Bible Lessons

From: Messages of God's Love: 1927

2 Kings 10.

JEHU went on with his work of cutting off the entire family of Ahab; he was the instrument God used for this act of unsparing judgment on that apostate king, but all we see of Jehu is natural energy, nothing of the fear of the Lord which the book of Proverbs tells us is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10¹⁰The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. (Proverbs 9:10)). So in the book of the prophet Hosea (chapter 1, verse 4), we read that God’s judgment was to fall on Jehu’s house also. We can only judge that it suited Jehu to obey God’s word sent to him through the prophet Elisha; he did not know God by faith, nor seek to know Him. Merely outward energy, or the carrying out of what is known of God’s will, will not do for Him.

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Acts 16:31³¹And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31).

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation (judgment), but is passed from death unto life.” John 5:24²⁴Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24). These are two of the precious gospel portions of Scripture; a third is found in Romans 3, verses 19-26.

Salvation is not by works, and the only way into God’s presence is in the power of the blood of Christ (Hebrews 9:14¹⁴How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:14)) for all who trust in Him.

Jehu had all of Ahab’s family, and the “brethren” of Ahaziah, king of Judah, also all the prophets, servants and priests of Baal, put to death; the images of Baal were destroyed, and the house of Baal broken down. Thus was the worship of the god of the Phenicians and Canaanites stopped in the ten tribes of Israel. But Jehu lived in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat (see 1 Kings 12:28-33²⁸Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. ²⁹And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan. ³⁰And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. ³¹And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. ³²And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Beth-el, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Beth-el the priests of the high places which he had made. ³³So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Beth-el the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense. (1 Kings 12:28‑33)); the golden calves, sign of an idolatrous religion, were left at Bethel and Dan.

To Jehu God promised, because of his obedience in the matter of Ahab’s children that the descendants of Jehu should, to the fourth generation, sit on the throne of Israel. But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart; he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam who made Israel to sin.

Judgment upon the nation therefore began; Hazael the king of Syria attacked the region east of the Jordan, the possession of the children of Reuben and of Gad and of half the tribe of Manasseh (Numbers 32).