-Transcript-
00:37 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:42 Welcome to the cafe. Great to have you here today. It’s a wonderful day at the cafe.
00:48 I hope you’ve got your beverage of choice, iced tea or iced coffee maybe. It’s a little bit warm these days. Amen.
00:53 Whatever it may be. Hopefully you’re refreshed, ready to dive into God’s Word. Today on KJV Cafe we are looking at the topic of zeal.
01:03 How do you have godly zeal? As a wordsmith, I love the word zeal. It just sounds great and its meaning is just bounding with enthusiasm and passion. And the question I have for you today is, do you have zeal for the Lord? You could say that you are devoted to God.
01:27 You could say that you’ve made Him Lord and Savior in your life. But you could lack zeal for the Lord. Let’s face it, life gets real tough.
01:40 We face many challenges, many problems, many confusions. The devil will throw our way, snares, things that we don’t know how to figure out right off the bat. We’ll face trials and many surprises.
01:52 And it seems as if life doesn’t get any easier. You know, we think when we’re young, once we get older, we’ll have it made. We’ll have a job and a family and be happy.
02:01 Then we get older, we say, well, when we were younger we were more free and we had more time. Look, life is difficult, is it not? And with that difficulty, sometimes our zeal can kind of go away. The question I have for you today is, do you have zeal for the Lord? And He wants us to have zeal.
02:22 Amen. I believe that’s why he put it in his Word. What does it mean to have zeal for something? I think first of all, you’re passionate about it.
02:30 People can tell this person or cause is very important to you. If you have zeal for something, people know you’re passionate. It stands out.
02:40 It is something that’s very, very high on the priority list. I’d say the highest on the priority list. You may be very calm and even-keeled, never getting too high or too low.
02:54 But when this subject comes up, oh, you get excited. Your heart starts racing a little bit faster. You get a little louder in your communication.
03:04 Your eyes bulge out a little bit. Passion. When you have zeal, you have passion.
03:11 And how about this? When you have zeal, you’re devoted. You know, devotion. Wow.
03:15 Willing and ready to overcome obstacles in service to the person or cause. Being devoted is not easy in this day and time. Amen.
03:24 I mean, back in the day, I think of the supermarket. There was a time, and I work in marketing and I’ve read this, that you could really count someone faithful to a brand, right? They were devoted. They would go to that particular store on that particular day of the week, and that was their brand.
03:43 And now as I understand it, younger generations are not as devoted. They’re bouncing from here, there, and everywhere. They’re fickle, right? And maybe even us older folks that are getting up there in age a little bit become more fickle.
03:57 So to be devoted is not easy. Devoted, willing and ready to overcome obstacles in service to the person or cause. So when you have zeal, you’re willing and ready to deal with those things that would come between you and that cause.
04:11 And how about living it out? Applying principles to your life and viewing others in this light. If you have a zeal for someone or something, you will then apply that to the rest of your life, will you not? If you have zeal for a cause, would you not then judge others by that cause? If you have zeal for a holy God, would you not hate what he hates and love what he loves? I think you would. So passion, devotion, living it out.
04:43 Zeal equals great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective. That’s the definition. Great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective.
04:58 So we see that that great energy and enthusiasm for this cause or objective would lead to passion, devotion and living it out. And now most importantly, here’s our text verse 2 Kings 10:16. And He said, Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.
05:15 So they made him ride in his chariot. 2 Kings 10:16. Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.
05:24 So they made him ride in his chariot. Okay, so now we’re gonna get the context of this verse to see who this individual is that’s saying see my zeal for the Lord and who he’s inviting to see this such zeal. So this is Jehu here.
05:38 And when he was departed, thence he lighted on Jehonadab the son of Rechab coming to meet him. And he saluted him and said to him, Is thine heart right as my heart is with thy heart? And Jehonadab answered, It is, if it be. Give me thine hand.
05:53 And he gave him his hand. And he took him up to him into the chariot. And he said, Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.
06:01 So they made him ride in his chariot. And when he came to Samaria, he slew all that remained under Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed him, according to the saying of the Lord, which he spake to Elijah. And Jehu gathered all the people together and said unto them, Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu shall serve him much.
06:22 Now therefore call unto me all the prophets of Baal, all his servants, all his priests. Let none be wanting, for I have a great sacrifice to do to Baal. Whosoever shall be wanting, he shall not live.
06:36 But Jehu did it in subtlety, to the intent that he might destroy the worshippers of Baal. And Jehu said, Proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal. And they proclaimed it
.
06:49 And Jehu sent through all Israel, and all the worshippers of Baal came, so that there was not a man left that came not. And they came into the house of Baal. And the house of Baal was full from one end to another.
06:58 And he said unto them that was over the vestry, bring forth the vestments for all the worshippers of Baal. And he brought forth vestments. And Jehu went, and Jehonadab the son of Rechab, into the house of Baal, and said unto the worshippers of Baal, Search and look that there be here with you none of the servants of the Lord, but the worshippers of Baal only.
07:20 And when they went in to offer sacrifices and burn offerings, Jehu appointed four score men without, and said, If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the life of him. And it came to pass, as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, Go in and slay them, let none come forth. And they smote them with the edge of the sword.
07:46 And the guard and the captains cast them out, and went to the city of the house of Baal. And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal, and burned them. And they break down the image of Baal, and break down the house of Baal, and made it a drought house unto this day.
08:00 Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel. Okay, that was 2 Kings 10,, 2 Kings 10:15-28. And this gives us the context of what Jehu was telling Jehonadab the son of Rechab about what he was going to do.
08:22 And so we see here a few things. First, let’s start with who was Baal. Baal was an idol, a false god, the god of fertility.
08:33 Pagans worshipped this god. And eventually Jews got involved. These were basically false gods that they worshipped and weren’t able to do anything the real God could do, our Lord and Savior.
08:46 It’s interesting in there that Baal is called Baal, and then the Lord is just called the Lord. I love that. And so we see here the story of Elijah calling God to rain fire down from heaven that precedes this shows the false prophets of Baal.
09:04 You’ll remember that. 400 plus. They couldn’t get their God to do anything.
09:09 They’re cutting themselves all day long. And then Elijah soaks up that altar real good with water. Just him alone calls God to rain down fire.
09:19 And he does, and it licks up all the offering and all the water. And then those 450 false prophets of Baal are slain. And so we see that this was a time, right, that people were confused.
09:32 And the Israelites after that, they’re saying, oh the Lord is a true God. The Lord is a true God. But here we see a little bit later that no, there’s still obviously idol worship in the area, and God hates it.
09:45 It’s a false God. It’s a false religion. It’s nothing more than demons and the devil tricking people to get away from God and perverting the things of God.
09:57 And it’s really sick and disgusting. This God is supposed to be a God of fertility. It’s really a God of death.
10:03 And it’s all the devil’s lie and perversion. And so Jehu comes on the scene first as a commander of the army of northern Israel, and then becomes king. And essentially he becomes king to judge the wicked Israelite rulers.
10:17 Jehu was the one to kill evil Jezebel, get rid of the house of Ahab, and remove Baal from worship. This is the northern Israel aspect, because of course you’ve got northern Israel and you have Judah at that time. And so Jehu is judging these people.
10:35 He’s like a mercenary. He’s ruthless. He’s this guy named Jehonadab, the son of Rechab, to see it.
10:46 He says, look, will you come in my chariot? I want to show you how zealous I am for God. And so we have who Baal is, we have who Jehu is, and now from this passage here in 2 Kings 10, we’re gonna learn about who Jehonadab is. Now he is kind of the father of the Rechabites.
11:04 The Rechabites, according to gotquestions.org, one of my favorite research websites, the Rechabites were a nomadic people group known for their strict rules to abstain from wine, from building houses, from sowing seed, and from planting vineyards. The Rechabites were faithful to abide by these rules through the generations all the way from the time of Jehu, and that’s in 2 Kings 10, to the time of Jeremiah, that’s Jeremiah 35, over 200 years. And so we see that the Rechabites were a zealous people.
11:32 They were a people group that was set apart. There were things that they did not do. First of all, they abstained.
11:41 They did not drink wine, build houses, but they lived in tents, amen? And so what we see here, for time’s sake before we can get into the rest as we go through this series this week, what we see here is a zealous group of people, and we see this individual that is zealous for God, wanting to take kind of their figurehead and say, I want you to see what I’m gonna do for God. And in this scripture, I believe the Lord wants us to know that He cares for those that are zealous for Him. And not to give you the whole end from the beginning, but many episodes later, we’ll get to the reward that these individuals received.
12:18 They received a reward from God for being zealous for Him. They literally received a reward. And again, why would God put this in His scriptures? If it weren’t for to inspire us, to help us understand the Old Testament, what happened there, but also to inspire us to be zealous.
12:34 And so what I want you thinking about here today, and if you’re a faithful listener and you listen all week, what I want you to be thinking about all week, how can we be zealous for God? Can we kind of do an internal check and see, do we have zeal for the Lord? Do we have the type of zeal for the Lord that Jehu exhibited, where he wiped out what God wanted him to wipe out? And I’m not telling anybody to wipe out any people, but rather wipe out those false gods in your life, those idols in your life. Those things that you clearly know are against the ways of God. Why are you hanging on to them? We see Christians, I see them every single day, and this has gone on for a long time, engaging with companies and with groups in a way that God would not want.
13:18 Because those companies and those groups, those organizations are clearly against God. And they’re co-mingling with them, they’re friends with them, in a way they’re endorsing them, and it must hurt God. It must be like adultery to God, it must be like a whoredom to God, to see someone that loves the Lord also living for these false gods and idols.
13:41 And I know we’re living in the age of grace, I know we’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. But the fact that we’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, should motivate us all the more to follow his commandments, to live for him, and to be separate from these unclean things, these idols in our life that corrupt us, that mess us up, and that get us off track. Again, wish I had more time.
14:05 Tune in next time as we go through this scripture and zeal for God. It’s going to be a great week here. I thank you so much for listening today.
14:11 I thank you again for listening each day. Take care, God bless, and Amen