The World according to Ahab

Actually, the title should be something like the world according to God in the light of how he interacted with Ahab.
Preached at North Hill, July 31, 2010
1 Kings 16-22

Has something you posted on the internet ever come back to bite you? Some flaming rhetoric, a picture? Or perhaps something someone else posted, a scathing review of your work as a teacher or your practice as a physician?

Last week, I heard an interview with a law professor who was discussing the “new world” the internet has brought into existence—a world of total, eternal recall. Once something shows up on the web, it's there forever. And a determined searcher can find it. The professor raised the question of how we relate to this world of total, eternal recall. How, in the future, will anyone be qualified for public service if we hold them accountable for every infelicitous remark, every youthful indiscretion, every sexual peccadillo? Some people have suggested there should be some kind of expiration date on information on the internet. But that's not likely.

Just how do we live in a world of total, eternal recall?

Actually, this is not such a genuinely new reality. Rather it is best seen as a technologically empowered expression of the world most humans have always lived in. Namely, the world of small, stable communities where the librarian and the mayor remember the stupid things you did during middle school and high school.

Memory is the primary accellerant of the endless conflicts in places like the Middle East and the Balkans. I remember not only your offenses against me. I remember the offenses of your great, great, great grandfather against my great, great, great grandfather. I remember and nurse my hunger for justice (which, experientially, is inseparable from a desire for revenge.) Even in small town Mississippi, memory fuels eternal fear and antipathy. (Those @*#& Yankees! The South shall rise again!)

American culture has been built on the possibility of starting a new story. I can move away from the memories—others memories of my past, my memories of their past. We can start over. A new place. A new identity.

How do we live when erasing inconvenient parts of our histories is no longer an option? How do we live hopefully and joyously in a world of eternal, total recall.

The story of Ahab offers some help.

Ahab, Son of Omri. 1 Kings 16-22.

Ahab's father, Omri, “did evil in the eyes of the Lord and sinned more than all those before him. Omri walked in all the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat and in his sin, which he had caused Israel to commit, so that they provoked the Lord, . . . to anger by their worthless idols.

That sounds pretty bad. You would hope that Ahab would learn something from his dad's mistakes and do better. Alas.

Instead, Ahab “did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. [Like father like son.] Ahab not only mimicked the sins of Jeroboam, he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. Ahab built a temple for Baal and set up an altar in the temple. He made an Asherah pole and “did more to provoke the Lord, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him.” 1 Kings 16:30-33.

And God was watching. God was writing it all down. The heavenly digital recorders were running. And the ancient scribes were writing it down in the annals of the kings of Israel. We, too, that is the Christian church and preachers, we, too, remember. Ahab was a bad man. Wicked. Evil. In our eyes, hopeless. Worthless.

God sent a message to Ahab through Elijah. “This is what God, the one I serve, says, 'For the next several years it will not rain unless I say so.'”

This is not good news! Not on its face anyway. But hidden in this dire prediction is a message of hope. God scolds and warns because he is interested in turning us toward life and righteousness.

Ahab did not warm to Elijah's message. He did allow the prophet to walk out of the palace unscathed. But as the drought increasingly affected agriculture and people and animals began starving to death Ahab got angry. He launched a search for the prophet . . . to kill him. No luck. Ahab sent ambassadors to neighboring kingdoms demanding they certify they were not harboring the prophet.

Curiously, during this time, Ahab's leading domestic official was a devout believer, a man named Obadiah. Obadiah dared to defy Ahab's wife, Jezebel. She began a campaign to kill off all of the prophets with any connection with Yahweh. Obadiah hid a hundred prophets and supplied them with food.

It is the second example of Ahab's curious inconsistency. He is a wicked man complicit in the worst forms of idolatry, but he allowed Elijah to walk out of the palace after announcing the drought. And now this: His chief of staff is a devout believer who has the conviction and the guts to defy Jezebel!

One of the most important characteristics of the way the Bible pictures people is its clear-eyed view of people's goodness and badness. Ahab was a “bad guy.” But the Bible does not reduce him to “only bad.” Abraham is the Father of the Faithful. But the Bible does not gloss over his moral and personal failings.

At the end of three years, God gives Elijah another message for Ahab. To deliver the message Elijah finds Obadiah. He tells Obadiah, “Go tell Ahab, I'm here waiting to see him.”

Obadiah protests. “You're trying to get me killed. King Ahab has scoured the nation looking for you. He has sent ambassadors to every nation in the region requiring them to swear an oath that they are not harboring you. Now you show up and tell me to go tell the king that you want to talk to him. And while I'm gone to fetch the king, who knows where the Spirit of God will take you. I'll show back up here with the king and you'll be gone. And he will kill me for not arresting you. Why are you trying to get me killed?”

“No,” Elijah says, “I'll be here. You go get Ahab.”

Ahab comes. When he sees Elijah he exclaims, “Ah, there you, you troubler of Israel.”

“No way.” Elijah rebuts. “I am not the one causing trouble. It is you and your idolatry and wickedness that have brought on this trouble. Now summon the nation—all of the people and all of the prophets of Baal—to Mt. Carmel. We are going to have a show down.”

Amazingly Ahab complies.

Take notice. Ahab is God's agent for calling the nation together to witness God's dramatic call to revival. Elijah is going to preach the sermon prior to the fiery miracle. But it is Ahab who gives the invitation. Ahab, the wicked king, Ahab, the son of Omri is God's agent for calling the people together for a dramatic demonstration of God's power and his continued interest in Israel.

The nation gathers. The prophets of Baal spend the day dancing before a sacrifice they have laid out on an altar. Nothing happens. At the time of the evening sacrifice, Elijah announces it is his turn. He invites the people to come close. He buillds an altar and prepares his sacrifice. He has it doused with twelve large jars of water. Then he kneels and prays.

God responds with fire from heaven. It is so intense it burns not only the sacrifice, but the altar itself and the water in the surrounding trench. The people fall on their faces shouting, “Yahweh, he is God.”

Elijah then give orders for the prophets of Baal to be killed. And Ahab's officers obey!

Again this curious inconsistency. Elijah had no army. It was Ahab's officers who performed these executions. Obviously, Ahab consented to Elijah's order.

My impression is that Ahab was weak rather than massively evil. He was influenced by his father. No help there. Then by his wife Jezebel, a formidable woman if there ever was one. She even intimidated Elijah, who is presented as one of the boldest, most iron-willed prophets. Ahab went along with Jezebel in the fostering of Baal worship. When confronted by Elijah, Ahab bends toward righteousness. Then when back in Jezebel's company he reverts to pleasing her.

God does not write Ahab off as worthless or hopeless. God sets up the call to revival at Carmel and has Ahab play an active part. A little later in Ahab's reign, when the king of Damascus invades, God works a dramatic series of miracles to protect Israel. A message of grace ot Ahab.

It doesn't work.

Later still, Ahab tries to buy a piece of property next door to his palace. When the owner, Naboth, refuses to sell, Jezebel has Naboth framed and killed. Ahab goes along with the scheme. God then sends Elijah to confront Ahab yet again. Elijah announces total destruction of Ahab's royal house and lineage.

In response, Ahab puts on sackcloth and goes about in mourning.

God visits Elijah again and asks, “Have you noticed how Ahas has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.”

This does not sound like a great reprieve. It is a dramatic picture of God's willingness to take notice of the slightest evidence of repentance. Most commentators consider Ahab's “humbling himself” as mere regret over consequences. It is the lament of someone who has been caught not the genuine repentance of someone who has had a change of heart. Still, God asks Elijah, “Have you noticed?”

The story of Ahab offers several points of wisdom for living in a world of total recall.

1. Don't wait for perfect people. Don't even look for perfect people. Not in politics, not at church, not at school, not at home. If God used Ahab to summon Israel to the revival at Mt. Carmel, why would we demand perfection of our political leaders? Why would we demand perfection of ourselves? Just do what it is you're called to do today. See what you can get the people around to do then let it go. Why would we hold our children hostage to their histories. God will use our children to do wonderful, significant work. Fully aware of their history but not imprisoned by it.

2. Honor any evidence of openness to God. Ahab's repentance was not highly believable. God believed it. Let's put the very best imaginable spin on other people's actions. Our own efforts are often mixtures of noble and ignoble intentions, godly and base motivations. So are the efforts of others. Practice overlooking the ignoble and base motivations. What does it matter whether others or even we ourselves have pure motives? Do the best you can and imagine that others are doing the same.

3. Acknowledge there are limits to deferred justice. There are real consequences of evil. Judgment on Ahab was postponed, not annulled. Even God's patience has its limits when he is confronting injustice. Sometimes, we, too, must say, Enough! To protect others, sometimes to protect ourselves, we appropriately say, “Enough!” “No more.” “Done.”


Ahab was an evil man. Weak. Manipulated by the wicked witch he married. Still God sought his repentance. God worked through him to summon the nation to a major spiritual event. God took notice of his slightest tipping of the hat to goodness.

How do we live in a world of total, eternal recall? We honor every hint of goodness and deal graciously and gently with the inevitable evidences of frailty that show up in every complete telling of anyone's story. Even if someone passes a limit of forebearance, don't forget the good things they did, the good people they associated with. Don't "remember" that they did only evil.