1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message from God’s Word this morning is
taken from 2 Kings 11:1-3 (READ TEXT).
The message is entitled, “The Hidden Church,” dear brothers and
sisters in Christ.
2.
Before September 11, 2001, people
thought it couldn’t happen here. We would see the news of terrorist attacks in
the Middle East and elsewhere, but no one expected such a terrorist strike
within the United States. An earlier attack on the World Trade Center, during
the 1990s, came to comparatively little. The Oklahoma City bombing, also in the
’90s, seemed more like a fluke and not the work of any foreign terrorist. As
the twenty-first century started, we thought it couldn’t happen here. On
September 11, 2001, we learned differently.
Throughout the years there have been occasions when people thought, “it
couldn’t happen here,” only to discover that it did. In this sermon we turn
our attention to one of those incidents in the history of God’s people.
3.
For the past several of these Old
Testament sermons we’ve been following events in the Northern Kingdom. We’ve
not been devoting so much attention to the relatively small Southern Kingdom,
where King David’s descendants continued to reign. In the north, a combination
of faithlessness to God’s Word and political instability eventually gave way to
full-blown idol worship under the official sponsorship of kings like Omri and
Ahab. At first the southern kingdom stood against these things. The south had
some very good, faithful kings like Jehoshaphat. People there in the south
might have shaken their heads over what was going on in the north, saying, “I’m
glad that stuff is all up there. I’m glad it can’t happen here.” But, it
did. In fact, things got so bad that for a while it wasn’t a descendant of
David sitting on the throne in the south, but rather a child of wicked King
Ahab from the north. It even looked like the Davidic line, the line of descent
through which the Messiah was supposed to come into the world, had been brought
to an end.
4.
How had matters come to this? Although
King Jehoshaphat in the south had been faithful to the Lord in so many ways, he
did one thing that had disastrous effects. He forged a marriage alliance with
the north by marrying his son and heir to the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, Athaliah.
Athaliah was a chip off the old block, an idolater like her mother and
father. When she became part of the royal family in the south, the stage was
set for idolatry to start not merely trickling in there, but gushing in. Athaliah’s
husband, the son of Jehoshaphat, eventually became king, but he didn’t reign
long. His reign was mostly unremarkable except for the enormously important
fact that during it the idolatrous ways of the north were introduced into Judah.
The Lord caused him to die relatively young for all his wickedness and
idolatry. Still, the Lord had mercy on the Southern Kingdom for the sake of his
promise to David.
5.
Ahaziah, the next king, was the son
of Athaliah and grandson of Ahab. As you might expect, he turned out even
worse. His mother was still alive and exerted a great deal of influence upon
him. But Ahaziah reigned for only one year. He was visiting his uncle, who was
king in the north, at the time when God unleashed judgment upon Ahab’s family
and upon the prophets of Baal in the north. The Lord had sent a man named Jehu
to bring about this bloody judgment, and it happened when Ahaziah was there. So
Ahaziah was killed too. Consider what
had occurred. Ahab’s family and Baal worship had been thoroughly rooted out in
the north, at least at that moment. This was the kind of thing Elijah had
dreamt about, but he never saw. Even the wife of Ahab, wicked Queen Jezebel,
was dead. Remarkably, the only place where the family of Ahab remained in
charge was not in the north but rather in the south!
6.
Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and
mother of King Ahaziah, assumed the throne of Judah upon her son’s death. To
make sure she had no rivals to her throne, she started killing off all the
royal descendants—that is, her grandchildren. For the next six years she
reigned as queen in the south, idolatry and all. In other words, for six years
someone other than a descendant of David sat on the throne in Judah. It looked
like the line of David was wiped out, the very line of the Messiah! It may have
appeared to God’s people that the Lord had abandoned them and forgot about his
promise. The Church was still there in the south, but it was hidden.
7.
Jesus said that the gates of hell
would not prevail against his Church. The Church will never go out of existence
in this world. So long as this world stands, in it there will be believers in
Christ. This doesn’t mean that the believers will be many in number, though, or
of much influence on society. The Church’s life in this world has never been a
bed of roses, and it never will be. The Church lies hidden in this world. There
are always so many things that can lead people to say, “Oh, come on! This is
supposed to be the Lord’s Church, where God dwells among people and imparts
salvation?”
The
Church often moves so slowly, and in such a disorganized way. I once heard a
Pastor joke that one of the best arguments for the existence of God was that he
keeps his Church going despite poor organization.
8.
The Church sometimes appears so weak
to rise to its various challenge. A man, whose profession was as a chemist,
reported that it took him ten years to establish his reputation and gain the
respect of other chemists. After a mid-life career change he became a lay
church administrator, and he said he achieved the same level of respect in
church circles after only two years.
9.
The Church often lies well-hidden,
suffering persecution. Further, it can be beset with controversy and argument.
Most controversy in the Church is theological in nature. If you wait around
long enough and follow what is being said, you find that the debate has
something to do with God and his Word, even if it didn’t seem so on the
surface. People will at times look at such controversy and say, “This is the
Church? You’ve got to be kidding.” In this world, the Church is hidden.
10.
But if the Gospel is true, then the
Church must be hidden in this world. It’s not that church members are hidden;
you can see them. You cannot see the thing that makes people members of the
Church, though. For being a member of the Church is not to be from a certain
family, or to have certain likes and dislikes, hobbies or habits. Being a
member of the Church does not result from the good deeds you have done, or the
bad things you have avoided doing. The Church is people who have received
forgiveness of their sins by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
This faith is created by the Holy Spirit through the Good News, though the
Gospel and Sacraments. The Church is hidden.
11.
Of course, the devil wants the
Church to be hidden. He wants the Gospel to be suppressed. So he wants people
in the Church to grow discouraged, to quit hearing the Good News of Christ and
speaking it to others. He wants people both inside and outside the Church to be
offended when they see the Church weak or suffering, or when they hear of
controversy and problems within the Church.
12.
We must never forget that the Lord
God has a purpose in the Church’s hiddenness. He is working out his plan,
sometimes through the very challenges that the devil has concocted for the
Church and laid in her path. The Lord does not want people to attach themselves
to the Church because it is so rich, or successful, or outwardly impressive.
No, being in the Church is far different. God wants to bring people into the
Church by his Word, and the only way to receive his Word is in faith. He wants
himself and his gifts to be received in this faith, which itself is a gift of
God, lest anyone should boast.
13.
The Lord doesn’t give up on his
Word. He had not given up on it even in the terrible situation with Athaliah on
the throne in Judah. Despite all her pretenses, she was not the rightful ruler.
When she was trying to kill all her grandchildren, she missed one. The Lord had
saved one of the royal sons, a one-year-old boy named Joash. The baby
was hidden away, certainly neither looking nor acting like a king. Still, young
as he was and hidden as he was, Joash remained the real king, by God’s
Word.
14.
God had not given up on his Word. He
continued to be a very present help in time of trouble, the refuge and strength
of his people. He continued to be the Lord in whom they could confide. Finally,
when Joash was seven years old, the priests brought him out publicly, anointed
him king and so recognized him as such, and put the wicked pretender queen to
death.
15.
But, even if Athaliah had managed to
kill Joash, along with the rest of her grandchildren, the Lord would have found
a way to keep his promise to send the Messiah. Don’t ask me how, but he would
have done it. Martin Luther thought that God would have raised Joash from the
dead, just as the Book of Hebrews says God would have raised Isaac from the
dead if Abraham had killed him on Mount Moriah. (AE 47:209). Only by Word and
faith did God’s people get through this bumpy period in their history. For God
doesn’t give up on his Word.
16.
He doesn’t give up on his Word to
this day, though the Church is hidden and exists among many offenses, even when
people look at the Church and say, “Oh come on—this is where God is doing
his most important work in this world?” Yes! Sometimes it is good for the
Church to undergo problems, controversy, and even suffering. These can serve as
wake-up calls that shake us out of our lethargy and bring back to our attention
the things that truly stand out as important.
17.
The all-important Gospel is about a
Christ who lived for you, suffered for you, and died for you. Then he rose. The
members of his Church are baptized into his dying and rising. So it should come
as no surprise that the Church into which we are baptized undergoes suffering.
The cross comes before the crown. This is not a bad sign, but a good one. In
fact, it would be bad if the Church had no such challenges. If God’s Word is
not proclaimed someplace, if the Holy Spirit is not working there, if people
are not being touched and claimed and saved, then the devil finds it much
easier to leave them alone.
18.
As it is, the suffering Church lifts
up her head. Why not? Our salvation is drawing near. God will at length openly
show what is now hidden. He will topple all pretenders. He will reveal the true
King, and the exalted King will claim those who are his for all eternity. Every
knee bow will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. On
that day God will be One and his name One, and Christ will be all in all.. The peace of God that passes all
understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life
everlasting. Amen.
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