2 Kings 13: Jehoahaz’s Reign AUGUST 26, 2026 Pastor Steven L. Anderson

Man second Kings chapter number 13 the Bible reads in verse number one in the three and twentieth year of Joe

Ash the son of Aziah king of Judah

Jehovah has the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in

Samaria and reigns 17 years and he did that which was evil in the side of the Lord and

Followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat which made Israel descend he departed not there from now

Of course

this is a massive theme in the books of the kings and chronicles the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and

This is when the kingdom had first split into that northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah if you remember

Jeroboam set up a place of worship in

Bethel and in Dan instead of Jerusalem because he was afraid that if the Israelites of the northern kingdom would go down to

Jerusalem to worship at the temple where they're supposed to worship

Then he was afraid that they'd go there and their heart would kind of be connected with Judah

And they'd want to reunify the kingdom under the Davidic monarchy, right?

Because the son of David is the one that's ruling down in Judah

So he decided it's a better idea to just make sure that the people of the northern kingdom don't go down there

So he set up a place of worship in Bethel and in Dan that involves a golden calf, right?

So it's an idol of an animal and it you know

It's supposedly that they're worshiping still Jehovah God

So it has all the right words and the right names

But it's a religion based upon idolatry of worshiping a golden calf and there were two different locations

One in Dan because that was already just a hub of idolatry

Since the very founding of the nation of Israel up in the northern part of Israel and then down in the southern part

Bethel is the name literally means house of God and this place had a lot of history

That's where Jacob slept on the stone and saw the ladder with the angels ascending and descending and he said

This is like a gateway to heaven. This is the house of God

So basically because it has it in the name house of God

He figured this will be an easy sell to people. Hey, it's not Jerusalem. It's Bethel. It's right there in the name house of God

Of course, the Lord had chosen the place to put his name there and that is Jerusalem

That's where they're supposed to worship

Jesus had this conversation with the woman at the well where she said our father's worship God in this mountain

Mount Garai's him

But you say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship and of course Jesus explains to her

Yeah, it's Jerusalem

Salvation of the Jews

But he says the time is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem our man going to worship God because you know

God just wants people worshiping him and spirit in a truth and in the New Testament

We don't have a physical location. So Jerusalem doesn't matter. No physical location matters

It's just wherever two or three are gathered together in Christ's name. There he is in the midst

Okay, so that's a little bit of background here of what this means when it says that jihu

continued in the sons of

Excuse me in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and now his son is also

Continuing with that sin the sin is idolatry. Right? That is the big sin. It's idolatry

It's a twisted form of religion that is in the name of Jehovah God

But it ends up twisting things and having this gross sin of idolatry, which is a violation of God's word

So as a result of this idolatry it says in verse 3

The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he delivered them into the hand of Haseel

King of Syria and into the hand of Ben-Hadad the son of Haseel all their days and

Jehovah has besought the Lord and the Lord

Harkened unto him for he saw the oppression of Israel because the king of Syria oppressed them and the Lord gave Israel a

Savior so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as

Before time so notice here that even in the midst of sin even in the midst of idolatry

Even though they're screwing up the religion, you know

they cry out to the Lord and God is merciful anyway and God actually helps them out a little bit and

What you'll see is that there's a pattern in scripture

Where people will just kind of take one step toward God, you know

and he'll kind of help them out and throw them a bone and

Hopefully the idea is that maybe when they see God deliver them a little bit

That maybe they'll decide to go all the way and serve God and get right with God

But unfortunately, that's not what ends up happening here. So he cries out to God and God helps him out

But yet in spite of that it doesn't fix it because in verse 6 it says

Nevertheless, they departed not from the sins of Jeroboam who made Israel sin

But walked there in and they remained the grove also in Samaria

and then it just goes on to talk about how much of

Failure and how weak the kingdom is as a result of not going all the way and getting the sin out of their lives and

Actually serving God the right way

So there are a whole bunch of lessons just to take from these first several verses that I think are so critical

For us as Christians today and one of those lessons is that a lot of people when they feel like they're not right with God

Because they're involved in serious sin. Obviously, they're right. They're not right with God

But they sometimes will get this attitude up. Well, I'm not right with God anyway

So what's the use of even trying? You know, I might as well just go all the way off the cliff

And just in for a penny in for a pound and this is such a stupid attitude

And I feel like I spend my entire life and my entire ministry

Trying to explain to people how stupid this is and how many sermons I've gone through this over and over again

Because it seems like so many people think this way

They think like oh, I screwed up. I might as well just go all the way

It's so dumb because here's the thing even if you've screwed up. Don't throw good money after bad

You know, you can always course-correct

Repent get right and yeah, there's gonna be some damage that's already done

But at least you can mitigate the damage and not just go all the way off the cliff, right?

And of course the classic example of this is the girl who goes out and commits fornication and lose their virginity

And then just says ah there there goes my virginity. My as well just become a total whore

That doesn't make any sense

If you committed that sin

Affornication then you just confess it and forsake it get right with God move on and be pure from here on out

Be clean from here on out. Don't just have this attitude of oh, it's too late. I already screwed up

It's over for me. Same thing with people who are drunkards. Okay, you know, they will be sober for X amount of time

They'll take one drink up screwed it up. There goes my sobriety

There goes six months of sobriety there goes two years of sobriety and then they just go on a bender

Just go absolutely crazy folks. That doesn't make any sense

You know, and I think that we all deal with this in a smaller scale on just dumb little things in our life

Like you screw up your diet, you know, it's like you eat one little ice cream cone. Oh, there goes the diet

All right, let's go whole pizza

You know, you don't have to go all the way off the cliff

Because even if you just screwed up your diet on that one thing, you know

Confess it and forsake it and move on and keep going and it's not even that many calories

It's not even a big deal. It's not even going to change things except for the mentality of all I screwed up

It's over for me now

Now look, these people are involved in grievous sin of idolatry

These people are messed up. These people quote are doing evil in the sight of the Lord

I mean when God just gives an overview. He's like these people are doing evil in the sight of the Lord yet when they cry out to God

He still does something for them, you know, it shows you the mercy of God

It shows you that even when you are screwed up

It makes sense to at least try to seek after God

Try to get things right try to do something good try to get back on track and don't just completely

Despair and give up because you know who knows maybe God will help you out and then you keep going now at the same time

We don't want to be like Jehovah has here where we just cry out to God get a little help and then just keep on living that

Life of sin obviously the smart thing to do is to go all the way and get right with God all the way

Take a little step toward God. He throws you a bone

You take another little step toward God and you just keep going keep growing keep getting better

Keep getting closer to God keep getting more sin out of your life. Keep getting better on track with your walk with God

Okay, obviously you want to keep going and not stop short

Because he stopped short and he ends up still being a failure

But the good lesson also to draw from this is even if you're involved in serious sin, you can still get right with God

You know, I don't care if you've been a drunk. You've been a fornicator. You've been an idolater

You've been involved in whatever, you know what just

Confess and forsake it and look as long as you are breathing air as a saved Christian

You can always get right with God

Right anybody who's saved it's never too late for anybody who's saved to get right with God

And here's the thing if you're just like no God's through with me. I'm trash

Well, here's the thing about that if God were through with you

He'd just bring you home to be with him in heaven because guess what people that he through Lee truly throws in the trash can they die

It's like when he was just totally done with King Saul. He just says alright, Saul

You're so screwed up tomorrow. You and your sons are gonna come be with me. You guys are toast

Right, but here's the thing as long as you're saved and God has left you on this earth

You could still do something for God. You could still be used by God

You could still get right with God. You could still win a soul to Christ and do something and have value, okay?

So I feel like I'm constantly preaching this constantly explain to people do not despair

Don't give up. Don't throw in the towel

Just because your back's letting just because you've quit the church out of church screwed up

Hey start taking steps to get back on track spiritually

And you no matter how screwed up you've been you can come back and fix it

You know, that's just the way life is and so God gives example this over and over and here's the thing

Even when God is just flat out telling Nineveh yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown

He's not even telling them. Hey, here's how you can get right with God and fix us

He just gives them a message of pure doom and

We know it was pure doom because we know Jonah

He wasn't preaching anything merciful to the Nevites

We know how Jonah was. He's just like you guys are screwed. You guys are toast God's gonna smoke you in 40 days

I'm gonna go watch it happen. I'm gonna go get a good seat so I can watch God destroy you. Okay, and yet what they do

They got right with God and you know what they said?

Maybe

Per adventure

God will turn away from the fierceness of his wrath

You know, and that's always a maybe and so therefore if you're smart

You'll always go for that maybe and say, you know what?

I'm gonna throw myself on the mercies of God because his mercies are new every morning. He's compassionate

He's loving and so you've got to

Keep trying to get right with God and don't give up and quit

It's so stupid to just say I'm just gonna go all the way into drugs all the way into fornication

Just all the way into Hormongering and and all this stuff. It's like no

You screwed up

dust yourself off and get back on the horse and try it again

Another interesting thing here is that when when Jehovah has besought the Lord and prayed unto him

It says the Lord gave Israel a

Savior so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians notice that it is often one

Person that ends up making a huge difference in this world

Or a huge difference in the course of history all throughout the Bible if we study the Bible from Genesis to Revelation

Isn't it typically like one person?

That's the focus of each story as we go through the stories, you know

You're reading the book of Genesis and it's like it's Noah. It's Abraham. It's Isaac. It's Jacob

It's Joseph and then we get into Exodus. Who is it? It's

Yeah, it's Moses, you know or two people Moses and Aaron, you know

But it's mainly Moses

But it's it's like one or two or three people can be so greatly used by God to make a difference

And then I'm not gonna ask you who it is in the book of Joshua because I know you're not stupid

Okay, and then we get to the book of judges and it's just one person after another God sends them a

Savior God sends them a

Deliverer God sends them a judge, right?

Whether it's Othniel, Ehud, Barak, Gideon, right?

And all these other guys that are just kind of no-name guys that you don't really think that much

Tola or something, you know or you know

Was that Shamgar, you know, you know Shamgar of course, you know, it's a popular baby name in

2026 that's burning up all the charts

But the point is that God will often use one person to do something dramatic

So here there's some unnamed

Savior that God sends them that basically helps them defeat sort of like back in the days of the judges

Sends them a savior

You know another thing that's interesting about this besides the fact that God can often use one person because the Savior is singular

That God can often use one person to do something great and to change the course of things is that often that person

Doesn't necessarily get the credit and doesn't necessarily get remembered or get properly honored because it's like whoever's writing this

Chronicle doesn't even know the guy's name and God has chosen not to reveal the name and so this guy's name is

Lost to history

It's just like yeah, what was that guy's name that saved everybody's butts. Oh, we don't know we don't remember, but he sent a Savior

You know what? A lot of times we don't know and that's what's so stupid about these people that base their faith on

Church history

Instead of the Bible instead of the word of God

You're basing it on church history

Well, guess what the greatest man of God over the last 2,000 years are probably totally forgotten to history

But in their time they probably won tons of people to Christ preach to

Thousands or even millions of people, but nobody's gonna remember them

Okay, because the Roman Catholics are the ones writing the book in most cases

So it's like everybody was Catholic until the Protestant Reformation. Yeah, right. Sure

Everybody's Catholic and it's funny how everybody hasn't been Catholic for the last 500 years

There's just all these tons of other beliefs and denominations and things and it's always been that way

There's nothing new under the Sun

It's not like oh, we just have this yay the happy little dark ages. Everybody's Catholic yay dark ages

Stupid there was never such a time when everyone was Catholic. It's dumb

But that's what of course that's what their history book is gonna tell you because they're gonna erase everybody else and

Look even these people that are trying to memorialize their own guy

Don't even know the guy's name and she's a there was a savior. That's the way life is

So here's the thing if you're searching for earthly glory sir serving the Lord, you know what?

That's not the way it works because a lot of times the Lord's not gonna let you get the glory on this earth

Because if you're doing it for the glory on this earth the Bible says well

You already have your reward if you want to get the big rewards in heaven you'd be like this guy and nobody necessarily knows your name

And at the end of the day if you're gonna be super popular and have

Alkalades and have everybody speak well of you on this earth. Well, then you have your reward right now

Whereas the ones who are serving God for the right reasons doing it from the heart for the Lord

Forgot all they care is that the people got saved. They don't care if they get the credit for it

You know, we can't be doing it for fame or money or accolades

You got to be doing it for the sake of saving the people and if you save the people and nobody remembers your name

The people are still saved and so that's what we get here from this unnamed

Unknown savior of the children of Israel at this time

But of course even though God sends them a man of God a savior

Fill with the spirit to go out and fight the Lord's battles and defeat the enemy and deliver them from Syria

yet

They still persist in their sinful lifestyle unfortunately of idolatry

And I want to just point out the parentheses at the beginning of chapter or excuse me beginning of verse 5 and the end of verse 6

because the

King James has put these parentheses here to help you understand and so the way

parentheses work in the King James Bible is that the parentheses

Typically represents something that is deviating from the normal grammar of the sentence. Okay, so this way

You can understand the grammar of the sentence by basically just skipping that which is in parentheses

And then the grammar will connect and make sense and then the parenthetical is just some like extra bonus information

Now why did they put parentheses here because otherwise when you look at verse 7?

It says neither did he leave of the people of Jehovah has you know

It's kind of like okay. Who's the he there? It could be confusing who the he is

Whereas if you don't look at the parentheses, it says at the end of verse 4 because the king of Syria oppressed them

Neither did he leave of the people of Jehovah has but 50 horsemen and 10 charities everybody see that

so the purpose of the parentheses is

Just one thing it's so that you know that verse 7 is picking up

Grammatically where verse 4 left off so that you know that is the king of Syria

That did only leave of the people to Jehovah has but

50 horsemen is that sound like a lot to you like in ancient warfare

You know, they're fighting with tens of thousands of troops hundreds of thousands of troops

So he's saying like okay, you guys can only have 50 horsemen and

10 chariots so he's basically leaving them with like a super small

military when it comes to the technology of the horses and the chariots and that level of fighting and

10,000 footmen which might sound like a lot but again only

10,000 footmen and

Just a couple chariots couple horsemen. It's it's a it's kind of a skeleton crew

As far as Israel so he's really just decimated them and he says the king of Syria

Had destroyed them and again this goes to support what I just told you that verse 7 is

Grammatically picking up from verse 4 because it's still the king of Syria had destroyed them and had made them like the dust

By threshing so the king of Syria has just absolutely chewed them up and spat them out

So God is allowing them to hang by a thread

God is allowing the nation of Israel to continue to exist

But they're just absolutely hanging by a thread

Okay, God listen their prayers and he saved them from total destruction

But because they're persisting in idolatry

He's just letting them barely hang on and be very weak and anemic

But hey, it's better to be weak and anemic than to be dead. It's better to have 10,000

Footmen and 10 chariots and 50 horsemen rather than to just stop being a nation and just become part of Syria and be enslaved completely

And so again don't go all the way off the cliff spiritually because half a loaf is better than none

but

We as Christians we want to go all the way get right with God get all the way in

Serious about serving God get the grievous sin out of our life so that we can actually be blessed by God and not live this kind of like

10 chariot 50 horsemen

10,000 troops kind of Christian life, you know, we want to live the full blown Christian life and not be weak about it

So it says in verse 8 now the rest of the acts of Jehovah has and all that he did and his might are they not written in the book of the

Chronicles of the kings of Israel and Jehovah has slept with his fathers and they buried him in Samaria and

Joe ash his son reigned in his stead

So we have Jihu then we have Jehovah has now we have Joe ash right and God had promised Jihu

that his sons would reign for the next four generations because of his

Wrath that was executed upon Ahab. He's gonna bless Jihu with four generations

But unfortunately all four generations persists in idolatry and so that's what we see here

So after Joe as we have King Joe ash. This is not the same Joe ash from Judah

It's a different Joe ash popular baby name in the 30 and seventh year of

Joe ash King of Judah

Began Jehovah ash the son of Jehovah has to reign so they both have the same name to spell a little different from time to time

Over Israel and Samaria and reigns 16 years and he did that which was evil in the side of the Lord

He departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel sin

But he walked there in and the rest of the acts of Joe ash and all that he did and his might were with

He fought against Amaziah King of Judah

Are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel and Joe ash slept with his fathers and Jeroboam

Sat upon his throne and Joe ash was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel

So that's just kind of giving us like a quick little overview of saying like okay

After Jihu is Jehovah has here's Jehovah has his reign

Here's Joe ashes rain yada yada yada blah blah blah

But then we're gonna get into now the death of Elisha and you're gonna notice that Joe ash is still alive

Okay, so we are deviating from chronological order here because the Bible was just giving us like an overview

Just kind of showing us how Jihu's descendants keep reigning and they keep on

Continuing in the same sin yada yada. Okay, but now we're gonna back up because it says now Elisha

Was fallen sick of his sickness wherever he died and Joe ash the king of Israel came down under him

So notice this is the guy that we just talked about how he died in verse 13 and now he's alive in verse 14

Why because that was out of chronological order

It was just giving us like an overview of a chronicle and that's why this Joe ash

He's gonna die again in chapter 14 because again, we've gone back in time now

The Bible in general is in chronological order every once in a while though for the sake of the story for the sake of themes

It will deviate from chronological order, but usually it makes it obvious if you're paying attention

It's not hard to notice that in verse 13. Yeah, you'd rain this long and then he died and that's like, okay

But you know here is alive in verse 14, okay?

And again, he's gonna die again in chapter 14. I think it's like verse 12 or something somewhere around there

He dies again. I'm not verse 12, but somewhere like that. Okay

Anyway, so let's get into the death of Elisha. It says in verse 14 now Elisha was fallen sick

Of his sickness where have he died and Joe ash the king of Israel came unto him and wept over his face and said

Oh, my father my father the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof and again

This is funny to me because this guy is is doing evil in the sight of the Lord

He's not right with God, but yet he seems to be a big Elisha fan. Isn't that funny?

He loves Elisha. He thinks Elisha is super cool calls him father

But yet he's not obeying him. He's not doing what he says because Elisha is one of the greatest prophets who ever lived

Joe has did that which is evil in the sight of the Lord

Right because when God just gives an overview of him

It's like you did evil because you spent your whole life

Bowing down to an idol and that's idolatry and the Bible says that's not not make unto thee any graven image

That's not bowed down unto them nor serve them the Lord your God is a jealous God

And yet this guy for some reason, you know loves Elisha

So what you see with a lot of these northern kingdom guys is that they have some little modicum of

Spirituality that you know like if you look at even King Ahab, you know King Ab at some point gets right with God

God here's his prayers, you know, and so here's the thing that a lot of these guys are probably saved

But they're just super backslidden super worldly super sinful super and God's not blessing them

God's saying that they're doing evil

But yet they seem to at least be at least a little bit sort of kind of

Connected to worshiping the true God of the Bible and so it's kind of weird how that works

But we see Joe Ash, you know

He's just a big Elisha fan and he's crying and everything and he's sad about Elisha dying

And it's funny what he says because he says oh my father my father the chariot of Israel and the horseman there

I'm like, what does that mean? It's kind of a weird thing to say, right?

Well, if you back up to chapter two of the same book, this is what Elisha said when Elijah died, right?

so Elijah is

able to actually like pass on the torch to the next generation because remember Elisha

Wanted to have a double portion of Elijah's spirit and so you know if Elisha was there when he died

He's gonna get the double portion of Elijah's spirit

And he was able to get the mantle from Elijah and go out and have double the ministry of Elijah and do great things

But here

instead of Elisha

having

His protege that's gonna basically fall in his footsteps

He just has this kind of backslidden messed up king of Israel that's saying the same thing he said to his mentor

He's saying the the chariot of Israel and the horsemen there up because remember Elijah was taken in a fiery chariot

So when Elisha said it it made sense

It fit the context now when Joe Ash is saying it to Elisha. It's really just

He's just kind of just saying words that don't really have meaning. He's kind of going through the motions

He's not a real heir of Elisha

And you know what this shows me is that here's the thing sometimes you can pass on

to the next generation the fire of

Preaching and prophecy and doing great works for God and sometimes you can't because Elijah was a great man of God

And he's able to pass it on to someone else

He's able to train and ordain Elisha to pick it up from him

but Elisha is

A greater man than Elijah in the sense that he does more for God

But yet he's not able to pass it on to the next generation and when he's dying

He doesn't really have a good protege. Who's he supposed to be passing off to Gehazi, right?

His protege didn't pan out apparently other protege's didn't pan out. He's got the king of Israel

He tries to be a good influence on the king of Israel, but he ends up dying

Frustrated and upset with the next generation for not

Catching what they needed to catch not getting what he's trying to pass down to them

You know, it's it's kind of a sad story here that he's not able to pass it on to the next guy the next prophet

And so here's the thing, you know throughout the Bible

Sometimes there will be great men of God doing great works and then other times

It's like

Periods will go by where there's just really no standout

Prophets or really no great leaders or men of God doing anything great for 10 years 20 years at a time

There'll be these kind of dead spots, you know between great prophets

And so it's kind of a sad story here where Elisha is dying

And this is the guy that he's got to basically leave it to is the king of Israel

Who is kind of a joke spiritually and he's not right with God

and so forth

Now why is it wouldn't you think that it'd be easy? It seems like it'd be easy

Just to keep just passing on the faith to the next generation, you know what I mean?

I'm just like and just bringing people in training them teaching them

You know, you think it'd be easy for me as a pastor who have

Passed and preached and had success and have like a successful model of

What we've done and what we've accomplished, you know

You think that you'd be able to train a bunch of other young guys to kind of do the same thing and

You know, we have been able to successfully train some guys that are doing

Phenomenal works for God and great works for God and that are doing every bit is good of work

But then think about all of the bogus

People that we've tried to teach and tried to train and they ended up being idiots

They ended up screwing it up. They ended up being Gehazi. They ended up being a loser in some other way

Why is that? Well, you know

part of the problem is that

People

Often don't want to

Be humble enough to learn and follow somebody else because they they have too much ego and pride

And so I because I was thinking about this today

Like all of these like preaching protégés who've crashed and burned

Like really the big downfall for almost all of them is Envy and

Thinking that they're better than us thinking that they're better than their mentor

Then they're better than other people that they are just somehow thinking that they know better and that they can do better

And and so they get prideful they get arrogant and then they end up

Wanting to tear down their mentor and destroy their mentor as a way to lift themselves up

And of course it never works and it never makes any sense

And you know obviously every situation is a little bit different

But I feel like probably the most common thread that you could trace is like Envy and

Ego in the people that don't make it and that don't pan out

Now here's the thing is that there's no reason why

people should feel this way because

You're supposed to before you become a great leader

You're supposed to be a great follower, right?

And so like why did Elisha pan out because the Bible says that Elisha poured water on the hands of Elijah

So he's a guy who's willing to be humble and do a menial job and he's pouring the water on the hands of Elijah

He's willing to serve. He's willing to follow and here's the thing. This doesn't hold him back

This propels him to greatness because remember when Elijah dies. What is his wish?

He says I want a double portion of your spirit

So this shows it's not that Elisha is just some drone

They're just gonna just blindly do what he's told and has no zeal or no ambition or no desire to surpass his master

That is that really what's going on when he's asking for a double portion?

No, what it is is that he's smart enough to understand that you know what? Hey right now. I'm the follower

I'm gonna be humble. I'm gonna learn. I'm not gonna get out of my

Lane here or get out of place and then when the time comes

Then I will step up to that position of leadership

And I'm gonna use it for the glory of God and I want to do double and here's the thing

I would love to see man that I've trained for the ministry do double the works that I've done and

You know what? Honestly, I believe that they will I believe that some of these guys are going to outperform

And out do me now here's the thing last time I check it's not a contest anyway

You know, we're all on the same team. We're all serving God and there's thing not everybody is necessarily gonna achieve

The same levels, you know, but at the end of the day, we're all on the same team

We're all doing what we can do

We're taking the talents and abilities God has given us and doing the best we can with them

It's not a contest. Some people are gonna pastor a smaller church

They're gonna be in a smaller area or more difficult area more unreceptive area

Other people are gonna pastor in bigger places bigger cities bigger opportunities

And then here's things some people are just gonna have more more of a gift more talent more ability than others

Some people are just gonna be better speakers than others, you know

Just have more energy than others more intellect than others more charisma than others

You know at the end of the day, we all just need to do the best we can with what we've got and

not be in a in a contest about

ego and pride and

whatever

But here's the thing. There's nothing wrong with having an ambition and saying hey, man pastor Anderson did this great work for God

I'd love to do double that in my lifetime like that

That's not a bad thought as long as it's coming from a right attitude a humble attitude that says you know what?

Hey, I want to be greatly used by God. I want to do more. I want to serve more, but before honor comes humility

No one will ever be a great leader without being a great follower first

first you have to be a great church member and look if you're not gonna be respectful to your pastor and

respectful to your mentor and

Actually like be a blessing to him and be a blessing to the church family when you're in a lower position lower status

Then why would God give you success in the higher status?

Right if you're not going to be a good church member

You're not going to be a good pastor and there's the thing even if we just put the ministry aside

You know you've got to learn as a child as a teenager to honor your father and mother or you're not going to succeed for the rest of

your life

You know and it's like and then you go get a job you've got to learn to be respectful to that boss at work

You got to be respectful to the authorities that are in your life to the people who are training you the people that are teaching you

teachers mentors

bosses parents

Whoever it is that's guiding you

You got to listen to those people you got to respect those people and then eventually

Someday God will give you the position of leadership and you'll be able to do a good job as a leader because you were a good job as

A follower I mean that's what the Bible says that if you're faithful in little you'll be faithful in much if you're faithful with another man's

Then you'll be entrusted with your own

Okay, and that is the way life works and unfortunately there are just so many bozos

So many idiots that just feel like oh well, you know

Pastor Anderson, you know they want it they basically want to be under my tutelage

But then they want to also think that I'm stupid or that I'm an idiot or that I'm wrong

It's like well, which one is it bro?

You know, it's like you can't just back. Well, I'm gonna train under a lot and I'm not saying that I'm Elijah

I'm saying you can't be a life shot and back. Well, I'm gonna train under Elijah

But I think Elijah's you know kind of dumb and I'm gonna I'm just gonna do way better

I'm just gonna be where no no because what does he say? I want a double portion of your spirit. He's not saying

I'm smarter. I'm better

Let me just tell you how things are done. Let me tear you down

Let me trash you and hurt you so that I can lift myself up. No, no, it's more like no no no man

I admire you. I love you. I see what you're doing and I want a double portion of your spirit

I want to be like you and then just take it to another level

That's the right way to learn, you know, it's like this in anything. This is forget church

I mean imagine going to the kung fu gym or something

And you're gonna tell the Grand Master or whatever. I don't know Grand Master Flash or whatever the guy's called

You know, you're gonna tell him how to do kung fu and oh, well, I I'm gonna be better than him

It's like shut up, bro. You need to just learn from the guru

You see what I'm saying?

And again, this doesn't mean that you don't think this doesn't mean that you don't have your own opinions

It's just that you respect

Authority and that you respect your teachers and you respect your mentors and maybe you even think to yourself

Hey, I'm not sure that they're right about this. Okay. Keep studying your Bible. Keep reading your Bible

Keep serving God and someday when it's your turn, you know, you can work on those things and prove those things and test those things and

do better

But you've got to

Go the right way and I'm telling you

Elijah passing the mantle to Elisha is a beautiful thing

Moses passing the authority to Joshua is a beautiful thing. But unfortunately the baton is usually fumbled in the Bible

Right, it's beautiful when it's passed from one generation to the other

But how many times is the baton get fumbled in kings and chronicles and in the book of judges where there's a gap

Because there's just nobody carrying the torch from the the the the previous leader. Okay

And

Again, I'm not claiming to be anything like Elijah. I'm not claiming to be perfect

I'm not claiming to be right about everything

But but here's the thing if somebody wants to be trained at Faithful Word Baptist Church and

Trained by pastor Anderson and looks to pastor Anderson as a mentor

Then it wouldn't really make sense for that person to then be acting like oh pastor Anderson's bad or an idiot

Or it's just like well, how's that gonna work?

You know and it's just and you get too many people that are too big for their britches and they're prideful and they're envious and

They're arrogant or they just don't want to wait their turn

You know Elisha had to wait his turn and when his turn came he got the double portion, but he had to wait his turn

Unfortunately, you know, you got people who want to be in the ministry for the wrong reason like Gehazi

He's just for his own self just his own gratification his own

You know greed he wants to be in the ministry and then you got other people that just have such a big ego

They just can't pour hands on the water of the mentor and learn from him and grow and wait their turn and be successful

It's really a shame, you know

Because and look I'm super happy that I've been able to train some great pastors that are out there doing great work for God

But you know honestly like I feel like it should have been a lot more by now

And it should be a lot more in the future, you know

And it's like where are where are the guys at that are going to be that next generation?

That are gonna preach and turn this world upside down with the gospel of Christ, you know

It'd be great to get them trained

But you know what it's gonna take some humble men who want to be serving God for the right reason and

Unfortunately, Elisha doesn't have that so he's stuck with Joe Ash and so

Joe Ash is crying and saying oh

My father my father the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof and Elisha said to him take bow and arrows

And he took on him bow and arrows and he said to the king of Israel put that hand upon the bow

And he put his hand upon it and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands

And so again, you know the symbolism here is Elisha is trying to pass something on to the next generation

He's trying to teach him something. He's trying to show him something. It's like here

Look, it's like the classic teaching someone how to shoot a bow and arrow putting your hand on their hand and showing them and standing behind them

It's showing them exactly how it's done

Obviously Joe Ash knows how to shoot a bow, but it's symbolic here

Okay, he's putting his hands on his hands and he's having him and he shoot the arrow

And he says open the window eastward verse 17

He opened it then Elisha said shoot and he shot and he said the arrow of the Lord's deliverance

The arrow of deliverance from Syria for thou shalt smite the Syrians and affect till thou have consumed them

And he said take the arrows and he took them and he said to the king of Israel smite upon the ground

And he smote thrice and stayed

Meaning that he hits the ground three times and then he stops

okay

Now apparently

The instruction seems to have been clear that he's supposed to keep hitting the ground

But yet he hits the ground three times and then just kind of stops like okay now what and

The man of God was Roth with him and said thou shouldest have smitten five or six times

Then that's how smitten Syria till that's consumed it. Whereas now thou shalt smite Syria, but thrice

So, you know, he seems upset. I'm not sure how clear this instruction was or wasn't

But he basically tells him to smite the ground he hits it three times and Elisha is like what's the deal?

That's not enough. You should have done five or six because however many times you smote the ground

That's how many times you're gonna defeat Syria

Now you're only gonna defeat them three times and that's not gonna be enough to completely take them out

And Elisha died and they buried him and the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming of the year

And we'll get that in a moment. So the point is that you know, I

If you were to think of a theme for this whole chapter that kind of connects the beginning to the end is that you know

Joe Ash not going all the way

Right and this is symbolized by him whole only hitting the ground five three times instead of five or six times

He's not going all the way, you know, Elisha saying hey, you should have done more you should have gone further

You didn't go all the way. You you did it halfway

and really that's the story of

The entire northern kingdom of like well, we're gonna worship Jehovah, but we're gonna keep the idols

We're gonna keep the groves. They're half in half out when it comes to the Lord and

So here he's being rebuked. He's frustrated. So Elijah

He goes up to heaven

Passing the mantle to a guy who's gonna do twice as good as he ever did

You know, that's a beautiful story here Elisha dies angry and

Frustrated with this bozo

Joe ash who is not gonna defeat Syria. He's not gonna deliver Israel all the way

He's an idolater. He's evil in the side of the Lord. And so it's frustrating for him

And so, you know, I preached a sermon on this passage in the past also called go big or go home

You know, it's like don't hit it three times hit it five or six times, right?

If three is good five or six is better

And this is the whole way that we should live our Christian lives is we should try to go big

Try to go all the way try to be all the way in and you know again

That's why I think the faithful word Baptist Church has been successful is

Part of the reason is because we're all in and we push it hard and we push for the numbers and some people are like

Oh numbers don't matter. Well, I don't know Elisha was a guy who thought that numbers mattered

Because there's there's math involved

Both when Elisha starts his ministry and when Elisha ends his ministry, right?

Because when Elisha starts his ministry, he says I want to do double and if you count

He did twice as many miracles as Elijah and pronounced twice as many prophecies

So Elisha starts his ministry by doing double

Elisha ends his ministry by saying to the guy who follows him you did half

Because three is half of six and so he's basically like started by doing double and then the next generation is like I'm gonna do half

He's like, why are you doing half man? Go all the way

Don't be halfway about your Christian life. And you know, here's the thing

There are some numbers to the Christian life, you know some 60 some 30 and some 100 those are numbers. Oh

God doesn't care about numbers. This whole book called numbers

How come in the book of Acts? It's like 3,000 added to the church 5,000 out of the church if God doesn't care about numbers

You explain that

Because numbers do matter

And so we at our church, you know, we try to put in

Hours

Out soul winning, you know, we try to do a great number of

missions trips numbers of

Trips to the Indian reservation trips to Flagstaff trips to other small towns

You know, we're putting in

hours and numbers and numbers of soul winners and numbers of

Salvation that we're trying to achieve numbers of mission strips, you know

And it ends up being more result because we crunch the numbers and we push for the numbers and we say

Hey, we don't want to do half. We want to do double

Right. Elisha is a double kind of a guy. Joe adds to the half kind of a guy

You know, we don't want to be halfway Baptist

Right. We want to be double portion Baptist church

Okay, we want to do twice as much not half as much as our potential

And so here's the thing, you know, maybe you should look at some of the numbers of your Christian life

And say, hey, maybe my Bible reading should be doubled because maybe I'm doing half what I should be doing

And look, I'm not prescribing any wild and crazy Bible reading plans

But you know what I think you should read the Bible cover to cover at least once a year

And that's not crazy. That's 20 minutes a day. So, you know what you say, well, I'm reading one chapter a day

Well, let's you know, let's double that

Right, let's get you from one chapter to two chapters. Let's get you from two chapters to four chapters

You know, let's think about your soul winning and let's think about getting those numbers up now

Look, we can't control the number of salvations

Right. I don't think that God is expecting us to control the number of salvations because we can take the horse to the water

But we can't make him drink

I could go out and work my butt off out soul winning and get zero saved

And that's going to happen from time to time

But he that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seeds shall doubtless come again with rejoicing bringing his sheaves with him

Eventually you're going to get people saved

If you never get people saved something's wrong with you, okay as a soul winner, but it's not always going to happen immediately

Sometimes you do have those dry spells sometimes you're going to have to put it in the long hours

But let me tell you something, you know

God doesn't expect us to make people get saved. We can't make people get saved

God just expects us to go out there and bear the precious seed and preach the gospel to every creature

And it's up to them whether they get saved or not

We can just do our best to be a spirit-filled preacher of the gospel out there

Winning souls to christ the best that we can

And so here's the thing

You know get out there and put in the time

Put in the hours

And you will get the results ultimately, you know, and and you say well, I really want to get the numbers of

Salvation's up. I want to boost my salvation numbers

Well, really the only way to do that is to either put in more time

Or to physically go to a more receptive place

Because obviously in phoenix, it's hard to get people saved

You know so we can fill up a van full of people and go soul winning for an hour and we get one salvation

Right if we took all those same people and we're magically in the Bahamas and we went soul winning for an hour

We're going to get probably more than one salvation

If we're on if we're on the Apache reservation

We're probably going to get a bunch of salvation

If we're in Guyana if we're in the Caribbean somewhere if we're you know somewhere receptive

For in a good and look there are some hot spots around here where you have some some good neighborhoods for soul winning

You you run into those spots, but at the end of the day, you know, you want to get more people saved

You got to either put in more time or go to more receptive places

Go on mission strips. I'm sure if you went to the philippines and work with pastor Stucky

You're probably going to get bocu salvations

You know preaching the gospel in receptive places in a receptive country and whatever

You know if you learn Spanish and go to Mexico, you know, you're probably going to be able to get a bunch of people saved

And so here's the thing, you know, we should want to do something big with our lives

And and so, you know, why don't we think about maybe if you're just barely half in and half out

You know think about boosting your bible reading and you know what get out a calculator or do the math in your head

But you know what it's about numbers my friend

You know, it's it's how many minutes are you spending in your bible?

How many verses are you memorizing? How many minutes are you spending praying?

How many hours are you spending out soul winning? How many people are you preaching the gospel to?

How many missions trips are you going to go on? How many weekend trips are you going to go on?

I guarantee you you do the numbers you change the math and you're going to change the outcome

You're going to change the results

You know in a lot of churches what they care about is just how many people

They could pack into their auditorium

And how much money they could put in their bank account those are the numbers that they think about

They're just thinking about attendance and money

Right, but you know what we're thinking about is more like well, how many doors can we knock

How many mission strips can we take?

How many salvations can we get how many people can we baptize right? That's what we're thinking about

Those are the kind of numbers that we're thinking about we're thinking about like spiritual

Eternal value kind of numbers, but we still care about numbers my friend

So we're going to take all the money in the bank and we're going to drain that bank account to get everybody out soul winning

And out doing missions so we can boost the number that matters, which is the salvation number

Because that's what we care about. That's our value. That's our priority around here. Okay

And so don't be halfway about anything that you do and take

A look at your life

Take inventory and say am I smiting the ground three times?

When I should be smiting at five or six

You know, am I spending this much time when I should be spending this much time?

You know, how much effort are you putting into your christian life because you know

I guarantee you that there are a lot of people who are putting a lot of effort into a lot of things that that aren't spiritual

And it's like maybe you should redirect some of that effort into something for god

Because at the end of the day only one life so soon has passed and only what's done for christ will last

And so elisha

He's already done

I mean a lot. Well, he's not quite done because he almost doubled the miracles. He's one miracle short

So here's where he gets the final miracle

It says it came to pass as they were burying a man in verse 21 that behold they spied a band of men

So here the mobites are burying somebody and all of a sudden they're under attack like while they're burying their guy

They're under attack. They're like we got to get out of here

So they don't finish burying the guy

So then they end up just casting the man into

The sepulchre of elisha

And when the man was let down and touched the bones of elisha he revived in so his feet

So basically they're like we just got to toss this body in a hole

And they happen to toss it into the sepulcher of elisha

They throw the body in and the dead body comes into contact with elisha's bones

And the body just is revived and comes back to life

So elisha is performing one final miracle from the grave

That rounds out his double portion

Because he was one miracle short and he gets it posthumously a posthumous miracle

You know what?

I like this story because it makes me think about the fact that I preach all these sermons and they've been recorded

And people get saved watching the by the way to heaven many I just met a guy

Last week who said that he got saved from the soul winning demonstration

And it's like hey, you know what that soul winning demonstration god willing is going to be online

hopefully even after i'm dead

And hopefully other corpses can come into contact with my dead bones

And be saved and so here's the thing you know what this tells me is that we leave a legacy even after we're dead

Even after you're physically dead

Even if it's not like me where it's like mp3s of sermons that i'm hoping survive

And continue somehow, but you know what even how about just the people that you've

Touched the people that you've trained people that you've won to christ

They can continue to do the work after you're gone

And so your works will continue even after you're dead hopefully

And then you know the chapter ends with you know hasale

Oppressing is real and then of course it talks about how you know they fought against them and

You know the three times and so forth. They don't get all the way there

But just you know my encouragement to you this evening is you know

Just take a look at your life and think about if you are half in and half out

Or what you can double think about some numbers

You know double your prayer time double your library and look maybe you're already reading the bible enough

Then just keep doing it because i'm not saying that you need to double everything. I don't care how much you're doing double it

I might be too much

But i'm saying if you're lean on bible reading if you're lean on prayer if you're lean on soul winning

You know let's get those numbers up. Let's double that let's boost that

Let's get all the way in because you know what life is too short

To be a joe ash

And you know what's so funny about joe ash is he's such he's such an elisha fan

Right

But he's such a loser in his own personal life

You know what it reminds me of it reminds me of these like super out of shape people who love to follow sports

I'll never understand that

Like if if i were super out of shape i'd be like

I don't want to think about sports because it's depressing

But i mean you have just like morbidly obese people that just love watching

All these like really fit athletes do sports

Which and look i'm not if that's you i'm not mad at you i'm not criticizing you i've just never been into it

Anyway, so i'm not really in a place to judge

Okay, because i just don't really follow professional sports and i never have

It's one of those things where if your dad's into it you're into it my dad wasn't into it so i'm not

But but but you know when i think about these guys

Who are just super out of shape, but they're just super into sports

You know to me i think there's some people out there like that spiritually

Who are basically they love listening to the preaching and they're downloading all the sermons and listen to the preaching

And they're doing like nothing for god

That's that's what i think of when i think of joe ash

That's what joe ash is like

Joe ash is like the biggest fan. I mean when elisa's dying. He's there. He's a huge fan

massive fan

Oh, my father my father

The chariots of israel the horseman there. He's bringing up elisa's greatest hits

Hey, i remember when you said that remember you said that when elijah went to heaven you said that

That was so cool when you said that

Right. He's a huge fan

But in his own personal life

He's

half

Of what he should be

And god looks down at him and says well you got this gross sin of idolatry. So

You know pass fail you fail

You know, i mean it's it's it's i wonder how many

Failures are listening to my preaching

And are huge pastor anderson fans, you know what i mean? It's like what get out

Why don't you get out on the field and play the game?

Instead of just being a spectator be a participant

Get in your bible yourself get out soul winning get on your knees and start praying and do something for god

And you know what here's the thing like i'm not saying you're going to be a professional football player

You know, maybe you're in your 40s 50s 60s. Yeah, you're not going to be a professional football player

But you know what can you at least go in the front yard and throw the ball around a little

Can we at least play catch with the football? Can we at least play three flies up?

Can we at least do some flag football?

Can you at least run around the block?

Can you at least do a single push-up?

And look everybody's going to be different we're all at different levels spiritually

We're all growing and we're all in the same team

But you know what let's all look at ourselves and see if some numbers need to be boosted

Let's borrow it's not word of prayer father. We thank you so much for your word lord

We thank you for the example of lisha

and and that

Passing of the torch to the next generation successfully and doing twice as much and then also thank you for the bad example of joe ash

Which is a halfway

Failed attempt at the next generation lord help us to take an inventory

And get our lives on track for you lord to the best of our ability and lord

If there's anybody here who has

Massive sin in their lives and just is ready to just quit and throw in the towel lord

I pray that they just wouldn't give up and that they would just keep pushing and try to do a little better tomorrow

And in jesus name we pray amen