Bible Survey - 1 & 2 Kings

Alright, let's take a look here. The handout like last week is lengthy because we have 10 pages. So here is 1st and 2nd Kings. We have 1st and 2nd Kings at a glance. These books were originally 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, Chronicles those books were originally one long scroll and then broken up Actually originally when the they were translated into Greek between the time of the Testaments and So then they subsequently said hey, that's a good idea this scroll is awfully big and they broke up the the Hebrew copies as well and So now, here's 1st and 2nd Kings, and in quick sweep, the very first part of 1st Kings talks about the end of David's life, and then introduces, for the rest of the first 12 chapters, Solomon.

Him being established as king, then his rise, and then the decline. We'll talk about that in a minute here. Then, after that, the kingdom divided. There was a civil war, a war between the offspring of Solomon, and so you end up having a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom.

We'll take a look at that in a minute. goes about the reign of various kings and then ends with the reign of Ahab and then bring in the prophet Elijah. So Solomon takes up the first 12 chapters in great part and then a number of kings in the second part there. Then in second Kings, what we have is the ministry of Elisha under Ahaziah and Jehoram.

And then the reigns of ten kings of Israel, eight kings of Judah. And then the fall of Israel. Israel being taken away by the Assyrians. And then we have in Judah, the southern kingdom, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. We have the reigns of Hezekiah and then two evil kings, the reigns of Josiah and then four evil kings, the fall of Judah to Babylon.

So that's the quick summary. What you have here below is kind of a graphic that shows the divided kingdom. And with this divided kingdom, you see 1 Kings 1, 1 through 11. up to the time of the death of Solomon, and then from there it shows 1st and 2nd Kings until Assyria conquers Israel in the Northern Kingdom, and the Southern Kingdom continues, and 2nd Kings ends with Babylon taking the Jews off to Babylon. So that's the quick sweep. I've got a question. Why would God include in the Bible books written about kings and priests and prophets, many of whom did very badly? Why is that helpful to have in the Bible?

Okay, one, does it really happen? Okay, it's truth. It's historical truth, yeah. So it's historically true. Is it just historically true? Okay, so it's historically true. In other words, you can go through and these things actually occurred. But also, it is spiritually true, even though what's reported isn't all good, right?

Well, it points out the fact that as long as you're dealing with ordinary human beings, you're going to have ups and downs, and good and bad, and that if you want to solve the sin problem once and for all, you need some special unction from God, some special message, some special person. It's sort of setting the table, just like judges that cycle that we talked about. Yes, the cycle. Even though you now have kings, the cycle still continues, so to speak. Okay.

People still do wrong things, worship the wrong god, they repent and come back like 2 Chronicles 7.14, that my people will fall on their knees and pray to their repentance. Okay. Yeah. restore them and heal their land.

So that sort of thing, just to show the need for God to do something special, that man couldn't do for himself. It's a parable of the weed that tears. And what do you mean by that? I mean, it's a good observation, I think. The word is, you know, from God, it's planted in the hearts of some people, and they produce. Satan puts his word in the hearts of other people and they produce evil.

You've got this constant struggle between the good and the bad. Let's think about something else. These people are under law or under grace? They're under law. And let's ask this other question. Is law pure law or is it really a mixture of law and grace? Yeah, it's really a mixture of law and grace. So it's interesting, the law of Moses is a mixture of law and grace. And so it's one thing when we live now in the age of grace, God does not intend another mixture of law and grace.

Right? Okay. So these people are under law. Could you say that that Even though we use the word grace, often it is of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed. So you have love, mercy, and grace of God being shown, whatever form it may take. I think an awful lot of denominations and churches include law. in their grace, even now, because the Ten Commandments are the operating manual for an awful lot of current churches.

Yes, it's really true. A great many churches will have Ten Commandments posted, they'll even read read them on a Sunday morning and have people take that at face value. This is for you, right? I have a friend who is a former Seventh-Day Adventist and he calls them Seventh-Day Death-Venists, right? So, yes.

I think also law is the ultimate character of God, whereas grace is the acting out for the product of God who works within that character. So the law is an example of who Christ is, what we're supposed to strive for. And then once you reach toward that goal, you exercise more and more grace. I mean, it's an out and out now. It seems ironic, but it's kind of like a two-sided coin. You've got law and law on one side, you've got grace on the other.

One of the things that we talked about in our Law and Grace series that comes into effect here is that the tendency of Christians is to present some smaller set of laws. We say, well, 613, that's a bit much. I can't even remember that many, right? And so Christians are inclined to have some smaller set of laws, like the Ten Commandments, ten minus the Sabbath, or plus one because they want to throw tithing in there. And so Christians are often inclined to have mini-law, and then we only need mini-grace, right?

And so what we see with a lot of the, frankly, spiritual and moral disasters in 1st and 2nd Kings is it underscores our need. It underscores our need. So I think that's one thing. Another key thing, when we looked at 1st and 2nd Samuel, we saw several generations passing. Here we see a number of generations passing, including basically several centuries of time. And one of the things you see there is consequence. Consequence comes out. And another thing is just the concept of generations. What does one generation pass on to the next?

Something that we brought out here some time ago was for Christians to think particularly about, you know, what do I have to pass on to whom? When I read through his histories, it reminds me of an application for myself now, and that is, it is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day affairs of life and get away from God's Word. These people, even though they had the law, it kind of got obscured. was kind of like Sunday go to meet in Christianity, where the rest of the week you live like the devil and then you try to clean it up for Sunday. So anytime, whether us as Christians or them as law-abiding citizens, anytime you get away from the purity of the law, so to speak, the purity of the word, then you start getting into interpretations and you get farther and farther out on the land. Yes. Let's take a look at page 2. Yes. Could you explain a little bit about the divided kingdom, Israel and Judah? Yes. Let's take a look at... We're going to end up getting there in a little more detail. Let's take a look at page 5. Sorry, let's go ahead and address it briefly here, just so it's clear.

What happened is the kingdom was united under Saul, but Saul of course was a massive failure. A new dynasty begun with David, and then Solomon, but after Solomon, and we'll go into the reason why, after Solomon the nation divided with basically a civil war. And so what you see on page five, Israel was the northern kingdom composed largely of the remaining tribes, because Judah, the southern kingdom, was composed of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. And essentially the tribes Judah and Benjamin, so it's two tribes, those two tribes comprise the southern kingdom. Over time, those who were seeking some kind of refuge from the Northern Kingdom, the other tribes would have people migrating to the Southern Kingdom. So they end up having really representatives of all the tribes in the Southern Kingdom, because there were people wanting to get away from the horrible moral and spiritual conditions that were in the Northern Kingdom. And they were really, really bad. Really bad.

So we'll get back to your question. I want to take a look at some slides here. One thing to announce, this 2 Samuel we looked at last week, 2 Samuel 5, this particular account, David went and attacked a Canaanite stronghold, and that stronghold, I mean this was like 26 feet thick walls in this stronghold.

The discovery of that stronghold was announced on April 2nd. They found it. The stronghold itself was 3,800 years old, so centuries, it was built centuries before the time of David. The Canaanites were so confident that David could not attack and overcome their citadel that they just said, hey, there's no way he's going to do this. They were completely confident that it couldn't be done. David attacked and did it.

And from there he established Jerusalem, the city of David as it was called, And so anyway, that citadel had been previously discovered, but it's in a kind of an underground area and they didn't want to announce it, even though they found it a while back.

They didn't want to announce it until they had everything ready and had gone through and really confirmed what the situation was. But very interesting to have archaeological confirmations of these various events. We've talked about this is real history, not just stories, okay? Yes? No. As a matter of fact, it just says that he did. It doesn't tell anything about how he accomplished it. So we don't know. About 26 feet thick. Some of the pieces of rock are as much as 10 feet thick. across. So huge.

And that's why the Canaanites just thought nobody's going to break through here, right? But David did it. Well, it did. In fact, we'll get there. Here's the city of David. This is the city of David here. This was the original Jerusalem. during established during David's time. So right in here were some very important finds and they've done a lot of archaeological investigation. It's still ongoing in a lot of that. Here is the city of David in a kind of a reconstruction palace up here.

Here was the Jebusite step structure, which you can still see now. And then here is the spring, and this Canaanite fortress or citadel surrounded the spring so that they could keep the water supply inside and protect people. And you can go down into that now. This spring was where Solomon was anointed. It is a very important historical find. The wall came out around the spring so that they could protect the source of the water.

Then Hezekiah extended the tunnel over a thousand feet underground down to the pool of Siloam. Down to the pool of Siloam. So excavations are ongoing as they keep discovering more things and this is just the latest. It's actually underground, all the discoveries are underground. So you have to get there through tunnels. But here's some pictures of portions of the walls that were discovered. So here's another one of the tunnel accesses. So here's the City of David excavations that are ongoing there. Again, more things are being discovered practically by the week in this area. Okay, here's a construction of Solomon's Temple, 1 Kings 6-8, and here is kind of a cross-sectional view.

There's no way we can get access to it because the Babylonians destroyed it, so all we have is a description from 1 Kings here. One other thing that's kind of a best-kept secret, there are lots of seals and seal impressions from the time of first and second Kings and before and after. And this one, this is not a print, but the seal of Jezebel. It has some damage at the top that you can see, but that is the personal seal of Jezebel. Rather amazing find. Here is the seal of Shema, servant of Jeroboam II.

So second Kings 14.5. So that's the seal. So what they have is there's a seal where you make the mark. So that's the seal of Jezebel. This is the seal of Shema, the servant.

And then when they make an impression, that oftentimes is preserved as well, because they'll do it like often with clay or something of that sort. And so we have some examples of that. Here's a seal impression, a bulla it's called, of Ahaz son of Jopham. So here's a biblical character, that's the seal.

A seal was typically kept on a ring. or they would have some kind of a string and, you know, have it hang from around their neck. So it's often a very personal item. Typically, you know, smallish. Yeah, roughly a quarter, but varying. And then we'll see a picture of one ring.

So here's a seal impression of Hezekiah, King of Judah. And there are actually quite a few of these, well over 100. of these from Hezekiah and the reason was Hezekiah went around and made various preparations for the attack of the Assyrians and when he would do so he would have a seal marking all the preparations including storage jars and all sorts of things. So over a hundred of his seal impressions have been found. This is the ring seal of Crown Prince Manasseh, son of Hezekiah.

So that's it. That's the one. And you're asking about the size. This is a ring. So you see the actual seal is smallish, partly because he's using a ring and not a larger seal. So the seals varied in size. This one would be smaller, but it's very interesting. I mean, that's not an impression. That is the ring. That's the one.

And actually, they're finding hundreds and hundreds of these kinds of things matched up to the Bible. And so it's a good confirmation again, historically, of the truth of scripture. And it's amazing, because they find more of these practically every year. Do you know where this was found? That one I'd have to look up. But that's a fairly recent photo. But I don't know the exact time. I'd go look that up. Yes?

Are these found in tombs? Or are they found in just the... Actually, a lot of the tombs, it's hard to get access to because you're disrupting something where there's royalty. A lot of tombs are hard to get access to, but they'll find them just when they're excavating a city or a town or that kind of thing. So usually not tombs, but found in other circumstances.

Here is kind of a dramatization. Here is out of 1 Kings 17, Elijah is being fed by ravens and then drinking from the brook. Here you have Elijah opposing Ahab and saying it's not raining here for three years and you're why. Here is Elijah, and the depiction comes out of this circumstance described in 1 Kings 18. Elijah comes up even proposing to Ahab, hey, let's have the prophets of Baal come out here and we'll set up two altars and we'll go and, you know, put animals on them, get them all ready, and we'll see if your prophets can get fire to come out of the sky and light those things up." And so Elijah taunted them, are you not yelling loud enough? Maybe he's asleep. Yes, yes. Is he asleep? Is he too far away? Yell louder. Cut yourself some more. And so he taunted them, and then he says, okay, now it's my turn. Yeah, he soaked it first. And it just torched the whole thing.

And so, then there was the transition from Elijah to Elisha. And it's recorded in 2 Kings 2, 9-12, when they crossed over the Jordan, Elijah said to Elisha, ask what I shall do for you before I am taken from you. Elisha said, please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me. So then, as it's recorded there, verse 11, "...as they were going along and talking, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire, which separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven. Elisha saw it and cried out, My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen. And he saw Elijah no more."

So this is the transition, the handoff between the two. Here's 2 Kings 6. Here is Elisha, and they're in the city of Dawson. Here's Elisha with his servant. And the servant's looking out there, and here are the troops and armaments of the country Aram out there.

And he's thinking, oh no, what are we going to do? Because this entire massive army has now come up against us. And Elisha, he's not worried. He says, there's more of us than there is of them. What? So he says, Lord, let him see. And then the servant sees the armies of the Lord there. But the Lord doesn't even have a battle here. What happens? Anybody know what took place?

Basically, he was called away because of trouble Well, okay, that happened in some circumstances. Here, what happened, instead of any big battle taking place, Elisha prayed to have the soldiers that were coming against them all be blind. Blinded, all of them. And so then, you know, they left, and the blindness left them.

So you have that. Here is the Babylonians coming into Jerusalem and into the temple area. So artist's depiction here. And then the Babylonians then exiled the Jews to Babylon. Now Syria had an interesting strategy. Their idea was scramble the populations. We're going to take the Jews here, move them here, here, and here. And then we're going to take some other people from there and move them in to where the Jews were. And so that mixed population is Samaria. That's why on into the times of the New Testament, The Jews disdained the Samaritans because they were, at best, mixtures of Jews and other Gentile groups.

It was a clever political strategy because I figured if they mixed up various ethnic groups, they'd never get their act together to revolt against their master. Yeah, so that was their strategy, scramble them up, And then the Babylonians came in and their strategy was kind of along the lines of, you know, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And so they just moved major, at first the leadership, but then major populations just right next to them in Babylon. They figured if we just depopulate all the peripheral areas and bring them right there to Babylon, we'll keep them under our own watch. Yeah? So why was Israel such a target? for the people in the north coming to the south. Part of it was wealth, and probably part of it is land. Let's think about this. Why was Israel such a target? Can you think of some of the reasons? Wealth. Okay, wealth. Where did the wealth come from? The temple and the gold. Yeah, you've got the temple and the gold, and you've got Solomon, right? So here's Solomon, well-known for his wealth and his wisdom. So you've got that kind of thing.

What are some other reasons why Israel would have been... You're essentially in a crossroads of trade routes. Ah, yes. In other words, you've got this massive civilization area developing there in the Middle East. It's Assyria and Babylon and later Persia, right? So you've got that. What is over in Africa, So now you've got the Egyptian civilization, and so to get between them, you go where? You go through Israel, because farther to the east, you've just got a bunch of desert sands, right? So it drives the military and commercial interactions between the civilization of Egypt and the Middle Eastern civilizations of Syria, Babylon, it drives them right into Israel either way. And so you've got that going on.

Is there another reason why Israel would be such a target? But you really don't see Assyria or Babylon going much farther south than Israel, right? Well, both of them went into Egypt. And both of them fought Egypt. Yep. Both of them fought Egypt. Do you have a question? Thought? Oh, okay. They did, both of them, battle with Egypt.

And the Persian Empire ended up doing the same, and so did Alexander the Great with the Greeks. And then the Romans ended up going there. So Egypt ended up being a target. as well, and it was a place of conflict and interaction. The one king even went so far as to try to make an alliance with Egypt, and he was chastised by the Lord and said, don't go there.

Yes, yes, yes. So you have that. Is there another reason why Israel ends up being a target? Well, they had usurped... Tell us that. They had usurped or taken over a land that was Yeah, one is they had to drive out the people that were there, and so early on, especially, those populations that they were supposed to have driven out, but didn't drive out entirely, ended up being a plague upon them.

So that's another reason. Is there another one? Yes? You're on it, because remember, Deuteronomy 28, you have the first 14 verses are the blessings. The blessings if you obey, right? the rest of the chapter, verse 15 down to, you know, past 60. The rest of the chapter is the curses, and the curses include that people will come in and invade you, and you'll be trembling, and you'll constantly be in battle.

If you obey me, everybody else will be afraid of you. But if you don't obey me, you'll end up being the target. So not only were there strategic reasons why Israel was such a target, you've got to ask a very good question, not only were there strategic reasons, but there were spiritual reasons built into the law. that said, if you do not obey me, this is what's going to happen. And so we find is when they didn't obey, guess what happened?

They end up being the target. And so it's not just the here's where things are geographically, and we've got this much wealth, although that was there. But in fact, it was a spiritual issue, spiritual issue, even though they would have been a target for all the other reasons, they would not have been attacked. had they been and remained obedient to the Lord.

Let's take a look here. As we look at the top of page two, Israel's third king, Solomon, was the one who sought to building the temple and is renowned for his great wealth and wisdom. We'll take a look at that here as we have time. Solomon took many wives and concubines, which he was warned not to do, How many did he have? Anybody remember? A thousand. Okay. I didn't keep track of them. Who are you? Oh yeah, I'm married to you. Right? Wow. Okay.

Because his foreign wife caused him to compromise spiritually by accommodating the worship of other gods and for this the kingdom was split in two after him. Question. Why didn't God bring the consequence directly on Solomon? Because he said he wouldn't when Solomon prayed. Okay. One is God had said that he would not. And he actually promised that to David. So one is he said he wouldn't. Is there another reason why he didn't bring it on Solomon?

One thing that you see built into the law is a principle that God uses is that God brings consequences on subsequent generations. God brings consequences on subsequent generations. We talk about a principle, the way things work, is part of the way God made things work under the law. Consequences on subsequent generations. If you obey me, your subsequent generations will do well. If you disobey me, the subsequent generations will not. So then how does that fit with Ezekiel?

Isn't Ezekiel 14.14 or 24.14 where it says that even if Daniel was responsible for his own sin, so was Job and so was somebody else, I forgot.

Here's what's interesting is each is responsible for their own sins, but the consequences don't necessarily remain on the person. You see the difference there? One is each is responsible for their own sins, but the consequences to others isn't necessarily going to stay with that one who's responsible. It's a key thing. We don't have quite the same thing under grace. But it's still a general principle to consider that we may think, well, I got away with this. No. Nobody gets away with anything. That there are impacts and consequences to things.

And that may go on for many generations. It may go on for many generations. At the same time, you see a generation that's been redeemed. And yet the Lord can show graciousness too. So I think that's an important question for us to ask. Here you have Solomon. The Lord told him, don't have a bunch of wives and concubines, and he gets a thousand of them. He gets a thousand of them. And so far as Solomon could tell by his own self, I got away with it. No, no you didn't. There are consequences that will go on for centuries because of what you did. Consequences will go on for centuries because of what you did.

Let's take a look. Yes? Like Pat was saying, do you think there was some contesting about what happened when Solomon died with his thousand wives? Now what do we do? Yeah, it really complicates marriage counseling, right? Whoa! You've got an awful lot of introductions to these counselors, right? I'd like you to meet da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and by the time we're done, it's time for dinner.

Right? So, let's take a look at pages 6, 7, and 8 here. On page 6 we have the life of Elijah, and what are some of the things you notice about the life of Elijah here? Where did the Lord have him particularly? All over the place, right? So one thing about the ministry of Elijah that you see, he wasn't just sent to one place or some specific local assignment. He went all over the place, all up and down Israel. So this is one observation, just glancing at the map, you'd say, wow, he was a Tishbite, which meant that he was from Tishbe. And by the way, the location is not exactly known. So this is a bit of a guess. But just a village.

So here's a guy, just a village guy, and the Lord ends up using him in a huge way. And ends up not only using him in a huge way, but we read about him and learn about him now many centuries later. One of the other things you know about Elijah was very unique in the Old Testament. How many guys do we know of from the Old Testament who didn't die a natural death?

Yeah, two. Who were they? Enoch, okay. Enoch walked with God just before the time of the flood, okay. And then Elijah. Those are the two that we know of from the Old Testament that didn't die a natural death. All the rest did. Yes? One Gentile, one Jew. One Gentile, one Jew. Isn't that interesting? Huh? Yeah. What's that? Yeah, you got one Gentile, one Jew, one very early on, and then one many centuries later. So just a fascinating person.

We showed the picture of Elijah there with the brook and the ravens. He was actually scared because Ahab and Jezebel had killed hundreds of his fellow prophets. He was saying, I'm the only one left. He was more afraid of Jezebel than me. Yes, yeah. So this Jezebel, that's the one we showed the seal. I mean, that's not a seal imprint, that's the seal of Jezebel. And that boy, he was really frightened and desperate and exhausted, but the Lord kind of nursed him back to recovery and health. Yes. Yeah, well, she got more than that, actually.

All right, let's take a look at locations in the ministry of Elijah and Elisha. And so here are some locations, and again, we notice they're just all over the place in terms of different locations. The one that we showed, there. This was Dawson, which you'll see in the center, slightly to the left. So that took place in Dawson, but it went all the way up to the north at Sidon and Zarephath, and then all the way down to the south in Beersheba, a city that had shown up back in Genesis. So anyway, we have all those different locations where the two of them ministered. Alright, in the last one, let's look at Elisha's ministry. This is on page 8. And with that, what we have again spread all over the place in terms of location. In the northern kingdom of Israel from Syria and then on the south all the way down to Edom.

Why would God have both of these men working in such spread apart areas? Why not have them working more locally? Why would God have them go in different places, all up and down Israel like this? I mean, after all, Israel and Judah were broken up into two kingdoms, right? So why? Why would we have that?

Yeah. Well, prophets were the word of God. And I think God wanted the whole nation to be aware of the fact that he had a prophet that was working for him. Okay. I mean, he didn't want it just isolated in one little place. He wanted everybody. Okay. All right.

Let's go back to page two. Back to page two, and you see up in the upper left-hand corner, summary of the divided kingdom. You've got the first column is Israel, the northern kingdom. It had the greatest number of tribes, right? And then we have Judah, the southern kingdom. And what are some of the things, let's take for example that column about Israel. What are some of the things you notice that stand out about this summary of the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom?

Not one godly king. Not even a one. None. What else do you see? What else do you see? They had two capitals. Yes. Bethel and Shechem. Two different capitals. Good. What else do you see? Nine dynasties. Nine dynasties. Why? Why do they have nine dynasties? As opposed to you have one dynasty of the southern kingdom.

The line of David. Well, you're back to your consequences again. God's promise was to the line of David. Yes. God's promise was to the line of David and even though, essentially the majority of those were ungodly, but still there was a promise to David. Right? Still, there was a promise to David. Yes. Always going to be a remnant, even though it may seem small. Here's another. Violent deaths. About half of them died a violent death. None of them are godly. They're all wicked.

Israel is taken away by Assyria, whereas Judah remains. for some time. Now, here's Judah, and it's the tribes of Judah and Benjamin initially, although representatives of all the tribes were there, because there were those from the north that fled to the south, and they said, well this is crazy living here. I mean, these people are pagan, they don't follow the law, they don't know anything about God, they've got various gods. It's crazy living here. And so they retreated to the southern kingdom to get some semblance of sanity. And so they ended up having all 12 tribes represented there. Did God have to promise to David what he did? that David would have a descendant on the throne, and the kingdom would last forever. Did God have to promise David that? No. God was not compelled to do that.

Now, wasn't Israel under law? So did God make this promise to David under law or under grace? under law, but it was a gracious promise. Yeah, the promise was gracious even though Israel as a nation was under law. The promise was gracious. God was not obligated to David to do this, and many of the descendants of David, as we see, the majority of them that ruled, many of the descendants of David were ungodly. But God kept his promise anyway.

So his promise to David was unconditional. Part of that was that he said a couple of things. Number one, he said he was a man after his own heart. And second of all, when he went out and fought Goliath, he said he was doing it for God. So you can see that in all the Psalms, if you really read the Psalms, he didn't kill Saul, even though he had the opportunity. And his focus was always on God. So I think that's, and God knew that, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. It is amazing when we see this. Here's law, here's terrible things going on. God's faithful. God makes a gracious promise to David who had blown it. Right? David had blown it big time. Yeah.

An application that I see in this day is that The promise depended upon God's character, not upon mine. And so, as you often say in the later service, our position is based on God's character and God's promise and not on our daily ups and downs. And thank heaven for that. God is the promise keeper, right?

I've gone to churches where every Sunday the same people showed up at the altar to repent for that week's. Lord, we do thank you for the things, certainly we've swept through a large amount of material in a short period of time and yet your character, your grace shows through. We see also the consequences of sin and we see likewise the consequences of relationship with you and fellowship with you and Lord, While some of this is even hard to read because it's tough stuff. We just thank you in the midst of tough things that your infinite love and grace comes through. And we just thank you for that. Thank you for the truths that you've put here in first and second Kings, because you love us and care for us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.