Ahab did everything in his power to ensure that the word Micaiah spoke would not come to pass. He disguised himself in another man’s robes, kept himself from the front lines, and even insisted that Jehoshaphat wear his robes, hoping he would draw the enemy’s fire. Not a friendly gesture, but one born of selfishness and an overriding need for self-preservation. He wanted to prove Micaiah wrong if it was the last thing he did, not realizing that Micaiah was just the messenger. The message had come from the Lord.
Ahab did everything but the one thing he could have done,
which was heed the word of the Lord and repent of his folly. We acknowledge the
world is falling apart in real-time, we look for a remedy, God says repent, and
we say no thanks. We think we can fix it on our own without humbling ourselves.
We think we can circumvent the iceberg without God’s aid or assistance because
we’re resilient and self-motivated. Others in generations past might have been
too weak-willed to be the masters of their destinies, but not us, no sir, we’ll
show You!
We look at Ahab’s actions and scratch our heads in
bewilderment, not realizing that we are often guilty of the same thing. The
Lord speaks a word, and rather than submit and act accordingly we do everything
in our power to try and prove Him wrong. It never succeeds, but we still try.
Doing what God commands would mean humbling ourselves, and
even though the Word tells us that God resists the proud and gives grace to the
humble, we’d rather roll the dice and go our own way.
When I was younger and still had hair, I had a friend who was
smitten with a young lady. He was a believer, she wasn’t, but that didn’t stop
him from going and inquiring of the Lord as to whether he should make an honest
woman out of her and propose marriage. He asked if I knew anywhere we could go
to prayer, and since I did, we went to a prayer meeting not far away, and the
Lord spoke to him through a vessel that was present.
We showed up on a random day, two random people among a
handful of others, sang a couple of hymns, and then knelt to pray. There was no
exchanging of information; my friend didn’t explain why we were there, so the
vessel had no way of knowing what issue needed clarification. The message was
as clear as could be: “The path which you desire to take is not the path I have
chosen for you. I have prepared a better way for you, and you will see it in
due course.”
He knew what he’d gone to the prayer meeting for; the vessel
didn’t. It’s one of those details that matter because if you go to someone
telling them of your problems, you’re asking them for an opinion. If you’re
going to hear a word from the Lord, God already knows what’s on your heart; you
don’t need to go into detail. If the vessel is of the Lord, the word will come
forth without you having to explain the situation at length.
The desire of his heart was to know if he was supposed to
proceed or not, and yet, after the prayer meeting, he began to go on and on
about the possibility that this was not what the word was referring to but
something else. I told him it seemed pretty clear to me. He gave me a dirty
look, and we drove home in silence.
A few weeks later, I received the wedding invitation. The
Lord had spoken, he had not heeded, and he’d gone ahead with the plans of his
heart even though he had been warned. When I asked him why he’d bothered to
seek a word from the Lord if he was already determined to do what he’d done, he
shrugged his shoulders and said he was hoping God would cosign his decision. If
you’re not fully committed to following through and heeding what God speaks to
you, there’s no point in seeking a word from Him. At that point, you’re just
tempting God, and once a word is given and you refuse to obey it, you are in
rebellion.
My friend was fully assured that he could change her, that
his love would win out, and all I could do was give him a sympathetic look
because I’d seen this drama play out repeatedly, just with different faces at
different times.
Less than two years later, she ran off with an Italian fellow
who promised her the moon and the stars, and my friend was devastated,
heartbroken, and bitter. Who was he bitter at? You guessed it: not himself or
his disobedience but at God for not doing something He never promised He would
and who had warned him against this course.
Don’t blame God for doing things He specifically told you not
to do when they leave you bruised and broken. He was trying to spare you, but
you thought you knew better.
The king of Syria had thirty-two captains of his chariots to
whom he gave one order: “Fight with no one small or great, but only with the
king of Israel.” Ahab was his target, and everyone else was irrelevant as far
as he was concerned. In his own right, Ahab thought he’d outsmarted and
outwitted the plan of God, and for a second there, as he saw the chariots
chasing after Jehoshaphat, he thought he’d succeeded. Then, a certain man drew a
bow at random and let loose. He wasn’t targeting anyone specifically, but his
arrow found the space between Ahab’s armor and struck true.
It wasn’t aimed or calculated. Ahab was not his target
because Ahab had disguised himself, and the archer had no way of knowing he’d
just mortally wounded the king of Israel, but he had. One arrow loosed at
random by an archer brought the whole reign of Ahab to a screeching halt.
When you’re not walking in obedience, when you’re not walking
in God’s will, it doesn’t take a giant to trounce you. All it takes is a random
arrow that will find the space between the joints of your armor and leave you
gasping for breath. You can’t outsmart God. Whatever loopholes one thinks they
might have found to force God’s hand or circumvent His will are wholly imaginary
and have no basis in fact. Ahab found this out the hard way, the cost of it
being his life.
It’s been proven often enough that majority consensus can be
wrong. Just because a majority of people are saying a particular thing, it
doesn’t automatically make them right by virtue of being in the majority. This
is doubly true for those who claim to be messengers sent by God, whose words
contradict His words, and whose visions of future glory would undermine His
nature were they to come to pass.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
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