Year 1, Day 357: 1 Kings 16

From Jeroboam to Ahaz

In 1 Kings 16 we get to move from Jereboam to Ahab with respect to Israel.  Ahab is a serious king – perhaps there is more written about Ahab’s reign than any other king of the northern kingdom of Israel.  Of course, it is during Ahab’s reign that we have all of the tremendous stories of Elijah – whom the Hebrew people consider the prophet par excellence.  But before we get to Ahab, let’s summarize what is happening.

In the southern kingdom (Judah) we have Asa reigning and as we spoke yesterday, doing a very good job at it.  He is slowly purging the land and trying to bring the people back to God, although we do know that it will be short-lived.  Things are slowly migrating back to a positive direction in Judah.

In the north (Israel), things are going the opposite.  We slip through nearly a half of a dozen kings.  We have idolatry.  We have political assassinations.  We have political coups.  These people are far from God and the Israelites are looking more like the world each and every day.  It is sad, but these are God’s people who are doing this to themselves.

Eventually, we end up with Ahab on the throne.  Jezebel – yes, we have that word in English because of this woman – is brought in to be Ahab’s wife.  Together they take God’s people and encourage the worship of idols and foreign gods.  Together they will willfully and willingly drag the Israelites away from God.

I think it is important to see this comparison because it is a pattern that we see all the time in life.  When one person begins to get their life in order, quite often the people around them go the opposite way.  I can’t tell you how many times I have see a spouse come to greater faith and almost immediately the other spouse begins a time of serious rebellion.  I can’t tell you how many times as a youth leader that I’ve seen one of my youth really start to branch out and grow closer to God and then before too long one or two different youth in the youth group start to seriously backslide.  How many times in a family does one child begin to pull it together and grow only to have a sibling begin to fall apart?  This pattern we see with respect to Judah and Israel happens all the time in real life!

The question that it raises for me is: why?  I think the answer is subconsciously religious.  In order to “get right with God” one must change one’s perspective, see themselves as a sinner, repent of their sin, and then begin to change how they structure their life.  It is hard work, but eventually the hard work begins to pay off.  At this point, the people around the person who has repented begin to notice changes.  Some people immediately rebel against the repentant changes out of spite.  Others might be encouraged to try to change themselves but get frustrated by how hard it is.  Whatever the reason, people often resent someone who actually manages to get their life back on track because it brings an illustration of how the rest of the people haven’t done so.  Rather than being inspired to do the same in our life, we tend to resent the other person “showing us up.”

I think this is the dynamic at work.  Asa begins to reform the southern kingdom and things start to look up.  The kings in the north don’t want to be shown up but they also don’t have the inner fortitude to do what it takes to come back to God humbly.  So they try to compete using their own ways and end up in things like political assassination and coups.  They end up falling away from God even farther and faster because they don’t have what it takes to do it the right way – God’s way.  The lesson learned in this is that we can’t shortcut the path to God.  We must come to God through humble contrition – repentance before change.

Provoking the Lord

I’ve spoken in very general terms about the decline listed in this chapter, and I’d like to spend the rest of my space talking about a single verse: “Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.”  (ESV, 1 Kings 16:33)  Can you imagine having that as your epitaph?  Let this stand in sharp contrast to what was said yesterday about Asa!

It is with this sentence that we truly are prepared for the coming chapters.  God’s people have fallen into great sin.  God’s people have descended into horrific peril.  How does God respond?  He doesn’t force anything on them.  He sends them … wait for it … Elijah.  He gives them a prophet (well, several prophets, but Elijah is the one remembered).  It is in our greatest times of peril that God sends us prophets to lead us. 

The question is, do we heed their words and listen? 

Or do we ignore their words and run headlong into our sin? 

Rest assured.  The timing of Elijah’s coming combined with the “epitaph of Ahab” is no coincidence.  It is God at work.  The only thing that can bring a rebellious people back is the bold and fierce proclamation of God’s Word.

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