Three Men Meet In Israel

Introduction

God has blessed me with the opportunity to be able to preach the gospel. He’s blessed me with the opportunity to be able to preach the gospel here. He’s also blessed me with opportunities to go and preach in other places. You know, last week we were away from you in Alabama in a gospel meeting, and that was a blessing to us. But we have another opportunity coming up that I want to share with you, and that is, Lord willing, next month, starting Monday, October the 2nd, I’ll be making an evangelistic trip overseas to the country of Sri Lanka. I made previous trips there and preaching the gospel. COVID has kind of interrupted that as it did everything. And so this will be an opportunity for me to go back and to be with the good people there in the nation of Sri Lanka.

And up until that time, I want to include you because you’re going to be a part of this trip. You won’t be coming with me, not all of you, but but you’ll be a part of this trip and having fellowship with me. So I wanted to include you in that trip. And so up until October the second, I want to in a portion of our sermons talk a little bit about the country and the work that I’ll be doing there. There is Sri Lanka on the map. It’s hard to see. It’s a small country in the Indian Ocean, just off the tip of the continent, the country of India. Here’s a few facts about Sri Lanka. Again, it’s an island country in the Indian Ocean off the southern coast of India.

It’s a small island, about 25,000 square miles. For reference point, Florida is about 65, almost 66,000 square miles. And so this country is less than half the size of the state of Florida. A very small island country. But look at the population comparison. It’s less than half of the size of the state of Florida, but has a greater population than the state of Florida. And so there’s a lot of people squeezed densely into this island nation. They speak three languages, two primarily, Sinhalese and Tamil. They’re basically two races of people who share this island, and they speak two different languages, Sinhalese and Tamil. Some of the people speak a little English. English is not one of their official languages and is not prominent. If you’re in the bigger cities or bigger city, there’s one large city, the capital, some of the people there will speak English, but very few.

The religion, they’re primarily Buddhist. About 70% of the people are practicing Buddhist. 13% are Hindus.

Again, there will be a few who claim to be Christians among that number, but largely Buddhist and Hindus and Muslims that we’ll encounter in the country. The capital is the city of Columbo, and that’s where we’ll fly into. The majority of the people are very poor. It is a third world country. And so I solicit your prayers. As a spoiled air-conditioned city boy now. The living conditions will be very different than what we’re used to, what I’m used to here. And so I solicit your prayers on my behalf. Like I said, I’ve made some previous trips. I want to introduce you to some of the people that are there. Here’s two of the preachers on the island. This is Negendron and Joe, as they met us at the airport, and I’m sure we’ll be meeting us again when we fly in in October.

Negendron preaches in kind of the middle of the island in Nuwar Elia. Joe preaches there. Joe’s the one in the white shirt there, kind of tan shirt. Preaches there in uh just outside the capital city of Columbo. Joe will be my interpreter. Joe speaks English, speaks English very well. And so wherever I go, Joe goes. Wherever Joe goes, I go, however, you want to put it, but because Joe will be my interpreter. Joe, uh again, the one in the white shirt, Joe speaks Sinhalese, which is the prominent language on the island. Negendron, the one in the yellow shirt, speaks Tamil, uh the smaller uh represented language. Uh but actually uh Negendron’s Tamil is his primary language, but he also speaks some Sinhalese. And so uh some of the times when we go and I am able to preach in these areas, we’ll have two different interpreters.

One interpreting it into Senilese, and then one interpreting it into uh English. Uh and often the Negendron and Joe are those interpreters. Negendron speaks Sinhalese and Tamil, but doesn’t speak English. Uh and so Joe will interpret my English into Sinhalese, and then Negendron will listen to Joe and interpret the Sinhalese into Tamil. And then I’ll try to remember what it was I said through all this interpretation. And so it makes for a slow sermon. Y’all think I talk slow now. You’ll hear me over there. These are some of the Bible studies that we’ve had in the past. We travel uh up into the mountains, and this is a home Bible study that we had uh with some Buddhists a few years a few years ago. Uh they welcomed us into their home.

Uh, and again, we speak by by way of an interpreter. Uh we talked about it being a poor country. This was Negendron’s wife, was a wonderful host, and cooked meals for us and provided for us and just did uh wonderfully. Uh, but there’s the store. We come to find out after we’d eaten several meals with her, uh, what a task that was. This was her cook stove uh where she prepared those wonderful meals uh for us. Fortunately, this was her previous cook stove. After we saw this, uh Ed Brand, my preaching traveling companion, and I went to the store and bought her a gas stove. Uh now, don’t think gas stove like you have at home. It’s basically like a Coleman camper stove. Uh, but they were tickled to be able to have that little bit of an upgrade.

Uh here is the church in Matara. We will travel south uh onto the coast of Matara where the church meets there. Uh, I’ve met with them uh several times and we’ll be able to meet with them again. Uh this is their meeting place. It’s the second story. They meet in the upper room, which is scriptural. They’re on the second story of this structure. Uh what you can’t see here necessarily is that this structure is not necessarily enclosed. You see walls behind us, but uh in front of where these people are standing is just the the wall is opened. Uh there’s no windows or doors, and therefore no air conditioning or electricity in the building. And so by our standards, very primitive uh meeting conditions. But they’re wonderful people, love the Lord, uh, and I look forward uh to meeting with them again.

A couple things about uh the the conditions there, not just the conditions, but the travel. Our first trip will be from the capital city of Columbo into Nuwar Elia, uh, which is up in the mountain uh region. It’s about 98 miles drive from Columbo to Nuar Elia, but it’ll take us six hours uh to make that 98-mile drive. And so uh the conditions are poor, not just in living conditions, but in traveling conditions. Uh but here was a picture of us in uh Nuar Elia. Uh there are a lot of the Hindus that live in in that area, it’s mostly a Tamil area and the Hindu area. Um as you might can guess from that picture. I stand out in the crowd in Nuwar Elia for a couple reasons.

One’s being my size. Most of the Sri Lankans are are smaller in stature and smaller people, uh, and of course, I am not. And so uh I get a lot of pointing at uh at me as I walk down the street and people talking, uh, people asking to have their picture made uh with me. Uh and so these were some of the Hindu boys that wanted a picture made, and so I was glad to accommodate them in that. So I’m looking forward to the trip. It’ll be a difficult trip, but a good trip. We’ll be able to work with the preachers there and meet with several of the churches and then have several home Bible studies as well. So I just wanted to include you and continue to include you as kind of being my traveling companion in this as we make this trip again.

And I appreciate the the fellowship that you’ll have with us in that. Now I want to invite you to, if you will, to get your Bibles, particularly your Old Testaments, and go with me to 1 Kings chapter 22. We want to use a story here in 1 Kings chapter 22 as the theme for our study this morning, as we’re going to encounter three men, three very different men who will their past will converge in Israel in 1 Kings chapter 22. And in our time remaining, I’d like for us to see what lessons we can learn from these three very different men. These three men are Ahab, the king of the northern tribes of Israel, Jehoshaphat, the king of the southern tribe of Judah, and a prophet by the name of Micaiah.

Now, to refamiliarize ourselves with the historical setting here, the children of Israel have been in possession of the promised land for several years now. They’ve gone through the period of the judges, the period of the United Kingdom reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon, and we are smackdab in the middle of the divided kingdom. Israel in the north, Judah in the south. Good Bible students will remember that in that divided kingdom, there were no good kings in the north, no good kings in Israel. And Ahab is the poster child of the no good kings in Israel. There were some, not enough, but some good kings in Judah, and Jehoshaphat is numbered among those. God will list some mistakes that Jehoshaphat makes, but God puts the judgment that he was a good king who reigned in Judah.

God would send prophets throughout the land, particularly to Israel, because they were in worse condition, and then we’ll focus upon Judah later. And some one of those prophets is a man by the name of Micaiah, not the most well-known of the prophets in Israel at that time, but he’s the one that we find in 1 Kings chapter 22. And so let’s set the setting from that greater context of the historical setting. Israel in the north, under the reign of King Ahab, has been fighting with the nation of Syria. But they’ve been in a three-year truce with Syria. But Ahab is wondering if it’s time to end the truce and go and attack Ramoth Gilead. Jehoshaphat, the king in the south, has come to visit King Ahab.

And so let’s talk about this visit and this encounter and the lessons that we can learn from these three men who met in Israel. Let’s first talk about Jehoshaphat. He’s a good man. He’s a good king. He has his flaws, but overall he’s a good king. And so Jehoshaphat goes up north to visit with King Ahab. Ahab tells him about his plans and says, I’m thinking about attacking Ramath Gilead, reigniting this war against Syria. And Jehoshaphat says, okay, but can we ask God? Can we ask God whether that’s a good idea or not? That would have been a novel idea to wicked King Ahab. But Jehoshaphat rightly says, let’s inquire of the Lord. And so Ahab says, okay, let’s inquire of the Lord. And he brings some prophets.

And let me put prophets in quotation marks there. The false prophets. And so he brings those prophets, and those prophets do what false prophets do. They prophesy based upon who’s signing their paycheck and who might kill them or throw them into prison. And so they all say, Ahab, what do you want to do? I want to go attack Ramoth Gilead. Then that’s what you ought to do. That’s what you ought to do. And so they all just parrot what King Ahab wants to hear. And Jehoshaphat says, Is there not a real prophet? Is there not somebody who can truly tell us what God wants? And Ahab says reluctantly, well, there’s this fella named Micaiah. He’s a prophet, but I don’t like him. I don’t like him because he doesn’t say good things.

He says bad things. And so Jehoshaphat says, Well, let’s ask a real prophet. Let’s ask Micaiah. And so they send messengers to go find Micaiah and bring him before Ahab and Jehoshaphat to inquire of the Lord. And the messenger who goes to pick up Micaiah says, Now listen, you need to get with the program. All the other prophets have said what Ahab wanted them to say, and that is, let’s go attack the Syrians at Ramoth Gilead. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll play along and say what they say. Micaiah says, I’m paraphrasing.

I’m going to say what God tells me to say. And it’s as simple as that. And so Micaiah comes, presents himself before Ahab and Jehoshaphat, and you’ve got to like Micaiah. Micaiah is a little bit of a smart elicate beginning. He says, Oh, yes, Ahab, you go do what you want to do. You go attack them. That’ll be just fine. And he must have said it in a way, in a tone of voice that Ahab knew that he wasn’t speaking sincerely. And so he says, now, quit playing. Say what you’re going to say. And so Micaiah says what God tells him to say and what he said he would say, which is what God had told him to say. And he says, Not only are you going to lose, he says, but I’m seeing a vision of Israel being scattered without a leader.

Which meant you’re going to die. So Ahab throws Micaiah into prison and says, I’ll deal with you when I get back. And Micaiah says, You ain’t coming back. In fact, if you come back, then God didn’t speak through me at all. Well, Ahab does what Ahab does. He goes ahead and goes into battle. Jehoshaphat, for some reason, goes with him into battle. And so Ahab says, after hearing that you’re going to die in this battle, Ahab comes up with a plan, and he says to Jehoshaphat, and he says, Jehoshaphat, you go ahead and dress up like a king with a target on your back. And I’m going to wear just regular clothes and kind of mingle among the soldiers. And so Jehoshaphat does it. He rides into battle wearing the kingly clothes, and the Syrian people have been instructed, don’t worry about anybody.

You go find Ahab. We kill Ahab, we win the battle. So just everybody look for Ahab, kill Ahab. They see Jehoshaphat and say, There’s the king, that must be Ahab. And Jehoshaphat, to his credit, says, Not Ahab, not Ahab, don’t shoot. And then one of the Syrian soldiers just randomly draws his bow and arrow and shoots an arrow up into the air. And that arrow finds its way to Ahab. And he dies. Before he dies, he says, take me out of the battle, and he ends taking in his chariot to the battle. And if you remember an earlier prophecy, they’re cleaning out the chariot, and the blood and the water and the dogs come and lick up his blood that fulfills a prophecy that had been prophesied even before Micaiah.

1. Jehoshaphat: A Desire to Know God’s Will

So many lessons we can learn from this story, but let’s look at the lessons we can learn from these three men. First, from Jehoshaphat, we learn and we see that he had a desire to know God’s will. To his credit, he says, Ahab, before we do this, let’s ask God. And then when Ahab goes through the sham of pretending to ask God, he says, no, really. Let’s ask God. That should be our pattern. Before we do anything, let’s stop and ask God. Now we’ll ask and we’ll inquire of God differently than Ahab and Jehoshaphat will. We don’t need to call a prophet into our presence and have them prophesy before us. We have the spoken and written word of God. And so we need to consult that.

Everything that we do as individuals, everything we do as a congregation should be the way Jehoshaphat did it. We may come up with an idea that sounds so great to us, maybe as a congregation. Hey, why don’t we do this? And I hope always among God’s people, there’ll be at least one Jehoshaphat who will raise his hand and say, Let’s ask God. Sounds good to us, and I would like to do that, but but let’s let’s ask God. And the wonderful thing about that, about inquiring of God, that God has promised, Jesus from his own mouth said in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, seek and ye shall find. I don’t know exactly how that’s going to happen. But Jesus has promised that if we really want to know what his will is, that we will know it.

Another lesson that we see about Jehoshaphat that makes him so commendable is that he was not only interested in knowing the truth, he was able to discern between truth and error. When those prophets, first row of prophets, came and appeared before the two kings, he said, Now come on, Ahab. These aren’t real prophets. He had the ability to discern. Turn with me. Hold your finger there in 1 Kings and go back to the book of Hebrews. The Hebrew writer talks about this in the midst of the Hebrew writer chastising those first century Christians about their lack of knowledge and lack of understanding, in an attempt to encourage them to grow in their wisdom, to grow in their knowledge, to grow in their understanding, says that you need to grow so that you can discern.

The last verse of chapter 5 of the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 5 and verse 14, he says, but solid food, speaking of the solid food, the kind of the deeper thinking of the word of God, belongs to those who are a full age. That is those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. The Hebrew writer says it takes knowledge and practice to be able to discern between what’s right and wrong. Some people struggle with that of discern between what’s the right thing to do, the wrong thing to do. Some people, it seems it’s almost come natural to them. It comes natural, seemingly to them because they know they’ve studied the word of God, they’ve practiced this, they’ve made those right decisions before.

And so it becomes easier to see and to make those right decisions. Let’s be like Jehoshaphat. The other lesson we learn from Jehoshaphat, unfortunately, is a negative one. Again, God ascribes goodness to Jehoshaphat. And we don’t want to erase that, but if we took the time and went to 2 Chronicles, in the summary of Jehoshaphat’s reign as a king, it will say he was a good king. But there were two things he did wrong. Number one, like many of the kings before him, he didn’t completely remove the idol worship. And the second thing is that he allied himself with wicked people. Specifically in Chronicles, it mentions his ally with Ahab’s son, Ahaziah. And so a good man was able to discern and to desire God’s will, to discern between good and evil, but he had a very bad habit of picking bad friends and bad allies.

When you’re reading this story in 1 Kings chapter 22, you can’t help but scratch your head. Jehoshaphat, what are you doing? What are you doing in Israel? What are you doing talking to Ahab? When you go through this sham, although you saw right through it, you still wanted to go to battle with him. When he tells you to dress up as a very noticeable looking king, and I’m going to kind of disguise myself, you just went right along with it. Nowhere in this story did you think maybe I need to go home. Maybe I don’t need to be here. Maybe this isn’t the best guy to hitch my wagon to.

It almost was Jehoshaphat’s.

2. Micaiah: The Majority May Be Wrong

Alright. Hang on. My the PowerPoint gremlins have messed with me here. All right. Y’all gonna have to work with me here. This says Ahab, but it’s supposed to say Micaiah. I got my slides flipped up here. So this about Micaiah, one thing we can learn about Micaiah is that the majority may be wrong. There was one prophet, and that’s what Jehosaphat asked for. Is it not? One prophet. One against many of the prophets who had spoken against the word of God, who’d spoke in favor of Ahab doing. We can recognize from Micaiah that the majority is usually wrong. Now it’s not a mathematic axiom that the majority is wrong because they’re the majority. But the majority is wrong simply because the majority often chooses the wrong way.

Did Jesus not warn us that in the gospel of Matthew chapter 7? That broad is the way, easy is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be that find it. And so we need to recognize that the majority will often be wrong. Another lesson we learned from Micaiah is that he was, and we will probably be persecuted for doing right. He was thrown into prison for speaking up and saying what was right.

But will we have the attitude of Micaiah? I’ll say and do what God says, no matter what. And the third lesson we learned from Micaiah is that we must guard the truth and our reputation. I think Micaiah had a dual incentive in standing up and facing persecution. Number one is he was guarding the truth. I can say only what God tells me to say. That’s what a true prophet does. And so he was guarding the truth. He was being that one man that Jehosaphat sought for in Israel who would stand up and speak the truth. But I think Micaiah was also in a secondary level guarding his reputation. He had a reputation. Now in Ahab’s eyes, it was a bad reputation. He always says evil against me and not good.

3. Ahab Did What He Wanted to Do

But he had the reputation. When pressed by Jehosaphat, Ahab said, Yes, okay, there is one guy. And that guy is Micaiah. We need to guard our reputation as being maybe that one guy who’s going to do what’s right. That no matter what opposition, no matter what threat, that we’re going to do and make the right decisions. Like Micaiah. All right, help me again. This says Micaiah, but this is really Ahab. Why did Ahab do what he did? Ahab parades the false prophets in front of him, who are just saying what they know the king wants to hear. The one prophet who says, I’m going to tell you what God said. Says, don’t go to battle. You’re going to lose the battle and you’re going to die.

Then why did Ahab go ahead and do what he did? Well, here’s some possible reasons. He was following the majority. A bunch of prophets, versus one, and so I’m going to go with the majority. The other ones possibly to be seen as elite and intelligent. Micaiah was seen as being less than the other prophets and as the king. And maybe he wanted to do the decision, make the decision that he made to be seen as a great leader. Is it possible that Ahab would scratch his head and throw up his hands and say, Well, I don’t know. They got some people are saying this, and some people are saying go, and some people are saying don’t go. Is it possible? He could just say, well, I don’t know.

But you know the real reason Ahab did what he did. Ahab went to battle against the Syrians, despite being warned not to. Because that’s what he wanted to do. He did what he wanted to do. It’s as simple as that. He tried to prop it up by having false prophets who would tell him what he wanted to hear. But the reality is, Ahab did what he wanted to do because that’s what he wanted to do. And what a powerful lesson that is for us today. What is our motivation for doing what we do, for what we ought to do? Are we going to be as selfish and destructive as Ahab and simply just say, you know, here’s what I want to do. And so I’m going to find a way to justify it.

And you know, people do that today. People will do that with scriptures. Christians will do that today with scriptures. Here’s what I want to do. Now let me see if I can find a verse that I can twist that’ll let me do that. Or let me go and see if I can find a preacher somewhere who will put a stamp of approval on the behavior that I want to do. But the reality is they’re just doing what they want to do. But we’ll be humble enough to listen to what God says. And say, even though that’s not what I want to do. Like Micaiah would say, I’ll only speak what God says. Ahab should have said, I’ll only do what God says. These three men converge in Israel.

Conclusion

Three very different men. Will you be a Micaiah? Well, you’ll be a Jehoshaphat up until a point? And always seek to know God’s will. Have the ability to discern between good and evil, but only speak and only do what God would have you to do. You need to do that in regard to your soul’s salvation. What do you need to do in order to be saved? How about like Micaiah? Let’s just ask God and do what He says. Can we help you in that in any way this morning? Can we help you? You need prayers of the congregation or any way that we can be of assistance to you this morning. Let it be known as together we stand and as we sing.