{"id":3145,"date":"2019-05-15T20:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T03:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=3145"},"modified":"2019-05-12T16:23:21","modified_gmt":"2019-05-12T23:23:21","slug":"2kings_10_15-36","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/2kings_10_15-36\/","title":{"rendered":"Jehu is gone. Jesus has come"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 Kings 10:18-36\u00a0 Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today’s passage is 2 Kings 10:15-36. Let’s go!<\/p>\n

2 Kings 10:28-29 (NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n28\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0So Jehu destroyed Baal worship in Israel.
\n29\u00a0<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0However, he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit–the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 15-36:\u00a0 Having gotten rid of the house of Ahab along with a slew of others, Jehu now focuses on erasing the worship of the idol Baal in Israel. He invites all the prophets of Baal to the temple of Baal under the auspices that he is going to hold an assembly in honour of their god. Jehu even gives each prophet of Baal a special robe (which seems like a gift when in fact it just makes them an easier target).\u00a0 As these prophets make their sacrifices to Baal, Jehu’s men ambush the prophets of Baal and cut them down with the sword inside the temple.\u00a0 They also destroy the temple of Baal and begin using it as a urinal.<\/p>\n

Jehu’s legacy is that he destroyed the house of Ahab (which he did in accordance with God’s command) (v30) and destroyed Baal worship in Israel (v28).\u00a0 However, there were two forces that Jehu did not destroy.\u00a0 First, Jehu continued to support the worship of Jeroboam’s golden calves (v29, 31) and thus did not follow the Lord wholeheartedly.\u00a0 Second, Jehu could not defeat the nation of Aram led by their king Hazael.\u00a0 Rather, during Jehu’s reign, Aram took over more and more of Israel’s territory (v32-33).\u00a0 After a 28 year reign as king over Israel, Jehu dies and is succeeded by his son Jehoahaz (v35-36).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from all this?\u00a0 \u00a0The life of Jehu as recorded in 2 Kings 9-10 reads like a mature-rated third person shooter game.\u00a0 It’s full of violent, bloody, merciless killing of those who have done evil by turning away from the Lord.\u00a0 You might ask, “How could God approve of such violence?\u00a0 Does it please God for His people to kill this way?\u00a0 Does God support terrorism?”<\/p>\n

Here’s the problem:\u00a0 If God shows mercy to those who sin and lets them off the hook, people will accuse God of being unjust and indifferent to evil.\u00a0 But if God punishes those who sin (as he does through Jehu in 2 Kings 9-10), people will accuse God of being merciless and cruel.\u00a0 So what should God do?\u00a0 Amazingly,\u00a0centuries after Jehu destroyed the house of Ahab and the prophets of Baal, God did the unthinkable:\u00a0 He punished evildoers AND He showed them mercy at the same time.\u00a0 How?\u00a0 By sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross on behalf of every sinner.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the cross God condemned and punished all of our sins and placed them on Himself.\u00a0 At the same time at the cross God also showed us how unsurpassably merciful and loving God is, canceling our debt by paying it Himself.\u00a0 \u00a0As people will hear me say at THRIVE Church,\u00a0the cross of Jesus Christ is the intersection where justice and mercy meet<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

That’s why,\u00a0since Jesus died on the cross, God in the New Testament no longer commands that His people be modern day Jehu’s who go out and kill unbelievers for their idolatry.\u00a0 That’s because God has already dealt with people’s sins and idolatry at the cross.\u00a0 Justice has been served.<\/strong>\u00a0 Now God waits for us to respond and receive the mercy and grace that God makes available through Jesus Christ alone.\u00a0 And so instead of unleashing violence on unbelievers, God calls us to love them and to show them the same mercy and grace that God has shown to us, in hopes that they will turn to Jesus one day as well.\u00a0 Jehu is gone and Jesus has come, and we are called to follow Jesus.<\/p>\n

Lord Jesus, t<\/em>hank You for being the God who hates sin but who loves sinners.\u00a0 T<\/em>hank You for the cross where Your justice and mercy meet.\u00a0 May we be Christ-like representatives in our world and lead others to You, and doing it Your way.\u00a0 In Jesus’ name, AMEN!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today’s passage is 2 Kings 10:15-36. Let’s go!<\/p>\n

2 Kings 10:28-29 (NIV)\u00a0
\n28\u00a0\u00a0So Jehu destroyed Baal worship in Israel.\u00a0
\n29\u00a0\u00a0However, he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit–the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On verses 15-36:\u00a0 Having gotten rid of the house of Ahab along with a slew of others, Jehu now focuses on erasing the worship of the idol Baal in Israel. He invites all the prophets of Baal to the temple of Baal under the auspices that he is going to hold an assembly in honour of their god. Jehu even gives each prophet of Baal a special robe (which seems like a gift when in fact it just makes them an easier target).\u00a0 As these prophets make their sacrifices to Baal, Jehu’s men ambush the prophets of Baal and cut them down with the sword inside the temple.\u00a0 They also destroy the temple of Baal and begin using it as a urinal.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3145","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\/3145","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=3145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3147,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145\/revisions\/3147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}