2 Kings 10

Jehu was God's appointed instrument of destruction against the family of Ahab in Samaria. He oversaw the death not only of Ahab's descendants, but also all of Ahab's allies, friends, and the leaders of Baal worship in the northern kingdom.

The new king attributed this successful campaign of divine vengeance not to his own intelligence or strength, but to the sure Word that God had spoken through Elijah some years before. In a surprisingly short period of time after Elijah's days on earth were over, there were no longer any traces in the land of the family that had stood so resolutely against the Lord's prophet.

“Jehu wiped out Baal from Israel.” Like the Assyrians and the Babylonians, he was a wrecking crew for the Lord's purposes. He was commended by God for what he destroyed. “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.” This was the Lord's assessment of Jehu.

Yet Jehu himself did not lead Israel toward the true worship of the Lord. He did not destroy the false shrines that the first king over the northern tribes, Jeroboam, had established. And he did not walk in the ways of the Law of the Lord.

The work of the future Messiah King, Jesus, would involve not only the tearing down of what was false, but far more prominently, the building up of what would last forever. Jesus did expose the false religion of those who claimed loyalty to the Almighty with their lips but whose hearts were far from Him. He spoke words of “woe” upon them as God's authoritative sentence of judgment against their heresy and immorality. He told those who had authority over the temple that they did not know the Scriptures or the power of God. What these religious rulers did not believe in was the power of God's constructive work.

The God who created the heavens and the earth had not sent forth His Son primarily as a critic, but as the Lord of a new resurrection creation. His work was overwhelmingly positive. Condemnation of the mess all around us could not bring about the culmination of the kingdom of God. We needed something more than a leader who knew how to slaughter the enemies of God. We needed a King who could keep the Law for us, take our death in His one great gift of dying love, and then rise again as the Author of the new creation. We needed someone better than Jehu. We needed Jesus.