Omri and Ahab: lessons worth study.
"For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in their counsels; that I should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof an hissing: therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people." On the long dark roll of human infamy there are few darker names than those of Omri and Ahab. The former, who at first was an officer in the army of Israel (1 Kings 16:30), through blood and slaughter took possession of the throne of Israel, which he held polluted and disgraced for twelve long years. He built Samaria and made it the capital of the ten tribes. Ahab was his son and his successor, and rivalled even his father in immorality and impiety. He established the worship of Baal as the national religion. I draw three lessons from this passage.
I. THAT THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT IN MAN IS OFTEN TERRIBLY PERVERTED. Omri and Ahab were not only idolaters themselves, but established idolatry in their country. They worshipped Baal, the god that was worshipped by the Carthaginians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and others—the, god, it is supposed, who is sometimes called Moloch, to whom the Ammonites made their cruel and bloody sacrifices. For the service of this god Ahab established a numerous hierarchy of priests. The religious sentiment in man is perhaps the fundamental element of his nature. Man is made to worship, and to worship the one true and living God only. But so blinded is his intellect, so debased his nature, so utterly corrupt, that, instead of worshipping the infinitely Great, he falls down before the infinitely contemptible. The perversity of the religious sentiment:
1. Explains the errors, crimes, and miseries of the world. Man's strongest love is the spring of all his activities, the fontal source of all his influence. When this is directed to an idol, the whole of his life is corrupted.
2. Reveals man's absolute need of the gospel. There is nothing but the gospel of Christ that can give this sentiment a right direction.
II. THAT OBEDIENCE TO HUMAN SOVEREIGNS IS SOMETIMES A GREAT CRIME. The worship of Baal was enacted by the "statutes" of Omri and enforced by the practice of Ahab. If the establishment of a religion by law can make it right, it was right that the people should worship Baal. But it was not right; it was wrong. A human law, enacted by the greatest sovereign in the world with the sanction of the most illustrious statesmen, if it is not in accord with the eternal principles of justice and truth, as revealed in God's Word, should be repudiated, renounced, and transgressed. "Whether it is right to obey God rather than man, judge ye."
III. THAT THE CRIMES OF EVEN TWO MEN MAY EXERT A CORRUPTING INFLUENCE UPON MILLIONS IN FUTURE GENERATIONS. The reigns of Omri and Ahab were ages before the time when Micah lived. Notwithstanding, their enactments were still obeyed, their examples were still followed, and their practices were still pursued. The wickedness of these two men was now, ages after, perpetrated by a whole nation. How great the influence of man for good or evil! Verily one sinner destroyeth much good. From one corrupt source may flow a stream of polluting influence that shall roll down all future times, widen and deepen in its course, and bear thousands on its bosom to crime and ruin.
Our many deeds, the thoughts that we have thought,
They go out from us thronging every home;
And in them all is folded up a power
That on the earth doth move them to and fro:
And mighty are the marvels they have wrought
In hearts we know not and may never know."
(F.W. Faber.)
D.T.
Micah 5
Micah
Micah 7
Micah 6 - micah-6 - worlddic.com