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149: Beginning of the End
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Israel is a mess. We already know that, but it's going from bad to worse. Israel is divided and the northern region (also called Israel) has fallen. Southern Judah has a faithful king who puts God first, but trouble persists, and God's chosen people are in a battle for survival. In his message, Ryan Pfendler examines three themes: Identity in God: Like Israel, we are called to find our identity in being children of the one true God, rather than seeking validation from worldly standards. Consequences of Idolatry: Israel's repeated idol worship led to their downfall. Ryan urges us to reflect on the "false gods" in our own lives, such as wealth or success, and to remember that true protection and peace come from God alone. God's Unfailing Love: Despite Israel's failures, God did not abandon them, and He will not forget us, even when we fall. God's love is steadfast, and He is always ready to welcome us back with open arms.
If you’d like to dig deeper, check out these discussion questions. You can complete them on your own, with your Community Group, or with family and friends.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Context
00:00:00
Speaker
The following podcast is a Jill Divine Media production.
00:00:20
Speaker
Thanks for hitting play on this week's episode of Normal Goes a Long Way. I'm your host, Jill Divine, and this week's episode is based on chapter 15 from the story, God's Messengers.
Solomon's Compromises and Idolatry
00:00:31
Speaker
Well, last week we walked through the story of the division of the kingdom, and one of the things Chuck taught us is that while Solomon brought peace and prosperity to the Jewish people, he also brought compromise, compromise.
00:00:47
Speaker
He was brokering deals with foreign kings, and in return, he would receive their daughters as wives. It was like he didn't trust God to protect his people, so he thought he needed to do ah treaties through marital ties. And so that's how a king ends up with 700 wives. And that's why Solomon also ended up with lots and lots of foreign idols,
00:01:15
Speaker
now being worshiped by the people in Israel. This is a trap, by the way, that I see normal people fall in all the time. You have your values, but then you're willing to compromise your values because you say, you know what? ah result The result's worth it.
00:01:33
Speaker
It's just worth it. It's like the snake in the garden. At the very beginning of the Bible, the snake in the garden is still echoing the same line. Did God really say?
The Danger of Idolatry and Baal Worship
00:01:44
Speaker
like to Did God really say suddenly like an affair? It doesn't, you know, it doesn't feel like adultery or tax fraud doesn't feel like it's not stealing.
00:02:00
Speaker
or suddenly gossiping, it doesn't it doesn't feel like slander. Did God really say? Well, one thing God definitely said, and said from the beginning of the Bible, and it keeps coming up in the Bible, is thou shalt not make any idols come.
00:02:20
Speaker
To worship. Here's the thing with an idol. Sometimes it's a fake God that you come up with in your own mind. And at best, at best, an idol is a statue that has no power.
00:02:34
Speaker
But at worst, and i and I believe this, at worst, an idol can be a path of the demonic. ah Consider Baal worship, the Canaanite Phoenician god of fertility and rain. And what does that involve? That involves worship that includes both grain sacrifice and child
Prophets and Moral Guidance: Speaking Truth to Power
00:02:55
Speaker
sacrifice. Totally demonic.
00:02:58
Speaker
And suddenly you get in the midst of this and in Israel, suddenly sacrificing a child doesn't feel like murder. Because at least our crops will grow and everybody else will be okay.
00:03:11
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Like, can't let a child stand in the way of financial well-being or let a child stand in the way of my future. This is just one example of countless false gods and idols that were introduced during the time of Solomon and after his reign as well.
00:03:30
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And as you read through the rest of the Hebrew Bible, this is the thing you're going to notice about the king, the kings. You'll notice their devolution. They're devolving over time. The kings keep getting worse and worse.
00:03:44
Speaker
There's exceptions like Hezekiah and Josiah. But even their reforms are like short-lived and the people just keep devolving one after another.
00:03:55
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Here's the thing, when the going gets tough, the people compromise, and so do their kings. Since God no longer has the ears of the kings, kings aren't listening to them.
00:04:07
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Instead, God decides he's gonna send prophets. These will be messengers to his people. Perhaps the people will listen to his messengers. And by the way, the best biblical evidence for separation of church and state, for separation of church and state, are the prophets.
00:04:25
Speaker
The prophets. They are not in charge of the government at all. They're not in charge of the government. But they will speak truth to power, which is what good religion is always supposed to do.
00:04:38
Speaker
Speak truth to power. Like when David, David had a man sent to the front lines because David wanted to steal his wife. And that man ended up getting killed and David stole his wife. So Nathan the prophet goes to David and he calls him out.
00:04:54
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And David listened. Well, why? Because Nathan wasn't a politician. He had no political agenda here. He was the spiritual advisor to the king, and the king desperately needed some at that moment.
00:05:10
Speaker
But this prophet had nothing to gain from what he said. In fact, he had everything to lose.
Ahab's Influence and Elijah's Mission
00:05:16
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There was no political agenda. He's just calling him out. He had to speak truth.
00:05:22
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And that was the role that prophets were to play. They weren't there to lead the people. No, God freed them up to spiritually guide the people They would speak truth to power because they had no interest in that power.
00:05:40
Speaker
They represented the one with the real power, which is why when people talk about America as a Christian nation, I'm like, whose version of Christianity?
00:05:53
Speaker
Who's calling the shots? Is it the new pope? He doesn't speak for me. which Which denomination gets to put their commandments up? What do you do with all this? No, no. What we need is prophets who speak truth to power, not a religion that tries to control a government. Every government that's been controlled by a religion has shown up worse in the end.
00:06:17
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The problem is the devolving of kings of Israel, their devolution. um See, these they had no interest in being spiritually reprimanded. They had no interest in being called out.
00:06:30
Speaker
And the worst of the worst of all these kings in this way is King Ahab. um By the way, historically speaking, we can prove that Ahab existed outside the Bible.
00:06:42
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outside the Bible. ah When April and I were first married, we lived in Cambridge in England, and um i was studying there, and this afforded us the chance to visit a lot of the best museums in the world.
00:06:55
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oh I called that a date night. Well, want to show you a picture from the British Museum of an Assyrian steel, an Assyrian steel that documents its carving ah in its carvings that Ahab was defeated at a battle in 853 BC.
00:07:14
Speaker
ah Though not named, he's also mentioned on another steel, the Mesha steel, which is in the Louvre. And I've been to both museums, and I've seen both of these up and personal.
00:07:25
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When people tell you that the Bible is a bunch of made-up stories, Just point them to the archaeology. This thing says 853. The Bible points to 853. It's all in there.
00:07:36
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Now, here's the thing about Ahab. This is what the Bible says about him in chapter 16. It says, Ahab, son of Omri, did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.
00:07:53
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Can you imagine someone saying that about you?
00:07:57
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There's a lot of evil people in the world, but you're the worst. You just star You're the worst of the worst. You're the captain of the evil ship. Most of the others were terrible kings. They were even worse people.
00:08:12
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ah God's people pretty much never really had a godly king. Not really. But Ahab's the worst of the worst. He's literally moved his church membership to the Baal temple.
00:08:25
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That's where he's attending because he married a Phoenician princess, Jezebel, and he's letting her control his faith, his religious views, his kingdom.
00:08:37
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Her name Jezebel literally means where is Baal? It's like her dad said, i know what to name her. Let's make sure she's always chasing after that fertility cult god. and Where is Baal? See, she's all in on child sacrifice. She's all in on fertility cults.
00:08:58
Speaker
And God's people, they have to deal with this. In fact, she becomes so dominant that it becomes the dominant worship practice in northern Israel, in Samaria, in the north.
Elijah's Showdown with Baal's Prophets
00:09:10
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In fact, she had soldiers hunt down 100 true prophets of God and murder them.
00:09:18
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There's a prophet known as Obadiah. There's actually a book in the Bible named after him. Obadiah, he secretly protected some of the prophets or the number would have been way over 100. He actually hid them in a cave.
00:09:31
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um And it's because of this that God calls Elijah to talk to the king, to call out the king. The king's not listening to anything. So he says, Elijah, you're my prophet.
00:09:44
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I need you to go talk to him. And as you can imagine, Ahab is none too happy to have his sins called out in public. Ahab is none too happy to have a prophet try to bully him around.
00:09:58
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Ahab had these prophets killed because they were getting in the way of the fertility cult. He thought that Baal was needed because Israel was going through a drought and a famine. Of course he had to call on Baal.
00:10:12
Speaker
But Elijah knew something. He knew something. Ahab did not have a drought problem. He had a God problem. And this is what they said to each other when they encountered each other in chapter 18.
00:10:27
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It says, when Ahab saw Elijah, he said to him, is that you, you troubler of Israel? I have not made trouble for Israel, Elijah replied, but you and your father's family have.
00:10:42
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You've abandoned the Lord's commands. You've followed the Baals. Now summon the people from all over Israel. And meet me on Mount mount Carmel and bring the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table. It's one prophet, Elijah, against 450 prophets of Baal.
00:11:06
Speaker
Properly speaking, it's the one true God against a demonic fertility cult. And I know this is church, and we don't like to talk about stuff like this in church, but here's the thing. Some things in the Bible are not rated G. They're not rated PG. In fact, most things in the Bible are not.
00:11:25
Speaker
They're not like Disney films. And the reason is because neither is life. So if you're here worshiping with your family, things are about to get a little uncomfortable, and I get it. Because we wish that Noah's Ark was a story about a boat with cute animals on it.
00:11:42
Speaker
But it's not. It's a story about a flood and about judgment. And that's just what it is. And it's a lot easier to tell the story of David slaying a giant when you use a tomato and a cucumber.
00:11:57
Speaker
But that's not the story. And I like VeggieTales as much as the next pastor. See, the Bible is not censored because life isn't censored.
00:12:10
Speaker
Last week, we read a quote from the English translation where Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, he said, my little finger is thicker than my father's waist, except the word isn't waist.
00:12:23
Speaker
All the English translations are afraid to say the word. In the KJV, it gets the closest. It uses the word loins. Rehoboam is being a child, an immature king.
00:12:34
Speaker
He knew his dad was looked at as a man's man because he had all these wives. And so now he wants to be known as a man's man better than his dad. He's being a child, immature.
00:12:47
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That's the kind of king he was. It's the kind of man he was. See, if there's one thing I want you to take away from the story of the Bible, it's this. This book is about real life, messy real life.
00:13:02
Speaker
And that's what Elijah's up against. So he says, it's time for he and Ahab to face off. And he says, let's meet at Mount Carmel. Let's set up two altars, one for you guys, one for me.
00:13:14
Speaker
But no one bring a match. What we're gonna do is we're gonna pray to our God. We're gonna see which God answers and calls down fire from heaven and lights up the altar. Let's see which one is real. And he says to the 450 prophets of Baal, hey, I'll give you a head start.
00:13:30
Speaker
So they start calling out to their God, bill They're praying and they're praying and hours go by and there's no answer. So now they started shouting and shouting louder and louder from morning till noon. They shouted prayers, but there's no answer.
00:13:52
Speaker
So they prayed, they shouted, and then they started to dance around the altar. One prophet was doing the moonwalk. Another was doing Gangnam Style.
00:14:04
Speaker
One of them was doing the chicken dance, I think. I don't know. Actually, I don't know what kind of dance. They're dancing around the altar, doing Madonna's Vogue, but God still won't answer, and they don't know what's happening.
00:14:17
Speaker
They're doing all this to arouse the gods, but there's no response. You know, cultures have this, by the way. They've been praying and shouting and dancing around fires from the beginning, thinking, if we just shout loud enough, maybe he'll answer.
00:14:33
Speaker
Or if we dance hard enough, then the gods will give us what we want. But is that how prayer works?
00:14:43
Speaker
Is that how it works? that how God works? Like, if you could just get the formula right, then God will give you what you want. If you just dance right, God will give you what you want. If you pray long enough and loud enough, God will give you one. If you sing enough, God will give you one. Is that how God works?
00:14:58
Speaker
Is God ah cosmic vending machine? and you just put in the right coin or perform the right dance, then God's gonna give it to you.
00:15:12
Speaker
See, Elijah knew this was ridiculous. Ridiculous. So this is what he says in chapter 18. This is my translation. Elijah began to mock them, making fun of them. He says, cry louder,
Spiritual Guidance of Prophets and Mothers
00:15:28
Speaker
it bails to God.
00:15:30
Speaker
Maybe he's busy. Maybe he's having explosive poo emoji. Maybe he's traveling. Perhaps you need to wake him up.
00:15:42
Speaker
Now, here's the thing. The Hebrew word is more like diarrhea. Elijah's taunting them. He's taunting them.
00:15:55
Speaker
Elijah knows all religions are not basically the same. And the 450 prophets of Baal are humiliated. So they tried the prayers and they tried the shouting and they've tried the dancing and nothing's working. And so they have to take it farther. What do they do? They start cutting themselves and dripping the blood on the wood, hoping to arouse the gods.
00:16:20
Speaker
This is their concept of faith, of religion. And I think if Elijah had given them another day, They would have taken it further because they always did. They would have brought in the temple prostitutes and they would have started to sacrifice children.
00:16:38
Speaker
When I was in youth ministry, there was something real special on my heart. And i have really special concerns when young people or anybody practices cutting.
00:16:51
Speaker
i don't know if you know what that is. Really any other form of self-mutilation. But in youth ministry in particular, this is such a huge concern. um You can have problems understanding the emotions that you feel inside. And so what people do sometimes is they want to feel the pain on the outside so they can make sense of the pain that they're going through. um The thing is, they self-harm.
00:17:17
Speaker
What happens is it leads to further moments of guilt and shame that happen. Well, want you to know, like, this practice is actually rooted in the occult. It's a dark spiritual ritual that Baal worshipers use.
00:17:31
Speaker
And here's the thing, God does not want that for you. You're precious. You don't deserve pain. And if you're feeling pain on the inside, I get it, I've been there.
00:17:44
Speaker
But you gotta work through that. You don't deserve to feel it on the outside as well. Your emotions are real. You gotta deal with that stuff. You should never resort to self-harm. You're too important to God. You're too important to this place. You're too important to your family.
00:18:02
Speaker
And one of the real tasks that we have as a church, and i and I don't think the church does this well enough, we have to let people know how valuable they are, how valuable you are, that you were made on purpose, for a purpose, and we gotta help you find that purpose.
00:18:21
Speaker
And no one should be defined by the kind of people that try to strip us of our value. And there's people like that. But they don't get to make the definitions.
00:18:34
Speaker
See, Elijah, he sees what's happening to God's people. And that's why he's bold. That's why he's standing up to this sadistic ritual that's happening before them. Instead, he starts to mess around with his altar to rebuild it.
00:18:49
Speaker
as they're dancing around and praying and shouting and bleeding. And he takes 12 stones, each representing one of the tribes of Israel.
00:19:02
Speaker
He's reminding God's people who they are and who their God is. And then he had the people dump water all over his wood.
00:19:14
Speaker
In fact, there was so much water, it filled the trench around the fire, around the wood. As if somebody, it's like he was saying to everybody, I don't want any of you to think that I did a trick and that I lit this fire.
00:19:28
Speaker
I don't want you to think I had anything to do with this. The wood's so soaked, there's no way it's gonna light again. And then he prayed this prayer, and this is such an amazing prayer.
00:19:40
Speaker
He said, answer me, O Lord, answer me. That this people may know that you, o Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back.
00:19:53
Speaker
He doesn't pray, God, i need to get revenge. God, I want them to think I'm right. God, I want them to think that I'm the winner and that Ahab's the loser. He doesn't pray any of that stuff. He prays, God, i want them to turn back and I want them to know that you did it.
00:20:11
Speaker
It's been a tough journey for the prophet. It hasn't been easy. This is such a godly prayer. It's a prayer of conversion for the people. He's praying for their hearts, their faith to be converted.
00:20:25
Speaker
He's not trying to win an argument. He's not trying to win anything for himself. He wants God to win.
00:20:32
Speaker
And then comes one of the coolest verses ever, right after he prays that prayer, this amazing verse in all of Scripture, one of my favorites in the entire Old Testament, 1 Kings 18. It says, Then the fire of the Lord fell, and it concerned consumed the burnt offering and the wood, and it even consumed the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench.
00:20:57
Speaker
Not just fire from heaven, which it would be so cool. It's so hot, it got the offering and the wood. It burned up the stones. It burned up the dust. It even licked up the water in the trench. And the people fell down in worship.
00:21:11
Speaker
Now, the story ends with the prophets of Baal being killed. And then immediately, rain starts falling from the sky. See, Ahab never had a drought problem or a famine problem. Ahab had a God problem, which is ah Which is kind of funny because the next thing that happens after that is Jezebel, even after everything Elijah just did for the people, Jezebel now wants to kill him more than ever.
00:21:42
Speaker
More than ever. That's another lesson in life. Sometimes you can do the right thing in the right way help others.
00:21:56
Speaker
But some people will hate you even more because you did the right thing. They'll hate you even more. See, don't ever think by doing right that everybody's gonna accept you. They won't.
00:22:11
Speaker
um Like when you give up a partying lifestyle, sometimes even your friends will turn against you because you're not hanging out with them anymore. You're not doing that thing.
00:22:23
Speaker
you're You're trying to make your life better and you wonder, maybe they weren't really ever my friends to begin with.
00:22:30
Speaker
See, Jesus never promised that following God was easy. Quite the opposite. Jesus said, broad is the road that leads to destruction and narrow is the way that leads to life.
00:22:44
Speaker
And Jesus himself lived a perfect life and they killed him for it. And when we look upon Good Friday, it would be so easy to call it Dark Friday or Death Friday or Black Friday, but we don't. We call it Good Friday because we know that what they saw was death was actually Jesus defeating death.
00:23:04
Speaker
It's Good Friday because Jesus forgives sinners. He fights back the power of evil. He wins eternal life. Good Friday is good because it makes the gospel of Jesus Christ free for any who believe.
00:23:20
Speaker
A free gift. Jesus knows the narrow way is the best way. And Elijah believes the same thing. No matter where life takes you, God's way is the right way.
00:23:34
Speaker
It's the way of love. It's the way of freedom.
00:23:39
Speaker
Moms, I want to tell you something. When I saw that this reading was a sign for today on Mother's Day, I said, no. Oh no. I mean, this isn't what you would normally preach on when you're trying to talk about moms and love and kids. like this This isn't the thing I would have picked.
00:24:01
Speaker
The thing is, a lot of the things that the prophets have to say or the things they have to do, they're harsh.
00:24:09
Speaker
The subject matter of sin is not a comfortable one to deal with. It's not fun. But the ultimate job of any prophet or moms, any parent, is to turn us back to God.
00:24:25
Speaker
It's to turn us back to God. Yeah, it's harsh, but ultimately, they're trying to redirect us. That's what a prophet does. And mothers, you can take on that prophetic role.
00:24:37
Speaker
um In fact, so often, probably most of the time, moms, that is your role in your kid's life. You're the one doing it. So often you're the one pulling your kids around, reminding them. They forget sometimes and you just remind them gently.
00:24:56
Speaker
Remind them that God is for them. That God is with them. Remind them that God's law is good. is it hard to keep? Of course it is. Do we fall short? Of course we do. Is it hard to understand sometimes? Maybe.
00:25:12
Speaker
But God's law is good. and he's for you. So of course you know it's good. You ah remind them that broad is the road that leads to destruction. And you even tell them stories about where you've experienced that where others you know and have as well.
00:25:29
Speaker
Last week, Pastor Chuck mentioned that the word Raham in Hebrew means compassion. It's also the root word of the word womb.
00:25:43
Speaker
It's like when the Hebrew language was trying to come up with the concept of compassion, the closest thing they could think of, the closest connection that they could feel was the womb, which is the connection between a mother and child.
00:26:00
Speaker
As a mother is first caring for the child and then bringing the child into the world. Men, lot of times we got to learn this. But mothers, you are this.
00:26:15
Speaker
You are compassion. That's why we passed out those magnets today. um And the magnets have a quote from a different prophet. We don't get to preach on all the prophets during the story, during the series.
00:26:29
Speaker
But another prophet, the prophet Isaiah. And Isaiah 66 says, as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.
00:26:41
Speaker
The Bible describes God like a shepherd, God's like a physician, and God's a king, God's like a fire, God's a judge, but it also describes God like a mother.
00:26:54
Speaker
God comforts like a mother. So moms, when you're doing your mama thing, please remember you're doing a godly thing, ah prophetic thing.
00:27:08
Speaker
You're doing prophetic work in the world. Because sacrifice and love and mercy is how Jesus saved this world. That's what the cross is.
00:27:20
Speaker
Saved this world. And it's that same compassion.
00:27:25
Speaker
It's that same compassion that's going to speak volumes to your kids and to your grandkids. So remember, you're doing a God thing. You're doing a prophetic thing.
Acknowledgments and Episode Preview
00:27:39
Speaker
Lastly, I want to give a shout out, Chuck, to our wives, to Mary and to April, ah who love ministry, who love what we do in ministry, which means a lot.
00:27:52
Speaker
And each of them with five kids, and they have no complaints. I hope. I hope.
00:28:02
Speaker
Thank you to you and thank you to the moms in our room and the moms that helped make up our staff here at Messiah. God blesses us through you. Thank you for listening. And if you feel as if you are ready to go a little bit deeper into this week's episode, head to normalgoesalongway.com. We have some questions for you to go through either by yourself or with a friend or your community group.
00:28:29
Speaker
And join us this coming Thursday as Ms. Hannah and Ms. April present this week's episode in kids form.