Are we far from Hearing God?

II Kings 1:1-18 (full chapter)

This chapter reveals the death of King Ahaziah in Samaria, of the Northern Kingdom.
This also reads for an interesting story - as it's not just about the death of a bad king - but there are principles for us on 'how to live'.

In a nutshell, this is what happened. King Ahaziah falls through the lattice from his upper room and injures himself. And he sends messengers to a pagan god, Baal-Zebub of Ekron .. to see whether he would recover from his injury.

Now, the thing to note is: Ahaziah is the King of the Northern Kingdom, Israel - and he was in its capital, Samaria. As far as we know, there was no righteous king in the northern kingdom [there were 19 kings in all and 1 infamous queen]. King Ahaziah was the 8th king, since Jeroboam-1, took over the northern part of the Kingdom – which was divided after the death of Solomon.

This is the Kingdom which was set-apart to reflect God among the other nations. Sadly, right from the start, there were no proper role-models for any of the Kings to follow. Time and again, a prophet would be raised to warn the people – but the kings were always ruthless and ran after the gods of the pagan world.
Ahaziah was no exception – he followed the ways of his father Ahab (cf. I Kings22:52,53).

As the messengers from King Ahaziah head out towards Ekron to consult an evil medium, Elijah appears to them and gives them the message from the Lord (vs.3), “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?”

And they go back and report this to the King.
As soon as he hears these words, he asks them what kind of man it was and as they described, he knew it was Elijah, the Tishbite. He recognized because it was the same prophet Elijah, who also predicted the death of his father, King Ahab (cf. I Kings 21:17-29; 22:29-38). And Ahaziah, who took to the throne after his father, knew about the punishment that God meted out to him.

Perhaps, that’s the reason why he sent a captain with 50 men (cf. II Kings 1:9). They invite the wrath of God upon themselves and as per Elijah’s word; fire comes down from heaven and consumed them (vs.10).

Somehow the word gets to the King, and he sends another captain with 50 more men (vs.11). Here we see the arrogance of the captain in demanding that Elijah comes down to meet the King; and they too meet with the same fate (vs.12).

The King is still persistent that he sends a third lot (vs.13). This captain seems to be a bit wise when he approached Elijah, perhaps he was scared for his life after he heard of the plight of the other 2 groups who had gone before him(vs.13b,14); and the angel of the Lord guides Elijah to the King.

Elijah speaks the same word as he did, when he first met the messengers whom the king had sent. And it seems like there was no positive response from the King.
Earlier we saw that his father was humble and mourned, when he heard the verdict and God relented from doing certain things during his life-time. Here, Ahaziah resigned to his fate, and it so happened as Elijah predicted (vs.16,17).

As I mentioned earlier, there were no role-models in Israel for this King to follow.
Even though he was desperate for guidance, in that he sent to find out from other gods, when the Word of Lord came to him, he was in no mood to listen.
Perhaps, he had gone so far away from the Lord that he failed to connect with him.


How far are we from His presence?
Are we so far away, that we can’t hear Him, when He is speaking to us?
Are we desperate to consult another medium for guidance?

Let’s not stray away too far .. He is there to guide us and He wants to speak to us.