Tag: Kings

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What do YOU want?

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“That night the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said, “What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!” Solomon replied, “You showed great and faithful love to your servant my father, David, because he was honest and true and faithful to you. And you have continued to show this great and faithful love to him today by giving him a son to sit on his throne. “Now, O Lord my God, you have made me king instead of my father, David, but I am like a little child who doesn’t know his way around. And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted! Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?” ‭‭1 Kings‬ ‭3‬:‭5‬-‭9‬ ‭NLT‬‬

God asked Solomon in a dream. What a dream that must have been. Just coming off the Christmas Day experience yesterday, that question gets more and more difficult to answer as you get older – at least it does for me.

If God came to me in a dream and asked me what I want, I’m not sure I could answer right away. Solomon was probably 20 to 24 years old and was looking at ruling a population of 5 million people. And, shocker, Israel had become so large and powerful that their previous captors, Egypt, became an ally! The Pharaoh gave his daughter to be married to young Solomon.

In this dream where God asks Solomon a question that had never been asked, Solomon answers God. He humbly and honestly asked God for what he needed the most to carry on the legacy his father had left him. What leader doesn’t grab all that he can get with an offer like this at the outset of his totalitarian rule? Maybe Solomon had a sense, a taste of what ultimate power and wealth brought him. It didn’t look like more of the same would help him be the son, the King that God’s people needed him to be. So he answered, “give me an understanding heart,” so he could govern well. So the nation would be known, and have a culture of knowing the difference between right and wrong. Wow. Anyone who has studied history knows how many wacko leaders have taken the reigns of power and wealth, only to use them for their own selfishly sadistic purposes. We had those kind of rulers then, and we have them scattered throughout the globe even today. You can probably name the mentally-maniacal men ruling and ruining lives as you read this sentence! Solomon, as a young man, wanted to judge and govern well and to do so with God’s wisdom and justice. God, give us leaders that want this today.

Prayer

Dad,
We still have rulers, kings and leaders in every part of the world. And some are responsible for populations as big or much bigger than Israel at the time of Solomon. I live in a country that used to be united as individual states, under a series of balanced power or cooperative leaders. Now, under our nation of Divided States of America, we have deep divisions and distrust with sweeping, reactive grasps of power. We have each cycle of elections and votes trying to wipe out the changes of the other regime. We all ache for justice for our own agendas. I see the end coming. Especially when the world looks for that one person who has all the answers. They search for the one who will give us what we want AND promise peace. Each time I’ve seen this cycle of chaos in our world, I understand the real possibility that THE antichrist (not an antichrist), the imposter of all time will come to power soon. When, where, who – I do not know. But all the signs start showing up again. My longing for the Kingdom of God grows in these turbulent times. Come quickly Jesus – maranatha!

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Dictators as slaves to God?

Reading Time: 2 minutes 
“Why are the nations so angry? Why do they waste their time with futile plans? The kings of the earth prepare for battle; the rulers plot together against the Lord and against his anointed one. “Let us break their chains,” they cry, “and free ourselves from slavery to God.” Psalms‬ ‭2:1-3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

​I am not a big pundit on the geopolitical landscape of our globe. However, as I see it, there is someone, somewhere that is shaking their little dictator fist at the heavens and with that little squeaky voice of a shrunken toy screaming, “I am the king!” And, with either their hand positioned over an imaginary “nukes” button or control over the flow of massive natural resources, they just rant and rave nonsense and wield unfettered power over the masses of their domain. You know who they are, I don’t need to write down any names, lest their virtual tech-terrorists turn to torture me as well.

The psalmist, in his own wisdom of his time, asks a really good question. “Why are all these Kings so angry?” And, when David say they plot against God and “his anointed” one, we see the words as the messiah or Jesus. Likely David was talking about the supernatural plans of God in choosing and using the “rulers” of this world to do His will. Just Google “world’s worst rulers,” and you’ll be shocked at who shows up on that search.

However, even the worst of them were certainly wicked smart, paranoid and eventually mental! We’re they angry? I’m sure they were. They must have figured out how they could get away with anything they wanted while in power, and could wield unfathomable fear on the masses, but they could not BE God.

Sadly, people see God through these warped lenses of being like a dictator. In every one of those men in history or current events (And, it is almost 100% men) there’s a seen struggle to break free from “slavery” to God. Why does humanity want to get away from their own creator? If you see yourself saying, “But I’m not a dictatorial leader,” or don’t you believe this selfish thread runs in your own DNA, you would be wrong. It’s in all of us, it’s sin, it’s free choice constantly choosing the wrong path, the shiny selfish route.

We all have these little voices saying, “let’s break away and free ourselves from God.” Weird huh? It takes faith and fortitude to keep looking for God options, narrow paths, tough choices, suffering over revenge, generosity over stingy, and service over power. Godly results yield a life more free of anger and definitely control. The real freedom Jesus gave me was the freedom to chose to run to God, not away from Him.

Prayer

Dad,
I am so glad you are in control and I’m not! I’m so glad that you hold all truth, justice and finality in your hands – not mine. I’m so thankful for mercy instead of what I desire. And, even though I can’t completely understand why you allow wicked men so commonly rule and cause enslavement, suffering and death for far too long, I can trust you because you are God. I trust you with my life.

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Natural or Supernatural Miracles?

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“One day the leaders of the town of Jericho visited Elisha. “We have a problem, my Lord,” they told him. “This town is located in pleasant surroundings, as you can see. But the water is bad, and the land is unproductive.” Elisha said, “Bring me a new bowl with salt in it.” So they brought it to him. Then he went out to the spring that supplied the town with water and threw the salt into it. And he said, “This is what the Lord says: I have purified this water. It will no longer cause death or infertility.” And the water has remained pure ever since, just as Elisha said.” 2 Kings‬ ‭2:19-22‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Aren’t miracles, well…miracles, you may ask? I thought so. Then I watched this documentary about Moses and the Jewish people crossing the Red Sea. The water parted, it separated, and over a million people walked across on dry land. Then the Egyptian army, with chariots and thousands of foot soldiers followed them into the water. The Jewish people arrived safely on the other side, then God closed the opening on the sea, drowning the entire Egyptian army. Remember this? The documentary had lots of theories, but shockingly the experts were divided on this idea of natural vs supernatural miracles. Did God use the natural forces of the earth (wind, specific spot in the body of water, even the gravitational pull of the moon and earth in that exact moment) or did God just command the water to divide and it obeyed?

This “little” (not little at all) miracle that Elisha performed was titled, “Elisha’s First Miracle.” Well, yeah it was God’s miracle through Elisha but I get it. Was it natural or supernatural? Does it matter to you? It really doesn’t matter to me. I love science and knowing some of the cool mysteries of our world. I love that scientists thought their discoveries would become more simple as they searched deeper and higher than man had ever searched before. But instead, their searching has become more complicated, forcing them to ask even more difficult questions. This applies to the smallest microscopic particle to the largest and many universes in the cosmos. So if Elisha’s was some kind of chemical biologist, knowing that a few cups of salt would permanently balance the PH levels in an ever flowing river, and God gave him this knowledge – so be it. However, if God told Elisha about the salt or even if he came up with it on his own then God just “healed” the water supply for the whole city – well that’s fantastically okay with me as well!

If you study some of the Old Testament prophets’ miracles, you’ll find they are pretty strange. Floating axe heads, Elisha and the two bears, or laying nose to nose, toe to toe on a dead little boy’s body, you’ll really scratch your head and say, “Whoa, this is some crazy stuff!” But the point still remains here. Jericho had a citywide problem and the leaders went to the new man’s of God, Elisha. They may have expected him to pray or make a big spectacle of it all. He didn’t. He asked them for a bowl of salt. He went out to the spring that was the water supply for the city and threw the salt into the running stream. Then he tells them, the Lord says, “I have purified this water.” Boom. Miracle.

Prayer

Dad,
You are the God, the only God. And, since you created all things, it’s not surprising at all that you do both “natural” and supernatural miracles. I don’t even think they are miracles to you, just simple commands that all the existence of any and all universes and planets within must comply with! Yet with us, you allow us to choose. You’ve given us freedom to believe, to know you. Or, to not believe and deny not only your existence, but also your plan to save us from ourselves. I believe in you and in miracles!

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What happens when God has had enough!

Reading Time: 2 minutes 
“On August 14 of that year, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king, arrived in Jerusalem. He burned down the Temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He destroyed all the important buildings in the city. Then he supervised the entire Babylonian army as they tore down the walls of Jerusalem on every side.” 2 Kings‬ ‭25:8-10‬ ‭NLT‬‬

What a brutal ending to Solomon’s temple and the whole city of Jerusalem. After multiple kings and years of horrible leadership and evil behavior, God brought in the foreign king of Babylon to serve justice to His own people.

Did God enjoy punishing, correcting His beloved Israel? No. Is God still good, right, just and true in having His own city rubbled to the ground? Yes. Warnings went unheeded, pleadings were met with harsh punishment on the prophets.

The kings of Israel were thoroughly stubborn enough to do their own thing and just as God had also warned them through Samuel (about Saul), kings can and will do some nasty things to have their own way. Four successive kings: Jehoahaz (23yrs old), Jehoiakim (25 yrs old), Jehoiachin (18 yrs old) and Zedekiah (21 yrs old) were all attributed this phrase, “did what was evil in the Lord’s sight….” So for 22 1/2 years Israel wasn’t just led by young inept leaders, they were stupid, cruel and wicked. It was a bad run of DNA or leadership culture that was not going to change. The last guy was the dumbest of the pack. “Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.”‬‬ And it ended badly for him! “They captured the king and took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where they pronounced judgment upon Zedekiah. They made Zedekiah watch as they slaughtered his sons. Then they gouged out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in bronze chains, and led him away to Babylon.”

Soon after, on August 14, 586 was one of the most awful days in Israel’s history. Yep, God will o be mocked and He’s not against using the wicked (even while trying to woo and negotiate with their hearts) to get His will accomplished.

It painfully reminds me in this long season of grace and mercy because of Jesus’ sacrifice, that God is still God. He is still holy, yet still good! Evil and wickedness cannot continue unleashed without consequences, without judgment or justice.

We would not want a world, an existence or eternity where evil was ignored nor where justice was blind. Yet we are shocked when WE ourselves, in our selfishness and willful evil decisions are also judged and consequences are experienced. I’m not a king or anything even close to that, but I have some limited leadership responsibility as a pastor. It is a sobering reminder as I read Israel’s history and see reflections of our humanity in these young kings decisions and of course, the final outcome.

PRAYER:

Dad,
Whew, what a gut check on this one. I’m not sure I think of the consequences of my decisions often enough. And not just how they effect my life, my family (poor Zedekiah’s sons!) but how they effect a larger group of people that I have influence over. The accountability to my actions are certainly overwhelming. I need, we need, your grace and power to live as Paul told young Timothy, an oversee must live above reproach.