License to Kill (Part A)

Well, he says, and he opened the door and fled, following orders, no more. No, that's just critical. When messengers exceed their command, problems arise. The Bible teaches us this. Even as Christians, maybe God opens the door and you're preaching the gospel and then you get, you know, it's getting good to you. You got your little pulpit in front of you. I have a bigger pulpit, but I know the problem.

And you just have to learn to shut your mouth. Okay. The message has been delivered. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 2nd Kings.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of 2nd Kings Chapter 9, as he begins a new message called License to Kill. 2nd Kings Chapter 9, the title, License to Kill, and that is precisely what is happening in Chapters 9 and 10. Next chapter, we will get to the deaths of devils, but this one is where it begins. We have prophecy, we have anointing, we have treason, assassinations, chariots, eunuchs, flesh-eating dogs, war horses, and gravity, which is going to really be one of the interesting ones.

So it merits introduction, this Chapter 9, because it is joined to Chapter 10. Jehu will be anointed king in Israel over Joram, who is presently king. Jehu kills Joram, and he also kills King Ahaziah of Judah, and then he kills Jezebel. And all, because he's commanded to, is judgment. He's God's instrument of judgment. He has this license to purge the house of Ahab from earth. And he was unstoppable, this instrument in the hand of God, swift, relentless, striking like lightning from point to point. This is Jehu. You like the man initially, and then you see how he treats God in response to this, and then it just deflates the balloon.

Everything goes right out. He's going to kill a few hundred people who should die. These were bad people, these were wicked people, spiritual parasites, and their loss was a good thing for Israel. Five times in this chapter, we'll hear the question, is it peace? Is it peace?

Each time it's the wicked asking, or someone asking on behalf of the wicked. First, King Joram will send a messenger to Jehu. Go ask him, is it peace? And the messenger will get to Jehu, is it peace? Then a second messenger will be sent, is it peace? Jehu will say, what do you know about peace?

Get in line. He just, you know, you like him as a man. And then Jehu will be asked by Joram, the king himself, straight out, is it peace? And then he unloads on him. Don't worry, Joram will get the point of Jehu's arrow. Then Jezebel sarcastically taunting Jehu, her final mistake, will ask, is it peace? And so it's interesting that the wicked want peace so they could do evil. This is a biblical teaching. They want to be left alone so they can menace the universe.

This is what the wicked want. This is illustrated for us in the Gospel of Mark in chapter 1. Jesus goes to a synagogue, the Jewish equivalent of our church, of at least the Christian church. There is a man there with an unclean spirit and Jesus calls him out.

Pick it up in Mark's Gospel chapter 1 verse 24. When Jesus comes in, the demon speaks to Jesus through the man. Let us alone. What have we to do with you Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. We always make the point that demons can identify God.

It's just arrogant humans that have a hard time admitting, surrendering to the truth. But here it is, the first words out of their mouth, leave us alone. That's what wicked wants. Wickedness wants to be left alone. Meanwhile, the same unclean spirit that spoke to Christ would not stop troubling that man that hosted them, that was stuck with them, that rendered him unclean before God. So the wicked do want peace so that they can pollute, infect, and contaminate and they do it very well. The state of this man was contaminated because of these spiritual parasites feeding off of him. Those allied with Ahab in chapters 9 and 10 of 2 Kings, they too are spiritual and physical parasites and that is why they're being judged.

They will be eliminated from the top down. Now we look at verse 1. And Elisha the prophet called one of the sons of the prophets and said to him, get yourself ready, take this flask of oil in your hand and go to Ramoth Gilead. Well, Elijah is delegating this.

He's probably up in years and it's going to require speed. His directive is going to essentially be preach it and beat it. And literally it is, when he calls the prophet, he said, get yourself ready. Literally in the Hebrew it is gird up your loins.

The long garments that they commonly wore, you couldn't run in them and so they would pull them up and tie them and so that they could have that freedom from the material to run. This instruction indicates that the message is urgent. Sort of like saying, you know, get your body armor on, you know, you've got to gear up for what I'm telling you to do.

Fortunately, we read of no resistance from the servant. He receives his orders and he acts on them. He says to go to Ramoth Gilead, which is on the east side of the Jordan River, still Israel's territory. There are the battle lines because the Syrians of Ben-Hadad have come against, well, I think by this time it's Hazael who killed Ben-Hadad. He's coming against the Jews. He is an instrument of God to punish the northern kingdom for their idolatry. God warned, all of these things were warned, laid out plain as day. They didn't believe it, even though many of it was happening right before their eyes. Elisha, the prophet, he sends this messenger to Jehu in private because he knows that it would set in motion the violent downfall of Ahab's house.

And Jehu is just the man to know how to pull this off and avert a civil war at the same time. A lot going on there. You know, we tend to read this as though, you know, we get these verses and there's so much happening many times between the verses. And we'll cover this when he begins to start his killing spree. We'll find that there's a lot of stuff, you know, you have to go to other sections of the Bible and figure it out.

But anyway, we'll hopefully get to that. Verse 3, he's still giving his messenger instructions. Then take the flask of oil and pour it on his head and say, Thus says Yahweh, I have anointed you king over Israel.

Then open the door and flee and do not delay. Now this is unfinished business going back 15 years with Elijah, Elisha's of course, teacher. This directive that is happening here to anoint Jehu.

Meaning Elijah passed it to Elisha and Elisha is now delegating it to the unnamed prophet, the servant of the prophet from the school of the prophets. Of course, a lot of details left out. We don't need them.

These are the facts. We have no reason to question the prophet's decisions to delay acting on this order of the Lord. The timing is perfect. Says here in verse 3, Then open the door and flee, do not delay.

And as I mentioned, he is to preach it then beat it as fast as he can. No greeting line. What? No greeting line? I enjoy the greeting line.

Well, you're going to not to this day. So verse 4, So the young man, the servant of the prophet, went to Ramoth Gilead. When he arrived, verse 5, there were the captains of the army sitting and he said, I have a message for you, commander. Jehu said, For which one of us? And he said, For you. So he singles out the biggest, highest in rank of the commanders. Of course, when it says captain, we might think in terms of an army captain but these are higher up commanders and Jehu's commander over all the army, more like generals. Or let's just go to verse 6 because that's why I like to talk about these things.

I like to talk about the military. I just don't want to go back in. So verse 6, Then he arose and went into the house and he poured the oil on his head and said to him, Thus says Yahweh, God of Israel, I have anointed you king over the people of Yahweh over Israel. So God has not abandoned Israel. He's reasoned to but he does have a remnant there and he's still reaching out to them and all anointings are God doing the anointing with his servants as the vessels. Oil anointings, which this is, like water baptisms, they're unmistakable.

There's not going to be any doubt. Now Jehu's going to try to play this off which I don't even know why he tries. Now usually, if we go by Psalms, the oil is poured on the head and it runs down.

It's, you know, a big deal. I don't know, maybe this servant of the prophet is not a seasoned prophet at anointing people. Maybe he gives him a little bit of oil. Either way, when he steps out, it's going to show. He probably tries to rub it in. You know your hair wasn't shiny like that a minute ago.

What happened? So let's look at verse 7. This is the prophet giving the orders to Jehu, who from God's perspective is now king in the north. You shall strike down a house of Ahab, your master. Verse 7, that I may avenge the blood of my servants, the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Yahweh at the hand of Jezebel. Verse 8, for the whole house of Ahab shall perish and I will cut off Ahab. All the males in Israel, both bond and free. And God means every bit of it.

All of Ahab, males in Israel, both bond and free, will be eliminated. So this is an official and a divine order. A directive to Jehu, who is now king. Here is his license to kill as an instrument of judgment. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, and what we're seeing is he's setting it up. That's what's going to happen.

This goes back years ago when Elijah first tells Ahab, you're going to be judged and the dogs are going to eat Jezebel, which you know Ahab was sad about. Jehu and Bitkar, evidently a fellow officer came up in the ranks with them. They were there for that. They're going to repeat this. We were there. Who knew we'd be instruments of God to do this?

How exciting. It wasn't exciting to them it appears. I mean it struck them, but you would think they would just love on Yahweh for all that he is doing here is miraculous. Well, we would have expected after such an anointing that Jehu would be valiant for Yahweh and he was not.

So again to review this purging that's coming. He kills Jo-ram, the king of Israel, Ahab's grandson with an arrow. As I mentioned, Ahab's grandson Jo-ram gets the point. He kills Azariah king of Judah on command. That was a little more sloppy because Jehu wasn't the one firing the arrow.

When he fired the arrow, it went right through the heart. He gives an order to his, I guess, the charioteer with him. Azariah survives for a little bit until they finally hunt him down and finish him off. Anyway, he's going to, of course, kill Jezebel on command. He says, who is with me?

Who? And they say, here we are, and throw her down. The gravity is what did her in along with the steed of Jehu. He kills on command seventy sons of Jo-ram, the current king. He killed Ahab's associates, those in his court, and he is going to kill on command forty-two brothers of Ahaziah, king of Judah, perhaps exceeding his directive, but they were rotten anyway. He's going to set up the prophets of Baal.

Let's pretend we worship Baal and that's how they're going to find out who really likes Baal and they're going to kill him after that. That's the next chapter, though. So verse nine, you love the Old Testament, don't you?

Go ahead, say it. Again, when I said he exceeded his directive, his executions were not as zealous for Yahweh as we might think. We get that in chapter 10. They're marred by this, he sort of enjoys it and he wants this power and he's still going to worship, you know, the golden calves up in Bethel and he just messes up everything. You know, I don't know that we'll see these guys in heaven.

If we do, you just want to say, what was your problem and how'd you get up here? No, I won't say anything like that. Verse nine, so I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah. Well, the people called to be Yahweh's people, a spiritually armed people. They were spiritually armed with the law and the prophets, which was expanding in their lifetime, as we are spiritually armed with the Bible, the Holy Spirit. This is the people of Yahweh, but they were as bloodthirsty in the north and in the south also, in their palaces, as the Caesars would be centuries later.

I mean the Caesars were just killing one after another to take the power and these were, they were doing the same thing here. Verse 10, the dog shall eat Jezebel on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her. And he opened the door and booked. So he fled as fast as he could.

I would love to see a video of this. Somebody there with their phone up. Anyway, no one's going to miss Jezebel. He's giving specific orders. Actually, Jehu's going to, unconsciously, going to try to sidestep some of this, but he's not going to succeed.

And not, I think again, he's unconscious when he does that. But anyway, he says, and he opened the door and fled, following orders, no more, no less. This is critical. When messengers exceed their command, problems arise. The Bible teaches us this. Even as Christians, maybe God opens the door and you're preaching the gospel and you get, you know, it's getting good to you, you got your little pulpit in front of you. I have a bigger pulpit, but I know the problem. And you just have to learn to shut your mouth. Okay, the message has been delivered. Okay, even in prayer, you know, get a group prayer, everybody goes on and on. I go out, get a milkshake, come back, they're still going. Maybe I got somebody, maybe that's me. We'll fix it. And when you feel God's not feeding you anything to pray, shut your mouth.

Best way to do it. Numbers, chapter 20, verse 11. Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod, and water came out abundantly in the congregation, and their animals drank. Yes, but God said, Moses, speak to the rock. And Moses, angry with the people, said, we'll give you water. What's this we suffering, Moses? And he strikes the rock.

Now you could imagine, he's got his rod and he's hitting this rock with enough force and anger, not too much to break the stick, but to let the people know he is unhappy. And God calls him out on it and tells him, you made me look like I was angry at the people. That was your problem, Moses. You've had this murder, this anger problem.

Remember you murdered that guy? You've got anger issues. So he set him up a session for counseling, and Moses never got better after that. Okay, he did not. So, because Moses did have an anger issue. Could you imagine him driving today on the road with that rod out the window smiting cars? Anyway, God, of course, what was the punishment?

It was pretty heavy. He couldn't go into the promised land for thousands of years. He did eventually get in, and he got a wine to God.

He went back, come on, let's talk about this. And God said, don't bring it up again. No, you've got to love that, the human element of that with God. And that's why these stories are there, for us to consider them to learn how to pray. How do you learn how to pray?

I just see, I look in the Bible, I see them talking to God, what's on their mind. Jeremiah's one of the best ones, you know, fussing with God in reverence. He says like, you know, you called me into ministry and you set me up.

Well, he sets up all pastors, else none of them would go in. If he said, let me show you what you got. When he said to Paul, let me show you the things you must suffer, he dribbled it out.

He didn't give him one flash. Although Paul was made of such stuff, he probably would've been able to pull it off anyway. Anyway, back to verse, sorry, did I offend anybody? Do you think that what pastor is just this fun thing?

It does have its pleasures, and it does have its not so pleasures, just like everything else. The curse is on every vocation by the sweat of your brow and the break of your heart. That's how things get done. And the men with the calling stick to it.

You don't have a choice. It's my role, if a man says I feel a calling to the pastor, I'm going to try to talk him out of it. Well, because that's my job as I see it. If God has called him, then I can't talk him out of it. If God has not called him, it'll be done after the first few minutes of me telling him what's coming.

And that's how it should be. Well, back to, well pause here, because you know my belief is whatever is happening with the pastor in some degree happens within the congregation. So, in the days of persecution, what do you tell people that you're trying to lead to Christ?

You're doing the same thing, do you not? You sure you're called to Christ? Because once you cross this line, get baptized, you're going to be a target. And we saw that and we're seeing that in the book of Acts. In the days of persecution, people coming to church was magnified and multiplied.

It's just being real with things. Verse 11, verse 9-11, then Jehu came out to the servants of his master and one said to him, is it well? Why did this madman come to you? And he said to them, you know the man in his babble. Then Jehu came out and the servants of the master and one of them said to him, is it well? Well, they knew something was afoot.

I mean, it just wasn't okay, you met with one of the sons of the prophets. Okay, that was enough to stir them up, but also the way he looked. His countenance was likely thinking, trying to process all of this and he had that oil on him somewhere. So, again, the prophet's assistant arrives, he speaks with the commander in private, he leaves in haste, they would have noticed that. Did you see that guy move?

And then, of course, some visible changes from when he got up from the card table or whatever it was that they were doing. Why did this madman come to you? Said with a nervous laugh. You know, there are those that mock spiritual things with a nervous laugh. Jeremiah, Hosea, Paul, they were charged with insanity by the spiritually insane. The wicked don't appreciate people noticing and disliking their wickedness. They don't want you to call it what it is. You know, a liar hates being called a liar, even when he's caught lying. A thief hates being called a thief when they're caught stealing. I mean, those who are really just impenitent. Anyhow, and he said to them, you know the man in his babble.

So he's trying to brush it off. They were all nervous. They all knew something big was happening.

I mean, you don't just go to a four-star general and meet with him in private and run out the room and then the general comes out with a little oil in his hair and just go, well, whose deal was it? I mean, you just don't go back to playing cards. Or again, whatever it was they were doing. Likely not cards because they hadn't perfected making cardboard like that yet.

I think the cowboy days, right? I don't know. Okay, back to this. Don't correct me.

I just saw something on this and I don't remember and I don't care. Verse 12, and they said, a lie. Tell us now. So he said, thus and thus he spoke to me saying, thus says Yahweh. I have anointed you king over Israel. That's all they heard. King over Israel. But it's funny how they were comfortable enough with him to call him out and say, ah, come on, Jehu. You know something's happening. Don't come out here telling us, nothing happened. So he says, okay, he told me I'm going to wipe out Ahab's family and do all of this stuff.

I have a license to kill. See, here it is. And then, you know, oh, by the way, I'm the king now. Well, this makes it clear that they knew the prophet was no madman because if they thought he was a madman, they would have said, who cares what he's meeting in there about? But they knew.

They knew these prophets were the real thing. And so when they showed up, that was a nervous laugh. Oh, he's just crazy. Oh, you know, he babbles. Yeah, right.

You wish they do that. The evolutionists do that. It's just, you know, they talk about that creation stuff like that.

This stuff is more hokey than anything. Thanks for joining us for today's edition on Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We trust that what you've heard today in the Book of 2 Kings has been something to remember. If you'd like to listen to more teachings from this series, go to crossreferenceradio.com. Once more, that's crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. Our time is about up, but we hope you'll tune in again next time as we continue on in the Book of 2 Kings. We look forward to that time with you, so make a note in your calendar to join Pastor Rick as he teaches from the Bible right here on Cross Reference Radio.