{"id":35422,"date":"2025-04-10T22:00:37","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T05:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=35422"},"modified":"2025-04-01T20:52:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T03:52:53","slug":"2-kings-6_24-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/2-kings-6_24-33\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember Who Your Real Enemy Is"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 Kings \u00a06:24-33 (CLICK HERE FOR\u00a0BIBLE VERSES)<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is 2 Kings 6:24-33.\u00a0 As usual,\u00a0I encourage you to open your Bible and read the passage yourself first.\u00a0 See what you can glean with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help. Then read the GAME sharing below.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

2 Kings 6:24-30 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n24\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria.
\n25\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels.
\n26\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”
\n27\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The king replied, “If the\u00a0LORD\u00a0does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?”
\n28\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’
\n29\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”
\n30\u00a0<\/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.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses\u00a024-30:\u00a0 King Ben-Hadad of Aram has laid seige to Samaria, Israel’s capital city.\u00a0 Without 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\u00a0Kings\u00a03 when King Solomon had to judge between two mothers who both 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\u00a06:53-55 Jesus makes a statement that many would misunderstand:<\/p>\n

53\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\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<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.\u00a0<\/em>
\n55\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u00a0For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Jesus was not advocating cannibalism.\u00a0 Rather he was urging us to depend on Him.\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<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Kings<\/em><\/strong>\u00a06<\/em><\/strong>:31 (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n31\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\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 31:\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.<\/p>\n

King Joram considered Elisha to be his enemy and the cause of Aram’s attacks.\u00a0 How quickly he had forgotten that 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. Rather than blaming God or others whenever you face a problem, take responsibility for your part and trust God that He is working all things out for good.<\/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 Remember who your real enemy is and resist him (James 4:7).<\/p>\n

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

copyright \u00a9 2022 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is 2 Kings 6:24-33.\u00a0 As usual,\u00a0I encourage you to open your Bible and read the passage yourself first.\u00a0 See what you can glean with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help. Then read the GAME sharing below.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

2 Kings 6:24-30 (NIV)
\n24\u00a0\u00a0Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria.
\n25\u00a0\u00a0There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels.
\n26\u00a0\u00a0As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, “Help me, my lord the king!”<\/p>\n

On verses\u00a024-30:\u00a0 King Ben-Hadad of Aram has laid seige to Samaria, Israel’s capital city.\u00a0 Without 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35430,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35422","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\/35422","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=35422"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35431,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35422\/revisions\/35431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}