2 Kings 2:19-25 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
God’s Zoo Summer Worship Series Sunday, August 1, 2021 “Two Bears”
Shocking! Incredible! Unbelievable! Stunning! Those are attention-getting words. These are the sort of words used to get you and me to read an article or watch a video. They contribute to a practice online called clickbait. By using creative descriptions, someone with a rather boring video can convince a lot of people to watch that video anyway. In many cases, it doesn’t matter whether the audience actually likes what they see. The content creator got his click and the ad revenue that comes from it. And so the next video or news article has to be even more convincing and even more blatant clickbait. So many people have learned that you can’t always be sure that the description or the headline is accurate. It may not be shocking or incredible after all. And this isn’t only an online issue. Television news competes for viewers. Printed newspapers compete for readers and subscribers. And everyone has learned that the most exciting, shocking, and unbelievable stories capture attention. So they are the ones that are mentioned on the commercials or printed as the large headline on the front page of the newspaper. Maybe you have heard the expression, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Somehow in church and in Sunday School, it seems a little different. There are some quite shocking things in the Bible. There are bloody scenes of death, soap opera-worthy tales of sexual intrigue, and even more. In fact, these are some of the facts that enemies of the Bible argue against. They say things like, “I can’t worship a God who would let people suffer or who would have his people wage wars on others.” People are shocked by these things. And while we don’t hide the fact that these accounts are in the Bible, that’s not really how we tend to advertise our church: “Come hear the shocking things that happened in Israel.” “Join us for Sunday School on bear-mauling Sunday.” And yet here we are, gathered to learn from one of those shocking, graphic accounts, one that is likely less familiar to many of us. Two bears are the animals that place this lesson into our God’s Zoo series, but those two bears escape their cages so to speak and cause incredible damage. The reality is that these two bears came out of the woods and mauled to pieces 42 young people. Shocking. So what can we learn from something like this? To answer the question, we need to start with a closer look at what happened and why. The person we meet by name in this account is Elisha. He was God’s prophet. He replaced Elijah in that role, and the Bible tells us about that transition just before the account in front of us today. Elijah was the one who was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind after he and Elisha were separated by chariots and horsemen of fire. Elisha had asked that God would give him the same spirit with which he had blessed Elijah, and when Elijah was gone, Elisha picked up his cloak and promptly went to cross the Jordan River that parted for him. From there, as our account describes, Elisha dealt with the water supply in the city. The water was making people sick and taking away children. The men of the city knew that they had God’s prophet with them, and so they asked him about it. He had them bring a new dish with salt, and he threw the salt into the spring, and the water was healthful and sustaining from that time on. It was a miracle. And then God’s prophet started on his way to Bethel. The name of that town means “house of God,” but the town itself had become anything but. It had been made a place of idolatry by one of Israel’s wicked kings long before. On the way to that town, Elisha faced some ridicule from a group of young boys. It’s not totally clear how old these young boys are; it is possible that “young men” might be a fair translation too. It also becomes clear that there are quite a few involved in this. They yell at God’s prophet. They say, “Go up, baldy! Go up, baldy!” Elisha calls down a curse in the Lord’s name, and out from the woods come two female bears who maul forty-two of the boys to pieces. And Elisha goes on his way. A quick glance at the account might make it seem incredibly shocking. Did God and his prophet really respond to some little boys making fun of a bald head by having them mauled by bears? Does this punishment really fit the crime? Actually, the punishment tells us exactly how seriously God and his prophet took what the boys were saying. Keep in mind that we don’t know the exact age, but even the words used for little boys here could have referred to men as old as about 20. It appears that they were very intentional not about making fun of a bald man but
about making fun of the Lord’s prophet. Their reference to his bald head could have been a reference to his mourning the departure of his mentor, Elijah. These boys or men may have been representatives of the idolatry in Bethel. In any case, they were intentionally making fun of and mocking God’s prophet, and that meant that they were making fun of and mocking God. And so the result was drastic. It sent a powerful message. It was not clickbait, but it was something that should have grabbed the attention of anyone who heard about it. It meant that God is serious about his Word and so he is also serious about those he calls to share his Word. It meant that God does not tolerate idolatry. He is not interested in what people think they should be allowed to do, what they should be allowed to get away with. He is the Lord, the Creator of the universe. He’s the one who put people into this world, and he is still in control of every aspect of it, including the bears in the woods. But what does that mean for us here, today? What does it mean for a group of people gathered together for the express purpose of listening to the Word of God and hearing it from pastors he has called to serve? Well, this lesson remains a warning against sin and idolatry. We may not be gathered to jeer at God’s prophet, but the same sinful nature that was found in the hearts of those youth is found in our hearts, too. So, sure, we may gather to listen to God’s Word, but do we also take that Word to heart when we leave? Do we remain confident in God’s love for us and his promises to us even when we face challenges? Do we humbly submit to what we know to be God’s will, or do we mock and jeer at it by the way we choose to live our lives? The reason God wants so much for his messengers to be heard is that he wants them to share a very important message for sinners. He wants you and me and everyone to know that he loved us enough to send his Son to die for us. He wants messengers to be like John the Baptist pointing to Christ and saying, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). In other words, if it bleeds it leads. The main message of the Bible is the shocking, unbelievable, bloody story of an innocent man being whipped and beaten and finally put to death on a cross. It is the shocking and unbelievable story that he did it because he loves you and me and a world of sinful people. That is the message that God has called his people to share. And he has called some to make that their life’s work, no matter what reaction they receive and in spite of the opposition that is sure to come. And it is an honor to share that message with a group of Christians that have demonstrated loving support for their pastors and an interest in reaching the people around them with that message. It is a joy to be involved in the early stages of planning for another pastor to begin working with us and among us, specifically at our Vail and Benson locations, so that we can take advantage of even more opportunities to get that message to people. It is a joy because there is an amazing a blessed result for all who believe: eternal life in heaven. Those who would suggest that the account before us today is too harsh or too bloody or too shocking are considering it from a worldly perspective. We are forced to constantly make judgments about how things ought to be done in the world around us. But what we really need to do is consider the spiritual perspective. How many people would have been harmed in incredible and eternal ways if God had allowed his prophet to be despised and mocked. He had previously warned the Israelites, if they persisted in idolatry, “I will send against you the wild animals so that they will deprive you of your children and cut off your livestock. They will make you so few that your roads will be deserted” (Leviticus 26:22). And later on he would have to tell them that because of their persistent disobedience, “I will come upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs. I will tear the cover off their hearts. Then I will devour them like a lioness. The wild animals will rip them apart” (Hosea 13:8). So also today, the real battle is not between vaccinated and unvaccinated, between different political parties, between people in power and those without power. Those earthly battles may or may not make a difference, and if they do, the difference will last for only a short while. The real battle is a spiritual battle. It is between God and the devil. It is between eternal death and eternal salvation. And the battle is the Lord’s. He died to give us life and he lives again so that we will never die. That is not clickbait. It is the shocking, unbelievable, and amazing news of God’s grace. That’s the news that God wants his people to share and the reason that he wants his messengers respected. That’s the lesson we learn from two bears.
The Text: 2 Kings 2:19–25 (EHV) 19Then
the men of the city said to Elisha, “Look, the site of the city is good, as my lord can see, but the water is bad, and the land deprives people of children.” 20So
he said, “Bring me a new dish and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him.
21Then
he went out to the spring and threw the salt in. He said, “This is what the Lord says. I have healed this water. No longer will death or loss of children come from it.” 22So the water has remained healed to this day, according to the word which Elisha spoke. 23He
went up from there to Bethel. While he was going up on the road, young boys came out from the city and mocked him. They said, “Go up, baldy! Go up, baldy!” 24So
he turned around and looked at them and cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two female bears came out of the woods, and they tore forty-two boys to pieces. 25From there Elisha went to Mount Carmel, and then he returned to Samaria.