Elijah 6/11/09

I owe all of you an apology that I have not gotten this to you sooner! I am so sorry! It has been a crazy couple of days!!! Some of the craziness from today is amazing news though! We celebrated the birth of a new baby boy this morning @ 7:30 am!!! My cousin, Denise, (that is more like my sister) gave birth to this beautiful baby!!! His name is Camden Zane Norman, and he will go by "Zane". Please pray for Zane because they did a scan on him this morning because of a spot they located on his liver during ultrasound. The doctor feel that it is not necessarily an emergency right now. However, they are sending him to a specialist to help determine what the spot is. The expected it to go away before he was born, but it has not. The entire family has a peace that he is okay, but prayers always increase that peace!!!

We were also invited to go down to the beach a day early. So, we have to get moving if we are going to finish this book. Let's finish up chapter nine, and I am going to go ahead and send you the Scripture for chapter ten. Then, I am going to do my very best to finish up that chapter tomorrow before I go!!! If we don't get it finished....please forgive me!!! I am going to try!!!

Chapter 9 discussion:
Elijah lived most of his life right in the very center of a bulls eye. He became a household name throughout the land once he prophesied the drought and it occurred. His heroic showdown on Mt. Carmel only made things more tense for Elijah, and God delivered Elijah from many traps that were laid for him. In the last chapter, Ahab and Jezebel went too far, and God predicted Ahab's death. This did not mean, however, that everything was now okay. The next ruler, Ahaziah (probably Ahab's oldest son), was just like his father. All we know about him is that he had an accident from which he never recovered.
2 Kings 1:2
And Ahaziah fell through some lattice in his upper chamber which was in Samaria and became ill.
We have no more details of his accident. We just know that it was serious and it led to an interesting series of events. Here we are introduced to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron. Ekron was on of the five major Philistine cities, and this god was housed there. The meaning of the name in Hebrew is "god of the fly". We really do not know why he was called this. All we know is the god's location. We know the greek form of this word is "Beelzebul", and in Matthew 12: 22- 24 we are told that Beelzebul is the ruler of the demons. This could be a direct reference to Satan or it could be a reference to a prince of the demonic world. Either way, we know this is a pagan deity, and Baal-zebub was directly related to the satanic world of the demons.
Ahaziah didn't care who this god was related to. He just wanted to know his future and if he would recover.
God had to intervene, and he quickly sent Elijah to keep Ahaziah's men from making the journey to the god of Ekron. He immediately responded to Ahaziah through Elijah, his servant. He told Elijah to let Ahaziah know that the very act of consulting this false god would lead to his death. Ahaziah had to have known Elijah at this point in his life. He had to know what Elijah stood for. Yet, he sent his army to intimidate the prophet. Do you think Elijah was intimidated? NOOOOOO! God honored his refusal to be intimidated by casting fire down from heaven and destroying the first two messengers.
The third captain of the army took a different approach to Elijah. He fell before his knees and begged for mercy on his life. He acknowledged Elijah as a man of God. God must have been moved by this because he told Elijah to go to Ahaziah with the captain to tell him of his future.
Here we go again!!! How courageous can one person be? Elijah immediately followed the Lord's command and went to Ahaziah. He has faced these kings, fearlessly, with the word of God and God was faithful to fulfill the word each time.
Ahaziah had to die because of his mistrust in the one and only God and his failure to acknowledge His ways.
We must learn from this that God is not pleased with occult involvement. I know many of us think, "what's the harm in reading my horoscope for fun?" But you are treading on enemy territory, and that is not tolerated by God. God's word is very clear:
Leviticus 19:31
Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 20: 6
I will set my face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute himself by following them, and I will cut him off from his people.
These things may seem harmless to you at first, but they open doors that should never be opened. It is so easy to become trapped by the dealings of demonic forces.
Rather than focusing on the things of this world, let's remember that God is delighted when we trust Him only. When we trust in only God, He will strengthen us. We must believe in this strength, or we can fall prey to the lure of demonic thinking.