God’s Word

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 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.