2 Kings 2:15-25 - New Man, Same God

[Music] our scripture text this morning comes from second kings chapter 2 verses 15 through 25. we continue in our regular sermon series through the divided kingdom of israel and judah and this morning we come to second kings chapter 2 verses 15 through 25 please listen now as i read for this is the very word of god now when the sons of the prophets who were at jericho saw him opposite them they said the spirit of elijah rests on elisha and they came to meet him and bowed to the ground before him and they said to him behold now there are with your servants 50 strong men please let them go and seek your master it may be that the spirit of the lord has caught him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley and he said you shall not send but when they urged him till he was ashamed he said send they sent their 450 men and for three days they sought him but did not find him and they came back to him while he was staying at jericho and he said to them did i not say to you do not go now the men of the city said to elisha behold the situation of this city is pleasant as my lord sees but the water is bad and the land is unfruitful he said bring me a new bowl and put salt in it so they brought it to him he went to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said thus says the lord i have healed this water from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it so the water has been healed to this day according to the word that elisha spoke he went up from there to bethel and while he was going up on the way some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him saying go up you bald head go up you bald head and he turned around and when he saw them he cursed them in the name of the lord and two she-bears came out of the woods and tore 42 of the boys from there he went on to mount carmel and from there he returned to samaria may the lord bless the reading of his word to our hearts and minds you may be seated would you pray with me heavenly father we come before you and we ask for your blessing on the reading and preaching of your word grant that we may believe your word and enter into life and enjoy the blessedness that comes from faith in the lord jesus christ and protect us from the curse and the judgment that rests on those who rejects reject the word of the lord we pray these things in jesus name amen one of the great challenges that arises again and again in human society is having to cope with the loss of a great leader you know there's a saying in sports you don't want to be the man who has to follow the man and by that they mean a long-standing successful popular coach it's much easier to be the man who follows the man who follows the man because things don't tend to go so well for the guy in the middle and of course it's not just sports right in the world of politics parties nations entire empires have risen to prominence on the shoulders of a great leader and they have often clumbed crumbled into decline and disarray with the passing of that leader now that the power of a dynamic personality combined with effective gifts and abilities oh it can fuel great things it can command great devotion great allegiance great admiration even love and when such a personality departs the loss can be palpable we can begin to lament whatever shall we do very irreplaceable they'll never be another like him or her things will never be the same and this can be true even in the church one of the great blessings that a church can have is is to have in god's providence a long tenured faithful fruitful and beloved minister and one of the great challenges and even hardships that churches can face is when they have to replace a long tenured faithful fruitful and beloved minister now whether you're speaking about sports or politics or the church the power of personality and giftedness is strong however in the church at least there is or should be another reality in play and that is this that even as great men and women come and go in the church god remains god remains god's purposes remain god's promises to his people endure his word and spirit still prevail that's something israel had to learn and re-learn and re-learn and it's something we need to learn and re-learn as well and one of the most powerful and clear ways god's taught this lesson to his people throughout the ages is with the way he orchestrated the transition from elijah to elisha now we first saw the seeds of this transition back in first kings 19 when god commanded elijah to go and anoint elisha the son of shafat to be prophet in your place elijah then went and called elisha and elisha began to follow the great prophet then last week at the first half of first kings two we we saw how elisha accompanied elijah on a journey through the land they miraculously passed over the jordan river together and then elijah elisha saw elijah taken up into heaven in a whirlwind accompanied and escorted by angelic chariots of fire and now here we are after that miraculous taking up into heaven elisha remains feet firmly planted on the ground he was the new man for israel with a new work to do nothing less than the the spiritual re-conquest of the land lay before him and the question then facing israel is can elijah really be replaced i mean how are the people of god to go on in light of the loss of one of the singular great figures in all of scripture well that's the question before us this morning as well how do you solve a problem like the loss of elijah our sermon this morning is divided up into three sections the first covers verses 15 through 18. i've entitled it he's gone he's really gone and i've added a little subtitle for the section which is in the know in the dark now you know he's gone in the know in the dark now you know well let's begin with the in the know part our text begins with the sons of the prophets coming out to meet elisha after elijah has been taken up into heaven now if you were with us last week you will know these sons of the prophets were most likely groups of young men who were committed to the lord faithful to the word and more than likely had been discipled and trained by elijah himself these men were part of the seven thousand that the lord had preserved and had not bowed the need to bail they were a committed band of brothers sprinkled throughout the cities of israel and what is more these sons of the prophets were clearly as we saw last week in the know with respect to elijah being taken up and and with respect to elisha standing as the prophet in his place you see god had revealed a great deal to these young men well we saw this very clearly last week verses three and five as the sons of the prophets clearly knew beforehand the very day that elijah would be taken up into heaven we also saw last week in verse 7 that in this knowledge 50 of the sons of the prophets had escorted elijah and elisha from jericho to the jordan river albeit from a bit of a distance they saw elijah take his cloak and strike the water of the jordan river they saw the waters miraculously parted they saw elijah and elisha pass through the jordan on dry ground and then from across the jordan they saw at least something of the whirlwind the commotion and the fire that took elijah up into heaven this much is clear based on their request in verse 16. they then saw elisha pass back through the jordan river on dry ground with the very cloak of elijah in his hand and it's clear that while they weren't privy to the the conversation that elijah and elijah had had on the other side of the river about about elisha getting a double portion of elijah's spirit they were still able the text makes it clear to to very clearly recognize that the spirit of elijah now rests on elisha and they bowed low to the ground before elisha these young men it would seem had a firm grasp on the whole scene they they seem to grasp the big picture of what had taken place we would read these verses and say these young men were in the know and yet despite all this we we see that there is still a sense in which these men are in the dark as to what had really transpired we see this because they say to elisha in verse 16 behold now there are with your servants 50 strong men please let them go and seek your master it may be that the spirit of the lord has has caught him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley it seems that even though the sons of the prophets were aware of elijah being taken up even though they were aware that the cloak of elijah had been given to elisha and that the spirit of elijah now rested on elisha even so they were struggling they were unwilling or unable to fully embrace the reality that elijah was gone even though they saw his taking up even though they saw the jordan part and elisha come through with the cloak of elijah they're still holding out hope that elijah's got to be out there somewhere right some mountain some valley i mean just let us go find him surely he can't be gone surely the lord would not have deprived us of the great prophet it cannot be well elisha makes it very clear that on this issue they're in the dark their quest is misguided it's confused it's it's not even worth engaging in you shall not send he says and clearly elisha knows look boys he's not out there you're not going to find him don't you understand what the lord has done but even though they bowed low to elisha just a few moments before here they are clearly slow to receive his word slow to embrace his admonition no it it says they urged him and they urged him and they urged him until elisha was ashamed now i don't think that meant that elisha was having second thoughts about whether elijah was out there but i think this shame comes perhaps in part because part of what the sons of the prophets are insinuating is that what do you not care do we care more about elijah than you do i mean don't you want to look for him don't you want to find him elisha's mind has not changed but it seems that in order to clear his name he finally gives them permission sent so they send they go they look but of course they do not find they come back empty-handed and they receive elisha's rebuke did i not tell you and now they know elijah is gone the mantle has been passed yet as believers it's easy to empathize with the sons of the prophets isn't it i mean elijah was a great man a great prophet used mightily by the lord rightly did they admire him rightly were they devoted to him and given this it's not easy to just say goodbye to let go and move on even when the the great man is gone even when the god-given replacement is standing in front of you it's easy even natural to say we gotta figure out how to bring the grand old man back i know many pastors have been duly elected called and installed in their ministerial position they labor rightfully rightly faithfully and well but they struggle because the hearts of the people still long for the previous minister they long for the good old days the gifts and graces they had come to know and rely on they ask how can things ever really be the same how can things ever be as good i mean after all it's not the same man well as we see here it is the same god this brings us to the second part of the sermon which i've entitled new man same god same power to bless and heal by his word now god has already demonstrated that the old power of god resides with the new prophet elijah he made that clear when when just like moses parted the red sea just like joshua parted the jordan river just like elijah parted the jordan river now god has parted the waters and elisha has passed through on dry land and re-entered the promised land it should have removed any doubt and perhaps in in part it did remove doubt for some for we read that the men of the city of jericho came to elisha with a little problem they had now it's not clear if this happened during the three days where the sons of the prophets were out looking for elijah or if this took place after they had returned and received elisha's rebuke but in any case the men of the city seek out elisha to see if he can help them with their problem and the problem was this that while the city seemed okay on the outside the water source of the city was bad very bad it made the land unfruitful it even brought death and miscarriage to the inhabitants of the city elisha knows what to do he knows that jericho's problem isn't primarily a biological issue it's a spiritual issue it's a spiritual problem because you see the city was under a curse if you go back to joshua 6 when joshua led the people to the battle of jericho and the city fell and it was taken joshua pronounced a curse on the city for its great wickedness and its opposition to the things of god he announced cursed before the lord be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city jericho at the cost of its first born shall he lay its foundations and at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates the very sight of jericho was cursed before the lord and you may remember back in first kings 16 that that under king ahab jericho was rebuilt it was built up and the man who led that building project heel of bethel lost his firstborn and his youngest son during the building process now it's clear the curse on the city remains so to face this curse elisha asks for a new bowl with salt in it now neither of these things had any power in and of themselves but but these things the new implement and the salt were often used as symbols of ceremonial purity and spiritual purification in the law and elisha takes these implements and he goes to the spring of water and he throws the salt in it and says thus says the lord the lord says i have healed this water from now on neither death nor miscarriage will come from it and the text says so the water has been healed to this day according to the word that elisha spoke new man same god this work is reminiscent of the work that god had done way back with moses in exodus 15 right there the the people of israel were desperately thirsty in the wilderness they came to a stream of water that was exceedingly bitter and undrinkable and moses at god's command threw a log in the water and god made the bitter water sweet he gave life to the israelites in a parched land and here god does something similar but i would argue it's even greater because here god is healing the water of a city that had been righteously cursed because of the sin of that place given this righteous curse only god could remove such a curse but by the power of his word through his anointed prophet god does just that god brings healing and newness of life by his word where before he brought curse and death as a consequence of sin now he removes the curse and brings healing and life in its place and this should not surprise us because this is who god is this is who god has always been this is what god has done again and again to those who seek him who call upon him he is the god who brings blessing that overcomes the greatest curse god and god alone makes the unclean clean he makes the cursed blessed he brings life to the dead he did this through moses he did it again and again through elijah and now he brings the same kind of saving and healing blessing through his anointed prophet elisha and of course all of this is but a foretaste of the even greater blessing that god brings to all who believe in him through jesus christ you see jesus is the one who takes on the great curse of sin the curse that brings death and judgment and in becoming accursed for us unto death and then being raised from the dead triumphant over sin and death and resurrection life jesus has now set all who believe in him free from the curse of sin and death to all who call on him in faith no matter how great your sin no matter how deep it goes the lord delivers he saves he heals he brings life the men of jericho learned that day that elijah may be gone that there may be a new man a new prophet in the land but this new prophet serves and speaks the same living word of the same living god and it is this lord alone who has the power to bless and save we need only to believe in his living word as we already read earlier this morning all flesh is like grass the grass withers the flowers fade but the word of our god shall stand forever and we see here that that word is a word of gracious salvation and healing to all who believe but that's not all is it now this brings us to the third and final aspect of our sermon which i've entitled new man same god same power to curse and destroy by his word new man same god same power to curse and destroy by his word now this brings us to one of the stranger stories in the bible it was a story i was told recently by one family is one of the favorites on the playground of their christian school it's also one of the favorite stories of those who want to slander and tear down the bible they say look at the self-absorbed callous and violent prophet tearing up toddlers in the local nursery what kind of a god would do such a thing well as we consider this i think it's first helpful to get a little bit of contextual and linguistic understanding of this passage and its words first we need to say something about the city of bethel where elijah was passing by or passing through bethel was a stronghold of idolatry the idolatry of bethel went back to the days of jeroboam you'll remember jeroboam he was the king who led the initial division of the kingdom the rebellion of israel against judah and to secure his kingdom and to ensure that the people would not return to jerusalem to worship jeroboam erected two golden calves in the land one we are told was in dan in the far north and one was in bethel in the south so bethel was established as one of the two great sites of golden calf worship the commerce of the city was in no small part shaped by the elevated place it had in the systemic idolatry of israel and surely then it was a city that was opposed to the ministry of elijah and his preaching campaigns against the idolatry of israel it's important to understand what bethel was like the second thing to consider is what this passage then has to say about these boys from bethel the esv refers to them as some small boys and while that translation is not necessarily incorrect i do think it is a bit misleading the hebrew word in this passage is translated small does in fact mean small but it can refer to something that is small in size number age status or importance it's used to describe many things in the old testament including grown men who lack spiritual maturity or social status it's used to refer to benjamin as a grown-up man it's used to refer to king soul similarly the hebrew word translated here as boys can cover a range of ages it could be an influence could be a young adult and and this combination of words small boys is is used throughout the old testament actually on a number of occasions to refer to grown or at least young men who are identified in the passage for their their relative youth and immaturity so we can see that linguistically speaking the hebrew here could certainly and i would argue likely be referring to a group of young men not some version of a hebrew kindergarten class and when we look at the behavior of these boys it would seem to indicate they were a little older and larger in stature while small in terms of their maturity for starters the text is clear there were a lot of these young men at least 42 of them likely more and the text says these young people they they came out of the city in order to initiate conflict with elijah often people tell this story as if elijah just elisha just happened to pass by some small children playing by the side of the road but that's clearly not what's happening here in this text no a very large group comes out to confront elisha as he approaches the city this does not seem to be the behavior of a kindergarten class it's more like a roaming band of teenage or young adult thugs and they came out specifically to jeer the prophet the jeer is twofold first they call him baldhead now this may cause us to chuckle a bit right but one scholar carl truman points out in his treatment of this text that it would have been very unlikely from a cultural standpoint that elisha as a bald man would have been traveling through the countryside of israel with his head uncovered this this jeer against elisha that he's a baldi suggests that this gang of young men already knew elisha from some previous interactions they were looking to go out and meet him confront him and shame him the other element of their jeer is this call to go up go up you bald head and many scholars have pointed out that this is almost certainly a reference to elijah's recent experience right elijah had gone up and now he was gone now he was out of the picture word had obviously traveled fast from the jordan to jericho to bethel and these young men are now taking that information and using it to go out and kind of in a threatening menacing way call for the same result for elisha be gone you go up you shameful one do not try to enter this town we know who you are we know what you want we do not want it here as one can see i think this scene is a far cry from the way it's often presented this is not elisha going out of his way to pick on a nursery while the children play this is elisha being confronted threatened jeered by a large hostile mob of young men men who oppose reject and publicly dishonor the ministry of elijah with some knowledge men who oppose reject and publicly dishonor the position of elisha with some knowledge and in doing this these men oppose reject and publicly dishonor the god of israel and so in the face of this bold openly confrontational and threatening challenge elisha curses the mob in the name of the lord he had just removed a historic curse and brought divine blessing to those who sought him in faith but now he pronounces a curse on those who openly reject him and seek to send him away from their city and we read as a manifestation of this curse god sends two she-bears out of the wood to tear 42 of the young men the scholars are divided as to whether these young men were killed or simply wounded but in either case it's more than likely that word about this confrontation would have made its way back into the city of bethel while elijah continues on his journey to mount carmel and then on to samaria well what shall we say to such things then well i think we can say there there may be a new man a new prophet in israel but he speaks for the same god and this is a god who has consistently warned that the curse of sin and divine judgment will fall on those who reject his word elijah had made that very clear in his ministry when ahab rejected god he brought famine and drought on the land he brought elijah brought fire from heaven and he slew the prophets of baal he brought fire from heaven and consumed the soldiers of ahaziah you see the message was clear in elijah's ministry if you oppose the word of the lord as it comes to you through his anointed and an appointed prophet you do so at your own peril and now with elijah gone there's a new prophet in the land and one may wonder well maybe all that judgment maybe all that power of god stuff that was unique to elijah but we see very quickly the word of the lord remains the same word that brought death to adam and his posterity the same word that brought the plagues on egypt the same word that struck down a generation of israelites as they wandered in the wilderness the same word was at work long before the ministry of elijah it was at work in the ministry of elijah and now the message is clear it continues through the ministry of elisha and the message to the people of israel is what it's always been you oppose the word of god at your own peril and we see here this is true not just for the old but for the young as well again i don't know how old exactly these young men or boys were but i but i can say this this morning with solemn and sober authority i say to my own children this morning ages 20 18 16 13 and 9. you are not too young to hear the word of the lord and receive it in faith you are not too young to receive the healing and saving blessings that come from the word of the gospel and you are not too young to receive the curse and judgment of god if you reject and oppose and jeer at that word brothers and sisters it's not just true for my children it's true for all of us god is the same yesterday today and forever he has made sure that in every generation his people have had a witness a witness to his word a word that saves those who believe and curses those who reject it and he has given that word to his people through the preaching of his appointed prophets as we see here he has given that word to his people through the written scriptures and he has given that word most fully through the living word the lord jesus christ whom all the prophets and the scriptures bear witness to it is a word that continues to be heralded today through faithful exposition and preaching and teaching and it is a word of salvation oh the great salvation that is ours when we believe the word of god about our sin and about our need for a savior and the saving work that comes through the life and death and resurrection of jesus christ and it is at the same time a solemn word of judgment and curse for those who reject it it always has been it always will be so this morning i call on each one of us to believe in that word i want to call on you to let the word of christ dwell in you richly i call on you to teach this word to your children and your grandchildren teach them the blessings warn them of the judgments that all of us may hear and believe and obey and faithfully serve the lord in this our generation let's pray heavenly father we pray that by the power of your word even now you would do work call us to the hope of salvation warn us from the judgment that is to come and let our hope not be in particular men particular ministries but in the ministry of your word the ministry of the lord jesus christ even as we come to the table now seal that great truth to our hearts and we pray this in jesus name amen

Channel: Westminster PCA, Atlanta

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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, 2 Kings 2, Old Testament, Elisha

Id: bdjH0uRlzB0

Length: 34min 58sec (2098 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 08 2021