Be Big and Bold for Christ: The Bald Preacher (2 Kings 2:23-25)

Be Big and Bold for Christ
2 Kings 2:23-25

INTRODUCTION:
“Kentucky Down Under” is a zoo in Horse Cave, KY which specializes in Australian animals. Many years ago, I was a youth minister in Tompkinsville, KY. Rachel and I took the kids on a trip to Kentucky Down Under. Along the way, one of the young men - the grandson of one of our members - was having some good-natured fun with me by joking about me being bald. After he went on for a few minutes, I decided to have a little fun with him. So, I had Rachel turn to 2 Kings 2:23-25 (I was driving) and read to him the account that we’re going to study this morning. To put it briefly, some young men - somewhere between teenage and thirty years old - made fun of the prophet Elisha about being bald, so Elisha prayed to God and God sent female bears and they mauled those men to death. My young friend decided to immediately start apologizing for making fun of me losing my hair!

The theme of our VBS this year is “Be Big and Bold for Christ.” In 2017, the movie “The Greatest Showman” came to the theaters; it is a musical staring Hugh Jackman as P. T. Barnum which purports to tell the story how Barnum entered into the circus business. It is a very good movie and we have the soundtrack on our play list.

According to the movie, Barnum was intrigued by people who were different and he used that difference to make a show around them. I do not know if a “bald man” is much of a circus attraction; we’re not very unique.

But Elisha in this event is a good example of being big and bold for Christ. Let’s study the passage…

THE TIMES OF 2 KINGS:
The time period covered by 2 Kings was a dark period in the history of God’s people. In many respects, it was a good economic period. But in one key aspect, it was dark: Israel was moving away from God very quickly. It was a spiritually dark period.

God’s people, Israel, divided into two nations during the reign of King Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. From that time, the southern tribes of Israel continued having one dynasty - the family of King David because God promised such to King David in 2 Samuel 7. Eventually, the southern tribes of Judah would have nineteen kings from about 960 B. C. to 586 B. C. - so 19 kings in 400 years; roughly a king every twenty years - which is more stability in leadership than we have with our presidents changing every 4-8 years. But, their history is moving them further and further away from the type of nation God intended them to be.

The northern tribes of Israel had 20 different kings reigning over them in less time than Judah did, about 130 years less time. And, there were almost 20 different dynasties. In other words, the northern tribes of Israel were far more wicked than the southern tribes of Israel; at least early in their history.

When God gave Israel the law of Moses in Exodus 19, God called on Israel to be different: they were to be a “royal priesthood, a holy nation” (Exo. 19:5-6). They were to live differently, act differently, talk differently, and especially were they to worship differently. God gave them the law of Moses in order to help them live in a way that glorified Jehovah God.

God is pure holiness. That holiness drives away sin, like light drives away darkness. So in order for man to come into God’s presence, either in heaven or here on earth in worship, man has to do exactly what God says to do. It can be no other way. God’s holiness will consume man if we do not listen to God’s message and take it seriously. That’s an emphasis through the OT and it’s an emphasis in the books of 1 & 2 Kings.

In order to help Israel stay faithful to God, God sent prophets. While there were prophets before the kingdom of Israel was established - men like Enoch and Abraham and, obviously, Moses, the role of the prophet took center stage during the reigns of the kings. Think about this - when God allowed Israel to have a king, then the people started putting more faith into the king than they did the written law of Moses. Their thinking was - if the king does it and says it is okay, then it must be okay. There was no good leadership.

Elijah is the prophet who “leads the charge” in trying to get Israel to stay faithful to God, which was a losing proposition. Elijah takes up a lot of text in the books of 1 and 2 Kings. He is introduced in 1 Kings 17 and he leaves the scene in 2 Kings 2, being taken directly to heaven in a whirlwind surrounded by a chariot of horses in fire. That’s eight chapters which are dedicated largely to Elijah and his ministry to Israel.

At one point, Elijah was discouraged with his ministry and he wanted to quit. In fact, he wanted God to just take his life. That story is told in 1 Kings 19. But God had more work for Elijah to do, and one of those tasks was for Elijah to anoint another man, named Elisha, to carry on his work. Elisha actually provides a template for the ministry of Jesus. In other words, while Elijah did not perform very many miracles, Elisha performed a number of miracles and several are very similar to Jesus’ miracles. Elisha takes center stage as a prophet here in 2 Kings 2 and he passes away in 2 Kings 13. So Elisha actually takes up 11 chapters in the Bible as opposed to the eight dedicated to Elijah. But, Elijah is mentioned 101 times in the Bible and Elisha is mentioned only 59 times. But, our story focuses on Elisha.

Before we get to the text, let me introduce you to the king who is reigning over Israel at this point: King Ahaziah. Ahaziah was the son of King Ahab, the wicked King Ahab. His mother’s name was - the wicked queen Jezebel. Ahab ruled for an astounding 22 years! Look at how the Bible describes King Ahab: 1 Kings 16:30-33. The rest of 1 Kings deals with the wickedness of King Ahab. Now, because God is a God of grace, he sent a prophet to King Ahab eight times (if I counted correctly) to get King Ahab to repent of his sins. At one point, Ahab did humble himself and God acknowledged that humility, but then Ahab went right back to his wickedness.

Part of Ahab’s motivation to wickedness - aside from his own evil heart - was his wife Jezebel. As we have read, Jezebel was not an Israelite nor did she even pretend to be an Israelite. She was a Sidonian and she worshipped the false god Baal. She was so wicked that it was at her instigation that prophets of Jehovah God were slaughtered, which we read about in 1 Kings 18. It was Jezebel who put a price on Elijah’s head which caused his discouragement and his desire for God to take his life.

So wicked was Jezebel, remember our sermon last week about God’s justice, when God decided to kill Jezebel, He worked things around so that Jezebel ended up being trampled by horses and then her corpse was eaten by dogs so that only her skull, her feet, and the palms of her hands were left (2 Kings 9:30-37).

Ahab and Jezebel were the parents of King Ahaziah. No wonder Ahaziah was also wicked and provoked Jehovah God to anger, just like his father had done.

THE BACKDROP TO OUR STORY - 2 Kings 1:
In this chapter, King Ahaziah has fallen through the lattice work in his house and he became ill. He sent a messenger to the false god Baal-zebub to ask if he would recover. That messenger ran into the prophet Elijah who told the messenger to go back to King Ahaziah with the question: “Is there not a God in Israel that you should go inquire of a false god, Baal-zebub?” Elijah also told the messenger to tell King Ahaziah that he would not recover from that illness; he would in fact die.

When King Ahaziah heard the message from Elijah, rather than humbling his heart at the message of God, he gets mad at the messenger and refuses to repent of his idolatry. Instead, he sends a group of soldiers to arrest Elijah and in all likelihood to kill Elijah. When the first group of 50 soldiers come to Elijah, they tell him to come down and go with them. They call Elijah a “man of God” (1:9) but they do not really believe he is a man of God. However, to illustrate that he is a man of God with the true message from God, Elijah says, “If I am a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty soldiers” (1:10). Immediately, God sent fire down from heaven and burned up those 50 men. That was God’s message to King Ahaziah that he needed to repent and respect the message from Elijah.

Ahaziah’s heart was too hard; he was too stubborn. So Ahaziah sent another group of 50 men and everything happened exactly like it did the first time. They mock Elijah for thinking he was a true “man of God,” and Elijah proved it by calling down fire from heaven which - God did - and it burned up those 50 men.

King Ahaziah is not finding any humility in his heart. He still thinks he is right. He still thinks that he is his own master. He still thinks he can do what he wants to, spiritually. So he send a third group of men. But notice in the text that this third captain of his soldiers has a very different attitude toward Elijah and his message. In verse 13, he bows down on his knees before Elijah and begs Elijah to go with him. Notice his humility: “Please let my life and the lives of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your sight. … now let my life be precious in your sight” (ver. 14). When this soldier expressed humility and some degree of trust in Elijah’s message, then God answered from heaven. In verse 15, rather than sending fire from heaven, God sent an angel to Elijah to tell him to go down with this soldier and not to be afraid.

So Elijah makes it to King Ahaziah and tells him exactly what Jehovah God had sad - without changing a single word of God’s message. Because King Ahaziah trusted in false gods and did not seek a message from Jehovah God, God would allow King Ahaziah to die from his illness (1:16). Notice in 1:17 that King Ahaziah died “according to the word of the Lord.” God’s message cannot be broken; it cannot be set aside; it cannot be twisted. God’s word is powerful; it is like an anvil. You can hit your opinions against the anvil of God’s word all you want, but God’s word remains strong and impregnable. As we saw last week from the mouth of Jesus: “God’s word cannot be broken” (John 10:35). That phrase “according to the word of the Lord” is used 18 times in 1 & 2 Kings - 8 times in 1 Kings and 10 times in 2 Kings. The purpose is to illustrate that everything that is happening at that point in history is happening because God said so!

So, that is King Ahaziah - who only reigned for two years; then the next king, King Jehoram reigns on the throne and his attitude towards the word of God is exactly like that of King Ahaziah and King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Notice in 3:1 that Jehoram is also a son of King Ahab, and perhaps Queen Jezebel. Jehoram reigned twelve years and he was evil too.

So that’s the culture of God’s people when the event happens that we’re looking at today… 2:23-25…

GOD EXPECTS PEOPLE TO RESPECT HIS WORD - 2:23-25:
This is the purpose of this event and it is the purpose of this lesson - to impress on all of our minds that if we are going to be “big and bold for Christ,” then we have to have the highest level of respect for the words out of God’s mouth and the deepest level of commitment to the words out of God’s mouth.

Elisha is in Bethel. Bethel was known as a hot-bed for idolatry. Abraham had worshipped God at Bethel (12:8) and the village had a long history with God’s people. Bethel was to God’s people like Boston, MA or Philadelphia, PA might be to modern Americans with its long rich history. But when the nation split, King Jeroboam set up cows to worship God in Bethel (1 Kings 12:29), which turned Bethel into a center of idolatry worship. That’s where Elisha is at this point.

People recognized Elisha as a prophet of Jehovah God, which meant that he was not going to tell people what they wanted to hear - he was going to tell them what God wanted them to hear!

That is the motivation for these young men who were mocking Elisha. They said, “Go up, you baldhead; go up you baldhead!” These young men were not mocking Elisha for being bald per se. These young men were mocking Elisha as being a prophet of God and the “bald head” was just a surface criticism for what they really hated. He would not let them get by with idolatry without criticizing their behavior. Also, when the young men say, “Go up!” What they mean is: “leave! Get out of here! Go somewhere else and preach your message!”

In order to teach God’s people a lesson - you must respect God’s word - Elisha curses those young men in the name of the Lord - that shows that his behavior is consistent with God’s own desires. Elisha does not specifically ask God to do something; he only asks God to curse these men. God is the one who causes two female bears to come out of the woods and tear those young men to shreds. The Hebrew verb literally means to “split open.” There were 42 of those young men, which was a sizable number. This is basically a mob.

It could also be that these men were mocking Elisha - being bald - because he was not Elijah, who was described as being a hairy man. But, if that is the case, Elisha proves that he has, indeed, picked up the mantle of Elijah.

From there, Eilsha goes eventually to Samaria, the capital of the nation of Israel, to try to persuade King Jehoram to take seriously God’s message.

In Deuteronomy 18:19, God spoke of the Prophet who was to come, speaking of Jesus: “It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.” This prophet is Jesus: Acts 3:19-26.

The historian, reviewing the history of Israel, writes: “The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, until there was no remedy. Therefore He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or infirm; He gave them all into his hand” (2 Ch 36:15–17). Will God treat any less harshly those who reject the message of His only Son (see Hebrews 10:26-31)?

Take home message: We absolutely must take seriously God’s message. We need to believe every word His Bible says; trust every word His Bible stays; and obey every word His Bible says.

Start an evangelism conversation: “How do you know you’ll go to heaven when you die?”

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