You will discover also that the spiritual is always on top of the physical. This can be found in 2 kings 13:16. When the king had a problem, he went to Elisha who put his hand on top of the king’s hands. But these days, you find people who come to church and try to control the pastors. Ahabs are like that. Ahabs are greedy and self-centred. They seek to protect their own selfish interests. They are always looking for self-recognition.
Are you always trying to attract attention to yourself? Are you always trying to get the best seat in the church and be recognised? Are you always looking around to see who has noticed you? Then perhaps you are an Ahab.
People start a school and put their names on it. They start a church and put their names on it. They always want to be acknowledged and known. It is the pride and ego in all of us. Once you are criticised by someone, that person becomes your enemy, and that is one of the problems with leadership. Leadership should be able to accept criticism and contrary opinions. Anyone that thinks that everyone that criticises him or her is an enemy has the spirit of Ahab.
Ahabs wish to control Elijahs. (They wish to control the pastors.) They criticise and condemn anything they are not a part of. You notice that in 1 Kings 18, it was Obadiah that found Elijah. The problem with Ahabs is that they are not able to find God. Most times, you find Ahabs walking away from God, even if they are strong with God or they are in the church.
Why are Ahabs the way they are?
Ahabs have deep-rooted spiritual difficulties, otherwise known as generational problems. 1 Kings 16:21-28 gives us a clue to this deep-rooted difficulty. Omri, the father of Ahab, carried out a coup against Zimri to become the king. He moved the capital from Shechem to Samaria.
The history of Israel goes in two lines. Solomon was the last king of a united Israel. The kingdom was divided into two after his death. His son, Rehoboam, became the king of Judah (with two tribes) with the capital in Jerusalem, while Jeroboam took over the rest of Israel (made up of the remaining 10 tribes) with the capital first at Shechem, then Samaria.
Nadab, Jeroboam’s son, became king after him (1 Kings 15), after which a coup took place and Basha became the king (1 Kings 15:27). After Basha, Elar, his son, became king and, after him, Zimri, through another coup, succeeded him. Zimri was the commander of the army when he carried out his own coup. Omri, Zimri’s Chief of Staff, also carried out another coup and became king, and after his death, Ahab, his son, took over.
King Omri walked in the ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. Jeroboam was one of the worst kings of Israel. Most of the time in the book of Kings, other kings are compared with Jeroboam. They either say the king did better than Jeroboam or worse.
Ahab, therefore, was coming from deep-rooted ancestral spiritual problems. He did almost everything that his father did. He was always being referred to as the son of Jeroboam. He worshipped idols. It was actually Jeroboam that introduced idol worship into Israel because he was afraid the people might defect to Rehoboam if they went up to Jerusalem to worship (1 Kings 12:26-33).
The problem in the life of Ahab had, therefore, been there for generations. Most Ahabs are people with serious generational problems, which later come to the surface in their lives.
Before I became a Christian, I used to have a disease called asthma. Then, one of my uncles died from asthma. My niece woke up one day and was suffering from asthma. Three or four other cousins also suffer from this disease. You, therefore, find some things running down in generations.
We have problems in our lives being caused by previous family agreements and/or covenants with one form of spirit or another. Genesis 12:1-12 shows us that the children of Israel are enjoying a previous family covenant till today, an agreement Abraham signed with God.
Some great-grandfathers have died and have committed their families to one idol or another that is now chasing the great-grandchildren all over the place. Even some environments have been tied in to some agreements that are now affecting the people of that area. Some people are under different family clouds that have to be broken. We have to condemn the spirit of Omri, which hovers over the life of Ahab in our own lives.
Ahab was the way he was because of the influence of intra family rivalry on his life
Among the children of Israel, another thing that you find is that there are lots of intra-family rivalries, especially where there is multiplicity of things like wives. Jacob, the progenitor of the Israelites, had four wives. Ahab was a child of Israel and he was therefore affected by this situation. David was a perfect example of this. There was Absalom who was a traitor, who tried to overthrow his father. Then you find Amnon who slept with his sister – committing incest. Then there was Adonijah who also had the spirit of Absalom ruling over him and wanted to take over the crown from Solomon. Intra-family rivalries generally affect the well being of an individual.
