MORRISON ZION EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH www.m zluth.org June 22, 2014 nd 2 Sunday after Pentecost First Lesson: 1 Kings 22:10-28 Psalm of the Day: Psalm 78 Second Lesson: 2 Peter 1:20-2:3 Gospel Lesson: Matthew 7:15-29 Sermon Text: 1 Kings 22:10-28 Pastor Randy Ott The Holy Ministry... Stands on the Rock-Solid Truth of God s Word In Christ, our risen and ruling Savior, dear fellow redeemed: When I sit at my computer and I go to the internet, the home page I go to is Bing. Across the bottom, they have little pictures of different stories every day that kind of change during the day, way too many pictures of the Kardashians, usually those kinds of stories. But a lot of times there are news stories that catch my attention and I ll click on them and read them. One that was there 2-3 weeks ago (I don t know, I lose track of time) was a picture of this big, beautiful house. I clicked on it to read the story. Multimillion dollar house that was built on the coast. It s been on the market and sits vacant and it s about to slide vacant. The beating of the waves or whatever. There has been erosion underneath it. This multimillion dollar beautiful looking home is about to become a beautiful pile of kindling for a great bonfire for someone. At least that s what it looks like is going to happen. It s kind of sad. Makes you sad for someone that had all that. But it is a picture of what Jesus talked about today. You see the results. The great pile of kindling, of bonfire wood, today in our First Lesson in the life of Ahab. When something keeps beating against and beating against and beating against and eroding, and if that s eroding our trust in God s Word, we re not standing on that rock-solid Word anymore and we are going to have problems. That s really what you see. In that first reading, you have King Jehoshaphat of Judah, who was a faithful king who loved the Lord and he stood on the rock-solid ground of God and his Word and his promises. You also had King Ahab, the king of Israel, the Northern Kingdom. King Ahab, maybe you remember how he stole Naboth s vineyard. Maybe you remember King Ahab when Elijah and the prophets of Baal were there on Mount Carmel and they had that great cook-off with the two bulls. Maybe you remember that. You probably don t remember him from this story. But this story that we read today, this is the end result of what God said to Ahab through Elijah when he stole Naboth s vineyard. You are going to die and the dogs are going to eat you. This is what we see happening in what we are looking at today. Page 1 of 6
When he ruled the Northern Kingdom, Ahab didn t stand on God s Word. He stood on the prophets of Baal. He and his wife, Jezebel, put to death a lot of the prophets of the Lord. The prophets he had, after they saw the prophets of the Lord get put to death, evidently became really good at knowing what the king wanted to hear and saying what the king wanted to hear so they didn t become prophet-kabobs or something like that some place. What happened right before what I read to you this morning is that Jehoshaphat, who was a Godly king who served the Lord, still made some bad choices. He had one of his sons marry one of Ahab s daughters. When they came together, Jehoshaphat and Ahab were there and they said, Let s go and attack Ramoth Gilead. Jehoshaphat said, Before we do that, let s inquire of the Lord so that we are standing on the rocksolid ground of what God wants us to do. So Ahab had all of his prophets come and they all said You ll win. You re great. They all said what you would expect them to say when Ahab has been in the habit of imprisoning or killing prophets who say things he doesn t like. He even got the one guy, Zedekiah, who makes these iron horns... whenever I read this, I picture him sticking them up to his head and running around at some of the other prophets or at some of the other people. It just seems strange to me. But he says, With these you will gore your enemy Ramoth Gilead, and you ll take it back. They listened to all these prophets with all the sunshine that they were giving him and Jehoshaphat said, Yeah, but I had asked for a prophet of the Lord. Is there a prophet of the Lord around here? Ahab had to go send for him. It sounds like he was under some kind of house imprisonment in his town so he couldn t get out and about and say the things that he had been saying that Ahab didn t want him to say. So they go and send for him. The messenger tries to give him some good advice. Good earthly advice. Everyone is saying the king is going to win. You don t want the king mad at you. You re already kind of having a lousy life because you don t say the things the king wants to hear, so you better make sure you say the king is going to win. Micaiah says, I can t say anything except what the Lord says. That s what someone in the ministry is supposed to do... stand on the rock-solid ground of God s Word, not try to stand on the rock-solid ground of what someone else expects or wants or desires. But then that next section that I read to you might confuse you a little bit. Micaiah gets there. Ahab says, Should we go to war with Ramoth Gilead or not? Did you read the words? Did you see what it says Micaiah said? Go and fight Ramoth Gilead. You are going to win. You re great king. We love you king. Then he says, Haven t I said, swear to me that you are going to tell me the truth and this guy never says anything good? Where did all that come from you might wonder. Why is he answering that way? He is saying the same thing the other guys did. I kind of think it s probably like what happened to me last night. Last night we had worked in the front garden weeding a bunch of stuff. Mostly I watched Claire and Paula do it, but I did do some things, and I was sore. My feet hurt. My knees hurt. I get in the house and I say, Man, I m getting old. Everything hurts. I Page 2 of 6
said to Paula, Now this is where you re supposed to say, You re not old. And she says, Oh, you re not old. The sarcasm was just dripping all over the floor as she said this to me. It was obvious she was saying, You re really old, but saying the exact opposite, right? I think that s what we have right here in Scripture. Micaiah says it with body language and in such a way that it s dripping sarcasm, and Ahab recognizes it as such. So he says, Haven t I told you to swear to tell me the truth? He says, Okay, I ll tell you the truth. I saw Israel on the mountains like sheep without a shepherd. What does that mean? Who is the shepherd of Israel? It s supposed to be Ahab, right? He says, I see them on the field of battle like sheep without a shepherd. He s saying, You re going to die. Their shepherd is going to be taken from them. And everyone is going to say To your own home because we don t have a king to fight for anymore. Then Ahab looks at Jehoshaphat and says, I told you this guy never says anything good about me. Why in the world would I want to listen to him? I don t like that message. I don t want that message. It s not a very good message. But it was God s message. Micaiah continues on and describes the vision God gave him of perhaps the inner workings of heaven, where God says Who is going to entice Ahab to attack Ramoth Gilead, so what would happen through the prophet Elijah would take place when Elijah had said, You re going to die because of what you ve done to Naboth and his vineyard. It says they suggested some things and then one spirit comes and says, I ll entice him. What are you going to do? I ll put lies into the mouths of his prophets and they will deceive him. We read this and we get a little troubled by it as sinners, don t we? That s not how we expect God should act. God, you re supposed to be a God of love, a God of patience, a God of forgiveness. How can you hand someone over to their own sinful deceits? I think this is what God says through Paul in Thessalonians. When people harden themselves so much he says, I will hand themselves over to their own delusions. That s what happened with Ahab. Ahab had killed God s prophets that brought him the Lord s message. He didn t want that message. Ahab had set up worship of Baal, a false God, and told people don t worship the Lord. He had hardened his heart again and again and again against the Lord and now the Lord gave him over to that own hardness. He had warned him through Elijah and he had given him many times and many prophets to listen to. Ahab refused to listen. And now God, who is a loving God and a God who wants to forgive, he is also a just God who speaks and then acts. This was the day he would act. I would say this though... whenever you and I read Scripture and we start thinking that God isn t acting the way we think he should act, the problem isn t God. The problem is us. When I don t understand God, it s because of me because I m a sinful human being. God is holy and perfect and divine and loving and just and all these things all at Page 3 of 6
the same time. I m a sinner. You re a sinner. We ve fallen and we can t understand God. If we could understand God, he d just be one of us. So be careful whenever you read Scripture and say, God, you re not acting the way I think you should, so I don t like it because then you re going to start moving from rock to sand. When you start relying on what you think about what God should do, that s dangerous. But we all tend to do that at one time or another. Ahab you heard didn t like Micaiah s message. He says, Take him back. This time throw him into a tougher prison. Don t give him anything but bread or water until I return. Can you imagine being Micaiah and hearing that message? You know he s not returning. He tells everyone, If you return, then I m a liar and I m not speaking God s Word. You re never going to return. Everyone pay attention to this. We aren t told what happened to Micaiah after that. We aren t told if he was let go. We don t know if he lived on bread and water until the day he died. We aren t told any of that. But he served the Lord faithfully. He proclaimed what God gave him to proclaim, even when it was hard for him and brought consequences for him that I wouldn t want. I don t think you d want to be thrown in prison with nothing but bread and water the rest of your life, would you? But he did it. Why? Because he believed in the promise of the Savior to come and to serve and honor the God who was going to save him from his sins. He served him faithfully in the holy ministry by standing firmly on the rock-solid truth of God s Word, no matter what it cost him, no matter what it might mean. I don t know if you know the rest of the story after this. Ahab and Jehoshaphat... Ahab must have been really dynamic and a really convincing and engaging guy because he went to Jehoshaphat and said, Okay, let s still go attack Ramoth Gilead. Here is how we are going to do it. You dress in your royal robes and in your royal chariot. We ll go to battle. I ll dress like a common ordinary soldier. That way they won t notice me. That s a good plan, isn t it? Let s go. Ready... break! And they went. Why in the world would Jehoshaphat do that? I don t get it. But he did it. And when the Arameans attacked, they saw him in his royal robes and they went at him. When they heard him cry out, they realized it wasn t Ahab. That s all we re told. I don t know why or how. So then they didn t continue attacking him. Sounds like God s hand to me. But a random arrow struck Ahab between the armor and he didn t die right away. The chariot went off to the side and sat there. He watched his army being defeated and then he finally did die. Then the cry went out, To your own home Israel. Then that chariot went back to Samaria, the capital city of the Northern Kingdom, and it says in Scripture they went to the pool where the prostitutes bathed and they washed out the chariot, and the blood that was washed out, the dogs came and fulfilled what Elijah told Ahab would happen to him. God kept his Word and Ahab did die. That s sad. What really makes it sad is not just his death. It s that he didn t believe the promises of the Savior to come, so he is going to be in hell. He is in hell. That s the true sadness of this story. Page 4 of 6
But that s what happens when you move off of the rock of what God says to the sand of what you want him to say or what you would like him to say or what you yourself have said. I think there s a danger in that, not just for Ahab, but it s a danger that lives there and is on the outer edges of our sinful heart every day of our lives as we live in this world. I think there are a couple things that Satan does. 1. He gets people to believe the lie of Don t read the Bible because you can make it say whatever you want and everyone can twist it and turn it into something else. Have you ever heard anyone say that or maybe you ve thought that yourself? I ve heard God s people say that. I don t believe it. I believe God is strong enough to communicate through his Word to touch our hearts and show us our sin and show us our Savior and strengthen us and encourage us and build us up. And if I can t understand it, I shouldn t be able to understand everything. He s a holy God. I m not. But there is plenty in there that you and I can understand. We can see his love and his grace and his forgiveness. We can see his promises. We can see all those things that we need to live with every day of our lives. So don t buy into that lie of Don t read the Bible. It s too hard to understand. No. Read the Bible. God will help you understand. God will bless you with his Spirit. 2. I think sometimes Satan trips up God s people when he gets God s people to call on God to keep a promise that God has never made. God never promised Micaiah being faithful was going to bring health, wealth and a great life. But we read it and look at it and think, God, why would you let that happen to Micaiah? Then when that happens to us, as we live on this side of heaven we face all kinds of struggles, all kinds of waves that come crashing into our life time and time again. Whether it s with relationships, whether it s with sickness, whether it s on the job, it s challenges that come to our faith and our life that makes us say, God, why are you letting this happen? Don t you love me? Satan wants us to believe that God has promised that everything is going to go like we would want it to and if it doesn t, that means God doesn t love us. God has never made those promises. God has been very specific in saying on this side of heaven there is going to be a lot of tough stuff. But he has also said Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. He has said, Surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. He has said, If I loved you enough to send my Son to take away your sins, do you think I m going to stop loving you? You and I sometimes want to make God keep a promise he has never made. That s a lie of Satan. When we start doing that, we re jumping off the rock and onto the sand. Don t jump onto the sand unless it s at a beach. When it comes to your life and your confidence in God, stay on the rock. Don t jump on the sand. Page 5 of 6
Where you see in your life or I see in my life that I have doubted God or you have doubted God or you have challenged God, don t make excuses. Don t say, Yeah, but if God would have done this, then that wouldn t have happened. Simply say, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. God longs, God is desperate to announce to sinners like Ahab or like you or like me that Jesus Christ took away your sins. The sins of your doubting of God s promises, your sins of trying to have God keep a promise he has never made, they are washed away in the body and the blood of Christ. That s God s promise to you. That s what he has done for us. Live in that. Then, more importantly, here s what we get to do... not only do we get to live on the rock of God s Word, we get to share that rock with one another. When we are struggling, we need a fellow believer to remind us of these truths. Don t just assume that your fellow believer knows all those promises. Don t assume that they are focused on them as they are going through tough times. Take the time to remind them of God s promises. Grab them by the hand and take them off the sand and onto the rock and help them to see how much their God loves them. That s what he s called us to do. That isn t a burden. That s a joy. Live in that joy. Amen. Page 6 of 6