1. Grumpy Prophets and Ill Bears
2 Kings 2:23-24

2. Youthful Indiscretion “…young lads… mocked…Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!”
“Bethel is mentioned in over sixty verses in the Bible, representing over thirty distinct stories and prophecies, all of them in the Old Testament.”
Lee Woofenden

3. Youthful Indiscretion “…young lads… mocked…Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!”
Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, set up golden calves in Bethel and had the people worship there instead of Jerusalem.

4. Youthful Indiscretion “…young lads… mocked…Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!”
IDOLATRY – “…is having or inventing something in which one trusts in place of or alongside of the only true God, who has revealed himself in the Word”
(Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 95)

5. Youthful Indiscretion “…young lads… mocked…Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!”
“If there is a God, how can I bear not to be that God?”
Friedrich Neitzsche

6. Youthful Indiscretion “…young lads… mocked…Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!”
"'In the beginning Kanye created the heaven and the earth…”
“Kanye said, Let there be light: and there was light.'"

7. Youthful Indiscretion “…young lads… mocked…Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!”
“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
Genesis 11:4

8. Prophetic Indignation “…he cursed them…”
This same term applied to Joseph when he was 39 (Genesis 41:12), to Absalom as an adult (2 Samuel 14:21, 18:5), and to Solomon when he was 20 (1 Kings 3:7).

9. Prophetic Indignation “…he cursed them…”
“Is this you, you troubler of Israel”(King Ahab)
1 Kings 18

10. Prophetic Indignation “…he cursed them…”
“There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
1 Timothy 3:1-5

11. Prophetic Indignation “…he cursed them…”
“Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.
Philippians 3:19 (ESV)

12. Divine Retribution “…two…bears…tore up…”
“…at the time when these young fellows insulted the prophet, the bears might be tracing the footsteps of the murderers of their young, and thus came upon them in the midst of their insults, God's providence ordering these occurrences so as to make this natural effect appear as a Divine cause.”
Adam Clarke

13. Things to Remember and Do
slower

14. Things to Consider
In our modern materialistic society our deities are no longer objects that need to be appeased or placated, but rather things that appease or placate us.
This culture desires that their sin not only be embraced, but legally protected as a legitimate way of life.
Do you respect divine authority?