Leaders Are Changed When Challenged By God’s Word - 1 Kings 18-22

1 Kings 22:51-53 (ESV)

Ahaziah Reigns in Israel

Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he reigned two years over Israel. He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. He served Baal and worshiped him and provoked the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger in every way that his father had done.

The above brief set of verses is not only an epitaph on King Ahaziah, it is for the book of 1 Kings.  These last verses of 1 Kings gives us the message of the entire book. This is the story of 1 Kings.   The book is about those kings who served God vs those who did not.   Some of the kings of Judah served God and some did not.  All of the kings of Israel did not serve God.  Ahaziah was the son of Ahab.   Ahab was a wicked king of Israel and was controlled by his wicked wife, Jezebel.   The Baal priest that Elijah destroyed were once again reinstated under Ahaziah.   The evil practices that Ahab had started continued to be honored.   The son was the same as the father.   There were times God intervened in these things, but more often than not the son was like the father.   When the prophets showed up and spoke into the lives of the leaders, God could move in the leader’s hearts to have them change and follow Him.  The theme of the book is Go’s intervention through the spoken Word to change the direction of the leadership.  That formula is true today.   The spoken Word of God can change leadership.  But God needs someone to speak it.  What is missing from the formula today is the speaker, not the Word.   God chooses us to speak the truth of His Word.  When we don’t, the cycle of bad leadership continues.   It is the intervention of God’s Word that can change a leader’s heart.   We are that intervention.