|
Asa-Ministries
International
Bringing The Good News Of Jesus Christ
To All Nations
Making
Disciples Since 1992
These lessons are sent to you free of charge;
however we are supported by your generous donations.
Please pray about sending a love gift offering to help
keep these lessons going out.
Removal instructions at the end of this lesson.
Jehu – Fanatic For God
2 Kings 10:5-16
I. The rise of fanaticism.
A. Do you believe in fanaticism? Are you a fanatic?
1) Put another way: if you had lived 2,000 years ago, would
you
have followed Jesus of Nazareth?
2) If you had lived 200 years
ago, would you have agreed with
Thomas Paine and the
American Revolution?
3) One person's fanatic is
another's savior.
a) Our world offers many
choices in this area.
B. David Koresh in Waco, Texas.
1) Believes he is Christ, or his
immediate prophet.
a) Comment by employee at
local bar:
"Pretty rowdy
behavior for Jesus. He'd get a buzz
off
beer and go squealing out of the parking lot."
(Newsweek, 3/22/93, p. 21)
2) Multiple wives, child brides
and automatic weapons.
3) Standoff has gone on for days.
C. Abortion protestor Michael
Griffin.
1) Prayed that Dr. Gunn would
accept Christ, then killed him.
2) Wants to defend self with
Bible.
3) Don Treshman
of Rescue American said,
"While Gunn's death is
unfortunate, it's also true that
quite
a number of babies' lives will be saved."
D. Protests at doctor's home in
Morris county: confrontational.
II. The example of King Jehu.
A. God's will, and beyond.
1) God prophesied his coming,
anointed and directed him.
B. List of atrocities:
1) Israel's King Joram killed. 9:24
2) Judah's King Ahaziah killed. 9:27
3) Israel's Queen Mother Jezebel
killed. 9:33
a) Jehu snacks afterwards,
showing his callousness. 9:34
4) 70 descendants of Ahab
killed. 10:7
a) Heads put in two
piles. 10:8
5) Close friends, priests,
advisors of Joram killed. 10:11
6) 42 relatives of Ahaziah
killed. 10:14
7) Rest of Ahab's family
killed. 10:17
8) Priests of Baal religion
exterminated. 10:25
C. Compromise and expedience.
1) He wiped out Baalism, but not calf worship. 10:29
2) His devotion to God may have
been political expedience.
a) He wiped out the south's royalty as well as the north's.
3) God condemned him for going
beyond his will. Hosea 1:4
III. The lure of
fanaticism.
A. In a world of compromise,
convictions stand out.
Barry Goldwater's infamous line
defines extremism:
"Extremism in the defense
of liberty is no vice and ...
moderation
in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
As Abolitionist William Lloyd
Garrison put it more eloquently in
the first issue of his
newspaper, "The Liberator":
"On this subject, I do not
wish to think, or speak, or write,
with
moderation.
No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give
a moderate
alarm.
Tell him to moderately rescue his
wife from the hands of a
rapist.
Tell the mother to gradually
rescue her baby from the fire
into which it has fallen -
But urge me not to use moderation
in a cause like the present.
I am in earnest - I will not
equivocate - I will not excuse -
I will not retreat a single
inch - AND I WILL BE HEARD."
1) Jehonadab son of Recab
gravitated to Jehu. 9:15
a) The Recabites
saw Israel as soft and materialistic.
b) They lived in tents and
abstained from alcohol.
2) Many of those in cults are
escaping empty lives.
3) Because church is so weak and
wimpy, nothing changes.
a) (Comment by my predecessor
that Ledgewood Baptist
has
not made the impact it could.)
B. Lonely fanatics are often proved
right in the end.
Operation Rescue is a modern form
of extremism.
Abolition of slavery is an
older form.
They were all-or-nothing, refused
compromise, and took dramatic
steps
to bring the issue before the nation.
Abraham Lincoln was not an
extremist or an abolitionist.
To abolitionists, slavery was not
an unfortunate and outmoded
institution
- it was sin.
America was founded on compromise,
but abolitionism would not
allow
it.
Thirty years later, after a war, slavery
ceased.
Some historians discount the
role of abolitionism.
But without abolitionism the sense
of urgency to do something
about
slavery disappears.
The hope of moderates who chose
against extremism is that sense
and
good will can prevail.
But such progress is not always
certain.
Note Nazi Germany and apartheid
South Africa.
C. Some issues require extreme
action.
1) Jehu's annihilation of Baal
religion was necessary for
survival
of Jewish faith.
a) Would you shoot Hitler or
Himmler?
b) What about an abortionist?
2) Inaction often leads to
defeat. "The only thing
necessary
for
evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."
D. Great leaders have always been
extreme.
1) Luther, Bonhoeffer
were extremists. They had to be.
2) Jesus was very extreme -
that's why they killed him.
a) Notice his commands: leave all, sword in families...
b) Early Christians were
definitely labelled fanatics, and
as they were
slaughtered by the thousands it was said:
"The blood of the
martyrs is the seed of the church."
IV. Great dangers
of fanaticism.
A. We can't always see the future as
clearly as we think.
1) Dr. Gunn may have killed
hundreds of more babies - but then
again,
he may have changed and been a missionary doctor.
2) For Christians, the end does
NOT always justifies the means.
a) Both end and means must be
in God's will.
b) We cannot use compromise
to defeat compromise.
c) (or
death to defeat death.)
B. By winning one battle, you can
lose the others.
1) Many Christian zealots have
lost the faith.
A good number of evangelical
prohibitionists lost their faith.
Some were disappointed in the
church's mealy-mouthed response
to
their cause.
As institutions, churches were
quite timid.
And many abolitionists became
so caught up in the antislavery
cause
they gradually they substituted the cause for Christ.
They experienced a lifetime of frustration and the final
victory
- by war - dealt a hard blow to their faith.
Faith linked too closely to a
single cause, is vulnerable.
2) Fanaticism can alienate.
a) Many expect the Right to Life
movement to lose much
support
because of the extremists.
b) Bible-believing Christians
are open to ridicule because
of
David Koresh in Waco, Texas.
c) Abolitionists never gained
a majority.
The more they argued, the more rigid Southerners became.
When abolitionism began in
1830, many Southerners thought
slavery
was wrong.
A few years later they
would kill any abolitionist they
could
find.
Abolitionism destroyed
dialogue. Fanaticism always does.
C. Fanaticism is easily manipulated.
1) Jehu's zeal for God may have
been more political than religious.
2) Abortion rally and guilt
tactics.
D. Fanaticism can bring out the worst
in people or religion.
The First Crusade was launched in
1095 with the battle cry
"Deus Vult"
(God wills it).
First Jews in the Rhine valley
were persecuted, then all the
inhabitants
of Jerusalem were slaughtered.
The charismatic priest Raymond of Aguilers wrote:
"In the temple
of Solomon, one rode in blood
up to the knees and even to the
horses'
bridles, by the just and marvelous judgment of God."
In the Third Crusade, Richard the
Lion-Hearted slaughtered 3,000
captives
from Acre in 1191.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux declared in launching the Second
Crusade:
"The Christian glories in the
death of a pagan, because thereby
Christ himself is
glorified."
In 1209, Pope Innocent III
launched an armed crusade against
Albigenses
believers in southern France.
When the besieged city of Beziers
fell, soldiers reportedly asked
their papal adviser how to
distinguish the faithful from the
non-believers
among the captives.
He commanded: "Kill them all. God will know his own."
Nearly 20,000 were slaughtered -
many first blinded, mutilated,
dragged
behind horses, or used for target practice.
Honesty requires us to admit that
religious fanaticism is behind
much of the bloodshed in
Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, Lebanon
and
India.
There are certainly other factors,
but the role of narrow-minded
faith
cannot be ignored.
V. Fanaticism, but only in love.
A. Zeal is a good thing, if it is
according to knowledge. Rom 10:2
1) Zeal should lead us to more
dedicated service. Rom 12:11
2) We need to care enough about
sin to make a stand on issues.
B. God has all the answers, but we do
not.
Oliver Cromwell was deemed a
moderate because he massacred
only
Catholics and Anglicans, not other Protestants.
This Puritan general commanded
Bible-carrying soldiers,
whom
he roused to religious fervor.
After decimating an Anglican
army, Cromwell said,
"God made them as
stubble to our swords."
He demanded the beheading of the
defeated King Charles I
and
made himself the dictator of England during the 1650s.
One opponent once told him,
"Humbly consider, that you may
be
wrong."
C. We trust in God to bring about
justice.
1) God can work without our
direct efforts.
a) He never blesses sin.
b) We shouldn't have to take
justice into our own hands.
2) Rev. Charles Stanley and
rejection of Operation Rescue's
abortion
clinic blockades.
a) Christians should never
break a law.
b) Harassment will only
alienate unbelievers.
D. Spiritual principle: God's person, doing God's will in God's
way,
will
receive God's blessing.
1) We can be born-again,
convinced of our cause, and dead wrong.
2) Truth must be spoken in love,
even if it is not as effective
as
a gun.
3) Our primary allegiance must be
to Jesus, not causes.
Feel Free To Pass This
Lesson Along To Someone You Think Would Benefit From It’s
Teaching
If This Lesson Was Forwarded
To You And You Would Lint To Be Included In Our Weekly Mailings Simply
Click The Following Link To Be Placed On Our Mailing List; mailto:lessons@asa-ministries.org?subject=add
me to the list
This message is in
compliance with U.S. Federal requirements for commercial email proposed in
bill S1618 Title III, Section 301, Paragraph (a) (2) (C) passed by the
105th U.S. Senate and cannot be considered SPAM since it includes a remove
mechanism.
To unsubscribe your
email address, put "REMOVE" in the subject line and mailto:Director@Asa-Ministries.Org?Subject=REMOVE
Send the email from the
same email account that received this message. We will remove you from our
list and you will not receive any more material from us. This is an
automated process so it is important to follow the instructions precisely
for the process to work correctly. Tampering with our email only hurts
other's chances of being properly removed
Contact
Information
Asa-Ministries International
614 W Maple
St
Deming, NM 88030
Main Number:
(575) 546-9742
Fax
Number: (575) 546-9742
|
