To Do What Is Evil

"I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD." -1 Kings 21:20b


This is NOT a political diatribe.

I browse facebook mainly to keep up with what is going on with friends and family, especially those I don't get to see all that often.

I did see something interesting today. I friend of long standing and one whose intelligence I greatly admire shared an article positing that there may be instances of demonic possession in the U.S. congress.

And while I tend to believe that there are "things goin' on that you don't know," I have one quibble with the notion put forth in the article.

This may be just me being nit-picky, but I understand the idea of possession to be an involuntary thing. Filmic images of poor innocent Regan or Emily Rose or countless others ( there must be thousands of these productions) come to mind and each of these is being victimized by the forces of evil.

If you will allow the premise that there IS demonic activity in the halls of Congress, then I believe what we have here is another thing entirely.

Could we begin with the understanding that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart is only evil all the time?

Heard a great sermon this past Sunday wherein the pastor informed us that marriage is not a competition, but the uniting of a man and woman into "one flesh."

Power and control. Is this not a temptation for the best(?) of us?

How much more so, do you suppose, in a place where these have become idols?

And one thing we know about the worship of idols is that it involves a conscious choice. As in the story of Ahab's confrontation
with Elijah.

Choices were made.

And here is my quibble: in the article, the spirit of Jezebel is cited as the source of the wickedness in high places. Yet the 1 Kings account sets forth a constant chain of conscious decision-making, each step leading to the next and so on to the end of the story.

You may say that Jezebel was possessed by demons, but it seems more likely that she was ruled by the desire to control her world.

A self-destructive tendency, in our personal situations as well as in the public realm.

And so we pray. And we vote. And we have these discussions, though it seems that personal contact is preferable to the public forum.

I do have one political observation after all, if you will allow it: would it not be beneficial to our legislators if we removed them, on a regular basis, from the temptations we have mentioned?