What is Your Greatest Enemy? - 1 Kings
22
What is the greatest enemy
that we have in our spiritual lives? We are about to be studying a chapter that
talks about arguably one of the most bizarre little episodes in the Scripture.
It is something that is quite unusual and one of those episodes that sort of
peels back the curtain of material empiricism that we have, the things that we
can feel, touch and see and how we experience reality, to let us see the
spiritual realities that are going on behind the scenes at the throne of God.
What we see is an episode that ends with the death of Ahab the king of the
northern kingdom of Israel and what is involved in the circumstances in this
final battle. As we go through this we see the thinking of Ahab as he prepares
for this last battle.
There is an opportunity here
to have a little fun with the episode because there’s a humor here that the
Holy Spirit thoroughly intended to get across, but in that process it
communicates something very insightful about what is going on in Ahab’s soul.
What we should realize is that what is going on with Ahab goes on with us. We
are not very different from Ahab in terms of the dynamics that are taking place
in this particular episode. The enemy that Ahab faces in this chapter, 1 Kings
22, is the same enemy that we face on a day to day basis.
The Scripture generally
categorizes our enemies in three ways. The first is the world, the second is
the flesh, and the third is the devil. This is just a broad summary of the
information that is in the Scripture but what do we mean by each of these
terms? When we answer the question, what is the greatest enemy we face in our
spiritual life, has to do with one aspect of one of these and so we have to
these. Some try to blame the world for all their problems rather than taking
responsibility for them; others blame the devil. The world is that system of
thought which is not an external thing, it is an internal thing, a mental
thing, a system of thought that was originally pioneered by Satan and it is
characterized by two things: autonomy and antagonism. Autonomy means
independence from God—we are going to make it work on our own and we don’t
really need God’s help. It is always joined by either an explicit or an
implicit antagonism, hatred or hostility toward God, and this is manifested in
many different types of thinking that we have in human history that express
themselves in various philosophies and religious systems that seek to solve
man’s problems and to find success and prosperity apart from God. In Israel there was the prosperity theology of the fertility
religions, the worship of the Baals and the Asherah brought into the northern kingdom by Ahab and
Jezebel.
The second category is the
flesh, the term the Bible uses for the sin nature. It refers to that internal
corrupt nature that mankind has inherited from Adam because of his original
sin. The flesh is that internal corrupt nature of man that is committed to
autonomy and antagonism. The whole orientation of the sin nature is, I can make life work apart from God. It is based on
arrogance and independence, hence autonomy, and it is hostile to God. The flesh
is also that internal aspect of man that has an affinity for the thought system
of the world, and the thought system of the world came from Satan who is the
pioneer of all of this type of thinking. He was the first to assert his
independence from God, his autonomy, and his antagonism to God’s plans. So
there is a thread running through here, these two ideas of autonomy and
antagonism. On the one hand there is the assertion that the creature can live
and find happiness and meaning in life without being obedient to God as the
ultimate authority in life. And we always run into problems and we always
create problems, and because we really can’t make it work independently from
God we get frustrated and angry, and this generates an antagonism towards God
that sometimes is camouflaged by various religions, and it can even be
camouflaged in our own life by our own religious activities. We can become very
involved in the local church but we are not letting the Word of God really
change the way we think. We judge the Word of God on the basis of whatever
works for us, and that is just a sin nature orientation that rejects the authority
of God. So we have these three enemies and we will see how they work together
in this chapter.
The sin nature at its very
core is driven by lust. Lust drives us in one direction or another. It also
produces certain kinds of acts. Some of these are good acts, relatively good,
and so we identify this as the area of strength—human good.
Anybody can do relative good but is it the kind of absolute good which God
requires, which is absolute righteousness? No, it is not; it is simply good in
terms of a relative standard, it is not an absolute standard, and because man
can never produce the kind of good that God requires this is why God sent His
Son to the cross to pay the penalty for sin. Because Jesus paid that penalty
His righteousness is available to anyone who will trust in Him as the one who
paid the penalty for their sins. So it is not our good that qualifies us for
salvation, it is Christ’s righteousness. The other area of the sin nature is
the area of weakness which produces sins of the tongue, other sins and mental
attitude sins. The lust pattern pushes us in one of two directions. In one
direction we move towards asceticism and legalism. Asceticism is the idea that
somehow I can give up things and it will impress God. It is important for
believers to live a life that is consistent with the mandates of Scripture, but
if we do that thinking that is the basis for our relationship with Him then
that goes into asceticism and legalism and this can lead to a moral degeneracy.
That is what we saw exhibited by the Pharisees. In the other extreme we have
lasciviousness, licentiousness and antinomianism. This leads to immoral
degeneracy.
This gives us an overview of
the sin nature but what lies behind that lust pattern is something that is even
more insidious, and that is arrogance. Arrogance is where we open up the engine
and look at the pistons and see what is really driving the sin nature. The
arrogance skills, the five different ways in which we express our autonomy,
begin with self-absorption. We all come right our of
the womb self-absorbed. From that very minute when we take that first breath
and we start screaming to be fed or to be warm we are just absorbed with
ourselves and our own needs. It is all about ME. But then as we grow we become
very sophisticated by the time we are two or three years old and we begin to
learn ways to camouflage that selfishness because it becomes apparent that that
is not always the best ways to do things. What the Bible is saying is that it
is not all about me, it is all about God, and so we have to go through a major
reorientation of our thinking once we are a believer. Self-absorption leads to
self-indulgence, we just give in to every desire that we have with no
self-discipline whatsoever—more on the licentious side of it, but it is also
true of the arrogant ascetic, legalistic side. That leads to self-justification
and self-deception. In self-deception we have managed to create a stealth
bomber out of our sin nature, so that we have so camouflaged our own agenda
that now it is dripping with Bible verses. This leads to self-deification which
is that we are basically worshipping ourselves rather than God; we have placed
ourselves on the throne in heaven and we are the ones who are in charge, not
God. So it boils down to an authority issue. The bottom line in the sin nature
is an authority issue. Are we going top submit to the Word of God when it tells
us this is the way life is, or are we going to say we are really not
comfortable with that, we would rather do X or Y, and we are just going to
ignore that particular page of Scripture, take out our mental scalpel and
surgically remove those verses. In arrogant self-deception we have convinced
ourselves that our way is the right way and say “that is not really what the
Bible says or means.”
These are really spiritual
land mines we create in our own soul and what happens
is sooner or later the pressures of life come and these land mines start
exploding, and we wonder what in the world happened to our spiritual life. What
we don’t realize is that we allowed ourselves to live in a comfort zone of
self-deception for so many years that we blinded ourselves to our won sin
nature and our own trends, and what that was doing in
terms of autonomy and opposition to God. That is what has happened with Ahab.
Three years had passed
without war between Syria and Israel. This goes back to the events in chapter twenty where
Ahab had been at war with Ben-hadad II who was the
ruler of Syria. In fact, all of this conflict that occurs in this
time period when Ahab was king was based on an event that occurred earlier
under king Asa of Judah. Asa
was one of the good kings and he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
Though he did not totally remove the high places he was announced loyal to God.
But during his reign he was threatened militarily by the northern kingdom as
they were pushing down towards the borders and so he decided to create a
diversion for them and distract them by paying off the Syrians to attack the
northern kingdom from the north. The Aramaens
[Syrians] took control of territory in the north and it is still under their
control until much of it was taken back and captured by Ahab in chapter twenty.
Since that battle three years have gone by without war between Syria and Israel.
1 Kings 22:1 NASB
“Three years passed without war between Aram and Israel. [2] In the third year Jehoshaphat the king of Judah came down to the king of Israel. [3] Now the king of Israel said to his servants, ‘Do you know that Ramoth-gilead belongs to us, and we are still doing nothing
to take it out of the hand of the king of Aram?’” We are not absolutely sure where Ramoth-Gilead is located but it is down in the Trans-Jordan
area, part of what had originally belonged to Manasseh. Ahab knows that this is
their territory and he wants to go get it.
1 Kings 22:4 NASB
“And he said to Jehoshaphat, ‘Will you go with me to
battle at Ramoth-gilead?’ And Jehoshaphat
said to the king of Israel, ‘I am as you are, my people
as your people, my horses as your horses.’ [5] Moreover, Jehoshaphat
said to the king of Israel, “Please inquire first for the word of the LORD.” Jehoshaphat is a believer and he understands the importance
of doing that which is God’s will, and so he probably really irritated Ahab at
this point by saying they really needed to listen to what God has to say. That
is the last thing Ahab wants to do because in his sin nature he is committed to
licentiousness because that is part of the whole sexual immorality of the
fertility cult. So he is operating on licentiousness which is the expression of
his autonomy. He is independent from God, he doesn’t
want to pay attention to what God wants at all he is antagonistic to God. Jehoshaphat shows that he is not acting in autonomy, is not
hostile to God; he is trying to be obedient to God.
1 Kings 22:6 NASB
“Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to
them, “Shall I go against Ramoth-gilead to battle or
shall I refrain?” And they said, “Go up, for the Lord will give {it} into the
hand of the king.” The prophets are not the false prophets of the Baal and the Asherah,
these are the false prophets of Yahweh,
the God of Israel. So the king of Israel gathers all of his yes-men together. The danger for
anyone in authority is gathering a bunch of sycophants together who will just
tell them what they want to hear. But it doesn’t just apply to leaders, it
applies to us.
1 Kings 22:6 NASB
“Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to
them, ‘Shall I go against Ramoth-gilead
to battle or shall I refrain?’ And they said, ‘Go up, for the Lord will give
{it} into the hand of the king.’” They are a bunch of yes-men, they tell Ahab
exactly what he wants to hear and he is so happy because he has managed to
justify it. Does he know these are a bunch of sycophantic yes-men? He does! He
knows they are not like Elijah but he has managed to desensitize his own soul
to the sin nature trends and to rationalize and justify his disobedience. But Jehoshaphat has discernment. [7] “But Jehoshaphat
said, ‘Is there not yet a prophet of the LORD here that we may inquire of him?’” He immediately recognizes
that there are a bunch of false prophets. [8] “The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘There
is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the LORD, but I hate him, because he
does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. {He is} Micaiah son of Imlah.’
But Jehoshaphat said, ‘Let not the king say so.’” What
is going on here with Ahab? Autonomy and antagonism. Jehoshaphat recognizes Ahab’s words as blasphemy. [9] “Then
the king of Israel called an officer and said, ‘Bring quickly Micaiah son of Imlah.’ [10] Now
the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah were sitting each on his throne, arrayed in {their}
robes, at the threshing floor at the entrance of the
gate of Samaria; and all the prophets were prophesying before them.”
This is a state occasion, the prophet a spokesman of God is coming, so they are
going to put on their finest robes, marks of their office, and sit on their
throne at the city gates where business was conducted in the ancient world. All
the false prophets are there prophesying before them trying to convince Jehoshaphat and Ahab that they are the ones doing the
speaking for God. One of them [10] “…Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah
made horns of iron for himself and said, “Thus says the LORD, ‘With
these you will gore the Arameans until they are
consumed.’” The horns depicted power in the ancient world. Zedekiah is giving
to give a little image lesson here. He is completely self-deceived that he is
speaking for God and is continuing to promote his false teaching and false
interpretation of Scripture. But Ahab is a willing listener, he wants to be deceived
because he wants to do what he wants to do, just like lots of Christians do. They
want to have the veneer of Christianity and be with people who believe the
right thing. They want to listen to a pastor who basically believes in the
Bible and thinks generally like they do—let’s not step on anybody’s toes and
let’s not get into any of the details of how I conduct my life; I wants to keep
God at a distance but I want to have a cloak of spirituality that deceives me
and deceives others.
All the prophets continue
to prophesy that they can have victory and the messenger eventually brings Micaiah to them. 1 Kings 22:13 NASB Then the messenger who went
to summon Micaiah spoke to him saying, ‘Behold now,
the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king. Please let your
word be like the word of one of them, and speak favorably.’” Why not just relax
and tell the king what he wants to hear. [14] “But Micaiah
said, ‘As the LORD lives, what the LORD says to me, that I shall speak.’” Is that autonomy?
No, that is dependence on the Lord. He recognizes that God is the authority and
he is completely submitted to God’s authority and to saying what God wants, no
matter what the other circumstances might be. [15] “When he came 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 succeed, and the LORD will give {it} into the hand of the king.’” Here he
is surrounded by these false prophets, the pomp and circumstance of the throne
room, and he is going to be sarcastic. He must be really respected for this; he
is going to act like he is playing their game. Ahab knows exactly what is going
on. [16] “Then the king said to him, ‘How many times must I adjure you to speak
to me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?’” We have to understand
that in this weird little scenario that we are going to see the issue isn’t
that Ahab gets deceived somehow into going into the battle, he knows from the
beginni9ng what the truth is but he doesn’t want it. He wants to do what he
wants to do on his terms no matter what the consequences may be. The basic
orientation of arrogance is irrational.
1 Kings 22:17 NASB
“So he said, ‘I saw all Israel Scattered on the mountains, Like
sheep which have no shepherd. And the LORD said, ‘These have no master. Let each of them return
to his house in peace.’” They are just lost, scattered, the shepherd is gone. Ahab
is hearing that he is going to be killed. [18] “Then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘Did I
not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?’ [19] Micaiah said, ‘Therefore, hear the word of the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on
His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His
left.’” This is where we see the curtain draw back and we see what goes on in
the heavenly councils of God. The host of heaven is a term that refers to all
the angels, both the holy angels and the fallen angels. We see the same kind of
assembly come before God in the first and second chapters of Job. Evil is not
truly autonomous; God restricts evil and He uses evil for His own purposes.
1 Kings 22:20 NASB
“The LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’
And one said this while another said that.” The word “entice” is rendered “deceive”
in some translations. The word in the Hebrew means to open somebody up to
something; it is the basic word meaning to open or deceive or to persuade someone.
He is addressing the angels, so we see that behind the overt physical scene of Jehoshaphat and Ahab there is a spiritual reality where the
affairs of human history are influenced by the angels, both fallen and elect;
all are under the sovereign control of God. So there is one spirit that comes
forward, an evil spirit, and volunteers. [21, 22] “Then a spirit came forward and stood before
the LORD and said, ‘I will entice him.’ The LORD said to
him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth
of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You are to entice {him} and also prevail.
Go and do so.’” God is not the author of Ahab’s deception. Ahab wants to be
deceived. In the autonomy of his own deception Ahab has already mired himself
in self-deception and he wants to be deceived. God is not the author of his deception, this is a way of reinforcing the deception and
rebellion in Ahab that is already there. [23] “Now therefore, behold, the LORD has put a
deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the LORD has
proclaimed disaster against you.” This is Micaiah speaking
to Ahab and Jehoshaphat; this is the fulfillment of
the prophecy that God had given to Elijah back in the previous two chapters:
that Ahab was going to doe the sin unto death.
Now there is opposition. 1
Kings 22:24 NASB “Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near and struck Micaiah
on the cheek and said, ‘How did the Spirit of the LORD pass from
me to speak to you?’” Whenever the person who is standing for the Bible and
truth speaks the truth there are always a lot of people who are going to tell
him he is wrong, and have very good scholarly academic arguments for why the
Bible really teaches something else in order to justify everybody’s lack of
submission to God. Zedekiah becomes physically violent. That is hostility and
antagonism to the Word of God. [25] “Micaiah said, ‘Behold,
you shall see on that day when you enter an inner room to hide yourself.’” This
would be a hide-out spot in his house because after Ahab gets killed and the
army is defeated by Ben-hadad and the Syrians they
are going to be pursuing everybody, and Zedekiah is going to be cowering in his
secure room inside of his house.
1 Kings 22:26 NASB
“Then the king of Israel said, ‘Take Micaiah and
return him to Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king’s son; [27] and say, ‘Thus says the king,
“Put this man in prison and feed him sparingly with bread and water [make him
suffer] until I return safely.” [28] Micaiah said, ‘If
you indeed return safely the LORD has not spoken by me.’ And he said, ‘Listen, all you
people.’” He is implying that the Lord has spoken to him and Ahab won’t return.
The result of this is that they go to battle.
Ahab knows what is going
on here because he is going to dress like he is a private soldier. That is going
to leave Jehoshaphat hanging out there with all of
his royal regalia on so that when the armies of Ben-hadad
attack they will see all of the troops, the body guards, surrounding him and
will think it is Ahab.
1 Kings 22:34 NASB “Now
a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel in a joint of the armor. So he said to the driver of
his chariot, ‘Turn around and take me out of the fight; for I am severely
wounded.’” “At random”? There is no such thing as
chance in the plan of God. When things happen in our lives that we don’t expect
it is not random; it is not some accidental circumstance. God is the one who is
trying to get our attention and is taking us through a training session. But in
this particular verse it is not a training session, it is the execution of God’s
judgment. Ahab is taken back to Samaria, the army scatters and the Syrians had victory. So we
see that no one gets away with evil, with sin. Ultimately it is going to come
back and devastate our spiritual life. We may be able to live within our
comfort zone for years, but if we are not submitting to God’s Word and doing
things God’s way then what is going to happen is our life is going to explode
all over us and all over everyone around us. It could be any number of things
that will happen, and all of a sudden our life is just going to implode because
we have basically eviscerated our spiritual life of any reality because we have
been operating on self-deception for years. That is the greatest danger that we
all face. It is arrogance but it is the most subtle type of arrogance; it is
that arrogance that has justified our disobedience, camouflaged it, and wrapped
it in the robes of righteousness. Underneath there is nothing.
That is a challenge to us
that we dare not be like Ahab who was hostile to the Word of God.