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 22. We began looking at this some time ago, but we're kind of in that last chapter of 1 Kings. 1 Kings, 2 Kings is really one big book, but divided up as they started to be able to publish it in the ways that they did with scrolls and things and different resources. And so here we begin all the way back, began in chapter 20 with this major section dealing with King Ahab and how he relates to prophets and his response to prophets. In chapter 20 that King, the war with Assyria with Ben-Hadad at the end of the, instead of destroying Ben-Hadad Ahab makes a covenant and becomes his best friend. Ahab is confronted then with that prophet in chapter 20. And the prophet says 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 life for his people. And the king of Israel went to his house, vexed and sullen, and came to Samaria. So then we turn into chapter 21, chapter 21 the famous Naboth's vineyard with Ahab wanting a vegetable garden. what lengths he would go to be able to get that vegetable garden. And again confronted with a prophet and it ends this way as the prophet turns to him in chapter 21, the Lord says, I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Bashar the son of Ahijah, for the anger which you have provoked me, and because you have made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel the Lord also said, the dog shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel. anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city, the dogs shall eat. And anyone of his who dies in the open country, the birds of the heaven shall eat." Now so we remember that the prophet confronts him, warns him of what's coming. Now Ahab does go to his house, but he does repent Now we looked at this at length and saw that it wasn't a true heart humbling repentance just external words and actions, hypocrisy you might say. And now we come to chapter 22. Chapter 22 again is important for us to be able to understand where we find ourselves. If we are left with the repentance we might be left wondering was this a true repentance? The repentance really needs to be does he listen to the prophet of the Lord? Does he respond in the right way? And so we see this interaction between Jehoshaphat and Ahab who are seeking maybe to go to battle together with Syria. And so Jehoshaphat here is that model king who seeks to be that godly king who challenges Ahab and asks the question, well shouldn't we ask the Lord to see if we should go to battle or not? And so Ahab goes and finds his 400 prophets and they say, yes we should go to battle against Assyria. But again Jehoshaphat the godly king, the man of wisdom in this story seeks and says, shouldn't we inquire of the Lord one more time. Is there another prophet in which we could ask? And Ahab responds in telling in verse 8, remember this, when the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but I hate him. For he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, let not the king say so. So here Ahab turns and summons Micaiah. And now we have this strange interaction. The story, if you ever come across a Bible story and you think that there's this extra story that's included in there. The story is longer than it needs to be. What you would assume would happen during this, the king summons Micaiah, and Micaiah comes and prophesies to him, and the story's over. But yet, there's this intrusion, you might say, so we need to be paying attention, why is this intrusion in this story? What does this have to do to be able to help us understand this conflict that we're having, and the major question we're asking, how does the king respond to prophets? Again, so it's always helpful when we come across Bible passages like this, that merely there's no... chance or happen chance or again there is no word count that the authors of the Bible are saying, I've got to reach this quota by the end of the day or else the Holy Spirit isn't going to publish my words that are right in the Bible. There is never any filling in the Bible. There is always a reason. So, it is always helpful when we come to passages like this when we notice these intrusions you might say. And so what we see after verse 8 they charge to call Micaiah and the king summoned and off it says, bring quickly Micaiah the son of Imla. Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king were sitting on their thrones arrayed in their robes. The threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria and all the prophets were prophesying before them. So again here is this Interesting image of these two kings arrayed in all their splendor and all their glory sitting on their thrones. Another image that will come up later as we look. And then verse 11, is that a guy, the son of Janiah made for himself horns of iron and said, thus says the Lord. With these you shall push the Syrians until they are destroyed. And all the prophets prophesied and said, Go up to Ramoth Gilead and triumph. The Lord will give it into the hand of the king." So again, this isn't anything new. We have these 400 prophets here, but specifically Zedekiah is mentioned in this. So it's a 400 and 400, one 400, it says about 400. I think, you know, count individually. And so all of these prophets together are saying, yes, we shall go up and kill the Syrians. The battle, the Lord will give them into Now again, this is a very common practice. Ahab was not an equal opportunity employer. If you got on the wrong side of the king, it didn't matter how you would have been fired on the spot and fired on the spot means put into fire or stoned or something like that. Think about how he dealt with Naboth, an innocent man who stood in the way of his plans and dreams and Naboth unknowingly was murdered for a crime he did not commit. And so here it's not uncommon for the to surround himself with prophets who would prophesy good over him. And so there are many prophets at this time. It would be unlikely for the prophecy to be able to be spoken against the king. And this is why prophets in the Bible are so important. When we read almost every single one of the prophets as they speak to kings. they are rebuking them for their sin, and their folly, and how they are not leading God's people in the right way. This would have been very, very uncommon. You wouldn't have a long career as a prophet if that was what you did all the time. You think about what King Herod in the Bible when John the Baptist is confronting him about his marriage to his relative because he married his brother's wife. And And John the Baptist is confronting him. What does Herod do? Herod doesn't go, well, thank you very much for pointing this out. Let me repent. Let me go to the Lord and seek forgiveness. No, Herod doesn't do that. And again, so this is why, again, we notice this pattern in here. Think about Elijah. Elijah's called the troubler of Israel. And so here's these prophets who are saying, yes, do what you wish. That's not uncommon. The uncommon thing is for a prophet to come in and say, no, that's not what the Lord requires or what he says. And so, and this is spoken not just in the Bible of these many prophets coming in and speaking against. In ancient Near Eastern time, many of the prophecies that we find ourselves in writings are always positive towards the King. That's what makes the Bible again so unique. is during this time many other ancient Near Eastern documents completely opposite to what the Bible teaches us. The Bible points out sin and confronts sin and shows God is sovereign over all things. So again the prophets of Israel are so unique. So here they are prophesying and seeing changes in verse 13 when the messenger who was sent out finally meets Micaiah. And here we see in verse 13, the messenger who went to summon Micaiah said to him, behold, the words of the prophets are in one accord are favorable to the king. Let your word be like the word of one of them and speak favorably. And so this prophet says, hey, look, we've got 400 prophets who are all saying the same thing. It'd be helpful if you just came in and just say, yes, agree with them and move on. not go about this. Obviously Micaiah is known by King Ahab for being someone who doesn't speak favorably of what he wants, and desires, and wishes. And so this messenger either by order of the king, or by himself saying, can you just make it easy on us? Just come in, say yes, leave, don't go through all your spiel, and God's Word, and what He says. Just Again, maybe they went to high school together, they knew each other, but just speak favorably. Maybe he really cared about Micaiah, and he's like, your head looks good on your neck. Why don't you keep it that way? Ahab's in a bit of a mood. Remember Nahaboth and his precious vineyard? His collard greens didn't grow like they were. He thought they would. And so here this messenger says, just speak favorably. And this again, what makes Micaiah so unique? What makes Micaiah so different that Ahab even knows there's one more, but he never speaks favorably of me. All the other prophets would say, yes, whatever you say, King, that's exactly what the Lord says. But Micaiah turns around in verse 14 and says, as the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. And so Micaiah here gives an oath. This is the Old Testament equivalent to testify before God as witness. that here the living God will rule and judge what I do and what I say. And he will bring vengeance upon me or clear me if I'm accused of any wrongdoing. And so he says and makes this oath to this messenger saying that the Lord judged me for what I say. And I can only say what the Lord tells me to say. So here you see the willingness of Micaiah to be able to lose his head, to be able to put his life on the line, to be able to carry out his true calling as a prophet. And so what we then see is this interesting interaction then with Micaiah and the king. Again in verse 15 as we continue. And that when he had come to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth Gilead to battle or shall we refrain? And when he answered him, go up and triumph, the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. And so Micaiah comes, and it seems that he is in agreement with the 400 prophets beforehand. Shall we go into battle in Ramoth Gilead, or shall we refrain? And he says, you shall go up. The Lord will give it into the hand of the king. Now again, it's interesting to think about, because we see what's in the rest of the story. But here Micaiah says, go up into battle. Lord will give it into the hand of the king." Now, Micaiah changed his mind from what he had told the messenger just before. Was he scared? You know, these men, these prophets are human. When confronted with death, we always have that fear of not carrying out what we promised to do. You think about Peter. The guy who's willing to be able to cut off an ear to fight for Jesus, to be able to say, I will die before you, Jesus. And then within 24 hours before the rooster crows, he denies him three times. You know, his human heart, when confronted with the reality of the situation, he didn't say what he was going to do. And so he crumbled under pressure. Is that what happens here? The second option is that here he lies. He deliberately lied for whatever reason. But again, this would then make him a false prophet. The third is he lies, but he lies to be able to prove a point, as we might be able to see. The fourth is he told the truth. And that here, the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. And here it's the singular, not the kings. Remember, there's two kings that are before them, but the king. When he spoke of the king, he's actually the king of Judah, you might be able to say. But this, I think, is difficult to be able to say, because here he comes to the king, which is Ahab, and the king says to him, Micaiah, shall we go up to Ramoth Gilead, or shall we refrain? It's a specific king telling him. So at times, we need to be able to understand the reality of what the Bible says. But before we do, we need to be able to make a couple of comments before we move on. The first thing we need to be able to understand when we're reading through scriptures like this is that this is descriptive, this is not prescriptive. And what that means is this is a story about telling the history of exactly what happened. And this is exactly what Micaiah said. And so we need to be able to say that then as we read through passages like this, we need to be able to delineate between what is commanded in scripture, what is God's will is revealed to us in scripture, and actually an accounting of history as given to us. And we need to be able to say those two things and be able to understand there's a difference between them. that we don't have in the scripture commentary on what actually happens or the view of this. You can read through the event of the account of David, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite, Bathsheba, and you read through that whole account and you can deduce from this, this is not what God requires of us through his revealed will. But we do actually also have the bonnet added at the very last verse of that, that what David did displeased the Lord. This commentary that is given to us, that we actually see this was displeasing to the Lord. We could have deduced that beforehand. But then in other portions of scripture, is this then, Can we then say, this displeased Lord, we don't know. There's no passage here for us to be able to make that commentary. But we also then can't then say, well, Micaiah did it, so therefore I can do it. That we need to go off what God's revealed will is. And again, that's where we make separation between what's prescriptive and what's descriptive. that here we're given rules that are clear in scripture, and we interpret those rules clearly, and then when we're unable to be able to clearly define things, we don't then make an argument from that unclear historical arguments, they did it so I can do it. So whether we say Micaiah lied deliberately, he didn't lie, he lied, it was a part of what he was trying to prove his point. Whatever he says, we might be able to understand that it then doesn't mean that we can then deduce that that's how we're to act in those situations. That it's okay to lie if you're gonna save your life. We need to have wisdom, biblical wisdom, to be able to understand how we can apply that. And there's no lost theology if Micaiah did sin. It doesn't unravel the whole Bible and say, because Micaiah is a man who sins, and men lie. And so it doesn't unravel our whole understanding of what scripture teaches. Actually, it proves it. And it shows that Micaiah is not Christ, the only man who is, in fact, sinless. The second aspect is that we might need to be able to see the whole story and see if there's any other possible explanations in the text. So here King Ahab confronts Micaiah again, which is interesting. Why would King Ahab then confront him? Surely King Ahab who heard 400 prophets and then 401 would quickly say, okay, let's do it then. But here in verse 16, we see a shift and a change. The King Ahab turns around and says to him, how many times shall I make you swear that you speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord? So here even King Ahab maybe understands there's something off about Micaiah's response. Maybe King Ahab is trying to impress Jehoshaphat. He's about to attack Syria who's been a friend before and now he needs another ally and Jehoshaphat is that friend. But we see this interesting change. But if we understand Ahab, we're really just understanding he's trying to make friends with Jehoshaphat, as we will see. So then what does Micaiah turn around and say to Ahab in verse 17? And he said, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains as a sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, these have no master. Let each return to his home in peace. And so, we'll come back to this, but we see from the very beginning that this is not a very good prophecy. And Ahab knows it. He was right when he said that Micaiah doesn't prophesy anything favorably about him. And maybe this is why he asked for another prophecy. The king even highlights this in verse 18 and says, the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me but evil? And so here we see this, Ahab is merely just trying to prove a point to Jehoshaphat. He says, is there any other prophets? And he says, Micaiah. And Ahab says, well, Micaiah never says anything good about me. They call him Micaiah and Micaiah says something good about him and Ahab says, haven't I told you only speak what the Lord says and he ends up saying something bad about him. So Ahab can say, see I told you I was right. But here we come to the center of the passage, the key part in verses 19 to 23. Micaiah said, Therefore hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead? And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, I will entice him. And the Lord said to him, By what means? And he said, I will go out, and there will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, you are to entice him, and you shall succeed. Go out and do so. Therefore, behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these, your prophets. And the Lord has declared disaster for you. And so again, before we move on, we need to understand the scene that is happening here. You have Micaiah and the 400 prophets all around, these two kings sitting on their thrones, ruling and reigning in all of their reign, all of their splendor, Jehoshaphat and Ahab, trying to work out whether what they're going to do is going to be good for them in the future. Again, verse 10, that verse I keep on pointing back to. Yeah, the King of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, were sitting on their thrones, arrayed on their ropes, at the threshing floor of the entrance to the gates of Samaria, and all the prophets were prophesying before them. But Micaiah comes up and says, there's another throne that we don't see. this picture of this heavenly throne room. And the Lord is sovereign over all things, ruling and governing all his creatures and all of their actions through the work of his providence. And we see this implicitly throughout the Bible. God is sovereign over all things. We see his hand working, we see his word talking and telling and prophesying of what is to come, how he has used things, how he makes things, but we see it explicitly, particularly in passages like this. Portions of the Bible where we see the great God who rules over all things. We see it as Jesus explains it to Peter that Satan asked him to sift him like wheat. this divine conversation that happens between God and his creature, Satan. You see it in Zechariah 3 and Joshua the high priest and the accuser coming forward. You see it clearly in the book of Job as you see the similar throne room scene and Satan comes before the Lord and the Lord asked for a report and he said that, have you considered my servant Job? And so we see the same scene here in 1 Kings chapter 22. We need to be able to understand what is happening in this passage. We do see all these scenes and the center of all of these scenes is the Lord seated on His throne. Not running from here or there chaotically trying to put out fires that have been started in other situations, but God is sovereign over all things. He is sovereign over all of these things. He's in control and everyone does what they are commanded to do. He is not absent. That here people come into the throne room and God's just not there. He's not ruling, he's not reigning, he's not using his works, decrees of providence. But he's there, he's present, sitting, is what we call the decrees of God, that he rules, he creates the world, he providentially rules over the world, all of his creatures and all of their actions. This is helpful when we think about the world that we live in, about all things. That it's not some world against good versus evil and then will we triumph of good versus evil. It's not merely we will just see how it turns out. It's not some yin and yang that here Satan and God are equal powers opposing one another. That here God is sovereign over all things, even Satan. This is why Jesus can say that here Satan will attack, but the gates of hell will not prevail against his church. How can he say that unless he is all powerful, all sovereign? That he is the great and powerful God who rules over everything. We'll even see this later with a random arrow. that God uses to be able to fulfill his word. In these throne room scenes, we see that God is sovereign, but also we see how God rules over his world. Not only that we see he uses providence, but how he uses that providence to be able to carry out his works. particularly even about this difficult conversation or theological philosophical question about sin. How is God sovereign over sin? I think this is one of the major strongest arguments that many people would have against Calvinism, against the understanding that God is sovereign. If God is sovereign, how does sin affect the world? How is God sovereign even over sin? I think this is a good passage to be able to see how this works. God has already told Ahab that his house will crumble. And he says, Who will entice Ahab that he may go up and follow Ramoth Gilead? And the one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, I will entice him. But here we see God has already prophesied that destruction is coming to Ahab and his house. But here we see God in his throne room, sovereignty, how he is bringing that about. That here God is using secondary causes to be able to bring about his primary means. So what does that mean? In theological terms, God's sovereignty operates not only directly through what God does, but also through secondary means. That is natural actions of human beings, angels, even sinful angels or humans in the world. The God then is not then the author of sin. Sin does not start in the heart of God and God then causes others to sin. Sin is a part of fallen humanity, fallen angels and therefore that works out and God uses that sin to be able to bring about his ends. That he permits human freedom and even evil choices of fallen angels, fallen humans to be able to serve his ultimate purpose. So in this passage, the secondary means is this evil spirit that comes and says, I will entice him. The decisions of Ahab, calling the prophets, the lying prophets, the armies involved in the battle, each of them acting according to their own nature and desires of their sinful depravity. And yet God orchestrates it, all of these actions to bring about his ultimate purpose. the fall of Ahab, just as he had foretold. This shows the profound mystery that we find in God's sovereignty, that's something that we can't even begin to imagine, that here in Romans chapter 8, 28 it says that God works all things for good according to the plan of for those who have been called according to purpose. Here, God works all things for good. Not all things are good in themselves, but here God is caring about these things. God's sovereign math just doesn't calculate in our head. Two evils do not make good. But yet, that's how God works in his sovereignty. You see the story of Joseph, evil after evil done to Joseph, and yet God uses those things for good that he might be able to save his people. And so we see these, God being able to use these secondary means to bring about his divine plan. He is not then the one sinning. He's not the one then saying, let us sin. In this he remains perfectly holy. and uses all things to work together for His glory and the fulfillment of all of His decrees. And so we see this lying spirit come, this fallen angel, or particularly maybe it's Satan, and come and explain their plans. How are you going to do this, the Lord says. I will go out and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets. And he said, you are to entice him and you shall succeed, go out and do so. Again, we see God's sovereignty even in that there. Giving direct commands of what he is able to be able to do. He can't go out and then do more than what he has said. So we see throughout all of this that God is sovereign over sin without being the author of sin. That here God is the one who is ruling and reigning over all things. The Spirit itself is the one acting with this evil intent. Prophets are willing to be deceived, but the Lord is ultimately in control. What we see also, the second thing, is the use of these secondary means. The lying spirit in verse 23 is one of the examples of the secondary means that God uses to be able to accomplish His sovereign plan. Ahab's prophets speak deceitfully and Ahab in his stubbornness chooses to believe the lie. These actions all stem not because and from God, but because the sinful hearts of those individuals involved. But yet God directs each of these events to be able to bring about his predetermined judgment on Ahab. The third thing is that we see God's sovereignty in judgment. But again, we must see that here God's plan is to bring judgment upon Ahab. And he uses these secondary means to be able to bring about that judgment, ensuring that Ahab will go into battle, that this random arrow will be able to strike him, stealing the fate of his Ahab according to the prophecy God gives. that we think where Ahab thought he was in control of his destiny, but here God's sovereign plan will come exactly as he had predetermined it to come. So now we can maybe understand the parable that is given in verse 15 of Micaiah, where Micaiah speaks and he testifies falsely. He is proving the point of what had already been revealed to him of what was coming. the lion spirit was put upon the tongues of the prophets to entice Ahab to be able to go into battle. Ahab is defiant and so are the other prophets, verse 28 and 24 to 28. Zedekiah the son of Janiah, It came near and struck Micaiah on the cheek and said, ìHow did the Spirit of the Lord go from me to speak to you?î And Micaiah said, ìBehold, you shall see on the day when you go into the inner chamber to hide yourself.î And the king of Israel said, seize Micaiah and take him back to Ammon, the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son. And say, thus says the king, put this fellow in prison and feed him meager rations of bread and water until I come in peace. Micaiah said, if you return in peace, the Lord has not spoken by me. And he said, here, all you people. And so we'll finish again in the middle of a story as we often do, only to be able to get you to come back. But we see that central verse helps us understand what's happening in this story in this time. But in verse 17, see this image of Israel scattered across all the mountains. There's a sheep that have no shepherd. The Lord said, these have no master. let each return to his home in peace. And so here we see that image of these two kings, particularly Ahab in this situation. He should be a shepherd to God's flock, God's people. The king is meant to be that shepherd caring and caring, looking after the flock. But here Ahab has not done this. He has not looked after And he will die. This prophecy will come to reality not soon after this. But I think what we see is this great and glorious image again of here the failures of the kings. That here there is a prophecy and first king seeks to be able to answer the question. When is the king of David, the son of David, going to have this son which is prophesied about in 1 Samuel chapter 7? The son who will sit on the throne and rule forever, who will be a good king like David is, who will rule his kingdom justly and rightly, who will be a good shepherd to the sheep. Ezekiel speaks of these false shepherds, these leaders that come up and these shepherds, instead of carrying and fighting off enemies. They destroy the sheep so that they might eat. They're covered in blood, but it's not the blood of the animals they've tried to kill, who are trying to kill the sheep. They're the predators. They're the ones who are killing their sheep. And so we see throughout the whole Bible, we see Christ is the Good Shepherd, Christ is the Great Shepherd, Christ is the Chief Shepherd. But I think you can see specifically even in this passage a tie and a link to a passage that Mark was thinking of when he wrote this in Mark chapter 6 verse 34. And when Jesus went ashore he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them because they were like a sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. And so we see here, again, these scattered sheep, and here Christ is the one who seeks to be able to have compassion on them and gathers them together as the great shepherd, the chief shepherd, the good shepherd. And we see that Christ is not like Ahab, that dies on a mountain and leaves his sheep to be able to scatter. But here Ahab rejects the prophets, the word of the Lord. But here, Christ is the one who obeys what his Father commands him to do, the will of his Father. He is obedient even to the point of death, death on the cross. And we see this carried out even when we think about God's sovereignty of what is to happen. And Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane says, not my will be done, but your will, Father. But as Peter says in Acts, that it's because of God's predestined plan. that Christ was crucified by sinners, that he might be able to save sinners. And so we see we're longing for this king to come. And Ahab reminds us that this king is not here. But when we read the gospel accounts, we see clearly that he's the sheep that gathers, the shepherd that gathers his sheep who are scattered. 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.