Whether it’s an individual or a nation living in rebellion and disobedience, it would go against God’s nature of righteousness and holiness to speak good things to them via his prophets or promise them victory of any sort while they remain far from Him.
Very few tackle the next few verses of this passage because
they are unsettling, causing distress in the minds and hearts of those who know
they are living lives unworthy of the name of Jesus yet desire to hear a word
from the Lord, especially if it’s complementary and promises victory,
abundance, breakthrough, or favor.
The text is plain; it’s in the Book, and uncomfortable as its
implications might be, we must contend with it and take it at face value. Not
only is the following passage devastating for those who live lukewarm,
duplicitous lives yet expect a true word from the Lord, but it also dispels the
narrative that God is in heaven all by His lonesome, just looking for a friend,
any old friend, to pass the time and help Him with His tangled beard.
In their attempt to elevate their status, some have taken to
stripping God of His majesty, making Him out to be a lonely old man with a
white beard, sitting on a throne, doing much of nothing except for pining over
stiff-necked and rebellious children who want nothing to do with Him.
Why is it that every time one of these modern-day
prophetesses describes their experience with being translated into the holy of
holies, it’s always akin to the dorky kid asking the cool kids why they don’t
want to play with him? Their version of God always seems to lack some
understanding and needs their specific input on how to run the universe He
spoke into being. Thank goodness a lady with pink hair or the one with the nose
ring came along to set God straight and tell Him what’s what. Imagine the mess
we’d be in if they hadn’t been teleported to heaven via a porta-potty for a
confab with the Almighty.
You’re just jealous because they got to go to heaven, and you
didn’t. I’m good, actually. Vain imaginations are just that. Both vain and
imaginations. It’s that bunches of people are buying what these frauds are
selling that’s the troubling part.
Micaiah had a vision of the Lord, and what he describes is
very different from what modern-day soothsayers describe. God wasn’t all by His
lonesome doing Sudoku out of sheer boredom; He wasn’t pacing back and forth in
the halls of heaven, not knowing what to do with Himself. Micaiah had a vision
of God in His glory and majesty, with all the host of heaven standing by on His
right hand and on His left.
1 Kings 22:19-23, “Then Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the
word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of
heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left. And the Lord said, “Who
will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?” So one spoke
in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward
and stood before the Lord, and said, “I will persuade him.” The Lord said to
him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the
mouth of all his prophets.’ And the Lord said, ‘You shall persuade him, and
also prevail. Go out and do so.’ Therefore look! The Lord has put a lying
spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the Lord has declared
disaster against you.”’
Although there is enough to unpack in these four verses to
last us through the end of the year, I will resist the impulse to do a deep
dive into this interaction between the Lord and His host regarding the fate of
Ahab and succinctly go through some of the most relevant bullet points.
First, Ahab was weighed and found wanting. God had already
judged him for his unwillingness to repent. Whether an individual or a nation
requires restoration or salvation, the prerequisite for God’s intervention is
always repentance. You can think yourself in the best position possible, with
all the money in the world and all the safety nets that money can afford, but
if your heart is in rebellion, if you are walking in disobedience, none of it
matters until your heart is put aright.
We keep hearing that God is going to bless and restore
America from various voices on various platforms, but never once do you hear
those self-same voices call for humble repentance or a return to the tenets
that once made this nation the envy of the world. A nation cannot prosper
without God. That’s the reality we are soon to learn intimately.
No individual or group of individuals is smart enough to
bypass repentance and achieve what can only be achieved through repentance and
obedience. They can talk a good game, plot, plan, and scheme, have projections,
and take all sorts of measures to make their dream a reality, but if God’s hand
is not in it, it will crumble and fall short every time.
Ahab had refused repentance, and now judgment was upon him.
All the words his prophets had spoken over him were the result of a lying spirit
that went out encouraging him to go to battle against the Syrians so that he
might meet his end.
It was not the Spirit of God that went out to put a lying
spirit in the mouths of Ahab’s prophets; it was a spirit who volunteered for
the task. Second, Micaiah called the four hundred men Ahab’s prophets, not
God’s. It’s an important distinction, lest we confuse what occurred.
They were Ahab’s prophets. Four hundred yes men who would
regurgitate the desires of the king back to him and give him their seal of
approval for whatever purpose he desired. They were not God’s men, nor were
they God’s prophets, and as such, the spirit that went forth was able to put a
lying word in their mouths.
God doesn’t allow for false words to be put in the mouths of
true prophets, but false prophets are fair game. A true prophet had warned Ahab
repeatedly. He’d brought the word of the Lord to him, and because the words
were an offense to his flesh, he rejected them. Now, a spirit was sent forth to
put a false word in the mouths of the four hundred, and Ahab lapped it up
greedily.
If the word of the Lord is correcting you, admonishing you,
and calling you to repent of something, then suddenly, a fresh word that no
longer insists upon these things comes from someone else, it’s not that God
changed His mind or that He no longer requires humble submission to His will;
it’s that one who is not His is speaking a false word into your life to keep
you from doing the things the Lord told you to do.
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