Dear Friends,
Today’s devotional calls on us to cheer about judgment! What, you may say! Yes judgment – that without there can be no heaven where nothing that defiled can enter in. Think about it. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,
John Janney

• I Kings 22:34-38 (ESV)

  34 But a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate. Therefore he said to the driver of his chariot, “Turn around and carry me out of the battle, for I am wounded.” 35 And the battle continued that day, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Syrians, until at evening he died. And the blood of the wound flowed into the bottom of the chariot. 36 And about sunset a cry went through the army, “Every man to his city, and every man to his country!”

  37 So the king died, and was brought to Samaria. And they buried the king in Samaria. 38 And they washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked up his blood, and the prostitutes washed themselves in it, according to the word of the Lord that he had spoken.

“In our family devotions we once read about the terrible deaths of Ahab and Jezebel. We were reading a solid Calvinist story Bible at the time, so no detail was spared. We read how Ahab was struck by a random arrow and bled to death in his chariot, where the dogs later licked his blood (I Kings 22:34-38). We read how Jezebel was thrown down from a parapet for the wild dogs to devour her flesh (2 Kings 9:30-37). When we finished the story a little cheer went up from our dinner table as my four-year-old son said, ‘Yay!’

“Frankly, I was shocked. Ahab and Jezebel met such bloody ends, it hardly seemed right to celebrate. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that God’s victory is something to cheer about. Ahab and Jezebel were the sworn enemies of God. They slaughtered God’s prophets and led his people into idolatry. Therefore, it was perfectly holy and absolutely just for God to destroy them.” [Philip Graham Ryken, “Jeremiah and Lamentations: From Sorrow to Hope,” Preaching the Word edited by R. Kent Hughes, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books 2001), p. 654-655]