ELIJAH: EVIL AHAB

Barging into the King’s throne room, Elijah, the nobody from nowhere, boldly “said to Ahab, ‘as the Lord God of Israel lives, in whose presence I stand, there will be no dew or rain during these years except by my command!’ ” (1 Kings 17:1).

Who was Ahab?

About seventy years before Ahab was crowned king of the Northern Kingdom, the unified nation founded by God and ruled by Saul, David, and Solomon, was divided by civil war. Rehoboam, son of Solomon, became king of the Southern Kingdom. Jeroboam led the northern ten tribes to rebel against God and separate from their brothers.

The Northern Kingdom, sometimes called Israel or Samaria, became a cesspool of depravity, decadence, and debauchery. In the Northern Kingdom’s two-hundred year existence (930 BC to 722 BC), they had about twenty kings. Not one of their monarchs sought the Lord! Not one! They were pagans, worshipping pagan gods!

“Ahab son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years…. Ahab son of Omri did what was evil in the Lord’s sight more than all who were before him… Ahab did more to anger the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him” (1 Kings 16:29-30, 33).

Evil Ahab sealed his fate when he married “Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and then proceeded to serve Baal and bow in worship to him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he had built in Samaria” (1 Kings 16:31-32) and even “slaughtered the Lord’s prophets” (1 Kings 18:4).

Imagine a nation that had once worshipped and served Almighty God falling so far, so fast. Is that a word of warning to America?

To Israel, God called, commissioned, empowered, and sent His prophet … a nobody from nowhere … Elijah. Today, to a lost and dying world, God has called, commissioned, empowered, and sent ... a nobody from nowhere … me and you!

“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).