A Single Light

I Kings 14-16

As we begin to look at the kings of the divided kingdoms, the history gets pretty bleak. Judah will follow God more closely than Israel, but they certainly were not perfect. This is why both nations go into captivity. As we will begin seeing today, Israel's kings were much more pagan than Judah's and so they went into captivity first. We will not read about the captivity today, but we will see how things digress and keep in our minds that captivity is where we are heading.

We will look at a quick summary of the kings that have reigned up to chapter 16, to include how long they reigned, whether they were good or evil, and which kingdom they reigned in.

---

Unified Kingdom

Saul 40 years Evil

David 40 years Good

Solomon 40 years Good

Divided Kingdoms

Judah Israel

Rehoboam 17 years Evil Jeroboam 22 years Evil

Abijam 3 years Evil Nadab 2 years Evil

Asa 41 years Good Baasha 24 years Evil

Elah 2 years Evil

Zimri 7 days Evil

Omri 12 years Evil

Ahab 22 years EVIL

---

Looking at this list, you can see that God was an after thought for decades. Once Solomon turned away from God, it would take 20 years for a Godly king to rise up again. On the other side, in 84 years of kings, not one was Godly. Unfortunately, that would be true for most of the kings of Israel.

There are a couple of points I want to note from the text. First, verse 25 of chapter 16 tells us that "Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the LORD, and did worse than all that were before him". For Israel, there was a continual downhill spiral. Things just got worse and worse. As bad as this verse is about Omri, the text has a similar verse about his son.

---

I Kings 16:30

And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him.

---

Eighty-four years of kings of Israel are laid out in just a few short verses. Without getting ahead of ourselves, I will tell you that we are going to slow down for a little while. Because Ahab is so evil, God would inspire the writer of I Kings to spend some time describing how evil he and his wife are. We will also see the rise of a man of God in Israel who will proclaim God's will and his judgment. All is not lost in Israel.

On the other side of our list, there is one good king. King Asa reigned 41 years and was a good king. Finally, we have a glimmer of hope from our text. Asa removed his mother from being queen because she worshiped false idols in Judah. He removed the sodomites from the land, destroyed his father's idols, and burned the idol his mother made Judah worship. Asa stands alone among the kings as a light of Godliness and hope.

Even when society around us is evil, we can stand for God. It may not be easy, or fun, but it can be done. Asa did not have a Godly example in his family to look up to. Yet, he made the decision for himself that he would serve God. He made a decision to break the cycle. Many people, when they come to faith in Christ, must break away from generations of tradition of serving false gods or doing evil. Perhaps it is alcohol abuse or drug addiction that they walk away from. They are often rejected by their family because they are "different". Hateful things like "You think you are better than us" or "well aren't you just holier than thou" are spewed.

No doubt Asa heard some hateful things from his mother. Especially when he removed her as queen and destroyed her idols. There were probably lots of rumors and seditious talk when he changed the religious practices of the nation. Asa resolved to do what was right, regardless of the cost. He was a single light in his generation. What about you? Are you a light to your family, your neighbors, your co-workers, and your community? May we all follow the example of Asa!