Hope From the Word

Guest (Male): CS Lewis said, "A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you're looking down, you cannot see something that is above you." Here's Pastor Bill Luebkemann.

Bill Luebkemann: Pride. Hey, come with me, see what a great guy I am serving the Lord. Look at me, ain't I something else? Look at all I'm doing here. Why don't you come with me and I'll show you what great and wonderful things I'm doing here for the Lord. He doesn't say come with me and see what the Lord's going to do. He doesn't say come with me and give the glory to God. It's not about the Lord, it's about him.

Guest (Male): From Calvary Chapel of Marlton comes Hope From the Word. We're thankful to the Lord for this half hour together with you. Pastor Bill Luebkemann heads into 2 Kings 9 and 10 today. When we left you last time, you might remember that King Joram, Jezebel's son, was killed. Today we see what is going to happen to Jezebel and Ahaziah, the king of Judah. It's an example of the severity of God's judgment against sin. Here's Pastor Bill to bring us up to speed.

Bill Luebkemann: When Ahaziah king of Judah saw what had happened, he fled up the road to Beth Haggan. Jehu chased him, shouting, "Kill him too!" They wounded him in his chariot on the way up to Gur near Ibleam, but he escaped to Megiddo and died there. His servants took him by chariot to Jerusalem and buried him with his sisters in his tomb in the City of David. In the 11th year of Joram son of Ahab, Ahaziah had become king of Judah.

This guy had the unfortunate luck to be there at the same time, and they chased him too because we're going to kill the king and all of his friends and anybody associated with him. Some commentators say that Jehu went too far, that he wasn't supposed to kill this guy. We're going to see in the next few verses there are some other people that he killed that some people would argue and say he wasn't really supposed to kill them. But they were all descendants of Ahab, and it appears to me that that was all part of God's plan.

This guy thought he was going to get away. They injured him, and he eventually died. His servants took him back and buried him in Jerusalem. Just because they buried him in Jerusalem doesn't mean he was a good guy. He was an evil king himself. He shouldn't have been hanging out with the king of the northern kingdom, and he did plenty of things wrong himself. I think he got what the Lord had for him also.

Then verse 30: "Then Jehu went to Jezreel." He was on his way there. Now he completes the journey. Remember, these events happened outside the city. "Then Jehu went to Jezreel. When Jezebel heard about it, she painted her eyes, arranged her hair, and looked out of a window. As Jehu entered the gate, she asked, 'Have you come in peace, Zimri, you murderer of your master?'"

One commentator suggested she was preparing herself for her own funeral by getting herself all dolled up here. But she calls him Zimri here, and that's interesting because if you look back in 1 Kings, about chapter 16, you'll find out who Zimri was. 16:15: "Zimri." Zimri was the guy that bumped off the king before him. Let's see if we can find out exactly where that happened.

16:9: "Zimri, one of his officials, who had command of half his chariots, plotted against him. Elah was in Tirzah at the time, getting drunk in the home of Arza, the man in charge of the palace. Zimri came in, struck him down and killed him in the 27th year of Asa king of Judah. Then he succeeded him as king." This guy Zimri killed off the previous king.

Now look what happens: "As soon as he began to reign and was seated on the throne, he killed off Baasha's whole family. He did not spare a single male, whether relative or friend. So Zimri destroyed the whole family of Baasha in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken against Baasha through the prophet Jehu." You can see here a parallel where this guy Zimri came in and he killed off the remains of Baasha and his family, which was something that God wanted to do because Baasha was another bad guy and all his descendants had to be eliminated.

Here's Jezebel, the queen now, calling to mind that Jehu is doing the same thing that Zimri did, and she calls him Zimri. Another interesting thing: Ahab's father or grandfather was this guy Omri. If you read further down in 16, you'll find out after Zimri got rid of all the bad guys and his time was up, he was killed by a guy named Omri, whose son or grandson was Ahab. I'm losing track of the generations here.

There are two parallels here. One parallel is she says, "You're doing what this guy Zimri did." The second parallel is my father-in-law or my grandfather-in-law killed him off after he did it, and that's going to come to you also. In a way, she's accusing him of being like the previous guy, but in a way, I think she's almost threatening him also, "you murderer of your master."

He looked up at the window and called out, "Who is on my side? Who?" Two or three eunuchs looked down at him. "Throw her down!" Jehu said. So they threw her down, and some of her blood spattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot. He shouted, "Anybody up there on my side?" These guys look out the window. They don't like her. They're stuck working for her, the eunuchs work at the palace there. They can't stand the old hag.

They look out the window, "Yeah, we're on your side, buddy. What can we do for you?" "Throw her down!" So they grab her and throw her out the window. Down she goes, and of course, the horses run right over her and her blood goes everywhere. It was considered a fate worse than death to be run over and trodden under by horses like this.

Jehu went in and ate and drank. He just left her laying out there. "Take care of that cursed woman," he said, "and bury her, for she was a king's daughter." He goes in and he eats and drinks, and after a while, he thinks, "It's not right to leave her out there. She's a king's daughter. Go take care of her." But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing except her skull, her feet, and her hands.

They went back and told Jehu, who said, "This is the word of the Lord that he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite. On the plot of ground at Jezreel, dogs will devour Jezebel's flesh. Jezebel's body will be like refuse on the ground in the plot of Jezreel, so that no one will be able to say, 'This is Jezebel.'" In other words, she's not going to be buried. There's not going to be any stone or marker.

Nobody can say, "Here's where Jezebel's buried. May she rest in peace." May she not rest in peace. She was an evil witch, and she got what she had coming to her here by the action of this guy Jehu. It's interesting again how God brought it to pass. Jehu was going to bury her. He had some sympathy here in the end. She was a king's daughter. The least we should do is bury her. But he couldn't even do that because as the Lord had said, dogs would lick up and eat her right there. They must have been hungry dogs because they made no bones about it. They polished her off in no time, and there was nothing left but a few parts.

You see that the word of the Lord prophesied so much earlier by Elijah came to pass here in this time here. Now, there were in Samaria 70 sons of the house of Ahab. Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria to the officials of Jezreel, to the elders and to the guardians of Ahab's children. This guy had 70 sons, and every one of them could have been in line to have taken over the throne.

If he killed 69 of them, there'd still be one more that thought he was entitled to the throne. God had said his entire household is going to be eliminated from the face of the earth. There are 70 of his sons here. He said, "As soon as this letter reaches you, since your master's sons are with you, and you have chariots and horses, a fortified city and weapons, choose the best and most worthy of your master's sons and set him on his father's throne. Then fight for your father's house."

It's kind of a challenge. "You guys, you've got the sons of the king here, and he's not the king anymore. So tell you what, you've got chariots there, and you've got horses there, and you've got yourselves a fortified city, and you've got yourself weapons, so you've got everything you need. So look at them 70 sons, pick one to be the king, put him on the throne, and here I come. Get ready to defend yourself."

But they were terrified and said, "If two kings could not resist him, how can we?" He already killed two kings, the king of Israel, the king of Judah. "What are we going to do?" So the palace administrator, the city governor, the elders, and the guardians sent this message to Jehu: "We are your servants, and we will do anything you say. We will not appoint anyone as king. You do whatever you think best." They're afraid. They don't want to get caught in the battle. Maybe they also know that this guy has been called to be king. Maybe they know about the prophecy.

Then Jehu wrote them a second letter saying, "If you are on my side and will obey me, take the heads of your master's sons and come to me in Jezreel by this time tomorrow." Now, the royal princes, 70 of them, were with the leading men of the city who were rearing them. When the letter arrived, these men took the princes and slaughtered all 70 of them. They put their heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu in Jezreel.

When the messenger arrived, he told Jehu, "They have brought the heads of the princes." Then Jehu ordered, "Put them in two piles at the entrance of the city gate until morning." That was often done. If you won a battle and you had a bunch of heads, put them in a pile. Anybody walking by could know who the victor was. The next morning Jehu went out. He stood before all the people and said, "You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him. But who killed all these? Know then that not a word the Lord has spoken against the house of Ahab will fail. The Lord has done what he promised through his servant Elijah."

So Jehu killed everyone in Jezreel who remained of the house of Ahab, as well as all his chief men, his close friends, and his priests, leaving him no survivor. He went out and spoke to the people and he said, "Look, it was me that killed the king. I'm the one that conspired against him and killed him. But you, you conspired with me in that you killed all 70 of these. And you need to know that the word of the Lord, not a bit of it will fall to the ground. It will not fail. Everything that the Lord said was going to happen is going to happen, period, exactly as he said it was going to happen." And then he went about killing everyone who was associated with Ahab. This is another thing where I think some commentators argue, did he really have to kill these people? But that's what he did.

Jehu then set out and went toward Samaria. At Beth Eked of the shepherds, he met some relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah and asked, "Who are you?" They said, "We are relatives of Ahaziah, and we have come down to greet the families of the king and of the queen mother." Here he is on his way again, and he runs into these people who are family members of Ahaziah. This is their unlucky day. You remember Ahaziah the king of Judah had been up visiting Joram the king of Israel of Samaria, and they both got killed.

Now these are Ahaziah's relatives. They didn't hear that Ahaziah got killed. They don't know that the king and queen have already been killed. They set out on their journey and the hotel they stayed in didn't give them a free copy of Israel Today. So they didn't know the latest news. And they get stopped by Jehu in this very unfortunate incident, very unfortunate for them that is, but you can again see the Lord's hands in all of this. And they happily identify themselves. "Oh, we're relatives of the king, aren't we something else? We have a pass, we can go wherever we want. We're going off to see the king up north, King Joram, and we're going to visit him and the queen mother."

"Take them alive," he ordered. So they took them alive and slaughtered them by the well of Beth Eked, 42 men. He left no survivor. You see the guy had a lot of energy here, and he liked to get things done. This is another passage where some folks say Jehu went too far, and God didn't tell him to kill all these people. But these people, if they were relatives of Ahaziah, there's a good chance they were also descended from Ahab. So I can't make the conclusion that he's outside of what he should be doing here. Maybe, maybe not. He certainly is energetic about it. He's on a roll, if you will.

After he left there, he came upon Jehonadab son of Rekab, who was on his way to meet him. Jehu greeted him and said, "Are you in accord with me as I am with you?" "I am," Jehonadab said. Jehonadab was a friend of his, the son of Rekab. Jehonadab is mentioned again over in Jeremiah. He was someone that was well looked up to, may have been a spiritual leader of some sort. These guys may have had a relationship where they've known each other.

Jehu greeted him and said, "Are we on the same page here? Are you with me on these things? Do you support me as king? Are you with me in what I'm doing? Are you in accord with me? Because I know I'm in accord with you. Are you in accord with me?" And Jehonadab said, "I am." "If so," Jehu said, "give me your hand." So he did, and Jehu helped him up into the chariot. Jehu said, "Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord." Then he had him ride along in his chariot.

Well, we can see that Jehu does have a problem with pride. "Hey, come with me, see what a great guy I am serving the Lord. Look at me, ain't I something else? Look at all I'm doing here. Why don't you come with me and I'll show you what great and wonderful things I'm doing here for the Lord." He doesn't say come with me and see what the Lord's going to do. He doesn't say come with me and give the glory to God. It's not about the Lord, it's about him.

This northern kingdom, all the kings were pretty bad. This guy was probably the least bad of the bad kings, or one of the better ones. But still here you don't get the impression that he's a real humble guy. "Look at me, God has me doing this work. I'm going around bumping off all these people. I'm on a holy mission for God. Ride along and see how great I am. Aren't I terrific? I'm a legend in my own mind, outstanding in my field."

When Jehu came to Samaria, he killed all who were left there of Ahab's family. He destroyed them according to the word of the Lord spoken to Elijah. Again, we see that this prophecy going back to Elijah is coming true now. One of the things we can learn from these chapters here is how every single word of the Bible is absolutely true. It proves itself. Here's a prophecy given by a guy Elijah who's dead. He's not even around anymore. To a king named Ahab who's also dead.

He's not even around anymore. These other players on the scene now, and the Lord's will is working itself out. It always has. Everything the Bible says, every jot and tittle as it says, completely accurate, completely trustworthy, inerrant, infallible, without error, inspired by God for us. All scripture is correct and accurate. If you don't believe that, then you've got to throw the whole thing out. Because if you have to start deciding, if you can say, well, it's mostly true or some of it's true but not all of it's true, then somebody has to decide what part of it is true and what part isn't. And the minute we start to do that, we put ourselves over God.

I really like his plot here. We can go through this pretty quick with the ministers of Baal. "Then Jehu brought all the people together and said to them, 'Ahab served Baal a little; Jehu will serve him much. All right!'" The previous guy, the king, he served Baal, you ain't seen nothing like the way I'm going to serve Baal. You thought he was doing it right with Baal? I'm going to show you how Baal worship really should be done. Follow me here.

"Now summon all the prophets of Baal, all his ministers and all his priests. See that no one is missing because I am going to hold a great sacrifice for Baal. Anyone who fails to come will no longer live." But Jehu was acting deceptively in order to destroy the ministers of Baal. He says, "We're going to have a great big party. Get everybody who worships Baal in here, and if they don't come, they ain't going to live." So they better get there because under threat of death. They don't know they're going to die by going there, of course.

Get everybody in here. And they must have been thinking, "Oh boy, we're going to get tax breaks as ministers of Baal and we're going to get some more temples going here and we're just having a great time." He was deceiving them. Come together here, let's, we're going to have this great Baal bash, if you will.

Jehu said, "Call an assembly in honor of Baal." So they proclaimed it. Then he sent word throughout Israel and all the ministers of Baal came. Not one stayed away. In other words, they all came. They crowded into the temple of Baal until it was full from one end to the other. They said, "Wow, we've never had a worship service to Baal like this. It's never been so full. This is amazing. This new king is great. We love him."

And Jehu said to the keeper of the wardrobe, "Bring robes for all the ministers of Baal." So he brought out robes for them. I think that's just an additional way to be certain that these guys are really the right people because you're going to see in a minute that anyone who believes in the Lord, he wants to get them out of the building. So give these robes out. Ministers of Baal put them on. We're going to have a great big party and we're going to dress in our robes and put on our pointy hats also. We're going to have our blower things like we have at a birthday party.

Then Jehu and Jehonadab son of Rekab went into the temple of Baal. Jehu said to the ministers of Baal, "Look around and see that no servants of the Lord are here with you, only ministers of Baal." So he's going to be very certain there's no servants of the Lord here just in case any had snuck in to find out what was going on. He says to the rest of them, "If you see anyone here that's a servant of the Lord, rat them out."

And if a servant of the Lord somehow got in there and didn't leave, the Baal people would say, "Hey, that guy over there, he worships the Lord. We don't want him in here. Kick him out of here." And this was a safety thing I think that Jehu did just to make sure he was going to kill the right people. So they went in to make sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had posted 80 men outside with this warning: "If one of you lets any of the men I am placing in your hands escape, it will be your life for his life."

We're going to wipe out and annihilate these people. As soon as Jehu had finished making the burnt offering, he ordered the guards and officers, "Go in and kill them! Let no one escape." I don't know why he made the offering and then did it instead of just doing it before or skipping over the offering. But I guess he wanted to get them all, maybe a way to further ensure that there's no true believers in the Lord there. Why would a believer in the Lord want to be in the place where they're all wearing the Baal vestments of Baal, where they're all worshipping Baal, and where they're actually making an offering to Baal?

If I was a believer in the Lord, I'd want to get the heck out of a place like that. So he tells them to go in and kill them, let no one escape. So they cut them down with the sword. The guards and officers threw the bodies out and then entered the inner shrine of the temple of Baal. They brought the sacred stone out of the temple of Baal and burned it. They demolished the sacred stone of Baal and tore down the temple of Baal, and people have used it for a latrine to this day. That's the NIV wording. That's what it means, really.

They cut it down, they cut down the people, then they took out the implements there of Baal worship, the sacred stone, and they burned that. And then they demolished the whole place. This was a place that Ahab had built for his wife, Jezebel. And it is demolished. And there is no more Baal worship left because there's nobody left who knows how to do it or who wants to do it.

So Jehu destroyed Baal worship in Israel. However, he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit, the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan. So what he did was he carried everything through to a point. He followed God to a point. He got rid of the people he was supposed to get rid of. He did a pretty good job of that. Maybe he got rid of a few extras, I'm not sure about that. He really cleaned the clock of the Baal people here, destroyed their temple and everything.

But some of the things that Israel had been doing for a longer period of time, the worship of the golden calves, which some people would argue was worshipping the true God by the wrong way. Some would say these golden calves were there to represent God. So rather than go down to Jerusalem, they could worship through the golden calf, worship the Lord God. Whether that was an idol or whether that was a representation standing in for the Lord God, either way, it was wrong because it wasn't what God wanted. And he didn't deal with that.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope From the Word. We're currently in Pastor Bill Luebkemann's study of 2 Kings. If you'd like to hear this message again, you have several options. Visit our website at ccmarlton.org, download the Hope FM app to your smartphone or tablet, or look for us wherever you find your podcasts.

If you've been thinking about visiting Calvary Chapel of Marlton, where Bill serves as pastor, we'd love to have you. Our service times are on Sunday mornings at 10. We also meet midweek on Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. You can also livestream from home whenever you visit our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel of Marlton. For more information, go to ccmarlton.org. We hope to see you soon.

Before the day is done, we'd like to connect with you, share a praise report, prayer request, or what you're learning from this series. You can easily email us from our website, ccmarlton.org, or just call us at 856-983-1662. There's more to come from Bill's study of 2 Kings, and we'll have that for you next time on Hope From the Word with Pastor Bill Luebkemann. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel of Marlton.