1 Kings
14
– 18
We start into a series of kings for Israel and Judah that
seem to drift wildly from God and His will. Sure we get the few that please God
it seems the majority seem to do evil. Initially in the reading we see the end
of Jeroboam’s reign as his wife is given a disturbing word from God through the
prophet Ahijah. Verse 14:12 is where she is told she will lose her son:
Get up quickly, and
go back to your home. As soon as you set foot in the city, your son will
die.
Imagine getting this news and there is nothing you can do
about it! I would hate not being able to comfort him or ensure he knew we loved
him. That would be a worse pain than anything I could think of.
Verse 16:25 is a continuation of kings who fail before God:
Omri committed evil in the
Eternal’s eyes. He was more wicked than any wicked king who had
lived before him, and there were a lot of wicked kings who lived before
him.
Think about these
words and remember the history so far, there was a bunch of evil before. Now
skip to verse 16:30 and we see his son Ahab was worse than he was. How can Israel
slip so wildly from God? Chapter 17 introduces
the great prophet Elijah who comes to show God is wanting them to follow
Him and not Baal. Elijah and Elisha are the only two in the OT who raised the
dead. The story is verses 17:17 – 24 and is wonderful to read.
Now chapter 18 is
the famous showdown between Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400
prophets of Asherah. This too is a great story where Elijah taunts them
to demonstrate God’s superiority. Verse 18:27 has Elijah mocking them:
At about midday, Elijah began
provoking them.
Elijah: You have to
shout louder than that! The one to whom you cry out certainly must be a god!
Perhaps he is daydreaming or napping or away from his heavenly throne.
Perhaps he is in a deep sleep, and you must wake him up. Shout louder!
Once they give up he does the same and repairs the altar
destroyed. He uses 12 stones to represent each tribe of Israel in the repair.
He also digs and trench and drenches the offering and wood with water. Once
complete he asks God to consume the offering and in verse 18:38 God responds:
Right then
the Eternal One’s fire landed upon the altar. The flames consumed
the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the ground. The flames even drank
up all the water in the ditch.
No waiting or hesitation, God just did it. Sometimes I wish
I could call on God like this, but God had Elijah do the set up so it’s
different from my wish. We sometimes forget God’s will verses our will. Sure I
would love to show without a doubt God existed to my evolutionist friends. But
faith is about them getting it, not God giving it. As we saw in previous
chapters and will see in later chapters, God can do something amazing and a few
generations will have forgotten it and do what feels right and not what IS right.
We need a balance of small experiences of faith to strengthen our knowledge of
God.