2 Kings 1:9 Sermons: Then the king sent a captain of fifty with his fifty to him. He went up to him; and look, he was sitting on the top of the hill. He said to him, "Man of God, the king has said, 'Come down.'"

◄ 2 Kings 1:9 ►

Then King Ahaziah sent to Elijah a captain with his company of fifty men. So the captain went up to Elijah, who was sitting on top of a hill, and said to him, "Man of God, the king declares, 'Come down!'"

Sermons

Fire from Heaven	C.H. Irwin	2 Kings 1:5-16
Destructive Forces in the Hand of God	Dean Farrar.	2 Kings 1:9-16
Man in Three Aspects	Homilist	2 Kings 1:9-16
On Tolerance of Error	F. S. Webster, M. A.	2 Kings 1:9-16
The Captains of Ahazian Destroyed by Fire	J. S. M. Anderson, M. A.	2 Kings 1:9-16
The Destruction of the Two Captains with Their Companies	Outlines of Sermons by a London Minister	2 Kings 1:9-16
The Prophet of Fire	J. Orr	2 Kings 1:9-16
Man in Three Aspects	D. Thomas	2 Kings 1:9-18

Pulpit Commentary Homiletics

Man In Three Aspects

2 Kings 1:9-18

D. Thomas

Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty, etc. In this paragraph we have man in three aspects.

I. MAN RUINED THROUGH THE CONDUCT OF OTHERS. The messengers which the king sent to Elijah - fifty each time on three different occasions - were all, except the last fifty, destroyed by lightning. This awful judgment came upon them, not merely on their own account - although, like all sinners, they had forfeited their lives to eternal justice - but as messengers of the king. Throughout the human race, in all races and times, there are found millions groaning under the trials and sufferings brought on them by the conduct of others. In this world the innocent suffer for the guilty; the "fathers eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge."

II. MAN EMPLOYED AS THE EXECUTOR OF DIVINE JUSTICE. These hundred men, messengers from the king, were struck down by Elijah at the command of God. There was no personal vengeance in the act. Elijah was used as the organ of Heaven. God's plan in this world is to punish as well as to save man by man. How was Pharaoh punished, and the Canaanites, etc.? By man. Sinful nations are punished, often by worthless kings and ruthless despots.

III. MAN STEPPING INTO THE PLACE OF THE DEAD. The King Ahaziah dies; Jehoram steps into his place. "So he died according to the word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram reigned in his stead." "One generation cometh, and another passeth away." Places, positions, and the various offices of life are no sooner vacated by death than they are stepped into by others. Thus the world goes on, and the dead are soon forgotten. The greatest man on earth today is but a mere bubble on the great river of human life; he sparkles for a moment, and is lost forever in the abyss. - D.T.

Biblical Illustrator

Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty.

2 Kings 1:9-16

The destruction of the two captains with their companies

Outlines of Sermons by a London Minister.

Consider —

I. THE STEPS WHICH LED UP TO THIS MIRACLE.

1. Seeking help where it was not to be found, in direct violation of the law of God. If a member of a family were to break his arm, and instead of applying to the family surgeon who had in the past given full proof of his skill, were to seek the advice of a quack, he would be sinning against himself, and insulting the man who was able and willing to cure him. This was the conduct of Ahaziah towards the God of his nation.

2. A Divine rebuke (ver. 3). God does not leave transgressors to pursue their way without remonstrance.

3. A message to take Elijah prisoner.

II. THE MIRACLE ITSELF.

1. The fire, if not miraculous in itself, was miraculous in its manner of executing the will of God. It came from heaven at the call of Elijah.

2. It was in keeping with the recent proof of Elijah's Divine commission given on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:38).

3. The miracle was arrested, and the prophet was arrested by a force not sent by the king (vers. 13-15).LESSONS.

1. Help must be sought where God has appointed that it shall be found (John 14:6; Acts 4:12).

2. The responsibility of the individual man.

3. When God has spoken He cannot change His word unless the sinner changes his way.

4. The only strength that can conquer heaven is the strength of supplication.

(Outlines of Sermons by a London Minister.)

Man in three aspects

Homilist.

I. MAN RUINED THROUGH THE CONDUCT OF OTHERS. This awful judgment came upon them not merely on their own account, but as messengers of the king. Throughout the human race there are found millions groaning under the trials and sufferings brought on them by the conduct of others.

II. MAN EMPLOYED AS THE EXECUTOR OF DIVINE JUSTICE. God's plan in this world is to punish as well as to save man by man.

III. MAN STEPPING INTO THE PLACE OF THE DEAD. The King Ahaziah dies, Jehoram steps into his place. "One generation cometh, and another passeth away." Places, positions, and the various offices of life are no sooner vacated by death than they are stepped into by others.

(Homilist.)

On tolerance of error

F. S. Webster, M. A.

Now, it is obvious that, terrible as this judgment seems to us, it was not contrary to God's will. It is easy to say that the captain was only executing the king's orders, and that the fifty soldiers had no responsibility save that of obeying their leader. But we have still more right to say that He, who would have spared Sodom if ten righteous had been found in it, would not have consumed these two bands of fifty men if any God-fearing men had been amongst them. The king's attempt to seize the prophet was an open defiance of God, and, moderate as the wording of the captain's summons seems, the tone may easily have shown utter contempt both for God and for Elijah. We may well believe, therefore, that Elijah on this occasion, as when he destroyed the priests of Baal, knew that he was fulfilling God's purpose of judgment. But now, thank God, all judgment has been committed to Him who died for sinners and prayed for His murderers. The Cross of Christ has completely changed the attitude of Christian people towards the enemies of God. How dare we treat as reprobate those for whom Christ died! While the day of grace lasts there is hope for the very worst. There is little fear, however, of Elijah's example being followed in the present day. Protestants, at any rate, have given up issuing excommunications and hurling anathemas at the heads of notorious offenders. We are all for toleration now, and any attempt to restrain men's liberty of thought and action is hotly resented. Surely the pendulum has swung too far. We need not in our dread of religious intolerance lull into religious indifference, and regard all errors in faith and practice with complacent apathy. Truth must always be intolerant of error. Nine times nine are eighty-one, and you would not tolerate a teacher who said they were eighty. Truth cannot tolerate error without denying itself. Where personal comfort and safety are concerned society is absolutely intolerant. Few would tolerate having a smallpox patient in their house. Is it reasonable to be so intolerant of infection for the body and so careless as to moral infection for the mind and soul! Shall the authorities step in and strip off the very paper from the walls in their zeal for sanitation? and shall we allow men of known impurity of life and those who scoff at prayer to mix freely with our sons and daughters? The zeal of the Crusader who gloried in slaying the infidel is surely more righteous than the indifference of the modern Laodicean, who has not a single truth that he thinks worth fighting for. We want more hatred of evil in these days. The popular novelist delights in confusing the issues, and making sin seem right and beautiful. There is sacred liberty of thought which is the dearest right of Protestants, but it is not to be made a cloak of maliciousness. We have no right to think wrong thoughts. While all the progress in the world is due to freedom of thought, it is the correctness of the thought, not the freedom of it, which has achieved the good. Loose thinking is as bad as loose living. The man who is filled with the Spirit will witness plainly and fearlessly against both.

(F. S. Webster, M. A.)

The captains of Ahazian destroyed by fire

J. S. M. Anderson, M. A.

1. See, here, the power of God, revealing His wrath from "heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." In all, and each, of these cases, the authority was that of God, the power was that of God. Let no man, therefore, wrest this Scripture to his own destruction, nor look upon it as furnishing any precedent, or encouragement to persecute, in our own day, the enemies of the Lord.

2. Our duty is to confess Christ before men, and neither by word, nor deed, to compromise any, the minutest parts, of His gracious counsels. We must rebuke the gainsayers, recall the erring, confirm the wavering, and instruct the ignorant; but, in doing this, we must not take a single step in our own strength, or wisdom, we must look ever unto Him, who in this, as in every other case, hath left us "an example that we should follow His steps"; "not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing; but contrariwise blessing, knowing that we are thereunto caned, that we should inherit a blessing."

3. Elijah's history furnishes us with fresh motives to prayer and perseverance. If God hath spoken, here, in the accents of terror, He hath spoken, also, in the accents of compassion; if the destruction of two of Ahaziah's captains, with their companies, points out the danger of persecuting the saints of God, and the speedy death of Ahaziah exposes, no less clearly, the wretched presumption of the rebel creature, when he attempts to set at nought God's counsels; yet, the withholding punishment from the third captain, who fell on his knees before Elijah, and entreated that the life of himself and of his followers might be precious in his sight, proves no less clearly that, in His wrath, the Lord remembers mercy! What greater encourage. ment to well-doing can the faithful servant of God receive, than the protection here vouchsafed to the Tishbite?

4. Assuredly, the records of Elijah's ministry have placed this blessed truth plainly and palpably before us; may they lead us more heartily to obey the will of Him who revealed it! May the lustre which the Gospel pours upon those records, reveal more distinctly the weakness of our own nature, and the glorious hope of redemption, set before us through Christ! May this guide our footsteps in peace along the course of the life that now is!

(J. S. M. Anderson, M. A.)

Destructive forces in the hand of God

Dean Farrar.

The Bible does occasionally lift the veil, and shows us how the destructive forces of nature have been the servants of the will of a moral God. It was so when the waters of the Red Sea returned violently on the Egyptian pursuers of Israel. It was so when at the prayer of Elijah the messengers of Ahaziah were struck dead by lightning. It was so when Jonah was fleeing to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord: "The Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken." It was so when there arose a great storm on the Sea of Galilee, that the disciples might learn to trust the power of their sleeping Master. And it was so when St. Paul, bound on his Romeward voyage, was wrecked on the shore of Malta. In all these cases we see "the wind and the storm fulfilling His word"; because the Bible enables us to see exactly how in each case God's word or will was fulfilled. But there is much in modern history, perhaps in our own lives and experience, which seems to us to illustrate the matter scarcely less vividly. Our ancestors saw God's hand in the storm which scattered the great Armada; and a century later the wind which buried the intruding successor of the saintly Ken beneath the chimneys of his own palace at Wells, seemed to pious Churchmen of the day to be not improbably a mark of the Divine displeasure. There are obvious difficulties which our Lord points to in His allusion to the loss of life at the fall of the Tower of Siloam; there are obvious difficulties in pressing such inferences too confidently or too far. But we may see enough, and we may have reason to suspect more that enables us to be certain of this, that nature is in the hand of the Ruler of the moral world, and that we may be sure of a moral purpose, whether we can exactly make it out or not, in the use which He makes of it.

(Dean Farrar.)

People

Ahab, Ahaziah, Baalzebub, Elijah, Jehoram, Jehoshaphat, Joram

Places

Ekron, Moab, Samaria

Topics

Behold, Captain, Company, Elijah, Eli'jah, Fifty, Hill, Mount, O, Sat, Says, Seated, Sitting, Spake, Speaketh, Spoke, Spoken

Outline

1. Moab rebels
2. Ahaziah, sending to Baal-Zebub, has his judgement by Elijah
5. Elijah twice brings fire from heaven on those Ahaziah sent to apprehend him.
13. He pities the third captain,
15. and, encouraged by an angel, tells the king of his death
17. Jehoram succeeds Ahaziah

Dictionary of Bible Themes

2 Kings 1:1-14

5092 Elijah

2 Kings 1:1-18

5366 king

2 Kings 1:9-12

1416 miracles, nature of

2 Kings 1:9-13

5489 rank

2 Kings 1:9-14

5245 captain

Library

Whether the Sin of those who Crucified Christ was Most Grievous?
Objection 1: It would seem that the sin of Christ's crucifiers was not the most grievous. Because the sin which has some excuse cannot be most grievous. But our Lord Himself excused the sin of His crucifiers when He said: "Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do" (Lk. 23:34). Therefore theirs was not the most grievous sin. Objection 2: Further, our Lord said to Pilate (Jn. 19:11): "He that hath delivered Me to thee hath the greater sin." But it was Pilate who caused Christ to be crucified …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Whether it is Lawful to Curse an Irrational Creature?
Objection 1: It would seem that it is unlawful to curse an irrational creature. Cursing would seem to be lawful chiefly in its relation to punishment. Now irrational creatures are not competent subjects either of guilt or of punishment. Therefore it is unlawful to curse them. Objection 2: Further, in an irrational creature there is nothing but the nature which God made. But it is unlawful to curse this even in the devil, as stated above [2960](A[1]). Therefore it is nowise lawful to curse an irrational …
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

Answer to the Jewish Rabby's Letter.
WE Are now come to the letter of Mr. W's Jewish Rabby, whom Mr. W. calls his friend, and says his letter consists of calm and sedate reasoning, p. 55. I on the other hand can see no reason in it. But the reader than not need to rely upon my judgment. Therefore I will transcribe some parts of it, and then make some remarks. The argument of the letter is, that the story of Lazarus's being raised is an imposture; or else the Jews could not have been so wicked, as to be on that account provoked against …
Nathaniel Lardner—A Vindication of Three of Our Blessed Saviour's Miracles

An Address to a Soul So Overwhelmed with a Sense of the Greatness of Its Sins, that it Dares not Apply Itself to Christ with Any
1-4. The case described at large.--5. As it frequently occurs.--6. Granting all that the dejected soul charges on itself.--7. The invitations and promises of Christ give hope.--8. The reader urged, under all his burdens and fears, to an humble application to him. Which is accordingly exemplified in the concluding Reflection and Prayer. 1. I have now done with those unhappy creatures who despise the Gospel, and with those who neglect it. With pleasure do I now turn myself to those who will hear me …
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul

Scriptures Showing the Sin and Danger of Joining with Wicked and Ungodly Men.
Scriptures Showing The Sin And Danger Of Joining With Wicked And Ungodly Men. When the Lord is punishing such a people against whom he hath a controversy, and a notable controversy, every one that is found shall be thrust through: and every one joined with them shall fall, Isa. xiii. 15. They partake in their judgment, not only because in a common calamity all shares, (as in Ezek. xxi. 3.) but chiefly because joined with and partakers with these whom God is pursuing; even as the strangers that join …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Assyrian Revival and the Struggle for Syria
Assur-nazir-pal (885-860) and Shalmaneser III. (860-825)--The kingdom of Urartu and its conquering princes: Menuas and Argistis. Assyria was the first to reappear on the scene of action. Less hampered by an ancient past than Egypt and Chaldaea, she was the sooner able to recover her strength after any disastrous crisis, and to assume again the offensive along the whole of her frontier line. Image Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief at Koyunjik of the time of Sennacherib. The initial cut, …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 7

A Prayer when one Begins to be Sick.
O most righteous Judge, yet in Jesus Christ my gracious Father! I, wretched sinner, do here return unto thee, though driven with pain and sickness, like the prodigal child with want and hunger. I acknowledge that this sickness and pain comes not by blind chance or fortune, but by thy divine providence and special appointment. It is the stroke of thy heavy hand, which my sins have justly deserved; and the things that I feared are now fallen upon me (Job iii. 25.) Yet do I well perceive that in wrath …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Kings
The book[1] of Kings is strikingly unlike any modern historical narrative. Its comparative brevity, its curious perspective, and-with some brilliant exceptions--its relative monotony, are obvious to the most cursory perusal, and to understand these things is, in large measure, to understand the book. It covers a period of no less than four centuries. Beginning with the death of David and the accession of Solomon (1 Kings i., ii.) it traverses his reign with considerable fulness (1 Kings iii.-xi.), …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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