Full text of Zac Poonen’s teaching on the 2nd Book of KINGS which is part of the popular series called Through The Bible.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Zac Poonen – Bible Teacher
Let’s turn to 2 Kings — the 2nd book of Kings and Chapter 1.
This is the rest of the story of the two nations of Israel and Judah. Israel is the northern kingdom with 10 tribes. Judah is the southern kingdom with the 2 tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
And in the 2nd book of Kings we see about the different kings who ruled these two nations. Some of them were good, very few. Most of them were bad. In Israel almost everybody was bad. In Judah the southern kingdom, some were good.
And we see the captivity of the northern kingdom. It took place around 730 years before Christ when the Assyrian nation came and captured the northern kingdom of Israel. And the northern kingdom of Israel’s capital was Samaria. And they put their own people there and they mingled with the Jews and that’s how the Samaritans were born with whom the Jews did not have any dealings in Jesus’ time.
And the southern kingdom about 130 years later was captured by the king of Babylon which became the next world power after Assyria. That means the southern kingdom did not learn any lessons from the failure of the northern kingdom. Like we have often said, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. A foolish man does it himself and sometimes still does not learn.
I think there are three types of people. Normally people make mistakes and learn themselves. That’s a normal man. A foolish man is below that. He doesn’t even learn from his own mistakes. A wise man is the best of the lot. He doesn’t have to make the mistakes. He learns from the mistakes of others.
And God’s Word has been given to us so that we can become wise. And one form of wisdom is to learn from the mistakes of others. Not only in Scripture but when you see around us servants of God, churches that have failed, learn some lessons from that so that we don’t have to repeat it ourselves. That’s the great advantage of studying Scripture all the way from Adam. You can learn how Adam and Eve failed. You can learn how Cain failed. You can learn even the failures of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Joshua and David. Learn from their lessons and hear of the kings who were leaders. What were their good points? What were their weak points?
Now in CHAPTER 1, we read this is almost the end of Elijah’s ministry. He has already selected Elisha. We read that in 1 Kings that when Elijah saw Elisha plowing with his oxen and he put his mantle on Elisha and said, ‘Come, you’re going to follow me’.
There’s one interesting thing we see in the way God calls these prophets. They were all hardworking people. David was looking after sheep, fighting the lions and bears and God picked him up. Moses was looking after sheep and God picked him up. Amos was a herdsman, God picked him up. Elisha was plowing in the field, God picked him up. Peter, James, John and Andrew were fishing, God picked them up.
You never find Matthew, for example, sitting at the table keeping accounts, God picked him up. You never find God calling a lazy man who was sitting around doing nothing. You never find that anywhere in the Old Testament or the New Testament. God always picks out hardworking people who are already working hard in their particular field.