Anything but God

So along comes Ahaz, the next king of Judah. A real star.

Ignoring the lessons God tried to teach his fathers, Ahaz does not turn to God. Instead, he makes figurines of the Baal to worship. He burns incense to other gods. He participates in neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines. Basically he tries his best to do everything apart from God.

So God finally has enough of this, and he hands Ahaz over to king of Aram, who beats Ahaz severely, and then takes prisoners from Judah. Next, an army from Israel attacks and massacres many of Judah's best fighting men. Then the Edomites attack and take captives. Then the Philistines raid Judah, and take over some cities.

You would think that Ahaz would catch these ever-so-subtle signals from God, right? But what does Ahaz do?

Ahaz asks king of Assyria for help.

And the king of Assyria responds by ... attacking Judah, and seizing Damascus in the process.

Ok, now Ahaz will wise up, right? Surely he'll turn to God now.

Actually, Ahaz ransacks God's temple and the royal palace, pulling together everything he can find of any value, and sends a gift to the king of Assyria, hoping to buy his favor.

And the king of Assyria responds by ... ignoring Ahaz.

So what now? What does Ahaz do? Well, on a trip to Damascus to meet with the king of Assyria, he saw the altars they used to worship their gods. So he thinks to himself, 'Hmmm ... the Assyrians' gods beat my army and took Damascus, so if I worship their gods too, maybe their gods will help me as well.'

You'll be shocked to learn that this doesn't help. And so Ahaz tries the shotgun approach to worship -- he sets up shrines all over Judah, to worship every 'god' he can find -- and along the way he literally boards up the temple of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Maybe he figured that if he boarded it up, it wouldn't be such a temptation to him.

Ahaz tried everything -- everything -- except submitting himself to God. God made Ahaz face the consequences of his decisions, and Ahaz still refused to turn from all the things that so obviously weren't working, weren't helping.

So today I ask you: Are you doing things your own way? How's that workin' out for ya? Ever wonder if God might be trying to tell you something? Do you know that sometimes he'll go as far as to try what I call the '2x4 to the head' approach to get your attention? As Ahaz demonstrated, we don't have to listen to God, even when he speaks so plainly through our circumstances ... but wouldn't we be more content if we'd just submit ourselves to Him?

I should point out that I don't believe that all negative circumstances are cases of God trying to show his displeasure. Sometimes it just rains, or even floods, or even tsunamis, you know? Moreover, as my brother Mike Datson pointed out recently, not all negative circumstances are necessarily even negative.

But sometimes ... sometimes...