Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Confidence That Comes From Clarity | Historical Books | 2 Kings 9:1-13

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

Do we have a lack of direction or too much of it? Are you drowning in noise? How can we tell what's true? In today's episode, Tanya shares how 2 Kings 9:1-13 reminds us that God's word brings clarity to our lives. If you're listening on Spotify, tell us about yourself and where you're listening from! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Kings 9:1-13

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. Do you remember playing the game of telephone as a kid? One person whispers a sentence, and by the time it gets to the end of the line, it's completely mangled. Sally bought a chocolate peanut butter ice cream cone for herself and a strawberry one for her grandma. Somehow turns into Sally's dog ate chocolate chips and threw up on her grandma. I couldn't help but think of that game when I read today's passage.

in 2 Kings 9. Because here, the message gets passed down a line, from God to Elisha, from Elisha to a young prophet, from the prophet to Jehu, and from Jehu to his officers. And yet, unlike that game of telephone, the message doesn't get distorted. It doesn't get lost. It comes through loud and clear. And it comes true. Why? Because every time it's passed along, it's anchored in one phrase. Thus says the Lord, or in modern day language, God said. So here's the story. We're going to walk through what happened in 2nd Kings chapter 9. It begins with Elisha summoning one of the young prophets.

And he says to him in verses 1 through 3, tuck your cloak into your belt, take this flask of oil with you, and go to Remoth Gillian. Now that whole phrase, tuck your cloak into your belt, it was like, make haste, hurry, there's no time to waste. And then he says, when you get this, look for Jehu, son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nemshi. Go to him, get him away from his companions, and take him into an inner room. Then you are to take the flask and pour the oil on his head and declare, this is what the Lord says. I anoint you, king over Israel. Then open the door and run. Don't delay.

Okay, so there's a lot of haste here. There's going, there's finding a room with a man in it, who's surrounded by his military personnel, taking him out of the room, anointing him king. and then leaving very quickly. Well, this is exactly what the young prophet did. He found Jehu, he pulled him into a room, he poured the oil on his head, and he declared in verses six and seven, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, I anoint you king over the Lord's people Israel. You are to destroy the house of Ahab your master, and I will avenge the blood of my servants, the prophets, and the blood of all the Lord's servants shed by Jezebel. And then, just like Elish had instructed, he opened the door and he ran.

No editorializing or commentary, no explanation, just the word of the Lord, and then he was gone. Now, Jahou walks back into the room, he comes to his fellow officers, and of course they want to know, what did that man-man want? At first, Jayhu brushes it off. He says, oh, you know the man and the sort of things he says, but they press him. Maybe they see the oil in his head. And they say, that's not true. Tell us. And finally, Jehu says plainly, here is what he told me. This is what the Lord says. I anoint you king over Israel. The reaction is immediate. In verse 13, they quickly took their cloaks.

They spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, Jehu is king. What prompted this? What shifted the atmosphere? It wasn't Jehu's persuasiveness. It was simply the authority of God's Word. Fast forward to us. One of the hardest things we face isn't a lack of direction. It's actually an overload of it. We're drowning in commentary. We're drowning in voices.

We have the news cycle. Of course, we have social media. We have opinions at work. We even have our own doubts. And in that noise, we wonder, what should I say about Jesus? How do I share what I believe? That's not far from what we're talking about in Israel's moment. The nation was also in turmoil.

There were corrupt leaders. There was idolatry everywhere. People were unsure of what was true. But right in the middle of all that chaos, God's word cut through the confusion. This is what the Lord says. God's word brought clarity. It still brings clarity. So most of us, we aren't asked to tuck our and doorbells, grab a flask, go annoy someone, and make them king. But we are given opportunities to bring clarity into the chaos that surrounds us. We are given opportunities to speak spiritual truth at the dinner table in our Zoom meetings, on dorm room floors, in our classrooms. And here's where we stumble. We think that confidence comes from getting the method just right, or saying it Just right. If I had just the perfect argument, if I had just the best program, if I had just the

flawless presentation, then maybe I could be bold. But that kind of confidence doesn't last very long. The truth is much simpler. The truth is actually much more freeing. Our confidence doesn't come from our tactic. It comes from trusting that Jesus is already there in the room with us. He's present in your home. He is present in your office. He is present in your classroom. He is present in your conversations. He is present within you. And he's at work before you even open your mouth. And when it goes badly, like when it's awkward, when someone rejects you, when you stumble over your words, when you bail out, when you make a joke instead, that's what I tend to do. Or when you soften it so you don't sound too convicted, that doesn't mean you failed. It just means, that the weight was never on your skill in the first place. You rest in him. That is why Acts 429 is one of my favorite verses. It's actually a powerful prayer.

When the early church faced threats and hostility, this is what they prayed. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Okay, notice what they didn't pray. They didn't ask God to remove the things that threatened them. They didn't ask him to do. just silence their enemies. They didn't ask him to erase the hostility or even to make the road

easier. They ask for boldness to keep persevering, to keep going, to keep speaking, to keep moving forward, right in the middle of all of it. Because real courage isn't in the absence of all those threats and all that danger. Real courage is in the presence of God's spirit, knowing that God is with us in the middle of it all. So how do we live this out? Well, here are just a few simple things. we can pray specifically for courage. We can ask God to open our mouths, and we can ask him just to steady and quiet that part of our hearts

that makes us feel really scared. We can be mindful and notice small openings. We can ask God to help us notice those things. Sometimes it's not giving someone a whole sermon. It's just a question or a story, a word of encouragement. I have found that it is hard for someone to feel hostile about my personal story or something that happened to me. So that's something that I sometimes try to share.

We can remember that discomfort doesn't mean that it was a total disaster. So feeling nervous doesn't mean that you're going to fail. It means that maybe you're stepping into something that is uncomfortable place to be. But this doesn't mean you shouldn't be there. And then we can also remember that we can just take one step. We can just ask one question, share one word. we can pray for someone. Boldness grows when we just practice stepping out in small ways. So a couple of questions. What would bold obedience to speak about the Lord? What would that look like for you this week?

Just think about your calendar, your planner, where you're going to be, who you're going to be with. What would it look like just to share something truthful about what God has done for you in your life with someone this? week. Who around you needs to hear God's word and how can you step toward them with your story, your question, maybe just your love and your care? In 2 Kings 9, Jahu's officers went from skepticism to conviction when they realized that the Lord had spoken. And we can have confidence that God's words studies not only us, but the environment around us even today. God gives us clarity, courage, and purpose. So as you step into your week, remember that your confidence doesn't rest on your methods or your eloquence. It doesn't even rest on your confidence or

your certainty. It rests on the one who is always with you, the Lord Jesus Christ.