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. Like I said, we'll be in 1 Kings chapter 20 toward the end, and we come to the really climactic ending of this portion of the story. Like I said at the beginning, these stories are not merely just random stories collected together, but these chapters here tell us a larger story. that we need to be paying attention to as Ahab makes choices, good or bad, mostly bad, but through those choices that God then sends forth a prophet to Ahab. As we saw, we've seen two prophets mainly to this point. Verse 13, and behold, a prophet came to Ahab and said, And then down to verse 22, then the prophet came near to the king of Israel and said to him, strengthen yourself. And then again in verse 28, a man of God came near to the king of Israel. And so we see here Ahab, the representative as the king of Israel. not merely just Ahab in particular, but also a representation of all the people of God, specifically this nation of Israel. And so we see in these chapters, not only just 20, but we'll see the climactic ending here of chapter 20. chapters we see this similar pattern that something happens, a prophet is sent, the warning comes, and so we see this time and time again. So this repetition shows us Ahab really doesn't turn to the Lord, that he doesn't truly repent. particularly his heart is unmoved. He does not show that deep spiritual conviction as we have seen. You might be able to relate it to that of Judas Iscariot. Judas Iscariot did feel something about his betrayal of Christ, that he did feel some emotion. He felt bad about it. He felt bad for whatever reason. But in the end he doesn't turn to God and repent. He tries to seek forgiveness through his own means, through shrine works or whatever, feeling something, compared to Peter. Peter also betrayed Christ, not in the same way that Judas did, but similarly he denied him. And Peter then is approached by God, by the Lord Jesus Christ, and he does seek forgiveness. And so we see the similarities then of something like Judas Iscariot and Ahab, that there's a response, but it's not the spiritual response we're looking for. That he truly, what we're seeing is that he doesn't listen. Now, we wouldn't often think about not listening as a sin in particular. All my illustrations are dealing with kids, because that's a lot of what I deal with. But one of the things is, we want to see obedience. That's what we want to see. But sometimes, I need to be able to be clear with our kids. First, you've got to listen. You've got to look at me. Are your ears on? Can you hear me? You're getting distracted. You're not listening first. If you want to obey, first you've got to listen. To obey clearly, you've got to follow the instructions that are given clearly. And often we don't think of listening as something that is, or not listening, as sinful. But I think it's very important for us to be able to pay attention to those two connections that are forever before us. And often we think of not listening, we don't necessarily say not listening is sin, but here in 1 Kings I think this is the major thing, that here Ahab is not listening and it's not driving him to that repentance that is needed, that obedience that is required. And I don't think we think much about it, but this is what Jesus says in John chapter 8, whoever is of God hears the words of God. Quite simply and clearly, that if you are of God, you hear the word of God. The reason why they do not hear them is that you are not of God. And often the Bible speaks in these diametrically opposed positions. There's no middle way in the position of listening or not listening. It's those who hear God's word are of God. And those who do not hear are not of God. I mean, this is the famous verse that we think about in Romans chapter 12. So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. And often we think about this merely in the ways of conversion, that this is the awakening of conversion, but faith is not merely just a conversion exercise. Faith is something that we're always getting. As we think about in Hebrews, what is Jesus? Jesus is the author, but also the perfecter of our faith, that our faith goes on and improving as we grow and live by faith, walk out by that faith. And how do we walk out by that faith is by hearing. And so the basis is here that the means in which God speaks. And it's the spirit that works to be able to regenerate people's hearts and to be able to help us, to be able to convict us, to be able to draw us near to Christ, to point us to the way, point us to that author and perfecter. That's why the author of Proverbs, we sit down and talk about the beginning of all wisdom in chapter one. Where does it come from? One of the first things that he says is he sits his son down. In Proverbs chapter 2, my son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding. Yes, if you call out for sight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. What does the author of Hebrew Proverbs kind of incline here? How do we get the beginning of all wisdom is the fear and knowledge of God, but how do we move from that to be able to understand it? Which channel is it through? Well, as the father sits his son down, he says there's two things, through your ears and through your heart, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding. How do you understand the fear and the knowledge of God? Fear of the Lord and knowledge of God? Through your ears and through your heart. And so when we're looking at how Ahab responds, the king of Israel responds to God's word, we must be connecting those two dots. We must see that here Ahab is not listening. He's not responding. He's not obeying. It's not moving through his ears and it's not moving to his heart. And so we see this strange story at the end of chapter 20, but hopefully it displays this point quite clearly. So we first see the prophet's first request, the prophet's first request. In verse 35 it says that there's a certain man of the son of the prophets said to his fellow at the command of the Lord, strike me please. But the man refused to strike him. So here we have another movement, the third prophet to be able to enter into this story. The first the prophet, the second man of God, this one's the son of prophet. Now the son of prophets, we'll see more of them in chapter, in 2 Kings chapter, just onwards throughout here. In chapter two, four, five, six, and nine, we'll see the sons of the prophets. Now this term is somewhat unclear. Normally the best assumption is that it means here a training school for prophets. That there is some form of school that works to be able to train prophets up. If you think about Samuel and how he has Eli to be able to help him in becoming a prophet. Maybe this is kind of where it starts and begins. We see it clearly with Elijah and Elisha. We see it with the 50 prophets that are hidden in the cave. Here they're collectively joined together, somewhat maybe forced, but maybe they were already living together and so they were moved into this cave. But what we see is they're always plural. In 2 Kings chapter four, we see the Elisha comes to Gilgal when there was a famine in the land. And as the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, he said to his servants, sit on the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets. So here they're corporately together, they're communally together. Later in the passage, we'll see in chapter 20, here Ahab actually calls him a prophet. So it's assumed that here they're a profit, training for profits, they're collectively, always as a group. And so most likely it's some form of training school or just a co-op of profits. I don't know the correct term you would use there, but that seems to be the best understanding of them. Like I said, they're always in pairs. You see it here in chapter 20. You see the son of the prophet, then his fellow, and then he goes to another son of a prophet. So there's at least three here together. And this prophet comes up to this other fellow, this other prophet as well, and says, strike me, please. Now, this is a completely strange request. Walking up to someone and say, hit me. Hit me as hard as you can. Now, what might be strange is the request, what might be even stranger is the response on the person's face. As their face lights up and they've been waiting for this opportunity to be able to hit you, that might be more strange. You know, if you were to walk at Chick-fil-A, I'm sure they would say, my pleasure, as they always do. But it seems like a strange request, but here, what the important thing is not per se the request, it's where this request come from. that here we see in verse 35 that this prophet comes up at the command of the Lord. It's a strange request for us to be able to understand, but it comes by the voice of the Lord. And so this other prophet refuses to strike him. And so this first prophet turns around and rebukes him. It seems like a strange punishment, but here the important thing is, are they listening and obeying to the voice of the Lord? That's kind of the parable that we see here. And so verse 36 comes, and the first prophet says to the second prophet, because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord. It's not because you have not struck me. What's highlighted here is that because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, behold, as soon as you have gone from me, a lion shall strike you down. And as soon as he had departed from him, a lion met him and struck him down. So a part of this not listening, not heeding, not obeying the voice of the Lord is disobedience and the punishment is that this lion strikes this man, this judgment comes upon him. And so we see clearly the first prophet is rebuking the second prophet, not again not for hitting them, but more specifically for not obeying what God had told him to do. And so this punishment might seem harsh, but it's there for us to be able to see this clear point, what happens to those who do not heed the voice of the Lord. Now what we see is this lion comes in to be able to, as this form of punishment, and we've seen this before, specifically with a disobedient prophet who does not heed the voice of the Lord. And we see later on, another interesting story is Elisha used bears for punishment for kids as they call him bald. But we'll get to that another day. But back to the story in 1 Kings chapter 13. where this prophet goes and he warns Jeroboam of what is to come. And he's to return back to Judah, but he's not to be able to eat or to be able to go, to be able to drink. He's to return straight back there. But what happens, there's another prophet that comes in and invites him into his house. ends up eating. And what happens to that first prophet who in chapter 13 who spoke to Jeroboam? He got struck down by a lion in verse 25 and 26 of chapter 13, and behold men passed by and saw the body thrown into the road and the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it to the city where the old prophet lived. And when the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard of it, he said, it is the man of God who disobeyed the word of the Lord. What is the critical point here is that he disobeyed the word of the Lord as a sign for what is to come for those who disobey. They're going to be struck down by a lion. Therefore the Lord has given him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him according to the word of the Lord that is spoken to him." Now what is the significance of a lion? Now we'll get, it's an interesting thing to be able to think about. Is it merely that the lion is obedient to God? That the lion is the king of the animals and therefore the king of the animals strikes down the king of Israel. I think more specifically what we actually see is Judah is the Lion of Judah. And who is actually going to strike down the house of Israel is actually going to come through Josiah later on in 2 Kings as we've already heard about through the prophets before. That this judgment is going to come through the Lion of Judah. The Lion of Judah is going to bear the sword and be able to judge the whole household of Israel. to be able to destroy the house, and to be able to demolish the temple. And so again, we see the lion obey God's voice, but the first prophet does not. And the consequence is that he is struck down. So now we come to the prophet's second request. And so this prophet who had just told that a lion's gonna eat this other prophet, he goes up to another man. in chapter, in verse 37, and says, then he found another man and said, strike me, please. Exact same response. And we often see when there's two things paired together like this, we need to be able to pay attention. The outcome is different. When you do a science experiment, sometimes you do a science experiment where there's nothing that happens, and then you add a different element to it. your datum changes, so then you kind of have a datum point to be able to go off and to be able to see what actually causes the reaction. So everything up to this point is the exact same, strike me please, the same request, but a different response. What happens to this second man that he goes to to be able to ask? The man struck him and struck him and wounded him. So within two or three verses we see this strange back and forth, but finally this prophet is struck. The second person more happy to oblige. We don't know did this second person cut this first person off and out on the street and he was more upset about it. We're not told specifically, but maybe he heard about the line of attack to his friend and he was more readily to be able to, oh, I got to listen to this prophet. We're not told specifically, but here, we do see that he obeys the voice of the prophet. So here's a good time I think to be able to point out something very clear about this story is that special revelation has ceased. That here from the command of the Lord Here, the prophets in this time had direct connection to God and through His Spirit to be able to speak and say, this is the Word of God. The only time we can do that now is when we open the Bible and say, this is the Word of God. The only way that we have that ability to be able to confirm that this is truly the Word of God is what we read in Scripture. I'm grateful for this, and you're probably grateful for this, so we're not told to be able to go up to people and say, hit me. There's nowhere in Scripture for us to be able to see that. There's places in scripture where someone might be able to say, kiss me with a holy kiss, but that's another time for another story. But I think it's helpful for us to be able to also see that through these living parables that we see often found in the story of the prophets. As these prophets do these sign wonders, often they're extreme, but sometimes they're merely just ordinary. They're somewhat of a parable of what is to come, what is to happen. I think one of the greatest, maybe we can talk about this later, which one you think is the strangest of them, but I think the strangest is where Ezekiel is told to be able to go and bake bread. And for the coals, though, the Lord gives very specific instructions that he's to use dung. And so that, to me, is the strangest story. But here is a sense of a parable of what is to come, that story. Jeremiah's filled with them, with the potter and the clay. But what we see is this is what's happening here in this time, that there's somewhat of a parable. But we also see that this request is not merely just to be able to see, are they going to obey? It connects to the third and final point. But here that we see in verse 38, the prophet, the first prophet departs. So here the son of the prophet now is introduced as the prophet. So again, we see sons of prophets are prophets. It's not merely that their dad was a prophet. but they carry on that position, hence why we think it's some form of training thing. But here he departs in verse 38, and he waits for the king by the way, disguising himself with bandage over his eyes. So here we have a purpose, why he was asked to be struck and wounded was to make him look like a soldier who has been defeated or been in battle. But this is where it really heats up in this third and final scene of this story is then the prophet's parable. All of it's leading up to this point. This one prophet goes to these two people so that he might be able to finally go and stand before the king. And so we see the prophet's parable in verse 39 to 40 as the king passed. Now interestingly throughout all these passages we see that it's not, it's more often than not, it's not that they use the proper noun for Ahab and call him an Ahab or King Ahab past, but specifically the title, the king. And so we need to see that it's not merely just a man and his disobedience, but this man who has been put in a position of power and authority over God's people is commanded to be able to heed the word of the Lord. And so we see that here in this position that there's a lot required of Ahab. It's not merely he's acting merely as a human being, he's acting as God's representative of God's people. And therefore his bar is set higher because of this position that he holds. And so we need to be able to notice that as well, that the judgment doesn't merely just fall on the person, but specifically the position as well. And so the king passes by and he cries, the prophet cries out to the king and says, Your servant went out into the midst of the battle. And behold, a soldier turned and brought a man to me and said, Guard this man. If by any means he is missing, your life shall be for his life, or else you shall pay a talent of silver. And as your servant was busy here and there, he was gone. So this prophet sits on the side of the road and this probably would have been a common story, common thing for it to be able to happen is that the king would render judgment as we'll see in verse 40. But here's really the story that happens. This prophet says that he was in battle and he was fighting in battle and finally someone came up and gave him a mission, a job, a duty to be able to perform. That duty to be able to perform was to be able to guard this man, protect this enemy, don't let him get away, whatever. That was his job. And the consequence was that you would either have to pay for your life or you shall pay with the talent of silver. So a high price to be able to pay for this soldier who would have been on meager pittance really, but really he had one simple job. But in the parable, the outcome is that he did not obey, right? He's given specific instruction to be able to guard this man. And then what does he not do? He gets sidetracked by other things, busy here and there. And then finally he turns around and he's not there. And so really the story is quite simple and even Ahab understands it and renders his judgment as he sees in verse 40. And the king said to him, so shall your judgment be. You yourself have decided it. So, here the judgment is rendered and Ahab says, well, what an easy judgment to be able to render. You've already passed your own, you've told me all you need to do. You've confessed your guilt, you've confessed the punishment that you need to be able to deal with. So, you've fit the crime, you do the time. And so that's exactly what happened. The king renders this judgment. This is one of the jobs that a king was meant to do. Now remember that you used to have judges. Judges would rule over certain areas. They would fight in battles, but also they would judge, render judgment on people. And so this job occupation then rolls over into the office of the king to be able to render judgment. We saw Solomon, remember, as these two moms came up and yet one baby, one of their babies had died. And so Solomon needs to render judgment. That's the role of a king. Absalom, when he went out and he sat by the city gate, he was rendering judgment. It was the occupation and job of the king to be able to do this. Moses kind of carries that out in Jethro and in chapter 17, in Exodus and 18. But here, this is one of the things, it wasn't uncommon for the king to be able to render judgment. And so this man on the side of the road, the king says, this is probably one of the easiest cases I've ever heard. I don't need any witnesses. You've already told me what you did. You already told me what you need to do. You've rendered your own judgment. And so, it's quite simple, but then there's this turn in verse 41 and 42. Then he hurried to take the bandage 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 go out of your hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall be for his life, and your people for his people. And so finally this prophet reveals himself, the truth comes out. The prophet in prophet school, obviously one of the prophet school classes is how to expose kings. And one of the lessons that they would sit down is look at the great old classic, the Nathan move, where you go and tell a parable, a story to be able to render judgment for the king to be able to convict someone and then turn around and say, you are the man. It worked for David and here it comes before Ahab. You yourself have decided it. And so he uses his words against himself and says, you are the man who should have did what God had told you to do. Now this is another side note, but what we need to be able to understand here is an important principle that the king is not then above the law. that Sammy rubbed through as a term in a book called Lex Rex. And law is king. It's not the king is above the law and the king writes the law. The king is subject to the law. And who's the king subject to? The king is not only has subjects, but he's subject to the king, God. And so he is underneath God and God is the law giver. And so the king needs to be following God's law or else he gets punished for not following God's law. And so here in this instance, what we see is this exact principle, that here Ahab is not above the law. He can't write the law. He is held accountable by God. It's not the prophet saying, I have devoted this man to destruction, Ben-Hadad, but it's God saying that he has devoted him to destruction. So monarchs and rulers are always to be accountable, always underneath the law of God. And all this is to be able to say that here the sin that we had seen in the previous week, that here Ahab had made a covenant with Ben-Hadad and let him go. And so now Ahab is rebuking, being rebuked by this prophet as they make this agreement between the Bazaars and Damascus as Ben-Hadad's father did. But Ahab says, I will let you go on these terms. So he made a covenant with him and let him go. Chapter 19, we saw clearly that here Ahab has been punished. God is going to destroy him. Now we find out in chapter 19 that this is not outside of God's providence. It's not merely plan A was that Ahab was to destroy Ben-Hadad. But we'll see those three judges that are raised up in chapter 19. that Jehu and Ezekiel and Elisha, those three judges God has raised up, that's still inside God's providence. He knows what's gonna happen. But that foolish choice that I had been made last time wasn't merely just a foolish choice, it was a sinful choice. Why? Because he wasn't heeding and obeying the voice of the Lord. That here Ahab should have used the sword of justice to be able to destroy Ben-Hadad. He showed him mercy when he should have not showed him mercy. He makes a covenant with him, not merely just letting him go, but on positive terms with this. So it's not merely just neutral, it's swinging to the positive relationship. There he has a long-term relationship with Ben-Hadad. But what we must see here is, again, the irony of the whole situation here. Why would Ahab make a covenant with Ben-Hadad? He makes a covenant with him so that he may have comfort and peace. But in making a covenant with Ben-Hadad, he's breaking his covenant with God, the one who would protect him, the one who has protected him. And so the king leaves in verse 43, and the king of Israel went to his house, vexed and sullen, and came to Samaria. Now interesting, we'll see the exact same phrases in chapter 21. After Naboth says, you can't have my vineyard, he goes home the same way. So one commentator says, he's merely acting like a child, just merely sulking because he doesn't get what he wants. So the prophet copied Nathan's playbook, but Ahab doesn't follow then in David's playbook. He doesn't follow in David's footsteps. When Nathan confronts David, the first things that he turns and says is, I have sinned against the Lord. Saul might say, it was the others that made me do it. Ahab might say, well, I was doing it for the good of the people, Jezebel told me to do it, whatever it may be. But David turns around and says, I have sinned against the Lord. And so we need to see this important truth here that as we get into what is coming for Ahab, that destruction, it's not that God hadn't given him choices. Exactly the opposite. Why was all of this happening? Why were these signs happening? The two prophets that had approached him before came and said that this is happening so that you may know who is the Lord your God, who is the Lord God. And yet his response is not moved to be able to listen in ear and heart, to be able to respond, to be able to worship God as we saw what was lacking last week. He doesn't go make a covenant and renew his covenant with God who had saved him and redeemed him, delivered him by destroying these 254,000 soldiers with this small flock of goats, what it seemed like in soldiers. and responding in worship, what instead he does, he goes and makes a covenant with Ben-Hadad. He doesn't listen to God and obey God, instead he seeks to be able to make his own way. That he doesn't turn to be able to know the Lord his God, he turns to Ben-Hadad. And so we need to see the importance here of what is happening, what is building in these stories, that finally when we get to the end of 1 Kings and 2 Kings, This judgment that is rendered upon them is completely just by God. Again, He's given them chance and chance. He sent prophets to be able to warn them. This is what He says in Deuteronomy chapter 28, the two mountains of blessings and curses. 28 begins in verses 1 and 2 and says, If you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today. The Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the voice of the Lord your God." Ahab is not doing that. And so Ahab's house will be destroyed by Jehu. Ahab and the whole nation of Israel will finally just be demolished. Again, it's not that they're not warned, chance and chance, that they see these signs that they may know the Lord your God. You think about what Ahab has seen at this point. Here Elisha praying, no rain and not a drop. Then you see, he was there witnessing. this great and glorious act with the prophets of Baal running around and being taunted by Elijah and Elijah finally just praying and the fire of the Lord coming down and consuming the whole thing. He saw that. And yet he's not moved to be able to worship God with his whole heart and soul and mind and strength. He heard the prophet's voice. He saw the prophet's answer to prayers. He saw all of these things. And so too, it's a great warning for us. How well do we hear? How well do we listen? Not merely just to obey, but it first starts with the ear and the heart. Luke 8 says, take care then how you hear. For to the one who has, more will be given. And one who has not, Even what he thinks that he has will be taken away. Again, how often do we think about the hearing part? That's one of the reasons I absolutely love the Westminster or larger catechism is because there's questions in there that are not in the shorter catechism. Not merely that the answers are longer, but there's more questions and answers. And one of them that I think really should spark our hearing and what we do in worship particular is what is required of those who hear the word preached. Now before it says what is required of those who preach the word. We think about the preacher doing all the work, right? But when we sit down and when we're listening, that is a job that we all must be listening to. not the voice of some magical prophet, but here the pastor or the preacher, as he preaches the Word, that our job is to listen so that we might obey, so that it might bear fruit, so that we are drawn into faith, that faith comes through hearing through the Word of Christ and that active part of listening. So what is required of those who hear the Word preached? That they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer. Just focus on one of those things. We're to pray, not only for the pastor to preach well and good sermons, please do that, but also that we might hear, that the spirit might use that sinful jar of clay to be able to declare and show forth Christ in all of his glory and his splendor. Preparation. Diligence. So all these things leading up, and then what else are they to do? Examine what they hear by scriptures. So not merely just to be able to hear, but hear and then test. What did the Bereans do? They went home and tested. Receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind as the Word of God. So not merely just that we hear it, that we test it, but it also moves down into the heart. The ear to the heart. as the Word of God. Now, is the preached Word God's Word? Well, we say very specifically before we read the Scriptures, this is God's Word. Take heed what you hear. And we conclude something with a saying like this from Isaiah, the grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our Lord will stand forever. Distinctively, that's the word of God, but yet the divines, the Westminster Assembly seem to say that also the spirit uses the preached word to be able to show forth God's word. Now is every single word the same as scripture? No. But the spirit still uses his word preached as it's true to the scriptures to be able to carry that out. And so the sermon is ended, then what should we do with it? Not merely should we prepare with diligence and prayer, not merely should we listen and be attentive during the sermon, but following the sermon, after we close the sermon, that we would meditate on it. That we'd confer on it, we'd hide it in our hearts. Again, not merely just in one ear and out the other, but in our ear down to our hearts, that it would take root. and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives. So a great challenge when we read through Ahab, what is Ahab's wickedness that we see? There's many things that we can point out of his wickedness, Jezebel's slaughter of the prophets as we would think about it, but often we wouldn't necessarily think about Ahab's wickedness as not listening. But yet, this is what these chapters are pointing out. What brings this judgment upon Ahab and his house, upon Israel, is they're not listening to the voice of the Lord. Now, does that include not obeying? Of course it does. But I think what we need to see is that first it starts with listening. If you're not listening, you're never gonna obey, because you never know what to obey. And so it's a great challenge for us as we think about how we receive the Word of the Lord, how we listen. Like I said to our kids, are your ears on? Turn them on, make sure they're working. Can you hear me? Pay attention. Gonna give you very specific instructions. Yeah. Pick up that toy now. And so the challenge is for us as well. Are we listening specifically to God's word? 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.