2 Kings Explained

​One of the things that I love about King Josiah is he didn't just turn to the Lord, but he destroyed the things that would take his heart and the hearts of his people away from the Lord. He destroyed every. Idol, every altar, every high place. He burned it to the ground. He destroyed it just like it was prophesied that he would do. This is the attitude we want to take towards sin in our world today. We want to have a violent approach against sin, so to speak. And we want to have a tender, peaceful, gentle, teachable heart before God so that we can grow in the ways of the Lord and be an example in our generation like King Josiah was to his.

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Hello, and welcome to the You Can Learn the Bible podcast, where we summarize complete Bible books in single episodes. My name is Bode Quirk from youcanlearnthebible. com, here as always with Joey Rozek, Lead Pastor of Living Springs Fellowship in New Jersey, who I actually got to see in person for the first time in quite a while.

Joey, it's so good to see you. I had so much fun hanging out together, man. So good to see you, brother. How are you doing

It was so good to be with you, Bodie, in fact, venturing out and getting a chance to, you know, be at a conference together and just being able to you know, not only share the love we have for Jesus together and for each other, but, we just got so much content of the word to just discuss and talk about and it leads right into our passion of why we do this podcast, right? When we get to talk about the things of the Lord and the Bible

it was so good. Yeah, it was just such a blessing, I think for me, Joey, it just reaffirmed the call of God. There's so much work to be done in the body of Christ, and that's why, our passion for trying to help people's Bible literacy continue to grow is really why we do this, right? And so we're back at it. yeah, it was so good.

Yeah. I was just gonna say, you know, I mean, the body of Christ is widespread, and, I think one of the things, Bodie, that you just realize is, you know, when you look at the whole family of God, we're connected through our Love for Jesus, the power of the gospel and the scriptures what gives us all of the lessons that we need for life. All of the things that we learn how to hold tightly on and how to, to really see God's wisdom for us living in the days we're living in,

because we're going to extract even from second Kings today, so many valuable lessons as all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. reproof, correction and instruction and righteousness. And that's why we pray when we give you even these overviews of the books of the Bible, we're hoping that people listening in are taking away, healthy tools on how to enjoy the Lord, through the word but to exegete the word so that we can see what God has plainly said and these are things that every believer, no matter what background you come from needs to do. Amen. Bodie.

Exactly, yeah, which is where we're headed today. So we are picking up, where we left off last time in episode 17. So in episode 17, it was 1 Kings Explained, and now 2 Kings Explained, a seven part framework to equip and inspire your Bible study like we had just said. Again, we don't want to just inspire without giving you the tools and we don't want to give you the tools without the heart. We want both, don't we, Joey?

And so the way we approach this, we want to give you the essentials of every book, where it falls on the storyline, what are the major themes and ideas, a basic structure of the book.

So you know where the major turning points within the book are, but really it's the application is really what we want you to get. What does it teach us about God? What does it offer our Christian life? And then what do we personally love about some of these books? And so that's our seven part framework we apply to each and every episode. Today, we're going to apply it to 2 Kings.

So if you would like to download a summary of the entire episode, the major ideas, everything on a single page PDF. At the end of the episode, we are going to give you a link where you can go ahead and get that. But also just a reminder that this is available on both audio and video, Apple podcasts, Spotify is the audio, and you can watch on YouTube.

And for this particular episode, watching might be helpful because we're entering this period, Joey, where there's the Northern Kings and there's the Southern Kings. And we get to kind of see how they interact with one another. So we have a timeline that we have been using. We're going to use it a lot in this episode. So if you'd like to see that, YouTube is where you're going to want go to see that. But that's where we are going today. So that's our framework. That's our basics.

And so now, Joey, I want to hand it right to you. Let's imagine someone doesn't know anything about this book and you want to set them up for success right away. Where do we start with helping somebody understand the book of Second Kings?

Well second kings is basically The second of the book of Kings.

So it's one big manuscript, among the Jewish people, it's two parts. So we're in the second section, the second book, if you will, of the record of the Kings and the date we're looking at the time period between about 853 to 560 BC before Christ, what we call the years of the Kings.

This is in the genre section, still historical, we're getting historical records of the Kings, this is part two. Author, we don't really know, when we're dealing with these kind of deep records of history in Israel, we probably assume there's multiple authors involved. It was collected together. The Jewish people were meticulous in copying their manuscripts, but the names, were often left out.

So in this case, we don't know, for sure who wrote it? The setting takes place, as you already said, Bodie, a divided kingdom, Israel to the North, Judah to the South, we remember reading about that split that happened between Rehoboam and Jeroboam that caused this division.

Now what's the purpose of the book of Kings? Well, it's a record where each King is analyzed for their moral position before God. Did they follow the ways of David or did they follow after Jeroboam, the evil king that set this division in motion. And so we have an audience that is not just National Israel, but it's also for all believers throughout time who are going to glean the insights from looking at the Kings.

Everything has a Christocentric lens where we're going to see how all of this points us to Jesus, the only true righteous King that truly has no blemish and no spot. But, that's the essentials that we need to know as we approach the book of second Kings.

Awesome. Awesome. Which leads us to number two,

which is where does second Kings fit in the story of the Bible? So we want to understand the book itself, some of the key details Joey just walked us through, but let's now look at it from a storyline perspective.

So where we are is the divided kingdom is very much in now. So you're going to start to see, this is, it's confusing sometimes because we have to remember that we're now reading kind of two different lands along one single timeline. So you'll hear in this book, like the King of Israel versus the King of Judah. What that's saying is there's a Northern King and at the same exact time, there's a southern king, that different stuff might be going on.

So what's happening right now at the beginning of second Kings? Well, the king of in the North is Ahab's son, King Ahaziah, not the most righteous son, not the most righteous dad by any stretch. In the South, we have King Jehoshaphat and in the North we have evil continually advancing. Ahaziah is not stopping his dad's legacy. He is advancing evil, wickedness, and idolatry.

There is a temporary peace between, Israel and Judah. We know that, that it started, it fractured because of a civil war, but there are times where they actually agree on stuff and get along, and that's kind of where we find ourselves at the beginning of second Kings.

But the problems remain, Joey, don't they? Judah's high places are not removed. Those high places are the places of idolatry and syncretism. Syncretism is merging false idols with the worship of Yahweh, and there are high places where that is happening in both lands, particularly in Judah, but definitely in Israel as well, and the Lord's anger is provoked, and so we are now in this, what we call a divided kingdom.

So I have a map here that kind of gives us a visual. There's a lot happening. We have Israel and Judah, but we also have, Joey, all of the surrounding nations that play a big role. We see the Philistines, we see the Moabites, we see a lot of these groups that we may read about in scripture, we can see that they surrounded this nation.

So this is a really hard and difficult time. of Israel's history. And so I want to show you kind of a timeline view, but Joey, is there anything you'd like to say just at this point, talking about this particular moment in the storyline?

Yeah. Well, when you mentioned the surrounding countries, we have to recognize that all of us have a sphere of influence in our own lives. And we also have those outside sources influencing us. The Bible tells us that evil company corrupts good morals. The Bible tells us to be careful, about what things enter into our lives when we come, when we absorb messages, when we consider the idols of our day.

And I think if we just fast forward to our modern times right now, we can think of how is the world so different today than what we're looking at right now in this, in the story of second Kings, I mean, it's really similar. We realize every individual has a responsibility to get their life right before God, to fear God and not man.

And I think there's just a lot of surrounding cultural influences that's affecting the church in our days, and I think that's worthy to note because the same was true back then. Nothing is new under the sun, but those who walk righteously learn to live under the true Son, Jesus, and of course the messages that we learn in scripture from God. So that's an important, just little, I think, contemporary relevant piece. For what we're dealing with today.

Right. And the themes are the same, as Joey just said. The reason why this book is in the Bible is to showcase those who follow the Lord and those who fall from doing that, and what happens and it is a warning. So I think people have a hard time with these types of books, Joey, these historical books because they don't feel as application friendly as maybe some of the New Testament epistles, but there is a lot that

Oh, there's so

isn't there, right? And so, yeah, there's so. So that's what we hope this episode helps you with. We understand that some of these historical books can be tough, but we hope to make it a little bit easier for you.

But what we've got is, is a visual timeline. Remember, the North and South are separated and we are right at the point where we have a King Ahaziah in the North and King Jehoshaphat in the South.

So, what we're going to do is we're going to follow this timeline, which is going to basically show us how Northern Israel comes to its end, and so does Judah, but we're not quite there yet. We need to talk about this particular book and the major themes and ideas.

So in our seven part structure, this is number three. So we talked about the essentials, the storyline, and now we want to ask Joey, what are the major ideas and concepts that we find in this particular book? Second Kings. And walk us through some of these, Joey, if you would.

Yeah, the themes in this book, as I go through these just think about

How relevant this is for our times. The first theme is that evil is perpetuating In both kingdoms. Imagine

was done away with Joe. They're

you mean that there's actually evil all throughout the world? Yes. In fact, ever since the fall of man, we have seen the birth pangs of our world is laboring just at those labor pains because we await the revealing of the sons of God. When Jesus comes back, the evil can be fully removed.

So right now evil is perpetuating in both of the kingdoms within Israel Judah, so that's one theme. Prophets. Now this is important. Prophets, God's mouthpieces are serving and they're speaking and they're calling people to repentance or to realign their hearts with God. Always, God uses in every generation, mouthpieces. He has a remnant that are standing strong. He has faithful in the midst of times of of great upheaval and idolatry. And so praise God for that theme.

Then we have the king's loyalties are being evaluated. Still, you're going to notice every king gets introduced in first and second Kings with whether they did good or evil in the sight of the Lord. So that's a really important piece. The internal piece, what's going on in the heart of man, the internal idolatry gets exposed and expanded in second Kings. It's almost like it goes from bad to worse.

Doesn't it, Bodie, as time gets on, with these generations of Kings, then we have the theme of high places. Now, some of you go, what's a high place. It's not just an elevated spot, but it's actually the places where gods were worshiped. So high places represent the false altars, the false thrones, those places where sacrifices were made often to false gods, which is of course why the high places needed to be destroyed.

But you'll see some preserved them. And that was a problem. You already mentioned about the nations that invade around Israel. That's a key theme. We're going to see about the wars that are taking place as God's acts of judgment.

And then you have disloyalty that really is the key theme, that in the end, forfeits the promised land because we're going to see the Assyria in about 722 BC takes over Israel and then sets it up for the next big piece, which is the rebellion that leads to the Babylonian exile and captivity.

And so you got these massive pictures of both Israel and Judah eventually being taken over. And that's what the Bible tells us. If we sow to the flesh, we're going to have the flesh reap corruption, we sow to the spirit, we'll have spirit reap everlasting life. The question of our consequences has that which to do in our sowing.

What choices are we making and what is the outcome? And so that's what second Kings is going to teach us.

There's a lot. There's a lot to cover. So let's, thank you, Joey. That was great. Because now we have the ideas, the essentials. We know where we're at in the storyline. Now we want to really go through the book.

So let's talk about the structure of the book. And for each section of our structure, we're going to basically ask these questions of application. What can we learn about who God is? What do we learn about our own Christian lives? And then what are some of the things that we particularly love as well? So let's get into it.

So this is the structure that we came up with that I think is the simplest structure of understanding Second Kings. So chapters 1 through 13 are basically focused on the prophet Elisha. It's basically where the prophetic mantle passes from Elijah to Elisha, and we actually see how Elisha's ministry is marked with many supernatural miracles, kind of in a unique way.

But basically, Elisha is a prophet to this wicked and rebellious northern kingdom of Israel. So think about this. Chapters one through 13 focus on the ministry and the miracles of Elisha. And then we have chapters 14 through 17. That is basically the disloyalty and then the resulting decline of Samaria. So 14 through 17 is really about Samaria's fall, the final Kings and all the events that lead to them being overtaken by the Assyrian empire.

Then the last section, part three is chapters 18 through 25 and that is the collapse and captivity of Judah. So basically you have one through 13 is about Elisha, 14 through 17 is about Samaria and then 18 through 25 is basically the fall of Judah. But it's so important and we can learn so much about it.

So Joey, when we look at this larger structure of this book, this three part structure, is there anything you want to add before we start going and diving into each section individually?

Yeah, so since we're looking at the big picture of second kings, besides the prophets that enter in like Elijah and Elisha and the fact that you have all the problems in Samaria that leads to its eventual decline and Assyria comes in and overtakes it, and then you have the same thing in Judah when Babylon comes and overtakes it.

want you to know this, there's 19 kings in both kingdoms. You got 19 kings in Israel that are all evil and you got 19 kings in Judah and only eight of them are considered good in the text, meaning that they had a degree of righteousness and fear of the Lord.

And they did the obedient acts that David is said to have done and so forth, now there is one queen mentioned, Queen Athaliah. We'll talk about her later. She's in the Judah kingdom, but I think that's a really important piece, not a single King in Israel is considered good, in this time, and we're only going to have eight to highlight as we go through second kings and we've already highlighted some of them, so, let's dive in and start getting into the book to give you guys some of the content of what we're dealing with,

So the first section, as Bodie just mentioned, as we break down those three sections, the first one is about the ministry and miracles of Elisha. We're looking at the first 13 chapters. That's a big chunk of this book. But the reason why we wanted Elisha to be the focal point is although we're going to see a lot of the different biographies of the Kings within this section, as we do throughout the whole book, it's a lot of focus on the miraculous on how God is supernaturally working in the midst of these kingdoms.

And so if we look at the first couple of chapters, we're going to see the departure of Elijah at this point, Elijah, the prophet that we read about in first Kings, he's at the end of his ministry. He has opposed the wicked sons of Ahab. And this has caused a death threat for his life. We know Jezebel was out to kill him. We know that Ahab wanted him, killed because all of his vulnerabilities and insecurities were exposed as Elijah, the man of God was bold, and of course, Ahab was quite a wimpy man that really just let his wife control him and the evil of the day take hold of him.

But what happens in the first couple of chapters is just worthy to mention is Elijah is about to pass the mantle on to Elisha, which means that Elijah, basically is going to leave his servant, and basically tells him not to follow him, but Elisha is so loyal and dedicated to Elijah because he has seen the hand of God on his life that Elisha basically says, wherever you go, I'm going.

So Elijah says, okay, well, if you're still around when the Lord takes me, then you'll be able to continue this ministry. And that's what happens. Elijah gets taken up in a chariot of fire, an amazing event where he actually doesn't officially die. He's taken up into heaven. And, as a result, the mantle falls, and it falls on Elisha. And that's where, the first two chapters do the shift for us of now. Elisha is the new prophet to the Lord's people at this time. So that's the first two chapters. And then we get into the ministry of Elisha, right? Bodhi. And so chapters two through eight. is the ministry of Elisha. Do you have any things you want to mention here? I got a few things to mention here as well.

When we look at this whole section one through 13, you have the handoff from Elijah to Eisha is the first couple chapters. Then we really see the flourishing supernatural ministry of Eisha from two to eight. So that's an important block, but then we, then it goes from nine to 10 down to Jehu of Israel, and then it kind of goes, and what, what it starts to do is kind of just, as Joey said earlier, go back and forth and basically evaluate these kings.

But notice, the Bible isn't just meant to be a record book of kings, it's what we can learn from both the prophets and the kings. And Elisha asks for a double portion of supernatural power. And it's so interesting that, you know, the Bible says, you have not because you ask not. And chapters 2 8 really focus on the supernatural ministry of Elisha, but it was interesting because he asked for it.

You know, how many things do we miss out on in life? Simply because we do not ask. And so the whole focus, the larger focus of this whole section 1 through 13 is Elisha, but do know that it bounces back between him and it does report on a number of these kings. We're not going to go through each and every king, that'd be too laborious. But we want to see that God is doing something in the midst of a wicked generation. God has not forsaken his people. Yeah.

That's right. In a great parallel with second Kings. And when we go to the new Testament in the gospels, Jesus, who of course is the ultimate mouthpiece for God, the ultimate prophet. He's also the ultimate evangelist. He's the ultimate pastor shepherd, he carries all the graces of what we see being exemplified in the New Testament.

But you remember in John chapter 14 in verse 12, Jesus has these words. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also, and greater works than these will he do, because I go to my Father. Well, just like Jesus is saying, I'm going to distribute my anointing and my gifts to the church.

This is an interesting parallel because you have Elijah passing the mantle on to Elisha with a double blessing or a greater works mindset here. And, and so that's a good parallel to see. I think something else that you might want to know is Elijah did six miracles or so in first Kings when you read these chapters of chapters two through eight.

In second Kings, we see Elisha actually is responsible for 12 miracles. So the double portion of the spirit also resulted in a double amount of miracles that were accomplished through Elisha's life. That's recorded in the scriptures. I like to highlight in chapter five, how there was Naaman, this commander of the army of Syria who wanted to be healed of his leprosy and he didn't want to go into the Jordan River.

And I think how many people might be missing out on the supernatural, the healing or the blessings of God because of their own personal preferences and tendencies. And so his own servants like, Hey, if you would have said any other river, would you have done it? And he's like, well, yeah. So he's like, why are you limiting God?

Why are you limiting what God can do in your life? So he goes into the river Jordan. And he gets healed miraculously, as the prophet Elisha had said. Then you have Gehazi, the greed that is shown. Elisha's servant who actually wants to get paid for this. And of course you see a parallel in the book of Acts with Simon, this idea of the magician Simon in Acts chapter 8 who wanted to pay for the miracle works of God. And even though in this case, Gehazi is wanting to profit from the supernatural works of God. We see the flesh of man is tainted everywhere.

And I think that's why Second Kings is such a great book to find application in because you do see how many times there is this flawed nature of man while God is doing supernatural things. One other thing I would mention too, chapter 7 has this amazing story of the four leprous men. In the camp of Israel, who, who is looking at the Syrians and God does this miracle of making them hear the sounds of all these armies and the Syrians flee.

These guys go into the camp and go, wow, this is a day of good news. They say in chapter seven, verse nine, and we remain silent. And I think how many believers out there have had God do supernatural things or God has provided for them and we keep it to ourselves. We don't proclaim the praises of God.

And I think one of the great things we should learn. In this section of the ministry of Elijah is to believe in the supernatural, to proclaim the God who makes it happen and to be able to make known when God does great things in our lives. Let's not keep it to ourselves. Let's not keep silent. And the last miracle, this is awesome, Bodie, the last miracle, which it takes us into chapters 11 through 13. The last miracle is when Elisha dies and they actually put a dead man in the area of his grave and sure enough, the guy comes back to life.

I mean, even by touching the bones, of Elisha, so you really see some awesome lessons in these chapters and we would encourage you to read them carefully ask yourself. What do I learn about god? What do I learn about man? What do I learn about these lessons? So those are just some highlights. I just want to mention in this first section that I think is just going to whet your appetite to dive in.

It is, and what's interesting, too, is it gives a report for each king, and if we think about our own lives, you almost kind of got to wonder, like if there was a one paragraph report on my life, would I fall under someone that is obedient to the covenant, to following the Lord in my time, or am I going to be someone that goes with my culture?

You know, we see a very strong culture war happening today. Are we going to be faithful to proclaim the goodness of God in the land of the living? Or are we going to just be silent and... softly go the way of our culture. And we see these kings are, this is exactly what's happening in their day.

And so, this first section, this one through 13, Elijah is such a standout because of his willingness to be bold for Yahweh, and to proclaim and the miracles authenticate his calling as a prophet of God. Yeah. But it's funny because some of these Kings like they'll do good and then they'll blow it right. Like Jehu, he destroys Jezebel. He destroys like Ahab's line, but then he's like, yeah, I'm going to go worship at the high places anyways. And you're like, Bro, you were doing so well, and then they just get off, and so really chapter 13 is a turning point, and so that takes us into our second section, which now it's sections two and three are basically about the fall of the North and the fall of the South. Before we get there, Joey, anything else in this first kind of large section one that you want to add before we transition?

Well, I would just say, you know, if we asked ourself the question, is our heart in a good place with God today? Are we trusting in God's power in our lives? There's so many things that we can, just realize in our times today that are going to weigh heavy on our hearts. And we're going to find ourselves at times, lacking faith and not looking to God for answers, but to something else and realize that's no different than the idolatry of Jehu, or these other kings.

You may not be worshiping the false gods with names, but understand the spirit of the false gods, are going to name the areas of your heart where you two are perhaps distracted, and so we really want loyal hearts before God, and I think that's such a, key point just to bring out because idolatry plays a role in so many lives today, even without the false God names, you know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely. It's the same heart condition. Yep.

So here, at the the end of each section, if you're watching this, I want to show you how these kings work down the timeline. So this part one, you can see on the screen, if you are watching this, basically just recaps what we just covered, the Northern Kings and the Kings of Judah. And so now, this second section, which basically covers the disloyalty and the decline of Samaria. Joey already said there were 19 kings in both kingdoms. The southern kingdom lasted longer precisely because there were kings who stayed true to the covenant, but in the North, all 19 were wicked and they get overtaken and destroyed by the Assyrian Empire.

So chapters 14 through 17, we are calling the disloyalty and the decline of Samaria, and basically we continue to survey mostly focusing on Northern Israel, but also some of the Kings in Judah that match up with this particular time period until they fall to Samaria.

So basically you have in this section, if you're looking at this, there's basically chapters 14 and 15. It just kind of bounces back and forth between the North. You've got Amaziah in Judah and you've got Jeroboam the second in Israel. I'm not going to read all these Kings names. These names are kind of hard to pronounce and sometimes people kind of roll their eyes over, but the idea is. Samaria is getting what they wanted.

Samaria being Northern Israel, that's another name for it. They wanted to worship the false gods. They kept the high places and they are getting what they asked for. Essentially what happens in 14 and 15, we go back and forth and we go down the timeline to basically after chapter 16, which is where Ahaz imitates all the wickedness of the North. But then, Joey, I think it's important to call out chapter 17, isn't it? Because the author seems to want to communicate a summary of this whole section in chapter 17. Samaria. is gone.

Assyria, then the world power comes in and they basically take over northern Israel. It's dispersed, they take people out of there and they disperse them across the land. If the nation is gone, there's no more northern Israel and chapter 17 tells us why. Because it basically is a summary of this entire section of Israel's history. So Joey, looking at number two, as we know, Samaria or Northern Israel is going to fall. What do we need to get from chapters 14 through 17 specifically, anything you want to throw in there?

Yeah. Well, as you kind of already said, but there's a buildup to chapter 17 because 17 is really where you have the last king of Israel and it ends on a sour note. I mean, Hosea, this king in chapter 17, he's. He's reigning in Israel as one who's really completely overruled by sin. So his rule is actually the fact that he's been overruled, and this is the problem of sin. Sin grows. Little leaven leavens the whole lump. And Israel is completely given over to idolatry at this point. There is no healthy fear of God. There is no holiness in their life. There is only pride. There's only rebellion. And so, you've got some of these powerful verses. In chapter 17, that you really hear the Lord speaking. He's very angry with Israel.

Let's look at those verses because you're going to see why. Why would God get angry? Well, what God gets angry about is Is the fact that there's sin in his creation that robs him of glory breaks our fellowship with him and actually opens up the idea for gods that don't even exist to have a rule and reign in the hearts of man, and so this is the key thing. Bodie, would you like to read this section?

Yeah, this is a great chapter and there's a number of times in the Bible where the Bible itself summarizes itself. Nehemiah chapter 9 is going to be one we'll cover later, but 2nd King 17 summarizes this section. We're not going to read the entire chapter. This is a key part verses 18 through 23.

Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. This is Israel, meaning Northern Israel, He was very angry with Israel. He removed them out of his sight. None was left except The tribe of Judah only, which calls back to the Davidic Covenant, doesn't it Joey?

Where they promised, God promised Solomon he would, he would retain Judah. But Judah also did not keep the commandments of their Lord and walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. The Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and a He afflicted them and gave them into the hand of the plunderers until he had cast them out of his sight.

That's 8 verses 18 through 20. Verse 21.

When he had torn Israel from the house of David, they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king. That was way back in the beginning, right? At the split. And Jeroboam, notice, drove Israel from following the Lord and made them commit great sin. The people of Israel. walked in all the ways that Jeroboam did.

Joey, finish it.

Yeah, all the sins that Jeroboam did, it's not just the ways there, but the sins themselves. And it says they did not depart from them until the Lord removed Israel out of his sight as he had spoken, very important, by all his servants, the prophets. So Israel was exiled from their own land to Assyria, until this day.

So when did that happen? That was 722 B. C. This is the fall of Samaria. This is the time, brothers and sisters, when you're listening, where when God does choose a judgment, remember this, God was very long suffering before this. So many Kings have come and gone. So many Kings are just doing evil after evil, and God doesn't judge them harshly until this point where he says enough.

Now, Assyria comes in and takes over the land. And so think about that in your own life. Are you opening the door for more and more idolatrous ways and immoral ways will eventually you're going to give yourself over. The Bible says when a man gives into temptation, sin is conceived. And when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death. And that's the reality of what we're dealing with today. There's death that follows sin. There is separation, there's judgment. In fact, this takes us into our third section now,

and you'll notice that the Kings that are here in this third section, I want to say two things here, you've got the longest reigning King, in all of the kingdom is Manasseh. He reigns for 55 years. And when you think about that, when you think about a king that would reign that long in Judah, still carrying on, but he's still doing evil, you can see the time clock is ticking Judah. Is going to have a judgment similar to israel.

You've already mentioned that, Bodie that Judah is going to go to the same fate because of their departure from God It's just that they had eight good kings. And of course they have Jerusalem, the city of David in their kingdom. I want to make this point because we haven't mentioned this yet.

Not only do we have Elijah and Elisha as prophets that are in this book, there are many other prophets that have books in the Bible, that are speaking messages during this time, both after Israel has been besieged by Assyria, and of course the captivity of Babylon. Many of these that are mentioned like Amos, Hosea, Obadiah, Joel, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah are all either dealing with the northern kingdom, Or the Southern kingdom.

Micah is one of those rare prophets that deals with both kingdoms, but understand that there has, there's many prophetic voices going on, even while idolatry and, rebellion is taking place in the two kingdoms.

Yeah, this book is about the kings and it's an evaluation of the kings in light of the covenant. What we get to later see as we go through later books is the role that each prophet played throughout their spot through this timeline. So it's important that you understand this timeline so that when we go and we cover each individual prophet, as we'll do later, that you now have a really clear context of where they fall in that timeline, and that's where we get to number three.

So part one was the ministry and miracles of Elisha chapters one through 13, part two, 14 through 17, the disloyalty and decline of Samaria. Now part three, 18 through 25, the collapse and captivity of Judah. So what we want to now see,

this map went from this divided kingdom where you have the North and the South. Well, now we don't have the North anymore. It's gone.

Assyria wanted to wipe out Judah also, but God preserved them through the leadership of Hezekiah and through the ministry of Isaiah the prophet, which we will look at in later episodes.

So let's now take a look into our final section of this episode, the collapse and captivity of Judah.

Judah lasted 150 years longer because they had righteous kings. They had the same amount of kings as the North. But their reigns lasted differently because they were faithful. Some of the most important kings in all of Judah's history are in this final section.

So in 18 through 20, we look at Hezekiah, both his righteous reign, as well as his ruin. Hezekiah is an interesting guy, Joey, I'll let you jump in and talk about him. There's Manasseh who has the longest reign, but he was not a good king at all. But there is a king in chapters 22 and 23. who is called out specifically, and that is King Josiah, we have to talk about him in this section.

But basically after Josiah, the same thing that happened to the north happens to the south. There's king after king that don't last very long, and ultimately, now, it's not Assyria that overtakes. We're 150 years later. It is Babylon, led by King Nebuchadnezzar, that basically takes Judah into exile. So, that's a quick summary of section three. But Joey, what do we get when we read this section? What do we want to make sure they don't miss?

Yeah. So, so as we hit this third section, which we're now focusing on the Southern kingdom in Judah, perhaps the words of the kingdom in the North, Israel should be echoing into these pages in the end of chapter 17 in verses 35 and 36, when the Lord was reminding them of his covenant, he said, you shall not fear other gods. Nor bow down to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them.

And then verse 36 of chapter 17 says, but the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched arm, him you shall fear, him you shall worship, and to him you shall sacrifice. I feel like those words just echo into the pages of wherever there is a good king in Judah, like Hezekiah.

They are showing us that's what they're willing to do for a time. Hezekiah is one of those kings where, this first king we look at in the southern kingdom of Judah, after Assyria has taken over in the North, he's a man who's doing right in the sight of the Lord. He actually removes the high places in chapter 18 verse four, he actually cuts down altars, and you're going to see this practice by every good king, they start to deal with idolatry head on by destroying the altars that present false worship.

And one of the things that you see in verse seven, it says the Lord was with him. He prospered him wherever he went. As a result, he was able to subdue the Philistines. He was able to have victory in battle, Sennacherib, this king, comes from Assyria trying to get the South, but he can't penetrate, and the reason why he can't penetrate is because of the fear of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord not only causes us to part from evil, but it allows us to overcome evil with good, and I think that's really important, but one of the unique things about Hezekiah before we leave him and get into some of these other kings to talk about is, as his life comes to an end, he does what a lot of the good Kings do.

They have some area of weakness where they get vulnerable in some ways and Hezekiah, gets sick, and he asks for an extended period of life. God shows mercy to him and gives him 15 years. But you know what happens in the 15 years of his extended life?

Some pretty incredible events. One, he showcases all of the treasures and the items in the temple, and he basically exposes those to the king of Babylon. And that is going to later come back to bite him because the Babylonian captivity is going to steal all those things that they got now a sneak peek of.

The second thing you should note is that the really evil king I mentioned earlier called Manasseh, he gets born. In the last 15 years of Hezekiah's life. So because this guy didn't want to just let things take place the way that God was letting unfold. He demanded more time. God shows him mercy, but also allows things to unfold, and the reaping is what happens. You got an evil king in Manasseh that's born. You've got this exposure of the temple that's been shown to Babylon. And in a sense, everything is set up for the downfall of what's going to be called the Babylonian exile in the last chapter. So I think Hezekiah plays a prominent role for the history and the fate of Judah, that's a really important piece.

. Yeah. It's tough to summarize these in a short way because we're talking about 450 years total of Judah, 150 years after Assyria falls, but the scripture has things it doesn't want us to miss. And Josiah is the next major king. So you have Hezekiah, who's predominantly good, in 18 through 20. His son Manasseh, the longest ruling king, was not good. Josiah, in chapters 22 and 23, follows him.

And friends, don't miss Josiah. He repairs the temple. He rediscovers the law. He renews the covenant. He is a good, righteous, king, and because he is, he influences Judah towards Yahweh, towards godliness, and he's a great model for what we should be doing.

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We need the law. We are under the new covenant, right? So these themes apply to us as new covenant believers, and we can learn so much about those who stood against the evil of their time. And Josiah in 22 and 23 is a premier example of someone who fears The Lord and does what is right. The Kings that follow him. Not so much, but Joey, what do we need to know about Josiah?

and I think like I gotta jump in on Josiah. Obviously. I named my son after this king. So This is a king that is very near and dear to my heart. Josiah in Hebrew means Yahweh heals. We're going to see some beautiful healing that takes place in Judah under his reign after terrible Kings like Manasseh and Amon.

But let me say this about Josiah. His reign was prophesied about. In first Kings 13, you might remember that story we read in the last episode about the man of God who comes to the altar that's over in Bethel and the word is spoken. This is first Kings 13 verse two. And then he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, Oh, altar, altar.

And then he says, thus says the Lord, behold, a child, Josiah by name shall be born to the house of David and on you, he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places. Who burn incense on you and men's bones shall be burned on you. So in prophetic fulfillment, Josiah comes up on the scene and the Bible tells us there was never a king that sought the Lord with all of his heart, mind and strength, like King Josiah.

We discover that he was only eight years old when he became king. Now he's the second youngest King Joash was seven years old, so you have one other King that was younger than him, but in a short amount of time usually someone who was young who's reigning older people are manipulating him and trying to pull puppet strings, Josiah's got courage He's got conviction.

The moment he hears the word of God being read, and of course it was, um, Hilkiah, the high priest who found the book of the law when Josiah gave the command to clean out the temple. Look what's in the temple. He found the book of the law. He hands it to Shaphan, who is the scribe that reads it to him.

And when, and listen, everyone, when Josiah hears the words of the Lord, his heart is stirred, he's aware of sin. He's aware of the idolatry of the land. He repents, he calls the whole nation to repent. Josiah brings in revival in Judah, and not only is there revival, but people are beginning to humble themselves, there's repentance taking place. The house of God is restored. But more than that, so is God's favor to Judah.

And so you see, this is a wonderful time. And it says, That Judah, was blessed under King Josiah. And here's the reason. Second Kings 22 verse 19, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants.

You know, Bodie,

one of the things that I love about King Josiah is he didn't just turn to the Lord, but he destroyed the things that would take his heart and the hearts of his people away from the Lord. He destroyed every. Idol, every altar, every high place. He burned it to the ground. He destroyed it just like it was prophesied that he would do.

And I just think this is the attitude we want to take towards sin in our world today. We want to have a violent approach against sin, so to speak. And we want to have a tender, peaceful, gentle, teachable heart before God so that we can grow in the ways of the Lord and be an example in our generation like King Josiah was to his.

Yeah, it's so good.

Isn't that awesome?

that's awesome. It's like they show that, that in any generation who someone who's willing to present themselves to the Lord and be faithful can be used in great and mighty ways. And friends, that is true for you, and that is true for us today as well. But we do know that Judah does fall, it falls to the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and we are just going to mention this now because we're going to cover it in depth through a lot of the future books in the prophets, but essentially Nebuchadnezzar takes leaders out of Judah and exiles them into Babylon.

And That's the first wave. The second wave, he destroys the temple and destroys the city and destroys the walls. But so now the temple's gone, the city's gone, and the people are out of their land. And Joey, there is hopelessness at the end of second Kings.

This is a warning to those who play around with sin, this is not a good time Israel's history from the outward perspective, but God hasn't forsaken them. He is still doing great and mighty things in their midst, but that's how this section ends. Joey, do you have that verse that you had brought up earlier? That was so good.

Yeah. Well, I think like, as you get into this Babylonian section, you're going to now deal with books like Daniel, and we're going to talk about Ezra and Nehemiah that flows out of this in future episodes, but, there are a lot of references to this Babylonian time, and I think, one of the great ones is in the book of Psalms in Psalm 137.

We have the psalmist speaking out something that kind of conveys the spirit of what happens when Judah is taken over by Babylon. And here's what they say. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it, for there those who carried us away Asked of us a song, and those who plundered us requested mirth, saying, Sing to us one of the songs of Zion. And their response was, How can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?

And they went on to talk about how they must never forget Jerusalem, and you'll see that the prayers of David, that were early on, get modeled to us through Daniel, where Daniel prayed three times with his window open toward Jerusalem, the city of David, and prays for restoration, and he prays and Ezekiel prophesies, and so many others are looking back to see when will we return back to the land, and so that's really where it's a good place to end.

There's this call for repentance, this call to come back to the place where they left their first love. Like we see in the New Testament, in the book of Revelation, many people in all time periods in every generation have left their first love.

And if that's you out there today, remember from where you have fallen. Repent and do those first works that you did to God once again, so that God may restore you, restore your lampstand, restore your heart, restore the temple that is the church today. That's what we need more than anything, Bodie, is a restoration of God's people in these times where judgment always begins with the house of the Lord.

Amen. Amen. So as we wrap up this episode, we went from basically having the North and the South, the North got wiped out and now the South has gone too.

And so here's a map that basically shows this time period where Babylon is ruling everything. There's no more land, and so the people are wondering. Has God forsaken us? Is the covenant broken, is the promise to Abraham that we're going to have this land, is it now null and void because of our wickedness and idolatry? And history will say that it is not, but at this particular time, Joey, this is a dark period of time.

And so if we look back at our timeline, as we wrap up, we talked about how first Kings chapters one through three, we can see it right there. And then we see the second. second section of kings up to the fall of northern Israel or Samaria. And then we see this long section of Judah that was basically a mix of good kings and evil kings.

But eventually their idolatry caught up with them and the Lord, again, as he has done previously, the Lord. uses foreign nations to bring forth his righteous judgment. But that is not where the larger story ends because we know that there is a return to the land that is coming, which future books we will cover.

Well, the book of Kings of Israel could be mirrored with many other kings and other nations too. I mean, this is the story of Israel and Judah, but, kings in other countries have also exemplified these same kind of characteristics. They either fear God and they do his will, or they fear the people and they do their own will.

We think of many situations, you know, I lived in England for 10 and a half years and there were many kings or queens of England over the years. I remember when Tyndale prayed that the Lord would open the king's eyes so that, he would, repent and turn his heart away, and of course, at that time. He was praying for there to be a revival in the heart of the king so that the word of God could go forth, Tyndale was responsible for getting the scriptures to the common people, and eventually that's what happened.

The scriptures were able to be distributed in English to the people. And now, of course, in America, we're blessed to have the English Bible, and Tyndale it's because God opened the eyes of the king. The prayer of Tyndale was heard. William Tyndale prayed something, God answered him, and eventually the king had a turn of heart some months later, and a couple of years went by and he actually gave the order for the Bibles to be published.

And so

God can turn the hearts of the Kings, whichever way he chooses, the Bible says in Proverbs 21, and he can turn your heart as well, but we all need to look at King Jesus. King Jesus is the ultimate example. He's the King of Kings. And he's the Lord of lords. And if we're ever going to get our lives right on this time on earth, we have to turn to King Jesus and submit to him first. That's where everything points to. And that's where our hope is found.

Yep. That's true. It's funny, Joey, I'd never thought of this until you just said that, but it's almost as though the Gospels are the Book of Kings about the King of Kings. They are the record of the life of the true and great King. That's what the Gospels are.

And so that's why we study them is because we see the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords at work, who did not break covenant, who did not forsake the Father, who did not go the easy route. but gave his all for his mission and ultimately purchased our redemption by doing so.

So that is episode 18, Second Kings Explained. As we've looked at our seven part framework, we hope that this episode was helpful to give you some tools to really equip and to inspire your Bible study. If you would like a one page summary of this episode, you can go to YouCanLearntheBible.com/notes, that is YouCanLearntheBible.com/notes.

We also have the downloadable PDF timeline at YouCanLearntheBible.com/timeline as well. But Joey, we are now heading into Chronicles.

So First Chronicles Explained is going to be our next episode, episode 19. We are excited to get into these historical books because there is so much that we can learn about our Christian life and about the nature and person of God in that time, and we are here because we believe that you can learn the Bible. So, episode 19, First Chronicles Explained, a seven part framework to equip and inspire your Bible study. Until we meet again, God bless you, and we'll see you next time.

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