Two-Faced

2 Kings 10:29-36

²⁹ But Jehu did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin—that is, the golden calves that were in Bethel and in Dan.

³⁰ And the Lord said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes, and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.”

³¹ But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin.

³² In those days the Lord began to cut off parts of Israel. Hazael defeated them throughout the territory of Israel:

³³ from the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the Valley of the Arnon, that is, Gilead and Bashan.

³⁴ Now the rest of the acts of Jehu and all that he did, and all his might, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?

³⁵ So Jehu slept with his fathers, and they buried him in Samaria. And Jehoahaz his son reigned in his place.

³⁶ The time that Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years.

What an odd person Jehu was! He marches across Israel in a bloody coup, wiping out Baal worship throughout the land. God is pleased with the fact that Baal is gone from the landscape and tells Jehu as much. And yet, Jehu still lives a life that does not focus on God but rather on idols. His actions are incongruent and confusing. But this two-sided lifestyle is familiar. We hear a very similar concept explained by Paul in Romans 7:18-19.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Paul recognizes and confesses that there are two sides to all of us. We are people born of the Spirit and filled with His love, and yet we continue in our sin! How can such incongruent things exist in the same person? We empathize with Paul’s cry of, “the good things I want to do – I don’t! The evil things I don’t want to do – that’s what I do!” It is the tension of living the Christian life. I doubt if Jehu ever struggled with his “good” side; sounds like he let the evil have its way most of the time. His hatred didn’t extend to all idolatry, just to Baal worship. So in the end, he wasn’t truly God’s man at all.

Hopefully, we are not like Jehu. Hopefully we can relate more to the struggles of Paul who recognizes his two-sided personality and bemoans where he has failed to live for God. Jesus came to die for the fact that we can never fully defeat that sinful side of ourselves alone. We will always fall prey to evil desires while we walk this earth. But the death and resurrection of Jesus covers those sins and we are free to dwell with God for all He sees is the blood of His Son and righteousness bought for us with that blood. While our side evil tortures us here, we are not viewed through that lens by God. In His grace He sees us only through His Son and we are loved!