Sunday 19th January
Read Psalm 92
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
This Psalm is titled, “For the Sabbath Day” which means it was specially meant to be read/sung at the time of worship on the Sabbath Day. “It is good to praise the Lord … proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night”. It is a Psalm that is full of thankfulness and joy. The Christian Sabbath became Sunday because that was the day Jesus rose from the dead and Christian people around the world still set aside this day for praise and worship.
One Church of Scotland minister a number of years ago wrote a brief little book on the Sabbath, and its demise in Scotland. Linking his title with the ten commandments and with a well-known Agatha Christie mystery he titled it, “And then there were Nine”. Though ingenious I wonder if his reference to the ‘nine’ commandments ought to give us pause for thought as we set aside this day for worship and rest.
READINGS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
Monday 2 Kings 7:3-20
What a lovely story this is. Four men who had leprosy were camping outside the city wall which was where leprosy sufferers had to be. No lepers were allowed to live in the city in proximity to others. They were suffering from the famine as their fellow Israelites were but they came to their idea of going over to the Aramean camp on the possibility that they might get some food, however when they arrive they find a Marie Celeste scene, all the men have left.
They enjoy plundering the camp but say to themselves that they shouldn’t keep this to themselves – how many sermons have been preached on this? Returning to the city the King and his men greet the word with wariness but he sends out a small party to seek the truth and they come back with good news that what the lepers said was true. Thus Elisha’s prediction the previous day came true and much goodies were sold for a meagre price after plundering the Aramean’s camp. As the hymn writer wrote, “God moves in a mysterious way” and sometimes great and unexpected things can happen in our lives; we need to give thanks.
Tuesday 2 Kings 8:1-6
Here we have an interesting little addition to the story of Elisha. The woman of Shunem who had given Elisha support and accommodation in her house and who had a son after Elisha’s prayer for her (2 Kings 4) reappears though years have passed since he story. The son who had been born to her became ill and died yet Elisha restored him to life. Here, and we don’t know when, Elisha warns her of a coming famine and to go and live elsewhere. For seven years she went and lived in the land of the Philistines (roughly our modern Gaza region) losing her property in Shunem. She returned after the seven years and approached the King seeking to reclaim her property and, lo and behold, who should be with the King but Elisha’s servant, Gehazi telling the king of Elisha’s deeds. When the King heard of Elisha’s dealings with the woman and the restoration of her son, he assigned an officer to see to her situation allowing her the reclamation of her property and the income from the land during her absence.
There are many things from this story that tell us of the care she received from God through Elisha over a number of years. God likes to do good to his people again and again whose obedience is never left unrewarded. I wonder how old the son was by now? The woman is an example of faith for us all, in the bad times and the good times of life.
Elisha’s power and wisdom is widely known and when he travels North out of the country of Israel into Syria and it’s capital, Damascus, Ben-Hada the King hears of it. He is ill and having been told of Elisha’s arrival, he wants to know if his illness is fatal or if he will recover. He sends the man called Hazael, a court official, to Elisha with a gift and a request about his illness.
Elisha says to Hazael to tell the King he will recover although he knows that won’t be the case. Hazael does his Macduff deed of assassination and becomes King in Ben-Hadad’s place.
However the more notable incident in the story is when Elisha stares at Hazael and tells him that he will become the cruel tyrant who will murder many of the Israelites in days to come. It fulfils the words of God to Elijah, years ago, after he runs away in depression after the great victory at Mount Carmel. God tells him that judgement will fall on the people through Hazael long before Elisha sees him in this episode.
We have to jump Kingdoms here because we leave hearing about the Northern Kingdom of Israel (sometimes called Samaria after its capital) and are now told about what was happening in the Southern Kingdom of Juday. While Joram was reigning in Israel, Jehoshaphat became King in Judah. Up until this time the Kings of Judah had been ostensibly good Kings holding to the Covenants of God whist the Northern Kings had gone from bad to worse, starting with Jeroboam and leading to Ahab and Jezebel with Joram their son. We see a change here in that Jehoram, sone of Jehoshaphat, fell away from Jehovah God and began to follow in the ways of the Kigns of Israel like Ahab and his son. As v18 says, “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord”, however God held back in judgement because of his promise to David generations earlier. Judah lost some of its control over surrounding nations.
Backsliding in Christian lives often comes about through bad company when the weak believer is tempted to follow in the ways of the world round about, a practice we need to pray for protection from.
Sometimes it’s a bit of a struggle to remember that there are two Kingdoms and two Kings in what was once one Kingdom of Israel in the time of David and Solomon. We have seen that after the split in the Kingdom in the time of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, the Northern Kingdom went its own way into idolatry and the abandonment of worship at the Temple in Jerusalem (which was in the Southern Kingdom of Judah). In these verses we are hearing of Judah and the reign of Ahaziah.
We begin to see a slide away from true faithfulness to God through the influence of the degenerate Northern Kingdom of Israel. Ahaziah’s mother was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri, Ahab’s father. Mother’s have a great influence on their sons and this seems to have been the case with Ahaziah who “followed in the ways of the house of Ahab” (v27). The only thing of note that we read here is of an alliance with his cousin Joram, King of Israel, against the Arameans under Hazael. It seems not to have been a victory but Joram had to leave the battlefield due to wounds inflicted in the battle. Ahaziah went to visit him later in Jezreel.
With the King of Israel absent from the battlefield at Ramoth Gilead, Elisha sends one of the prophets to the battlefield with a flask of oil, the usual equipment in making a King, and to anoint Jehu, one of the commanders, him as the new King over Israel after wounded Joram.
It was a risky thing to do and the prophet was told to get out quickly after the deed was done.
The message from the prophet was that Jehu had to destroy the whole house of Ahab to avenge all the faithful prophets Ahab and Jezebel had slain. When he comes out and his men ask him about the prophet’s visit he is reluctant to say but when he reveals the matter his fellow officers bow before him and accept his rule as the new King. We will find Jehu a hard man but at times God uses hard men in his plans.