We're looking at the 22nd chapter of 1 Kings up through verse 40. It's an incredible chapter. There are disciplines in this chapter that could change your life today, tomorrow, this week, next week, the rest of your life. If you'll take the time today to take a few notes, mental and even on paper, it could mean your very future. If you'll notice, verse 26 through 28, Micaiah has given his word, he's been struck in the mouth The king of Israel said in verse 26, Seize Micaiah, take him back to Ammon the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son, and say, Thus saith the king, Put this fellow in prison, and feed him meager rations of bread and water, until I come in peace. And Micaiah said, If you return in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. Hear, all ye people. And he was out of there. Let's ask the Lord that we'd be those people that would hear. He that has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the church. Father, speak to our hearts today. Speak by your Spirit. Speak, Lord, we pray. Lord of salvation. God of creation, O speak to our hearts today. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Sometimes we as God's people find ourselves in the role of being something we hadn't planned on being, a 401st prophet of God. If God calls you to do something that you probably don't want to do, if you do it, you're his 401st prophet. We must stand firm even in circumstances when everything in us says it calls for an opposite course of action. But if God calls us to something, we better know what it is and we had better do it. In a chapel service on November 30th of last year, at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Little Rock, Arkansas, Mark Howell, was preaching to the seminary students. He's the son-in-law of Southwestern's president, Page Patterson, and he and his father-in-law had gone on a hunting trip in Africa, something that maybe you and I haven't gone on yet. Anybody here been on a hunting trip to Africa? I haven't yet. I doubt that I will. And yet it sounds like a fun thing, but they all of a sudden on one of those days when they were hunting, were circled completely around by elephants. A whole herd of elephants encircled them. And Mark Howe said every instinct in him said, we've got to run. And Page, his father-in-law said, we're not here to run. The worst thing you can do is RUN from a wild animal. It will catch you every time. And at that point he began to preach to the seminary students, and he said, �Seminary�s pretty hard, isn�t it? Pretty hard, isn�t it, Nathan? It�s not time to run. It�s not time to run. Keep it up. You�ll finish the journey. He said life in ministry is like a dangerous hunting trip. The pastor's message may not always be popular, the pressure may be intense, and sometimes the instinct says get your resumes going and get them rolling. You may need a new church after this message. Well, that's not just true for pastors. You know that's true for any one of us that serves the Lord. God may call us to do something that if we do it, it's not what the rest of the world is doing and we'll be unpopular, it won't be politically correct. Every one of us face that, not just pastors. There is no one but the Lord who would know exactly how to choose when He says, I've chosen you. I've chosen YOU. I've chosen YOU. What had happened here? Four hundred quote-unquote prophets of the Lord had coalesced together. They're united in a brazen front to speak what's popular, what's politically correct. They've been paid off by Ahab to speak for him. The message God has burned my heart with today is a message to challenge us. When we're called to speak for God, we're called to serve God. And yet His call is neither popular, politically correct, and it will be painful for us and possibly for others to proceed to follow the Lord. What will we do? What are we going to do if God calls us to be His 401st prophet? This message contains seven amazingly needed disciplines of life. required of us if God calls us to be a 401st prophet, whether in public or in a private call of duty. As we look at these, I want you to ask yourself, which of these numbers, maybe you'll write down all seven, but which of these numbers is God especially speaking to me today? Number one, God is calling us to be prayerful and careful not to associate or be unequally yoked with unbelievers. In verse 4, King Ahab said to King Jehoshaphat, Will you go with me to battle at Ramoth Gilead? And without praying, without talking to anyone, without seeking counsel, without anything, he just says, I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses, my armies as your armies, whatever I've got, you've Now I want you to understand that the New Testament is just as strong on this issue as the old. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6.14, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Why were Ahab and Jehoshaphat together anyway? What were they doing? Well, who is Ahab? He's the king of the 10 northern tribes. For 75 years now, since 975 BC, Something happened to the Kingdom of Israel. What happened is God's people divided after Solomon died and his son Rehoboam took over, he came to power, and King Rehoboam wouldn't listen to the elders, and because he wouldn't listen to the elders but listen only to the younger men, he ANGERED many of the tribes, and so a man Stepped into the vacuum. That's what happens when you don't do the job. Someone will step into the vacuum and Jeroboam I secured power quickly. He rallied 10 of the Israel's 12 tribes to follow him and to keep the troops with him, to keep his 10 tribes from going back to King Rehoboam, he set up a worship in the north so that the 10 tribes wouldn't travel there to Jerusalem and then abandon him as king. And you know what he set up to worship God? He set up two golden calves, not a temple to the Lord, two golden calves in Dan and Bethel, one in the north and one in the south. And then he cried out before all the people and the word got around. In 1 Kings 12, 28, he says, you have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. These two little golden calves He made, brought them up from the land of Egypt out of bondage. Are you kidding? Well, the people are COMPELLED to worship the golden calves, and many of them must have thought, Well, I guess this is as close as we can get to the Temple in Jerusalem. We'll worship these two golden calves, and that will worship God for delivering us from bondage. And so Jeroboam I broke the Second Commandment, no raven images of God. I can t think of anything more repugnant than to make an image of God by two golden calves. But the sin of Ahab and Jezebel is even worse. It broke both the first and the second because he says, You shall have no other gods before me. They no longer worship God at all. They worship Baal alone. Now, that s Ahab. He came from that line. that Israel line of the ten tribes. Now this other king is Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah. He's at the south. He's ruling over the two tribes of Israel. God was still worshipped in Judah. They still knew the truth. They had the temple. They had the sacrificial system that God had set up. This king Jehoshaphat was a good and godly king. He removed the sodomites, the homosexual male prostitutes in the land. 1 Kings 22, 46 tells us. He brought revival and reforms to Judah. He sent Levites and princes throughout the cities and towns of Judah to instruct the people in the word of God. So he set up Bible schools and seminaries, if you will. That's how good this king was. And he was so useful to God that even after this parley that he had with Ahab, he had learned a lot of lessons, and the day came, and he had learned his lessons and his disciplines quite well, and so a day came when the Mananites and the Moabites and the Ammonites, they all got together. and they came against him. And this time he asked of the Lord right up front, What shall I do? And the Lord says, Send out that choir of yours and sing. Give thanks to the Lord with all your heart. His love endures forever. His mercy endures forever. And they just went out singing. Give thanks to the Lord with all your heart. I don't know if that's that tune or not. His love endures forever. And guess what happened to the Manites and the Ammonites and the Moabites? All the ites turned on each other. And as a result, they all fell dead and God gave a great victory. What a great king this is. Jehoshaphat, write him down, a good king of Judah. But sadly, this good king Jehoshaphat had one besetting weakness. one besetting sin. He wanted to make peace at any price. He wanted to make peace with the wicked King Ahab in the north. Now this had never happened before. His predecessors The two tribes had fought against the ten tribes and seen them as the enemy because they worshipped the golden calf. And so he was a peace-loving man to a fault. He wanted to do anything and everything to repair the breach between the two kingdoms, to bring all the Jews back together. What a great thing! So at the invitation of King Ahab, he told him, without even praying or thinking or asking for counsel, he says, �We�ll be as you are, your people, as our people.� Our armies will go with you, our armies as your armies. Our horsemen will go with you in battle to recover the town of Ramoth-Gilead which has been lost, I Kings 22. So what is it that brought these men together? What brought them together was Jehoshaphat, this good man getting together with an evil man wanting to see peace. Now Jehoshaphat could have been a bold Micaiah of a man But peace at any price is not being a Micaiah. Now the fuller story, many times if you don't have the full story, it's just like you had in Samuel today. You said, there's another, there's another recording of this. You can go to the Chronicles and see the death of Saul. Well, you can go to the Chronicles in 2 Chronicles 19 too and find out what happened when Jehoshaphat almost got killed in the battle to get back Ramoth Gilead. What happened? God came to a man by the name of Jehu, the son of Hanani. And he came up to him, and I want you to know when you think of Micah 6, 9, when it says, hear the rod and how it is appointed, he felt the sting that day. Because Jehu came up to him and bluntly said to him, should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Because of this wrath has gone out against you from the Lord. You almost were killed in battle. Nevertheless, some good is found in you. For you destroyed the Asherahs out of the land and you set your heart to seek God. Wow, that was a stinging day. Now, you may say to me, I don't like this thing that you're saying. You're saying we're not supposed to love sinners. Oh, Jesus is a friend of sinners. There's a difference in loving people and having an association and linkage that you're tied together. You say, well I know people, I know plenty of good and godly people that are yoked in business with unbelievers, or they're yoked in pleasure with unbelievers, or they're yoked in partnerships with unbelievers, or they're yoked in marriage. I just have a caveat I want to give to you. I've been in ministry long enough now that I can tell you This happens, and people will tell you this. Don't listen to this for a moment. They'll hear this thing about don't be yoked together with unbelievers, and they'll come after many years and say, I just found this verse in scripture that my husband or my wife is an unbeliever, and I can't be yoked with an unbeliever, so we're getting a divorce. No, you're not. You don't do something that scripture plainly says he hates. Malachi 2.16, for I, the Lord God, hate divorce. you're married, stick it out and maybe you'll win your wife, maybe you'll win your husband. Don't ever walk out of here and say, pastor said we should get a divorce. No, I've never recommended one in my life and I never will. I just want you to know, the Word of the Lord is still strong and I hope, I hope today that you'll hear the Word of the Lord and realize, realize that God is calling us to prayerful and careful, carefulness and not associating in a linkage with unequally yoking ourselves. Now, if you're not married and you come to me and you say, oh this man or this woman isn't married, now I've got something to say to you. Think twice. before you get married. I know, but I love him. I love her. Think twice. Should we be joined together with those who hate the Lord? Secondly, God is calling us to ask Him before making any important decisions, regardless of our own opinions. Give Joshua credit after his foolish blunder of promising Ahab he'd go into battle with him. He says to the king of Israel, inquire first of the Lord. He should have said that, let me inquire first. Finally, he's starting to regain some spiritual antenna, a little backbone. But never in the history of the world has there ever been a group of prophets of the Lord that ever was 400. in all being the same in what they had to say. Wow. Think of Moses and Samuel and Elijah and Elisha and Isaiah and Jeremiah and the prophets. They were all lonely men, even in the school of the prophets. There were people that disagreed with one another. Remember the unnamed prophet that God told him to ask a guy to strike him? He said, strike me, but he wouldn't. There was a difference in opinion among the prophets. And he said, ìA lion will eat you.î And the lion met him and ate him. Strong passages of scripture of what happens when you disobey the command of the Lord. He said to another guy, strike me. And he hauled off and just slammed him in the mouth. He wasn't about to get eaten up by a lion. He followed through. But I want you to know, here's 400 that are parroting each other. They're good old boys, paid off by Ahab. They're echoes of one another, beating the same drum, parroting the same false word. A true prophet has a distinct sound. There are Romans 12, one and two person. They're not conformed to this world. They're not conformed to this world. If you find yourself always agreeing with the world, the scripture says, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that's in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life are not of God, but of this world. and the world is passing away, but the one that does the will of the Lord endures forever. If you find yourself agreeing with the world, reproducing the same Greek logic, saying the most comfortable thing in a situation, be alarmed. The men and women of God choose character over conformity, conviction over compromise, consequence to their own self over their own comfort, and courage over cowardice. And I'm going to repeat it. You might want to write it down. If you're a man or woman of God, you choose character over conformity. conviction over compromise, consequence over comfort, and courage over cowardice. In fact, Proverbs 28 verse 1 is very clear. The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion. Micaiah was as bold as a lion. Jehoshaphat was not at this point. False prophets, false shepherds, and false mentors rely on the numbers game. If you're relying on the numbers game to say, well, I've got a lot of people on my side saying this is what God wants me to do. You can get 400 people to agree almost with anything these days, and back then too. The Word of God isn't established by a poll. Numbers don't ensure truth, no matter how many. You can't create truth. Truth belongs to God. You can't make it up. Number three, there's a third discipline. God is calling us to listen to the Word of the Lord, even if we hate what we're going to hear. Verse eight, And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, He says, isn't there someone else here that has maybe a second opinion or something? Is there any other prophet of the Lord around here? Oh yeah, there is a man, one man. That we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah the son of Imlon, but I hate him. He never prophesied good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, let not the king say so. Go get him, let's have him come. I want you to know those who speak for God will be hated. Their words from God will anger people, not just Ahab's, but many people. He did humble himself before Elijah. Remember he repented in our last text after he was given this awful, awful judgment. God said to Elijah, you see how he repented? But I want you to know, though he repented, this is subsequent, this happened AFTERWARDS, and though he repented of what he had done with Naboth, he didn't repent of his ANGER towards Micaiah. He STILL HATED him! He HATED him with a PASSION! He had a GRUDGE! It was not a first-time prophet. We've seen him before, must have seen him before. At least Ahab has seen him before. And I believe what the Jews say. They say this unnamed prophet who was in the role playing of saying, strike me and then strike me again. And he bandaged his face and he showed himself to the king. And then he said, I had a prisoner get away. And he says, well, your life for his. And he took the bandage off and said, you're the man because you let Ben Hadad go. You'll die in battle and the dogs will eat your blood in Samaria. I believe that same guy is the one talking that he doesn't want to have come up. He's probably in prison. He went back to prison, we know that for sure. There's a good chance Jewish tradition is right. Even after repenting, Ahab wanted nothing to do with Micaiah, this evil grudge. He was certain, however, that Micaiah told the truth, and he did not want to hear the truth. You know, millions of people today don't want to hear the truth. Don't say it straight to me. Don't say it straight to them. Even when the messenger was sent to summon Micaiah, probably out of prison, the messenger came with Ahab's message. He came with a message. He set him up, let your word be like the word of one of them, because the words of the prophets with one accord are favorable to the king. Four hundred of them have said go up to Ramoth Gilead. Now let your word be like theirs. Speak favorably to the king. It was a set up for a four hundred and first prophet to become a chime. Now I want you to know if another prophet or if 10 other prophets or 400 prophets are speaking the truth, chime with them. But I want you to know it's not about numbers. It's about speaking the word of the Lord. He could not be a chime. Number four, God is calling us to speak the word of the Lord regardless of personal consequence to us. What was Micaiah's reply? Verse 14. But Micaiah said, as the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. To speak the word of the Lord is a job that all of us can do. To do the command of the Lord is something all of us could do. Phillips Brooks said it wisely. He said, do not pray for tasks. equal to your powers. Pray for power equal to your tasks. And as someone has wisely said, and I don't know who, so I can't credit them, God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called. Micaiah went in before the king with a job no one else wanted, a job he knew would cost him dearly. It may have cost him death in prison. He was only getting bread and water. One of the ways we can test the truth of a message about whether it is from God or not is, is it self-serving? Does it feed a man's evil sins? Does it feed those evil desires? When a man or woman speaks from God, it will almost always cost the messenger greatly, painfully over an extended time. And as you see even with Micaiah, for a moment, it may even make you a bit fearful of delivering that message. Psalm 54, excuse me, Psalm 15 verse 4 says a person of integrity will swear to his own hurt. He'll tell the truth no matter what. Micaiah got the messenger's message. Come on with me! Some people say, some of the commentaries say, well, he wasn't shaved, he smelled like sin being in prison, had to clean him up. I think they brought him just like he was. He came in, probably was a lot worse looking than the guy on the front of your bulletin. They brought him in, he smelled bad, he'd been in prison. And now the man that they abhated is standing before him. Micaiah, glad you came. Shall we go up to Ramos Gilead to battle, or shall we refrain? Micaiah answered, Go up and triumph, for the LORD will give it into the hand of the king. Can you hear the irony in his voice? Micaiah was giving Ahab what he wanted. Okay, that's what you asked for, that's what you got. The 400 prophets, they're going around. They got these horns. You can just see 400 people there at the gate of Samaria, just walking around with their horns kind of goring each other. And by these, we'll gore and we'll push until we win the battle. Zedekiah, the son of Janiah, was there with them, Janiah. Even wicked Ahab was quick to pick up. What did you say? Go up and triumph and the Lord will give you the victory. How many times have I told you to speak the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God when you speak in the name of the Lord. I've told you what to do, now tell the truth. Oh, okay. He was gonna do that. He humored that king for a moment. I saw all Israel, verse 17, scattered on the mountains as sheep that have no shepherd. Ahab's killed. That's what he's saying. And the Lord said, they have no master. Let each return to his home in peace. Now Ahab told Jehoshaphat, didn't I tell you what kind of a man he was? He's always this way. He has never, ever prophesied anything good for me, only evil. But he wasn't through speaking. He said in verse 19, Here the word of the Lord, I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who's going to entice Ahab that he will go up and follow Ramoth Gilead? Why? Because the unnamed prophet had said you're going to die and your blood is going to be licked up by the dogs. So how's it gonna happen? And one said one thing and another said another. Sounds like the book of Job, Job 1 and 2. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord saying, I'll entice him. And the Lord said to him, by what means? And he said, I'll go out and I'll be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, you're to entice him and you shall succeed. Go out and do so. Now therefore the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these, your prophets. The Lord has declared disaster for you. Now what has Micaiah done? He's done a crazy thing. He's not only taken on the king of Israel, he's taken on 400 compatriots, 400 quote unquote prophets of the Lord, and he's told them they all have a lying spirit, and they're all telling a big fat lie. And Zedekiah, the son of Jinnah, He had about all he could take, and though he wasn't asked to do this like the unnamed prophet was, which is probably Micaiah too, he may still be recovering. He just hauled off and slammed him in the cheek. How did it happen that the Spirit of the Lord left you, or left me and came to you? How did that happen? And he said to him, all you'll see on that day when you go into an inner chamber to hide yourself. And so King Ahab said, seize Micaiah now, take him back to Ammon, and take him to the governor of the city, to Joash the king's son, and say, put this fellow in prison, feed him meager rations of bread and water until I come in peace. Micaiah still was not through with God's job for him to fulfill. As he's being seized, he responded to Ahab, if you return in peace, the Lord has not spoken by me. Here, all you peoples, and they pulled him out and took him to prison. He gave the king and his court a means by which they could call him a false prophet and do to him what you do to false prophets. Hadn't happened to Ahab's prophets yet. The false prophets were to be what? Stoned. He says, all you have to do, Ahab, is just come back whole. Just come back in peace. Come back in one piece. That's all that has to happen. Then I'm a false prophet. Off to prison, off to bread and water. It's costly to speak the word of the Lord, but eternally it pays to serve Jesus. It pays every day. It pays every step of the way. Though the road to glory may sometimes be drear, you'll be happy if you'll speak the word of the Lord every day. God is calling us to count the cost of ignoring the word of the Lord from one of his obedient servants. We already heard that about the man that wouldn't strike the unnamed prophet. Now, it's going to be two people. It's going to be Ahab and Jehoshaphat, both, that are ignoring the word of the Lord from one of his obedient servants. Notice verse 29 and 30. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, went up to Ramoth Gilead. Are you kidding? Both of them. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, this must have been one of the most naive moments that Jehoshaphat ever had, this good king. He says, I'll disguise myself and go into battle. But you wear your royal robes. Yeah. Show up, show up there so everybody will know who you are. And the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle. Now, I want us to back up for a moment and just think about this. Ahab and Josaphat went up to battle. Both of them knew they had heard the true word of the Lord. Why do you think Ahab disguised himself? He believed what Micaiah had said. That's why he tried to fool the Lord. Didn't Jehoshaphat believe God's message through Micaiah? If so, why didn't he say, hasta la vista? I'll be seeing you, Ahab. I'm headed south to Jerusalem. I've got work back there to do. I've got plenty to do. You have a good trip up to Ramoth Gilead. I'm out of here. Why would he listen? Why would he consider this godly man? Godly men have an unction and an anointing. Godly women too. And you can recognize the hollow sound of falsehood when you hear it. You recognize the voice of truth. It's one of the great blessings of being converted and obeying the words of the Lord. That we have a witness within us. We can recognize the truth when God prompts us. We know what the truth is. We know what areas it goes against the word of God. Ahab believed Micaiah. What happened to Jehoshaphat? He keeps his royal robes on. What is he going to be in the battle? Bummer. Bullseye. And what does the king of Syria, Ben-Hadad, what does this man that he's released say to the people? Only get one man. Don't get anyone else. No one else. Just go for Ahab. Okay? You know, it's an interesting thing. Jehoshaphat risked, he risked it all because he was such a man of peace, peace at any price. Okay, I said I'd go with you, I'll go with you. his association with Ahab put him smack dab in the way of God. He put himself in the way of death and Jehu said in Chronicles, he said God's wrath came down on you and he felt God's wrath when all of a sudden they were looking for the one in robes and they found the one in royal robes and they started to kill him and he cried out It's a puzzling thing. Why do we proceed with a direction we know inside our souls is a very risky path, when we know God has weighed in on the matter already? Why did both kings disregard the prophet's message? You say, well, for Ahab, he just insisted the messenger had it in for him, so it's just a matter of, it's bad, it's bad vibes between them. But neither of these men were committed to the will and the ways and the word of God. As God's children were called to heed His word and His bidding, whether we like it or not, they inquired of God. But when they inquired, they were going to get what they wanted or forget it." Have you ever listened to the word of the Lord that way? I want to ask for your leadership as long as it goes my way. They weren't intending to heed his message if it turned out to be something other than what they wanted to hear. How committed am I? How committed are you to the will and the ways of God? As a child, I must always be ready to do His bidding, even if I don't like it. Now, both kings had their minds made up. They knew what they wanted to do. Do we ever get our minds made up? We know what we want to do. They weren't going to change for anyone. They had agreed to a settled plan. They had a chosen course of action. It was that period, full stop. I don't want to hear anymore, even if it's God's word. I don't want to know. I'm not going to flex. I'm not going to bend to God's will. I'm not going to change my mind even for God. In matters of obedience to God, we can compete on who has the best plan of action. I would encourage you, if you're competing with God on what's the best plan of action, stop, stop now while you can. Stop now, stop now, don't wait. Then I think there's a little bit of, there's a little bit of kind of pride, not just chutzpah that sent Jehoshaphat out there, He has already given his word. He doesn't want to appear weak. He wants to appear like he's a man of great strength, his great army. He doesn't want to be cowardly. He doesn't want to refuse to go out to battle. And so he's going to go against God to impress Ahab. Neither king had Micaiah's courage to stand alone, whatever the cost. Number six. God is calling us to obey God's revealed will. I don't think that's going to stay. God is calling us to obey God's revealed will and to treasure His word above our own settled plans. If you look at verses 31 to 33, now the king of Syria commanded the 32 captains of his chariots, fight with neither small nor great, but only with the king of Israel. And when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, it's surely the king of Israel. So they turned to fight against him. And Jehoshaphat cried out. The disguise worked, Rahab, temporarily. But it was a deadly gamble for Joshua, a deadly gamble. He could have, he should have, he probably, how did God prevent it? But he did. He wanted to stay in league with Ahab's battle plan. Can you imagine the wake-up call for Jehoshaphat when the Syrian army closed in on him and prepared to kill him? It was worse than elephants attacking, let me tell you. He saw all of them with their arrows and their spears. All of them were aiming at him, and he says, I'm not Ahab. Oh. Wow. So they called it off. I don't believe you ever had to learn a lesson twice. Have you ever had to learn things the hard way? I had a lady about 40 years ago that told me, after about the 10th or 12th time of learning things the hard way, I said to her, why do you choose the hard way? She says, because that's the only way I ever learned. And I thought to myself, and I still think to myself, why do we choose the hard way to learn? Why would we always have to choose the hard way? God loved Jehoshaphat so much. He wasn't finished with him for his glory. He had that great miracle against the Mayanites and the Moabites and the Ammonites sending out his choir. He had much more work to do, but this was a learning day that he learned this discipline of don't associate yourself with evil. Don't ignore the word of the Lord. Treasure that word. not your settled plan that you're going into battle to Ramoth Gilead. Number seven, God is calling us to remember the battle is never over until God says it's over and He will fulfill His word. He will fulfill His word. God is sovereign. He will always fulfill His word regardless of our obedience or disobedience, regarding of our cooperation or resistance, regarding irregardless of all of these things. God's going to do what God's going to do. That's who God is. The means that He uses to fulfill His Word are means that defy our imagination. We can conceive of how our sovereign God works up to a point, but we don't know all the things He can do. His Word, His will, His plans for us He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. His ways are higher than ours. Isaiah the prophet said in Isaiah 55, 9 to 11. But now we look at verses 34 to 40 and there's this crazy Syrian soldier. We don't know where Ahab is. We don't know. We've looked all over. There's only one king in robes and it's not Ahab. Call it off. Call the battle off. We don't know where he is. He's probably back in Jezreel. It's kind of an interesting thing. But there's one guy that's just like my brother. I have a brother that when we go hunting or when he goes hunting with me when we were young, it's still true to this day when he goes hunting, if he goes out and he doesn't see the game, he's gotta pull the trigger. He's just got to pull the trigger. And so, I don't know how many of you men or women are like that, but you've got the gun ready, you've sighted it in, you wanna aim at something, so you throw out a can. And the last thing before the day is, blow up that can. You say, got it. And here's this Syrian, this Syrian soldier, bless his heart. He's had a big day and he's almost gotten King Ahab, but he found out it's Jehoshaphat. And he had his arrow ready. Didn't get to let go. Oh, he just, one for the day. Pulls it out. There it goes. It's in the air. Now, you have to understand who Ahab is. He's a disguised soldier, but he's not stupid. He's got armor on. He's got a breastplate. He's got a backplate. He's got a plate down his legs. He is like many of the soldiers. He's ready for everything. And where the breastplate comes together, there are just, there's a little spot in there, kind of the joints of the harness right around here someplace. right above that hip bone, there's just a place there. And God, who is the Master, who will always fulfill His Word, listen to what happened. A certain man drew his bow at random. That one place, that one place that was open, that one place, and it got him right in the joints of the harness. right between the scale armor and the breastplate. He said to the driver of the chariot, turn around and carry me out of this battle for I'm wounded. And the battle continued that day and the king was propped up, they had him, pillows around him or whatever. He's propped up in his chariot facing the Syrians until evening and he died. Just like the unnamed prophet had said, just like Micaiah had said, he may be the same one. And about sunset a cry went through the army, same one Micaiah had said. He said, I saw Israel scattered on the mountains, verse 17, as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, these have no master. Let each return to his home in peace. And what happened here? About sunset a cry went through, verse 36, went through the army, every man to his city, every man to his country. Everything God said is happening. So the king died. And he was brought to Samaria. But there's a few more things God said that have to come true. And they buried the king of Samaria, and they washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked up his blood. And the prostitutes washed themselves in it according to the word of the Lord that he had spoken. Now the rest of the acts of Ahab and all that he did in the ivory palace, or the ivory house that he built, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel? So Ahab slept with his fathers, and Ahaziah's son reigned in his place." As we come to the end of this last point, God is calling us to remember the battle is never over until God says it's over. And He will fulfill His word. I just put myself in Ahab's shoes. I did for a little while. I put myself in Ahab's shoes. And I said to myself, he hurt Elijah and he repented. And God said, you see how you repented? And I don't know this. I just hope, I just hope for Ahab's sake, I just hope that he realized he was stupid one more time and said he hated my guy and went out against him. I'm just hoping he said, God, would you forgive me one more time? Did it happen? We have no record that it did or didn't. He had resisted God and once again he had lost. God is sovereign in full robes. Jehoshaphat was never touched by an arrow and disguised, fully in disguise, a stray random arrow. There's nothing stray when God gets a hold of it. right in the joints of the harness. That tiny opening in his armor. God always has the last word. The battle isn't over until God says it's over. He will fulfill his word. God teach me these disciplines. God teach you these disciplines. And now I will reflect and share one last time. I told you and I'm going to tell you what I told you. Number one is God is telling us to be prayerful. and careful not to associate with or be unequally yoked with unbelievers. He's calling us to ask Him before making any important decisions regardless of our own opinions. He's calling us to listen to the Word of the Lord even if we hate what we're going to hear. He's calling us to speak the Word of the Lord regardless of personal consequence to us. He's calling us to count the cost of ignoring the Word of the Lord from one of His obedient servants. He's calling us to obey God's revealed will and to treasure that word above our own settled plans. And last of all, he's calling us to remember the battle is never over until God says it's over and he will fulfill his word. And Paul says to us in Romans 15, 4, even though the word says strange passage, he says, All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. These things were written for our learning that we, through perseverance of the scriptures, might have hope. What I've just shared with you, if it becomes a discipline in your life, could change your entire future. It's really up to you and it's up to me. But remember, who has the last word? God. Let's bow our heads.