Morning everybody. If you want
to turn to First Kings Chapter 20. First Kings Chapter 20. We're going to focus only on four verses
of this chapter this morning. But before we get to them, before
we read them, I want to give you the back story so the story's
going to make sense. So this chapter, 1 Kings 20,
it focuses on two men and two nations. So you have King Ahab,
he's the king of Israel. And then you have King Ben-Hadad,
and he's the king of Syria. And essentially, Ben-Hadad comes
along and he picks a fight with Ahab, and they go to war. They
do battle twice. And in both cases, Israel is
granted the victory. The Lord tells Israel, I'm going
to give you the victory, that you will know that I'm the Lord.
And these are supernatural victories. At one point in one of the battles,
there's only 7,000 Israeli soldiers, and they defeat 100,000 of the
Syrian army. Clearly a supernatural victory
that the Lord granted the entire time. And where we're going to
pick up in this story, Ben-Hadad and his army has been completely
and utterly demolished. He has been conquered, and he
has been wiped out. And he's hiding in a little city
called Aphek. And the only people he has at
this point is his servants. And they're just trying to figure
out what to do next. So that's where we're going to pick up.
Look at verse 31. And his servants said unto him,
Behold now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel
are merciful kings. Let us, I pray thee, put sackcloth
on our loins and ropes upon our heads, and go out to the king
of Israel. Peradventure, he will save thy
life." That means if he's willing. So they girded sackcloth on their
loins and put ropes upon their heads. and came to the king of
Israel and said, thy servant been hated, saith, I pray thee,
let me live. And he says, is he yet alive?
He is my brother. Now the men did diligently observe
whether anything would come from him and did hastily catch it.
And they said, that's right, thy brother, Ben-Hadad. Essentially
what they're saying here is they were listening very intently
to everything Ahab had to say. They were hanging on every word,
and they were listening for any signs that he would be merciful.
Listening to every word, is there any indication that this king
is going to show me mercy? And when they heard him say,
Ben-Hadad, he's my brother, they repeated back to the king exactly
what the king said. They said, that's right, you
said it. Your brother, Ben-Hadad, that's right. Now go back to
reading, verse 33. Now the men did diligently observe
whether anything would come from him, and did hastily catch it.
And they said, Thy brother, Benhaded. Then he said, Go ye, bring him. Then Benhaded came forth to him
and caused him to come up into the chariot. Now verse 34. Verse 34 is a little tricky,
and I'll tell you why. I want you to read the first
three words. And Benhaded said, Now what you'll notice there
is that word been hated, it's in italics. And you know what
that means, it's not in the original. That was provided by the translators.
The translators are saying this is Ben-Hadid speaking here, but
he's not. This is not Ben-Hadid speaking, this is Ahab speaking.
This is a one-sided conversation between Ahab and Ben-Hadid, where
Ahab speaks the entire time and Ben-Hadid doesn't say a thing.
And for Ahab, it's all I will and ye shall. And I'm very confident
in this, we can all be confident in this, for this reason. When
we read it, the person who's speaking here, he says, my father
made streets, made roads in Samaria. Ben-Hadad's father was a Syrian.
Samaria is in Israel. Ben-Hadad's father wouldn't have
made any streets in Samaria. But Ahab's father, Omri, he had
his headquarters in Samaria. He built the whole town up. So
we know this is Ahab speaking, the translators just got it wrong.
So read verse 34, it's Ahab speaking the entire time. And Ahab said
unto him, the cities which my father took from thy father I
will restore, and thou shalt make streets for thee in Damascus,
as my father made in Samaria. Then said Ahab, I will send thee
away with this covenant. So he made a covenant with him
and sent him away. That's had a word of prayer. Lord, we come to you this day
in the high and holy name of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And Lord, we beg that you would meet with us this morning, that
you would grant your spirit. Lord, that we might see your
son high and lifted up in this passage of scripture and we might
be enabled truly, Lord, to come to him. Lord, thank you for your
innumerable blessings towards us. Lord, thank you for the salvation
we have in Christ. May we be found in him. Amen. Now what we just read was an
illustration of what it looks like when a sinner is enabled
to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what that story is revealing.
It's an illustration. And this is a topic that is very
near and dear to me. It's a topic that's very important
to me and I believe it probably is to you as well. I want to
come to Christ. And I want you to come to Christ.
I mean that. I want to know what it looks like to come to Christ
because if I never have before, I want to do it right now and
I want you to too because here's the seriousness of the situation.
If I do not come to Christ, I will be damned. That's a very serious
situation, but this is a beautiful story. Now, a few opening statements
before we look at the story. Number one, what does it mean
to come to the Lord Jesus Christ? Our pastor gives this example
constantly, this explanation, and I like it. It is not a physical
motion. It is the motion of the heart.
It is the motion of the soul. We are leaving one person and
we are coming to another. We leave ourselves. We abandon
any hope in a salvation based on something we do. If salvation
is in any way based on something I have to do I want to be sunk.
We leave ourselves and we come to the Lord Jesus Christ and
we cling to him and we trust him for every aspect of salvation. Now this is what I think is beautiful
about the gospel. That word salvation, that is a big word. It involves
many things. It involves righteousness. It
involves justification. It involves faith. It involves
repentance. It involves so many things, but
it's very simple. We trust Christ for every bit
of it. Whatever it is that needs to be done for me and in me,
I trust he's done it. And that's the end of it. We
cling to Christ. We leave ourselves and we come
to Christ. Next question. Who is commanded
to come? Everybody, everybody in this
room, everybody in this world right now is commanded by God
himself to abandon himself and to cling to Christ right now.
What is the reality of the situation? The reality of the situation
is by nature, no man will come to Christ and no man wants to
come to Christ. Now, you would almost feel bad
for men in their inability. We shouldn't. It's the inability
we earned in the garden. But you can almost feel bad for
man in his inability to come. You don't slap a blind man for
being blind. But John 540 puts it in perspective,
and you will not come to me that you might have life. That's the
issue, a man doesn't want to come to Christ because the salvation
that the Lord Jesus Christ provides, it ensures that Christ gets all
the glory and the man gets none and the natural man will have
nothing to do with that. Unless the Lord intervenes for a man
and he calls us him to come, he will not come. Well, who's
going to come? There's a place called heaven.
Who's going to come? Every member of the elect. Everybody
God chose before the foundations of the earth were ever built,
everyone Christ died for, he calls. Every member of the elect
is going to come to Christ. It is guaranteed. And this is
what John 6, 37 says. This is the Lord speaking. He
says, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Notice the word shall. Not they
might come to me, not I'll extend them the opportunity. They all
shall come to me. Everyone the Father gave me in
eternity, they're going to, guarantee to that. And make no mistake,
the message of the gospel is to come to Christ. This is Revelation
22, 17. It says, the spirit and the bride
say, come. and let him that heareth come
and let him that is a thirst come and whosoever will let him
take the water of life freely. Are you thirsty? Do you have a need to be made
whole before God and you can't satisfy your own need? Are you
willing to be saved by a Christ that will have all the glory
in your salvation for himself? If that's the case, come to Christ
and you do it right now. Christ died for you. That's the
message of the gospel. Now, like I said before, this
story is a beautiful illustration of what it looks like to come
to Christ. I think there's a few observations we can make right
off the bat, and here's the first observation I made. A man will
only come to Christ until Christ conquers that man. I want you
to look at the conquering of Ben-Hadad for a moment. Look
at verse one of chapter 20. And Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria,
gathered all his hosts together. And there were thirty and two
kings with him, and horses and chariots. And he went up and
besieged Samaria, and warred against it. And he sent messengers
to Ahab king of Israel into the city, and said unto him, Thus
saith Ben-Hadad, Thy silver and thy gold is mine. Thy wives also and thy children,
even the goodliest, are mine." I want you to consider the depths
of the cruelty that Ben-Hadad is dealing with Ahab at this
moment. He comes to him and he says, you're gold and silver.
I'm going to take it from you. And take that out of the equation
for a minute. He says, your wives and your children, I'm going
to come and I'm going to take those from you. Now, I recognize
that combat and war is part of the human experience. That's
it. But at least there's normally honor among thieves. We leave
the women and the children out of it. This man says, I'm coming
and I'm coming for your entire family. There is a depth of cruelty
in all this that is uncommonly seen. Now, why has been hated
doing this? Does he want Ahab's gold? Does
he want his wives? Does he want his children? No.
No, Ben-Hadad is the king of Syria. He's got plenty of gold.
He's got plenty of wives. He's got plenty of children.
It's not that he wants what Ahab has. He wants to take from Ahab
everything he loves because he hates Ahab and he wants to watch
him suffer. That's what this is about. This
is the wickedness of Ben-Hadad. And this is also about dominance.
He says, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna take everything from you
that you love, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that.
Now this is the natural man. This is me and you by nature.
Hating God, hating Christ, wanting to watch him suffer naturally.
And if you need the evidence of that, just look at the cross.
You think of the physical suffering we put the Lord under. All day
long, tortured him while he died. If you need the evidence of that,
look to the cross. And this is what man wants. He wants dominance
over God just like Ben-Hadad did. That's it. Why? Because
Christ is dominant. That's the teaching of this book.
That Christ is in fact dominant. That God is dominant. He's sovereign.
He rules over all men. He holds all men in his hand.
He will either save a man or he will damn a man and it will
be completely and utterly up to his will and he can't be manipulated
in any way. When a man hears that he says,
I'm going to go above him. I'm going to dominate him. It's
what Satan wanted. He said, I'm going to go above the clouds.
I'll ascend to the throne. I'll be just like the Most High. It's
what Adam and Eve wanted. That's the trick that worked.
You can be just like God. And if you can be just like God,
that means you can be above God. That's it. That's what the natural
man, he wants dominance above God. That's why he creates an
idol, because the idol is weak. He assigns the idol whatever
characteristics he wants, and he can control the idol. When the Lord deals with his
people, he conquers them, and he brings them to this exact
same place that Ben-Hadad is right now. What did Ben-Hadad
know in this moment when he's hiding in this city in Aphek?
He would have known this. He was in the hands of a dominant
king who could do with him as he saw fit. He would have known
that he was without resources. I've got no army, and I have
no compelling reasons that Ahab should show me mercy. He would
have known that this was all his fault. We read the first
part of this chapter here, who picked the fight? Ben-Hadid picked
the fight with Ahab. He started this. And if Ahab
put him to death, he knew that was right. And that's where the
Lord brings his people. And this looks like a very sad
case for Ben-Hadid right now. But when the Lord does this for
his people, it's actually an act of love. Because this is
the place he brings them to right before he gives them the gospel. Look at verse 31 again. And his servants said unto him,
Behold now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel
are merciful kings. Now I wonder how many times they
had heard that before and it meant nothing to them. Kings
of Israel, they're merciful kings. They were like, who cares? Because
before they didn't need mercy. But now they're conquered. Now
they're in the king's hand. And now they can hear. And what's
the news they hear? The king of Israel, he's a merciful
king. And to a sinner, this is the
best news he's ever heard. But this is the message of the
gospel. Christ is a merciful king. And this is the last sentence
of Micah 7.18. It says, he retaineth not his
anger forever because he delighteth in mercy. And I looked up that
word delight just to make sure that it means what I thought
it means and it does. It means he takes pleasure in it. Christ
actually takes pleasure in showing mercy to sinners and not only
does he take pleasure in it, this is what he does every single
time without fail. He's utterly trustworthy in this
thing. If a sinner comes to him in need of mercy, bankrupt, empty
handed, all he has is Christ every single time he receives
him. Now somebody says, I'm afraid to come to Christ. I'm afraid
I might be rejected. John 6, 37, all that the father
giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me, I will
in no wise cast out. That's the promise of God right
now. Now what's your excuse? You are without excuse. Now look
at how Ben-Hadad came to Ahab. Look at verse 31 again. And the
servant said unto him, Behold now, we have heard that the kings
of the house of Israel are merciful kings. Let us, I pray thee, put
sackcloth on our loins and ropes upon our heads and go out to
the king of Israel. Peradventure, he will save thy
life. What's the significance here?
Sackcloth on the loins, the loins speak of life. Sackcloth speaks
of humiliation. When we come to Christ, what
is our confession? I can't give myself life. You have to do it
for me. What does a man need to live
before God? He has to be righteous. He has to be so righteous that
the law can look him over and the law says he's never done
anything wrong and he's always done that which is right. And
this is how we come to Christ, with sackcloth on our loins.
I can't come up with righteousness. I can't even take a step toward
it. I can't give myself life. You have to do it all for me.
And they had ropes upon their heads. You know what that actually
means? It's a noose around their neck. They came to Ahab and they
said this, if you hang us right now, if you kill us, you're right. We've got nothing to say about
it. You come with sackcloth on your loins. I can't give myself
life. You have to do it. And here's
the thing, if you won't, if you hang me from that tree over there,
you're right. I've got no claims on God. And
that's reinforced here. His servants tell him, perd venture,
he will save thy life. If he's willing, if Ahab is willing,
he will save thy life. No claims on God. Now look at verse 32. So they
girded sackcloth on their loins and put ropes on their heads
and came to the king of Israel and said, thy servant been hated,
saith. I pray thee, let me live. And he said, is he yet alive?
He is my brother. What an unexpected, loving, and
gracious reply. There is no familial relationship
between Ben-Hadid and Ahab, none whatsoever. He's speaking of
this in a loving sense. He's my family. Now, I want you
to consider for a moment the cruelty of Ben-Hadid once again. This man came to Ahab and he
says, I'm going to take everything you love. I'm going to take everything
from you just so I can watch you suffer, just so I can establish
dominance over you. I just want to watch you struggle
and suffer. That's what I want. And when
he comes to Ahab, Ahab doesn't ask for an apology. Ahab puts
absolutely no stipulations on him. Ahab just says, oh, is he
alive? That's my brother. Have him come
here. And here's the scripture I thought
of, or here's the statement I thought of, if a sinner comes to Christ,
it will be for this reason. It's because he's family. He
is the little brother or sister of Christ himself. And the scripture
I thought of is probably the same one you're thinking of.
Romans 8, 29 and 30, for whom he did foreknow, He also did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called,
them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified."
When the sinner comes to Christ, he says, I know you. You're my
little brother. You're family. I foreknew you. I've loved you. Loved you long
before you ever loved me. I've loved you from the foundation
of the world. Our Father predestinated you. You've been predetermined
to a known end, conformed to my image. You've been called. That's why you're here. You've
been justified. I've already justified you. I've
made you perfect before God and right now, presently, even though
you can't see it, you're glorified. You lack absolutely nothing. But why does a man come? He comes
because he's family. That's why. Look at verse 33. Look at how
Ben-Hadad's servants responded. Now the men did diligently observe
whether anything would come from him, and did hastily catch it.
And they said, that's right, that brother, Ben-Hadad. Now,
here's what I thought of. when I read that passage there.
These men listened for the words of the king. The only thing that
would do them any good, the only thing they were interested in,
is what the king had to say. And when they heard what the
king had to say, and they were merciful words and they were
comforting words, they just came to the king and they repeated
the king's words right back to him. Now, there are plenty of
people in this world who will hear the gospel preached audibly
at some point and they will reject it. They will have a preconceived
notion of who God is, and a preconceived notion of who they are, and a
preconceived notion of doctrine. And when the gospel is preached
and it does not fit in their preconceived notion, they reject
it and say, I don't think God's like that. That's not what God's
like. I don't care what your book says. That's not what I
think God's like, so I'm not going to believe that. But when
a man is conquered by Christ, he doesn't care what he personally
believes anymore. It doesn't matter. The only thing
that matters is what the King says. And in gospel preaching,
it is essentially a man going to what the king says in his
word, lifting it out, and telling everybody what the king said.
That's it. And when we come to Christ, this
is what we do. We simply take those things that
we've heard, that the king has said, that has been so comforting,
and we repeat them back to him. I was thinking of some scriptures
that I'd repeat back. First Timothy 115, this is a
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ
came into this world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Lord,
you said that. You said Christ came to save
the chiefest of sinners. That means me. You said that.
Remember your word. Romans 5, 6, for when we were
yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Lord, you said that. You said
that I'm without strength and I'm ungodly. That means he died
for me. You said it. You promised it.
Matthew 11, 28, come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Lord, you commanded that. I'm
labored and heavy laden. I got a backpack full of sin
on me right now, and I'm coming. I'm trusting you. You said that.
You said you'd give me rest. This is my favorite. John 19,
30, when Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, he said,
It is finished. Lord, you said that. You said
there was nothing left to do. You said you came to be the savior
of sinners. You said, trust you. This is what you said, and that's
how we come to Christ, just repeating back the promises that the king
has made in his word. Now look at verse 33. Now the men did diligently observe
whether anything would come from him. and did hastily catch it.
And they said, thy brother Benhated. Then he said, go ye, bring him.
Then Benhated came forth, and he, Ahab, caused him, Benhated,
to come up into the chariot." Why does a man come to Christ?
Because God conquers that man. Why does a man come to Christ?
Because he needs mercy. Why does a man come to Christ?
Because he's family, chosen before the foundations of the world,
he shares a union with Christ himself. Why does a man come
to Christ? Because Christ causes him to
come, that's why he comes right here. He caused the hated to
come up into the chariot. Thinking about this, this is
a beautiful thought, the call of irresistible invincible grace
really is twofold. In his first this, it is a call
to come down. You think of Zacchaeus. He told
Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down. That was the first
portion of the command. And Zacchaeus did exactly what
he told him to do. He came down. Well, this is the first part
of the call. It's the conquering, the conquering. You come down.
You come down and you take your rightful place as a sinner before
a holy and a sovereign God and you beg for mercy. And you abandon
any hope in your filthy self-righteousness and you cling to Christ. You
come down. That's the first call. But notice
this, there's also a call to come up. When he was dealing
with Zacchaeus, he didn't leave him there. He didn't see Zacchaeus
come down. He didn't stop there. He went and he abode in his house.
And these are his parting words to Zacchaeus in that house. He
said, this day is salvation come to this house for so much as
he also is a son of Abraham for the son of man has come to seek
and to save that which was lost. Lord calls his people and he
brings them down. Down to their guilty man in the hands of a
holy and a sovereign God and they're without help and they're
without hope. And then he whispers this, I came to seek and to save
that which is lost. You lost? I came for you. And you find out you're a son.
He said he was a son of Abraham. You find out you have true sonship.
You're actually a child of God. This whole time, you've always
been a child of God, a joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Everything Christ has coming to him from his father, you've
got the exact same thing coming because you're family. You're
in him. Now look at the last verse. Remember,
this is Ahab speaking. And Ahab said unto him, the cities
which my father took from thy father I will restore, and thou
shalt make streets for thee in Damascus, as my father made in
Samaria. Then said Ahab, I will send thee away with this covenant. So he made a covenant with him
and sent him away. Why does Christ receive his people?
Why does he receive sinners that come to him this way? Because
in the eternities, he made a covenant with us. Now we talk a lot about
the covenant between the father and the son, where the son agreed
to be the surety, but we don't talk a whole lot about the covenant
that was made between Christ and his people, where he told
them, I'm going to be your surety. I will, and ye shall. And it's
actually illustrated right here. Ahab says to him, here's what
I'm going to do for you. This is the first thing. I'm going
to restore you. Everything that my father took from your father,
you're going to get it back. What did we lose in Adam? We
lost everything. In our first father, we lost
everything. We lost uprightness. We lost
communication with God. We lost acceptance with God.
And this is the promise of the covenant. I'm going to restore
you. Everything my father took from you, from your father, you're
going to get it all back, but way more. Adam could change. A state of blessedness with God
can change. His acceptance with God can change. And we are in
an immutable state in Christ. We cannot change because Christ
can't change. The restoration is so much better. And he says this, he says, I'm
going to make you streets in Damascus. And it's interesting,
that word doesn't really mean what it kind of says there. What
it means is without. There's a within and there's
a without. And what it's normally talking
about is being taken from a place of destruction and wrath and
being brought to a place of peace and contentment. And it's used
in Genesis 19 when it's talking about Lot. The angels come to
destroy Sodom and Lot lingered. He didn't want to leave. So the
angels took Lot by his hand and in mercy they led him without
the city. They took him out to a place
of peace, to a place of safety. Not only do we have full restoration
in this covenant in Christ, we also have this freedom from wrath.
The wrath of God has already touched Christ. Therefore, it
will never touch us. God would be unjust to punish
Christ for our sins and then turn around and punish us as
well. Not only do we have full restoration, we have freedom
from wrath in Christ. This is all part of this covenant.
And what I think is beautiful about this covenant is that it
is completely and utterly one-sided. Ahab just speaks, and Benhated
just listens. That's it. Ahab says, I'm going
to do, and Benhated, you're going to prosper. That's how the Lord
deals with his people. That old covenant of works, that
covenant that Adam was under, do and live. You want to stay
in the state of blessedness with God? Don't eat the fruit. Adam
couldn't do it. Any covenant made between God
and man, where anything is placed on man to do, is doomed to failure.
But that covenant's going away with, if you're a believer. And
now you're under the covenant of grace, and all it is, is he
did, and we shall. There's no responsibilities.
And I find this very interesting, how this ends. He says, he made
a covenant with him, and he sent him away. I thought of Bartimaeus. The Lord was dealing with Bartimaeus.
He gave him sight. And he said, go that way. Thy faith hath made
thee whole. You're free. You have freedom
from the law. You're completely and utterly
free. Do whatever it is you want, Bartimaeus.
You know what it says? And he followed Jesus in the
way. Give a believer complete and utter freedom. What does
he do? He spends the rest of his days following Christ. That's
it. I'll leave you there, folks.