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Alright. Good morning, my friends. Glad to see all of you this morning. We're gonna go ahead and get things started here with some music. It looks like we're gonna have lots of room this morning.
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Everybody is out on a Memorial Day vacation, which means we need lots of loud singing from all of you. So let's stand together and let's worship. Let's have a word of prayer and then we'll get into some announcements. God, thank you so much for this morning. Thank you for each of the folks that have shown up here this morning.
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I pray that you just give us a great time together, a time where you're honored and you're praised and just a time when we can connect and have some great fellowship. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen. You guys may be seated. We're gonna run through a few announcements here real quick.
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Ray is gone this week once again. He is at, doing a, he is doing a wedding in New Mexico. Is that right? In New Mexico. So he left Thursday night and they went and drove and drove and drove and I think they arrived at some point yesterday.
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And so he will be back on Monday and Tuesday, which leaves me doing announcements once again. And I'm excited about that because I'm very, good at them. So get your boots out. May 26, you guys are invited. We've got a big Turning Point fundraiser, and and the Bar J hosts a show down there at their place.
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And it's a normal Bar J show, but all proceeds go to Turning Point. So if you are interested in that, that is Tuesday right after, right after this Memorial Day, vacation. So Tuesday, if you need something to do that evening, if you're still feeling like enjoying some vacation time, get down to the Bar J and enjoy that show. You can get tickets here from the office from Diane or Judy Basie is selling them as well. VBS, there's a donation table in the back.
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And what we've done is we've clipped off some different little slips that have things we need as donations for it to go or for the different things that are happening with VBS. So if you could run by that table and you feel like you'd like to help support that ministry that's gonna happen this Sunday, grab a couple slips and go out and buy those things that are on thing and then bring them back to the church and we will make sure that those get used. Also, there is a we're gonna go back to VBS one more second here. There's actually also a work or a setup day and that's the twentieth, I believe. The twentieth at 9AM VBS is decorating and setup day.
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So if you would also like to help out with that, put that on your calendar. Be available for that. We could really use your help for that. Alright. Numero three.
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Monday nights is happening tomorrow. But instead of being in the fellowship hall, it is at Philbo Philbox? Philbo? How do we say that? Help me out.
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Box. At Philbox. Thank you. Depending on the weather. Depending on the weather.
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But it's a barbecue style type of deal. So if it's raining, just come back here and it'll happen in the fellowship hall. But that is happening tomorrow. Special congregation meeting, 05/31/1010. I imagine that's gonna be in the fellowship hall, but that's still a week away.
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But if there's more information about that in your bulletin, so check that out. I think our last one is there's no more Peak Children's Church through the rest of the summer. Last week was the last week. So when we finish with our worship and our giving the offering, kids, you get to stay up here, which is great because Martin is gonna be preaching today. And make sure to always check your bulletins.
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There's a ton of stuff in here and information for you guys to have. Okay. First, there's a Memorial Day video that Carl has prepared. So don't move.
4:00
For my comrades who have fallen, for those who have gone before, for my country that was lifted on their shoulders in every war. If I have one request, yes, just one I ask of you. It's that you stand with me now. Stand, remember, and renew. Stand with those that are now serving.
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Remember the soldiers of the past. Renew your commitment to freedom, for they have died to make it last. Every battle has its reasons, though they may not always be clear, and I can state that boldly even through my tears. Too many soldiers have fallen in the battles, sieges, fights. I will not forget them today.
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I will remember them all through the night. Lester L. Aerosmith, colonel, United States Air Force.
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Can we pray together? God, we are we're grateful. We're grateful grateful for those who have fought and died to ensure the freedom that we experience today. And so we remember. We don't wanna forget.
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We don't wanna take this freedom for granted, and we wanna honor those who have paid the ultimate price to bring us freedom. So we thank you, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. When we do this, why don't you stand up? Just take a minute to greet one another, and then we'll bring you back in song.
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Okay? I'd like to invite the frontline team to please come forward as we participate here in the worship of giving. We've got a lot to be thankful for, and this is a time to to to be able to give. So let's let's pray and give thanks. God, we are, we're grateful for everything that you offer, everything that you provide.
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You you provide not only our physical needs, but, God, more than that, you provide the the the spiritual need that we all need, to be saved. We need a savior. And, God, you love so much that you gave your son. And just out of a gratefulness and thankfulness out of our hearts now, we wanna give as well. And I pray that you bless the the giver and the gift.
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That you'd use it. That the gospel would go. Not only here in Jackson but to the ends of the earth. We trust you. We thank you.
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And this in Jesus name we pray. Amen. That right there is our talented piano player, Florian. Florian, we love you. Thank you, bud.
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I'd like to invite up my friend Martin Murphy. Well, Ray's been away. We've invited some of our elders to to speak and today we get to hear from from Martin. And you may not know, Martin is is our Awana leader and he's a great teacher, not only to to kids, but adults too. And I really appreciate him.
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Can we let him know that we love him?
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Hi. Good to, good to see you all. I mean that a little sarcastically, but I do, I do have the privilege. Is this on? Yes.
11:18
I do have the privilege of working with Awana. Awana is a kids club that we do here. And so as we were preparing, Ray came up and said, Martin, could you do this? And I said, okay. And somebody, Florin, came up no, Violetta said, well, aren't you going to do the Boom Wacko story?
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He said, no, no, I'm not doing the Boom Wacko story. The Boom Wacko story is a story that I tell to Awana kids. So I mentioned this to my wife and my wife says, you can't tell it like you tell it to the kids. So I've made it an adult story. I don't want to change.
11:56
Okay. So, but I'm reminded when I, when I prepare this, in Inowana, this kids club that we work with, there is, we just did our award ceremony where we give the kids awards at the end of the year. They work really hard. And one of the leaders came up to me and says, before the ceremony, said, I can talk to kids, but I don't know what I'm going say with all these parents here. So I feel that way a little bit.
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But it reminded me of another story of another friend I had that several years ago, this person was was proven speaker in churches and had been groups and small groups and all sorts of stuff. And I asked them to speak for the the the small kids, Sparkies. Sparkies are kindergarten, first, and second. And I said, will you speak for these guys? And he said, well, I'd speak.
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And then as we got closer, he was nervous about it. I asked him why he was nervous. He said, well, can talk to adults, but I don't know what I'm going to say to these kids. So our text is of two Kings. But before we start with two Kings, I want to start with just giving you an idea of where we are in history.
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The story is actually of, in history, of the Israelite culture. And in terms of their history, you know they were in Egypt for a long time building things and doing things. They were in captivity for about four hundred years. Then they went through the Exodus and left Egypt. They came out and they acquired the land, the land flowing with milk and honey.
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And therefore, somewhere between three hundred and thirty eight to four hundred and fifty years under the rule of the judges, okay? After the judges, they wanted a king. So they, they went through this thing and they became a United Kingdom. And there was four kings under the United Kingdom. And then after that, the king divided into the North Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom.
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And we are talking about the eighth king in the Northern Kingdom. Okay? He only reigned for two years. His name was, was Ahazi. Now first, we're going to talk about his father, Ahab.
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Okay, Ahab was the father of the king we're going talk about. And he's so what I'm doing is giving you a little history so it's kind of like you're an adult and you know what's going on. See that? That's the adult part and we'll get to the story. Ahab was the seventh king, of course.
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He reigned for twenty two to twenty three years. He didn't do real well with, in terms of his, how he did, he married a girl named Jezebel. Both Ahab and Jezebel get a lot of time in scripture. They get a lot of, I think you call it FaceTime. There's a lot of stories about their period of time.
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And so I'm going to read from First Kings here, 1633 through 33, 30 through '33, which talks about his reign. And it says, Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all the things that came before him. And it came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jobboam, Jeroboam, the son of Nebet. Now, just a little a little story on that. Jeroboam was the first when the king the when the kingdom split after Solomon, the kingdom split into two halves.
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Well, they weren't halves, there was ten and two tribes. And Jeroboam was the guy that took the tribes in the North, the bigger group of tribes. And Jeroboam, in order, he was afraid that the people would drift back to Israel because their heritage, their history was all about the the God we know as Yahweh. Okay? In order to prevent that, he set up a a form of worship that was different than than the worship of Yahweh as as pointed out in the Pentateuch, the the first five books of the Bible.
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So, that and then that kingdom, the Northern Kingdom followed those, that worship of golden calves ever since. Okay? So that was the sin, that was what the sin of the Jeroboam did. Okay. So, in addition to that, he took the wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ephesians, king of the Zidionites, and went and served Baal and worshipped him.
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And he reared up an altar raised up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which is he built in the town of Samaria. Samaria was the kingdom of the North, the, the, the capital of the Northern Kingdom. And Ahab made a grobe Asherim. That's another form of worship. So there's not only was he worshipping this thing called Baal, this God named Baal, but he was also worshipping Asherah.
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And Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel in anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. Is that good? No, that wasn't good in terms of our story, certainly. Okay, now Ehazi was the son and he's the main character in our story. He was the eighth king, and I'm going to read from first Kings twenty two fifty one through 53.
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And it says this, Ahazi, the son of Ahab, became king over Israel and Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and that's the other kingdom, Jehoshaphat. By the way, Jehoshaphat was following seeking God at the same time that Ahab and Ephesians were not seeking the Lord. But they they came together to to fight different enemies that were common enemies. That's an aside that doesn't have anything to do with the story. Where was I?
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He did evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father, and the ways of his mother, and in the ways of Jeroboam, the son of Tabat. So he's doing all that stuff. He's worshipping all those other gods that are not part of the history of of Yahweh, and he caused Israel to sin. So he served Baal and worshiped him to invoke the Lord to God the Lord God of Israel to anger according to all the things all that his father had done. Okay.
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Those are two characters. Another character, you're gonna like this guy. His name's Elijah. He's the first, there's Elijah and Elijah. I use the name, I say the same name for both of them.
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But he's the first guy. And he's real cool. He did some neat things. One of the things he did was, oh, by the way, he disappears and comes. All he, and he's, he's got a real kind of cool personality.
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He doesn't, you don't pull things over on Elijah. So Elijah shows up and he causes it not to rain for three years. And he becomes really a thorn in the flesh for Ahab, son, the father of Ahazi. And he, he just makes it very, very difficult. And then he comes out and he says, he, he shows up.
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He shows up on the scene and he says, okay, we're gonna make a contest between the God of Baal, this worship, and the God of Yahweh. And he sets up contest on Mount Carmel, is famous, where they, they both have offerings and sacrifices. And there's 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah, those two priest groups. Okay. And they're over here, and they have their worship.
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And they're trying to get their God to light a fire under this sacrifice. And in the meantime, this one guy, Elijah, sitting over here watching him going, okay, come on, come on. Maybe he's asleep, you know. And then he pours he has a sacrifice also with wood under it, and he has him pour water on it. More water builds a trench around it.
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The water fills up. And and then he says and then he what he does is he calls down basically. He calls God, if I'm if I'm the prophet, if you're Yahweh, make this burn up and it just burns up. It's kinda cool. So anyway, he calls down fire fire from heaven.
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That's at Mount Carmel way before. Okay. And then another thing is Ekron. Is there a map? There you go.
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Ekron is on there, someplace. There's Ekron. Okay. Ekron Ekron's way down there. The town of Samaria, can't see.
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It's way up high on the map. And that Samaria is where the action's gonna happen. The other thing we need to know is that the the there's a a god called Belzebub. Belzebub shows up. That name shows up in scripture a number of times.
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Belzebub is the God of Ekron. It's a deity in the town of Ekron that we just saw. And the, and apparently at some, in, in, in the text it's inferred that it, it has the ability to be an oracle, to otherwise tell the future. And so enough history. Let's go to the story.
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Okay, I'm going read from second book of Kings. Okay, if you want to follow, I think it's on the screen, right? And I'm going to start with chapter one, verse one. We're going to do 18 verses. Okay, this is where the kid part comes in, but it's still adult ish.
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Okay? Now Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. So Ahab died. Ahaziah is the king now. And Moab, who's been paying tribute to Israel since the time of David, which is about almost two hundred years.
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This this country Moab has been giving tribute and he rebels when Ahab becomes Ahazi becomes king. And Ahazi is upstairs in his his domicile. Ahaziah fell through the lattice work in the upper chamber, which was in Samaria and became ill. So, the lattice work, he he's everyone knows what lattice is. It's kind of like a cross.
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It's wood that crosses and there's holes in it for air to filtrate. A lot of people in in put lattice work underneath their porches. Right? Okay. Well, apparently, there is the windows, they didn't have glass back in this time.
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No glass. So the windows were lattice work, otherwise wood, planks and it created a privacy screen. And then also, they, they used their roofs and they put this lattice work around as a privacy screen. And the assumption is that he fell through some lattice work from the 2nd Floor and he fell down and became ill. I would become ill if I fell from the 2nd Floor also.
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So what he does is he sends messengers and said to them, go inquire of Beelzebub, the God of Yekron, whether I will recover from my sickness. In verse three we read, but the at the same time, another place, but the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite. Remember Elijah? He's the guy and that did the fire from heaven stuff. That was ten years before this.
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Elijah hasn't been in scripture since then except about four years prior to this. He shows up and gives a message to some other people. So he's been out of the picture. He's been hiding. He's been disappeared.
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He's kind of a disappeared kind of guy. But the angel of the Lord came to Elijah the toothpipe, arise, go and meet the messengers to the king of Samaria and say to them, is it because there's no god in Israel that you go to inquire of Beelzebub, the God of Ekron? Here are these messengers going to this this foreign country, this a long ways. You know, Samaria is way up here, Ekron's here, Jerusalem's here. And they're they're going all the way to to Beelzebub to inquire of this God, Ekron.
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Verse four goes, now therefore, thus says the Lord, Elijah speaking, you shall not come down from the bed where you've gone up, but you shall surely die. Then Elijah, as is fitting for him, leaves. He disappears. What's interesting here is is these messengers leave Samaria. They're under the dictate of the king.
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They're the king's messengers. Right? What's their dictate? To go to Ekron. They run into Elijah, and Elijah says, this is the message.
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And instead of going to Ekron, they turn around and go back to the king. Well, that's not a good messenger. I mean, if his I suppose Elijah was kind of an imposing character. So the messengers returned to the king, and don't go to Ekron. In verse five, we read, the messengers returned to him and said to him, the king, the king said to them, why have you returned?
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Why are you back? Why'd you come back? Why didn't you go to Ekron? They said, well, a man came up to us and he met us and he said, go return to the king. Okay?
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And who sent you and say to him, thus says the Lord. Is it because there's no God in Israel that you go to Beelzebub? Whoops. Go return to the king and say, thus says the Lord, is it because there is no god in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Beelzebub, the God of Ekron? Therefore, you shall not come down from the bed where you have gone up, but you shall surely die.
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That's why we came back because this guy showed up and told us to. That's, I mean, theoretically, they should have followed the king's dictate. Right? Well, okay. Verse seven says, and and he said to them, what kind of man was he that came up to meet you and spoke these words to you?
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And they answered, well, he was a hairy man with a leather girdle bound around his loins and he's and Okay. Now, if a guy came up like that to me, I would also take notice. Just saying. Okay? So the king says, it's Elijah the Tishbite.
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The king knows who it is. The king knows it because Elijah's been around. The lie because a lot ten years ago, Elijah called fire down from heaven. And as a result of that, 450 of the prophets that ate at his wife's table were died. I didn't tell you that part of the story, did I?
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Okay. So, in this Mount Carmel thing, you know, they had died. So, Elijah is known by Ahab. Oh, it's Elijah the Tishbite. His father, Ahaziah's father used to call him the troubler of Israel.
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And he had sought his sought him to kill him for a long time. That's an that's an aside too. Verse nine says, this is what the king did. The king sent to him, to Elijah, a captain of 50 and his fifties. And he went up to him, and behold, he, Elijah, was sitting on the top of the hill.
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So here comes this captain, 50 men. And he said to him, oh man of God, the king says come down. Okay. Some interesting things here. The king is the authority.
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Right? The men are under the authority of the king. Right? That's the authority. Okay.
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The captain of these guys comes up to him and gives him a title. O man of God. We haven't heard that before. Because they know he's a man of God. Okay?
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And then there's the question of authority. You got a man of God. You got a king. And they said, okay, the king says come down. And then this is what Elijah said.
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So you have these two authorities. Elijah says, Elijah replied to the captain of 50, I am a man of God. Let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men. And boom, whacko. That's where the name gets its story.
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The story gets its name. Boom, whacko. Fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50 men. Is that healthy? No.
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Okay. So this is what the king does. Okay. This is not good for the king. The king says, the king sent another captain and another 50.
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Smart move for the king here. And he said, this is the second guy. O man of God, again the title of authority. O man of God, you are a man of God. Now they're worshiping Baal here.
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Okay? Baal and Ashram. But they're calling this the man of God. They know about God. They know about Yahweh.
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O man of God, thus says the king, come down quickly. Okay. Again, is the command. And Elijah's replied, well, if I'm a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men. And boom, come on, wacko.
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Wacko. That's it. Fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50 men. Now, I'm sorry about this to the carnage. There's a 102 people that aren't in a good place, and it's not their fault.
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Okay. Verse 13 says, so he again sent a captain, a third captain, and his 50. The king is pretty persistent here. When the third captain of 50 went up, he came. Check out this guy.
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Okay? He's he's got a different attitude. Again, he's between two authorities. He's got the king's authority, okay? He's got this the the prophet's authority, alright?
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And he knows it now. It's obvious that something's going on. So he comes and he said, the third captain, he came down and he bows down. Bows down on his knees before Elijah. Goes up the mountain, he's still on top of the hill.
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And he begs him. It's a little different than come down or come down quickly or demanding. He says, oh man of God, please, please let my life be precious in your sight. And the lives of these 50 men be precious in your sight. Behold, I've been paying attention.
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Fire came down from heaven and consumed you and your 50 men. The first two captains of their 50 and their of 50 and their fifties, but now let my life be precious in your sight. This guy stuck between the the adage of rock and a hard place, between the the authority of the king and the obvious authority of the man of God. The man of God's been messing with him, hasn't he? Okay.
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Because Now, look, I don't know how to call down fire from heaven. I'm not it's not within my skill set. Okay? And I don't know a lot of people that have that but this Elijah did. Okay?
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And it was power given to him from heaven. I lost my place. What verse am I on? I'm on 13? Okay.
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Let these lies be precious in my sight. Behold fire came down. 14, behold fire came down from heaven and consumed the first two captains in their fifties, 50 and their fifties. Let my life be. So it reminds me, I was reminded when I read this of the song from Micah six eight which goes like this.
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He has told you, O man, let us be good. What is good? And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, but to love kindness, and to walk humbly before the Lord? This captain was doing a humble thing and he wasn't trying to lord it over the man of God. Okay?
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Then, the angel of lord. This is the second time the angel of lord shows up. Angel of lord showed up and gave them original message, right? Here is the angel of lord said, go with him. So, Elijah goes with him and go I'm sorry, go down with him.
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Do not be afraid. So, he arose. Elijah arose and went down with him to the king. Now this is interesting. Here he goes to the king.
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Here he's in front of the king. Elijah's in front of the king. And then he said to him, thus says the Lord, because you have sent message to inquire of Beelzebub, 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 your bed where you have gone up, but shall surely die. Verse 17, Ahaziah died.
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The end of the story. But it's not the end of what I want to say. I want to bring some conclusion to this. I think there's some things to learn about the story, about the character of God. Yes, it is Old Testament.
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Jesus hasn't showed up yet. The reign of grace hasn't. The work of Christ hasn't shown up yet. But there are some important things I think we can learn. Ahaziah, that king, is doing exactly what he was trained to do.
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He's the son of Ahab. He's the son of Jezebel. Jezebel had the four fifty prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah feast at her table with her. They ate with her. Okay?
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That's where he grew up. He's acting the way he was trained. Yes, he's probably aware of the history. He's certainly aware of Elijah because Elijah's been around. The Northern the Southern Kingdom is following God.
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There's a Jehoshaphat has a bunch of army people come against him and Jehoshaphat calls a fast for the whole kingdom. Okay, so at the same time that this stuff's going on with Ahab, his neighbor, his cousins in a sense, are are doing something oblique. So, Ephesians is acting the way he is trained. And therefore, the caution, raise work on raising our kids. That's what we do at Awan.
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Let's work on telling them the stories. Let's work on telling them the good things that God has done. Because God has done good things in our lives, in the lives of the past. Okay, the second thing I'd like to bring up is that how many times do we need to hear the message? In this story, the message was, is it because there is no god in Israel that you're going to Beelzebub, the God of Ephron?
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Okay, that way? Okay. The message, he kept hearing the same message. He sent up key people to get the guy. The message was the same.
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At the very end of the story, the message was the same with a little change, it said, of his word. The message is the same. How many times do we have to hear the message? What is the message? Okay, let me go to point three.
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Has the message changed? In this story, the message hasn't changed. In the New Testament, when we read about Jesus, that story hasn't changed. And the question is, how many times do you have to hear that message? The story of the New Testament is that Jesus came to Earth.
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Jesus came and through the work of Jesus, there is, well, there's a sense that we, me too, are sinful fallen people. We just can't live or dwell with a God that is holy and perfect. It doesn't work. And that through the work of Jesus, he created a bridge, a vehicle. Thank you.
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He created a vehicle by which we can commune through his work on earth, commune with God the Father. So that the promises we get in the scripture that we get to live forever eternity, and there'll be stuff to do there. It's not boring. We're not hanging on clouds singing with harps. There's action that we will do you like the harp thing?
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We will be with God through the work of Jesus. That's the message of the New Testament. Through what Jesus did on earth, we have access to the Father if you seek Him and follow Him. But what's the message God's talking to you about? God continues to talk to me in my life.
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He's trying to get my attention all the time with, hey, Martin, come on. Do this. Think this way. Work. Be renewed.
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What's the message that God has been telling you in your life? How many times do you have to hear the same message before you go, oh, yeah. Got it. How many times did Ephesians have to hear the message? Well, heard it again and again, and he never got it.
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Okay? So, how many times do we have to hear the message? What is the message that God is speaking to us? To you, if I could be so bold and and the last point and the most important point, is it because there is no god in Israel? That's what the angel said to Elijah.
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Is it because there is no God in Israel that you go and send to Beelzebub, the God of Ekron? Where do we go when we are in crisis? Okay. This guy fell from the 2nd Floor. He's in crisis.
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He's on his bed, his bed. He wants to know if he's going to live or die. He's the king. He's got everything under his control, except they've lost the tribute from Moab now. But he's got other things going.
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So is it because where do you go when you're in crisis? Do you go to sometimes when I'm in crisis, I start eating. Or I want to go on vacation, or just get out of here, or recreate. Or do we go to another God, another entity, another place of comfort? Okay, so this is a challenge.
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This is a challenge in this scripture. What did, what did was God saying to Elijah? God was saying, come, inquire of me. Come, inquire of my word. Okay, that's the message.
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Come and inquire of God. God wants to hear from us. God cares about our heart. God cares about how we act. Hey, I blow it all the time.
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Do you blow it? No, don't put up your hands. Okay. I blow it all the time. I'm I've fallen short, but that's because the message, God's message keeps coming to me, and it's my responsibility.
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Colossians three. Colossians three says this, put on. It says, put on. And it says, put your set your mind on things above. It's come on, do it.
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God gave us the Holy Spirit. We have that power. But we're also called to put on the armor of God, put on the things of God, and put our minds on things above. Okay? So he desires attention and he desires our heart.
38:00
That's the message I'd like to bring to you today. Let's go to prayer. Okay? And let me just conclude with a little prayer. Father in heaven, I want to thank you.
38:08
I want to thank you for your son. I want to thank you for the message of the New Testament. I want to thank you for the examples of the Old Testament. I want to thank you for the way that you work in hearts and purposes for men. I want to thank you that you care about each one of us and that our lives are precious in your sight and that you desire us to seek you.
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Father, I ask that you encourage us through your spirit to do just that and thank you for your son. Christ's name, amen.
38:37
Thank you, Martin. Alright. You guys are dismissed. Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We love you guys.
38:44
Adios.
