The story I am about to read
to you this morning from 1 Kings chapter 22 is a true story. This is the true story of a little-known
prophet, an unknown prophet named Micaiah, a man practically unknown
in his day and, I'm quite sure, unknown today. Now, this one
true prophet of God, like all the other true prophets, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Elijah, and so forth, this man was a solitary man,
a lone voice, it seemed, in the midst of many, many false prophets
in his day. He was unknown in the midst of
many famous prophets, but false prophets. He was a man with a
very different message than all the other prophets. He was a
man with a hated and despised message. But his message was
from God, and it was the truth. In 1 Kings chapter 22 is our
story. Now, from the beginning, from
the beginning, since God Almighty was sending true prophets, there
have been false prophets. And false prophets have been
telling people from the beginning, have been telling people what
they want to hear. They tell people what good folks
they are, what good people they are, how everything's going to
be all right. That God Almighty surely wouldn't
let any harm come to such good folks as they are. That's the
message of false prophets. In other words, they tell people
exactly what they want to hear. In 1 Kings 22, at this time Ahab
was the king of Israel. His wife, you remember, was Jezebel. Ahab had 850 prophets on his
payroll. 850. 450 prophets of Baal, 400 prophets of the grove.
850 prophets that he paid. There was one fellow named Elijah
up against all of them. We're in 1 Kings 18 is that story. Well, Elijah, through God Almighty,
slew all 850 of those prophets. So Ahab later on hired 400 more. He hired 400 more. It was easy
to find them because anybody wanted the job. Everybody wanted
the job. This job of a hireling, prophet
for the king, why it was very profitable, good money, retirement. You don't do anything but weddings
and funerals and visit in the hospital. Does that sound familiar? 1 Kings 22, verse 6, the king
of Israel gathered together the prophets, his prophets, 400 men,
and said unto them, Shall I go unto Ramoth-Gilead to battle,
or shall I forbear? Shall I not? The king Ahab, along
with his friend Jehoshaphat, wanted to go take this Ramoth
Gilead. They thought it was theirs for
the taking, ripe for the taking. They wanted to go after this
country. They thought it was theirs. It was theirs by right,
they thought. And so they gathered together
these 400 false prophets, fellows that they paid, and asked them,
shall we go? And they said, verse 6, all the
prophets said, go up. For the Lord shall deliver it
into the hand of the King." Go on up. It's yours. Take it. Claim it. Deliverance. The Lord
will grant deliverance. That's about all I hear talking
about today, people. Deliverance. I hear preachers
everywhere talking about deliverance. This is what people want to hear.
Deliverance. Deliverance from debt. Deliverance from financial
troubles. Deliverance from marital troubles,
deliverance from all my problems, deliverance from my addictions
to drugs or alcohol. I don't hear any repentant sinners
out there, those needing deliverance from sin. I'm talking about the
nature of sin within us, not cigarettes and beer, but sin,
hatred of the truth, unbelief. John described it, lust of the
flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I don't hear
anyone crying with the Apostle Paul, O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this
body of death? Sin. David said, My sin is ever
before me. I came forth from the womb speaking
lies. Paul said, The things that I
would do, I can't do. What I want to do, I can't. What
I don't want to do, that's what I do. I don't hear anybody repenting
over their sin, what they are. Most people just think they have
little faults and little problems, little trouble, little addictions. If they can get over it, they'll
be alright. When our great sin is unbelief, hatred of the truth. Romans chapter 1, the whole chapter
is about people who are unthankful, unbelieving, ungrateful. who hold the truth in unrighteousness,
have a copy of a Bible and are not interested in it. Live a
whole life without being interested in the Son of God Himself. God
is angry. Well, so Ahab had these 400 prophets
on his payroll. Tell him what he wanted to hear.
Shall I go up? All with one voice said, Yes,
go up. The Lord will deliver it into
your hand. Well, the friend of Ahab, another
king, the king of Judah, was named Jehoshaphat. Now, he knew
a little bit of truth. Not much, but he knew a little
bit. And he said in verse 7, maybe we better ask someone else.
Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides
all these that we might inquire of him? Is there someone that
you know of who will tell us what God says, not just what
we want to hear? Is there a true prophet who will
tell us what God's Word says, not just what we pay them to
tell us? Verse 8, the king of Israel said
unto Jehoshaphat, or Ahab said to his friend, There is yet one
man, Micaiah, the son of Imlach. by whom we may inquire of the
Lord." There's one fellow, Micaiah. He'll inquire of the Lord. He'll
ask the Lord. He'll inquire of God's Word.
He'll really tell us what God says. But he says, I hate him.
Ahab says, I hate him. He doth not prophesy good concerning
me, but evil. Oh, Ahab said, all he says is
bad things about me. He never tells me anything good
about myself or good about Israel. All he talks about is evil, is
God's judgment, God's holiness and God's wrath against sin and
how we're evil in the sight of the Lord. And God Almighty is
not pleased with us, but angry with us. That's all he talks
about is judgment, judgment, judgment. I hate him. I hate
his message. I hate him. though it was from
God. He hated the man who brought
the news. Well, Jehoshaphat said, Don't say that. Let not the king
say so. Verse 9, So the king of Israel
called an officer, one of his officers, and said, Hasten hither
Micaiah the son of Emma. Bring him here. Bring him here.
So verses 10 through 12, The king of Israel and Jehoshaphat,
the king of Judah, each sat on a throne having put on their
robes in a floor in a place in the gate of Samaria. They had
a big hoedown, a big shindig, a big deliverance meeting. That's exactly what they had.
They had a big deliverance meeting and all the prophets, it says,
prophesied before them. Got a bunch of prophets on the
podium. And they all began to prophesy.
And what was their prophecy? Verse 11 says, One fellow put
horns on his head and ran around saying, The Lord is going to
push the Syrians away until we have consumed them. And all the
prophets, verse 12, all the prophets prophesied so. They all said
the same thing. They all said, Go up to Ramoth
Gilead. Prosper! Prosper! For the Lord
shall deliver! Prosper! Deliver! They all said
the same thing. You'll prosper! You'll be delivered. Does that sound familiar? People, they remind me of the
prophets over in 2 Peter that Peter talked about, said that
they promise liberty while they themselves are captive of sin. They speak with great swelling
words of vanity, it says. Your false prophets, Peter said,
among the people then, even as there shall be false teachers
among you, he said, and many shall follow their pernicious
ways through covetousness. They with feigned words make
merchandise of you." That describes most of these
fellows today. Prosper! Deliver! You want your
bank account filled, don't you? You want your arthritis healed,
don't you? You want deliverance, don't you? Telling people what
they want to hear. God loves you and has a wonderful
plan for your life. Well, verse 13, the messenger
was gone to call Micaiah. The fellow went and got Micaiah.
And while he was bringing Micaiah into the big meeting, the big
deliverance meeting, the fellow said to Micaiah, now listen to
this very carefully, verse 13, The fellow said, Behold now,
the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth.
In other words, they are all saying the same thing. They are
all saying good things. Let thy word, he says, I pray
thee, be like the word of one of them. Speak that which is
good. In other words, this fellow was asking Micaiah, Don't cause
any trouble. Don't talk about God's holiness
and God's justice and God's wrath and God's anger and God's hatred
of sin, God's punishment of sin. Tell everybody what they want
to hear. Speak good things. Speak peace, peace. But there
was no peace. God was angry with Israel, Ahab,
Jehoshaphat, the whole nation. And Micaiah said in verse 14,
As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, Will I speak? What God says is what I'm going
to say. Nothing else. Well, in verse
15, he came into the king, and the king said, Shall we go up
to battle? Shall we forbear? Micaiah, shall
we go? And Micaiah mocked him. He said, Go on. The Lord shall
deliver you. If that's what you want to hear,
go ahead. And the king, verse 16, said unto him, How many times
shall I tell you, shall I adjure you to tell me the truth? Tell
me what's true in the name of the Lord. Tell me the truth.
You're mocking me." And he was. These men were mocking God, so
Micaiah mocked them. Go ahead. That's what you want
to hear. Go on. But the king said, now
tell us the truth. In verse 17, Micaiah said, I
saw all Israel scattered on the hill as sheep that have no shepherd,
that have no master. In other words, he was saying,
God's going to kill you, Ahab. He's going to kill you. they're
going to be without. Let me tell you what God Almighty's
Word says, and it still holds true. In the book of Zephaniah,
chapter 1, verses 2 and 3, listen, he says, I will utterly consume
all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume
man and beasts. I'll consume fowls of the heaven,
fish of the sea, stumbling blocks with the wicked. I'll cut off
man from off the land, the Lord says. Chapter 2, verse 3, seek
ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his
judgment, seek righteousness, seek meekness. It may be you
shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger." Anger. Listen to Malachi. That's Zephaniah. Malachi said, Malachi 4.1, the
day, behold, the day that shall burn as an oven, and all the
proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble. The day that
cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall
not leave them neither root nor branch. David throughout his
psalm, the prophet David, the king David, a man after God's
own heart, saith, The foolish shall not stand in God's sight. He hates all workers of iniquity. Psalm 711, God judges the righteous. God is angry with the wicked.
The scripture says, Psalm 11, 5, The Lord tried the righteous,
but the wicked and him that loveth violence, his soul hateth. Yes, God hateth. You say, that's
the God of the Old Testament. Listen to Hebrews 12. It says,
Our God is a consuming fire. This was not popular then. It
was hated then. Old fashioned. Yes, like Noah's
message. A message of judgment. Well, they didn't like what Micaiah
said, so they threw him in jail. They may have silenced the prophet,
but the Word of God came through. The Word of God came through,
and Oahab was killed by a lone archer. Well, the message is
the same today. The message from God, the true
message from God is repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Repent. God is angry. Repent. There is
only mercy and love and grace of God in Jesus Christ. All those
in the ark, in Noah's ark, the love of God was upon them. All
those outside were under the wrath and judgment and hatred
of a holy God. Until next Sunday, may God bring
this word home to you. Amen.