1. "We must keep in mind in days both of victory and of defeat, that leaders change, but God does not."

2. "Even the best rulers of this world, kings and presidents, bosses and coaches, teachers, even parents, are temporary. Any authority that we hold in this world, any authority that we're under in this world, is an opportunity to reflect something about the authority of God himself."

3. "Like kings and presidents, prophets and pastors do change. But if we've done our work correctly, we've pointed you to the true leader, the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This church had faithful pastors before me, and I trust this congregation will find faithful pastors after me until Christ returns."

4. "Idolatry is one of the most fundamental, disordering, inappropriate sins we can commit because it misbuilds our entire lives, our deepest loyalties, on the wrong being, on the wrong thing, on the wrong foundation."

5. "God knows that he made us to be worshipers. We all worship something. God knows why we're taking that job, why we're skipping that Bible study, why we're buying that house, or investing in that friendship."

6. "People have an innate desire for spectacular religion. The idea that we get together and give the first two hours of our week to sit in a room, sing some songs and hear somebody talk to us for an hour just seems absolutely ridiculous to people of the world. People want magic. They want spectacle."

7. "Part of what that means is that God-glorifying, plain and straight truth is often not intuitive to us. We're cultivated from the time we're small as children to trust ourselves supremely, and Christianity is so clear in telling us that we are fallen and that we should not assume that the most important truths are intuitive."

8. "One of the key appearances that we have to continually be fighting is the simple thought that because bad things happen, God must not care or he must not be able to do anything about it. But a consistent part of the Bible's explanation of life in this world is that God is in control of matters large and small, even if that is not immediately apparent to us."

9. "In Christianity we don't come to a religion of Stoic self-reliance. Some version of Christianity may become popular by thinking of it as a kind of Stoicism, because there is certainly self-denial and self-discipline involved. But most fundamentally the Christian message is not of self-reliance; it's of reliance on another, on the Lord Jesus Christ."

10. "How do you respond when you hear the truth? In days of change and transition, it can't be surprising sometimes who will believe. But will you? Will you believe in Christ? Will you trust in another?"

Observation Questions

1. Read 2 Kings 1:1–4. What happens to King Ahaziah, whom does he send to inquire of, and what question and warning does the angel of the LORD give Elijah to deliver to the king?
2. In 2 Kings 1:15–17, when Elijah finally appears before Ahaziah, what message does he repeat, and what is the outcome for the king and the succession to Israel’s throne?
3. Looking at 2 Kings 2:9–14, what does Elisha ask of Elijah before he is taken, what sign does Elijah give that this request has been granted, and what actions does Elisha perform with Elijah’s cloak after Elijah is taken up?
4. In 2 Kings 5:1–7, how is Naaman described in terms of status and weakness, how does the Israelite servant girl influence the story, and how does the king of Israel react when he reads the Syrian king’s letter?
5. Read 2 Kings 5:9–14. What instructions does Elisha send to Naaman, how does Naaman initially respond, what counsel do his servants give him, and what happens when he finally obeys?
6. In 2 Kings 6:15–17, what does Elisha’s servant see and fear when he first goes out, what does Elisha say to him, what does Elisha pray, and what does the servant then see after God answers that prayer?

Interpretation Questions

1. From 2 Kings 1:1–4, 15–17, why is Ahaziah’s decision to inquire of Baalzebub instead of the LORD treated as so serious, and what does the repeated question, “Is it because there is no God in Israel…?” reveal about the nature of idolatry?
2. In 2 Kings 2:9–14, how does the parting of the Jordan by both Elijah and Elisha help us understand the sermon’s point that “leaders change, but God does not,” especially in regard to God’s ongoing word and work?
3. Considering 2 Kings 5:1–7, why do you think the king of Israel immediately assumes the Syrian king is “seeking a quarrel,” and how does this illustrate the danger of reading situations only through our fears and suspicions instead of through God’s promises?
4. In 2 Kings 5:9–14, what does Naaman’s anger at Elisha’s simple command show about human expectations of how God “should” work, and how do the humble words of Naaman’s servants contrast with his pride?
5. How do 2 Kings 5:1 and 6:15–17 together teach that God is sovereign and active even when His rule is not obvious—both in giving military victories and in providing unseen protection for His people?

Application Questions

1. Where are you most tempted to “inquire of Baalzebub” today—that is, to place your functional trust in something other than God (such as career, family, money, reputation, or politics), and what would repentance from that modern idolatry look like this week?
2. Thinking about recent political, workplace, or church leadership changes, how have you been reacting internally, and how might a deeper confidence that “leaders change, but God does not” reshape your conversations, emotions, and prayer life?
3. Can you recall a recent situation where, like the king of Israel in 2 Kings 5, you misread someone’s actions or God’s purposes; what would it look like to re-examine that situation in light of Scripture and wise counsel rather than your first instincts?
4. In what specific area of life do you feel today like Elisha’s servant in 2 Kings 6—outnumbered, anxious, or trapped—and how will you practically remind yourself this week that “those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (e.g., particular promises, songs, or people you will turn to)?
5. Following Elisha’s prayer in 2 Kings 6:17, for whom (including yourself) do you most need to pray, “Lord, please open their eyes that they may see,” and what concrete step can you take alongside that prayer to point them toward Christ and His word?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Leviticus 19:1–4 — God links His command to avoid idols with the declaration “I am the LORD your God,” clarifying why idolatry is such a serious betrayal, as emphasized in Ahaziah’s story.
2. Revelation 22:10–17 — This closing vision of Scripture contrasts those welcomed into the New Jerusalem with those “outside,” including idolaters, underscoring the eternal stakes of whom we worship.
3. Luke 4:16–30 — Jesus preaches in Nazareth, cites the healing of Naaman the Syrian, and is rejected, showing how God’s grace extends beyond Israel and how people often resist God’s chosen Prophet.
4. Luke 18:9–14 — The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector exposes self-reliant, showy religion versus humble trust in God’s mercy, paralleling Naaman’s initial expectations and eventual humility.
5. James 1:2–8 — James calls believers to seek wisdom from God in trials, echoing Elisha’s prayer for opened eyes and the sermon’s call to pray for understanding in confusing and changing times.

Sermon Main Topics

Main Topic I: Considering the Rise and Fall of Nations

Main Topic II: Leaders Change (2 Kings 1, 2, 8)

Main Topic III: God Does Not (2 Kings 1–8)

Main Topic IV: Embracing God’s Unchanging Truth

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Detailed Sermon Outline

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- King falls through a lattice; reveals human frailty
- Idolatrous inquiry of Baalzebub rebuked by Elijah

- Jehoram (also called Joram) succeeds Ahaziah in the North (2 Kings 1:17–2:1)
- Judah’s kings also come and go in 2 Kings 8

- Elijah taken up by a whirlwind
- Elisha receives a “double portion” of Elijah’s spirit

- God ensures His word continues to be proclaimed
- Human leaders (kings, parents, pastors) pass away; God remains the true authority

- Ahab’s death in 1 Kings leads to Ahaziah’s short reign
- Ahaziah’s reign ends abruptly; Jehoram continues in idolatrous ways

- Earthly leaders reflect divine authority imperfectly
- Ultimate hope must rest on God, not on any human throne

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- Repeated question: “Is it because there is no God in Israel?”
- Idol worship condemned throughout Scripture (cf. Leviticus 19:4; Revelation 22:15)

- Traditional idols (false gods) vs. subtle idols (wealth, status, reputation)
- Call to examine personal motivations and loyalties

- Idolatry disrupts the core of our relationship with God
- Urgency to forsake idols for wholehearted worship of the Lord

- Misunderstanding of the king’s letter leads to political suspicion
- Need for humility to question our first impressions

- Expectation of spectacle vs. God’s simple instructions
- Pride as an obstacle to obeying God’s word

- Scripture guides us beyond our biases
- Encouragement to evaluate circumstances in light of God’s revealed will

- Servant’s fear vs. Elisha’s spiritual sight
- Heaven’s armies and God’s hidden resources

- Suffering does not mean God is absent
- Success does not guarantee God’s favor

- Syria’s victories also governed by the Lord
- God’s purpose transcends national borders and human power

- Simple yet profound reliance on the Lord for clarity
- We ask God for wisdom and understanding (James 1:5)

- Scripture shapes the content of our requests
- Confidence that God hears prayers according to His will (1 John 5:14–15)

- Non-Christians encouraged to explore faith in Christ
- Christians exhorted to keep praying even in uncertainty

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- “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.”

- God’s concern extends beyond Israel (Luke 4:27 referencing Naaman)
- Christ as ultimate Prophet, Priest, and King

- Kings and prophets come and go
- Pride and fear reveal our need for God

- Salvation depends on His sacrifice, not our works
- God’s promise: “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish” (John 3:16)

the rise and fall of a nation is a big story. It's even bigger if it's not merely one nation, but if it's an empire covering a vast expanse of territory or a civilization, including many nations. In the early 20th century, Arnold Toynbee surveyed history and reported back about the decline of 26 distinct civilizations. Toynbee didn't shy away from difficult and interesting attempts to be both comprehensive, that is to evaluate an entire culture and to be comparative, to lay one culture against another and examine both by the same set of questions. Toynbee saw that there was neither sufficient explanation for a nation's greatness in race, in environmental situation, as none of them were sufficient to explain history's great changes, as opposed to, say, the Nazi historians or the Marxists of his day.

To explain the rise and fall of nations, Toynbee looked for challenges more internal and spiritual. And he saw again and again what he called creative minorities arising to give new response to challenges. Everything from religion to technological advances to the physical environment plays its part in a culture either arising and remaining dynamic or becoming more and more closed and static. And declining. Easy environments present no challenge to man, observed Toynbee.

It is the hard country that stimulates him to creative action. Challenge and response is what Toynbee called the challenges that each nation faces. That's the process that every civilization experiences. So it's not that geography gives gifts of easy prosperity, he argued, but rather a creative people for a time learn how to overcome the challenges of a hard situation. It's in the people's creative response to challenging circumstances that Toynbee finds human greatness in individuals or in countries and the reasons for decline of a hitherto great nation.

Today, many are assuming that the West, and in particular America, is a spent force. Whatever challenges we may face, from climate to military foes, to internal servitude, to a world processed and presented to us on our ever-present screens, I always leave my phone at home when I come to church.

Whatever the challenge in mind, it's just too much for us today. Ours is not to be like the greatest generation born a century ago, but rather we are the corrupted and lazy children of the prosperity that our parents and grandparents have bequeathed to us. And so we find ourselves in a period of cultural degeneration and decline.

Is this our fate as a nation, as individuals?

This year we are considering great questions. Here in January we're looking into these histories from the Old Testament to see something of the lessons that they have for us. In much of the rest of the year I hope to lead us into considering the Bible's last chapters. As people and nations are weighed in the balances of God. In this second sermon in this initial series, we come to the book of 2 Kings and we look first at the leaders and then at the people and what we can learn from them and see, as Toynbee might have put it, how we can be reintegrated with the ultimate and have communion with the eternal.

Only we Christians understand this story not to be fundamentally one of our quest, but of God's. He is the Creator and Judge. He is both the ruler and the Redeemer of His people. Do you know what it means to be guided by God and led by His Spirit and by His Word so that the future is not a threat, but a promise? That's what I'm praying you'll find as we spend our time together this morning in this book.

What we see as we read 2 Kings is that leaders change. And by that I don't mean an individual personally simply undergoes personal change. I mean rather that those people leading us die, pass away, and new ones begin, are inaugurated. Even as we as a nation, this month, this week, are visibly reminded. In this month not only has one Congress gone out and another come in, but as one president steps down and a new one is inaugurated in the exact same space where a week earlier the remains of a former president lay in state.

What do God's people need to know during such times of transition, during such changing days. We must keep in mind in days both of victory and of defeat that leaders change, but God does not. Leaders change, but God does not. Let me tell you what you're about to get in this sermon. Visitors, our congregation is full of a bunch of note takers, and I can either try to ignore it and just do my best, or I can just collapse at the beginning and give them what they want.

So here you go.

I'm gonna make two basic points. Leaders change, God does not. In the God does not, I'm gonna take from these eight chapters four clear examples of God's word that we see in four exchanges that we'll look at, and we'll try to get specific lessons from those, seeing an example then of how God and his word don't change.

First, leaders change. And by that I mean that rulers change. And we know that, don't we? I mean, of all cities in America, we know that. Go ahead and open your Bibles to this book, to the book of 2 Kings.

Find the text that we're looking at. It's the first eight chapters. So if you're looking at the Bibles that are provided, it's found on page 307 to 315. If you're not used to looking at a Bible, the larger numbers are the chapter numbers, there are eight of those, the smaller numbers are the verse numbers. This book covers almost 300 years of history, but we're just looking at 10 years, a decade.

The first third of this book, these eight chapters, only cover 10 years. That means the story is slowing down, the camera as it were is zooming in on these particular leaders.

For us to learn from them. The last of our chapters illustrates this clearly. Chapter 8, as the reign of Syria's King Ben-Hadad II comes to a bloody end as he is assassinated and replaced by Hazael. At the same time, the southern kingdom of Judah is ruled by the good King Jehoshaphat throughout this decade, throughout most of the decade. But his reign ends in this decade at one point, and then he's replaced by a king named Jehoram, as we read in chapter 8, verse 16, who rules Judah, the southern kingdom, for eight years, and he was succeeded by his son Ahaziah, who only reigned for one year.

Friends, I'm not going to give you a quiz on the kings, their names, their dates, but what you see is that the rains come and they go. They start and they end. They did the same thing in the northern kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, and that's the kingdom that our chapters really focus on. The book begins in chapter 1 with the reign of the son of the evil king Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Remember they were prominent last week at the end of 1 Kings.

Their son Ahaziah is now on the throne. We saw last week that his reign was short and evil. Look at that last paragraph of 1 Kings. Just look back at that last paragraph of 1 Kings, chapter 22, verse 51. Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, began to reign over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, and he reigned two years over Israel.

He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother, in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. He served Baal and worshiped him, and provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger in every way that his father had done. Now if you just look across to the beginning of 2 Kings, that's the king who's in power. That's the king whose reign we're considering, whose reign in Israel we're considering here in chapter 1. And this entire chapter in 2 Kings is taken up with Ahaziah's death.

The most prominent thing the Scriptures tell us about this young and evil king is that he died. Look at chapter 1, beginning at verse 1. After the death of Ahab, Moab rebelled against Israel. Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria and lay sick. I don't want to interrupt this reading.

It's a good reading, but I just want to point out, notice how the divine historian, maybe Jeremiah, he's not named, we don't know, but the divine historian starts out ironically almost sarcastically recording what this great and powerful person, a king, what do we find about the rain? He fell through a lattice, and it really harmed him. So these great and powerful figures in the world are flesh and blood. Now, Azariah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria and lay sick.

So he sent messengers telling them, 'Go inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this sickness.' But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, 'Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, 'Is it because there is no God in Israel that you're going to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?' Now therefore says the Lord, 'You shall not come down from the bed to which you've gone up. But you shall surely die. So Elijah went.

The messengers returned to the king and he said to them, 'Why have you returned? And they said to him, 'There came a man to meet us. And he said to us, 'Go back to the king who sent you, and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord, 'Is it because there is no God in Israel that you were sending to inquire of Beelzebub, the god of Ekron? 'Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die. '

He said to them, 'What kind of man was he who came to meet you and told you these things?' They answered him, 'He wore a garment of hair with a belt of leather about his waist.' and he said, 'It is Elijah the Tishbite.' After the Lord protects the prophet Elijah from 100 soldiers who come to get him, Elijah agrees to go see King Ahaziah in person. And the dramatic meeting of Elijah now with the late King Ahab's son King Ahaziah is brief. Look there in verse 15. Then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, 'Go down with him, do not be afraid of him.' so he arose and went down with him to the king and said to him, 'Thus says the Lord, 'Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron, is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word? Therefore, you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die. '

And so, Ahaziah dies. Ahaziah's younger brother, another son of Ahab, began to rule Israel. And this king, Jehoram, sometimes Joram, reigned throughout the rest of the decade that these chapters 2 to 8 cover. So that's whose reign we're looking at, Ahaziah's younger brother. As you look over the history of God's people, you find that the kings change more frequently than did their sins.

Again and again a king begins his reign, a new name is prominent, and yet what is done seems to be no different than what had been done before. One administration makes the same mistakes as the previous. Friends, it's a good thing for rulers' virtues to be repeated, but not their sins and errors. Though this book is called Kings, You begin to realize as you read through it that the kings are all too much like each other, too flawed, too sinful. It's like down the century the people are looking for that one king who would rule them well, fulfilling the promise that God made to David of establishing his throne for his descendants whose kingdom would be forever as they feel king after king have reign after reign.

And not finding Him, at least not as far as these chapters go. Even the best rulers of this world, kings and presidents, bosses and coaches, teachers, even parents are temporary. Friends, any authority that we hold in this world, any authority that we're under in this world, is an opportunity to reflect something about the authority of God Himself, something of His character. The most important thing that you can do with any authority you wield is to reflect the character of the God who gave you life and who will one day judge you for how you spent it. But even more central to the theme of the book of 2 Kings is another kind of leader.

In Washington we may be tempted especially to look to the kings. But as you read the books, you can't help but notice there's another kind of leader to God's people that seems, if anything, more prominent, and that's the prophets. They are really the dominant leaders in these accounts. First King ended with the prophet Elijah having stared down the whole royal court, kings and priests, royal and religious at that great contest on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18. Elijah outlived that king who had so often threatened his life, Ahab, and now 2 Kings begins with this dramatic confrontation of the old prophet with the evil king's son and successor on the throne, Ahaziah.

The author began the book in chapter 1 verse 2, ironically recording this fact that the great ruler was subject to the accident of falling through the lattice, but the narrative makes it clear that the greater leader was not the king, but the prophet.

But here too, we have to be careful. Elijah was a prophet of God, but Elijah himself was simply a man. We saw last week in chapter 19 of 1 Kings how Elijah was exhausted, how Elijah retreated in order to gain refreshment. Now here in 2 Kings, the book begins by seeing a king removed in chapter 1, but then also the prophet Elijah was removed, as the author puts it in chapter 2 verse 11, by going up by a whirlwind into heaven. Chapter 2 is the chapter in which we see Elijah being succeeded in his ministry by the prophet Eli, Sha.

Very confusing for people who are new to the Bible. Two prophets, knew each other, very similar names, Eli, Ja, and Eli, Sha. Eli, Sha is the second one. In 2:9, Elisha requested from Elijah a double portion of his spirit. Many of you have sent me questions through the week wondering what exactly that meant.

I'll give you two answers. I think the correct answer is this is simply a way to say it was like the firstborn's portion. It's showing he is the legitimate successor of Elijah. That's what it means. Don't look for any multiplication of anything by two.

Just take it, he's the legitimate successor. Having said that, I would not be a faithful, honest pastor if I didn't let you know that the Scriptures record eight miracles for Elijah and 16 for Elisha. But pay no attention to that. I think it simply means that he is his legitimate successor. Try to give you all the truth and let you sort it as you will.

Anyway, that succession of prophets, the prophet Elisha to take the prophet Elijah's place, takes up chapter two as people see and become convinced of it. It's very much like the way Joshua becomes Moses' successor. Remember Moses leads the people out of Egypt through the Red Sea as the waters are divided. So how does the Lord make it crystal clear to the people that Joshua is his successor at the Jordan River where the waters are parted and he leads them across to the Promised Land? Alright, what happens here in chapter two, Elijah parts the Jordan and he and Elisha go across to the other side.

Now once Elijah is carried away, what does Elisha do? He parts the waters, parts the Jordan, goes back to the west side. So Elijah is seen to be the successor, to have the successor of Elisha. Even the sons of the prophets seem to be figuring this out. Chapter 2, they seem a little doubtful until their own investigation turns up no Elijah anywhere.

Elisha did the confirming miracle, turning the water in the springs of Jericho from bad to good. I think the last paragraph in chapter 2 is a particularly good barometer of our times. The last paragraph. The last paragraph in chapter 2. Animals devour disrespectful youths.

That's a summary. Animals devour disrespectful youths. Now friends, I gotta tell you, in past generations when the Lord was perhaps more widely feared and prophets more honored, commentators spend no time apologizing for this. It's obvious that God and his Word are to be recorded all the respect we can possibly give them. It's not a matter of debate.

Commentators from our own modern day, however, are embarrassed by these verses. Their confidence in the worth and value of the human individual, of the rights of people, are more developed, and in the value and respect due to God and His workmen, there seems to be less. Kids, let's you and me diabolically conspire together right now. Do me a favor. This afternoon at lunch, why don't you raise this paragraph with your parents?

Just see what they say about it. See if they understand why it would be an okay thing for God to judge disrespect of him. Explore that topic. Perhaps consider more of God's faithfulness in not judging all of us more immediately. Maybe the extraordinary story this morning is not that those 42 bears feasted upon those kids, but that more things haven't feasted upon us.

Throughout the rest of chapters 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7, we see the ministry of Elisha teaching the truth, performing miracles, to bless the poor and needy. Chapter 3 is an interesting story of the rebellion of Moab and the three kings going against him. Chapter 4, the beautiful story, much like the Gospels of Jesus of Jesus' concern for the poor, it's really reflecting Elisha's concern here we see as he helps the poor and the needy. I don't want to miss the opportunity to notice the important truth that like kings and presidents, prophets and pastors do change. But if we've done our work correctly, we've pointed you to the true leader, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This church had faithful pastors before me. Kayla Morel's history of the last 150 years of this congregation is going to be published this spring, Light on the Hill. And I trust this congregation will find faithful pastors after me until Christ returns. We can be sure, confident in God, that God is our true leader, both in church and state. As we listen to the Lord Jesus Christ, our truest and highest prophet, priest, and king.

Which brings me to my second main observation. So we've observed that leaders change, but now I want us to observe that God and His truth don't change. And what I've tried to do throughout the rest of these chapters, chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, is look through for what are some of the clearest examples of God's truth exampled or expressly taught there that might aid us today in living through days of change and transition. I'm going to bring out four for you. The first is that exchange between Elijah and Ahaziah in chapter 1.

It not only teaches us that rulers are limited, mortal, and they come and go, that they're not meant to be the object of our faith. But it also records one of God's most central words to his fallen image bearers that's repeated again and again in the Bible. And if we're going to understand what 2 Kings' Word of God would bring to us, surely at the very base of it must be, reject idols, reject idols, reject Idols. Idols have been the subject of warning and condemnation ever since Moses uttered the Ten Commandments. Or we read in Leviticus 19:4, Do not turn to idols to make for yourselves any gods of cast metal.

I am the Lord your God. Notice it's an important command and it's coupled with God's revelation of who He is. I am the Lord your God. And these warnings and these prohibitions go on throughout the Scripture Until finally, in the very last chapter of the Bible, the description is given of those who will not be welcomed into God's presence forever. We read in Revelation 22:15, Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters.

Idolatry is one of the most fundamental, disordering, inappropriate sins we can commit because it misbuilds our entire lives, our deepest loyalties, on the wrong being, on the wrong thing, on the wrong foundation. So in 2 Kings, the old prophet comes at the request of the young ailing king, and he says there in 2 Kings 1:16, Thus says the Lord, because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, is it because there is no god in Israel? To inquire of His Word. Therefore, you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die. Elijah stated clearly that the king of Israel would die because of his idolatry.

Strewn across the pages of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles and all the prophets are God's warnings about and condemnations of being spiritually unfaithful to him, spiritually committing adultery, that is, worshiping idols. It was Calvin who observed that the fallen human mind is an idol factory, constantly manufacturing new gods to worship and to give our affections and loyalties to. Now friends, we need to hear this word very carefully. Many in our congregation have a Buddhist or Hindu or African traditional religion background. And this continues to be a very live issue for those of you in your festivals or family celebrations or funerals.

How can you continue to follow Christ as you're commanded to and also show the kind of fealty and honor to relatives that is expected of you? Dear members, know that your elders here pray for you to be given wisdom, that you may, like Naaman in the temple of Remon, have a conscience educated by the Word of God in the clear course that you're to follow. I pray that the very points of tension that you feel with your families will end up being flash points of witness to them about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

For many more probably here today, our idols are less traditional. They're idols of pleasure or ease, of respect or reputation, of money or power, of position or politics. These idols can be even harder to repel because serving them can be made to seem like part of serving God. So others won't notice so much. But God sees the heart.

He knows that He made us to be worshipers. We all worship something. God knows why we're taking that job, why we're skipping that Bible study, why we're buying that house or investing in that friendship. God knows how you really feel about being accepted or popular or educated or how many likes you get on that social media platform. How distraught you are at TikTok's demise today.

Friend, it's the beginning of a new year. Many of us have made some big decisions recently. Ask yourself, what factors did I consider? Are there idols in my life that I am serving? If so, I pray that God will help you forsake them, because you should reject idols.

So, reject idols. Also, if you're wondering how to negotiate changing times, a second piece of God's unchanging word we get from an account here is the exhortation to think critically. Think critically. Now, I put that in modern language. But let me show you for this council the amazing chapter 5.

Turn to chapter 5.

Three and four are great chapters. Don't skip them. Read them later. Three, amazing story of the three kings together. Four, wonderful story of the Shunammite woman with the oil that never runs out in the jug and the others whose son is given and then revived and resurrected.

But here, if you just have time, like I said last week, if you can just read one chapter, read 1 Kings 18, all right, out of this passage, if you just have time to read one chapter this afternoon, grab chapter five. It will repay reading out loud, just 27 verses, dramatic, clear, fascinating. Sit around the lunch table, read it out loud, see what people think. I think one of the most important things we can take from chapter five is to humble ourselves, and think critically. What I mean is we should know ourselves well enough to know that what we first think we're hearing, sometimes we're not.

And what we first think we're seeing, sometimes isn't all that's there.

One lawyer friend told me that his job, when the other side has pointed out these Three points of a triangle is to show all the other points that make it a circle. Friends, that's what we're to do with our daily realities. We take those things that circumstances immediately present to us, but then we fill in the truth of God's Word, and we begin to have a much fuller understanding of why she said that, or what it means that he did that, or what the most significant thing is for us in that event. What I mean is we should know ourselves well enough to question ourselves. I think we see this represented in the danger represented here in chapter 5.

Look at chapter 5. Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria.

He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. Pause. When you read leper in the Bible, it doesn't always mean the exact same thing. We think of modern leprosy, it's more like a word like we use cancer. No doubt in future generations we'll see all the many different diseases that our generation just called cancer.

That's the way leper is. It's a skin disease, it's visible, but it could be many, many different things. But whatever it was, Naaman was a leper. Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel. And she worked in the service of Naaman's wife.

She said to her mistress, 'Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.' so Naaman went in and told his lord, thus and so spoke the servant girl from the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, 'Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.' so he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, which are worth like three times as much as the 10 talents of silver, and 10 changes of clothing. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you name and my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy. And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, Am I God to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man? Of his leprosy, only consider and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me.

I tell you, that King Jehoram, he sounds like a dude who works in Washington. He's not gonna be put off by this apparent, you know, humanitarian request. He sees the political game that's really going on. He sees through it. It's just a ruse.

Friends, we've been given the whole story, so in reading it we know that the king of Syria's letter was both sincere and innocent. He was sincerely wondering about a cure for his friend, and he was not looking for a pretext to be offended and thereby justify invading Israel. He didn't need a pretext like that anyway. He had been invading Israel for years and would keep doing it. But isn't it interesting how our mind can edit things that our ears hear?

Like maybe when I challenged you a few minutes ago to think about your idols, maybe your ears already stepped in and quickly edited that challenge.

Can you think of an example of how your brain filters what your ears hear? Here Jehoram of Israel heard only political threats. He immediately saw through this ruse to stir up sympathy for human suffering and he realized this was simply asking him to do what he couldn't possibly do and so become the justification for some offense which would then need to be answered militarily.

It's often been observed that God gave us two ears but only one mouth. Even I as a professional preacher realize that much of the importance I have in my work comes through those ears rather than through this mouth. King Jehoram was simply wrong in the way he read the situation here. And you know what King Jehoram needed? He needed to have people around him who could tell him that.

But that's hard, isn't it?

How can you be an advisor to a powerful person and also tell them the truth about something that they are misunderstanding?

That's the tragedy of power, isn't it? It tends to drive away all the honest people. The problem with powerful people is not that no one around them knows the truth.

It's just they're so often unwilling to tell them.

You even need to be able to think critically about what you see. Look in the next chapter, chapter 6, no, sorry, sorry, the next paragraph rather. Down in verse 8, you see this. But when Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king saying, why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.

So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, 'Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.' But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, 'Behold, I thought he would surely come out to me, and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.

Why was Naaman wanting that? Was it good what he wanted? Friends, I think people have an innate desire for spectacular religion. The idea that we get together and give the first two hours of our week to sit in a room, sing some songs, and hear somebody talk to us for an hour, and that's pretty much all we do, just seems absolutely ridiculous to people of the world. Why on earth would you spend your time like that?

People want magic, they want spectacle, they want to see something that looks like it's creating the very thing that they're receiving. But friends, that kind of visible paying for what you get by your effort, by your show, that sounds more like the Pharisee was thinking in Jesus' parable in Luke 18. God, I thank youk I'm not like that other man, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. He thought his visible religion was, as it were, paying for God's goodness to him. But friends, that's not the way the real God acts.

Elijah's demand on Naaman seemed too small to him. Naaman would have liked it better if he'd asked him for more.

But Elijah knew the truth. And the truth was that Naaman needed to hear a plain, simple request to expose that he was really a plain, simple man, a creature of clay. Whom the Creator could afflict and could heal simply. His instruction was simply to go wash in the local river. And the great Naaman clearly felt like he deserved more VIP treatment.

And I will confess, there was one time at the door, standing there at the back, where a friend of mine, of sorts, came up and said to me, he had a very high position in the government, Mark, thank you for just treating me like an ordinary person. That's why I come here. I said, well, you know what? It's easy to do because that's what you are.

You see, I'm more godly than to put that in my notes, but I just couldn't resist.

I'll give it to you as an illustration of what all of us are tempted to, to think that somehow any status we've gained in this world somehow is something that we deserve. And everyone is therefore supposed to accord us this or that honor. And friends, I'm not speaking against worldly honor, give honor to whom honor is due, we should certainly do that as Christians. But we must be very, very careful when we come to church. When we think about Christianity, we're thinking about ultimate matters.

That we not mistake them for the kind of situation where there are ranks upon ranks around us. Like King Jehoram, Naaman was going to have to be able to question his presuppositions that kept him from hearing what he should. This is why we as a congregation are committed to being treated plainly by the Word of God through expositional preaching every Sunday morning. We do not want preachers that flatter us. We want preachers that will open God's word and tell it to us, plain and straight.

Part of what that means is that God glorifying plain and straight truth is often not intuitive to us. And that's hard for us to think in this day and age. We're taught, we're cultivated from the time we're smallest child to trust ourselves supremely. And Christianity is so clear in telling us that we are fallen and that we should not assume that the most important truths are intuitive. To think critically about this world, we need God, the Creator's truth.

How can we remain faithful in changing times? So, one, reject idols. Two, think critically. Number three, don't trust appearances. Don't trust appearances.

That's kind of similar to what I just said, but it pushes us further into the realization that in our world, spiritual reality is not always obvious. For in so many of Jesus' parables, when you look back at them, will show us something small and we'll say, do you realize from that, there's the kingdom of God? Because people would look at him and his disciples as small and insignificant. When in truth it was the movement of the kingdom of God itself. One of the key appearances that we have to continually be fighting is the simple thought that because bad things happen, God must not care or He must not be able to do anything about it.

But a consistent part of the Bible's explanation of life in this world is that God is in control of matters large and small, even if that is not immediately apparent to us. Even if that leaves us with difficult questions for us to answer. Examples in our chapters are numerous of this. The merciful miracles of God through Elijah, recorded in chapter 4, show God caring about those in poverty and bareness, in despair and danger. The beginning of chapter 5 has one of our section's most interesting statements, really chapter 5 verse 1, Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor because by him The Lord had given victory to Syria.

Isn't that interesting? The Lord had given victory to Syria. We're used to thinking of the Lord giving victory to his people, but here it was, Syria fighting a nation that wasn't Israel or Judah. And yet he knew that the Lord was sovereign and the Lord had given victory of one pagan power over another. Reading on in this fifth chapter, there's of course the whole course of events set off by the Israelite girl who'd been captured earlier in the raid.

Did you think about that? Naaman would never have had that conversation if it wasn't for that Israelite girl who had been taken as a captive and who faithfully bore witness to the truth that she knew. You see how God used that? And then when Naaman had gone to Elijah and is reacting against the demanding absentee command to Naaman simply to go wash in the muddy Jordan, it's just an unnamed servant or two in verse 13 who speak to him. We don't know their names.

They're servants. My father, it's a great word the prophet has spoken to you. Will you not do it? Friends, God is at work in our lives in ways large and small. Throughout our chapters, God shows that he is intimately acquainted with our thoughts and words.

Naaman trades on that when in chapter 5 verse 18, he asks if the Lord would understand when he accompanied the king to worship in the temple of a false god. He knew that the Lord could see the heart. Perhaps the most dramatic picture we get in the second chapter of 2 Kings is in chapter 6. The chapter begins with another simple story of God's care through Elisha for a small need. But the story gets so interesting when the king of Syria marches out against Israel and the Syrian forces surrounded the Israelite town of Dothan.

So this is not in Alabama, this is in Israel. And the Syrians intention is to capture the prophet Elisha and stop him from aiding the king of Israel. Look there in chapter 6, verse 14, chapter 6, verse 14. So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, Behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city.

And the servant said, Alas, my master, what shall we do? He said, Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Then Elisha prayed and said, 'O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see. So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, And he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Friend, is that not an amazing thought? That God has a powerful provision that is as real as you or me, but is not visible to all people? At all times. Christian, is this not like you and me when we face a challenge that we don't think we have the physical or emotional or the financial or the spiritual resources to face, and yet God lets the circumstances come into our life, and He keeps us through them as safely as Noah in the ark on the floods. He keeps us.

God has all that we need and more, and he will supply it to us as we need it. You remember the prayer that Joseph had us looking at a couple of weeks ago, the prayer of Jesus, Give us this day our daily bread. There's something about keeping us in need of him actively that helps us spiritually. See the truth as it really is. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, we're delighted you're here.

I promise you've made it through most of the sermon. You're hearing these stories and I'm hoping you're hearing something that makes sense to you. I've prayed specifically for those of you who are here who aren't Christians. I pray that you will see what it is that you're trusting in. You'll look at what's exhausting you right now in your life.

Maybe it makes you wonder how you're going to make it. It could be a good thing you're feeling like that. You know, like the fuel gauge on our dashboard, we don't like to see it near empty, but it's helpful, it tells us better than we just run out. It's good if you feel exhausted sometimes if you're near exhausted. It's good that you realize you don't have the resources to take care of something.

Friend, look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to what we are saying about the reason you're made. You are made in God's image to know Him. Your sins are to be forgiven by your faith in Christ. Learn more of what that means.

Talk to any of us at the doors on the way out. God didn't mean you to navigate your way through this world let alone the next, without Him. You've sinned against Him. You're rightly the subject of His judgment. And yet He has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live and die for sinners like me and like you.

You can find new hope for this new year and more if you will only turn to Him. Learn more about what that would mean. Talk to the Christian friend you came with. Talk to any of the pastors you'll find at the doors on the way out. Which brings me to the last truth I want to bring out from our chapters.

The last unchanging truth that we find here, it's a simple one, and it's really that last verse we just looked at. How can we remain faithful in changing times? Reject idols, think critically, don't trust appearances. Number four, when you still don't get it, pray. When you still don't get it, pray.

Notice this account here of Elisha and Dothan. When the young man doesn't see, what does he do in verse 17? Elisha just prays. He says, oh Lord, please open his eyes that he may see. Friends, ask the Lord for spiritual understanding.

James 1:5 says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach. And it will be given to him. It's interesting throughout our passage how many different people seem to know that if they had questions, they were to approach God, and often that meant doing so through his prophet. Maybe you could read through these eight chapters this week, keeping track of every time someone had a question or a need that then they turned to God, through Elijah or Elisha, or maybe to false gods.

For help. For us today, we should simply know that like this young man with Elisha, when understanding or spiritual sight is needed, we should simply ask God. He is more willing to give than we are to ask.

Christian, does your life show you understand this? 1 John 514, this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. So we have boldness and confidence in our relationship with God because he's revealed himself to us in his word. That's a vital aspect of it. In that passage in first John, I just quoted from chapter five, John isn't saying that we can know that we'll have whatever we ask for.

We don't have that kind of religion with God. We can't and we shouldn't. I mean, after all, he is God. We are not. No, we know that God hears us.

And that we have anything that we ask him for according to his will. So we pray for humility, even to acknowledge our ignorance.

Again, if you're here and you're not a Christian, I just wonder how this sounds to you. How could you imagine having confidence in your relationship with someone you never heard from? You couldn't. It's the same way in relating to God. You need to spend time talking to him.

We believe that he's communicated to us not simply by building receptors into us, making us in his image, but actually by communicating that he has sent signals like the Old Testament prophets, Elijah, Elisha, New Testament apostles like Peter, Paul, John, and most of all he's come himself in Christ. If you want to explore more, right now we've got a course going on at 9:30 on Sunday morning called Explaining Christianity. That we would love to have you come to learn about. It's free, 9:30 every Sunday morning. The whole idea of there being truth or that truth being knowable is under attack today, but it's absolutely vital to Christianity.

And so we Christians contend for it. God has revealed His will in the Scriptures. Jesus perfectly obeyed His Father's will, and He calls us to follow Him in obedience. So that's the question for us. Will we do that today?

How will we know what to pray for if we don't study the Scriptures? If we're not praying over them, meditating on them, perhaps memorizing them. You can read other Christian books. You can get to know other Christians. Help them, help you.

Perhaps join a Bible study group or attend the course seminars. Come to Wednesday night Bible study at 7 o'clock. Listen to these sermons. Plan on joining a church like this. You can tell us at the door where you're coming from.

We'll tell you Good Church is closer to where you live than this one. The Bible is central to our prayer lives and it is central to our congregation's life. It's foundational in our church's statement of faith. It's the very first article. It's central in our weekly meetings.

It's central to what we teach about the Christian life. So friends, I've brought you four truths that don't change from these chapters of 2 Kings.

Reject idols, think critically, don't trust appearances, and when you don't get it, pray. We should conclude, but there is so much good in these chapters for us. There's story after story of God's sovereign wonderfulness. Look again at the question that Elijah first poses to King Isaiah, chapter 1 verse 3.

Is it because there is no God in Israel that you're going to inquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron? And then if you look down at verse 6, that question is repeated by the messengers sent from the king Isaiah to him. And again, Elijah says it to the king directly in verse 16. Friends, that's the question that really echoes down through the narrative of 2 Kings as people struggle with unfaithfulness and idol worship. The climax of our whole section comes in chapter 5.

You remember the Syrian military leader, Naaman, going to ask Elisha for healing. Look back there, chapter 5.

Beginning verse 6, he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy. And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, 'Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy only consider and see how he's seeking a quarrel with me. But when Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king saying, 'Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.' so Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, 'Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.' But Naaman was angry and went away saying, 'Behold, I thought he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.' Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?

Could I not wash in them and be clean?' so he turned and went away in a rage. But his servants came near and said to him, 'My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you. Will you not do it?' Has he actually said to you, 'Wash and be clean?' so he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God.

And his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him and he said, Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel. Finally somebody says it, that question that Elijah rhetorically pushes. Finally, you have the truth spoken, the great truth. And of course, it's spoken by a foreigner, because God has a concern for the whole world.

And he knows not only that there is a God in Israel, but he goes further. There is no God in all the earth, but in Israel. You see what he's saying? He understands the truth about who this God really is. The mighty military leader is brought out of himself to rely on another.

Friends, there are echoes of this throughout our passage. In chapter 3, when the three kings are going to attack Moab, but they run out of water. Very interesting, verse 9, chapter 3, verse 9. So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah, the king of Edom, and when they had made a circuitous march of seven days, there was no water for the army. Or for the animals that followed them.

Then the king of Israel said, Alas, the Lord has called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab. Once again, same guy, Jehoram, just don't listen to him. He just does not understand things very well. And Jehoshaphat, this is the one good king around, said, Is there no prophet of Yahweh here? Through whom we may inquire of Yahweh?

Then one of the kings of Israel's servants answered, Elisha, the son of Shaphat, is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah. And Jehoshaphat said, The word of the Lord is with him. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Edom went down to him. And Elisha said to the king of Israel, 'What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your fathers and to the prophets of your mother.

But the king of Israel said to him, 'No, it's the Lord who's called these three kings to give them into the hand of Moab. And Elisha said, 'As the Lord of hosts lives before whom I stand, were it not that I have regard for Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would neither look at you nor see you.

Wow, verse 14, pick your friends carefully. Elisha says in the name of the Lord, Jehoram, I would not look at you or see you. I do not care about what your idolatrous self is thinking. But because you're with Jehoshaphat, this guy here who loves me and serves the Lord because of him, I will listen to you. It's that idea we see in the Christian scriptures of one person standing for another.

You see it in chapter 8, verse 19, when these two kings of Judah are described, and they're bad kings, but in verse 19 we read, Yet the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah, for the sake of David, his servant, since he promised to give a lamp to him and his sons forever. Perhaps the most basic truth we learn is that in Christianity, We don't come to a religion of stoic self-reliance. Some version of Christianity may become popular with some well-known people by thinking of it as a kind of stoicism because there is certainly self-denial and self-discipline involved. But friends, most fundamentally, the Christian message is not of self-reliance. It's a reliance on another.

It's a reliance on the Lord Jesus Christ. Surely Elisha knew all about the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16. There's one who would come as a prophet greater than Moses, a priest greater than Melchizedek, a king greater than David. I wonder how all of this sounds to you. We read in Luke 4 that when Jesus preached His first sermon in His hometown of Nazareth and said that His preaching was fulfilling the prophecies of the Messiah's coming, The people got very angry.

They didn't like him saying that at all. And do you know how Jesus responded? Truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth, I tell you, there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman, the Syrian. When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.

How do you respond when you hear the truth? In days of change and transition, it can't be surprising sometimes who will believe, but will you? Will you believe in Christ? Will you trust in another?

Let's pray. Lord God, we pray that yout would pour out yout Holy Spirit and cause us to hear the invitation that yout have for each of us to come, to arise, and to trust in Christ alone. Do this, Lord, for our good and for your glory. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.