Who Killed Ahab? God's Sovereignty and Human Free Will

1 Kings 21-22

Who Killed Ahab?

1 Kings 21:17-22:38

INTRODUCTION – On the list of questions that people struggle with most, when it comes to believing in God - one that is asked more than almost any other is this: “IF God is sovereign, HOW can human beings have free will?” “How can both the sovereignty of God and the will of man be true at the same time?”

It seems to be something of a contradiction, doesn’t it? If God is really in control of everything, then humans can’t be free to make their own choices. And if humans are truly free to make our own choices, then God can’t really be in control of everything, can He?”

This is an issue that people have struggled with throughout history. It’s a question we are going to deal with, this morning.

As we continue our journey through the magnificent book of 1 Kings, today we find ourselves nearly at the end of the book. That doesn’t mean the story is over - 1 Kings rolls over into second Kings and we will get there eventually, Lord willing. But we want to take one book at a time and properly deal with it before we move on.

We have a couple of more kings to talk about in the book and we will take a look at them next week. But for today, I want to tie up some loose ends with Ahab. Last week, we left Ahab, dead in his chariot, after a military battle that didn’t go very well for him. This king has been the king at centre stage of this book for 6 chapters. He reigned for 22 years and last week we saw him die in battle after God pronounced judgment on him, following the murder on innocent Naboth, the owner of the vineyard which was next door to the palace.

The question that nags - who killed Ahab? Did God do it in judgement, or is Ahab responsible for his own death because of his own foolish choices?

1 GOD IN CONTROL, 21:17-19. ????

When we read how God pronounced His judgment on Ahab and promised that this king of Israel would die .. it seems pretty clear that God is in control. He sends Elijah to confront the king with a word of judgment.

READ 21:17-19

God not only tells Ahab THAT he’s going to die … He even makes a couple of very specific promises of what it’s going to look like, WHEN he does meet his end. Elijah promises that the dogs are going to lick up his blood. That’s a shameful, degrading death. Having animals sniff around your corpse - the place where you breathed your last, licking up your shed life-blood … that’s a death with dishonour. That’s humiliating.

And God is specific when he says through Elijah, “That’s what’s going to happen to you, Ahab”.

Now, flip ahead to 22:17. Ahab asks for Micaiah’s message from God about the upcoming battle. This true prophet first gives a mesage that only parrots the message given by the 400 shills who prophecy to the king exactly what he wants to hear. But when Ahab says, ‘Come on! I know you. You’re not telling me the truth. You can’t be, because you NEVER say anything nice about me ...” - when the king presses, then Micaiah responds with the truth:

READ 22:17

See how the prophet paints a picture of an army on the battlefield, preparing to go home in peace, with no leader, because their leader is clearly dead. That’s another specific promise. There’s detail there. And Ahab gets it - that’s why he throws Micaiah in prison, until he ‘Comes back in peace’, which the king promises to do, in v. 27.

Now flip over to chapter 22:34-37. Ahab goes to war against Syria - He’s hit by a random arrow. He calls his driver to get him off the battle-field, which he does. Ahab is propped up still in the chariot, watching his forces engage with the enemy. More and more blood flows from his wound, filling up the floor of the vehicle … until, as the sun kisses the western horizon, the fading light reveals a king who’s life is fading, until he finally breathes his last breath.

King Ahab of Israel .... dies. And notice what happens when he does: v. 36, “A cry went through the army, ‘Every man to his city, every man to his country.’” The soldiers go home in safety. The king seems to be the only casualty. Well, that’s a specific fulfillment of the specific prophecy that Micaiah gave in 22:17, isn’t it?

And that’s not all. When the funeral procession ushers the dead king’s body back home to Samaria, they bury the body and need to clean out the blood-stained chariot. Take a look at 22:38, “… And they washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria … and the DOGS LICKED UP HIS BLOOD … the prostitutes washed themselves (Fitting - that physical prostitutes would be the closes human companions to a spiritual prostitute, like Ahab, in his death) ...”. Notice how the verse ends: “.... ACCORDING TO THE WORD OF TEH LORD that He had spoken.”

See how clearly the text makes the point that Ahab died because the LORD not only pronounced His judgment, not only foretold the future … but the LORD also MADE IT HAPPEN?!”

God chooses to send judgment and judgment comes, exactly as He says. That’s a picture of a Sovereign God - in control of everything.

And that’s exactly the way God reveals Himself through all of Scripture, over and over, from beginning to end. Let me take you through just a handful of passages. Follow along in your own Bibles if you can turn quickly - or write the references down.

The Bible teaches us that God is in control over the universe at large:

Daniel 4:35, “all the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the ihabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?”

Ephesians 1:11, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will ...”.

God is sovereign over the physical world:

Psalm 135:6, “Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.” From the highest heaven to the earth to the deepest depth of the sea - God is in control.

God is sovereign over the lives of animals and humans — down to the smallest detail: Matthew 10:29-30, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.”

He’s sovereign over human life - including the exact length of life.

Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

God is sovereign over every nation and empire in history:

Acts 17:26, “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place ...”.

If it’s true of empires - then how much more is God sovereign over individual humans - whether they worship him or not?

Luke 1:52, “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.”

And if it’s true of empires and individuals and animals … it’s also true of things that seem to be accidents:

Proverbs 16:33, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.”

And there is a special, loving provision that God makes for his people:

Matthew 5:12, “You bless the righteous, O LORD; you cover him with favor AS WITH A SHIELD.”

Philippians 4:19

, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

The God of 1 Kings - the God of the Bible - the God who pronounced judgment on evil king Ahab … He is sovereign. He makes His choices and carries out his purposes - and no person, no king, no cosmic power can get in His way.

2 A HUMAN WHO FREELY CHOOSES, vv.?????

So, is that what it all comes down to, then? God makes His plan - sets His course … and He dictates it all - right down to the rolling of the dice? What does that mean for human freedom? Doesn’t that leave us as nothing more than robots?

This is where some skeptics trip up and reject Christianity: “I’m not believing in a God who is nothing more than a puppet-master, pulling my strings.” You’ve heard that rejection before.

John-Paul Sartre is one of the most famous of existential philosophers from the 20th Century - and he was hung up right at this point. For him, human freedom is the GREATEST argument AGAINST the existence of God. He wrote, “If man is truly free - God cannot exist. And, conversely, if God exists, man cannot be free.”

So, is that true? Maybe you are struggling with that very issue yourself. Well before we get to what the Ahab story has to say about the subject of freedom - I want to put the brakes on for a minute. You need to recognize that rejecting God is NOT the guarantee of free will that you may think it is.

Several years ago, in the Science section of the NY Times newspapaper, there was an article titled, “Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t”. It was a survey of the debate about whether humans have free will or not … and the consensus of most of the scientists was … “NO - we don’t really have free will.”

That’s because, if Charles Darwin is right and natural selection is what determines everything about ut .. .then it logically follows that your choices are NOT really YOUR choices … they are simply the outworking of evolutionary biology.

So, when you find that special someone … she catches your eye, she makes your heart flutter and your palms get clammy. You decide, “She’s the one for me! I’m in love.” Then you work through your nerves and ask her out and choose to write her love letters and buy her an engagement ring and propose to her and she decides to say ‘Yes - Sure I’ll marry you.” .... you may THINK you’re in love … you’re not. As one philosopher of science put it, “(You) are just a sophisticated meat-machine.” How romantic is that?

So, if you believe that there is no God and we just evolved … then be consistent. I’ve heard a number of wedding vows lately, where the bride and groom look at each other, all dressed up, shaking with nerves and speaking through tears to the one they claim to love … and they say, “I choose you.” And I want to say to so many of those couples: “No you don’t! If you don’t believe in God - you don’t believe in anything beyond the material world you can see and touch and measure in a test tube .... then you didn’t choose each other.”

It would be much more accurate for you to say:

“I have been hardwired to grab hold of you as mine, through the blind forces of evolutionary biology, because I have an innate need to pass on my genetic material.”

If we are the random product of blind, impersonal forces in a world that is only material - there is no free will.

2002, two psychologists had a simple but brilliant idea: Instead of speculating about what might happen if people lost belief in their capacity to choose, they could run an experiment to find out. Kathleen Vohs, then at the University of Utah, and Jonathan Schooler, of the University of Pittsburgh, asked one group of participants to read a passage arguing that free will was an illusion, and another group to read a passage that was neutral on the topic. Then they subjected the members of each group to a variety of temptations and observed their behavior. Would differences in abstract philosophical beliefs influence people’s decisions?

Yes, indeed. When asked to take a math test, with cheating made easy, the group primed to see free will as illusory proved more likely to take an illicit peek at the answers. When given an opportunity to steal—to take more money than they were due from an envelope of $1 coins—those whose belief in free will had been undermined pilfered more. On a range of measures, Vohs told me, she and Schooler found that “people who are induced to believe less in free will are more likely to behave immorally.”

So, what does the Bible say about human free will? The story of Ahab is a clear window into the message of the whole of Scripture. As we’ve made our way through the life of this human king, you can’t miss the evidence that this king has made choice after choice. Most of his choices have been bad ones.

In fact, 1 Kings 21:25, “There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the LORD, like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited. He acted very abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the LORD cast out before the people of Israel.”

Verses 27-29.

See the picture the Bible paints of this king. He makes choices - He sold himself to do evil. Was that because God was pulling his strings? No - v. 25 tells us Jezebel his wife incited him.

Think about what God has done: Time after time, the Sovereign God has stepped in to warn him and steer him to the right track. From the time Elijah warns him about the coming drought, to the showdown on Mt. Carmel, where right before his eyes, God bares his mighty arm and proves that He is the One true God … to the words of encouragement in the battles against Syria’s bully, Ben-Hadad, when Israel has no business having any hope … God speaks and speaks and guides and confronts .... And what does Ahab do? He chooses evil.

Then he chooses to mourn when God tells him he’s going to die. But then chapter 22 comes along and Ahab chooses to recruit Jehoshaphat and go to war. Even though God messenger warns him not to go - he goes anyways.

Ahab ignores God’s warnings and chooses to go and fight - even though God has told him exactly what’s going to happen there.

Now, unless it’s all a great charade - there is real human free-will operating here. The LORD speaks and guides … but Ahab is choosing what he wants to do and he goes to war anyways.

So, who is responsible for Ahab’s death?

The idea of human free will is another theme that runs through the whole of the Bible. And do you know where it starts? It starts at the very beginning.

Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The first words of the Bible tell us something very important about God - they tell us that He is a PERSONAL God. He chooses and acts. He chooses to create a universe rather than live without it.

He chooses to create humans in his own image: “Let us make man in our own image”, he says. “In the image of God, He created him. Male and female He created them.” And part of what it means to be created in the image of God is the ability to use OUR wills to make choices.

The Bible is as clear as clear can be … God did not create human beings to be ROBOTS … He created us for relationship … That’s why He calls a nation - Israel to Himself, rescues them from slavery, leads them to a promised land. That’s why He instructs a temple to be built in Jerusalem - because it’s His intention to come and dwell WITH His people. God doesn’t do that if the people are nothing more than puppets on a string.

Friend, you may think that Christianity means sacrificing your human freedom. The reality is - there is no greater message about the dignity of your humanity .... than the message of Christianity - that a personal God created you in His image - to use your will to make real choices … and to enjoy the delight of relationship with Him - the fountain of every joy.

Problem - After the dignity of Genesis 1-2 and the description of human beings created in God’s image for communion with Him, comes the shame of

Genesis 3- when Adam and Eve ..........................................................................

3 PUTTING THE FREEDOMS TOGETHER, 22:30-38

Okay, so the Bible is pretty clear that God is sovereign. He controls everything … AND human beings freely choose to do what they want to do. But that still leaves you scratching your head.

“How can BOTH God and humans make free choices – they don’t always want the same things!”

All sorts of answers come back in response. “God’s sovereignty is limited by human freedom.” Have you ever heard that?

That’s NOT what the Bible teaches.

“God saves as many people as He possibly can. He’d like to save everyone … He does the best He can.

London Baptist Confession gives a much better definition, in chapter 3, paragraph 1 of the confession:

God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established; in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree.

So God has made His plan and purpose for the universe and it is IRREVOCABLE … but He doesn’t work that plan out IN SPITE of our choices … He works His plan THROUGH our choices.

Look at how God works through Ahab’s own free choices in our text today: In 21:17ff – God says to Ahab, “I’m going to avenge Naboth’s innocent blood on your hands. I’m going to judge you for your evil. That’s MY choice.”

Well, Ahab doesn’t choose to die. He mourns the verdict, he humbles himself … and he carries on with his life.

And when chapter 22 begins, he decides he wants a fight to get back Ramoth-gilead. The prophet Micaiah is eventually summoned. He comes and lays out EXACTLY what the result of going to war is going to be for Ahab.

Does God force Ahab to go to war? No – in fact, he warns him not to go.

The theological word here is ‘CONCURRENCE’ – Concurrence means that before the world was spoken into being, God had already made his plan for history … and now He’s working it out – and everything

I think it was Charles Spurgeon who said, “Jesus Christ was up on the cross, nailed, bleeding, dying, looking down at the people betraying him and forsaking him and denying him, and in the greatest act of love in the history of the universe, he stayed.” Bomb after bomb after bomb was coming down on Jesus Christ trying to get him to drop us, to separate him from us, and even hell itself couldn’t do it. He stayed. Nothing could separate his love from us. He held on to us. He was our Savior. He died for us.

That’s how you know nothing can separate you from the love of God. It’s not an abstraction. It’s not just saying, “Oh, I just believe God loves me unconditionally.” Oh no. He loves you counter-conditionally. He loves you against conditions because of Jesus. When you see Jesus Christ never let you go no matter what came down on him, that’s how you know. That’s the only way you really know absolutely certainly that no matter what you do inside, no matter what bad is happening on the outside, he has not abandoned you.

If he wouldn’t abandon you then, he won’t abandon you now. If he wouldn’t abandon you when hell itself was coming down on him … If that didn’t separate his love from you, do you think you having a bad week is going to do it? Do you think there’s anything you could do that could destroy his love for you when that couldn’t do it?

When bad things are happening to you all over and you say, “I must be abandoned …” If he didn’t abandon you there, he’s not going to abandon you now. He spared not himself. The Father spared not his own Son. If he wouldn’t spare us that, if he gave us the ultimate gift, do you think somehow he’s going to let your life go off the rails now? He’s not going to deny you anything you need.

If somebody spends a billion dollars on your present, do you think he’s going to skimp on the wrapping paper? This is the love you’ve been looking for all your life. No friend love, no married love, no popular acclaim, no parental love will give you what this will give you. Psalm 27:10 says, “Though my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will bear me up.”[1]

[1] Keller, T. J. (2013). The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive. New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church.