Title: Faith in Asking God (2 Kings 1:1~12)
Contents
Starting today, I will share with you the words of 2 Kings.
The Bibles of 1 and 2 Kings are the Bibles set in the era of the divided kingdom of Israel.
After Solomon, Israel was divided into north and south. In northern Israel, 19 kings ruled for about 208 years before being destroyed by the Assyrian Empire in 722 B.C. In southern Judah, 20 kings ruled for about 344 years, and then again in 586 B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonian Empire.
2 Kings 1 begins with the story of Ahaziah, the 8th king, who was the son of the 7th king Ahab, who was the most idolatrous in northern Israel, after his death. King Ahaziah, like his father, was an evil king who worshiped foreign gods.
One day he fell off the railing of the palace and fell ill. He sent messengers to Ekron, one of the Philistine cities, to find out if he would ever be able to live again. The people of Ekron were worshiping a god called 'Baalzebub' at that time. The funny thing is that the god 'Baelzebub' they worshiped was none other than 'Paris'. When the swarms of flies in the city were so great that they tormented people, they thought that the flies were sent by a god and served them as the city god.
When God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, the ten plagues were related to their respective gods. Among them, frogs, lice, and flies were the gods worshiped by the Egyptians.
How absurd is the image of the king of Israel asking the 'fly god' to see if his illness will be cured or not.
The people he sent meet Elijah on the way, and the prophet Elijah delivers God's will to King Ahaziah. It was said, "He will not get out of bed and must die."
Hearing the words of his servants who proclaimed God's will, King Ahaziah intuitively knew that it was the prophet Elijah who conveyed the will to him (verse 8).
If so, he should have been afraid and repented of God after hearing the word of God delivered to him through the prophet Elijah.
However, instead of repenting, he sent soldiers twice to arrest the prophet Elijah. In the end, the 100 or so soldiers he sent lost their lives on the spot because of the heavenly fire sent by God.
God rebukes King Ahaziah, saying, "Because there is no God in Israel, are you going to inquire of Baelzebub, the god of Ekron?"
Two important lessons come to mind from these verses today.
First, whether big or small, important or not, we should always ask and pray to God. God's children must acknowledge God's sovereignty in their lives and have a heart to follow God's leading. To do that, you must always be able to ask God.
Sometimes we put our thoughts or experiences before praying to God, and sometimes we ask someone who has more experience or knowledge and has better faith than we do. Asking others for your opinion first without even praying to God is the same as saying that God doesn't care. We must always be able to ask God and listen to God's answers and move.
Another lesson to consider is that when you are given the opportunity to repent, you must immediately repent and turn your wrongdoings. King Ahaziah certainly had an opportunity to repent. But he would rather use the opportunity for evil intentions. God is strict with sin, but he is also richly merciful to those who repent and ask for forgiveness.
Today, I should be able to live each day by asking God for His will in all areas of my life. Also, if you have any thoughts of sinning against God or an offense against your conscience, even without knowing it, you must listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, repent and purify yourself.