Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Will God Give Up On Me? | Historical Books | 2 Kings 7

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Why does God keep helping Israel? Will God give up on me? Will God provide? In today's episode, Patrick shares how 2 Kings 7 reminds us that even if we give up on God, God never gives up on us. 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 7

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 Patrick Miller. A few weeks ago, I was talking with one of our listeners, and he made a really astute observations. These stories in First and Second Kings, they kind of get exhausting. It feels like the same thing over and over again. God tries to reach his people. They turn to idols instead. Then God's justice comes down. Now that cycle is really the story of First and Second Kings, and I think it's there for a reason, not just to bore us, and he wasn't saying he was bored, it's here to show us something about human nature, about our own hearts. We all have the temptation to reject a good and loving God

and chase after idols in our lives, and in that, we're really no different than the ancient Israelites. But I don't think that's the main point. The main point of First and Second Kings is to tell us something about God. Because after so many failures by the Israelites, I think we're meant to ask a question. Why doesn't God just give up on Israel? Why does God keep helping Israel? I hear a similar question from many people who live outside of families that are going through dark times. For example, I think about a wonderful family that I knew. They had three kiddos. They raised them in the church. They weren't perfect parents, but they were loving and generous and present. Now, two of their kids ended up growing up and having families of their own and raising their own kids in the faith. But one of their

kids struggled. In high school, he got into alcohol and later drugs. In college, the drugs became and addiction. Then he dropped out. In the years after that, he'd disappear for months at a time and then reappear asking for money or help. Now, obviously, this is a complicated situation. Over time, his parents learned that they needed to set healthy boundaries and be careful about what they offered him. But the hardest part for his parents wasn't always their son. It was the judgment they received from other people. People would talk behind their backs about their parenting. They'd accuse them of enabling, even though they were just doing their best to set the right boundaries and it wasn't always obvious what to do. And sometimes, people would just straight up ask them, why don't you just

give up and cut them off? How would you feel if you were in their shoes? What would you do? How would you do? would you feel if you were their son? What would you do? In 1st King 7, we encounter yet another story of Israel's suffering as a result of their idolatry. And things are bad, like very bad. The capital city of Samaria is experiencing a famine so severe that mothers are eating their own children. The cost of food is exorbitantly high because there's hardly any food to buy. And to make matters worse, the entire city is surrounded by the armies of a foreign ruler named Ben Haddad. There's no getting out. There's no escaping.

They know they'll either die by the sword or die by starvation. And while it may sound calloused, you could say that they were just getting what they asked for. After all, they rejected God. They rejected his provision. They rejected his blessing. Now they were living out the consequences of those choices. In a lot of ways, they're like the lost son and the story I just told. And we should ask, why doesn't God give up on them?

I think the answer is that God wants to teach them something true about reality and hopes that they might return to him. We pick up the story in 1st Kings 7 when the prophet Elisha is speaking to a high-ranking military official, and this is what he says. Here the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says. About this time tomorrow, a sya of the finest flour will sell for a shekel, and two sillas of barley will sell for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.

In other words, by the next day, according to Elisha, somehow food would become affordable again. And the only reason that could happen is if food became abundant again. Somehow, God was going to rescue them even though they didn't deserve it. Let's continue. The officer, on whose arm the king was leaning, said to the man of God, look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen? The officer is a pragmatist and a realist, and what the prophet says is really impossible. How often have you been in situations that seem impossible?

How often have you felt the consequences of your sin lead to places that you can't get out of? How often have you given up hope? Well, the story continues, and God causes the entire army of Ben Haddad to hear the sound of a massive army invading them. And Ben-Hadad's army is so scared that they flee the camp and they leave everything behind. In fact, they're so scared that they begin to strip off their weapons and their clothes as they run away so that they can run faster. And what happens in the end? We read this in verse 16. Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a silla of the finest flower sold for a shekel, and two sillas of barley sold for a shekel, as the Lord had said.

So why doesn't God give up? Why doesn't God cut them off? Why does God rescue them? Because he wants them to see reality. Even if you've given up on God, he never gives up on you. Let me repeat that. Even if you give up on God, he never gives up on you. What ultimately matters in this world is not whether you can provide for yourself, fix your own problems or fix your own life. What matters most is whether God can and whether God is willing. And here's the good news. God can do it. God is willing.

God wants the people of Israel to see that on their own they are helpless, but alongside him, anything is possible. Think about it like this. When you get onto an airplane, how important is it that you know how to fly an airplane? Does your knowledge of taking off and landing a plane determine whether or not you get onto the plane? Well, of course not. Whose knowledge and competence matters the most? The pilot.

If the pilot is sober and competent, then you'll take off and land safely. That's all that really matters. I've known people who won't ride planes because they need to be in control of everything. But God wants the Israelites to realize they aren't in control, so he sends a famine and an army to prove the point. What matters most is not their ability to fix the situation but his ability to do it. He's the pilot. They're the passengers.

The same applies to us. What matters in our life is not whether we can fix our problems. We can't. What matters is who is in the cockpit. And if Jesus is the pilot, then what do you have to fear? That's what God wants his people to see, that they can trust him and be dependent on him, and he will provide. But even more deeply than that, he wants them to see his love, his extravagant, steadfast love,

compassion, and mercy. You see, my friends who had a wayward son, they never gave up on him. And it was only for one reason. They loved him unconditionally. Other people told them to give up, but they couldn't give up because he was their son, and they'd never stop loving him. God looks at you in all of your addictions or sins or struggles, and he says the same thing. When he rescued the Israelites from slavery, he spoke this through Moses.

Israel is my firstborn son. The reason he never gives up on Israel is simple. Israel is his firstborn son. How could he? And how much more so is that true of us? If we've been adopted into his family by the blood of Christ, how could he give up on us, how could he give up on you? So stop trusting yourself. Stop trying to do everything for yourself, to fix yourself, to make everything right. Embrace neediness, embrace dependence,

and trust that your father in heaven can and will provide for you.