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Episode 622: In this episode, Chris and Jeff dive into the intriguing and often intense narrative found in 2 Kings, focusing on the actions of Jehu as he seeks to eradicate Baal worship from Israel. Chris and Jeff analyze Jehu's strategy, noting how he cleverly deceives the worshipers into believing they are participating in a grand sacrifice to Baal, only to have them ambushed and killed. They discuss the implications of Jehu's actions, emphasizing the seriousness of Baal worship and the consequences laid out by God for those who lead others astray.
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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible Guys. I'm Chris, this is Jeff, and we are super glad to be here. It is so good to be back. We are yes to be back from what yesterday, yes, which we recorded ten minutes ago. Well, but for our listeners, we're back today. We're back, baby, We're back today. So we get what we. Do is we we meet at nine in the morning. Some people have asked me about this, so I'm just gonna come out. With Okay, here comes So here's here's how we make the sausage here right here. So we come at nine in the morning, and it's always at nine. Then we go to about noon and we record five episodes sitting back to back to back, back to back to back to back to back to back, because. We have a hard time being in the same room more than one day. Anyways, let's get let's just get it over. It's like taking off the bandit. You know. Some people do do you wade into the water or do you dive in the water. They want to see it not even my peripher so anyway, So anyway, that's what we do. So we always we're in the habit now of saying, oh, yesterday, but we mean by yesterday is the last recording. Yeah, that's why we're in the same clothes, which is we don't wear all the same clothes for the whole week. No, which by the way, is very often is what happens on the voice. Yes, I always think of the voice the voice. Because I always try to figure out like, oh, this was this outfit. You know, this was recorded this day. You could figure it out just by based on what they wear. Yeah. So anyway, let's jump into the social media minute that Desiree has. Planned for us. Okay, this is awesome. We appreciate all of our listeners and we love when they take time to write in. So let's take a minute and give them a shout out. Okay, here we go. Sharman d Hi Sharmon, Hey, charm She says, I can't imagine a world worth with either ones of you not laughing sad. Oh, it's a sweet centiment. It is a very nice thing. Sharmon. Yeah, either ones of you, Well, did you think she's a little Italian no, I think I think desiratus typed it. Do you think so? Okay, my mom your mom ever said YenS? Yeah, all of you's. No, no, no, That's why I was saying, I think it's anyways, Well, that was wonderful Sharman. Yeah, we're going to keep trying to laugh. Yeah. We can't imagine a world without it either, I agree, Kelly R. Writes in this next one, Kelly, great episode, Jeff and Chris. I love the two of you together. It's not the same when one of you isn't there. Oh that's really nice. That's really nice. I don't know what I would do without Chris. Oh that's very sweet if you mean that. But I'd rather I'd rather do without Chris. And there it is there this year. It's so much fun working together. I love it. We we really do. We laugh a lot when we're not on a camera. It's all time. Yeah, yeah, although I do, I do love you know, like Wesley does a great job when he goes inky, great job. We've had Dave Wilson once or twice. Who else do we have Tom Tom Blounce? Yeah, Tom Bloun we have it? Yeah? Cool? All right, and then you get the last one. My New Year's Oh, this is from Crystal, Crystal ge My. Crystal says, my new Year's resolution is to watch Bible Guys daily every day. Well, here is day twenty two. That's what she wrote it, which is pretty cool. It says the first thing I do every day and best part is Chris singing good morning. Well, then yesterday bus must have been amazing for her, amazingly. Well that was just for you, then, Crystal, thanks for getting my morning started in. The right direction. Oh that was really nice. Yes, we're getting it started. I don't know if it's in the right direction, but we're getting it started. Yes, well, she says, it is so, and it's because we love talking about the Bible. That's right. It's one of our favorite things. Yes, and so hence the name. Yes, we are the the Bible Guys. Yes, which, by the way, not not. Just some Bible guys or a Bible guys. It's like the Ohio State University the Bible guys there. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, the always say so, there are other Bible guys, yes, but we are the Bible guys. And the way the way that you know that we are the Bible guys is because we have the Bible Guys dot com. Yes, that's how you know. That's how you know it's real. It's a legit right there. Yeah, it's By the way, you can go to the bibble dot com. You could email us at info at the Bible Guys dot com. Uh, and you can subscribe, so please do so. See it's just getting easier and easier. I threw you that softball right over the fence. Yeah. And and by the way, we love when you share. You know, like if if you. Were to just like take one of our video links, post it and just say, hey, I love these guys, give them a listen. Uh, we would love that. So tell us what happened. You got a message and this happens, this happens often to us. Yeah, so I got I got a message instant message from a guy who I'm not going to say his name, but I knew him well in Bible College and he's a missionary in Russia. Okay, And so basically he inste messages me out of the blue. And I haven't heard from this guy or even honestly thought about. Him for like thirty years. Yeah, that's amazing. I worked with him at Automagic card. Do you tail a shop? He was my manager and also Bibble College. Anyway, so he goes playing. He's like, hey, how you doing. We're missionaries in Russia. I'm like, dude, I haven't heard from you in thirty years. What's going on? And he said, I stumbled upon you guys in your podcast. He said, I was listening to Bibble podcasts and all of a sudden, I had you planning in the background. My wife walks by and goes, that's. Chris Arbo and she recognized your voice. She recognized my voice and me, so, thirty years ago you had this recipee voice. Yes, but also they were watching the video. Oh I see yeah, yeah, yeah, so she recognized me and she goes, that's Chris, and so he goes, so, I just, you know, instant message. You see how you doing? So we caught up on thirty years because he stumbled upon the Bible guys in Russia. Yeah, so share with your friends. That's what happens, right, is the algorithms just kind of promote and push the things that your friends will be interested in when you let them know that you're interested. So that's cool. Well, the same time that happened, I was in East Africa and I had a guy from Tanzania tell me that he's been watching all watching all the podcasts too, So wow. It's crazy. It's just crazy how it happens. Yeah, but he's got a smartphone, so that's yeah, that's isn't that crazy? That is crazy? So uh anyways, Bible guys dot com share link right you hre link right here on the on the YouTube page. If that's what you're doing. If you listen on on any of the podcasting platforms, you can always grab that U r ol and send it, share it with your friends, and uh, hey, help us get some more listeners. Help us, help your friends, help us, help you. That's right, Jerry Maguire, help me help you there Cuba. I can never say his name. I love him though. I think you're the one doing transitions today. Oh you know what we slaughtered that segment? No, no, you did not. Hey, by the way, Jay, he was about the slaughter what seems like hundreds of priests and as they're trapped in a temple. So if this is your second time to listen to us this week, we kind of have a trend going right. This is a pretty pretty rough week. Yeah right. But here's what happens. That a great transition that was a yes, a great terrible transition, great horrible transition. Saint King's Chapter ten says this in verse eighteen. Then Jayhu called a meeting of all the people of the city and said to them, Ahab's worship of Bail was nothing compared to the way I will worship him. Therefore, some and all the prophets and worshippers of Bail and called together all his priests. See to it that every one of them comes, for I am going to offer a great sacrifice to Bail. Anyone who fails to come will be put to death. But jay Who's cunning plan was to destroy all the worshipers of Bail. Then jay Who ordered prepare a solemn assembly worship to worship Bail. So they did. He sent messengers throughout all Israel, summoning those who worshiped Bail, and they all came. Not a single one remained behind, and they filled the temple of Bait from one end to the other. Jayhu instructed the keeper of the wardrobe, be sure that every worshipper of Bail wears one of these robes. So robes were given to them. Then Jay who went into the Temple of Bail with Johannadabs, son of Rekib Jahu, said to the worshippers of Bail, make sure no one who worships the lord is here, only those who worshiped Bail. So they were all inside the temple to offer sacrifices and burn offerings. Now Jayhu was stationed, had stationed eighty of his men outside the building and warned them, if you let anyone. Escape, you will pay for it with your own life. As soon as Jahu had finished sacrificing the burnt offering, you commanded his guards and officers go in and kill all of them. Don't let a single one escape. So they killed them all with their swords, and the guards and officers dragged their bodies outside. Then Jay Whu's men went into the innermost fortress of the Temple of Bail. They dragged out the sacred pillar used in the worship of Bail and burned it. They smashed the sacred pillar and wrecked the Temple of Bail, converting into a public toilet as it remains to this day. In this way, it's amazing. I love the Bible. People got get anything out of it. I'm like, are you serious? Or people telling me the Bible's kind of boring, I'm like, are you serious. You haven't read it, then you haven't read Second Kings right for sure. In this way, Jayhu destroyed every trace of bail worship from Israel. He did not, however, destroy the gold calves at Bethel and Dan with which jereboeam' son and Niba had caused Israel to sin. Nonetheless, the Lord said to Jayhu, you have done well in following my instructions to destroy the family they have. Therefore, your descendants will be kings of Israel down to the fourth generation. But Jayhu did not obey the law of the Lord, the God of Israel. With all his heart. He refused to turn from the sins that Jereboam had led to Israel to commit. Wow, man, Jayhu, you were right there, buddy. Yeah. You know yesterday you had said there's something to be said about going all the way. Yeah, and make no mistake of it. When he wanted to get rid of Bail, out of the city or out of the region, he went all the way, buddy. He did everything he could to the nth degree. But he did not go all the way when it comes to all false worship, which, by the way, if we remember these things, what's the reason why, what's his name, Jerbom, what's the reason why Jerreboem decided to set up. Golden calves in the north. Anyway? Why did he set them up in the north. Was because he was afraid that people go down to Jerusalem to worships. Yes, give him something else. Yes, because the temple is located in Jerusalem, which is the region of Judah. And so remember there's the king of the Northern Tribes of Israel, which is ten of the twelve tribes of Israel, which is what we're talking about here, Jehu. And then there's the two kings of Judah and Benjamin. And by the way, both were large. Judah by far was the largest region, the largest tribe anyway, right, but the Northern Kingdom was larger in terms of totality, Yeah, totality. But anyway, the point is is that everybody in Israel had been trained, and you know, they knew that he was supposed to go down the temple to worship. Well, Jeribom set up the golden calves because he didn't want them to go down there because he was afraid if they went down there, they would stay down there. Right, So I guess I can, you know, at least it makes sense to me. It's awful, right. He should have he should have getten rid of them. But I think I understand why he didn't because he's thinking, hey, I can't. Get rid of those. Number one, they were ingrained in culture. But at this point, yeah, yeah, I wonder if Jeroboehm had some kind of a hybrid. We're not really worshiping these calves. We're worshiping they worship the true God or something. Right, because what they were supposed to represent. Right, there's some kind of a you know, the power of the true God or whatever. But God says, don't make any graven images. That's what he says. Right. Sometimes I'll hear people who even participate in Christian religious things that also have little statues that they pray to, say, well, not praying to that statue, I'm praying to what that statue represents. It's kind of very similar, I think, to these gods. Right, and so there's that. I feel bad for j Hugh, And I think from the very get go, we know Jay he was very ambitious. He was very ambitious guy. God speaks to him, which blows my mind that God gives him these instructions. And then he still worships an idol right at the end, right, or leads the people to doesn't say he worships idle. He lets the people worship that. I sort of realized. He allowed the people, yes to have yeah, keep it. They kept those there in Bethel and Dan and and what you see is he does a lot of very politically expedient things, taking advantage of God's orders right right, and so he he wipes out ab ahab sons. I mean, he wipes out all AaB sons and all the prophets of Bail. And oh, by the way, let's just get rid of Ahab's buddies too. He kills he kills a Haziah. Doesn't he's not commanded to, but he does. Right now. He wipes out his competition to the south. But he leaves these these calves because politically it's probably gonna cost him a lot. Right. He gets rid of Bail because Bail's the bad guy. Bail. Bail worship was full on w kid evil beyond. I think our modern comprehension of how evil. The worship the worship of Bail was. Yeah, whereas bombing down to a couple of gold calfs and leaving a little cash offering every once in a while, probably to Jay who didn't seem like it was that big of a deal. Well, and it served the same purpose. Like you said, it was there to represent the true God or Israel. Right, and so they had this, Well, it was to represent the God of Israel. It didn't represent the true God. But that's kind of what how Jerebohm was setting it up for. Oh yeah, yeah, well represent meaning meaning you're praying to that same god. Yeah yeah, but yeah, you're not supposed to have an image representing him as what. Yeah, yeah, either way, I don't know if he was trying to say this is the exact same God. I think he's trying to say it's the same thing, just as good is perhaps what he was doing there. But anyways, the Lord told him to do these things, and he does them. And as I mentioned, he literally cleans house when it comes to Bail. I love that about it him, like go jau right yep, And not that I love the slaughter side of it, but these are the consequence is that God had set up for these people, and it was really clear, and it's not like they had to go do this. These are these prophets are Israelites. They're not strangers that got brought in that didn't know God's laws. They knew God's laws. They rejected God's laws, and they led the people for the sake of the perversion or for the sake of the money or whatever, they led the people astray away from God to these these this false God. And so God had said, this is going to be the consequence. You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna be executed for this, and he uses Jahu for that purpose. So that's great. But then, man, every one of these kings almost gets there, don't they almost? Yep? Almost, Which, by the way, have you ever heard Brian Reagan talk about the word manslaughter? Yeah? I love that. Brian Regan is a famous community he was one of our favorite and he says, you know, a lot of times people get charged with manslaughter, but it's not murder. It's a it's like it's like with the intent to harm, and they call it manslaughter. And he goes, he is without the intent manslaughter is without the intent. You killed the person, but you didn't mean to kill it. Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right. And he goes, he goes, but he goes, but he goes, think about that. It's a horrible word. It's a horrible word. He goes, what are you inford, He goes, I slaughtered. Them, man, But yeah, without the intent, that's right. But but anyway, uh yeah, so let's not overlook this fact that Jayhu has a pretty good plan. He's like, okay, make sure there's not a single one left. So he so he makes sure that that's that happens, and then he says, make sure they all wear the same robes. Now, can you imagine being in the middle of this cattle. You know, I'm sure these people felt like cattle. Right. They're all the worshipers of Bail, they're all in the temple, they're all packed together. In this one room. Hey, everybody, put on this robe. And you're thinking, you're thinking, oh, okay, shop put on this robe and uh and uh, you know, probably not even thinking like this was the way to identify who to kill. Look at this fancy, bright yellow robe right right right. This is really nice and and everybody's wearing the exact same clothes. Well think about that. The what the cleverness of Jay who This is my point. My point is is he says, Hey, you think you think a have worshiped Bail. Wait, you see my worship of Bail so so so he's convincing. He's tricking all the prophets of Bail. Wow, there's never been a worship experience like this. And we all got fancy robes. We're all in here, dude, everybody's here. That guy's here, that guy's here, all the famous words, they're. All every one of us. We're all here, and he's and he's building it up. Jay who's building it up? Like and none of that. But he's like, make sure there's not a single actual worshiper of the Lord in this place. Right. Well, they interpreted as wow, but we don't have to deal with anybody else. This is just this is a pure Bail worshiping moment. I mean everything that Jah was doing is. So clever, rightfu, Yes, yes, so uh this just I was in Nairobi last week and we had all the guys from around the world. About three hundred leaders came in from forty something different countries around the world for this gathering, and they're all, you know, none of them are prosperous, wealthy people. So we decided on the last day to take everybody on a safari. And it turns out, believing or not, they live in the countries where safaris are and almost none of them have been on a safari ever. Wow, So we have three hundred people going on safari at one time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was crazy. WHOA, so that's going to be. So we bought, well, we rented these great, big safari trucks and they were huge. They fit fit like twenty people in each one of them. We rent a whole bunch of them, so it was it was, I don't know, it was crazy. So they bought before we left everybody, they bought everybody a safari hat, right, like like a tan safari hat. They were definitely they bought them on you know, Timu or something. They were super cheap. But still, and it was funny because you know, you got a lot of sun. It's really bright. It's hot right now there. It was in the eighties nineties, and so I can remember a couple of times we stopped one time for a restroom break out in the middle of the National Park whatever, and you get out and there's just all these people. But then you could always find our people because everybody's wearing the same hat, right, So you're looking through this massive crowd, they all are very very similar to my eyes, you know what I mean. I said, well, the hat, hat hat, those are our guys, right right, And yeah, so that's exactly what they really stood out they're wearing. You know, they were wearing hats. These guys are all wearing. The same roads. That's exactly why we about that, so we can keep back everybody. Yeah, it was a great idea. So so it's the same kind of thing, right that I don't know that we took all three hundred on the Safaris as I'm working it out right now, I don't know, but it was it was well over one hundred hundred and fifty something like that that we took. And uh so he does the same thing. He gives them all the same clothes so they would stand out, and he says, make sure no worshippers are God or here. This is just a private event. Yeah, right, so now he's wanting to make sure let's not mess this up either. Let's not accidentally kill the wrong guys. We're just going to wipe out the priests of Bail and the worshippers of Bail. Oh so you thought of the safari a. It's because of the yellow rogue. Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's how I was thinking about. Yeah. So I was just recently rereading John Eldridge's book Wild at Heart. Yeah, and we talked about it a couple of weeks ago on the about Yeah. Yeah, and he well, it's because of that. I was flying home and I remembered that we had talked about it. On one thing, I think, I thought, I haven't read that book in like one hundred years, you know, it seems. Like it was on I know it's a long time. So I look good. I look good for one hundred years. I don't look great for fifty three, but I look good for a hundred. So so the. I was reading it on the plane and it just reminded me how our God is a warrior. Right, So every every boy grows up with this warrior in them, right, and it's the same thing that our God is a warrior. So the Bible says that there's a point where God says, Israel is my bride. Multiple times he says Israel is his bride, and he asks them, why are you cheating on me with other gods? So where we only think of this great cosmic circumstance of a creator of this planet, this universe, God's loss. We only think of it from our perspective. But it turns out it's not our story, it's his. And what he made was a bride. He made somebody to love and to be loved by. And then he says, I'm going to provide for you. I'm going to offer security to you. I'm going to give you homes and land, and I'm going to give you a land full of milk and honey. I'm going to give you peace if you'll follow me. I'm going to give you prosperity. Just show me your love. That's all I want. I just want your love. And then, on multiple occasions through the prophets, he says, why are you cheating? I mean literally committing adultery. He says at one point, why are you horing around with the other gods? Right? And so finally God decides, you know what, I'm going to war for my bride. That's what he does, He's going to war. And this is that God uses men to do his bidding right in this and so he's using a future king to wipe out the bad king. He's using a future leader to wipe out the bad prophets, right, that's the mechanism he's choosing, using the moment. But this is a warring God. You ever wonder how God feels about at you, this is how God feels about you. I'm all in, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get you back right. And so I think some of the difficulties we have in our life is is our own bad decisions, but it's also God doing battle to get us back right, to win us back and if we can just understand that his passion for us. You know, the Bible says in Exodus that don't have any other gods. God's a jealous God, right, And that jealous is like a lover's jealousy. It's not jealous like I wish I had what you had, right, That's not it. It's I have this passion for you that I don't want. I don't want your heart to be stolen by anybody else. Right. And if you've ever been in love. You know what that means, right, you feel the same way about you about the one that you love. And this is how God feels about the people of Israel. So while we look at him, we go, wow, he's wiping out a bunch of people. These are horrible, evil people that have chosen to run away from God, not to follow God. And he's saying, I'm doing battle. I want all the rest of it is let's come back to me, right, That's what I want. So let's get rid of the one who lead the worship away from me, and then let's elevate the ones who will lead worship coming to me. And jay who has this opportunity, I honestly believe I think, I think, I really do believe that if Jayhu had led the people to wholeheartedly worship God, I think jay Who would have reunited Israel. I think I think he had that opportunity. He was so forceful, he was so demanding. A has Aa is out of the way at this point. If he had led these people and it led them back to Jerusalem for worship and led them, I think God will done it because he was doing everything else right except politically. I don't want him go down to Jerusalem. So I'm going to keep these two calves, so dumb man. But yeah, God's a warrior and he's fighting for your love and compassion and love and passion. That's great. Well, there definitely is that perspective. Well, there's baskets full of heads just in the last two chapters, so that's right, right, that's great. He's going to war for you, Yeah for sure. Hey, well that's a great place to end, and that's our time, so hopefully we will see you next time. On the Bible Gush one