Now there's a reference to this
passage in 2 Kings chapter one, the first part of the chapter
that we just read. There's a reference to this in
the word of God, the New Testament. If you'd turn with me please
to Luke chapter nine, I think it's important we see that at
the outset. Luke 9, 51. Luke 9, 51. It's a remarkable
story. And it came to pass when the
time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly
set his face to go to Jerusalem and sent messengers before his
face and they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans
to make ready for him. And they did not receive him
because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And
when his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord,
wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and
consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned and rebuked them
and said, you know not what manner of spirit you are of. For the
Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
And they went to another village. Now this passage by itself teaches
something wonderful. You reckon the Lord knew that
they wouldn't receive him in this first village? We know of
course that he did, and so what was the point of this? He did this, of course, and probably, from our experience with other
scripture, he probably did it for about 100 reasons, and we
only know maybe two of them. But he knew they weren't gonna
receive him, so why go there first? Why put the disciples
through this? Of course, he's teaching them,
and he's teaching them, as we see clearly, about the spirit
which they are of. There was a reason they needed
that lesson look at the beginning of chapter 9 of Luke verse 1 Then he the Lord called his 12
disciples together and gave them power and authority over all
devils and to cure diseases And he sent them to preach the kingdom
of God and to heal the sick and now Throughout this chapter, we'll
see evidence that if we simply put ourselves in their shoes,
we'll know what was going on here. If you can imagine having
the power to heal, to cure diseases, to cast out devils, knowing our
nature, you suppose they were starting to feel a little bit
like big shots, And the Lord had taught them
not to tolerate rejection. Look at verse five. Whosoever
will not receive you when you go out of that city, shake off
the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.
Now that's just the Lord. The word of God, the sharp sword
of God's word cuts both ways. It pierces men's hearts in mercy,
but it's also the saver of death. If it's rejected, there's no,
the Lord didn't say, well, make sure you stay until you convince
them. He said, no, shake off the dust of your feet, go find
somebody that'll hear you, that'll receive you, that will be interested
in what you're saying in the gospel. So he had given them, this power and also taught them
not to tolerate people that didn't want to hear. But then look at
verse 46. You think I'm speculating that
they maybe started getting a little haughty about this. You know
our nature. What are we gonna do? Look at
verse 46. Here's what's happening next.
Then there arose a reasoning among them which of them should
be the greatest. You give man a little bit of power. What is
it that they say? There's a lot of truth to a saying
in the world. Power brings corruption and absolute
power brings absolute corruption. There's a lot of truth to that.
You give man a little bit of power, a little bit of authority
even, and next thing you know, we're thinking how great we are. Compared to everybody else and
Jesus perceiving the thought of their heart took a child and
Set him by him and said unto them Whosoever shall receive
this child in my name receiveth me and whosoever shall receive
me receiveth him that sent me For he that is least among you
all The same shall be great Then it was later in that same
chapter, of course, that they asked about bringing fire down
from heaven. So you see the manner of spirit
that they thought they were of. They thought, well, we're gonna
just go around deciding who's going to heaven and who's going
to hell. And we'll just kill people when we want to, and we'll
save people when we want to. Started getting a little high
and mighty. So the Lord deliberately brought about that set of circumstances
that we just read in our text to continue to teach them what
they needed to hear from Him. You don't know what spirit you're
of. And that's why that circumstance came up, so He could teach them
what spirit they're of. Does He do that for us? No, he does. He brings about
circumstances in our lives, and we're thinking, what in the world,
what was the point of that? What did you learn? Whatever happened was the point
of it, because God doesn't fail. He doesn't try out things and
then hope they work. Whatever he did it for happened,
whether we perceive it or not. We may not know. We may never
figure it out. It doesn't matter whether we
figure it out. He's teaching you something. He's always taking care of his
sheep. He's always nudging us at least,
maybe stronger than that, to bring us back, to look to him,
to trust him only, to follow him, to honor him. That's what's safe for us. That's
what's glorifying to our Lord, and that's what's safe for us.
It keeps us. He uses every circumstance of
our life to put us where we need to be,
mentally, spiritually, physically. I hope we can remember that when
we're wondering, why, Lord, why, why? Well, that may be one reason.
Maybe he's teaching us something. I just suspect almost every time
that's gonna be part of it. Now, it was the same spirit that
he's talking about. You don't know what spirit you're
of, the spirit of God, the spirit. and purpose of God, the will
of God. It was the same spirit that did command fire from heaven
in Elijah's case. So that's a lesson for us there
too. When they proposed bringing down fire from heaven, the Lord
said, you don't know what spirit you're of. But it was the same
spirit that they were of that did bring down fire in Elijah's
case. So what was the difference? What
was the difference in the two cases? Well, it's simple, isn't
it? Do you remember in first Kings 18 when Elijah Is proposing this great scenario
turn over there with me first Kings 18 He's saying to Ahab now You bring
all the people of Israel before me bring everybody together we're
gonna have everybody out to see this and And he said, the prophets
of Baal are 450, I believe it was, and I only am the Lord's
prophet. Give us two bullocks. And we'll
see that in chapter 18. He said, give us two bullocks, and they'll offer theirs, and
I'll offer mine. And look at verses 21 through
24. Elijah came unto all the people
and said, how long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be
God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him.
And the people answered him not a word, and then said Elijah
unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord,
but Baal's prophets are 450 men. Let them therefore give us two
bullocks, and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and
cut it into pieces, lay it on wood, and put no fire under,
and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no
fire under. Call ye on the name of your gods,
and I will call on the name of the Lord. And the God that answereth
by fire, let him be God." And all the people answered and said,
it is well spoken. And you're thinking, what's Elijah
doing? This sounds like up till now,
this was just something Elijah came up with, just a whim of
his. Then we find out in verse 36, look at verse 36. When it came to pass at the time
of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet
came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and of Israel,
let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel and that
I am thy servant and that I have done all these things at your
word. Let everybody know who's behind
all this, whose idea this was. And you use the word idea. God
doesn't have ideas. But you see what I'm saying? This wasn't Elijah's idea. He's just doing what the Lord
told him to do. And then he said, hear me, oh
Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord
God, and that thou has turned their heart back again. In a minute here, that hadn't
even happened yet. But the Lord had told him that's
what's gonna happen. In a minute here, they're gonna be saying,
the Lord, he is the God. He turned their heart back to
him. And it might've seemed in those earlier verses that Elijah
was just kind of winging it. Here's what we'll do. I got an
idea. No, he didn't. It's not a whim. No man of God
ever speaks on a whim. Not when he's telling what God
said. Now look at our text again, verse
15. Back in 2 Kings 1, verse 15. And the angel of the Lord said
unto Elijah, go down with him, Be not afraid of him. And he
arose and went down with him unto the king. Now before the
other two times when the captain of 50 with his 50 came, what
did Elijah do? He said, if I be prophet of God,
then let fire come down. He did what God said in this
case. And just like in chapter 18,
We know that the Lord, he did what the Lord told him to do,
always. That's what any man of God is
gonna do. They're not gonna speak on a
whim. They're gonna say what God said. Maybe we would've thought,
you know, if we didn't know this, if we didn't see this as a clear
precedent in the word of God, we might've thought, well, Elijah
just, you know, got mad at him and called down fire, like the
disciples. Wanted to do But no man of God ever does that
never on a whim do we Do or say anything in his name That's any
of his sheep none of his people do that And here's the difference between
the two scenarios the power of life and death is in the Lord's
hand If the Lord says Call-down fire Then he'll send
the fire But that's his prerogative not
the disciples the disciples were you know all high and mighty
now They're saying well they they're rejecting us. You know
they're rejecting you Why don't we just burn them up right now? And the Lord said no, that's
not the spirit that you're of it And think of this in this situation.
The Lord knew what was in Ahaziah's heart. What was in Ahaziah's heart? Do we have any indication of
that? We know because of what's revealed to us here, what was
in his heart, even after 102 people had been burned up by
fire from heaven. And these fools, they came in
the name of King Ahaziah, and they said, oh man of God, clearly
not having any respect for him at all. They were saying that
mockingly, obviously from the context, they're mocking him,
because remember what he said, if I am a man of God, this is
gonna be a bad day for you. And so he called down fire, and
after 102 people had burned up by fire from heaven, and somehow
they knew about that. I don't know if there was a witness
that ran back to the king or whatever, but these men knew
about that. The third 50 in one knew exactly what had happened. But can you imagine the heart
of rebellion that it took? a haughty heart of stone that
must have been in Ahaziah to send a third, 51 people to
their death, knowing what had already happened now. I mean,
what was he thinking? You know, I've got a lot of men.
I'll just keep doing this. I'll just keep doing it until
Elijah comes down. I suspect it was something along
those lines. He refused to just submit. He absolutely refused. And so God knows that that's
in his heart. And here come these men, this third group, from Ahazin, rather than just
acknowledge and bow to the God of heaven. But that's the evil
heart of willful unbelief. being shown without a shadow
of a doubt who God is, with willful unbelief nevertheless, and that
same heart resides in every one of us. And notice the issue, the issue
in this scenario. Look at verse three again. But the angel of the Lord said
to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise go up to meet the messengers
of the king of samaria And saying to them is it not because there
is not a god in israel In other words, that's what you're saying
about what you're doing. You're saying there's no god
in israel So we'll call on beelzebub the god of ekron To see what
we what we should do The sin was not only that they
worshiped and trusted a false God, but the flip side to that
always, if you worship in yourself, is that they ignored, rejected,
and dishonored the God of heaven and earth. So the issue is always
the issue. Who's God? Who's God and who's
not? And who they worshipped reminds
us what we need to know about all false gods. This is important
too. Think about this. Beelzebub. That sounds kind of familiar.
Because this came to be one of the names of Satan himself. And
the reason for that is all false gods are the same and we are all the
same by nature. And all false gods are Satan.
There's just Christ and Antichrist. There's not a lot of different
possibilities here of who to worship. There's Christ and Antichrist
and it's Satan from the beginning that has given man a choice from
the start. When was there ever a choice?
When was it ever a decision that needed to be made? When Satan
came along. Before that, it was you're gonna
do this. And the day that you don't, you're gonna die. There's no opinions or choices
to make, just obeying God, which is the whole point of us. We see
that in glory, what we read, I guess this morning, his servants
shall serve him. That was true for a little while
in the garden. It's going to be true for eternity for those
in Christ. But the reason this false god,
just one of the gods, one of the false gods came to be the
name of Satan, one of them, is because they're all the same.
They're all Satan. And our nature is to worship
him, to obey him. That's what happened in the garden.
We obeyed him and not God. We sought his counsel and not
God's. That's what Ahaziah wanted to do. But it's always Satan that has
given man a choice. That's why when Joshua, in Joshua
chapter 24, when he gave the people a choice, God was not
one of them. You may want to jot this down
and look at it later, but listen to Joshua 24 15. If it seemed
evil unto you to serve the Lord, Choose you this day whom you
will serve. It's only if you're not gonna
serve God that you have a choice. If you're not gonna serve God,
then you've got a choice to make. Choose you this day whom you
will serve, whether the gods which your father served that
were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites
in whose land you dwell. Make a choice if you're not gonna
serve God. If you're gonna serve the Lord, then there's no choice
to make. But as for me and my house, we
will serve the Lord. God doesn't give sinners a choice.
Satan does. Satan does. He always has. But
have you ever asked yourself, why would anybody worship Satan? Why would anybody do that? Well, many do and don't realize
that's what they're doing. But the reason they do, whether
or not they realize it, is because Satan has always made it all
about you. That's the reason. Nobody's gonna
choose Satan over God, but they will choose themselves over God.
And Satan knows that right well. Oh, has God deprived you of something? of something that's good for
you? It started in the garden. It's always about you. You shall
be his gods. He didn't come to them and say,
do this and I shall be God. No, it's you that I'm worried
about. That's why people worship him.
Because he makes it all about you. In religion now, And then it was,
oh, the Lord is depriving you this food. You're gonna like
it. You're gonna like the result.
You're gonna be able to decide what's good and evil. You won't
have to listen to anybody else. But in religion now, it's more
like this. Is that terrible God that they
preach, is he saying that your works are nothing? You've served the Lord all your
life and that doesn't count for anything? Is that what he's saying?
Can you hear Satan in the doctrine that they teach? You've been a religious all your
life. You've served the Lord. You've paid your tithes. You
read your Bible. You witness to people. And you're
no better than a harlot, the street harlot. Is that what they're
saying? That's exactly what we're saying.
Yeah. So sinners worship Satan because
they really worship themselves. That's why it's money. The choices
are anti-Christ and Christ, but the Lord expressed it as God
and mammon in another place, same choice. It's the same two. It's just Satan caters to me
and money does what I want it to do for me. It's always about
me. And whenever I have a choice,
God didn't give me one, but Satan does. If I choose, I'm gonna choose
me every time. Satan, of course, knows all that
and that's why he operates the way that he does. If you're God, loves every sinner
the same, if your Savior didn't redeem
everyone he died for, if your God, little g God, will
accept your so-called good works as merit of any kind, you might
as well just start calling him Beelzebub right now and be honest
about it. Remember what fire from heaven
is. It's plain and simple, the wrath
of God. It's God's wrath. That's what
fire from heaven is. When fire came down on Sodom
and Gomorrah, God took the one man that was righteous in his
sight. He was a wretch. He was a horrible
wretch. But in God's sight, he was righteous
a lot. And God took that one man out
of Sodom and Gomorrah And then he rained down fire. He rained
down fire. When God arranged so that when
the fire came down on Mount Carmel, chapter 18 of First Kings where
we read a minute ago, there were those there that day who worshiped
Satan. They worshiped Baal, Baal is above. And there were those
there who worshiped God. Those who worshiped Satan, they
didn't leave there that day. But those who worshiped the Lord
were spared. Why? Because the fire came down
on the sacrifice and not them. It's not because those who worshiped
God were better people or smarter or knew more. It was because
The fire came down on the sacrifice that they looked to, that they
trusted, pictured by the bullock, the Lord Jesus Christ. And not
on them. He took their place under God's
wrath. Consumed the sacrifice in their
stead. Look at the fire in our text. Wrath. They came mocking, You
know, and no, Ahaziah, he's the son of Ahab. He knows everything
that happened between Ahab and Elijah. When he asked, what was
this fellow like that confronted you about consulting Beelzebub? And they described him, and he
said, that's Elijah. It's Elijah. He'd grown up knowing
who Elijah was. He knew exactly what had happened
on that day at Mount Carmel. He was probably there. and so wrath. Remember what happened. Ahaziah sent servants to go inquire
of Satan in utter rejection of God and his son, which is represented
in everything that God had ordained at that time, that they all were
aware of, that Ahab deliberately circumvented And he's aware of all that and
he completely rejects, like his father did, the God of heaven
and earth. Elijah confronts him about it
and gives a little prophecy. Here's a little something you
might want to know about. You're a goner. And that's the spirit in which
Ahaziah sends these servants and says, the king says, get
down here right now. He wants to talk to you. So you
see why Elijah's response was what it was It's a question of who's in authority Like it always is So the fire
is wrath a has I in his obstinate rebellion? Reminds us of Pharaoh,
didn't he? Then with the same result So let's just ask a question
or two. Would God destroy somebody today for knowing who he is? Now, you
think about Ahaziah, as we said a while ago, knowing who he is
and not submitting to him. Remember Romans 1, they knew
God. but they refused to glorify him as God. That's Ahaziah. You reckon God would kill somebody
for that today? Ahaziah was without excuse. And we know that actual fire's
not gonna come down from heaven nowadays. I suspect that's not
gonna happen. But there's really only one answer
to the question, would God do that right now if it came to
it? Would he do that? And the answer
to the question is if he wants to, that's exactly what he'll
do. It's just a matter of whether
he wants to or not. In other words, like Ezekiel
answered the Lord, thou knowest, Lord. That's up to you. That's your call. You and I are not guaranteed
another second. Clearly God is such a God that
when he says it's enough, then it's over for you. He hasn't
changed. The issue hasn't changed. Who's
God? And he says, that God says, now
is the day of salvation. In accepted time, hear and bow. Who's God? Who's God? That's what it is. And what about in your book?
Who is God? Here's the issue, all through
the scripture we can read Many, many passages of scripture about
this. Who's God? Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear
them record that they have a zeal of God. They're religious. They
talk about God and use the name of God and heaven and hell and
salvation and all those terms. But not according to knowledge. They don't know God. for they
being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish
their own righteousness have not submitted. In other words,
if you're determined to establish your own righteousness before
God, in spite of the fact that the reason the Lord came down
here and lived as a man, He could have just come down and got on
and made him angry at him and wanting to kill him and died
on the cross the next day and gone back to glory. He lived
a full, perfect, spotless, God honoring in every way life as
my righteousness. Why would he do that? Because
I don't have righteousness otherwise. I don't have any. I have none
of my own. I have no hope before God. And yet, if you insist on
going about to establish your own righteousness before God,
in spite of the fact that he came and shed his precious blood
because everything we've ever done in thought, word, or deed
is sin. If you're yet determined to establish
your own righteousness before God, what you're saying is, I'm
God. Hence the word submitted. You haven't submitted. You haven't
acknowledged and confessed the fact that He calls the shots. I know what God said. It's plain
as the nose on your face, but here's how I want to do it. You
have not submitted. You haven't bowed. unto the righteousness of God,
unto God and the way He saves sinners. By you acknowledging
that you have no righteousness, that your sin is so great that
it takes the infinite precious blood of Christ to wash it away. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness. Those who know Him The idea that we can be righteous
by the deeds of the law is over in our mind. That's a settled
matter in our hearts by his grace. To everyone that believeth. Now think about this. Elijah
said, because the Lord said, and so Elijah repeated it to
Ahaziah and his servants, you're gonna die. He didn't say you're going to
hell. He said you're gonna die. And that's important. The Lord
gives sinners space to repent. Now I'm not saying this in order
to tell you something that I can't possibly know. That's not my
business. I don't know what Asi's heart was other than what's revealed
here. He was utterly rebellious against
God and his servant. But just simply stating the truth
revealed, the fact that he was gonna die
wasn't the end necessarily. And Ahaziah, he knows this. He is crossways with God, to
put it mildly. Life and death crossways with
God, with the God. The Lord, he is the God. That's
what they said at Carmel. And Ahaziah knew that. He saw
it with his own eyes. And he knows this. He's gonna
die. God said you're gonna die, you're
gonna die. Would that be a good time to ask for mercy? You reckon that'd be a good time
to bow right there? The Lord told the religious Jews
now, you're gonna die in your sins, you remember that? He told
the Pharisees or the religious Jews that were confronting him
and opposed him at every step, you're gonna die in your sins. That's game over. You are going
to hell. That's what he told them. But
he didn't tell Ahaziah that. You're gonna die. Can I tell
you something tonight? You're gonna die. You're gonna die. And so am I. Did Ahaziah go to hell? I suspect that he did, because
everything we know about him would indicate that he had no
use for God. That's the point of the whole
story. He had no use for God. That's the problem. I suspect
we likely would have been told in scripture if he had repented, But the lesson is you and I are
going to die. The day's coming when you're
not going to get out of the bed. Is this a good time to ask for
mercy? As long as there's physical life,
there's hope. good time to ask for mercy. Remember
verse 13 in closing. And he said again, just like
Pharaoh again and again, who is God that I should obey him?
Again, he sent another captain, a third captain of 50 with his
50 and the third captain of 50 went up and came and fell on
his knees. It's a good time for that, isn't
it? The first one came and said, the king says, get down here. The second one came and said,
the king says, get down here right now. Did you notice that?
Quickly. The third one fell on his knees. Before Elijah, representing God,
he was God's representative, representing the Lord Jesus Christ,
and begged him. He was a mercy beggar. Said unto him, O man of God,
I pray thee, let my life and the life of these 50, thy servants,
be precious in thy sight. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ
and gave himself for you if he did, because you were precious
in his sight. Are you a mercy beggar? If you have breath in your lungs,
it's a good time to seek the Lord's mercy. And all of his mercy and goodness
and blessing are in Christ.