the outside looked very strange. We looked at it this past Sunday evening, if you were here, and that is he entered into Damascus.

[2:54] In verse 7 of the 8th chapter. Now, the reason that's strange is because that probably was immediately following the besiege of the Arameans, or some of your translations I know say Syrians, of the city of Samaria.

[3:10] Aram's army had gathered around Samaria besieged it until they got to the point where cannibalism was existing inside the city. We know that God thwarted the plans of the Arameans.

[3:22] He caused them to hear a sound in the camp. They left. They left the food there. The Lord provided it in a supernatural way. Sometime after that, Elisha goes to Damascus into the land of Aram, and he anoints Hazael as the next king.

[3:38] Now, when we looked at that, we saw that he wasn't just doing something offhand or coincidentally, but rather that that event was a part of the prophetic word that was given to Elisha in 1 Kings 19.

[3:55] When Elisha was at his lowest point, fleeing from the threats of Jezebel, immediately following his highest point of the showdown of Mount Carmel, he flees from the threats of Jezebel, and he goes and he hides under a juniper tree, ends up traveling alone all the way to Mount Sinai, and it is there that God asks him, Why are you here?

[4:20] I always find it interesting when God asks why you're here, because God already knows. But anyway, Elisha said, Well, I alone am left. I need to die. I'm not fit. I'm the only one left.

[4:30] God reminds him that he's not the only one left. He's got 7,000. I've not bowed to knee nor kissed the prophet Baal, he says. But in connection with that reality that he's not the only one left, he gives him three things to do.

[4:44] Three charges are given to Elisha. It is to anoint King Hazel to be the next king of Aram, to cast his mantle upon Elisha to be the prophet that would take his place, and to anoint Jehu, the son of Nimshi, to be the king of Israel.

[5:05] Of those three things, one of them, the casting of his mantle upon Elisha, is the only one that Elisha himself actually does.

[5:19] He commissions Elisha to be the prophet in his place. Elisha then goes to Damascus and anoints Hazel, king of Aram. The account we have before us tonight is the fulfillment of the remainder of that prophetic word.

[5:36] It says in 2 Kings 9, verse 1, Now Elisha, the prophet, called one of the sons of the prophets and said to him, Gird up your loins and take this flask of oil in your hand and go to Ramath-Galib.

[5:49] When you arrive there, search out Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, and go in and bid him arise from among his brothers and bring him to an inner room. Then take the flask of oil and pour it on his head and say, Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed you king over Israel.

[6:05] Then open the door and flee and do not wait. So the young man, the servant of the prophet, went to Ramath-Galib. And when he came, behold, the captains of the army were sitting. And he said, I have a word for you, O captain.

[6:17] And Jehu said, For which one of us? And he said, For you, O captain. He arose and went into the house, and he poured the oil on his head and said to him, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, I have anointed you king over the people of the Lord, even over Israel.

[6:30] You shall strike 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 every male person, both bond and free in Israel.

[6:45] And I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nabot, and like the house of Basha, the son of Ahijah. The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and none shall bury her.

[6:58] Then he opened the door and fled. Now Jehu came out to the servants of his master. And one said to him, Is all well? Why did this mad fellow come to you? And he said to them, You know very well the man and his talk.

[7:11] They said, It is a lie. Tell us now. And he says, Thus and thus he said to me, Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed you king over Israel. Then they hurried, and each man took his garment, and placed it under him on the bare steps, and blew the trumpet, saying, Jehu is king.

[7:31] I want you to see this evening, and we'll see it hopefully with some expediency so we can get to the remainder of the events we need to do tonight. The overruling power of God. The overruling power of God.

[7:45] We have been studying for some time without much interruption, other than a casual mentioning of some events that are going on in the southern kingdom, the events that are taking place in the northern kingdom.

[7:59] Once the kingdom was divided after the death of Solomon, and Rehoboam came to power, and we have seen now for some time that man was not progressing in their obedience nor progressing in their faithfulness.

[8:16] As a matter of fact, the further along they went, the more wicked they became. With the introduction of Ahab, who did more wicked than any who went before him, we have a dynasty now that has went a number of generations.

[8:29] The current king of Israel is a son of Ahab. He is not the one who reigned right after the death of his father because his brother reigned for a short time, fell through the lattice of his roof, and died, and then he succeeded him.

[8:44] Yet we have seen that the wickedness continues to prevail. That rather than turning to the ways of the Lord, they are turning to the ways of man.

[8:55] God has been faithful to raise up his prophets, to declare his word. He has sent signs and wonders. He has displayed prophetic word and the fulfillment thereof, even going back just in short time to the besiege of Samaria, how Elisha said that the Lord would provide, and the very next day it was provided so.

[9:14] We have seen that God has been faithful to all that he has said he would do, and done all that he had claimed he would do. Yet the one thing that we have seen missing is any manner of repentance or acknowledgement.

[9:27] In the midst of all this, in the northern kingdom of the nation of Israel, there has been no worship, no return, no forsaking or casting off of their idols, and yet they are continuing to progress further and further and further into what is certain to come judgment, which we will get to in just a few chapters.

[9:45] Yet we also realize that no matter who thinks they are in a position of authority and power, there is an overruling power.

[9:58] That is, there is one who is not called off guard, nor his plans changed, nor does he have to alter his course based upon what man is doing.

[10:11] Rather, he rules in the midst of it all and quite often at times overrules it all. This is a theme that we see very clearly in scripture.

[10:23] There are those in the scientific world who, in an effort to define reality and how we came into existence, will try to deny the existence of God and say that everything happened by naturalistic causes.

[10:36] That seems to be easy enough to refute because we also know the reality that something can't come from nothing, and it just doesn't take very long to get into that discussion.

[10:46] Then there are those who say, well, there may be some type of higher being, some creator, if you will. But they don't want to take it so far as to say that he is a personal creator because they believe this creator is one who spoke it into existence, if he did that, or worked it into existence, and then left it alone, walked away from it, kind of put it out there, left it alone, and then the evolutionary processes took over from there because that's their answer.

[11:11] He was the beginning and left it alone. Scripture tells us something totally different. Scripture teaches us of a God who is a creator, a fashioner of the child in the mother's womb, one who is very hands-on in all of his approach to all of his creation, one who is not only intimately aware with every individual that he knows the number of hairs on their head, he also knows the number of days of their life, but he is also involved enough that he has a hand in everything that transpires.

[11:48] Now, for some of us, that becomes very difficult to comprehend and even to accept because rightly, we acknowledge the fact that not all that happens is good. There are a number of things which we say, surely God is not in control of that.

[12:05] If we were to continue reading through the ninth chapter, this would probably be one of those such matters because of what Jehu does, but yet I want you to see the overruling power of God because his is a power with three attributes really that resonate that we see in this passage and hopefully we'll continue to see throughout the rest of Scripture.

[12:27] He is a power, first and foremost, with representation. That is, no matter who is on the throne, no matter who thinks they are in charge, he sits on his throne and he always has someone who represents his throne.

[12:45] We've seen this from the very beginning of creation. Adam was created and he was placed in the garden. And in the garden, he was told to rule and to reign.

[12:56] He was given authoritative power over creation. We also know that there was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life there. He was given that freedom to rule. He was given that authority to rule.

[13:08] He was the representative of a holy God because he was made in their image. We also realize that the enemy of man's soul was there as well.

[13:20] And the temptation came. We don't have to rehash it, but we know that in the midst of this cosmic warfare, there's a representative of the kingdom of heaven alive in the realm of the world.

[13:31] From that very beginning all the way through Scripture, the one reality that we find is in the midst of all the battles, in the midst of all the turmoil, and in the midst of all the struggles, God always has a representation.

[13:44] There are always a remnant. When we read the book of Judges, we are astounded at the depravity of mankind. I believe the book of Judges, it wasn't that long ago we went through it here.

[13:58] I know it's probably a number of years by now. I lose track of it in my mind. It was just a couple of months ago. But if you remember when we went through the book of Judges, the theme of the book of Judges was, in those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes.

[14:11] That's repeated five times by the time we get to the end of that book. And I believe the book of Judges shows us what is going to be at the end of the days, that every man will do what is right in his own eyes.

[14:22] But in the midst of this period of the Judges, which spans about 400 years, and it is a downward spiral, it is digressing, not progressing, because we have a judge who has at least some semblance of faithfulness to the Lord in the beginning, until we get near the end where they're just doing horrendous events.

[14:40] But thankfully, after we turn out of the book of Judges, we open up our Bibles, and we turn to an account that happened during the days of the Judges, and that is we turn to the book of Ruth.

[14:53] And there's a Boaz that is there as well. God always has a representative that represents what ought to be. No matter what seems to be the rolling authority, no matter who seems to be in control or in charge, God has a representative.

[15:11] Here, that representative is Elisha and the school of the prophets. Now, God is not confined to which representative he must use. This is why we have to understand these. These representatives are to carry on the purposes and plans and the will of the Lord God Almighty.

[15:30] Just in case you have missed it, that's the church's commission too. We are the representatives of the king in another realm who are to carry on the plans and purposes and the will of the Lord God Almighty who sits upon the throne.

[15:44] When God commissions Elisha, he gives him three very clear commissions, and we look at it and he does one of them. We think, well, he fell short. No, he didn't fall short, because that commission was not confined to the individual Elisha.

[15:57] That commission was given to the representatives of the king. That would be like saying that because the great commission wasn't fulfilled in the first century church, the church failed. No, we are still working on the great commission.

[16:11] We still have a part carrying on. The very first thing that was told on the mountain in Galilee to the very first believers is the commission that we're caring for today to proclaim the gospel unto those who have never heard, to make disciples out of all the nations.

[16:26] The church has not failed. The representatives are just still present. When Elisha conferred upon Elisha his mantle, Elisha therefore took on the remainder of that commission, so he had to go to Damascus.

[16:42] He anointed Hazel. Now, after leaving the kingdom of Aram and anointing the next king over in Aram, it's probably not a good idea to walk into the commanders of the king of Israel because, as we will read further along, you will find that the reason Jehu is meeting with the commanders here is because this is the very moment where the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom of Israel have come together and they are fighting against Aram.

[17:09] They're actually fighting against Haziel, the very king that Elisha just anointed. And they're trying to regain some of that land.

[17:20] So Elisha sends one of the sons of the prophets. And what we find out is that God is not limited in his representation, but he's also not confined to who he must use.

[17:33] He can use an Elijah, he can use an Elisha, or he can use an unnamed son of one of the prophets in the school. And his will continues to move forward.

[17:43] That is an astounding reality because when we look at this, we meet kings who have names and people who are trying to carry on their name, but yet what we find out, the one who is ruling over all is using quite often in scripture unnamed individuals.

[18:00] To me, that's both comforting because if the world doesn't know your name, it doesn't matter because you're working for an authority greater than the one who is ruling in this world. And the question is not whether the ruling authorities of this world want to utilize you.

[18:14] The question is, are you representing the one who overrules this world? And they don't have to know your name. You can be the one who runs in with a flask of oil, dumps it on somebody's head, and runs out. Now, I love how he took his charge.

[18:25] He went a little bit further and said, Elisha said, you are the next king, and then leave. He went there. He said, I got more to say to that, right? Well, I think the Lord God spoke to him on the way because, again, the prophets are subject to the Lord of the prophets.

[18:38] And God said, you can give a little clarity. I don't think the clarity needed to be for Jehu's sake. I think the clarity is for our sake. And we thank God that he did that because we see here the representation of the king.

[18:52] The next thing that we notice in our passage is that he is a power with reason. That is, there is purpose behind everything he does.

[19:03] the danger in saying that there is a creator who creates things and then walks away from it is to dictate the reason and the meaning behind everything else from that point on to the creation rather than to the creator.

[19:20] That is to say, if God created it and then left it alone, everything that transpires from there is dictated by the creation itself. But when he has his hand on it, and when the creator is intimately involved with the creation, then we must say that all that takes place within the realms of his creative work, I'm glad it's Wednesday night because you came ready to think, right?

[19:44] The realm of his creative work that there is reason for what he does. We may not always understand it, we may not always comprehend it, but there is reason behind it.

[19:57] Now this is challenging when we are in the Old Testament because, admittedly so, Elisha anoints Haziel and one of the things Haziel will do is he will slaughter men and women of the nation of Israel.

[20:10] Does Elisha's anointing of Haziel cause that? No. We also know that Haziel went and he suffocated the king Ben-Hadad of Aram. Does Elisha's anointing of Haziel cause that?

[20:24] No. But anointing puts him in a position where God is going to use him. Jehu, when we continue to read further along here, will kill his master and he will kill the ruler over Judah.

[20:37] Does the anointing of the son of the prophets cause that? No. But there's reason behind it. Go back to find the reason to see what God is doing.

[20:49] This is why you cannot confine yourselves to one portion of scripture. You have to go back to 1 Kings 19 and when you go back to 1 Kings 19 what had just happened. You remember, I already told you, I have to tell you again, showdown on Mount Carmel, God has validated himself.

[21:03] The prophets of Baal have been humiliated. The God who answers by fire, he is God and God answered by fire. Elijah flees now from the threats of Jezebel and God says we're going to do something.

[21:13] God says, okay, this is what you're going to do. You're going to anoint Haziel, you're going to anoint Jehu, and you're going to commission Elisha. And then God makes this declaring statement. Now stay with me in this. He says, the one who evades from the sword of Haziel will fall by the sword of Jehu.

[21:27] The one who falls by the sword of Jehu will fall by the sword of Elisha. Therefore, I will bring judgment upon the household of Ahab. Now this is something that you have to wrap your minds around in scripture and you have to be okay with.

[21:42] God is free to use whoever and whatever as an instrument of judgment. And so he declares on Mount Sinai that these two kings that have now been anointed will be the instruments of his judgment.

[22:05] Now, after this, just in case we wonder if God is omnipotent and omniscient, after these matters are when Ahab conspires and kills Naboth for his vineyard.

[22:23] Well, we say Ahab, it was Jezebel. And Ahab goes and takes possession of Naboth's vineyard and Elisha meets him there and says, in like manner you too will die.

[22:35] Your blood will be shed in the open field. Does anybody want to conjecture a biblically informed thought? Thought. I don't want to say guess. Where Jehu kills the son of Ahab?

[22:52] He is in Naboth's vineyard. Wow. God also declares that Jezebel will be eaten by the dogs. God had already picked out the instrument of judgment before the sin was ever committed.

[23:06] And the reason that that man was in Naboth's vineyard is because they were fighting Haziel. That's why he was not in Jezreel.

[23:20] He went to go fight Haziel and all of a sudden he met Jehu and now all of a sudden we begin to see there's reason behind what God is doing. There's reason.

[23:33] God does not allow things nor permit things nor ordain things for happenstance. This is one of the hardest concepts of the sovereignty of God that we ever have to wrap our mind around is that these matters everything that God permits and allows and ordains are for the fulfillment of his purpose.

[24:02] Today is 9-11. a day that changed so much of our nation's history a day that for all of us that were old enough to know when it happens that most of us will never forget.

[24:19] Some of you were just born or hadn't been born yet. I can take you to the exact same spot I was when the trade towers were hit. I can take you to the side of the road on Sam Ridley Parkway on a church with a red door that I was getting ready to pull the phone cable into when 6.50 a.m.

[24:41] the Super Tower of the South started talking about the planes hitting the trade towers. That news was shocking but I told my wife this morning this is a day that forever changed the trajectory of my life in a way that I would have never planned.

[24:59] Because see prior to that I had just hired on at the phone company. I had a great plan like everybody else. I hired on at the phone company and I had all these things worked out. I actually failed my test the first time so I had to wait six months to take the test again and God was so gracious to me because I knew less about electricity the second time I took it then I did the first.

[25:16] No offense to you guys that really knew it and you could actually pass it. I was guessing and praying and the Lord was gracious. Okay. Basic electricity for a limon meant all you have to do is make sure it don't fall. That's it. I didn't know anything about color schemes or anything of that nature.

[25:30] God was gracious. He answered my prayer. Difference between when I first took the test and the next took the test is I came to Christ in that six month period. So God was doing something in my life. Right. So I had this plan.

[25:44] All of a sudden the economy changed and my plan fell through the roof because I got a call the next year telling me I got laid off. What happened in that year period that I worked there before I was actually laid off is I realized there may be something greater for me than phone company.

[26:01] Right. I don't have to go into it too long. But if nothing had changed on that day then I probably would not have been as sensitive to the leading of the Lord to go into the ministry.

[26:12] ministry. That's my story. Now the way he uses events in everybody else's life is astounding.

[26:24] There are a number of things that we understand that God has reason. There is reason behind what he does. Third and finally we also see that his is a power of responsibility.

[26:38] And by that I mean man is responsible for his own sin. He is the overruling power. And we have to tread carefully here because if we don't we begin to make God the author of evil.

[26:54] Jehu will slaughter his commander and will murder the commander of the kingdom of Judah. Hazael suffocated his king.

[27:07] And we look at God's overruling authority and his sovereignty and we say well then if this is what God had purposed and this is what God had willed then God caused these matters.

[27:19] And the book of James tells us be not confused. God is not the God of evil. We are reminded that the responsibility that God has is a responsibility for each man for his own sins.

[27:35] no matter how that judgment comes the reality is that when judgment comes it's not because God is unfair it's because these people have rejected opportunity after opportunity after opportunity and the judgmental tool of God now is just carrying out and we can say it what they deserve.

[27:55] We looked at this when the nation of Israel left Egypt in the Exodus event they crossed the Red Sea and they went into the land of Canaan that charge and the accusation there is well look at all those innocent people that are getting run away from their homes or getting slaughtered.

[28:09] Most would say look at all the slaughter. The only wholesale slaughter that happens there is only two cities. Okay. Most of them as God had said were driven out before them with hornets and things like that gradual.

[28:23] If you go look at archaeological discoveries you also find that there seems to be a changeover in populations in that region but it was not a changeover that happened all at once. It was something that seemingly happened progressively over a number of years.

[28:34] It is astounding how much archaeology seems to align with the realities of scripture. But what we find is that God is bringing the nation of Israel again as an instrument of judgment because when we read what happens God says that I will drive them out for their sin and rebellion.

[28:54] You say well did they really have an opportunity to repent? Well this is the first place that Abraham, Abraham, well Abram before he was Abraham, sojourned and walked around that land and the Bible tells us in the book of Genesis that he called upon the name of the Lord his God.

[29:08] Now in calling upon the name of the Lord his God does not mean he went around praying it meant he went around proclaiming the name of the Lord God. So he was preaching, he was on a preaching circuit.

[29:20] God waited over 400 years before judgment came. And there was no repentance. See responsibility falls upon man.

[29:35] Paul says in the book of Romans that man is without excuse. He is utterly without excuse. And when we look at these two kings with the prophet Elisha also being referred to as the man of God by Ben-Hadad and also being very present with the kings of Israel and all the prophetic signs and wonders that had taken place and yet there is no repentance, there is no regret and there is no return to worship.

[30:09] When judgment comes we do not have to say that is a good man who is doing the judgment, Hazael or Jehu, to acknowledge the reality that God is putting the responsibility for their sins now on their own heads.

[30:27] That God is a power that holds man responsible. God does not ordain good but he can overrule evil and use it for the fulfillment of his purposes.

[30:43] And that is a hard biblical concept for sure to wrap our minds around but one that we must acknowledge to be faithful to scripture because if we don't we run the risk of putting man as a greater authority than the one who rules over it all.

[31:00] He is the overruling power. He has his representatives upon the face of the earth. He does everything with reason and he holds man responsible.

[31:12] And we see it recorded for us very clearly here in 2nd Kings 9 verses 1 through 13. Thank you so much. Thank you, brothers. Thank you, brothers. Thank you, brothers. Thank you.