Word of Salvation – Vol. 44 No.37 – October 1999

 

The Curse is in the Death

 

Sermon by Rev S Bajema

on 2 Kings 2:23-25

Scripture Readings: Eph 4:17-5:2; Mat 27:11-26; 2Kings 2:19-25

Suggested Hymns: BoW 329; 99; 334; 517; 181

 

Beloved in the Lord…

It does seem a harsh reaction on the part of Elisha.  He is, after all, the same Elisha who has just done such a life-restoring miracle with changing the water at Jericho.  He is the Elisha who later would do more gracious miracles; providing the oil which never stopped flowing for that widow, giving a son to the Shunnemite woman; and then bringing him back to life when he was older.

And he is the Elisha who seems such a gentle and caring prophet compared with the authoritarian figure that Elijah had appeared to be.  Now, though, he’s the Elisha who reacts rather fierily to these young people.  No wonder some commentators have had a moral concern with his actions here.  And we might wonder about any future for him in youth work!

So, do people rightly have a concern with him morally?  And should we, either, for that matter?  To find this out, and so to realise how close to home it is for us today, we need to dig a little around the text.  Doing that, we would notice that this comes at the beginning of Elisha’s ministry as a prophet.  A ministry which begins with Elisha going back up the way that Elijah had come down, before the LORD took Elijah up.  And as he goes back to Samaria, where he takes up his position as the prophet of God’s Word in the capital of the northern kingdom, Elisha is about to pass through Bethel.

From the previous chapter, we are told that this is the Bethel where one of Elijah’s schools of the prophets was based.  This is the Bethel where Abraham had once built an altar to the LORD.  And this is the place where another patriarch, Jacob, had received the vision of a ladder and all those angels going up and down.  There he had been given even the greater promise as the heir of the covenant.

Well, you’d think, with that kind of history, and now having the school of the prophets, it should be quite a God-fearing, respective place.  Ah, but what came in between?  This is the vital clue which opens up this picture to be quite a different scene!  For Bethel had become part of the northern kingdom, once Jeroboam rebelled against Rehoboam.  Realising that he would not have the people’s full allegiance if they continued to go south for the worship at Jerusalem, Jeroboam had strategically and religiously used Bethel, in the south, and Dan, in the north, as alternative worship centres.

And alternative it certainly became, as, inside the temple built there, a large image of a bull-calf was installed.  That was meant to represent the LORD!  It brings back another time in Israel’s history, doesn’t it congregation?  Another time when the alleged reason of aiding the people to worship the LORD God better, resulted also in a calf – “the golden calf’ no less!

And while the intention of Jeroboam may not have been then to displace the LORD as their God, that became the result nevertheless over the years to come.  For King Ahab went much further than King Jeroboam with his breaking the second command; he smashed the first altogether with foreign gods!

I mean, you haven’t forgotten his wife Jezebel, have you?  The very name which has become synonymous with evil itself.  The one who introduced that evil with her foreign gods.  The one who had so bitterly opposed the LORD’s prophet Elijah, causing him to even flee desperately for his life.

Congregation, this city is almost like our so-called open and broadminded society we have today.  So much so that their tolerance can extend to all except the very ones who oppose that tolerance – the faithful believers!  Like the ancient Roman Empire in its persecution of Christians, and like the way the Bible-believing church is treated today, so there lies on the heart of this city a hatred of the true religion.

They were heavy, stone hearts – to use the words of the apostle Paul: they had lost all sensitivity, giving themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.  Just how weighed down these citizens are shows in what their teenagers do.  You see, that would be about how old these youths are.  And while we would understand that from the NIV translation, other versions call them “young lads”, or even “little children”.

Now, in reflecting upon which age they would be, we would have to acknowledge that, physically speaking, the very young children couldn’t have been that far away from home.  And though we know from elsewhere that youths or young men can be anyone up to their 30s, these are not specifically called youth, or young men.  We’re left then with the general understanding, that, while they’re not as old as in their 20s, they’re not primary school age either.  I think that makes them teenagers, don’t you?

So they know their own mind.  I want to emphasise this.  For while there was the influence of their parents, and, in fact, the whole character of a place like Bethel, this was still something they chose to do.

And what they have chosen to do, congregation, is… NOT JUST DISRESPECT BUT SCORNFUL ABUSE!  I know that’s a serious charge to make, and perhaps I ought to have my facts together before I say anything like this.

Well, consider this then.  They come up to Elisha not face-to-face, but, as we note from verse 24, from behind.  Elisha has to turn around to address them.  That indicates they had either circled around to the back of Elisha, or had been waiting for him to pass.  It was a steep and winding road, so it was very easy to do either of these things.  But both show that they kind of expected Elisha to come that way, and had set out to deliberately taunt him.

In the same way that we may know of a famous person’s visit to our town long beforehand, with people queuing up for days just to get tickets, so it would have been general knowledge that Elisha, the prophet who had taken over the mantle from Elijah, was coming back this way and probably on a certain day.

Congregation, this is no chance encounter between Elisha and some children.  This is a direct confrontation between those who lived a completely ungodly lifestyle and who were most intolerant toward any word against this whatsoever, and the prophet of the God Most High Himself.

We can even say that as teenagers are open in their views, so those teenagers openly showed Bethel’s intense opposition to God’s Word, especially through His spokesman.  This is how we should understand the derogatory remark they jeer at Elisha, “Go on up, you baldhead!  Go on up, you baldhead!”

Now, it’s most unlikely that Elisha was follicle-ly challenged, to use some contemporary, politically correct language.  At his age of around thirty, with still forty to fifty years of ministry ahead, he really couldn’t have been bald.  And, anyhow, these youths wouldn’t have been able to tell if he had hair or not.  For every Israelite travelling then had his head covered because of the intense heat of the sun, but also Elisha would have done it for reasons of decency.  What does this insult mean, then?  What was it that they had deliberately planned to say as abuse against the LORD’s prophet?

We’ll take first the expression “baldhead”.  There are several possibilities for its meaning.  One of these relates to lepers who were required to have their heads shaved.  It was by their baldness that people would be warned to stay away from them.  Another possible answer is that it was simply a term of derision, much like children may taunt others today in a nasty way – perhaps by reference to their lack of an intellectual capacity, like “dimwit”, or “mental”.  And with his head being covered this seems more likely

The word for “go on up” could also be taken two ways.  One is “go on – get out of here!”, “buzz off!”, “We don’t want you here, you’re only trouble!”  The other thought is that they’re making reference to the ascension of Elijah into heaven.  That story would have got around, and so they use it as an attack on the faith.  Not much different than those today who make cynical remarks about the fundamental truths in Christianity, such as the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection of Christ.

I think this last reason, together with the taunting in a nasty way, ties in more closely with their motivation.  You see, the original phrase here is clear that they are actually cursing Elisha.  Through these young people the devil shows his power in Bethel: An evil power which shows up in this bad attitude.

And I would like to take this thought a little further, too.  For these teenagers could well have been ignorant on certain facts of the Word of God.  Their parents obviously hadn’t showed them the right attitude, so it’s even less likely that they would have known from God’s Word why cursing anyone, let alone the prophet of the LORD, was a terrible sin.

So some have tried to excuse these kids.  They’ve tried to explain how they couldn’t really help what they did.  Two headlines I saw the other day described the same kind of thought.  They said “Kids without a conscience”, and “Study shows broken homes bring more crime.”

But, you see, they could help it.  They themselves were quite capable of making up their own minds!  I know our catechism students certainly are!  And being able to make up their own minds, they are able to think through everything.  If they choose not to think about something before they do it, they chose then not to think!

It’s no different today.  There are a lot of influences in our world which can become very attractive to the youth of the church.  And maybe their parents don’t always address these issues.  Perhaps the church, and her ministers and elders, don’t always do it either.

Or maybe we do, and someone’s not listening; or they weren’t in church that time; or they missed catechism then.  Whatever the case, the onus lies with you young people, just as much as it lay with those teenagers in the text.  There’s no excuse!

Congregation, that’s the only point of view we can have in the light of what happened.  Because they were punished.  And punished in no insignificant, slap-on-the-wrist approach.  Not even a stern punishment with a rod to their buttocks!  No – they were dealt with in the punishment to end all punishments: they were cursed “in the name of the LORD.”

Oh, perhaps you thought I was going to say they were punished when the bears tore them literally to shreds?  Ah, that’s the result of their punishment.  The actual punishment itself, however, is the curse of Elisha.  And using the expression “in the name of the LORD” put beyond a shadow of a doubt what he was doing.  You see, they had already condemned themselves.

In the same way that centuries later the Pharisees and their crowd called for the crucifixion of Jesus, crying out those terrible words, “Crucify him!  Crucify him!”, so this gang of youths was doing now.  We can even understand that as much as the crowd calling for Christ’s crucifixion also confirmed what was on their hearts with saying, “Let his blood be on us and our children,” so these young adults were also really asking for it!

In this connection, Exodus 20 verse 5 has been quoted to show how the sins of the fathers are passed down to their children.  We have that saying, don’t we, “Like father, like son!”  But that can bring a misunderstanding to this text.  For I don’t think that Exodus 20:5 is saying that these sins will get passed down.  They could get passed down if the children continue the sins of their parents.

There may always be repentance though, and so the LORD turns them around, as we find in Israel’s history, and throughout church history.  Ezekiel also speaks of how a son may not share the guilt of his father (18:19f).  That happens when he doesn’t sin!

But in our text the two – the sin of the fathers and the sin of the children – have joined into this stone-hearted hatred toward the LORD’s servant.  This is as close a description of people committing the sin against the Holy Spirit as you will find in the Old Testament.  As S.G. de Graaf says, “The mockery of the boys expressed the hatred of the people for the Word and Spirit of the Lord.”

And we know that that is the one sin which cannot be forgiven.  For this sin means a rejection not only of hearing the message, but a total repudiation in your heart as the Word hits home.  That’s a rejection of Christ’s claims upon you in the most final way.

It’s a message which wouldn’t have been lost on the city of Bethel.  To lose 42 of their young people in this way would not only have sent the place into public mourning, something we know only too well after recent events, but especially there would have come about this fear of the LORD.  The fear of judgment!  The fear Jesus spoke of happening upon His return when the ungodly won’t find places dark enough or deep enough or far enough away to hide from judgment.  For then God’s Word comes in its doubled-edged power.

Just as in this text where not only does the LORD’s servant declare the life-giving gospel, as marvellous and liberating as it is, he also declares the curse of God upon those who don’t believe.  Just as today the faithful church will both open and shut the doors of God’s Kingdom through the preaching of God’s Word.  A preaching that takes discipline very seriously.

Ah, that’s another word people don’t like today – “discipline”.  For they can only see that it’s bad; they only know that it tells them about their punishment; the judgment that is surely coming.  But for believers it speaks of love.  Here is a God who cares!  Here is the Great Shepherd who searches out His lost sheep of Israel by sending out His under-shepherds, the prophets.  The Great Shepherd who came Himself for us and so He won the victory over the evil one, Satan.

Congregation, much as such a punishment would have severely frightened those Bethelites, may it yet be a comfort to us today.  Verse 25 tells of the ongoing ministry of the prophet; one part of the line that the LORD God will draw through Old Testament history to His ultimate Servant – His own dear Son, Jesus Christ.  And throughout that time there’s that constant twin-line of punishment upon the people in their rejection of the Word.  Wherever the Word is preached the opening and closing will happen.  And where God’s people over the generations drift away from His Word they will show the closing power of that Word with hearts that harden.

Young people, don’t follow the crowd, as those teenagers did to their destruction.  Honour the LORD; make His Word the door for your life, the way to your future, and the truth by which you live.  Then you have come to Jesus!  He who is the way, the truth and the life, won’t bring His blood on your head then.

You see, as long as we’re living lives apart from Him, we’re jeering Him, too!  There are those words of Psalm 2, “Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling.  Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment!”

But let’s remember, too, the words that follow, the phrase that tells us why He did come, the Great Prophet Himself.  For, “blessed are all who take refuge in him!”

Amen.

PRAYER:

Let’s pray…

O Lord Jesus Christ, we embrace your love with all our hearts.  And from the bottom of our hearts we confess all we have done which jeered you or your Word, and perhaps even those bringing it to us.  Please make us to respect more and more reverently the study and implementing of your Word, that we may become known (as your people in the past became known) – as ‘The People of the Book’.  For they lived your life, O Lord, the life you gave in sacrifice so that we would not be eternally condemned but live instead forever with you.  In your ever-interceding Name we pray.  Amen.