The book of
2 Kings starts with a bang — or at least with fire from heaven, which
is plenty eventful enough for most of us.
The prophet Elijah has
just passed on another of his many messages from God, this one to the effect
that the illness suffered by wicked King Ahaziah will surely result in his
death. Ahaziah is understandably less than thrilled to receive this news. He
sends a military unit of fifty men with their captain to bring Elijah back to
Samaria, where he lies bedridden, presumably in hope of intimidating the
prophet into foretelling a fate more to his taste.
The captain is insufficiently
deferential to the prophet, who promptly calls down fire from heaven on him and
on his soldiers.
And ... Take Two!
So Ahaziah tries again
with another unit of fifty men, the captain of which has apparently never heard
the adage that those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it. (To be fair, George Santayana didn’t say it until the mid-1800s.)
Same request, same result.
The third captain may
not have heard the ‘condemned-to-repeat-it’ thing, but he instinctively grasps
the essence of what is really a very useful truism. He approaches Elijah on his
knees and begs for his life, and this time Elijah is told by God that it’s safe
to cooperate.
The modern reader may
be forgiven for asking “What about those hundred innocent men incinerated by fire
from heaven? What did they ever do?”
Indeed. They were just
soldiers following orders, right?
Maybe. Let’s think
about that for a minute.
Innocent? Hmm.
First of all, we’re
speculating. We’re reading a story that in English has no more than a few
hundred words, and we’re importing into it our own ideas about the innocence of
the soldiers and the options they had open to them. For all we know, every man
of them was a Baal-worshiping deviant like his master. For all we know, any of
them might have just finished sacrificing one of his own children at his local
high place. In a time when Israel’s governing practices were deeply sinful, the
king’s character was most often reflective of the character of those he
governed. Certainly the passage is clear that if Elijah feared the first two groups that came for him, he did so with good reason.
But I’m speculating
too. My point is that we have no evidence either way, and no cause to presume either
particular innocence or guilt on the
part of the soldiers sent to bring Elijah back to Samaria.
Everybody Dies
Second — and how
can I put this delicately? — everybody dies sometime.
Okay, I could probably
have been more delicate there. But it’s true. Apart from those of us who will
one day meet the Lord Jesus in the air, every one of us will experience death. It’s
merely a question of how and when we go. As to the how, instant death from a heavenly fireball or a lightning strike doesn’t
sound tremendously appealing, but I’d take it over drowning or a protracted
consumption by cancer cells, wouldn’t you?
As to the when, well, let’s think about that too.
Godly men and women throughout the ages have been notoriously unconcerned about
the timing of their own deaths. As the writer to the Hebrews so eloquently puts it:
“Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated — of whom the world was not worthy.”
He’s speaking here of Old Testament saints,
not apostles and New Testament prophets who were assured that “in my father’s
house are many mansions”. Godly men who lived at the time of Elijah had much less concrete evidence to go on, but they thought the
same way about death as the apostles who had actually met the Son of God and seen him raised from the dead. Sure, those Old Testament heroes may have felt
visceral terror at the prospect, but their actions
demonstrated that they believed pleasing God was WAY more important than
whether one lived or died. And good for them.
No, it’s the Ahaziahs
of this world who panic at the thought of departing this life and being held to
account by a God they fervently hope does not actually exist. As a general
rule, godly men and women do not.
We Were Just Following Orders ...
Third, this whole “following
orders” excuse is vastly overused. Human authority is instituted by God and is
to be respected wherever possible, as our New Testaments make very clear, but
the authority of kings, governors, prime ministers, mayors or
congress is not limitless and it is not to be obeyed in circumstances where the
authority itself is thumbing its nose at the God we purport to serve. Thus when
the high priest charges the apostles “not to teach in this name”, Peter’s
answer is “We must obey God rather than men”. Not “we like to” or “we prefer to”, but “we MUST”.
Every one of those
Israelite solders who chose to follow their commander up that hill did so knowing
that he was representing the enemy of God and God’s servant, with the goal of
taking that servant back to Samaria against his will. Further, most of
them had to be aware that this same servant of God had singlehandedly put to
death 450 prophets of Baal only a few years earlier. Elijah was not to be trifled with, and Israel
knew it. Walking up that hill was like putting your head in a tiger’s
mouth or swimming with sharks. If you did it, you were thumbing your nose
at God too, not to mention that you were so stupid it would probably have
taken you an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.
Don’t tell me there
were no other options open to these soldiers.
When Pharaoh charged
the midwives with killing Hebrew babies, they lied to him and God blessed them
for it. When Saul tried to kill David, he ran. When Rahab’s fellow citizens
prepared to fight Israel, Rahab sheltered two Israelite spies in the fear of God,
though it made her guilty of treason by the way this world keeps its accounts.
Don’t tell me there
are no alternatives to blindly obeying orders. In fact, the third captain of fifty in
our story found one: he came to Elijah on hands and knees, an act of humility
that I guarantee would have sent King Ahaziah into an absolute frenzy if he’d
witnessed it. It was a creative alternative that managed to be obedient to the letter of his orders while showing appropriate reverence to God. Such alternatives are often open to those who think outside the box.
When you follow the marching
orders of authorities who reject the will of God and deliberately set themselves against him,
you can expect to be judged with them. After all, you are identifying
with them.
Aren’t you?
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