God can take our lives and condense them into a single statement. Alexander Maclaren noted that God can take a waving forest, compact it, and represent it so it appears like thin seam of coal. Much can be said about Ahab's life, but here it is declared in short form.
"Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him."
One night 1 Kings 16:33 leaped off the page while a friend and I discussed Elijah's times. "What a horrible thing to say!", we both concluded. We both felt the tremendous impact of the thought. In only a few lines, God had written Ahab's obituary, and it was not a pleasant one. What if we read these lines in the newspaper about someone we knew? Or, if it were possible, what if we could read such a thing about ourselves?
Contrast the life of David. The most comprehensive biography of any one person in the Bible is David. Sixty-two chapters of Scripture teach us about the man after God's own heart. Only a chapter before in 1 Kings 15:5, David's life is also condensed into a single verse. "David did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite."
God gave a truthful assesssment of David. He had pleased God, except for his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah. There was nothing amiss with God's assessment. It was just.
God will write our monument for all to see in the final judgement. What will He say? We know that for many there will be a "well done, good and faithful servant"(Matt. 25:21). For others there will be an "away from Me, I never knew you"(Matt. 7:21).
Let us live so our final monument is nothing like Ahab's.
What an indictment on Ahab! Sobering! Thought-provoking!
ReplyDeleteIt would be my longing to hear Him say, This is My Beloved Daughter. She loved Me. She loved My people.