Living Water Community Church

We worked our way through the last narrative section in the book of Daniel. It is the majestic and familiar story of Daniel and his night spent in the lion’s den. The story is driven by men jealous of the power and favor God had granted Daniel. He has taken on a new role advising Darius, the new ruler of Babylon. Darius was planning to place Daniel over all the wise men and this did not sit well with some of them. Since they couldn’t seem to establish any dirt on Daniel they resorted to lawfare. They knew Daniel prayed to his God three times a day. They suggested to Darius, he should issue a decree for all men to make their prayers and petitions to him alone for the next 30 days. If they petitioned anyone but the king they would be thrown into the lion’s den. Darius was a new king and thought this was a good idea, probably seeing it as a way of establishing his authority over the newly conquered territory. Since this was a law of the Medes and Persians it could not be changed. Upon learning the document had been signed by Darius, Daniel went to his house and prayed to Yahweh. This violation of the new law was reported to Darius who became distressed over this new development and labored to rescue Daniel until the sun went down. He was unable to circumvent the new law and eventually called for Daniel to be cast into the lion’s den. Before he was cast in Darius declared, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” Daniel was cast in, a stone was laid over the opening and Darius sealed it with his ring. Darius did not sleep but spent the night fasting. At daybreak he went to the den and cried out to Daniel asking in anguish if his God was able to deliver him. To Darius surprise and delight Daniel answered, God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths. He commanded Daniel be taken out of the den and the men who had tricked him into signing this new law be brought and cast into the den with their wives and children. He then issued a new decree to all the people to stand in fear and trembling before the God of Daniel because He is the living God. Daniel was faithful and trusted God and God delivered Him.

Each chapter we have worked through so far has given us different aspects of God’s nature and work.
• In chapter 1 - Daniel and his 3 friends were made healthy and strong on a vegetarian diet. This was clearly a work of God and it communicates to us how God remembers His people and sustains them. The message is about how God never forgets His own people even when things seem to be going really wrong.
• In chapter 2 - Nebuchadnezzar is troubled by a dream and demands his wise men tell him both the dream and its meaning or die. God gives the dream and its meaning to Daniel and rescues him and his friends from death.
• In chapter 3 - Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refuse to bow to an idol and are thrown into an extremely hot furnace. Nebuchadnezzar sees a fourth man like a son of the God’s walking in the fire with them. He calls them to come out and declares how their God is the true God. This points to how God is with His people in all circumstances.
• In chapter 4 - Nebuchadnezzar gives his testimony of how God cast him down from his pride to live like an animal for 7 periods of time. After he comes to acknowledge and honor God, God restores him and makes him greater than before. The big message here especially for people in exile is, “God restores the humble.”
• In chapter 5 - We see a stark contrast with the testimony of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 4. Here in chapter 5 an arrogant king Belteshazzar exercises rebellion against God and God brings judgement against Belteshazzar. This chapter declares how God is a just God and will judge the unrepentant prideful heart.

We heard the final part of what I call Nebuchadnezzar’s testimony. It is the only chapter in Daniel which appears to be the dictated words of someone else and in this case it is Nebuchadnezzar asking Daniel to write down these things. It is the greatest king of that day bearing witness to the greatness of the God of Daniel. He bears testimony to this by pointing out how he had a dream which troubled him. He called on many wise men to tell him the dream but it was finally Daniel who was able to interpret it. It is a dream about a great tree which reached to the heavens was visible everywhere on earth and was the sustainer of all the birds and beasts. In the dream a watcher from heaven comes and declares the tree should be cut down but a band of iron and bronze are to be put around the stump until 7 times pass by. Daniel was hesitant to give the king what amounted to bad news. The king saw this and told Daniel not to fear. So Daniel tells the king how he is the tree and he is going to be cut down and driven into a state of madness for 7 periods of time. Once the king comes to recognize the greatness of God his sanity and kingdom will be restored. One year later Nebuchadnezzar was walking on the roof of his royal palace and as he looked on Babylon he began to declare his own greatness. As he was making much of himself a voice came from heaven telling him the kingdom has departed from him and he will be driven from among men and will dwell with the beasts. He ate grass like an ox and lived like and animal until 7 periods of time passed over him, and he came to realize the most high rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom He will. This happened and at the end of 7 periods of time Nebuchadnezzar said he lifted his eyes to heaven and said, “I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” Upon coming to recognize the greatness of God and that all glory belongs to Him, Nebuchadnezzar’s reason returned to him. God established him in his kingdom and gave him even more greatness. Nebuchadnezzar’s story is an incredible story of God pursuing a pagan man and bringing him to himself. It shows us God will do whatever is necessary in order to bring a person to repentance. God is able to save anyone He has set His love upon. He is the great and glorious God who has sent His Son to seek and to save those who are lost and in rebellion against Him.

We will continue our study of worship by the content of our worship according to scripture. To put it a little more clearly what dose the Bible indicate we are required to know in order to worship. This becomes vitally important when we consider how salvation is primarily about creating worshippers of God. It then makes sense God would communicate to us through His word how our worship should be shaped. For instance those who are followers of Islam do not believe Jesus is a member of the trinity. They do not believe Jesus is God in the flesh. Because of this no matter how much worship they offer they are creating a false god who falls short of the God of the Bible. What you believe matters when is comes to worship.

We worked through the first part of Daniel 4. In this chapter we have Nebuchadnezzar having another dream. The chapter starts out with this appearing to be a dictation from Nebuchadnezzar to Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar starts out by giving glory to the most high God. The God who has shown His power to Nebuchadnezzar through Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Because this story starts out this way and because of the way it ends this appears to be Nebuchadnezzar’s testimony and confession of faith in this God he is giving glory to. Nebuchadnezzar is a prospering in his palace and at ease when he is troubled by a dream which alarmed him. It is a cryptic dream and he calls on all his wise men to come and none of them could interpret the dream. Finally Daniel comes before him and he tells him the dream. He saw a tree which grew and became great and its height reached to heaven. You could see it from anywhere on earth. It provided food and shade for all the beast and birds. Everything was fed from it. A holy one from heaven came down and proclaimed it should be cut down, but the stump should be left and bound with a band of iron and bronze. The holy one or watcher begins speaking of the tree using personal pronouns. The watcher says that he should be given the mind of a beast and 7 periods of time should pass over him. Then the vision ends with a declaration of how the holy ones have decided this, “...to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.” Daniel was said to be alarmed by the dream and the king told Daniel not to be alarmed by it. Daniel then goes on to tell the king how the tree is him and his kingdom.

We worked through chapter 3 and in it we really get a view into the second major time God confronts Nebuchadnezzar. The first time God confronted Nebuchadnezzar was with the recurring dream. The dream he demanded his wise men tell him along with its meaning. God uses Daniel to convey the dream and its meaning but also Daniel points out to Nebuchadnezzar how God is the source of the dream and its interpretation. This made it clear to Nebuchadnezzar where the source really was. The second time was in Daniel three when Nebuchadnezzar demanded his leaders from all over his kingdom come and bow down before the statue he has constructed. We are not entirely sure what drove this demand. The Bible does not record for us the motivating factors but there is a historic record of a rebellion in the kingdom of Babylon about the tenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. If this was the motivation behind this then it was a test of loyalty. Failure to comply was a sign of disloyalty and explains the extreme consequences for not following orders. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did not bow down to the statue. Their failure was reported and they were brought before the king who was angry at their disobedience to his command. Nebuchadnezzar was willing to give them another chance to bow down when the music played but they quite firmly affirmed how no matter what the king wanted they would not bow to the image the king had constructed. They also made it clear this was out of loyalty to their God Yahweh and they were willing to face the death sentence rather than bow down. This made the king furious and he ordered the furnace made as hot as it could possibly be made. This furnace was probably a large brick kiln used for firing bricks to make the walls of Babylon. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego told the king their God was capable of delivering them from death but even if He did not they would not bow to his image. King Nebuchadnezzar ordered two of his soldiers to bind them and throw them into the furnace. The furnace was so hot the men throwing in the three Hebrew men died. To Nebuchadnezzar’s surprise the three Hebrews survived and appeared to be walking around in the flames with a fourth man who appeared to Nebuchadnezzar to be like a son of the gods. This is most likely a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus. Since they did not die Nebuchadnezzar went near to the furnace and called out to them to come out. Upon exiting the furnace, the king and his counselors witnessed how their was no evidence of fire exposure on them or their clothing in any way. The king then blesses the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego for the miraculous delivery of His loyal servants who would rather face death then worship any god but Him. This resulted in the king issuing a decree of retribution against anyone who says anything against Yahweh. The king also promoted the three young men. This story is not really about the young Hebrews but rather about God who is powerful and able to save. This is the God we serve and He can and does rescue all who follow Him from eternal death and damnation. This is who our hope is in. This is the God who is confronting the ruler of the world at this point in time.

We worked through the end of chapter 2. Here we witnessed Daniel going before Nebuchadnezzar with his dream and its interpretation. Daniel makes it clear to Nebuchadnezzar how it is impossible for men to know what he dreamed, but God in heaven knows all things and He gave Nebuchadnezzar this dream to reveal to him what is coming. Daniel then tells him he dreamed of a massive statue with a head of gold, chest of silver, waist of bronze, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay. A stone is cut without hands and strikes the feet of the statue and the rest of the statue falls on it and is shattered to dust and blown away by the wind. After this the stone grows to fill the whole earth. Then Daniel explains what the dream means. The different metals of the statue represent world empires. The head of gold is Nebuchadnezzar and the kingdom of Babylon. Daniel explains how each of the successive sections of the statue replace the one before it. The feet of iron and potters clay are not stable and the stone cut without hands destroys the feet and the statue. We then jumped forward and looked at Luke 20:17-18. Here Jesus refers to himself as the stone the builders rejected, but this stone has become the cornerstone. He then uses imagery from Daniel to talk about how everyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces and it crushes anyone on whom it falls. This reference to Jesus as a stone is one of a half dozen references scattered throughout the New Testament. The amazing thing about this dream is how it has been accurately played out in a straightforward manner. Each of the successive world empires which came to power fit with the different sections of the statue. While some may argue the point I think the feet of iron and clay match really well with the way Rome became divided over time. We could accurately say this division was probably aided and brought on by the rise of Christianity and the way in which Christians would rather die then offer incense to the emperor. The amazing thing to consider is how Christianity has grown. It is now found on every continent on earth. It is the largest religion in the world and continues to grow. While it may be stagnant or in decline here it is clearly vibrant in growing in other parts of the world. In a dramatic way we see the dream of Nebuchadnezzar continuing to work its way out as the stone cut without hands continues to grow. One other thing really striking about this story is its impact on Nebuchadnezzar. He honors Daniel and declares Daniel’s God to be God of gods and Lord of kings. In this statement Nebuchadnezzar is recognizing the supreme power and authority of Yahweh. This is Nebuchadnezzar’s first encounter with Daniel and his God and we will see God continue to reveal His great power to Nebuchadnezzar as a way of calling Nebuchadnezzar to Himself and leaving him without excuse.

We began to explore the part of Daniel where the king has a dream and ask the wise men of Babylon to tell him the dream and the interpretation of it. The kings advisors object to this and ask for Nebuchadnezzar to tell them the dream and they would give the interpretation. This angers Nebuchadnezzar who demands they tell him the dream as well as the interpretation because he believes they are frauds. They again object and tell him to know the dream is in the realm of the gods. Nebuchadnezzar is enraged and orders his executioner to kill all the wise men of Babylon. It appears on hearing this the wise men scatter. The executioner goes to the school where Daniel and the other new wise men in training are being taught. They apparently did not know what had transpired so Daniel asks what’s going on to bring on their death. The executioner tells him and Daniel asks if he could interpret the kings dream for him. The executioner takes Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar and he arranges for some time to seek God for the answers to the kings request. This stays the execution of all the wise men. God visits Daniel with the answer. This leads Daniel into four verses filled with praise. Daniel does this before he even goes to the king because he is certain of God’s provision of the answer. Daniel’s praise highlights how God is the source of wisdom and strength. God is the one establishes kings and removes them. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness. He knows all things and has made known to Daniel this matter of the kings. What we see in the beginning of this story is how Daniel is faced with a life threatening situation. His response is to turn to God depend on God and direct others to the source of wisdom and might.

We explored what scripture has to say about the centrality of worship to the Christian life. Quite literally worship from a scriptural point of view is the reason we are saved. When Jesus was tempted by the devil, the third temptation was to worship Satan and receive the nations of the world without going to the cross. We looked at whether this was a legitimate offer or not, but according to scripture Jesus Himself recognized Satan as the ruler of this world prior to the cross. This raises of course other questions. One of them is when did Satan become the ruler. This had to take place when Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. At this point in History Adam went from being the vice-regent or ruler of this world by command of God to being the conquered ruler of this world by means of following Satan in disobedience. Through his fall Adam lost his rulership to Satan. This only pertained to the command God gave Adam to rule over the earth in Genesis 1:28. Jesus as the new and better Adam through the incarnation was the perfect seed God had promised. This seed would need to face the wrath of God on behalf of men in order for them to be set free from their bondage to Satan and His rule. By doing this and rising from the dead Jesus conquered the ruler of this world and broke his hold over mankind. Jesus is now the rightful ruler of this world by means of conquest over sin and death and Satan. He sits at God’s right hand until all of his enemies are put under his feet, which is the very definition of subdue from Genesis 1:28 where Adam was commanded to subdue and rule. Jesus was tempted by Satan to bypass the facing the wrath of God on behalf of men in order to break the power of sin and death. It was a very real temptation. We see the weight of what Jesus did on the cross, in the garden as He sweated great drops of blood because of the sheer overwhelming nature of what he faced in his humanity. This was no walk in the park and Satan’s temptation was very real. At the heart of this temptation was worship. Jesus clearly declares to Satan, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”

We worked through the second half of Daniel 1. We see here how Daniel and his three friends remain faithful to God as they are carried off into Babylonian captivity. This story really echoes the story of Joseph in many ways. They are both sent to bear witness before kings and princes. They remain undefiled when they are faced with temptation and worldly solutions. They both depend on God in the midst of situations which could cost them their lives. They are both preserved by God and both come to interpret dreams through the power of God’s revelation. They are both exulted to positions of power next to the king. They both foreshadow Jesus who was sent from heaven to earth to bear witness of the one true God before kings and princes. Jesus entered into a fallen sin soaked world without ever defiling Himself. Like Daniel and Joseph He found favor with God and man. Teachers were amazed at His understanding even at 12 years old. Jesus is the manifestation of all the wisdom of God. He is the greater and better Daniel. He refused to compromise when the ruler of this world offered him bread, fame, and rulership if He would only depend on something other than God alone. Because of all this Jesus could stand in our place as the substitute we all needed. He could satisfy God’s wrath and bear our penalty. In His death burial and resurrection He has established His kingdom and has defeated Satan. He is now the ruler of this world and has been exalted to a position next to God the Father. Jesus kingdom is a kingdom which will never end and will one day be the only kingdom of God and man.

We really dove into the background of what happened to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. They were most likely from the royal family or from the nobility. They were also considered pleasing to look at and educated. These young men experienced a radically dramatic shift in their lives. They were taken from lives of privilege to the life of servitude in a foreign kings court. Daniel and his friends would never again see their families or their country. On top of the radical change the king had a plan to integrate the captured young leaders into the Babylonian culture. There was a three year reeducation program in place. They changed their names from God exulting Yahweh honoring names to names which pointed to Chaldean gods.

We will continue to explore this concept of how our whole life is to be lived to the glory of God. We strive to sacrifice for the glory of God. We strive to love others and the Lord. And these things will drive unity and fellowship in the body of Christ. These things are connected to being renewed in our minds. It starts in our head and heart and moves out into our actions. This is what presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice will start to look like. As our minds are renewed we will be able to test and discern what the will of God is. What is good and acceptable and perfect.

We ended on verse eighteen and this time we will be starting there. This verse wraps up the section we were exploring about the armor of God. The section on armor really sets a great final theme for wrapping up this letter. Paul encourages us to put on this armor to stand against the devil. We are not in a battle against flesh and blood. It may feel like it at times but everyone you encounter who is not a Christian is also hated by Satan. To the devil and all the spiritual forces at work in the world the very existence of man reminds them of their defeat at the cross through the work of Jesus. He was the new Adam and He did what Adam could not do. He conquered the fallen kingdom as the new and perfect representative of man. His favorite term for Himself was Son of Man. This is because His intention was not just to be the messiah of the Jews but to be the redeemer of all creation. Through His work on the cross He would make a way for all men who repent and put their faith in Jesus as Lord to be rescued from sin and death. Instead they are made new and righteous members of the kingdom of God filled with hope and peace with the promise of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul is then telling us to put on this armor because this battle is an already won battle. The armor of God gives us the strength to stand the onslaught of the devil. Even men who oppose us don’t usually realize their being driven by spiritual forces go against us. Fallen men are not our enemies. They are pawns of our enemy and we should have compassion on them and pray for them. As we examined the armor it is clearly God working to strengthen us for the battle we face. We put on the belt of truth, because it is truth which holds everything together. The breastplate of righteousness protects us from the evil things in this world Satan would use to harm us. By living righteously in Jesus we will be rescued from the evil which could destroy us. Our shoes are shod with the gospel of peace. We stand in the gospel and it is not something to trample other men with but it is the good news which will bring them peace with God if they repent and follow Jesus as Lord. We are then called to take up the shield of faith which doesn’t only block the enemies attack but it extinguishes their fiery darts. Paul then calls us to put on the helmet of salvation. One of the ideas here would be our minds are protected but in addition our lives show everyone we are saved. It becomes evident to everyone that we are followers of our Lord Jesus. The final piece is the sword of the Spirit this is the word of God. We see this used so effectively by Jesus all the time. He used it in His battle with Satan during his temptation. He used it again and again in His conflict with the pharisees and Sanhedrin as they came against Him. We should all be preparing for conflict by memorizing God’s word and meditating on it. Paul really is calling on us to immerse ourselves in the relationship with God we have been called to. To live out of this relationship and depend on it to the glory of God.

We explored the section where Paul addresses slaves and masters. It is interesting historically because the roles of slaves and masters at this point in Roman history was much closer to the modern roles of employees and employers. Because of the slave uprisings and because it is estimated that two-thirds of the population of Rome were slaves, they were treated generally pretty well. Slaves had more legal rights then free laborers did. So when Paul addresses slaves and masters we should be thinking of employees and employers. In a nutshell the goal of Paul’s teaching is for slaves to serve their masters or employees to serve their employers as if they were serving Jesus. The opposite is also true employers should be treating their employees as if the employee was Jesus. Ultimately this approach to the relationship between employees and employers is going to be concerned with the relationship itself, and in this there is going to be a lot of depending on Jesus to help us. The hope for the Christian employer or employee should be the eternal state of the person they are working with.

We are looking at what God calls us to consider as we think about worshipping Him.
We have looked at the fact that all of life is really to be lived in worship of God. Yet how important do we hold worship to be? It is such a core element of seeking God that it would not be overstating it to say worship to the most crucial component of the Christian life. We fail to think properly about worship when we associate it with one element of our lives. When we identify worship as praise and adoration of God we are correct, but when worship is only thought of in relation to singing we have missed the broader picture painted for us in God’s word.

As we considered the first four verses of Ephesians 6 we continued to deal with the topic of roles and responsibilities which was introduced with the topic of marriage in chapter 5. What Paul addressed in those 4 verses was the roles of children and parents. These roles are critical and important. Paul is laying a solid groundwork for what is the core unit of the church; the family. What he shows us in this passage is how Christianity is a faith for families. All members of the family are called to engage and to respond to the direction God has given. Children are addressed as being capable of engaging in a relationship with God which drives their actions. They are called to obey their parents in the Lord. They are also called to honor their father and mother. Children are promised their obedience and honor of their parents will result in a long life and things going well with them. Fathers and by extension mothers are called to not provoke their children to anger but to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. This essentially lays the responsibility for Jesus focused living and instruction squarely at the feet of parents. These are important roles and responsibilities which have far reaching impact for the church.

We worked through the last part of the section on the roles and responsibilities of husbands and wives. The picture the text paints is majestic in how it points us to the person and work of Jesus for the church, as the model for married couples to look to. Wives can think of their role as mirroring the role of the church in its relationship to Jesus. Men can think of their role as mirroring the role of Jesus in how He leads as a servant and lays down His life for the church. Paul even points us back to the creation of Eve for Adam as a foreshadowing or a picture of Jesus relationship to His bride. Paul goes so far as to say the mystery of marriage is it’s creation is a picture of Jesus and His bride. In other words the greater and better reality of marriage is found in Jesus and the church. One of the most beautiful pictures of this is found in how when Eve is created even her creation is a mirror of how the church will be created by God for Jesus through His work on the cross. God put Adam to sleep as if in death and took a piece of his side as if it was pierced and He fashioned from this a bride for Adam because God was thinking of the future death of Jesus and how His side would be pierced and from Jesus shed blood God planned to fashion a bride for His Son. So marriage is this amazing picture we have been entrusted with. It is important for us to see it in this light and value it as the foreshadowing it is. This just raises the bar on how important it is for husbands to love their wives like Jesus loves the church and gives Himself up for it. It also provides a clear reference for how submission and respect of the church to Jesus is a guide for the wife to submit to and respect her husband. The thing which is really clear from the passage is how both of the spousal roles are ones which they are called to take upon themselves. It is not the husbands job to force the wife to submit and it is not the wives job to demand the husbands love. Both of them are called to enter into this because of their relationship with Jesus. In fact if you look at the curse as we did two weeks ago you will see how the roles the Christian is called to in marriage are really commands to overcome as much as possible the curse against men and women in the garden after the fall.

We began to work through the section dealing with the roles of husbands and wives in the context of marriage. What we discover in this section is a call for Christian husbands and wives to work at doing the things which are contrary to our fallen nature and the curse. We explored how the curse of God on Adam and Eve brought division and strife into their relationship. In looking at the things brought by the curse we see how the things laid out in this Ephesians passage counteract the curse. It calls women who are cursed with a desire which is contrary to their husbands to submit themselves to their husbands. It calls men who are cursed with a work oriented outlook, where they are consumed by their work, to work at overcoming this preoccupation with work by loving their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. What we essentially see here is how our marriages are restored by the work of Jesus and through our restored marriages comes transformed families, churches and ultimately the world.

We examined verses 15-20 of chapter 5. Here we see Paul calling us to build up the body of Christ to be free standing moral agents in this world. The world needs to see people who are different and make a difference. People who stand for what is right according to God’s word and live it out. The opening verse calls us to walk in wisdom. The call is to follow the will of the Lord. In order to follow God’s will we need to know what God says and we need to cultivate a love and desire for God. In the context Paul gives us the example of not being drunk with wine but by contrast being filled with the Spirit. This example is one of many we could point to which demonstrates turning to God to find what we need rather than turning to something this world has to offer. Essentially Paul is calling on his readers to fined their fulfillment in God rather than making idols out of things which ultimately will not satisfy. The last two verses we looked at really call us to center our lives on living out a life of thanksgiving to God. Verse nineteen is a call to sing praise to God and to use the gift of music to encourage each other. The goal is even to make melody in our hearts to God. Verse twenty is a call to give thanks to God always and for everything. The understanding here would be how everything ultimately comes from God and is part of His plan for His glory and our benefit. In a fallen world this simply means sometimes pain is involved in the journey. When we discipline our children it will sometimes be painful. The pain is for their benefit. It is meant to curb them from actions which are evil and draw them away from God. God brings discipline into the lives of His children for the same reason to curb us from actions which are evil and draw us away from God. When we keep this perspective we can truly thank God for everything because we know it will result in good.

The worship of God matters to God. While all of life is worship there are certainly things which God finds unacceptable. Understanding how to worship in the right way is the duty of every Christian. We all need the ultimate and only sacrifice found in Jesus death, burial and resurrection. Jesus is our only hope and the best possible hope. Any man centered method of gaining salvation is intolerable to God. We look at 4 different intolerable forms of worship of God. May we worship God in Spirit and Truth.

Today we turn our attention to how Paul is calling us here to be agents who call people out of the world of sin.
We see a foreshadowing of God’s plan of salvation being heralded in the opening verses of Genesis. This passage we are in contrast again and again light and darkness. Philippians 4:8 teaches us to set our minds on, "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
We should remember how we dwelt in darkness and where we came from.

We worked through the beginning of chapter 5. The chapter really began the time before last as Paul laid out the reasons to be motivated to be imitators of God. Namely, the great love God has shown us in Jesus and His work on the cross for us, which brings us into His family as beloved children. This foundation is the basis for Paul to address how the people he is writing to, face enormous temptations to all kinds of sexual sins. He lays out first how sexual immorality, impurity or covetousness shouldn’t be found anywhere in their community. He goes on to point out how even crude joking, foolish talk and filthiness should be replaced with thanksgiving. He also lays out how being made new in Jesus makes being connected to these things a contradiction. Meaning you cannot live a life devoted to intentionally sinning in these ways and expect to gain eternity with Jesus in heaven. Being devoted to these things is fundamentally idolatry and you are declaring by participating in these things where your heart really is committed. Paul then warns how people will come along teaching how these things are acceptable but all they have to offer is really empty words. There is no truth in them and those who follow them will face God’s wrath. The big idea here is how everything we are should be rooted in gratitude to God for all He has done. A heart driven by love to focus on our heavenly Father is the best remedy to the world calling us to sin.

We explored the end of chapter four and the first two verses of chapter five. Keep in mind Paul is addressing the city of Ephesus and probably the cities in the region. We know by the time John wrote Revelation the Ephesians were diligent about their faith and defending it in the midst of a perverse culture. But the one problem they had was a loss of their first love for the Lord. These things Paul is writing about in the last half of this book are really relevant for this issue. If we consider the first half of this epistle we will see it is very focused on the work of God in and through Jesus and the impact of salvation in saving and transforming us. The last half is laser focused on what we should expect this transformation to look like. One of the things we have seen and will continue to see is how the way we should be living in relationship with each other is tied to the relationship God has established with us. The reason we bridged the chapter last time was because of this very thing. Paul wraps chapter four by pointing out a laundry list of sinful actions rooted generically in forms of anger or envy and calls us to be a people who are set apart by kindness and forgiveness of one another. Why? Because God in Christ has forgiven us. And the beginning of chapter five really continues the emphasis because he starts verse one with therefore and points out how we should be imitators of God. Paul points out how our desire to imitate God should be very much like the desire of deeply loved children to imitate the one who loves them. Then Paul points out in verse two how our love should be measured against the love of Jesus who gave Himself up for us. Then Paul describes the sacrifice of Jesus as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. When we consider what Paul is suggesting here it is truly shocking. Jesus death by Roman crucifixion was a horrific thing for anyone to see. Yet Paul describes it here as fragrant to God. How can the death of God’s only begotten son be fragrant in the Father’s eyes? Because Jesus is atoning for the sins of all those who God has set His love on. Jesus is making it possible for God to demonstrate His love for us. The love God has for us as rebellious sinful people is so intense that Jesus death to make this loves demonstration possible makes Jesus death a fragrant offering to God. Jesus death is a fragrant offering in God’s eyes because it enables His love to be demonstrated. This is why as imitators of God as dearly loved children we are to be a kind, forgiving, tenderhearted, loving people.

For some time the subject of worship has been recurring in my life and study. It has been increasingly grabbing my attention and has come up in multiple conversations with different people. It seems like this is a good time to explore this topic and see what the word of God has to say about it. Today I want to try and lay out from scripture what it tells us worship is. Since our main point of gathering as a community of believers is worship it would appear we should understand what this word means. Yet I find myself over and over combating what I believe to be bad ideas about worship. For many worship is so narrowly defined it often ends up being identified with music. Certainly music is powerful and it is a means of worship but it is not the only way we are called to worship by the word of God. Because we are exploring this topic over the coming months on the first Sunday of the month we will certainly look in depth at the role music plays and consider what scripture tells us about it but today I want to take a broader look at what the Bible has to tell us about this topic. First of all it is important to realize the word worship appears in the Bible in the ESV 110 times. It appears in both the old and new testaments. It is translated into the word worship from 19 different greek and Hebrew words. The Bible calls us to engage in worship.

We learned from Paul how we must have a different walk from the world. Meaning our lives need to look different from the world. But this difference in our lives needs to be rooted in the life of God and not in simply following a set of rules for living. Paul’s main contention is if we have come to know Jesus we have received the light which comes along with knowing Him. This illumination comes along with a heart of flesh which has replaced the hard heart we once had. The light of God and the heart of flesh come together to create in us a new man shaped by the work of God in us. As a new creation in Christ we are called to put off the deceitful desires and corruption which was part of our former manner of life. The idea is to stop doing the things which we used to do and to replace those former things with things which renew the spirit of our minds. Clearly Paul is talking about what we think about and dwell on. The goal should be a focus on God and His true righteousness and holiness. As people who are coming to know God and who have learned Christ we are called to embrace the relationships God has given us.

Chapter 4 began with a call to walk in a manner which is worthy of the calling we have received. Part of this calling is to bear with one another and to seek unity and peace. After giving this call to unity in Christ and rooting it in the unity found in God Himself Paul moves on to talk about how this unity plays out in the church. The church is one body. To begin with each of the members of the body has been uniquely gifted by God. The reason we have been gifted and set apart is firmly rooted in the person and work of Jesus. We explored how when Paul talks about Jesus descending to the lower regions of the earth he is really talking about the role Jesus plays as the new Adam. His descent is linked in the passage to His ascent which should point us to His death and resurrection. These are pivotal to Jesus role as the messiah and the new Adam. It is in this role He fulfills God’s command to Adam to subdue and to rule. He currently rules at God’s right hand and God is bringing everything into subjection to Him. One of the key ways He is doing this is through the church. The church has many members and each of those members has an important role to play in the body. It is as the body the work of ministry is accomplished. We are called to build each other up. To equip each other. All of this is achieved through our unity in faith in Christ. We come to maturity through our knowledge of the Son of God and our conformity to His image. The goal then is for us to each point one another to Christ and help each other to be conformed to His image. The whole idea here is to push beyond head knowledge or passive knowledge to relationally knowing Jesus and becoming more like Him.

Chapter 4 began with a call to walk in a manner which is worthy of the calling we have received. Part of this calling is to bear with one another and to seek unity and peace. After giving this call to unity in Christ and rooting it in the unity found in God Himself Paul moves on to talk about how this unity plays out in the church. The church is one body. To begin with each of the members of the body has been uniquely gifted by God. The reason we have been gifted and set apart is firmly rooted in the person and work of Jesus. We explored how when Paul talks about Jesus descending to the lower regions of the earth he is really talking about the role Jesus plays as the new Adam. His descent is linked in the passage to His ascent which should point us to His death and resurrection. These are pivotal to Jesus role as the messiah and the new Adam. It is in this role He fulfills God’s command to Adam to subdue and to rule. He currently rules at God’s right hand and God is bringing everything into subjection to Him. One of the key ways He is doing this is through the church. The church has many members and each of those members has an important role to play in the body. It is as the body the work of ministry is accomplished. We are called to build each other up. To equip each other. All of this is achieved through our unity in faith in Christ. We come to maturity through our knowledge of the Son of God and our conformity to His image. The goal then is for us to each point one another to Christ and help each other to be conformed to His image. The whole idea here is to push beyond head knowledge or passive knowledge to relationally knowing Jesus and becoming more like Him.

Today we celebrate explicitly the great work of Jesus in overcoming sin, and death by sin, in completing the work of paying for our sin, and rising from the dead. He lived a perfect life and He who new no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. We call this transfer of our sin to Jesus propitiation. We became righteous because His righteousness was given to us. We call this transfer of His righteousness to us expiation. Today I want to focus on something which has fallen out of popularity in our world but we must not forget. The fact that we were under the curse of sin and Jesus became a curse for us. This may be most explicitly laid out in our main passage today.

We just finished summarizing how the prayer is a petition for Paul’s readers to be strengthened by the riches of God’s glory through the Holy Spirit. That Jesus may dwell in our hearts through faith. That we would be strengthened to comprehend the immeasurable nature of His love for us. That we would know this love not just in our heads but we would experience it. God calls us to "put up with one another" especially when it is difficult. We strive for unity in the body of Christ. Christ should be first in our hearts and pervasive to us throughout our lives. The Church needs to set her heart on Christ.

We worked through the prayer Paul prays for his readers. He wants them to know the immeasurable riches of God. God gives us these riches for His glory, He does this because He has given us His Son and He sees us in Jesus. All of this is bound up in God’s love for us. This love of God is immeasurable. God has given us all of this so that we can manifest the greatness of God’s glory to all generations. He has called us to be a people who walk by faith. A people who trust in God in all areas.

We worked through the beginning section of chapter 3. It is a section where Paul takes a short excursion into his role as the apostle sent to the gentiles. He does this immediately after highlighting the new great mystery of how the Jews and gentiles are now one new body of Christ because of Jesus work on the cross. Paul is a minister of the gospel to the gentiles. The church is now the physical manifestation of God’s people on earth. It is through the church that the wisdom of God is being made known not just to men but to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This is all part of God’s eternal purpose realized through the person and work of Jesus. Since Paul sees all of this including his imprisonment as part of God’s plan, he calls on the people he is writing to not lose heart over it. Paul affirms how part of the reason he is in prison is because of their faith. But rather then looking at the situation and losing heart because of it, they should look at how they were counted as being so effecting as followers of Jesus, Paul had to be imprisoned because of them. Instead of losing heart they should see Paul’s imprisonment as their glory. It was a testimony to their effectiveness in promoting the gospel. But the sad truth is the people in Ephesus and the surrounding areas were losing heart and it is probably connected to the problem laid out in the letter to the Ephesians in Revelation. There John writing on behalf of Christ says they had lost their first love for Jesus. Here in Ephesians Paul is encouraging them to look to Jesus and the work He is doing and not be discouraged. Again the calling for christians today is the same as it was to those who received this letter first. We are called to be the witnesses of Jesus in a world which is lost in darkness.

We wrapped up the majestic ten verse declaration of why we need salvation, how that salvation is brought to us through grace and how that grace alone is what saves us and protects us from having anything we could potentially boast about. The ten verses start by showing us we are completely corrupt and children of wrath. Because of God being rich in mercy and having great love for us He has made us alive together with Jesus through His substitutionary death on the cross. We have been saved by grace through faith, and this is not our own doing but a gift from God and not a result of works so that no one may boast. This is the God’s means of safeguarding us from potential pride for all of eternity because we will always know our salvation and hope for eternity is all from Him and through Him and draws us back to Him. Even the works we accomplish are from God and for His glory. This again draws us to rest in what He has accomplished for us and is accomplishing through us. He has done and is doing the work of bringing us to heavenly glory and to glorying in Him. This should cause us to be brought to worship of our Lord Jesus in great adoration and praise for all He has done and is doing.

We worked through the end of chapter 2 and looked at how the world has really been changed by the person and work of Jesus. After Jesus became our substitutional sacrifice He caused a radical change in the world. The people of God were no longer simply identified as the Jews. Now the people of God were identified by faith in Jesus. The idea of national identity in God’s economy is done away with. Identity is now are you a follower of God through faith in Jesus or are you following a man centered worldly system. One of the things this does is call the church to be intentionally welcoming to people of all nationalities. We should be the most racially integrated meeting place in the world. If someone is in Jesus we should see them as our family. Jesus Himself when told about His mother and brothers wanting to talk to Him He replied that those He was with were His mother and brothers and sisters. The church should be the one place everyone who is a Christian feels welcomed and embraced. As members of the church body universal our own individual focus should be our identity as members of the body of Christ. This should be our primary identity. Anything else which defines us should pale in comparison to this one primary defining relationship, which is ours in Jesus. This idea of the new humanity which was brought about by Jesus work on the cross was the focus of the end of chapter 2.

We worked through verses 4-7 as we dealt with the magnificent work of God done on our behalf to save us from the state of corruption we were in. We began by looking at the rich mercy and love of God for us. A love which was poured out on us even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins. He made us alive together with Christ. He saved us by His grace and seated us with God in the heavenly places in Christ. The reason for this is to show us the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Jesus. Verses 1-3 show us our state and verse 4-7 show us the great reversal God has brought about on our behalf.

We worked through the beginning of chapter 2. These first 10 verses are really a continuous flow of thought culminating in verse 10. We are taking the verses in 3 sections. The first section dealt with the radical corruption which plagues mankind because of the fall. This corruption is rooted in the fall of Adam. In Adam we became dead in our trespasses and sins. Our spiritual death makes all men pursuers of the passions of the flesh. This complete corruption means we will not desire God but only follow the desires of the flesh.

We worked our way through the end of chapter 1. The 8 verses which wrap up the end of the chapter really highlight the unlimited almighty power of God which is in Christ and because the Holy Spirit indwells us it is also in us. Its existence in us is for the glory of Jesus. He blesses us and He sustains us in the midst of difficulties. It is there to help us come to know God better. This happens as we trust Him and He sustains us. It is primarily relational and it comes through faith in Jesus. As we live this life of faith our actions will be characterized by love. This happens because we are trusting in the power of God which raised Jesus from the dead. Which means as we experience weakness and attacks from those who hate Jesus we are able to trust God to be our strength and shield. Will we always do this perfectly? Of course not! But the truth is as we cultivate a life of totally trusting God in all situation we will find our hearts more inclined to leaning on Him and finding our strength in Him. Today we begin our journey through chapter 2. This is one of the great high points in the book of Ephesians because it gives us one of the greatest explanations of salvation in the Bible.

We finished working our way through the longest sentence in the Bible. It runs from Ephesians 1:3-14. It centers on the magnificent power or God as it is displayed in the work of Jesus. It is a very heart stirring God exulting section. Paul was very familiar with the church in Ephesus and had been very involved there, not only for 3 years in establishing it, but in supporting them through Timothy and his ministry. The soul stirring call to worship invoked by these verses may be because Paul knew they were struggling with getting their hearts engaged in loving God. This is certainly cited as a problem of this church in the book of Revelation. Paul calls on his readers both in Ephesus and all who pick up this letter to engage their hearts in what is essentially a call to worship and adoration of God.

We continued to explore the greatness of God’s work as Paul exults in it. We are in the middle of this massively long sentence which is lavishly filled with the vastness of the glory of God. The part we explored last time started with redemption and ended with how in the fullness of time all things will be united in Jesus. In the middle Paul talks about how God poured out his redemption on us and forgave our trespasses with all wisdom and understanding. The wisdom and understanding here speaks of God’s wisdom and understanding and ties back to the redemption which is poured out on us. This means God did this not ignoring our sin but in full understanding of what He was doing in Jesus. This really brings out the greatness of His grace because it was not blind to our sin but rather God wisely took care of the penalty for our sin and brought us forgiveness. Again emphasizing the majesty of the redemption which God has brought to bear on us. God’s will is described as being the uniting of all things in Jesus. All things in heaven and on earth.

We began our verse by verse study of Ephesians. We began by looking at how the church in Ephesus is addressed by the Lord in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation. What we see in Revelation gives us a little window into the church in Ephesus. Honestly, the church in Ephesus sounds like a pretty solid church theologically. As a matter of fact based solely on how the church here is described most churches today would love to be described like they are. Yet the truly shocking thing about Ephesus is how in spite of their refuting of false teachers and their zeal for God’s word they are reprimanded for losing their first love. If this is the core problem in the church in Ephesus then we might have a really good clue about what God is doing through Paul here as he pens this letter to the Ephesian Christians and really all Christians throughout all time. This letter opens with a magnificent heart stirring exultation of God. If the church is struggling with a heart felt love for God then this is certainly a call to enflame the heart with passion for God.

We worked through an overview of the book of Ephesians. We laid out the people and context of the area it was written to. We explored the ideas of the book in a broad overview. And we looked at the unique aspects of the letter. How Paul wrote in a general sense and this makes the letter very relevant for Christians of all times and ages. It was probably written this way with the idea it would be circulated among the churches.

We are going to consider Mary and how her role as the one chosen to bear Jesus points us to His greatness. In the Biblical picture we are betrothed to Jesus. That means the commitment to marriage has been made and we are for all intents and purposes married but not yet united. This is part of the reason scripture speaks with anticipation of the great marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus has committed Himself to His bride and has paid the price for her with His own shed blood. This is a serious commitment of God to His people. In addition this is why a relationship with God is a serious matter and not a light and casual thing. This is the type of relationship Mary had entered into with Joseph. Mary is not chosen because she was a remarkable person. Mary is a remarkable person because she is chosen. God made Mary to be the person He needed her to be. Mary was chosen because she was the right woman betrothed to the right man at the moment in time in which God planned to bring Jesus into the world. This is not to say Mary was not a God honoring woman. Her life and actions demonstrate a profound trust in God. But we must remember Mary was a sinner in need of a Savior just like you and I.

In particular the highlighted person was Bathsheba. But in this instance she is not mentioned by name. She is referred to as the wife of Uriah. She is the mother of Solomon by David. What this does for us as readers is it highlights David as a sinful man. David is and was almost always thought of as the greatest king of Israel. As we looked at last time in Jeremiah 30 the people are prophesied to one day serve the Lord their God and David their king. This points out how highly the people thought of David. Because this verse is clearly the referencing the future king who is descended from David. What Matthew is doing is drawing our attention to the fact that while David was a great king he was also a sinner and could not be the greater and better king we all needed. That king is the one Matthew is writing about. The other thing we saw as we looked into the situation with David and Bathsheba is the prophecy Nathan made of how the child Bathsheba carried would die because of David’s sin. It is easy to read past that quickly but the truth of the matter is this child’s death was due to sin and one day David’s greater and better Son Jesus would have to die because of David’s sin and all of our sin. This child Matthew is writing about was born to die. Jesus came to take away the sin which separates us from God.

The story of Ruth continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were pagans and mainly gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Ruth was a Moabite woman who ends up coming to Israel because she had married an Israelite man. Boaz shows favor to Ruth because of what he's heard Ruth has done for her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth proposes that Boaz should redeem the inheritance of Elimelech. Boaz figures this out and ends up being the redeemer of Ruth and takes Ruth as his wife. Ruth, a Moabite, is brought into Israel and made part of the line of Christ.

The story of Rahab continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were mainly pagans and gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Which is particularly striking since Matthew was written to Jews. This is very important because grace to gentiles is poured forth in even the line of Christ. Rahab was a prostitute who probably also had a house for prostitution. Why did the spies go to Jericho? Because God had a Canaanite women in Jericho that He was going to save from the destruction that He was bringing upon Jericho. It's almost like Rahab was participating in the passover that the Israelites were just starting to share in, for the first time, in the promised land.

The story of Tamar continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were pagans and mainly gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Tamar loses her first two husbands because of their wickedness before the Lord. Tamar appears to be 'tainted goods' and Judah doesn't want to give his youngest son over to Tamar even though he's come of age. The picture of Jesus and Adam are also seen in this passage in the bearing of the twins by Tamar.

Today we looked at how Babylon came and conquered Jerusalem. How Zedekiah was made ruler and how he rebelled against the King of Babylon. Destruction followed this rebellion as Nebuchadnezzar came and destroyed Jerusalem and carried into exile a great many of the people. The remaining people left in Judah, flee to Egypt after Gedaliah the governor is murdered. The promises of God are seen to be fulfilled in bringing judgement upon Judah for there sin and rebellion against God.

We worked through the section of Kings which describes how Judah came to be under the authority and rulership of Pharaoh Neco the king of Egypt. The people of Judah had made Jehoahaz king when his father died even though he was not the oldest son of Josiah. We don’t know why this was and there is no good explanation given. He only reigned 3 months and the immediately returned to the evil which had marked the reign of the kings which came before his father Josiah. After 3 months Pharaoh Neco came and captured him and carried him off to Egypt where he lived out his days and died. He made his older brother Eliakim king and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He also placed a tribute on Judah of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. Jehoiakim complied with this and extracted even more from the people. He used the extra to build himself a royal palace and he too did evil in the eyes of the Lord. For 3 years he became servant to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. He rebelled against Babylon after 3 years at the same time Babylon was going against Egypt. During this time God sent all the surrounding nations against Judah to destroy it for the evil which they had done. After Jehoiakim’s death Jehoiachin his son came to reign in his place and we are now entering into a new era as Babylon has come to dominate the world of this time.

We worked our way through the reforms brought about under the reign of Josiah. He was a righteous king which had been prophesied about at the beginning of the separation of the Judah and Israel. He brought reforms with real passion for turning the people back to God. No other king before him or after him had been as passionate for the exultation of God before the people. He sought to wipe out all idolatry including the worship of household gods. He wiped out the shrines which had even been built by Solomon on what is now known as the mount of olives. He even went into the territory which had formerly been occupied by Israel and tore down all their idols and altars to false gods. He did all of this knowing that after his death Judah was going to be taken captive for her consistent idolatry for hundreds of years. This reveals how Josiah was not being driven by a hope of God relenting or with the hope of establishing a legacy but simply by a passionate love for God.

We worked our way through the beginning of the story of Josiah. He is a remarkably good God honoring king over Judah from a very young age. He begins to reign at 8 years old. He fulfills a prophecy given to Jeroboam at the very beginning of his reign over the newly separated 10 tribes of Israel. A prophet told Jeroboam that a king named Josiah would cast down false places of worship and call people to return to Yahweh. Josiah began with having work done on the temple to repair it. During the repair work they found the book of the law. This book was taken to the king and read. The response of the king was to tear his clothes because he knew based simply on the book how the people had done evil in the sight of God. Josiah sent a delegation of his advisors to Huldah the prophetess to inquire about the things which had been read. She pronounced the coming wrath of God against Judah because of the way she had turned her back on Him. God promised however this would not happen in Josiah’s lifetime because he had torn his clothes and wept in repentance before God. God promised Josiah he would die in peace and not see the disaster God would bring on Judah.

We worked our way through the story of Manasseh. In typical fashion the writer of Kings is most concerned with the broader brush strokes of the story. We don’t hear in Kings about Manasseh becoming repentant when he is taken captive or the fact of his attempt to make things right after his return from captivity. While these were important personally they didn’t make a huge difference for the people of Judah because his son which became king after him continued to carry out the evil which Manasseh had initially begun. The writer of kings though does record how God continued to send prophets to Manasseh and Judah during this really long time of spiritual apostasy. One of the questions which naturally comes up when we look at a passage which essentially covers for the most part 57 years of hardened refusal to repent is, “Why did God allow this to continue?” Certainly, God was patient with bringing Manasseh to repentance. But the bigger point and the one which most likely comforted the people in exile is how God was there and active in spite of the wickedness which multiplied during this dark period. Even though evil may appear to be growing God is still in control and He is still calling His people to repent and return to Him.

We walked through the near death of Hezekiah. It is a really serious illness and he is really incapacitated by it. Isaiah comes to him and tells him to prepare to die. Hezekiah believes him and it grieves him because he is very sick. Hezekiah cries out to God from his deathbed asking for healing and restoration. Isaiah soon returns with the message Hezekiah will recover and will go up to the temple in 3 days. Because he is so sick Hezekiah finds this declaration unbelievable and he asks Isaiah for a sign. The sign he is given is the shadow moves back 10 steps on a time keeping device Ahaz had built. Hezekiah recovers and worships at the temple in 3 days just like Isaiah had prophesied. His sickness and recovery were talked about even in the halls of Babylon which was over 670 miles away. The king of Babylon sent an envoy with gifts to congratulate Hezekiah on his recovery. There may have been alliances made at this time. But Hezekiah is clearly caught up in the celebrity of the moment and proceeds to show the envoy all the wealth and splendor of his kingdom and the temple. Isaiah shortly comes to Him and declares how this indiscreet display of wealth will lead to the conquest of Judah by Babylon. Isaiah prophesies the captivity and service of Hezekiah’s sons to the kings of Babylon. At this revelation Hezekiah is relieved this will not happen in his lifetime. We see in Hezekiah a king who is a good king but even a good king can be seduced by pride. And yet even in this we see God foreshadowing the better king the promised Son of David who will reign forever. Hezekiah was sick unto death and in 3 days he recovered and went to worship at the temple. Jesus the greater and better king entered into death and in 3 days he rose again in the new and better temple of His body. If even a prideful king can be used by God to point us to Jesus, then there is hope that God can use me to point people to Jesus.

We worked through the last part of Hezekiah’s conflict with the king of Assyria. In chapter 18 we ended with a very dark scene, Hezekiah and his leaders are in sackcloth before the Lord facing a grim and dismal threat from the king of Assyria. In chapter 19 we witnessed the Lord’s deliverance. It is a supernatural intervention as the Lord sends an angel who kills 185,000 men of the Assyrian army in one night. Sennacherib returns home in defeat and shortly after this is killed by his own sons. It is a good reminder that God loves His people and delights to rescue them. In this story we also see how Sennacherib declared his greatness above the god’s of all the other kings he had conquered and he boasted of how he would conquer Jerusalem as well. God will not be mocked by men, and God demonstrates His power by sending His angel to strike the army of the Assyrians.

We followed the opening story of Hezekiah and his reign as the king of Judah. He is one of the most God honoring kings of the kings of Judah. He is one of the only kings to remove the high places where people worshipped. He destroyed the idols people worshipped including the bronze serpent Moses had made, since people had come to worship it as well. The record of Hezekiah’s reign includes the statement that there were none like him either before or after him in the way he trusted God. He not only trusted God but was recognized for seeking to be obedient to the commandments of God. The Lord was with Hezekiah and blessed him. We see Hezekiah breaking the reliance on Assyria his father had established. He also has success in going against the Philistines. This is all seen as a result of God being with him. In his fourth year as king of Judah the king of Assyria came against Samaria and besieged it for 3 years. After 3 years Samaria fell and the nation of Israel was conquered and carried off as captives. 7 years after Israel was conquered the king of Assyria moved his attention to Judah who had stopped paying tribute to him toward the start of Hezekiah’s reign which is now in its 14th year. Sennacherib began to conquer the cities of Judah. After most of his fortified cities were conquered Hezekiah sent word to the king of Assyria that he had done wrong and would pay whatever Sennacherib imposed on him. The king demanded 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. Hezekiah gave him all the silver from his treasury and from the house of the Lord and he stripped the gold from the doors of the temple. All of this was to satisfy the king of Assyria. But he was not satisfied and he sent his military leaders to Jerusalem to demand they surrender of face what they believed was an unstoppable conquest by Assyria. We ended last time with Hezekiah’s leaders coming to him with the dismal message of impending disaster. We considered why the writer of kings would spend so much time painting such a dismal picture? To people in exile facing a dire situation this passage would have been an encouragement. Because in the background to this story God is there. No matter how bleak things may become God is there.

Examples of times when peopled prayed to God. We look at the contexts of when peopled prayed and what they prayed about. Continuing this study of prayer is the focus of this Sunday. Ezra's confessionary prayer and Nehemiah's silent prayer of heart are two examples we looked at. Nehemiah also prays for protection and we see Job praying on behalf of other men. Daniel prays to God in the midst of danger and later for the Israelites in exile. Jonah and other examples are also looked at today.

We worked through the last half of chapter 17. We see the pagan people the Assyrians moved into the land of Israel dealing with attacks by lions. The response is, “We don’t know how to appease the God of this land!” and so they send word to the king of Assyria for help. He orders a priest to be sent back to the land to teach the people about God. The amazing thing about this is how God is using the establishment of the people of Israel in the land to be the basis for bringing the truth about the true and living God to the nations even if Israel is not really occupying the land. God is at work glorifying His name through them. While the vast majority of pagan people in the land of Israel certainly do not repent and turn to Yahweh there were no doubt some who did. God promises His word will not return void so there must have been some among those moved into the land who came to follow Yahweh.

We worked through the first half of 2 Kings 17. Here we see the judgement of God being poured out on the 10 northern tribes for their unfaithfulness. Again and again the point is made how this is happening because of the unfaithfulness of God’s people. They had adopted the customs of the people who were driven out before them. They rejected the one true God who had delivered them from Egypt and slavery and had given them the land. They embraced idolatry with zeal. We spent a good deal of time looking at the idea of customs and how God had given them many things which would have made them a peculiar people. They had the sabbath observance, the feasts of the Lord, the freeing of slaves and resting of land every 7 years and the forgiveness of debts and return of property every 49 years. They clearly had God ordained customs which should have set them apart and been a constant reminder of God and His grace. But they turned their back on these things and did not practice them but instead adopted the customs of the nations around them and the ones which had been driven out of the land. We reflected on how easy it is to cast judgement on the people we are looking at but we should be careful to consider what we are ignoring which God has asked us to do. We reflected on tithing and how the national average for tithing is less than 1%. Are we actively seeking to keep a sabbath to the Lord? Or have the pressures of life and the burdens of bills driven us to ignore these things or push them off to a later time. How are we dealing with the issues we face because the customs God calls us to are no less important before God than the ones Israel faced.

We worked our way through chapter 16 dealing with the rulership of king Ahaz of Judah. There is a lot of detail about his life especially when we consider how he is described as a king who did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. This is the first time this kind of description is applied to a king of Judah. It is a sad commentary an a life spent turning away from God at every point. He was even said to have sacrificed his son to an idol. Yet we see in the book of Isaiah how God reached out to Ahaz in his time of need as Jerusalem was being attacked by both Israel and Syria. But Ahaz refused to trust God and accept His help. Instead he sent money to Tiglath-pileser the king of Assyria and asked him for help. The Assyrian king came down and conquered the Syrians killing their king. This of course aided the kingdom of Judah but the Assyrian king demanded Ahaz submit to him and even came down and executed his own attack against Jerusalem. Ahaz also lost soldiers and cities to the Philistines and the Edomites. Overall his time as king was one of continual decline. The one thing which stands out is God’s patience with him and the kingdom of Judah. Ahaz led the people into idolatry of all kinds and yet God did not destroy them. This ongoing patience of God had to be an encouragement to the people in exile who were reading this account. They were living among a people who were idol worshippers. They were probably under the kind of pressure Christians face today to just be quiet and not say anything about their faith. In the meantime the false faith of the pagan is declared loudly and without consequence in the public square. The fact God was there constantly showing mercy in the midst of an unfaithful kings rule had to be a comfort to those who were afraid and felt like they were failing in their pursuit of God. This same kind of comfort is available to us today. God is faithful in the midst of our unfaithfulness. This does not give us license to just ignore God’s call for us to be faithful. On the contrary it should call us to abandon hope in man and put our hope in God alone. To live lives of uncompromising faith in the midst of a pagan and fallen world.

We worked through a section which showed us one of the longest reigns of any king in Judah. King Uzziah also known as Ahaziah reigned 52 years. Here was a king which in many ways honored God and yet as he entered the end of his reign he became proud and entered the temple to offer incense to God. This angered God and he struck Uzziah with leprosy in front of the 80 priest which assembled to stand against what Uzziah was doing. He lived the rest of his life in a different house as a leper. His son Jotham reigned after him. While his reign was said to be like his fathers he too fell short of doing all God wanted. While this was happening in Judah there were 5 reigns of different kings of Israel laid out for us. They did not seek to honor God and one after another they died often at the hands of people close to them. The writer of kings takes us through all of these kings in this short space showing us how time after time after time no matter how the king intended to go they all fell short. None of them was the real king Israel and Judah needed. The real king they needed and we all need is Jesus.

We explored the time when the kings of both Israel and Judah demonstrated halfway commitments to God. They either started out strong for the Lord and ended worshipping idols or they simply seemed to want God and idols too. It is a sad time in Israel of halfway commitments. People seem to be seeking for the Lord because of their oppression and God hears them and gives them relief but they continue to worship idols. God watching over them and watching out for them seems to have little or no impact on how they live or worship. And yet there is a warning here. A warning to honor God as God. Judah thought they could simply worship at the high places it would be fine. It was more convenient then going up to Jerusalem. Who cares that other idols are worshipped there. But God had established the temple and He had come to dwell there and establish His presence between the cherubim. He called on the people to come to Him and worship Him there. This was God’s plan. The worship of God is established by God and matters to God. These ideas or very relevant to us today. The worship of God still matters to God. He cares about how He is worshipped. He cares about the hearts of His people. He knows if our hearts have divided loyalties. The reason He wants His people to be fully committed to Him is because we were created for fellowship with God and being in that place of worship and fellowship is the best thing for us.

We worked our way through the lives of some of Jehu’s descendants as they ruled over Israel. We also witnessed the last acts of Elisha as he wrapped up his ministry and died. The descendants of Jehu were very much like their father. They seemed to have a certain type of zeal and regard for Yahweh but they continued to worship the golden calves and other false gods. It is a tragic act of disobedience as they show only a half way commitment to God. But the reality is a halfway commitment is not an act of faith. We saw in the story of Joash a real sorrow at the sickness of Elisha. He weeps when he goes to visit him. But his compassion does not translate into a greater commitment to God. Elisha gives him a prophecy about his future conflicts with Syria. He uses a bow and arrows to speak of the victories which will come. We also see a brief story about how a man’s body is quickly tossed into the tomb where Elisha’s body lay. The dead man came into contact with Elisha’s dead body and God brought him back to life. This combined with the victories Joash received after Elisha died was a testimony to the people of how God was working even though Elisha and Elijah were gone. This resurrection foreshadows the greater and better resurrection which happened when Jesus died. His death was different in that He was perfect and did not deserve death. Jesus died to bear God’s wrath against our sin so that we could be set free from the eternal damnation which we rightfully deserve. When Jesus died He broke the power of death over saints who had died around Jerusalem. The Bible tells us many came forth from the grave. It is a testimony to the completeness of the work Jesus did on our behalf. Death could no longer keep men and women who were righteous in Jesus. Jesus Himself rose again the third day according to the scripture. We are the recipients of a clear and better understanding of the work of Jesus which was being foreshadowed in the events we see around Elisha’s life and death.

We explored the chapter in kings dedicated to the reign of Joash. He started out intent of bringing glory to God. He called the priest to account about the state of disrepair in the temple and he followed through with working to bring about the repairs which needed to happen. The tragedy is how as he aged he drifted away from his fervency for God and the temple. He actually gets to the point where he has Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest killed for calling them to repent and return to the true worship of God. This is really shocking because Jehoiada was really the only one he would have known as a father and it was Jehoiada and his wife Jehosheba who saved Joash from being killed by Athaliah when she tried to wipe out the royal descendants of king David. Zechariah would have been the only person in his life who was essentially like a brother. This shows us how far Joash had moved away from God. He preferred his idolatry over the family which had saved him and raised him. In doing this Joash led all of Judah into idolatry. Joash started really well but ended terribly. The writer of Kings is covering both the kingdoms of Judah and Israel so those in exile might see how they both are under judgment and they both need to seek the Lord with all their hearts.

There is a document which goes along with this live study. You can access it at https://www.livingwatercommunitychurch.info/depth-charge/ You will find a link to download the document there.
The Bible begins with the earth covered in water and darkness and it ends with no more night and no more sea. This is an in depth cover to cover overview of a major aspect of God's glory on display in the Bible in the person and work of Jesus. We will be grappling with questions like. Why did God allow evil to exist? Is the existence of evil a problem for God? Why doesn't God wipe away pain if He is all good and loving? How did Satan fall? Why did Jesus have to become a man? What does all of this mean for today and the future? If God is sovereign, how could this have happened? Does all of this really bring Him glory? You might be surprised by what you discover as we explore these major themes together. Come join an interactive discussion of these topics as we seek to see the glory of God on display.

we explored the story of how Joash (also called Jehoash in todays passage) was saved from the slaughter of Ahaziah’s descendants by Athaliah the queen mother. Athaliah attempted to wipe out the descendants of David and set herself up as the ruler over Judah. Jehosheba a daughter of the former king and sister to Ahaziah, who had been killed, took Joash and his nurse and hid them from Athaliah so he was not put to death. Athaliah reigned over Judah for 7 years. She was a wicked queen and she promoted the worship of Baal in Judah. During her reign Jehosheba and her husband Jehoiada the priest kept Joash hidden in the temple. When Joash was 7 years old Jehoiada gathered the captains of the Carites and the guards together and made a covenant with them and made them swear an oath and after this he showed them how he had beer raising Joash in secret. These commander along with Jehoiada the priest made plans to overthrow the wicked queen Athaliah and install Joash as king in her place. On the sabbath they gathered all the guardsmen and anointed Joash as king and killed Athaliah. The people of the land showed their support for this by going to the temple of Baal and tearing it down and destroying the altars and images and killing the priest who served there. The people of the land rejoiced over Athaliah being put to death, and Joash began to reign. This is a critically important story for the people in exile to be reminded of. It is significant because the attempt by Athaliah to cut off the descendants of David was an attempt to destroy the promise of God that He would establish the throne of David forever. But God ensured a royal descendant was saved from destruction. Joash went on to father other sons who took the throne after him. His line of descendants continued all the way to Joseph who became the adoptive father of Jesus. This story is a reminder of how God is always faithful to do all He has promised He will do. To the people in exile this had to be a great reminder of how they could trust God in the midst of their captivity.

we explored the last events recorded for us in the life of Jehu the king of Israel. His last recorded act is in his words to show his zeal for the Lord. He meets Jehonadab and invites him to come along as he sets out to demonstrate his zeal. On arriving in Samaria he kills the rest of those who were still connected to Ahab. Then he announces to the people he wants to have a solemn assembly for Baal. Word is sent out to gather all the worshippers and priests of Baal. Anyone who was committed to Baal and failed to come would be put to death. They were all given special garments and brought into the temple of Baal where Jehu begins a sacrifice. After the sacrifice was finished he left and 80 soldiers slaughtered all the assembled worshippers and priests of Baal. They them destroyed the temple and turned it into a toilet. This desecrated the area ensuring no one would ever try to rebuild that temple. While Jehu does all these things which God wanted such as the destruction of the family of Ahab and the wiping out of Baal worship, he failed to destroy the golden calves. God granted Jehu a promise of four generations of his descendants on the throne of Israel because of his acts which were in keeping with what God wanted. But his continued support of the golden calf worship was a sin which hampered him and continued to hamper Israel. In his time God used Hazael of Syria to begin to take land away from Israel. Hazael ended up conquering 25%-30% of the land during Jehu’s reign. This was God’s judgement on Jehu and Israel for their continuing to worship false gods. We wrapped things up by considering how the true church today in America has come to be similar to Jehu in that we are good at many of the things which are pleasing to God but we are much like the church in Ephesus in that we need to return to a passionate love for God. It very much could be the decline we are seeing in the church in America has much to do with our failure to love God with all our hearts. The church really needs to repent and return to its first love.

we explored the story of Jehu going to Jezreel to challenge Joram for the kingship of Israel. When Joram thought it was Jehu he rode out to meet him in his chariot. He asked Jehu if it was a message of peace he brought since he had been at the front lines of their battle in Ramoth-gilead. Jehu’s response was, “What peace can there be, so long as the whorings and the sorceries of your mother Jezebel are so many?” Joram and Ahaziah who was with him reigned in their chariots and headed toward Jezreel because they realized Jehu was intent on opposing them. Jehu drew his bow and shot Joram through the heart. He died in his chariot and Jehu had him tossed onto the land of Naboth’s vineyard. Remembering Elijah’s prophecy about the coming death of Ahab’s heirs Jehu pronounced how prophecy was being fulfilled. He then pursued Ahaziah and shot him with an arrow in his chariot as well. Ahaziah fled to Megiddo and died there and his servants came and took his body to the city of David and buried it there. Jehu entered Jezreel and Jezebel called down to him from a balcony at the palace. Jehu asked if any of the servants were with him to cast her down. 3 of the eunuchs cast her down and she died and was eaten by dogs. This again was called out by Jehu as a fulfillment of prophecy. He sent word to Samaria about the 70 sons of Ahab who were living there. He told them to make one of them king and prepare for battle. The leaders of Samaria sent word back to Jehu that they would do whatever he asked them to. He told them to bring the heads of all of Ahab’s sons to him in Jezreel the next day. They did as he asked and killed all of Ahab’s sons. He then pointed out how the eradication of Ahab’s family was a fulfillment of another prophecy from Elijah. The house of Ahab was brought to a complete end under the rulership of Jehu. It is a brutal story but a story which reminds us how God is in control and accomplishes what He sets out to accomplish. In this case we see God raise up the man who has the determination to do the things which must be done to eradicate the line of Ahab.

We worked our way through the first 16 verses of chapter 9. In this section we see Elisha providing the final fulfillment of God’s command to Elijah to anoint Elisha in his place, to anoint Hazael as king over Syria and to anoint Jehu as king over Israel. As our story opens Elisha commissions a son of the prophets to take a flask of oil to Ramoth-gilead and anoint Jehu as king over Israel in a private ceremony, and then leave with haste. This son of the prophets does exactly what Elisha instructs him to do, and Jehu is anointed as king. When Jehu comes from the inner room and encounters his fellow commanders they ask what has happened and his response is you know the fellow and what he said. This statement indicates Jehu thinks they are in on it and it may be a set-up or joke. Their response however dispels this idea because they tell Jehu they don’t know what has happened. Jehu then tells them the man has anointed him in the Lord’s name as king over Israel. The military commanders who were present removed their cloaks and put them on the steps under Jehu. Then they blew the trumpet and declared him as king of Israel. Jehu then makes plans to go to Jezreel and confront Joram the current king. He gets in his chariot and heads out.

We are turning our attention to what properly might be called the mechanics of prayer. We continued our study of prayer by looking at the how people in the Bible focused on God’s actions as a basis for engaging with Him in prayer. We looked at a bunch of passages where we see prayers or praise rooted in things like His love, faithfulness, and judgements which are cast against His creation. His love extends to the heavens. His love is like the mountains of God. His judgements are like the great deep. What we see again and again is the writers of scripture taking the time to think about God and His works and actions in ways that a vivid to our imagination. This kind of thinking can begin to infuse our own prayers with a deeper sense of connection and awe as we engage our imagination in the pursuit of God in prayer.

We explored the lives of the descendants of Jehoshaphat. They knew the promises of God because of their father Jehoshaphat. They were supposed to lead the people in following God but instead they led the people away from the Lord. This resulted in the judgement of God. Jehoshaphat’s son married the daughter of Ahab, and began to follow the sinful path of the people of Israel. Edom revolted from their rule and set up their own king. Joram went down with an army to quell the rebellion and was routed by the Edomites and had to flee. Libnah which was one of the cities of the Levites rebelled and separated from following Joram as well. Joram did not live long and Ahaziah his son reigned over Judah. He also led the people of Judah in the path of the house of Ahab king of Israel. The king of Israel was wounded in a battle with Hazael the king of Syria and Ahaziah went to see him in Jezreel while he was recovering. This is where we ended the last time.

We looked at two stories at the beginning of chapter 8 which show us how God orchestrates all things. The first story demonstrates God taking care of those who are His. The wealthy woman of Shunam whose son had been raised from the dead returned to the land of Israel to find her property had been taken over during a time of famine. She went to the king to plead her case and Elisha’s servant was with the king recounting the works of Elisha. He had just talked to the king of this woman and her son’s resurrection when she appeared in the court to plead her case for the property. The king heard her story and granted her the property back as well as the revenue generated from the property while she was gone. We would typically call things like this a coincidence. But there is no such thing. God is working behind the scenes to direct people and even conversation to provide for the needs of His people. The second situation involved Hazael a commander who served king Ben-hadad of Syria. Ben-hadad had been sick and sent Hazael with a gift to inquire of Elisha if he would recover from his sickness. Elisha told Hazael his master would recover but he would certainly die. Then he began to weep for the evil he knew Hazael would do to Israel. Eventually Elisha told Hazael that the Lord had revealed he would become king of Syria. This of course happened the next day when Hazael smothered Ben-hadad and claimed the throne for himself. Here we see God raising up a wicked king to destruction and suffering on Israel as a judgement on them for turning their backs on God. Again there are no supernatural miracles here but a clear declaration of God ordering the events of men to bring about the culmination of His plan. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away blessed be the name of the Lord.

We worked our way through the story of the siege on Samaria. The king of Syria had come down with his entire army and they besieged Samaria. This blockade of the city eventually caused a famine. The writer tells us the famine was so bad the people were willing to pay 80 shekels for a donkeys head. He even reported how the people were resorting to eating their own children. The king of Israel on hearing about these things blamed God for the problems and swore he was going to kill Elisha. He sent his military captain to kill Elisha and Elisha told the elders who were with him to bar the door and not let him in. Elisha proceeded to tell the captain through the door that the Lord was going to provide flour and barley by the next day about this time in abundance. The man scoffed at the word of the Lord and Elisha told him because of his unbelief he would see it but would not get a chance to see it with his own eyes. That evening the Lord caused the Syrian army to believe they were under attack. They fled leaving everything in their tents and cast off things which weighed them down as they fled. This was all discovered by some unnamed lepers who decided since they were bound to die of hunger soon they just might live if they gave themselves up to the Syrians. When they came to the camp they found it deserted so they ate their fill of food and carried off clothing and other goods and returned for more. The conscience of the lepers began to bother them so the went to Samaria and told the guard on the wall the good news which was passed on to the king. The king was suspicious it was a trap, so he sent two men on horseback to check it out. They discovered the camp was empty like the lepers had reported. On top of the camp having horses and chariots they discovered cast off armor and other elements were strewn along the way all the way to the Jordan. To the readers of this story who were in exile it would have been clear that the siege with its famine were a judgment of God on Israel for their idolatry. It is the exact judgement God had declared in Leviticus He would bring on His people if they failed to worship Him and heed His judgments. It is clear from this story they did not heed God’s judgment. But we also see in this story how God’s judgement does not last forever and He ultimately will save His people. So we see in this passage a picture of salvation. The people are rescued from death and destruction not because they deserve it and not because there was something special about the Jews. No, God saves those who He has set His love upon for His own glory and to be faithful to His own promises and no other reason.

Our wants can easily be justified as needs. At the same time we can look at people who accumulate things and think how good they have it. Even wondering sometimes why they have it so good and we have to struggle so much. The up and coming generation certainly is marked by an attitude of entitlement as a general characteristic when it comes to work and the workplace. Entitlement however is not an exclusive domain held by those growing into adulthood. It is easy for all of us to fall into the trap of entitlement. It is easy for us to simply think more highly of ourselves then we ought to think. Greed and selfishness creep into all of our lives. People do not normally lay down their lives for each other. To the contrary we usually find it easy to demand more from others. We have an uncanny ability to mistake greed for need. We live in a society which is preoccupied with justifying feeling satisfied and safe. We are encouraged on every side to be preoccupied with our own well being. In this kind of environment we can become consumed with ourselves. We can find ourselves defining what is good by what is good for us. Unfortunately this mentality and focus is often a huge influence in our prayers.
I believe God hears a lot of grossly selfish requests in our prayers. Given the amazing extent of God’s ongoing provision of our needs we must appear to God as an extremely ungrateful people in general. God gives to us an amazing amount of things in His grace and yet we seem to have no trouble coming to God with more “needs”. But we really do have needs and God in His word encourages us to bring our needs to Him. Our intention today is to look at this area of need and consider how the Bible calls us to make our requests to God.

We explored the story of how Elisha tells the king of Israel to avoid certain places at specific times because the king of Syria has laid a trap or planned a raid. The king of Israel would send scouts to verify it and discovered Elisha was saving him from these plans. This frustrated the king of Syria who became convinced there must be a spy in his court feeding his plans to the king of Israel. But the servants of the king know it is Elisha who is aware of the Syrian plans and alerts the king of Israel. The servants tell the king, “Elisha hears all of his plans even those made in secret.” This revelation frustrates the king and he sends his army to capture Elisha who lives in Dothan. The army surrounds the city and Elisha’s servant is frightened by the development. Elisha prays and God opens the servants eyes and he can see the horses and chariots of fire on the surrounding hills are greater then the Syrian army which surrounds Dothan. Again Elisha prays and God strikes the army with blindness. Elisha then leads the blind army to Samaria and delivers them to the king of Israel. After asking God to restore their sight Elisha instructs the king to feed them and send them home. He does and the good treatment of the army leads to a temporary peace between Israel and Syria. Part of the peace was no doubt the ongoing survival of Elisha who the army failed to capture. Here we see laid out how God is working behind the scenes. In this case God’s army protects Elisha. In Jesus case He could have called on God to send an army of angels but that was not part of His plan. God’s plan in Jesus case was for Him to go the cross and die. It was God’s plan to have His Son sacrificed in our place to bear the penalty for our sins. Without Jesus sacrifice we would have no hope of being brought back into fellowship with God. He rescued us from eternal damnation by bearing our damnation for us. Because we are all sinners damnation is what justice demands we suffer. Since God is just we are destined for damnation, but Jesus stepped in and changed all of that by bearing our penalty. This preserves God’s justice and at the same time gives Him the ability to grant us mercy and grace.

We explored a passage which many see as fantastic or legendary. In it Elisha causes an iron ax head to float. From our perspective it seems almost like an extraordinary action for something we would consider a minor loss. But we need to consider the day in which this happened. The iron age had recently come into its own. This was probably about 200 to 300 years after what we would see as the start of the iron age. The amount of time and effort which the creation of iron implements in this day made it a really expensive metal especially when compared to copper, bronze or brass. The loss of an iron ax head in this day may have been similar to wrecking a car in our day. So while this reads as insignificant because of our context it was a great loss in their day. Even with our understanding of the cost it seems to raise the question of why record this event. In the context of the book of Kings this story is the 6th in a series of stories about God meeting the needs of His people. We had the widow who was about to lose her sons to a lender and would probably lose her home ultimately because of this. She seeks God and through Elisha her needs are met and the lender is paid. This was followed by the rich woman who provided a room for Elisha and really had no need even by her own confession. Yet God gave her a son, that son died as a child and suddenly she is found in great need. She seeks God as the answer to her need and her son is brought back to life. Next a group of students called the sons of the prophets are given a large amount of stew which is accidentally tainted with poison. Elisha puts flour in the stew and it becomes edible and nourishing. A gift of barley loaves is given to Elisha and he again gives it to the students but this time Elisha’s servant objects because there are only 20 loaves and 100 men. But Elisha tells him to serve the bread and there will be enough with some left over and there was. The 5th story is about Naaman the Syrian who is dying from leprosy. At the prompting of his wife’s servant girl he seeks Elisha the prophet and his need of healing is given to him by God. In this story the pagan Syrian commander seeks the Lord and swears to follow Yahweh from then on. The loss of the ax highlights again God meeting the needs of one of his own. To the people in exile and even to us today this highlights how God is there to meet all kinds of needs of His people. From grievous personal needs like the loss of a child or a deadly sickness to immediate needs like the need for food or the loss of material possessions. God is the one to look to in every situation. He is the one who meets all of our needs according to His plan and for our good and His glory.

We explored 2 Kings chapter 5 and in it we saw the Lord orchestrating events to bring Naaman the Syrian commander to Himself. God did not simply bring this man facing the death sentence of leprosy to healing he brought a man who was facing the death sentence of sin to faith. It is a remarkable and because of this a famous story which starts with the faith a young girl. A girl captured from Israel during a raid and carried into slavery and captivity. This young girl lives much like Joseph when he was sold into slavery. She serves her mistress as best she can. She sees her role in slavery as an opportunity to do good. She believes by faith that God can use Elisha to heal her master Naaman and she tells her mistress what she believes to be true. You could say the faith of this little girl is the catalyst which God uses to bring Naaman to faith. Naaman goes to the king of Syria with the news of this potential cure for leprosy is Israel. The king sends Naaman with letters to seek this cure from the king of Israel. This is the part which really highlights the faith of the little girl. There was no known cure in Israel. There is no record of Elisha healing lepers in the land before this. Jesus even stated in the New Testament how there was no one in Israel healed of leprosy during Elisha’s time except Naaman the Syrian. This all points to the faith of the servant girl which really drives the story forward. Elisha sends to the king for Naaman to come to him. This relieves the king who is distressed over the letter he has received from Naaman’s hand. Naaman comes to Elisha who sends his servant to tell him to go wash in the Jordan 7 times and he will be healed. Naaman is angered by two things. Elisha appears to do nothing, he doesn’t even come out to meet Naaman. Second the Jordan is a muddy river especially when compared to some of the rivers in Syria, this seems to Naaman to be almost an insult. As he heads out to return to Syria in anger his servants convince him to give it a try since he would have certainly done any really hard thing Elisha might have asked him to do. Naaman recognized the truth in what they said and followed Elisha’s instructions and received the healing Elisha had promised. He returned in gratitude to Elisha and expressed a desire to worship Yahweh alone from then on. This is why we can say Naaman experienced the healing of sin from his life as well as the healing of leprosy. In his gratitude he had offered expensive gifts to Elisha, but Elisha rejected them. It was important for Naaman to know God gives good gifts to His children freely. Elisha’s servant Gehazi seems put out that such wealth would be rejected and he concocts a plan to get some of the money. After Naaman leaves Gehazi runs after him and tells a lie about some fictitious sons of the prophets arriving and need cloths and silver. Naaman gladly gives him what he asks for and more. With his silver and clothing secured Gehazi returns to Elisha. Elisha reveals how he knows what Gehazi has done and rebukes him for his greed, adding that the leprosy of Naaman would now come on him and his descendants. The message which Naaman needed to hear was a message of free grace. Gehazi had set out to corrupt that message. The gospel comes to everyone freely and should not be corrupted with the addition of anything. That is really the core message of this passage. It points us to a savior who gave his life for us and gives us the gift of salvation with no strings attached. We can’t earn it. We can’t work for it. It is ours through faith alone, in Jesus alone. The message of salvation Elisha delivered to Naaman is the same message today. The message of corruption added by Gehazi is the same message people continue to deliver today. This story of faith is one I hope you see through new eyes as you come across it in the future.

We continued our study in prayer by examining how the Psalmist and other writers expressed joy in the midst of difficulty. How did they get to joy and what are some common traits of the journey to joy in a not so joyful situation. This is one of those areas where the Biblical writers give us a variety of examples for doing this. It is also something do not naturally do and so it becomes something we need to practice and work on. We see this type of expression again and again throughout the Bible. We see it in the Psalms and wisdom books as well as commands by Paul to rejoice in the Lord always. David even appointed a whole section of the priests to do nothing but give thanks to God. This priority of giving thanks and praise to God in the Old Testament should certainly inform our own thoughts as we consider how we approach God and what the content of our prayers should include. We are not saying it should only be joy and thanksgiving but if we don’t find this theme being a part of our prayer life we should consider how it can become a part of our engagement with God.

We worked our way through two stories about Elisha which on first glance appear disconnected accounts of things he did. The first story was about a visit to the sons of the prophets during a famine. Elisha told his servant during the visit to prepare a large pot of stew for the men. One of the sons of the prophets was helping and ended up gathering a poisonous gourd and cutting it up in the stew. Some of the men recognized this poisonous gourd and cried out that death was in the pot. Elisha asked them for some flour and he tossed it in the pot and it made the stew safe to eat. The second story involved a man who brought his firstfruits offering to Elisha. He brought 20 barley loaves. Again they are with the sons of the prophets and Elisha commands his servant to feed the men. His servant objects stating there was simply not enough to feed the over 100 men present. But Elisha restates the command to feed them and says there will be enough and food left over. While these seem disconnected stories they both involve elements of flour and bread which is made from flour. We looked at how both these stories should really drive us to ponder the person and work of Jesus. The prophet Isaiah tells us in chapter 53 how is pleased the Lord to crush Jesus. He was crushed just like wheat is crushed to make flour. This is why the flour in the story is important. The stew is filled with death but the flour makes the stew life giving. Our lives without Jesus are filled with sin and death, but with Jesus substitutionary death applied to our lives we are granted freedom from death and given eternal life. The story of the loaves reminds us of the feeding of the 5000 and 4000. In all of these cases the peoples hunger is satisfied, and there is extra left over. This is a picture again of Jesus substitutionary death. It was sufficient to satisfy the needs of everyone who comes to Him, repents of their sin and follows him as Lord. His work is more than enough.

We explored the story of the rich woman in Shunem. This woman provided meals and a place to stay for Elisha when he was passing through the area. Elisha was grateful and asked the woman if there was anything he could do for her as he traveled about. She replied that she dwelt among her own people. She was basically saying she was secure and in need of nothing. After she left as Elisha was talking with Gehazi his servant they discussed the fact that her husband was old and she had no son. Elisha then called her back and told her she would have a son about this time next year. She found it hard to believe but in a years time she gave birth to a son. He grew and began to go to the fields with his father. One day in the field he declared his head hurt and his father had a servant carry him to his mother. He ended up dying in his mothers arms around noon that day. She hurried to Elisha because she was in great distress and needed God’s help. This is the real beauty of this story and sets it up as a comparison contrast with the story of the poor widow which precedes it. The widow came to Elisha because she was in need and about to lose her two sons to the creditors to satisfy a debt. The woman of Shunem had no need until God blessed her with the good gift of a son and then took it away. The loss of the gift drove her to seek God’s help. God worked through Elisha to raise her son from the dead. God is always working to bring His people into a state of greater dependence on Him and seeking after Him. Our God is a fundamentally relational God. He draws both the poor and the rich to Himself through a wide range of situations.

We worked through the first 7 verses of chapter 4. In this passage we have a clear example of God taking care of the needs of His children. In this story a widow of one of the sons of the prophets is going to lose her children to a creditor who is coming to get them. They will become his slaves to settle her debt. In this situation in that day she would not only lose her sons but would probably be left destitute because her sons probably produced an income to support her. The question Elisha asks the woman is almost the same question Jesus asks blind Bartimaeus as He was leaving Jericho. “What shall I do for you?” It is a good question when you are dealing with someone who doesn’t have a problem or has not expressed the problem. In the case of Bartimaeus he was blind and people were taking him to Jesus after Jesus stopped the crowd and invited him to come to Him. The widow in 2 Kings has already told the prophet what she needs. In both cases what they need is clearly seen. But in both cases the people coming for help are invited to express their need. God clearly takes care of His children but He often does it in a relational manner. He calls us to engage with Him and express our need. If He always simply did what we needed without our engagement it would be devoid of relationship. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God, it is essentially a call to engage in relationship with God. The widow in this story is called to take action. To gather containers from her neighbors and fill them in private out of the jar of oil she has. She does this until all of the containers are full and then Elisha tells her to sell them and pay her debts and live on what is left. This is a situation which points again to how God meets our needs but doesn’t give us more grace then is needed for the situation. If he wiped out our needs we would most likely stop depending on Him. He allows us to continue to experience need so we will not stop depending on Him. This is God at work constantly calling us into engagement in relationship with Him. In a sense this story being told to the Jews in exile is a reminder God is always there an ever present help in times of trouble.

The idea of resurrection is seen throughout our world in how God made it. Even in the things that men do/create we see ideas of resurrection pop up. If the resurrection didn't happen then Christians of all people are the most to be pitied. Our sins were paid for in their totality by Jesus. Our flesh has been put to death in Christ and now the life we live we live by faith in the Son of God who died on our behalf for His glory.

The Jews of Jesus' days on earth would see Jesus entering Jerusalem as another picture of a King entering their city. This was part of the reason it was so troubling to the Pharisees since this was something familiar to them from the Scriptures. Solomon foreshadows the coming into Jerusalem of Jesus who was not simply just a King, but also a prophet and priest. Solomon was the shadow of a greater King who would reign forever over His people.

We explored the section where Jehoram decides he is tired of Moab not paying the tribute they were supposed to send to Israel. Jehoram enlist the help of Jehoshaphat to join him in going to battle against Moab. They decide to march south and come into the territory of Moab from the south. During this journey they enlist the help of the army of the Edomites. The march is long and so after 7 days they are literally dying of thirst and can’t really proceed. Jehoshaphat asks if there is a man of Yahweh who they can seek to get direction from God. Elisha is found and Jehoram proceeds to blame Yahweh for bringing the three armies out here into the wilderness to deliver them into the hands of the Moabites. Elisha dismisses Jehoram by simply stating if it were not for the presence of Jehoshaphat he would not be here at all. Basically he tells Jehoram there is nothing in him which merits God’s blessing and attention. Elisha proceeds to tell Jehoshaphat God is going to supply water in abundance for him and the army and He is also going to grant them victory over the Moabites. In the end they almost completely wipe out the Moabites. All they are left with is one city, everything else is destroyed. They cease their attack when it results in human sacrifice. The key takeaway which stood out to me was the fact of how Jehoram receives the blessing of God, not because he deserves it but because he is in close proximity to a descendant of king David who is intent on serving and glorifying God. Because we are very much like Jehoram. We receive the blessing of God not because we deserve it but because we stand before God in Jesus the eternal descendant of king David.

We wrapped up the short section which introduces us to Elisha as the prophet to the 10 northern tribes. What we saw was Jericho coming to Elisha in order to seek help from God. It was a relatively young city. While it was a beautiful location it had been cursed at its founding. The city had come to realize the water was causing their animals and wives to miscarry. The Bible describes the city as bereaved. Elisha asks for a new bowl. This is important because a new bowl would not have been used for anything so it would not be contaminated in any way and would be ceremonially clean. Elisha also told them to put salt in the bowl. Salt is symbolic of God’s cleansing and preserving power. But the thing to keep in mind is Elisha could not just handle the salt. Elisha was not a pure enough vessel. The bowl foreshadows the greater and better vessel of Jesus. He would enter into time and He would be able to contain the preserving and purifying power of God. Elisha uses the bowl to cast the salt into the water source for the city and the water is healed by the power of God. Elisha left there and journeyed back toward the region of Samaria. As he was passing by Bethel a bunch of adolescent boys came out of the city and started to mock him. Telling him to keep on going up you baldy. The idea behind the text is very much a don’t stop here, we don’t want you, just keep moving old man. Bethel was the center of idolatry for the 10 northern tribes. The golden calves had been established here. They were proud of their idolatry and wanted nothing to do with God’s man. These young boys were no doubt repeating the sentiment they heard at home. Elisha then curses them and God sends two she bears out of the forest and they maul 42 of them. In Leviticus God had declared a warning that if the people would walk contrary to Him and refuse to listen He would send wild beast which would bereave them of their children. This is the same Hebrew word used in Jericho of the trauma they felt in their loss. It is a striking contrast which emphasizes the importance of the centrality of God through Jesus. A cursed city which is bereaved of its children comes to God’s man and receives grace symbolically through the pure vessel. The self-satisfied city rejects God’s man and is cursed and bereaved of it’s children. It is a dramatic story which illustrates to the people in exile and to us today the importance of the centrality of God to all things.

We walked through the calling of Elijah to heaven and the transfer of spiritual leadership from Elijah to Elisha. There are many layers to this story and the parallels are important to pick up. In this last story of Elijah’s life there is a strong parallel with Moses. He journeyed from Israel and their captivity to the world and idolatry to the Jordan. On the way they stopped at places where the schools of prophets had been established and some of them even join them on the last leg of their journey. Elijah then leads Elisha through the Jordan on dry ground like Moses led Israel through the Red sea. They went into the desert Moses ascended Mount Sinai to meet with God and receive the law. Elijah is carried by a whirlwind up to meet God. Moses dies and enters God’s presence and never enters the promised land. Elijah is carried into heaven and does not enter back into the promised land. Both of their bodies are never found. Joshua then journeys through the Jordan on dry ground back into the promised land after their sojourn in the desert. Elisha receives a doubles portion of the Spirit of God which is like him receiving an inheritance, he even cries out my father, my father when Elijah is taken away. He then journeys back through the Jordan on dry ground into the promised land. And while these parallels are interesting the reality is when something like this happens and is reinforced we should be asking ourselves what this foreshadows. Paul in the New Testament compares the journey of Israel through the Red sea to Baptism. Baptism is the symbol we use to symbolize someone coming to be identified with Christ as their Lord through salvation. The symbol of water in the Bible is almost always a symbol of judgement and death. Jesus when he was on this earth entered into God’s judgement and death for us. When Jesus entered the river of death He did not stay there but came out on the other side through resurrection. Moses and Elijah were seeking to rescue the people from slavery and idolatry. Jesus however rescues us from all sin and death. He makes all those who trust Him as Lord, His children and He gives us His Spirit. These Old Testament stories are about God working to bring physical deliverance. This simply points forward to the greater and eternal deliverance Jesus worked to bring us.

We continued our study in prayer by examining how the Psalmist and other writers expressed joy in the midst of difficulty. How did they get to joy and what are some common traits of the journey to joy in a not so joyful situation. This is one of those areas where the Biblical writers give us a variety of examples for doing this. It is also something do not naturally do and so it becomes something we need to practice and work on. We see this type of expression again and again throughout the Bible. We see it in the Psalms and wisdom books as well as commands by Paul to rejoice in the Lord always. David even appointed a whole section of the priests to do nothing but give thanks to God. This priority of giving thanks and praise to God in the Old Testament should certainly inform our own thoughts as we consider how we approach God and what the content of our prayers should include. We are not saying it should only be joy and thanksgiving but if we don’t find this theme being a part of our prayer life we should consider how it can become a part of our engagement with God.

We explored the first chapter of 2 Kings and the last days of Ahaziah. In this section we have Elijah coming back into focus. The passage tells us Ahaziah is injured pretty badly in a fall. He is concerned he will not recover and he sends servants to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of the Philistines about his recovery. God sends Elijah to meet the servants and tell them Ahaziah is pursuing false gods and will certainly die. When the servants return so quickly with bad news Ahaziah deduces, by their descriptions of the messenger, it was Elijah. Ahaziah sends a captain of 50 men and his men to go get Elijah. This must have been a life threatening situation and when the men demand Elijah come down Elijah declares if he is a man of God may fire come down and consume them. Just as he says this fire comes down and consumes them all. Somehow Ahaziah hears of this and send another captain with fifty men. This captain demands Elijah come down quickly and again God sends fire from heaven to consume them. Ahaziah sends yet another 50 and this captain falls to his knees and asks Elijah to spare his life and the lives of his men. God tells Elijah to go with this man and so he does. Elijah then delivers the same message he had previously given to Ahaziah himself. After this Ahaziah died, and his son Jehoram reigned in his place.

We explored the outcome of Ahab going to war to take back Ramoth-gilead. Micaiah had prophesied he would be killed by going up to this battle. He believes he can cheat death and God is not capable of overcoming his incredibly clever plan. He completely believes he can fool the enemy and get away with going to war without getting killed if he just disguises himself. He even tries to ensure his success by having Jehoshaphat wear his royal robes into battle so he would appear as the king of Israel. While Jehoshaphat does not get harmed, Ahab is struck by an arrow shot at random. The arrow proves to be fatal and Ahab dies at sundown. It is easy to look at a passage like this and talk about the pride of Ahab in thinking he could outsmart God. But the reality is we all struggle with thinking more highly of ourselves then we should. What this story is really highlighting is God’s word always comes to pass. You cannot hide from or escape God’s plan. What God says will happen always happens. This is a story which reminds us God is active in the world. Even in things which we would describe as random, like an archer shooting his arrow in a random way. What appears as random is part of God’s plan. God is at work all the time in details we cannot begin to fathom. He blesses those who call on His name and seek His face. He calls us to know Him and follow Him. We also saw this played out in the chapter as Jehoshaphat’s story is briefly laid out. He honored God. He restored true worship in Jerusalem. He killed the cult prostitutes. He conquered Edom. He made a poor choice in rebuilding ships in partnership with Ahab’s son Ahaziah but he learned from that poor choice and did not do it again. Jehoshaphat was a good king of Judah who sought to honor God and lead the people back to Him and God blessed him. Ahaziah king of Israel, however; continued to serve Baal and lead Israel into idol worship. He reigned two years over Israel.

We explored the opening half of 1 Kings 22. In this section we see the first real friendly connection being made between the kings of Judah and Israel. Jehoshaphat and Ahab come together and form an alliance to take back Ramoth-gilead for Israel. Jehoshaphat was a God honoring king and he wanted Ahab to bring in a prophet so they could hear a word from Yahweh about this potential battle. Ahab brings together 400 prophets who prophesy in the name of adonai. These 400 tell Ahab and Jehoshaphat to go up because Adonai will give Ramoth-gilead into their hands. Now adonai means sovereign and was used most often to refer to a ruler or land owner. It was also used to refer to God but was different then prophesying in the name of Yahweh. Upon hearing this Jehoshaphat asks Ahab if there was a prophet they could get who would give them a word from Yahweh. Ahab sends for a prophet who he doesn’t like to hear from because he always prophesies bad things about him. It is interesting how the 400 prophets at this point change their declaration and claim to be prophesying in the name of Yahweh. Michaiah, the prophet Ahab doesn’t like, shows up and begins to declare they should go up and Yahweh would give Ramoth-gilead into their hands. Ahab simply does not believe Micaiah and asks how many times he needs to make him swear he is speaking nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord. Micaiah then proceeds to tell them he sees Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep without a shepherd. Ahab sees this as a bad prophecy about him no longer being around. The king basically says this is the type of thing I thought he would say. Then Micaiah reveals how he saw the Lord in the throne of heaven, asking the host who would entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead. A lying spirit volunteered to go and deceive the prophets. The Lord declared the spirit would have success. Ahab of course does not like this prophecy of his falling in battle, and he has Micaiah put in prison until his return. At this Micaiah declares to Ahab if he returns in peace God has not spoken by him. Micaiah is a true follower of God who follows Him no matter what it cost him

We continued our study in prayer by looking at the presence of God or the lack of feeling like God is there when we pray. There are three distinct ways in which the Bible talks about the presence of God. There is His Omnipresence. This is the way in which God is everywhere all the time. You cannot get away from Him no matter where you go. A sparrow cannot fall from the sky without Him being aware of it. God is always present everywhere all the time. The second way God is present is demonstrated in His protective care. We looked at the life of Joseph and how this is demonstrated for us in his journey to slavery in Egypt. From the man who bought him to his time in prison through his ascension to the second most powerful man in Egypt, God was clearly watching over him. In the great commission which is recited not just here but many places around the world Jesus promises to be with us. The third way we looked at God’s presence is the communion He has with His people. Clearly Adam and Eve communed with Him directly as they walked with Him in the garden of Eden before the fall into sin. Today this aspect of communion with God is expressed through our time in prayer and Bible reading. This communion is facilitated by the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit. We explored the problem of feeling like God is not there when we pray. We explored the roll sin may play in causing us to feel as if we are separated from God in spite of the fact nothing can separate us from God. We also considered the way focusing on the kingdom of God can drive our hearts to a greater longing for God. Longing for God and His kingdom can help us to enter more fully into an engagement which is emotionally rich in meaning and connection. We have spent time looking specifically at ways we can improve our perception of God. We can focus on His attributes, His names, His actions, and His presence

We explored the second part to the story of Naboth’s vineyard. In this section Elijah comes on the scene confronting Ahab over his ill gotten land. He points out how Ahab has not only killed Naboth but has taken his land. This really emphasizes how both the killing and the taking of the land were wrong actions in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord had given the land to families to be passed on to their children. Naboth had told Ahab this. The land was not something he could give even if he wanted to. This was the very issue that had been Ahab’s cause of pouting, which had set in motion everything we have looked at. Ahab is under judgement for both violations of God’s law. He had stolen the land and had committed murder. Ahab starts his conversation with Elijah by calling him his enemy. Elijah points out the reason for his coming rests in the evil he has done. Elijah then goes on to pronounce God’s judgement on Ahab. He tells him how his family will be cut off like Jeroboam and Baasha. How his blood will be licked up by the dogs in the place where Naboth’s blood was spilt. How his descendants who die in the city will be eaten by dogs and those who die in the country by birds. He also tells Ahab Jezebel will be eaten by dogs within the walls of Jezreel. This is now the second time his death has been foretold. Ahab tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth, fasted and went about dejectedly. This is the first time we see Ahab do anything even close to repentance. God’s sees his actions and sends Elijah to tell him God will not bring these actions in his days but in his son’s days

We explored Ahab’s acquisition of the vineyard of Naboth. We looked at how Naboth rejected Ahab’s offer to give him a better vineyard or money for it. He did this in order to remain obedient to God and the command to not permanently transfer any land to anyone. Naboth clearly wanted to honor God. Ahab went home like a little kid and pouted about it. Jezebel comforted him and told him not to worry about it, she would take care of it. She sent letters in Ahab’s name with his seal telling the leaders of Jezreel to declare a fast. This was something usually done when there was sin among the people and they needed to repent. The people gathered in anticipation of this being addressed. They set up Naboth and had false witnesses accuse him of cursing God and the king. Then they took him out and stoned him. Once this was done Jezebel told Ahab to go and take possession of his vineyard. There were a couple of important parallels in the passage. Jezebel foreshadows those who use religion itself to pervert the word of God and draw people away from the gospel. Naboth foreshadows the how Jesus was betrayed, falsely accused, taken outside of the city and killed. Ahab is just pictured as a calloused selfish man who simply wants to have a bigger garden even if it means someone has to die in order for him to have what he wants.

We explored the last half of chapter 20. This records for us the second battle Ban-hadad had with the children of Israel. This battle was in the spring and it was staged in a valley with the idea that the God of Israel could not help them in the valley because they believed He was a God of the hills. For this very reason God promised to deliver the Syrians and the armies of their allies into the hands of the king of Israel. But it was a victory declared to be given specifically so that Ahab will know that Yahweh is the God of Israel. Ahab wins a great victory over an immense multitude with a very small army by comparison. There is even a Jericho moment when 27,000 soldiers are killed by a wall collapsing on them. This is clearly a victory given to Ahab by God. God had commanded them to destroy the Syrians. But in the end Ahab strikes a deal with Ben-hadad in exchange for some cities and trade, Ahab gives Ben-hadad his life. God’s prophet then goes and gets beat up and stages a Nathan the prophet kind of story where he tells Ahab he was guarding a key man of the enemy and was informed his life would be forfeit if he allowed him to escape. Somehow the man escaped. Ahab then declares his life is forfeit. The prophet then removes his disguise and tells Ahab this declaration he has made will be his judgement. Ahab’s response is to return home sullen and angry. Unrepentant as he always is, no matter how much God has done to reveal Himself to Him. Ahab is a truly amazing profile of the hardness of a man’s heart against God. Yet today we will continue to explore this amazing profile in being unrepentant. This had to be a really shocking profile for the people in captivity to consider. A king who saw the direct intervention of the hand of God again and again. Yet there was never any indication of repentance. Ahab simply saw God as an impediment to doing what he wanted, because of this he had no time for God. This had to be a huge warning to the people in captivity and it still carries that same message for all of us today.

We worked through the section where Elijah calls Elisha and then moved on to the first part of chapter 20 where we have Ahab and Israel being attacked by Ben-hadad the king of Syria and 32 kings. When Elijah calls Elisha to follow him he is plowing in a field with 12 yolk of oxen. These may have been driven by multiple people working for him. But what we see is Elisha is a wealthy farmer. He sacrifices one of the yoke of oxen to really celebrate the call of God on his life and shares it with all the local people. After this he leaves the farm and goes off to assist Elijah. Meanwhile the story of the attack by the king of Syria and His fellow kings unfolds. It is a dramatic story where a new profit comes to Ahab and tells him God is going to deliver them and they will know it is by the hand of God. The point is this massive army composed of the soldiers from 33 kingdoms is routed by 232 servants who lead an army of less then 10,000. It is a truly dramatic story of deliverance which could only come from the hand of God. Ben-hadad and the kings escape on horseback as the army is driven away.

We continued our study of prayer by looking at the how people in the Bible focused on God’s actions as a basis for engaging with Him in prayer. We looked at a bunch of passages where we see prayers or praise rooted in things like His love, faithfulness, and judgements which are cast against His creation. His love extends to the heavens. His love is like the mountains of God. His judgements are like the great deep. What we see again and again is the writers of scripture taking the time to think about God and His works and actions in ways that a vivid to our imagination. This kind of thinking can begin to infuse our own prayers with a deeper sense of connection and awe as we engage our imagination in the pursuit of God in prayer.

We looked at the value of living an ordinary life for the glory of an extraordinary God. Don't fight for your best life now. But fight for the glory of God in whatever place God has placed you in. You can have an impact for the glory of God no matter where God has placed you. The bad news is that I am the problem and am at fault., but the good news is that Jesus has rescued me from all the evil that I am and do and has made me into a new creation in Him.

We looked at how people in the Bible cultivated a fascination with God by looking at the Character of God. We looked at the Character of God and how the character of God draws us into praising Him because of his attributes. We looked at passages like Psalm 18 where we see the Psalmist declaring God to be his rock and fortress. The wording really gives us a sense of the Psalmist's delight in God. This contemplation of God leads us into a more emotionally and mentally engaged time of prayer.

We looked at the last event of the mount Carmel confrontation. It is Elijah telling Ahab to go eat and drink because the famine is about to end. Elijah announces this as the sound of the rushing of rain. It is pretty clear from the text this sound was not something they were hearing at that moment. What is important about this statement is the confidence Elijah has in the promise of God. God had told Elijah to go see Ahab and He would send the rain. Elijah does this and believes what God has said will happen will happen. Elijah goes and prays after this for the rain to come. We see a persistence in Elijah’s prayer. He sends his servant to look to the east for a rain cloud as he prays. He does this seven times. Until the servant returns with the announcement of a cloud in the distance the size of a man’s hand rising from the ocean. This is a points us to the importance of praying for God’s promises even when we know He is going to do something. There is still a need to pray even if we know it is going to come to pass. We see this in Jesus life as He prayed to the Father for things which were intended. We see this Revelation at the end of the book when Jesus promises He will return soon and John responds by praying, “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” This last mount Carmel event really emphasizes the importance of consistently and earnestly praying for the things God has promised. There are a lot of reasons we can state for the importance of this but probably the most important is prayer is a means by which the glory of God is manifested. When God’s people pray and things happen it is clearly God who is seen as taking action. It is God who is glorified. This should be our heartbeat and our prayer.

We explored the famous confrontation with the prophets of Baal on mount Carmel. It is really easy to get caught up in the details of what went on and miss the way the apex of this event is brought about in response to prayer. This is truly a confrontation between the true God of Israel and the false god Baal. Elijah stacked everything in favor of Baal. He met at their high holy place. He let the prophets of Baal take first pick of the bull to be sacrificed. He gave the prophets of Baal the first opportunity to call on their god. He prepared his own sacrifice and had it completely soaked with water. No worshipper of Baal could say Elijah didn’t give them the opportunity or make it difficult for their god to respond. But no matter what they did or how they called on the name of Baal nothing happened. Elijah appears to have really enjoyed the show because he engaged in a bit of sarcasm, suggesting their god might be on a trip, or maybe he was going to the bathroom, or couldn’t hear them and they should call louder. After all the preparations and many hours of opportunity for Baal to respond Elijah simply prays and God answers with a blast of fire so hot it consumes the sacrifice, the water, the stones of the altar and the dust under the altar. The description leaves us with the impression of a small crater as all which is left. God’s response to Elijah’s prayer was to display His power and turn the hearts of the people back to Him. This is exactly what Elijah prayed for. The people responded by declaring Yahweh is God. The penalty for those who lead the people of Israel in false worship is death according to Deuteronomy 13. Elijah called on the people to seize the prophets of Baal. They took them to the brook in the valley and slaughtered them all there.

We explored the famous confrontation with the prophets of Baal on mount Carmel. It is really easy to get caught up in the details of what went on and miss the way the apex of this event is brought about in response to prayer. This is truly a confrontation between the true God of Israel and the false god Baal. Elijah stacked everything in favor of Baal. He met at their high holy place. He let the prophets of Baal take first pick of the bull to be sacrificed. He gave the prophets of Baal the first opportunity to call on their god. He prepared his own sacrifice and had it completely soaked with water. No worshipper of Baal could say Elijah didn’t give them the opportunity or make it difficult for their god to respond. But no matter what they did or how they called on the name of Baal nothing happened. Elijah appears to have really enjoyed the show because he engaged in a bit of sarcasm, suggesting their god might be on a trip, or maybe he was going to the bathroom, or couldn’t hear them and they should call louder. After all the preparations and many hours of opportunity for Baal to respond Elijah simply prays and God answers with a blast of fire so hot it consumes the sacrifice, the water, the stones of the altar and the dust under the altar. The description leaves us with the impression of a small crater as all which is left. God’s response to Elijah’s prayer was to display His power and turn the hearts of the people back to Him. This is exactly what Elijah prayed for. The people responded by declaring Yahweh is God. The penalty for those who lead the people of Israel in false worship is death according to Deuteronomy 13. Elijah called on the people to seize the prophets of Baal. They took them to the brook in the valley and slaughtered them all there.

We worked through the section where Ahab met Elijah before going to Mount Carmel. In this meeting Ahab clearly lays the blame for Israel’s drought at Elijah’s feet. He calls him the troubler of Israel. Elijah doesn’t just take it but points out how Ahab is the one who has troubled Israel. He lays the problem of the drought clearly at the feet of Ahab. He points out how it was Ahab’s abandoning of the commandments of God and the following of the Baals which has caused all their problems. He then tells Ahab to gather the prophets of Baal and Asherah at Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel is a historical high place referenced by Egyptians and Assyrian documents. The Assyrians called it the Mountain of Baal of the Promontory. Dale Davis suggest it would have the been similar to calling it Baal’s Bluff. Elijah may have been setting the location at a central point of prime Baal worship. Ahab was probably thinking the goal in this meeting was to take care of the rain problem but God’s goal in this meeting was to take care of the worship problem

We explored the section which begins the famous confrontation with the prophets of Baal. There are two things really emphasized in the passage. First the importance of patience to the whole process. Elijah had really only been in two places over the course of three years. He waited on God. He rested by the brook being fed by ravens for the first part of the three years, and he rested at the widow in Zeraphath’s home for the rest of the three years. We grow easily impatient but God is always working and we see a snapshot of this as we see how He was revealing Himself to the widow and her son during this time. The Lord tells Elijah in the third year to go to Ahab and He would send rain on the earth. Elijah goes but as he is heading there Ahab calls Obadiah the head over his household to go with him to help look for water to save the horses and mules. They divide up to cover more area and start to search. Elijah meets Obadiah as he searches. This brings us to the second big point, what happens in these verses really emphasizes the way in which God works through ordinary means. Elijah tells Obadiah to go tell Ahab, “Elijah is here”. Obadiah’s response reveals how he will potentially be killed if he goes to get Ahab and Elijah is not here when he returns. Obadiah fully expects Elijah to be carried away by God because they have been looking for him for 3 years with zero success. He also reveals here how her fears God and twice how he hid 100 prophets in a cave and took care of them when Jezebel was trying to find and kill them. Obadiah has used his position as the head of Ahab’s household to serve God. He was aware of the work queen Jezebel was doing to find and kill the prophets. He used this inside knowledge to take action and move them to caves before the queen could get to them and kill them. But he not only hid them he brought them bread and water to keep them alive. God used this God fearing man in a powerful position in the house of Ahab to save His prophets. He did not use ravens or miracle jars of flour and oil. He used an ordinary God fearing man in a powerful position in the kingdom of Israel to save and provide for 100 prophets. This passage is a contrast to the miraculous provision for Elijah. In the contrast we see how God saved lives and provided for 100 out of 101 prophets through ordinary means. This emphasizes the normal way God is at work in the world. He orchestrates things and provides for His people through ordinary means. There is also a great foreshadowing of the way Jesus brings people to Himself. He uses us His bride to call people to come to Him. We see this foreshadowed in Elijah coming to Obadiah a God fearing man. Obadiah foreshadows the bride of Christ and Elijah again is a type of Christ. Here he sends the symbolic bride to go and call the symbolic pagan Ahab to come to him. All these verses really set up this picture. God could have had Elijah meet Ahab directly in the wilderness but we would not have been left with the picture which reminds us of how God works through the bride of Christ to call the world to come to Him. This does not mean they always repent but they are given the opportunity and are left without excuse.

We explored the section where the woman who is providing food and shelter for Elijah during the famine suffers the loss of her son. This is a time of real trial for her. Yet in this trial we see God working to bring greater understanding of the God of Elijah and by this a greater hope in Him. Her immediate response to the death of her son is to connect it to her own sin. Perhaps she is even connecting it to her former life as an idol worshipper. One of the gods of the Sidonians was the god Mot. Mot was the god of death. Perhaps she had worshipped this god in the past. Elijah here responds to the woman’s distress and self-condemnation by asking her to give him her son. He carries the boy into his upper chamber and cries out to the Lord. He asks God to bring the child back to life. This is a great act of faith because as far as the Biblical record is concerned we have never seen anyone brought back to life prior to this in scripture. But Elijah asks for what must have seemed impossible. Yet God hears the prayer of Elijah and gives life back to the child. Just like Yahweh has shown himself as greater then Baal by stopping the rain and dew, He shows Himself greater then Mot by bringing the boy back to life. This double confirmation brings sure knowledge of the God of Israel to this widow of Zeraphath.

We worked through the part of Elijah’s story where the brook the Lord sent him to dried up. Elijah is recorded here as being obedient to God and staying by the dried up brook until the word of the Lord came to him and directed him to move on. When the word of the Lord did come to him the Lord sent him to Zeraphath. This was a town which belonged to Sidon and Sidon is where Jezebel’s father was king. This means Zeraphath was part of the center of Baal worship. God told Elijah He had commanded a widow there to feed him. As he approached the city he saw a woman gathering sticks and asked her to bring him a drink of water. She went to go get it and as she went Elijah asked her to bring him a piece of bread. She responded to him stating first that Yahweh his God lives. And just as He lives she has no bread baked and only a little flour and water which she intended to use for one last meal with her son before they died. It is amazing a woman in a town committed to Baal worship would acknowledge that Yahweh the God of the Jews was the living God. This really points out how the rain and dew being withheld really showed the power of the God of Israel over the power of Baal. In this woman’s eyes at least the God of the Jews had won. Elijah tells her to not fear and do as he said and Yahweh has said the flour she has will not be used up and the oil she has will not run out until Yahweh sends rain on the earth. Elijah was asking the woman to trust God and act on faith in Yahweh. The woman did exactly as Elijah asked and demonstrated her faith in the God of Israel. And God did as he spoke through Elijah and provided flour and oil for the woman, her son, and Elijah

The time of gathering to pray with your brothers and sisters in Christ is precious in the sight of God. Corporate prayer is a means by which glory is brought to God in our dependence on him and in the answers to prayer that God brings (which glorifies God in the hearts of the body of the believers who prayed together). Prayer is an awesome gift from God. May the people of God wield this gift and seek their God in prayer. God, the believer, and communication are the three core elements of prayer and the primary focus here.

We looked at the lives of three kings which are recorded for us in the book of kings but are not mentioned in the book of chronicles. This raises the question of why does the writer of kings see fit to recount these rulers to the people in exile he is writing to? The first king of the trio was named Elah. He was the son of Baasha and he ruled for 2 years and not only continued to promote idol worship but he did not lead his troops to battle but instead stayed in the capital and got drunk. He was an idol worshipping drunkard who shirked his duty to lead. His short reign and murder at the hands of Zimri shows God’s hand of judgment on him, and would have been a warning to the people. Zimri wipes out the descendants and friends of Baasha fulfilling the prophecy made about him. But Zimri faces a siege against the capital of Tirzah and burns down the palace around him and dies in the fire. His short reign of 7 days is a warning. The writer of kings tells us his reign was cut short partly because he caused Israel to sin in her idolatry. Zimri only reigned for 7 days but the worship of God is so important to God that Zimri is held responsible for not calling on the people to repent and return to the Lord. This is a real warning to readers of this book during any period of time. God will hold the leadership of people responsible for pointing their people to God. Zimri only reigned 7 days but God holds him accountable for not calling the people to return to Him. Omri laid siege to Tirzah and took over the rulership of Israel after Zimri. He was a really successful king by human standards. He established a new capital city of Samaria. He made peace with the surrounding countries including Judah. There is even an Assyrian document which refers to the northern kingdom as the land of Omri. But this king continued to worship idols and lead the people in this sinful practice. His worldly success is a total failure in the eyes of God because he failed at the most important thing; repenting and returning to the Lord. We wrapped up lost time with the death of Omri recorded for us in verse 28. While all this is happening in Israel Asa is ruling over Judah and Asa was a God fearing king in stark contrast to the idolatry which was being practiced in Israel.

We began to explore the section where Elijah is introduced to us. He just suddenly appears on the scene. In the same way that Melchizedek foreshadows the priestly ministry of Jesus Elijah foreshadows the prophetic ministry of Jesus. He suddenly comes on the scene. He calls the people to repentance and does miraculous works. He ascends into heaven at the end of his ministry. We learn from the book of James that Elijah’s prayers were basis on which the rain was withheld from the land. Elijah prayed in accordance with God’s stated judgement on those who were part of Israel who turned their back on Him. We saw this in Deuteronomy 11. Elijah went to Ahab and informed him this judgement of drought was a supernatural event brought about by God. Then after giving the message he followed the word of the Lord and lived by the brook Cherith which is east of the Jordan. During his time there the Lord had ravens bring him food and he drank from the brook. This judgement by famine is happening after many years of Israel becoming essentially a pagan nation. Elijah is sent to the people to call them to return to the Lord. His message is confirmed by the miracles he performs.