[SPEAKER_00]: Family, welcome to day one, seventy two.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to go through three chapters of second Kings today, second Kings chapter three, four and five to give you like a broad overview in terms of context clues and where we're going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two big things at hand that we're going to look at.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first one are the political dynamics of Israel, Judah and Edom, who are actually allied together to fight against Moab.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, all of these words are familiar.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've heard them before.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may exactly who Israel is to the northern kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Judah is the southern kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Edom would be the descendants of Esau.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, and there's a nerdy nugget associated with the Edomites that we'll go through today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are allied against Moab, the Moabites.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, when lots daughters
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, seduce their father and have incest babies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: With their dad, uh, uh, one of those boys is Moab.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Moabites are going to be a part of of this little political situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the, the acts of the brunt of what we're going to talk about.
[SPEAKER_00]: is the miraculous prophetic ministry of Elijah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now in this section, just to give you context for where we're going, we are going not in depth, but we're going to see minimum six miracles of Elijah's ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just in these short couple chapters, we're going to see the miraculous provision for the widow for her oil.
[SPEAKER_00]: the Shinomite woman's son.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to see a poisonous stew reversed so that so that people can actually eat that that's a miracle of the pot and a stew.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we're going to see feeding of a hundred men, which foreshadows Jesus is feeding of the five thousand.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to see a military commander by the name of name and is how he's called in the wider
[SPEAKER_00]: cultural Christian world, but not Aman is would be a more accurate pronunciation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we're going to see Gahazi is cursed with leprosy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So multiple miracles from Eli Shuh in this section.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got some political dynamics going on in Israel, and then we've got miracles of Eli Shuh.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this section of reading is really going to focus on Eli Shuh coming to the forefront.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the same way that the Bible established Elijah as a legitimate prophet with the mark of legitimacy being signs, miracles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same is gonna happen with Elijah.
[SPEAKER_00]: The proof that his prophetic words are true is that the prophetic words are gonna be followed with miracles, with signs.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are going to be the proof of authenticity.
[SPEAKER_00]: that a lie, sure, is that she's speaking on behalf of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's get into some nerdy nuggets.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first one that I want you to see is that Moab is at the beginning of the story that Moab is paying tribute, okay, and sheep and in wool.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to go to verse four, chapter three.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now King Mesha of Moab was a sheep breeder.
[SPEAKER_00]: who used to deliver to the king of Israel, one hundred thousand lambs, and the wool of one hundred thousand rams.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so this is called tribute.
[SPEAKER_00]: This right here means that Moab is a vessel, and that Israel is a
[SPEAKER_00]: Susan, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: So tribute being paid is what happens in a normal Susan Vassal Treaty, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or Susan Vassal Subjugation, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I'm not gonna attack you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not gonna kill ya, but you owe me, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: One hundred thousand lambs a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: and wool from one hundred thousand rams a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the annual tribute from King of Moab to the King of Israel is going to be both sheep and wool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next, it is quite ironic that they choose
[SPEAKER_00]: They got to fight against Moab, because Moab does not want to be suppressed or oppressed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they choose to go through the desert of Edom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't know why they chose to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's what I want you to remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what's really, really necessary to remember for the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that the Edomites are descended of Esau?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do we know about Esau?
[SPEAKER_00]: He was hairy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's also true?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just hair.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is that that hair is red, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the thing that we know about Esau is that he's red, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what's ironic is that the land of Adam is going to have this red dirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and when it's a desert, so not it's on a water in this area, but when the water does hit this red dirt, it looks like blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this is going to work out perfectly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, because they're going to the desert, they think, you know, they've lost actually, which King actually says it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the King of Israel said,
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, this is verse ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alas, the Lord is summoned us three kings only to be hand over to Moab, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there's no water.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Josh Fatt, this is the King of Judah, said, is there no profit of the Lord here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Through whom we may inquire of the Lord?
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're in a jam, who do you call?
[SPEAKER_00]: You call a prophet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this may sound wild to us, but that's actually the answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: The prophet is going to declare that that God is going to provide water.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because the dirt is red, it is the molybites are going to assume that there's
[SPEAKER_00]: blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse twenty two, when they rose early in the morning in the sun shone upon the water, the molybites saw the water opposite them as red as blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse twenty three, they said, this is blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kings must have fought together and killed one another now then Moab to the spoil.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and attacked them a little bit, who fled before them as they entered Moab, they continued the attack.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cities they overturned and on every good piece of land, everyone through a stone until it was covered, every spring of water they stopped up and every good tree they filled.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so that's not going to make sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't know that Esau is known as the red hairy man,
[SPEAKER_00]: The land that he occupies has red dirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because God provided miraculous amounts of water in the middle of this desert, the water looks red.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the reason the mole bite think there's blood is because the dirt is actually red.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a context clue so that you can actually know what's going on in the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without that context clue, this story doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: That gets a squarely in a chapter four.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll kind of give you some nerdy nuggets.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last thing you didn't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Extra biblical.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: This will be my first nerdy nugget about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Extra biblical.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can look up the measure still.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: The King of Moab is Meshah.
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, the measure still actually confirms everything in this biblical account.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love it when there's extra biblical evidence, extra biblical means just stuff that's outside of the Bible that confirms or backs up what we read in the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get into some nerdy nuggets around Elijah's miraculous ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So number one, the widow that Elijah begins to provide oil for.
[SPEAKER_00]: First thing, she says, your servant, my husband is dead and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but a creditor has come to take my two children as slaves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, this is what's known as debt slavery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, in the old covenant, or just in the ancient Near East, this doesn't have anything to do with what the Bible says.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only way to pay back a debt is with indentured servitude, is with you, essentially saying, well, I'll work it off.
[SPEAKER_00]: the only way for me to pay back my debt is to work for you is to loan myself out to you as an employee and that's slavery.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is debt slavery.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Elijah's miracle here
[SPEAKER_00]: is actually saving these two boys from debt slavery, from being enslaved because their mother is in debt because she's a widow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next, we got the Shinemite son.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there's a lot of scholars who believe, Elijah doesn't really hear from God to provide a son for this woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a high ranking, powerful woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of scholars actually believe that Elijah is just going out on a limb and God's honoring it
[SPEAKER_00]: But then God's humbling Elijah by causing the boy to mysteriously die, then forcing Elijah to really, to really work to bring the boy back to life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a miracle, but you could see how
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe, maybe a live shot is really trying to go on a favor with this woman instead of do what the Lord's son to do, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: He seems to be going off on his own, on his own, kind of freestyling a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse thirty three is is one of the first times that we're going to actually see a live show praying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse thirty two.
[SPEAKER_00]: says when Elijah came into the house, he saw the young saw the child lying dead on his bed for thirty three.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he went in and closed the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he had a pray to the Lord when when when when the woman says that they're not able to have children.
[SPEAKER_00]: He prays the Lord now though.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot, I think there's a lot going on in between, in between the lines, essentially two miracles that involve food.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we have not a man, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's get to chapter five, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not a man or a name.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the big kind of thing that nerdy nugget you need to know, is that the ancient Near East or a lot of the Bible is gonna operate on what is called an honor, shame, cultural context.
[SPEAKER_00]: on or shame.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the thing that's how it's going on here is that naming, naming expects an elaborate healing ritual that befits his statue and his status.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's an important person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why in the world would you pick me up?
[SPEAKER_00]: And a Honda Civic, you should have picked me up in an escalate, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, the Jordan River is nowhere near as luxurious as the waters that we got up here in Syria.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the issue here is humility.
[SPEAKER_00]: and name and does humble himself so that he can actually walk and healing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you don't know that there's an honor shame, culture at play here, then maybe you're wondering what the world like wise name and so upset, he just got a dip himself in the Jordan.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also another theme emerging here.
[SPEAKER_00]: is that oftentimes servants know more than really powerful people who are in charge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, naming is not healed because he has a bright idea to go find Alasha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Axi, it says that when the airman's were on one of their raids, they had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she served name into wife.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so she's got the idea that name and should actually go get healed
[SPEAKER_00]: or seek healing from the prophet Alaisha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Trying to think, Gahazi is going to get cursed with leprosy, which is ironic because it is actually name and who just got cured with leprosy and since Gahazi wants something from name and done have the integrity to refuse the gifts.
[SPEAKER_00]: from naming, then Alash is gonna go since you want something from naming, you can get something from naming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, later on, we're gonna get another story about Kahazi, which Axi shows us that these stories are not in sequential order, because once Kahazi's got leprosy, he can't, he can no longer be in service, actually, to Alash.
[SPEAKER_00]: the stories aren't necessarily in perfect sequence, but they fit the narrative sequence in the agenda of the author.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, last nerdy nugget for you is a lot of just ability to raise the shun of my woman's son.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mirrors Elijah's resurrection of the widow son and first king seventeen and its further proof that Elijah has indeed received a double portion of Elijah's spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so tons of miracles here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually provides a great narrative break to just all the political stuff that's happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because up into this point, really, you're just keeping track of who's the king of the north.
[SPEAKER_00]: The north is not going to have any good kings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally, all the kings are going to be wicked and bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by wicked and bad, it means idolatrous and unjust.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then eight of the kings in the south are going to be good kings are going to be great kings.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, okay, last thing I got for you, and it's our Thomas truth, and it actually is going to come from chapter three verse fifteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you go up to chapter three verse fifteen, you go back to the moment where King of Israel, King of Judah, King of Moab, or the King of Israel, King of Judah, and the King of Edom are all fighting against the King of Moab, and finally someone says,
[SPEAKER_00]: There's got to be a prophet who could help us out here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's actually the king of Judah says there's got to be a prophet who can actually give us some help.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love they finally get Elijah and Elijah's got some harsh words for the king of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love what Elijah says says, what have I to do with you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Go to your father's prophets or to your mothers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what he's saying is that you're wicked, you know, they ain't like, go, go ask, but all what you should do since you like bail, since you love bail.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he makes it clear, if King, Josh Fatt of Judah wasn't here, I wouldn't even look at y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's verse, uh, fourteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this verse, fifteen, but get me a musician.
[SPEAKER_00]: but get me a musician, and then it says, and then while the musician was playing, the power of the Lord came on him, and then he begins to prophesy, what does he prophesy?
[SPEAKER_00]: Thus that's the Lord, I will make this water full of pools.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna miraculously provide water for this army who's going through the desert of Edam.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, get me a musician, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there was a Thomas truth in this whole list, that's the Thomas truth right there, that music has the ability to bring the annoying and the power of God and the peace of God, man, I
[SPEAKER_00]: I've yet to just preach without amazing worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like worship doesn't just bless God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It also empowers the minister so that people can do ministry from a place of not having to conjure up the power of the Holy Spirit, but music begins to facilitate an atmosphere
[SPEAKER_00]: where ministering becomes easy and you can start to flow in grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so get me a musician.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Elijah, Elijah shows us the prophesied.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes, let's start with some music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's set the atmosphere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as the musician plays, it says the power of the Lord came on him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've experienced that so often where the right, not even singer, just the right musician that music carries a spirit with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a young man who like works for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember when he moved to Dallas to work for Arma, I remember saying, hey, you gotta stop listening to the secular music.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's feeding your spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not feeding your spirit like protein and nutrients.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's feeding your flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's feeding your pride.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's feeding your lust.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's feeding.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's feeding all the things in you that you actually don't want to grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whatever you start will die and whatever you feed will grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the instrumental has a spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all these people who are like, no, but the lyrics, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: The instrumentals, the spirit of the musician, is carried through the music.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what does Elijah say?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, if you want me to prophesy, I'll prophesy to go get me a musician.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as the musician begins to play, the power of the Lord falls on Elijah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we don't just do worship at the beginning of a church service because that's just a cool order of service.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do worship at the beginning of a worship service because we're ushering in the power of the Lord, the power of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a timeless truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I ask people like, hey, so when you're depressed, what do you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they say, well, I just listen to sad music when I'm depressed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you're just making the depression worse by whatever you feed will grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you feel sad that that's not what you should do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Find a musician.
[SPEAKER_00]: Find a musician because music affects your mood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Music begins to usher in a different spirit, spirit of gladness, the spirit of joy, spirit of praise.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also really a spirit of power, which empowers Elijah to prophesy, and that prophecy becomes the thing that determines the outcome of the struggle between Judah, Israel, and Edom against Moab.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's my timeless truth for the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a ton more, but that's the one that I really want it to.
[SPEAKER_00]: focus on today is the power of music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just lyrics, just the power of music.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know a lot of pastors who are like, you know, I don't care what the musicians are doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care if they smoke weed or have sex outside of marriage or, you know, as long as they're as long as they're gifted, you know, and I go, hey man, they're not just transferring their gift or transferring their spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're allowing someone to hold an instrument and have spiritual authority in a worship service.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think their lifestyle matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, I don't know, I'm just going to go on a limb and say, you know, we don't want to multiply a spirit of pride or spirit of lust or spirit of rage or anger in the congregation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that musicians have spiritual authority with or without lyrics.
[SPEAKER_00]: music has the ability to carry the spirit of the person that is playing the music.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I think that's really, really, really powerful.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I don't know if you've ever done a Ghana Orange Theory, but guess what?
[SPEAKER_00]: The better the music, the better you're run, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because really, you're not as therefore a trainer that trainers also a DJ, the playlists that they create.
[SPEAKER_00]: There should be a playlist of the season of your life that you're right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe if you're struggling with depression or struggling anxiety, maybe want to change the playlist that is accompanying the season of your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to change what's going on in that season.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: To model, we're going to dive in a day one, seventy three.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to continue our trek through second Kings.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm proud of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're on a street, you better not break it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you right here tomorrow as we continue walking through second Kings.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: So proud of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peace.