Man, the title of my sermon tonight is Implacable. Implacable. This is a word that is used in our Bible. If you look it up in the dictionary, it says that it means not to be appeased, mollified, or pacified, inexorable. It later says incapable of being placated or pacified, unappeasable, inflexible, intractable. So this word implacable is talking about someone
where no matter what you do to this person, no matter what you say to this person, they're never satisfied. They're never going to be pleased with what you've done. It's just never going to be enough for them. Whatever you give them, they're just going to want more. You give them an inch, and they're going to take a mile. Well, of course, in Romans chapter one is where we find this word, talking about people who have rejected God, ultimately, they have just hated God, and they didn't even want to retain God in their knowledge. They don't
even want to remember that God even exists, and so God gave them over to a reprobate mind. And the Bible describes these worst kind of people that have just ultimately rejected God and been rejected by God, and they're doomed, and it's too late for them, and it gives this big long litany of their attributes, and one of the things it says about them is that they're implacable. And I think that this story is a great illustration about what it means to be implacable,
because Ben-Hadad in the story is an example of a man who's implacable. Look at verse number one of
chapter 20 there in 1 Kings, it says, And Ben-Hadad the king of Syria gathered all his hosts together,
and there were thirty and two kings with him, and horses and chariots, and he went up and besieged
Samaria and warred against it. So Ben-Hadad has a whole bunch of allies, and you have to understand
when the Bible says thirty and two kings, these aren't necessarily the kind of gigantic kingdoms
that you would imagine from the Middle Ages or something. In the ancient world, each city would
have a king, so even just a small city with a few hundred people in it or a few thousand people in it
could have a king. So he has these 32 kings of city-states that have allied themselves with him,
and he goes up against Samaria. Now Samaria is the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel,
and remember that Israel has been split into two kingdoms, the southern kingdom of Judah,
whose capital is Jerusalem, the northern kingdom whose capital is Samaria. And so the capital city
of Samaria is besieged, meaning that they're surrounded and they're being threatened by this
great army. And so Ahab is the king of Israel at the time, and Ben-Hadad sends messengers
unto him, it says in verse number two, and said unto him, Thus saith Ben-Hadad, thy silver and
thy gold is mine, thy wives also and thy children, even the goodliest, are mine. And the king of
Israel answered and said, My lord O king, according to thy saying, I'm thine and all that I have. So
he's basically saying, okay, I give up, right? I'm surrounded, you've got 32 kings with you,
and so I'm just going to go ahead and just make peace with you. I'm going to give you your demands,
you're demanding all of my silver and gold? Okay, I will give you my silver and gold, and you know,
you want me to give you my wives and my children? Well, you can have them too, because otherwise,
you know, we're going to die. So he just wants there to be peace, he doesn't think he can win,
and so he's willing to give up the gold and the silver and his wives and children,
and he's making this compromise. But look at the response from Ben-Hadad. Verse five,
And the messengers came again, and said, Thus speaketh Ben-Hadad, saying, Although I've sent
unto thee, saying, Thou shalt deliver me thy silver and thy gold and thy wives and thy children,
yet I will send my servants unto thee tomorrow about this time, and they shall search thine house
and the houses of thy servants, and it shall be that whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes,
they shall put it in their hand and take it away. Now, he says, wait, you agreed to that a little
too quickly. Maybe I didn't ask for enough, and so I'm going to up the ante. Not only do I want all
your gold and your silver and your wives and your children, but I'm also just going to send my guys
to go through and just search and just find whatever is the most important to you, whatever
is the most precious to you. Now, stop and think about this. Obviously, this is unreasonable
because they've already made an agreement. This is obviously unethical to make this offer and then
change the terms of the agreement. But the thing that really jumps out at me about this is that he
says, give me the stuff that is pleasant in your eyes. Not even they're going to go and look for
stuff that's valuable that we like, that we want to take, that we can profit from. It's almost like,
hey, I just want to hurt you as much as I can, so whatever you're going to miss the most,
that's what I want to take from you. Whether we think it's cool or not, whatever is pleasant in
your eyes, we want to take from you. So you can just see the maliciousness, the evil of this man.
And this is an example of someone who's implacable because a person who actually wanted to be appeased
or wanted peace, when he sent and had these outrageous demands of just, give me all your money,
give me all your gold and silver and your wives and your children, and he's just like, okay.
I mean, he should see that as a huge victory that he's just getting all of his demands met,
but it's not enough for him. He just says, no, oh, if you're going to give me that, well,
now I want something else. Now I want something else. Now I just want to go into your house and
just take whatever I want. And so he just keeps pushing it because he's implacable. He can't be
satisfied. And the moral of the story here is that when you're dealing with someone who is implacable,
there's no point in trying to compromise with that person or to give that person anything because no
matter what you give them, no matter what concessions you make to them, it's not going to
fix anything. It's not going to make peace with that person because it's impossible to get along
with that person. And so there's no point in giving up. I mean, why would you give up your wife
and kids and your silver and your gold if it's not going to even fix things, right? And then if you
give that up, they're just going to want more and they're just going to want more. You know, and I
remember when I was a kid, there'd be bullies at school and these bullies were often implacable.
I found that the kids who gave the bullies what they wanted, the kids who would give them their
lunch money and the kids who would give them food and make concessions to them, they just got picked
on more. They just got victimized more and it made more sense to just resist the bullies and to stand
up to the bullies because you can't please them anyway. You know, if you could just give them a
bag of Funyuns and shut them up, you might do that, but that's not really the way that it worked
because once they found that they had a live one, they'll just keep pumping you for more money,
more snacks, and so the only option was just to fight back. That's what you had to do in those
days. You had to resist, right? And this is the way the devil is. You know, the devil is implacable,
right? The devil's never going to have a change of heart and get right and, you know, the
events in Revelation are just going to be kind of canceled because the devil just decides he's not
going to do the whole anti-Christ thing and he's not going to fight against the Lord or anything.
That's just not going to happen. The devil's not going to change, right? He's implacable. He's
going to keep on coming and if you give him a finger, he's going to take the whole hand.
If you give him an inch, he's going to take a mile. So we don't need to ever compromise or make
any kind of a dealing with the devil or the devil's crowd, okay? They're implacable. Now,
here's the thing. Most people in this world are not implacable. The vast majority of people in
this world can be reasoned with, can be compromised with, and the Bible does tell us that as much as
is possible, as much as lies in us, we should dwell peaceably with all men. We should try to
get along with people. We should try to make people happy. Now, we should never violate
Scripture in order to make people happy. We shouldn't sin to make people happy, but short
of sinning and going against the Lord, we should try to just get along with people and go with the
flow and not just constantly pick fights with people or resist every dumb thing that comes on.
I mean, the Bible says we should obey every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake,
just dumb rules. We just follow them because they're not worth fighting about. We want to have
peace. We want to get along, etc. But when it comes to people like this, you can't please people like
this. Like, first of all, giving his wives and children is already over the line. At that point,
he should have just said, this isn't worth it. Now, if he said, give me your gold and silver,
sometimes it can make sense to just pay off the enemy to leave you alone, right? Give them the
gold and silver. Nobody dies. We go on with our lives, but that's only going to work with a
reasonable enemy, okay? This is like where the Bible talks about turning the other cheek, right?
The Bible says, if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak
also, right? If any man will compel thee to go a mile with him, go with him twain. And so there is
this idea of just pacifying an enemy, agreeing with your adversary quickly, just giving people
what they want to just shut them up sometimes because it's just not worth the strife and the
fighting. But people who make these kind of unreasonable demands, they're not going to be
satisfied anyway. Even if you give into their unreasonable or sinful demand, even if you give
them, as in this case, you know, the silver, the gold, the wives, the children, it's not enough.
They're just going to come back and want more, more, more. And so there's no point in even trying
to make people like this happy or get along with people like this. You know, the Bible talks about
how there is an evil element in this world. The rulers of the darkness of this world,
spiritual wickedness in high places. We know that the Bible calls the devil the god of this world,
right? That this is the devil's playground in this world here, and he has all kinds of minions and
all kinds of enterprises going on, and trying to get along with his crowd or to please his crowd
is just never going to work. You know, the Bible teaches that Christians are going to be hated and
persecuted by this world, and nothing could ever change that. The Bible says ye and all that will
live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, and yet we see so many pastors and churches today
backing down on biblical doctrine or censoring the word of God and trying to smooth over what
the Bible says to somehow please this world so that they don't get persecuted. It's not going to
work. Unless you just go all the way over to the devil's side, he's not going to be satisfied.
He's not going to be happy. And look, you don't even have to preach anything radical to get
persecuted, my friend. You preach the Bible, you stand for what's right, you're going to get
persecuted. You know, it reminds me of when I first started Faith Forward Baptist Church back
in 2005. When I first started the church, I had this ridiculous idea that I was going to start
two nursing home ministries at the same time, and so every Sunday in those days I would have
Sunday morning church, then I would go preach at one nursing home, then I'd go preach at another
nursing home, and then ultimately have the evening service, and man, it was just too much. It was just
preaching four times in one day. It was ridiculous, but you know, I was young and zealous and excited,
and so I got a little carried away, went a little overboard, and every Monday morning, literally
every single Monday morning, I could not talk because my throat was just so hoarse and trashed.
So I did this for a while, and it was great because when I first started the church there
were only a handful of people coming. You know, the average attendance in the morning was like
10 people, okay, and so it was a really small crowd, but then I'd go to the nursing home. I preached at
20 people at this nursing home, 25 people at this nursing home, so I was like, okay, you know, I'm
preaching to a few more people, but man, it was just too much. It was hard, but once I got into it,
I was like, well, now I'm doing this. I can't really just stop going because, you know, you build
relationships with the people, and some of the people took the service really seriously, and they
would dress nice and say, you're our pastor, and this is our church, and they really enjoyed it.
So I felt loyalty to the people, so I kept going, and I kept doing it. Well, after about six months,
mercifully, I was kicked out of both nursing homes. And what was funny is that I was kicked out of
both nursing homes within like three weeks of each other, even though they were totally unrelated,
they were owned by different companies, the reasons that they gave were slightly different,
but they were virtually the same reason that they both kicked me out. Now you're probably thinking
to yourself, Pastor Anderson, you know, what kind of a wild thing did you preach? What kind of
radical stuff did you say to get thrown out of those nursing homes? Because, you know, you were
just getting burned out, so you started to just really let it rip, and you secretly wanted to get
thrown out. Now I will say this, when I got kicked out of both of them, I was secretly like, thank
you, Lord, because this is too much stress, too much work. But I will say this, I, you know, I tried
my best to be at peace in those places and to do right by them. Let me tell you what they both
kicked me out for. Out of all of the radical things that I supposedly preach, okay, the first one
called me up and said that the reason why I was not allowed to come back is because I said that
Jesus was the only way to heaven. Now stop and think about that, you know, out of all of the
doctrines, they literally said, well, you know, you preached that Jesus is the only way, that
there's no other way to be saved, that there's no other way to go to heaven, and that, and that, you
know, you have to believe in Jesus to go to heaven, and that if you don't believe in Jesus you're
going to go to hell. You know, that's just too narrow, that's just too exclusive of a viewpoint.
That excludes too many people, and it's offensive to people that aren't Christians, and this and
that, and, and then a few weeks later I got kicked out of the other nursing home, and it was almost
the same thing. It was something similar. It was, they said, you know, well you're saying that
Christianity is the only right religion, and you're saying that it's only the Bible, and you're saying
that other religions are wrong, and, you know, you can't say that. Now think about how that's literally
every single Baptist, that's virtually every single evangelical Christian would say, well,
of course that's true. Even Joel Osteen would say that that's true, as long as he's not on TV,
because when Joel Osteen was on TV being interviewed by Larry King, and he's acting,
and he's like, so are Hindus going to hell, hmm? And Joel's like, well, you know, I don't know,
I don't know, Larry, you know, they're such nice people, you know, whatever. But here's the thing,
and he, and he back, and he, he compromised and watered down his answer, but then when everybody
got mad at him, he literally put out a statement within a week saying, hey, I'm sorry I wasn't
clear on Larry King, because Jesus is the only way to heaven, right? Because that's what these
false prophets do, they talk out of both sides of their mouth and kind of try to keep everybody
happy. But I'm saying, like, even Joel Osteen's fans were mad at him for not saying that. So I'm
basically just saying what even Joel Osteen would say, and even that's enough to get kicked out
of a nursing home, where I'm providing a church service that people like. Like, literally more
than half of the nursing home would come to the service, and enjoyed it, and they liked it. But
isn't that just a great example of how it's literally impossible to please the devil's
crowd, you know? And what it was in both cases was that it was, it wasn't a resident that complained,
it was some, uh, one of them was a staff member that complained, and the other one was the owner's
wife happened to be visiting while I was preaching, and I remember while I was preaching she was just,
you know, standing there with her arms crossed like that. But it just goes to show you that it
is just impossible to preach the word of God without offending someone, even if it's the
mildest sermon, even if it's the most basic foundational doctrine of Jesus saith unto him,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Oh, that's
too radical for people. It's like, you haven't even heard what I'm capable of preaching. I mean,
good night. They kicked me out for that? Do you know who you're dealing with? You could pick a
lot of, you know, wilder things to kick me out for than that. What a joke. But folks, I'm telling
you, if you're gonna go through life with this goal of pleasing everybody and making everybody
happy, it's a fool's errand. It's not gonna happen, okay? People are not gonna be happy.
Even worldly, unsaved people know that you can't please all the people all the time,
okay? But as God's people, we know that the word of God tells us that we will be hated of
all nations for the name of Christ. That's what the Bible actually says. And Jesus said they
called the master of the house Beelzebub. How much more should they call them of his household?
If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. That's what Jesus said. And so
implacable people out there, haters of God, haters of Christianity, these people can't be pleased,
so quit trying. Why don't you get up in God's house and preach the entire Bible?
Because you know what? This is our turf. This is our house. This is our turf. This is the house
of God. It doesn't belong to them. It's for Christians. It's for the saints. It's for us.
And so therefore we need to just preach the whole counsel of God and not even spend five seconds
thinking about what the devil and his crowd think about our message. It doesn't even matter. And you
say, well yeah, but we don't want to have problems. We don't want to get persecuted. You know, I
remember a particular preacher that told me one time, he said, well, you know, I believe exactly
like what you preached in this particular sermon, but he said, I would have never put that on the
internet what you said, though. Like, I believe that, and he said, I preached a similar sermon
to that, but he said, I would have never put that on the internet, though, because I don't want the
persecution, you know, for saying that. And here's the thing about that is that, you know, if it's
the word of God, I say shout it from the housetops. It doesn't matter what the subject is.
Might as well put it all on the internet. But here's the funny thing, that exact preacher
couple years later, because, you know, because at the time I was being attacked in the media
for a sermon that I had preached, couple years later, this exact preacher was in the news
and being attacked all over the media for something stupid, not even his preaching,
but because some disgruntled church member lied and made up some crazy story that on a church
camping trip they supposedly tortured rabbits and did some kind of a ritual animal sacrifice
of rabbits or something, when in reality what it was was that there was a guy in the church who
raised rabbits for food and it was like a camping trip where it was like a boy scout type thing
where he's teaching the boys how to butcher and eat a rabbit, but no animals were tortured or
anything. It's just, I mean, unless you're just vegan or something you wouldn't have been offended
by this. It was just meat is being served, you know, they had these rabbits, they're, okay,
this is how you butcher the rabbit. It was a totally normal thing. It had nothing to do with
religion. It's just a bunch of dudes out camping butchering and eating an animal, okay? Who's ever
been on a camping trip and you butchered and ate some animal on a camping trip? Okay, yeah,
pretty much half the dudes in this room have done it. You know, I've been on a camping trip before
when we butchered and ate a rattlesnake. So there you go, you know, but it wasn't like, oh now we
will, you know, offer the snake up in sacrifice, some kind of a satanic ritual. It was just food.
It was food prep, okay? But he ended up being attacked in the news and being all over the media
and all these news stations picked it up and they were saying we're going to investigate
and then the authorities are like, we're going to investigate if any animals were tortured,
we're going to prosecute, whatever. And so it was just this big ridiculous blow up and I'm just
thinking to myself, well, you know what? It looks like no matter what you put on the internet or
don't put on the internet, eventually if you're a godly preacher, you're going to piss somebody
off and you're going to be all over the news, so just deal with it, right? So might as well just
unload the whole truck. Might as well just preach whatever we want and just let the spirit lead
and preach what the Bible says and let the chips fall where they may. Who cares?
You can't please the Ben Haydads of this world, can you? It's just not going to happen.
So he comes back with this ridiculous answer, let's get back to the story, 1 Kings chapter 20 verse 7.
Then the king of Israel called all the elders of the land and said, Mark, I pray you and see how
this man seeketh mischief, for he sent unto me for my wives and for my children and for my silver and
for my gold and I denied him not. And all the elders and all the people said unto him, harken
not unto him nor consent. So he gets his elders and his advisers together and says, look,
this guy is implacable, this guy can't be pleased, and they agree with him. They say, you know what,
don't do what he says because it's clear that this guy is just taking advantage of you, he's not going
to stop, he's not going to back down. So in verse 9 he answers and he says, none of the messengers
have been heeded, tell my lord the king all that thou did send for to thy servant at the first
I will do, but this thing I may not do. And the messengers departed and brought him word again.
And again, this is kind of stupid of Ahab because Ahab at this point should just say,
well, I'm not even going to do the first deal anymore because I can see what you're like,
so go jump in a lake. But he still says like, no, no, I'll still do that. I mean, he's very
accommodating here, but I'm not going to do this other thing. And Ben-Hadad sent unto him and said,
this is verse 10, the gods do so unto me and more also if the dust of Samaria shall suffice
for handfuls for all the people that follow me. He's saying, I've got so many troops following me
that if all of my soldiers just grab a handful of dirt, Samaria is not going to have any dirt left.
Samaria is going to run out of dirt, right? So he's just using this kind of exaggeration to just
talk about how he just has so many people following him. And, you know, even though
Ahab is a bad guy, because the king of Israel at this time is not a godly man, he's not a righteous
man. So that's why he's kind of just a weakling in the story here. But you got to love, this is
such a beautiful quote, I love it. Even though it's coming from Ahab, this is like the coolest
thing that Ahab ever did or said. He says in verse 11, tell him, let not him that girdeth on
his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off. You know, what a great statement, saying,
hey, you know, you're talking pretty big since the battle hasn't even happened yet.
Why don't you talk big like that once the battle is actually over? Don't boast like somebody who
just finished a battle, you know, when you haven't even started it yet. And so this is such a
slap in the face to Ben-Hadad. And it came to pass verse 12, when Ben-Hadad heard this message,
as he was drinking, he and the kings and the pavilions that he sent into his servants, set
yourselves in array, and they set themselves in array against the city. So he doesn't like that
answer. But you know what, this is basically, again, with the spiritual application,
if you think about it, the devil's crowd, they talk so big, and they always say things like,
we're going to run you out of this town. We're going to shut you guys down. I can't even count
how many times we've had people come to our church and say, you know, we're not going to stop until
your church is shut down. That was 10 years ago. Here we are, you know, we're going to be out here
every week. We're going to shut you down. We're going to get the government involved. We're going
to get your landlord, you know, and they're going to call everybody and fight us and do everything.
And then a couple weeks go by and they just kind of go off with their tail between their legs and
we won. Okay. But they talk a big talk. They boast and talk about how like, we're going to stop you
and we're going to shut you down and so forth. And they don't. Okay. And so even if it seems like
they have so many numbers and so many resources, you know, if God be for us, who can be against us?
And so therefore, don't listen to their threatenings because it's a lot of talk. And Ben Haydad had a
lot of talk here, but spoiler alert, he's not going to win. Right? I mean, he loses in this chapter.
And so he talks this big talk and he's drinking and getting all worked up.
But Ahab says, hey, you know, it's not over yet.
And so he comes with his army. He sets the troops in array. He's going to assault Samaria now.
Verse 13, behold, there came a prophet unto Ahab, king of Israel, saying, dost sayeth the Lord, hast
thou seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will deliver it into thine hand this day, and thou
shalt know that I am the Lord. And Ahab said, by whom? He's like, what in the world? I don't even have
a fighting force to put in the field against these people. How can I win when they have this
massive army? I don't have a force that can go up against an army like this. By whom? And he said,
dost sayeth the Lord, even by the young men of the princes of the provinces. Then he said,
who shall order the battle? And he answered, thou. So this prophet tells him, look, you're going to
defeat Ben Haydad. It's going to be the young men of the princes of the provinces that do it.
And you're going to be the leader. You're going to lead in the battle. He's like, oh man, what in
the world? Then he numbered the young men of the princes of the provinces and they were 232. So
remember, Ben Haydad's coming with this massive army. Remember the whole handfuls of dirt thing?
He's got these 232 princes of the provinces that the prophet of God predicted are going to be the
deliverance. And then it says, after them, he numbered all the people, even all the children
of Israel being 7,000. Now, obviously that's not saying all the children of Israel are 7,000.
It's saying all of the ones that are there available to be in this fighting force,
fighting men, not just princes of the provinces, but just Israelites in general that can take the
field and fight. It's 7,000 men. Okay. Which is obviously tiny in comparison with what Ben Haydad
has. And they went out at noon, but Ben Haydad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions,
he and the kings and the 32 kings that helped him. And the young men of the princes of the
provinces went out first and Ben Haydad sent out. And then they told him saying there are men come
out of Samaria. And he said, whether they be come out for peace, take them alive. Because remember
he's drunk. Or whether they be come out for war, take them alive. Don't ever go into battle drunk,
okay? So these young men of the princes of the provinces came out of the city and the army which
followed them and they slew everyone his man and the Syrians fled and Israel pursued them and Ben
Haydad, the king of Syria, escaped on a horse with the horsemen. So basically these 232 guys
come forth and they're not really perceived as a threat. It's 232 guys. So he says, well,
if they're coming out just to parley, you know, bring them back here alive as captives, but if
they're coming to fight, just capture them. Like them being a threat's not even in his mind. Just
you're either gonna just capture them if they're there as diplomats or just capture them if they're
there as combatants. Like you don't even need to worry about killing them. Just, you know,
surround them, capture them, bring them back. Well obviously Ben Haydad hadn't sent out necessarily
a huge force to apprehend these guys. He sends out probably, you know, a few hundred guys or
whatever, at least 232 guys because each of the 232 guys kill someone, okay? So Ben Haydad just
sends out a few hundred guys to apprehend them and the 232 guys just end up killing everyone
who comes against them and not losing any men themselves. No casualty. So this kind of freaks
out the Syrians. These 232 guys just completely wiping out those that are sent against them.
So then the Syrians fled and Israel pursued them and Ben Haydad, the king of Syria, escaped on a
horse with the horsemen. So this just kind of turns things around. This gets momentum going.
The 232 guys do this fighting. The other 7,000 men are right behind them. They catch the Syrians off
guard because so many people around them are dying. They freak out. They flee. And so God has
obviously worked things out to where even though they're severely outnumbered, they still win.
And even throughout history there have been a lot of battles where a small force can sometimes
defeat a larger force just by strategy or tactics, but in this case it's just the power of God. It's
just God had said, I'm going to use these 232 guys to deliver this enemy into your hand. And so they
slew the Syrians with a great slaughter, it says at the end of verse 21. Verse 22, and the prophet
came to the king of Israel and said to him, go strengthen thyself and mark and see what thou doest,
for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come up against thee. And so now the prophet
comes to Ahab and says, look it's not over. You won the battle, but Ben Haydad's going to come back
again and you're going to have to fight this battle again. And so here's another thing we can
learn from this spiritually is that when we win a victory against the devil's crowd, it's not
the last victory. It's not the last battle. He's going to come back, right? And there are going to
be multiple engagements that we have to fight and it's not just going to be a thing where we resist
the devil one time and he flees from us and that's it. If you resist the devil, the Bible says he'll
flee from you, but that doesn't mean he's not going to come back again. If you remember Jesus himself
being tempted by Satan in the wilderness, after Jesus resists the temptation, it says the devil
departed from him for a season, right? So he's not just permanently gone, but he departed for a season
and that's the way it is with the devil's crowd even today. You know, and we had a lot of
people attacking us and a lot of persecution going on in our church many years ago, but the devil has
departed from us for a season because we haven't really experienced much persecution at all
for literally like seven or eight years now and we've just really had a respite compared
to what was happening before that. Of course we can't say the same for our friends across the
country. Many of our pastor friends are still being persecuted heavily, especially Pastor Shelley
in Texas, and so other people are going through that, but you know the devil departs for a season.
It doesn't mean that he's just permanently gone. You always have to keep your guard up, right? The
Bible says be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh
about seeking whom he may devour. So we need to remain vigilant and aware that he has only
departed for a season, and so the man of God is warning him about this. And so of course Ben
Hadad and his men, they have this idea that somehow the reason that they lost is because
the God of Israel is a mountain god. And by the way, this is the same kind of stupidity
that is taught in a lot of Bible seminaries today and a lot of Bible colleges where they go back
and they've dug up in the 20th century, they dug up these ancient Ugaritic documents.
And basically, let me just break this down for you, this Ugaritic, it's basically the Philistines,
you know, it's basically the Canaanites, it's the heathen Canaanites, and they have all these pagan
writings where they tell stories about their false gods, right? Because remember when you read the
Bible, the children of Israel are worshiping the true God, and then the people around them are
worshiping false gods, right? They're worshiping Baal and so forth. Well, as you look at these
Ugaritic writings that all these scholars are all excited about and they deciphered the Ugaritic
script and they can read this ancient language, because it's very similar to Hebrew, because it's
Semitic language, and so they can read this and they read all these ancient mythologies, just like
every pagan polytheistic people have their mythology, well they have their mythology about
Baal and about Ashtaroth and all these things that the Bible talks about, but then they also
talk about their god El as well, you know, they have their god El, and El is just basically the
Hebrew word that just means God. Well let me explain something to you, just because somebody
talks about God, guess what? That doesn't mean it's the God of the Bible. And in fact, even the
word Baal simply just means Lord, Master, or Husband. If you're speaking modern Hebrew and
you want to talk about your husband, you'd use the word Baal, you know, you'd literally say my
Baal, you know, which seems super weird in English, but in their language that's just what the word
means, it means the Lord and Master. But that's what the pagans called their god, because he's
their lord, he's their master, and that's why in the book of Hosea it literally says like,
do not call me Bali, I believe it's Hosea chapter 2, even in the King, I'm saying in the King James
version it says, do not call me Bali, call me Ishi, which is basically means the exact same thing,
it's another word meaning my husband, but it's talking about, it's not using a word that's
associated with false religion. Sort of like the word Allah, it just means God. But when you hear
the word Allah, you immediately think of what? The false god of Islam. Well guess what? Same thing
with the Canaanites, they're, you know, the word Baal, one, I mean, one of Saul's kids in the Bible
is named Ishmael, man of Baal, but I don't think he's naming his kid man of this false god, it's
just because it just means Lord, man of the Lord, but later it took on that connotation of being a
particular false god. But anyway, I digress a little bit, the point is that these Bible scholars
go into these Ugaritic pagan writings and they read up and then they try to apply what
they've learned to help them interpret the Bible. Like, why would I dig in the devil's garbage can
and read a bunch of pagan Canaanite garbage about Baal and El and Asherah, and then they'll try to
use that to somehow inform their study of Scripture. It's completely ridiculous. It might have historical
value, but it has zero value in interpreting the word of God, okay? It's of the devil. It's not
going to tell us something about God or, you know, about the beliefs of God's people. It's only
going to tell us something about the devil's crowd and what they believed, okay? And so they have
this attitude like those ancient Canaanite polytheists believed that different gods are like a
sky god and you've got a mountain god, and this is what these academics and Bible scholars will say
that, you know, Yahweh, the Israelite god Yahweh was a mountain deity, he's a mountain god, and
that's what they'll say, that he's this mountain god and, you know, he comes from this, there's
this other sky god, El, and the mountain god, whatever. So basically, you know, they're kind of
like the Syrians where they think that Jehovah god is a mountain god, and so they say, you know,
their god is a mountain god, and so the problem is that we fought against the Israelites in the
mountains and so we're on their god's turf. We need to fight them in the valley because their
mountain god can't help them in the valley, and so, and of course this has produced fodder for a lot
of Baptist preachers to preach sermons about how he's the god of the valleys, you know, when you're
at a low point in your life, God is still there to fight for you, right? Even if you're at the low
point, not just when you're at the high point, the mountain peak, he's the god of the valleys too,
right? Very popular theme in preaching, and so here's the thing, they believe that if they just
put the exact same army together, horse for horse, man for man, but if we just do it in the valley,
we're gonna win, because then their god can't, and you know, of course God doesn't like this, because
God wants them to know that he's the god of the valleys too, and he's the god of the whole earth,
and so it says in verse 28, uh, and there came a man of God and spake unto the king of Israel and
said, dost say it the Lord God, because the Syrians have said, the Lord is god of the hills, but he's
not god of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye
shall know that I am the Lord, and so again they're gonna win, and uh, they do win. It says in verse
uh 30, the rest fled to Aphek into the city, and there a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand
of the men that were left, and Ben-Hadad fled and came into the city into an inner chamber,
and his servant said unto him, behold now we've heard that the kings of the house of Israel are
merciful kings, let us I pray thee put sackcloth on our loins and ropes upon our heads and go out
to the king of Israel, peradventure he will save thy life. Now being merciful is a good thing,
so they say to him, look we're trapped here, we've heard that the kings of Israel are merciful kings,
right? Why don't you just go out and surrender, and he's probably not going to kill you because
he's such a merciful guy. Now here's the thing, it's good to be merciful, we should be merciful,
blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy, but there's being merciful and then there's
being a sucker, okay? And basically what they really mean here is we think this guy's a sucker
and that he is going to fall for your, you know, lies about how you're going to be a good boy now,
we are, this guy's implacable, this guy's a reprobate, this guy is representing,
that's what he represents in the story symbolically, the guy who just cannot be bargained
with, cannot be reasoned with, cannot be placated, you cannot make peace with them, and so he's going
to come to him now and try to make peace with them, coming to him all with with sackcloth and
ropes on his head and just like, oh please, I'm so sorry, you know, trying to act all humble,
and here's the thing, you know, the devil is sometimes going to come at you and try to get
you to sympathize with him, and this is why you've got all these evil serial killers and rapists and
sodomites and freaks, and they're always just like, oh but they have this horrible childhood
and they're victims and all this, and here's the thing, I'm sure a lot of them probably did have
a horrible childhood, I'm sure many of them were victims, but guess what, it doesn't matter what
happened to you, it never gives you a license to hate God, no excuse is good enough for becoming
a rapist, a predator, a child molester, a serial killer, no, because you know we could point to
all the other people who were victims and all the other people who lived in abusive situations,
who didn't turn out to become a monster, and you know what, you are responsible for your actions
no matter what you've been through, you can't, oh you don't understand what I've been through,
well you know it doesn't matter what you've been through, there's literally nothing that justifies
hating God, there's literally nothing that justifies being a reprobate, there's literally
nothing that justifies becoming a predator and an evil person like this, but the devil, he's
constantly trying to get us to sympathize with and feel sorry for the bad guys, instead of just
realizing, nope, they've done this to themselves, they've chosen to go down this dark path and their
blood be upon them, that's what the bible says, and so he comes and tries this ploy of getting
him to sympathize, and it works because Ahab is a sucker, and so it says in verse 32,
they girded sackcloth on their loins and put ropes on their heads and came to the king of Israel
and said, thy servant Ben-Hadad sayeth, I pray thee let me live, and he said, is he yet alive?
He's my brother, he's sort of like brothers, you know like that in that movie, Marching to Zion,
right? Sort of like brothers. Now the men did diligently observe whether anything would come
from it, and did hastily catch it, and they said thy brother, but you know, so they're making sure
like, is this really going to work? Like, is he really going to go for this? And when they realize
that yeah, Ahab's really going to forgive him, then they're like, oh, here he is, you know,
thy servant Ben-Hadad, and you know, Ben-Hadad makes all these promises to him and everything
like that. Well you know, the Bible gives us God's reaction to this, because God sends a prophet,
and this is such a funny part here in verse 35, a certain man of the sons of the prophets
said unto his neighbor in the word of the Lord, smite me I pray thee. So he basically,
he says to his neighbor, all right, hit me, I need you to smite me, I need you to hit me,
and smite means, you know, this is like hitting hard. Smite me. And the guy's like, no, I'm not
going to smite you. You know, and you can imagine if you had someone tell you to hit them, you being
like, no man, I don't want to hit you. It's like that kid in school who wants you to punch him in
the stomach as hard as you can, but anyway, you know, he says like, hey, smite me, and the guy's
like, no, I'm not going to smite you. But he's like, look, this is the word of God, like this is
a command, you know, I'm a prophet of God, and this is something that God is telling you to do,
you need to smite me, you need to hit me. And the guy just refuses to smite him. Verse 36,
then said unto him, because thou has not obeyed the voice of the Lord, behold, as soon as thou
are departed from me, a lion shall slay thee. And as soon as he was departed from him, a lion found
him and slew him. And again, everything in the Bible, in addition to being an actual story of
what took place, it's also symbolic. And of course, the devil represents a lion many times,
and the idea here is that there are certain people that just refuse to ever smite anyone
for any reason, they just don't ever want to fight, they just want to get along with everybody,
they're just way too nice, they'll never bruise their knuckles, they'll never get their hands
dirty, and basically this person's going to get destroyed by the devil. Because, you know,
the Bible tells us as Christians, you got to fight the good fight. So if you're just going to be like
overboard, and look, obviously we should be peaceful, we should be merciful, we should try
to get along, but if you're going to be one who even when God tells you to fight, you won't fight,
even things that we need to take a stand for, you won't take a stand, even when God demands of us
that we smite and you won't smite, well you know what, you're gonna fail in the Christian life,
you have to be a bit of a fighter in this Christian life. As a church, we need to fight.
As a pastor especially, I need to be able to fight. I'm not talking about physically now.
We don't wrestle against flesh and blood, I'm talking about a spiritual fight, a spiritual
battle. And so pastors and Christians who just refuse to smite, they get devoured by the devil.
And so this guy ends up meeting his fate. Verse 37, then he found another man. You know, there's
always somebody who's willing to punch you in the face if you look long enough. He found another man
and said, smite me I pray thee, and the man smote him so that in smiting he wounded him. I mean this
guy didn't hold back, this guy really smote because this guy hit him hard and actually
wounded him. So the prophet departed, now that he's wounded, now he's got a bloody nose out of
it or a broken nose or whatever, that's what he wanted. Then he disguised himself, he puts ash
on his face, so he looks like he's been hit, well he has been hit, and he's got ashes on his face,
and he goes to the king and he says in verse 39, thy servant went out in the midst of the battle,
and behold a man turned aside and brought a man unto me and said keep this man, if by any means
he be missing then shall thy life be for his life or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver. So he
comes to him and he claims that he was in charge of watching a prisoner and that he was told that
if he let this prisoner escape, if he saved the prisoner's life, then he would die, or that he
would have to pay a talent of silver fine for losing his prisoner. So the point of being smitten
or punched in the face was that basically the idea is that he looks like the prisoner punched him in
the face and ran off and so now he's been assaulted and oh man this guy got away from me. So he's
basically coming to him with an attitude of it wasn't my fault, because if you think about it,
let's say no one had hit him and he comes looking all pristine and he says oh I was supposed to
watch this guy and he got away, then it seems more like maybe he let the guy go. Now of course
remember this is completely fictional because there was no prisoner. This is a made-up story,
he's using it as a parable, right? And so he says to him, you know, I was supposed to watch this guy
and he got away from me and, you know, it's got like blood on his face that makes it seem
believable, okay, that this guy got away. And as thy servant was busy here and there he was gone
and the king of Israel said unto him so shall thy judgment be thyself has decided it and he and he
hasted and took the ashes away from his face. So he basically claims, you know, I got busy and the
guy escaped. So, you know, I guess the idea is he got busy and then the guy sucker punched him or
got the drop on him or whatever, assaulted him, got out of there, and basically what King Ahab says,
well what are you coming to me for? You just said what the punishment is. You got to pay the talent
of silver or you got to die. That's the way this works. Well then after he says that, he cleans
off his face so that Ahab can recognize him because this guy is a well-known man of God. He's
a prophet that would be familiar to Ahab. And so he washes off his face and he takes the ashes away
from his face and the king discerned that he was of the prophets. He's like, wait, I recognize this
guy, he's one of the prophets of the Lord. And he said unto him, thus saith the Lord, because thou
is let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed out of destruction, therefore thy life shall go
for his life and thy people for his people. And the king of Israel went to his house heavy and
displeased and came to Samaria. So basically he says, like Nathan said to David, thou art the man.
You're condemning me for releasing a prisoner that was delivered into my hand. Well you're that guy
because Ben-Haddad was delivered into your hand and God had appointed Ben-Haddad for destruction.
God didn't have in mind sparing Ben-Haddad. God didn't want mercy to be shown to Ben-Haddad.
God wanted Ben-Haddad wiped out. That's the judgment that God pronounced. And here's the thing,
here's how you know you're too merciful when you're more merciful than God. Because God's
extremely merciful. God's grace is sufficient. And when you think, well no, I need to have more
grace than God. I need to have more mercy than God. His grace is not sufficient. I'm going to go
even further. I don't think God's loving enough. I'm going to be even more loving.
That's just stupid my friend because God is the ultimate. And so if God says, hey don't pity this
particular group of people, don't show mercy on this particular person, then you don't do it.
Now again, the vast majority of times we are to show mercy. The vast majority of people,
we should seek peace with them. We should have mercy on them. We should pity them. But there are
people in this world, my friend, that are evil, that are reprobates, that are doomed,
that are just beyond the pale of God's forgiveness and mercy. So don't you extend your mercy to
include them. Don't you sympathize with the devil and the devil's minions? No, you need to realize
that there are people that are outside of that scope of God's love, mercy, and forgiveness,
and you say, well I just can't believe that you said that. That's just not true because God just,
you know, he just loves and is merciful to everybody. Well you know, that's,
it sounds great. It's not what the Bible teaches. Okay? You need to actually read the Bible. You
know, this is kind of a big book. It's kind of a large book. It has 1,189 chapters in it.
It's very consistent. I mean the Bible is really consistent as you read the Bible. You know,
I read the Bible and the God of Genesis is the same God of Exodus, same God of Psalms,
same God of Isaiah, same God of Ezekiel. I get to Matthew and it's not like, whoa, who's this guy?
It's like, no, the same God, yeah, oh, Mark, Luke, the epistles of Paul, Revelation. It's
like you're reading about the same God the whole time. God's very consistent. God's character is
very consistent. He's an unchanging God. Okay? But in order to get to know God and if you want
to know the whole story and you want to get the whole picture of who God is, you know, it's not
going to come from a 20-minute Joel Osteen sermon that explains to you the love, mercy, and grace of
God. No, if you really want to understand the love, mercy, and grace of God, which do have their
bounds, by the way, they're not just unlimited, okay? There are people who are beyond the pale.
Well, guess what? You got to read over 31,000 verses. Well, I mean 31,000 verses is a lot.
1,189 chapters is a lot. Now, I'm not trying to overwhelm you because reading the Bible cover to
cover is very doable. I'm not up here saying, well, you know, I've read it, okay, and you haven't, so,
because, you know, how many people in here would say, I've read the entire Bible cover to cover? Put
up your hand if you've read the entire Bible cover to cover. It's most of the building, okay? So here's the point,
and hopefully the rest of you are working toward that goal. Guess how long it takes to read the
whole Bible cover to cover? About 80 hours, you know, depending on how fast you read. Obviously, some
people are going to be a little quicker than that, some people are going to be slower than that. I'm not
a super fast reader myself. I'm probably a little slower than most people at reading, but, you know,
if you read three or four chapters a day, you'll be done in a year, and reading three or four
chapters is going to take you like 20 minutes, you know, 15, 20 minutes a day. If you're an average
reader and you read for 15, 20 minutes, you'll be done in a year. If you're a fast reader, it might
even take less than that, you know. If you're a super slow reader, hey, maybe a half hour a day,
you're still going to get it done. It's doable. But, you know, it's funny how the people who've read the
Bible the most, you know, they're the ones who kind of get what I'm saying, and then the people are just
like, what? God doesn't want to just extend mercy to everyone? It's like, well, okay, how much have you
even read of the word of God? Because this chapter that we just read together and studied together
and that I just expounded from 1 Kings 20 kind of flies in the face of this idea that God's just
going to show mercy to everyone, because this guy's got sackcloth and ashes and ropes on his head,
and he's saying he's sorry, and he's repentant, he's backing off, and he's unarmed, and God says,
you know what, I'm going to punish you for not killing this guy. I will punish you for not killing
Ben Haydad. And you say, well, I just want to be just super safe. I just want to play it safe
and just love everybody, and just be nice to everybody, and I won't smite anyone
for any reason ever. Sort of like that guy who got eaten by a lion, because he won't ever smite
anyone. Okay, but you know what, that's not playing it safe. Let me tell you how to play
it safe in life, because you know what, I'm the type of guy, I like to play things safe. I'm not
a big-time, risk-taking, gambling kind of a guy. I like to play things pretty safe in life, okay?
And guess how you play it safe? By doing what the Bible said. That's how you play it safe.
The safest way to go through life is just to do what God said, to love what he loves and hate what
he hates, and to say yes to what he says yes to, and to say nobody, not just, well, I'm going to
play it safe by just being all positive, all nice, all friendly, all pity, all mercy, all compromise,
all compromise, everything with everyone. That's not playing it safe, because you're always safer
obeying God, okay? Look, if God, you know, demanded that the, you know, that the children of Israel
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that they not worship other gods, right? Then you know what,
the safest place for them is in the fiery furnace. You know what I mean? Because you're always the
safest when you did what God told you to do. But today we got pastors who want to play it safe.
They don't want to preach certain things that are going to get them into trouble. Well, God's just
going to get them into trouble for, you know, doing a satanic rabbit killing ritual, whether it
even happened or not, whether it's even real or not. You're going to get nailed no matter what.
You can't win with the devil's crowd. You can't, why? Because they're implacable. And so I hope
that you will add this word to your vocabulary and understand what it means to be implacable.
And when you're reading Romans one and you don't just read over that word and just say,
oh, implacable, not sure what that means. I've heard some people pronounce it implacable.
And they said, I've heard people say, you know, implacable, you can't stick these people anywhere.
You know, they just, they don't fit in anywhere. Now, you know, here's the thing. That is true
that they probably, they probably aren't a blessing no matter where you place them,
but that's not a word. It's actually implacable. Now we don't use this word very often,
I'm not saying that people who thought that were dumb, the person who said that to me implacable,
I considered him a pretty smart guy. It's just, nobody knows everything. Amen.
So I'm not making fun of that guy. I'm just kind of having a little fun with that concept because
it is kind of funny. But the point is that, you know, a lot of people don't know this word,
but you know, what's really sad is a lot of people don't know this concept,
you know, and what's more important than the word is the concept. Words mean things. And so
understanding this word tonight and understanding this concept from chapter 20 here and putting
together the word and the concept, then when we realize, hey, the reprobates in Romans one are
implacable, we know what that means. It means that if we try to make concessions for them,
it's never going to be enough. They're never going to be satisfied, you know, and by the way,
the sodomites are implacable. That's who the Bible is talking about in Romans one. And so you say,
oh, you know, you guys can get married. That's not enough. Oh, you guys can have kids. Oh,
that's not enough. No, no, no. They want what's pleasant in your eyes. They want your kids.
They want what's pleasant in your eyes because they're never going to be satisfied no matter
what. So quit trying to get along with people that are impossible to get along with. And look,
I'm all for getting along with people that you can get along with, but I'm not going to spend
any time trying to get along with people that I already know are impossible to get along with,
and the Bible has already said are impossible to get along with. It's my right to have a word of
prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, and Lord God, I pray that we would study
to show ourselves approved, that we would take the whole scripture into account, not just cherry
pick all the chapters and verses that we like, Lord, but help us to deal with chapters like
1 Kings 20 and make them a part of our worldview, Lord, and help us to let these things sink down
into our ears. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.