Observation: Ahab, king of Israel, hates Elijah because as the great prophet of the Lord Elijah called down a drought upon the land. They are about to have a showdown - Elijah against ~850 prophets of Baal and Asherah - and this is how Ahab greets Elijah, as the "troubler of Israel". By this greeting in this context, it is clearly defined that Ahab accepts BOTH of these two ideas:
-- The Lord Yahweh is not the great God of Israel, the creator of heaven and earth, and instead the gods that he believes in are Baal and Asherah.
-- In the name of Yahweh, Elijah has altered the weather, controlled creation, and brought great hardship upon Israel.
It is literally impossible for both of these ideas to be true. They are mutually exclusive. If simply by faith in Yahweh Elijah can control the natural elements of the planet, then surely the Lord is the all-powerful creator to be honored and worshipped. If the Lord is powerless at best and perhaps doesn't even exist, then the current drought cannot be caused by one person's belief is such a non-entity.
Ahab cannot believe both of these ideas ... and yet he does.
Application: I have seen it around me many times, that the true indication of dark deception is when people believe two mutually exclusive ideas, and refuse to juxtapose those ideas and consider the logical conflict. Such examples exist all around our society, and within the hearts of many. Some such examples relate directly to faith, some to general lifestyle choices. I have come to understand that such logical conundrums are a sign of the true influence of darkness and of satan.
For years now, I have looked for such conflicts of thought - situations where people are adamantly believing two concepts where either could be true but both absolutely cannot be true - as a sign of the work of evil in the world. The chief liar of this world can do this to those not defending themselves. The result is confusion and turmoil, distress and fear, anger and conflict, hardship and suffering.
The Lord did, in fact, create us to not only believe and worship him, but to do so logically with an understanding of his wonder and love and power and greatness. This is part of our nature, to rationally know and understand, and God desires us to use that to relate to him. When evil shuts down our rationality, it truly separates us from the Lord, and becomes a gateway for all kinds of problems.
Prayer: Lord, I believe in you and love you, not just with a childlike emotion, but also with rational thought and reason. You have given us that gift, in your image, to consider, hypothesize, and imagine, and we can use that to know you. May our society find a way back to you, realizing the rational errors of our ways. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment