License to Kill (Part C)

Why does God wait so long to rid the land of the wicked, especially a wicked person like her? The people that were under that government, they deserved such a wicked queen mother and queen. They turned on Yahweh and they relished the fake gods that she brought in. So God let them live in it. You know, you get the government you deserve kind of a thing.

He allowed them their due. 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 Second 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. And now here's Pastor Rick in the Book of Second Kings chapter 9 as he continues his message, License to Kill. Verse 22. I remember the Book of Revelation unfolds over seven years and then there's life.

It's unfolding over centuries, millennium. Verse 22, Now it happened when Joram saw Jehu that he said, Is it peace, Jehu? So he answered, What peace?

As long as the hollow trees of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft are so many. Oh man, talk about his mama. That's what he just did. Right to the king. This is, you know, you just want Jehu to be another King David.

And so close. So he rode all the way out there to ask him, well, he's like a stubborn fool. You would think if he was a wise king he would have said, You know what? I smell a rat here. You know, something's not right.

My messengers aren't coming back. No, he and the two, you know, arrogant kings go flopping out there to the wrong guy. So he answers, What peace? As long as the hollow trees of your mother Jezebel. He names her and her witchcraft are so many. He calls her a witch. Blunt trauma to the mood. That's what I would say. Spiritual indictments.

This is spiritual. He's not saying, you know, she's stealing from the treasuries of the kingdom. That would have been a crime.

She might have been doing that too. But he goes right to the spiritual crimes. The hollow trees refer to Jezebel's idolatrous worship that she imported through Ahab. But still, Jehu has this disposition that's more like Esau than David. He's just a man's man and doesn't really go much farther. He's gotten too good at being capable of getting his will done. That's the majesty of the authority of Christ, a man under authority and therefore of authority.

And that is something that should be attractive to us. Verse 23, Then Jo-ram turned around and fled and said to Ahaziah, Treachery Ahaziah. Oh, now they figure it out.

Too late now. So, Jo-ram, let me ask you a question before this arrow pierces your heart from the back. It's treachery against you, because he's not loyal to you. But you've not been loyal to Yahweh. Is that treachery too? No, it doesn't work that way with evil. Evil's one-sided.

Yahweh did not deserve the disloyalty. His subjects were devoted to showing him. And that's what this is all about.

All of this is about that very thing. There are other kings in other nations that weren't being troubled this day this way. These two were because of their unfaithfulness. We'll get to at the end why I think it took 15 years to execute this. But verse 24, Now Jehu drew his bow with full strength and shot Jehoram, which is Jo-ram, the king of the north, between the arms. And the arrow came out his heart, and he sank down in his chariot. I bet he did. The coup de grace.

That's done. Without hesitation, full intent to kill, instant kill, Jo-ram got the point. And somebody walked over and looked and said, look at that, right in the bull's eye.

He couldn't ask for a better shot. When it says he drew in full strength, somebody's eyes caught that. Somebody saw the face on Jehu when he pulled, strung that bow and let that thing go. And he said, pull that thing back with all he had.

And it got the target just like that. Verse 25, Then Jehu said to Bitkah, his captain, pick him up, throw him into the track of field of Naboth, the Jezreelite. Remember when you and I were riding together behind Ahab, his father, that Yahweh laid this burden upon him? Jehu has this epiphany.

The lights turn on. I remember this. He doesn't say it that way because it's not his style. He says to Bitkah, who again came up in the ranks with him as a high ranking officer now with Jehu, he says, remember we were there. When Elijah came out and said, you know, this was going to happen, the great prophet said it would be so and it is so. And neither one of us knew at the time we were just low ranking officers then.

You know, we were lieutenants or something. And now, here we are, part of the prophecy itself. And he attributes these events to the fulfillment of God's word.

And yet he will be disloyal to Yahweh nonetheless. Evil, it reaches a point where there is no explanation. You know, criminologists can try, but they can only go up to a point you can go no further. There's no explanation except it is demonic. You're dealing with spiritual forces that are smarter than you. They are evil and they must be dealt with.

I mean, who can explain the evil that the Japanese unleashed on the Pacific in the Second World War and of course, the Nazis or Stalin. I mean, you just, the evil, the level, Stalin would wipe out whole villages for daring to criticize. Mark Anthony, and speaking similar to Jezebel, when Cicero criticized in his speeches and writings, Mark Anthony, they had him killed. Then they cut off his head and his hands and they pinned the hands in the public, you know, forums so everybody could see that's the hand that rode against me. And gave his head to his wife and it is said when she got the cadaver, the head, that she pulled out the tongue and kept sticking it with her hairpin.

Who are these people? Freedom of speech wasn't something that they were very interested in. Wickedness is, we are in spiritual war and we shouldn't be surprised when it behaves like war. But when Ahaziah, king of Judah, saw this, he fled by the road to Beth Hagan. So Jehu pursued him and said, shoot him also in the chariot. And they shot him at the ascent of Ger, which is by Ibleum, when he fled to Megiddo and died there.

Some people pronounce these the Megiddo and I think they show off some of them. I don't know. My way is right, for me. Jehu doesn't fire this arrow. Had he fired it, it would have been probably a kill.

But it's not an instant kill. But he felt obligated. The moment lended itself to him and he knew he had to strike Ahaziah also. They shot him at the ascent of Ger, which is by Ibleum. This is a major trade route. In fact, there's a movie, The Kingdom of Heaven, I think, and one of the crusaders, he inherits Ibleum. But it's on a trade route and that's a major defending point. That's where the roads were.

So whoever did the playwright for that also did their research. So anyway, and Ibleum will lead to Samaria. Samaria leads to Jerusalem and he's trying to get back home. It says, then he fled to Megiddo and died there. Again, doesn't die instantly. He makes it to Samaria 13 miles up north again.

No, actually south. But then he gets caught. Jehu's men catch him there. We pick this up in 2 Chronicles 22 verse 9. Then he searched for Ahaziah after he was wounded and they caught him. He was hiding in Samaria and brought him to Jehu when they had killed him. They buried him because they said he is a son of Jehoshaphat and sought Yahweh with all his heart. That is, Jehoshaphat sought Yahweh. So they eventually get him back to Jerusalem, his corpse, and they bury him because of Jehoshaphat, not because of himself. Which to me is like, well, he shouldn't have gotten in then. He's disqualified.

But anyway, this is just how it happened. So Jehu is traveling around. He goes to Ramoth Gilead. He comes to Jezreel and he heads down to Samaria and he ends up in Megiddo and then he comes back to Jezreel and that's where he's going to encounter Jezebel. But now we're at verse 28. And his servants carried him in the chariot to Jerusalem and buried him in the tomb with his fathers in the city of David.

So that is just a follow up there. Had he not joined up with Ahab on that day, he would have still been doing evil in Jerusalem. But don't worry, Athaliah, we'll get some of her in I think chapter 11. She is just as much a witch as Jezebel. Verse 29, in the 11th year of Joram, the son of Ahab, Ahaziah became king over Judah. Verse 30, now when Jehu had come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it and she put paint on her eyes and adorned her head and looked through a window. Well, a lot going on. Verse 29, a lot of discussion about the dates but they're easily satisfied because there's different methods of counting.

Not going to go any further into that. Here in verse 30, he arrives. Jezreel is where Joram was when he sent out the messengers.

Is it peace? So clearly, Jehu does not go back to Jezreel, ends up at likely Megiddo where they finish off Ahaziah. And then he comes back to Jezreel where Jezebel is. And so he goes, Raymoth Gilead to Beth Hagen, the ascent of Ger, Megiddo, back to Jezreel. What's happening with the Syrians up there in Raymoth Gilead? Well, they're going to do a lot of damage to the Jews because God is using them to judge the Jews, even under Jehu. Had Jehu been righteous though, the Syrians would have been beaten back. But he failed. So he comes back.

We don't know how much time, could have been a day or two, could have been hours, but he ends up coming back to Jezreel. And Jezebel, it says here in verse 30, Jezebel heard of it and she put paint on her eyes. Now she knows her son, Joram, has been shot through the heart and is dead. She probably also knows he caught up with Ahaziah and killed him too. Rather than flee, she takes the time to decorate herself. She has places she can go.

You can go back up to Sidon where her father is or was or family was. But she's going to taunt Jehu because she adorns her eyes with the dark eyed eye of the day. This was something that the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, and those living in the Bronx would practice. And they would spread it on both the upper and lower. I would accentuate the eye.

I would give it a brilliance that wasn't natural. And you know, Islam talks about their dark eyed beauties. Well, it has something to do with that. Certainly no promotion of Islam.

But it's just the historical, for the historical content. Ezekiel even mentions this. He speaks of just the loose living of Israel. He says, you washed yourself, metaphorically, for them painted your eyes and adorned yourself with ornaments, trying to be alluring to the evil spirits. Ultimately it was what it was. But why the painted face is what, you know, you could say. She's painting her face around the eyes. Did she know that Jehu would kill her and she did not want to be caught dead without her makeup? She's vain enough, but she's also very cunning and not very loving. Did she suppose that Jehu would look at her beauty and it would charm him and he would say, you know what, I was going to kill you, but you know what, you just look actually pretty hot.

And I'm not. Well, some of that's there. She is in her 50s at this point. And we know that because she has a grandson that's 23 years old. We get that in verse 26. Anyway, Cleopatra was in her 40s when Mark Anthony fell in love with her.

My point is, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and especially when you have that much money and wealth, you can pamper yourself and you're not out in the fields working. You remember the Song of Solomon? The sun had beaten her and the Bible says she was dark and lovely because she's out in the fields working and her brothers are probably sitting back playing cards. So anyhow, that's a whole story by itself. So she was arrogant, vain, cunning enough to attempt to captivate Jehu.

I think that's possible. I think the easy answer is she's just vain and arrogant and like her son, felt that she was just untouchable. Nobody's going to hurt her.

It's up to, you know, the jury's still out. I think it's a combination of both because it says she adorned her head. Does she fix her hair? Her outward beauty meant everything to her because inside she was a monster. You would do so on the inside.

And so she's like, you know, she's got her hairdo up, fresh makeup. You know, why else would she do this? Spiritually, she serves as a model against those who decorate only the outside. And Peter talks about being careful about that instead of dedicating themselves on the inside.

And it says, and look through a window. She couldn't help herself. She couldn't keep a low profile. She just could not keep her mouth shut and just say, don't tell them I'm home. Any sane person would have just done that. But she's going to pull on Leroy Brown's cape, man, and he's going to, verse 31, then Jehu entered the gate and she said, Is it peace, Zimrai, murderer of your master?

What is she thinking? He can take her down and torture her, you know, cut off the nose first, then work on the ears. He could do all sorts of stuff. Sixty years earlier, Zimrai killed his king. He was a subordinate to Ella.

And he killed him so he could become king. And so she is saying, she's had time to think of this. That's why it's not like after he kills Joe Ram, he runs back to see. Just some time has elapsed. She's had time to make this connection.

Now, Zimrai was only king for seven days. And so she's saying the fate of that king killer is your fate. I don't know what tone she's using, but the words aren't good. I don't even know if he cared what she said. And he certainly didn't care how she looked. He just decided she needed to go.

She's part of the license to kill from God. And he wasn't like Zimrai killing his master to be king. He was told to do this. And so her bold taunt, Zimrai murdered his master and reigned and look what happened to him, it's going to happen to you.

That is a very big possibility. Or was she trying to say, yeah, you did the same thing as Zimrai did, but I'm good with this and I could be of help in your kingdom. Because she was cunning. He was not the man to provoke.

You know, who would even talk to the man who just killed two kings, one of them her son? Arrogance. Arrogance breeds stupidity. If you are arrogant and ignorant, well, you're just a problem all the time. But if you are intelligent and arrogant, at some point you're going to make a big blunder.

And probably everybody doesn't like you anyway. Anyway, whether she's flirting with him, her son's killer as a ploy, or is she just, you know, doesn't want to be caught without her makeup on. Verse 32, he looked up at the window and said, who's on my side?

Who? So two or three eunuchs looked out at him. I love this part. I think you do too.

This is where we should have music. He couldn't care about her makeup and hairdo. Jehu had to ask twice, evidently, because there must have been some hesitation. These were servants. And they were emasculated servants. And they didn't know what to do, what side to choose yet.

Still she was still the queen, mother. But that's going to instantly unravel. So he says twice, who was on my side? Hesitation.

Who? Second point. They had to have pushed by her if they're looking out the same window.

At that point they made the decision, we're on his side. And pushed her aside. So two or three eunuchs looked out. Well, that would be enough to lift her out and toss her while she's struggling to not be lifted up and tossed. She's probably yelling and fussing at them.

And they don't hear a word. Verse 33, then he said, throw her down. That's so nonchalant. You know, like he's eating a sandwich. Oh, by the way, throw her down.

This is wonderful. So they threw her down. And some of her blood splattered on the wall and on the horses. And he trampled her underfoot. I don't think she saw it coming as her arrogant son. Again, however high up she was, her impact made a bloody splash. She hit the right way to create the blood.

That splatter of blood would excite the scavenger dogs all by itself. But then Jehu, who's a master at charioteer, he excites the horses to trample her, to finish her off. Revelation 18, 24, speaking of Babylon, that representation of humanity against God encapsulated within Babylon.

And there were other details too. But overall, spiritual Babylon is all about evil. And in her was found the blood of the prophets and the saints and of all who were slain on the earth. Well, she, in a microcosm, she is that. She was the anti-Yahweh, the spiritual harlot of Israel, just like spiritual Babylon is the harlot of the world.

So there is that type and fulfillment, anti-type. And he trampled her underfoot. Deliberate.

This was deliberately done. He knew how to maneuver those war horses. They knew how to kick and trample. They're trained to do that. You know, so you ever see horses when they're about to race at a professional track? They can get pretty nasty with each other. Some of them are so pumped up. They're trying to attack the horse in the next stall and they're trying to keep them away from each other. Horses, they're big. They have big heads.

Anyway, that's why you don't see them with hats too much. I think you need to watch more cartoons. Anyhow, where am I? So over 15 years, as I mentioned, passed since this doom is now finally taking place. Why does God wait so long to rid the land of the wicked, especially a wicked person like her? The people that were under that government, they deserved such a wicked queen mother and queen. They turned on Yahweh and they relished the fake gods that she brought in. So God let them live in it. You know, you get the government you deserve kind of a thing. He allowed them their due. But in time it was like, okay, that's enough. Many righteous paid with their lives under her and Ahab and Jo-ram and Ahaziah because the curse is real.

The curse from Eden is real and God would reward them. Alright, well we're going to kind of blow right through this next session. There's not a lot here. And when he had, well a little bit more, and when he went and ate and drank, verse 34, then he said, go now and see to this accursed woman and bury her for she was a king's daughter. So he has disdain for her but her position as a princess he is, you know, making mention of. He has no remorse for his actions.

They're not necessary. All his targets were evil. He knew that. As far as this goes, his conscience was clear.

God's instrument he was. The sight of her mangled body did not cause him to lose his appetite. He tramples her, I'm getting something to eat. That's what he does. I mean, that's not recommended.

I'm not, this is how it was. His command to bury her opposes what he was told, that she'll not be buried. But his command will go flat, and verse 35 will point that out. There won't be enough of her to bury, so they're just going to chuck it into the field, the head, the hands, and the feet. Verse 35, so they went to bury her, but they found no more than her skull and her feet and the palms of her hands. Even the dogs, they don't have the limits, you know, okay, I can't take any more of this. Well, you know, we don't have much time, but the head, that's where the thoughts are.

The decisions are finalized. The hands are the actions that act on the orders from the head, and the feet, her stance. Where she stood in life was unfit for scavenger dogs. What she put her hands to was unfit for scavenger dogs, and the way she thought was unfit for scavenger dogs. That's the point.

I see that. Verse 36, therefore they came back and told him, and he said, this is the word of Yahweh, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying on the plot of ground Jezreel, dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel, and yet he remains an enigma. Verse 37, and the corpse of Jezebel, he's still talking, shall be as refuse on the surface of the field in the plot of Jezreel, so that they shall not say, here lies Jezebel. You know, they didn't want to say, here lies Ben Laden. They just, you know, at undisclosed place, they dumped him into the sea. And here, no one's going to be able to say, you know, let's go put flowers on her grave. There's no grave. They just said, well, this is what was said on the surface of the field. So they threw the remains out there, and they let the insects finish it off, I presume.

Maybe scavenger birds or whatever. But remember the painted face of Jezebel. Remember Lot's wife. Remember their end.

She tried to bring up Zimrai and say, look at his end. You know, he turned on his master too. Six days as king.

Didn't work out well for him. That was her point. God comes along and overrules her and says, remember you and your painted face and your hairdo.

It didn't do anything for you. We close with this, Revelation 2.20. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality and she did not repent. God is saying, I don't forget these kind of people, and neither should we. 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 Second 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 Second 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.