Courage Or Compromise?

Courage or Compromise

Text: 1 Kings 22:1-28

GIVE THANKS / OPEN WITH PRAYER

This morning I want to share with you all something from God’s Word, that I believe is very relevant and important for us to grasp, especially for this time that we are living in. And what that important thing is - - IS COURAGE!

We are now in a time, when wicked, godless people are no longer content just to verbally insult us and disagree with us and our stand on God’s Word… Instead, they will now try to get us fired from our jobs, slander us, lie about us, “cancel” us, physically attack us, try to destroy our property, and all sorts of other things. Sin abounds in our world, and it takes courage to stand for Jesus, and stand on God’s Word, and stand up for what we believe in. And I could’ve gone to several passages in the Bible, that we’re all familiar with… we could look at Daniel, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego… Or Esther, or other’s; but instead we’re going to be looking at lesser known guy named Micaiah. So if you’ll take your Bible’s and open them up to 1 Kings 22, and please follow along as I read verses 1-28 (READ 1 Kings 22:1-28).

So this passage begins by telling us that Syria and Israel had previously been at war, but for the last three years, there has been an uneasy peace… and Jehoshaphat – the King of Judah paid a visit to Ahab – the King of Israel. Now let me give you a little background here about these two guys. Jehoshaphat wasn’t too bad of a king. His biggest problem was that he was foolish when it came to picking his alliances. He was a guy who believed in God, and loved God, and wanted to obey God, but he kept on making alliances, or covenants, or agreements with bad people. And that’s what Ahab was – this guy was a wicked, lost, sinful man. But here comes Jehoshaphat coming to visit him, and making and alliance with him so that Israel can attempt to get back the territory of Ramoth-gilead that was being held by the Syirans.

So right off the bat here, in these first four verses, we can learn a good principle to live by… God’s people shouldn’t be making these kings of alliances or agreements with people who hate God, and are the enemies of God. It’s unwise… in-fact the Bible tells us not to swear any oaths, especially with unbelievers… But that’s what Jehoshaphat was going to do.

But notice in verse 5 Jehoshaphat wants to be in God’s will, and so he tells Ahab to “Inquire first for the Word of the Lord.” In other words, “Let’s make sure this is God’s will.” And so – Ahab brings in 400 so called prophets and asks them, “Should we go to war with Syria?” And all of them – TO A MAN – say, “Oh yeah, go on! You’ve got this Ahab! The Lord will give it to the hand of the king.” You notice, they never say which king God is going to give it to… just “the king”… now it’s implied the king is Ahab… but I find it interesting they never actually say.

The point is – they all tell Ahab, “Yeah, go do it.”

Now it’s kind of funny, because Ahab has these 400 so called prophets telling him to go on and attack Syria, but Jehoshaphat is still a little apprehensive… He’s like, “MMMM.. I don’t know about this. Something seems off. Is there anybody else who we can talk to about this?”

Now check out Ahab’s answer there in the last part of verse 8, “There is one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah the son of Imlah, BUT I HATE HIM, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil.” WHAT A BABY! RIGHT? I remember the first time I read this, and I was like, “Seriously? How could the King of Israel, or any king or any nation, be such a petty, whiny, cry-baby?” I mean… nobody’s going to follow a leader like that… right? At least I used to think that way… the last year or so has changed my thinking on that.

At least Ahab can speak in coherent sentences.

So you’ve got Ahab here, saying, “Yeah, there’s a prophet named Micaiah… but I don’t like him, he doesn’t say nice things about me… I don’t like his mean tweets.” But Jehoshaphat is like, “Let’s hear what he has to say.”

Now Ahab doesn’t like that, but he needs Judah’s army by his side… so he orders his officer to go get Micaiah out of jail and bring him to them… Why do I say that Micaiah was in jail? Well I’ll get to that in a minute, but for now, just trust me, Micaiah was in jail – Most likely because he was speaking the truth, and Ahab didn’t like it.