The King

The passage on which I wish to speak to you this morning is, you might say, somewhat strange and out of the ordinary because it's about a fellow who turned out to be a bit of a hot rod racer, I think, who was known for his wild riding. But he was God's anointed servant, or God avenges the blood of His servants. And our passage is two Kings—sorry, two Kings. We're in the Old Testament still, and the Old Testament was written for our instruction, says Scripture, says the New Testament. And we're going to read from two Kings chapter nine, verses one to ten.

The prophet Elisha summoned a man from the company of the prophets and said to him, tuck your cloak into your belt, take this flask of oil with you and go to Ramoth Gilead. When you get there, look for Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. Go to him, get him away from his companions and take him into an inner room, then take the flask and pour the oil on his head and declare, this is what the Lord says: I anoint you king over Israel. Then open the door and run, don't delay. So the young man, the prophet, went to Ramoth Gilead.

When he arrived, he found the army officers sitting together. I have a message for you, commander, he said. For which of us? asked Jehu. For you, commander, he replied.

Jehu got up and went into the house, then the prophet poured the oil on Jehu's head and declared, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: I anoint you king over the Lord's people Israel. You are to destroy the house of Ahab your master and I will avenge the blood of my servants, the prophets, and the blood of all the Lord's servants shed by Jezebel. The whole house of Ahab will perish. I'll cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel, slave or free.

I'll make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah. As for Jezebel, dogs will devour her on the plot of ground at Jezreel and no one will bury her. Then he opened the door and ran. When Jehu went out to his fellow officers, one of them asked him, is everything alright? Why did this madman come to you?

Ah, you know the man and the sort of things he says, Jehu replied. That's not true, they said. Tell us. Jehu said, here's what he told me: This is what the Lord says: I anoint you king over Israel. They hurried and took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, Jehu is king.

Dear people of God, young and old, things were not going well for the people of Israel in the days of King Ahab and his family. King Ahab was part of that Israel which went away because of the sin of Solomon. You remember that Solomon's son Rehoboam became king and the people asked him to relieve them of the burdensome taxes that King Solomon had imposed on them, and he, with the advice of some younger advisors, said, I'll make your life much more difficult than it's ever been. And they rejected him as king and ten of the northern tribes went their own way under Jeroboam, who had been anointed by the prophet Elijah, and they separated from the two southern tribes, Judah and Benjamin. And so you had two sections of the people of Israel: the northern tribes and Judah and Benjamin.

And Jeroboam, to stop the people from going to Jerusalem to the temple to worship God there, he built two sanctuaries: one in the north in Dan and one in the south in Bethel, and of all things, he put what there? Two golden calves, so that the people of the northern tribes could worship God in the form of these golden calves. That's why throughout the history of that part of Israel, the kings were always referred to as following the evil practices of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who led the people of Israel to sin. Anyway, you can imagine that the people were not very godly on the whole.

Because they had come under the influence of this idolatry which had started already in the days of King Solomon. Did you read, did you take notice of all the evil, detestable gods that King Solomon of all people honoured? Gods to which the people offered their sacrifice, their children, in order to pacify them and to get their blessings. And here were the people of Israel under the leadership now of King Ahab. He was one of the northern kings and this is what kind of king he was.

Let's read from one Kings chapter sixteen. I'm going to read a few verses there from one Kings 16, verses twenty-nine to thirty-three. In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel and he reigned in Samaria over Israel twenty-two years. Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.

He set up an altar for Baal in the Temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him. So Ahab, an ungodly man, an idolatrous man, was now head of the people of God in the northern part of Israel. And under the influence of Jezebel, his princely but even wicked wife, there was not only worship of the heathen God Baal by the people of God who had been brought out of Egypt into the promised land. They were now living in the promised land and they had, under David, taken possession of all the land that God had promised them. So they were living under the care and blessings of God.

But there was idolatry being officially promoted in their land. And with it came an increasing amount of persecution, opposition to the Lord and to His people. The prophets of the Lord were expelled by Jezebel and her henchmen, and there were 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah who were supported by Queen Jezebel. And there was oppression, political correctness, and fear. Why?

Because God and Baal cannot exist peacefully together. God and atheism, or God and any religion that is opposed to Him, cannot exist peacefully. Those who reject God and His ways will always try to suppress and outlaw the true religion of the Lord God of Israel. What we are seeing happening in our time is more and more opposition publicly to God and to His word.

God is no longer permitted to be mentioned in the public domain. The universities don't allow for a Christian point of view alongside an atheist point of view. It is assumed that the only legitimate point of view is materialism and humanism, and belief in God may be held, but do it privately and don't push it upon us. What's the phrase they use? Don't force it upon us.

The ungodly can say anything they like and they can promote anything they like. But the word of God is suppressed, and that's what happened in Israel when Ahab was king and Jezebel was queen. Must have been an awful time for true believers. There were some. You remember that Elijah once complained, Oh Lord, I'm the only one left.

And the Lord said, no, no. There are 7,000 people who haven't bowed the knee to Baal. You're not the only one. And there's never been, ever since the gospel has been proclaimed, wherever the gospel has been proclaimed, there have always been believers.

Amazing, isn't it, that in Russia, at a time when atheism dominated, I would almost say the church there was stronger than in the West. There were people who worshipped God in danger of persecution and death. They hung on to God. And so there were people in the days of Ahab and Jezebel who hung on to God. God had not forgotten His chosen people.

There was a remnant of the seed of Abraham. And God kept His word alive. There were particularly two prophets: there was Elijah and his follower Elisha. And they were both men who were prepared to stand up and were obviously authorised and equipped by the Lord. They did a number of amazing miracles which showed that God was still caring for His people.

I'm sure that most of you will know one of those most amazing miracles which God did through Elijah. Remember, Elijah one day, in the name of God, said to King Ahab and the people of Israel, come on, we'll have a contest. Who really is God? Is the Lord God or is Baal God? Come to Mount Carmel and we'll settle this issue once and for all.

And the king actually came and the prophets of Baal came and Elijah said, right, we'll both build an altar and we'll put the carcass of an animal on there to be sacrificed. We'll put the wood under the carcass, so that we will not light the wood. We will pray to our God—I to the Lord God of Israel, and you can pray to your Baal—and we'll see who will light that offering. Well, the prophets of Baal, they prayed and ranted for a couple of hours and they even started stabbing themselves just to draw the attention of that non-existent God of theirs. It's amazing, isn't it? It's amazing that people who reject the God of Israel will believe in anything else.

Have you ever noticed that? Have you ever noticed that there are people who believe in the power of dead stones and who believe in the stars? I mean, they have this materialistic view, belief about things. There's nothing spiritual, according to Richard Dawkins and his cohorts—nothing spiritual. But they believe in the power of stars and rocks.

And if life can't start on its own on earth, we'll put up a big program of inter-space or inter-galaxy travel and what have you. Maybe there's something, some other planet on which the impossible has happened, which couldn't happen on earth—namely, that life could somehow develop by itself. People who do not know the Lord God of Israel are actually in the dark, aren't they? Jesus once said, I am the way, the truth and the life. Without God, we're in the dark, and the people of God were in the dark with their Baal.

Anyway, the Baal prophets they prayed and nothing happened, and after a few hours, Elijah said, come over to me, to my altar. And Elijah prayed and the Lord answered his prayer and lit that offering on his altar by a bolt out of the blue, and all the water that had been sloshed over it to prove that there was no trickery here dried up, and the offering was totally burnt. Ahab, King Ahab, and the people of Israel were so impressed, they were convinced and they yelled out, The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God. An amazing proof and confirmation that the Lord is indeed God.

And Ahab went home, preceded by Elijah who ran as fast as Ahab's chariot. But Jezebel, when she heard about it, wasn't at all amused. In fact, she was furious and she sent a note to Elijah and said, May the gods do to me if I don't get you and annihilate you by tomorrow. And Elijah, who in the fear of the Lord had been so fearless as far as Ahab was concerned—whom he knew still had a bit of respect for the Lord—was cowed by that ruthless Queen Jezebel, and he ran. And he finished up on Mount Horeb out in the desert.

And this is what we read in one Kings nineteen, verses fifteen and sixteen. The Lord appeared to Elijah there and the Lord said to him, go back the way you came and go to the Desert of Damascus, and when you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. God, as it were, said, I'm still in control, you know. And I'll work through men whom you are to appoint, whom you are to anoint—another prophet, a couple of other kings who will carry out My will in this matter. And we note that Elijah immediately found Elisha and threw his cloak over him and Elisha succeeded Elijah as prophet.

But sin and corruption still seemed to have been the order of the day in the kingdom because ruthless Jezebel still exercised her evil powers in the palace. In other words, God's people have had to go through very rough times in the past, and not only in the past, today. God's people are not always prosperous. God's people don't always enjoy health or peace. God's people have often lived under persecution, in times of war, and we need to remember that.

We need to remember that we need to have a faith in God that can endure persecution, jail, and even death. There are many Christians who have the idea, well, if we worship God—and some preachers actually proclaim that—if we worship God, then everything goes right. We'll be prosperous, we will be healthy, every prayer, every desire will be met. Not so.

Not so. I mean, it's terrible that ministers have told people who are sick and don't get better, there's something wrong with your faith, something wrong with your relationship with God. Was it with Paul? He had something wrong with him and he asked three times, Lord, please take it away. And the Lord said, no.

I've got a purpose even with your handicap, whatever that is, because I want you to keep on trusting Me. I want you to realise that you are weak in yourself and that only in My strength can you do the work I give you to do. God's people lived under terrible circumstances in Ahab's day, but they did in Egypt too, didn't they?

For how long was that? Four hundred years. Much of that in slavery. But you see, the time comes when God acts. God doesn't forget His people.

And God got Elisha to anoint this man Jehu, and he was given a task. What was the task? To destroy the house of Ahab. Why? Because Ahab had been such an ungodly ruler over God's people.

And he had allowed Jezebel to see to it that prophets of God would be killed and that prophets of Baal would be promoted. So Jehu was anointed king and he destroyed. The first thing he did was race off to Jezreel where King Joram, who was the son of King Ahab, had gone, and before any rumours could get to Jezreel to King Joram there that Jehu had become king, Jehu came there and he killed them. And Jezebel even tried—I think, it's my reading of it—tried to seduce him. She painted her eyes and some of the commentators say that she did that to present herself beautifully for the occasion. Still, she was the queen.

I think she thought that she still had some attraction in her old age and she challenged Jehu and Jehu said throw her down from the window and she splattered dead on the ground and the dogs ate her as the Lord had said she would. Jehu carried out the mission God had given him. Now, that's something different than lots of Christians think about when they think about God and the Lord Jesus, don't they? Because Jesus is all peace and love, isn't He?

Yes. He came as saviour and you'd better make use of the time that is today, because there is a time that Jesus will come under another role, as we say. God is watching His people, leaders and followers alike. And as we read in James, God expects His people not only to be hearers of the word but to be doers of the word.

And the fact of the matter is that, like Solomon, you can be called to be a servant of the Lord and you can be richly blessed, but the time may come that you hold on to other things more than to God. You can drift away from God. I think most of us will be familiar with the parable that the Lord Jesus told about the sowing of the seed. Remember? Some seed fell on the path and that was straightaway taken away.

And other seed fell on rocky ground. People were enthusiastic in their acceptance of the word and they seemed to be excited about faith in God, but they had no depth and they withered. Others fell among thorns and the cares of the world took over. That's what can happen. Your love for the things of the world can take over from your love for the Lord.

And they can become more important and you will want to hang on to them even if that is in disobedience to God's word. And do you know what? The Lord Jesus is going to come again, isn't He? The first song we sang this morning was about resurrection. And I noted that there was very much emphasis in that song on our resurrection.

We're going to be resurrected. Yes, on the day that the Lord Jesus comes back in glory to do what? I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we say. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.

He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead, He ascended into heaven and from there He shall come to judge the living and the dead. Jehu was a type of Christ who would carry out God's wrath upon those who would not repent and who would not place themselves under the blood of Christ. You see, God must punish sin, must punish opposition to Him and to His word. And either your sins have been punished under Christ when He died on the cross for sinners.

Or if you stay outside of Christ, you're on your own with your sins. And what Christ will do to you will be worse than Jehu did to the house of Ahab or what Jezebel did to Naboth, who lost his garden, because that was only temporary. Whatever we suffer on this earth is only temporary. When Jesus comes again, what He does will be for all eternity.

He'll either defend you because you have declared Him to be your Lord and saviour, not only in word but also in your actions. I say He'll either defend you or condemn you. The word of God is a two-edged sword, says the Bible. It cuts right down to the nitty gritty. And there are only two possibilities: you're either for God or against Him.

You either know that He loves you and you surrender to Him or you defy Him. And when you defy God, you will always lose. Today is still the day of salvation. The Lord is still calling people to surrender to Him, to acknowledge Him as God, who has all things under His control, even the sun and the rain. Yes, there's more to reality than what can be measured by chemistry or physics.

There is a God in heaven who is spirit and who is the creator of all that exists. And one day He has said, one day, I will make all things new. May you and I be part of that new world through Jesus, the king, who perfectly fulfilled God's covenant obligations, who was the perfect son of Abraham, the perfect saviour of the seed of Abraham, Jew and Gentile alike. Amen. Let's pray.

Lord, You are almighty. We acknowledge Your sovereignty, and we pray give us the grace to live by faith in Jesus, not only as our saviour but as our Lord, the king of love whose goodness fails never, but who will always do what is righteous and according to Your will and Your honour. Amen.