1 Kings 21-22 part 14
In tonight’s lesson we are will continue to look at the events that takes place in Elijah’s, Ahab’s and Jezebel’s life. We will also be introduced to a new prophet called Micaiah and the new King of Judah Jehoshaphat. Lets begin in,
1 Kings 21:1 And it
came to pass after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a
vineyard which was in Jezreel, next to the palace of Ahab king of
Samaria. 2 So Ahab spoke to
Naboth, saying, "Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable
garden, because it is near, next to my house; and for it I will give you
a vineyard better than it. Or, if it seems good to you, I will give you
its worth in money." 3
But Naboth said to Ahab, "The LORD forbid that I should give the
inheritance of my fathers to you!" 4
So Ahab went into his house sullen and displeased because of the word which
Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him; for he had said, "I will not give
you the inheritance of my fathers." And he lay down on his bed, and turned
away his face, and would eat no food.
Here we see that Ahab sees the beautiful vineyard that is close to his house and we wants. Now starts out doing the honorable thing by trying to trade Naboth a better vineyard than his. But, he did not want to do this because this vineyard had been in family for many years. We can all relate to this because we may have a family heirloom that is worth a lot of money but we would not sell it because it has so much sentimental value. This is the same reason why Naboth doesn’t want to sell his vineyard. Next Ahab acts like young and pouts because he didn’t get what he wanted. This is why Ahab has been labeled the pouting king.
1 Kings 21: 5
But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said to him, "Why is your spirit so
sullen that you eat no food?" 6
He said to her, "Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite, and said to
him, 'Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if it pleases you, I will give
you another vineyard for it.' And he answered, 'I will not give you my
vineyard.' " 7 Then
Jezebel his wife said to him, "You now exercise authority over
Now I know that
wives are suppose to be supportive for the husbands but this wicked women is
one of the reason why Ahab ends up doing many of the evil things that he does.
She basically fans the flame for the evil. Notice what she does to get the
vineyard for her husband.
1 Kings 21:8 And she
wrote letters in Ahab's name, sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters
to the elders and the nobles who were dwelling in the city with Naboth. 9 She wrote in the letters,
saying, Proclaim a fast, and seat Naboth with high honor among the people; 10 and seat two men, scoundrels,
before him to bear witness against him, saying, "You have blasphemed God
and the king." Then take him out, and stone him, that he may die. 11 So the men of his city, the
elders and nobles who were inhabitants of his city, did as Jezebel had sent to
them, as it was written in the letters which she had sent to them. 12 They proclaimed a fast, and
seated Naboth with high honor among the people.
13 And two men, scoundrels, came in and sat before him; and
the scoundrels witnessed against him, against Naboth, in the presence of the
people, saying, "Naboth has blasphemed God and the king!" Then they
took him outside the city and stoned him with stones, so that he died. 14 Then they sent to Jezebel,
saying, "Naboth has been stoned and is dead." 15 And it came to pass, when
Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, that Jezebel said to
Ahab, "Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite,
which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but
dead." 16 So it was,
when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab got up and went down to take
possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.
Here
we Jezebel overstepping her position and she forges a document to bring about
the death of Naboth. Now the people of the city honored what they thought was
Ahab’s request. This was certainly a rotten and evil deed because they make
Naboth feel like an honored man and while he is feeling good about himself 2
worthless men come and accuse him of blaspheming God and then he drug out of
the city and stoned to death. Can you imagine the range of emotion that Naboth
was going through? Well, as promised Jezebel made it to where Ahab could get
his desires fulfilled as the price of Naboth life. When Ahab went to admire his
new possession his joy wouldn’t last long as we are about to see as we continue
on in,
1 Kings 21: 17
Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, 18 "Arise, go down to meet
Ahab king of
This shows us that no
evil deed escapes the eyes of our Lord. We need to realize this today. I think
some get the idea that if no one knows about the sin they are doing then they
are getting away with it. But, that is not the case because God knows and even
if we don’t have any consequences from our sins while we live on this earth I
can promise you that we will face the consequences of them on the day of
judgment.
1 Kings 21:20 So Ahab said to Elijah, "Have you
found me, O my enemy?" And he answered, "I have found you, because
you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the LORD: 21 'Behold, I will bring calamity on you. I
will take away your posterity, and will cut off from Ahab every male in
Once again Ahab and
Elijah meet up and once again Ahab has something negative to say as he calls
Elijah his enemy. I am reminded of what Paul said once in,
Galatians 4:16 Have I
therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
Elijah wasn’t Ahab’s
enemy all he was doing was telling him the truth. There are many people today
that have this same attitude because when you point out how they are living in
sin according to God’s Word and they don’t want to change their ways they will
consider you as their enemy as well. What they don’t realize and what Ahab
doesn’t realize is that we are simply being their friends and we are trying to
get them right with God. Even though God was condemning Ahab and his wife to
death they had the opportunity to repent and appeal to God’s mercy just as
every person today has the opportunity to make their lives right with God as
long as they are still living. I also want to point that even though Jezebel
was the one that put together this scheme Ahab was just as responsible because
he stood by while his wife worked her magic to bring about his desires for the
vineyard. Notice what happens next.
1 Kings 21: 25
But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight
of the LORD, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up. 26 And he behaved very abominably
in following idols, according to all that the Amorites had done, whom the LORD
had cast out before the children of
Our text tells us what I stated earlier that Jezebel was always stirring
up Ahab to do evil things. Now we need to remember that God knows our hearts
and so he knew that Ahab at this moment had truly repented for what he had done
and because of this God had mercy on him and puts off his fate until a later
time. Now think about this, if God will have mercy on someone who is labeled as
the most wicked king that ever lived at that point then surely we can see that
no matter how sinful we may be that if we repent we can know that God will have
mercy on us and he will forgive us our sins.
As we enter into chapter 22 I want to note that these same events are
also recorded for us in 2 Chron. 18. Since these accounts differ in detail I am
going to blend them together as you will see on the screen. 2 Chron will be in
yellow and 1 Kings will be in white. On this paper 2 Chron will be normal and 1 kings will
italicized.
2 Chronicles 18:1 Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in
abundance; and by marriage he allied himself with Ahab.
2 Then it came to pass, in the third year, that Jehoshaphat the king of
and Ahab killed sheep and oxen in abundance for
him and the people who were with him, and persuaded him to go up with him to
Ramoth Gilead.
3 And the
king of
7
And Jehoshaphat said, "Is there not
still a prophet of the LORD here, that we may inquire of Him?" 8
So the king of
Now be taken a closer look a Jehoshaphat next week
but we do learn that he joins himself with Ahab by marriage and decides to work
with him to help him get back Ramoth Gilead. We find out that Elijah isn’t the
only prophet of God that Ahab doesn’t like because he doesn’t care for Micaiah
either. Now I don’t know for sure who these 400 prophet were that he called up.
Its possible that it was the 400 prophets of Jezebel or it could be 400 new
prophets that took the place of the 450 that Elijah killed earlier. In either
case Jehoshaphat wanted to hear a word from a true prophet of God and so they
call for Micaiah.
9 Then the king of
Again, these 400 false prophets are saying that
they should go and fight the battle.
13 Then the messenger who had gone to call Micaiah spoke to him, saying,
"Now listen, the words of the prophets with one accord encourage the king.
Please, let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak
encouragement." 14 And Micaiah said, "As the LORD lives, whatever the LORD
says to me, that I will speak."
Here the messenger is trying to influence Micaiah
to go with crowd because surely 400 prophets can’t be wrong. There are a lot
Christians today and those that call themselves Christians that fall into this
type of a trap. Instead of standing their ground on what God’s word says they will
cave in and accept whatever the majority says but Micaiah wasn’t going to do
this because he was determined to speak God’s truth even if it meant going
against the 400.
15 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!" 16 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?" 17 Then he
said, "I saw all
In our previous text Micaiah just said that he
would not go along with the other prophets but simply speak what the Lord told
him to say. So, why here in the beginning is saying exactly what the prophets
did? Well, the only thing that makes sense to me is that Micaiah was being a
smarty pants and Ahab knew it. Since we cant tell from the text how Micaiah was
saying this or what body language he was using we cant say this for sure but it
certainly seems to be the case because why else would Ahab ask him to tell the
truth? Then he tells Ahab the truth and Ahab understood this saying was not
good for him just as he predicted. Now Micaiah continues on.
1 Kings
22:19 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. 20
"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. 21 "Then a
spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, and said, 'I will persuade
him.' 22 "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.' 23 "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."
Now here I was I consider a very difficult text
and very interesting one at the same time. Many people have had different
explanations of this text. For instance some have suggested that God sent this
lying spirit to override the free will of these prophets. Some have said that this
lying spirit was either one of God angles or the devil himself. However, I do
not agree with any of these and the reason why is because when I approach any
difficult text I approach it by using the whole council of God. First of we are
told that God cannot lie Heb. 6:18; Titus 1:2. However we are told that the
devil is the father of lies in John 8:44. In our test since the evil spirit
said he would persuade this tell me that Ahab and the prophets could have
resisted this lying spirit if they had chosen to do so. So, all I see here is
another classic example of where God permitted this lying spirit to do his work
on the prophets but that he did not force them to lie just like he didn’t force
the Pharaoh of Moses time to harden his heart. So, Micaiah used this vision to
say that all 400 prophets were lying and that if he goes to battle it will end
in disaster for Ahab.
1 Kings
22:24 Now Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah
went near and struck Micaiah on the cheek, and said, "Which way did the
spirit from the LORD go from me to speak to you?" 25 And Micaiah said, "Indeed,
you shall see on that day when you go into an inner chamber to hide!"
As we can Zedekiah didn’t like what Micaiah was
saying so struck him and mocked him but Micaiah informs him that he will see it
when is running for his life.
1 Kings
22:26 So the king of
This is the same thing that happened to many of
the people of the Bible. When they don’t like the truth that is being taught
they will lock the person up so they can shut them up. This same thing hold
true today in sense because people will avoid you and despise you when you show
that there is sin in their life or when you point out that the way they worship
is not in accordance the word of God. In our text Micaiah makes it clear that
Ahab is not going to make it back from the battle and if he does then Micaiah
is a false prophet.
1 Kings
22:29 So the king of
Well, Ahab decides to try is luck and enter into
battle. It’s obvious that he believed what Micaiah said because he tries to
disguise himself as ordinary solider thinking this would keep him from being
killed. Since, Jehoshaphat was the only dressed like a king the people went
after him first but when the saw that it wasn’t Ahab they didn’t kill him. Now
watch what happens next.
1 Kings
22:34 Now a certain man drew a bow at random, and struck the king of
I think we can all agree that God had a hand in
guiding this arrow that was shot a random as it severely wounded King Ahab. His
disguise did not work because no one can hide from God no matter how much the
change their appearance because he can see straight into our hearts and just as
the prophets had proclaimed he did not make it back from battle and his blood
was licked up by dogs.
From the lesson we can certainly see that no evil
deed goes undone because we will all stand before God and be judged for what we
have done. No matter how much you try to escape his wrath it simply will not
happen. But unfortunately there are many people today who seem to think that
they can do things better than God and the test him by worshiping him in ways
he has not authorized and by teaching things that are not true and these people
tell themselves that God is merciful and his grace will cover all but that
simply is not true. Now I cannot draw a line where God’s grace and mercy
reaches however based on God’s dealings with his people you can get a general
idea that his grace and mercy is given to those who love him and who are striving to
keep his commandments with out taking away from them or adding to them.