2Kings1-13:18

 2 Kings1:13-18

13 So the king     sent a third captain with his fifty men. This third captain went up and fell on his knees before Elijah. “Man of God,” he begged, “please have respect for my life and the lives of these fifty men, your servants! 14 See, fire has fallen from heaven and consumed the first two captains and all their men. But now have respect for my life!”

15 The angel of the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So Elijah got up and went down with him to the king. 16 He told the king, “This is what the Lord says: Is it because there is no God in Israel for you to consult that you have sent messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Because you have done this, you will never leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!”

17 So he died, according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken. Because Ahaziah had no son, Joram[b] succeeded him as king in the second year of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah. 18 As for all the other events of Ahaziah’s reign, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?

Verse13,14 , even though Ahaziah heard that the fifty commanders and soldiers he had sent to Elijah twice had all died instantly from fire coming down from heaven, he did not fear God and sent again the commander of fifty. Unlike Ahaziah, the third commanders of fifty called Elijah a man of God, bowed down before his authority and asked for mercy. Unlike the king who does not care about the deaths of his men, he appeals to them to spare their lives. He gave up being a messenger of an unjust master and decided to become a servant of God. 

Vers 15,16: Elijah, who had not flinched at King Ahaziah’s command to “come down” and the threats of the army, immediately got up and went down when the angel of the Lord said, “Go down.” A mere king cannot command Elijah, a man of God, to come and go as he pleases. Ahaziah through that if he could control Elijah, he could change his fate, but Elijah directly conveyed God’s uncontrollable  will to Ahaziah’s face. There is absolutely no difference from the prophecy that the angel of the Lord had originally delivered(3,4,6). It will be done “according to the word”(v.17), not according to Ahaziah’s will. God’s word will not be used for our own desires. 

Verse 17,18: Ahaziah does not die by the sword of war or revolution. He dies helpless in his bed. He tried to bring down God’s man by force, but he went against word and lost his men to God’s fire that ‘came down’ from heaven. In the end, he was unable to deviate one inch from God’s that he ‘would not able to come down’ from his bed. Ahaziah’s death without a son signifies the end of the Ahab dynasty. Jehoham, another son of Ahab and brother of Ahaziah, succeeded to the throne, but the Ahab dynasty would not be able to escape the word of God that “in the days of Ahab’s son it would be destroyed”(1Kings21:21,29). The king’s words were not fulfilled at all, but God’s words are being fulfilled. The only way to overcome the crisis of the church today is not oppose the words, but to restore trust in the power of God’s words.

Prayer: 

-Let this today be one where the Lord tells me to go, I go, and he tells me to stand, I stand.

Daily Bible 20240910