Our passage of Scripture is found in the Old Testament, the book of 1 Kings chapter 22. You can look that up in the pew Bible and follow along. But more importantly, listen to the word of the living God. It's a long passage, but it all holds together because it's a true occurrence in the history of God's dealing with his people. First Kings 22. For three years, Syria and Israel continued without war. But in the third year, Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, came down to the king of Israel. And the king of Israel said to his servants, Do you know that Rameth Gilead belongs to us and we keep quiet and do not take it out of the hand of the king of Syria? And he said to Jehoshaphat, will you go with me to battle at Rameth Gilead? And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as you are and my people as your people, my horses as your horses. And Jehoshaphat said, to the king of Israel. Inquire first for the word of the Lord. Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about 400 men, and said to them, shall I go to battle against Rameth Gilead or shall I refrain? They said, go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here another prophet of the Lord of whom we may inquire? And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Now 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. Then the king of Israel summoned an officer and said, bring quickly Micaiah, the son of Immah. Now, the king of Israel and Josaphat, the king of Judah, were sitting on their thrones, arrayed in their robes at the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria. And all the prophets were prophesying before them. And Zedekiah, the son of Chinnaniah, made for himself horns of iron and said, thus saith the Lord, with these you shall push the Syrians until they are destroyed. And all the prophets prophesied so and said, go up. to rameth Gilead in triumph, the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. And the messenger who went to summon Micaiah said to him, Behold, the words of the prophets with one accord are favorable to the king. Let your word be like the word of one of them and speak favorably. But Micaiah said, As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. And 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 he answered him, go up and triumph, the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. But the king said 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? And he said, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, these have no master, let each return to his home in peace. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil? And 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. The Lord said, who will entice Ahab that he may go up and fall at Rameth-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? He said, I will go out and I 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 it. Now, therefore, behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these, your prophets. The Lord has declared disaster for you. Then Zedekiah, the son of Chinnaniah, came near and struck Micaiah on the cheek and said, How the Spirit of the Lord go from me to speak to you? And Micaiah said, Behold, you shall see on the day when you go into an inner chamber to hide yourself. 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. And Micaiah said, if you return in peace, the Lord has not spoken by me. And he said, Hear all the people. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, went up to Rameth-Gilead. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself and go into battle, but you wear your robes. And the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle. Now, the king of Syria had 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 is surely the king of Israel. So they turned to fight against him and Jehoshaphat cried out. And when the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him. But a certain man drew his bow at random and it struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate. Therefore, he said to the driver of his chariot, turn around and carry me out of the battle, for I am wounded. The battle continued that day and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Syrians until at evening he died. And the blood of the wound flowed into the bottom of the chariot. And about sunset, a cry went through the army. Every man to his city. Every man to his country. So the king died and was brought to Samaria. And they buried the king in 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." May God add his blessing to this word and may we heed this word to our eternal salvation. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, as we come to this, this is a fascinating, exciting story. Lord, we need to remember that it's absolutely true. It happened according to time and space history. And help us to learn those lessons. Lord, I can't preach this passage, And your people cannot receive it. And those who are strangers among us who don't know your grace cannot understand you unless, Holy Spirit, you open up our hearts. And please do that so that you'll be glorified and that we will be blessed. We ask this in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, Last Sunday was the 10th anniversary of 9-11. And in the midst of that, we can think, and as Michael Medved, a talk show host, says, America is the greatest nation on God's green earth. But what we learned from 9-11 is that even the greatest nation on God's green earth can be humbled to its knees by deception. People can deceive us and destroy us. It reminds you that there is a great deceiver, Satan, whose name is out to destroy you. But in the midst of the 9-11, a very interesting thing occurred, didn't it? All those plans, some of which were carried out, and the towers went down, the Pentagon was on fire. Flight 93. was thwarted by some men who wrestled that plane to the ground and it didn't meet its target. There always can be a monkey wrench in people's plans to deceive and to destroy. And today we have in our text a very interesting occurrence in the history of the world. where we see deceit. Only this case, it's deceit that's used to try to avoid what God has said will happen. So the simple point this morning for you and for me to listen to this is, you and I cannot escape God's word of judgment. You cannot escape God's word of judgment. So you must flee to Jesus Christ. You cannot escape God's word of judgment. She must flee to Jesus Christ. Now, let's look at this. I want to give you some background. We want to grasp this King Ahab. Most of you are probably familiar with his name and somewhat about him. But we want to see about this wicked king and how this wicked king had the word of the Lord and warnings again and again and again from God. And ignoring them, he went to what? his own manipulation and deception to try to avoid the judgment of God. Well, Ahab is quite a character. You probably know Ahab and know him as the husband of Jezebel. Let me read to you the summation that God has in this book of 1 Kings, just a few chapters before. Listen to this in chapter 16. Here's the description. In the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab, the son of Omri, began to reign over Israel. And Ahab, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel and Samaria for 22 years. Ahab the son of Amri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him." That's God's summary. This guy's a bad news dude. He is wicked. He's worse than all the wicked kings in Israel, the northern kingdom, before him. "...and as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat." You remember that? Jeroboam said, oh boy, we've got the split kingdom. They're going to go back to Jerusalem. They'll go back to Judah. I can't have that. So what we'll do is we'll worship Jehovah, but we'll just do it with two golden calves, Dan and Bersheba, and we'll get some substitutes for the Levites. It's really Jehovah, but we'll just adjust our worship a little bit. So that's the sins of Jeroboam, son of David. As if that was a light thing, he took for himself Jezebel, the daughter of Ephial, the king of the Sidonites. and went and served Baal and worshipped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal in which he built in Samaria. And Ahab made an asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him." In other words, Ahab poked God in the eyes, if I can say it metaphorically. He provoked God. He tried to tweak God's name. He did so much evil. He provoked the living God. And then we have an interesting appendix. And listen to this, because you'll see that this is the beginning, the bookends of the life of Ahab. In his days, Hiel of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram, his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son, Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua, the son of Nun. Do you get it? Centuries before, when God wiped out Jericho, Joshua prophesied, whoever builds Jericho again at the cost of laying the foundation, firstborn dies. Set up the gates, secondborn. Centuries later, what happened? Do you hear it? The Word of the Lord is fulfilled. to the exact letter. And Ahab is this wicked king. And I'll touch on some of this again and again and again. God speaks to him. warns him of things that's going to happen to him. Does he listen? No, he doesn't. Later on in the midst of chapter 21, we read this in verses 25 and 26 to summarize. Speaking of Ahab, there was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab. whom Jezebel, his wife, incited. He acted very abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the Lord cast out before the people of Israel. When pagans or Christianized pagans kill their children and do all sorts of wicked things, it brings the judgment of God down on their head. Ahab was no better than a pagan. And note this. He was a leader of God's people. He was an anointed king. He was God's servant. So here is a man. He trusts in false worship. He trusts in pagan worship. And we're going to see later that what does he do? He listens to bad preaching. He gets prophets around him that like to tickle the ear and tell him exactly what he likes to hear. If any of you are politicians, that's another sermon for another time. But there's a great danger in listening to people who pat you on the back and tell you what you want to hear. in all of this. Ahab ignores the word of the Lord. This wicked king is what? Warned again and again and again. Now, quickly going through this. If you know the story, just take your Bible and go through it with me real quickly. OK, you have there what most of you remember is the prophecy of Elijah. Elijah comes on the scene. He says, by the word of the Lord, there's going to be a drought. By the Word of the Lord, the widow of Zarephath, interestingly, she's what? Sidon. From where Jezebel comes. God, the Word of the Lord comes again and again through Elijah. And we know then, he comes on Mount Carmel and there's the big contest where he says, go ahead, okay, let's see who's God. OK, build an altar, put your thing on it and I'll sit over here and wait till you, you Baal prophets go at it. Let's see. Are you really, you know? Oh, maybe he's asleep. Maybe he's on a vacation. Maybe he's relieving himself. I don't know. But maybe. And interestingly, in the text, again, following this theme through. It says of what all those Baal prophets are cutting themselves and jumping up and down and whooping it up and trying to get Baal to answer. No one answered and no one paid attention. It's incredible. Those gods don't speak. Remember the Psalms. Mouths they have, but they don't speak. Eyes they have, but they don't see. Ears, but they don't hear. Here's the living God. And the contrast all through the life is Ahab is turning to false religion, false gods that are not there, that they can't answer. But the word of the Lord comes again and again. Well, go up a little further in the life of Ahab, you know the story. Well, Jezebel has Naboth killed because He wants that vineyard. Now, just before that, just before that, I won't go into all the details, but there was long war with Syria and twice God delivers the Israelites because he says the Syrians have got it wrong. OK, they think they're really the true gods. And I'm just going to prove to you, Ahab, even in your unbelief, that I answer prayer. So I deliver you. He says, well, they're going to come back again because they're going to figure it like this. Oh, the God of Israel is the God of the mountains. And we'll go fight him in the plains and we'll beat him there. So twice, God says to Ahab and Ahab sees the hand of God deliver his people. And finally, at the end of it, there's this interesting part of the story where the king, Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, Ahab lets off the hook. doesn't execute him with the army, even though 100,000 troops are killed. And a prophet comes to Ahab and said, God put him under the ban and want him to be destroyed. You let him go. Life for life. You let him go. You're under the ban. So the first time God says to Ahab, you're going down. You're going down. You let him go. I intended for him to die. You will take his place. Then, you know, after the Naboth incident, Elisha comes back to him and says, Where the dogs licked up Naboth's blood, the dogs, Ahab, are going to lick up your blood. Hear that? Hear how our passage ends? The chariot's washed and they lick up the blood of Ahab. Now, Ahab had an interesting thing, and this is something to remember. He is so upset with God's prophecy that he is going to die that he sort of, on the surface, repents. And God sees that and says to Elijah, see how he humbles himself? I won't bring great tragedy on his family, which I've predicted, until after he goes. Then we come into our passage that we've read. The final time. Now, this would be so humorous if it wasn't so serious, wouldn't it? Here's all these guys. Go up and get Ramath Gilead. Go up and Ramath Gilead. In the midst of it, it's very intriguing. What in the world is Jehoshaphat doing there? Go read the parallel account in First Chronicle, excuse me, Second Chronicles, and you'll find out that this is a godly king. He made a big mistake. by making a wedding alliance with Ahab's family. That's another sermon for another time. Righteous people who get aligned with wicked people get into big trouble. So here's the thing. Comes up and says, hey, you're going to go up to Ramaphiliad with me. Let's take this back. And Josaphat says, sure. We've gone through this. We've read it. He says, yeah, but I'd like to hear from the Lord. I mean, all these prophets are OK, but isn't there a real prophet of the Lord? And of course, Micaiah comes. Kind of interesting, isn't it? I hate him. Ahab hears God warning and warning and warning him through all these prophets, Elijah and others and Micaiah. What does he say, Micaiah? I hate the guy's guts. He never says anything good about me. But since you asked, OK, bring him in. So, hey, please just go along with all these other guys that are preaching the wealth and prosperity stuff. You just go along with it, please. Don't rock the boat. And it's intriguing, right? My kai walks up and says, Don't go for it. Go up to Rameth Gilead. And it must have been sarcastic or whatever, because Ahab kind of goes ballistic, doesn't he? How many times have I told you only to tell me the truth? OK, you really want the truth here. Pull back the curtains of heaven and here's the scene. There's God sitting on the throne and here's all these angels all around him. And what's going on? That's as I want. I want Ahab to go down at Rameth Gilead. How's that going to happen? So one comes up with a suggestion, and finally, one says, I'll be a lying spirit in the mouth of these prophets. God says, go, do it and succeed. You see? What is Ahab? I told you he never says anything good. Now we come down to the final scene. Josaphat, for some strange reason, goes along with Ahab's suggestion. I'll dress up in my royal robes, which does what? Hello! Here's the king. I'll disguise myself. Now, for whatever reason, Jehoshaphat goes brain dead and agrees to this, OK? He hangs off in the battle. They go off in the battle. And here's the core of it. Ahab thinks, I'm going to trick God. I'm going to trick the Syrians. I'm going to trick God. I'm going to trick everybody. Now, he fools Jehoshaphat into going along with this. Now, if you read the parallel account in Second Chronicles, you have a piece that you don't have here. Our text says, Jehoshaphat cried out. And when he cried out, those Syrian soldiers realized that's not the king of Israel. But Second Chronicles says something very important. He cried out to Jehovah, to the Lord, and God answered his prayer. and turned the chariots away. It was a divine answer to prayer. Here is the good king, silly, getting involved with a bad king, but he cries to God. God hears, spares his life. You see, Jehoshaphat almost became a substitute, didn't he? That's what Ahab wanted him to be, a substitute for him so he could get the victory. And now all puns intended, I hope you get the point of the sermon. Here's the disguised King Ahab who thinks that he's fooled the living God. And what happens? The guy just cocks an arrow, puts it on a string and just throws it out there in the middle of the battle, right? And where does it go? Literally the chink in the armor of Ahab. Don't you see that point? At random he shoots it. It's not random. There's a living God in heaven who said, Ahab, you are going down." He gets struck. He gets propped up in the chariot. He bleeds all over the chariot. And he dies. They take him back after the battle. They bury him. And our passage ends with what? Hear it again. Solemn words. 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 the Lord had spoken." Every one of us literally should shake in our pew You've heard the saying, haven't you? You can run, but you can't hide. The president said that after 9-11. But let me say this. You can deceive, but you will still receive. You can deceive all you want. And if God cuffs the arrow and he lets it fly, it will find the chink in your armor and you will die. Let me say this to you, dearly beloved. Every one of us will die, won't we? That's the Word of the Lord. It started in the garden when He said, the soul that sins will surely die. As I like to point out to the atheist friends that I meet in the Czech Republic when I go there for a mission trip, you can't deny the fact that you're going to die. You may not accept God's interpretation, but God says you are going to die because you are under my wrath." How in the world can you avoid the wrath and judgment of God? God says you will surely die. The good news this morning is there's one greater than Jehoshaphat. You know that Jehoshaphat means Jehovah is judge. or the Lord judges. That's what his name means in Hebrew. He was a very good king, but he was foolish for getting involved with Ahab. But dear friends, there's a greater one. There's a greater king than Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat's greater son, Jesus Christ. And the ironic thing is that Jehoshaphat almost became an unwitting substitute for Ahab. But Jesus Christ has become a willing substitute for his people. You see, when Jesus hung and bled on the cross and his blood flowed down to cover your sins, it's so that the hounds of hell will not be licking up your blood for eternity. He became sin for you who knew no sin so that you might be made the righteousness of God in him. Hallelujah. That's the gospel. See, that's the gospel. And I wonder where you are in relationship to the gospel this morning. For you see, you cannot escape the judgment of God except through Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. For each of us, we need to think about this. Where do we stand? Maybe you're here this morning. Someone drug you to church and you don't even believe that there is a God, let alone the God of the Bible. I just remind you, it's appointed unto man once to die and after death, the judgment. And friend, when you stand before the living God, There's only one question that needs to be answered. Will you die for your own sins? Or will Jesus Christ be there to put his arm around you and say, you gave this one to me. And I died in his place, in her place. That's your only hope. That's your only hope. Now, most of you here I know this morning, I know a lot of you, maybe not well, but I know you worship here in the evening. There is evening worship and I encourage you all to come back to that. This is some pretty fine sermon series that pastor preached on judges. And the others chipped in into that series. That was a very, very fine series dealing with some of these matters. I'm preaching to myself as well to you. Do you realize you can be an ordained officer of God's people, and if you don't have Jesus Christ, you're lost? Your baptism won't save you. Your being elected to an office won't save you. It's only Jesus Christ that will save you. I trust that none of us are really Ahabs here who really are depending on our twisting, you know, the worship that God's given us to make us feel better. We like optimistic. Oh, I don't like our pastors. They preach about sin too much. I mean, that horrible prayer that that Rob Gray had earlier this morning. You know, this reformed pension for always saying the law every week and confession of sins. Friends, if you don't confess your sins, you don't love your Savior. And then for most of you, shouldn't you weep for joy this morning? When God said, you deserve hell, Christ said, I'll pay the time for their crime. I have a king that's better than Jehoshaphat. If you read the life of Jehoshaphat, he got rid of a lot of the cult prostitution, a lot of other things that his fathers and others didn't clean out, had great victories. But even Jehoshaphat wasn't perfect. We need the perfect King and we have that right now. Right now, Jesus is at the right hand of the Father in heaven interceding for you. Might I take the point of privilege since I grew up in the church and did most of my crimes in the church. So let me address the word to you, covenant children. See, it's pointed to you too. It's not enough to be baptized, to be catechized. It's not enough just to say, yes, I agree with all the catechism answers. Jesus has to take you up in His arms and love you and cleanse you and present you to the Father. See, there's not one of us here If we're honest, it's any better than Ahab, right? We like God when he gives us good things, like all the bennies, all the benefits, but we don't like the tough times. There's always a cross before the crown. And Christ has fulfilled everything that Ahab and even Jehoshaphat never did. And because of that, we can come to God. I've entitled this, You Can't Outsmart God. Friends, praise God, we don't have to outsmart him. We need just to submit. We need to embrace Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and rejoice in this. You can't escape God's wrath, His Word of judgment. So flee to Jesus Christ. If you're here this morning and you don't understand how to do that, you don't understand the Gospel, please see me. See one of the elders. We'll talk with you. We'll explain the way of truth. May God grant to all of us a great love for our Savior. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, we thank You for Your mercy and Your grace. We thank You that You do give us the Good News of the Gospel. And even though we cannot run and hide, we can hide in Jesus Christ. Even though we cannot deceive, we will receive the judgment of God. If we receive Christ, He bears our punishment. Lord, I confess so sadly, so much of my life has the taint of Ahab. Lord, I want to hear what I want to hear. And Lord, I don't want to hear anything to the contrary. But we thank You, O Gracious God. We thank You that in spite of all the sins of Your people through all the ages, You were faithful to the covenant. You came. You incarnated yourself, Jesus Christ. You as the second person of the Trinity. You came. You lived and you died so that your people could be saved. Hallelujah. What an incredible gift. And Lord, truly, we do worship you this morning. Because, Lord God, Your wrath has been borne by another. And therefore, we can live forever to praise and serve You forever. Give us a heart to do that today. In Christ's name, Amen.