1 Kings 22 - The Word of the LORD

We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and we have extra copies.

If you didn't bring one with you and you'd like one to follow along, maybe I can get somebody to jump up here and in the back as well.

You just raise your hand up if you'd like a paper copy of the Bible.

We also have up on the screen there uh the QR code where you can get the notes and the quotes ahead of time and uh kind of also I think there's a uh a Bible uh app up there that's included in our TVC app, and I encourage you to use that.

By the way, you can use that to listen to the audio one year Bible.

I do that myself, Kim, and I both do, and we love it.

We have a huge job this morning.

Uh we are gonna finish up our study of 1 Kings, looking at chapter 22.

If you want to turn there in your Bible and/or swipe there on your device, 1 Kings has offered us a 3,000-year-old chronicle that began with the inevitable but forced royal succession and continues with the relentless and increasing political disorder, conflict, and unrest.

Sound relevant at all to our own day and time to anybody?

The sort of scene there, very much, I think, like ours in some ways.

We start with the last chapter of the final days in the life of the relatively good king David reigning over a united kingdom.

Now we're going to end here, 1 Kings, with the dishonorable end of the wicked king Ahab, who ruled over the northern half of what is now a divided kingdom.

Unsurprisingly, we have learned that humanity needs a greater king than any of the 39 kings you can read about in 1 and 2 Kings presented as the kings of ancient Israel and Judah.

We've also been reminded that even through our most tumultuous times, God has proven himself faithful to his people throughout 1 Kings.

God was neither silent nor inactive.

Yahweh's faithful prophets spoke.

And the word of the Lord remained a central theme throughout our study of 1 Kings.

Join me now as we conclude our exploration of 1 Kings, reminding us to stay alert and listen for the word of the Lord as it comes to us through the written word of God and also foreshadowing the living word of God that we find in the person and work of Jesus.

So chapter 22 is where we'll be.

It goes just like this.

There have been three years that have passed without war between Aram, that's Syria, and Israel.

It's about 853 BC, if anybody wants to mark that down on your, you know, if you're keeping a chronological sort of map of things.

And this parallels, by the way, some of you have wondered about the difference between Chronicles and Kings.

1 and 2 Kings tends to focus a little more on the northern kingdom.

1 and 2 Chronicles, a little more on the southern kingdom.

But both will speak a little bit about both kingdoms.

So it's important to know that and see the differences.

If you want to follow the parallel of 1 Kings 22, that's in 2 Chronicles, that would be chapter 18 there.

So three years have passed without war between the northern and southern kingdoms.

In the third year, Jehoshaphat, or excuse me, between the northern kingdom and Syria, or otherwise known as A-R-A-M-Aram.

In the third year, Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, that's the southern kingdom, came down to the king of Israel.

And some of you are going, wait a minute, that's not the way we say that.

You would be going up if you're going from south to north.

And that's just because we're Westerners, we're used to thinking that way.

We tend to think in terms of north, south, east, west.

But uh for ancient Jews and for Jews even today, you're always, when you leave Jerusalem, you're always going down from Jerusalem.

And you always go up to Jerusalem.

It's a holy city.

And so here, uh Jehoshaphat, who is the king down in Judah, son of Esau, whom we've already studied, Jehoshaphat is coming down to the king of Israel, even though he's going north, okay?

And Ahab is the king of Israel at the time.

Now the king of Israel, Ahab, said to his servants, Do you know that Ramath Gilead belongs to us, and we are still doing nothing to take it out of the hand of the king of Aram?

And he said to Jehoshaphat, Will you go with me to battle at Ramoth Gilead?

And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.

This is just an interesting response.

Take a look at the map with me, if you will.

Remeth Gilead is over on the right, it says Israel, right in the middle there.

Look to the right, and in dark letters you see Rameth Gilead.

It's a town that's over there between Aram, Syria, and Israel, northern kingdom of Israel.

And down where it says Jerusalem at the bottom there, that kind of blue, dark blue area, that that's the beginnings of Judah.

It continues on off the map.

I just wanted us to see where Ramath Gilead is.

If you look to the west and down below the word Israel, you see Samaria there.

Samaria is the king, is sort of the uh capital city of the northern kingdom.

And so Ahab is operating from Samaria.

That's where his palace is.

He's now talking to Jehoshaphat, who's from Jerusalem down below.

And they've kind of gotten together a little bit.

Their families are starting to get along.

And if you read in 2 Kings, you find out what has happened.

That one of their children has married the other children.

So daughter and son-in-law, kind of, they are now in-laws, essentially, is what is happening.

And these alliances would come and go between different nation states, often not about romance between two of their kids, but often about politics and sort of making sure economically we're secure because after all, my kid lives over there in your country, or your kid lives in my country, and we're all one big happy Thanksgiving family dinner together, you know, or whatever.

But they want to go take that city over there, Ramath Gilead, that the king of Syria, Benedad, had said, I was going to return that to you, Ahab, and evidently he hasn't done that.

And so now Ahab wants to take that.

And he wants to get Jehoshaphat to help him do that.

So my people are as your people.

Verse 4, my horses are as your horses, Jehoshaphat says to Ahab.

Moreover, Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, please inquire first for the word of the Lord.

And Lord is in all caps, L-O-R-D, all cap letters.

That means it's actually in the Hebrew, Yehovah.

And that means it's the personal name of God.

You're going to see in this chapter, capital L, little O, little R, little D, which is the English translation of Adonai.

And that's a more generic term for God.

Lord in all capital letters is Yahweh, the God of Israel.

That's been the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and on down, who's revealed himself to Israel and to Judah.

Okay?

So he says, please inquire first for the Lord, for the word of the Lord, Yahweh.

Then the king of Israel, as they have gathered the prophets together, about 400 men, and said to them, Shall I go against Ramath Gilead to battle, or shall I refrain?

And they said, Go up for the Lord.

Adonai, notice the generic spelling there.

Go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.

But Jehosaphat said, Is there not yet a prophet of the Lord Yahweh here that we may inquire of him?

See, Jehosaphat is one of the, of all of the 19 kings of the southern kingdom, he's actually one of the eight that are considered, I'll put it in quotes, good.

It's just kind of relative good, okay?

But he's looking for a word from Yahweh, not just a just not just spirituality in general, but actually a specific spirituality, okay?

And we want to inquire of him.

The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, there is one man by whom we may acquire of Yahweh, but I hate him.

Because he doesn't prophesy good concerning me, but evil.

He is Micaiah, son of Imlah.

Yakiah's name means who is like Yahweh?

His very name just reminds people that nobody is like Yahweh.

Nobody is like this God who's revealed himself to us.

But Jehoshaphat said, let not the king say so.

So there's a little awkward moment there where a king from the south, Jehoshaphat, is kind of rebuking King from the North, Ahab, right there in front of everybody.

And essentially Jehoshaphat is, like I say, relatively good king.

And he kind of believes that the outcomes belong to Yahweh, not to just generic spirituality.

And we would do well in our own day and time to understand that too.

There's a personal God that actually loves you, knows you by name, came for you to rescue you.

And the hum of the universe, the battery of the universe, the impersonal kinds of ideas that people have about God, that's not the kind of God that can save you.

That's not the kind of God that even knows you.

That's not the kind of God you can appeal to, or that could comfort you during your very dark hour that you're going through, or the storm you're about to face or are facing right now.

Don't you want the real God who is there and not just a God of your own creation or a God of our culture's creation?

Let not the king say so.

Verse 9.

Then the king of Israel called an officer and said, Bring quickly Micaiah, son of Imlah.

So you can see he's gonna send a driver to go get him.

Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, were sitting each on his throne, arrayed in their robes at the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria, and all the prophets were prophesying before them.

Then Zedekiah, the son of Kana'anah, made horns of iron for himself, and he said, Thus says the Lord, with these, meaning these horns, you will gore the Assyrians until they are consumed.

And so here steps up this guy named Zedekiah, and he's got these, you know, big old Viking horns on his head, or whatever.

He's I don't know.

This is pre-Viking time, I'm sure.

But he's like, he's ready to go to battle, and he's charge! We're gonna take our helmet with our horns, and we're gonna gore all of the Assyrians with that.

Well, all the prophets were prophesying thusly, so the two kings are sitting there, all the people are gathered around, and these 400 prophets are just running around in circles with their helmets and their horns on them.

Yeah, let's go, let's go to battle, screaming and hollering.

Just a lot of carrying on and making noise and trying to sort of gin up the same kinds of feelings that the prophets of Baal did in chapter 18.

You remember?

They cut themselves, they screamed, they hollered, please help I can come, bring down your fire.

And nothing.

Because Baal was a God that had been created by humans.

It was subject of someone's imagination, not the God who was there.

Baal was a God that, if they carved little statues of Baal, had a mouth but couldn't speak, had feet but couldn't walk, had hands but couldn't do anything.

In other words, Baal's no God at all.

And they're sitting there just running around.

These kind of yes men, they're they're bootlickers in a way.

They're literally gonna tell Ahab whatever he wants to hear.

Okay.

And um, they're running around, go up to Ramath Gilead, prosper, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.

And this is this is, man, this is an ancient version of you know what God wants for you?

Anything you want for you.

That's what this is.

This is an early version of health, wealth, and prosperity.

Kind of gospel.

And there's just no justification for it.

It tickles people's ears, like the apostle Paul would write about later.

It's the kind of thing that people like to hear, but it doesn't help them grow in the faith.

It doesn't help them grow closer to the Lord at all.

The messenger who went to summon Micaiah spoke to him.

So the Uber driver from Ahab is picking Micaiah up now, and he's going to talk to him.

And on the way back, he says, Behold, now the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king.

Please let your word be like the word of one of them.

Speak favorably, Micaiah.

Remember, why does Ahab not want to hear from Micaiah?

Because he doesn't tell him what he wants to hear all the time.

He tells him the truth.

He speaks from Yahweh, right?

The God who is there.

This is interesting though.

Watch what happens.

Verse 14.

Micaiah says, as the Lord, that's Yahweh, lives, what Yahweh says to me, that I will speak.

And so in the Uber, on the way back, it feels a whole lot like he's drawing a line and saying, This is I gotta be, I gotta be true to who I am.

So they pull up to where all the 400 prophets are doing all the running around with all their horns and making all kinds of noise and rattling their swords and sabers and all that sort of thing.

And the kings are sitting there and their their thrones in the gate of Samaria.

And when they came 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, here's what Micaiah says.

Go up and succeed, and Yahweh will give it into the hand of the king.

Now, I wish that I knew enough about ancient Hebrew, and I wish that actually anybody, because none of the commentators could could do this either, as I was reading through all of them.

They all said, I wish we knew enough to know what the what kind of sort of facial expressions, what kind of, you know, sometimes when people speak, they can say something, and if their body language is one way, it you know it means this.

But if their body language is this way, it means a completely different thing.

When you were little, if your mother used your full proper name, it kind of meant it was time for you to come home and face facts, right?

And so was Micaiah there going, I mean, did he grab one of the sets of horns, throw it on his head, and go, as the Lord lives, here's what you should do.

Go up and succeed.

Was he mocking them openly in front of all these prophets, in front of all of the people, possibly?

Watch what happens.

Verse 16.

The king Ahab says to Micaiah, How many times must I adjure you to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of Yahweh?

So he's mad.

Why is he mad?

Well, because publicly he said, Micaiah is never gonna go along with whatever I want.

Micaiah is going to say this.

And then Micaiah comes along and doesn't say what Ahab said he would say.

And I think Ahab has got a little egg on his face.

He's a little embarrassed.

He predicted it would go one way and it didn't.

So the king uh Micaiah says to him, verse 17, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep which have no shepherd.

In other words, afraid and vulnerable.

The Lord said, These have no master.

Let each of them return to his house in peace.

Then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?

Now Ahab's going, See, I told you so, right?

Here's what Micaiah does.

This is amazing.

He's going to give Ahab and everybody there, including the 400 prophets, false prophets, a real vision of what's going on in the heavenly realm.

Therefore, hear the word of Yahweh.

I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, all the hosts of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left.

And Yahweh said, Who will entice Ahab to go up and fight and fall at Ramath Gilead?

And one said this while another said that.

Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, I will entice him.

And the Lord Yahweh said to him, How?

And he said, I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all of his prophets.

And then he said, You are to entice him and also prevail.

Go and do so.

Now therefore, behold, Yahweh put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets, and the Lord Yahweh has proclaimed disaster against you.

This is Micaiah.

And he's now doing what Ahab had originally said he would do, but he's adding more than that.

He's even telling him how God's gonna go about doing it.

Now, some of you are getting all crazy.

Some of you are going, I got questions.

Sure sounds like God's endorsing rubber stamping lying.

Is that what's going on here?

No, it's not lying when you tell somebody you're deceiving them.

Think that through for just a second.

Micaiah says to Ahab and everybody else there, the Lord has got this heavenly realm, and in that heavenly realm, just like in Job chapter 1, when Satan comes before the Lord, and there's some discussion going on there about Job, right?

Job 1 · chapter mention

Just like in Isaiah 6, just like at the end of Revelation, and there's all this stuff going on in the heavenly realm.

And what Micaiah does is the Lord gives him a vision of what's going on in the heavenlies, and he lays it out, and he tells Ahab exactly what's gonna happen.

You're going to be deceived by all 400 of those prophets.

You're going to be deceived.

And now, Ahab, it's sort of like the ball is kind of pushed in Ahab's corner there.

You get to do with that information whatever you want to do.

Now watch what he does.

It's amazing.

The king of Israel, Ahab, take Micaiah, return him to Amon, the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son, and thus, and say, Thus says the king, put this man in prison and feed him sparingly with bread and water until I return safely.

It's going to be just not even bottled water and saltines, man.

I mean, this guy is throwing him in jail, and that's his response to the word of the Lord.

When it's right up front.

And Micaiah then gets the last word as they're kind of carrying him toward the chariot there.

Micaiah gets the last word, verse 28.

If you indeed, and I love this.

He says, give him just water and bread.

I love this, until I return safely, isn't that interesting?

Ahab can say, throw him in jail, give him just bread and water.

But those of us who've read the rest of the chapter know he can't say until I return safely.

He doesn't have that power.

And so Micaiah on the way to jail says, If you indeed return safely, if, big if.

The Lord then has not spoken by me.

And then he says, Micaiah does to all of the people, listen, all you people.

It's very public.

All of this is very public.

So the king of Israel, Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, went up against Ramoth Gilead.

King of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I'm going to disguise myself and go into the battle.

You put on your robes.

So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into the battle.

I do not, the one thing I think Jehoshaphat is pretty lame at, he's not very good at seeing when he's being manipulated, it feels like to me.

Because Ahab is basically saying, I better hedge my bets against what Micaiah said and what Yahweh is predicting will happen.

I'm going to go into the battle, not looking like in the, you know, I'm in the king's chariot with the king's robes.

I'm going to go among the elisted men with just everyday clothes.

And you, Jehoshaphat, you go in looking like a king.

You go in and watch what happens.

Well, here's what happens.

The king of Aram or Syria had commanded the 32 captains of his chariots, saying, Do not fight with small or great, but with the king of Israel alone.

So when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, Surely it is the king of Israel.

Why?

Because of his robes, because of his fancy chariot.

And they turned aside to fight against him, and Jehoshaphat cried out, don't know what he said.

He might have said, I'm not Ahab.

Because the king of Aram wanted to go after the king of Israel, Ahab.

Verse 33.

When the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, Ahab, they turned back from pursuing him.

Now a certain man drew his bow at random.

I love those two words.

At random.

You can underline them in your Bible if it's.

And he struck the king of Israel, that's Ahab, in a joint of the armor.

So he said to the driver of his chariot, Ahab does, turn around and take me out of the fight, for I'm severely wounded.

The battle raged that day.

The king was propped up in his chariot in front of the Arameans or the Syrians and died at evening.

And the blood from the wound ran into the bottom of the chariot.

Wow.

Amazing.

A cry passed throughout the army close to sunset, saying, Every man to his city, every man to his country.

So the king died.

This is Ahab.

We've been six chapters with Ahab, people.

He just died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried the king in Samaria.

They washed listen to this live-body detail.

They washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria.

The dogs licked up his blood.

And this is brose.

I'm sorry.

But look at the detail.

The harlots bathed themselves there in that pool of Samaria, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke.

You can reference chapter 21, verse 19 on your own.

You'll see that it was predicted that the dogs would be licking up the blood of Ahab when he died.

The rest of the ex of Ahab and all that he did in the ivory house which he built and all the cities which he built, there are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

So Ahab slept with his fathers, and Ahaziah, his son, became king in his place.

He will also be another horrible and wicked king.

Matter of fact, all 19 of the northern uh the kings in the northern kingdom are wicked.

Let me finish reading the chapter and then I'll come back and make a few comments.

Joseph, the son of Asa, became king over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab, the king of Israel.

That this keeps in line with what we've been seeing throughout the book of Kings, that it steps back, give us the big picture view, and they overlap.

And usually they're overlapping by showing who's the king in the south.

Let me tell you about the king in the north.

Who's the king in the north?

And then let me tell you about the king in the south.

So they're always overlapping.

Jehoshaphat was 35 years when he was 35 years old when he became king.

He reigned for 25 years in Jerusalem till he's how old?

60.

And his mother's name was Azuba, the daughter of Shilhai.

He walked in all the ways of Asa his father.

He did not turn aside from it, doing right in the sight of the Lord.

Isn't that so refreshing to hear after studying Ahab?

Somebody say amen.

However, the high places were not taken away.

Okay, he's not perfect.

The people still sacrificed and burnt incense on the high places.

Jezephat also made peace with the king of Israel.

Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat and his might, which he showed and how he ward, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah?

The remnants of the male cult prostitutes, some of your translations might say Sodomites, who remained in the days of his father Asa, that is, in Jehoshaphat's father Esa, the ones that were still the kinds of temple male cult prostitutes in the temple that were there during Esa remained, except in Jehoshaphat's time, he expelled them from the land.

Did not want to have that sexual immorality happening, especially in and related to the worship of Yahweh.

There was no king in Edom, a deputy was king.

And this is just interesting little details as we finish out the chapter.

Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshis to go out to Ophir for gold.

Remember, Solomon went there?

Solomon would come back with tons of gold every year.

But they did not go for the ships, were broken at Ezien Geber.

For Jehoshaphat, it didn't happen.

The ships had been broken, or either that or they had just decayed.

Then Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, remember he took over for Ahab, said to Jehoshaphat, Let my servants go with your servants in the ships.

But Jehoshaphat was not willing.

That's an important fact right there.

It's never too late to start employing common sense and doing the next right thing.

He wasn't good at his alliance choices.

And he made an alliance with Ahab, the wicked, most wicked king of Israel, up to this point.

And so here he says, I'm not going to make an alliance, any kind of a deal with Ahaziah.

Well, Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers and was buried in his fathers with his fathers in the city of his father David, and Jehoram, his son, became king in his place.

Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, became king over Israel and Samaria in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, and he reigned two years over Israel.

That's a pretty short reign.

He, Ahaziah, did evil in the sight of the Lord.

And he walked away in the way of his father, that's Ahab, in the way of his mother, that's Jezebel.

And in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, that's the sort of fountainhead of the northern kingdom, who caused Israel to sin.

Is that how you want to be remembered?

No.

He, his eye, served Baal and worshiped him, and notice this, provoked the Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger according to all that his father had done.

There's so much here.

I think the theme, as we close out 1 Kings, as we look back over all the chapters, I think the theme that continues to run through the whole thing is not so much the kings themselves, but the ultimate king.

And so I'm going to put up on the screen for you what has been.

When we started this study, 1 and 2 Kings, we're calling it the King of Redemption history, we saw in the first 11 chapters the wisdom and folly of Solomon.

We saw the kingdoms reduced into or falling into chaos in verses chapters 12 through 16.

And we we got a glimpse of Elijah and Elisha even as we turned into chapter 17.

And we'll see that storyline run.

Those of you that choose to go to the Sunday school class that will pick up 2 Kings in the 9 o'clock hour.

You can still, you know, don't come up and attack us because we're making a Sunday school class out of 2 Kings.

You can still come to the 11 o'clock service afterwards.

We love you, but we have to do some things.

This will be good, I think, really.

And 2 Kings goes on to show more and more the decline of Israel in the north till 722 BC when they are literally dismantled by the Assyrians.

And it shows also the decline of Judah in the south up until 586 BC, when it will be dismantled by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar.

And so this is the constant stream.

The message that we keep seeing is that we need a better king.

Here's all these kings, 39 of them.

None of them are gonna do.

Is this the best we can do?

Sadly, yes.

But is it the best God can do?

No.

Gladly, no.

Because these kings, as failures, uh, not only they expose our need for a better king, but they point forward to and foreshadow the one who is coming.

What standard or measure does one king use to distinguish between a good king and a bad king?

It's the way they respond to the word of the Lord.

Ahab, how does he respond to the word of the Lord?

Never seeks it, never heeds it, and isn't really interested in it.

Matter of fact, I'll put one slide up that kind of summarizes, or let me give you two slides.

He was evil and provided the uh provoked the Lord more than any other king.

And there's the reference there.

He worshipped false gods, Baal and Asherah.

He was known for his cunning and cruel wife, Jezebel.

He was known for his childish and selfish behaviors.

He was known for his own failure to seek the Lord.

He failed to worship the Lord, he failed to offer thanks to the Lord.

We saw over and over again the Lord being merciful to Ahab, the Lord attempting to communicate to Ahab, and Ahab would have none of it.

Ahab rejected, ignored, walked away, indifferent to Yahweh.

And he consistently refused to listen to the word of the Lord.

When we study any Bible passage, we always ask these four questions.

How does God reveal himself in this passage?

What about his nature, character, wisdom, and will and ways do we see here?

Second question: what aspects of our need for redemption are exposed in this book of 1 Kings or any passage we're studying?

Thirdly, we always ask the question: how's the gospel of Jesus reflected in this passage?

And certainly here we can say, this book shows us we need King Jesus.

We need the King who will come, who is always all-knowing, and loves us even while we were yet sinners.

See, he's the greater King even than Solomon and David.

And then the fourth question is always what faith response does this passage compel from us?

And I guess the question is, what would you do with the word of the Lord?

I know you come here.

I know those of you who are online with us, you're you guys are drawn to this church for some reason.

And one of the distinctives of our church, and there there are many reasons why I would choose to come to this church even if I didn't work here.

But one of them is that we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel on purpose.

Um, because what we don't want to do is just pick and choose our favorite little pet sort of words of the Lord, our sort of just add an eye generic sort of word of the Lord that happens to make us feel better about ourselves.

We're not doing that here.

Um I was reminded this week when we started the village chapel, the very first book of the Bible we studied was a almost, I look back on it now and I go, we could probably write the book on how not to start a church.

Because we chose the book of judges first.

But I got news for you.

It's overflowing with the grace of God.

It's an amazing book.

And the whole Old Testament points forward to and finds its fulfillment in Jesus.

And this is one of the reasons why we study verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book, so that we don't just go salad bar spirituality on you on you guys that come here.

We want the whole counsel of God.

Why?

Because sometimes this world just really gets crazy nutty, and our world gets crazy too.

And sometimes the darkness seems so strong.

Sometimes our drift seems so far, our own, the undulation of my spiritual life and your spiritual life.

We need the whole counsel of God, not just the feel-good verses, not just the ones that look nice on a plaque.

We need the hard truth about people like Ahab, whom God is consistently, faithfully merciful to over and over and over and over again, but his patience comes to an end.

And we need to be told that.

And we don't get that from the prophets of Baal.

We don't get that from the false prophets.

Even if these are prophets of Yahweh, they they use the name Adonai and the name Yahweh, but they're not faithful to Yahweh.

They're telling the king what he wants to hear.

We don't want to choose our prophets based on the fact that they'll tell us what we want to hear.

We want them to tell us what we need to hear.

It's so important for our growth.

I'm gonna throw a Warren Buffett quote up here because we need some comic relief.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

Ahab would have done well to step out of the, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it, boat into the speak to me, Yahweh.

Let me hear from you.

And it might not line up with everything I want or I prefer or the timing I want.

It might be tough, it might be a call to suffering in some way.

I might not want this, but for your glory and for your good, and maybe the good of your people, and maybe some unknown good that I can't even imagine right now, I am yours.

Just as Jesus said, Father, not my will, but thine be done, even though he's about to face the cross.

If only Ahab had had a level of self-awareness that helped him see his disconnect from God was literally killing him.

We cannot expect to lead a flourishing life if we have cut ourselves off from the very source of life, who is God.

Verse 34, I think, is fascinating.

I don't have much time left, but I do want to just take a moment to look at that.

A certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel in a joint.

Hey, listen, I'll throw this quote up on the screen so I can keep things moving here, but you know, in a world that is governed by a sovereign God, um, there are no random arrows.

Does that make sense?

Infinitely sovereign God.

Okay?

There's just no random arrows.

And and I know for some of you going, yeah, but what about this?

Yeah, but what about?

I know you got the yeah, but whatabouts going.

Um, and and I can't answer every question about everybody's suffering and pain experiences.

I can't even answer all the questions about mine.

Here's what I can do is I can tell myself and offer to you the encouragement that you can trust this God of the Bible.

Why?

Because he knows what suffering is all about.

This is a God who willingly laid down his life on a cross so that you and I could use the word forever.

Forever.

It's such a beautiful word.

And we we have no claim on that word apart from Jesus and his resurrection and his crucifixion before that.

So it's so important, I think, for us.

Jesus said, Sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth.

Pilate said to Jesus, what is truth?

And then he walks out, didn't even wait for an answer.

Jesus tells us what truth is in two different occasions.

Here on John 17, 17 is high priestly prayer.

He's praying to God, Father.

He says, God, with my disciples here, the ones that you've given to me, sanctify them.

That means set them apart in the truth.

In other words, just Lord, wash over us with the certainty of your word, the promises of your, the hope of your word.

And let us know that it's the truth.

And then Jesus, in his prayer to God on behalf of his disciples, says, it's your word is not the.

He doesn't put a definite article, the or a.

He says, your word is truth.

And then later, Jesus would also say this I am the way, the, and the life.

It's not just something that he has and gives or points to over there or follow these rules or whatever.

No.

He is the way.

So if you've lost yours, go to him.

He is the truth.

If you're looking for some of that, and I can't imagine you aren't, go to him.

And he's the life.

If you need more of that, if you feel yours is languishing and wasting away, go to him.

He's the one we're going to point you to over and over and over again here at the village chapel.

History is not a random series of meaningless events, it's rather a succession of periods and happenings under sovereign rule of God, who's the God of history.

There are no random arrows if there's a sovereign God.

What about Ahab?

What about this very sad story that he, you know, comes to this end, this very ignoble end.

God in the end, as Lewis said, gives people what they most want, including freedom from himself.

What could be more fair?

Ahab wanted life without the word of the Lord.

And without the Lord who speaks the word.

What do you want?

Because it's likely that God will give it to you.

That's what I see here when we get to the end of this chapter.

I think that's important for us to know.

How much have your dreams been personal, earthbound, physical in here and now?

Have you been motivated by your kingdom more than God's kingdom?

How's your present discouragement, disappointment, confusion or grief?

A window on what has actually captured your heart?

It can be that way.

Paul Tripp goes on to say, have you really wanted God to be your wise and loving Father who brings into your life what he considers best?

Or have you wanted him to be a divine waiter, the all-powerful deliverer of your dreams, the cosmic concierge in your life.

Good questions to ask.

And close with Stock.

Second Stock quote.

If we come to Scripture with our minds made up, expecting to hear from it only an echo of our own thoughts and never the thunderclap of God's, then indeed he will not speak to us.

And we shall only be confirmed in our own prejudices.

We must allow the word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency, and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.

What did Ahab really want in life?

He wanted prophets that told him what he wanted to hear.

What do we want?

We want to hear from the word of the Lord and from the Lord Himself.

We want a God who occasionally disagrees with us because then we know we got a real God.

We want a God who occasionally calls us to tough stuff because then we know we got a real God that we're worshiping.

So how should we approach the Word of God?

Humbly, submitting ourselves to it just like we have attempted to do here as we've studied 1 Kings.

We don't want to become like Ahab.

But this is God's word.

It's unique in its source, it's timeless in its truth, it's broad in its reach, and it's transforming in its power.

And I pray as we continue on.

Next week, we'll be looking at some Palm Sunday passage, and the week after that, the Easter message, of course, especially focusing in on 1 Peter chapter 1, and then we'll start 1 Peter up here in the chapel as and 2 Kings will be a part of that Sunday school class, which will also be recorded and posted online if you would like to know about that as well.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for 1 Kings.

We're so grateful for this book.

As we sit here today and as we close it up, I wonder what role, Jesus, you might be calling each of us to play in the ongoing story of redemption history.

God, you have saved us.

Then you must also have given us a story to tell of your faithfulness in our good times and in our bad times.

Lord, I pray that you give us utterance, give us opportunities to have the gospel fall freely from our lips and even be seen in our lives, especially in our relationships, especially here in your church, this local expression of your church we call the village chapel.

And Lord, no matter what happens, whether our earthly leaders or with our nation or even the leaders in our churches for that matter, we always will be looking for the great King Jesus and always seeking to place him on the throne of our lives because he's the king that no other king could ever be.

He's the true king of redemption history.

He is strong to save, he is wise to lead, he is gentle and lowly to receive us.

And he's worthy of our praise.

We bless him and praise him in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.