So Ahaziah died, just as the LORD had promised through Elijah. [2 Kings 1.17a]
Let's talk about God's promises to destroy wickedness, shall we?
Just as the Bible is full of promises that we all like to quote and do our best to believe, it also has promises that are not so pleasant to believe and receive!
God made a promise through Elijah that Ahaziah would die because he failed to seek God for the recovery from his accident. It was a promise and it was fulfilled.
God made other promises about disobedience starting in the Garden of Eden:
The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the LORD God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” [Genesis 2.15-17]
Instead of saying, "If you obey, you will be blessed..." God said, "if you disobey, you will die!" It was the first promise in the Bible as far as I can tell. However, a quick Google Search says Genesis 3.15 is the first promise in the Bible... But that is simply not the case. Genesis 3.15 is the first 'positive' promise in the Bible maybe, but NOT the first promise!
A great problem I see with Christianity today is that we look at God's promises through "rose-colored glasses." A promise is a promise, positive or negative. It just so happens that the first promise found in the Bible is a negative one.
God made many such promises in the Bible - all relative to obedience. We must see this, or else we cannot fully grasp the redemption of Christ! Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law! This could be said another way, "Christ redeemed us from every negative promise in the Bible!" And furthermore, "Jesus paid the price of obedience so we might enjoy every positive promise in the Bible!"
It seems right to me that if we are not experiencing the positive promises of the Bible, then we are experiencing the negative promises of the Bible. There is no "promise-less ground." It is not a matter of simply "not walking in blessings." Not walking in blessings is the condition of walking in disobedience and is therefore "walking in curses." There is no neutral ground.
It is time we deal with this fact.
Father, forgive me for only seeing the positive promises in the Bible. Help me to understand that disobedience has a plethora of promises associated with it too, and that if I am experiencing those negative promises then I am obviously qualified to receive those negative promises - which means I am in disobedience (including the disobedience of faithlessness) and need to repent!
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