Latest / Journey Elgin / Journey Through Scripture - 1 Kings 22 & 2 Chron 17-20
Transcript
- Phillip Thomas: All right, it's good to see you today. Thank you for joining us for our Turning Through Scripture. My name is Philip Thomas, pastor of Journey here in Elgin. And we're jumping right back in. We're finishing the account of King Ahab in 1 Kings. So we're going to read 1 Kings chapter 22, and then we're going to go to 2 Chronicles 17 through 20. So 1 Kings 22, 2 Chronicles 17 through 20. All right. So it's, this is an interesting end, I think, to King Ahab's life. Remember we talked about, he was not a good king. He was King of Israel, the Northern Kingdom. And kings, both kings, first and second kings, focused more on the Northern Kingdom than the Southern Kingdom. The Chronicles focuses more on the Southern Kingdom. And so, we're going to see a little bit of overlap today, but 1 Kings 22 ⁓ is the death of Ahab, and it starts with a kind of an alliance between King Ahab, the King of the Northern Kingdom, and King Jehoshaphat, the King of the Southern Kingdom, the Kingdom of Judah. And King Ahab wants to go and he wants to take battle to the Syrians, all right? King Jehoshaphat is open to that idea, which you'll see in chapter 22 as you read in verse 8. ⁓ Jehoshaphat wants to consult God. He wants to consult the prophets. ⁓ And he says, so the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, there is still one man, because Jehoshaphat had said, hey, isn't there a true prophet that is not partial, right? King Ahab brought like 400 prophets and they all said, oh no, you go and attack, everything will be just fine. Basically, they were yes men. Jehoshaphat said, there's got to be someone who's not just a yes man, who's a prophet. King Ahab said, there is still one man, Micaiah, the son of Imla, by whom we may inquire of the Lord. But I hate him. This is King Ahab saying, but I hate him because he does not prophesy. good concerning me, but evil. I love that. So King Ahab hates the guy, not because what he says is wrong or that he says lies. It's just that he says things that King Ahab doesn't want to hear. He tells King Ahab what's really going on. He calls his evil acts evil. And this is so important. Our culture, we are just a bunch of King Ahabs, right? We just, don't like... hear anything ⁓ that goes against our ideas, our thoughts. Certainly don't want to hear anything that is critical. And there are times that people are being critical just to be critical and they are not accurate. But we need, I think wisdom says, take all those things that make us uncomfortable, that maybe our initial reaction is to not like and say, wait, where is this coming from? Is this something that's coming from God or not? And ⁓ King Ahab clearly doesn't like the prophet ⁓ Micaiah because Micaiah is actually a true prophet and will tell the king what is right. And King Ahab is not a good king and has rebelled against God. And the only time he approaches God is just for show. And Micaiah knows that. And so King Ahab hates him. So then they send a messenger to go get Micaiah. During this time, there's another prophet, Zedekiah, ⁓ comes in and he just kind of goes, continues to inflate the ego of Ahab. He says, ⁓ he wears, I mean, it's kind of very theatrical. He wears ⁓ horns of iron ⁓ that he made for himself. And he said, with these, you shall gore the Syrians until they are destroyed. And all the prophets prophesied saying, Go up and prosper for the Lord will deliver it into the king's hand." again, they are all encouraging King Ahab. No, this is a great decision, King. Go, everything will be fine. ⁓ Then you have the messenger gets to Micaiah in verse 13. And this is what he says to the prophet Micaiah. says, now listen, the words of the prophets with one accord encouraged the king. Please let your word be like the word of one of them and speak encouragement. So basically the messenger is saying, listen, I don't want to hear King Ahab be angry and all this stuff. Just go along with everyone else. Why do you have to speak up and go be the contrarian? Again, you know, we see this in our culture today and you always have to look at the contrarians. They're not always right. Right? You can have contrarians that are. that are doing it just for themselves. But it doesn't, it's important for us not to get caught up into just going with what the popular opinions are. They're not always right. We need to seek the wisdom of the Lord. And that's exactly what Micaiah says. says, as the Lord lives, whatever the Lord says to me, I will speak. So I don't care what those 400 other prophets said. I'm going to speak with the Lord. ⁓ inspires me to speak. So Micaiah has that very bold attitude as he is walking in the Lord and he comes and basically he tells the king, he says, go and do it. The Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king. And so the king said to him, King Ahab, how many times shall I make you swear that you tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord? So you can tell he's like, Are you just saying this or are you actually being truthful? And then Micaiah says this, he says, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord says, these have no master. Let each return to his house in peace. So basically he's saying, you know, I've seen that you can go up and you can go and attack the Syrians. I've seen that Israel is like a sheep without a shepherd." Well, what's that saying? Ahab considers himself the shepherd, right? And so Ahab's response is great. He says, and the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil? I mean, Ahab just doesn't like this guy at all. And he's just very frustrated with what Micaiah says. Verses 19 through 23 is kind of ⁓ very interesting. It's kind of a little bit of a spiritual dimension going on there of influencing Ahab to go and attack because ⁓ that would bring his death. And ⁓ it's just kind of an interesting interaction there. In verse 24, it says, Zedekiah, he's the one that had the horns, went near and struck Micaiah on the cheek. ⁓ So Micaiah is sharing kind of the conversation that God was having and how God was basically ⁓ working to ⁓ bring Ahab into this battle where he would die. And so Micaiah is saying these things. This other Zedekiah prophet comes up and pulls a Will Smith and strikes Micaiah on the cheek and said, which way did the spirit of the Lord go from me to speak to you? So he's kind of mocking Micaiah's ability to understand the spirit of the Lord. Micaiah said, indeed, you shall see on that day when you go into an inner chamber to hide. So it's kind of a battle of prophets. Micaiah is a true prophet, Zedekiah is not. So that's all the setup for the battle. And the battle comes, both the king of Israel, King Ahab and Jehoshaphat are there. King Ahab, decides to disguise himself. Now, he was engaged in the battle, but he disguised himself because he didn't want to look like a king ⁓ because he knew that the Syrians were trying to kill the king. so Jehoshaphat was the one that looked like the king. ⁓ The chariots come to kill ⁓ who they thought was Ahab. They find out that it's Jehoshaphat. They actually turn back. They're not going to kill Jehoshaphat. And then a random arrow ⁓ strikes King Ahab. And that's how he dies. He's propped up in the chariot. ⁓ You know, the battle ends. literally talks about them washing off the blood. you know, just, he slowly bled out in the chariot. They washed out the blood and then the dogs came and licked it up. If you remember, we'll go back and look in chapter 21, that was a prophecy of how ⁓ Ahab would die. ⁓ verse 37, it says that the king died, was brought to Samaria. and buried in Samaria. Then someone washed the chariot at a pool where the harlots bathed and the dogs licked up his blood. This is great storytelling, right? This is just wonderful. And again, within it, it shows ⁓ that God knows what's going on and that God is giving people chances. But you know what? Ahab's heart was hardened. And so he ended up paying the price. ⁓ Then you continue in chapter 22, talks about ⁓ Jehoshaphat, that he reigns in Judah. It ⁓ says, did not turn aside from them, doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And so now we go to 2 Chronicles 17 through 20, and it focuses more on Jehoshaphat's reign. So Jehoshaphat was king during some of the time overlapping with Ahab. ⁓ Jehoshaphat reigns in Judah. ⁓ Verse 3, it says that, the Lord was with Jehoshaphat because he walked in the former ways of his father David. He did not seek the Baals, but sought the God of his father and walked in his commandments and not according to the Acts of Israel. So Jehoshaphat is a much better king. He is trying to encourage the people to follow God. He actually sends out multiple prophets. to teach the law of the Lord to the people, so he's being very proactive. Very, very interesting, the contrast between King Ahab and Jehoshaphat. Then we have chapter 18. Chapter 18 is basically a repeat of 1 Kings chapter 22. So it goes all the way through and Ahab dies in battle. Then we have chapter 19 of 2 Chronicles. It talks about ⁓ The reforms of Jehoshaphat said, then he set judges, this is in verse 5 of chapter 19, then he set judges in the land throughout all the fortified cities of Judah city by city and said to the judges, take heed to what you are doing for you do not judge for man but for the Lord who is with you in judgment. Now therefore, let the fear of the Lord be upon you. You take care and do it for there is no inquiry with the Lord our God no partiality nor taking of bribes. Right? So you have the sets a system of judges to keep control in the land to settle disputes. And I love what he says is that you need to be fearful of the Lord. Right? That the Lord is with you and you need to recognize that and that the Lord is not partial. and does not take bribes. ⁓ man, don't you wish that our judges would follow the same advice? And some do. ⁓ But you know, how important it is whenever it comes to judging and settling disputes and things like that, to have a fear of the Lord. Then it continues to go and kind of, you know, talks about the who's in charge of who and that the Levites are ultimately in charge. And then it gets to the end of chapter 19. ⁓ And I love what it says here. It says, ⁓ ruler of the house of Judah for all the king's matters. Also the Levites will be officials before you. And then it says this, behave courageously and the Lord will be with the good. Behave courageously and the Lord will be with the good. You sometimes we don't stand up for that what we know is right and the good thing because it takes a lot of courage sometimes. takes courage to stand up for what God says is good and right when the culture around us is saying something completely opposite. so we have to have courage. That courage is rooted in the fear of the Lord, that we have put our trust in Him. And then we take that courage with us each and every day. I love that line, behave courageously and the Lord. will be with the good. Then in chapter 20, you have the areas of Ammon, Moab, and Edom, and they come together and they're going to attack the southern kingdom. They're going to attack Judah. So verse 3, and Jehoshaphat feared and said himself to seek the Lord. So he was fearful. He knew they were in trouble. This group of three countries is coming to attack. So his first response is to seek the Lord. And he proclaimed a fast throughout all of Judah, so Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord. And from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord. Then Jehoshaphat stood with the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and said, O God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? And then he goes out and for the next few verses it's his plea, his asking God. And this should remind you of when Solomon dedicated the temple. And he said the temple is a place where when our enemies surround us that we come and we seek God. So Jehoshaphat is following that. ⁓ starting in verse 12, ⁓ our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us, nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon you. Man, isn't that great? It's okay for us to be honest with God. Sometimes doesn't it feel like that we have no power against whatever is up against us, nor do we know what to do. There's times that we just don't know what to do. But what we can do is just what Jehoshaphat says, he says, but our eyes are upon you. So even though we know that we can't beat this in our own strength, even though we don't know what exactly to do, we will keep our eyes on the Lord. And then the Spirit of the Lord came to ⁓ numerous prophets and they began prophesying and says, thus says the Lord to you, do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude for the battle is not yours, but God's. The battle is not yours, but God's. Whatever you're going through right now, the battle is not yours, but God's. Allow Him to guide you through it. Allow Him to give you wisdom. ⁓ Tomorrow go down against them. And it says, you will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourself, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord who is with you. Do not fear or be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them for the Lord is with you. And so the people they go out, they actually send the singers to go and they're kind of... All in the same area and what happens is that the three countries, Ammon, Moab and Edom, Ammon and Moab, they decide that they're going to attack Edom. So there's a conflict. They attack Edom. Then they began just attacking themselves. So the coalition completely falls apart and attacks each other. And so the people of Israel, they don't even have to put up a fight. God spoils the attack. ⁓ And it's just really a... ⁓ an amazing scene and this obviously reinforces the people's relationship and trust in God and it also puts a lot of fear in the countries around Judah that they do not dare attack again. And then we see there the end of Jehoshaphat's reign and that he was a good king, that he desired to follow God, he actually encouraged the people to follow God, and he set an example of following God. All right, that'll get us to the end of ⁓ this section. Let's see, we'll go ⁓ second Kings, we'll go one, we're gonna see if we can go second Kings one through eight. That's a lot, may not make it all the way through, but second Kings, one through eight.