Outnumbered VI

 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.

Posted on 15 September 2024 | 11:38 am