II Kings 1:16 And he said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast sent messengers to inquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron, is it not because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word? Therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die.
Haven’t we all known the frustration of wanting an answer and not getting one? Maybe you have wanted to know something and try as you might you just do not get an answer, or at least the right answer. Well, you are in good company. Second Kings 1 tells us about King Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, who had a question that just didn’t seem to have an answer.
Verse 1 says, “Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab.” So under David’s rule, Israel had gained Moab, and they had lost this opportunity with Moab after Ahab the king had died. So Ahab died, Moab rebelled, and Ahaziah, the new king, “fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber” and was greatly injured. It was time to ask some questions and get some answers. So Ahaziah sent a messenger, “Go, enquire of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron [a pagan god] whether I shall recover of this disease.”
Now, let’s pause a moment and say that the books of the kings are the books that tell us about the kings of Israel. At this point, Israel is a divided kingdom. Israel and Judah were both part of God’s people who had a civil war and divided. Ahaziah had a lot of precedent. He had all the history before him to learn lessons. Well, the book of Kings is not just history; it is a history of God’s purposes in the dealings of God with man. It is a book of Hebrew history in light of the Old Testament law and God’s covenant with Israel. So, Ahaziah should have learned a lesson from history and those who had gone before him, but he doesn’t seem to do that.
So right at this time of trouble and peril, his dad had died, Moab rebelled, and he himself had been greatly injured. Ahaziah asked the question, “Will I recover?” Now, you cannot get the right answer if you do not want the right answer. For one, Ahaziah asked the wrong question. He said,
“Go inquire of Baalzebub.” This was a false god. He gets a reply from Elijah the Tishbite, the prophet of God, who said, “Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron?”
In other words, Ahaziah had ignored God. There was no God in Israel as to practical matters. Was God with His people? Yes, but in a sense, Ahaziah was twice orphaned. He had lost his father and he had never gained God because he ignored God. He was no better than the surrounding pagans that had no law, no temple, and no Jehovah. So he asked the wrong one. Many times in our lives we want an answer, but we are asking the wrong source. We can’t get a good answer from a bad source.
Second, Ahaziah asked the wrong way. Three times he sent a band of soldiers to Elijah demanding of him. Elijah is on a hilltop and they demand of him, “Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down.” This was God’s prophet and apparently Ahaziah still thought he was in charge. He couldn’t even control his healing, yet he was making demands of God’s prophet.
Ahaziah had tried to get answers from Baalzebub. When the messengers had turned back because Elijah had turned them back, they went to Elijah and instead of asking respectfully, they made demands of him. Finally, the third captain with the third band of fifty men fell at Elijah’s feet, beseeching him with respect and fear, and basically said, “Let our lives be precious in your sight and give us an answer.”
Lastly, Ahaziah asked the wrong question. He asked, “Will I recover?” This was a valid question, but it was so far downriver from the necessary question, which was, “How can I be right with God?” Here is a guy who didn’t even know how to ask God, the One Who could give him the answer he needed. He was asking the wrong question. His question was a valid question, but a day late and a dollar short. He should have been asking about his spiritual condition instead of his physical condition. The rest would follow. When we don’t know how to ask, we won’t know and we won’t like the right answer.
We all have questions; God has answers. We can have the right answer when we ask the right One in the right way with the right question.