2 Kings 8

Each of our lives affects so many others, but above the events and the people all around us, God rules over all. He used Elisha in his day to give a woman a child, and to save that woman after the child had died. He used the king of Israel and Elisha's disgraced servant, Gehazi, to restore to that same woman her land and the produce of her fields after her years of sojourning among the Philistines.

God had spoken to Elijah about the future of the nation of Syria, but it would be his successor, Elisha, who would fulfill God's Word given to Elijah. A servant would murder his own master and become king in his place. That man would do evil to many in Israel, changing so many lives forever. All these mysteries of God's providence would come to pass according to the express plan and foreknowledge of God. It was God who had spoken of them years before they took place. And even if he had concealed these specifics beforehand, we know, in the words of the Apostle Paul, that God “works all things according to the counsel of his will.” (Ephesians 1:11)

Nations rise and fall according to the Lord's sovereign decree. How does it all come to pass? The intimate evils of one family circle can wreak great trouble on their descendants who live many generations later. Consider Ahab and Jezebel. Ahab married the daughter of a king who had a certain personality and behaved in certain ways. Her immorality and arrogance would be felt not only in northern Israel where her husband reigned, but even in the southern kingdom of Judah in the line of king David. How so? One of Ahab's daughters would marry the son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah, and that daughter would accomplish much evil in the royal line leading to the Messiah.

Both Jehoram, the man who married the daughter of Jezebel, and their son, Ahaziah, would be described as those who “walked in the ways of the house of Ahab.” One evil woman did much damage. But above her, and above her husband and son, the Almighty God reigns. This is our hope.

Our God is not the author of sin. Far from it. But neither does He turn a blind eye toward evil, abandoning His sovereign control over the messy details of life, letting lesser moral agents play god with those particulars. He has His own eternal purpose and He is using all the events of life and death to accomplish His will. He is well aware of the challenge of sin in this fallen world. He is the one who has subjected the world to “futility” in response to Adam's disobedience. (Romans 8:20) He is also the One who announced on that occasion so long ago that a Redeemer would come, a Seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. And He paid the price of our redemption with the blood of His own Son.

As those who believe that God has revealed Himself to His people in both the Old and New Testaments, we make our way through some of the sordid events of Israel, Judah, and all the nations of the world as they are recorded for us in the Bible. We will face our own heartbreaks and moments of great confusion and disappointment that touch our lives, our families, and all of the Lord's churches. But none of these will ever stop the Almighty from accomplishing His holy will. None of these can delay for one moment the coming of God's perfect resurrection kingdom. We can trust in Him and seek to do good for as long as it is still called “today.”