Through the Bible in 66 Days - 2 Kings

First and Second Kings are often regarded as one book. It covers the period from King Ahab to the time when Israel and Judah were taken into captivity—the period known as the exile. The reason this happened was that they disobeyed God, worshipped idols and turned to grotesque religious practices that were not only evil but very harmful to women and children.

The basic lesson we learn from this is that sin will always catch up with you. You can't outrun it, and there are long-term consequences to our behaviour. This is something we all need to be aware of, as we often forget that we will all stand before God, our maker and that He, as the judge of all the earth, will deal with us fairly but righteously. Hebrews 9:27,28 state this - 'And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him' KJV.

Helping someone when they get down

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

How do you help someone when everything gets on top of them, and they feel that it is not worth living?

I am interested to see how Bible characters handled these episodes in their lives. It is easy to dismiss them and say that they didn’t experience pressure like we do, but I think some of them had a really tough time.

Take, for example, Elijah. He was a real character. I think most of us would have thought he was quite a resilient and strong person. That in itself is a warning.

Elijah was a spokesman for God. These men were commonly known as Prophets. God communicated with them, and they were expected to pass on His message ‘word for word’. No changes or adjustments, their terms of engagement were - just tell them what I told you - ‘thus says the LORD’. As a result of this, Elijah had met Kings, military leaders and other influential people. All in all, he was an impressive man. You couldn’t imagine him being brow beaten by anyone or getting depressed by his circumstances - but he did.

We discover this in 1 Kings chapter 19. If you are interested, read 1 Kings chapter 18 (it’s a captivating read) to get the background. Elijah has just been involved in a major event where God used Him to prove that He (God) is a living and powerful God and that the so-called God, called Baal, was nothing but a sham, a figment of the imagination and powerless. After this, Elijah should have been ‘on a high,’ but he wasn’t.