Tues.’s Devo - God is the Victor

Read: 1 Kings 20:1-21:29; Acts 12:24-13:15; Psalm 137:1-9; Proverbs 17:16
God had told Elijah to anoint Hazael the king over Aram. Ben-Hadad was king at the time. He rallied his army to attack Samaria, Israel’s land. First he sent his messengers to intimidate Ahab and then he boasted of what he was going to do to them since they refused to give him all he wanted. Ahab told him he shouldn’t count his chickens before they hatched and got ready for war. Ben-hadad’s army way out-numbered Ahab’s but God sent a prophet to Ahab to give him strategy and tell him that He would give him the victory. Ahab was to start the battle himself and he was to send out the 232 young officers of the provincial commanders to fight first. The officers killed their opponents and caused the Armenian army to flee with Israel on their tails.
The prophet came back and told Ahab that the army of Aram would return to fight in the spring.
They did come back and this time were defeated even worse. They had thought that God could only fight in the hills and not in the plains. God proved that he was the God of the plains also. One hundred and twenty-seven thousand were killed of the Armenians. Their officials told Ben-hadad, king of Aram that the Israelites were merciful so they should surrender to them. They made a treaty of peace and the prophet returned to let Ahab know that he had made a mistake by letting Ben-hadad live. Ahab would die for this.
Ahab didn’t learn his lesson and went home and lusted after Naboth’s vineyard which he wanted for a vegetable garden since it was so close to his house. The vineyard was Naboth’s inheritance and he didn’t want to sell it so Jezebel got involved and had Naboth’s name slandered and wrongly accused him of blasphemy with the penalty of stoning. Once Naboth was dead, Ahab was able to take his vineyard.
God sent Elijah to tell Ahab that he would die in the same place that Naboth died. Jezebel would have her blood spilled on the ground by the wall of Naboth’s vineyard and the dogs would eat her body.
Ahab humbled himself and God repented of judging him in his lifetime. The judgment would be passed to his children.
In Acts, revival continued to spread. When the Spirit was moving, and prophecy was coming forth, Satan couldn’t stand it and sent his prophets. Satan’s prophet was Bar-Jesus who was an attendant of the proconsul. The proconsul was interested in hearing about Jesus but Bar-Jesus tried to stop Paul. Paul called him out and called down blindness on the sorcerer and he immediately became blind. This got the proconsul’s attention and he became a believer in Christ.
Lord, we pray for discernment to know your prophets from Satan’s. Let us not be afraid to confront evil because light is so much more powerful than darkness. Light disperses the dark.