missionary to St. Croix, and
he's gonna be preaching for us this morning. Would you turn
to, I wanna read this, 1 Kings chapter 12. This is not what
I'm going to be, we're gonna look at 2 Kings 13, but let me
refresh you about the sin of Jeroboam. 1 Kings 12, verse 26, and Jeroboam
said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house
of David. Now this is after the divided kingdom. It was just
one kingdom with Jeroboam. It's now Israel and Judah, the
divided kingdom. Jeroboam is nervous that people,
when they go to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices, will get rid
of him because he's not in Jerusalem, he's in Samaria. And so he has
pure political motivation in doing this. Now let's go on reading.
And Jeroboam said in his heart, now shall the kingdom return
to the house of David. If this people go up to sacrifice
in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of the people
turn again unto their Lord, even unto Rehoboam. That was the son
of Solomon, king of Judah. And they shall kill me and go
again to Rehoboam, king of Judah, whereupon the king took counsel
and made two calves of gold and said unto them, it's too much
for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold thy gods, O Israel, which
brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one
in Bethel and the other he put in Dan. And this thing became
a sin for the people went to worship before the one even under
Dan. And he made a house of high places and made priests of the
lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. And
Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month on the 15th
day of the month, like under the feast that's in Judah, the
Passover. And he offered upon the altar, so did he in Bethel,
sacrificing unto the calves that he had made. And he placed in
Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. So
he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel in the
15th day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had
devised of his own heart and ordained a feast unto the children
of Israel, he offered upon the altar and burnt incense." Now,
would you turn to 2 Kings 13. This is the sin that's mentioned
over and over. In the 3 and 20th year of Joash,
the son of Ahazariah, the king of Judah, Jehoahaz, the son of
Jehu, began to reign over Israel and Samaria and reigned 17 years. And he did that which was evil
in the sight of the Lord and followed the sins of Jeroboam.
the son of Nebat, which made Israel sin. He departed not there
from. He continued what we just read
about. And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Israel, and it delivered them into the hands
of Hazel, king of Syria, and into the hand of Ben-Hadad, the
son of Hazel, all their days. And Jehoahaz besought the Lord,
that the Lord, he had been doing this evil in the eyes of the
Lord, but because of this problem, Jehoahaz besought the Lord, and
the Lord hearkened unto him. For he saw the oppression of
Israel because the king of Syria oppressed them. And the Lord
gave Israel a savior. We don't know who this man was
or what he did, but the Lord provided someone to deliver them
from this Syrian oppression. So they went out from under the
hand of the Syrians and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents
as before time. Nevertheless, they departed not
from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel sin,
but walked therein. And there remained the grove
also in Samaria that Ahab had set up in Baal worship. They
didn't get rid of that. Neither did he leave of the people
to Jehoahaz, this is talking about the king of Syria. Neither
did he leave of the people to Jehoahaz, but 50 horsemen and
10 chariots and 10,000 footmen. In other words, they didn't have
an army to protect them. For the king of Syria had destroyed
them and they made them like the dust by threshing. Now the
rest of the acts of Jehoahaz and all that he did, and his
might, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of
the Kings of Israel? And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers, and they
buried him in Samaria, and Joash's son reigned in his stead. Now
in the 30 and seventh year of Joash, king of Judah, began Jehoash,
the son of Jehoahaz, to reign over Israel and Samaria, and
reigned 16 years. Both the king of Israel and the
king of Judah had the same name at this time. And he did that
which was evil in the sight of the Lord. He departed not from
all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and made Israel
to sin. But he walked therein and the
rest of the acts of Joash and all that he did and his might
were with he fought against Amaziah, king of Judah, are they not written
in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? And Joash
slept with his fathers and Jeroboam sat upon his throne and Joash
was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. Now, I'm not
gonna say much about that, we're gonna pick up in verse 14, but
let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we come into your presence
in Christ's name, and we're so thankful for the salvation that's
in him. And we pray that you would reveal him to our hearts,
give us the grace to trust him completely, let us see something
of his glory, We're so thankful that all your salvation's in
him. Lord, we confess our sins and we pray for forgiveness and
cleansing for his sake. Lord, we earnestly ask that your
grace would reign in us and that you would not leave us to ourselves,
but that you would cause us to lay hold upon my dear son. Lord,
we ask that you would order our steps in your word and let not
any iniquity have dominion over us. Give us hearing ears and receptive
hearts so that we might hear your word. Be with all your people
wherever they meet together and accept our thanksgiving through
thy son. We're so thankful that you're God and beside thee is
none else. In Christ's name we pray, amen.
Now let's pick up in verse 14. We have a very unusual story
here. Now Elisha, was fallen sick of
his sickness, whereof he died." And you know, it's a sobering
thing, but an important thing for us to remember. There's a
sickness that we're going to have that's going to kill us.
I think of faith healers and all that kind of stuff. I wonder
what they said about this passage of Scripture. You know, Elisha,
this Sick, and this sickness is going to kill him. And you
and I are going to die of something sometime. I'm thankful for health. I would rather feel good than
feel bad, but realize we're going to die just like Elisha. And Elisha and Joash, the king
of Israel, he was a bad king. But that Joash the king of Israel
came down unto him and wept over his face and said, oh my father,
my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. Somehow
he knew that Israel's success was dependent upon the Lord.
And he was upset seeing that he was dying. Verse 15, and Elisha
said unto him, take bow and arrows. And he took him bow and arrow.
And he said to the king of Israel, put thine hand upon thy bow.
And he put his hand upon it. And Elisha put his hands upon
the king's hands. And he said, open the windows eastward. And
he opened it. Then Elisha said, shoot. And
he shot. And he said, the arrow of the
Lord's deliverance. And the arrow of deliverance
from Syria, for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek till thou
hast consumed them. Now, this is Elisha's last prophecy. Before he dies, he says, this
is what's going to take place. You're going to smite these people
who are oppressing you, Hazel, Syrians, and so on. Verse 18. And he said, take the arrows.
And he took them. And he said unto the king of
Israel, smite upon the ground. Now he didn't tell him how many
times to smite, but he said, smite those arrows on the ground.
And he smoked three times and he stopped. And the man of God
was wroth with him and said, thou should have smitten five
or six times. Then hadst thou smitten Syria
till thou hadst consumed it. Whereas now thou shalt smite
Syria but three times. Now, upon the surface, He didn't tell him to smite five
or six times. He didn't give him any amount
of time to smite. He just said, smite. And he smoked
three times hard on the ground. Now, what happened as a result
of this? Elisha became angry. He said, you should have smoked
five or six times. And if you would have, you would
have had complete deliverance. But since you only smoked three
times, you're not gonna have complete deliverance. Now, once
again, on the surface, that's kind of what's being taught here. I believe that this is a warning
against fatalism. And what do I mean by that? Fatalism
is that belief that since God is sovereign, I don't have control
over anything and I'm not going to do anything. That's a fatalist. Well, you don't have control
over everything. You're right there. You're half
right. But if my belief in God's sovereignty causes me to do less,
I don't really understand God's sovereignty. Let me show you a scripture.
Turn to Psalm 81. Psalm 81. Now, before I read this. Has
everything already been determined? Yes. Say that without apology. Yes. It was already determined
by God that there would only be three victories against Hazel. Does that mean I'm to do anything
less in my efforts at serving the Lord because everything has
already been determined? Doesn't mean that at all. I mean,
would you agree if you have a garden, would you not agree that it's
up to the Lord as to whether or not that garden is going to
prosper and grow and produce fruit? You know, it's up to the
Lord. It's totally in the Lord's hands as to whether that garden
prospers and grows. Now, would you use that reasoning
and say, well, therefore I don't have to plant. I don't have to
weed. I don't have to water. I don't
have to fertilize. I don't have to do all this work
because the Lord's already determined that it's going to be successful.
You'd never do that. And yet people do that religiously.
Everything's determined. Everything's determined. What's
the point in us doing anything? And now keep that in mind as
we read this 81st Psalm. Now, The prophet said, if you would
have smitten five or six times, you would have had greater blessings
than you would in smiting only three times. You would have had
full deliverance, but now you're not going to have full deliverance.
And what that tells us, yes, everything is determined and
there are blessings that we will not have if we don't do what
the Lord says to do. Now, somebody says, how can both
of these be true? I don't know, but they are. I
don't feel a need to try to get this all together. I know that,
well, let me read Psalm 81. You'll see what I'm talking about.
Beginning in verse 10. Psalm 81, verse 10. I am the
Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Open
thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people would not hearken
to my voice, and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up
unto their own hearts' lust, and they walked in their own
counsels. Oh, that my people had hearkened unto me. And Israel
had walked in my ways. I should have soon subdued their
enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries. The haters
of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him, but their
time should have endured forever. He should have fed them also
with the finest of wheat and with honey out of the rock should
I have satisfied thee." Now, from that passage of scripture,
if you would have done this, I would have done that. You didn't,
therefore you'll not have these blessings. And that's what that
passage of scripture says. And the point is, yes, we believe
in God's absolute sovereignty in all things. He determines
everything. And if that belief, if that understanding
makes me slacken up. and not use the means that the
Lord has appointed and not seek his face and seek his blessing
and seek his grace. If I don't open my mouth wide,
it will not be filled. Now, the point is, there are
blessings that we miss. if we don't do what the Lord
tells us to do, like Israel. And that's the point of this,
because you've got to admit, that's kind of a strange story.
You know, smited, and he didn't smite it enough, but that's the
teaching. So go on back to our text in
2 Kings 13. Verse 19, the man of God was
wroth with him and said, thou should have smitten five or six
times and then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed
it. Whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice. Now here we
have the gospel. And Elisha died and they buried
him. And the bands of the Moabites
invaded the land at the coming end of the year. And it came
to pass as they were burying a man that behold, they smite
a band of men and they cast the man into the sepulcher of Elisha.
And when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha,
he revived and stood up on his feet. Now, Elisha is a type of
the Lord Jesus Christ. When that dead man comes into
contact with Christ, he lives. Now that's the only hope me and
you have, is the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way
we'll live before God is if we come into contact with his death,
buried with him in baptism unto death. That's what this man did.
He was buried with Elisha, wasn't he? And when he came into contact
with Elisha, here's the last miracle. He was raised from the
dead. He was revived. Here's the gospel. I live for one reason, because
of his death. Not because of anything I've
done or intend to do, not because of anything I didn't do. All
of my salvation is because he lived, died, and was raised from
the dead. Now we see that in such a beautiful
type here. He lived for this one reason.
because he came into contact with the death of Elisha. I love that passage of scripture.
Who is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died. Nothing
else is needed. It's Christ that died. Yea, rather
that's risen again, who's even at the right hand of God. Now, Elisha died. They buried
him. Evidently, he'd been dead quite some time. He was just
bones, evidently. The skin was gone. It came to
pass as they were burying a man that behold, they spied a band
of men. They cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha. And
when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha,
he revived and stood up on his feet. But Hazel, king of Syria,
oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz. And the Lord was
gracious unto them and had compassion on them and had respect unto
them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and would not destroy them, neither cast them from his presence as
yet, or even up to this present day." That's not saying he's
going to go back on what he has promised. Now, here's another
gospel truth. The Lord had respect to these
people. They were being oppressed. The Lord moved to pity and compassion
even with these wicked, unbelieving people. He was moved with compassion. That's who the Lord is. He delights
in mercy. He delights in being gracious. He's moved by compassion, by
seeing them in this state of oppression. And it says the Lord
was gracious unto them. What do you want more than anything
else? Well, this is the same thing,
to be found in Christ and for the Lord to be gracious to me.
To just be gracious to me. Grace is God giving me what I
do not deserve. Mercy is God not giving me what
I do deserve. They go together. His compassion
is where he's moved. He sees me in my misery. He sees
me in my oppression. He sees me on my helplessness.
He's moved. The Lord is gracious. That's
who he is. And the Lord was gracious unto them and had compassion
on them and had respect unto them. Now, what a glorious thought
for the Lord to have respect to somebody. Literally, he turned
toward them. He turned toward them for this
one reason, because of his covenant. with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob
and would not destroy them. Why? Because of his covenant. Now, there isn't anything more
important than me and you and understanding this thing of God's
covenant. Talks about the covenant he made
with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Well, that's a reference to the
covenant he made with his son. And those men were included in
that covenant. There's two covenants. Covenant
of works. Salvation depended upon something
you do. Now that was never intended by
God to be used to save anybody. All of the covenant of works
God's law does is show us our sinfulness and our inability. Now a covenant of works means
salvation is in some way dependent upon what mere you do. That's
not good, is it? Because if anything is dependent
upon anything we do, it's doomed for failure because we will not
do it. We just won't. And you ought
to know that about yourself. Oh, I love the covenant he made
with Christ, where salvation, my salvation, my acceptance with
God, my standing before God, my, it's all in the covenant
he made with Christ. Christ is called the surety.
Hebrews 7.22, he's called the surety, the guarantee of a better
covenant. You see, the covenant of grace
where salvation is conditioned wholly upon Jesus Christ and
my behalf, him doing everything for me, that's a whole lot better
than the covenant works. I mean, you can't even compare
the two. The Lord looked at these people, these people who were
being oppressed by Hazel. Are you oppressed by your sin?
Are you oppressed by your sin? Is your sin your enemy? You're
oppressed. You moan, you groan under your
sin. That's the way a believer feels.
Do you know, the Lord has moved to compassion for one reason,
the covenant, the covenant. Oh, how we love this covenant.
The Lord was gracious unto them and had compassion on them, had
respect unto them because of his covenant. Now remember, this
covenant was made with every believer, but it's as they were
in Christ, this covenant was made with Christ before time
began. And he took full responsibility
for the salvation of every one of his people. and there's nothing
me or you need to do. He did it all. Verse 24, so Hazel, king of Syria,
died and Ben-Hadad, his son, reigned in his stead. And Jehoash,
the son of Jehoash, took again out of the hand of Ben-Hadad,
the son of Hazel, the cities which he'd taken out of the land.
So Joash, his father, by war, three times did Joash beat him,
just like the man of God said, three times that he beat him
and recovered the cities of Israel that had been lost. Now, once
again, here we have this event. He struck it three times. Elisha was upset. You should
have done it five or six times. But he didn't, and so everything
happened exactly according to what God said would happen, three
victories instead of five or six. And what I want to leave
with this thinking is, number one, I sure am glad all the salvation
is in the covenant, aren't you? It's all in the covenant. And
number two, I think of what Here's the way I want to illustrate
this. Paul said, oh, that I may win
Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faithfulness
of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that
I might know him. Paul, don't you know him? Yes.
That I might know him, though. I want to know him better, don't
you? that I might know him and the power of his resurrection.
I want to know the power of his resurrection. Don't you already
know it? Yeah, but I want to know it more. And I want to know
the fellowship of his sufferings. I want to know that what he did,
he did for me. Don't you know it? Yes, but I
want to know it. I want to increase in this understanding. I want
to be made conformable unto his death. I want to be enabled by his grace
to be obedient unto death, if by any means I might attain unto
the resurrection of the dead. Now, Paul already had all these
things, didn't he? But yet he says, oh, that I might
have them. And that's the way every believer
feels. Yes, all my salvation is in this covenant. I want to
know him more. I want him, by his grace, to
be pleased with me. I want to know him in such a
way that that's my son. And I don't want him to see me
in any other way but in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, both of these
things are true. You say, well, how do you put those things together?
I don't know. Don't need to. Don't need to.
But I don't want to smite just three times when I ought to smite
five or six times. And I want to open my mouth wide.
May the Lord give me grace to do so. I want to open my mouth
wide so that he will fill it. Amen.