I..) 20:1-15 teaches God can legitimately do whatever he chooses to do with all that he possesses.

We see this kind of reasoning in the book of Job. At the end of Job the answer God gives Job is that as God He is above inquiry as to what He does with His own.

It this kind of God we have to do with in Romans when it teaches that God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy.

We must not miss the Sovereignty of God in this Parable for that is one over-riding theme. The Vineyard (Kingdom) belongs to the owner. He brings into the Vineyard who He will and when He will. He recompenses according to justice and grace. We all get what we deserve because we are found in Christ. From another perspective all of us get what we do not deserve and that is reward above our work. Those who complain against the Vineyard Owner are implicitly complaining against the Sovereignty and generosity of God.

Down this line of Sovereignty we see the clear teaching of Election. “Many are called but few are Chosen.” I understand this to mean that many are attached to visible Kingdom who do not have the invisible Kingdom within them. All in the Kingdom are called but only the elect are chosen. Some reckon their Kingdom work as merit based. These are forever trying to put God in their debt. These are those who are called and not chosen. .

II.) 20:1-15 teaches that the promise of reward should not become ground upon which to stand. The ground upon which to stand is the generosity of the Vineyard owner in calling one to work. All is of grace, including the reward.

We find this kind of point made in Luke 15 in the parable of the Prodigal Son

Here we find the workers first hired, resentful, and complaining of injustice
Lk. 15 we find the elder son, who stayed at home, resentful and complaining of injustice

Here we find the unexpected generosity of the Employer towards the workers hired late
Lk. 15 we find the unexpected generosity of the Father towards the prodigal son

Here the employer justifies his extravagant generosity
Lk. 15 the Father justifies his extravagant generosity

Part of our sin nature reveals itself in our being inveterate comparers. We are consumed with all things being fair and then we are forever defining fair as that which works in our favor. In Matthew 20 the complaint of “unfairness,” is really about envy. There was a belief that the latecomers are getting more than they deserved and that the latecomers were not getting what the earlier workers thought they deserved. The earlier workers were discontent with what they received only because they were angry that the later workers were treated with abundant kindness.

Here is one point of application I believe. Can we rejoice with others in the largesse of God’s grace towards them when we might be tempted to think that God, having plenty of largesse to spare, isn’t being quite as gracious towards us as He might? Can we be content with the grace we’ve been given without being angered that someone has been given more? Can we keep from looking at others and playing the comparison game?

It is grace for any of us to be in Kingdom work. What matters it if God decides to bless some in the Kingdom with more than He does others in terms of blessing?

III.) 20:1-15 teaches that God’s generosity transcends human expectations, and grace disallows calculations of recompense

There is, in some quarters of the Church, a great deal of discussion on future rewards of the Kingdom, as if the desire for rewards ought to be a motivating factor for obedience. However, our motivation for obedience is found not in the promise of rewards, as if we could calculate that.

I’ve never been too concerned about this whole notion of rewards as a motivating factor or as something that should draw our interest. It is enough that God has placed us in the Vineyard to begin with, and it is enough that our motivation is calculated not on what more we might receive but on all that God has already freely given us. God has freely saved us and freely put us in the Kingdom and He will freely measure out to each according to His good measure.

As we have hinted at already, note that the complaint is not against the landowner’s injustice. There was no injustice in his dealing with those who would bring complaint. The complaint instead is against the generosity towards the latecomers. The complaint isn’t “you haven’t been good enough to us,” the complaint rather is, “you’ve been too good to others.”

Text — II Kings 2
Subject — The Character of God
Theme — The character of God as seen in the mauling bear’s incident of II Kings 2
Proposition — …. should remind us of the Holy God we serve

Today is “Sanctity of Life” Sunday. The one day that is set aside yearly to specifically confess this great sin of which we all are partakers and to pray that God might grant us repentance from our wickedness. Of course Abortion, in our time, has served as one of the great markers of the culture wars that is raging in the West.

We should not think however that culture wars are unique to us. Whenever you have people belonging to the same nation who have given their allegiances to different gods there you will find culture wars.

We see some of that in Israel during the times of the post-Davidic Kings. We all remember a high expression of those Culture wars as they raged on Mt. Carmel in I Kings 18 where the solitary Man of God does battle with the 850 representatives of Baal and Asherah. That passage comes to us far more squarely as a Worldview conflict with life and death implications.

However this passage that we are looking at today, I believe continues to give us insights into the worldview conflicts / culture wars during those times in Ancient Israel. I believe an examination of this passage, concentrating especially on the mauling of the youths, will reveal to us that this is not the case of a capricious God who has anger management issues but rather it is a case of a Holy God doing the very same thing He did on Mt. Carmel when He upheld the character of His name for all to see.

We must remember that the character of the times which we are looking at are revealed to us in II Chronicles 36

15 The LORD, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy

So in order to set the table here we must keep in mind that all of this is happens among God’s covenant people. Israel has been set apart, by God, to be a witness and priest to the nations. In the immediate time frame Israel has miserably disobeyed God and has been dishonored among His people and so among the Nations as well. Israel had been promised great blessings if she would be obedient but similarly great curses if she were disobedient to her calling (Cmp. Dt. 28, Lv. 26:21-22.).

Israel should have already learned that they were uniquely accountable to God as His people. When God’s people rebel, their sin is high-handed because they have more to rebel against. And what we find in this passage is God’s people rebelling.

Secondly, after the showdown between Ahab and Jezebel’s Baalism, and Elijah, (I Ki. 18) Ahab still did not repent. Elijah became a new Moses. He did not run away as many suppose, but walked straight to the same mountain, the same cave, where Moses saw the glory of God. Elijah became the Moses of a new interim covenant with a remnant of believers. That is why, in the passage in question, there are two ‘water crossings’. Elijah as the new Moses has a water crossing that symbolizes Exodus out of Egypt and into the Wilderness. Elisha is with Elijah representing the remnant who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Later, Elisha as the new Joshua, after seeing Elijah ascend as kind of a first-fruits of all that will follow, has a water crossing symbolizing entry into the new covenant land that is to be conquered.

Like Moses whose grave could not be found, Elijah can not be found after his ascension and so Elisha is established as the Elijah’s Joshua who is given a pentecostal type double blessing upon all his work. To change the metaphor slightly Elijah is the Christ who goes ahead and Elisha is the Church who remains behind to do the King’s work and who is doubly blessed to do the work that must be done.

Elisha is working in terms of a covenant already established. This covenant promises blessings for obedience. And Elisha, as God’s conquering representative, is used to bless a place (Jericho — vs. 18) that had formerly known only curse.

Joshua 6:26

“At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: “Cursed before the LORD is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho”

Elisha requests a new bowl possibly because a new bowl would not be unclean and he asks for salt. Salt is often associated with the OT sacrifices and so is associated with the cleansing that comes by way of sacrifice. And that is what we find here that the salt provides — A cleansing of the waters and so the land. This becomes a sort of Atonement for the land.

As we noted earlier though, the Covenant promises not only blessings but cursing as well. And it is interesting that we find God’s representative as the one who brings both blessing and cursing.

Here we see Elisha as a Christ figure. Either we will petition him for atonement for the springs out of which our life proceeds or we will be cursed for our mocking behavior. The passage before us reminds us that there is no “third way” with God. Either we will be atoned for or we will be suffer the curse of the covenant.

Now a word or two concerning vs. 23-25

First, remember that all of this is happening in the context of idolatrous Israel. Israel is whoring after other gods. That this is so is seen in the previous chapter where the King of Israel desires advice from the Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron whether he will live or not from a fall he had. God is none to pleased with this and inserts himself to give counsel to this King that he is going to die.

The land is rife with idolatry. This must be kept in mind to understand this passage.

Second, note that Elisha is headed towards Bethel (23). Keep in mind that Bethel is the hub of this idolatry. Remember your OT History. King Jeroboam, years prior to this, had instituted his own system of worship by setting up two idolatrous shrines with golden calf images when he broke from Judah (See 1 Kings 12.). One shrine was established at Dan, in the far north of the kingdom, and the other was strategically located at Bethel, on the border with the southern kingdom of Judah. Jeroboam also made up his own priesthood from among his own people. All of this Baal paganism in the Northern Kingdom can be traced back to Bethel. Elisha was headed into enemy territory when he was headed for Bethel.

Now between these two facts,

1.) The land is rife w/ idolatry

2.) Bethel is the hub of that idolatry

And between the reality that Elisha is God’s Joshua re-conquering the land visiting covenatal blessings and cursing upon God’s covenant people I don’t think it is a stretch at all to premise that what Elisha runs into is a pack of pagan Seminarians who are mocking God’s covenantal spokesman. What we have here, I would contend, is not a bunch of three year olds teasing a Prophet about his baldness, but rather what we have is a bunch of young adults testing the living God.

The word “youth” in the passage is used to designate people elsewhere in the OT of the ages of anywhere from twelve to thirty years old. These youths … these priests of Baal in training are mocking God’s prophet. To mock God’s spokesman is to mock God. Their mocks come to us as “baldness,” but such a mocking may have had to do with

1) natural loss of hair;
2) a shaved head denoting his separation to the prophetic office; or more likely,
3) an epithet of scorn and contempt accusing Elisha of being a Leper since Lepers had to shave their heads

Suffice it to say that insult ‘baldhead’ was one of “contempt in the East, applied to a person even with a bushy head of hair.”

Their cat-cries to “go up” doubtless refers to their desire to for Elisha to go away the same way that Elijah had “gone up to heaven.” They wanted to be rid of God’s spokesman.

So here we have the ideological kin of the 850 that Elijah executed at Mt. Carmel. You would have thought that they had learned their lesson.

We should note that the bears mauled 42 of the youths which indicates that Elisha was likely facing many more detractors then the 42 who were cursed.

We should also note that being mauled by wild beasts was a sign of covenant curse.

Lev 26:21 “Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins. 22And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.

So, being torn in two by scavenging birds and wild beasts was a curse of the Covenant that is often repeated throughout the Bible. We see it beginning with the raven sent out by Noah, that fed on the floating bodies until the waters went down. If you remember, Jezebel was eaten by dogs, Saul’s sons were hung high but one of their mothers chased the birds away. Abraham chased the birds away from the divided animals that purified the Land, etc. There are many more examples.

These youths were violating the covenant by mocking God and God, who is patient and long-suffering gave them what He promised. Like those who Elijah dismissed after Carmel, these are dismissed by God. Jezebel’s children shall not stand in the company of the righteous.

Now, today what we get are people running to this passage complaining about a capricious God with anger management problems. But the thing we need to keep in mind is not that the action of God here is surprising but rather that this doesn’t happen all the time is what is surprising. Each of us deserves our own personalized female bear.

But God is gracious and has provided for people a covering in Jesus Christ who took our mauling for us. Christ bore the covenant curses that we might know the covenant blessings and that we might walk in the ways of the covenant in order to glorify Him.

You can be sure of this that God will cut off the wicked completely and finally. They will not stand w/ the righteous. The fact that we still have our own culture wars is indicative of God’s patience and the day of grace that we live in. However, you can be sure that if we will not repent of our wickedness a day is coming when the judgment of God will come upon fall upon the wickedness of our land just as it fell upon the wickedness of the land of Israel.

If you abide in my word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

A.) Set Free From Sin’s Dominion

The promise here by Jesus is that if they will abide in His word they will be set free. Christians have been set free from sin’s dominion. They are no longer a slave to sin (8:34). Upon being set free they are now alive to what they were once dead to and are dieing to what they were once alive to. Because of this their desire is to live for God and not unto self. Because they are no longer under Sin’s dominion — which manifested itself in the disregard for God’s Character and moral law — and are now under Christ’s dominion they have a desire to search out and walk in terms of a Spirit animated exaltation in God’s Law-Word

“But with the gospel and in Christ, united to him by faith, the law is no longer my enemy but my friend. Why? Because now God is no longer my enemy but my friend, and the law, his will, the law in its moral core, as reflective of his character and of concerns eternally inherent in his own person and so of what pleases him, is now my friendly guide for life in fellowship with God” ~ Dr. Richard Gaffin

B.) Set Free From Humanist Notions of Freedom

Liberation theology emphasizes the need to free the oppressed, the minority, and the victim from the social structures that are used by the majority ideological and moneyed interests that are advantaged by oppression. Liberation theology is animated and defined by the idea of class and culture struggle having as its goal the achievement of a social justice that would flatten all biblical hierarchical relational structures and would result in the equalizing of all men and women.

Liberation theology offers a liberation from oppressive institutional structures and as such when you read the Liberation Theologians you get the sense that they believe that the Gospel goes forward not by means of individuals being set free by Christ but rather you get the sense that individuals are set free only as political or social environments are set free.

Because of this you hear quite a bit of language from Liberation Theologians about institutional oppression, or corporate cultural wide structural sins, or oppressive cultural attitudes. You see it is whole cultures that are indicted and not individuals that make up the culture. The goal then is to change the culture from the top down by long marches through the cultural institutions where such oppression, structural sins, and victimizing attitudes supposedly come from.

Now in order for this to work the Liberation Theologians have to create a large class of people who feel victimized, and so to that end grievance, real and imagined, are drug up and used to convince people they are oppressed. Wives are putatively oppressed by their husbands and children and must be liberated from this bondage. Minorities are putatively oppressed by Majorities and the culture must be liberated from this bondage. Children are putatively oppressed by their parents and so the culture must be liberated from this bondage. Sexual deviants are putatively oppressed by Christian understandings of marriage and family and so culture must be liberated from this bondage. The poor are putatively oppressed by the Rich and so cultures must be liberated from this bondage. The West is oppressed by apparitions of a vengeful deity, with his bloody Son, who has a law word that must be esteemed and so the West must be liberated from this bondage.

And the Liberation that the Liberation Theologian offers up is a Top Down Liberation that is achieved by revolution and results in bondage that is, on the whole, more severe than any real bondage that existed prior to the successful Liberation.

The Liberation that Jesus promises in his promise to set people free is not social-institutional until it is first individual and personal. Jesus Liberates a person not primarily from their social oppressions — as real as those may very well be. Jesus Liberates a person from their own spiritual slavery to the Devil. Jesus Liberates not primarily from the sin of corporate structural sins but primarily from the sin of loving self above God. The promise of Jesus for Liberation is the liberation from the work of making the world revolve around me. Jesus will free the sin saturated heart not by calls for Revolution by the reality of regeneration.

Do you see the difference here between what the Liberation Theologian as Humanist offers and the Liberation that Jesus promises? The Liberation Theologians believes that people can only be set free as cultural institutions are changed and as the environment is redeemed in the direction of Marxist – Feminist definitions of social justice. The Christian believes that people can only be set free as individuals are regenerated. The Liberation Theologian teaches people that cultural conflict is the only way to be set free. Jesus teaches people that only an abiding in His word can set people Free. In the
end what the Liberation Theologian gives to people is only more bondage. What our Lord Christ gives is genuine freedom.

It is true that injustices abound in this world but the answer to curing the injustices of the world is not by pursuing a Liberation that is forcefully seized. The answer to injustices of the world is by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit upon individuals who build unjust cultures. When the Spirit moves to set people free … and when those people abide in the Word … then those freed people will build just cultures.

In short the primary problem is never political, social, or cultural. The primary problem is that people are dead in their sins and trespasses — he Liberation Theologian as much as anybody. It is not to much to say, I think, that people who advocate for various stripes of Liberation Theology Freedom, from socialism, to feminism, to the cultural Marxist, to environmentalism to code Pink do not know what it means to be free indeed.