 So a formal good morning once again. Good morning to all of you students here. So we were looking at first things yesterday and maybe we should actually do a first things and second things session because there are some things in first things which we still touch upon but let us see. We will try to focus on second things passages to some extent but if we have time at all maybe we could also take a look at some of the first things which we could not cover yesterday. So I thought maybe we could begin today by looking first at this divided kingdom, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom and in fact if you were to look in your textbook you have a table which makes a comparison between the two kingdoms. So maybe we could start off by looking at that. You will notice that the southern kingdom has only two tribes and the northern kingdom has about ten tribes and another important fact that you probably have to note down is that in the northern kingdom you have nineteen evil kings and the southern kingdom has called eight good kings. Yes that's another important fact because you will observe in the northern kingdom there is even one good god we have every single king in the northern kingdom made a choice not to follow the law. They all were going to work in a wide area but at least in the southern kingdom you have eight kings who followed Yahweh and they did not cut spade in the hydrogen worship and another important thing that you would need to know from your table is at least the capital city of each of these two. So some Bible students do not seem to know this and it is a basic fact so northern kingdom you would need to know what was the capital because mainly some area for most of the time the northern kingdom existed some area was the capital and in the southern kingdom Jerusalem was always the capital. And the other very very basic fact which every Bible student should know is that the northern kingdom finally came under the judgment of God who was the kingdom which came which was the nation which came and captured them it was the Assyrians the Assyrians who captured the people of the northern kingdom and took them away as slaves and the southern kingdom which was the nation that God was to punish the southern kingdom it was the Babylonians so these are all very very basic facts which anyone says that they are the reliever and they should know this. In northern kingdom the capital is what and who took away the southern kingdom as the capital. So these are basic facts that we need to keep in mind. Just take a brief look at second thing some to regarding that. We have characters from Eilatia Eilatia we see many stories mentioned regarding these two prophets. You have Naaman being mentioned here. We have the Shunamai government. We get to know about how Jesus dies I just mentioned here. We get to read about Hezekiah and Manasseh the man who defended these are all. Josiah of course a very very important thing about the great revival, spiritual revival. All of these would be some of the main personalities in second things. In second things maybe we could divide the structure into two main parts. So chapters 1 to 70 is where we have a description of both the southern and northern kingdoms together their history, their rulers and then the latter part 80 to 25 and only the southern kingdom. So chapters 1 to 70 is about both the northern and southern kingdoms after the time when the Assyrians come and they invade northern Israel and the last king is Oshila, someone named Oshila and we are all taken into captivity. And so then chapters 8 into 25 only talk about the southern kingdom. We will be touching details about these two kingdoms even as we do the prophetic books because the prophetic in the prophetic books the prophets are prophesied to the northern kingdom initially and then later on for the southern kingdom. So we will be catching up on certain aspects even as we are talking about the prophetic books. So coming to second things and some of the main things that maybe we could look at. One interesting story which most people laugh a little bit would be in second things chapter 4 and 5 where you have a story of the northern kingdom. And I think this is second things chapter 4 isn't it? I think it's the story begins in chapter 4. It's only in chapter 5. We get to know that this person Naman, he is from the Assyrian kingdom. What did we talk about just now? We said what people want to be captured in the northern kingdom is going to be the Assyrians. So they were very powerful people at that time. They were also a very evil nation at that time. They were invading all the countries which were around their territory and they would take away their wealth. They would take away people as slaves. So there was a lot of violence which the Assyrians were unleashing and this man Naman is described as the commander of the army. So he would not have been a very benign person because the Assyrians also made attacks on Israelite territory. So when the attacks were being made on Israelite territory, also probably Naman also would have been a part of that. So he was not coming to Israel as a friend. He was coming there as an enemy warrior. So you see things are not really very good. So when this person was living in Naman's home as his slave, when that girl she speaks up for him and says your legacy can be healed, you go to the lord of Israel and he can heal you. When she talks about the prophet she is actually doing something kind for this man. He is somebody who is a ghost to Israel. He can be considered an enemy of Israel. But this girl in the goodness of her heart, she suggests and says if you go over there the prophet who lives over there, he can help you. And so that's basically Naman comes over here and even though he is technically an enemy, the lord shows mercy to him. So we are not very familiar with the story so we will not get into the details of all of that. But after Naman is healed, after he is completely well, he says in 2 Kings chapter 5 verses 15 to 18 if someone could read out those verses, what exactly is described in those verses? 2 Kings chapter 5 verses 15 to 18. Yeah, we don't need to get into those details. But the point being made over here is Naman requests and says I would like a card note from Israel. So why would he ask for one from Israel? In what way is it special? What is the point that he is trying to make? And then in those verses Naman explains he says now onwards because Yahweh has healed me because Yahweh has proved that he is the living God. Now onwards I want to offer my sacrifices only to Yahweh. And so he says kindly give me a note of what I want to take from here because he seems to be a little aware of the Israelite scriptures because he seems to be knowing what is said in Exodus chapter 20 verse 24 where it explains what kind of an altar the people are supposed to build, what kind of an altar they are supposed to use to make their sacrifices. So in fact if someone could read out for us Exodus chapter 20 verse 24 you will see some specifications made over there. So it says here the Lord is making this promise he says they remember I crossed my name to be honored I come to you and bless you. So Naman is saying I want to take the earth a month which is from here and I want to build a temple, an altar to the Lord and I will offer sacrifices only upon that altar according to the command and instructions that he has given. When I do that and when I honor him in that way then he will come and he will bless me. So here you have Naman making a personal commitment to Yahweh and he says one thing he says when I go back at home and I have to serve my king, my master so when my king goes into the devil of the pagan gods over there and he bows down in front of those gods because I am holding him and I am supporting him I will have to bow down but in my heart I am going to be committed to Yahweh because I will only be making sacrifices from now on to Yahweh so he makes his commitment very clear. So we see over here that God chooses to show his mercy to an enemy of this giant someone who probably would not be considered a friend in any sense of the word so to the Lord it really doesn't matter on which side of the battle you are and they had the world wars going on the German believers would say none of the gods are on our side on the other hand you have the British army saying the Lord is on our side the Lord is on everyone's side he is on the side of the people whose hearts are willing to open and listen to him so all he is mainly looking for is the repentance is the person willing to admit what they are who they are and be willing to change in submission to the Lord so he is on their side so over here even though Naaman is the pagan and in fact part of an army which was making attacks for this giant when he chose to finally come to Linset at first he is very reluctant he doesn't want to follow the instructions which are being delivered but once he realized that this is truly the true God he subdued him to the Lord and he makes his commitment and so we see small examples like this throughout the Old Testament where Gentiles choose to make a commitment to create our world and every time God is before them and willing to receive them into this family so the Lord was never against the Gentiles he was just looking for Gentiles and being willing to submit to him and you see a beautiful example of that here in the case of Naaman one interesting thing that we see in the Naaman story is that when Naaman is asked to go and wash himself in the water with the river the prophet does not accompany him the prophet does not go along with him you know Elijah is making it very very clear that the healing is not coming from him it's going to come directly from God because Elijah wants Naaman to trust the God and place his faith in the Lord so he says no you go to the river you can wash him we see very clearly over there the prophet does not go along with him so Naaman gets a very clear picture of who is the living God and so he chooses to make a commitment to Elijah so we see this interesting example of a Gentile being added to the kingdom of God and just to talk very deeply about Elijah and Elijah again you have the table in your textbook just to talk about the problem with the sound in your textbook it talks about how Elijah is a type of John the Baptist and Elijah is described as a type of Jesus Christ now why do you think Elijah is being called a type of John the Baptist is there any person before testament where it says or the new testament which says that these two names are connected why do they think of Elijah why not say that Elijah is a type of John the Baptist specifically Elijah is being compared to John the Baptist any verses that come to your mind and the testament where John the Baptist tells people to defend himself yeah so he is a John the Baptist asks people to repent of their sins and they ask him the people ask him are you the Elijah that we are supposed to be expecting why don't they go and compare them to Elijah how do they compare so they will enter their mind why don't they ask him about Elijah why don't they compare him to Elijah John the Baptist always asks the type of Elijah or rather Elijah is a type of John the Baptist Malachi chapter 5 to 6 if you could have one verse and read out Malachi chapter 4 verses 5 to 6 you know we are going to be talking about Elijah before the coming of the 21st century and how is that coming of the 21st century and how is that coming of the 21st century and one of the online students has actually some of the students have supported so yes it is based on this so they were expecting Elijah would come and he would bring about restoration and in the time of John the Baptist we see a lot of spiritual revival taking place John the Baptist was not coming to their towns and villages and doing his preaching he was out there in the desert but the people were so eager they would go all the way over there to listen to his words and John the Baptist was not doing miracles he was not doing healings he was only preaching repentance and restoration and people were going all the way over there to listen to him so there was an actual spiritual revival going on and restoration was taking place it talks about different categories of people who were going to John the Baptist it says soldiers also went to him and the soldiers were convicted of this and they said what should we do now and then John the Baptist tells them what they should do so when people saw John the Baptist operating in this manner and bringing about restoration and change in people's hearts then they began helping that maybe he is the property Elijah who has been promised who is going to come one day so that is why John the Baptist and Elijah are compared on the other hand they tend to compare Elisha with Jesus Christ now I am not very clear on why they bring about this comparison they make a lot of superficial comparisons which I don't think are really very valid but the two main things that I can observe is that both Elisha and Elisha Christ were involved in healing the sick in healing cleansing from leprosy and things like that so maybe because of that they compare Elisha with Jesus Christ but the comparison in Elijah and John the Baptist is quite clear it is quite clear in your table it also talks about how both Elijah and John the Baptist were out in the desert away from the people the people went to them on the other hand Elisha and Jesus Christ were very much with the people in their towns, in their lives and one very important thing that we see regarding Elijah he is the one who meets with Abraham Elijah is the main person who goes to Abraham again and again and it is the word of God to him so it says here there is two worship of Jehovah in the dark in that Elisha is described as the one who is weeping over the eons of the nation one of the greatest things that we see by Elijah which is the contest which is there will be the prophets of Baal and him at Mount Carmel where he is able to prove to his prophets that Yahweh is the living God and Elijah is of course the living God one thing that we see in Elijah and Elisha's story is this incident where they multiplied either food or oil and also both of them would raise a person from the dead that would be from 1 Kings chapter 17 verses 21 and 22 where you have Elijah who goes to the widow and would be writing the beginning of chapter 17 we see Elijah going to the widow of Zarifah and she says that she does not have any flower left over to make bread and he says it's all right make it and he says the jar of oil will not be used and the jug of oil will not run dry and so there is a miracle where it says in verse 16 1 Kings chapter 17 verse 16 for the jar of oil was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry keeping with the word of God spoken by Elijah and then later on the widow of Zarifah her son dies and when he dies it is Elijah who takes him back to life that would be in verses 19 and 20 where he carries the child to the upper room where he is staying and he lies down on top of the child and is able to breathe life into him so and then we have something very similar in 2 Kings chapter 4 where again you have one of the prophets of Elijah he passes away and so this widow is left without any financial help and then the creditors want to pay her son's away as he sleeps so she comes to Elijah for help that is 2 Kings chapter 4 and again over there he says that the law will multiply the oil and the oil is multiplied they are able to sell that oil and they are able to he gain themselves their financial they are able to restore themselves financially so we see a similar multiplication happening even in the Elijah's case and Elijah also has one experience where he raises a person from the bed again that is also in chapter 4 itself where he visits a Shonamite woman's home and she is the body person in verse 10 let's make a small room on the roof so that you can come and stay over there wherever he is traveling in this direction and Elijah makes a promise to her saying that one day she will be her child and she is able to do that and the child wants to sit so when the child wants to sit and dies now with this she who comes to to Elijah and she is able to bring the child back to life in Elijah's life Elijah's life so those are some comparisons that we see what else can we focus on in the second piece we have a story of Ezekiah and where you have Sennacherib coming and threatening the kingdom and Ezekiah says Lord you are our help we don't do this on our own but you are our help and we are looking for you and then you have the hyperactors deliverance these are just some of the stories of deliverance that we see in the second piece any one has any questions to ask because otherwise maybe we can actually look into it later and the story of Ezekiah and Sennacherib anyone so the promise of deliverance because he would only prepare the way he was not the Messiah he would only prepare the way for the Messiah yes so we are in the second piece chapter 90 is where you have Sennacherib coming and making his threat and if someone can be familiar with this story but then we are going to be looking at specific verses second piece chapter 90 and if we can look at verse 11 where you have Sennacherib the commander of Sennacherib making his threat verses 11, 12 and 13 okay so he gives a list of kings it's the commander of the army the adoption king the commander of the army the Assyrian army and he says all the communities that we have been in so far so he says in what way do you think that you can do better how do you think you can escape and then we have Ezekiah's very famous prayer so in the second piece chapter 90 verse 17 is where Ezekiah is praying to the Lord and he says so verses 17 and 18 and you can now 17 to 19 so they were in our house and worked many times they were in his room now they perform the work of the Lord so over here Ezekiah says Lord let all the kingdoms know who you are that you are the only true God and that you are the victorious and so this is the Lord's reply the Lord replies in verses 32 all the words and in verse 34 the Lord says for I will defend this city to save it for my own safety and for the sake of myself and to be a bit and then you have the miracle which the Lord unleashes in verses 35 verse 37 where you have the angel of the Lord who comes and strikes down the huge enemy camp just a camp outside ready to fight and so they are all found dead and they are unable to fight so God delivers and proves to all the nations that he is the real and true God and then after that Ezekiah made a mistake he falls sick God makes him well and then after he gets well he tries to meet primarily with the Babylonians he does not realize that one day he is these Babylonians who will come and take away his people as captives and so he makes a mistake he allows the overconfidence which has settled beyond the victories that God has given he allows that to make him lose his vision his goal had always been to please the Lord to honor the Lord but then over here we see that he does not consult with God before he interacts with those Babylonians and as a result he brings harm and destruction upon his nature so one lesson that we can learn from this is that when we see God doing great miracles on our behalf when we see God bringing victories we could stop asking him consulting him, depending on him as much as we did earlier because when we see that the battle was first supposed to take place he was so afraid he said Lord you are no one can help us now we are looking for you and he talks about all of that but then later it looks like now his dependence is not as strong as it was earlier so we see that when the invoice comes from Babylon he invites them and he shows them all the treasures which are there in the temple so if he had consulted with the Lord then the Lord would have prevented him from doing this mistake so we see that overconfidence can cause us to stop being dependent on the Lord and we see that in ministry we are in the early stages we are so in tune with the Holy Spirit we are so guided by him but once the ministry grows once we feel that now we have acquired the skills required to be able to serve people and help people to start making more we can do this on our own so there is a risk and we need to watch out for this coming back to another incident of the Manasseh now over here in our second case we don't have many details about Manasseh's last phase but then if you go to Chronicles we see that Manasseh actually revents of his simple commission not able to identify the passage if you are an online or anyone here in the class so if you can identify the passage which talks about Manasseh's repentance I am not able to give the actual passage because the comparison I wanted to bring up is that when you look at the last part of the first case where it talks about Ahab's repentance and we see a contrast between Ahab's repentance and the repentance of Manasseh that is the point which I actually wanted to make in first case if we can go to chapter 21 and if you look at the last portion of first case chapter 21 verses 27 to 29 if someone could read out ok so over here when God pronounces his judgment against Ahab Ahab is very shocked by what the Lord says and if he puts on saffron fasts and he regrets so Ahab the evil king revents and later on even in the story of Manasseh we see Manasseh repenting untill we have Manasseh's story in 2nd Chronicles chapter literally thank you so much this is the passage also ok 2nd Chronicles chapter 13 and we have verse 10 onwards which talks about Manasseh's repentance if we could maybe read out verses 10 to 13 of the king of Assyria who took Manasseh with bound him with bronze feather and carried him for food alone now when he goes into the kitchen he implores the Lord and rumble himself literally yes and we need to give an example and he clearly cleared his application and brought him back which is true then Manasseh moved the Lord also we see Ahab the evil king repenting and turning back and we see also Manasseh repenting and turning back on the Lord in fact Manasseh is one of the most evil kings even he repents and he turns to God what do you think is the contrast between these two people who could you say had a genuine repentance would it be Ahab or would you say Manasseh is the one truly repentant if you look at Manasseh's life after he repents these are some of the deeds which he does ok once he comes back it says in verse 15 2nd Chronicles 30 verse 15 he took away the fallen gods from the house of the Lord and all the orders that he had built on the mountain of the house of the Lord he brings about many changes he shows the roots of a repentant life he actually demonstrates actions of a repentant life on the other hand when we look in 1st Kings at Ahab's repentance in chapter 21 1st Kings chapter 21 verses 27 to 29 he repents and he is very very sorry for the judgment which the Lord says he will bring upon him but in the very next chapter you see him going back to his home base so one very important lesson that we can learn is that repentance shows up in the actions which we perform so just saying that you are very sorry is not enough it has to be demonstrated by the future actions that shows whether there is actually a repentance to place in the heart or not and just to use a new example when the Pharisees come to join the baptism he says who asked you to come because you are not showing any signs of repentance is what he says so he says who told you to come over here for baptism because you are not showing the root of repentance so we have two able kids both of them repenting and what we see is a true case because his future actions demonstrate that he has indeed turned back for the Lord on the other hand if he helps place it's just a temporary repentance more because he is feeling sorry for himself the Lord is going to bring judgment and not because he really wants to change his place so when I was really for today's class I had another set of chapters in mind but then I just felt that maybe we should touch upon these things so sorry I did not have all my Bible references in place but I thought that these are some things that we should look at so I hope it has been helpful to you anybody has any questions otherwise we can actually close alright let's just close with the word of prayer ok someone has just a question from a student asking whether the angel of death mentioned here in 2nd Kings where you have our enemy camp who completely wiped out in the chapter which we just read a little while ago so is that angel of death the same as the one who lived the attack in Egypt is it the same or not I don't know what my idea is it does not specify whether the same angel was used in both the occasions or whether it was someone else ok let's close with the word of prayer God we just thank you so much for the lessons that we can learn from the lives of these kings we pray a lot that you would help us to be genuine in our work with you we pray a lot that you would be like Resakhaia who was dependent on you and trusted you in his early days but we pray a lot that you would never be over confident and that we would continue to always seek your guidance and the second very important thing please Lord help us to be genuine in our work so that it is when we make a change it will be a permanent one and we show it in the way we follow you in the way we serve you after that decision so I pray a lot that you help us to have these qualities and may you Lord in Jesus name thank you so much for participating in the class and you know also moving with all of us