“Now Jehoram the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years. And he wrought evil in the sight of the LORD; but not like his father, and like his mother: for he put away the image of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom.” (2Ki 3:1-3 AV)
Ahab was the worst king Israel
ever had. He took the sins of the first
king of Israel and magnified them tenfold.
Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, set up two altars for Israel to worship. One was in Dan. The other in Bethel. They were in the form of calves. He also made of the lowest of the people, priests,
to serve the calves he has set up.
However, Ahab did much worse. He married
the daughter of a pagan king who promoted Baal worship over the worship of Jehovah. Ahab had a man executed so that he might take
his inheritance. Ahab was so bad God sent
Elijah to condemn him to death. Both he
and his wife Jezebel were killed and fed to dogs. That was how bad Ahab was. His son Jehoram, seeing what had become of
his parents, cleaned out the prophets of Baal and put away all Baal worship
from Israel. The problem was, he did not
go far enough. He never took away the
calves of Jeroboam. It was those calves
which first tempted Israel to leave God in favor of foreign and fake gods. Jehoram got rid of the obviously wicked while
leaving intact the less obvious. He got
rid of the clearly wrong but held on to those things which seemed to be not as
bad as what he cleansed. Partial
repentance is no repentance at all.
I just read how Parkinson's is on
the rise among the elderly. Research
indicates this might be tied to a chemical used with the acronym TCR. This chemical is used for industrial
applications. But it is also used to
decaffeinate coffee. This is not good
for me! Because of a heart issue I have, I have diluted my regular coffee with
decaffeinated to treat a fluttering heartbeat.
It works pretty well. Now I come
to find out I may have increased the chances of falling to Parkinson’s by as
much as 500%. When my heart flutters, I
get really tired. An occasional
fluttering isn’t bad at all. However, the
last time lasted for three weeks. There
was a day or two when I was fatigued to the point I could not move fast and I
had to hold myself up lest I fall. This scared
a few people. I also have to be careful about
how much chocolate I consume. It seems
caffeine and chocolate in access are not good for the old ticker. So, now I find out that the chemical to
decaffeinate coffee could cause a disease.
And here I thought I was doing good by reducing my caffeine intake. Apparently not. Getting rid of most of it is not good
enough. Altar, here I come.
This is often how we deal with
sin. We do a partial withdrawal. We get rid of the most obvious. We remove that which causes the greatest
harm. Yet, we leave behind the root
cause of the sin. We remove what
everyone can see but still hold on to a little taste of it. Sort of like when I quit smoking. Trying to wean off of nicotine doesn’t
work. One must go cold turkey and deal
with it. Otherwise, that one you hold on
to will lead right back to the problem.
This is what happened with Israel.
Jehoram may have removed the obvious sins of Ahab, but he did not remove
the idols of Dan and Bethel. They were
still there. There they sat as an enticement
back to where they were. There they
say. A golden idol on the hilltop, calling
a nation back to that which was causing their demise. If we are to repent it must be all the
way. It cannot be halfway. One must quit cold turkey. One has to get rid of all possible ways in
which this sin can grow again. Partial
repentance is no repentance at all.
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