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