The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

1 Kings 22:15-23 ESV

15 And when he had come to the king, the king said to him, “Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we refrain?” And he answered him, “Go up and triumph; the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” 16 But the king said to him, “How many times shall I make you swear that you speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?” 17 And he said, “I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, ‘These have no master; let each return to his home in peace.’” 18 And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?” 19 And Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; 20 and the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. 21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ 22 And the Lord said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’ 23 Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you.”

I’ve always imagined that being a medical doctor would be a hard occupation to have. And I believe that one of the hardest aspects of that occupation, I believe, would be breaking bad news to someone.

For example, if as a result of my research and studies of a particular patient and the progression of his illness I come to find that he only has a few months to live, breaking that news to him would not be easy.

But though it wouldn’t be easy, it would still be the truth. And while telling the truth in this particular situation would not be an easy thing to do, it would still be necessary for me to do.

After all, if my findings were to show that a man only has a few weeks or months to live, but I didn’t want to make him upset or sad because of my findings, it wouldn’t serve him well at all for me to sit there with a big smile on my face and to tell him that everything is just great and that his illness won’t affect him at all.

The only right thing I can do in such a situation is to tell him the truth, even if telling him the truth is going to make him upset with me.

As we have been working through this series of sermons from 1st Kings, chapter 22, verses 1-40, we have seen something similar to what I have just described.

King Ahab wanted to go out and fight the Syrians and he wanted Jehoshaphat, king of Judah to fight alongside him. But before that happened, Jehoshaphat wanted to hear the word of God concerning the matter. So, Ahab brought forth 400 of his own personal “prophets”, men who were willing to tell Ahab whatever he wanted to hear, even if it wasn’t the truth.

These “prophets” all told Ahab to go to battle because God would ensure that Ahab and Jehoshaphat would win.

But there was one other prophet, Micaiah. And Micaiah truly was a prophet of God. He wasn’t on the king’s payroll, so he always told the king the truth of what God had revealed to him, even if that wasn’t what the king wanted to hear.

And because that it is how Micaiah is, and because Ahab only wanted to hear good things said about him, he didn’t bother to summon Micaiah. But after being convinced by Jehoshaphat, Ahab finally summoned Micaiah the prophet. And thus we arrive at our reading for today.

We see the initial interaction between Ahab and Micaiah in verses 15 and 16 of our reading, where it says:

1 Kings 22:15-16 ESV

15 And when he had come to the king, the king said to him, “Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we refrain?” And he answered him, “Go up and triumph; the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” 16 But the king said to him, “How many times shall I make you swear that you speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?”

When Micaiah is finally brought before the kings of Israel and Judah, the godless King Ahab asks the prophet what he had already asked all of his personal false prophets.

And Micaiah responds by essentially saying, “You’ve heard what these “prophets” of yours have said, go up and fight for God will give you victory!”

Now, it must be noted that Micaiah wasn’t saying what God had revealed to him here, rather, he was mocking these paid “prophets” that Ahab kept close by. He was essentially mocking Ahab, king of Israel to his face, saying, “You don’t want to know the word of God. You just want me to say what all of these phonies are saying! So, why even ask?!”

The response of Ahab is pretty humorous when he says, “How many times do I have to tell you to tell me the truth?!” because in saying this he’s essentially admitting that he knows that what his “prophets” have told him isn’t the truth.

And so, Micaiah proceeds to tell these kings the truth as he begins to deliver them the legitimate word of God in verse 17, where it says:

1 Kings 22:17 ESV

17 And he said, “I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, ‘These have no master; let each return to his home in peace.’”

Micaiah reveals to Ahab what God had shown him, and what He had shown him was that Ahab would indeed go to battle as he desired, but when he goes to battle, he will die and it will be the end of his reign of terror in Israel.

Micaiah says that in the vision that God gave him, what he sees is the armed forces of Israel, the Israeli soldiers who go out to fight this particular battle. And what he says concerning them is that there are as scattered sheep who have no shepherd.

The shepherd who Micaiah is referring to is Ahab, king of Israel. As king, he was a kind of shepherd to the people. But what Micaiah says is that at this point, the sheep have no shepherd, signifying that Ahab would die when he and his men go out to battle.

But Micaiah also points out that it will be Ahab alone who dies, for he says that God will bid the sheep, the Israeli soldiers to return to their homes in peace.

So, the word of the Lord is that Ahab will go to battle, but he will not be successful in battle, he will die.

Well, Ahab wasn’t happy to hear that, and we read of his displeasure in verse 18 where we read:

1 Kings 22:18 ESV

18 And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?”

So, Ahab hears the truth from the lips of one of God’s legitimate prophets and he says to King Jehoshaphat, “I knew it! I knew that the truth would be something that I didn’t want to hear! That’s why I said I didn’t want to hear from him!”

Therefore, though what Micaiah said was the truth, Ahab wasn’t concerned with hearing the truth. He would rather be lied to, so long as what he is lied to about makes him feel good about himself. But he didn’t like hearing the truth, so he would rather be deceived by his false prophets.

But just because Ahab didn’t like hearing the truth, that didn’t stop Micaiah from proclaiming it for we see in verse 19 how Micaiah continues to reveal what God had shown him as he tells Ahab about the inner workings of the heavenly court, where we read:

1 Kings 22:19 ESV

19 And Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left;

So, the vision that Micaiah saw that he now passes along to Ahab is one where he beheld God sitting on His throne, ready to judge Ahab. And it says that surrounding God’s heavenly throne is all the host of heaven. This host of heaven signifies angels, both good and fallen angels.

Thus, Micaiah sees every angel, good and bad surrounding God’s throne in heaven as He determines what He will do concerning Ahab.

And as these surround the throne, God puts forth a question in the first part of verse 20, when He asks:

1 Kings 22:20a ESV

20a …‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’

So, God has willed for Ahab to go to battle at Ramoth-gilead and to die there. We see here that He has also willed for Ahab to be enticed, or tempted to do so.

Now, we know that God Himself never tempts anyone, ever. And we see this as He asks the host surrounding “Who will entice Ahab”? In doing this, God gives the fallen angels, evil spirits permission to tempt Ahab in order to accomplish God’s purposes.

We then see the answer to God’s request in the last part of verse 20 and in all of verse 21, where we read:

1 Kings 22:20b-21 ESV

20b And one said one thing, and another said another. 21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’

We see that in the heavenly realms there was discussion here as to who should be the one who entices Ahab to go to battle until finally an evil spirit, a fallen angel comes forward and declares that he will be the one to entice Ahab.

We then see in verse 22 how this enticing will go about where it says:

1 Kings 22:22 ESV

22 And the Lord said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’

God commands the evil spirit to testify concerning what he will do in order to entice Ahab to walk into this death trap to which the evil spirit replies that he will go and influence all of Ahab’s false prophets to lie to the king, telling him that God has spoken something that He has not.

When God hears this, he gives this evil spirit permission to do as he has planned. Furthermore, He even tells the evil spirit that He will ensure that he succeeds at enticing Ahab. Therefore, God commands the evil spirit to do what he has willed to do.

And because of this, Micaiah shoots it straight with Ahab when he tells him in the last verse of our reading:

1 Kings 22:23 ESV

23 Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you.”

Right to the king’s face, Micaiah tells him that God is ensuring that Ahab will die. And he will die because God has given this evil spirit permission to speak through Ahab’s false prophets to give him false hope that would result in disaster for him. Thus, the king’s fate is sealed.

This was the truth, yet the king utterly refused to adhere to the truth. Even with having this behind the scenes knowledge delivered to him, we will see in the coming weeks how he still foolishly goes forward with what he knows is going to kill him.

Concerning this, a Bible commentator, J. Gary Millar tells us, “This is a punishment to fit the crime: if one refuses to listen to the Lord’s words, one will be given the false lies one’s heart longs to hear. Ahab will gladly embrace the false hope and then pay the price for his consistent rebellion against Yahweh.”

And isn’t all of this familiar? We live in a world filled with people who are far from God and the last thing that they want to hear is the truth.

They don’t want to hear that there is a God Whom they are answerable to. They don’t want to hear that they need to be saved from themselves. They don’t want to hear that that salvation cannot be attained by themselves, but that it must come from the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And so, rather than hearing what is true, they would prefer to be deceived and perish forever.

Even in many churches, parishioners don’t want to hear the truth about God, about salvation, about sin, about judgment. They would prefer to be lied to and deceived.

Jesus tells us that the truth will set you free, but the problem is that so very few want the truth. They don’t want to be set free.

Nevertheless, He commands us to believe the truth and to proclaim the truth. Beloved, believe! Proclaim the truth!

Amen?