1 Kings 22:15-16, “Then he came to the king; and the king said to him, “Micaiah, shall we go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall we refrain?” And he answered him, “Go and prosper, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king!” So the king said to him, “How many times shall I make you swear that you tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?”’
Ahab may have hated Micaiah, but by his insistence that
Micaiah tells him the unvarnished truth, he showed that he put more stock in
what Micaiah had to say than what the four hundred prophets combined had.
Although he’d never liked what Micaiah had to say to him, Ahab knew that the
words Micaiah spoke were the truth.
He may have said that Micaiah prophesied evil concerning him;
at least, that was Ahab’s interpretation of the words he received had been, but
he never said he’d prophesied falsely. There’s a deep lesson in this entire
saga and one we would do well to learn. Just because you don’t like a word from
the Lord, it doesn’t make it evil, nor does it make it untrue. Your feelings
don’t matter when it comes to prophecy or revelation; the only metric you can
use to gauge the veracity of a word is whether it’s true. Especially when it
comes to personal prophecy, you know whether what is being said to you is true
or not from the first few words the individual speaks.
You know where you are in your relationship with God. You
know how much time you spend in His presence, reading the Word, praying, and
seeking His face. If the last prayer you said was over a turkey dinner because
everyone else bowed out, chances are that whole thing about you raising the
dead next week is wishful thinking. Rather than look into the mirror of the
Word to see where they are spiritually, many nowadays would rather cling to a
word they know did not come from God that paints them in a flattering light.
What’s obvious is that Ahab and Micaiah had a history, and
the Lord had repeatedly attempted to correct Ahab through Micaiah. Given that
his heart was hardened and he no longer pursued repentance, hatred was allowed
to fester and grow in Ahab’s heart to the point that he couldn’t contain
himself in his animus, and he made his feelings known regarding Micaiah to
Jehoshaphat as well.
Even so, perhaps grudgingly, Ahab had to admit that Micaiah
heard from the Lord. By his insistence that Micaiah tell him nothing but the
truth of what the Lord said regarding his plan to overtake Ramoth Gilead, it is
inferred that he had doubts about the veracity of the four hundred prophets
who’d just unanimously agreed that it was a solid plan and one sanctioned by
the Almighty Himself.
Ahab had enough self-awareness to know that he was not
walking in God's will, so the likelihood of victory was in question even though
the Syrians were ripe for the taking. With Jehoshaphat's army at his side, they
had the numbers required to make it so.
What looks good on paper often falls apart the second you try
to implement it in the real world. We’ve seen this over and over again with
politicians passing decrees that, on the whole, seem like a net positive, but
once they try to implement them, the folly of their machinations is revealed to
all. We all want to see someone paid a fair wage for a day’s work, don’t we?
Well, why not make the minimum hourly wage twenty dollars? That would fix the
problem instantly, at least on paper. So let it be written, so let it be done.
Easy fix! Everyone wins, nobody loses, and we can be praised as the preeminent
luminaries of our age.
It was all well and good until they started implementing it,
and hundreds upon hundreds of businesses had to shutter their doors because the
numbers no longer penciled, and they could no longer turn a profit no matter
how small they made their portion sizes, or how much they increased their
prices. They soon discovered the average Joe wasn’t willing to pay thirty
dollars for some greasy fries and a sloppy burger, but the law is the law, and
the minimum wage is now what people who never ran a business in their lives nor
understood the notion of profit and loss determined.
Everything can seem like it’s falling into place; every
calculation, projection, and chart can be as right as rain, but if God’s not in
it, if He has not blessed it and sanctioned it, it will fall apart at the
slightest breeze. The concept of God’s blessing and God’s aid in the context of
human plans is crucial. It implies that success is not solely dependent on
human effort or intelligence but on God’s approval and support.
Psalm 127:1, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in
vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in
vain.”
The most brilliant minds in the world can’t fix something
that can only be fixed by repentance and contrition. They think they can. They
have plans to restructure debt, cut useless spending, print more money,
increase interest rates, cut interest rates, offer more bonds, default on debt,
or pay it off, but if God is not in it, every plan will fall short.
Even with all the encouraging words from the four hundred
prophets telling him victory was within reach, Ahab knew something was off. This
is the only explanation for why he was so insistent upon Micaiah telling him
the truth of what the Lord had shown him.
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