Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 12 - God Calls Elisha

Lord, we thank you so much for this day that we can be together. And, in your presence with God's people. Thank you for just the wisdom and establishing this day of the Lord's day that we can set aside all of our other concerns, rest from our secular labors, And Receive from you and give, use our gifts and your Amongst your body, we pray for those that are teaching our children and And thank you that Pastor Milton's back with us and pray for him as he preaches today and also as he does a wedding later tonight.

You give him strength.

And we just thank you for your great love for us in Jesus' name. Amen. This is about as loud as I can talk. Are you guys OK?

OK. Cool, cool. Well, we are going to be moving into the ministry of Elisha this morning. And you guys read, hopefully 2 Kings chapter 2 and 2 Kings chapter 5.

We're gonna give the vast majority of our attention to chapter 2. this morning, which is really an amazing. A section of scripture. so let's do just a little bit of review.

And just to remind you, remind you guys where we're at in this class. so we We're talking about Elisha. Next week, we'll actually go back to chapter to lesson 10 and we're gonna be doing Jonah. So we'll be studying the book of Jonah next week.

So we'll look forward to that. what stands out to you about last week's lesson? Anything? stand out.

About the lesson from last week. But he's like, man, what was that lesson last week? Remember we were talking about the Elijah, Mount Carmel, his battle with the prophets of Baal. And also Obadiah, who's working within the system.

Let me just ask you one leading question, then we'll probably move on is, why would a, a Jew have been attracted or enamored by bale worship? We touched on that last week. Yeah, it was cultural, it was, this was something that the Jezebel and Ahab were promoting. Right?

So there were certain financial and political rewards for being a bale worshiper. What else? Yeah, it was a free sexual lifestyle. Things could be not going so well at home, really didn't matter in bail worship.

You could just go down and pick up a temple prostitute and you're actually fulfilling your worship duties by committing immorality and so you have like a sexual freedom movement within bale worship. What, anything else? It was also a traditional religion. It was an old-time religion.

It's like what we see today with the movement back to, like if you talk to, anybody from like say Mexico, there's this movement in Mexico to go back to the worship of the Aztecs, get back to the good old pre-Spain gods, right, get back to our heritage, reject Roman Catholicism, get back to the good heritage when we were, tearing hearts out of people and offering it up to Quizautal or what have you. So that move, that stuff you see all over the place. In the United States with the way it's, you, you can see it is there's a lot of people that are going back to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, believe it or not.

And part of the reasons they say that is, is they feel like there's more tradition and history in those faiths.

So this whole bale worship thing was, it's not something unique, just to the time of Elijah. it's something that we deal with today. And so we see the Lord using Elijah in some pretty amazing ways as he does his face-off with the prophets of Baal and Obadiah doing some amazing ministry behind the scenes, hiding prophets. like people hiding Jews during World War II and so on.

So, And it seems like just all over the Old Testament, we keep being reminded. Of both the grace of the Lord and the judgment of the Lord. It seems like that just keeps popping up over and over, that God is very willing to pour out His grace on those that will come and humble themselves. At the same time, the severity of his wrath is displayed before us when people reject Yahweh.

And go after false gods and so on. So let's turn to 2 Kings chapter 2 and what we're going to see here, we could call this particular chapter. We skip by our memory device. I should have.

Got rid of that. So we're right here in the divided kingdom period, right? right, so we're gonna be dealing with 2 Kings chapter 2. And you could title this section.

There's a lot of things that you could say, you could call this, if we were to make a movie about chapter 2, you might call it Taken. We've got Elijah taken up. into the, The other world, you've also got like this, Curseville versus Blessingsville or Graceburg. We're gonna be looking at, there's these curses that come upon Bethel.

but there's these blessings, this reverse of the curse that we're going to see. In Jericho. But we've got two main characters. There's other characters, but two main characters that we track throughout this chapter, and the first main character is whom?

Say it again. Elijah and then we've got his protege which is named Elisha. And so this is like, this is historical narrative, but if you're watching some of these good old kung fu movies, right? Or like Star Wars, you've always got like the Jedi and then you've got their, what do they call their trainee again?

Padwan learner, something like that. I've always got the Jedi and you've got the Padwan learner. This is something that goes way back, right? This thing and narrative.

so if you watch a kung fu movie, you've got the master and then he's training his protege and so that's what we see here. So let's, let's start in verse one. We're gonna move through the, the chapter and make some running comments. And let's just be reminded that this is God's holy word.

We're not just Reading some Math book or a history book. This is the Bible. This is from God Almighty. Verse one, and it came to pass when Yahweh was about to take up Elijah.

Into heaven by a whirlwind that Elijah went with Elisha to Gilgal. Then Elijah said to Elishah, stay here, please, for Yahweh has sent me on to Bethel. And so we've get, we get like a, a foreshadowing. The author tells us right out the gate, here's what's gonna happen.

Elisah's gonna be taken up into heaven and, and so we already know that it's all heading towards That that high point, that climax. But Elisha said, as Yahweh lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they went down to Bethel. Anybody remember anything historical about Bethel?

That we've talked about here in the last couple of weeks. Yeah, so Jeroboam set up one of his gods in Bethel to make sure that people didn't go down to Jerusalem. So this is a place of terrible apostate bale worship. verse 3, now, the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, do that Yahweh will take away your master from over you today?

So again, there's this mystical stuff. I like to hear, like a kung fu flute going on in the background while these things are being said. Do that your master is about ready to be taken away from you? And his response is, yes, I know.

Keep silent. So he's like, yeah, I know that. Keep silent. I think, I think the idea is like shh, be quiet, there's, there's, there's almost like this, people know that this is gonna happen, but they're, there's this tension of silence about it.

Nobody wants to really talk about it. It's like the elephant in the room. Elijah's gonna be leaving us. Now, why do you think people would be hush hush or even worried about the departure of Elijah at this point in Israel's history?

Say it again. Yeah, this guy is, he is the all-star prophet. He is, he's the one that's really stood up to Baal worship. He's, the remnant looks at him as their hero, right?

The other people look at him as an evil guy, but, people are like, wow, we're gonna lose our Our main guy here, it'd almost be like if all of a sudden we got this notice that, Pastor Milton was gonna have to move and he was gonna be gone in 6 months. I don't know about you. But I'd just be like, oh no, it'd just be a bummer, right? We're so blessed by his ministry and so excited, just he's had such an impact here at this church and so, so here Elijah, when you talk about losing somebody like Elijah.

Man, it's like somebody like Martin Luther when he passed away or John Calvin. I'm too young to remember when John F. Kennedy died, but just, the national mourning. That went on when we lost our, our president.

So verse 4, then Elijah said to him, Elishah, stay here, please, for the Lord or Yahweh has sent me on to Jericho. And he said, as the, as Yahweh lives and as your soul lives, I will not leave you. So they came to Jericho. So you almost get the impression that this is like one of those kung fu tasks, it's just kinda like, let's see if Elishah's gonna stick with me.

Is he gonna keep traveling with me? Is he really gonna follow through in this final test of his training? And he's no, no, I'm not gonna leave you, I'm gonna keep following you. But he said, as, as Yahweh lives and as you're so, OK, we said in verse 5, now the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho.

came to Elisha and said, do that the, that Yahweh will take away your master from over you today? And he said, yes, I know, please keep silent. So it's, it's weird. It's like the Spirit of God keeps going ahead and informing all these other prophets, hey, Elijah's going away.

And then they keep bugging Elisha about it and he's like, stop bothering me. I know this is gonna happen. but it's, again, it's like this tension of this elephant in the room. then he says, but, but he said, as Yahweh lives, as your soul lives, I will not leave you.

We're down almost to verse 7, so the two of them went on. Verse 7. And 50 men of the sons of the prophets went and stood facing them at a distance while the two of them stood by the Jordan. Now, Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up.

What is a mantle again? Anybody remember? It's just his outer garment, right? So it's like his, his outer garment.

rolled it up and struck the water. And it was divided this way and that so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground. And so it was when they had crossed over that Elijah said to Elisha, ask, what may I do for you before I am taken away from you. Elishah says, please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.

Now, the idea of double portion, could mean that I want to have twice as much power as you. Probably the more likely case is, is he's asking for the rights of a firstborn., the first born child would get. The double portion of the inheritance, signifying that they are the, the, progeny or the, the person who's going to take on the authority. Afterwards, but verse 10, so he said, you have asked a hard thing.

Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so, but if not, it shall not be so. Then it happened as they continued on and talked that suddenly A chariot of fire and you probably have appeared in italics. If you have a, your translation, if it has appeared in italics, that means that's not a verb in the original. The translators are trying to supply a verb to help us with the difficult Hebrew here.

So the idea really is, is, that suddenly a chariot of fire with horses of fire and separated the two of them and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. The Hebrew here, the words themselves are not difficult. The grammar is difficult, because that, that verb appeared is, is not there. And so, so they're, they're together.

And suddenly this thing that's described as chariots of fire and horsemen separates them. And then, does the text say Elijah is taken up into heaven by a chariot? What actually takes him up into heaven? The whirlwind.

Yeah, but most of your, probably your children's Bible books, they all show Elijah going up into heaven, riding a chariot with horses and stuff like that. and the Hebrew is, is generally difficult, but the idea seems to appear that this fire, whatever this fire was, and a lot of times when we see fire in the Old Testament, like we have the cloud in the fire or we have the Shak glory, it's actually the presence of all of God Himself. And so what could be going on here is, is God Himself, his own holy presence separates the two of them.

And then Elijah is taken up by a whirlwind.

He ascends just like Christ ascends. In the New Testament So pick it up at verse 12 and Elisha saw it and he cried out, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen. OK, so notice the grammar here. Here, the grammar is a little more easier to construct.

My father, my father. The chariot of Israel and its horsemen. If you just follow the, the grammar here in your English translation, who is being called the chariot of Israel with its horsemen? Say it again.

Elijah. So he's calling Elijah my father, my father, but then he gives him another title, the chariot of Israel and its Horsemen. So this is what actually makes some commentators think that, that the chariot and the horseman is actually a metaphor for Elijah himself, that, that he is, Elijah is thought of by the people of Israel and by Elishah as such a powerful prophet. It's like he is the defender of Israel.

He is the army of Israel and to lose Elijah. I like losing, your troops, so to speak, again, you can look at your different Bible notes and stuff like that. There are some lots of different viewpoints in this because some of the Hebrew is a little bit challenging. But it seems like verse 12, he seems to be calling Eli Elijah the actual chariot of Israel, which we would call that.

And in English, I used to be an English teacher. We call that a metaphor, right? When you say something is something, like when Jesus says, I am the door, we know he's not literally a door, but he's using a metaphor to say, I am a door. If Jesus says, I am like a good shepherd, now that's a simile.

So in this case, this would be a metaphor that Elijah is being, he's, he's being referred to as the chariot of Israel. Verse 13, I'm sorry, actually middle of verse 12. So he saw him no more and he took hold of his own clothes and tore them into pieces. So now we have like this old Jewish tradition.

You have Elisha basically just tearing his clothes. He's just mourning. the loss of Elijah. And he also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan.

So he picks that mantle up, then he took the mantle of Elijah and that had fallen from him and struck the water and said, where is Yahweh? and said, Where is Yahweh, God of Elijah? And when he had also struck the water, it was divided in this way and that, and Elishah crossed over. So we get this phrase in, in English like the passing of the mantle, right?

You get, you have one NFL football coach and somebody else takes over and they pass the mantle. That all comes from this chapter. And so now Elishah is, is retracing the tracks. He's they've they've gone on this little trip and now they're, he's cycling back and the, the same Jordan that was opened by Elijah is now being opened by Elisha and so there's this transfer of Of authority, right?

And to Elisha. And, and the, and the prophets, they see. They see this. In verse 15, now when the sons of the prophets.

who were from Jericho saw him. They said the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha. So they're acknowledging it. Obviously, if you see, if you go down to the Kern River, which is very small compared to the Jordan, and all of a sudden the Kern River just opens up and somebody walks across, you'd be like, something's going on here, right?

And so Elishah, something's going on for him to have that power. And they came to him and bowed to the ground before him. And they said to him, look now, there are 50 strong men with your servants. Please let them go and search for your master, lest perhaps the spirit of the Lord has taken him up and cast him upon a mountain or into some valley.

And he said, you shall not send anyone because Elijah, so we get from here that Elishah was no doubt the only guy that really saw Elijah go up. He knows that they're not gonna find anybody. And so he says, no, don't even bother going on this posse, search trip. But verse 17, but when they urged him, till he was ashamed, he said, go ahead and send them.

Therefore they sent 50 men and they searched for 3 days but did not find him. And when they came back to him, he had stayed in Jericho. He said to them, did I not say to you, do not go? She's like, I told you so.

And so I saw Elijah go up. The spirit of the Lord has not moved Elijah here or there. There's no body remaining, but he goes ahead and he appeases their desire, and they, so they go and they look for him. And then what we have beyond just the opening of the Jordan, we now have two.

Incidences that come hard upon this transfer of authority to Elisha. One of the incidences demonstrates God's grace as we're, we're gonna talk about. The other incidents, a lot of Christian commentators are embarrassed by, and it demonstrates God's judgment. And so let's talk about those that we're gonna go back and do a, a theological applicational sweep back through the chapter.

So verse 19. Then the men of the city said to Elisha, please notice, the situation of the city is pleasant. as my Lord sees, but the water is bad and the ground is barren. Translations vary.

On this, but, one of the translations in the new Jerusalem Bible, which probably gives the better idea is, is the water is foul. And, And our and and it's resulting in miscarriages is the idea not just that the ground is barren, but that we as a people who live in this land are barren. We're, we're suffering miscarriages. In fact, that Hebrew word is frequently used for miscarriage.

So it seems like what's going on here is, is they've got just bad water. in Jericho, and it's resulting in death, particularly as exemplified in the death of, of babies being born premature to where they cannot survive. And so what does Elisha do? Well, he does something that we would not expect.

He said, bring to me a new bowl and put salt in it. So they brought it to him and he went out to the source and said, thus says the Lord, I have healed this water from it there shall be no more death or barrenness. So there, the word barrenness picks up that same idea that was actually back up in the previous verse. so the water remained.

Remains healed to this day according to the word of Elisha, which he spoke. And so he does something that's miraculous. This isn't some ancient water treatment. don't get, don't choke on the salt here.

Prophets just frequently did little visual things when they did something from the Lord. He prophesized from the Lord and he put salt. We're gonna come back in a moment and talk about the connection to the curse, the Old Testament curse on Jericho and why they were suffering such. But let's move on first to verse 23.

Now we get to the scene of judgment that just seems so odd to us in our Western ears. Then he went up from there to Bethel. Remember what's Bethel? Is this like a really cool, very sanctified city?

No, this is a corrupt. Apostate worshippers, bale worshippers where they had the golden calf set up by Jeroboam. so they, he went up from there to Bethel and as he was going up the road, some youth came from the city and mocked him and said, go up, you old baldy, go up, you bald head. So let's first talk about that part.

So Elijah's going along his minding his own business. It's not like he just happens upon these young people. These young people come out from the city to pursue him and mock him. And when they say go up, you old baldy, it could mean a couple of things.

It could be they had heard already of Elijah going up and they're like mocking him, saying, why don't you go up into heaven like Elijah. the more likelihood though is that they're basically saying, he had been, he was on a road and the idea of going up, the idea was probably like, don't let the door hit you on the way out. It's like, hey, fatso, get out of our town. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

It's probably the, the spirit of this phrase go up old baldy. And so these guys are going up, we're talking about now the number one dude on the planet that represents Yahweh. These are young people and who are coming out from the city of Bethel. Let me guarantee you that these young people weren't coming out because of righteous intention.

Just imagine the Lord of the Flies coming out. This is a, and furthermore, we're going to see this is a mob. This isn't just a few young people. This is a mob of people that go out to mock the number one dude on the planet now who is representing Yahweh.

And a lot of people say, well, Elisha, he just didn't have his coffee that morning, so he got irritated and called a curse upon them. But look what his actual words are in verse 24. So he turned around and looked at them and pronounced a curse on them in the name of whom? Yahweh.

So he calls a curse down upon them in the name of Yahweh. If Yahweh didn't approve of a prophet's curse, would Yahweh fulfill the curse? No. But what happens?

And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the youths. If the bears mauled 42 of the youths, how many youths do you think there were? I don't know, a couple 100, 300 young people running up to Elijah saying, hey, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Fatso, get out of here, get out of our city.

We're bail worshippers. So then he went from there to Mount Carmel and from there, he turned to Samaria. So this whole chapter in a nutshell, it seems like it really hangs together is you have Basically, you have this transfer of power. Elijah, Elishah follows Elijah.

they go on this little geographic journey together. Elisha's taken up. And the mantle falls to Elisha. He starts to come back and then we discover, is this, is he really the next guy in line or not?

He opens up the Jordan, we see this miracle. God brings grace upon Jericho where there had previously been a curse. We'll talk about that curse here in a second. And then the prophets, Elijah had done battle with the prophets of Mount Carmel.

Elishah comes out and he's being accosted. By youth from Bethel calls a curse down upon them. We're going to look here in a second, according to Leviticus 26. These are not just any bears, these are covenant keeping bears.

We'll prove that here in a second. And, and, and so we see God's grace and severity right in the same chapter being poured out through Elisha. All right, so let's go back now and and let's talk about some things from a theological. Apologetic viewpoint in this chapter.

The first thing that we want to point out, Well, to, to have a guy like Elijah is like having an army all into yourself, right? This guy was He was powerful and and so the remnant looked Elijah and the idea of him being taken away was something that people were worried about and so the Lord answers those worries by by leaving Elisha. But the real problem that people have with this chapter is their allergy to miracles. That's the big problem.

When people read this chapter, they're like, yeah, right. The Jordan opening up for a profit. Kids being mauled by bears. Water being healed by salt.

Are you serious? And so what people do one of two things. In fact, let me read you a quote from a commentator who's just, very candid in his rejection of this, of a lot of the content of this chapter. He says the world of these narratives is certainly not the world of the modern reader.

Water parts miraculously, bears come out of the woods at the prophet's command, magic ritual purifies a polluted spring. Chariots and horses afire appear and a whirlwind takes Elijah up to God. And you could add, are you serious? and, our first response to this would really be welcome to the world of the Bible.

If you have problems with these miracles, what are you going to do with God who speaks the, the universe into existence by just a thought? What are you going to do with God who floods the whole world for 40 days just by his own word? What are you gonna do with Jesus Christ, who is raised from the dead? these defy physical laws, right?

And, but we too often we've been duped into this 19th century closed system that there's nothing beyond a closed system. It's, it's only what we can observe, it's only what we can taste, touch, measure, repeat the scientific method, while there's lots of benefits to the scientific method. You can't prove a closed system scientifically. It's a philosophical assumption.

And so what's what people often do with chapters like this is they just call it a tale. or they'll say this is, this is the, the genre of legend. This is narrative legend. This was never meant to be taken as historical fact.

These are just legends, prophetic legends they would say, are just one of the genres in scripture and so we should look to 2 Kings chapter 2 and look for historical data. We should just see that this is a tale and a legend that we can learn things by. And so it's almost like that, it's the very same idea that we've used that term in the past, Gshika. If you guys have been with us for a while, Gshika, it's story, not history.

And whenever there's miracles really anywhere in the Bible, people want to automatically assume that this is legend. This is not. History, but there's a couple of problems with that idea that this is just legend. First of all, there are no examples in ancient Near Eastern literature of prophetic legends.

In other words, if you, if you look outside of the Bible, if this was a, a genuine genre of the ancient Near East, wouldn't you see other prophetic legends and other religious writings? You just don't find them anywhere. You don't see any prophets of Baal or prophets of Molech and, and, and this buildup of these legends that go along with those prophets. So it's just made up, it's just pure, they're just making this out of whole cloth because they don't like the idea of miracles, but really this is just a presuppositional problem.

Where people have just decided that miracles can't happen, therefore, we must call this material legend. I would suggest to you that the writers of scripture knew what they were writing about. These were very intelligent people and, and they're just passing on information to us that we see throughout scripture and just because, we don't believe, that there's particular miracles, we haven't seen a particular miracle during our lifetime, we're living in an epoch, where there's, we're not in a time period like Moses or Elijah or during the time of Christ.

At the same time, There's all kinds of crazy things that the Lord is doing.

The historical God is also the contemporary God. So Anyway, so the other thing I'd like to point out is just we, we mentioned this before is if you've got this geographical thing is they start off in Bethel, they go to Jericho, go to Jordan, then Elijah comes from Jordan to Jericho to Bethel. And so you've got this Yeah, that's, that creates the whole outline for the chapter. Let's, let's talk a little bit about like the spirit of Elijah coming to rest upon Elisha.

over in verse 14, we see the implication that God's power is not tied to a particular era. God's power is not tied to a particular era. He was using Elijah and pouring out his power, but then the time of Elishah comes. And he's still pouring out his power.

So we see the historical God is also the contemporary God. But we also see that God's power is not limited to one particular instrument. So what, part of what we should learn from this passage is, yes, did the people of Israel, did the remnant lose Elijah, a tremendous leader? Yes, they did.

But God's power still moves. You still have Yahweh, even though you've lost. Elijah and, and that's, that's been the truth throughout the history of God's people. When John Calvin died, people were really upset to lose such a, a, such a champion of the Reformation, but his instructions were that he would just be put into a pine box and he didn't even want his, the place in the ground marked lest people come and try to venerate his grave.

And within just a few months, people knew the basic area where he was buried, but they really didn't know which hill it was. And part of the whole idea of that is Calvin, he really believed that when he died, the Lord was still marching on and the Lord just gonna use other people. None of us in this room are indispensable. if I fall down and have a heart attack tomorrow, guess what?

There's still gonna be Sunday school next week, and the week after that. Somebody else is gonna teach it. Somebody else will get up and lead worship. Somebody else will be, an assistant pastor at Cornerstone.

30 years from now, this church is Lord willing it's gonna be full of all kinds of other people. Milton and Carlos and I sometimes we joke around about us, all the problems we're going to cause in our old age as we kinda are sitting at business meetings and stuff and I'm going to be there with my cane and like that's not what our constitution says. We need to do it this way and And we, we're just, we're just determined to cause all kinds of problems when we turn around like 80, 90 years old, both for my children and for Cornerstone.

we, yeah, it's tongue in cheek, but, but the Lord's, the Lord will continue to move on.

And even if Cornerstone were to go out, out of existence, guess what? Doesn't do anything to the kingdom of God. His kingdom is still going to be marching on, and so we're not dependent upon one particular instrument. We also see Just that God's grace in this passage, if you think back to verse 19 and 22, where you've got this, again, the foul water, causing miscarriages., the prophet Elisha gives this visible symbol and the water is healed.

This is a really significant item that if we understand our, our Old Testament, Old Testament history, it's a pretty amazing movement of God's grace. Turn to Joshua 6:26. So I want, I want you to see a couple of things here. So you guys remember Joshua brings the armies into Jericho and they march around Jericho 7 times, right?

And the walls come tumbling down, right? But what we sometimes forget is the curse that was placed upon Jericho after their defeat. Look at verse 26. Then Joshua charged them at that time saying, cursed be the man before Yahweh.

Who rises up and builds the city of Jericho. He shall lay its foundation with his firstborn, and with his youngest, he shall set up its gates. And so there's this curse. That has come upon the city that it was not to be built up.

And yet in 1 Kings, we see that indeed it was built up. Look at 1 Kings 16. 1 Kings 16:34. In the days of Hael of Bethel, built Jerusalem.

He laid its, or I, I'm sorry, Jericho. He laid its foundation. With Abara, his firstborn, and with his youngest son, Segub, he set up its gates according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken to Joshua, son of Nun. So in other words, Hilael decides, I'm gonna rebuild, rebuild Jericho, and he's got 22 graves to prove it, as the curse came upon him after he rebuilt it.

And yet, nevertheless, in spite of this curse, Elisha comes in, the people are like, hey, can you help us? Our water is bitter, our people are dying, and he calls upon the Lord and the Lord reverses the curse and brings blessing upon Jericho, and bring and heals their waters and according to the writer of 2 Kings, to this day, their waters are, still healthy to drink. So they've gone from Cursville to Graceburg. All as a part of the, of the grace of the Lord.

And that's something that's, I think, good for us to be reminded of. just think of people, you yourselves or people that you just know in your life. How many people have experienced the consequences of their sin in the past, whether it's bad decisions when they're in their teen years or maybe their adult years, and, and they, and they're saddled under the weight of that. And the Lord comes along in His grace and he, he says, just humble yourself.

I'll give grace to the humble, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. And so this is a chapter that actually we can just bring people back to you and say, look here how we see the curse upon Jericho, and yet God brought His grace back to that city and healed their waters and prospered them as a land. And, and so we see the grace of the Lord. But, but lastly, we see God's frightening judgment in this final scene.

And I think we need to keep the scene. Some people wanna get rid of it. If, if some people are making a movie about like the transfer of power from Elijah to Elisha, if we're gonna do a little chapter called Taken, we would kinda do the Elijah Elishah thing, show him Elishah opening up the Jordan, healing the waters, and then we would end the story right there. But the story doesn't end.

The story moves forward with these covenant bears that maul 42 young people. And so we got to ask, why is Why is this story, this really good story ending with this really severe Type of scene. And So let's, let's make, let's reiterate a couple of comments about this section that we see in verses 23 to 25. We've already said that this, this is a group, right?

Is this just a few people, a few kids were out playing with their toys and they happen to see Elisha come back and they're like, ring around the rosy pocket full of posies. Is that what they're doing? No, this is a group of people. We don't know exactly how many.

We know there were 42 of them mauled and so I'm guessing a couple 3 100 young people and so And notice that they're young lads. Some of the translations say like, I forget how they'll say it, like there's some of the English translations will go over them, all over the map. But the idea here is these are not like 4 or 5 year olds that just got out of kindergarten. These are kids that are old enough to know better.

I don't know if I used to be a junior high teacher. And, one of the things about teaching junior high is they're young enough to where you can still play some games with them, but they're old enough to where they're, they can accept adult-like responsibilities and instruction. And junior hires can be just wicked. they can be wicked to each other.

the, the bullying and, and some of the things that we saw junior highs do to each other when I was a junior high teacher, were pretty, pretty crazy. we've a lot of times in Western culture, we have this view of children that children are all just very innocent and it's just the society that corrupts them. if you go back to old Puritanism and the older Christian theology, that was not the view of children. The view of children is your child has every, every possible sin.

Every possible corruption bound up in their own heart, and they don't need to come around bad company necessarily to corrupt them. They're corrupt in and of themselves. And so just imagine like 2-300 young people, say around 12 years old, who have been hanging around bail worship in Bethel and Temple prostitution. Some of them at that age, being 12 years old, may have been male, male prostitutes themselves and worship to bail.

That would not have been too young for them to be male prostitutes as pedantry or pedestry was very acceptable at this time period. And so these guys come out. And And It had been approximately 80 years since Jeroboam set up the, the calves for bal worship and, and then, so then they come out and they start mocking Elisha, perhaps expressing their parents' own hostility. and again, remember these guys, they came out from the city to find Elisha.

So somebody, somehow they heard that he was coming through town. It wasn't like he just happened to come upon them. They went out to find him, to mock him. And, and so on.

Kinda reminds me of a couple of things, in the Vietnam War when, When the US finally pulled out and the North took over South Vietnam. they would, they paraded a lot of the, the conservatives, those who had who had fought on the side of the United States or those that were fighting the Viet Cong in the North, they paraded these people through the streets and as people spit upon them and children with their rocks at them and, and call them insults, call them capitalists and. And, and really berate them because of the philosophy that the rich had raped the country.

And I don't know if you've seen any of those videos of the people being paraded through, Southern Vietnam after the takeover, but it's just, it's just heartbreaking.

you also see a similar type of thing with, POWs that were brought back to Japan like the Doolittle Raiders, if you're familiar with the Doolittle Raiders. these POWs would be paraded through the Japanese streets and children would throw things at them and, and hurl insults upon them because they were considered cowards. You've been captured or you Excuse me. You, Especially those that surrendered.

It was assumed In Japan, excuse me, that if you didn't die, you surrendered. And so any soldier that was brought to Japan as a POW was automatically despised. All that to say that the idea of children going out and mocking opponents is not unique to the pages of scripture. But what we and so what we have here also is, is deliberate intent.

They went out from the city. They mocked him, said go up old baldy, probably equivalent to don't let the door hit you on the way out, fatso, something like that. But I want you guys to turn with me. To Leviticus 26:22.

Turn to Leviticus 26:22 because what, what you see in this passage that is legitimately disturbing. These folks are mocking Elisha. And then Elisha calls upon Yahweh to curse them, and then these bears come out and maul 42 of these young people. And But look at, in Leviticus 26, this is the first giving of the blessings and the cursings.

This is parallel to Deuteronomy 28, Deuterony 28 was given to the second generation of Israel. But the first generation of Israel, there's all these things. If you follow Yahweh your God, and you don't worship other gods, here's all the blessings you'll, you'll experience. If you reject God and you go back to false gods.

And idols, here are some of the cursings you will experience. So in verse 22, the Lord says, I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number, and your highway shall be desolate. So right in the, the cursing section of Leviticus 26, we have God pronouncing that if you follow other gods and you reject Yahweh, your God, and you move into apostasy, I will rob you of your children with wild beasts. So if we want to get mad at Elisha, we better get mad at Yahweh because all Elisha's doing is calling upon Yahweh to bring the curse of Leviticus 26 down upon these young children.

Again, Bethel, this is not a great town. This is Las Vegas times 100. This is bal worship. This is temple prostitution.

These are those that had tried to lure God's people away from worship. Listen to Matthew Henry. What he has to say about this section, he says, let the hideous shrieks and groans of this wicked, wretched brood make our flesh tremble for fear of God. That's just something that we don't think a whole lot about that God, when he says that there are cursings coming upon people for their sins, that he really does judge.

Look at what God did in the flood. Look at what God did at the Tower of Babel. we see example after example of God's judgment. And what do we see in 2 Thessalonians is when people refuse to acknowledge the Lord and they actually begin to persecute God's kids, as it says in 2 Thessalonians, Paul says that Christ will come back, it's a just thing.

Jesus Christ will come and with flaming fire and vengeance will pour his vengeance upon those who do not obey the gospel and do not love the appearing of His coming. The idea in in the first part of 2 Thessalonians is one of the reasons that God punishes people is because they harm his kids. They mess with his children, he will bring judgment upon their heads. You've got these young people going out and mocking Elisha and The one representative of Yahweh and the the the biggest representative of Yahweh in the earth, Elisha knew what Leviticus 26 said.

And just was calling upon Leviticus 26, Yahweh bring this curse upon them, to bears come out of the forest and maul these young people. and what should be the lesson that Bethel would learn from that? What should be the lesson is like, wow, God's word that was pronounced in Leviticus 26, we're seeing it fulfilled literally in our midst. Let's repent, lest more beasts come upon us and, and, and, and tear our children.

To shreds. What are we seeing today? in Romans chapter one, it says, it talks about how that, that, people suppress the truth and unrighteousness and so God turns them over to a depraved mind and that people are lusting in their bodies for the flesh, men with men and women with women, and then it says so that they would receive the penalty in their bodies. There's, there's cursing that's pronounced right there in Romans chapter one, for the rejection of God, the suppression of truth and unrighteousness that results in a culture that's given over to aberrant sexuality, which results in a penalty that reflects itself in the flesh.

the average homosexual male does not live past 47 years old. If there was any other practice, like, where somebody was guaran pretty much guaranteed to not live past 47, people would be proclaiming that all over the place. We need to stop this practice because it's reducing, it's causing people to die younger and so we need to do everything we can to stop this practice. Our culture won't do that.

And so we'll, we'll continue to allow people to die at young ages as they deal with all kinds of, I don't want to get into the, it's, it's, it's actually in one sense, it's unfortunate. We should get into the gory details so people know all of the health problems that are involved in homosexuality. But if, if, if you do some reading, there's literature out there where you can read the documentation. On the health problems that occur because of that type of sexual activity and And just, what it does to a person.

And we have right on the pages of scripture, and yet there are people, I've, I have friends with lots of people on Facebook and you'll see their testimonies all over YouTube. People have been able to repent and see God's grace in their lives and, and turn from Those types of lifestyles, so following the Lord. let's end with this. That, a lot of times we don't.

We don't like to think of this aspect of God that we see on the pages of the scripture. we have, we like the vision of God where he's just this grandfatherly old man, likes to help put children on his lap and pat them on the head, give them presents. But the idea of a God that actually controls all things and is bringing all people before His throne of judgment, and that those that are outside of Christ who do not bow the knee, that they will stand before the awesome. It is called the awesome and terrible day of the Lord for a reason.

it's not like the happy Disney day of the Lord. It's the awesome and terrible day of the Lord that is coming, this time of wrath and judgment. And, and as Christians, there's every right for us to, to have a sense of holy fear. And if there was more holy fear, it would drive us to the cross and probably protect us from a lot of sins that we would otherwise.

not give ourselves into. So there is a holy fright, the church needs to recover. Elijah has been taken. but everything is left behind, his power, the wisdom, the grace, the judgment.

Elisha, asked the right questions. Where is the God of Elisha? Answer, he's right here with his, struggling, suffering servants. Elijah is gone, but Yahweh.

Remains Let me just end on Gosh, I don't know if I should end on this note. It'd be negative. Well, you guys know, you guys been watching the news. That this guy named Hugh Hefner passed away this week, 91 years old.

What you may not know is that he was a virgin in college. because Hugh Hefner. Just basically lived like most other males in the 50s, just assuming that a person should be sexually, just not have sex until they get married. That's just what the culture, everybody drank that same idea.

And so he was a virgin in college, but then he came across the works of Alfred Kinsey and I remember studying some of Alfred Kinsey's material when I was out over at Cal State San Berninno. Kinsey is the the father of the sexual revolution who did scientific research allegedly to try to determine what we as human animals, what, what is actually going on in our sexuality. And what he did is he projected his own depravity upon his research and and, and, and Hugh Hefner said this, I'm gonna be Kinsey's pamphleteer.

I will be Kinsley's pamphleteer.

And so he made it his mission to go out and to promote sexual freedom like we see in bale worship and we don't even remember today that pornography used to be illegal in the United States. It was illegal. But during Hugh Hefner's lifetime, he legalized it. And we're now at this place today where Keynesian sexual ethics are practiced throughout our culture.

Alfred Kinsey died of a testicular disease that was a result of all of his just gross, engagements throughout his lifetime. The type of research he did, he did on children, he's recording, you can go to the library, pick up his books, talking about the sexual nature of 2 month old babies, 10 year old kids, and people were asking what, how, how do you come up with this research? It's just, we've, we've built all of this idea upon the lie of a guy who projected his own sexuality just like we had with Jeroboam and Baal worship projecting that up upon the people of God that just took Israel into a period of darkness, brought God's cursings down upon the country, but then we see Elisha pronouncing God's blessing and people repent.

We see the same opportunities in our culture today.

Is that God's cursings are, it's the same program. If people are gonna stiff arm God and say we, we, we're going to suppress the truth and our righteousness, then we will invite the penalty upon ourselves and he will turn us over to our own ways. But if we will humble ourselves as a people, God will open up our eyes and he's ever ready to heal. And pour grace out upon us if we're ready.

I'll try to send you a link. I, there's a link that I, a 10 minute movie I showed my kids this week cause I wanted them to know the history of Alf Alfred Kinsey and Hugh Hefner and the connection between the two. And, maybe I'll see if I can send that out to you guys this week just to Because there's, our culture does nothing but suppress the truth and righteousness. Right?

Nobody, nobody else is talking about this. In fact, it wasn't too long ago that they made a movie with Liam Neeson celebrating Kinsey as a person. this guy was a child molester. And Hollywood is celebrating him as some guy that's, promoting sexual freedom.

and so here we are in the church having people just being totally accosted by pornography, people struggling with pornography and things like that, and a lot of times what we don't realize is that we've been duped by a guy who was filled with the devil to try to, to, to totally warp our culture over about a 50, 60 year period. That's the legacy of Hugh Hefner. and sad to say, well, actually, God will always get his judgment. He, he wins, he always wins in the end.

He's not threatened by Hugh Hefner or anybody else. You can't escape death. With that positive note, let's pray. Lord, we thank you, Lord, for your word.

That your word is so powerful and we look at passage of scripture. That, like this chapter that we've seen today. And we just thank you, Lord, that your truth is always marching on. It doesn't depend on one person.

It didn't depend on Elijah, it doesn't depend on Elisha. It doesn't depend just on Pastor Milton or any particular individual here, but we get to participate in your kingdom. We pray that we just continue to pass on the keys as it were, but we thank you that the gates of hell will not prevail against your church, although we will be assaulted by the devil in the world, and the flesh. we should not fear that the Jeroboams of this world.

The Hugh Hefners of this world, the Alfred Kinsey's of this world will win because there is this judgment that first of all is called death, that no one can escape, and then there's the final great white throne judgment that every man and woman will have to face before you. But we think that Jesus Christ, propitiated your wrath. And that if we come just by faith underneath the shed blood of Christ, we'll be rescued from the wrath to come. And so we pray, Father, that our church, our children here, Lord, as they continue to contact the gospel, Lord, that they would be saved from the wrath to come, and Lord, that they'll be able to enjoy their life in this world, those suffering that they would glorify you in Christ's name, we pray.

Amen.