A Covenant with the World

One time, wicked King Ahab did repent at the preaching of the prophet Elijah, which caused God to say, “See how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his son I will bring the calamity on his house” (1 Kings 21:29, NKJV).

But to Ahab that repentance was a one-time experience, not a daily walk. Imagine Ahab hearing the call to repent and saying, “Repentance? Yes, I already did under the preaching of that great prophet of God, Elijah.” 

The problem was that he had become a friend and brother to the world. Brother, meaning “affinity, one just like me, one I respect.” He was in covenant with what God had cursed. Ahab claimed to love the truth; but deep inside, he hated reproof.

Why do some Christians fall into deception? “Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, and then come and stand before me in this house which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations’?” (Jeremiah 7:8-10). 

Here is an open invitation to lying spirits: cling to secret idols in the heart, justify sin, form a brotherhood with the world; then come to God’s house, boasting, “I’m not convicted.” 

Like such believers, Ahab was blind to the terrible fact that he was being guided by a lying spirit. This lying spirit even caused Zedekiah, a false prophet, to mislead Ahab and boast that the Spirit of God was upon him (see 1 Kings 22:10-24). Ahab was now fully persuaded he was hearing God’s voice and that he would be victorious in his ambitions.

Christians bound to worldly desires are 100 percent sure they are right. They cannot see the deception. Ahab did not go up thinking, “What Zedekiah and his many friends say is false; they have no word from God.” No, he went up—fully convinced, fully deceived, and totally seduced!—to his destruction.

Dear believer, let it not be so with you. Renounce the world, and heed the call to repentance.