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| Elisha calling down fire |
But Elijah replied to the captain, “If I am a man
of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you and your fifty men!”
Then fire fell from heaven and killed them all. (2 Kings 1: 10 NLT)
Three times the wicked King Ahaziah sent an
army captain and a group of soldiers to arrest Elisha. Twice they were met by the same fate. A third time they were saved by the captain
making a plea for mercy. Sinful disobedience is a form of irrational
behavior.
There once was a Principal at a school where
I taught who had a favorite saying. When
students were in his office for repeated offenses of school rules, he would
tell them, “If you always do what you have always done, you will always get
what you have always gotten." Doing the
same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, is
irrational behavior. When students violated the
same rule repeatedly, I often thought they should have been given two
punishments. One for the infraction
itself, and another for being clueless about the recurrent consequence.
People think they can get away with sin. To
do this, they must deny the very nature and character of God. They start to act like God does see their
sin, or if he does see, he does not have the ability to do anything about it.
Or a third option, he does not care enough to get involved. Three character traits of God are denied here,
his omniscience (all-knowing), omnipotence (all-powerful), and love (all-caring). The finite trying to outwit the infinite is
an exercise in futility. Repeating a transgression is like a dog returning to its
vomit (2
Peter 2:22 NLT), exposing our blindness to the insanity of sin.
Ken
Barnes the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places” YWAM Publishing
Email: kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/
Email: kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/
Podcasts: http://kensblogpodcast.blogspot.com
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