The Uncontrollable God; Arrogance,
self-destruction and humility. - 1 Kings 22:4; 1:18
1 Kings
Ultimately there is no
deception by God in chapter twenty-two. Ahab is already self-deceived. God
sends this deceiving spirit to Ahab in order to lure him to his death in the
battle, but even after He does that God sends His prophet Macaiah to tell Ahab
that he is being deceived. God baits the trap for Ahab but then He shows him to
the trap before He even springs it. Nevertheless Ahab in self-deception goes
into the battle and attempts to deceive the enemy by dressing as a common
soldier so that he can somehow cheat God and avoid the death that God has told
him would take place. So in self-deception Ahab thinks that he can control God
and that he can run his life in pure autonomy. So Ahab in self-deception is
asserting his autonomy and he is really hostile to God.
What we see in the
Scripture is that God is a commanding general; He is engaged in this cosmic
warfare. God is in charge of an army that involves both the holy angels in
heaven as well as believers on earth. God is going to win the conflict and He
is going to use every stratagem available to Him to defeat the enemy. We think
back to how God conducted warfare in Joshua. Joshua tells how God as the
commander of the armies, the Lord of hosts, led them and directed Joshua to
attack
What we see in this
section of 1 Kings and the beginning of 2 Kings is how God in an extremely
cunning and sophisticated manner uses the arrogance and self-deception of Ahab
and his son Ahaziah against them in order to defeat them, in order to continue
to be victorious in this cosmic spiritual conflict. In Scripture God is
depicted as this general of all generals. He is out to win and He is out to win
big. He uses the same kinds of traps the enemy uses; He uses deceptive tactics
and strategies, and He wins. As a result we see God depicted as this kind of
leader that is not the lovable, soft teddy-bearish, grandfatherly image we
often construct of God, but God is a strong powerful, victorious leader.
We learn from these
chapters that we should not be aligned with those who oppose God in arrogance.
Hebrews
There are two elements to
1 Kings chapter twenty-two. The first has to do with a summary account of
Jehoshaphat’s reign in the southern
Ahaziah is the son of Ahab
and Jezebel and is the one who takes the throne of the northern kingdom when
Ahab dies after the battle of Ramoth-Gilead. 1 Kings
This was already promised
by God. He had announced judgment on the house of Ahab, that He would destroy
his house. But there Ahab showed humility. He humbled himself under God and God
said that it would not take place in his time but that the kingdom would be
taken from the house of Ahab in his son’s time. So we expect that to happen in
the time of Ahaziah. When we read that Ahaziah reigned for only two years our
expectation should be that when he is killed this is the fulfillment of the
prophecy of God that house of Ahab will be destroyed. And we are going to be surprised!
God is not going to do it like He did it the last time. Ahaziah’s brother will
take the throne and God is going to give the house of Ahab a little longer time
for their evil to come to fulfillment. It is not until God brings that judgment
finally upon Athaliah, the daughter, that he will then cleanse both the
northern and southern kingdoms of this horrendous worship of Baal. So we have
to recognize that God does things in His timing. So Ahaziah will walk in the
path of Ahab and Jezebel, he serves and worships the Baalim and the Asherah,
and this will bring down judgment upon himself and eventually upon his house.
2 Kings chapter one
summary:
The question at hand is:
how do we try to solve our problems? Do we try to do it, like Ahaziah, by going
to the typical problem solutions that are available or going through some sort
of psychotherapeutic counselling, by drugs or alcohol, or social life, or any
of the other details of life. These are the typical problem-solving devices
that the world offers. Ahaziah has a major problem and wants to know the
solution, so he send his messengers to enquire of “Baal-zebub, the god of
Ekron, whether I will recover from this sickness.” As they leave to go down to
find out the answer to this question they run into a messenger who is sent to them—Elijah
the prophet. 2 Kings 1:3 NASB “But the angel of the LORD said to
Elijah the Tishbite, ‘Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of
The first part of this is
a rhetorical question to bring out the real issue that is the point of this
passage. In other words, has God so departed
These messengers then go
back to Ahaziah to inform him that they saw this strange man on the road who
gave them this message for him. Ahaziah enquires the identity of the prophet.
When the description is given, that he is this hairy man with a belt around his
waist and looks like a wild man out of the wilderness, he realizes that it was
Elijah, the nemesis of his father. So he sends a contingent down to get Elijah.
Elijah calls down fire from heaven that incinerates all the troops. Word gets
back to Ahaziah but he doesn’t learn because arrogance is tenacious and
self-deception blinds to reality, so he sends another group of fifty down to
retrieve Elijah, as if Ahaziah controls a prophet of God. The emphasis here is
to show us that Ahaziah is trying to control God; he is placing Elijah under
his authority. The second group gets vaporized as well! So a third group is
sent down and this time the captain of the guard demonstrates humility. In
contrast to the arrogance of the previous two captains and the arrogance of
Ahaziah, he comes up and bows down before Elijah and politely asks Elijah to
preserve his life and that of his men. Because he has shown humility the angel
of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, directs Elijah to go with him
back to Ahaziah. Elijah goes back to the king and makes the same announcement.
This is the third time this announcement will have been mentioned. 2 Kings 1:16
NASB “Then he said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because
you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron—is it
because there is no God in
How is this profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness? We
have to remember that the writer’s purpose in writing 1 & 2 Kings, and in
describing what happens in the life of the united kingdom and then in the
northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, is to show that God is faithful to
His promises made back in Deuteronomy 28-30 and Leviticus 26, that if the
nation is obedient God will bless them and if the nation is disobedient God
will curse them. The idea of cursing is the idea of judgment. We see that the
nation is united and in prosperity at the beginning of 1 Kings but when we get
to the end of 2 Kings we see that the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom
have been disciplined and judged by God and they are both out of the land under
the fifth cycle of discipline. So the pattern we see throughout these books is
the historical record of how God is faithful to His Word to bless those who
walk with Him and to judge those who are in rebellion against Him. The lessons
that we see in these two books relate either to God, to man in terms of man’s
failure and sin, or what happens when man humbles himself under God and is
obedient. We see lessons related to divine discipline and divine blessing, and
above all we see lessons related to learning to trust God, to walk with Him and
to obey His Word.
These lessons for this
episode come out and are exposed to us as we pay careful attention to the clues
that the writer gives us. We have to be good readers. We have to remember the
backdrop here that the conflict that is going on in the northern kingdom is
between Baal and Yahweh. This is
representative of the cosmic conflict, the angelic conflict, because Baal is an
idol and idols are just various manifestations of the various demons. Baal is
the god of prosperity—the god of lightning, the god of thunder, the god of
rain, the god who can give life, to god who will bring fertility to the fields,
to the womb and to the nation. He is the god of the ancient world’s prosperity
theology. Modern prosperity theology came out of the charismatic movement. It
is also called the health and wealth gospel, the name it claim it gospel, the
word of faith movement, and it really puts God is a box. One of the problems of
prosperity theology is that God is reduced to a formula and a mechanic: God is
there to serve man rather than the other way around. But it is not just the
prosperity gospel people who have this problem, we all fall into this same trap
to lesser degrees. We think we have a handle on God and can somehow predict
what God is going to do. If I just go to Bible class, listen to enough
doctrine, read my Bible, witness to people, God will prosper me, heal me, take
care of me, solve my problems. Christians also fall into that trap of think
that somehow God’s blessing is somehow related to what they do. God is not
going to follow our preconceived notions. We can know God. We can know Him
truly but not exhaustively. We can’t control Him; He is the one in control, the
general in charge, and He is going to do what is necessary because He is the
only one who is omniscient and has all of the facts, the information. God is
not going to perform as we expect.
In this confrontation this
is not Elijah’s first “rodeo.” He has already shown to the people that only in
trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob can people have real fertility. He
demonstrated that on
This conflict with Baal is
brought out in the text in various literary devices. We know that Ahaziah sends
to Baal-zebub but Ahaziah asks who was that they met, vv. 6, 7. In verse 8:
“They answered him, ‘{He was} a hairy man with a leather girdle bound about his
loins.’ And he said, ‘It is Elijah the Tishbite.’” The word for “man” there in
the Hebrew is unusual. Usually it is ish,
but here he is called esh, so there
is this play on words, this pun that the Holy Spirit uses to get our attention
here, and to draw our attention to this issue that the are looking for help
from Baal-ekron and they are going to get an answer from esh-baal who will send fire from heaven. He is the man of God who
will send fire from God. The other things that we see here is this play on
words with Baal. Baal-zebub is used only this time in the Old Testament and it
means lord of the flies. It is a very derogatory way of speaking and writing
about this “glorious god.” The Bible has no respect for other people’s
religions; it is not politically correct. The prophets deride and mock what
other people believe because Christianity is true. If we are going top believe
anything else, from Darwinism to Marxism to Islam, then we are just fools and
worthy to be mocked because we are such idiots. That is how the Bible
approaches this. So the prophets would refer to Baal-zebul, which is his real
name [Baal the prince or exalted one], by just changing that one letter and
calling him Baal-zebub, i.e. the lord of the flies. God is not a respecter of
other religions. So we see that Elijah is this man of God, the ish ha elohim, and he is going to send
the fire of God, the esh Elohim, and
the pun emphasizes that the man of God is really the fire of God. Ekijah is the
one who brings fiery judgment upon the northern kingdom.
Another word play that
shows up is there in verse 2 when Ahaziah sends out his messengers. The Hebrew
word for “messenger” is malak. An
angel is a messenger, so we have the word “angel” because it is just a
transliteration of the Greek word aggelos
[a)ggeloj] which means messenger, the same as the Hebrew malak. So Ahaziah send out his malak; the malak of Yahweh says to
Elijah you will be my malak. The Holy
Spirit is very comical in all of this and he is poking all kinds of fun at
Ahaziah and those who worship the Baalim. It is for this reason that God is
going to be so severe toward those troops that Ahaziah sends out. They are not
innocent; they are guilty because they are supporting this tyrannical regime
that is supporting the worship of Baal, all of which comes under the death
penalty in the Mosaic Law. God is going to send down this fire that incinerates
these troops because He is protecting His people—and in this case His prophet,
Elijah. The first two groups who came were arrogant and Elijah wasn’t safe, but
the last man shows by his humility and respect for Elijah that Elijah would be
safe. God never expects us to voluntarily put ourselves in risky situations
where our life may be in danger, other than if it is for the purpose of protecting
others or the nation.
One other interesting word
play that goes on is the contrast between up and down. Azariah falls down
through the lattice. The angel of Yahweh
tells Elijah to get up and to go up to address the messengers of Ahaziah. His
message is that Ahaziah will never come down from the bed to which he has gone
up. Elijah’s oracle is repeated three times, it repeats this message of going
up and coming down. Instead of Elijah going down to
The name Baal-zebub is
used only here in the Old Testament, but it is used one time in the New
Testament, in the Gospels. At the turning point in Jesus’ ministry the
Pharisees came to Him and accused Him of healing people by Baal-zebub. There is
a direct allusion to what happened as Ahaziah sought to be healed by Baal-zebub
because he was sick. Jesus was accused of consorting with Baal-zebub in order
to heal people and to cast out demons. The Pharisees who challenged Jesus were
in effect charging Jesus with the sin of Ahaziah and the sin of Ahab. But they
were the ones who had distorted everything because of their arrogance and
self-deception. But Jesus was the God of the Old Testament and he is the God
who will eventually bring judgment upon