First and Second Kings is the story of the kings of Israel
and Judah. It is the story of how David’s kingdom was split into two and the
actions of the kings which followed him. Some of the kings did right in the
eyes of the Lord and others did incredible evil. For the purpose of this post,
I will profile three kings: Solomon, the wisest king, Ahab, the evil king and
Hezekiah, the reformer king. There many important lessons to learn from the
lives of these men. For each king, I will highlight one important lesson. The
lesson of how your personal life can invalidate effective leadership. The
lesson of how selfishness can lead to great evil. And the lesson of how reforms
can be short-lived when plans aren’t made to preserve them for the future.
Everyone is familiar with Solomon. The wise king who
discovered a way to determine who the mother was the surviving child was (1
Kings 3:18-28). The wise king who the Queen of Sheba traveled from afar to
challenge him (1 Kings 10:1-13). The son of King David and his wife, Bathsheba,
Solomon was God’s choice for David’s heir. Despite his wisdom, his
effectiveness as a leadership was nullified by his ineffective leadership in
his personal life. Solomon had the sense to recognize his need for wisdom;
however, by the time he asked for wisdom, he already a habit that would make
his wisdom ineffective in his own life. First, he sealed a pact with Egypt by
marrying the daughter of the Pharaoh (1 Kings 3:1). Solomon would continue to
marry foreign wives despite the Lord’s command not to intermarry with other nations
(Exodus 34:16). Solomon would marry 700 women from Egypt, Moab, Ammon, Edom,
Sidonia, and Hittites. His wives led him astray. As he grew old, his wives were
able to turn his heart to other gods. The Lord tells Solomon that since his has
not kept His commands, the Lord will tear apart the kingdom (1 Kings 11:11),
which occurs after Solomon’s death, the kingdom is split in two: the kingdom of
Israel and the kingdom of Judah. Due to Solomon’s lack of leadership in his
personal life, it began to effective his leadership in the kingdom. To which
the kingdom was split in two and would be at odds for generations. Even leading
the people into exile because the wise king didn’t have the commitment to apply
his wisdom in his personal life and resist the temptations which led him away
from his devotion to the Lord.
King Ahab was ruler over the kingdom of Israel. If there
were one word to describe Ahab, I would use selfish. He was so used to getting
his way, he would pout and become depressed when he didn’t. The best example of
this is when he desired a vineyard and when the owner, Naboth, refused, Ahab
“went home, sullen and angry” (1 Kings 21:4). Jezebel, his wife, then sets
Naboth, up to be killed leaving his land for the taking (1 Kings 21: 8-16).
Sullen and angry would be used to describe Ahab in 1 Kings 20:43 after he fails
to defeat the king of Aram. He also blamed the prophet, Elijah, for his
troubles rather than his own actions. He surrounded himself with people who
encouraged him to do what he wished, regardless of the consequences. He only
listened to the prophets when they brought good news and his propensity to
listen to the majority leads to his death. Ahab is an example of a childish man
who only wanted to hear “yes” when making decisions. He took advice which
should have been ignored when weighed against God’s commandments. Selfishness
can lead to great evil, either by the person himself or by others in response.
The best example of this would be Ahab’s wife, Jezebel. She did great evil in
response to her husband’s selfishness. Not only did she set up Naboth to be
killed but she also killed thousands of God’s prophets (1 Kings 18:4), when she
threatened to kill Elijah after he killed her prophets of Baal and being a
general thorn in their side for his prophecies against them (1 Kings 19:2).
Jezebel ranks as the evilest woman in the Bible. Ahab is the selfish king who
did not consider the consequences of his actions, only his own desires.
King Hezekiah is the reformer king. A king who had a close
relationship with God when kings around him and before him did not. He removed
anything that could be used as an idol and restored the temple as a place of
worship. Passover was celebrated for the first time in generations and a
revival swept the kingdom of Judah. After Hezekiah received a letter from
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, who tried to discourage his faith that God will
protect Jerusalem, Hezekiah does something other kings did not. He prayed. My
favorite verse of his prayer is in 2 Kings 19:19, “Now O Lord, our God, deliver
us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O
Lord, are God.” Hezekiah’s prayer is an example of his faith in God. He was not
afraid to approach God with his request for protection and deliverance. However,
while he focused on the present problems, he did not take measures to ensure
his reforms would be in place for the future. While he removed the images and
practices of paganism from the kingdom, he did not think of the future, long
after he was gone, for the kingdom to continue on their path with God. Due to
his success and prosperity, Hezekiah became proud and failed to credit God’s
blessings when envoys of Babylon came to the kingdom (2 Kings 20:12-13). He
proudly showed off his wealth and treasures. Isaiah prophesied that the wealth
of Judah would be carried off to Babylon and Hezekiah’s descendants would be
carried off as well (2 Kings 20:16-18). This prophesy came to pass as Nebuchadnezzar
laid waste to Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah was no more (2 Kings 25). While
he restored God as the source of worship in Judah, Hezekiah soon became
prideful which led him to ignore plans for the future to ensure that future
generations would carry on his reforms.
First and Second Kings is filled with the stories of the
good, bad and evil kings of Israel and Judah. King Solomon was known as the
wisest king of all but he failed to put his wisdom to practice in his own life.
This lack of attention to his personal life caused him to be led away by his
pagan wives and caused his kingdom to be split into two. King Ahab was a
selfish man who desired what he could not have and in order to please him, his
wife did great evil. King Hezekiah failed to provide for the future because he
was shortsighted by his present success. To apply the lesson of these three men
would be: wisdom needs to be applied to all aspects of life, selfishness can
have disastrous consequences and keep future generations in mind while working
on the problems of today.
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