R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 13
May 8, 2016
May 7, 2016
God Keeps Backups
Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the scroll and the words which Baruch had written at the dictation of Jeremiah, saying,
“Take again another scroll and write on it all the former words that were on the first scroll which Jehoiakim the king of Judah burned.
“And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall say, ‘Thus says the LORD, “You have burned this scroll, saying, ‘Why have you written on it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will make man and beast to cease from it?’
“‘Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, “He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night.
“I will also punish him and his descendants and his servants for their iniquity, and I will bring on them and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah all the calamity that I have declared to them—but they did not listen.” ’ ”
Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the son of Neriah, the scribe, and he wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and many similar words were added to them. (Jeremiah 36:27-32)
Human judgment is often as ineffective as it is wrong. Jehoiakim, king of Judah, learned the hard way that censorship is an ineffective means of quieting God. Josiah, king of Judah, had restored the worship of God in Israel. But then he fought a battle against Pharoah Neco and was killed. The Pharaoh then put Josiah’s son on the throne and changed his name to Jehoiakim. In his third year, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded and made him a vassal. Jehoiakim did not like the message that Jeremiah had pronounced. Rather than repent, rather than seeking help from God, he decided instead to destroy the message, as if the word of God could be undone by burning it.
God’s word is not dependent upon people believing it for its effectiveness. Believed or not, what God says will have its way. God didn’t forget what he had said, unlike a public speaker who might have problems if he lost his notes. Instead, God just printed them out again. Jeremiah had no trouble restoring what had been burned. And it didn’t keep God from adding even more to what he had said originally. He was not intimidated or silenced. Destroying the message is no more effective—or reasonable—than attacking the messenger.
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May 6, 2016
End of a Dynasty
So the young man, the servant of the prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead.
When he came, behold, the captains of the army were sitting, and he said, “I have a word for you, O captain.” And Jehu said, “For which one of us?” And he said, “For you, O captain.”
He arose and went into the house, and he poured the oil on his head and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I have anointed you king over the people of the LORD, even over Israel.
‘You shall strike the house of Ahab your master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, at the hand of Jezebel.
‘For the whole house of Ahab shall perish, and I will cut off from Ahab every male person both bond and free in Israel.
‘I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah.'” (2 Kings 9:4-9)
Judgment sometimes falls without mercy—at least from the perspective of the judged. But the destruction of the wicked brings merciful relief to everyone else. Elisha became the chief prophet after Elijah was taken up to heaven in a chariot. One day, he called one of the younger prophets and sent him to anoint Jehu, one of Joram’s generals, as the new king of Israel.
Of all the kings that the northern kingdom of Israel would ever have, only Jehu would worship God. He reluctantly accepted his new position, but then enthusiastically destroyed the entire family of Ahab and had their severed heads stacked into two piles at the entrance to the capital city, Samaria. Then he had Ahab’s widow, Jezebel, killed. Finally, he tricked all the prophets and priests of Baal into coming to one location for a supposed worship festival. Once assembled, he ordered them all slaughtered and burned their bodies on the alters of Baal. For all practical purposes, Jehu ended the worship of Baal in Israel, although he did nothing about the golden calves that Jeroboam had set up in Bethel and Dan.
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May 5, 2016
Burned to a Crisp
Then he sent to him another captain of fifty with his fifty men.
And he answered and said to him: “Man of God, thus has the king said, ‘Come down quickly!’ ”
So Elijah answered and said to them, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.
Again, he sent a third captain of fifty with his fifty men. And the third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and pleaded with him, and said to him: “Man of God, please let my life and the life of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your sight. Look, fire has come down from heaven and burned up the first two captains of fifties with their fifties. But let my life now be precious in your sight.”
And the angel of the LORD said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So he arose and went down with him to the king. 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 Israel to inquire of His word? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’ ” (2 Kings 1:11-16)
Bad things happen to those who oppose God and don’t ask for mercy. Ahab, the king of Israel in Samaria had died and his son, Ahaziah had become king in his place. His mother, Jezebel, was still alive. Ahaziah fell through a lattice and seriously injured himself. Instead of seeking God’s help, he sent messengers to consult a false god. Elijah intercepted the messengers and told them that Ahaziah would die from his injuries.
Unlike his father Ahab, who repented at the prophet’s words, Ahaziah sent soldiers to arrest Elijah. The first group died when Elijah called fire down on them. Ahaziah sent a second contingent to get Elijah, and the same thing happened to them. And so Ahaziah sends a third group. The leader of the third group begged for mercy, and Elijah granted it. Elijah went with them and when he faced Ahaziah, he simply reiterated what he had told the king’s messengers: you’re going to die. So Ahaziah died and his brother Joram took the throne in his place. Unlike his father Ahab, Ahaziah did not repent or humble himself before God. He remained defiant and suffered accordingly.
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May 4, 2016
Jezebel is Dog Food
Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” He answered, “I have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel; and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin. Also concerning Jezebel the LORD said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel.’ Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat.”
(Indeed, there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the LORD, urged on by his wife Jezebel. He acted most abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the LORD drove out before the Israelites.)
When Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth over his bare flesh; he fasted, lay in the sackcloth, and went about dejectedly. Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite: “Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the disaster on his house.” (1 Kings 21:20-29)
Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians and the wife of Ahab. Together, they had led their people into worshipping other gods. Elijah the prophet had been their nemesis for a long time; there was no love lost between them. Elijah prophesied against him, predicting disaster for his family: like the previous two royal dynasties (those of Jeroboam and Baasha), his too would be cut off and replaced by some other family. Worse, his wife would not just die, but become food for dogs. For an Israelite, the most important thing was to have offspring and to have a proper burial. Ahab learned that he and his family would have neither.
His response to Elijah’s words was not to breathe out threats, or to arrest him, or to lock him away. Instead, he humbled himself: he took the prophet’s words seriously and reacted appropriately.
The consequence was that God showed him mercy. The punishment would still fall on his family, but it wouldn’t happen for as long as Ahab lived. Repentance is always possible, and in the face of repentance, God is quick to show mercy and grace.
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May 3, 2016
Hit Me!
About this time the LORD commanded a prophet to say to a friend, “Hit me!” But the friend refused, and the prophet told him, “You disobeyed the LORD, and as soon as you walk away, a lion will kill you.” The friend left, and suddenly a lion killed him.
The prophet found someone else and said, “Hit me!” So this man beat him up.
The prophet left and put a bandage over his face to disguise himself. Then he went and stood beside the road, waiting for Ahab to pass by.
When Ahab went by, the prophet shouted, “Your Majesty, right in the heat of battle, someone brought a prisoner to me and told me to guard him. He said if the prisoner got away, I would either be killed or forced to pay seventy-five pounds of silver. But I got busy doing other things, and the prisoner escaped.”
Ahab answered, “You will be punished just as you have said.”
The man quickly tore the bandage off his face, and Ahab saw that he was one of the prophets. The prophet said, “The LORD told you to kill Benhadad, but you let him go. Now you will die in his place, and your people will die in place of his people.”
Ahab went back to Samaria, angry and depressed. (1 Kings 20:35-43)
What God asks people to do doesn’t always make obvious sense. But who do you trust more? Yourself or God? Ben-Hadad was the king of Aram and he had led an army against Israel. Ahab’s victory over the invader could have been utter and complete: not only was Ben-Hadad’s army destroyed, the king was in Ahab’s hand. But instead, Ahab freed the captured king and made a peace treaty with him.
So God sent a prophet to bring a message of judgment against Ahab. And once again, the prophet’s job was not an easy one. Rather than simply giving him words to say, God turned the prophet into a prop to illustrate the message. Worse, when his friend refused to injure him, he had to pronounce a death sentence against him. Sometimes God’s judgments seem very harsh.
Most people would not want to hurt a friend; one can understand his reluctance to strike a prophet. But God had demanded it, and the friend had known that it was a command from God. The law is quite clear: anyone who sins defiantly is blaspheming God and must be cut off from his people (see Numbers 15:30-31). The refusal of the friend to abide by the word of God is what led to his death, because he knew better.
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May 2, 2016
Pay Attention
“Say thus to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “As I live, surely those who are in the ruins shall fall by the sword, and the one who is in the open field I will give to the beasts to be devoured, and those who are in the strongholds and caves shall die of the pestilence. For I will make the land most desolate, her arrogant strength shall cease, and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that no one will pass through. Then they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have made the land most desolate because of all their abominations which they have committed.” ’
“As for you, son of man, the children of your people are talking about you beside the walls and in the doors of the houses; and they speak to one another, everyone saying to his brother, ‘Please come and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them. And when this comes to pass—surely it will come—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.” (Ezekiel 33:27-33)
When people hear new things, most of the time the words just go in one ear and out the other. Ezekiel’s first vision and call to the role of prophet occurred when he was about thirty years old (Ezekiel 1:1). He had been taken into captivity in Babylon, along with many of the upper classes of Jerusalem, during the reign of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, who had also been taken into captivity as well. This happened about a decade before Nebuchadnezzar would destroy Jerusalem and burn the temple down.
Ezekiel’s ministry was primarily to his fellow captives, warning them about what was going to happen to the people left behind in Jerusalem and Judah. But God explained that until his prophesies came true, the people would not believe him. For them, Ezekiel was merely a source of entertainment. Nothing more. No one took him seriously.
The people claimed that they heard him, they mouthed all the right words. But in reality, they cared nothing about God or his prophet. Just because people hear the words of God doesn’t mean they’ll choose to change their lives.
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April 29, 2016
Burning Man
By the word of the LORD a man of God came from Judah to Bethel, as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. He cried out against the altar by the word of the LORD: “O altar, altar! This is what the LORD says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who now make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’ ” That same day the man of God gave a sign: “This is the sign the LORD has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out.”
When King Jeroboam heard what the man of God cried out against the altar at Bethel, he stretched out his hand from the altar and said, “Seize him!” But the hand he stretched out toward the man shriveled up, so that he could not pull it back. Also, the altar was split apart and its ashes poured out according to the sign given by the man of God by the word of the LORD.
Then the king said to the man of God, “Intercede with the LORD your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored.” So the man of God interceded with the LORD, and the king’s hand was restored and became as it was before. (1 Kings 13:1-6)
God’s gift of a throne didn’t come without strings. Solomon’s son lost the ten tribes of the north because of his idolatry. God had told Jeroboam that he would become their the king. But Jerusalem remained the place where people went to worship God. It was also where the king of Judah, David’s heir, ruled. Fearful that his new kingdom would be undermined by continued faithfulness to God in Jerusalem, Jeroboam decided to establish new places of worship to secure his political position. He built golden calves and set them up in Dan and Bethel. He established a separate priesthood to officiate at the shrines he had built. (see 1 Kings 12:25-33)
He did all this, despite the fact that God had given him his kingdom. He simply didn’t trust God. For his unfaithfulness to God, because of the sin he led his people into, God eventually sent a prophet to proclaim judgment against him.
Jeroboam’s reaction to the words of the prophet are predictably unwelcoming. But God protected his spokesperson and even granted healing to Jeroboam in the midst of the pronouncement of judgment. But Jeroboam never repented of what he had done: he maintained the false religion he had created for political purposes, and so the prophet’s words came true.
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April 27, 2016
You’re the Man!
Nathan then said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul.
‘I also gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these!
‘Why have you despised the word of the LORD by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon.
‘Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’
“Thus says the LORD, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.
‘Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.’ ”
Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. (2 Samuel 12:7-13)
Just because God is merciful doesn’t mean there’s no punishment. David took Bathsheba to his bed, got her pregnant. Then, in attempting to hide what he had done, he had her husband put into the front lines of a battle so he would die.
David was guilty of two crimes that were punishable by death: adultery and murder (see Leviticus 20:10 and Numbers 35:31). According to the Bible, there were no mitigating circumstances, no sacrifice that could be offered, no restitution that could be paid.
But the prophet Nathan told David that God had taken his sin away and that he wouldn’t die. David got mercy, rather than full justice.
Despite the mercy, however, David still suffered. The infant born of the illicit relationship died. His first born son, Absalom, the heir to the throne, murdered his younger brother Amnon after he raped his sister Tamar. Later, Absalom led a rebellion against David and took David’s concubines as his own. Absalom died in the resulting civil war and David was restored to his throne. Bathsheba gave birth to another son, Solomon, who would take the throne after David. God was merciful—but David still suffered for his sins.
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April 23, 2016
Killing Everyone
Samuel also said to Saul, “The LORD sent me to anoint you king over His people, over Israel. Now therefore, heed the voice of the words of the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”
So Saul gathered the people together and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men of Judah. And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and lay in wait in the valley. (1 Samuel 15:1-5)
God’s mercy for Israel meant judgment for the Amalekites. When Israel was on its way out of Egypt, the Amalekites attacked them at a place called Rephidim. Joshua led a fight against them. Moses stood with his staff raised. While he held it up, Israel was winning. If he lowered his hands, the Amalekites started to win. So Aaron and Hur held his hands up until Joshua and his men were finally victorious. God told Moses that he would one day blot out the name of the Amalekites (see Exodus 17:14 and Deuteronomy 25:17-19).
Therefore, when Samuel told Saul to wipe out every last Amalekite, he was telling Saul to fulfill a promise that God had made Moses.
Saul, however, did not completely carry out the will of God. He spared the Amalekite king, Agag, along with the best sheep and cattle. This violation of God’s command would cost Saul his throne. Samuel told Saul that obedience was better than sacrifice and that rebellion and arrogance were like divination and idolatry. Saul was, for all practical purposes, rejecting God—just as that unnamed man in the time of Moses had rejected God by insisting on gathering wood on the Sabbath.
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