Well, I invite you to turn with me in your copies of God's Word to the first book of Kings. First Kings chapter 22 and verse 51. First Kings 22 and verse 51. And we will read through the end of second Kings chapter 1. First Kings 22 verse 51. Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, became king over Israel in Samaria in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and reigned two years 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 Nebat, who made Israel sin. For he served Baal and worshiped him and provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger according to all that his father had done. 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-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury. But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, arise, go up and 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-zebub, 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? And 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 sending to inquire of Baal-zebub, 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 was it who 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 Tishbite. Then the king sent to him a captain of 50 with his 50 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 50, if I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men. And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50. Then he sent to him another captain of 50 with his 50 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'm a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men. And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50. Again, he sent a third captain of 50 with his 50 men. And the third captain of 50 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 50 servants of yours be precious in your sight. Look, fire has come down from heaven and burned up the first two captains of 50s with their 50s. 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 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 of Baalzebub, 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. So Ahaziah 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 Ahaziah which he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel? Thus far, the reading of God's word. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Let's pray. We thank you, Heavenly Father, for the reading of your word. We pray that you would bless it to our hearts. May we learn what you have for us in these words this hour. Give us ears to hear, give us minds attentive, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. How do you respond to sickness and injury? When calamity comes crashing into your life, what do you do? Do you renew your repentance and draw near to God? Or do you live as though there were no God in Israel and turn your back on him in bitterness and unbelief? How we respond to sickness, how we respond to injury is the central theme of this chapter of first King, second Kings. as we consider it this afternoon. This is, believe it or not, the 17th Lord's Day that we've been in the series of Elijah the Tishbite. And the last time was in June, and you might recall that we were in a very warm building. There was no air conditioning. And yet that discomfort that we experienced that Lord's Day was no rival to the heat of Ahab's chariot, which we were considering in 1 Kings 22. And we saw then that one of those many thousands of arrows that was fired during the battle found itself lodged between the armor of Ahab's, of his armor, the joints of it. And Ahab was bleeding badly. And yet he, he turns the chariot around. He asked his driver, turn the chariot around. And yet he still faces the Syrians, or as we said in the originals, the Arameans, from which the Aramaic language comes. And he stands propped up in that chariot until he dies at sundown. Well, subsequent to our study of that chapter of 1 Kings 22, back in June, our weather has turned and we have lovely, cool breezes. But from that day of June 18th to today, October 14th, Ahab has continued to remain in the fiery torments of Hades, awaiting the final resurrection of his corrupted body unto damnation. And I mentioned that because I want us to be thinking about these two books of the Kings in a way that Though 2,500 years old are still relevant to us. These are talking about real people with real memories, real experiences, real personhood that will continue and does continue to this present hour and will continue into eternity. So what we want to do is we want to blow the dust off, if you will, and enter into the realities of these things together this hour. Now this break between first Kings and second Kings is the end of an era and it's the beginning of a new era. Elijah's ministry as we're given it in first Kings is primarily to do with Ahab's reign. But once Ahab's dead, Elijah's ministry is not over. Elijah has more work to do. Not only does Elijah have ministry with King Ahaziah, but in second Chronicles 21, He writes a letter to Jehoram king of Judah as well. But here's the scene as we enter into second Kings. Some would wish perhaps that the book began in verse 51 of the previous chapter as we started it. Begins the reign of Ahaziah. And we get something of the brief character summary in verse 52 of 1 Kings 22, it says that Ahaziah did evil in the sight of the Lord. Walked in the way of his father, Ahab, the way of his mother, that would be Jezebel. It's interesting, I don't know if there's any other place where it says that someone walked, not just in the way of his father or his father's, but the way of his mother. Remember it says that there was no one like unto Ahab who sold himself to do evil. like Ahab, who Jezebel, his wife, stirred up. Jezebel plays a prominent role in the evil during the regime of Ahab. And so it says here that Ahab's son, Ahaziah, walks in the way of his father, and he also walks in the way of his mother. Both parents sold themselves unto evil. It also says that Ahaziah walked in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin. And it says that he served Baal and worshipped him and provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger. So that's the context as we enter into 2 Kings. And then we get a summary statement that tells us a lot in the very first verse. It says, Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. So this is the scene. The nation of Israel is continuing to crumble. As they depart from God, the nation continues to fragment. And her influence on surrounding nations begins to wane. We saw that Ahab made compromises that he shouldn't have with other nations. And yet, for all of his evil, he did manage somehow to maintain something of a foreign policy, something of a military prowess. Ahab had a bit of a reputation for going into battle. He was not afraid to go into battle. And yet, at his death, Israel's foreign policy continues to deteriorate, and this first verse of 2 Kings is a summary statement of that. Moab saw an opportunity here to rebel against Israel. This nation of Moab had been under Israelite servitude since the times of King David. Let's just briefly remind ourselves of that in 2 Samuel 8, the first verse. 2 Samuel 8. First verse, after this, it came to pass that David attacked the Philistines and subdued them. And David took Mepheg, Ammah, from the hand of the Philistines. Then he defeated Moab. Forcing them down to the ground, he measured them off with a line. With two lines, he measured off those to be put to death, and with one full line, those to be kept alive. So the Moabites became David's servants and brought tribute. So what we see here is David measured off two groups to be killed for every one group that he kept alive for tribute. Well, that was how it started, but here's how it's going. Moab seizes this opportunity and rebels. Once Ahab was dead, any hesitations they had, if this was the right moment to do it, were gone. Here's our chance, let's rebel. And what's King Ahaziah's response to Moab's rebellion? What did he do in retaliation? It seems that he did nothing. While the nation and the empire crumbled, the leadership did nothing about it. And rather than stirring himself and going into battle, perhaps to recapture Moab, in the words of A.W. Pink, the king luxuriated himself in his palace. He had learned from his father's fate, perhaps, that on the battlefield that discretion is the better part of valor. He would soon learn the hard way that he was not any safer in his home than he was on the battlefield. Verse two, 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 Baalzebub, the God of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury. While speaking I think both literally and metaphorically, Matthew Henry says, royal palaces do not always yield firm footing. We don't know the details of this fall or how it happened. This word lattice here is likely referring to a checkered network of wooden slats that covered perhaps an upstairs window. And his eye may have been leaning up against that window, against those slats. And he might've been putting weight on them that they weren't intended to carry or support. He may have been partying or carousing, or perhaps he fell asleep on the wrong side of bed. We just don't know. But regardless, one way or another, these checkered slats, this lattice, gave way, as they do. And the king came tumbling down. And as a result, it says here in verse two, he was injured. That short phrase is doing a lot of work in this verse. You see, Ahaziah didn't just have minor bumps and bruises from this fall. He was badly hurt. It was the kind of injury that left him unsure whether he was going to recover or not, as the verse goes on to say. And so we see here that in the blink of an eye, just like that, King Ahaziah has gone from a healthy, newly-minted king in just the second year of his reign To someone who's maybe on his deathbed, he doesn't know, but it's serious. Now, in the first book of Kings, we learned that Ahab had reigned for 22 years, Ahaziah's father. Ahaziah probably thought that by avoiding war, he could last even longer than his father had. His father died in battle after all. And yet now, just two years in, Ahaziah is in severe pain. His future is uncertain. I don't want us to miss the lesson of Ahaziah in this chapter. God can take away your health in an instant. It can happen just like that, and it frequently does. You can be the soul of health one day, and then you can be deathly sick the next. And young children, this can happen to you. You can be perfectly healthy, and then you can get a cold, and that can turn into pneumonia. You could be bedridden and sick for weeks. And like Ahaziah, you do not have a guarantee that you're going to get better. You don't know that you're going to recover. And here's the point. Everyone, at some point, falls through Ahaziah's lattice in their life. If it hasn't happened to you yet, it will. Maybe you're diagnosed with cancer. Or maybe at some point you have a heart attack. Or maybe you have a deadly spider bite. And you don't know if you're going to recover. You have some sickness or some calamity. And for all you know, that will be the death of you. And the question that our text here in 2 Kings is asking is, how are you going to respond to that? And how do you respond? Not just Not just what should you respond, not just what's the answer that you think your pastor wants to hear, but how do you respond when you fall through Ahaziah's lattice? And all who are outside of Christ ultimately respond the way that Ahaziah did. In other words, 2 Kings 1 gives us a resounding lesson in how not to respond. Notice what it says in the second half of verse 2. He sent messengers and said to them, go inquire of Baal Zebub, the God of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury. There's his response. He wants to go and inquire of this false God and find out if he will recover from his injury. Now, just a brief word about this God, Baal Zebub. Balaam, Baalim, the plural of Baal, is a general term for what's really a constellation of false gods in the surrounding nation states around Israel at this time. And each of these gods had their own locale. Each of these gods had their own jurisdiction. And Baal Zebub happens to be the god of Ekron, a city in Philistia. And this is the god that Ahaziah wants to hear from, to learn about his health. This Baal Zebub is lord of the flies. As we look at verse 2, it's devastating to read this. This injury on Ahaziah's part is a ripe opportunity for him to repent. I mean, think about it. It was the goodness of God that even though this is a maybe mortal injury that he has, he doesn't know. He's gonna find out. He's gonna ask. But he didn't die from it on impact. He didn't fall and immediately pass away. He still has his faculties. He can still think. And this sick room, this sick bed that he's now on, in verse two, is a golden opportunity for him to repent. This sick room should have become a place of prayer and real repentance. But instead, he sends messengers and he inquires of the Lord of the flies, of Baal-zebub. And I want us to see that any response to sickness and calamity that does not involve repentance of sin and turning to the true God is, in effect, to do what Ahaziah did. It is, in effect, to send messengers and inquire of the Lord of the flies. What is your response to sickness? How do you respond? This searches us. This should search us. What's our response when we're injured or sick? Do we search out the word of God? You know, it's easy for us to give the right theological answer to this in moments of ease. But when we're in that pressure cooker of affliction, that's when we really learn what it means to walk with God and declare his Lordship of our lives and trust his word. So if you're injured, you're afflicted, what do you do? Do you take your complaint to God and ask him to sanctify your suffering? It would be far better to take your fears and your doubts and yes, even your unbelief with you to God and ask for his help than to turn your face from God and inquire of the Lord of the flies. And see Ahaziah didn't, he doesn't even pretend like he's going to draw near to God. He doesn't even go through outward acts of communion with God. He acts as though there's no God in Israel as at all. So this is unbelief without mixture. And there's actually a second problem with Ahaziah's actions here as well. As we said a moment ago, he should have been preparing in repentance, but he should have been preparing to die. And instead, it seems that all he is interested in is whether he's going to recover, whether he's going to continue to live or not. Concerning this, Matthew Henry says, quote, we should be more thoughtful what will become of us after death than how or when or where we shall die. And listen to this, and more desirous to be told how we may conduct ourselves well in our sickness and get good to our souls by it than whither we shall recover from it, end quote. What Matthew Henry is saying here is that we've missed the focus if our primary concern is whether we'll recover from sickness. That was all Ahaziah was interested in. Am I gonna recover? And I'll ask whatever God I need to to get the answer. That's all he's interested in. Not only has he rejected God, not only is he in gross idolatry here, but he's not even asking the right question. He's not even asking the wrong God the right question. So when we're sick, let our thoughts be how to live well during that time, how we can glorify God through it. Now, again, it's easy to give the right theological answer here, but when you're sick, that's when you really enter into the realities of these things. And brothers, if this is how we should approach our own sickness, is this not how we should pray for others when they are sick? Yes, it's true that recovery from sickness is a godly desire and it can and should be a legitimate aspect of prayer. Paul models that for us. But to live well so that the fruit of God may be manifest in our lives, that should be our primary aim. And I ask the question, do our thoughts and prayers reflect that? It's so easy for us to slip into the mentality of seeking wellness Oh, so-and-so is sick. Oh, Lord, please help. Please heal. Oh, so-and-so is having a surgery. Oh, Lord, may it be well. May it be a good surgery. And we forget about the glory of God in all of life, including sickness. And I'm guilty of this. May we rethink injury and sickness biblically. It's easy to stand here and talk about it, but living it, that is what is hard. May we learn from our own past failures even how to live better by God's power and sickness and injury and adversity. How we respond to sickness matters. Ahaziah is spending his eternity regretting how he responded to his sickness. Verse three, but the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, arise. go up 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 Zebub, the God of Ekron? God sees and knows all things and he was not going to let this rebellion go unchecked. Instead, we read that this angel of Yahweh, and I take this to be a pre-incarnate Christ, comes to Elijah and tells him to intercept this messenger before he ever gets to Ekron. And don't miss the question that Elijah was to pass along with this messenger here. He says, is it because there is no God in Israel that you're going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the God of Ekron? Now, there's a double negative actually happening here in the Hebrew that makes this sentence a bit of a challenge to translate. A.W. Pink argues that the second negative is more properly placed like so. Is it because there is no God, none in Israel, that you turn to the emissaries of Satan? So in other words, the question here that Elijah is giving to the messenger to give to Ahab is implying that the thesis statement is actually false, not true. In other words, the truth is that there was, in fact, a God in Israel. Remember, we had seen Elijah pray on Mount Carmel, what would have been years ago by now, in 1 Kings, that God would vindicate himself So that Israel would know that he was the Lord God. We saw that in first Kings 18 and there truly was a God in Israel. And what's more than that is Israel was in covenant with that God. I mean, all of these judgments, all the blessings and cursings are in the context of being in covenant with this God. There was in fact, a God in Israel, the Lord had made himself manifest in her. And so what Elijah is telling Ahaziah through this messenger is this, you're acting as though there is no God in Israel. Why are you doing that? Why are you turning your back on him? Ahaziah's sin was not that he thought that the God in Israel had left Israel. Ahaziah's sin is that he was treating the God of Israel who was in Israel as though he were a no God. And that's the high-handed insult to God. That's the foundation of everything that comes after this. This is injurious to God's name. It's an insult to His reputation. Not just an insult in the palace of Samaria, but it's an insult in Philistia, in Ekron, in the surrounding pagan nations outside Israel. Because to go to a heathen nation or a heathen city for inquiry is really to proclaim to it that the God in Israel is a no-God. Ahaziah is effectively saying, we don't really have a God in our land and we need a nation with a God who can help us. You see how idolatrous and insulting this is. And God took this very personally. Our God is a jealous God. And he was not going to allow this messenger travel all the way to Ekron with this slanderous accusation. And so instead in verse three, he sends Elijah to intercept this messenger before he makes it there. I don't think that we'll understand the fire that follows in our passage. If we don't understand what's at stake here in verse three, this, this fire that comes isn't about Elijah's personal safety. It's not his desire to see a fire show. This is about the name of God. This is about the vindication of God, both within Israel and in the surrounding nations. Verse four. 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. Don't miss the therefore of verse four. Therefore just means because of this, Elijah's telling Ahaziah because of this, because you have sought to inquire of the God of Ekron, you will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will surely die. That message is going to get repeated in verse six of our chapter. And then Elijah is going to go on to repeat it in person to the king in verse 16. The message is loud and clear because you have rejected the true God, because you were going and inquiring of a false God, the Lord of the flies. Therefore you will not come down from the bed to what you've gone up. And his, I could have lived perhaps. And I think that he would have if he had used his sickness to turn to God and repent. But instead, what does he do? He insists on walking as we saw in the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin. He insisted on living as though there were no God in Israel. He reaped the consequences. Do you see how important it is in how you respond to sickness? How you live on your deathbed says who you are, really. As Ahaziah lived, so he died. If you're alienated from God today, don't presume that somehow you're going to reconcile to God on your deathbed. That didn't happen to Ahaziah. If you don't bow your knees to Christ now, if you don't bow to the angel of Yahweh now, why would you then? No, you will instead inquire of the gods of Ekron, the Lord of the flies. Verse five, when the messengers returned to him, turned to Ahaziah, he said to them, why have you come back so soon? And I think he's already starting to get a little suspicious here. They haven't had time to get to Philistia. Isaiah's anger is already starting to show in this verse. And so then the messengers repeat to him what they had been told. They said to him, verse six, 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 sending to inquire of Baal-zebub, the God of Ekron? Therefore, you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die. Notice how faithfully these messengers convey this message. I mean, to their credit, they get it straight. I'm thinking about when Ahab relates to Jezebel, all that Elijah had done on Mount Carmel. I'm thinking about all the twistings that we see that couple and how they communicate things. To these messengers here, to their credit, they give the message straight. They didn't sugarcoat it. They didn't twist Elijah's words. And then he responds in verse seven, he says to them, what kind of man was it who came up to meet you and told you these words? Now you can just sense that Azir already has a potential answer in his mind here. He's asking a question that he already has the answer to. Verse eight, they answered him, a hairy man wearing a leather belt around his waist. And he said, it is Elijah the Tishbite. I knew it. It's Elijah from Tishbi. Now, Elijah was an unusually hairy man, and he wore the coarse clothing of a prophet. We won't turn there, but in Zechariah 13, it's interesting that false prophets wear coarse clothing to trick the people into thinking that they're true prophets. So this coarse clothing is something that was perhaps typical of the prophets, but Elijah is well-identified here in this verse, and he knows exactly who it is. But now work with me for a minute. We can imagine that if the God of Ekron had given this message back to Ahaziah and said, you're going to die. Well, he might very well have just taken in stride, but the true God had told him the true God had intercepted him by Elijah. And now Elijah is going to have to pay for this. He's not okay with the answer when it comes from the true God. Verse nine, The king sent to him a captain of 50 with his 50 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. We don't really know for sure what Ahaziah planned to do with Elijah once he was in custody, but I think we can be sure that it wasn't to give him rule over half the kingdom. And many would say that he had his death in view. So they come to Elijah here, and notice it says that he's sitting on the top of a hill. Verse 9. Elijah didn't run after he departed from verse 4. He's not running for his life. He's not afraid. He's sitting on the top of a hill, and it's almost as though he's anticipating this to happen. He's anticipating people to come to him. He knows Ahaziah isn't going to be happy with this message. So there he is, sitting on the top of a hill. And here come these 50, really 51 men. coming towards him. But let's notice Elijah's boldness throughout this. Elijah, who once ran, is now holding his ground. And I think that everything that you see him do in this passage is prompting by God. We're not going to go into, in this hour, the disciples' misuse of this text. There's a lot of issues there. But suffice it to say that Elijah's doing the bidding of God here. And he knows the spirit of God here in the old covenant. Well, verse 10, Elijah answered and said to the captain of 50, if I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men. And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50. Well, we've laid the groundwork briefly for what's happening here. And his eye is living as though there is no God in Israel. And that's the question that's at hand here. Is there a God in Israel or is there not? That's what's at stake. Is Elijah really a representative from God? Elijah saying in this verse, you, you, you say that I'm a man of God. If I, if I am a man of God, if I really am a man of God, then let fire come down and consume you in your 50. You see, they were calling him a man of God, but this was not a title of honor, it was a title of derision. And so God hears Elijah's prayer and fire comes down from heaven, consumes this captain and his 50 men. And if what we read about God here in this 10th verse bothers someone, they don't really understand the holiness and the jealousy of God. God is a consuming fire. He will not have any other gods before him. You remember in Exodus 20, he tells Moses, I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments. And we have that contrast of Exodus 20 here in the text. There's the contrast of those who hate God and those who love God and the showing mercy to thousands there. I take, and I think Gil is right as well to take this as referring to the thousands of generations. He visits the iniquity to the third and fourth generations of those who hate him, who continue on in that rebellion. But he shows mercy to thousands to those who love him and keep his commandments. This is our God. And so we have 51 men burned alive. And what effect did this have on Ahaziah? I mean, we would expect that Ahaziah was startled, that he was shocked, that he repented, at least in some carnal way, as Ahab, his father, carnally repented at times. But no. Look at verse 11. Then he, that's Ahaziah, sent to him, that's Elijah, another captain of 50 with his 50 men. And he answered and said to him, man of God, thus has the king said, come down quickly. Ahaziah plows ahead like nothing had happened. He dispatches a second batch, a second captain with a second group of 50 men. And this captain is at least as hardened as the first captain, if not more so. You've got all of the dead bodies at the bottom of this hill. But look, notice how the message changes slightly. Come down quickly, quickly. So you've got these 51 bodies smoldering at the foot of this hill and the captain's got the nerve to say, hurry up, hurry up, the king's tired of waiting. And this is ludicrous on its face. But isn't this something that we see every day from the wicked rulers of this world? This is Psalm 2 here. They're fighting against God and they think that they have the authority to order him around. I mean, you see how disconnected the palace in Samaria is from the God of Israel. They've so ingested all of their false idols and their false thinking that they think that they can just order Elijah and Elijah's God around. The whine of high command intoxicates them and blinds them to God's sovereign power. And it's even less excusable for this captain. His eye is in the comfort of his palace. He hasn't actually seen this. The second captain is here. He sees the effects of Elijah's word and he plows forward anyway. And so, verse 12, Elijah answered and said to them, if I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50. And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50. I'm reminded of that phrase, play stupid games, get stupid prizes. This bureaucrat who says, come down quickly, is himself consumed quickly by fire. And then verse 13, does Ahaziah learn anything from two rounds of this? We see the power of sin here. We see the blinding power of rebellion against God. Verse 13, he sent a third captain of 50 with his 50 men. But notice this. Something's going to be different about this captain. But before this, I mean, does Ahaziah know what's happened to these men? I mean, he surely does. And it's funny because if Elijah were just a mere man, you wouldn't need 50 people to capture him, right? But if Elijah is a man of God, are you going to contend with God? Do you think 50 men can get him? This 50 cohort makes no sense in any scenario. And yet it's what he does. But notice that the captain actually himself in this third group has a change. The third captain, verse 13 of 50, 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 50 servants of yours be precious in your sight. You've got at this point 102 burned bodies at the foot of the hill. And that impacted this captain. Notice all of the changes here. He doesn't yell from the bottom of the hill, like the first two. Instead, it says that he went up, he goes up this hill and then he falls on his knees in front of Elijah. And then he acknowledges, he confesses that his life and the life of the 50 with him were in Elijah's hands and by extension, Elijah's God. And what does he do? He begs Elijah and he says, please spare our lives. And it's interesting, he doesn't even tell Elijah what to do here. He doesn't say, come with us. It's implied, I think, but he doesn't say it out loud. He wants to make it very, very clear to Elijah that he doesn't hold Elijah in contempt. And instead he's only there because of the king's order. We'll notice the new response here, verse 15 and the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, go down with him. Do not be afraid of him. So he arose and went down with him to the king. It may be that Elijah had actually been waiting on God to tell him when to go. He was waiting on the word of the Lord and at the bidding of the word of the Lord, he goes. He does so at once. He does it without fear. The angel says, do not be afraid of him. So he goes with this captain, with the captains 50, and they go down this hill and they go into the palace in Samaria to the presence of Ahaziah. And Elijah can do this in full confidence, knowing that the angel of the Lord had bidden him to not be afraid. So he goes with him, they go into the courtroom or to the palace room, to the throne room, wherever Ahaziah was. And so then in verse 16, you have Elijah talking to Ahaziah now in person, possibly the first time they'd ever met. We don't know. Thus says the Lord, because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, 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. So Ahaziah died according to the word of the Lord, which Elijah had spoken. And then it goes on to say that Jehoram, which I believe is Ahaziah's younger brother, becomes king in his place because Ahaziah has no son. And that's where it ends. We have this word from the Lord that's repeated three different times. It's in verse three, it's in verse six, it's in verse 16. But notice in verse 16, He says, is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word? There's a little new addition there when he tells it to Ahaziah in person. And I hope that at the end of today on our way home, our children can answer this question. Why did Ahaziah die? He did not die because he fell out of a lattice. He died because he asked for all Zebub if he would recover instead of asking the true and living God. That's why he died. Because of this, you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die. And that language of inquiring to the God of Israel of his word. That is what Ahaziah should have done. It's what he could have done and would have done, but he was under the dominion of sin. He should have inquired of God's word. And that leads us to this conclusion. You're either inquiring of the Lord of hosts or the Lord of flies. So who are you inquiring of in sickness and in health? You have two choices. You have Christ and you have idols. And you cannot have both. You can't have a little bit of each. Remember what Paul says to the young church plant in Corinth. He says, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons. How Ahaziah responded to his sickness mattered. It cost him his life because it exposed his idolatrous heart. And so we end with the question that we started with. How do you respond to sickness and injury? When calamity comes crashing into your life, what do you do? Do you repent of your sin? Do you draw near to God? Or do you live as though there is no God in Israel and you instead turn your back on Him in bitterness and unbelief? What do the scriptures say? Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. And what if you do have a heart of unbelief and sickness? What if in the heat of the trial, things that had been so clear when you were well become very unclear? Take that unbelief with you to the foot of the cross. and pour out your heart before God. Bow your knee as this captain did and seek first the kingdom of God. My prayer is that this text will stir up our hearts. To live well. During sickness. To the glory of God. As we were seeing that him before. This hour. It could not have been better picked. 543. Go not far from me, O my strength, whom all my times obey. Take from me anything thou wilt, but go not thou away, and let the storm that does thy work deal with me as it may. There is no death for me to fear, for Christ my Lord has died. There is no curse in this my pain, for he was crucified. It is fellowship with him that keeps me near his side. On thy compassion I repose, in weakness and distress. I will not ask for greater ease, lest I should love thee less. It is a blessed thing for me to need thy tenderness. When I am feeble as a child and flesh and heart give way, then on thy everlasting strength, with passive trust, I stay. And the rough wind becomes a song. The darkness shines like day. My heart is fixed, O God, my strength. My heart is strong to bear. I will be joyful in thy love and peaceful in thy care. Deal with me for my Savior's sake, according to his prayer. I think Anna Waring had it right. Let's bow in prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. May we learn from Ahaziah how not to respond in sickness. May we learn rather to inquire of you of your word rather than of false gods. Lord, we thank you for the blessing of legitimate means by which to get help when we're sick. But may those things never become a replacement for trusting in you and asking you to sanctify our sickness and to grow us in our sickness. Lord, we have feet of clay. You know our hearts. You know our weakness. Strengthen us by your might, we pray, and realign our thinking so that we would think biblically about these things and that we would have no other gods before you. We thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen.