May I please Almighty God to
bless us again this morning as we consider His Word. Let us
turn to the second book of the Kings, the first chapter, and
we'll read verses 13, 14, and 15. The second book of the Kings,
chapter 1, and reading verses 13, 14, and 15. And He sent again a captain of
the third fleet with his And the third captain of fifty went
up, and came, and fell on his knees before Elijah. And the
soldiers said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee, let my life
and the life of these fifty, thy servants, be precious in
thy sight. Behold, they came high down from
heaven, and burnt up the two captains and the former fifties
with their fifties. Therefore let my life now be
precious in thy sight. 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. The Word of God has some very
important illustrations for us to remember and to direct us
into that which is right and that which is wrong. And as we
read through the Old Testament, how many, many times we find,
very sadly, that kings of Israel and kings of Judah who would
have had a sound history from, of course, the days of Moses.
And yet, again and again, they turn away from the true God. There was no reason to turn away
from the true God. But nonetheless, they did. And
this king Ahaziah, he did just that. If you know he was ill,
he was sick, he had fallen down from an upper lattice and there
he was and what did he do? Did he seek the Lord? No he didn't. He inquired of Beelzebub, the
God of Ekron. And such a God like that is of
course of no value. Just a God with no spirit, just
brick or wood or stone or whatever it was, just absolutely helpless,
just absolutely dead. And it is very strange really
to realise how men and women, boys and girls, can turn away
from the true God and to worship idols. And yet it is so today,
isn't it? We look around the world, we
see the vast multitudes, the majority, by a long way, worshipping
a false god, worshipping a god who is no god, and yet anticipating
that god will hear and answer their prayers. Well, the tragic
scene here was, of course, that this man, Azariah, he turns to
Beelzebub and, well, he wanted to be cured and therefore, what
happened? He went and he told him to inquire
his men of this God, Beelzebub, the God of Ekron. And we see
here God's sovereignty. It didn't benefit Azariah, but
we see God's sovereignty because these men, they came and they
met with Elijah, who was indeed a man of God. And Elijah spoke. The angel of the Lord came to
the angel, came to The Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise,
and go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say
unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel,
that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? Now therefore
thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on
which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed. We know the men returned and
King Ahaziah asked who it was and made them return and they
said, well it was this person and he asked who it was and then
he realised that it was indeed Elijah the Tishbite. So what happened? The king then
sent unto him a captain of 50 with his 50 and the captain went
up to him and behold he sat on the top of a hill And he spake
unto him, thou man of God. The king had said, come down.
It was really an order, and yet there was no humility with it. There was no seeking carefully
that he might be willing to. There was that wrong attitude,
and the result was that God sent down fire and consumed that that
captain and the 50. And then it was repeated in the
same way. And the next captain said, O
man of God, thus saith the king, come down quickly. Again, a more
urgent call, and yet there was no humility. And then we find
the third captain came. And this was a different situation.
The third captain came and what did he do? Well, first of all,
he came up to Elijah and perhaps stood at the bottom of the hill
and called out. But this man, he went up and
came and fell on his knees before Elijah. and besought him and
said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee, let my life, the
life of these fifty thy servants, be precious in thy sight. Then he reiterates what had happened.
Behold, there came fire down from heaven, and burnt up the
two captains of the former fifties with their fifties. Therefore,
let my life, now be precious in thy sight." Well, we observe very clearly here
that this captain was concerned about his life and was concerned
about the life of the men that were with him, whereas the previous
ones seemed unconcerned. And the desire was that their
life might be precious before Elijah, be precious in thy sight. Now, our life naturally is precious,
is it not? We all only have one life, one
life. If that life is taken, we no
longer are alive. Those men those captains of 50
had been killed and there was no life. So this captain comes
and asks that his and the men with him, their life might be
precious, might be valuable in the sight of Elijah. Now of course Elijah was directed
by God, he was a prophet of God, And we know that the direction
now came to Elijah in this way, through the angel of the Lord,
who said unto him, go down with him and be not afraid of him. And he rose and went down with
him unto the king. You see, with the previous captains
and the 50, no doubt there was fear. that if Elijah had gone
down, they might have killed him. But no, here was the time. We see how God's purposes are
fulfilled. This man was concerned about
the value of his life, whereas the previous two didn't seem
to be concerned. But this man was concerned that
his life might be spared. Now we have here then in these
verses a very clear direction with regard to our providential
life. And if our providential life
is of value, which it must be to us, how much more valuable
is the life of our soul? Surely that must be or should
be a far greater concern for us than the life of our body. And it's sometimes good that
we have a little meditation on the difference. Because we are
very concerned, are we not, about the health and the value of our
body? We're concerned it's kept well.
We're concerned that our life is spare. that we're not cut
off. And this is, I suppose, with
us every day, and it's rightly we should. We should seek that
our life might be preserved as it is God's will, so that we
might live our life for His honour and for His glory, and bring
forth praise unto Him, and not therefore be left just to ourselves,
to live our life to ourselves, which so many people do today. But the greater concern should
be for the life of our soul and to have the realisation that
in the sight of God our soul is precious, that our soul is
valuable. Now, it must be so if the Lord
graciously and gloriously gave His life so that our soul might
be spent, might be a life forevermore, to live with the Saviour. How
valuable is our soul, and what value we should realise it is,
that we might know it is precious in the sight of God. May our
great concern not just be for the value of our natural body,
that it may be precious in the sight of Almighty God, but more
so the value of our never-dying soul. The psalmist speaks of
it in the 119th Psalm, which we mentioned fairly recently,
where we read, Let my soul live. Let my soul live. If you and
I were given the option today to pray for the fact that our
body might be precious in the sight of our God, or whether
our soul might be precious in the sight of our God. Which would
we desire? Where would be our great concern?
Would we be willing for our body to be taken, insofar that our
soul might live? We have in the Word of God, and
of course throughout history, to give their life, precious
as it may have been, to have their life taken. They were willing
to be a martyr that their soul might live. Buddha
puts things in a very clear perspective, doesn't he? It shows to us the
value between body and soul. life, so that they might be blessed
with the gift of spiritual life. Not that, of course, dying necessarily
gives the benefit of eternal life, but they died because they
would not deny the Lord Jesus, and they would not deny the truths
of the Bible, and were willing to sacrifice their of eternal life which God had
shown them and made over to them. What a wonderful strength they
received. Now, in essence, we all need
that same strength and that same blessing today. To value our
spiritual life far more than our natural life, how easily
We can concentrate so much on our natural life and forget the
value of our spiritual life. And yet you see, here the Swami
says, let my soul live. Has that been your cry? Has that
been my cry? That our soul might be blessed
with life, it will mean that we shall
be concerned about the health of our soul and the evidence
that we do have life in our soul, and that we are not left to ourselves
just to be concerned about our natural life, not just to be
concerned about the preciousness of our natural life, but to be
more concerned about the preciousness of our spiritual life. Now of course it's not wrong
to be concerned about our natural life. God's given us our natural
life and we should take care of it and we shouldn't therefore
destroy it and we shouldn't therefore commit suicide and of course
suicide is murder, we are self-murder and we know that no murderer
will go to heaven so there is quite clearly will ever go to heaven. No one
will be able to think, well, I can get rid of all the problems
which I'm facing in this life by taking my life. The situation
will be far, far worse because they will be out of time in eternity. And that will be a most terrible
scene because there will be no coming back, no time of repentance
but eternal punishment. forever and ever. So, whenever
I read of suicides, how sad a scene it is to think that people have
been left, have been convinced by the devil to take their life
with the belief that they'll be far better off. In actual
fact, they'll be far worse off. Far, far worse off than how bad
our natural life is. You see, we may have a difficult
natural life, In truth, we all in measure have a difficult natural
life, some more, some less. But the people of God can look
forward to a glorious new life in heaven, whereas those who
are lost, those who perish in their sins, will end up in a
terrible life in hell. So let us remember the relevance
and the need of care for our souls, more than care for our
bodies, so that we may have the wonderful evidence of the life
of God in our soul. Let my soul live. And the psalmist
goes on, and it is important, sometimes we can just take a
piece of the Word of God and then forget the relevance of
it. Well, the psalmist tells us here,
let my soul live, and it shall praisely That's the concern, that's the
desire, that's what he said. If he was blessed with spiritual
life, what did he desire to do? He desires to praise the Lord. And we may say sometimes also,
in our natural life, sometimes the Lord wonderfully delivers
us, perhaps from an accident. We call it an accident, but something
which may appear perhaps a calm, accident, perhaps we might have
fallen over, perhaps we might have come very near to, perhaps
have been killed by something or other, and then we've been
delivered from it. We have many testimonies of people
who have fought in the wars, who've been delivered, who've
been free, and what a blessing when a soul then, a person then,
Because of that deliverance, praise is God. Praise is God. Sometimes we may naturally have
been very near to perhaps a serious accident in our cars. Perhaps
we've nearly run over and been walking down the road. And what's
been the result? What's been our heart's reaction? Have we praised God? for such a deliverance. See, natural man just carries
on. And they make some expression, when I was lucky on that occasion,
nothing serious happened. May the people of God and may
we have the evidence in our lives that if our life has been precious,
that we truly thank and praise God for sparing us and to consider
perhaps why has our life been preserved? And why have we not
been cut down? Why have we not been slain? Why have we not died? But if
our life has been preserved, what is the reason for it? May
it be that God views us. May it be that our lives may
show forth the praise of Almighty God. So let my soul live and
it shall praise Him. To acknowledge the deliverance
that we have received from our natural life being preserved. How often we fail, do we not,
to praise God? How often we fail to recognize
that it is God who has preserved our life. You see, our life is
just like a vapour. We live with a very brittle thread,
and you can think of a thread, perhaps a thread of plastic which
has become dry and hard, and it very easily breaks. And really our life is like that.
Our life is a very brittle thread, and it easily breaks. And yet if the Lord sees fit
to spare our lives, we've had a very clear evidence of it,
we should praise God for it. And again, let's have a double
analogy of the natural life and the spiritual life. To realise
that the Lord has not cast us off as someone of no worth, which
of course naturally we were. We were of no value. What a blessing
that God has touched our hearts and caused us to hear His voice
so that our souls do live. And then what cause there must
be to praise God for the privilege and the blessing of receiving
eternal life. Well here was this captain concerned
about his natural life. You know, he came before Elijah
and what did he do? He didn't come in a proud spirit
saying, well I'm a captain and I want this to happen and do
this and come down and be like the two previous ones. He came
down and he fell down. He fell on his knees before Elijah. and he besought him that he would
have mercy. He said, O man of God, I pray
thee, let my life and the life of these fifty of thy servants
be precious in thy sight. What is the real position? This man humbled himself before
Elijah. The great blessing is, And we don't dictate to God what
He must do, but we come very humbly to Him. The Word of God
tells us and encourages us, humble yourselves therefore under the
mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting
all your care upon Him, for He cared for you. What a blessing
it is then, my friends, to come to our God, not in a proud way,
but in a very humble way, realizing that we don't deserve God to
take any notice of us. We have to come down to realize
that we are really, in our own eyes, of no value, and yet to
believe that in the eyes of God we are precious, in His sight. How wonderful it is to think
and to know that we are precious in the sight of Almighty God. The prophet Jeremiah, when he
wrote his Lamentations, and in the fourth chapter he speaks
about the sons of Zion, he says this, he says, the precious sons
of Zion, comparable to fine gold, the work of the hands of the
potter. Well, to realize that by the grace of God, we are precious. And to think that we are so precious,
we are so valuable to God, and that is a tremendous thought,
isn't it? As the Holy Spirit may show us
how evil and how wicked We are valuable and we are so
precious and so valuable that the Lord willingly gave His life,
laid down His life, that you and I might receive the great
and glorious gift of eternal life. The Psalmist tells us in
the 116th Psalm, precious in the sight of the Lord is the
death of His saints. People of God are precious in
the sight of the Lord. And let us come back to the point
I alluded to earlier. We are so precious, so valuable
to Almighty God. And He will not let us go. We will not be lost. We will
not be lost sight of. Almighty God has watched over
us. The Almighty God will watch over
us. And as we go back to realise
that the Lord chose us in eternity past, and because of the value
that we were to Almighty God, the Lord Jesus Christ gloriously
came into this world and to give His life as that price required
to save our souls. The redemption price that was
required that the Lord Jesus gave. What a wonderful, amazing
truth it is, isn't it? I think that Jesus saw us precious
in His sight, and therefore, before we were born, He had atoned
for all our sins. that were to come to pass, the
love of Christ. How great, how rich, how free. And therefore surely, blessed
with that evidence of God's love to our souls, we should desire
to praise and honour and glorify His name. Oh, let my life Now
be precious in thy sight. Oh Lord, let my spiritual life
be precious and let me have the evidence of it. Now the evidence
of it in this case was very clear. 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. And of course there was
a message a good message. Elijah had already
told the people that had come looking for Beelzebub what would
occur, but now he comes down. As Ahaziah had requested, he
comes down. And what does Elijah say? Thus
saith the LORD. Again, it's not his words, it's
the words of the Lord. And when you and I read the Word
of God, remember, it is the Word of the Lord speaking to our hearts. For as much as thou sent messengers
to inquire of Beelzebub, God of Akron, is it not because there
is no God in Israel to inquire of His Word? What is the clear
position now? It's this. You and I are to inquire
of the God of Israel. You and I are to come in prayer
to the Lord God Almighty, seeking for His healing, seeking for
His help. Now it's not wrong as we know
to go to natural doctors and physicians. They might be given
wisdom to direct us as to what to do, but not to come to them
as it were as the only means of cure, we should realise that,
as Daniel said, there is a God in heaven. A God in heaven who
can cure our bodies. A God in heaven who can cure
our minds. A God in heaven who can bless
our souls. This is the God that you and
I need to know. This is the God that you and
I need to come to in prayer. in faith, believing. And He will save our souls. And He will bless us with spiritual
life. And He will do us good and not
come to a false God and not rely upon natural man. But always
pray that God will bless the mean Jews. God will give the
people wisdom. never rely upon mere man. It's really just like Einstein
was relying on a God because man is really no God, of course,
and he cannot cure, but in the hands of God he can direct to
a right cure and a right healing. And so here we are reminded It's
a good thing to be reminded, just like Elijah said, there
is, is there no God in Israel to inquire of? His word, of course
there is. Now, what was the result? He
had not sought the Lord. He sought unto a mere God, stone and wood, and the Lord
told him to say, Therefore thou shalt not come down off that
bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. So he died according to the word
of the Lord which Elijah had spoken. of God. And that is so relevant
for us today in our natural lives, but more importantly for our
spiritual, our soul's eternal blessing, to know that it is
the Word of the Lord. The Word of the Lord which is
spoken, not the Word of man. What do we do? We see past men. of the Lord. Well, blessed be
God this morning if the Lord comes and encourages us and directs
us into these great and important truths because we can simply
pass over them and we go, well that's alright, that's not very
relevant, I know all about that. Well, we may, but what a mercy
when the Holy Spirit comes and shows us the blessing of it and
the favour of it. Isaiah knew Bani Omen, and in
the 43rd of Isaiah, which is of course a very blessed chapter,
and we see the Lord speaking, and He speaks in this way, Thus
saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob. Again, let's come back
to realize God has created us. God has formed us. He that formed the Israelites,
fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy
name, thou art mine. If God has called us, we are
the Lord's. When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee, for I am the Lord thy God. That's the reason, neither
reason. I am the Lord thy God, the Holy
One of Israel, thy Saviour. I gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Sabaphod, now we come to these words, since thou
wast precious in my sight. All the people of God, are precious
in the sight of the Lord. And it would be a good thing
when the Holy Spirit comes and applies His Word to our hearts
so that we have the evidence that it is true of us, that we
are precious in the sight of the Lord. What a mercy. What a wonderful favour. And
it is that which you need to know and to experience by the
work of His Spirit in our hearts. He goes on to say, and as I've
already said, we must not just stop at a mere cross and think,
well, that's the end. No, it's not. He says, Thou hast
been honourable. When have you and I been honourable
in our profession? Have we honoured our God? Thou hast been honourable. And
He says, and I love thee, I love thee. Therefore when I give men
for thee and people for thy life, fear not, for I am with thee. You and I are therefore truly
precious in the sight of Almighty God. We have nothing to fear. We have nothing to fear. So you are able to go forward
and able to press on. My friends, fear not, says the
blessed Word of God, for I am with thee. Because we are precious
in the sight of Almighty God. And this prayer perhaps, perhaps
you may have prayed this, I don't know. But you may have prayed
that you might be precious in the sight of God. and then to have the confirmation
that you are. You are precious and you are
valuable and you are so valuable and the Lord hasn't cast you
off but he's taken you in hand. He's drawn you to himself with
those cords of a man, those bands of love. Not something that you
and I were able to do but God does it. He puts those bands
round us, those cords, and we're drawn to Him. And what we see
in Him, we see a wonderful attraction. Because we see that, the Second
Person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ, willing, so willing,
to bear all that was necessary in order to redeem our soul. He was so precious. glorious it should be as the
Holy Spirit of God comes and affirms such a truth to our soul
that we are precious and that because we are precious He has
died for us and because He has died for us He has redeemed our
soul so that we shall never perish and therefore as Isaiah said You see, that means every moment
of our life. We may not always feel it, but
it's true. The Lord is with us, minute by
minute, hour by hour. And it's good we are able to
come and to cast all our care upon Him with that humble confidence
that we are precious in His sight. that we are so precious that
He's looked down upon us when we were careless, worldly, full
of the things of time, living our life for ourselves. He was
compassionate. He watched over us. He didn't
cast us off because the appointed time came not to propose, call by grace. God calls His people and that
call cannot be finally resisted. It may be perhaps initially,
but my friends, when God calls, that call enters into the heart
and we hear that gracious word of the Lord. We may rebel. We
may be like a Or an ox who is unaccustomed
to the yoke. We don't want to be tied to the
people of God. We don't want to be tied to the
Lord Jesus. We want to have freedom. But you see when the Lord comes
and yokes us to Himself and shows us the enormous blessing that
is, because in that position we learn of Him. In that position
our burdens are shared by Him. Well, may you and I then be able
to realize that in this account here, Ahaziah and these captains,
Elijah and the desire of this third captain that his life might
be precious in the sight of the Lord, naturally, that you and
I might also far more so, evaluate spiritually,
and realise that our life, by His grace, is precious in His
sight, and if it is so, then it is well with our soul, eternally.