Elijah Denounces Ahaziah

 1 Kings 22: 51-53

 

August 12, 2021

 

 

Ahaziah Reigns in Israel

Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he reigned two years over Israel.   He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.   He served Baal and worshiped him and provoked the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger in every way that his father had done.

Two years, one wonders were his sins great than those of his father Ahab.  What happened to him, 2 Kings 1 has those answers.

 

Elijah Denounces Ahaziah

After the death of Ahab, Moab rebelled against Israel.

Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria, and lay sick; so, he sent messengers, telling them, “Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this sickness.”   But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?   Now therefore thus says the Lord, You shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’” So, Elijah went.

We now have a little better understanding of the shortness of his kingship, and why he sent to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron.  He knows who God’s man is but he also likes his fathers has disdain for the God of Israel because his ways and thoughts are on evil.  God has spoken of such men in the book of Romans 1:19-23, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.   For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So, they are without excuse.   For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.   Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

 

It is one thing to be thought a fool by man, and yet another for the Lord to call you a fool.  Ahaziah was such a man, but today you have a choice, the little gods of this world, that cannot add one day to your life or the LORD, the God of heaven and earth, the Creator of everything that has been made.  It is your choice, and you will make that choice today.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice