Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20030727.htm

1 AND 2 KINGS: ENJOYING GOD'S BLESSINGS IN AN APOSTATE ERA
Part XVIII: Blessing From Taking God's Word Seriously When Influential People Do Not
(1 Kings 16:21-33, 34 with Joshua 6:26)
  1. Introduction
    1. We parents have all had to face the remark from our children that " . . . the other kids are doing it!" when we have sought to lead our children to avoid the sins of their peers.
    2. We adults may also face the same pressure: when even influential Christians may sometimes do what we read in Scripture is contrary to God's will, we may feel awkward if we counter their direction in our lives.
    3. Well, 1 Kings 16:21-33, 34 motivates us to heed Scripture even when influential people do otherwise:
  2. Blessing From Taking God's Word Seriously When Influential People Do Not.
    1. In the reign of the influential king Omri, Israel's leader seemed to do more evil in open contempt for what God's written Word commanded, cf. 1 Kings 16:21-28:
      1. When Omri came to Israel's throne, he became so influential even the Assyrians and Moabites have left records of his great deeds:
        1. First, the Assyrians referred to Israel as "'the land of Omri,'" cf. Bib. Know. Com., O.T., p. 521.
        2. Then the Moabites recorded on their famous Moabite Stone Omri's victory over them while he also fended off enemies his nation faced on another front, Ibid., p. 521.
      2. With this influence, Omri acted more wickedly than his predecessors, 1 Kings 16:21-28:
        1. Omri's defeat the seven-day rule of Zimri left half of the nation siding with him and half with Tibni, the son of Ginath, 1 Kings 16:21.
        2. Omri conquered his competitor, Tibni in an ensuing struggle in which Tibni died; this created a rather forced unity in the nation that Omri might have sensed was a fragile one, 1 Kings 16:22.
        3. Hence, being a war veteran, he purchased a hill for a fortified city from Shemer, and built on it the fortified city of Samaria where he could readily defend against an attack, 1 Kings 16:23-24; Ibid.
        4. Yet, in his self-assurance, Omri sank to ever deeper levels of sin with bold arrogance, and heeded Jeroboam's false worship to provoke God to greater anger than all the kings before him, 16:25-28.
    2. The son and successor to the influential Omri, the man, Ahab became even more evil than his father, for Ahab delved into a new and additional depth of pagan idolatry, 1 Kings 16:29-33:
      1. Omri's son, Ahab came to the throne and ruled on Israel's throne in Samaria, 1 Kings 16:29.
      2. Ahab then sinned more deeply than did his influential father, Omri: (a) Omri had arranged for his son, Ahab to be married to Jezebel, the daughter of the king of the Phoenicians in an effort to form a protection treaty, Ibid. (b) In keeping with the Deuteronomy 7:1-4 warning against such unions, Ahab's marriage led to his adopting his wife's Baal worship, and he even built an altar to Baal in his capital fortress city of Samaria and constructed an idolatrous grove, 1 Kings 16:30-33a. (c) Thus, Ahab infuriated God more than all the kings of Israel who came before him, 1 Kings 16:33b.
    3. Nevertheless, even in the days of the very evil son of the great and influential Omri, Scripture was still authoritative: God then fulfilled His Word to judge the man who rebuilt Jericho, 1 Kings 16:34; Jos. 6:26:
      1. After God supernaturally caused the wall of ancient Jericho to fall in Joshua 6:20, Joshua had put a divine curse on the man who rebuilt the city: the one who rebuilt it would begin to do so at the loss of his eldest son in death, and, if he continued to work on the city and finished it, his youngest son would die at the end of its construction, Joshua 6:26.
      2. That is exactly what happened even in the reign of the son of the influential Omri: calloused against God's Joshua 6:26 curse from the lead of Omri's son, Ahab, Hiel rebuilt Jericho during Ahab's reign, losing his eldest son when he began the work and his youngest son when he finished it, 1 Kings16:3 4!
Lesson: When Hiel assumed he could safely disobey Scripture and rebuild Jericho due to the lead of the influential Omri and Ahab who flagrantly disobeyed Scripture, he STILL suffered God's discipline in ACCORD with Scripture's pledge that he WOULD be judged for REBUILDING JERICHO!

Application: (1) Even INFLUENTIAL leaders of GOD'S PEOPLE are NOT to be followed when they SIN even with open boldness; rather, (2) God ALWAYS holds US PERSONALLY ACCOUNTABLE to OBEY HIS WORD regardless what influential people around us do to the contrary, cf. Galatians 1:10!