1 Kings 22:1-38 Part 2: The Kings and the King

Introduction

Let’s Pray.

This is our second week in this text, but as a brief reminder:

The king of Israel right now is named Ahab. His reign marks an inflection point in the wickedness of the rulers of the northern kingdom. They’re bad before him, but he’s a special kind of wicked.

The king of Judah is named Jehosaphat. He fears the Lord and serves him, even if he makes some terrible decisions.

So, we’re going to get this text in its entirety out in front of us again. 1 Kings 22:1-38. This is the word of the Lord.

That ending doesn’t get less spicy on the second go-round, does it? Let’s see how it profits us today.

Last week we looked at how the word of the Lord could not be bound, as we looked at the Prophets, and the Prophet.

Today we’re looking at the Kings, and the King. The Kings, and the King.

The main point we’re going to see in our text today is that the Lord reigns. His word is the last word, and it destroys those who reject it.

We’re going to look at this text through three main points:

The Kings

The King

The Kings’ (plural) Plan versus the King’s (singular) Plan

The Kings

First, the king of Israel says to the king of Judah, “Will you go with me to battle at Ramoth-gilead?”

And Jehosaphat confidently replies, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.”

This coalition campaign against Ramoth Gilead starts with big blue arrows on a map. Inquiring of the Lord can wait.

It’s kind of like the Marine Corps Planning Process. You has a list of sequential steps you should take in a logical order that help you understand the situation and develop a plan to deal with it. You start with figuring out the terrain, where the enemy is, what they have; you figure out what you want to do; and then you draw big blue arrows on a map to show what you’re going to do.

But these kings start with the blue arrows, because they’re important and powerful kings, you know, and only afterward Jehosaphat asks, “Oh, but we should probably inquire of the Lord.” They agree to execute COA 1, and only afterwards does Jehosaphat say that they should probably go back and do an IPB.

Wives, I’m sorry if that illustration fell flat, but trust me, it probably spoke deeply to many of your husbands’ hearts.

So they ask the 400 prophets, and Jehosaphat asks if they can’t add just one more to the mix because he wants to hear from a genuine prophet of the Lord, and the king of Israel knows exactly what he’s talking about.

And last week we drew out the fact that the king of Israel hates the prophet because he hates the word because he hates the one whose word it is.

Now, moving on, the scene painted here in verse nine and ten is one of power and splendor. It’s brief, but the author wants you to know that these kings meant business. They’re sitting in their robes on a threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria. You’ve probably heard about Samaritans and know Samaria was a region. It’s also the name of the capital city of the Northern Kingdom.

You might raise your eyebrows and think that a threshing floor sounds kind of backwoods. If you’re imagining a barn in Carolina, you’ve got the wrong idea here.

We get to double-dip here because the Tuesday women’s Bible study is studying Ruth, and a major scene in Ruth is set on the threshing floor.

Rather than imagining a dirty old barn, a better mental image would be a parade deck, probably on top of a terrain feature. It’s a large flat open area with good drainage where you can take your grain to thresh it.

So they’re out on a parade deck, likely with a commanding view, by the gate to the capitol city of the northern kingdom.

This is an occasion of state. Jehosaphat, the king of Judah, is visiting. So he has an entourage of courtiers and military leaders with him. He’s traveled here in style and is representing the power and splendor of the kingdom of Judah.

The King of Israel is welcoming the king of Judah. You know he has a who’s who of the important folks in northern Israel there. Jehosaphat asked him to inquire of Yahweh and he broke out four hundred prophets to answer the question. This is a big deal.

Demonstrating your power sometimes requires putting on a good show.

The Americans understood this when the Japanese surrendered at the end of WWII.

Ian Toll describes the scene in the conclusion of his trilogy on the War in the Pacific. He writes:

The formal signing of the Instrument of Surrender would take place aboard the Third Fleet flagship Missouri… The crew of the 45,000 ton battleship had scrubbed the decks with sandstone blocks until the teak showed through the gray fireproof paint, polished the brass fittings until they shone like mirrors, and slapped fresh paint over streaks of oil and patches of rust. There ceremony was planned down to the minute, with strict adherence to naval and diplomatic etiquette. Each participant was assigned a specific place to stand, marked on the deck.

He goes on like that for about five pages. But then, after the surrender documents were signed and the Japanese were in their motor launch leaving the battleship, the Americans treated them with a flyover of a hundred B-29s bombers and 450 carrier planes, stacked up from 200-400 feet that lasted a solid thirty minutes.

Now, it might not have been as technologically advanced, but that’s what these kings were doing at the threshing floor at the entrance to the gate of Samaria. These kings are displaying their power. They’re arrayed in their royal robes, surrounded by their entourages, making things happen. And one of the kings hates the word of the Lord and rejects it because he rejects the Lord.

And this is relevant to us today, isn’t it? We look at the staggering power of governments today, and most of them are ruled by people who hate the word of the Lord and reject it because they reject the Lord. And this can be a discouraging thing. And that brings us to our second point, which is going to help us put the scope of earthly power into view.

The King

So the King of Israel asks Micaiah the prophet for the word of the Lord, and they do the routine that might be new to us but is clearly familiar to the king of Israel. Shall I go up? Micaiah says, “Suuuuure, go for it!” The king of Israel responds in frustration, “No, really, tell me what the Lord actually says!” Only then Micaiah says, “Oh, so you already know that the word of the Lord is going to say something different, but you’ve already decided not to listen? As long as we’re clear on that, here’s what God says: he says if you go up to battle your army is going to go home without a leader.”

We then get a view of another throne scene: the King sitting on his throne in heaven, verse 19.

1 Kings 22:19–22 ESV

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; 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. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ 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.’

We see three things in this scene:

God is sovereign, and we see him executing his decrees in his heavenly throneroom, and

God is sovereign even over the actions of the wicked, and

God can use the actions of the wicked to achieve his good ends without sinning

Now, we’re meant to draw a contrast in this scene between God as sovereign king of the universe and the two kings sitting on their thrones at the gates of Samaria.

The Lord sits on his throne, and all the host of heaven stands beside him on his right hand and on his left.

When I was a kid, I used to build forts in the woods. Everything was a fort. And forts need defenses. To defend one of my forts, I made catapults out of cinderblocks and some random flat planks that the neighbors had thrown out during a construction project. You just put the cinderblock down, balance the blank on top, and put a pinecone on one end. If you stomped on the other end just right you could launch the pinecone a few feet, but it wouldn’t go far because it had opened up and was too light to really go anywhere and the plank would fall off the cinderblock and you’d have to set the whole thing up again after you shot it once.

Pretty powerful, huh? It’s cool until you compare it to, say, an atomic bomb. Those two kings are like kids playing with their cinderblock and pinecone. God, creator and sustainer of the universe is so mind-boggingly exalted above those two kings on their threshing floor that words fail to express it.

There’s something here in verse 19 that should catch our attention. The author of our text has never once used the King of Israel’s name. The only time the King of Israel isn’t referred to by his royal title is here in verse 19. The Lord says, “Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?”

God strips Ahab, the king of Israel, bare of his rank and title because he is exalted above him as high as the heavens are exalted above the earth.

Next, we also see that God is sovereign even over the actions of the wicked, and that God can use the actions of the wicked to achieve his good purposes without sinning.

So let’s look at these spirits. What’s going on here? Who are these spirits? What we’re looking at here is something similar to what we see in Job 1, when Satan comes in before the Lord and asks if he can make Job suffer. This is a demon, and possibly Satan himself. Possibly. The text doesn’t say, because it’s really not the point.

This spirit says that he will cause all the prophets to lie, and the Lord gives him permission to do so and tells him that he will succeed, verse 22.

Now, if this twists us up in knots, it’s good to remember a few key doctrines here to help us understand what’s going on. We have to use what’s called the analogy of faith here, which is simply the rule the scripture interprets scripture.

Scripture is clear that God is sovereign over all things.

It also teaches that God did not create sin, nor is he the author of sin, nor can he sin. He is goodness itself.

Therefore, when we see a passage like this, we are meant to learn that God can sovereignly use people or even demons who are sinning to achieve his purposes, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy. He is making all things right, and he uses everything to do this.

If you want to chew on this further go look at of the London Baptist Confession or the Westminster Confession of Faith. Both have short but very good summaries of Scripture’s teaching on this point. Chapter 3, “Of God’s Eternal Decree,” and chapter 5, “Of Providence,” are both excellent and have tons of scripture to go look at.

So what’s the point? God is the King, and the kings of the earth are as dust compared to him.

As we think about this today, we should take great comfort in this point. If this is the God who is also your Father, if this is the God who intercedes for you, if this is the God who indwels you by his Spirit, you’re secure against the power of the mighty on this earth.

So let’s look at how this all plays out in our third point.

The Kings’ Plan versus the King’s Plan

The king’s plan - Disguise

That’s many king’s plans versus the king’s plan. The first king is kings’ and the second kings is king’s.

We’ve seen God’s decree.

Let’s look at how the kings’ plans pan out in light of it.

Undeterred, the king of Israel and Jehosaphat the king of Judah go up to Ramoth-gilead to do battle against the king of Syria who holds it, verse 29.

The King of Israel has identified a risk of death, though, and he decides to buy down that risk a bit by not wearing his royal regalia into battle. He’s going to go in disguise, verse 30, and he’s going to buy down his risk a little more by having Jehosaphat be the only visible king in the battle.

And now we add the plans of yet another king to the mix. The king of Syria has done his center of gravity analysis and has determined that if he can just knock out the C2 node then he should win the battle. To rephrase that in English, the king of Syria has decided that the easiest way to win the battle isn’t to kill the entire army facing him. If he can kill the leader, the army won’t fight anymore and he will win. So in verse 31, he gives the order to his commanders to not waste their time fighting random soldiers but instead to make it their mission to kill the king of Israel.

At this point, we’re thinking, “Oh man, look how the king of Syria is going to carry out the Lord’s decree!”

As we think about this today, we should take great comfort in this point. If this is the God who is also your Father, if this is the God who intercedes for you, if this is the God who indwells you by his Spirit, you’re secure against the power of the mighty on this earth.

God just let a perfect opportunity go by. You know in Mulan (the good one), when Shun-Yu is leading his army of Huns down the mountain and the Chinese defenders are down to one cannon? Mulan grabs it and runs out in front of the defensive line with it, plants it in the snow, and then fires it right over Shun-yu’s shoulder as he rides up in front of her. And Mushu is riding the projectile as it sails into the distance and yelling, “You missed! How could you possibly miss! He was three feet in front of you!” But she was shooting at the mountain to create an avalanche to wipe out the Hun army instead.

In case you missed it, you’re Mushu in this illustration, as you watch God let this perfect plan go to waste.

1 Kings 22:34 ESV

But a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate. Therefore he said to the driver of his chariot, “Turn around and carry me out of the battle, for I am wounded.”

God doesn’t need the king of Syria to make a decree so God can carry out his decrees! Oh no, he drives that point home to us by using a no-name Syrian archer who probably never knew that he hit anyone with that arrow, let alone killed the king of Israel and won the battle for Syria. He was an instrument in God’s hand and never knew it.

God gave his word to Ahab three times, telling him that he would die for his wickedness.

First, in 20:42 by an unnamed prophet in for failing to kill the king of Syria but instead letting him go with a sweet trade deal after the Lord delivered him into his hand.

Second, in 21:18 Elijah tells him that he will be judged for the murder of Naboth. The dogs licking up the blood is a partial fulfillment of that full prophecy.

Third, in this chapter, Micaiah tells him that he will die at Ramoth-gilead.

It’s almost like the end of a movie. We see the state funeral, and Ahab being laid to rest in Samaria with all pomp and circumstance, and then the music changes, and the camera pans over the hill to where the his blood is being hosed out of the chariot, and the final shot is the dogs drinking from the bloody puddles while the prostitutes bathe in the pool in the background. And then it cuts to black and the end credits roll.

So what are we to make of this narrative? What’s the point? The point this week is that the Lord reigns. His word is the last word, and it destroys those who reject it. And we can take comfort in the fact that his word also tells us of the savior he has freely provided for us.

The Lord has patiently called Ahab to repentance by his word with warnings of the coming judgment over and over.

He’s given him time. He’s displayed who he is to Ahab in no uncertain terms. And Ahab rejects him as Lord and rejects his word and instead persecutes his prophets.

What gracious provision for Ahab. And what gracious provision God has made for us through his word. What assurance we can have too of God’s goodness and mercy.

The price for Ahab’s rejection of the Lord was King Ahab’s blood, but the price for our sin has been paid through King Jesus’s blood.

Amen. Let us pray.

Psalm 95:1–8 (ESV)

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;

let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;

let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

For the Lord is a great God,

and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the depths of the earth;

the heights of the mountains are his also.

The sea is his, for he made it,

and his hands formed the dry land.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down;

let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!

For he is our God,

and we are the people of his pasture,

and the sheep of his hand.

Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts...