Lessons on Ahaziah (4)—Choices and Consequences - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2025

When Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, he met the sons of Ahaziah's brothers and he killed them. He searched for Ahaziah and he was brought to Jehu and put to death.
2 Chronicles 22:8-9

Lessons on Ahaziah (4)—Choices and Consequences
Judgment came on the house of Ahab by the hand of Jehu. And because Ahaziah had been counseled to visit Joram at that very moment, he was found and killed, as also his nephews that were with him. After that, there was no one from the house of Ahaziah who could reign in Judah because they were too young. Grandmother Athaliah took the occasion to kill all the royal seed, save one that God had hidden from her, so that she could reign. The house of Ahab reigned in Judah! All this because of family links with the house of Ahab.

We can be sure that Jehoshaphat never saw this coming when he took Athaliah, Ahab's daughter, for his son Jehoram. Had he known that it would lead to the death of all his sons (by Jehoram's hand), and of all his grandsons save one (in consequence of Jehoram's sin), and all his great-grandsons save one (by the very spouse he took for his son), he probably would have thought twice.

How serious and sad when we see a believer not marrying one who is clearly a child of God, not thinking of the long-term consequences, and going against clear scriptural principles. It really is "buy now and pay later," and the payment can be very salty! Short-term joy gives place to long-term sorrow. It is a delusion to look at the exceptional cases where the other one got saved, and insanity to ignore all the cases where the other never got saved—or perhaps on their death bed, if the marriage survived that long!

Do we know the long-term consequences of all our choices? Of course not. But if we go to God, desiring sincerely to walk according to the guiding principles found in His Word, He will guide us: "This is the way, walk in it" (Isa. 30:21). Do we have choices to make today? Let us go to the Lord: it will be for our joy and for His glory!

Alexandre Leclerc