2 Kings 6:24-33 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Kings+6%3A24-33&version=ESV
Those have to be some of the most sickening words in all of scripture. That a mother would boil her baby to eat it to survive a famine is something so horrifying…it’s beyond words. Imagine that was you and your child. What could possess someone to do something so heinous? That was a question which the king of Israel didn’t sufficiently ponder. He was outraged and disgusted by what happened but he blamed God and God’s prophet Elisha! He claimed it was God’s fault for allowing such a famine to happen. As kids say – when you point the finger at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at you!
The king showed his unbelief here. He put the blame in the wrong place. He should have blamed many things – his own sinful, unbelieving heart, continually rejecting a God who was so patient with him; the horrible selfish disgusting actions of those women; the terrible, destructive malice of the Syrians. All these, the sins of man, were properly to blame. But God? God is never to blame for the evils that men do. He may allow them but that does not mean He approves and the only way for Him to stop such evil altogether would be to destroy this whole sinful, blame-worthy world. No, God is not to blame for our sins or their consequences.
Nevertheless, he did take the blame. That’s what Jesus was doing on the cross. He paid the penalty deserved for all sins – for a mother who ate her baby, for a king who rebelled against God, for the murdering Syrians. He paid the price for you no matter what you have done. He did it willingly and lovingly because He didn’t want to destroy the world. He wanted to recreate it – a new heavens and a new earth for you to live in in righteousness and holiness. People in this world including us at times will continue to blame God for the way things are. They will continue to say “Why God? Why would you allow this?” But that’s the wrong question. The right question is “Why God? How could you be so loving, so gracious as to take my place, to take my blame? Why did I ever do to deserve it?” The answer is nothing. The answer is love. Place the blame for sin and death where it belongs – on mankind. Place the credit for God’s love where it belongs – on Jesus and praise Him for it. Thanks to Him, you have forever to do just that.
Hymn – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aowdjLeaCYs
In Christ
Pastor Ude