Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Great I Am | Historical Books | 1 Kings 20:1-25

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

What you believe about someone shapes how you view them. So, how do you see God? Do you believe he has the power to deliver you? In today's episode, Jensen shares how 1 Kings 20:1-25 encourages us draw near to the Great I Am. 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: 1 Kings 20:1-25

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. And the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. What you believe about someone will completely change the way that you interact with them. I remember in high school we had a substitute teacher who basically no one took seriously. He was young. He was kind of clueless. He acted more like our friend than our teacher. So whenever we would push the boundaries, he would threaten some kind of detention or extra work. but no one really listened. We knew that he didn't actually have the power to give detentions

or the desire to follow through. He was more interested in being liked by the students. Now, it was a completely different story when our regular teacher was in the room. He was a veteran teacher. He did not take any sass or nonsense in his classroom. You did things his way, and if you didn't, you paid the price. So no one crossed the line. We took him very seriously. Like when my toddler commands that I listen up and do what he wants me to do, I respond very differently than when my boss tells me that she has a task that she needs me to complete ASAP. It's obvious, right? What I know about the person, their power, their position, what I believe about them,

changes the way that I interact with them. It changes the decisions that I make about how I'm going to spend my time, what actions I will take in relation to their demands. What we believe about God is no different. Who we believe God is? What we believe he is capable of? His character, his power. Whether we believe he even exists or not will completely shape,

not just how we interact with him, but how we see our lives, our purpose. In First Kings today, we'll see two nations come up against one another in a battle. King Ben Hadad of Syria and King Ahab. of Israel. And each of these kings will have a different view of who God is, which is going to shape the way that they interact with him and others in this story. So the king of Syria is the one who stirs up trouble with the nation of Israel. He lays siege to the city of Samaria and demands that Ahab submit to him and give all his riches and wives and children over to him. Now at first, Ahab just says yes, fearing the other king and his power trying to show his submission.

But Ben Haddad gets a little greedier and prouder and asks for more. He says he will immediately come and raid Ahab's palace to take the gold, silver, women, and children. Now, Ahab doesn't love this idea, so he turns to the elders of the land. The elders wisely advise him to refuse Ben Hadad, something he should have done from the beginning. And so he does, to the frustration and anger of the king of Syria. What comes next might feel surprising if you've been following along with the story of Ahab. A prophet of the Lord actually comes to Ahab and he says, This is what the Lord says.

Do you see this vast army? I will give it into your hand today and then you will know that I am the Lord. Ahab is not a faithful king. His wife has tried to kill Elijah, a prophet of the Lord. He's had all the prophets and men of God murdered. He worships idols. He's said to have done evil in the eyes of the Lord more than any before him. And yet, here is God telling him that he will have victory in battle. Why? Well, we can learn something about God here. It is clear that he does not show mercy and act on behalf of his people

because of their worthiness for him to act. Now, God is faithful to his people because that is who he is. He chooses to act to deliver when it's within his will and plan. And when it is within his will and plan, if he says it, it will happen. Now, despite Ahab's lack of faithfulness to God, he has witnessed the power of God on numerous occasions. So when this prophet tells him that God is going to act, he takes him at his word. Verse 14. But who will do this? asked Ahab. The prophet replied, this is what the Lord says, the junior officers under the provincial commanders will do it. And who will start the battle, he asked? The prophet answered, you will. And he's obedient to what God tells him to do. And in his obedience on this day, God delivers victory to the nation of Israel over the armies of Syria using only the junior officers, the untrained men. And there were just 232 of them. Again, God is using the weakest among the people to remind them who it is that is delivering them, who it is that has the power. He's teaching them about himself. Now, Ben Haddad loses the battle,

but escapes with his life, and we get a look into his conversation with his advisors following this fiasco. Meanwhile, the officials of the king of Aram advised him. They are gods or gods of the hills. That is why they were too strong for us. But if we fight them on the plains, surely we will be stronger than they. Do this. Remove all the kings from their commands and replace them with other officers. You must also raise an army like the one you lost, horse for horse and chariot for chariot. So we can fight Israel on the plains. Then surely we will be stronger than they. He agreed with them and acted accordingly. These men do not know who God is. They believe that this God's strength. They believe that this God's rank that delivered the Israelites' victory must be contained to the hills, that because their chariots

couldn't fight properly, that's why they lost. So they begin to scheme. The next time they come up against this God, they will do it on the plains where they can properly defeat him. And the king agrees. Now, these men believe that they can be stronger than the God of the Israelites through tactical planning and human might. And I want us to take a look at Ahab and Ben Haddad's beliefs about the God of Israel after encountering him. Ahab knows the power of God. He trusts that what he says will happen will happen so he takes action based on what God says. Ben Haddad knows that this God has aided Israel in victory, but does not believe that he is all-powerful. If you were to be looking at the text rather than just hearing it from me, you would see that they refer to God as a lowercase God. They equate the God of the

Israelites with the gods that they worship, gods that act much like humans that can be finicky, tricked, that have limited power over certain aspects of life. The Israelite god must just be God over the hills. They could out with him, outplay him, outstratize him, if they worked hard enough. Now the prophet of the Lord who delivers the news of victory to Ahab calls God by a different name. The text reads, this is what the Lord says. Do you see this vast army? I will give it into your hand today. Then you will know that I am the Lord. So the Lord is repeated twice. And in this context, it is capital L-O-R-D. This is the personal name of God, Yahweh, given to Moses all the way back in Exodus 3. So Yahweh and Hebrew is literally translated into

I will be or I am. It may sound strange for someone's name to be I will be or I am. But God is literally saying here that he is. He always has been. I am. God is in all things. He is before all things. He has never changed. He was never created. There was never a time before him and there will never be a time without him. See, the juxtaposition of the Syrian advisors believing they were dealing with a lowercase god and Ahab being told that the creator of all things, the I am who sustains all of life, could not be more clear. There's no room for misunderstanding who God is when he uses his personal name. This is the Lord speaking, and you will know that he is who he says he is

when he delivers the army of Syria into the Israelites' hands. See, the Syrians are acting off of an assumption of who they believe this God is. It causes them to lose a battle and begin making plans for the next that will bring them to the table wholly unprepared. Ahab acts off of the truth of who God is. I'm not saying he's a faithful Israelite. Jesus says even the demons believe and fear God, but what I am saying is that Ahab at least knows who this God is enough to know that when he says something will happen, it happens. He knows his power and it changes his choices. The same can be true for you and I. What we believe about God will change.

how we interact with him? What if we believed the whole truth about God, about the great I am? Not just that he is the I am, that he is all powerful in control, sustaining our lives and all that we are, but also that he is eternally good, that the great and powerful I am became man, humbled himself to die on a cross to rise from the dead and create a pathway for the restoration of all things through the resurrection of all that is under the curse of death. What if we really truly believed God was who he said he was, that he would be faithful to the promises he has made and that he loves us with the kind of all-consuming love we see displayed throughout Scripture? How would that change the way you approached him? How would that change the way you saw yourself? How would that change the way

you ordered your life, the things you gave your time to, money to, devotion to, who you trusted, who you followed. What you believe about God will shape your life. It will set you on a path. Spend time in God's word. Learn of his goodness, learn about his power, learn about his wisdom, get to know the I am. Let your heart long to experience more of him. The great and all-powerful I am wants to meet with you, draw near to you, walk daily with you. He wants you to partner with him in building his kingdom. He has given you purpose. He welcomes you into his family, into his mission. He offers you eternal life. That God cannot be overcome. He cannot be shaken. His promises are sure. That is the God of the Bible. That is the great I am. Get to know him.

devote your time to him, believe that he is who he says he is, and allow the truth about his goodness and power and mercy to shape, guide, and bless your life today and every day.