Ahaziah

The Sheriff pulled up next to the guy unloading garbage out of his pick-up into the ditch. The Sheriff asked, 'Why are you dumping garbage in the ditch? Don't you see that sign right over your head'.

'Yep', he replied. 'That's why I dumping it here, cause it says 'Fine For Dumping Garbage'.

Do we read our Bibles with the same attitude? Looking for what we want instead of what we are being told?

Are we more like Ahaziah than we want to admit? The first two verses of II Kings fascinate me:

Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease. (2 Kings 1:1-2 KJV)

They don’t appear to be related. I wonder why Ahaziah fell.

The picture of a king of a country whose priests speak aloud Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: (Deuteronomy 6:4 KJV) Instead of sending for Elijah, he sends emissaries to Baalzebub, seeking the answer he wants instead of the answer of truth, the answer he needs.

Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron? (2 Kings 1:3b KJV)

Without faith that God is, men still seek answers without asking Him.

Of course, we might not like the answer, any more than Ahaziah did:

Now therefore thus saith the LORD, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed. (2 Kings 1:4 KJV)

There were no additional words, no “or else”. Just as Jonah spoke to Nineveh:

Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. (Jonah 3:4b KJV)

There were no additional words, no “or else”, but their response was different:

So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. (Jonah 3:5 KJV)

Had Ahaziah believed in God, would his life have changed? Does ours?