Transcript
First Kings chapter 22, verses 1 through 30.
Now three years passed without war between Syria and Israel. Then it came to pass, in the third year, that Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went down to visit the king of Israel. And the king of Israel said to his servants, ‘Do you know that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, but we hesitate to take it out of the hand of the king of Syria?’ So he said to Jehoshaphat, ‘Will you go with me to fight at Ramoth-gilead?’
Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, ‘I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.’ Also Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, ‘Please inquire for the word of the Lord today.’
Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, ‘Shall I go against Ramoth-gilead to fight, or shall I refrain?’ So they said, ‘Go up, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.’
And Jehoshaphat said, ‘Is there not still a prophet of the Lord here that we may inquire of him?’ So the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘There is still one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the Lord. But I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.’
And Jehoshaphat said, ‘Let not the king say such things.’ Then the king of Israel called an officer and said, ‘Bring Micaiah the son of Imlah quickly.’
The king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, having put on their robes, were each on his throne at a threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria. And all the prophets prophesied before them. Now Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah had made horns of iron for himself. And he said, ‘Thus says the Lord: With these you shall gore the Syrians until they are destroyed.’
And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, ‘Go up to Ramoth-gilead and prosper, for the Lord will deliver it into the king’s hand.’
Then the messenger who had gone to call Micaiah spoke to him, saying, ‘Now listen, the words of the prophets with one accord encourage the king. Please let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak encouragement.’
And Micaiah said, ‘As the Lord lives, whatever the Lord says to me, that I will speak.’ Then he came to the king. And the king said to him, ‘Micaiah, shall we go to war against Ramoth-gilead, or shall we refrain?’ And he answered him, ‘Go and prosper, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.’
So the king said to him, ‘How many times shall I make you swear that you tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?’ Then he said, ‘I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, These have no master. Let each return to his house in peace.’
And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?’
Then Micaiah said, ‘Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left. And the Lord said, Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth-gilead? So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner.
Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. The Lord said to him, In what way? So he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.’
Therefore look! The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the Lord has declared disaster against you.’
Now Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near and struck Micaiah on the cheek, and said, ‘Which way did the spirit from the Lord go from me to speak to you?’
And Micaiah said, ‘Indeed you shall see on that day when you go into an inner chamber to hide.’
So the king of Israel said, ‘Take Micaiah, and return him to Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king’s son. And say, Thus says the king: Put this fellow in prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and water of affliction, until I come in peace.’
But Micaiah said, ‘If you ever return in peace, the Lord has not spoken by me.’ And he said, ‘Take heed, all you people!’
So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went up to Ramoth-gilead. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘I will disguise myself and go into battle, but you put on your robes.’ So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle.
The title of my talk this afternoon is “Getting God to Agree with Us.” And since I always think my titles are important, for repetition let me give it to you again: Getting God to Agree with Us.
I suspect that most of us sitting around this table, including your speaker this afternoon, have at some time or another made a decision that we are going to do this or that. And then we said to ourselves, “Well, let me check the Bible.” And we searched through four verses that would support our decision. Or maybe we went to a pastor or a spiritual counselor, and we hoped they would tell us, “Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. The Lord approves of that. Go ahead and do it.”
I say I suspect most of us have probably done something similar to that at one time or another. And I’m going to suggest to you that that is a very dangerous procedure to follow. And perhaps the best illustration of it is found in the last major story in the life of Ahab that is presented to us in the Book of Kings. The story that we have just read a few moments ago.
As this story opens, three years had passed since Ahab’s last war with Syria. And he is entertaining a real guest who happens to be Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. Now we haven’t met Jehoshaphat yet, but we will meet him later in the chapter. He came to the throne in the fifth year of King Ahab’s reign, and he outlasted Ahab by approximately sixteen years. And the thing that is outstanding about Jehoshaphat is that he was a godly, God-fearing king. The Bible says he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord.
But Jehoshaphat had one little weakness which emerges from his life story. He had a tendency to hook up with the wrong people and the wrong kinds of projects. And that is certainly very graphically illustrated in the story that we have read today.
Now we discover here that this is taking place in the gate of the city of Samaria. And remember that in the ancient Middle East and Israel many important transactions were carried out in the gate of a city. So the two kings are out there in the gate. Each of them is sitting on a throne. Each of them is dressed in their royal robes. And in all probability Ahab is holding court. He is receiving petitions and pleas and cases that come to him from the people. And probably from time to time he looks to Jehoshaphat to ask his advice and flatter his royal visitor.
And sometimes in the course of this procedure Ahab says to his servants, “You men realize,” his counselors, we are probably talking about here, “do you men realize that the city of Ramoth-gilead really belongs to us? And it’s in the hands of the king of Syria. And we are not taking it out of his hands.” And so he turns to Jehoshaphat and he says, “Would you like to go up with me to Ramoth-gilead and help me take Ramoth-gilead out of the hands of the king of Syria?”
And then I pause here to give you some information that is not found in the Bible. You know we often ask the question, “How does the Bible line up with history as we run it outside of the Bible?” And a lot of times in nations that at least we don’t have a lot of information. But in this case we’ve got some very interesting background information that helps us in a way to understand the story.
Apparently this is taking place approximately in the year 853 B.C. And not long after one of the famous battles of ancient Middle Eastern history, which was the battle called Carcar. Now the Bible doesn’t mention the Battle of Carcar, or at least we don’t remember it from an inscription that was commissioned by Shalmaneser the third, the king of Assyria. And the battle of Carcar was between the forces of the king of Assyria, and Assyria was a rising power in the Middle East at this time. They were only going to cause Israel a lot of trouble. But this was early in Assyria’s rise to power.
And the forces of the king of Assyria on one side. And then there was an alliance of kings of these nations that were kind of scattered along, and very loosely speaking, the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. And in the inscription of Shalmaneser the third we hear about Hadadezer of Damascus, probably the same guy who is called Ben-Hadad here. We hear about Irhuleni the king of Hamath. Hamath was a city well north of Damascus. We hear about Gindibu of Arabia. And that is really interesting to us. We hear about Ahab of Israel.
Now in the inscription of Shalmaneser the third he tells us what forces each of these kings have. It turns out that Hadadezer of Damascus contributed twelve hundred chariots to the battle of Carcar. And Irhuleni of Hamath contributed seven hundred chariots. They have, much to our surprise, contributed two thousand chariots. In other words Ahab had more than half of the chariot forces that went into the battle of Carcar. Just to keep the story complete, Gindibu of Arabia didn’t have any chariots or any infantry. But he contributed a thousand camels. And I presume they had fighters on them, although they were probably a big surprise to the Assyrians at Carcar.
And so what we really discover from that is that during the three years of peace that Ahab had with Syria he has greatly readied his military machine. And he is now, from some points of view, stronger militarily than the king of Syria.
Now Shalmaneser claims that he won the battle. Broad Old Testament scholars think he may have been exaggerating a little bit, because this seems to have dealt a heavy blow to the Assyrian war machine. And their rise to power was slowed down for a few years. But one can understand that if the battle of Carcar occurred and Ahab has gone into it with better equipment, better economy than the kingdom of Syria, he now thinks, “Hey, what am I leaving Ramoth-gilead under the control of the king of Syria? But we’ve met over here on the other side of the Jordan. Let’s go get it. We can get it.” He’s very confident that he can do it.
That little extra-biblical background gives us some understanding here. And so he turns to Jehoshaphat and he says, “How about it, Jehoshaphat? Man, come along. Fight with me against the king of Syria.” And Jehoshaphat says, “I am as you are. My people are as your people. My horses are as your horses.” Oh, the next thing he says is, “Do you think we could ask the Lord’s advice on this?”
There, talk about leaping before you look. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. What he should have said is, “Let’s talk. Let’s get the Lord’s advice on this first.” But no, Jehoshaphat says, “Yeah, I’m with you on that. Wait a minute. Could we possibly get counsel from the Lord?” So Ahab said, “Why not?” And he gathers the prophets of the Lord in front of Jehoshaphat and himself.
And guess what, folks? There are four hundred. About four hundred prophets of the Lord. Does that impress you? Yeah, that impresses me quite a bit. Remember early in Ahab’s reign there were four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal. And there were four hundred prophets of Asherah. They all ate at Jezebel’s table. The prophets of Baal don’t come to dinner anymore, because they’re dead. And we don’t know what happened to the prophets of Asherah. They may also have been executed. Or maybe they ran for the hills when they saw what happened to the prophets of Baal.
Remember that Jezebel has been a persecutor of the prophets of God. And remember Obadiah, the head of the palace, told Elijah, “Don’t you know how, when Jezebel was killing the Lord’s prophets, how I took fifty of them and hid them in one cave and fifty of them and hid them in another?” But now the prophets of Baal are out, and the prophets of Asherah are nowhere to be seen. And the prophets of the Lord are there, four hundred of them.
And so Ahab says, “Shall we go up to Ramoth-gilead to battle or not?” And all the prophets say to him, “Go up and prosper, because the Lord will deliver it into the king’s hand.” They all agree: “Go up there and prosper, because God will give you the victory.” One little problem, folks. One little difficulty. They are all lying. Every single last one of them is lying. The prophets of the Lord are lying.
You know what is really surprising today? We have so many religious people who just can’t bring themselves to believe that anybody would ever tell a lie in the name of the Lord. And if they look nice and sophisticated on TV, if they have a very sanctimonious manner, if they tell you how the Holy Spirit has spoken to them, it couldn’t be a lie, could it? Could it? Lying in the name of the Lord, my friends, is one of the oldest sinful habits of man. And every one of these prophets is doing it.
Now to Jehoshaphat’s credit he feels something is fishy in Denmark. And after four hundred of them, three hundred and ninety-nine of them have said, “Go up and, you know, be successful,” Jehoshaphat turns to him and says, “Is there any other prophet of the Lord that we could possibly ask?” “Yes,” says Ahab. “There is. His name is Micaiah the son of Imlah. I can’t stand him. I hate him, because every time he prophesies to me he tells me something bad and never tells me anything good.”
So how should that verbalize? This is all, “Don’t talk like that. I hate this man,” says Ahab. “He’s always getting under my skin. He’s always telling me something I don’t want to hear. I like these other four hundred prophets better, because, you know, they’re telling me what I want to hear.” Does that ever happen today? Yeah, you bet.
Somebody says, “You know, I can’t stand that preacher. Every time he preaches he gets under my skin. And I feel like he’s got me. And he makes me feel miserable. And I hate going to meetings where that guy’s preaching. I want to go over here to this church. And he always makes me feel good. He tells me all the things I want to hear.” You know, stuff like that.
Well, how about this? A young couple come to you and they say, “We want to get married.” And you find out that one of them knows the Lord and the other doesn’t. And you say to them, “I’m sorry. God doesn’t allow a marriage like that. I can’t marry you.” And what’s going to happen? “Man, I’ve been a member of that church since I was a kid. They didn’t perform my marriage. That’s the last time that church can do.” Does that ever happen? Yeah. I could even mention names. It happens.
Or here comes a spouse. And the spouse says, “You know, I can’t stand my spouse. It could be either man or woman, doesn’t matter which. And I’ve made up my mind to get a divorce. I’m not staying with that guy or gal anymore.” And you say to them, “Sorry, the Bible doesn’t allow you to do that. You don’t have grounds for divorce.” And what happens? “Who does he think he is telling me I can’t get a divorce? I believe he’s interpreting the Bible right. I’m gonna ignore that. I’m gonna get rid of that spouse of mine if I can’t stand this person anymore.”
“I hate Micaiah. He never tells me what I want to hear. He always gives me the bad news.” But an expose of the heart of Ahab. He wants to hear his God agrees with you, Ahab. “Yeah, that’s a good plan. Go for it. Go for it. You’ll be successful.”
So reluctantly Ahab sends for Micaiah the son of Imlah. And among the four hundred prophets there’s a real showman whose name is Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah. And while they’re waiting for Micaiah to arrive, he will show his stuff. He’s made some iron horns. And we’re not to think he performs like a bull or anything. They are a pair of iron horns in the form that you would see them on an ox’s head. With their iron replica of an ox and horns. So he’s walking up and down in front of the kings and shoving these horns forward. And he says, “Thus says the Lord: This is how you’re going to gore the Syrians. This is how you’re going to defeat them.”
And what are the other prophets doing while he’s doing this? “Amen, brother. Amen. Hallelujah. Go for it, Ahab. Go for it. Go for it.” I’m exaggerating a little bit, but not very much. I think you realize, right? A showman like this. Too bad he’s dead. He would have been great on television. Maybe had his own program or something like that. He’s a real showboat. And he’s the leading liar of the pack.
So the messenger goes to get Micaiah and tells him the king wants him. And then the messenger says to Micaiah, “Can I give you a little hint? Would you mind me giving you a suggestion? All of the other prophets are saying something that is very encouraging to the king. So please, please, let your word be like the word of one of them. Don’t be the wet rag.” And Micaiah replied, “Sure. Why not? The Lord knows that. Remember, by saying it, why don’t I say it too?” Well, that’s not what Micaiah says, right? Micaiah says, “As the Lord lives, whatever the Lord says to me, that will I speak.”
Do you see the situation here? Four hundred prophets and only one man really and truly committed to quoting the word of God. You know, I suspect the proportions are very similar in our world today. You can find out just by taking your channel surfer or turning the dial of your radio back and forth. How do you tell whether they’re lying? They don’t speak in accordance with the word of God. And how wonderful it is to meet people who are committed to say just what God says and doesn’t matter if it pleases the audience or doesn’t please the audience. They’re going to give the word of God. And that was Micaiah.
So we are surprised at the next part of the story, because when he comes in front of Ahab, observe. All right, Micaiah, “Shall we go up to Ramoth-gilead to battle or not?” Now, folks, I think that Micaiah’s answer was dripping with sarcasm, dripping with irony. And he says, “Go and prosper.” And I’m sure he did it much better than I’m doing. But you understand when I try to do it. “Right there and prosper, because…” And Ahab isn’t a fool. He says, “But there is. How many times do I have to make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?” Hey, that’s the kind of surprising statement. It sounds like he’s told Micaiah before, “Micaiah, tell me the truth. Tell me the truth.”
And I doubt very much if Micaiah all the time used sarcasm. I doubt that very much. So I think what this really means is that when Micaiah would come along with his message and bad news for Ahab, Ahab would say, “I would believe that. Do you swear by the Lord that the truth is I’ve been doing that ever since we met?” That’s what he’s kind of saying. “Yeah.” And so, “Please, please, please tell me the truth.” We’re anemic. Ahab had been telling him the truth. But this pretty well indicates that Ahab did not have a disposition to believe it when he heard the truth from Micaiah.
So then Micaiah said it. In fact, “Tell it to me straight.” And Micaiah tells it straight. “I saw Israel scattered on the mountains, and they were like sheep without a shepherd. And the Lord said to me, ‘These have no master. Let them go home in peace.’” The message is that you’re going to die up there, Ahab.
Ahab turns to Jehoshaphat. “Didn’t I tell you so? That’s exactly what I said. He’s going to tell something negative about me.”
And then, my friends, in my judgment the next words of Micaiah describe one of the most remarkable prophetic visions that you’ll find anywhere in the Bible. Micaiah says to Ahab, “Now therefore hear the word of the Lord.” And then he describes this scene. He says, “I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and He was surrounded by the angelic hosts in heaven. And the Lord said to the angels, ‘Who will persuade Ahab to go up to Ramoth-gilead so that he can be killed there?’ And one angel made this suggestion. Another angel made that suggestion. Another angel made that suggestion. And finally a spirit comes out and stands before the Lord. And the spirit says, ‘I’ll persuade him.’ And the Lord says, ‘How will you do that?’ And the spirit says, ‘I will go out and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets.’ And the Lord says, ‘You will be successful. Go and do so.’”
I said this was an impressive vision. But also, well, personally, don’t you agree, a little puzzling? And we might not be able to understand it if we didn’t already know the first two chapters of the Book of Job. Remember in the Book of Job that God is on His throne in His throne room. The angels, the sons of God, are in His presence. And Satan comes. And Satan says, “The only reason that Job serves You is because You’re giving him all these blessings. Just take all those blessings away and he’ll curse You to Your face.” And God says, “All right. Be that, but don’t touch him.” So you know the story. He did it, and Job didn’t curse Him. And so on.
Another occasion when the sons of God are in the presence of the Lord, Satan comes back. And God says, “Have you noticed how faithful My servant Job is?” And Satan says, “Well, that’s because You will not let me touch his skin. For skin for skin, all that a man has he will give for his well-being physically.” God says, “You can touch his body, but you must reserve his life.” And Satan goes out and does it. And of course he fails again.
I suggest to you that that is the background against which we should understand the story. These are the angels of God gathered in front of God’s throne. The spirit who steps out in front of God is either Satan or one of Satan’s angels. Because he is not intending to do something that a holy angel would do. And that is to be a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab’s prophets. And he is just asking permission to Satan to do that. Satan wanted to do that. He is giving permission to the spirit to do exactly that.
Now you say to me, “Why would Satan want to cooperate with God’s judgment on Ahab?” I think the answer is pretty simple when you look at this story as a whole. Please understand that as far as Satan was concerned Ahab was a disposable commodity. Don’t think for a minute Satan cares about his tools. You can throw them aside when he’s finished with them. If Ahab dies, no sweat. Ahaziah his son has come to the throne, and he’s a wicked guy too. So there’s nothing to be lost if Satan does this.
I want to suggest to you that the real object of Satan’s activity here is Jehoshaphat the godly king. Satan sees here an opportunity to pull Jehoshaphat into a war and get him killed, because he’s a man of God. He’s a man who does what is right in the sight of the Lord. Remember when Ahab at the beginning of the story says to Jehoshaphat, “Will you go up with me to fight against Ramoth-gilead?” Even here on earth Satan is behind that, putting the idea in Jehoshaphat’s mind. He knows Jehoshaphat’s weakness. And Jehoshaphat jumps for it.
And as you notice later in the verses we read, after they decide to go up to Ramoth-gilead, Ahab says to Jehoshaphat, “I’m gonna disguise myself when I go into battle, but you put on your royal robes.” And twins battle the sucker born every day. Do this. Well, we’ll talk about it maybe next time. But obviously Ahab is, you know, thinking that maybe he can get through the battle unobserved. But he doesn’t have too much interest in the protection of Jehoshaphat. And God preserves Jehoshaphat, and it is Ahab who is killed.
And what I suggest to you is, and this is another illustration of the fact that government is stated only insofar as God’s purposes are worked out by what Satan is doing. And Satan was not allowed to do things which God would not permit Satan to do. God designed this battle to bring about the death of Ahab, not to bring about the death of Jehoshaphat. And Jehoshaphat lives and Ahab dies.
But notice the bottom line of this story for Ahab. Micaiah says, “Now therefore what the Lord has put a lying spirit into the mouth of your prophets, because the Lord has declared this against you. I just want you to know, Ahab, that the reason these prophets are lying to you is because God has permitted them to become liars in your presence, because God is leading you to disaster.” That’s telling it pretty straight, isn’t it? That’s telling it pretty straight. I mean, even if you had any kind of sense that this guy might be speaking for God, you would have said, “You know, we’re not going into this campaign.”
But notice what Ahab does. He turns to his officers and he says, “You know, arrest this man. Take him to Amon the governor. Take him to Joash the king’s son. Feed him with bread of affliction and water of affliction until I come in peace. Then I get back here safely. See that he has just the bare minimum to keep him alive. I hope there’s Ahab saying, ‘I don’t believe you. I believe what you’re telling me is true. I’m gonna go to battle. And not only am I going to go to battle, I’m going to come back. And I’m just better they’re going to keep you alive so that you would be there to see me when I return.’”
Okay, Micaiah, you know what happens to us, my friends, when we fall into the trap of making up our minds we’re going to do something and making up our minds we’re going to really, really believe that God is behind it. When we make our own minds like that without being open to the word of God, we are setting ourselves up for deception. We’re setting ourselves up for Satan. We’re setting ourselves up for disaster.
And it’s awfully easy for us when we have approached an issue with self-will, with a determination to do this. “I’m going to do this. And so I’m just going to believe that God is with me in it, whether He is or not.” You push that to the back of your mind and you say, “I’m going to go ahead with it anyway. I don’t believe what the preacher is telling me. I don’t believe that my other spiritual counselors are coming. I’m gonna ignore that. When I’ll come through all right, you watch and see. I’ll be through it okay.”
And Micaiah replies, “If you come back at all in peace, then the Lord has not spoken by me. You will not come back.” There’s Micaiah. And then he turns to the people. “Won’t you people hear this? This is what God said.”
That’s the bottom line. The bottom line is that all of us at any time as we make our decisions must be open to the word of God. And we must be open to the correction of the word of God. We must be open to the rules and principles of the word of God. And we must be committed to abide by those even if we do not like it. Because otherwise we are inviting personal disaster.
And then I told you one time about the man and the wife that I was visiting one time. And the wife said she was a prophetess. But she both prophesied in the name of the Lord and she spoke in church. So I quoted to her the verse in First Corinthians that says, “Let the women keep silence in the church, because it is not permitted to them to speak.” You know what she said to me? She said, “Paul wrote that because he didn’t like women. He wrote that because he didn’t like women.”
And I, as I recall, I said something to her about this was the word of God. No, she wasn’t having any of it. She had made up her mind she was a prophetess. She had made up her mind she was going to speak in church. And it didn’t matter what God said. It didn’t matter what the apostles said. She was going to do it.
Well, why? There’s the story of years ago. This was because they wouldn’t do it today. But years ago there was a weekly paper that was published out west. And in addition the editor ran short of material. And so he made the decision, like I said we wouldn’t do it today, but he made the decision to print the Ten Commandments in the empty space. They printed the Ten Commandments without any comment. Just, you know, that’s just the Ten Commandments.
Three days after the paper was published they got a communication from one of the readers and said, “Please cancel my subscription. You’re getting too personal.” That’s the problem with the word of God, isn’t it, folks? It is too personal. It strikes us where we are. It strikes us where we live. It strikes us in the things we want to do. It’s too personal for us. But we have to listen. Or experience this. “Asking the Lord has put a lying spirit into the mouth of your prophets, because the Lord has pronounced disaster against you.”
Questions and comments?