It's a great pleasure to be with you this morning to share God's Word, and I'd like to extend my thanks to the Christian Education Committee who made the weekend such a delightful time for my wife and myself. And also give Charles my best wishes as he moves on. Charles served as an elder at the church where I was a pastor. He mentioned that he was at my church, but he didn't mention he'd also served on session there. He was the first active student, I think, that we brought onto the session. So, very much appreciate you, Charles, and wish you all the best as you head west. If you'd turn to the word of God, there are two readings this morning, one from 2 Kings, chapter one, and then a passage that connects to it from the Gospel of Luke, chapter nine. But first, let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing upon the reading and the preaching of his word. O Lord God, you are a God who dwells in unapproachable light. You are infinite, eternal, unchangeable. You are all-wise and all-seeing. And yet you have condescended to reveal yourself to us in your works of creation and providence, in the words of your scripture, and in the flesh and the actions of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We come this morning to ask, O Lord, that you would open your word to us. that as we read these stories about events that happened so far away and so long ago, yet they would come alive to us, that you would press the eternal truths they contain upon our hearts, and you would lift our eyes heavenward that we might gaze upon the Lord Jesus Christ by faith until that glorious day when we shall gaze upon him with sight. For we pray these things in his name, amen. Hear the word of the Lord. After the death of Ahab, Moab rebelled against Israel. Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria and lay sick. So he sent messengers telling them, go inquire of Beelzebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this sickness. 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 Beelzebub, the god of Ekron? Now therefore, thus saith the Lord, You shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die. So Elijah went. The messengers returned to the king, and he said to them, Why have you returned? And they said to him, there came a man to meet us and said to us, go back 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 Beelzebub, the God of Ekron? Therefore, you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die. He said to them, what kind of man was he who came to meet you and told you these things? They answered him, he wore a garment of hair and a belt of leather about his waist. And he said, it is Elijah the Tishbite. Then the king sent to him a captain of 50 men with his 50. He went up to Elijah who was sitting on top of a hill and said to him, O man of God, the king says, come down. But Elijah answered the captain of 50. If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50. Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50. Again, the king sent to him another captain of 50 men with his 50. And he answered and said to him, O man of God, this is the king's order, come down quickly. But Elijah answered them, if I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you in your 50. And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him in his 50. Again the king sent the captain of a third fifty with his fifty, and the third captain of fifty went up and came and fell on his knees before Elijah and entreated him, O man of God, please let my life and the life of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your sight. Behold, fire came down from heaven and consumed the two former captains of fifty men with their fifties, but now let my life be precious in your sight. Then 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 and said to him, thus says the Lord, because you have sent messengers to inquire of Beelzebub, the God of Ekron, is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you've gone up, but you shall surely die. So he died according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken. Jehoram became king in his place in the second year of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, because Ahaziah had no son. Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? If you would turn now to the New Testament passage. Again, hear the word of the Lord. When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him who went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples, James and John, saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them? But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village. This is the word of the Lord. In a famous essay on the rise to power of Napoleon III, Karl Marx compares him to his uncle, the great Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. And Marx comments that somewhere in his writings, the German philosopher Hegel comments that history repeats itself. And Marx says yes, but Hegel forgot to say that the first time it occurs it is tragedy, and the second time it is farce. Those lines are very applicable to the life and death of the man we have just read about, this king of Israel, Ahaziah. Ahaziah is the son of Ahab and Jezebel. And there's a sense, we might say, that although Ahab was a very wicked king, he was wicked on a sort of spectacular level. One of the most famous passages in the Old Testament probably is the conflict, the showdown on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, the showdown that really triggers the great long war that then takes place between the followers of Jehovah and the followers of Baal in Israel. Ahab's even described in rather spectacular terms when he's introduced. We're told that although it had been a little thing for him to have followed in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the man who set up the golden calves at Bethlehem Dam. It was a little thing for him to do that. He went further than all of the other kings. He married Jezebel, princess of the Sidonians, and not only engaged in what we might call false worship of the true God, He introduced the worship of foreign gods into Israel. And the writer also notes that at that point Jericho is rebuilt. And when Jericho is destroyed, the point is that the old ways are being wiped off the land. In the King Ahab's reign, they return. We might say that Ahab was turning the clocks back in a way that it was as if As if the invasion of the promised land, the return of the Jews to the promised land meant nothing. And he dies on the battlefield. Ahab is a wicked king, but everything is sort of spectacular. He dies this dramatic death on the battlefield. Tragedy. History is tragedy. Then we come to Ahaziah. History is farce. Ahaziah is really just as wicked as his father, but we might humanly speaking say he's not half as interesting. There's nothing really spectacular about this man's wickedness. And then at the end, of course, he dies in banal and ridiculous circumstances. He falls through a hole in the roof and is fatally injured. No spectacular death on the battlefield for this man. So what can we learn from this man's story? Well, the plot is relatively straightforward of 2 Kings chapter 1. Ahab is dead, Ahaziah sits on the throne. Moab, a sort of vassal state, rebels against Israel. And in the midst of the war that precipitates, he falls, this man Ahaziah falls through the roof. and injures himself so badly, we're not given details of the injury, but obviously so badly that he has some concern about the outcome of this. But instead of sending to Elijah, the man who brings the word of God, the man we might say through whom God is present to Israel at that point, he sends for help to Beelzebub, this foreign god. I'm not quite sure exactly what this term means, possibly Lord Bale. Some people translate it as Lord of the Flies. If you've ever read that great novel by William Golding about the English schoolboys trapped on the island and how they sort of degenerate into wickedness and they create their own religion and they end up worshipping the head of a pig surrounded by flies. great sense of uncleanness and dirt about that. Well, that's what this man is doing. He's seeking help from, you might say, an unclean, false God at this point. And it's at this moment that Elijah makes his last spectacular appearance on the stage of battle, the scene of battle. We'll see him again when he's taken to heaven. But it's at this moment that Elijah emerges once again from the shadows to confront the wicked king of Israel. And the king sends two armed detachments to fetch Elijah, wants to bring him in. Presumably, not for good purposes. If he merely wanted to consult Elijah, one wonders why he sent an armed detachment of 50 men. Presumably, he's wanting to arrest Elijah and bring him in so that he might finally face the king's perverted form of justice at some point. And it's in this context that we have these two terrible moments of judgment on these first two detachments of men. Fire falls from heaven and consumes them. And then we have the rather different result for the third. It's a straightforward story. Elijah ends up going seeing the king and clearly manages to tell the king what he wants to tell him and gets away safely because we read about his going to heaven very shortly thereafter. It's a simple and fairly straightforward story on one level. And the question becomes, I think for us today is, why is it in the Bible? What does it tell us? How can we read this story and be transformed, challenged, educated by it? Well, there are a number of things, I think, that emerge from this story that are instructive for us today. The first is this. Notice the character of false worship. Numerous aspects of false worship are highlighted in this passage. First of all, we might note that false worship is stubborn. Remember who this is. This is Ahaziel. He's the son of Ahab and Jezebel. Of all people he witnessed as he was growing up the spectacular power of the Lord and the absolute impotence of Baal. And yet he still turns to Baal in his hour of need for help. Think of all that the Lord had done and Baal had failed to do. The drought, the conflict on Mount Carmel, the fulfilled prophecy against Ahab. And yet 1 Kings 22 tells us this about Ahaziah when he ascends the throne. Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah and he reigned two years over Israel. He did what was 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 to sin. He served Baal and worshipped him, and provoked the Lord the God of Israel to anger in every way that his father had done. Ahaziz learned nothing from his parents' experience. Elijah wins such a spectacular victory on Mount Carmel and Baal has so catastrophically let those who worship him down that Jezebel's response is not to repent and to turn to the Lord, but to seek to destroy the man who's proved that her God is no God. Ahaziah, chip off the old block, we might say. He must know that Baal is useless. Yet still, still he won't bow the knee to the Lord. False worship of this kind is stubborn. It's also stupid. If Baal has proved impotent for the living, how can he possibly help this man at the critical moment of his death? You might say, well, how does that connect to contemporary world? Well, I would suggest in this way. Think of how So many moral problems in our world are addressed using what I would call technical solutions that avoid or deny the fact that they're moral problems. Think about the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, when the last thing that was acceptable to say was that celibacy might be a good option. You had to come up with a technological way of solving the problem. Think of the flights to lunacy in our society. I had the privilege of being in Princeton for a year a couple of years ago. I would regularly walk down Nassau Street. There's a tarot card and chakra reading studio. I didn't even know what chakras were. Apparently, I need them balanced. I have a horrible feeling that my chakras are way out of balance. That's the high street in Princeton. New Jersey, I think, is a higher business and real estate tax state than Illinois. is pretty high. And Princeton is one of the most expensive places in New Jersey. So somebody's paying good money to have their chakras balanced at the center of an ivy league town in the United States of America. That's stunning. I remember walking past this and thinking, these people think what I believe is mad. Goodness gracious, what they believe is crazy and they're shelling out good money for it. False worship is stupid. Think of how we create our own myths. Today, the myth that we can find happiness purely in material terms, that's a myth that is preached by pretty much every commercial you ever watch. Are Christians rightly worried about internet pornography? I suspect that more of us are damaged probably by commercials because they're so unavoidable that preach this idea that if you just own the right stuff, life will be fine. And as I've said, technical solutions to anything which might spoil that happiness. We've heard in recent years of wonderful technical developments that allow embryo testing that highlights the identification of Down syndrome on the baby in the womb, which will allow of course for the termination of Down syndrome pregnancies. I think Down syndrome has been wiped out in Iceland because they simply abort Down syndrome babies. False worship is fundamentally stubborn and irrational, and it denies the moral nature of the world we live in. And if we are not careful, it can tend to grip our imagination just the same way that it gripped the imagination of Ahaziah. So that I think is the first thing we learn from this passage. We learn about the nature of false worship. It is stubborn. It flies in the face of experience. And it is stupid. It will not learn from its mistakes. Second thing is we learn about the holiness of God. There are a number of passages, particularly in 2 Kings, that some commentators think are sort of later interpolations because they're so weird. My favorite passage in all the Bible in some ways is coming up in a chapter or two where the bald guy gets his revenge on those who are mocking him for his baldness. And some commentators say, you know, it's such a weird story. Somebody's added it later as a joke or something like that. And some say the similar thing about this. This is a weird story. Why is it in the Bible? It reveals this sort of rather horrible judgment falling on these two battalions of 50 men. It is, we might say, distasteful. I think what makes this passage so weird to us today is it is distasteful. We need to understand the function of taste in modern culture. Truth today is by and large, for most people, a function of taste. was talking on Friday and Saturday nights about when you think about the moral language we often use, it's often language of taste, isn't it? That's an offensive comment. Oh, I found that disturbing. The language of right and wrong has been eclipsed by the language of taste, by and large. And that, I think, is why when we read a passage like this, we find it so hard. It is distasteful to us to think of God sending fire down on these men who are simply doing their job. In such a world, a world like ours where taste is truth, taste is moral truth, God's holiness is an affront because it tears off the mask of our own ideas of what is nice and good and shows them for what they are. We might say that underlying this passage and perhaps underlying the whole of human existence is a battle over language. Whose words determine reality? God's or ours? We see that battle first in the Garden of Eden in the Bible where the serpent says, did God really say? Was that what God actually said or was he trying to manipulate you? And of course we hear that Eve sees the apple and she sees that it's good. to eat, and her taste overrides the Lord's command at that point. What we learn from passages like this, I think, is that it is God's Word that determines what is right, not the tastes or tolerances of the cultures in which we live. To set this event in context, what seems to us to be a rather punitive measure against these man who'd gone to fetch him. We need, first of all, to remember who Elijah is. Elijah is the man through whom God speaks. When he first appears on the scene in 1 Kings, we're not told who his father was. Pretty much anybody in the Old Testament of any significance, we know who their father was, because that was a big part of what would have given them authority in the cultures in which they operated. So-and-so, the son of so-and-so. Your father was a big deal in locating you within the authority structure of ancient society. We don't read that about Elijah, and I think the author of 1 Kings is making a point. Elijah's authority is entirely independent of his lineage and his genealogy. It doesn't really matter who Elijah is in terms of his background. His authority and his significance lie in the fact that he brings the word of God. He's an ambassador for God. That's the only important thing we need to know about Elijah. We might deepen that and say Elijah is the man through whom God speaks at this point. He is the way that God is present to his people at this moment in time. When you send two battalions of 50 men to fetch Elijah, all more likely to attack Elijah, why do you need 50 men if you're just fetching him? If you send two battalions of men to attack Elijah, you're attacking God. This is a strike against God himself that Ahaziah is engaging in here. And the response gives us a glimpse into what I might describe as the white hot holiness of God and his care for his people. God's not going to let these battalions do his man in. because he's a holy God and will not tolerate such an attack, not only on his servant, but in a sense on himself and his own word at this point. And that, well, that's a sort of, it's a kind of good news, bad news thing, isn't it? That's really bad news for God's enemies. Because what this passage is saying is God fights for and defends his people. And it's good news for God's people. God will not allow himself or them to be attacked and harmed. But when you say that, of course, it immediately raises all kinds of questions in our mind, doesn't it? But does God always do that? Even today, there'll be parts of this world where Christians will meet in fear, fear of persecution. Why is fire not falling from heaven and striking down those who would seek to persecute them? Christians suffer, Christians are executed, Christians die in terrible circumstances. Why does God not act then as he did here for Elijah? It's an important, pungent and difficult question. But it's kind of the same question as the disciples asked in Luke chapter 9. There they had been rejected by the Samaritans, we don't know exactly what this rejection looked like, maybe they were beaten up, maybe they were just run out of town, who knows. But that passage you read from Luke chapter 9 is full of Elijah, Elisha kind of language. It's hard to imagine they didn't have this story at the back of their minds. We've been roughed over by these guys. Let's call out fire from heaven. Let's do the Elijah thing. But oddly, in the Luke chapter, the Lord rebukes them. He says, no, we're not going to do that. That's not how it is. That's odd, isn't it? Well, I think the answer, or at least part of the answer to that is, God has poured out His fire. just not in quite the same way that the disciples wanted. Fire has been poured out, but it's been poured out on another in the place of God's people. First Chronicles chapter 21, David sinned and the Lord came against Jerusalem to destroy it by plague, but he relented and he stops the plague at the threshing floor of a man called Ornan the Jebusite. There David builds an altar, and what happens next? Fire falls from heaven to consume the offering, a sign that judgment had fallen, but it had fallen on the offering, not on Jerusalem. Think of the opening of the temple by Solomon in 2nd Chronicles 7. Solomon completes his prayer of dedication. In 2 Chronicles we read this, as soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. And what's the temple? The temple, of course, more than anything else in some ways in the Old Testament, the temple points to the Lord Jesus Christ in such a strong way that Jesus even identifies himself with the temple in the New Testament. As God's wrath in this passage falls on these soldiers to protect his prophet and to protect his people. So in the New Testament we see the fulfillment of that, where God's wrath falls on his own Son, who stands in our place and reconciles us to God while we were still his enemies. I think sometimes we forget the power of that statement from Romans 5, don't we? While we were still weak. A lot of us can identify that, many of us still feel weak. While we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, while we were still enemies to God, Christ died for us. Here in this passage in 2 Kings, we get a hint. We get a hint of how the story is going to end. Fire is going to come. It will come very directly for those who oppose God. And yet we also see in this passage hints of God's mercy, don't we? The fire that comes will also come with mercy. The last troop, the last troop, you can imagine receiving the order from Ahaziah, well the first two troops have been wiped out with mysterious fire falling from heaven. I want you to go and complete the operation. That's a tough call. This man must have been terrified. These men must have been terrified as they made their way. No wonder that his approach is somewhat different from the approach of the previous two groups. He begs for mercy and God shows himself merciful. There are powerful schools of thought today, even within the Christian church, that say that we bring people to Christ by preaching God's love. I think this passage shows us, actually, terror can have its place as well. wanted to know how the Reformation was proceeding in the parishes, so they organised what was called the Saxon Visitation, where two members of the government and two ministers travelled around the parishes in Saxony to check the spiritual life of the people after the Reformation had rolled into town, and the results were not good. And Luther offers a number of reflections on these results, you know, what has gone wrong is the question he's wrestling with. And he says this, many now talk only about the forgiveness of sins and say little or nothing about repentance. There is neither forgiveness of sins without repentance nor can forgiveness be understood without repentance. It follows that if we preach the forgiveness of sins without repentance, that the people imagine they have already obtained the forgiveness of sins, become thereby secure and without compunction of conscience." And then he adds this sort of devastating postscript, he said, this would be a greater error and sin than all the errors hitherto prevailing. Surely we need to be concerned, he says, lest, as Christ says in Matthew 12, our last state becomes worse than our first. Fear of God can be used for good. Knowledge of his white heart, terrifying holiness, is very distasteful today. But its effect can be most salubrious. It gives us a reality check, doesn't it? It reminds us of our own dirtiness before Him. It cuts off at the knees any notion that our salvation might be some sort of cooperation whereby we sort of do it under our own effort and God comes in to help us when we get stuck. That doesn't take the human situation seriously enough at all. What God's holiness does is it forces us to realize our dependence and our weakness. It's the gateway to grace. Peter in Acts 3 says this, But what God foretold by the mouth of all prophets, that as Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. We could perhaps risk paraphrasing Peter there by saying, so that the fire from heaven that should fall on you has fallen on Christ. But if you don't want to repent, then you take your chances with the fire from heaven falling on you. The most dangerous aspect, I think, of today's wider culture and the culture within the church is the loss or the downplaying of the holiness of God. It's theft. It robs us of a realistic understanding of who we are and thus of the need, the imperative of repentance. And finally, last point from this passage, I would say it teaches us about the certainty of the Word of God. The hallmark of Elijah's ministry is the certainty of the Word that he proclaims. He proclaims drought and it happens. He proclaims the glory of God at Carmel and he wins. He predicts the nature and circumstances of Ahab's death and it happens just as he said it would. He confronts Ahaziah and tells him he's not going to recover, he's going to die and he does. The Old Testament in the story of Elijah is ultimately not telling us about Elijah so much as about God's word, God's speech. We might say that's the real purpose of the whole Old Testament. Does the Old Testament do? The Old Testament reveals to us that God is who he says he is and acts as he says he acts and will act. His word is creative, Genesis chapter 1. His word makes minor marginal figures massively significant. Abraham, the wandering nomad, becomes by God's sovereign choice and action the father of the faithful. The word saves, God speaks and he brings Pharaoh to his knees and brings Israel out of Egypt. God's Word can destroy his opponents, Pharaoh, Ahab, Ahaziah, just to mention three. And God's Word's power comes not from the messenger, but from the author, the agent of God's Word, God himself. And that brings me back to a point I hinted at earlier. How do we view reality? Do we allow reality to be shaped by the words the world tells us? Or do we allow our view of reality to be shaped by God's Word as it frames reality for us? God's Word determines reality against all outward appearance at times, of which the supreme example is the cross. The cross is the great example, isn't it, of appearing to be one thing, a criminal crushed and defeated, dying on a cross, and actually being another, God himself triumphing over the powers of evil. and rising ultimately from the dead to declare that triumph. And now, of course, God's Word comes to the Church. As Ahaziah was confronted by God's Word, so we, week by week, as we hear the Word proclaimed, as we hear it read, are confronted with it today. That is the challenge for us. So then, three things to learn from this passage. Note the stubbornness and stupidity of false worship. Meditate upon the white-hot holiness of the Lord God and how that means that he will destroy his enemies and save his people. And remind yourself of how this story is just one pebble on the great Old Testament pile. that points to the fact that God is who he says he is, and will be who he says he will be. Let's pray. Lord God, we do thank you for the reminder in your word of your holiness. As difficult as these things are, intellectually and morally, to get our heads round, we pray, oh Lord, that your Holy Spirit would give us a humble spirit as we are confronted with these hard passages of your word. And through his work in our hearts, our own hearts and minds, but slowly but surely be conformed to the point where we truly do think your thoughts after you. For we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.