Now please return to the book of 1 Kings, 1 Kings chapter 19. We're going to be getting to 2 Kings this morning, but I want to remind you of where we had left off in 1 Kings chapter 19. And as you're turning there, I have some thoughts for meditation. As I said earlier, God is working across generations, across centuries, and across millennia. He's working with billions of individuals in the world today, and he's working through not just the individuals and caring for them, but he's also thinking about whole societies and nations. That God is the God who knows everything, He knows everyone and that He has a plan that is in accordance with His character for every individual and every nation across all of time. That is a knowledge that is too much for us to understand. It's too high, as the scripture says, we cannot attain it. The hymnal says that God is only wise. that's inspired by the scripture that Paul wrote to Timothy, speaking of the only wise God. Now, wisdom is one of those attributes of God that we often say is a communicable attribute. It's one of God's attributes that he can share with us. He can communicate it to us. And yet, in one sense, even God's communicable attributes are also uniquely his. Though God shares wisdom with us, we are not all wise the way that God is wise. And a case could be made that if you are not all wise, then you are not truly wise. That in order to have knowledge, you have to have all knowledge. In order to have wisdom, you have to have all wisdom. So even though we have knowledge and we have wisdom, we know in part. And we're wise only in part. But God knows all. And God is the only wise God. Compared to our wisdom, God's wisdom is on a whole nother level. So don't be surprised if there are times when you don't understand the will and the work of the Lord. That is to be expected for those of us who have such limited knowledge and such limited wisdom. We go back to 1 Kings 19, verses 15 to 18, where we are reminded that Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and that he at times did not understand what the Lord was doing, and he would grow discouraged, he would grow despondent, he would grow perhaps even impatient with what the Lord was doing. And so as God spent 40 days with Elijah in the wilderness and about Sinai, after revealing His glory and encouraging Elijah, He then lets him in on a little bit of His plan. We see in 1 Kings chapter 19, Verse 15, the Lord said to Elijah, Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Haziel to be king over Syria. And Jehu, the son of Nimshi, you shall anoint to be king over Israel. And Elisha, the son of Shaphat, of Abel-Mehaloah, you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. And the one who escapes from the sword of Haziel shall Jehu put to death. And the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him. So here God says, be patient. I know Elijah that you thought that once you had that victory on Mount Carmel, that all the Israel was gonna turn back and it was gonna be good times for my people. And sadly, that is not immediately taking effect. And as God works through the people, he's also working through the rulers. And Ahab has not repented and Jezebel has definitely not repented. And so God has a plan to deal with Ahab. God has a plan to deal with Jezebel. God has a plan to deal with every single individual living in the land of Israel at this time that goes far beyond anything that Elijah could begin to understand. And so Elijah just has to know what he has to know. And he has to know that these three men, Hazel, Jehu, and Elisha are going to be key in God's plan in dealing with Baal worship in Israel. You see, our title for our sermon this morning is The End of Baal Worship. That in the right time, in the right way, God is going to put an end to Baal worship. Not exactly how Elijah thought it was going to come about, but exactly how God had planned it. So, come with me then to the book of 2 Kings. 2 Kings chapter 8. We're slowing down in our Old Testament history as we're in this middle section in 1st and 2nd Kings, because the life of Elijah and the life of Elisha are very important in this crucial juncture of Israel's history. Many of the kings and the history of Israel, which lasted for hundreds of years, is covered rather briefly in the account of 1st and 2nd Kings, which is really just one book, and the account of 1st and 2nd Chronicles. But there are certain periods where it slows down and we get a lot more detail and a lot more information. The life of Ahab and his children and Jezebel and Elijah and his successor, Elisha, is one of those key points in Scripture where God gives us a lot of detail, a lot of information, because He has a lot that He wants to teach us. In this time, we who live upon the ends of the ages have inherited this knowledge that God has preserved for us, and when Scripture slows down, we want to slow down and hear what Scripture is telling us. So, the critical juncture here is that Jezebel has taken the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom, to the brink of total apostasy. They've always been apostate in some way. They've always been flirting with idolatry. They've always been worshipping the Lord the wrong way. They've had kingdom after kingdom fall. They're talking about the royal houses. They've had several royal houses fall already because of their unfaithfulness to the Lord. But no one was as wicked as Ahab because Jezebel was inciting him to this extreme apostasy. And so, what is God going to do? God raises up Elijah to turn the hearts of the people back to the Lord, to bring them back from this precipice that they are about to fall off into complete and total apostasy and destruction. God spares them at this time through the ministry of Elijah. But Elijah was too weak to carry out the whole ministry for himself, as man often is too weak, and so God appoints Elijah to finish the work that Elijah started. Elijah is a second Moses, turning the people back to the Lord, and Elijah is a second Joshua, completing the work that Moses was unable to finish because of his own weakness. Now, as we come into 2 Kings then, we're about 25 pages further off from where we left off back in 1 Kings 19-20, and yet we're still in the lifetime of Elisha. Elijah has been taken to heaven in 2 Kings 2. We've had several chapters then dealing with the life of Elisha, many of the miracles that he did. And so, let's get back to Prophets, we're going back to focus on the Kings and see how God's plan that He revealed back before Elisha was called is now being put into practice. So pick up the scripture reading there with me in 2 Kings 8, verse 7. I'm going to begin reading in 2 Kings 8, verse 7. Now, Elisha came to Damascus. Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, was sick. Remember Ben-Hadad? He was the one that he was warring against Ahab, and God gave Ahab two victories over a mighty army that Ben-Hadad had put together with this coalition of 32 kings, and that this was God's grace to Ahab to show him that he was the Lord and that he should turn back to the Lord, even after what he'd shown him on Mount Carmel. Ahab let Ben-Hadad live, contrary to God's will, and so Ben-Hadad, we're still here with the same Ben-Hadad, king of Syria. But he's sick. And Elisha is there. And the king is told, the man of God has come here to Syria. And the king said to Haziel, take a present with you and go to meet the man of God and inquire of the Lord through him, saying, shall I recover from this sickness? So Elisha has a reputation even here in Damascus, the capital of Syria. And Ben-Hadad knows about him, probably having been familiar with Elijah before him. The news has spread about Elisha. So he wants to hear a word from the Lord, from the prophet. So Hazel, who is the servant of the king, went to meet him and took a present with him, all kinds of goods of Damascus, 40 camel loads of goods. That's quite a bribe here. Gift, whatever. When he came and stood before him, he said, Your son, Ban-Hadad, king of Syria, has sent me to you, saying, shall I recover from this sickness? A very respectful address. And Elijah said to him, go say to him, you shall certainly recover. But the Lord has shown me that he shall certainly die. Well, that's interesting. You've got to go back and tell him that he's going to live, but I know he's actually going to die. What's going on here? Well, let's keep reading. And he fixed his gaze and stared at him until he was embarrassed. And the man of God wept. And Hazel said, why does my lord weep? He answered, because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel. You will set on fire their fortresses, and you will kill their young men with the sword, and dash in pieces their little ones, and rip open their pregnant women. And Hazel said, what is your servant, who is but a dog, that he should do this great thing? Elisha answered, the Lord has shown me that you are to be king over Syria. Then he departed from Elisha and came to his master, who said to him, What did Elisha say to you? And he answered, He told me that you would certainly recover. But the next day he took the bedcloth and dipped it in water and spread it over his face till he died. And Hazel became king in his place. So much going on here. This is fascinating. God had told Elijah on Mount Sinai, you gotta anoint Hazel to be king over Syria. Now we don't know if Elijah ever anointed Hazel to be king over Syria. It seemed like from the instructions that God gave, that was the next thing that Elijah was supposed to do. Scripture doesn't record him doing that. And here, it doesn't seem like Hazel has any idea that he's going to be king until Elisha tells him. And so it seems like Elijah never did go and anoint Hazel to be king over Syria. And perhaps we're supposed to read into it that God said, well, at some point, you're going to anoint Hazel to be king. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be done immediately. Maybe that's not the right way to read it. And that Elijah is given this as a fulfilling of the task that was originally given to Elijah. We don't know. It's kind of confusing. But even beyond that, what's so fascinating about this account is how prophecy has a way of self-fulfilling. Would Hazel have killed his master, Ben-Hadad? if the word of the Lord had not told him that he was going to be king. He's like, oh, I've been wanting to be king. I pretend like I'm this servant who's this dog who doesn't have any aspirations to kingdom, because if I let people know I had aspirations to be king, that wouldn't go well for me with Ben-Hadad. And so now a prophet tells me I'm going to be king. So now's the time. I can act, and I can enforce my will. And so would he have acted if God hadn't told him that he was going to be king? Interesting how prophecy works together with the will of man, even when that will of man is evil and corrupt. It's wrong to kill your master to take his place and murder him on his sickbed. And yet this is all part of what God's plan was to deal with Israel and their unrepentant worship of Baha. And notice that the prophet, who knows, he's been a servant of Elijah, he knows what God has told Elijah about how Hazel is going to be his instrument of judgment upon the people of Israel, that even though Elisha wants Baal worship to end, He's not happy about the death and destruction that Syria is going to bring upon his people as part of God's dealing with the unrepentant part of the people of Israel. So there's so much going on here between the Lord and what He's determining, between Elisha and what He wants and He's split, and Hazel and what He pretends to be and then what He actually is, and so It just shows you the complexity of what God is doing, and we're going to see more of that as we continue through the text this morning. But that's Hazel's treachery, and though I'm not going to go into the text about how Hazel continues to be a problem for Israel, how he does fulfill this prophecy of bringing about the death of many among God's people in the Northern Kingdom, know that the account does include much of that and here you know it's true also because the Prophet predicted it that this is going to be part of the sword that God brings against his people Hazael continuing his attacks on Israel as Ben-Hadad also had been a severe persecutor of the people of Israel but that's only the first that we're looking at this morning. Not only are we talking about Hazel, but we're also going to get to Jehu. Now before we get to Jehu, who was also mentioned, prophesied by the Lord at Mount Sinai to Elijah, I also want to introduce you to Jehoshaphat and talk about Jehoshaphat's folly. And for that, we need to go back to 1 Kings chapter 22. So turn back to 1 Kings chapter 22 for a moment. So after God gives victory to Ahab over Ben-Hadad, and Ben-Hadad is spared by Ahab foolishly, and Ahab is rebuked for that. He also has more sin in chapter 21. And then we come to chapter 22, picking up the relationship with Syria. And for three years, Syria and Israel, that's the northern kingdom of Samaria, continued without war. So they had peace for a little while. It doesn't last. But in the third year, Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, came down to the king of Israel. So the king of Judah in the south, he comes down, even though we normally think of south as down and north as up. When you're in Israel, Jerusalem is up because of its elevation, and you come down from Jerusalem to the lower parts of the land. So he's coming down from the southern kingdom to the northern kingdom to the king of Israel. And he said, The king of Israel said to his servants, Do you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us, and we keep quiet and do not take it out of the hand of the king of Syria? And so this is Ahab the king. Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, Will you go with me to battle at Ramoth Gilead? And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses. The rest of the chapter is fascinating, and perhaps next week we'll come back to it. I'm considering coming back to this passage next week. But the main point I want you to get this morning is that Jehoshaphat enters into an alliance with the king of Israel. So here, after much civil war, after much strife, when you originally had the kingdom splitting off from Solomon's son, and the northern kingdom rejected his kingdom and set up their own king, and you had several dynasties now in the north, and they've never had much peace between each other. Jehoshaphat, he decides that he wants to make peace with the Northern Kingdom, and so he travels to meet with Ahab. And not only does he go to war with Ahab in this chapter, but also, tragically, he marries his son to Ahab's daughter. Come with me back to 1 Kings, I mean 2 Kings. 2 Kings chapter 8 where we left off with Haziel. Now back in 2 Kings chapter 8, you find verse 16. In the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, began to reign. So it seems like there's an overlapping rule here between Jehoshaphat and his son. Jehoshaphat's not dead yet, but it seems like he is either too old or too sick to fulfill all of his duties as king, and so he's bringing on his son as his co-regent. This is something that wasn't that uncommon in the ancient world. And so, Jehoshaphat's son is Jehoram. And he was 32 years old when he became king, there in verse 17. He reigned 8 years in Jerusalem. How did he do? He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, not the kings of Judah, the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done. For the daughter of Ahab was his wife, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Yet the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah for the sake of David his servant, since he promised to give a lamp to him and to his sons forever. Jehoshaphat, we find out in Scripture, both in Kings and in Chronicles, was a good king. He was a godly man. He did many good things for the people of Israel, and he feared the Lord. But it was a tragic mistake for him to enter into this marriage alliance with Ahab and Jezebel's family. What was it that caused Ahab to be such a wicked king? Well, he married Jezebel, who was the daughter of the Phoenician king at Baal. And she was on a crusade to destroy the worship of Jehovah and to institute the worship of Baal. Now, her daughter gets married into the kingdom of the south and becomes Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat's wife. Her name is not given here in this verse. But you come down to verse 26, and you find out the name of the daughter of Jezebel is Athaliah. So, after Jehoram reigns eight years, in the twelfth year of Joram, the son of Ahab, king of Israel, kind of confusing, their names are so similar, Ahaziah, the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, began to reign. So, here we got the grandson of Jehoshaphat, and he's beginning his reign after his father, who was married to the daughter of Jezebel, after his reign was over, short reign, just eight years, Ahaziah was 22 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem, an even shorter reign. His mother's name was Athaliah. She was a granddaughter of Omri, king of Israel. Now, I'm not going to get into all of it this morning, but Athaliah is just about the end of the dynasty of David. David's house is almost completely destroyed by this evil woman. And so, you have to remember, scripture is given to us for a reason. And you don't give your children in marriage to people who hate the Lord. Death by marriage. You destroy a family by bringing in an evil spiritual influence through marriage. I was at a church years ago, candidating as pastor before I came here. And that church had come to a very sorry spiritual state, largely through intermarriage with other faiths, that they had had a good godly legacy. The people who had built the church, the people who had established that church, they believed the word, they preached the gospel. But their children and their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren started marrying people that did not believe what they believed, went to a different kind of church that didn't preach the gospel and didn't believe the Bible and had a different authority in their lives. And what happened to those children? They got weakened in their faith. They ended up walking away from the Lord. And so, be praying for your kids, and be advising your kids, and be teaching them from a young age. You marry someone who loves the Lord with all their heart. Doesn't matter how attractive they are, doesn't matter how much you like their personality, doesn't matter how much you get along with them, if they don't love the Lord, don't marry them. First things first, and the first thing on your list of whom I'm gonna marry is, does he love the Lord? Does she love the Lord? According to the word of God, according to the truth. That's very important for us to learn, not to repeat Jehoshaphat's folly. His grandson was destroyed. His son was apostate. His whole family almost came to complete and utter ruin because he thought We're strong enough. We're good enough. We can bring Athali into our family and she'll become like us. You don't catch health. You catch illness. You don't catch health. You catch illness. If I'm standing up on a table and someone's down on the ground, is it easier for me to pull them up or for them to pull me down? It's a lot easier to pull someone down. It's a miracle that anyone is saved. Don't think that you can marry someone and bring them into your family and that they're just going to become like you. That's not how life works. Because life comes from God. And you don't catch life by hanging around Christians. You catch life by the grace of God. And God commands you, marry only in the Lord. Alright, I wanted to get that clear. Now, we're going into Jehu. After we see Jehoshaphat's fall, because his destiny is now going to be tied up with the destiny of Ahab. And Ahab's destiny is tied up with God putting an end to Baal worship in Israel. And now that scourge of Baal worship is now in the house of David with Jehoram and Ahaziah. And so they're going to get some of this fallout of God's judgment in dealing with this cancer that has infiltrated God's people. So let's pick it up then in chapter 9. I want to read chapter 9 verses 1 through 16. Then Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets and said to him, tie up your garments and take this flask of oil in your hand and go to Ramoth Gilead. And when you arrive, look there for Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi. And go in and have him rise from among his fellows and lead him to an inner chamber. Then take the flask of oil and pour it on his head and say, thus says the Lord, I anoint you king over Israel. Then open the door and flee. Do not linger. So the young man, the servant of the prophet, went to Ramoth Gilead. And when he came, behold, the commanders of the army were in council, and he said, I have a word for you, O commander. And Jehu said, To which of us all? And he said, To you, O commander. So he arose and went into the house. And the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I anoint you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel. And you shall strike down the house of Ahab your master, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish. And I will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. And I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah. And the dog shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and none shall bury her. Then he opened the door and fled. When Jehu came out to the servants of his master, they said to him, Is all well? Why did this mad fellow come to you? And he said to them, You know the fellow and his talk. And they said, That's not true. Tell us now. And he said, Thus and so he spoke to me, saying, Thus says the Lord, I anoint you king over Israel. Then in haste every man of them took his garment and put it under him on the bare steps. And they blew the trumpet and proclaimed, Jehu is king. Thus, Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, not the same Jehoshaphat. This is a different Jehoshaphat. I know the similar names are confusing at this time period. Now, Joram, with all Israel, had been on guard at reign of Gilead against Haziel, king of Syria. But King Joram had retired to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds that the Syrians had given him when he fought with Haziel, king of Syria. So Jehu said, if this is your decision, then let no one slip out of the city to go and tell the news in Jezreel. Then Jehu mounted his chariot and went to Jezreel, for Joram lay there, and Ahaziah king of Judah had come down to visit Joram." Alright, this is interesting. A lot going on here as well. Just like Haziel, so God had also predicted that Jehu was going to be the next king over the people of Israel. Once again, it doesn't appear that Elijah ever anointed Jehu to be king of Israel. Jehu doesn't seem to have any idea that he's going to be the next king of Israel until Elisha's servant, this son of the prophet, as he's called, comes and delivers the message from Elisha by the word of the Lord. Now, why? Why didn't Elijah go and anoint Jehu? Maybe God told him later, now's not the right time. It's a different time that I want you to anoint Jehu. Why didn't Elisha go and do it himself? Why did he send this young man to go and deliver the word of the Lord to Jehu? We don't know for sure, but there's a reason for everything. And when he delivered the message, he was told good to ask why questions when you're reading scripture. Why this? Why that? We've got to go back to our two-year-old selves and just keep asking why. And then meditating and keep reading it and looking for the answer instead of just, you know, waiting for your pastor to tell you the answer. Open up the Bible, read it, ask why, why, why, and think about it until it starts to make sense. Because you have a Heavenly Father and He can tell you the answer. And he does that through his word. He should meditate on it. So why send the servant, and why tell him to flee after he has given the message? Well, from the way that Jehu responds, it seems like he's a pretty loyal guy, and that he does not really want to be a traitor against his king. He seems to have a sense of duty. He seems to have a sense of honor. And so even when the prophet comes and tells him he's going to be king, he just keeps it to himself. He's like, well, I don't know what to think of that. gonna do anything about it right now, but God in his providence has it so that the other commanders of the army that are all there in council together with Jehu, that they press it. Like, we want to know, what did that prophet say? So, God had the prophet, or the messenger of the prophet, come at just the right time when the people would be around Jehu, and God knew they'd be curious as to what the prophet said and why Jehu went off to have this private meeting, and he knew that Jehu would not want to respond right away to becoming king like Hazel, and that he would need some more push, he'd need some more encouragement to rise up against his master, as it says in the text. And so, God orchestrates all of it. The messenger, the one who receives it, and then the people who ask about it. And Jehu, he doesn't know how the commanders are gonna respond when he tells them, oh, this madman, you know, this prophet came and told me I'm gonna be king. But the men, they're like, yeah, that's a great idea. We like this. They probably had in their hearts already some animosity against Ahaziah. They probably thought he was a lousy leader. They probably had a lot of respect in their hearts for Jehu. They thought, this guy's a much better leader than our king. And so when they have the opportunity to make their voice known, God just gives them the open door to be able to say, Jehu is king. Jehu is king. Now, once again, would Jehu have become king if God had never prophesied it, if he'd never predicted it? Maybe not, maybe, maybe not, but certainly not the way that it came about this and the time that it came about. And that's the amazing thing that God is not just a distant observer of what's going on in the world, but he's an active participant in what's going on in the world. And we all interact with one another, and you might say something, and it makes me think about something, and then I do something differently than I would have done, and it's the same way with God. God says something, and then we think about it, and then we do something differently than what we've done, because he's a person acting in real time and space, just like we interact with one another and influence one another. And God knows it all, and his word never fails. He's all wise, he's all knowing. You see it in texts like this, and the more you think about it, the more you're just like, wow, that's pretty amazing. So, Jehu is anointed king, but he's not just anointed king, but he's told a lie. He's told that the Lord has anointed him because he is going to strike down the house of Ahab. Not just Ahab, but his whole house. That this is God's vengeance on Jezebel for the blood of My servants the prophets. And so we get the idea that not everybody in Israel, not everybody in the royal household, was fully on board with the Queen's bloodthirst against the prophets. And as we continue to read about Jehu, we find out that he's probably the type of guy that doesn't really like the worship of Baha. He's probably the type of guy that says, you know, we're Israelites. We shouldn't be worshiping this Phoenician god. And who's this foreign princess who comes in and kills the prophets of the Lord? And now, you know, she's got all her prophets that are being fed at her table. And he probably resents Jezebel and her actions. But you can't say anything because she's the queen and the king listens to her. And so, you know, God has people there that think differently. And Jehu, while he's not a godly man, we'll see that, he's better than Ahab. But better doesn't mean you're good, OK? Just because you're better than another sinner doesn't mean that you're good. And that's one of the great things that we can take away from the life of Jehu. As we look at the Democrat Party and the Republican Party, I think one is certainly better than the other. But that doesn't mean they're good, OK? There's a big difference between better than someone who's completely wicked and being good yourself. And that can be said for a lot of politicians and presidents as well. So Jehu's an interesting guy. He's got a role to play. He's told what that role is. And the other thing that's really remarkable about Jehu is that he may be the only king of the northern kingdom that is actually anointed by a prophet. You go back to the life of David. And first Saul was anointed by Samuel. And then Samuel anointed David to be the king with a dynasty, a lasting dynasty. And Nathan the prophet came and gave that Davidic covenant to David in 2 Samuel 7. But the northern kings, they were just whatever. You know, there's never an officially sanctioned northern king that we know of in the prophets where God chose a certain person to be king and anointed him for a certain job. Jehu seems to be the only one who's chosen by a prophet and anointed by a prophet by the word of the Lord in order to bring about this complete annihilation of the house of Ahab. You don't kill God's prophets without making God angry. Don't think that just because God has perfect patience that He has no anger. Don't think that just because God has perfect patience that He's not going to bring about justice in its time. That's the lesson of the life of Ahab. God was long-suffering. God gave him many chances to repent. But when Jezebel did not repent, when Ahab did not repent, when they continued in the course that was going to lead to the destruction of the nation, and they'd already killed his prophets, judgment falls. And Jehu is the man that God has ordained to bring about that judgment. The whole house of Ahab shall perish, as it says in verse 8, and I will cut off the Lord from Ahab, every male, bond or free, in Israel. Now, what if Jehu had said, no, I don't want to kill everybody. I'll kill Ahab, but I'm not going to kill kids and grandkids and all that. That's just too much. Then God would have had a different way for all of those people to die. Because when God says something's going to happen, it's going to happen. Whether we fulfill our role in that or not, God is able to bring about His will. And God says, I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah. These were the earliest dynasties. And they had been completely destroyed and replaced by other dynastic houses in Israel. And now, Jehu is going to do that with Ahab's house. Why did he flee? Well, probably because he could be accused of treason. You don't come and anoint someone else to be king and be OK with the authorities. And Jehu is an authority. And Jehu, if he saw Elisha show up and tell him, you're going to be king, Jehu might say, well, that's treason. I need to arrest you. But when the servant comes in and Elisha Jehu has no idea that something big is about to happen, and he hears this message, and before he can really do anything, the guy's out the door. He's like, well, I guess I can't arrest him. We'll just see what comes of this. And so, God had a reason for everything. Now, did this servant, the prophet, know all those reasons? No. Maybe he was aware of some of it, but the important thing is, is God tells you what you need to know, and you do what God tells you to do, and that's the fear of the Lord, and that's wisdom. See, you don't know everything. You don't know how Jehu's gonna respond. You don't know what the situation's gonna be like, and you worry. Like, well, what if this happens? What if that happens? That's why God says, you go, this is what you say, this is what you do, and then you run. Okay, I'm gonna do that. I don't know every reason why, but I'd rather run than die. So, God gives care for his servant of the prophet, even as he's dealing with kings and commanders and dynasties and nations and all of that. He's concerned about the individual, and he's concerned about the whole. And he doesn't have to sacrifice one for the other. So often we, you know, when we're making decisions, it's like, well, you can't do some good without doing some harm, and I have to hurt this person in order to help this situation and all that. No, God doesn't ever hurt anybody. He doesn't ever wrong anybody in that sense of hurt in order to accomplish some other goal. God is able to take care of the individual, and he's also able to deal with the nation, and that is a highly complex operation, and so be patient and trust in the Lord, and don't think that you know more than you know about what God should be doing and how he should be doing it. So, back to the text. The prophets were often slandered as madmen. You see that in the text there? The commanders, they said to Jehu, what is this mad fellow? What did he want? Well, Jeremiah is also accused of being a madman in Jeremiah 29, verses 26 and 27. It's an interesting passage if you want to look it up. Jeremiah 29, verses 26 and 27. Jesus is accused of being insane, out of his mind, in John chapter 10, verse 20. And Paul is accused of being insane in Acts chapter 26, verse 24. And so we see throughout scripture, Old Testament and New Testament alike, that men of God who fear the Lord and who do what God says are often thought by the people in the world to be insane. In a world of insanity, it's the same person who appears to be crazy. In a world full of insanity, it's the same person who is accused of being crazy. If the only sane course of action is to trust the Lord, to fear the Lord, to worship the Lord, to do exactly what he says, because he knows everything, and he loves you more than you could ever imagine, that's the only sane thing to do, is to do what he says. But in a world of insanity, where we trust in our own wisdom, we trust in our own knowledge, the person who acts differently just seems like a crazy person, a madman. He's different from everybody else, and we want to be different from everyone else. That's what the salt is. that we are salt in this world, we are light in this world, and they don't know. They're gonna think you're crazy. But actually, they are the ones who are not thinking clearly when they don't worship and fear the Lord. All right, so, what happens then? Jehu's purge is about to begin. And, of course, it starts with the king of Israel. But notice, at the end of verse 16, that as he's traveling to where Joram is, that Ahaziah, king of Judah, had come down to visit Joram. Papa-in-law. Or, no, not Papa-in-law. Cousin? I don't know. Some family relationship. His wife is his sister. Something like that. Family member, gotta go visit my bud there who got wounded in battle. Pick it up in verse 17. Now the watchman was standing on the tower in Jezreel. And he saw the company of Jehu as he came and said, I see a company. And Joram said, take a horseman and send to meet them and let them say, is it peace? There's a company of soldiers coming. Who is it? Is it a peaceful delegation? So a man on horseback went out to meet him and said, thus says the king, is it peace? And Jehu said, what do you have to do with peace? Turn around and ride behind me. You're a soldier. You're a man of war. Follow behind me. And Jehu's a military man, and he's got the respect of everybody in the military. So Jehu tells you to do something, you do it. And the watchman reported, saying, the messenger reached them, but he's not coming back. Then he sent out a second horseman, who came to them and said, thus the king has said, is it peace? And Jehu answered. What do you have to do with peace? Turn around and ride behind me. Again, the watchman reported, he reached them, but he's not coming back. And the driving is like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously. You can tell who it is just by how hard he's driving his horses. It gives you some idea of what kind of man you're dealing with. And Joram said, make ready, and they made ready his chariot. Then Joram king of Israel, named Isaiah king of Judah, set out, each in his chariot, and went out to meet Jehu. And they met him, where? Oh, at the property of Nebah the Jezreelite. Turn back to 1 Kings chapter 21. 1 Kings chapter 21 in your Bibles. After God had revealed himself on Mount Carmel, bringing fire down, After God had revealed Himself in bringing an end to the drought by sending rain at the word of His prophet, then God further revealed Himself by giving victory in battle to Ahab over Ben-Hadad twice. And then we come to chapter 21. Now Naboth the Jezreelite, this is where Jehu meets Ahaziah, king of Israel, Ahab's son. Now Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel. beside the palace of King Ahab in Samaria. And after this, Ahab said to Naboth, give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house, and I will give you a better vineyard for it. Or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money. But Naboth said to Ahab, the Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers. And Ahab went into his house, vexed and sullen." There he is, vexed and sullen once again. Because of what Naboth, the Jezreelite, had said to him. For he had said, I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food. Just pout for a while. I'm king and I can't have what I want. But Jezebel, his wife, came to him and said, Why is your spirit so vexed that you eat no food? And he said to her, Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite, and said to him, Give me your vineyard for money, or else, if it please you, I will give you another vineyard for it. And he answered me, I will not give you my vineyard. And Jezebel his wife said to him, Do you now govern Israel? Arise and eat bread and let your heart be cheerful. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite." So she wrote letters in Ahab's name and sealed them with his seal. And she sent the letters to the elders and the leaders who lived with Naboth in his city. And she wrote in the letters, proclaim a fast. A fast is when there's something serious, something important that has to be dealt with. And set Naboth at the head of the people. and set two worthless men opposite him, and let them bring a charge against him, saying, You have cursed God and the king. Then take him out, and stone him to death. And the men of the city, the elders and the leaders who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them. She's pretty intimidating, and they're pretty weak and cowardly, so they do it. And the men of his city, the elders, they did as she wrote, They proclaimed a fast and set Naboth at the head of the people. And the two worthless men came in and sat opposite him. And the worthless men brought a charge against Naboth in the presence of the people." A worthless man is somebody who's no character, somebody who's willing to do whatever needs to be done in order to get what he wants. That's a worthless man in this context. A lot of worthless men around. The worthless men brought a charge against Naboth in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth cursed God and the king. We heard it. So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death with stones. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth has been stoned. He is dead. As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, she said to Ahab, Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money. For Naboth is not alive, but dead. And as soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he rose, got down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite to take possession of it. Then he has a confrontation with Elijah. I'm not going to do the whole story here. But basically, Elijah tells him, you've done it now. If it wasn't enough for all of your other sins, God has been so gracious to you, you've crossed the line, and it's time for judgment. You're going to die in this field. Now, Ahab, surprisingly, repents, kind of, at the end of the chapter. It says there in verse 27, When Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went about dejectedly. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days, but in his son's days I will bring the disaster upon his house. Here is his son, Joram. Here comes Jehu. Where do they meet? at the property of Naboth the Jezreelite. Verse 22. And when Joram saw Jehu, he said, Is it peace, Jehu? He answered, What peace can there be, so long as the whorings and the sorceries of your mother Jezebel are so many? Then Joram reigned about and fled, saying to Ahaziah, Treachery, O Ahaziah! And Jehu drew his bow with his full strength, and shot Joram between the shoulders, so that the arrow pierced his heart, and he sank in his chariot. Jehu said to Bidkar his aid, Take him up and throw him on the plot of ground belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite. For remember when you and I rode side by side behind Ahab his father, how the Lord made this pronouncement against him? As surely as I saw yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons, declares the Lord, I will repay you on this plot of ground. Now, therefore, take him up and throw him on the blotted ground in accordance with the word of the Lord." This is adding more detail that we didn't have back in chapter 21 of 1 Kings, that Jehu was actually there when Elijah confronted the king at Naboth's vineyard. He was there, he heard what Elijah said. And now look, here we are, Providence. This is where Jehu came out to meet us as we were riding to Jezreel. So, God's word has been fulfilled, him and Bidkar. We don't know much else about Bidkar, but this is where just another name is thrown in. Now, verse 27. When Ahaziah, the king of Judah, saw this, he fled in the direction of Beth-hagan. And Jehu pursued him and said, shoot him also. And they shot him in the chariot at the ascent of Ger, which is by Eblin. And he fled to Megiddo and died there. His servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem and buried him in his tomb with his fathers in the city of David. Make an alliance with the wicked. You may die at the death of the wicked. If not you, maybe your son. Come with me to the New Testament. I want to take a look at what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6, verses 14 and 15. 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14. God tells us, as New Testament Christians, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. You know, Jehoshaphat probably thought, you know, it's such a shame that the Northern Kingdom, you know, we're all Israelites, we're all descendants of Abraham and that we've been fighting against each other. Why does there have to be all this fighting? You know, I love God. I'm a humble guy. Let's just patch things up. I'm gonna go visit with Ahab. We'll fight together. We're one nation. We should be fighting together anyway. You know, this'll be good. God says, bad idea. And God warns Jehoshaphat. In fact, I wanna show you that in 2 Chronicles chapter 19. Come back to 2 Chronicles chapter 19. In 2 Chronicles 19, you've got some good things about Jehoshaphat, and you've also got this word in the opening verses. Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, returned in safety to his house in Jerusalem. But Jehu, the son of Hanani, the seer, went out to meet him, and said to King Jehoshaphat, Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Because of this wrath has gone out against you from the Lord. Nevertheless, some good is found in you, for you destroyed the Asherah out of the land and have set your heart to seek God. Should you love those who hate the Lord? Do you really love the Lord if you love those who hate him, who kill his prophets, who lead his people astray, who build temples to Baal in the capital city, You want to marry into that family? Jehoshaphat may have had good intentions, but good intentions are not enough. Jehoshaphat has some good in him, but some good is not enough. Be wise. Fear the Lord. Turn away from evil. Listen to what he says. Do not lean on your own understanding, but trust in the Lord with all your heart. If this message from the Prophet came to Jehoshaphat before he married Athaliah to his son, that would be even worse. We don't know the long-term consequences of our actions. That's why we just do what God says and don't do what seems good to us. It seemed good to Ahab to spare Ben-Hadad's life. Look, I've got an ally. That alliance didn't last very long. And Hazel comes, and he's even worse. Don't do what seems right to you. Do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, because he knows what the long-term consequences are. He knows what everyone's going to do. He knows what would happen if Ben-Hadad had been killed. He knows 100 million different possibilities. He's all wise. That's one thing that I really want us to take away from this lesson. Well, there's a lot more here in the life of Jehu. His purge has just begun. He started with the king. He's got to get to Jezebel. And he's also got to get to all of the leaders of Baal worship in the temple of Baal in Samaria. So maybe next week we'll take a look into that. We'll see. But I think for this morning, I want to end on this point. God is long-suffering. But judgment will come. God is long-suffering. He has perfect patience, as it says in 2 Timothy. But judgment will come. And I want to show you this from Romans chapter 2. Romans chapter 2 verses 4 through 6. It'll be the last verse here for us today. So marvelous how the scripture ties together Old Testament narratives to New Testament epistles. God's word is in sync with itself. Romans chapter two, verses four through six. You can imagine a prophet speaking this to Elijah, I mean, speaking this to Ahab, a prophet like Elijah speaking this to Ahab. Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance, but because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the Day of Wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works. Nobody's getting away with anything. The Day of Wrath, the Day of Judgment, is coming. And don't think, just because God is patient, just because He's gracious, just because He gives more time, that He's not angry. And that His sword is not ready to fall. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for giving us the Hebrew scriptures, written by prophets, so that we might be able to see how it is that you have revealed yourself in the history of your chosen nation, Israel, so that we can know your character, we can know your power, we can know your wisdom. We can marvel at the complexity of the world that you deal with, turning the hearts of kings any direction that you want, giving mercy, and bringing justice. Lord, no one but you would be able to do the things that we see you doing. We thank you that we can learn from this so that we don't repeat the mistakes of Jehoshaphat. We who love you, who have some good in us, help us not to trust in that goodness, help us not to trust in our own wisdom, and help us to trust in your word. Even when it's very counter-cultural, even when it's against the movement of the Evangelical Church, Lord, may we not be driven and tossed by winds, but may we be stable on Your Word, doing everything that You tell us to do, not being content with some good, but making sure that our good is better and our better is best, for our good and for Your glory. Amen.