Struck With Misery and Despair: 2 Kings 6:24 - 7:2

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways.

Hey, everybody, good morning.

It's gonna be a good day.

It is.

It's gone me.

I feel great today because I'm wearing a vest.

By the way, do you know who this sings at.

It's Jonah's Brothers.

Okay, gonna be a good day, you figured.

Hey, did you just say you're gonna have a good

day because we're wearing a vest?

Yeah, I feel good about it. It's been cold lately.

I'm wearing a vest like every day lately because it's

cold outside.

It's so funny. That's the reason why it's gonna be.

I warn to invest in you're not.

You woke up. Well, I'm going straight to the HFE

to work out.

Jim to the gym. To the gym. Hey, so you

got to a musclehead, aren't you?

No, not even close. I just want to bend over

with that grunting. That's g's my going life.

Okay.

Hey, when so you went into.

The closet and you're like you're like, you know what,

I want you to be a good day until you

reach for your.

Vest, my good day. Vest.

Yeah that's awesome.

You just want to bend over without grunting?

Yeah? Yeah.

Well the older I get, the more I felt like,

like when I bend over now, like to put on

my socks or something. I like, anything else I need

to do while I'm down here, because I don't want.

To do it again. To do it again, you're done here?

Anything else I'm gonna know. I guess I'm done, all right? Right?

Yeah, I just that's that's that's my goal in life.

It's not to become a meathead. It's it's so I

can move.

And I thought maybe you were, you know, beefing up

because you're secretly gonna beat me up someday out in

the parking lot or something.

Wow, that would be a goal.

And I'm training to be is like like a Rocky movie, right, you.

Just like Michael Scott and training for yeah, threat level midnight.

That's right, that's funny.

Okay, Chris, Today we have a really good segment.

What a weird and yet delightful.

This is great. Now I'm going to take credit for

this one. We were sitting in a board meeting. We

were you and I we were and some joke came

up about the Bible Guy's podcasts, which is always shocking

to me. Anybody to make a joke about a serious

podcast like this.

Yeah, what the heck?

And then we got to talking about theme songs, and

then I thought, wouldn't it be fun if we had

a theme song? And I suggested like different TV shows

that were that had the tune right.

Yeah.

Well then all of a sudden we type it into

chat GPT, we get Ai to write us.

Lyrics and I think I think you tried Happy Days.

Happy Days.

Yeah, yeah, which was great Sunday movie.

Well, after the meeting was over, we're cleaning up, and

I walked through the commons area in the offices and

Dez is still in the office. Yeah, she sure was right,

it was it was late in the evening, but she

she was still there. And I was like, Dad, you

gotta we just had a new idea. And so it's

the Bible Guy's themes, right, because we don't.

Have a great Bible Guys theme song, No, we don't

have any.

So today what she wants to do is maybe make

this a segment where we start exploring different theme songs.

And so so today here what we're gonna do is

we're gonna take the theme song, the tune from the Flintstones,

and we're gonna have.

You rework it to spotlight the Bible Guys. So here's

what I did.

I went to AI and I said, help me write

the lyrics to a theme song for a podcast called

The Bible Guys, whose theme is a couple of friends

who like to talk about about the Bible and fun

of practical ways, make fun and lighthearted.

Write it to the tune of the Flintstones. And this

is what it gave us right here, Chris, So.

Just sing these lyrics for us, whip it out real quick,

and maybe if it's good, maybe we'll make it the

official theme song of the Bible Guys.

First of all, this does not fit perfectly. I can tell,

and I'm gonna butcher this. Oh come on, but we're

gonna try it.

You're amazing, Okay, amazing, Yes, oh jeez, anything you have

to do this can wait.

I'm so excited.

The funny things you are.

I am you are going to be fabulous. Okay, yep,

all right, dump dump okay.

Thanks Jeff.

Here ready, Bible Guys, it's the Bible Guys. Two good

friends who.

Make you laugh and learn. Grab a chair, dive into

the word.

Every day is a fun new twist and turn, talking

faith cracking jokes. It's wild breaking down the Bible.

With some style.

When you're with the Bible, guys, you'll be smiling till

your cheeks conlide.

It's the Bible, guys, It's the Bible. Guys. It play now,

don't let the fun pass by. That is terrible. Love it, terrible,

love it.

This has to be a news weekly segment. We have

to include every week about maybe twice a week. Let's think.

Let's think about doing it twice a week. This delights me.

No, no, no, let's let us First of all, I

don't know that many tunes. Oh, it's gonna be limited

to the number of.

Teams that we can do. There's a ton of we do.

Green Acres.

Is the place for me we could do.

I don't know, Adams fan, but I don't know the

whole thing. Oh, that's a right. I just want to

hear you started.

That's the thing I don't. I don't know, I know

like the I know the whole thing of like maybe.

Ten how about the eighteen?

We could only do what eighteen was just a musical,

wasn't it.

Okay, it wasn't worse. You're right, you're right, there wasn't

any Yeah. Uh, Dukes of Hazzard, we can have you do.

Yeah, you know what, if you choose any eighties ones,

I'm pretty good to go.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be great.

I could do Dukes of Hazzard, Three's company. I can

do cheers.

Okay, that's what we need to do.

Okay, you heard Brady Bunch.

Those are your marching orders right there, oh, Brady Bunch.

Yeah, yeah, I could. I could do anything in the

eighties usually I could do. That's really funny, although I didn't.

I didn't do that one very well. I tempted to.

Okay, you know, well that just that just makes me

so happy.

Some voice exercises and try that again.

Maybe yeah, yeah, no, that just makes me so happy.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Dez. You know who

wasn't happy, The King of the King of Israel. He

wasn't happy, especially with a light shut.

That's you're right, you're right. He actually gets very angry

at yes.

And this is Ben Hadad to the second yes. Historically,

for all of our ancient historian friends out there listening,

because you know, people on that level listen to our

shows all the time, and.

Of course everybody is familiar.

About Ben ben Hadad the Second.

That is not the question. They're thinking, I wonder what

song Chris is.

Going to do next.

Let's be real.

Yeah, if anybody stayed with us for six fifty six

minutes and fifty seconds of that, yeah, they're not asking

this this Benhadad or Benhadad the Second.

That's correct.

Okay, So in Second Kings, chapter six, it says this.

Sometime later, however, King ben Haddad of Aram mustered his

entire army and besieged Samiria. As a result, there was

a great famine in the city. The siege lasted so

long that a donkey's had sold for eighty pieces of

silver and a cup of doves dung sold for five

pieces is over. Wow, I'm not exactly sure in what

circumstances you needed to buy.

A cup of dove's dung.

Demands hell, do you have an extra cup of dove dung?

I'm not sure what that accent is.

Accent that's right.

One day, as the King of Israel was walking along

the wall of the city, a woman called him, Please

help me, my lord the king. He answered, if the

Lord doesn't help you, what can I do. I have

neither food from the threshing floor nor wine from the

press to give you. But then the king asked, what

is the matter. She replied, this woman said to me,

come non, let's eat your son today and then we'll

eat my son tomorrow. So we cooked my son and

ate him. Then the next day I said to her,

kill your son so we can eat him, but she

had hidden her son. When the king heard this, he

tore his clothes in despair. As the king walked along

the wall, the people could see that he was wearing

burlap under his robe next to his skin. May God

strike me and even kill me if I don't separate

Elisha's head from his shoulders this very day, the king bowed.

Elisha was sitting in his house with the elders of

Israel when the king sent a messenger to summon him.

But before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders,

a murderer has sent a man to cut off my head.

When he arrives, shut the door and keep him out.

We will soon hear his master steps following him. While

Elisha was still saying this, the messenger arrived, and the

king said, all this misery is from the Lord. Why

should I wait for the Lord any longer? And Elisha replied,

listen to this message from the Lord. This is what

the Lord says. By this time tomorrow, in the markets

of Samaria, five courts of choice flower will cost only

one piece of silver, and ten courts of barley grain

will cost only one.

Piece of silver.

The officer assisting the king said to the man of God,

that couldn't happen even if the Lord opened the windows

of heaven. But Elisa replied, you will see it happen

with your own eyes, but you won't be able to

eat any of it.

Wow, you'll see it happen with your own eyes, but

you won't be.

Able to eat eat any of it.

That's right, implying that his fate may not be good.

Well, it's pretty rough.

Well, first of all, this is a horrible, horrible story.

What a terrible story.

It is a terrible story.

It is it is.

It is one of these stories. Where did you ever

see a movie where it's it's like a good good

Jeff All right the end. That's what I was meaning.

Have you ever seen any movie any That's that's of

course my question. You know, do you ever see a

movie like like Schindler's List right where or al Mustad?

Do you ever see Amistad.

The Ship?

Yeah?

Yeah in Ecuador?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's just one of these stories that it's like, hey,

we have to tell this story because it's a it's

an important part of history. Uh, it shows it shows

obviously a side of humanity that is that is real,

and and uh, you know, and and then of course,

you know in this case, you know, God is God

is gonna, you know, rescue them in a miraculous way.

But just how you know, I just can't imagine, and

none of us can.

Hey, let's kill your son and let's cook them today

and then and then we'll kill my son and we'll

cook them tomorrow, which implies, of course, they had to

kill them unless unless they both no, no, no, if

she's having her son, the son's alive, right.

So I mean, just I mean absolutely the worst of circumstance.

It says that you could ever imagine. So how starving

you have to be to start eating people?

Yeah?

Right?

Yeah?

And so it has to be the very last.

Resort of course, and especially your own kid, right, And

so I just it's it's horrific to even talk about,

to even think about. And so this is one of

those things where it sort of makes me angry a

little bit. It's like, so, if God, you know, was

going to intervene, why couldn't he intervene before the woman

cooked the sun?

Yeah?

Right, Like, why are we waiting until after this story? So,

but then again, there was a lot of misery in

those days that just unfolded until God stepped in.

Well, I think the reason why this happens, by the way,

is God warned them at Wood in Duteronomy chapter twenty eight.

So he said, if the people of Israel reject me,

there'll be a day when mothers will eat their children.

They'll be a day when you can't afford to buy anything.

There'll be a day when you warned them about this

hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. It might have been a

thousand years before this. Then if it gets to this point,

so it's not like it should be a shock. This

is where they ended up because their choices got them here, right,

So I have compassion for the mother. But it doesn't

make God unjust. As a matter of fact, these people

have been rebelling against God for hundreds of years.

So paying for the sins of your father's, well.

Their own sins, there's no doubt about it. I mean,

we just talked about the kinds of sins that these

people were committing. You know, the one guy sacrificed. Yeah,

these are the Samaritan or the Israelite king just recently

sacrificed his own son in a burnt offering on the.

Wall, and the people were mad at.

Elijah.

Yeah right, not at the king, right, because that's okay, Well,

that's what we have to do sometimes, right.

So the total depravity of these people.

God had warned them in the Book of Deuteronomy that

if you go down this path, you're going to become

so totally depraved that the only response left is horrific judgment.

And God told them stuff like this in Deuteronomy chapter

twenty eight. So really it's God was unbelievably patient to

go this long because their behaviors qualified a long time

ago for that judgment that God promised would happen if

you cross those lines. So to be it clear, be clear,

you don't have to cross those lines. You don't have

to do those things. But if you do, how often

do we say you're free to make your choices. You're

not free to choose the consequences. Remember how the end

of Deuteronomy ends. It's this passage the end of Deuteronomy

says it was it twenty eight or whatever. Towards the

end of the book of Deuteronomy, he says, I'm giving

you a choice between life and death. I'm giving you

a choice choice between blessings and cursings. And then he says,

oh that you would choose life. And then for hundreds

of years they didn't choose God right. For a very

long time, king after king after king after king, they

rebel against God, and they get more and more and

more depraved in their worship practices Astereth and all those gods,

and in their in their practical everyday living, and so

finally God goes, Okay, I don't have any other option.

I'm going to send this evil king ben Hadad. He's

going to circle the city of Samaria. He's gonna besieze you,

and you're gonna have some rough times. It's it's what's coming,

and it's interesting to me that at this point the

king is wearing burlap, is showing that he's grieving, burlaps

underneath his clothes. He's grieving over this, He's trying to

that was a sign of grief. But yeah, and then

he blames Elishah for it, right Yeah?

And I love the note here in the Life Application

and Study by Well It says why did the king

blame Elaisha for the famine and the troubles for the siech?

Here's some possible reasons.

Number one, some commentators say that Elisha must have told

the king to trust God for deliverance, because the king

did this even when he wore burlap. Because, by the way,

that's a good conclusion, because the king did say, why should.

I wait on the Lord any longer?

Right?

So that and why would you Why else would he

blame Alisha?

I just keep waiting and waiting and waiting, right right.

In other words, that must have been the word from Elisha,

right right. But at this point the situation seemed hopeless,

and apparently the king thought Elisha had given him bad

advice and not even God could help them.

That's the first one.

The second one, number two, For years, the King of

Israel and the prophets of God had been in conflict.

The prophets often predicted doom because of the king's evil,

so the king saw them as troublemakers. Thus Israel's king

was striking out in frustration at Elisha.

And by the way, that is also true. There's evidence

of that as well, right.

Or Three, the king may have remembered when Elisha helped

bring an end to the famine in First Kings eighteen.

Knowing Elisha was a man of God, perhaps the king

thought he could try to do any miracle he wanted,

and he was angry that he had not come to

Israel's rescue.

Yeah.

And by the way, those are three great reasons, or could.

Be all the above, Yeah, could be all of them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So let me go back to Deuteronomy, because remember, Israel,

these aren't people who don't know God's word. These aren't

people who just you know, pagans running around the world

just doing their own thing and never having exposure to God.

These are people who've had God directly and miraculously intervene

over and over and over and over and over again

in their history. And then they're a very verbal culture,

oral culture, so they retell their stories over and over,

and it's what the Synagogue's all about, is retelling the

stories of God. Right, right, So in Deuteronomy, which is

the Law, they quote the law the good boys and

the good Girl in Israel, the good Boys and the

good Girls in Judah.

They memorize the Law all five books by the time

they are twelve, every word.

So at the end of Deuteronomy, he says, listen, if

you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep

all his commands that I'm giving you today, God will

set you high above all the nations of the world,

and you'll experience all these blessings. If you obey the

Lord your God, your towns and your fields will be blessed.

Your children and your crops will be blessed. The offspring

of your herds and flocks will be blessed. Your fruit,

baskets and bread boards will be blessed. Wherever you go,

whatever you do, you'll be blessed. I'm like, hey, that

sounds like a good deal.

That's a good deal. The God of the universe is

promising this. The Lord will conquer your enemies when they

attack you. The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything

you do, and will fill your storehouses with grain. The

Lord your God will bless you in the land he's

giving you. If you obey the commands the.

Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord

will establish you as his holy people, as he swore

he would do. Then all of the nations will see

that you are the people claimed by the Lord, and

they will stand in awe of you. The Lord will

give you prosperity and the land he swar to your ancestors,

and blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops.

The Lord will stand reigned at the proper time for

his rich treasury in the heavens, and will bless all

the work you do. He will lend you, will lend

to many nations, but you will never need to borrow

from them. If you listen to these commands of the

Lord your God that I'm giving you today, if you

carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head

and not the tail, and you will always be on

top and never at the bottom. You must not turn

away from any of the commands I'm giving you today,

nor follow after other gods and worship.

Them it's a pretty good promise.

Yeah.

Then he turns the page and he says, but if

you refuse to listen to the Lord.

Your God and do not obey the commands and creedes

I've given you today, all these curses will come overwhelm you.

Your towns in your fields will be cursed, Your fruit

baskets and bread boards will be cursed. Your children and

your cops will be cursed. The offspring of your herds

and flocks will be cursed. Wherever you go, whatever do,

you be cursed. And he goes on and he reverses

all the blessings, and he says, if you refuse to

follow me, then all the blessings I promised before, now

you'll be cursed, so much so that you finally get

to the point where he says that I'll even send

your enemies to wipe you out. Before I said I'd

fight for you and give you victory. But now I'm

going to send your enemies to wipe you out. And

he literally says, the siege and terrible distress of the

enemy's attack will be so severe that you will eat

the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the

Lord your God has given you.

Where it is.

Yeah, and then it gets horrible what he's talking about here,

all the next things that are coming.

He told them this would happen. And how far is

this in advance?

Right?

How many years was Moses writings from this, It's a

thousand years.

So what you're saying is is it's not as if

they were unaware of these because they had memorized them.

They memorized them. Yeah, they or they should have. This

is why God said, teach your people, teach your children,

right everything. And so what happened was they knew these words,

they knew God's warning, but then they chose instead to

sacrifice babies on their children on the walls. The king

kind out loud. They chose to put up the astith

polls and to live live in debauchery. They chose worship

other gods and all these things. And so God said,

I told you this would happen.

It's not like God's a bad guy. God said, if

you do this, I'm going to give you absurd blessing.

Look at David in his kingdom. Or if you do this,

it's going to be horrific. And a dozen kings later,

it was. It was not a nightmare. So oftentimes the

nightmares that are in our lives aren't It's not God.

It's the result of our own bad choices, right, and

we leave God no choice at that point, and that's

what happens. It's horrible. So I have great compassion for

these women. Yeah right, how horrible, what a horrible place

to be. And at the same time, the people brought

it on themselves, right.

Well, you know the application for today is you know, obviously,

you know, we're not the generation that falls under the

you know, we're not going to We're not in any

danger of getting besieged by a king in our neighborhood probably.

Right, not in America, not in America, not today.

But the principle is transferable.

That says that when God says, follow me and you'll

be blessed, yes, don't follow me, and there's no guarantee

that you're going to be blessed.

In fact, you're going to end up in misery.

Yeah right.

And so we've been plowing through these stories and God

says that all these these things in the Bible are

for our example. So he shows us what it's like

when you're a man after God's on heart.

Like David.

Sure, there's the struggle early on, he's preparing him to

be a king. When he survives that struggle, he becomes

the greatest king, unbelievable prosperity. His son rises up. He

makes some mistakes in there, and there's consequences for that.

We you know, we saw how his family struggled. And

then Solomon steps in his eyes, I'm all about following God,

and he does, and they go to unbelievable heights. The

kings of the world came to see the wealth of Israel,

to see the wisdom and hear the wisdom of Solomon.

The world was amazed, just like God promised in Deuteronomy

twenty eight. They were amazed by them because they were

with what they had. They were pursuing God. Mostly Solomon

begins to fade late in his life. The kingdom leaves

Solomon's family as a result. Right, that's what happens, and

the people of Israel just begin to walk further and

further and further and further and further witha of God

until finally they were living exactly like the world and

those So then what happens, exactly what God said in

Deuteronomy twenty eight same chapter. Right, it's going to be

horrific for you. Why would you choose to live like

the world and suffer like the world. When God says,

I promise to bless you.

Everything you do, he literally says, I will bless everything

you do and everywhere you go if you follow me

completely and holy. He says, right, you just.

Mentioned a minute ago. It's so funny that you said this.

You said David was the greatest king, and Solomon was

great and then right at the end of his life

he sort of faded and then, you know, allowed other

worshiping of God's just yesterday, my son he has pneumonia.

So he's home from work and he works outside a lot. Yes,

and he's at work today he's back. But anyway, yesterday

he gets up and he's made breakfast and we have

a nookout in our sun room, and he says, come

on and join me. So I come out and I'm

sitting down. I'm not eating, I'm just sitting there watching

him eat. He said, have a question for you, He said,

did Solomon straight at the end of his life? And

I said yeah, And I said, why are you asking

me this? He's because I was listening to the Bible, guys.

I have such a great commute back and forth to work.

And I said, well, I didn't know you listened to

the Bible guys. He says, yeah, I listened. And he said,

he goes. I'm so disappointed. I said, why he goes?

Because Solomon had wisdom, he said, Solomon was he goes.

I just looked at him as like the king, the

only king that could have been greater than David, because

he had all the wisdom, and he built the temple

and he you know, and he was so rich and

he was awesome, and he goes and he goes, and

then he just what he just like threw it all

the way. And I said, well, you know, to the

end of his wife life. We talked about the women

that he married and everything else, and he just said,

he goes. I just can't believe that that's the way

that Solomon's life ended. And I thought to myself, Wow,

that is that is so funny that you know that,

like but if you think about it, like it hit

him heavy, like it's a new piece of information, right,

and it's like, Wow, you've spent your whole life trying

really really hard to follow God.

And then at the very end, you blow it, you know,

it's like woh.

And so the consequences are you know this, it became

a tradition among the Israelite kings to marry the daughters

of pagan rulers, and so they just keep perpetuating it,

and it winds up getting worse and worse and worse

and worse and worse. Right, yeah, So, and that's where

they're at today. It's it's a horrible situation, just horrible.

Now God brings them out of it eventually, and there's

a really cool story coming up about how God didn't

forget even the lowest people.

Right.

This was one of my favorite stories in the Bible,

even in the middle of this horrible time.

So yeah, all right, well.

Listen, that is definitely our time. So hopefully we will

see you tomorrow on the Bible Gush