A young boy came home from Sunday school one day and his father asked what they were teaching about in class. He said it was all about Israel crossing the Red Sea. Then he said the Israeli air force strafed the Egyptian army and the infantry set charges all around the camp while the engineers built a pontoon bridge. His father said, “Is that what they’re teaching you?” His son replied, “If I told you what they said, you’d never believe me.”
The judgement of Ahaziah II Kings 1:1-17a
I want you to see something of the historical setting so this story will make more sense to you. Moab had been in subjection to Israel since David had won a war over them about forty-six years before. They were taxed one hundred thousand lamb fleeces and a hundred thousand ram skins every year and now they decided they had had enough and broke away. Basically, they were tired of paying taxes for nothing.
Ahaziah was the king and he was the son of Ahab and Jezebel. From what I read of him he seems to be like one of these people that you wouldn’t hire to rake your yard let alone be king of a nation. He seems to be a lazy drunk and the only think we know about his reign is the end of it. But then again, he only lasted for about two years.
As we go through life we meet a lot of people like that. There are those who either inherit money or they were given a position because their parents owned the company and for the most part they don’t know what they’re doing. Not everyone who inherits a company is like this but some are. And that probably explains why the average business doesn’t exist beyond the second generation.
Ahaziah enjoyed all the privileges of ruling but wanted none of the responsibilities. And whether he was agitated over the lost revenues from Moab or in a drunken stupor we’re told that he fell through the lattice work of his upper balcony. So we can imagine him laying on a couch surrounded by cushions and he’s looking for some kind of comfort. Then the scripture says the pain was so bad that he decided to seek supernatural advice as to whether or not he would recover.
Ahaziah was someone with a difficult personality, he’s hard to understand and difficult to get along with and the question is why? Why are some people so difficult to get along with? Let me list a few reasons.
1. Some people have inherited personality traits. My wife claims our kids get all their good points from her and all the bad ones come from me. Maybe she’s right. One of my bad points is that I’m so easy to get along with that I’ll agree with anything. The fact is, Ahaziah didn’t have a lot to pick from when it came to the gene pool of life. His father was wimpy and wicked while his mother was dominant and evil. We can see where he got his negative personality traits but If he inherited any good points from either of them there is no record of it.
2. Some people are hard to get along with because they have what we might call the natural results of an inherited sin nature. Just as we all have unique personalities so we all have our own way of expressing our sin nature. Let’s face it, there are some non-Christians we meet who can only be described as vile and wicked and there are others who are nicer than many believers. It doesn’t matter how pleasant or cultured someone is, they might be nicer to deal with but they’re still just as lost. And whether we can see it or not, the sin is still present.
3. There are some people whose lives are marked by bitterness. There may have been a time when they made a half-hearted commitment to Christ and then they came to the conclusion that Christianity didn’t work for them. Maybe someone gave a weak message and said, “Accept the Lord and that will be the end of your problems.” And that’s true, they just didn’t tell them which end. So they have problems like the rest of the world and they come to the conclusion that their faith is useless. And their faith is useless because it wasn’t true faith to begin with. Job 5:7 says, “Man is born unto trouble, as sure as the sparks fly skyward.” Problems are natural. Some people may seem to have more than others but everybody has their share. I realize that we all meet people who never seem to have a problem. Let me assure you, they have their share of problems, they just react differently.
Then again, we’ve all met people who feel they were either taken advantage of or disappointed by a believer and as far as they’re concerned, “Christians are all the same and they don’t want anything to do with them or the gospel.” We’ve all heard people talk like that and yet the very same people might have been ripped off at a gas station but they still drive their car. They might have been overcharged at a grocery store but they still eat. So why is every Christian the same as the one they’re so bitter about? I’ll tell you why, it’s their excuse for rejecting the gospel.
4. Some might have been victims of unreal expectations. They came to the church expecting people to be perfect or at least better than they were and they found people who were a lot like themselves. The truth is, if you hang around here long enough you just might meet a sinner.
5. Some people can be very difficult to get along with in the sense that they agree with everything you say. I think one of the worst places I’ve ever seen this was on Cape Breton Island. The people down there are the nicest people in the world. You can preach the gospel and they’ll believe every word you say. The problem is, it’s like water off a duck’s back. The next day someone else might come along with a totally different message and they’ll say, “Well that’s a pretty good one too.”
We were down visiting family a while back and one of my cousins was telling us about a Bible Baptist missionary who came to Glace Bay to start a church. He did a lot of visiting and my cousin and a few of his friends began going to church which was held in an old dance hall and they all got saved or something. One thing the preacher noticed was, the people would come but no one gave anything. He decided the people had to be taught to give. So, one Sunday he had the men stand at the door and give everyone who came in a two dollar bill. When they took up the offering there was nothing there. The preacher said, “What a bunch of dummies. They didn’t know enough to put the money in the plate.” My cousin said, “He was the dummy. They all came to church and got two dollars for coming.”
The preacher said he didn’t think he could go on without any money and so my cousin and his friends had an idea. He suggested that since they only had services on Sunday they could hold a social at the hall on Saturday nights. In Cape Breton a social is a dance where they sell liquor. The agreement was that they would keep eighty per cent of the profit and give the preacher the other twenty and no one would know that he was involved. He said alright and they went along for a while and the preacher decided he needed a bigger cut of the door. They said no and the whole thing folded. They stopped the socials and the church closed as well. As my cousin told me the story he concluded by saying, “It was too bad, he was a real good preacher.”
6. And then there are some people who are just plain selfish. You know, it’s my way or the highway. And because of their position, their wealth or their family connections they feel like they have the right to do their own thing and they never have to listen to anyone.
There’s one thing that never happens. No one is sinless and there is no such thing as accidental sin. We inherit a sin nature from our parents and then we live it out.
I This is certainly true with Ahaziah. As wee look at him we see his sickness. There are five reasons for sickness in scripture.
1. The glory of God. We have the example of the blind man found in John 9:1-3, “Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.” God was glorified not only by this man’s healing but by the fact that people appreciated their sight when they saw someone who couldn’t see. After all, we have no appreciation of sight until we lose it. You probably didn’t notice when you came in this morning that we have a roof on the building. If it was raining and there was no roof you’d really be aware of it. The fact is, we don’t appreciate any of our senses until they’re gone.
We see the same situation with someone’s health over in John 11:3,4, “Therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, ‘Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.’ When Jesus heard that, He said, ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of Man may be glorified through it.” So, there are times when we go through something and we give God the glory when He brings us out of it. I think there are even times when we live with something and praise God in spite of it and He gets the glory.
2. Sometimes sickness comes and it’s a matter of chastisement. Psalm 119:71, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.” The sickbed is a great school. For some of us it’s the only time we’re actually still long enough for God to speak to us. I think God also allows certain things to enter our lives that make us aware of the brevity of life and teach us that none of us will live forever in these bodies. His goal is to get our attention off ourselves and our pleasures and help us to focus on Him.
I remember hearing Alan Redpath in Toronto. He said at one time he was booked to speak for two years ahead. He said he was so busy he had no time to pray and then he had a stroke and couldn’t speak for two years. As a matter of fact he said he couldn’t do anything but pray. Two years later he was reading his Bible and came to Psalm 39: 9,10 it says, “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it. Remove thy stroke away from me.” And he was healed. His testimony was, “It was God’s stroke and it was given to show me that I wasn’t to preach messages that I couldn’t cover in prayer.”
There are some things that come our way like cancer, heart attacks, strokes or other health crisis that God uses to wake us up to the fact that life doesn’t go on for ever. They are a warning and they remind us that we have to be ready for the life to come. When we understand how short our lives really are we’ll be more careful what we do with the time we have left.
I had a friend whose mother said to him, “Your grandfather is eighty-five years old, he’s in the hospital and you’ve never really known him. Why don’t you go and have a visit.“ He went to see his granddad and felt uncomfortable because he said he was trying to start a relationship with someone who was at the end of his life. So, he began by saying, “Well, granddad, how has your life gone?” His grandfather looked at him, snapped his fingers and said, ”Just like that.” Think about it. How quickly has your life gone by so far?
3. Another reason for sickness, there’s what Paul refers to as the thorn in the flesh. This was something he says God gave him to keep him humble. We don’t know exactly what it is. Some think he might have been bowl-legged and others that he had some sort of an on-going eye infection. Whatever it was, he didn’t want it at first and then God explained that this was to his benefit. It kept him humble.
Did you know that most people wish they could look like someone else? We are what we are because God made us what we are for a reason. And someday we’ll understand why He did what He did.
4. Then there is sickness unto death. This simply means that God takes people to their reward and that reward is either heaven or hell. Everyone dies. So far the count is ten out of ten. We often say when someone young dies that they died before their time. I think that might be a comforting thought but the fact is we are all here for a certain amount of time and only God knows how long that is.
I had a friend one time who told me his mother was in a nursing home and he said every time he talked with her she longed for the day when she would die and go be with her Lord and all the friends who had gone before. That certainly gives us another perspective on death. The focus isn’t on our loss but their gain.
And keep in mind that there is no such thing as purgatory where we can spend time purging our sins or working them off and there’s no other kind of half-way place where we do some kind of penance after death. This is based on man’s idea and not God’s word.
B So God has plenty of reasons for sickness and Ahaziah’s sickness was to get his attention. I believe God wanted to talk to him. And really it was an act of mercy on the part of God. C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers in our pleasures but He shouts in our pain.” God could’ve just killed him instead He sent him a message. His sickness was the hint that death was on the way. And he needed to do anything and everything he could to get ready.
II So we come back to Ahaziah and see his response to his sickness. He sent a message to Baalzebub. It seems strange to say it but God sent him a message and in response he sent one to the devil. He is the second generation of his family to worship some form of Baal. Surely, he had heard of everything that had happened to his father. I mean, there was no television or newspapers so they probably talked about everything that took place and especially when a prophet of God not only does miracles but leads the people to kill hundreds of the prophets of Baal. I’m sure he was more than familiar with the ministry and message of Elijah. But as they say, “The same sun that melts butter hardens clay.” What might have converted others just hardened his heart.
A I guess the saying is true, like father like son.
Rather than turning to God Ahaziah turned to the occult. He sent his messengers to Baalzebub who was also known as the lord of the flies, the carriers of disease. Now there is no polite way to say this. Baalzebub was the god of the toilet dump. They were worshiping something that was absolutely repulsive. Maybe it was the only way that Ahaziah thought he could make a deal with the grim reaper.
Elijah stopped his messengers with a challenge when he said. “Is there no God in Israel that you must consult with such a pagan deity as Baalzebub? Then he said, “Go back to the palace and tell Ahaziah that he shall surely die.” They listened to the prophet and returned to tell the king what he had said. And with that Elijah left.
Ahaziah got the message. He knew who Elijah was by his reputation. He would’ve heard about the miracles he performed and the prophecies that had been fulfilled in his parents lives. By now Ahab’s blood had been licked up by the dogs and Jezebel had been thrown off the wall. All of which was prophesied by Elijah. But if Ahaziah inherited his father’s taste in religion and he also inherited his mother’s arrogance. For all they heard and saw they never learned a thing and they certainly didn’t pass anything good on to their son.
b So it’s not only like father like son but like mother like son too. He sends for Elijah and this was no invitation to tea. He sent a captain and fifty men. They went to capture him. They were to bring him back captive and the king would probably make an example out of him. He wanted to show Elijah his power and maybe force him to change his message and humble him in front of the people.
We see the first guy he sent. Look at his arrogance as he gives the command. “Come down.” We wonder what made him so arrogant and we have to realize that he was speaking for the king and the king was arrogant. We used to have a saying in the food service business. “As is the head, so goes the body.” In other words, if the head of an organization was full of himself this sets the tone for the rest of the group.
We see this arrogance in scripture first in the example of Satan. In Isaiah 14:12-15 we see pride mentioned five times. “How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How are you cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest side of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High, Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.” And pride came before the fall. He was the first example of pride but certainly not the last. We also see Goliath as he came to fight David and he said, “Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks?” And again pride came before his fall. As we come to the New Testament we see the Pharisees. These people are hard to understand. They believed in and studied the Bible. As a matter of fact, we’re told that they had memorized one hundred and sixty-five chapters of scripture from the Old Testament. This was part of their training. They debated with the Sadducees over the issue of the end times because they believed in the messiah coming before the end of the world. They had everything they needed to be saved but they wanted nothing to do with Jesus Christ. And we wonder why? It was because He upset their social situation. If they couldn’t be top dog then no one could. Because for all their religious trappings they were no different than Satan or Goliath.
Well, pride always comes before the fall and it did here as well. And just as the arrogance was shared by the captain and his fifty so was their judgement. They all died. And this was a message from God to Ahaziah. Death was on it’s way.
And then there’s the second guy. He’s the intimidator. He says, “Come down quickly.” It’s like he’s saying, you listen to me you little punk. I’m not fooling around so you better get down here and quit wasting my time. He’s blinded by his stupidity. I think it just shows how arrogant he is. I mean think of what’s around him. He’s giving a command to the prophet while he’s surrounded by dead bodies. Notice Elijah’s response. He’s not intimidated. He doesn’t cower. He doesn’t even get angry. He just says, “If I am a man of God and there is a God, then let Him burn you.” And He does. It’s almost like Elijah said, “Oh you’ve got a message from the king then why don’t you give him one for me.”
And how does Ahaziah respond? He sends another captain and his fifty. He wants what he wants and it doesn’t matter what it takes to get it. After all, he was dying so what did it matter to him what happened to the rest of them?
The third guy comes with a different attitude. He comes with an appeal. He recognized the power of God and the danger of messing with His prophet. He has a healthy fear of God and we can see this as he approaches on his knees. It says in verse 13 and 14, “And the third captain of fifty went up and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and pleaded with him, and said to him: Man of God, please let my life and the life of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your sight.” Notice that he comes with a request and not a command. I’ve heard people say that you have the right to demand things from God based on His promises. I’m afraid there’s more pride than faith involved in these kind of prayers. And as the scripture says, “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Remember, God doesn’t owe us anything. Anything we receive is a gift of His grace.
The second guy should have learned from the first but he didn’t. The third could see all these dead bodies and thought, “This is not the way to go.” And he of course was right.
III Elijah’s instructions
a God said, “Go down with him and do not be afraid of him.” Someone said the scripture says, “fear not” in one form or another one hundred and forty-four times. I haven’t counted them so I’m not sure; but I wondered, why would God say this to Elijah? He probably said it because he was afraid. Remember that the last time he was at the palace. Jezebel gave him twenty-four hours to live and he ran for his life. And I think that even though he had learned his lesson, there was still room for fear. In spite of any fear he had he was obedient and he went. As I said before, Elijah was a man of like passions. He was someone with all the problems that you and I wrestle with every day.
Ted Engstrom writes about people with problems. He says, “Cripple him, and you have a Sir Walter Scott. Lock him in a prison cell, and you have a John Bunyan. Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have a George Washington. Raise him in abject poverty and you have an Abraham Lincoln. Strike him down with infantile paralysis, and he becomes Franklin Roosevelt. Burn him so severely that the doctors say he’ll never walk again, and you have a Glenn Cunningham-who set the world’s one-mile record in 1934. Deafen him and you have a Ludwig Van Beethoven. Have him or her born black in a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have a Booker T. Washington, a Marion Anderson or a George Washington Carver. Call him a slow learner, retarded and write him off as an imbecile, and you have an Albert Einstein.” In spite of his past Elijah was willing to go and willing to do what he was told.
B I think it’s safe to say that he probably didn’t want to go. This was not a volunteer mission. I mean, it’s much easier to serve God on a mountain top all by yourself. Just like it’s much easier to be concerned about the lost when we’re in prayer meeting. It’s always easier to love people when there’s no one around.
I think of Peter who was on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Lord and he said, “Let’s build three tabernacles. One for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” What he was saying was, let’s stay up here. We’ve got the two biggest names of the Old Testament and the Lord Jesus Christ. What more could we ask for? This is a holy place. We can talk theology and discus things like the origin of the world or God’s plan for the ages. Let’s just stay here. And Jesus doesn’t respond to his statement. He just takes him down the mountain where He delivers a demon-possessed boy. Takes him back to the real world where real problems exist. Did you ever feel like Peter? You know, where the Christian life is easy to live as long as you stay at the church. There’s no problems, no pressures and no hassle.
We had a man come to our church in Guelph from the Gideon’s one night. He was a businessman in Toronto and he shared how a man who worked in his office had been saved. The man came to work and shared with everyone at the office what had happened to him that week-end. How the Lord had convicted him of sin and saved him. Now he was on his way to heaven and he wanted his friends to know the One who had made a difference in his life. The one who was involved in the Gideon’s said to him, “That’s great, I’m saved too.” The man replied, “Really, I didn’t know that.” And the Gideon said he realized that his light only shone when he was at church, you know when he was on neutral ground.
So basically the Lord says, Elijah, don’t be afraid. Go down there with him. I’ve got a message for Ahaziah and he is going to listen to it.
IV Ahaziah’s death
A Elijah went with the captain and his fifty and he just repeated his message word for word. It was as simple as saying, you’re time is up.
B And notice that Ahaziah didn’t ask for mercy, healing or forgiveness. He just plain and simply died. It’s hard to believe but some people’s hearts are so hard they turn down every opportunity to repent. I went to see a man in the hospital one night. One of his relatives had asked me to visit him but first he warned me that this man was as hard as nails. I went in and sat down and chatted for a few minutes and found him quite friendly. He told me about his physical problems and I expressed my concern. We got along great and I wondered what my friend was worried about. Then I took out my New Testament and asked if he’d mind if I read a few verses. He didn’t answer, he just growled like an angry dog. I ignored him, read the scripture and prayed. He’s dead now and I wonder if he’s still growling.
I visited a woman in the hospital another day. Her daughter came to my church and I tried to share the gospel with this lady but she said she had plenty of religion. She didn’t need my brand of the stuff. She said she knew a Baptist minister who was a pervert and she was convinced that they were all phonies and perverts. I said, “I’m a Baptist minister.” She said, “I know.” She was spiteful, proud and ignorant. She’s died a week or so later and I wonder if she would like to have a second chance to have a conversation about God and how He can forgive.
The judgement of God is a wonderful thing if we heed it’s warning but a terrible thing if we ignore it. Hebrews 10:31 says, “It’s a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” And sooner or later whether we’re saved or lost we’ll all stand in His presence.
Sometimes it’s not what we say but how we say it that’s offensive. I got a job selling rubber stamps to offices one time. It was a crummy job and I only lasted for two or three weeks. During that time I made a few sales but I also got kicked out of more offices in the run of a day than most people would in a year.
One day I went into a small business where they were busy bringing in a computer. Computers were new at the time and this was really a big one. Now you can carry one in your hand but back then it took four men to move it into the office. The man in charge asked what I wanted and I told him I was selling rubber stamps and he said to me, “We don’t have time to talk to you. We’re installing a one hundred thousand dollar computer.” Well, the fact is, he didn’t have time to talk to me and I wouldn’t expect him to make time but what he really said was, “Our computer is more important than people.” And I often wondered if that computer helped his business or not. I mean you can be as efficient as possible but if no one likes you than they won’t deal with you.
And so in seventeen verses one hundred and three people die under the judgement of God. And yet there is comfort here. There is comfort in knowing that the word of God is true and trustworthy. There’s comfort in knowing that God has given us a message of judgement, a message meant to turn us from evil and all it’s consequences because as it says, “Whosoever will may come.” And there is comfort in knowing that even people as arrogant and wicked as Ahaziah were spoken to by God. And he had the opportunity to humble himself and obey the word. And so we have a message of judgement for this world. This whole world is condemned by God and yet His arms are open wide.
Some like Ahaziah harden their hearts to God and some like the first two commanders with their fifties found about God when it was too late. Some are like the third commander who came on his knees and found acceptance. And then some are like Elijah who in spite of his personal problems or past mistakes go in response to the command of God and see Him move in a mighty way.
Who would you compare yourself to? Are you like Ahaziah who was bitter because of past or present problems? Are you like the first two captains and their fifties who are just going through life doing their job. Or are you like Elijah who was at the Lord’s disposal; ready to do whatever He wants you to and go wherever He sends you at a moments notice?
