Bible

2 Kings 8-10 – How Could a Loving God Allow This?

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Every day, we hear of “random” acts of violence, people who have everything making “senseless” decisions that cost them everything, and people who “supposedly” represent a Holy God but do unholy things. You can’t help but wonder, “How could a loving God allow this?

Well, you get the same feeling reading 2 Kings chapters 8-10. So much blood-shed and murder. And it all seems to be directed by God Himself! On top of that, Jehu commands and carries out the killings, because God has communicated to him that this is the consequence of not obeying the Lord. Yet, Jehu doesn’t obey God completely either! (2 Kings 10:31) It’s like an oncologist who has just watched his patient die of lung cancer, yet goes outside for a cigarette!

So, to understand these chapters, let’s stick with the oncology theme for a minute. Think of these chapters in terms of cancer treatment. If cancer in a body is not stopped, the malignancy mutates and grows at an alarming rate. So a physician sets out to use chemotherapy and radiation to kill the cancerous cells and prevent them from completely taking over. But even though it’s only the cancer that’s targeted, many other cells (and the body itself) suffer from this treatment.

Though it doesn’t make us feel any better about it, this what is happening in 2 Kings 8-10.

We all suffer from the cancerous, addicting effects of a destructive sinful nature, yet we become indignant that God would allow bad things to happen to us. We look with smug satisfaction when others “get what they deserve,” but get upset with God if we should get what we deserve…even though God has been more gracious to us than we deserve.

Yes, 2 Kings 8-10 are ugly chapters. They point to our ugly condition and tendencies. But despite what God may allow, He is still seeking our best…even in our worst.

2 Kings 7 – Truth

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Do you ever get tired of trying to figure out who’s right and who’s wrong?

If you parent siblings, you frequently find yourself wondering, “Who’s telling the truth and who’s not?” If you listen to politicians, you often find one saying one thing, and another says something different. If you watch news networks, you find one network has one slant on things and another has a different slant.

It just gets so tiring trying to figure out what you should believe. Consequently, it’s easy to become skeptical and have trouble believing anything.

But one thing that comes through loud and clear in 2 Kings chapter 7, and it’s this…when God says something, you can bank on it. If it’s something that sounds beyond imagination, it will still come to pass…even if God has to do something beyond imagination to bring it to pass!

Proverbs 30:5 (NLT) says, “Every word of God proves true.” 1 Samuel 15:9 (NLT) says of God, “He who is the Glory of Israel will not lie, nor will He change His mind, for He is not human that He should change His mind!”

In God, and in His Word, we find a source of stable and unchanging truth. Truth we can count on. Truth we can bank on.

The question is…will we?

Will we trust and act on the unchanging truth of God, or will we continue to bounce from opinion to opinion. (1 Kings 18:21) Will we look for and listen to God’s word as truth, or will we look for and listen to what we like and ignoring what we don’t like. (2 Timothy 4:3)

Look for the truth of God and settle for nothing less. It’s the one thing you can always count on. (John 14:6)

2 Kings 6 – Your Insecurity or His Sovereignty?

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If you go to garage sales, you know the scene…

  • A variety of clothes hung on a clothesline between two trees.
  • A folding table with random and miscellaneous stuff.
  • Boxes filled with unrelated items.

In short…the organized disorganization of personal items for all to see.

At first, this was how I viewed 2 Kings chapter 6. It looked like several accounts stuck together as randomly as garage sale items…

  • An ax head comes off the ax handle, flies into the river, and is thought to be lost.
  • The user tells Elisha that the ax was borrowed, and Elisha causes the ax head to float up from the bottom of the river, so it can be retrieved.
  • The Syrian army attacks Elisha, but God reveals their movement to Elisha in advance.
  • God shows Elisha’s servant that the Syrian army is greatly outnumbered by God’s forces.
  • God causes the Syrians to not recognize Elisha, and Elisha leads them right into Israel’s hands.
  • Then Elisha says to feed the enemy army and let them go.
  • Due to a blockade by the Syrians, the economy in Israel becomes so bad, that people are literally cooking and eating their own children.
  • The king of Israel blames Elisha for all of this and sends people to seize him and put him to death.
  • Knowing they’ve come to get him, Elisha tells them that by morning there will be plenty of food.

These are great stories, but they seem randomly stuck together. Yet, if you look closely, you will find a common theme. God’s sovereignty! Sovereignty over the physical world, the political world, the international world, and the economic world.

It’s a reminder to us that there’s not an aspect of our lives that God is not completely sovereign over. That’s not to say that things will always work out the way we want, but we don’t have to worry about the end result, for God is sovereign over everything…all the time!

Is your life marked by insecurity over uncertainty or confidence over His sovereignty?

2 Kings 5 – Two Things That Always Make Sense

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THIS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE

While in seminary, I served as a hospice chaplain to patients who were diagnosed with 6 months or less to live.

There was a nice and personable patient who sticks in my memory. This man had a wonderful wife, kids, and grandkids. He had just retired and was getting ready to spend retirement traveling when he received his diagnosis. Instead of enjoying a hard-earned retirement traveling around the country, he would live out a few short months confined to a hospital bed in his house.

I remember leaving that home thinking, “There are bad people in this city who will live to a ripe old age. Yet this sweet patient will die early and never enjoy his retirement. This doesn’t make sense!”

I have the same feeling when I read 2 Kings chapter 5. The story doesn’t make sense:

  • A slave girl shows care and compassion toward her captor. (2 Kings 5:3)
  • A ruthless king shows compassion and care for a commander and sends him for healing.
  • God’s king and the servant of God’s prophet both are self-centered and lack compassion.
  • The man in need of healing is prideful and arrogant at first, yet he’s still healed.
  • The servant of God’s prophet ends up with leprosy.

In other words, the people you would have thought to be selfish were compassionate, and the people you would have thought to be compassionate were selfish.

THE TWO THINGS THAT ALWAYS MAKE SENSE

Naaman’s healing came about because of people in his life who were compassionate and cared for him, while Gehazi’s leprosy came about because of his greed and lack of compassion. (2 Kings 5:20)

Care and compassion are two things that always make sense because they are akin to God’s own heart. Selfishness and greed, on the other hand, are forces akin to the evil one.

So, despite the assumptions people might make about you, if they dug down to your core, would they find care and compassion for others or selfishness and greed for yourself? Would they find the heart of God or the heart of the enemy?

2 Kings 4 – Use Your Superpowers

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If you had superpowers, what would you do? Most of us would say something like, “help others.” But wouldn’t it be tempting to use your power to do a little grand-standing? And how would you know if you were really using your power to help others or to draw attention to yourself?

Elisha

In 2 Kings chapter 4, Elisha is doing one miracle after another. And because of the way these events are narrated, it appears that Elisha is showing off. But if you look at the chapter carefully, you find that…

  • Elisha’s interest is always focused on caring for the needs of others.
  • The miracles are often done either behind closed doors (2 Kings 4:4, 33) or in the company of the prophets (2 Kings 4:38-44.) The miracles are not to impress the general public.
  • Elisha acknowledges that he is submissive to the real miracle worker…God. (2 Kings 4:27, 43.)

Us

All of us are like Elisha. We may not be able to do dramatic miracles, but God has given us many other things we could use to benefit others. Things like our:

  • Time.
  • Talent.
  • Resources.
  • Experience.
  • Fruit of the Spirit.
  • Etc.

Though more subtle than Elisha’s miracles, we can take what God has given us and produce one miracle after another in other’s lives.

Are you doing that, or are you taking what God has given you and using it for your own benefit? Are you doing what you do for others behind closed doors, so as to not draw attention to yourself? Do you readily acknowledge that what you have is a gift from God to be gifted to others?

We do have superpowers as believers. Jesus even said that we would do even greater things than He did. (John 14:12) The Spirit that empowered Elisha and raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us as believers.

So, how will you use your superpower?

2 Kings 3 – Rediscovering What We’ve Forgotten

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When my children were little, they had more toys than they could play with on a regular basis. Consequently, as they played with their favorite toy of the week, other toys would sit forgotten at the bottom of the toy box. Then one day, seemingly out of the blue, they would start digging through the toy box and come across the toys they had forgotten. Suddenly, these old toys were like brand new toys to them.

The same sort of thing happened to me when I read through 2 Kings chapter 3. Some of the new/old things I found there were…

  • Our tendency to make the same mistakes over and over again. (v. 3)
  • The importance of loyalties, even in the face of differing opinions. (v. 7)
  • How quick we are to blame or discount God. (v. 10)
  • The importance of having God’s presence and instruction in everything we do. (v. 11)
  • How a godly presence benefits, and sometimes saves, the ungodly. (v. 14)
  • That nothing is impossible for God. (v. 20)
  • That God can use simple things (like refection on water) to carry out His purpose. (v. 22-24)
  • God’s word and His promises will come to pass…without fail. (v. 19, 25)

These are elementary principles we all know. But too often, they become like forgotten toys at the bottom of the toy box that need to be rediscovered.

May we not be so interested in making new discoveries about God and His will that we fail to rediscover what we already know to be true and powerful. May the old principles of our faith become the rediscovered practices of our life.

2 Kings 2 – Little Things

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Little things are important. If you don’t do the little things for your car…like changing the oil, rotating the tires, checking the fluid levels…it will lead to big problems. If spouses ignore little things like communication, time together, and encouraging each other, it will lead to big problems in the marriage. We tend to forget, it’s the little things that make the big things possible.

In 2 Kings chapter 2, it’s easy to focus on the big, miraculous things recorded there:

  • Parting the Jordan river.
  • A chariot of fire.
  • Elijah taken up in a whirlwind.
  • Purifying the water.
  • Bears attacking kids.

These are the big things that catch our attention in this chapter.

But there is a little thing that sets the stage for all of these bigger things. What is it? It’s Elisha’s commitment to stay close to Elijah.

Three times, Elisha tells Elijah that he will not leave him. Elisha stays as close as he can to the man of God, refusing to let him out of his sight.

There’s a line from an Aerosmith song that says, “I don’t want to close my eyes. I don’t want to fall asleep, cause I’ll miss you. And I don’t want to miss a thing.” Elisha didn’t want to miss anything Elijah was going to do. It was this little thing that allowed him to do bigger things.

Could that be the reason we don’t do mighty things for God? Is it because we don’t stay close and keep our eyes on Him? It seems like a small thing to do, but this little thing can make all the difference in the world.

If you want to see big God-sized things in your life, do the small things…like staying close and connected to God.

2 Kings 1 – Fishing for Answers

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When you were growing up and needed to get your parents to sign off on something, didn’t you know which parent was more likely to say “yes” to what you wanted? Isn’t that the parent you went to?

As adults, we still tend to seek advice from friends and family whose opinions are in line with ours.

King Ahaziah

In 2 Kings chapter 1, King Ahaziah of Israel is seriously injured and seeking the advice of a pagan prophet.

Elijah

But Elijah, the prophet of God, intercepts the king’s messenger. Elijah tells the messenger to return to king Ahaziah and tell him that, because he turned to a false god for information, he would die in the bed to which he was currently confined.

Furious at not receiving the answer he wanted, the king sends soldiers to arrest Elijah. But the soldiers are destroyed as a sign that Elijah was delivering truth from God. The king sends more soldiers, and the same thing happens to them. Then, the king sends even more soldiers. But this time the soldiers ask Elijah to be merciful and spare them. Elijah not only spares them, but he also returns with them to confront the king.

Elijah comes before the king and delivers the exact message he delivered in the beginning. No embellishment. No dramatics. He simply repeats the original message.

What happened next?! 2 Kings 1:17 makes this simple, matter-of-fact statement: “So Ahaziah died, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah.” It happened exactly as God said it would.

Us

What is it that leads us to turn to anything and everything but God? Why do we turn to that which will feed our ego, rather than to that which will feed our soul? Why do we fish for the answers we want, rather than the truth we need?

God knows the beginning from the end. (Revelation 1:8) He has the answers we need, and we should pursue His answers, even if they’re not really what we want to hear.

1 Kings 21-22 – You Can’t Get Away With It!

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Some people just don’t get it. Do you know the type? These people don’t listen, even though the message is clear and strong. They keep walking down the wrong paths, even though the warning signs are loud and clear. It’s as if they think they’re exempt from the consequences, even though the consequences are nipping at their heels. They are what the Bible calls…fools.

This is the picture we get of King Ahab, in 1 Kings chapters 21-22. Ahab is self-focused. Despite the warnings and consequences, he wants what he wants. He only wants to hear what he wants to hear and tries to squelch the truth he doesn’t want to hear. (See 1 Kings chapter 22.)

But God’s truth and God’s consequences are sure, no matter what we do to ignore them or avoid them. We can’t escape God. That’s why an arrow, shot randomly into a crowd of soldiers, finds the disguised Ahab and strikes him in the very small space between the joints in his armor.

Lucky shot? I think not. Numbers 32:23 tells us that we can be sure that our sin will find us out. Ignoring our rebellion and denying our sin will not make it go away. And it will not make God go away!

Don’t be like king Ahab; doing what you want, when you want, and how you want. Listen to God, follow His instruction, count the cost of discipleship, and avoid the consequences of serving yourself.

“Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.” (Galatians 6:7 NLT)

1 Kings 20 – Disregarding God

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Have you ever done something good for someone, only to have that person disregard you? When that happens, your response is often, “How could they do that, after all I’ve done for them?!”

This is the theme and feel of 1 Kings chapter 20. Twice, God rescues King Ahab of Israel by giving him victory over King Ben-Hadad of Aram…despite overwhelming odds. There should have been no way King Ahab could have survived, let alone been victorious in these two battles. But God intervened and gave Ahab the victory so that he would know the Lord was really God. (1 Kings 20:13, 28)

Yet, after all God did for Ahab, Ahab disregards God by disobeying His command to kill King Ben-Hadad. And Ahab disobeyed, not because of humanitarian reasons, but because of his greed. (1 Kings 20:34)

Then, after being confronted with what he’s done and the consequences of his disobedience, Ahab cops an attitude. (1 Kings 20:43)

You read this story and think, “What’s up with this guy?! What a jerk!” But, before you judge Ahab too harshly, you need to ask yourself, “Have I ever been guilty of the same thing? Have I received help, blessing, and rescue from God, only to later disregard Him? Have I failed to recognize my indebtedness to Him?”

As He was with Ahab, God has been gracious toward us…daily. We’re not even aware of all the times He’s rescued us, protected us, and provided for us throughout life. The honor and obedience He deserves from us should be a small token of our gratitude.

Today, take time to recognize God’s goodness toward you and take some time to respond to Him in gratitude and obedience.