We come to this text and we have King Ahab. And what you need to know is that this text follows six chapters where Ahab has been warned by God numerous times. And those six chapters over and over God speaks to Ahab and Ahab refuses to obey God's warning through the prophets. And so finally we come to chapter 22 and the main theme is the sufficiency of God's true word. to warn Ahab, and yet despite its sufficiency, Ahab hardens his own heart. Now, as I said, we're thinking of the theme of sufficiency. I think a good description of what I'm trying to present is that the scriptures are sufficient for the purposes for which God gave them. In other words, God has given us all that we need to know in scripture to be saved and to follow Christ in godliness. So the theme I want to highlight is simply this, that the sinful heart refuses to submit to the sufficient word. And I wanna hit this by three points. First of all, we wanna look at the sufficient word rejected, the word rejected. Secondly, we wanna look at the sufficient word revealed, as Micaiah reveals it. And then thirdly and finally, the sufficient word realized, how finally all that God said came to pass. So first, let's take the first point, the sufficient word rejected. Now, as we start the storyline, we come in verses one through five, and there's a request for the word of God. Verse one and verse two tell us that the two kings of Israel and Judah gathered together. What you need to understand is at this time, Israel and Judah are two separate kingdoms, because after Solomon, God divided the kingdom. Well, at this point, the kings come together after the split. You have Jehoshaphat, a generally godly king of Judah, and you have Ahab, just one more evil king in the long line of evil kings in Israel. Now the whole point of the gathering is that Ahab has set his sights on Ramoth-Gilead. And so he has assembled his servants, he's assembled Jehoshaphat to try to work together a plan to take back this city. Part of the background to that is that Ramoth-Gilead was at a crossroads in a major trade route. And you see Ahab knows that he wants to take that back because there's money in it. If they can control Ramoth-Gilead, they can also control all the traders that come through to a trade among the nations. And so we turn in verse four and we see that Jehoshaphat agrees, he foolishly agrees without hearing the word of God and unites his forces and all of his army with Ahab. Now notice verse five, Jehoshaphat now requests that a prophet bring the word of the Lord. This was common in this day and age to ask of God and the gods of the four nations whether they would be victorious in battle. And so Jehoshaphat turns to Ahab and he says, do you not have a prophet who could inquire of Yahweh, the God of Israel, whether he will bless this military endeavor? Well, notice what Ahab does following that request. Ahab brings forth 400 prophets of his own. Now again, we need to be reminded of the background. In this day and age, they were writing down God's word, but a prophet was the one who spoke the revealed word of God. They had some written revelation, but in this time in redemptive history, the prophet's word under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was God's revelation, his word given to his people. And so Jehoshaphat is looking for that word. Now let's read verse six, I think that's key to understand what's going on. Notice the description, then the king of Israel, that's Ahab, gathered the prophets together, about 400 men, and said to them, shall I go to battle against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain? And they said, go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. And so Ahab has gathered 400 of his prophets. You need to know these are 400 prophets that are under his payroll. These are prophets that he has hired and they know where their bread is buttered. They know who has control over their paycheck. And so all 400 give an overwhelmingly favorable rapport under the guise, notice your text, of speaking the word of the Lord. In fact, actually, if you look at verses 10 through 12, we get a little bit more of a description. They actually have props to bring. This man named Zedekiah apparently pre-built these iron horns and he's using it to describe visibly what he claims God will do for Ahab. And by the way, just as a side note, almost certainly Zedekiah is trying to apply the word of God. One passage, Deuteronomy 33 verse 17, describes God like the horn of an ox goring his enemies. And so almost presumably here, or certainly here, what Zedekiah is doing is turning to the Bible and he's misapplying the word and making it fit what he wants it to say. And so you have these 400 prophets and all of them are telling Ahab and the king of Judah that God will give the victory. And you see they're just telling Ahab what he wants to hear. Now notice the word being requested here in verse seven. We're told, but Jehoshaphat said, is there not another prophet of the Lord that we may inquire? Verse eight, and the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah, son of Imla. Now notice this, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil. Now what's going on here is that Jehoshaphat has seen what's going on. These 400 men are doing their thing and he's gotten wind that something's not right. And he says, is there another prophet? Can we get a second opinion here? Is there not a second spiritual doctor that we can ask for an opinion? And then Ahab says, there's one, but I hate him. Now notice why he hates him. He doesn't hate Micaiah because Micaiah is just one of those rough characters. Notice why he hates Micaiah. He hates Micaiah because Micaiah tells him the truth. Micaiah tells him the honest revelation of God and Ahab doesn't like it. Why? Because God's revelation is not good concerning Ahab, but actually poor. And Ahab has had many prophets come to him and all of them have prophesied evil, including Micaiah. And Ahab doesn't like to hear what God has to say about him. Instead, he'd rather pay men to tell him, to tickle his ears with false doctrine, what Ahab wants to hear. So what's the point so far? I think the point you need to note this morning as it pertains to the sufficiency of the word, is that the word is clear. Ahab's problem is not that the word is not sufficient to give him what he needs, he has what he needs to know. He knows that if he asks of God, God will give him sufficient revelation to make the decision, but yet Ahab doesn't want to hear that. He rejects the word of God. He rejects the sufficient word because he simply wants to have what he thinks spoken back to him. Now, secondly, I wanna highlight a second point here. Notice the sufficient word revealed. Because now we're gonna enter the scene with Micaiah, and Micaiah is gonna give Ahab more than Ahab really wants to hear. In verses 13 and 14, Micaiah is being brought to the king's throne room, or their seats on the threshing floor, and notice the dialogue taking place. The messenger is trying to sway Micaiah. He's like, listen, Micaiah, I was just there, and man, those 400 prophets, they put on a good show. The one guy had iron horns. There are 400, now Micaiah, listen, 400. Could you possibly be one against 400? Listen, don't you think you can sand the edges a little? Don't you think you can kind of sweeten the word a little? Don't you think you could fudge a little? Can't you just kind of bend the truth a little bit? There are 400. Can you not agree with them? And look at verse 14, notice Micaiah's words. This is a mark of a true preacher, one who is truly submissive to the word of God. Micaiah says, I am constrained by the word of the Lord. What God says, I will say, and what God doesn't say, I will not say. In other words, I will give the clear truth and nothing more. I am constrained, literally the language here being bound, being wrapped around like cords. Micaiah saying, I am bound to do what God has given me alone to do. We go on, the scene opens up, he enters in front of Ahab, and then in verses 15 and 16, you get kind of a puzzling thing. Ahab asks Micaiah about it, and so Micaiah says, go, God will prosper you. Now what you need to know is that may be kind of confusing, but the words of Micaiah are dripping with sarcasm. He is not saying that God has given him the victory. He's using a tone that is clear to Ahab that that is not truly what God has revealed. And so notice verse 17. Actually, no, verse 16, 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? Ahab says, go for it. Tell me really what God has said. Verse 17, and he said, I saw all Israel scattered on mountains as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, these have no master. Let each return to his home in peace. There it is. Is that not a sufficient word? The word to Micaiah was this, utter defeat. The king was gonna be killed and there was gonna be no master and that tomorrow at that time or whenever the battle was going to be, their armies were gonna be driven from the battlefield. And so notice Ahab's response, Ahab rightly or as angered and said, did I not tell you that he was gonna do this? Did I not tell you that he's against me and not for me? Now look at verses 18 through 23. Notice now how Micaiah goes further with the revelation. Verses 18 through 23, verse 19 rather. 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 will be a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets. So Micaiah goes even further and gives a revelation of what took place in God's throne room. And by the way, there's an interesting contrast going on here between the throne room at the threshing floors of these earthly kings and all their pomp and glory. And Micaiah says, I see past your human glory. I saw the glory of the one true God in heaven. I've seen the throne room of almighty God with all of his spirits around him on his left and on his right. Now, what Micaiah tells him is puzzling and can kind of trouble us a little bit because what he sees is that God asks for one of the spirits to present an option for taking Ahab down. And the option that God chooses is a lying spirit. Commentators go back and forth as to whether this might be a demon or whether it's another angel. I have no idea. The point is not who it is, but the point is what he's going to do. Now the question is raised, I thought God says lying's a sin. How can God be about lying? But go back to your text, is God lying to Ahab? And the answer is no, because God is actually telling Ahab that his prophets are lying. You see, God is not lying at all. It's not lying if you tell someone that you're telling someone to lie to you. You're actually opening up to the truth to Ahab. In fact, God from far from deceiving Ahab is being more than sufficient to reveal above and beyond what Ahab really needs to know. He's opened the room of heaven and God through Micaiah is now telling Ahab not only is he gonna be defeated, But Micaiah is telling Ahab, your prophets are lying and you know they are. You know your prophets are lying to you. In other words, God is holding nothing back. He's giving all that Ahab will need and more. And so we see here that God is not lying, but actually showing Micaiah or showing through Micaiah that Ahab is openly accepting deception. He knows he is suppressing the truth of God and unrighteousness because he doesn't want to hear the truth. Now, last thing to note here about the word noted is how it ends up for Micaiah. In verses 24 through 28, we see that Micaiah confidently stands the test of his prophecy. The first thing to see there is that Zedekiah, this man with his iron horns, walks up and actually strikes the prophet on the face. Micaiah is abused for standing for truth. It's interesting, Micaiah has a word for Zedekiah. He says that he will know the truth and that actually he did not have the Holy Spirit speak to him. And he will know that in the coming days when he has to flee to his inner chamber to hide from the enemy. And so Zedekiah is rebuked and notice Ahab locks Micaiah up. And as he's being dragged away, you have this interesting scene. Micaiah has one more word to get in as he's going away to jail. If I am wrong, God did not speak to me. In other words, Micaiah is saying, I will stand the test of the prophet. He's pointing back to Deuteronomy, where God says, you will know a true prophet from a false prophet. Because a true prophet, his words will come true. A false prophet's words will not. Micaiah says, if you come back in peace, God didn't speak to me. In other words, Micaiah is staking his life on the sufficiency of what God has revealed as he is dragged away. Now, the last thing to note as it pertains to sufficiency is the sufficient word realized, our third point. Because the text ends in the repetition, the whole point is that God's word is fulfilled. First of all, this is humorous. Notice how Ahab shows that he does believe God's word to some degree. In verses 29 through 30, what does he do but conceals his identity? And by the way, I would love to talk to Jehoshaphat someday. How is it that after you hear this and suddenly Ahab says, you know what, you put on your royal garments, I'm gonna dress like a common soldier. We both heard what's gonna happen. You go dress kind of like me and I'll dress like a foot soldier. And Jehoshaphat goes along and he's all dressed like a royal king, but Ahab thinks he can get the upper hand on God. He's like, I know God won't get me on this one. I'm gonna dress up, I'm gonna thwart God's plan and the enemy will not be able to notice me from Now just think for a moment, what does that show you about the hardened heart of sinful man? Does it not show the foolishness of the darkened heart of fallen man? The foolishness to think that you could somehow resist God's sovereign will. Does it not show us the stubbornness of the darkened heart? You know, Ahab at any moment could walk away from this. He could go home and walk away from this, but he refuses the hardness of our fallen hearts. And you see, before we point the finger at Ahab, we need to realize that this is your heart tonight, or this morning, and my heart, apart from grace. You see, this is just following the long line that began with Adam and Eve, and their resistance to God's sufficient word to not touch the fruit of the tree, and to yet reject it. And since Eve put her hand out, and Adam put his hand out, we all have been putting our hands out to what God says no to. Because apart from God's grace, we all like Ahab hate the word of God. It is sufficient, it's clear as we just heard. And yet we don't like it apart from God changing our hearts. Well, let's show now what happens here. Notice the realization of God's word in Ahab's death. In verses 31 through 36, we see that the disguise throws off the captains of the enemy for a while. They find Jehoshaphat and chase him, but in God's grace, they realize that he actually is not Ahab. It did not fully work, but what does work? Look at verse 34. This is the main point, I think, of the passage. But a certain man drew his bow at random, literally in his innocence, and struck the king of Israel between the scale of the armor and the breastplate. Therefore he said to the driver of his chariot, turn around and carry me out of battle, for I am wounded. Now what we see here is that God's word always comes to pass. Even when Ahab goes out of his way to try to thwart it, what does God do? God causes by his sovereign will to have some random soldier pull back his arrow and randomly aim, and through a random act of God's sovereign will, guides that arrow between the smallest point in Ahab's armor. This tiny little crack, this random arrow hits him and strikes him as he's driving in his chariot. So the only explanation that the word of God is telling us is that God's sovereign will always fulfills his sovereign word. When God speaks, nothing can keep what he has said from coming to pass. And so God shows in the most amazing way that despite the attempts of fallen man, his word will always be proven true. Interestingly, one of the commentaries I read on this pointed out that in this shot of an arrow, we have what is called the inerrancy of God's word. In other words, that God's word is always true. With that arrow leaving the bow of the archer, we realize that when God speaks, it is inerrant and infallible, and God brings it to pass. Now, Notice how the story ends, and notice how we wrap up, and again, the theme is the revealed word of God. Look at your text at verse 37 and 38 for that. It says, 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, and notice this phrase, according to the word of the Lord that he had spoken. And that's the point, isn't it? With Ahab's burial, what you need to understand is a fulfillment of many prophecies about Ahab. It's a fulfillment of the unnamed prophet in chapter 20, verse 42, when the prophet came to Ahab and said, because of his sin and disobedience to God, Ahab's life will be taken from him. It is a fulfillment of God's prophecy through Elijah in chapter 21, verse 19, where God curses him for the murder of Naboth, and God says that you will die in such a way where the dogs will lick up your blood. And of course, it's a fulfillment of Micaiah's prophecy that we saw earlier about his impending death. Well, I think the point is obvious, is it not? The point is, is that God's word is perfectly fulfilled despite Ahab trying to change it. And just think about Ahab for a moment. Did God shortchange him anything that he would need to know to get out of all of this? Not at all. God had sent him prophet after prophet over and over. God had said sufficiently, Ahab, this is what's going to happen to you. And yet Ahab refused to obey. He refused to submit. In fact, he continued to go his own way. The point is, this is the hardness of fallen man apart from grace. This is why people need to be born again. Because apart from having a new heart, we will refuse to obey. The word of God is clear. The word of God is sufficient. The word of God is authoritative. All of these things and yet our hearts hate it, does it not? And that's why the grace of God is so important this morning. That's why we sing amazing grace. Because until God changes the heart of a sinner, we will not obey. And yet when he does, we have that new desire to see and believe and obey. God is so good to us. By his grace, he changes the heart of his elect people and he brings them in so that we do see the sufficiency and we obey, we follow. That's the grace of God today. Now, as we bring this to a close, what can we do about this? How can we apply this? And I have three things to kind of Wrap this up this morning, three applications. First of all, this obviously teaches us that God's revealed word is always sufficient for the purpose he gave it. That's kind of the big picture of what the theme of sufficiency is. It is sufficient for what God intended it to. As I said, Ahab had all that he needed to know and yet he rejected it. And so when we come to the word of God and we come to the theme of sufficiency, we come to realize that God's revelation in the Bible is all that you and I need to know. to be saved and to follow God. God has given us enough. We don't need anything more than this to be saved and to follow him, and we don't need anything less than this. From Genesis to Revelation, God's sovereign will, he has given you and me his written word so that we can be saved and to know how to follow him. And that means by way of application this morning, we do not need the Book of Mormon for further clarification. The Mormons will come to you, if they come knocking on your door, they will claim to be Christians, and they will claim to believe the Bible, and then they will say, but yet there's more. They will say, yet there's more, there's a better revelation, there's this Book of Mormon that you need, you have to have that, in order to not only rightly understand the Word of God, but to be saved. And you see, as you come to Scripture, you realize far from it. We do not need the Book of Mormon, we have what we need. And since we're also in the theme of the Reformation, this also means we do not need the traditions of Rome in order to be saved or to know how to follow God. That was one of the things the reformers stood on, because as we heard yesterday in the summary of the historic background, Rome teaches that you have the Bible and you have church tradition, and they're on equal level. You need both Bible and church tradition. They're both equally authoritative, and in fact, actually in practice, if they're honest, they do highlight tradition at times over scriptures. And you see, when we come to the Reformation, we realize this wonderful truth. We don't need the tradition of fallen men. we have the word of the inerrant God. God has given us all that we need to know. In fact, actually, if you think about it, to claim you need anything more is kind of an offensive statement to the gift that God has given to us. So what does that mean for you as a believer this morning? If you are a believer here, what we've learned in this is that the word of God is sufficient for you and me to stake our eternal destinies on. That's what faith is, trusting that God really has forgiven our sins through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That God has given us enough in the word to know that if we repent and we believe, our sins are washed away, and praise be to God, that is enough. We don't need anything more. And in fact, the mark of a false teacher always is that you need to have him and his books in order to really understand truth, far from it. God has given you enough. Let us rest and rejoice in that. Now, the other application, though, would be to unbelievers, because this morning, as well, we realized that when God speaks, whether you believe it or not doesn't make it the word of God or not. You see, Ahab, as an unbeliever, did not believe the word of God, and that did not make it any less the truth of God's word. And so, as we go to unbelievers, we need to understand, we need to present to them that whether they believe the Bible doesn't change anything about it. When God's word is spoken, it is the word of God. period and final. Secondly, second thought that we can apply to our lives, it also teaches us the danger of not submitting to God's word. It teaches us the danger of knowing the word of God and not conforming our life to the word of God. Again, Ahab knew the word of God and refused to obey. He refused to submit even though it was true and he knew it. Now believer this morning, let me ask you a question by way of application. Is there any area of your life where you know God speaks to it and you're refusing to obey to him? Think by way of perhaps a secret area, a secret sin in your life. Is the word of God pressing in in your life anywhere, and you're holding it close, saying, no, God, I will give you 99% of my life, but this 1% I keep for me. Is there an area in your life where you're saying to God, I know you say this is wrong, or that I should do the following, but God, I really just don't want to do it. Is it not enough, God, for me to give you 99%? From the text we learned this morning, We learn that if God's revealed word comes to you, we must submit, we must obey, and we must humble ourself to that word. Not only a private sin, but also the belief. Is there any kind of belief where you are holding to that you know is contrary to the word of God? I read an article a few weeks ago, a newspaper was put in my box at church that talked about all the churches that are planting right now in Vermont, perhaps you read it. One of the things about the newspaper article that stood out to me was there was a new convert that was asked about the issue of homosexuality, and she just recently was converted, and she made the statement to the interviewer that, I know God's word says it's wrong, but yet I still believe it's okay. Now, I'm not judging her salvation at all. She was a young believer, but let's make final. If God says something's wrong, it doesn't matter how you feel about it. Our job now is to submit and conform to what God has clearly said. Therefore, we must not be formalistic. And is it not true to know the word of God and yet pretend? And yet all the while God says, this is what I've said, follow me. This is the way of blessing. Third and finally, I think the last thought of application this morning is it teaches us that truth may be in the minority and the majority opinion can be wrong. In our text, we had one prophet against 400 who stood for truth. His conviction was grounded. He was unwavering. He was unwilling. He was constrained by the word of God. That should be a word of encouragement to you and me this morning. We live in a day and age where culture is shifting. Our views are becoming more than minority. We're becoming viewed as bigots and hateful. And the pressures on the church are immense. The pressure is to conform the culture, to change, to fit the majority view. And it's come to a point where you will be ostracized and even hated and mocked for standing for the truth. Yeah, we see here Micaiah doing exactly that. He stood the test when he stood one against 400, why? Because truth of God matters more than a thousand false truths. So let us stand on that. Let us love, let us be convicted, but let us be unwavering. If God has said it, let us stand. Let the world and let the chips fall where they may because God holds them in his hand. And as we rest on truth, he will guide the way, whether we be in the majority or the minority. Amen, let's pray. Our gracious God and our heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, it is sufficient. Father, humble our hearts this morning, whether there be any way in us that is not submitting and following. We thank you, Lord, that you have made it clear to us. We ask, Lord, that you continue to give us boldness to stand on what you've given to us. And once again, Father, we thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit to change our hearts. And we thank you in Jesus' name, amen.