1 Kings 22:51-2 Kings 1:18 - Whose Word Will You Follow?

[Music] this morning we continue in our regular sermon series on the divided kingdom of israel and judah and on this fall kickoff we conclude uh our time in first kings and we begin uh our time in second king so our scripture reading this morning is first kings 22 beginning with verse 51 reading all the way through second kings 1. first kings 22 beginning with verse 51 listen now as i read for this is the very word of god ahaziah the son of ahab begin to reign over israel in samaria in the 17th year of jehoshaphat king of judah 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 by all and worshiped him and provoked the lord the god of israel to anger in every way that his father had done 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 valzab the god of ekron whether i shall recover from this sickness but the angel of the lord said to elijah the tishbite arise and go up and 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 bowsebab 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 went the messengers returned to the king and he said 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 bowels above 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 around 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 fifty the fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty then the king sent to him another captain of fifty men with his fifty 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. then the fire of god came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50. again the king sent the captain of a third 50 with his 50. and the third captain of 50 went up and came and fell on his knees before elijah and entreated him oh man of god please let my life and the life of these 50 servants of yours be precious in your sight behold fire came down from heaven and consumed the two former captains of 50 men in their 50s 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 bowels above 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 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 may the lord bless to our hearts and minds the reading of his word you may be seated would you join us and join me in prayer heavenly father we ask that we might fall before your word in humility and that you would teach us even now to appeal to the great man of god the lord jesus christ for salvation from wrath and judgment oh please lord may we not just be hearers of the word but doers we pray these things in jesus name amen well we live in a complicated world we live in a world full of complex issues that often call for sophisticated analysis and nuanced qualification and we live in a world that is full of information we're surrounded by words words words written words spoken words news footage talking heads opinion pieces posted videos podcasts blogs social media posting books magazine people still read books in magazines at least that's what i've heard but you get the picture and all these words are supposed to help us navigate the complexity of this life but more often than not they only make things murkier and more confusing in such a world when we observe the news when we listen to or read the barrage of opinions that are available we we can become discouraged disheartened overwhelmed by it all it can feel like we are drowning in a sea of information and we can fall into a kind of paralysis by analysis we just don't know what to think or what to do well in such a world the bible comes to us and it presents us with what we might call a path of shocking simplicity some may ridicule the scriptures for being overly simplistic but this morning i want to present to you god's simple revealed path for navigating a complex world here it is at the end of the day the scripture says there's there's one fundamental choice that we all have to make and there are two roads and only two roads that diverge from that choice one choice two roads the choice is this will you listen to believe and obey the revealed word of god or not if you choose to reject his word it may seem like you then have many other options but the bible says in the end all those other options lead to the same place so at the end of the day there's one fundamental choice and only two roads two ways to live and the bible presents us with this choice and these two roads over and over and over again it begins in genesis one through three god creates the man and the woman he gives them all manner of freedom to work and explore and to play but at the heart of it all he gives them a simple command a simple choice two roads obey the command and live disobey the word and die of course satan realized the heart of the matter the simplicity of the choice so so he went after the man and the woman at that very point did god really say twisting god's word it will not happen as god says challenging and rejecting god's word and then he offers an alternative work alternative path with a with a false hope of blessing and fulfillment as we all know they made the wrong choice took the wrong path and the path has been fraught ever since but that challenge that choice these two roads are presented in the scripture again and again and again we see a good example of it in psalm 1. blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked but his delight is in the law of the lord the word of god and on that law he meditates day and night and then the word of god the path of the word of god leads to life and blessing and and all other words that reject god's word leads to destruction and of course no figure in scripture is is clearer in presenting this simple but profound choice than jesus christ himself you might say jesus is the great two ways to live preacher jesus offers us two paths the narrow one that leads to life the wide path that leads to destruction two ways to build a house on the rock of the word and the sand of everything else and he offers us two blessings two two destinies blessing curse heaven and hell i say all this by way of introduction because what we have before us in our text this morning is really a case study on this choice on these two ways it's a case study of the word of god versus the words of the world what we have in our text is a simple fundamental choice in two ways flowing from it now our text this morning revolves around the life and death of the israelite king ahaziah and it's fundamentally here about his relationship to the word i've divided the sermon up into five sections the first of which i've entitled ahaziah's general rejection of god's word and his embrace of another way the general rejection of god's word and his embrace of another way this we see in first kings 22 51-53 uh these couple verses uh are essentially the 30 thousand foot perspective on ahazayah's life and reign what do we learn from these verses well we learned that ahazai is the son of ahab and jezebel he had a short reign but in that short reign he established himself as a uh in in full orbed and comprehensive wickedness the text says he did what was evil in the sight of the lord he rejected the word he rejected the way of the lord and instead he walked in the way of his father ahab he walked in the way of his mother jezebel and he walked in the way of jeroboam the son of nebat now just a quick refresher or if you're joining us this morning for the first time the fundamental sins of ahab and jezebel were were manifold they wholeheartedly embraced the worship of other gods canaanite gods the baals and the asherahs to be specific they hated the word of the lord they hunted down persecuted imprisoned and killed the prophets and they ruled with egregious self-absorbed injustice and oppression of the weak ahaziah walked in their ways but we read he also walked in the way of jeroboam now jeroboam you may remember was the first king of israel after israel and judah were divided into separate kingdoms and jeroboam did not actually worship foreign gods per se but but instead he corrupted the worship of the one true god and he sought to refashion the worship of god according to his own words so that the worship of god would serve his own political ends and ahaziah we read did this too he walked in all their ways so you can go through the checklist right the corrupt worship of the god of israel check the worship of pagan deities check hostile oppression of the prophets and the people check and the verse sums it all up verse 53 it says he served baal he worshiped him and he provoked the lord the god of israel to anger in every way that his father had done this was ahazai at his core this is a general assessment of his piety and his reign he walked in many ways but it was all part of one broad path he rejected the word of the lord and this then brings us to the second part of the sermon which we see in verses one through eight which i've entitled ahaziah's specific rejection of god's word and embrace of another way you see having told us what kind of king and what kind of person ahaziah was in general the text now gives us a very specific example of his behavior which illustrates the previous assessment we're told in verse one that after the death of ahab moab rebelled against israel now israel had subdued and ruled moab going all the way back to king david but after the death of ahab moab thought there was perhaps an opportunity to cast off the shackles of israelite rule the the moabite rebellion is going to be a prominent feature in subsequent chapters particularly chapter three but we have to say here in chapter one it's not clear how or even if the moabite rebellion has any bearing on the details of this chapter but one possible connection is that verse one frames ahazayah's rule as vulnerable at some level it was perceived as weak or at least weaker by israel's neighbors and ahazayah's fall and illness contributes to that perception in any case we read that ahaziah falls through the lattice of the upper chamber of his home in samaria he was severely injured in the process he lay in bed sick with his life hanging in the balance now it's often said that trials don't build character they reveal it and that's certainly the case here with ahaziah's fall and his subsequent illness right it reveals the fundamental character of the man for in his illness ahaziah seeks some kind of word a divine word something that will direct and guide his future tell him whether he will live or die but in the spirit of ahab and jezebel he does not seek the word of the lord instead he sends messengers to inquire of bowsebubb the god of ekron bows above literally means the lord of the flies so i think it's a clear source of william golding's inspiration for the novel of the same name but but scholars here are a bit divided over whether this is the the actual name of the deity and this has some kind of positive connotation for the people of ekron uh or uh whether this is the author kind of altering the name a little bit the more common name would have been baal zabul which would mean baal is exalted and the the author could be tweaking the name here in order to get a little dig in at the emptiness of baal in any case what is clear is that ahaziah does not seek the lord but he rather he seeks the word and counsel of baal and this is despite the fact as we will soon see he has clear knowledge of elijah as a prophet in the land for when elijah is described to him he's clearly able to identify him simply from his physical description and so you might say what we see here is ahaziah's foundational rejection of god's word he rejects it at the outset he rejects it in what he chooses to seek what he chooses to pursue what he wants to listen to and this is the way it is with so many in our world today we all seek and choose the words that we want to live by we're all determining who or what is going to have ultimate authority gravitas weight and influence in our lives and then we seek those words we seek opinions we seek advice to guide and direct us and and it must be said at a very simple level that many and perhaps even most in our world and even in the church we ascribe ultimate authority and choose to seek the counsel and we grant ultimate influence to other words than the word of god we inquire oh we inquire but we we inquire first and foremost of the opinions of the university faculty lounge we inquire of political leaders we inquire of the opinions of our social circles we inquire as to the latest trends on social media we we inquire what of whatever seems to line our pocketbook most effectively we inquire of whatever voice seems the loudest and most influential what is the voice of majority opinion for many of us we just inquire of ourselves trusting in our own feelings our own passions our own intuitions and ideas there are many in our world who truth be told have never really heard or read the word of the lord many in our world who have no idea what the bible even says but they have rejected the word nonetheless because they don't even care what it says they don't seek it out they have no desire to hear it they have they have committed themselves from the outset to other sources other authorities other influences other words and then if if and when they do hear the word of the lord they just reject it out of hand that's what ahaziah did right we read that when ahaziah sent messengers to inquire for for a word from the lord of the flies the angel of the lord came to elijah the tishbite with a word from god and he told elijah 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 baals above the god of ekron therefore says the lord you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up but you shall surely die we read then that when the messengers returned to the king and they delivered elijah's message with clarity and accuracy and ahaziah heard the word of the messengers he he heard this word he immediately inquired about the description of the man who gave them this solemn message and he rightly concludes the word has come from elijah the tishbite but we see that hearing this devastating word and knowing its source it does not it does not humble ahaziah it does not lead him to contrition or repentance or even reconsideration but rather it leads him into open and direct rebellion against that word and against the man who brought it you see ahaziah he rejected the word at the level of inquiry in terms of what he sought and then he rejected the word of god at the level of reception when that word came to him in a way that he he was not seeking it he did not want it but when it came to him he would not have it he rejected it out of hand and so many in our world do the same today they do not want the word of god they do not inquire after the word of god they have already rejected it in terms of what they choose to pursue and if the word of god should them come to them they reject it outright which then brings us to the third portion of the sermon which i've entitled the assault on the word of god and its deadly consequences verses 9 through 12. the assault on the word of god and its deadly consequences we read that when ahaziah heard that the message had come from elijah he sent a captain with 50 men to go after elijah i think this is an interesting move at a couple of levels right on the one hand uh i think ahaza's intent is pretty clear given his character given that he walked in the ways of ahab and jezebel i think we can safely conclude ahaziah is not sending these men to invite elijah to a dinner party he's not inviting elijah to a debate or a discussion a huzzah is not saying come now elijah let us reason together now these men are clearly coming to arrest elisha they're coming to capture him and bring him to his doom ahaziah plans to persecute in prison and even kill the prophet just like his mom and dad sought to do and what's interesting though i think is that given his his open rejection of elijah's word is that he still feels the need to send 50 men to go get the prophet obviously there's some level of respect here even fear right it's clear that ahaziah knew of elijah he must have heard perhaps even witnessed the scenes from mount carmel the power of the prophetic word and yet what is interesting is that though he fears the power of the prophet and he wishes to crush that power he has no interest in listening to or submitting to the prophet's word but in fear he comes after him with an impressive display of force and is this often not what happens in our world the world the word of god is dismissed by the world as false and and foolish but it is generally not treated as an idle and irrelevant word a weak and powerless word that can just be ignored but no throughout history great pains have been taken to crush that word to persecute those who believe and obey that word elijah here is not dismissed as a harmless old crank he is assaulted as a significant power that is perceived as a dangerous threat to the king and as we see this assault does not go very well the the captain i think rather ironically acknowledges the true identity of elijah oh man of god but then he proceeds to order him to come down into captivity with no seeming respect for the power of god rather the captain takes refuge in what he thinks is a greater word the king says man of god you better listen to the king elijah seems to play a little bit off this uh irony man of god that's interesting well if i am a man of god then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty and fire came down from heaven and consumed the captain and his fifty now one might think this would cause ahazaya to pause consider perhaps another course of action but no he does the exact same thing again the only difference this time is that he and his new captain seem to double down on conveying the authority of the king's word right this is the king's order come down quickly of course all that comes down quickly is more fire from heaven consuming the captain and his 50 once again i think there's a pretty simple application here if you refuse to inquire of the word of the lord if you stubbornly reject the word of the lord and if you attack and assault the word of the lord you will face the judgment of god this is not just something we see in this passage this is one of the great themes that runs through the whole of scripture as we said earlier the bible begins with the simple warning if you disobey the word of god you will surely die we saw god rain down fire and judgment on the people of sodom and gomorrah but this is not just an old testament teaching the new testament declares romans 6 23 that the wages of sin that disobedienced against god's word the wages of sin is death and if that isn't clear or graphic enough for you the author of hebrews writes in hebrews 10 in a kind of striking parallel with this passage if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth the author of hebrews says all that remains is the fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries brothers and sisters we we live in a complex world but in the midst of that complex world this this principle is so clear so simple even a child can understand it if you reject the word of the lord if you will not seek it if you will not receive it if you oppose it you will face the fires of god's judgment now of course it must be said right the the fiery judgment may not come with the kind of immediacy that came in this passage right no more often than not people seem to get away with rejecting the word of the lord for a time ahab and jezebel did it for decades and sometimes the delay of judgment can embolden the rebellious and discourage the faithful but as the psalmist says in psalm 73 when i was discouraged at that dynamic when it just seemed like there was no judgment for the wicked i went into the house of god that is i i worshiped according to the word and then the psalmist says i discerned their end truly you set them in slippery places you make them fall to ruin how they are destroyed in a moment swept away utterly by terrors i've said it before you will hear me say it again in the end nobody gets away with anything and if god's justice is delayed for a season it is not a sign of his weakness but simply of his mercy the principle remains simple and sure if you reject the word of the lord you will face the fiery judgment of god well what then shall we do right that brings us to the fourth section of the sermon which i've entitled a desperate appeal before the word of the lord a desperate appeal before the word of the lord ahaziah rejects the word of the lord and in both in his inquiry and his reception ahaziah and his men assault the word of the lord and they seek to remove it and destroy it from their lives and their consciences and this ends in fiery disaster not once but twice so what does ahaziah do well he seems to say well perhaps the third time is the charm so he sends another captain with another 50. ahaziah is obviously a bit of a slow learner i think we could also add he doesn't seem all that concerned with the welfare of his men and we say well same old same old right but not so fast this time the captain makes no demands instead he makes a desperate appeal he falls on his knees before elijah and he entreats him oh man of god please let my life and the life of the fifty servants of yours be precious in your sight see the captain knows what's taking place with the previous cohorts he knows that his arms and his armor are no match for the fires of god's judgment so he pleads he pleads for mercy let our lives be precious in your sight you see this man this captain he was he was confronted with a choice he had two words before him the word of ahaziah the order of the king and the word of the lord from the man of god and he knew which word was greater he knew where true authority and power resided and he knew which word he had to come under and embrace so he does not ask elijah to come down he simply asks that his life and the life of his men would be precious in elijah's sight that they would be spared from the fires of god's judgment and they are spared elijah is directed by the angel of the lord to go down with the man and he goes to the king and he pronounces once again the word of the lord directly to ahaziah without alteration just as before and i would put before you this morning that in the desperate appeal of this captain we see before us the way of our own salvation you see as the word says we've all sinned and we all fall short of the glory of god none of us have inquired of the word as we ought none of us have received the word as we ought and all of us in various ways have openly rebelled against that word and we have all at times hardened our conscience against it and sought to blot it out to remove it from our heart and our minds and our lives we and we all as a result deserve the fiery judgment of god and yet god has made a way for us to be saved and he has revealed it to us in his word god's only son the lord jesus christ the perfect man of god came down from heaven in order to save us from our sin and to deliver us from the wrath and judgment of god and jesus the scripture says took in the word even from his youth he took it in he perfectly inquired of that word he he sought it out he learned it and grew in it and he fully and perfectly believed the word and he fully and perfectly and completely obeyed the word and then he authoritatively spoke that word to others oh man of god o perfect man of god and yet in his perfections this man of god went to the cross and he died for our sins he died for all the ways we've rejected the word and thought and word and deed and jesus the man of god bore the fiery judgment of the father judgment that should have fallen on us he bore it fully completely and to the uttermost he bore that judgment and in so doing he turned the wrath and judgment aside so that all who call upon the lord all who cry out to the man of god jesus christ who cry out to him for salvation for mercy for forgiveness all who cry out oh man of god let the judgment of god pass from me we are spared we are saved we are delivered and set free now we are we are not set free to then go and do whatever we want we're not spared from judgment so we can now listen to whatever voices we choose but we are set free in order that we might pursue simple faithful obedience we are now free and aided by the spirit of god to to inquire of the word of the lord to seek it out to meditate on it and through faith in christ through faith in the one who loved us and saved us from our sin we're now free to receive that word and boldly endeavor to obey that word in ever increasing ways and when we fail according to the word of god we can return to christ in confession and repentance renewed faith knowing that he loves us that he does not condemn us that he sends us forth then again and again to pursue new obedience in accordance with the word of god and this is so important because as we come into the fifth and final section of this sermon it's very brief we see that the word of the lord is true and the word of the lord comes true nicely tied together in verse 17. so he that is ahaziah died according to the word of the lord that elijah had spoken i say it again the word of the lord is true and the word of the lord comes true the lord's commands are true the lord's warnings of judgment to those who reject his commands are true the lord's offer of salvation through jesus christ to all who call on him in faith that offer is true the pla the path of blessing and communion with god for those who walk in obedience it's the way of truth and what that means is that even in our very complicated information saturated and confusing world there's a simple choice before us every day we can choose christ choose to follow him in faith and obedience according to the word of god which we can inquire of and seek out and meditate on and take in or we can choose to reject him to reject his person his word his commands we can pursue other words and other lords we can choose life or death the narrow or the broad path we can choose to build on the rock or the sand and my simple prayer this morning is that we will choose life we'll choose jesus and we'll be spared from the judgment of co to come and live in blessed communion with our god and with one another now and forevermore let's pray heavenly father we we come before you and we ask that you would give us clarity of mind to behold your word the truth of your commands the content of your gospel and that we would as the old children song says we would we would stand alone on the word of god trusting in the very word of god the lord jesus christ and following him all of our days may it be so we pray in jesus name amen

Channel: Westminster PCA, Atlanta

Views: 35

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christ, God, Christian, Christianity, Christian teaching, Westminster Presbyterian Church, wmpca, church, reverent, joyful, worship, sermon, preaching, Bible, biblical, God's word, word of God, scripture, reformed, PCA, Presbyterian, expositional preaching, divided kingdom, 1-2 Kings, Israel and Judah, northern kingdom, southern kingdom, ancient Israel, hope, collapse of civilization, sermons from 1-2 Kings, 1 Kings 22, Old Testament, Elijah, Ahaziah

Id: 4Ueu6i_qKEA

Length: 38min 31sec (2311 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 27 2021