Alright, let's take your Bible and let's turn to 1 Kings chapter number 22. 1 Kings 22. We began last week to look at the prophet Micaiah. We saw that he stood alone and spoke the truth to wicked king Ahab of Israel and king Jehoshaphat of Judah when there were 400 false prophets who were presenting to king Ahab what he wanted to hear. Those false prophets knew Ahab and they were wanting to please the king. And so they said, oh yeah, the Lord's going to give you victory. King Ahab became discontent, we know, that Syria had a little corner of land that he wanted called Ramoth-Gilead. And Ahab had met with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to ask him to join in on this campaign. Josaphat said, yeah, I'll join in with you, but have you gotten a word from the Lord? Have you consulted a prophet of God about this? And, of course, Ahab's wicked. He ain't consulted no prophet. And so Ahab called in his 400 so-called prophets to speak what he wanted them to speak. And that's in verse number 6. It says there in 1 Kings 22.6, then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together. About 400 men said unto them, Shall I go against Ramoth-Gilead the battle-lord, shall I forbear? And they said, Go up, for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king. And they went all out in their encouraging Ahab to go do this. In fact, they did what I call charismatic dramatics. Down in verse number 12. Look at verse number 11. In Zedekiah, the son of Akib Keniah, made him horns of iron and he said, Thus saith the Lord, with these shalt thou push the Syrians until thou have consumed them, And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, go up to Ramoth-Gilead and prosper, for the Lord shall deliver it into the king's hands. You've got 400 saying, go do it. But, you know, we saw that Josaphat said, I don't know about this. You got any other prophet of the Lord around here that we can consult? Ahab said, yeah, we got one. Look at verse number 7 there. Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides that we may inquire of him? And the king of Hebrews said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah, son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him. for he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil." Well, there's a reason for that. That's because Ahab was evil. And Jehoshaphat said, let not the king say so. In other words, you're not going to say that. You're not going to say that. We know that Micaiah stood in stark contrast to the 400 false prophets. We saw there in verse number 10 and 12, excuse me, look at verse number 13, I'm sorry, verse number 13. And the messenger that was gone to call Micaiah, speaking to him saying, Behold now the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth, And let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak that which is good. In other words, he was telling Micaiah what he needed to do. Now, Micaiah was brought in to tell what thus saith the Lord. But he was trying to influence what he was going to say. In verse number 14, Micaiah said, As the Lord liveth with what the Lord speaketh unto me, that will I speak. And we note there in verse number 15, so he came to the king and the king said unto Micaiah, shall we go unto Ramoth Gilead to battle or shall we forbear? And you can just see Micaiah mocking these 400 prophets. And he answered, O go and prosper for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king. And the king said unto him, how many times shall I adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the name of the Lord? And then it got serious. Micaiah got serious in verse 17. And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd. And the Lord said, these have no master. Let them return every man to his house in peace. What the idea here was, Ahab wasn't going to make it out of the battle. Ahab was going to be killed. They weren't going to have a shepherd anymore. They weren't going to have anybody to lead them. They were going to have to have a new king. And verse 18, And the king of Israel said unto Josaphat, Did I not tell thee that he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil? And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord. And here we see Micaiah giving what he actually saw, what the Lord showed him in the vision that he gave him this message. It says, And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead? In other words, the Lord was determined that Ahab was going to fall in this. And he said, one said on this manner and another said on that manner. And therefore came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, wherewith? And he said, I will go forth and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, thou shalt persuade him and prevail also. Go forth and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee." And so here we see Micaiah spoke God's truth here, but Ahab was closed to hearing God's truth. He was not going to open his heart and heed the truth. We see that in verses 13-18 that Micaiah brought Ahab there and Jehoshaphat and of course being warned that messenger didn't do anything to this prophet of God but just determined that he was just going to tell the truth and he did. Martin Luther was asked one time if he knew that the whole world was against him because of his uncompromising commitment to God's Word. He said, then I am against the whole world. That's basically what we got with Micaiah here. Don't you see all these 400 prophets and the kings are against you here? Well, then I'm against them. And so we see that Ahab sought to force, the next thing we're going to see here is Ahab sought to force the Lord to change his word by confining the prophet. Notice we left off there in verse number 23. We can pick up in verse 24. But Zedekiah, that's the one that was charismatic, dramatic. Zedekiah, the son of that fellow right there, went near and smote Micaiah on the cheek. Don't you wish these guys had shorter names? Easier names to pronounce? I do. In which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak unto thee? He was a smart aleck. He just really was. And Micaiah gives him a personal prophecy here. Behold, thou shalt see in that day when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself." Wow. So, Micaiah shared this vision that God had given him. Micaiah was hit on the cheek by Zedekiah. The false prophet took offense to what the prophet had said. And Micaiah prophesied here against Zedekiah. Ahab had Micaiah imprisoned with instructions. Notice the next verses here in verse number 26 through 28. And the king of Israel said, take Micaiah and carry 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 the prison and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction until I come in peace. And Micaiah said, if thou return at all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he said, hearken, O people, every one of you. So the king of Israel, Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Ramoth-Gilead. Well, what do you think is going to happen there? Well, what's going to happen is the Word of God. He's thinking that somehow he's going to change God's plan and change God's Word by confining this prophet of God, you can't contain and confine the Word of God and keep it from taking place. Ahab directed his anger at God's messenger. It was as if he thought Micaiah wished this defeat upon him. And that's why it's going to take place because Micaiah was wanting him to be defeated. No, this was God that gave Micaiah the message. Maybe he thought that the prophet was not just a mouthpiece for God, but maybe he thought that Micaiah could have some influence on God as well. Think about it. If he'd strong-armed Micaiah, maybe Micaiah would, eating that bread of affliction and drinking the water of affliction, he'd get tired of suffering, he'd turn and ask the Lord to help Ahab. Wasn't going to happen though. The fact that Micaiah spoke God's truth without compromise. Think about it. It was one of the most loving things that he could do. Ahab may have thought, well he's just being judgmental. He's not being very loving, but the most loving thing to do that Micaiah could do is speak the truth. He warned him about the decree of death that would result from this foolish course of action. A decree that came not from him, but from the sovereign, all-powerful God. All he had to do was say, OK, well I'm not going to go to battle. But no, Ramoth Gilead, man, he wanted it bad. And he didn't think that Micaiah really knew the Word of God. He just really didn't think he did. And so he took his chances. Sometimes people vent their anger upon us as men of God. When we try to warn people about disaster, they will certainly follow their foolish course of action. They may say, I think you're just being a judgmental preacher. You're not being very loving by the way you're preaching that. When in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The most loving thing I can do as a man of God, as a pastor, is to preach the truth to you. If I sugarcoat it, If I water it down, that's not good for you. It's not good for me either because I'm going to answer for that. But if we speak the Word of God and folks get mad at us, their anger is directed in the wrong place because we're just repeating what God said in His Word. At least that's what I do. I preach the Word. And they may respond in anger toward us, but their anger is really directed toward God. Now we see Ahab tried in vain to keep God's truth from being fulfilled by disguising Himself on the battlefield. Imagine that. Look at verse number 29. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Ramoth-Gilead. And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself and enter into the battle, but put on thy robes. And the king of Israel disguised himself and went into the battle. Now, if I was Jehoshaphat at that point, it's like, wait a minute, what? You trying to get me killed? And you trying to get off the hook? I mean, because that's what it appears to be. And we will see that next week when we get into, we're going to see some other prophets that prophesied to Jehoshaphat when he got off the battlefield, when he comes home, He got one, two, three prophets to come in and speak a word. And the first one said, God ain't real happy with you right now because you joined hands with Ahab. You all know better than that. And the Lord is the one that protected him. Next week, we're going to go to 2 Chronicles and we'll see the account there of the same thing. But we're going to see where it mentions there that the Lord is the one that did what we see here. And moved on the hearts of the Syrians. Look at verse 31. But the king of Syria commanded his thirty and two captains that had rule over his chariots, saying, Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel. He was wanting Ahab. And Ahab alone. That's who he was targeting here. Verse 32, And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said, Surely it is the king of Israel. So here it says, And they turned aside to fight against him, and Jehoshaphat cried out. Well, when he cried out, I imagine he cried out to God, because God's the one that protected him there. God's the one that directed them in a different area. And as we will see next week, Lord willing. And verse 33, And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots perceived that it was not the king of Israel, that they turned back from pursuing him. Now to go with God's one that gave them the clear sight to be able to say, this is not the guy you want. This is not the king that you're looking for. And so we see that God's will fulfilled here. He disguised himself. It's interesting to note that the 400 prophets said, go ahead and the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. But the only one prophet said, you're going to be utterly destroyed. Yet the words from Micaiah, the lone prophet, is the ones that haunted the king and prompted him to take such action as he took, to disguise himself as one of his soldiers. It was a foolish action. that was not effective, and God's Word against him was still fulfilled. No disguise can hide anyone from God's penetrating Word. Look at verse 31 through 34. Verse 31 through 34 show that the king of Syria was only out to get Ahab. Look at verse 34. And this is a great illustration of what the Word of God does. It found it smart, just as the Lord said it would. Look at verse 34. and a certain man drew a bow and adventured." In other words, he was just shooting an arrow. He wasn't really shooting in any particular direction. He just drew a bow and ventured and smoked the king of Israel between the joints of the harness. Wherefore, he said unto the driver of his chariot, Turn thine hand and carry me out of the host, for I am wounded. And the battle increased that day, and the king was stayed up in his chariot against the Syrians, and died at even. And the blood ran out of the wound into the midst of the chariot, and there went a proclamation throughout the host about the going down of the sun, saying, every man to his city, and every man to his own country. So the king died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried the king in Samaria. and one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria. And the dogs licked up his blood, and they washed his armor according to the word of the Lord which he spake." That was from a different prophet. God said what was going to happen with him and Jezebel, both would guard their blood. Now, despite Ahab's attempts to close his ears to God's truth, and his attempts to imprison God's truth and despite his efforts to disguise himself to hide from God's truth, God's truth did prevail. It did prevail and it always does. God's Word will always prevail. Ahab's armor was penetrated and he died according to God's Word. And in the end, only one prophet was vindicated. One man stood alone and passed the test of being a prophet of God. I'm not going to take time to turn there tonight for sake of time, but Deuteronomy 18, verses 21 and 22 tell you how you can tell between a good prophet and a false prophet. And what was supposed to happen to the false prophets. He passed the test. He was the only one that did. Because what he said came true and what the others said did not come true. So in wrapping this thing up here, I want you to turn to Hebrews chapter number 12. Excuse me, Hebrews chapter number 11. It should be 11. Hebrews 11. Got it wrong on the notes there. Sometimes that happens. So what happened to Micaiah? We can safely assume that he probably died in prison. Well, that's not the way we wanted the story to end. It's probably what happened, though, because Ahab didn't come back. And unless the keepers had mercy on him after Ahab's demise, which is highly doubtful, then he died in prison, eating bread of affliction and drinking water of affliction. Now understand that Micaiah is one of the prophets, not mentioned by name here in Hebrews 11 verse 32. It says here, What shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets. He's one of the prophets we've been looking at. who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the vials of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, women received their dead, raised to life again, and others were tortured. not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. I believe he's in that group right there in verse 36. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, more, over of bonds and imprisonment. He was imprisoned, wasn't he? He was. Some, he says here, they were stoned, sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with a sword. They wandered about in sheepskins, goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. and they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth. These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." So, I believe that he fits there. He's not mentioning my name in Hebrews 11.32, but the prophets, which he is a part of. Even though he may not be as prominent as Elijah or Elisha, or Samuel or some of the other prophets, he nevertheless was a faithful prophet. And in that list of others, I believe he fixed in that verse 36 because he was imprisoned. And I believe he died right there. We'll find out when we get home to be with the Lord. I mean, I can't say dogmatically that that happened, but that's what was told to happen. That's what Ahab's And if directions were, if I don't come back alive, don't let him loose. So, anyway. That's our Bible study for this evening. Let's set that aside. We'll pull back on our prayer list. We'll pray for the needs. And we'll be dismissed with this prayer. As I said, next week, we'll take a week and look more willingly at three more prophets. Actually, it's going to be four. One of them we're going to see is Daddy, too. One of them had a daddy that was a prophet before he was. I'm going to have to backtrack just a little bit. He didn't prophesy to Jehoshaphat, but he prophesied beforehand, and he was ill-treated as well. And you would think, well, his daddy was a prophet, and he was ill-treated. Boy, it took some guts for him to stand and take a stand. He did take a stand, and we're going to see that.