{"id":3050,"date":"2019-05-06T20:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T03:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=3050"},"modified":"2019-05-06T21:56:04","modified_gmt":"2019-05-07T04:56:04","slug":"2kings_6_24-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/2kings_6_24-33\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Play the Blame Game + Know Who Your Real Enemy Is"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 Kings 6:24-33 Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today’s passage is 2 Kings 6:24-33.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

On verses 24-32:\u00a0 King Ben-Hadad of Aram has laid seige to Samaria, Israel’s capital city.\u00a0 Without ongoing access to food, Samaria suffers a severe famine.\u00a0 The Israelites in Samaria are so desperate that in verses 26-29 we read about two Israelite mothers who apparently agreed that they would eat their sons to survive.\u00a0 Now that one mother’s son has been eaten, the other mother refuses to let her own son suffer the same fate.\u00a0 So they call out to Joram King of Israel to make a decision.\u00a0 (This conflict between two mothers recalls a previous conflict in 1 Kings 3 when King Solomon had to judge between two mothers who both claim claim that their own son is the living one while the other’s son is the dead one.)<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0 These mothers were willing to eat a son in order to survive, yet even their son’s flesh would not sustain them forever.\u00a0 In contrast, in John 6:53-55 Jesus makes a statement that many would misunderstand:<\/p>\n

53\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0Jesus said to them,\u00a0“I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.\u00a0<\/em>
\n54\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
\n55\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Jesus was not condoning cannibalism.\u00a0 Rather he was pointing us to our need to place our hope and trust in Jesus.\u00a0 Only His sacrificed body on the cross and His shed blood can give us the life that we really hunger for: a life where we are forgiven of our sins and have a relationship with God.<\/p>\n

2 Kings 6:30-31 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n30\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0When the king heard the woman’s words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and there, underneath, he had sackcloth on his body.
\n31\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0He said, “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 30-33:\u00a0 In the midst of the siege and famine, Joram King of Israel is depressed and at his wit’s end about what to do (v30).\u00a0 He defaults to blaming Elisha for all this trouble and looks to kill him.\u00a0 King Joram sends a messenger ahead of him, perhaps as a final warning to Elisha.\u00a0 Elisha is aware of the king’s intention and warns the elders of Israel about what the king wants to do, just as the king’s messenger arrives.<\/p>\n

King Joram considered Elisha to be his enemy and the cause of Aram’s attacks.\u00a0 How quickly he had forgotten how God had used Elisha repeatedly to save Israel from Aram’s attacks (see verses 8-23).\u00a0 What can we learn from this?<\/p>\n

1. Pressure tends to reveal our true character.<\/p>\n

2. Don’t be quick to forget the good things that God and God’s people have done for you. At the same time, don’t be quick to blame God and God’s people for your problems.<\/p>\n

3. Remember that your enemy is not flesh and blood but Satan (see Ephesians\u00a06:12).\u00a0 Satan would love for you to think that your biggest problem or your biggest adversary is another human being, for Satan does his best work when he is left unrecognized and undetected.\u00a0 Don’t waste time attacking other people, especially the church and its leaders.<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, thank You for the life I have in Your Son Jesus.\u00a0 \u00a0May I always be clear on who my real enemy is.\u00a0 It’s not You.\u00a0 It’s not people.\u00a0 But it’s Satan.\u00a0 Help me to stand strong against Satan by Your power at work in me and not to be distracted by the sneaky games Satan plays to get me to blame and attack other people.\u00a0 In Jesus’ name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today’s passage is 2 Kings 6:24-33.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

On verses 24-32:\u00a0 King Ben-Hadad of Aram has laid seige to Samaria, Israel’s capital city.\u00a0 Without ongoing access to food, Samaria suffers a severe famine.\u00a0 The Israelites in Samaria are so desperate that in verses 26-29 we read about two Israelite mothers who apparently agreed that they would eat their sons to survive.\u00a0 Now that one mother’s son has been eaten, the other mother refuses to let her own son suffer the same fate.\u00a0 So they call out to Joram King of Israel to make a decision.\u00a0 (This conflict between two mothers recalls a previous conflict in 1 Kings 3 when King Solomon had to judge between two mothers who both claim claim that their own son is the living one while the other’s son is the dead one.)\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0 These mothers were willing to eat a son in order to survive, yet even their son’s flesh would not sustain them forever.\u00a0 In contrast, in John 6:53-55 Jesus makes a statement that many would misunderstand:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3050"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3077,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3050\/revisions\/3077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}