A three year old gets shot and killed in a gang crossfire. A six year old gets Leukemia and dies after a couple years of awful treatment. A loving mother of five gets hit and killed by a drunk driver. In the Bible Ananias and Sapphira get struck dead for lying in the book of Acts. Uzzah gets struck dead for touching the ark of the covenant even though he was trying to keep it from falling. Why does God allow these things, where is this just and loving God when these things happen?
How about this story from 2 Kings 2? Read 2 Kings 2:19-25…
Why would God do that at the end there? First he heals the water, then he has bears maul 42 young men. Why does God allow bad things to happen to innocent people? Mauled by bears for teasing? What’s that? Yeah, how often do people ask why would God do that or allow that to happen if He’s a loving God? Well, there’s a quote in your bulletin that I think has merit – why do good things happen to bad people? I am going to do my best to answer those questions today, but I want to work through more of the story of Elisha before I do.
Many people, even outside the church have heard of Elijah the prophet. He is one of the most famous people in the Bible. He was one of the guys with Jesus at his transfiguration on the mountain. He was one of two people, Jesus being the other that people actually saw be taken to heaven without dying. Enoch also disappeared at the end of his life, but no one actually saw where he went so we don’t know exactly what happened there.
Some have said that John the Baptist was Elijah come back from heaven, and when he was beheaded, he finally died a human death. Jesus even alludes to John the Baptist being a prophet like Elijah, but he does not mean that this is Elijah reincarnated. Many thought Jesus was Elijah. Anyway, Elijah is probably the premier prophet of the Old Testament, and certainly the most prominent miracle worker of the well known prophets.
But little bald Elisha is not so well known, and the truth is, he performed the same and even greater miracles than Elijah, and I think this story will show us the parallels between Elisha and Elijah and us and Jesus.
Elisha receives his call much like many of the disciples of Jesus. Elijah is just walking by, God has told him to choose Elisha as his successor, and Elijah pops by while Elisha is plowing a field, and throws his cloak upon him. The first thing I want you to see here is that Elisha comes from a wealthy family and leaving to be Elijah’s successor was a major sacrifice. Just as all of Jesus closest disciples left family and work to follow Him.
I want you to hear Elijah’s words back in 1 Kings 19:19-21. This family has twelve yoke of oxen, they are well off, it would be like having five combines. Elisha is going about his business when Elijah throws his cloak on him. Evidently Elisha knew what this meant, and immediately he left the oxen and ran after Elijah asking if he could say good-bye to his parents first.
Jesus said no to someone who asked that, but here Elijah’s response is so cool. Let me paraphrase: “Go ahead because I have just completely ruined your life forever”.
Elijah realizes what he is doing to this poor guy and says “go say good-bye to your parents, for what have I done to you”. He is basically telling Elisha that this is not an easy road as Jesus often said to his would be disciples. Do you ever wish someone would have warned you before you became a Christian? Jesus did, he said, “Count the cost”, and he never misled anyone about what was required of his followers, complete devotion and obedience. So the first point if you are a note taker, I. When we accept the call of God we put Him above everything else.
The other thing here is that this is a time of many wars for Israel and a major part of Elijah’s ministry is proclaiming God’s judgment on the kings and military leaders. That could be very dangerous. And if you recall earlier in Elijah’s ministry, he wanted no part of it because people wanted him dead, especially the wife of king Ahab, the notorious Jezebel. He ran away, but he couldn’t get away from God. And just like angels ministered to Jesus in the wilderness, they did the same for Elijah.
So when he calls Elisha, basically Elisha’s apprenticeship happens during these war filled times, and Elisha gets to witness Elijah doing his prophet thing with these kings. Not easy or glamorous work. Now it’s hard to figure out exactly how long Elisha served under Elijah, but in one reliable timeline I have seen, Elijah died about 850 BC, and Elisha started as a prophet about 853 BC. So I will have you notice that Elisha likely apprenticed under Elijah for about three years. Isn’t that interesting, the same amount of time that the disciples apprenticed with Jesus before he was taken away? Oh it gets better.
Another thing I want you to see is that Elijah gives Elisha three opportunities to leave him as he is preparing to be taken up by God, we know this because it says right at the beginning of 2 Kings chapter 2 that the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind. Now unlike Peter who denied Jesus three times, all three times here, Elisha stays, saying, “as the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you” and he doesn’t. He wasn’t all talk like Peter.
As we continue over this story the next few weeks, I want you to be alert to Elijah being a symbol or type of Jesus, and Elisha being a symbol or type of his disciples (especially maybe Peter).
So Elisha gets the cloak thrown over him and the first thing he does after saying good-bye to his parents is cook up the oxen he was plowing with. Now it’s easy to pass over this part of the verse, but it’s very significant, hence it being in the Bible. First of all it marks a complete and permanent separation with his former life. Remember when Jesus said in Luke 9, which is about counting the cost of following Jesus, he says, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God”. Well here Elisha is completely putting the plow to rest, he is not looking back now for the rest of his life, and so he has a ceremony cooking the oxen with the wood from the plow. Additionally, the act of cooking the meat is a communion sacrifice of thanksgiving to God. He is grateful for this difficult call.
So Elijah has Elisha by his side for a few years through the wars, Elijah gets taken up to heaven and here is left Elisha, the new great prophet of Israel. Back now to 2 Kings 2 we see Elisha ask for a double portion of Elijah’s Spirit poured out on him. Of course Elijah can’t do that only God can, so he says “you have asked a difficult thing”, and he puts it in God’s hands by saying if you see me go your desire has been granted, if you don’t it has not been granted.
Sure enough Elisha sees him carried to heaven and the very first miracle Elisha does is the last one Elijah did. He hits the water with the cloak and the water of the Jordan river was parted for him. Onlookers saw this and confirmed that surely the spirit of Elijah (or of course what we know is the Holy Spirit) was upon Elisha. Second point, II. When we accept the call of God we are empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Notice just very quickly what Elisha says when he gets the water parted, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” Or as we might say today, he is pleading for God to show himself. Elisha is in the business of representing God, not glorifying himself.
In the next verses we see that the sons of the other prophets (actually students or disciples) wanted to go find Elijah, “maybe he’s just up on a mountain”, apparently God may have been in the business of supernaturally transporting Elijah around while he was alive. But Elisha knew where he really went so he tells them not to bother, but they pester him and he says whatever, go ahead, but when they come back without finding Elijah he says, I told you so. Third point, III. When we accept the call of God we will be misunderstood.
Do you again see the parallel with Jesus disciples after he was raised from the dead? The angel said why are you looking for the living amoung the dead? Because they did not get the fact that he had been resurrected, just like here, the sons of the prophets couldn’t grasp the fact that Elijah had been taken to heaven, must be some other explanation.
Then Elisha’s practical ministry begins and his first ministry miracle resembles Jesus first miracle turning water into wine at the wedding. Here Elisha is told that the water is bad and causing miscarriages and death in the people. The wedding hosts told Jesus they were out of wine. Elisha commands the people to bring him a new (clean) bowl and put salt in it (Jesus said go fill the containers with water). Elisha pours the salt into the spring and the water is made pure, just as the water was transformed into wine by Jesus. That spring water was healed forever.
And notice neither Jesus nor Elisha actually does it. They get others to do the work and make sure it appears that God, not them, does the miracle.
Now we get back to the weirdest part of this whole chapter, read verses 23-25. Clearly God will not be mocked, He needs to establish his presence right away with Elisha, this is my chosen prophet in Israel, but this is where I want to return to the why would God do that?
Did he really have to let those young men be mauled because they were teasing a grown man? Well, first let me say that the Hebrew word for boys here can mean lad, servant, or young man. So it’s not like these are a bunch of six year olds, but they could be anywhere up to their mid twenties probably. And when they are saying go up baldy, they are probably referring to Elijah and are in essence saying die Baldy, let’s see you go up too. Now we don’t know for sure, but these young men in a group of at least 42 may have been threatening Elisha and had the capacity to kill him. Fourth point, IV. When we accept the call of God we will be persecuted.
Alternatively, if a group of children were bullying someone to the point where that other person maybe wanted to and even did take their own lives, how would you feel about those bullies even if they were children? Would you maybe have thoughts of wishing they got a similar punishment? Years ago back in BC a group of teenage girls beat young Rhena Virk to death for no reason at all. They all got a slap on the wrist and people were furious. You get what I’m saying? We have no right to question God’s motives with our finite minds.
Besides, God didn’t create it this way. God created perfection with no death and no evil, it was man and Satan that brought all this mess into being. God in his love gave us free will to choose Him or not. He knows you can’t force someone to love you. And free choice can have negative consequences that have a ripple effect outside of that one person’s life.
We can’t know what God knows about the consequences of these bad things that happen.
Often they cause a positive change in a person or group, or even a community. Remember He sees a big picture that we can’t even fathom ahead of time.
He is a good judge and his goal is to get rid of evil and sickness and death. Ultimately he will. He also knows who will and who won’t accept his offer of salvation. If a person dies, they have one of two destinations, heaven or hell according to the Bible. He knows who will choose what. When an innocent person who accepted the salvation of the cross dies, they go to be with him (that’s not a tragedy).
When a child dies who doesn’t yet have the capacity to make an informed choice about Jesus, they go to be with Him, perhaps saving them from a lifetime of misery here. If a so-called innocent person dies who hasn’t accepted salvation and God knows they won’t, what difference does it make whether they go to hell now or later. He doesn’t predestine the choice, but he knows what choice each person will make. And technically nobody is really innocent according to God.
In the Old Testament God’s people were instructed to wipe out what was evil, even women and children, often they disobeyed. But in the New Testament we are told to love our enemies, to now leave judgment up to God for the end times so that maybe those people can be saved from eternal death before then.
Since Jesus died for the forgiveness of sin, all the wars, the decimation of the Native American people and so on in the name of the Lord has been flat out disobedience, where Christians think they are doing the right thing by wrongly following the OT ways, when we have been given a new way. We should as Christians be ashamed of any murder or oppression committed under the name of God since Jesus came to give us a new way.
Those awful things that Christians have done through history are not God, it’s mixed up people not following the commands of Jesus, and God will not always stop the consequences of human behaviour. Imagine if he did. We could get away with anything if there were no consequences. We are not to take justice into our own hands, but final point, V. When we accept the call of God we will be protected, even if we’re killed. Only the body can now be killed. The Bible says don’t fear those who can kill the body, fear Him who can throw both body and soul into Hell.
I know these answers may not be perfect, and they never will be because we can’t fully know the mind of God. But I think they’re pretty valid answers that make sense when we understand who God is and what his will is in the big picture. And we don’t ever know what happens at the moment of death in terms of a person’s heart and relationship with Jesus.
Do you really want to question or criticize God? Our job is to obey Him and trust Him, the one who died on a cross for us when he could have zapped us all and started all over. We just have to have faith that God knows what He’s doing, that’s what real faith is. And maybe if man got back to living the way God our creator instructed us to, things might get back to how He designed them to be.
But we seem to be getting farther from His ways, not closer. So why should we expect things to go well in this rebellious world. Thank God that he is preparing a place for those who desire God’s will over their own. And he will bless our obedience whether here or by taking us to our real home. We can count on that.
The people we are about to baptize are taking what I believe to be one of the biggest and first steps of obedience after putting our faith in Jesus. I think it is more than symbolic and if done with the right motives, is a spiritually empowering and sealing moment of identification with Christ as we read in Romans 6:3-11.
If you are truly desiring to die to sin and live for God, I believe your baptism signifies that you will never die again and the Holy Spirit will always help you have power over sin.
