First, we justly condemn Ahab’s wickedness. God twice, in successive battles, gave Israel victory over Aram to prove HE ruled all nations. Israel proved so dominant in the second battle at Aphek that Ben-Hadad and his military escort “fled to the city and hid in an inner room” I Kings 20:30. In desperation, relying on false humility and Ahab’s stupidity, the conquered presented himself in sackcloth before the king’s representatives, calling himself Ahab’s servant and pleading for his life.
That honeyed hypocrisy immediately collapsed Ahab into sympathy. “Is he still alive?” he wondered. “He is my brother” I Kings 20:32. (We can often tell our spiritual nature and depth by what moves us to action. Ahab wouldn’t be motivated by God’s TOUGH word, but would by a pagan’s insincerity.) The king’s response proved him an ignoramus, not merciful. Ben-Hadad was Ahab’s mortal enemy, not his brother, as succeeding history proved I Kings 22:1-40. Ahab had no capacity to understand the depth of his fall into sin. But he demonstrated it by calling Ben-Hadad his brother and Elijah his enemy. Second, the king came close to committing the unpardonable sin. His wife embodied it. But do we understand that, despite our personal relationship with Christ, we can easily repeat Ahab’s sin, if not its depths? We can when we let personal feelings determine our reaction when seeing anti-Christian lifestyles in those we love. Indeed, what we plainly see is SIN in people we don’t KNOW, we consider MISTAKES in those we do. Then it’s Ahab all over again. “That person isn’t a sinner. He’s my child, my friend’s child, my husband, wife, etc., etc., etc.” That makes God’s word against sin true only when someone we don’t know or like commits it, but excusable when someone we love is guilty! Remember: obedience to God only begins when we don’t like or disagree with what he says, but OBEY it anyway because HE said it. AND…we stand with God only when we call a SIN in someone we love what we prefer to call a MISTAKE. Only then are we like God, who shows no favoritism Romans 2:11.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
May 2024
Categories
All
|