The Killing Fields (Part C)

Look how zealous I am. Look how I do it. Look at my Bible. Look at my church. Look at my path.

No, no, that one might be good if you go here. But you know, you get it. So, we Christians, again, it is very dangerous to be proud of your own zeal for the Lord. Don't let your left hand know what the right hand is doing. That's what Jesus meant by that. You show kindness to somebody.

After you do that, don't remember it. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of 2 Kings chapter 10 as he continues his message, The Killing Fields. Now, as you read the story about Jehu, you just, you know, you sort of just suck your teeth and just sigh that, man, he could have been such a dynamo for God in the north.

And not happening. These men were not related to Ahab. I know you say I'm confusing Ahab, Joe Rabacam. Why can't they give them American names?

Well, we now call American names. But I don't know. How else do you teach this without making these references? Because they do count. You had to expose the congregation to them.

You've got to start somewhere. But anyway, when I say they were not related by blood to Ahab, and yet he kills them, that means he's exceeding his orders. We covered this briefly when a servant goes beyond what they are told. When the prophet went to anoint Jehu, the servant of the prophet, he was told, anoint him and get out of there. And that's what he did. And he went no further. And then we cited Moses when he was told to speak to the rock, but Moses angry with the people.

He strikes the rock, you know, in anger twice. And we have to watch that we do not go beyond. God may say to you, I want you to go minister to this person. And just by going over and saying, hi, how are you, talking to him, and then you invite them home. And God says, I didn't tell you to do that. I told you to say hi to the guy.

And now you go and you have a confrontation. So just to be sensitive to the leading of the Lord. Get that confirmation.

Try not to move until you get it. It takes discipline to feel like you want to do something, but you're not sure God wants you to do it. And many times we can just wait it out.

God knows how to make his confirmations. I have, I go through this often. Sometimes, sometimes I even ask for, I need a second one. And sometimes I now understand the value of on the strength of two or three. See that third witness is when it's really a big deal. Okay, I got to like Gideon with the fleece. I got the two confirmations, but this is a big deal, Lord. Can I have one more? And not to be pushy. I don't do this all the time.

It has to be genuine. So anyway, he is exceeding his orders. His motivation is fear, not faith. Are you associated with Jezebel and Ahab and those guys?

I'm killing you because I'm not taking any chances. Yeah, but where's the trust in God in believing what the prophet said? Too common a practice is to act on some stimulus that lay outside the scripture. And you know, we're susceptible to it. So whole churches do it and they become what we call apostate or watered down.

They're stimulated by things that are actually even prohibited in the scripture sometimes. Well, everyone he executed outside of his house, Ahab's house, was not a commissioned execution. Verse 15, now when he departed from there, he met Jonadab. You shouldn't want to meet this guy. Jehu is like, you know, the grim reaper.

You know, anyway, but that's not going to happen here. Jonadab, the son of Rechab, coming to meet him and he greeted him and said to him, is your heart right as my heart is toward your heart? And Jehonadab answered, it is. Jehu said, if it is, give me your hand. And he gave him his hand and he took him up into the chariot. The language in the English could have, you know, double entendres.

Give me your hand. Well, with Jehu, cut it off is what he meant. That's not what happened.

I'm just playing with the English here. So here he is, Jehu, fresh from another kill. And he checks with, he sees Jehonadab coming and he checks to see, have you heard about what's going on?

Where are you? Are you my friend? I'm friendly towards you.

I have no right with you. He is the patriarch Jehonadab to the Rechabites that we read about in Jeremiah 35. We only read about them and their lifestyle in Jeremiah 35.

They show up earlier. They're descendants of Moses' father-in-law and then the son-in-law, the Kenites. They were devout. They were somewhat like our Amish in that they did not want to live in the cities. They did not want to farm unlike the Amish. They were nomadic Bedouins.

They lived in tents and traveled around. In Jeremiah 35, as Nebuchadnezzar is bringing his armies into Judah, the Rechabites, the descendants of this man Jehonadab, they come to the city for refuge. And God sends Jeremiah to them and says, Jeremiah, I want you to test them. They abstain from wine. And, you know, they just want to be separate from, like the Nazarites, you know, they want to be separated to God.

I want you to test them. And Jeremiah offers them wine, kind of gets you something to drink, you know, must be thirsty. And they refuse. And then Jeremiah holds them up and says, how come God's people cannot be like these Rechabites? They abstain. They stick to what they claim they believe.

But my people, they claim to believe me and then they go burn incense to idols. And so this is the beginning of this group of people living in Israel. Today there's another group of people that are sort of a small culture loyal to the Jews. They're not Jewish. The Druze, they are, they fight with Israel's army and they're respected by the Jewish people.

You don't hear about them too much. I'm sure some of you will Google it or look it up after service. So coming back to this, this Jonadab, the patriarch of the Rechabites that come along later. He was the kind of man that Jehu needed to help his public relations. So if they saw him in the chariot with Jehu, well Jehu must be a righteous guy because these guys don't play around. You know, Jonadab, he's just a straight arrow. So this worked for Jehu. We don't read again about what happened.

Oh, we do. There's a little bit more coming so we'll get to that. Verse 16. Then he said, come with me and see my zeal for Yahweh. So they had him ride in his chariot and Jehonadab, we know how Jehu drove the chariot, so he's just bouncing around. In verse 16 he says, come see my zeal for the Lord.

So Jehu picks up an endorsement and then he endorses himself. This is very important, I think, for us because it is very dangerous to be proud of one's own zeal. Look how zealous I am. Look how I do it. Look at my Bible. Look at my church. Look at my path.

No, no, that one might be good if you go here. But you know, you get it. So we Christians, again, it is very dangerous to be proud of your own zeal for the Lord. Don't let your left hand know what the right hand is doing. That's what Jesus meant by that. You show kindness to somebody. After you do that, don't remember it. Don't build a little monument.

Here's where I gave Lenny, you know, helped him with his flat tire. Don't do that kind of stuff. That's the lesson that comes out of it. Isn't it good that God does not say, before you can preach the Bible, you've got to be able to do everything in it. That would count us all out. Well, the whole walking on water thing would just eliminate us right away.

Anyhow, coming back to this, talk is cheap. He's saying his zeal for the Lord, but it is really for himself. In verse 29, I won't read it now, but we'll come to this. He does purge the kingdom of Ahab and Baal worship, but he does not serve Yahweh. Verse 17, and when he came to Samaria, he killed all who remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed them according to the word of Yahweh, which he spoke to Elijah. So he is, again, finding his spies are out there. You have a few more relatives you missed, and I'll be right there.

So the more killing. Outside of his chariot driving, there's not much that remains attractive from a Christian perspective of Jehu. Now, last we talked about when Jehu first encountered King Joram of the north, that he started talking about his mama. And some of the lads had suggested that, and playfully so, I'm sure, that the Bible sanctions talking about the mama jokes. Now, they didn't mean it, but it was funny, but it is a good stopping point to just mention Jehu.

There's nothing about him that is spiritually attractive to us. He is a bad guy, even though he is a bad guy in two senses, in both senses of the word. Another double entendre, right? He's a double entendre. He's a bad guy before the Lord.

He's evil, and then he's a bad guy. I don't know. Again, maybe I'm in the wrong neighborhood using this one. Let's go back to verse 19.

Some neighborhoods would get it like that. That dude is bad, but here is. Anyway, verse 19. Now, therefore, call to me and all the prophets of Baal, and all his servants, and all his priests. Let no one be missing, for I have a great sacrifice for Baal. According to the new, Nelson's new Bible dictionary, the pronunciation of the Baal is ba-al. And so it's just hard to just repeat these names and not feel a little goofy doing it all the time. I don't like saying ba-al, like a ba-al of hay or something.

I try to go with ba-al, but it's hard. Anyway, whoever is missing, here in verse 19, shall not live, but Jehu acted deceptively with the intent of destroying the worshippers of Baal. Verse 20, And Jehu said, Proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal, so they proclaimed it. And Jehu sent throughout all Israel and all the worshippers of that fake god, so that there was not a man left who did not come. So they came into the temple of Baal, and the temple of him again was full from one end to the other.

You know, you could hear yourself singing, so this is not pleasant. So just to recap, Jehu says to the Rachabite leader, I want you to see how zealous I am for Yahweh, which he on the outside was. And so he goes to the worshippers of this false god. He says, I want to have a big feast for him. You think Ahab served this god?

Wait till you see what I have in store. But he's lying. He wants to get them all together so he can kill them. And that's what he is doing here.

He's going to pull it off. And it's admirable from the position of those times in that period of time. Verse 22, And he said to the one in charge of the wardrobe, Bring out vestments for all the worshippers of Baal. So they brought out vestments for them. Verse 23, And Jehu and Jehonadab, the son of Rachab, went into the temple of Baal and said to the worshippers, Search and see that no servants of Yahweh are here with you, but only Baal's worshippers. Verse 24, So they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had appointed for himself 80 men on the outside and said, If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escapes, whoever lets him escape, it shall be his life for the life of the other. Okay, so he's finding out, find out if there's anybody who worships Yahweh here because we're going to get those guys out. And really what he's doing is protecting them. He doesn't want them slaughtered with these false worshippers. Then Jehu, who believed in terrorizing people because he believed it achieved his results, said to his men, If you let anybody get away, you're going to die. And it was very effective doing this.

And he just, he kind of liked this guy if he were just good. Verse 25, Now it happened as soon as he had made an end of offering, the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, Go in and kill them. Let no one come out. And they killed them with the edge of the sword. Then the guards and the officers threw them out and went into the inner room of the temple of that guy, that false guard. So after they killed them, they just tossed the bodies out and let somebody else deal with them. That's what it says when they cast them out. And then they're going to, watch what they do, verse 26, And they brought the sacred pillars out of the temple of Baal and burned them. Okay, so these were images that were part of their worship, but verse 27, And they broke down the sacred pillar of Baal, it's a separate one, evidently larger, perhaps even structural, And tore down the temple of Baal and made it a refuse dump to this day. So they raised the place.

Literally, where it says refuse dump, it's place of dung. Now we use the word literally to distinguish from metaphor. This generation is now, after they've butchered the word awesome, they've started on the word literally. I was literally standing there, literally. And it's just like stop it, stop it. Just say you were standing there. We don't think you're being mystical about it.

Well, so, this is the proper use of the word literal because it is making the distinction. He turned this temple of worship into a public latrine. That's the idea. He was again thorough, he demolished this temple, and this would discourage anyone thinking, Well, we could just rebuild it.

It was now a sewer. Verse 28, Thus Jehu destroyed Baal from Israel just like that. Yeah, well, that won't stop me having to read that name again in future Bible studies, I'm sure. Verse 29, However, Jehu did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who had made Israel sin, that is, from the golden calves that were at Bethel and Dan. Well, any righteous Jew reading this would immediately be, you know, just disgusted with this statement that Jehu did all of this for God. And yet he holds on to enemies of God, these demonic concoctions. These centers of false worship were created to maintain the rivalry between true worship in Jerusalem and false worship everywhere else.

And it's beyond us to know how he could do such a thing. How he could have this enemy religion that he could embrace it after being so used by the true God. Therefore, the decay of the nation continued and spread deeper into the southern kingdom. And the Assyrians, of course, being a testimony of that because they took much of Israel's territory. Then that creates a whole other story by the time we get to Isaiah with the northern kingdom and the Assyrians then getting together and trying to get the southern kingdom, Judah, to fight against the coming Assyrians. But then the Judah says, no, I'm not going to go with you. And they said, well, we're going to need to kill that king. And then he calls up to the Assyrians and the Assyrians said, we'll be happy to help you. And so you got this whole, just soap opera going on. They just said, here to the Lord.

It wouldn't have happened. So we won't get to that until we get to Isaiah. Verse 30, and Yahweh said to Jehu, because you have done well in doing what is right in my sight and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in my heart, your son shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. Now, God evidently sent a prophet to communicate this because the pattern was to go through the prophet to the kings. Verse 31, but Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of Yahweh, God of Israel, with all his heart. For he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam, who had made Israel sin. And one of his grandsons will be called Jeroboam II, actually. Jeroboam is the one that introduced calf worship into the northern kingdom, which essentially said, see this golden calf? This is Yahweh, and he's the one that led you out of Egypt, which was forbidden. They did it anyway, and he got away with it.

Well, amongst the people they did. So in verse 31, but Jehu took no heed. This is the story of his personal failure as the instrument in the hand of God, and yet his heart was corrupt.

His hands were right, but his heart was wrong. Another lesson, verse 32. In those days, Yahweh began to cut off parts of Israel, and Hazael conquered them in all the territory of Israel. He's the one that the prophet looked at and started weeping, because he knew Hazael was going to kill his master, Benheaded, and he did. Well, now he then comes to take territory.

Verse 33, from Jordan, Eastwood, all the land of Gilead, Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh. However, I don't recall how to pronounce that, and I'm not going to force it out. My tongue is actually tired.

It's pooped. You come across an American that can't speak French but uses French words. Is it not annoying? Well, I don't want to do that with the Hebrew.

I try not to do that with the Greek and sound like, oh, am I impressing you? Like, you know better. I could fake it, and you wouldn't know.

You'd hear another guy do it, then it'd be a debate. He did it differently. Well, he's wrong. Anyway, including Gilead and Bashan. See, I distracted you from those words and just moved right on through it, like you're going to go to one of those places tomorrow and just verify it. Hey, I went to Manasseh like you said, and you mispronounced it.

All right, so coming back to this, there's just nothing really to add. This territory was lost because of Jehu. Idolatry brings defeat, verse 34. Now the rest of the acts of Jehu, all that he did and all his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? Verse 35, so Jehu rested with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria.

Then Jehoahaz, his son, reigned in his place. Well, physically, he cleaned the house like David or Hezekiah would have, but spiritually, he chose the baseless lies. And baseless, there's no reason, he had no reason to believe those things, and that's what idolatry does. You know, people who throw salt over their shoulder, you know, to ward off evil spirits, carry a rabbit's foot, there's no basis for that. Whistling through a graveyard won't protect you if somebody's hiding behind a stone waiting to mug you.

In fact, it'll let them know where you are. So superstition is without basis. Our faith, of course, has the greatest basis for our faith, other than reason is prophecy and seeing prophecy fulfilled. Well, verse 36, and the period that Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was 28 years. So he had a long run, and he swept out the house of Ahab and impudent Jezebel, along with that duo's imported religion.

He's rewarded, of course, with a dynasty that lasted over 100 years. I don't know that there's anything else to say about Jehu. The warning, again, it's possible to be an instrument in the hand of God, yet never be in fellowship with God. Lord, Lord, didn't we cast out demons and prophesy in your name?

And of course, he says, get away from me, I never knew you. So we close with 2 John, verse 8. Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.

Let's pray. Now, Father, one of the exciting things about your word is that to study, it forces us to think, to not be removed from the realities that surround us. And in doing so, we discover truths that would otherwise be bypassed, that are useful to your glory, to ministry towards unbelievers, to the edification of each other. Our brothers and sisters, we thank you for your word.

It does so much. We don't have to go far in this world to find a place where your word is not honored and see how life is there. We pray that we never lose sight of these important things.

In Jesus' name, Amen. 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.