1 Kings 18:15 – And Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.”
As believers, we eventually find ourselves in the same position as Elijah, admittedly with less at stake. Someone has a problem with God, and God has a problem with them. We are caught in the middle and when we take God’s side, they declare war on us as their enemy and the source of the problem. This is precisely the spiritual war playing out as interpersonal conflict between Ahab and Elijah.
Ahab worshipped the demon god Baal, who was believed to rule the rain. Yet, it had not rained for three years and, “the famine was severe” (1 Kings 18:2). Businesses, crops, animals, and people had died in large numbers. Every day was a funeral for the entire nation of Israel because of the sin of their head, Ahab.
Just as Adam’s sin as our head brought death to all mankind, so Ahab’s sin brought death to all under his leadership. However, he was so selfish that he could not even consider that he was the problem and that if he humbly repented, the real God would send the rain and bless the people. He cared nothing for God or others, the very two things Jesus told us to love. Instead, Ahab blames Elijah and God, calling him, “troubler of Israel”. The word “troubler” is sometimes translated, “asp”, or “viper”, or basically a serpent like Satan. (1)
Satan is referred to as the “deceiver” (Genesis 3:13; 2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14; Revelation 12:9). Perhaps the worst deception is self-deception. A person who is self-deceived reinterprets everything in their life in terms of a lie. They lose touch with reality and constantly see themselves as the victim, even blame shifting to innocent people, wrongly accusing them of doing evil. Like Ahab, deceived people are villains but only see themselves as victims.
Have you ever faced opposition from someone who opposed God because you follow God?
- Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 747–748.
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