Transcript
First Kings 20 verse 22. First Kings 20:22.
And the prophet came to the king of Israel and said, ‘Go, strengthen yourself. Take note and see what you should do, for in the spring of the year the king of Syria will come up against you.’
And the servants of the king of Syria said to him, ‘Their gods are gods of the hills. Therefore they were stronger than we. But if we fight against them in the plain, surely we will be stronger than they. So do this: Dismiss the kings, each from his position, and put captains in their places. Muster an army like the army that you have lost, horse for horse and chariot for chariot. Then we will fight against them in the plain. Surely we will be stronger than they.’
And he listened to their voice and did so. So it was in the spring of the year that Ben-Hadad mustered the Syrians and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. And the children of Israel were mustered and given provisions, and they went against them. Now the children of Israel encamped before them like two little flocks of goats, while the Syrians filled the countryside.
Then a man of God came and spoke to the king of Israel and said, ‘Thus says the Lord: Because the Syrians have said, “The Lord is God of the hills, but He is not God of the valleys,” therefore I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’
And they encamped opposite each other for seven days. So it was that on the seventh day the battle was joined, and the children of Israel killed one hundred thousand foot soldiers of the Syrians in one day. But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city. Then a wall fell on twenty-seven thousand of the men who were left. And Ben-Hadad fled and went into the city, into an inner chamber.
And his servants said to him, ‘Look now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings. Please let us put sackcloth around our waists and ropes around our heads, and go out to the king of Israel. Perhaps he will spare your life.’ So they put sackcloth around their waists and put ropes around their heads, and came to the king of Israel and said, ‘Your servant Ben-Hadad says, “Please let me live.”’ And he said, ‘Is he still alive? He is my brother.’
Now the men were diligently watching to see whether any sign of mercy would come from him. And they quickly grasped at this word and said, ‘Your brother Ben-Hadad.’ So he said, ‘Go, bring him.’ Then Ben-Hadad came out to him, and he had him come up into the chariot. When Ben-Hadad said to him, ‘The cities which my father took from your father I will restore. And you may set up marketplaces for yourself in Damascus, as my father did in Samaria.’ Then Ahab said, ‘I will send you away with this treaty.’ So he made a treaty with him and sent him away.
Now a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to his neighbor by the word of the Lord, ‘Strike me, please.’ And the man refused to strike him. Then he said to him, ‘Because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, surely as soon as you depart from me a lion shall kill you.’ And as soon as he left him, a lion found him and killed him. And he found another man and said, ‘Strike me, please.’ So the man struck him, inflicting a wound.
Then the prophet departed and waited for the king by the road, and disguised himself with a bandage over his eyes. Now as the king passed by, he cried out to the king and said, ‘Your servant went out into the midst of the battle. And there a man came over and brought a man to me and said, “Guard this man. By any means he is missing, your life shall be for his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver.” And while your servant was busy here and there, he was gone.’ And the king of Israel said to him, ‘So shall your judgment be. You yourself have decided it.’
Then he hastened to take the bandage away from his eyes, and the king of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets. And he said to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: Because you have let slip out of your hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people.’ So the king of Israel went to his house sullen and displeased, and came to Samaria.
It seems to me during the course of our life there are critical moments where we are standing at a kind of a crossroad. We are confronted with a decision whether to go this way or to go that way. And when in fact the decision is a very important decision, and it can have a profound effect on our lives for many years ahead.
And I do not need to tell you that sometimes we do not make the right decision. And sometimes we do not even ask the right question. Now it seems to me that Ahab is a case exactly like that. Ahab has now come to a real crossroad in his personal experience as king of Israel.
Remember that he has recently witnessed the power of God’s prophetic word, the announcement by Elijah of a drought which took place for three and a half years. He has now seen God call down the power of God from heaven in his confrontation with the prophets of Baal. He has seen the power of God’s prophetic word in the way that God stands behind His word and His prophet.
But the other side of the coin is that, as we know, Ahab was married to Jezebel. And he has watched passively as this pagan woman, who was the daughter of the king of Tyre, promoted Baal worship in the land of Israel, promoted the worship of the goddess Asherah, persecuted the prophets of God, and even sent a threat to Elijah that by tomorrow Elijah would be dead.
And Ahab, it seems to me, has come to a fork in the road. But the choice will be, will he continue to be the kind of person that he has been for all of the years of his kingship so far? Will he in fact take the lessons that are obviously designed for him from the experience he has had with the prophetic word of God?
Essentially that is exactly where the twentieth chapter of the book of Kings fits in. Because in this chapter in particular, it seems to me that God is appealing to Ahab to change his whole manner of life. God does this by using two conflicts that Ahab has with the nation of Syria.
And it is very interesting, if you remember the previous passage that we looked at last time, that on both of these occasions a prophet comes to Ahab with almost the identical words each time. And he says, “Ahab, have you seen this great multitude? I will deliver it into your hand that you may know that I am the Lord. I want you to know Me,” says God. “I want you to know what it means for Me to be the Lord.”
That was a lesson then Ahab desperately needed. Now please notice that as our story opens today a prophet has warned Ahab that there will be another war by the following spring. And that the king of Syria will assemble his forces and invade Israel again.
And then the inspired writer takes us inside the council chambers of Ben-Hadad. And we listen to his advisers discussing with him their plans for the future. And what we notice is that his advisers do not say to him, “We have made a terrible mistake. We fought with the God of Israel, the God of heaven and earth, the Creator of warfare. We fought with this God. No wonder we lost.”
Of course they do not say anything like that. They are what we call polytheists. They believe in many gods. And what they do say is something like this. “We really made a mistake fighting with Israel in the mountainous regions around Samaria. Because we got into their God’s power zone. Their God is the God of the hills. But here on the plains He does not have the same kind of power He has in the hills.”
Please remember that the gods of the ancient world generally had their special sphere of activity. There was a weather god, for example. So the Syrians decide what steps to take. “We will assemble our forces. Let us get rid of the thirty-two kings and put in their places captains. And then let us assemble an army just exactly the size of the army that we used before. This time we will fight him on the plain.”
Now personally I think it was a good wise decision to get rid of thirty-two kings. Ahab thought they did too. In the first invasion they helped him to get drunk at the command center. Remember they were all drinking themselves drunk at the table and hardly prepared for the battle. So it made a lot of sense to put captains in their places.
But this improvement in the military situation does not enhance their prospects against the God of Israel one little bit. Because they have misunderstood the nature of this God. They do not know the Lord.
Now you say, “Well we are not polytheists today. So of course we do not ever think in those terms.” Or do we? You know it amuses me a lot of times I see a player getting into the batter’s box when I am watching a baseball game on TV. And a lot of the players will make the sign of the cross as they step into the batter’s box.
And I have always wondered exactly what they expected from this. Whether that would protect them from being beaned by the pitcher or help them to get a hit. Well I am pretty sure it has something to do with, you know, getting God’s power working in the batter’s box.
And how about people who drive cars and there is a crucifix hanging from their rearview mirror? Or there is a figurine of the Virgin Mary up on the dashboard? Do not they kind of think, you know, it is better to drive in a car with the crucifix than to drive in a car without a crucifix?
And even we who are not exactly in the Catholic mode of thinking, we can form the mistake of thinking that, you know, we are in a church and of course God works kind of special in the church. And even we have a tendency to assign the power of God to zones. And we forget that God’s power is the same everywhere.
God is not just the God of the hills. He is the God of the valleys. He is the God of the oceans and the mountains and the skies and the heavens and the earth. God’s power is everywhere. And people who really know that, who really know God, are people who know that.
So they assemble their army and they come up against the nation of Israel. But Ahab has had time to make preparations. And he has an army of his own which he apparently divides into two groups. But the odds are kind of daunting, do not you agree?
Because when the two parts of Ahab’s army are camped out there they look like two little flocks of goats against this huge sea of soldiers. Then a prophet comes to Ahab. And notice he does not say, “Ahab, because you have been such an outstanding king of Israel we are going to give you a victory.” No.
He says, “Because the Syrians have said that the Lord is the God of the hills but not the God of the valleys, I am going to deliver this multitude into your hand. And you shall know that I am the Lord.” In other words God is saying, “I am giving you this victory for My own name’s sake, to magnify My name in the sight of the Syrians and also to magnify it in your sight. That you may know that I am the Lord.”
Now we are in a grace church. You know you do not hear many amens. But then you are not expecting to say amen to me. So that is why we all understand that we are saved by grace and that our works have nothing to do with it. And I presume that this is something that is clear to everyone here.
But you know we fall into the trap sometimes when God gives us a real good blessing or some kind of real spiritual success. A little voice inside us says, “You know I think it is because of that God kind of approves of me. You know. And that is why He is giving me this victory. That is why He is giving me this success.”
And in fact God does what He does for His own name’s sake, to clarify His name, the name of His Son Jesus Christ. And if we do not know that, if we do not know that that is the basis on which God works, then we do not understand God. We do not know the Lord in the way that we need to know the Lord.
Was God bothered by the fact that He was going to work through two little flocks of goats here against a ghostly sea of humanity that had assembled against them? No. Because God does not need size to accomplish His work.
We are a little church, right? And if we are not careful we get a little inferiority complex because we are a little church. What does it matter if we are a little church? We have got a big God.
Do you remember when Gideon assembled thirty-two thousand people to fight with the Midianites? And that was a small force against the Midianites. God came to Gideon. He says, “You have got too many people here. If I use all these people, why then they will take credit for this victory themselves.”
“Why do not you tell people that if they are scared they can go home?” So that is what Gideon did. And he was left with ten thousand people. Twenty-two thousand people went home. And then God said, “That is still too many.” And you remember He gave him a test how they would drink water. And He told which group to be picked. And when it was all over Gideon had three hundred men. Three hundred men.
And one of the great, great victories of all military history. Not because the three hundred men were that great, but because the God of the three hundred men was greater than the army of the Midianites.
And you remember when Jesus said to the disciples one day, He had a huge crowd of people in front of Him. He said, “These people are hungry. What do we have here?” And one of His disciples said, “We have got a little boy’s lunch: five loaves and a couple of fishes. But what are these among so many?”
And you know the story. He took those loaves and fishes and fed five thousand men, not counting women and children, probably somewhere between fifteen and twenty thousand people from that little lunch.
You see when God works He works for His own name’s sake. And He works to glorify His name. And if we are willing to do what He wants us to do, He can work for us no matter how large or how small in number we are.
Well the battle took place. There was a catastrophic defeat for the Syrian forces. In one day it was like reaping grain out of a field. One hundred thousand foot soldiers were killed. We do not know what went wrong with the Syrian military organization, but something went radically wrong.
And then a whole bunch of them fled into a city. And I am assuming what they did was they retreated into the city and they put a lot of soldiers up on the walls of the city, I am guessing to defend it against the Israelites. And guess what happened? The walls collapsed. Too many soldiers probably. And twenty-seven thousand more of them died.
What a humongous, spectacular victory. And now Ben-Hadad is in hiding. He is trying to hide in the city. And his servants say to him, “You know we have heard that the kings of Israel are merciful kings.” That probably speaks pretty well for the general run of Israelite kings. This was a brutal, cruel day to be very, very ruthless.
They said, “We have heard that the Israelite kings are merciful kings. Why do not we put on sackcloth and put ropes around our heads and see if we can get the king of Israel to spare your life?” Then Ben-Hadad. And so they encounter the king of Israel as he is in his chariot. And they say to him, “Your servant Ben-Hadad says to you, ‘Please let me live.’”
And Ahab says, this is almost unbelievable, Ahab says, “Is he alive? He is my brother.” I beg your pardon. Ben-Hadad is your brother? Is not this the man who sent you a message and said, “I want all of your gold and silver, your wives and children”? And Ahab said, “Okay.” And then you sent him another message and furthermore, “My servants will go through your house and your servants’ house. Whatever they want they are going to take tomorrow.” And Ahab says, “No can do.”
And then Ben-Hadad says, “All right. I am going to come with my army and I am going to wipe Samaria off the map. There will not be enough dirt left for a handful for all of the people that follow me.” This man had twice attacked the people of God. He had twice invaded the land of Israel. He had disrespected the God of Israel by assigning His power to the hills. This man was an enemy of the Lord.
And Ahab says, “He is my brother. He is my brother.” They caught that just real quick. And there is a huge “Oh brother Ben-Hadad.” And he invites him up into the chariot. And you believe this? This is almost humorous. Because of course Ahab is in his royal battle array. And sitting next to him is the king of Syria. But he is in sackcloth, ropes around his head.
And you have got to hand it to Ben-Hadad. He is a slick one. He sees an opening when there is one. And he says to Ahab, “The cities which my father took from your father I will restore. And furthermore I will give you the privilege of doing business in the markets of Damascus like my father used to do in the markets of Samaria.”
Wow. Big deal. I mean Ben-Hadad is a virtual prisoner of war, right? His army is crushed. And he is not offering Ahab anything except the cities that were lost to Israel anyway. And offering him a little business compensation in the marketplaces of Damascus.
And Ahab says, “So I will send you away with this treaty.” And I do not know what Ben-Hadad was thinking at this point. But I think Ben-Hadad might have been saying to himself, “That proves it. There is a sucker born every day. And this man is it.”
You know I am impressed by the fact that the modern Syrians are not much different. They lost the Golan Heights to Israel in the war of 1967. They are demanding the whole thing back in return for peace. And I see even the son of Assad is still, at least at this point, maintaining that role.
Do not you think it should have occurred to Ahab to say, “It is a God who gave me this marvelous victory. And then God has put this man in my hand. I wonder what God wants me to do with him. I had better ask a prophet what I should do with Ben-Hadad.”
Would not that have been logical? Would not that have been reasonable? That was the crucial question. As far as the record is concerned Ahab never asked it.
May I suggest to you that right here Ahab is doing what comes natural to him? You see it is evident from the Bible’s picture of Ahab that he was the kind of man who could tolerate any amount of evil if he wanted to be on good terms with somebody. Is not that evident in his dealing with Jezebel?
I mean should not he have stopped her from promoting Baal worship? Could not he have stopped her from persecuting the prophets or threatening Elijah? He never does any of that. He can put up with all that. He wants peace in the home. He wants peace with his foreign wife.
And now you know this is a guy who has attacked him twice. And he is going to make peace with him on the most miserable terms you can imagine. A man who could have demanded a whole lot. And all of the wickedness that Ben-Hadad was guilty of is kind of ignored by Ahab. And he is willing to make peace.
We do not have that happen, do we? I do not know about you. But this is an area where I really have to work. You see I do not really much like confrontations. I do not really like to have to go to a person and say, “You are wrong. And what you are doing, this is a mistake. This is a sin.”
And you say, “Well what are you doing in the preaching business?” Well that is a good question. I have to do that. I am responsible to do that. And every one of us has relationships and situations in which we move where we have a responsibility to speak up for God. And if necessary to say the thing that is going to cause a little turmoil and a little trouble.
Please do not get me wrong. I am not saying that you should suddenly become a preacher or a soapbox preaching to everybody at every opportunity. I am certainly not saying that you have to be harsh and judgmental and overbearing in what you do. If you are going to confront somebody it certainly is smart to pray about it. It is certainly wise to be as gracious as you can possibly be.
But is not it true that oftentimes the people who need to hear from us the most do not hear from us? Because we do not want trouble. We want harmony. We want peace.
These have unsaved friends and relatives who have not heard from you that they need to be saved. Do you have saved friends and relatives who are very far from the Lord? And it has been a long time since there has been anything about that from you.
I am not saying this is easy. This is hard. And what Ahab ends up doing here, instead of going to God through one of His prophets and saying, “Lord, what do You want me to do with Ben-Hadad?” He does the old typical Ahab. He makes peace at the expense of justice and doing the right thing.
You understand this balance here. I do not like people who are always confrontational and who are harsh and overbearing. But we have responsibilities and we need to meet them.
So Ben-Hadad is gone. And Ahab is riding back to his palace. Meanwhile something is happening that is kind of interesting. A prophet of God goes to his neighbor. And he speaks to his fellow prophet. He says, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Strike me, please.’”
I do not know. If a prophet came to you and said, “Hit me,” I do not know. I do not think there is anybody here for whom that would be a natural action. And so this neighbor says, “I will not do it. I will not hit you.” And the prophet says, “Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord, when you leave me a lion will meet you and kill you.” And that is what happened. He was killed by a lion.
Obvious lesson. Obeying the will of God for us is not always pleasant. The confrontations we are talking about are not always easy. But if that is something that God wants me to do, it is more dangerous not to do it than it is to do it.
So the prophet turns to somebody else. And he says, “Strike me, please.” I am sure he announces this is the will of God. The guy did it and wounded him, apparently in the head. And then this prophet wraps up the wound in such a way that he kind of conceals his eyes. And he stands there by the roadside as the king is riding by.
The superlative, a common people appeal to the king from the side of the road or wherever they were if they could get his ear. And so as the king rides by, this disguised prophet says, “O king, I want to tell you my situation. Your servant, me, I was out in the battle. And a man came to me and handed me a man. And he said, ‘Guard this man. And if he escapes it will be your life for that man’s life, or you will pay me a talent of silver.’
And while your servant was busy here and there he was gone.” And Ahab says, “That is easy. No problem. Your own statement has determined your judgment. You agreed to a situation where it would be your life for that man’s life, or you would pay a talent of silver. That is your judgment. That is my decision about it.”
Easy for Ahab to say, right? And then the prophet tears off the bandage. And he says, “Listen, brother, you are the guy that has done that.” Thus says the Lord, “You have allowed to slip out of your hand a man that I appointed for utter destruction. So it is going to be your life for his life and your people for his people.”
Did you know that Ahab died in battle with Syria at the end of his career? As another war with Syria. And a Syrian archer fires an arrow at nothing in particular, the general enemy. And it lands in the chariot of Ahab. And he dies from the wound.
What is the bottom line of this story? Well the bottom line of the story seems to me that God gave to Ahab a very spectacular success that demonstrated the authority and truthfulness of God’s word. And then Ahab took the success and messed it up. Because he did not even ask what God wanted him to do with the victory that God had given him. He missed the turn in the road.
This could have been the place at which Ahab decided, “From now on I am going to let myself be led by the prophets of God. I am going to let them lead me in the crucial decisions of life. Obviously God can help me and give me victory. I will find out what He wants me to do with Ben-Hadad and I will do it.” And that is not what he did.
Did you know that one of the most dangerous times in your life and my life spiritually speaking is when we are successful? You see when we are having problems that is kind of natural. It should be kind of natural to turn to God. Our problems, right? We need help.
But when God has given us blessing, when He has given us victories, accomplishments not only in the natural world but also in the spiritual realm and Christian experience, now how easy it is for us to say, “Okay I am going to do this and I am going to do that.” We never think. We never ask, “What is it that God wants me to do with this victory? How does He expect me to use this blessing or this benefit for His glory?”
Someone has said, “In order to be successful in the economic marketplace you do not have to be the first on board. But you should not miss the train.” And if I could translate that into spiritual terms, in order to be successful in the Christian life you do not have to be the first on board. You do not have to be the first to know all the truth that God wants you to know. But what you do not want to do is miss the train and never learn it at all.
Now I was thinking, how can I illustrate this? And here I get down to a very mundane thing. I am moving tomorrow to a new apartment. And you say, “Well if that is the greatest success you can think of recently that is not much.” And I agree it is not much.
But I have been in this apartment for ten years. And it is kind of run down. And I am embarrassed to have people over in the apartment where I am. And I could have asked the landlord to paint it. I think they would have. But I had to move all my stuff, which was not really worth the trouble. And I would rather move it all into a place they have already repainted, that sort of thing.
And so I am going to move tomorrow into this new apartment. And I have been praying about the apartment for some time. And I considered moving out of the complex. I decided to stay in the same complex. And I consider it a blessing from God to get to move. You know that is a blessing.
Now if all I thought about was, you know, “I am going to enjoy this apartment and be comfortable here. And there is going to be a whole lot nicer.” I think I have missed the train. I think one of the things I have to do is to ask myself, “Now that I am in this apartment, is there anything I can do with the apartment, this new apartment, that I could not do with the old apartment that might be useful to God?”
I think I have to ask myself that question. I think I have to consider that in the light of the word of God. And then I am going to pray about that. Because this blessing is not just for myself. As far as it is, it is for God’s name’s sake. He is doing that for me. But not for me but so that my life can be more meaningful and more productive and more for Him.
Who knows? We are having trouble finding places to hold the question-and-answer sessions. I am considering offering my place as soon as I get everything straightened up. It may not be big enough. I understand they would not go to Abby’s because it is a little small. And maybe they will reject mine for the same reason. But maybe you will be able to come out there and we will be happy to host you in the new apartment.
What success has God given you recently? What blessing or benefit? And what have you done with those blessings for His glory?