Transcript
I am privileged to speak here at Coast Bible Church and also to participate in the GES conference. And needless to say, during my stay here as always, I have been the beneficiary of the flawless hospitality of my good friends Arch and Carolyn Rutherford who take good care of me and therefore find it easier to trap me into coming back.
I also want to thank the church for its support for my ministry called Cherubim Incorporated under which we produce literature that we believe is beneficial to people. When you gather for prayer please remember us and pray that the Lord will sustain us and will enable us to do good work on the material that we produce.
Now let me invite your attention to the Word of God in Second Kings chapter 10. Second Kings chapter 10 and we would like to begin reading at verse 17 of Second Kings chapter 10.
When he came to Samaria he killed all who remained to Ahab in Samaria till he had destroyed them according to the word of the Lord which He spoke to Elijah. Then Jehu gathered all the people together and said to them I have served Baal a little but Jehu will serve him much. Now therefore call to me all the prophets of Baal all his servants and all his priests that no one be missing for I have a great sacrifice to make to Baal. Whoever is missing shall not live. But Jehu acted deceptively with the intent of destroying the worshipers of Baal. And Jehu said Proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal. So they proclaimed it. Then Jehu sent throughout all Israel and all the worshippers of Baal came so that there was not a man left who did not come. So they came into the temple of Baal and the temple of Baal was full from one end to the other. And he said to the one in charge of the wardrobe Bring out vestments for all the worshipers of Baal. So he brought out vestments for them. Then Jehu and Jonadab the son of Rechab went into the temple of Baal and said to the worshippers of Baal Search and see that no servants of the Lord are here with you but only the worshippers of Baal. So they went in to offer sacrifices and burn offerings.
Now Jehu had appointed for himself eighty men on the outside and had said If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escapes whoever lets them escape it shall be his life for the life of the other. That was so. As soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains Go in and kill them let no one come out. And they killed them with the edge of the sword. Then the guards and the officers threw them out and went into the inner room of the temple of Baal and they brought out the sacred pillars out of the temple of Baal and burned them. Then they broke down the sacred pillar of Baal and tore down the temple of Baal and made it a refuse dump to this day. Thus Jehu destroyed Baal from Israel.
However Jehu did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel sin that is from the golden calves that were at Bethel and Dan. And the Lord said to Jehu Because you have done well in doing what is right in My sight and have done to the house of Ahab all that was in My heart your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart for he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam who made Israel sin.
In 1967 twelve-year-old Albert Thompson lived in Wayland Massachusetts. One day in a game of mumblety-peg a stray flip of the knife resulted in the knife hitting another little boy whose name was Mark Topui six years of age. Mark was not hurt seriously but when the knife struck him he began to cry and he cried and he cried and he cried. And that made Albert Thompson angry. And in a fit of childhood rage Albert Thompson took the knife and he stabbed Mark Topui twenty-six times and killed him.
He was sent to reform school for this murder and when he was released he drifted for a while until he found a job in a prison release program in New Hampshire. Then in 1985 eighteen years after the murder he returned to Wayland Massachusetts where he was hired by the housing authority as the executive director. But soon rumors about his past began to circulate. Hate mail was received. His windshield on his car was broken.
At first Thompson denied any knowledge of the murders but finally desiring to put an end to the rumors he decided to go public with his story. It turned out that the Housing Authority had known about his background when they hired him and they supported him when his story went public. But the following year the Housing Authority terminated his employment. They were claiming differences with Thompson about his job performance but Thompson claimed that the reason he had lost his job was because of the tremendous pressure that the Housing Authority was under because of his past.
Thompson moved to Norton Massachusetts where he took a job as the assistant to the manager in the Sweet Sis Cheesecake Company. Unfortunately the end of the story is not as sweet as the name of the company for which he worked because in 1986 one day the body of Albert Thompson was found in the basement of the Sweet Sis Cheesecake Company hanging by an electrical cord from a drainpipe. His death was ruled a suicide.
One of the administrators at the housing authority in Wayland said We all knew he was suicidal and he had a lot of friends who cared about him but I don’t think he knew that. And perhaps the most penetrating observation was made by Patricia Nicholls his assistant at the Housing Authority. She said All of the publicity just made him more aware of what was going on inside in him. I think if he could have forgiven himself he would have been alright.
Now the story that I have just told you is a story about a man who went too far in a fit of childlike rage and in his adult search for forgiveness he did not go far enough. Because forgiveness can never be found in ourselves but must always be found in God. And this story also brings to our attention a trait that is often found in human beings a failure that is often exhibited by you and by me. And it is this trait this failure that I want us to consider for a few minutes this morning. And I want us to do so under the title Going Too Far and Not Far Enough.
Now I always like people to remember the title of my message even if they don’t remember anything else I said. So I usually repeat it. By title this morning my subject this morning is Going Too Far and Not Far Enough.
Remarkably the trait we want to talk about this morning is almost perfectly exhibited in the story that we read just a few moments ago from the Word of God. Needless to say the central figure of this story is a man named Jehu the son of Nimshi who drove his chariot furiously and he lived his life exactly the same way.
In the material that precedes the passage that we have read we have been told how Jehu was anointed king over the northern kingdom by one of the sons of the prophets. And that particular young prophet had given to Jehu his commission from God. Jehu was to execute the anger and judgment of God upon the wicked and wretched house of King Ahab.
And Jehu moves into action with characteristic vigor with characteristic energy. And in a very short time he has executed the king of Israel who was the son of Ahab King Jehoram. And he is also executed the king of Judah whose name was Ahaziah and he was a grandson of Ahab. And never being a person to let grass grow under his feet Jehu sends an order to the city of Samaria that the seventy male descendants of Ahab who were being raised in Samaria should all be executed. And they were duly executed and their severed heads were placed at the entrance of the gate of Jezreel.
And as Jehu is on his way to the city of Samaria he encounters forty-two men who claim to be relatives of King Ahaziah and therefore related to the family of Ahab and he executes them as well. And when he finally arrives in Samaria the Bible tells us that when he came to Samaria he killed all who remained to Ahab and left him none remaining according to the word of the Lord which he spoke to Elijah.
Notice those words according to the word of the Lord which he spoke to Elijah. And if this had been the end of the story of Jehu that would be a wonderful capstone for his career. Because even though he was ruthless in carrying out this command he had fulfilled the Word of God. He had fulfilled the Word of God.
But alas this story does not end there and what happens next is a little bit of a surprise to us. Because Jehu assembles Israel and he says Ahab served Baal a little but Jehu will serve him much. Send out a command all over Israel and assemble all of the priests and the prophets and the worshippers. Bring them into the temple of Baal because I have a great sacrifice to offer to Baal and anyone who is missing shall not live.
But the Bible adds these revealing words Jehu acted deceptively that he might destroy the worshipers of Baal. Now let’s admit shall we that destroying Baal worship from the nation of Israel was a worthy objective. After all Baal was a widely reverenced pagan deity all over the ancient Middle East often represented as a weather god. And the worship of Baal had been sponsored in Israel particularly under the tutelage of Queen Jezebel and with the weak-kneed acquiescence of her husband Ahab. And she had promoted Baal worship in Israel. And certainly it was a worthy objective to get rid of that kind of worship in a nation that was devoted to the true and living God.
But Jehu started off on the wrong foot. You cannot serve the God of truth by telling lies and Jehu had acted deceptively. And then all of the worshippers of Baal and all of those who had that worship were assembled in the temple of Baal in Samaria and they fill the temple from one end to the other. And Jehu goes in with his friend Jonadab and hypocritically he says make sure that there are none of the worshipers of the Lord in here but only the worshipers of Baal.
But outside Jehu has stationed eighty armed men and he has said to them if any of those men that I have brought into your hands escape the person who lets them escape his life will be forfeit in place of the one who escapes. And then in a superlative act of hypocrisy he goes back into the temple of Baal and offers a sacrifice to Baal. And then he comes out to the soldiers and he says go in and kill them. And the soldiers go into the temple of Baal they slaughter the worshipers of Baal from one end of the temple to the other and toss their bodies outside.
And then if I understand the biblical text correctly they go into the inner sanctum of the temple of Baal and they bring out the sacred pillars of Baal. They go back into the main body of the temple and bring out what was perhaps an image of Baal. And then they break down the temple and turn it according to our English Bibles into a refuse dump. But the original language uses a word that means something like latrines and it would appear that what they did to the temple of Baal was to turn it into a kind of a public outhouse a shameful end to a shameful kind of worship.
And the Bible adds these words Thus Jehu destroyed Baal from Israel. Impressive. Hold your applause. Hold your applause. There is something definitely wrong with this story.
Do you remember the confrontation that Elijah the prophet had on Mount Carmel with the priests of Baal? And when he won that confrontation by calling down fire from heaven the nation of Israel fell on their faces and they said The Lord He is God the Lord He is God. And then Elijah ordered the execution of the prophets of Baal but of nobody else. Elijah does not order the execution of everybody who worshipped Baal because Elijah’s objective is to turn the people of Israel back to the worship of the true and living God.
But Jehu executes the prophets and priests of Baal and he executes all the worshipers of Baal slaughtering them deceptively in the temple of Baal. And I want to submit to you I want to submit to you that in doing this Jehu went too far. Jehu went too far.
Do I need to tell you that it often often happens with religious people that in one way or another in their pursuit of religion they go too far? When I was a little boy one of the happiest days that we had in our family was Christmas Eve. And after we had decorated the tree and after we had wrapped the presents and put them under the tree my parents and my brother and myself would sit around that lighted Christmas tree singing Christmas carols praising God for sending his Son into the world.
And then when we were finished doing that my mother would serve refreshments and cookies and my brother and I would go to bed real happy waiting eagerly for the morning to come so we could open our presents. But then we discovered as we were living in Chambersburg on a street called Sixth Street up the street from us there lived another Christian family. We knew them they had two girls who were approximately in the age range of my brother and myself.
And one day I learned that this family did not observe Christmas at all. Apparently they didn’t send gifts they didn’t have a Christmas tree they treated it as just another day. And I remember saying to myself how awful how terrible that those two girls don’t have the pleasure of Christmas that my brother and I have.
Now I don’t know the reason behind this. Maybe it was because some people think that some of the practices of Christmas are traceable to pagan practices. Maybe it was because we don’t really know the exact date on which our Lord was born. Maybe it had something to do with the commercialism of Christmas. But for one reason or another Christmas was just another day to this family. And I was convinced as a little boy and now that I have passed my seventh decade I am still convinced that that family in forbidding Christmas to their children went too far.
Do you remember the words of Agur the son of Jakeh that are recorded in the book of Proverbs? Agur the son of Jakeh said this Every word of God is pure He is a shield to those who trust in Him. And then he says Do not add to His words lest He reprove you and you be found a liar.
And my dear Christian friends this morning I don’t care how sincere you may be how convinced of your rightness you may be whenever we add to the words that God has spoken whenever we create rules that God has not laid down we are in danger of his reproof and we are in danger of being found liars. Jehu had gone too far.
But it is exactly here that we get another surprise. You see when the Northern Kingdom broke away from the southern kingdom the very first king of that Kingdom was worried. He was afraid that his people would go down to the feasts of the Lord in Jerusalem they would be attracted to the Kingdom of Judah they might wish to reunite with the kingdom of Judah and that would deprive Jeroboam of his kingship.
And so in order to forestall that he constructed a golden calf and put it in one of the northern cities called Dan and he constructed another golden calf and put it in one of the southern cities called Bethel. He appointed priests to serve these idolatrous calves and he appointed feasts for his people to observe the worship of these calves hoping it would keep them at home and prevent them from going to the city of Jerusalem for the feasts of the Lord.
And remarkably my friends the eight kings who follow Jeroboam on the throne of Israel had done nothing at all about the golden calves they were still standing there in Dan and Bethel. Ah but now we have a real zealot on our hands don’t we? I mean Jehu has just wiped the worshipers of Baal off the face of the map of Israel. Surely surely Jehu will do something about these golden calves.
But the Bible tells us however Jehu did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin that is from the golden calves that were in Dan and Bethel. The guy who had gone too far in wiping out the worshipers of Baal in terms of the golden calves he didn’t even begin to go far enough.
And it is one of the amazing facts of religious life my friends and I’ve been around for many years now and I’ve seen it but one and the same Christian person who insists on a set of rules that the Bible has nothing to say about can ignore things like the anger in his own heart the jealousy the pride the resentment the things that the Word of God addresses directly. So that one and the same person may go too far and at the same time not far enough.
There was once an actor by the name of Alfred Lunt. Some of you may remember him. It was a very gifted actor and he liked to play to packed houses. He was always gratified when he saw standees in his audience because that meant that the theater had been sold out for his performance. And on one occasion he was performing in a play put on by the New York Theater Guild and the man who was in charge of publicity a man by the name of Russell Crouse noticed that there were some empty seats in the auditorium and he thought that might worry Alfred Lunt.
But he also remembered that there was a dummy somewhere in the theater and so he went and got it dressed it up in clothes and stood it in the back of the audience so that it looked like a standing person. So after the performance was over Alfred Lunt was talking to Russell Crouse and he said you know there was a standee in the back of the theater tonight who was so interested in the performance he scarcely moved. Most gratifying said Alfred Lunt. But of course the reason that the standee didn’t move was because it was a dummy.
Permit me kindly to say this if we have the nerve to add to the Word of God rules that God has not spoken we’re dummies. But if we fail to move on matters where God’s Word has told us to move that is even dumber.
So what happened to Jehu? Well God spoke to Jehu no doubt through a prophet and God said to Jehu Because you have done all that was in My heart with regard to the house of Ahab you’ve done what is right in My sight in that regard your descendants to the fourth generation shall sit upon the throne of Israel.
Wait a minute did you listen carefully to those words? Jehu is commended for what he did to the house of Ahab not a word about the destruction of Baal worship where Jehu had gone too far and certainly not a word about the golden calves where Jehu had not gone far enough. God commends him for doing the thing that God had told him to do.
Now if you and I had been Jehu hopefully we might have said to ourselves you know something God praised me for what I did with the house of Ahab He didn’t say a word about what I did with Baal worship He only praised me for what He had told me to do I wonder if there’s anything in his word that I need to do that I haven’t done. And if he had thought of that he would have remembered that the Word of God condemned all graven images and he could have done something about the calves.
But unfortunately he apparently didn’t ask himself that question or at least he didn’t ask himself that question seriously and the Bible therefore says but Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord with all his heart. That is he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin.
May I suggest something to you if you and I are the kind of people who feel we can add to the Word of God I can’t find a verse for that but you know I’m sure this is what we should do and at the same time are the kind of people who ignore things that God has directly and specifically commanded of us we do not have the respect for the Word of God that we ought to have.
I may repeat that if we do either of these things we do not have the respect for the Word of God that we ought to have. And by failing to respect the Word of God we fail to respect what he has said and we fail to respect what he has not said.
The Christian life my friends is lived inside the lines. It is lived inside the lines that God has laid down for us in His Word. Every word of God is pure He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him and do not add to His words lest He reprove you and you be found a liar.
There was once a very talented Polish actress by the name of Madame Majesta and on one occasion she was attending an evening party. She was noted as a tragedian a person who had great skill in performing in tragic dramas and so the people at the party were urging her to recite from one of the plays in which she had performed. And at first Madame Majesta refused saying that the absence of footlights and stage settings and so on might interfere with her memory.
But the people kept pushing her to recite something and so finally as she gave in and she said she would be reciting in Polish. So she began to recite and the audience was spellbound they sensed the deep tragedy that was being communicated through this recitation there were even tears in the eyes of some of the people.
And when she was finished with her recitation they urged her to tell them the name of the play from which she had just done such a moving demonstration. And Madame Majesta replied I counted to one hundred in Polish. I counted to one hundred in Polish. Riveting compelling tear-jerking and totally empty of content. She had counted to one hundred in Polish.
May I say my Christian friend it doesn’t matter how dramatically you live the Christian life it doesn’t matter how successful you appear to be in the Christian life it doesn’t matter how many people you impress with the way you live it. The only thing that matters is whether you are doing what God has told you to do. Or to put it another way God wants you to walk in His Word with all your.