AP

1 Kings 15:28-29, 34  Baasha killed Nadab in the third year of Asa king of Judah and succeeded him as king.  As soon as he began to reign, he killed Jeroboam’s whole family.  He did not leave Jeroboam anyone that breathed, but destroyed them all, according to the word of the LORDgiven through his servant Ahijah the Shilonite. … …  [Baasha] did evil in the eyes of the LORD, walking in the ways of Jeroboam and in his sin, which he had caused Israel to commit.

One of the things I like most about reading through the Old Testament is that it makes my heart ache for a TRUE King – for someone to come to be the Leader of God’s Covenant People who would truly represent their God among them and who would provide an example of the blessedness that attends a life lived in full and willing obedience to God’s ways, and who would bring God’s promised blessing to the people on whom he longs to shower his love.  How wonderful it is for us to KNOW that this Perfect, Obedient King DID finally come … and his name is JESUS!  Jesus’ name means ‘Saviour’ (Matthew 1:21).  I serve on the Council of International Mission to Jewish People (formerly CWI), and I long for and pray for the day when God’s Covenant People will make this discovery for themselves.

King Jeroboam had led 10 of the 12 tribes away from Judah and Benjamin, and away from the chosen Davidic line, at the time of David’s grandson, King Rehoboam.  He had also led this separated Northern Kingdom away from the LORD by blatantly worshipping other gods and participating in their sensual, immoral rituals.  Baasha, a commoner, made a break with this evil tradition by killing Jeroboam’s son, Nadab, along with all other contenders for the throne … and then proceeded to do all the same evil things that they had been doing anyway!

‘Baasha’ means ‘wicked’, which is never a hopeful start.  (I have no explanation as to why Ahijah (‘my brother is Yahweh’) and his wife would have given such a name to the cuddly little lad in the crib, unless it was not the name on his birth certificate but only adopted, or had given to him, later?).

Let US take time to praise and thank God for Jesus, our Saviour, the only one who could rescue us from ourselves.  And let us plead with our Saving God in prayer that he will show us mercy in our own day, and that he will not leave us to the consequences of our own sinful nature along the pattern of what Paul describes so frighteningly in Romans 1:18-32 … and what was the continuing pattern in Israel that led to the his sending of Jesus.