Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30

We continue in 2 Kings 1 and at the beginning of this chapter in my Bible is a timeline (spanning 4 pages) of the kings of Israel and Judah as well as the prophets God sent to His people. Sometimes the prophets overlap one another. Of note is this notation of Israel: 722 End of the Northern Kingdom – Israel taken to Assyria by Shalmaneser. Then, a huge space of empty for Israel as the line continues for Judah with the final notation: 586: End of the Southern Kingdom – carried off captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. Israel as a nation ends. 722 and 586 B.C.

We may look back on ancient people and feel no connection to their world and problems but I’m beginning to realize it’s all the same. In the last book of the Old Testament: I the Lord do not change. Malachi 3:6. In the New Testament: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Hebrews 13:8.

And here in our chapter after Ahab has died, Ahaziah is now king and has fallen and injured himself and instead of inquiring of God he sends messengers to a false god to see if he will recover. They are met by Elijah who tells them he will die and asks of them is there no God in Israel that you consult a god of Ekron? When the messengers return and convey this message, the king realizes it’s Elijah who met them. He sends a captain and 50 men to bring Elijah to him. Twice with two separate captains and company of 50 men, they see Elijah sitting on top of a hill and command, “Man of God, the king says, ‘Come down!’” v. 3-12. Both times the result is the same. Elijah answered the captain, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men.

The third captain approaches Elijah differently. This third captain went up and fell on his knees before Elijah. “Man of God,” he begged, “please have respect for my life and the lives of these fifty men, your servants! See, fire has fallen from heaven and consumed the first two captains and all their men. But now have respect for my life!” v. 13-14.

Elijah goes with them and tells the king, “This is what the Lord says: Is it because there is no God in Israel for you to consult that you have sent messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Because you have done this, you will never leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!” So he died, according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken. v. 16-17.

Can we consider the question Elijah asked that particular king? Is it because there is no God in Israel for you to consult? Can we ask that question of ourselves? Is there no God in Israel in our lives? I the Lord do not change. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

God is not just the God of ancient Israel. Almighty God, Creator of all that is, is the only One who can help us in our need and our need is great. One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:28-31.

Jesus came to save us because our need is great. He is the same yesterday and today and forever. The greatest lesson of all.