#DailyDevotion You Aren’t A Troubler If You Are Teaching Correctly
September 1
1 Kng 18:1–19
1Ki 18:17-18 When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” (18) And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the LORD and followed the Baals.
It is often the case that those who are actually causing the trouble blame others for the trouble which they have cause. This is particularly so in the Church. We know that Jeroboam caused a rift when he set up separate sanctuaries and made idols so the Israelites would not go up to Jerusalem to worship. Yet, when called to repentance they said those prophets who called them to repentance were causing trouble. Ahab goes and marries a none Israelite, adopts her pagan practices and sets up idolatrous temples throughout the land of Israel and when Elijah calls him to repentance, he calls Elijah a troublemaker.
Well Elijah will have none of it. It doesn’t matter that his preaching isn’t popular. It doesn’t matter that all Israel is behind Ahab and his false teaching. Elijah places blame directly on whom it belongs. The blame lies on Ahab and his father’s house. They are the ones who brought false belief to the people and had them follow it.
So it is today. False teachers abound as the Lord Jesus Christ said they would. They say and do things in the name of the Lord, yet Jesus never knew them. St. Paul knew of our day as well. He wrote, 2Ti 4:3-4 “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, (4) and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” Well it was even happening in the days of St. Paul.
We have the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, those witnessed to by the early Church, those who knew the apostles. In his Word we have all that we need to judge the truth of God’s Word. That won’t stop some from trying to twist God’s Word to say what they want it to say. We must be vigilant then and even when someone quotes the Word that they are quoting it properly, in context of what was written.
We should not let our beliefs be bullied by what is new and fashionable or who is big and successful and let that determine our beliefs or actions. We have the landmarks of our faith in the Scriptures. We have witnesses of those landmarks in our creeds and in the history of our faith. We can and should build up our simple faith with knowledge from the Word of God and what our fathers before us taught (not that our fathers cannot err, Ahab’s did).
Never think that you are alone in the faith. See that in today’s account, Obadiah was faithful to the Lord’s ways from his youth and hid the prophets of the living God. There are always others who believe and follow the Word of the Lord correctly. You are never alone. And always, at the least, you have the Lord Jesus Christ dwelling in your heart, making it his throne. His promise to us is that He will never leave or forsake us.
Heavenly Father, grant us your Holy Spirit, that we may have the courage of heart to remain faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ no matter what may come, that we may enter into your eternal glory on the day of his return. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.