Thank you for listening to this sermon from Seven Springs Presbyterian Church. If you want to learn more about us, please find us on Facebook or visit us at sevenspringspresbyterian.com. So we begin chapter 22 tonight, a new chapter but we see the same problem repeat over again as a new chapter, a new story, a new problem, another war, another battle yet what we see is very similar to what we've seen in the previous chapters. We'd seen the war between Syria and Israel. chapter 20 and twice the Lord saved Israel through their small army. We are reminded at that conclusion with the peace that was made between Ben-Hadad and Ahab and how they made a covenant with one another. Ahab was meant to destroy Ben-Hadad but instead he became his friend. And And so we are not clearly obviously going to get through this whole chapter you can tell already before even looking at it but you knew that. But we will get to probably about verse 12 tonight but we need to always keep in mind what is happening in these several last chapters in 1 Kings. The main theme as we will have an intermission in the middle. But we reminded of what happens when we begin verse 13 next time. But again we need to be reminded why are these stories put together at the end of 1 Kings. The stories are put together not merely just for word count, not merely for show. The editor thought they were great stories so why not just include them. They are in there for a reason and their theological reason is mainly that you see the The common interaction between all of these things that runs parallel, the parable you might say, these different situations, but each situation involves a prophet, that we need to be able to see how Ahab responds to prophets. And each chapter brings up a problem, an issue, a sin or something that comes up, how does Ahab deal with that? Last week we looked at the end of Naboth's vineyard and how the prophet came and Ahab turns and repents. Elijah confronts him, he repents, but as we saw it was not evangelical or true repentance, it was merely just a natural or legal repentance that he turns all external. external sorrowing up as Thomas Watson puts it. He didn't have that humble heart, birthed by God's grace and no external change, external reform as Watson puts it. And that's why I think we see this passage that follows as well. It helps us to be able to see is that external change happened. You can see repentance is not merely just a time of sorrow, feeling sorry for our sin as the children's catechism puts it, but turning from our sin, hating our sin, forsaking our sin. And so that's what we're looking at now. How does Ahab respond now after a prophet has come and we see this external repentance, we get to be able to see is there fruit on this tree of repentance that he has? to see. So let's begin in verse 1 we see that for three years Syria and Israel continue without war. But in the third year Jehoshaphat the king of Judah came down to the king of Israel. So we are reminded here of the three key players that will come apart in this story, Syria, Israel. Like I said we met them in chapter 20. We know this relationship here. This relationship of peace has become because Israel and Ben-Hadad, Syria has made a covenant with one another. And so there is a time of peace. between them. And so we are reminded of that but here we have Jehoshaphat the King of Israel. And so we've studied those portions where we are fresh in our minds who Syria is, who Israel is. But we are just out of the blue we are reminded once more about Judah, that southern kingdom that we had somewhat forgotten about. King Jehoshaphat who we have met before. But as my grandma would say I've been asleep since then so therefore I've forgotten. And so let's kind of remember a little bit about who Jehoshaphat is. Now, I'll give you a little bit of a one-off. We only met him in one verse, and we don't know much about him up to this point. But Asa, as we studied Asa, He went to sleep with His father in chapter 15 verse 24. He is buried with His father in the city of David, His father. And Jehoshaphat His son reigned in His place. That's what we know. We know that Jehoshaphat is the King of Judah. He is the King of Judah who is the son of Asa. Asa is a good king although he doesn't demolish all the high places he still is a good king. And so, we actually find out more about him at the end of chapter 22. So, we can kind of ahead and kind of get this spoiler alert about finding out about who he is. Jehoshaphat the son of Asa in verse 41-44 began to raid over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel. So, he is quite young at this early time. Ahab has a long reign. But here Jehoshaphat comes in towards the end of Ahab's reign and four years into the reign of Ahab So Jehoshaphat was 35 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 25 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Azuba and a daughter of Shehi. And he walked in the way of Asa his father. He did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord. the high places were not taken away and the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. Jehoshaphat also made peace with the King of Israel." So, here we see Jehoshaphat is one of the good kings that we see. He doesn't take away the high places. This is often a marker of complete reform. This is still a marker of they are good, they do what is good in the sight of the Lord, but yet there are still some things that linger. and so they don't take away those high places. Now we learn more about Jehoshaphat, we don't learn a lot about him in 1 and 2 Kings. We learn a lot more about him in 2 Chronicles chapter 17 and 22. We'll study that probably in about 7 and a half years if my reckoning is correct. But here they have peace. They've got peace in between Syria and Israel for this period of three years. And Jehoshaphat then goes down to Ahab, the king of Israel. Now, we often think when we're talking about up and down, we're talking about north and south. But here, he goes down, but when he goes down, he goes north. and that might seem like a strange thing for us, but we need to, they're not thinking about north and south, they're thinking about elevation. Jerusalem where Jehoshaphat reigned and where he lived is about 24,000, 25,000 feet above sea level. That's, you know, many of the cities around here don't quite get to that high. You know, Asheville is 2200 or something like that. And so we're close to that point. But then Samaria is only 800 feet above sea level. So when they talk about going down, they're literally meaning going down. And so that's why they call them the Psalms of Ascent, is because when they're going up to Jerusalem for their celebrations, they might be going south, but they're going up. and they're going up and as they're singing these psalms, a pretty impressive feat if you think about it, that's quite a high elevation gain, and yet they're singing psalms. It's a challenge for us to be able to sing psalms, but here they are walking and singing. So we see this here that we're introduced again to Jehoshaphat, he plays a key role in this that helps us again with this understanding of this relationship between prophets and kings, specifically the king of Israel, how does he relate to prophets and the king of Judah and how he relates to prophets. So, then we get this conflict that happens in this passage that stems and rises to all these issues. There is peace in verses 1 and 2, And the king of Israel said to his servants, Do you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us? And we kept quiet and do not take it out of the hand of King of Syria. And so here I have, he's already, he's gotten what he wants with Naboth's vineyard and maybe he's fueled by this passion and now he's ready to be able to get this city, Ramoth Gilead. Now Ramoth Gilead is an important city. Not really for any theological reasons. Often you might find a city name. It's helpful to be able to go find out what happened to this city. Sometimes this is a city where, you know, Gilead and Samuel in 1 Samuel chapter 8 a great high point at the Mountain of the Lord, Sinai in 1 Kings chapter 19 important theological position not merely just that it is a mountain but what happened to this mountain, the people made a covenant with God. And so this isn't really an important mountain, a place when we talk about theological reasons. is where Jacob swears an oath to Laban in Genesis 31, but that's not really the center of why this is an important move on Ahab's part. It was an important city, not for theological reasons, but political reasons. It was north of Samaria, and it's quite an important city. important place when we think about it, mainly because it was right along a major artery of a King's Highway. And King's Highways were where all people went and traded, traveled and traded in big cities like Raymouth, Gilead. And here, if you ruled that city, you would have your tax collectors go around and perform all these taxes. So if you ruled one of these cities, the great benefit for political gain is that then you would be able to tax and be able to get a lot of money. You tax a lot of money, you can buy a lot more things, horses and chariots and buildings and supplies. And so, soldiers in the time of need, you'd be able to pay them. And so, if you had a big city like this with a lot of trade agreements, then you could do quite well for yourself. And so, it was really an important city for that place. And so, St. Chronicles, again, helps us understand a little bit of this political maneuver. Jehoshaphat had great riches and honor. He made a marriage alliance with Ahab. So, we see 2 Chronicles gives us a little bit more of an information here. After some years he went down to Ahab in Syria. And Ahab killed an abundance of sheep and oxen for him. And for the people who were with him induced him to go up against Raboth Gilead. So, here we see a little bit more of Ahab's cunning plan to be able to make an alliance with Judah and have Judah help him to be able to claim this important city. And so Ahab is merely playing a political game, wine and dine everyone to be able to get them on your side, really seeking to be able to strengthen his house. And when we think about what's happening to Ahab at this point, what does Ahab know? Ahab knows that his house is going to crumble. He knows that punishment is coming to his household. And so he is then trying to strengthen it, go down with a fight, I guess, And again, this is exactly what he did to Syria. He used Syria to be able to get a political advantage for himself, as we saw at the end of chapter 20. And so, Jehoshaphat responds. Jehoshaphat, a young king at this point, but he responds in verse four of chapter 22 in 1 Kings. And he said to Jehoshaphat, Ahab, will you go down with me to battle at Raboth Gilead? Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as you are, my people are as your people, my horses as your horses. So here Jehoshaphat uses very common covenantal language. My people are your people. You need to think about Ruth as she turned to Naomi in Ruth chapter one, what did she say? That where you will go, I will go. Your people are now my people. Your God is now my God. And so Jehoshaphat is making this alliance, this covenant here with Ahab as he agrees. Now we saw in 2 Chronicles that here Ahab is inciting Jehoshaphat to be able to do this, wining and dining. We don't know exactly what Jehoshaphat's thinking, is he's trying to seek unity, trying to bring these two countries, nations back together. Maybe he saw it as a wise political move, maybe because of this marriage alliance he had with Ahab, he thought it would be best, protect his daughter or his son, whoever that might be. Maybe Israel had made this big alliance with Syria, and so maybe getting on the side of Israel was a way to be able to get Ben-Hadad on your side. Maybe Ahab has tricked Jehoshaphat in thinking that he was a more religious leader than Jehoshaphat actually saw. You saw all these ploys and these games that were happening. Why did they get Naboth killed? Because they said, well, he committed blasphemy. And so on the external it looks like Ahab might be a religious king. He's heard about the great battles that he has won in chapter 20. He's heard about what happened when the prophets of Baal were fighting the prophets of Yahweh and Yahweh won. He sees all these things. And so maybe Jehoshaphat has been tricked and fooled that here Ahab is a godly man. But we also see that here Jehoshaphat is godly. What is Jehoshaphat's response to the prophets? The other times Ahab has to have the prophet come to him, whereas in this time in verse five we see that Jehoshaphat asks, let's ask the Lord, as he says in verse five, and Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, inquire first for the word of the Lord. So again, we see in that contrast in previous chapters, here Ahab merely just does things. And then a prophet of the Lord has to be sent to Ahab to be able to tell him if it's good, if it's bad, if there's a judgment coming. But yet, Jehoshaphat is completely different. Jehoshaphat says, well, before we go fight this battle, let's go ask the prophets of the Lord, the prophets of Yahweh. And so as Jehoshaphat has said that my people are your people and your army is my army, but we do need to inquire about what the Lord says. And so again we see Ahab's false religious activity. What does he do in verse 6? And the king of Israel gathered the prophets together. about 400 men, and said to them, Shall I go to battle against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain? And they said, Go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king." And so we see that Ahab here has this appearance of this godly religious aspects that now Jehoshaphat says, let's inquire of the Lord. see a lot of hints and clues even in verse 6. So much so that Jehoshaphat notices in verse 7, we'll get to that point. But here he says, let us in verse 5 inquire the word of the LORD, YHWH, all capital letters. But then the King of Israel goes and gets a group of prophets, about 400 men. Now, they could be the prophets of Baal. They were destroyed in previous chapters, but there could be another group. The prophets of Asherah, which were 400. Or they could be prophets claiming to be the prophets of the Lord. So here he gathers these prophets, but it's not merely that he gathers these prophets. Who they are doesn't really matter. I think that what we see here, we'll see it later in this passage, Zedekiah, but here Zedekiah seems to be a true prophet of the Lord, or claims to be a prophet of the Lord, Yahweh. But in this verse six, we're told at the very end, go up for the Lord, We'll give it to you into the hand of the king. But here's the giveaway I think that makes Jehoshaphat ask for another prophet in verse 7. Jehoshaphat says, let us inquire of the Lord all capitals, Yahweh. And when the prophets respond, they say, go up for the Lord, lowercase, which is Adonai, another way to be able to say master God. Baal is another word which is very, very similar as we saw that overlap between Baal and Yahweh, this competition between these two gods. And so he says, go up the Adonai, the Lord, just any other God. So it's helpful when we be able to read through those type of things in a Bible that has all those capitals that we can see what that word actually is. Now sometimes the Lord is called Adonai. But here I think what we see is that Jehoshaphat is onto something in verse seven. Why does he ask for another prophet? And I think it's specifically because of this response that they say, go up, The Lord, Adonai, will give it into the hand of the king. So we see it all throughout the Bible. It's very helpful. This is what Jesus says as he questions the rulers. He says, who is the Lord in Psalm 110? The Lord says to my Lord. There's three people in that passage. The Lord, all capitals, the Yahweh says to my Adonai, sit at my right hand. Who is sitting at the right hand of the Lord? David is my, David is not talking about himself when he's talking about this. So this is the big theological question that stumped the religious rulers. Who is the Lord speaking to when he says my Lord? As David is talking about my Lord. What's Christ? We know the Yahweh, the God the Father says to God the Son, who's David's Lord, sit at my right hand. So we need to be able to be aware of that. And that's what we see in verse seven. It's very astute that eventually Jehoshaphat, this godly king who seeks to be able to not merely just do it for external reasons and check the box. Did we check? The prophet said it was okay, check. We had 400 people saying it's all right to go do this. All right. But yet Jehoshaphat says in verse seven, Is there not another here, another prophet of the Lord of whom we may inquire? Jehoshaphat is very cluey at this point. Is there one more? Surely you have one prophet of Yahweh to be able to ask. 400 isn't enough for him to be able to ask. Whether he sees something fishy, whether he knows Ahab's true intent, whatever it may be, Jehoshaphat asks for another prophet. This is where we are able to be able to see this relationship again of Ahab and the prophets compared to Jehoshaphat and the prophets. Jehoshaphat really wants to know what does Yahweh say? What does the Lord say? It's no good going into a battle if the Lord's blessing is not upon us. Ahab's not concerned with that. And so we start to be able to see, ask this question, what's this relationship between Ahab and the prophets of the Lord? So we see in verse 8, again, Ahab's response, and the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, there is one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah, the son of Imla. But I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, let not the king say so. So we find yet another prophet. And a prophet in this relationship, as we've seen Ahab meeting with these prophets between chapter 20 and chapter 21, we see this relationship between Ahab and the prophets. And so you have Micaiah, this prophet, and he responds and he says, I hate him. He never prophesies good concerning me but evil. Again, you could just imagine Ahab being somewhat of a small toddler, right? His response is quite simple. Nahaboth has a vineyard, I want it, it's mine. And our kids say it all the time, I never get to do this. Then you gotta do the fact checking, right? Well, what about three minutes ago? You know, when you had that in your hand? And so here we meet this new prophet, Micaiah. Micaiah means, who is like Yahweh? There is none like Yahweh. You see all these false gods, false prophets. Now this is not Micah. Micah is around the time of Isaiah. And so a bit later, but here you have Micaiah. Now we don't know much about Micaiah. Again, Elijah pops onto the scene, many of these prophets come and go, but here Ahab obviously had some form of relationship with him. And Ahab has an opinion about him. There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of Yahweh. Again, I think we see this key here. He understands what Jehoshaphat is asking. Micaiah, the son of Imlah. He hates him. Very strong words. Why does he hate him? He hates him because he never prophesies good concerning me, only evil, but evil. So you hear Ahab hates Micaiah, the prophet of the Lord, because he never prophesies anything good. Now he called Ahab, Elijah the troubler. He called him his enemy. And now we see his relationship with Micaiah as that he hates him. Now you could unpack this thought for some time, but we see that Ahab only wants prophecies that are good concerning him. And the problem is not with Ahab, right? His problem is that he only deserves evil prophecies. The problem is that Micaiah doesn't give good prophecies. He only wants the prophets to be able to tell him good news. And he avoids prophets that are gonna warn him of negative or bad things. Now we understand why God always sends the prophet to Ahab and not Ahab going to seek the true prophets of the Lord. He wants prophets to be able to make him feel good, make him happy. But as we know, that's not necessarily helpful. And we understand in Ahab because people do this all the time. Actually Paul as he's writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 4 actually warns this is exactly what's going to happen. Here Paul writes to Timothy, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is the judge of the living and the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom preach the word. Be ready in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. What is Paul instructing Timothy here to do? Preach the word. Now we'll see Micaiah almost say, this is what I'm going to do. You want me to say something good about Ahab? I can't. My job as a prophet is to preach the word, tell people what God's word says. In season and out of season. But notice these words here, reprove, rebuke, and exhort. Not quite encouraging words, are they? There's something in those words that says people are going to be doing something that need correction, need rebuking, reproving, exhorting to be able to do things. This is why it requires complete patience and teaching. They're not gonna get it immediately. But Paul says, what about those other people? He says in verse 3, As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. So what's gonna happen with these people? People are gonna be just like Ahab who go to the 400 prophets who tell them everything's okay, everything's good, and avoid the one prophet who's gonna tell them negative or bad things concerning themselves. So what do you want in a preacher? Some people want validation. Some people want to be told you can live the lifestyle you're living right now. Some people want to be told that they can do whatever they want. Some people just want to be lifted up. Believe in yourself. The problem isn't the world. The problem isn't you. The problem is everyone else. That's what Ahab wanted to hear, right? These false teachers that Paul is writing about who want to tickle the ear rather than pierce the heart. They have a low view of God and a low view of grace. They have a high view of self. They speak of silence of sins. Well, let's not talk about those sins. They're too controversial. And they have a voice that often reflects exactly the voice of that of which culture is talking about. They don't want humility, they want fame, they want followers. They want a name for themselves. Paul says, you want to be a voice of truth. You want to be God's messenger, God's preachers, God's prophets. You don't want to be a voice of lies. The devil's servants, that's exactly who the devil is, one of the characteristics, attributes of the devil. As Jesus turns to the Pharisees and says, you are the father of the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, but he's a liar and a father of lies. And so here Paul is warning, there are preachers and teachers who are going to say all these things, built upon these lies rather than the truth. And here you have Ahab, who if ever was on our prophet search committee, and you asked Ahab, what do you want in a prophet? His response is quite simple. I want a prophet who's gonna, prophecies that are concerning good things about me. Who's going to say nice things about me? Not bad or evil things. Ahab, you might say, what if you are the wickedest king who has ever lived and ruled Israel? Well, that doesn't matter, Ahab says. I want the prophet to be able to speak good over me. I don't like being told what to do. So you see this, what happens here. If he doesn't wanna be told what to do, who becomes the true prophet? It's Ahab, right? He doesn't wanna be underneath anyone. He doesn't wanna be underneath God. He doesn't wanna be underneath God's prophets. He wants to be on top. He wants to be able to dictate what is right and wrong. And Ahab would rather surround himself with false prophets that make him feel good about himself and his sin than a real prophet, a true prophet who speaks God's truth in his words. Now, I pray that we as a church never preach sermons that everyone says, oh, that was a good sermon because it made me feel good about myself. That we never just preach sermons that we want to hear. But sometimes, if not frequently, if not every sermon, we're pierced to the heart, we're convicted, that we feel rebuked, reproved, exhorted, corrected, teaching that the man of God may be complete, ready to do all good works. This is why I think preaching certain books of the Bible is great because there's sermons I don't want to preach. I don't want to preach because I feel like inadequate in myself. They're convicting to me. But also, I don't want to tell you all, but yet it's the challenge, particularly even as we're going through the Ten Commandments, how piercing the Ten Commandments are. But yet Ahab merely wants to be able to have these false prophets. He doesn't want the truth. And Jehoshaphat, again, is this balanced voice of reason in amongst this. At least, again, we can see this difference between these two kings. As he says, we need a true prophet. Is there any other prophets of Yahweh? I see you have 400 group of yes men, Ahab, but I don't want a yes man prophet. I want a yes God prophet. And that's exactly what Jehoshaphat does. at the end of verse eight where he slightly rebukes him and says, Jehoshaphat said, let not the king say so. See the slight rebuke from Jehoshaphat saying, that's not how you treat a prophet. Ahab would have been fine with hearing those 400 men say what he wanted to hear. But yet this word then switches and changes. Obviously, Ahab, if he's playing this political game here, wants to be able to keep Jehoshaphat on his side. He knows that he's not going to get Ramoth Gilead without Jehoshaphat's help. And so we see in verse 9, the king of Israel summoned an officer and said, bring quickly Micaiah the son of Imla. Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, were sitting on their thrones, arrayed in their robes at the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria. And all the prophets were prophesying before them. So this light rebuke from Jehoshaphat then summons, Ahab then summons Micaiah. We'll get to meet him next time, but we need to be able to understand this picture as we see this here. This is an important picture that will play again as we actually hear what Mackay actually has to say. What we have here is these two kings sitting on their royal thrones. clothed in their robes, not their dressing gowns, but their royal robes. They're actually nice, elegant gowns. If you've ever even just watched even TV shows of queens or kings and their reigns, they're not merely just a small little throne, it is an enormous throne to be able to show their power and their stature. Their robes which show their wealth and their might and their strength. coronations of kings they're not merely just wearing a polo button-up shirt you know they're got all the fancy regalia and so this is what we see here this is important because what Mackay actually prophesized is that there's another throne which rules and reigns other than these two kings here in this time so we'll get to that next time but here you have these two kings sitting on these thrones, and you have these prophets prophesying before them. And so we see this, but we see one of these prophets actually takes center stage. So it's just as we have two kings and their contrastive nature with one another, we also have two prophets who are contrasted with one another. And so we see in verse 11 and verse 12, Zedekiah the son of Jinnah made for himself horns of iron and says, Thus says the Lord, with these you shall push the Syrians until they are destroyed. And all the prophets prophesied so and said, Go up to Ramoth-Gilead and triumph. The Lord will give it into the hand of the king." And so we see here this prophecy that they say, as they said before, they've altered it a little bit. It wasn't, it's not the Adonai. So this makes me to believe that they're not claiming to be, they're not prophets of Baal or prophets of Ashtoreth, but they're seeking to be true prophets of Yahweh. And so here, Zedekiah makes for himself horns of iron. And so we have this metaphor of these two things mixed together. Horns, the sign of an ox, which is strength and might. Iron, a very strong alloy, and so shows the strength. But what are they doing? These horns of iron are pushing. You shall push the Syrians until they are destroyed. And so here we see this, somewhat of this imagery, which you can go back to different places, but Deuteronomy 33 is a great place. Here, the firstborn bull, he has majesty and his horns are the horns of a wild ox. With them he shall gore the peoples, all of them. to the ends of the earth. They are the ten thousands of Ephraim and the thousands of Manasseh. And so there is this even allusion here that Zedekiah is quoting scripture, pointing back to this promise made in Deuteronomy to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh underneath Joseph, their Joseph's two sons. And so these tribes and the Northern tribes have taken on this kind of persona that Ephraim is their might and their strength. Remember when Joseph's two sons met Jacob and Jacob prophesied and blessed Ephraim. Ephraim was the second born, but he blessed Ephraim. And the blessing of Ephraim is quite a tremendous blessing. And so, you have Judah down in the south and then most likely is the tribes of Israel have taken on this blessing that we are like Ephraim, the mighty power here. And so, he goes back to be able to seek to be able to have this blessing. And so, there is these horns and this pushing back down. Again, you can see it again in Psalm 44 or Daniel chapter 8. And so, here Zedekiah, Zedekiah He's saying that here the Lord Yahweh is going to give Syria, Ramoth Gilead, into the hand of the king. Now these are words of deception, as we'll see next time. But we see it's all part of God's plan. This is exactly how things are going to happen. We'll end with this. Matthew Henry writes this. But the false prophets cannot so mimic the true, but that he who has spiritual sensors exercised can discern the fallacy. One faithful prophet of the Lord is worth them all. Worldly men have in all ages been alike absurd in their views of religion. They would have the preacher fit his doctrine to the fashion of the times, and the taste of the hearers, and yet to add, thus saith the Lord to the words that men would put into their mouths, are ready to cry out against a man as rude and foolish, who scruples thus to try and secure his own interests, and to be able to deceive others. So we see these two kings in contrast, and we see these to prophets in contrast as well. And so we need to be able to see this conflict is not merely just a political conflict of two opposing views. There's a big spiritual conflict about the hearts of these two kings. One is doing wicked things seeking to be able to do what is right in his own eyes and the other is seeking to be able to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Ahab and Jehoshaphat. These two approaches to life. One seeks comfort and flattering and lies, whereas the other one strives for the truth to be able to seek to be able to please God, even if it means to be uncomfortable. Ahab's hatred for Micaiah reveals that his heart, which is at the core of what this is, what is Ahab's relationship to the prophets? At his heart, he hates God's prophets because God's prophets never say anything good with him. He doesn't want to face conviction, correction. He prefers prophets who will tell him what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear. But yet Jehoshaphat seeks to find wisdom, who desires God's true word, no matter the cost. And so we need to really place ourselves in this passage and try to start, which one are we? Are we the ones with tickling ears, itching ears that seek to be able to find our own desires and passions? We seeking out those voices that only affirm what we want to hear. Are we like Jehoshaphat willing to truly ask what God's word says, even if that brings rebuke upon us? That God's truth always challenges us, always changes us, always convicts us, always draws us and grows us in grace. Now as we see next time, we'll meet Micaiah, that prophet who actually stands for truth in amongst this time. time where true prophets of Yahweh are put to death for what they say. Who stands for truth and amongst this crowd of deceivers will be taken to that heavenly scene where that third throne is, where God not arrayed in his robes but his sovereign plan unfolds. So we need to be cautious as we think about what Paul said, that there will be a time where people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears that will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. So let us always strive to be those who are willing to be able to listen to the truth, to apply the truth, to love the truth, to seek to hear the truth. Thank you for listening to this sermon from Seven Springs Presbyterian Church. If you want to learn more about us, please find us on Facebook or visit us at sevenspringspresbyterian.com. Seven Springs Presbyterian Church began in 1874 and is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America located in Glade Spring, Virginia. Please join us for worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. for His glory and His gospel.