Elisha Dies (Part C)

This half-hearted warfare, and the prophet identifies it, and the king does not object.

He knows he's busted. Mediocre ministry does not help. It hurts people. If you serve in the church, serve. I mean, serve, you're serving the Lord God, your God. Sing, you know, if there's nobody around, sing what you serve.

Get in the Spirit. There must be a degree of enthusiasm in God's work, especially over critical appointments. How unlike David.

David showed us how, Psalm 18, you have also given me the necks of my enemies so that I destroyed those who hated me. 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 2 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. Now here's Pastor Rick in the Book of 2 Kings chapter 13 as he continues his message called, Elisha Dies. Verse 13, so Joash rested with his fathers. Then Jeroboam sat on his throne, and Joash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. So the Jehu dynasty, this goes back to Jehu, the madman of the north. His four sons, this is the third one to die. He's got one more Zechariah, and his dynasty is over as promised by God through the prophets. During Jeroboam the second, then Jeroboam sat on the throne and says here in verse 13, the prophets Hosea and Amos had their ministries.

And you can find out what the people of God had to go through with those guys, that king on the throne. You've got to love Amos. Amos was from the south. He moves to the north, kind of a reverse of a Yankee, right? And he gets up there and they want him to go back to the south, stop preaching.

We don't want to hear it anymore. A very powerful prophet Amos was. Verse 14, Elijah had become sick with an illness of which he would die. Then Joash, the king of Israel, came down to him and wept over his face and said, oh my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and their horsemen.

Well this is quite moving. Now if you don't know who Elijah is, you would have had to read the preceding chapters to find out that he was a great prophet in the north. He was the disciple of the other great prophet, Elijah, who's long gone to heaven. And now Elijah, who's very old, he's in 70s and 80s now, over 50 years of ministry. And we'll get to some of that just briefly. But this is another parenthetical section to kings. It's okay, while we're talking about the kings, let's stop for a moment and let's get back to Elijah. And this will be through the, of course, resume in the next chapter, even at the end of this one. But anyway, this is out of sequence because Joash, the king who comes and weeps over him, in verse 13 is already said to have died.

So you see, you pick up the parentheses. A scoffer would come along, that's contradicting. And so you're contradicting and irritating and it sure doesn't go with those pants. So anyway, it is unbiblical. It is flat out unbiblical to assign sickness and death to a lack of faith. You just don't have enough faith. Well, I hope I have enough energy to go upside your head if you say that to me again.

No, that's not true. We Christians can only fantasize about that. And we're not supposed to do that either. I love you, brother. Anyway, Dave Hunt. I don't have a quote here. I don't think I quote Dave Hunt enough. He too is with the Lord.

Sure would be nice if God sent another Dave Hunt who could so articulate and meticulous research the truths of Christianity against so much blubbering that's going out blabbering. Dave Hunt says to say that failure to be healed results from too little prayer and fasting is false. That teaching implies that we can cause God to do whatever we pray for if we pray and fast long and hard enough. In other words, that we can impose our will upon Him. What about God's will? It also suggests that God's will is to heal everyone every time. On the contrary, He has something better for us than perpetuating our lives endlessly in these bodies of sin. I could have said it better, but I opted to let Dave have a little of the limelight.

Actually, he's just an amazing brother. And I'm glad to have lived in a time where God used him. Again, men will sacrifice reason for imagination. And we have these people going around in Christianity preaching that God wants you healed, God wants you rich.

Whether they know what they're talking about or not is irrelevant. It's a lie. And there's no excuse for it because the Bible does not teach these things. This is the great prophet Elijah and he gets sick and he's gonna die. He's terminally ill at this point in his ministry. That again is over half a century.

Now how do we get these dates? Well, we would determine them by the amount of time we're told the kings reigned. Ahab reigned 22 years. And we know Elisha was ministering towards the end of Ahab's life.

Ahaziah for two years, Jeroboam for 12, Jehu for 28, Jehoaz for 17, Joash for 16. And he ministered within all of his six different kings. And that's how we get an idea of how old he was. Plus he goes balding. He's bald by the time he enters the ministry.

If he's just starting to lose it, he's probably in his late 20s or something. And so you get an idea of where he was. Anyway, he continues to prophesy while terminally ill. In fact, when he dies after he's dead, his bones will even minister his body. And we'll come to that in a little bit. This is just such an ageless ministry.

We haven't heard from him for 45 years. Again, dating by the kings, not since chapter 9 when Jehu was anointed king. The prophet sends one of his servants, go anoint Jehu king and get out of there as fast as you can. And that's what he does.

Well, why not? Because apostasy was exalted amongst the people in the northern kingdom. And that reduced the ministry of the prophets.

They still ministered, they still functioned, but only within the circles of those who wanted to hear what they had to say. I remember, oh I can't remember his name all of a sudden, Wilbur Smith. Wilbur Smith was a very solid Christian writer and preacher back in the 50s, 60s.

Had at that time perhaps the largest private theological collection of books in the world in English. And he was hard, he couldn't see well. And there was another pastor that I know that was around when Wilbur Smith was ministering. And he goes to this Bible study Wilbur Smith is giving.

There aren't many people there, most of them old. But the pastor's telling the story is relatively young. But the older guys had taken him under their wing and he submitted to that willfully. And he says he went there and Wilbur Smith of course is just reading from his notes and preaching on the word. But he's just so disappointed.

There was nobody there. It's just such knowledge of the scripture, so anointed. But there was no interest. And this is the case with Elisha at this point in his history.

We don't hear from him because the interest was down. Everybody's at these pagan altars. And if they're not there they're afraid to say I serve Yahweh and not and rebuke their family members who were no doubt engaged in made-up religion. Well, he's old and frail at this point but still spiritually powerful and useful as was Moses and Caleb and Simeon in the New Testament when they bring the baby Jesus into the temple. Anna was also very useful to us and we have their stories and each one is a sermon's worth. So that's an overview of where we are with Elisha at this moment. It says, Then Joash the king came down to him.

Well, news reached the palace. The prophet is dying. And he, you know, make ready my chariot and his entourage heads to the house of Elisha the prophet and he weeps over his face.

And we have no reason to doubt the sincerity behind this. Where the questions come is what, well, he's weeping over a national hero. He is not agreeing with the religion of Elisha.

He respects it. He wants to cherry pick it. You know, it's an eclectic thing that Satan will tell you. Just take out, you know, the best from the best and leave the rest. That's Satan's approach. Never mind the truth.

Just pick what you like. And this is what he was doing. But he's sincerely coming intellectually, emotionally, patriotically. He adores the prophet. He admires him, which aren't the same. You can adore someone and still have this, you know, but the way they do things really, I just love that guy. But man, he just does it wrong. Well, this, in this case, it's like he loved the prophet. He admired him. He just didn't go far enough. He didn't go spiritually.

That was what was left out. Christ put it this way to the church in Ephesus. You've departed from your first love.

You got all these things right. You have your soup kitchens and your pantries and, you know, you got all these things you're up in human needs with. You don't love me anymore. Anybody can do what you're doing, but not anybody can love me and be called a church. And this is what Christ was facing with the church in Ephesus.

Well, here, he loved him, appreciated him, understood what he meant to the nation, what he had accomplished. Jesus said it this way to the Pharisees. Then they said to him, Where is your father? Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my father. If you had known me, you would have known my father also. You talk to religion, but you don't have it.

You're not there. And this is where the king was. He says, And said to him, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and their horsemen. Well, this is what this dying prophet said to his teacher, his pastor, Elijah, when Elijah was taken up in a chariot of fire. This is what he said.

So this was common knowledge. The people, it was like, you know, you know, a saying like, We have remembered the Alamo, something like that. Well, this was, you know, my father, my father, chariots of Israel. He's putting it back on him.

What an honor. He's honoring him with the honor he bestowed on the great prophet Elijah. Very true, because what he is saying, You are the might of the nation. And Elijah, he could have said, Elijah could have said to him, Well, if I'm the might, why don't you line up with me? See, again, the imagination thinks it knows better than God, the defiled imagination, the defective imagination. It thinks that the fiction that it embraces is actually better than what God offers.

And what they, very sophisticated it can be, can begin, Well, I would believe the Bible, but, but what? What? You'd want God to come down and like shove him.

What? Make him understand, Lord, why not use a little bit more pressure? Well, because God wants people to love him, and it wouldn't be love if you just arbitrarily decided who was going to follow you.

No such thing as love. Anyway, he is the chariot of Israel. Those chariots were modern day, you know, equivalents to tanks, a mechanized army equipment. Verse 15, And Elijah said to him, Take a bow and some arrows. So he took himself a bow and some arrows. Now, if he says this, when he shows up, he's, Oh, man, Elijah is weeping at the chariot of Israel. And Elijah, Yeah, yeah, get me some arrows.

That's kind of cute if it happened that way. Like, look, I got to get this out before I'm dead. So while the king came to mourn, the prophet is going to prophesy. He lives to prophesy.

You've come to mourn my death, but I'm still alive, and I've got something to say. And he's going to mess it up, the king. Surprise.

But we said, Why so dramatic? Get some arrows. Well, there's a tendency present. The king is not the only one.

There's not a private meeting. Somebody's giving him the arrows and the bow, and they're not going to forget this scene. And it's right here. Somebody had to leave and tell the story and publish it and preserve it all under the hand of God. Verse 16, Then he said to the king, Put your hand on the bow. So he put his hand on it, and Elijah put his hands on the king's hand.

Is this not touching? I got a little teary-eyed thinking about it. Here's the prophet. He knows this king is a lost soul, is a bonehead, and he's still ministering to him. And it's a loving scene. And he puts his hands on the hands of the king as the king holds the bow. Because Elijah sees more than the king. He sees the nation.

He sees the people. And this direct contact, it indicates the presence and the strength of God made available to this king, as with us. It goes all the way back to Joseph. Joseph's father, in blessing him, said this about him. He said, The archers have sorely sought him.

The assassins have tried to take my boy out. But his bow remained in strength. Genesis 49, verse 24. And the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. See, this is the kind of stuff that makes us adore God. It makes us want Bible study.

It makes us want to share Christ with somebody. And why we feel so bad when we fail. And yet there's this loving God that says, I understand. I know. You're all messed up. I told you that from the beginning. You're so messed up, I had to die to get you back.

That's how messed up you are. And we say thank you. And he says, no, it's no problem. Verse 17. And he does. God says he should see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. He sees the cross. He sees the suffering. He says it's worth it. For if you're going to love me, I'll do it again.

Kind of a sentiment. Verse 17. And he said, open the east window, the prophet telling the king. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, shoot.

You know, Elisha can't get up, evidently. And he shot. And he said, the arrow of Yahweh's deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria, for you must strike the Syrians at Aphex till you have destroyed them. Remember, these Assyrians, they were mad men. They were killing people.

This is not just like, oh, it's them versus us. Eastward, towards the land that Hazael had already conquered and taken territory, Elisha says, pull the trigger. He's in command. He's telling the king what to do. The king's taking orders from the man of God. And he said, the arrow of the Lord, the Lord's deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria, you must strike the Syrians at Aphex till you have destroyed them. So he's making, he's driving this point home, God's might, to completion. He doesn't want him tinkering with the enemy.

He wants to get this done. Verse 18. Then he said, take the arrows.

So he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, strike the ground. So he struck the ground. So he struck three times and stopped. Well, he just told the king, you need to just do this to completion to destroy these people.

You must strike the Assyrians at Aphex till you have destroyed them. There's an absence of passion here. There's a sort of a, okay, you know, I love you, man, and I'll do it. All right, hit the arrows on the ground. His heart is not in it. What would you do if you had a chance to be around such a great figure as the prophet Elijah and he says, I want you to, I want you to hit that punching bag.

I would beat that punching bag up so bad. He had to go, I can't go anymore. That's what's missing here. He's saying, show me what you would do to the Assyrians if you could with these arrows. Okay, one, two, three. So he struck three times and he stopped.

That's it. And the prophet is disappointed. There's no enthusiasm here for the defense of God's people, for the possession of the land of God's people. Ten, ten times would have been impressive.

Seven, at least a number of completion. This is low-grade zeal, and it brought less than an impressive victory. And I read this as a Christian and trying to serve God, and I do not want to have low-grade zeal. I've been around enough to know that when the moods are against me, that I have to fight them. I have to roll sometimes into the wind. The wind's not always behind me, and if I have enough zeal in my heart, I'm going to keep going.

But if I'm nonchalant, eh, maybe I'll just go do something else. Maybe I'll just retire. Well, I'm still a young man compared to Methuselah. Verse 19, and the man of God was angry with him and said, you should have struck five or six times. Then you would have struck Syria till you had destroyed it. But now you will strike Syria only three times, because he's spiritually out of touch. This is what happens. This is the dying anger of a righteous prophet.

Like you were there. You should have known this. And he said you have struck, you should have struck five or six times. You should have cut loose on this. I wanted to see your disdain for what's happening to your kingdom. Imagine a pastor getting in a pulpit, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me, you know, I mean, just sort of a monotone. I mean, some, some, some, and I have, there have been some people that are good book writers. They shouldn't be around pulpits. Some of them can do both.

Warren Wiersbe can do both. But there are others that, man, that guy was so boring. I was trying not to fall asleep. Now, I've never put anybody to sleep myself. That almost was a deal breaker, Lord. I don't want to go preaching people sleep, sitting there sleeping.

I've been up all night studying them. The Lord said, yeah, anyway. Come back to this. Then you would have struck an Israel till you destroyed it. So this half-hearted warfare, and the prophet identifies it. And the king does not object.

He knows he's busted. Mediocre ministry does not help. It hurts people. If you serve in the church, serve. I mean, serve, you're serving the Lord God. You're God. Sing, you know, if there's nobody around, sing what you serve.

Get in the spirit. There must be a degree of enthusiasm in God's work, especially over critical appointments. How unlike David. David showed us how, Psalm 18, you have also given me the necks of my enemies so that I destroyed those who hated me. But now you will strike Syria only three times, and we'll see that come up at the end. Nevertheless, I have this against you.

You have left your first love. Well, verse 20, then Elijah died and they buried him, and the raiding bands from Moab invaded the land in the spring of the year. So it's not by accident that his death is attached to more complications in the land, more attacks. The chariot of Israel. You remember, Elijah prayed that the Lord would open the eyes of his servant to see that the chariots of the Lord were more than the enemy, and now that's just all going away. Verse 21, so it was when they were burying a man, suddenly they spied a band of raiders, and they put the man in the tomb of Elijah, and when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elijah, he revived and stood on his feet.

So here they are. This is a divine statement. It is not magic. God is using this moment. Apparently, without such miracles at this time, Israel would not have survived as a people, and that's why they're here. Bones are figurative.

It's not literal. He didn't decay, and there's his skeletal remains. The Jews did not embalm. They washed and they entombed or they buried, and they're having this internment. The mourners see that the Moabites are coming.

They've got to hurry up and do something with the body. They have enough time and space, so they say, well, look, just put him here, and open the lid or however it was, and they lower the man on top of Elijah or next to him, and he touches, makes contact, and he comes to life. They recognize, likely immediately, what was going on. They knew this was the prophet's tomb.

I mean, it would be kind of spooky today to see something like this, but that's what happened. It informed the nation that though the prophet was gone, Yahweh was still amongst him. Though he is dead, the promises are not dead, and this is, this got back to the king, of course, and all the promises that the prophet spoke, they're going to happen. History beyond the grave, not the first time. Samuel, we saw Samuel and, you know, Saul, Moses and Elijah will show up at the Mount of Transfiguration.

We've run out of time. I could make another analogy about Peter and John, but we'll just move forward. Verse 22, then Hazeel, king of Syria, oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoiaz.

So it breaks out of the parentheses, comes back to the historical overview. Verse 23, the Lord was gracious to them, had compassion on them, and regarded them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them or cast them from his presence. So this is an anointed comment on the events. This is the second time, and the only twice in First and Second Kings are the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob mentioned.

We now look at verse 24. Now Hazeel, king of Syria, died. Then Ben-Hadad, his son, reigned in his place. Again, Ben-Hadad is not his name. It is an assumed throne name.

If you've been watching anything with the queen of England, you see that there, man, there's so many rules and traditions and regulations, I don't see how they can keep up. Anyway, verse 25, then Jehoiaz, the son of Jehoiaz, recaptured from the hand of Ben-Hadad, the son of Hazeel, the cities which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoiaz, his father, by war. Three times Jehoiaz defeated him and recaptured the cities. Well, just as the prophet said, you struck the ground three times, so only three times you will hit them. It will be inadequate. And that's pretty much it for this section for tonight. We're out of time.

We've said everything we've got to say. Very informative chapter. It stands out to me as the passion to be loved like that as a man of God is a normal thing, but it would certainly be nicer if the king would just repent. 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.