Dr Greg Bahnsen - The Christian Mission: God's Inconvenient Word (Part 3)

Thank you again for the invitation to your pulpit, and I trust that the words that I leave you with this evening might prove helpful to you if you make a sincere effort to apply the material about the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that you have heard this weekend. The reason why I think you need to hear this message is because if you really do make a sincere effort to apply the truths about Christ's kingdom to this world, you're going to find that people don't like what you have to say. You're going to find it to be a very unpopular message, at least received as though it were a very unpopular message. You're going to have to say some things about the law of God and its application to our culture that people are going to find, if not totally unacceptable, certainly harsh and unbending and unloving. You're going to have to say some things about the way in which God saves people by his sovereign mercy, which will prove to be an insult to the autonomy and the free will of men. You're going to say things about the course of history that people find very hard to accept. In fact, you'll find some schools of theology are offended at the idea that the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ should be successful here on earth before he returns again. The idea that there's power in the gospel and that power is a saving, sovereign, redemptive power, and that with redemption comes a desire to lead a new life of holiness and following the objective standard of God's law. That kind of message, as sweet as it sounds to me, I cannot imagine people being upset with it upsets people. It upsets the world. It upsets those who are adherents of other religions. But the amazing thing is it upsets adherents of the Christian religion as well. And so tonight, what I'd like to preach to you about is God's inconvenient word as the standard of his kingdom. Please turn with me in your Bibles in the Old Testament, Book of 1st Kings 22 1st Kings 22. And I'll put this in just a little bit of historical context before we read Jehoshaphat, about whom we read in this text, is the king of the southern kingdom of Judah. Ahab is the king of the northern ten tribes of Israel. Ben Hadad is the leader of Syria, and Syria has previously been at war with Israel, the northern kingdom. So if you can keep your cast of players before you let's read now how Jehoshaphat comes and King Hab makes an offer to him that he should have refused. And they continued three years without war between Syria and Israel. And it came to pass in the third year that Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, came down to the king of Israel. And the king of Israel said unto his servants, know ye that Ramoth Gilead is ours, and we are still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria? And he said unto Jehoshaphat, wilt thou go with me to battle to Ramoth Gilead? And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses. And Jehoshaphat said unto the king of Israel, inquire first. I pray thee, for the word of Jehovah. The king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about 400 men, and said unto them, shall I go against Ramoth Gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, go up, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king. But Jehoshaphat said, is there not here a prophet of Jehovah besides that we may inquire of him? And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of Jehovah. Micaiah the son of Imlah. But I hate him, for he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, let not the king say so. Then the king of Israel called an officer and said, fetch quickly Micaiah the son of Imlab, now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, were sitting each on his throne, arrayed in their robes in an open place at the entrance of the gate of Samaria. And all the prophets were prophesying before them. And Zedekiah the son of Chanaanah made him horns of iron and said, thus saith Jehovah, with these shalt thou push the Syrians until they be consumed? And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, go up to Ramoth, Gilead and prosper, for Jehovah will deliver it into the hand of the king. And the messenger that went to call Micaiah spake unto him, saying, behold, now the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth. Let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak thou good. And Micaiah said, as Jehovah liveth what Jehovah saith unto me, that will I speak. And when he was come to the king, the king said unto him, micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth? Gilead, to battle, or shall we forbear? And he answered him, go up and prosper. Jehovah will deliver it into the hand of the king. And the king said unto him, how many times shall I adjure thee that thou speak unto me nothing but the truth in the name of Jehovah? And he said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the mountains as sheep that have no shepherd. And Jehovah said, these have no master. Let them return every man to his house in peace. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, did I not tell thee that he would not prophesy good concerning me but evil? And Micaiah said, therefore hear thou the word of Jehovah. I saw Jehovah sitting on his throne and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And Jehovah said, who shall entice Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth, Gilead? And one sat on this manner and another sat on that manner. And there came forth a spirit and stood before Jehovah and said, I will entice him. And Jehovah said unto him, wherewith? And he said, I will go forth and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, thou shalt entice him and shalt prevail also. Go forth and do so. Now, therefore, behold, Jehovah hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and Jehovah hath spoken evil concerning thee. Then Zedekiah the son of Chenanah came near and smote Micaiah on the cheek and said, which way went up the spirit of Jehovah from me to speak unto thee. And Micaiah said, behold, thou shalt see on that day when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself. And the king of Israel said, take Micaiah, carry him back unto Ammon the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son, and say, thus saith the king, put this fellow in the prison and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction until I come in peace. And Micaiah said, if thou return at all in peace, Jehovah hath not spoken by me. And he said, hear ye, peoples, all of you. And thus far the reading of God's word. I have a riddle for you. How is the Word of God not like McDonald's? How is it that the Word of God is not like McDonald's? Well, what's McDonald's like, I suppose the one thing that we'd have to give credit to McDonald's for, anything else that you want to say against it is fine, but you'd have to say this. McDonald's has made a great success in offering people their meal conveniently. You go in and the menu is just about the same in every McDonald's restaurant you go to. They try to make it low priced. They keep the offerings simple and few. They try to make it very convenient, deliver their food quickly. In fact, you can even drive through most McDonald's. They want to make it extremely convenient. And that's why McDonald's has been such a great success in American culture, because American people want convenience. We don't want to be inconvenienced. We don't want to have things become obstacles in the way of our desires. We, we want to be able to get what we want the way we want it and to get it quickly without having to fight it, without having to be disciplined, without having to struggle. We want convenience. And that's how the Word of God is not like McDonald's. McDonald's knows the desires people have and they try to meet those desires. And the Word of God is the very opposite of that. The Word of God does not play to the convenience of people. The Word of God doesn't bend, doesn't fit in like Plato into just any configuration you want because you have some idea of where you think you should be going and what you desire. The Word of God is extremely inconvenient. Obviously, the Word of God is inconvenient to those who despise it, to those who reject it, to those who are unbelievers. They find it inconvenient that a word from God should come and tell them that they are wrong. The thing that distresses me tonight, however, is that the Word of God is so very often inconvenient to those who claim to follow it. The Word of God is inconvenient because it doesn't say what they want it to say. And what it does say strikes them as so hard, so harsh, so unbelievable, so difficult that it needs to be smoothed out and worn down and fit into the groove that our culture is in. We have churches that want the Word of God not to offend people. That's the last thing we want, is for the Word of God to take visitors and drive them away. We don't see what a blessing it is to have the Word of God offend people. The Word of God does not offend people. Basically, the Word of God tells them you're all right just the way you are. It can't correct, it can't heal, it can't change the direction of people's lives and their cultures if it doesn't offend them. And yet we have churches that don't want an offensive word, don't want an inconvenient word. We have churches that want a word that fits in with where people are going, that gives them what they want, that tickles their ears. Even evangelicals, sad to say, even evangelicals have trouble accepting what the word of God has to teach when the word of God teaches something awkward or hard like the doctrine of everlasting damnation, the doctrine of hell. At a recent meeting, a national meeting of the national association of Evangelicals, the doctrine of hell was put to a vote among the delegates there. Yeah, a lot of good that'll do, right? We're going to vote hell out of existence. Here's the thing that distresses me. Evangelicals having trouble with the doctrine of hell. So that by a slight majority, the slightness doesn't really take much away from my heartache here. By a slight majority, the doctrine of hell lost. Many of these evangelicals will not proclaim the doctrine of hell. People don't want to hear that kind of message. How depressing. They want to hear something that makes them feel good. And hell certainly is not a comfortable, convenient doctrine. And so tonight we look at the inconvenience of God's word. And I'd like you to consider 1 Kings 22 as a very instructive lesson about the inconvenience of God's word. I already told you we had some main characters here, the first of which is Ahab. King Ahab was the king of the northern 10 tribes of Israel. The Bible tells us in 1st Kings 16. If we had time to do a little Bible study tonight, that King Ahab was the most evil ruler that Israel had seen. King Ahab was a horrible man. King Ahab fight followed the BAAL and Baalim and the Asherah. That is to say, he followed the idols, the pagan gods, even the sexual fertility cults of the northern tribes. King Ahab did not love Jehovah, did not love Jehovah's law. And that is seen also in that he married a woman who hated God. He married Jezebel from the area of Sidon. He married a pagan woman, a covenant breaking woman. It's Ahab the king who had assembled the 450 prophets of Baal against Elijah on Mount Carmel in the 18th chapter of First Kings, you read about that. He brought the prophets of BAAL against one lone prophet of God. And you know how that turned out. Now maybe you can explain to me afterwards. I don't understand this. Ahab saw the 450 prophets lose shamefacedly. He saw them slaughtered for their rebellion against God. And one man, Elijah, stands against them and wins the battle. And yet Ahab still does not change his heart. Ahab does not change the direction of his life. And so in the 20th chapter of 1 Kings, we read that God sent another prophet to Ahab. He sent him a prophet who would announce that Jehovah would give an extremely incredible, a very unlikely victory to Ahab over Ben Hadad. Now, Ben Hadad was the leader of the Syrian host. The Syrians were a very, very feared army. The Syrians had been fighting with the northern tribes. Their capital was Samaria. So you had the Syrians and the Sumerians fighting against the Arabs other for quite a while. And the prophet of God tells Ahab, jehovah is going to deliver Ben Hadad into your hands. And Ben Hadad is under the ban. That may not mean a lot to you if you don't read Hebrew, but you have to understand this expression to be under the ban. It means he is devoted. Not devoted, as you know, hopelessly devoted. To you, as you know our cultures, devoted means given over to destruction like a whole burnt offering. God has devoted Ben Hadad to destruction. And you, Ahab, will be the instrument of that destruction. You, Ahab, will now make Ben Hadad pay for his sins. But when God delivers Israel and gives a great victory over Ben Hadad, and instead of executing Ben Hadad at the direction of God, Ahab made a treaty with him. We read of that in First Kings, chapter 20. And because Ahab dared to defy the covenant word of God, God then pronounced punishment upon Ahab. He said, you will die now in the place of Ben Hadad. Obviously, God's honor was not uppermost in the mind of Ahab. He lived for other things than to be inconvenienced by the honor of God. God's justice was not sacred to Ahab. As a king. He was willing to violate the law of God as long as he got his way. We read that Ahab went up to his summer palace one day and he saw next to his own land a vineyard of a man named Naboth. And he wanted that vineyard very badly. In fact, he pouted that he didn't have that vineyard. And so his wicked wife, Jezebel came and said, what are you doing? Pouting. You're a king. Don't you understand what kings do? Kings can have anything they want. So Ahab, stop being such a wimp, get up and just take it. And so Ahab has a false charge brought against Naboth. Naboth is killed. Ahab seizes the vineyard. And for this, Elijah prophesied to Ahab and he said, for the murder of Naboth, because you seized his vineyard and you ruled in injustice, the dogs will lick your blood. Ahab was unfaithful in the face of foreign enemies of God's kingdom. He was unfaithful toward the members of God's kingdom. He lacked obedient faith in terms of the kingdom of God. He was a wicked king. Now let's turn from Ahab for a minute. Jehoshaphat we read comes down to Ahab. That sounds a bit strange because if you look at it on a map, Ahab's up in the north. Jehoshaphat's down here in the south. The Bible says he came down to Ahab. Get it? Came down to Ahab. Wait a minute. That's going up. Well, because Jehoshaphat ruled from Jerusalem. He came down from the mountains to the plains to go up north to Ahab. Jehoshaphat was the fourth king of Judah. He was a good king, basically fortified the area with its military. He reformed the administration of justice in Jerusalem. He resisted idolatry. He had the law of God taught throughout the land. He made peace with the northern tribes, so that civil war was put away. And we read that after the incident in the text before us, Jehoshaphat humbly prayed to Jehovah to save Judah against an alliance of Moab, Ammon, Syria and Edom. In Second Chronicles 17, as well as 2 Chronicles 19, we read that Jehoshaphat was a good king after the heart of God. And that brings me to my first point, the shame of this alliance. Then what was Jehoshaphat doing in the court of Ahab? What was a child of God doing having fellowship with a child of the wicked one? What was a covenant keeping king doing visiting a covenant breaking king like Ahab? You have to remember that the northern tribes existed as a separate kingdom in defiance of the word of God to David. God had said that David and his seed would occupy the throne until the coming of the Messiah. But Ephraim, the northern tribes had opposed Judah. The southern tribes separated completely from the house of Judah and took an audacious stand against the Lord. Against his sovereign direction in the affairs of his people. The very existence of the 10 tribes was an insult to the covenant God made with King David. And we don't see the representative of the 10 tribes going then to the King of Judah. We rather see Judah following along behind Israel. Jehoshaphat sought out Ahab and Jehoshaphat took a subordinate position to the leadership of Ahab. A child of God has no friendly place in the palace of an idolatrous murderer. He has no place making common cause with someone who is under the explicit condemnation of God's prophet. And I would have you as God's people. Remember that principle. You come out from among them, touch no unclean thing. You are not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. What fellowship does light have with darkness? What fellowship does Christ have with Belial, the evil one? Remember that in terms of your business associations. Remember that in terms of who you date and who you marry. God's children do not make covenant with those who violate the covenant of God. It's true that the 10 tribes and the two tribes had the same patriarch, that unitedly they were God's people. So Jehoshaphat is correct when he says, I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses. But of course, the leadership in that united people belonged to the one God had chosen, not to those who had autonomously, in a self willed fashion, pulled out to do their own thing. Well anyway, we have God's king in the court of the wicked one's king. After the war with Ben Hadad, I already told you, Ahab made a treaty with Ben Hadad. And according to our text, there had been three years without war between them. Now, as part of the treaty that Ahab made with Ben Hadad, Syria was supposed to return to Israel all the cities that it had conquered and taken away from the 10 tribes. But Ahab, after three years, apparently came to the opinion that an insult and an injustice had been done to him. Because he looks at Ramus Gilead and thinks that Ramoth Gilead was one of the former possessions of Israel. Ben Hadad hasn't surrendered political sovereignty over it. And this just drove him nuts. It made him angry, it made him indignant. Ramoth Gilead is still in the hands of Assyria. What are we doing? We're doing nothing about this, Ahab says. And so now Ahab becomes bold and he proposes, lets go back to war. We'll take Ramoth Gilead by force. We'll show this Ben Hadad well Jehoshaphat had no business in the court of Ahab. He had no business surrendering leadership and sovereignty to someone who defied covenant with God and was under God's condemnation. But even in that situation, the child of God doesn't completely look, lose contact with his moral foundations. And so you can see Jehoshaphat kind of, you know, the twinge of conscience, saying, well, wait a minute, Ahab, before we leave, shouldn't we consult a word from God? Don't you love it when people do that, make up their mind what they're going to do? And they say, but maybe we should look at the Bible first. You know, they've already made up their minds. And so they go to the Bible to see if maybe the Bible just wouldn't make them feel like what they've already decided is, okay, the Jehoshaphat says, shouldn't we inquire of Jehovah before we go to battle like this? So Ahab, you can imagine Ahab saying, boy, this guy is a religious fanatic. Okay, you want to hear from the prophets? We'll trot the prophets out here, we'll make them do their thing, go through their ritual, say what needs to be said, then we'll get on with what we want to do. Right now, who are these prophets? 400 of them. Ahab has. We know that the prophets of BAAL have already been executed and publicly humiliated just recently. So very likely these 400 prophets were not prophets of the living God. In reality, though they thought they were. They say they're prophesying in the name of Jehovah. Very likely they were prophets of the gold calves of the northern 10 tribes. We know that the northern kingdom persistently fell into the idolatry of the golden calves. And if you go back to the original instance of the golden calf there at the foot of Mount Sinai, hopefully you'll remember the Bible story that when Israel followed the golden calf, Israel thought it was following Jehovah. This was Jehovah to the Israelites, an outright blatant violation of the second commandment. But they wanted a representation of Jehovah, and they thought the golden calf was it. I would suggest then that what we have here probably are prophets of the golden calves of the northern kingdom who think they're prophesying in the name of Jehovah, although all along what they're doing is contrary to his law. And we read in the story that the Lord apparently had sent a lying spirit among the prophets of Ahab. Isn't that dreadful? You hear what I Just said God sent a lying spirit into them to mislead them, to deceive them. And that means that when they spoke the things they did, they should not be seen as uttering deliberate lies. Because the lying spirit had deceived them. They believed this nonsense that they were speaking. They thought it was true. They had come to believe that Ahab would be successful in this proposal to go up and get Ramoth Gilead. In fact, you notice how Zedekiah genuinely felt. The spirit of the Lord spoke through him. When Micaiah comes in and contradicts Zed, Zedekiah, Zedekiah comes and smacks him on the cheek. He says, now tell me, how did the spirit of Jehovah leave me and come to you? He's indignant, he's insulted. Of course, I'm a religious man. My credentials are impeccable. I speak for God. So who are you? Micaiah? Here we find the worst of deceptions for two reasons. One, because it's religious in nature. When the prophets speak this way and they think that they have God standing behind them, do you understand how much harder that makes it to convince them that they're wrong? There's nothing worse than a sinner who sins with pious intention. Because as long as you think it's piety that impels you, very hard for you ever to believe it could be sin. That scares me because in our day and age I run into this all the time. People who do things which openly violate the teaching of God's word, and yet they say the Spirit led me to do it. And so if the Spirit led me to do it, then of course it can't be wrong. It's easier to convince a pagan of his sin than to take somebody like that who thinks the Holy Spirit has sanctioned their rebellion against God's word. So it's the worst of deceptions, one, because it was religious, but two, because it was self deception. They had actually brought themselves to believe this. They had actually distorted the evidence and rationalized enough that they came to believe this little bit of hope they are offering Ahab. And when a person is self deceived, there's not much chance that he or she will drop the sham and admit the truth. Because you see, your own worst enemy has become yourself when you're self deceived. Well, apparently all the hubbub of all the prophets and so forth had not drowned out the inner voice of conscience in Jehoshaphat. Apparently he wasn't persuaded even by 400 prophets. He wasn't persuaded even though they had a unanimous vote of confidence in Ahab and his coming victory. And so Jehoshaphat, well, you can imagine, you know, he's already been embarrassed by having to play the religious line late in the game by saying, well, Ahab, before we go, shouldn't we ask God about this? Ahab says, okay, we'll go through the drill. And he goes through the drill. And now Jehoshaphat's saying, well, I'm not really satisfied, Ahab, don't you think there's a prophet of Jehovah we could consult? He just wasn't satisfied. These ministers of Ahab were on the straight and narrow. And now we find very interestingly. Apparently Ahab had a strange, magical heathen view of prophecy. Because Ahab knows that there's a prophet available that he can call on, but he doesn't want to call on this prophet because he'll only speak evil about me. You see, Ahab thinks that if the prophet says it, it's kind of like a magic word, abracadabra. And it happens. So I've got to keep the prophet from saying it. Which is simply to say that Ahab essentially saw God controlled by the word of the prophets rather than the prophets controlled by the word of God. So he didn't want this Micaiah to come out, but Jehoshaphat pushes him. And so Ahab says, alright, go fe fetch this guy. I'm telling you, Jehoshaphat, he's just going to come out here and he's going to make a fool of himself. He's going to embarrass himself, he's going to say bad things about me and it's going to be really awkward and nasty. Joshua says, go get him. And so the messenger is sent to get Micaiah. And as the messenger comes to Micaiah, I want you to see how he pleads with Micaiah. And I want you to see it because I dare say you will hear. I have heard the same line being used even within the Church of Jesus Christ, even in Presbyterian churches in our day. He comes to Micaiah, he says, look Micaiah, everybody else has said it's okay. So don't go out there and make trouble. You're going to lose anyway. No need for a minority report here, Micaiah. It's 400 to 1 even if you disagree. So you ever think you're going to get a good pulpit? Micaiah, if you go out there and fight against the majority, you're just going to be seen as a troublemaker so help yourself out. Just go out there, play the part, say what Ahab wants to hear. What's up to you. If you're right, great, he wins. And if you're wrong, he loses. But you still have your reputation. So think about it, Micaiah. Go out there and speak good. Don't speak evil about the king. The prophets are all together. You're just going to have to face retaliation, so why not fit in? Say the convenient thing, Micaiah, have you ever felt that you were in that position to say the convenient thing? Have you ever been to a family party and you know someone in the family saying things which you know calls for the truth to be uttered? In contrast, you probably have someone in your family. I know I do in mine. Someone in your family who's always trying to make sure no one causes trouble at family parties. So just keep your prayer Christianity to yourself. Just kind of fit in, you know, it's no big deal. Everybody has the right to believe whatever they want. So don't make a scene, please. Everyone disagrees with you, so just. And so Micaiah comes before King Ahab. I love what he does here. Although you may not be able to tell if you just read the verse out of context. He apparently came in and very sarcastically told Ahab exactly what he wanted to hear. You can almost imagine Micaiah coming and says, ahab, you want. You're thinking about going up to Ramoth Gilead, is that right? Got this battle plan all worked out. You'd like to win. 400 people have told you you're going to win. Hey, who am I? Of course. Go up. It's going to be a great day for you, Ahab. You're bound to win. Raymond Gilead. Go take it. It's your yours. Sure. Aha. And we know that he's being sarcastic because Ahab is the one who says. How many times I have to tell you? Don't lie to me. Tell me the truth. Isn't that amazing? He doesn't want the truth. And here he is. Give me the truth. You don't want the truth. I want the truth. Okay, I'm going to give you the truth. He says, I saw all Israel scattered upon the mountains as sheep that have no sheep shepherd. And Jehovah said, these have no master. Let them return every man to his house in peace and immediately. See, Ahab knows that. You know this image of sheep without a shepherd? That means the leader of the people is struck down. It's a common image in the Bible. Ahab knows exactly what he's saying. And so as soon as he utters these things, he turns to Jehoshaphat and he says, didn't I tell you? Didn't I tell you? He is not going to say anything good about me. He's only going to speak evil. And now there he goes. He's saying, I'm going to die. He's saying, I'm not coming back. The sheep will be scattered. And so, on the one hand, Micaiah answers the fool according to his folly, and he doesn't like it. And then he answers the fool, not according to his folly, tells him the truth, and he doesn't like it either. Does that tell you anything about defending the faith? That's not what the message is on tonight. But as an assumption side, don't be surprised when unbelievers don't like whatever you say. You can't please them. You use their presuppositions and drive them to absurdity. Then they get upset. And if you refuse to use their presuppositions lest you become a fool like them, then they get upset. And so you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If that's the case, then I suppose you'd better be faithful to the Lord, not worry about how the unbeliever responds to you. But nevertheless, Micaiah knew that explanation. Experience. When Ahab demanded the truth, Micaiah gave the truth, even in an unfavorable atmosphere, as Micaiah had told the messenger who fetched him. As surely as Jehovah lives, I can speak only what the Lord says. It won't do me any good to try to alter the message. It won't do me any good to try to fit it into your preconceived desires. Because it's the word of God that governs everything. The word of God is not going to be other than what it is. The truth is not going to change just because you don't like it. I want you to note the conspicuous contrast that Micaiah draws between the earthly kings who we have been told are sitting in their royal array in the open court of Samaria. There they are, with all their pomp and circumstance and their regal clothing. And Micaiah says that he has seen the Lord. He has seen God Almighty sitting upon his heavenly throne and all the host of heaven before him. That's the way to preach to kings. I despise those people who go to White House preaching sessions and cow and scrape before the dignitaries of this land. We speak in the name of God Almighty. And Micaiah says, you can sit with all your robes, but I saw the Lord. He's the king. And here's what the Lord said. And you need to take that into account, whether you like it or not. And the vision God had given Micaiah was one where Israel has lost its shepherd. The sheep are scattered. They have to go home without a leader. In the days of Moses, Moses was concerned that Israel would be like sheep without a shepherd. And God made the provision of Joshua to lead them in the days of David. We see David concerned in Psalm 78 that Israel would be like sheep without a shepherd. And the promise of God is that he will send a shepherd to rule over them. Who is the great shepherd that's going to come? Obviously, it's the good shepherd himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one who will unite the people of God. He's the only one who will keep them safe and sound and guide them to their eternal home. In the ninth chapter of Matthew's gospel, in verse 36, we read that Jesus had compassion on the crowds, for he saw them as sheep who were without a shepherd. Micaiah says, you're no king, Ahab. You're not going to last. You're going to go by the by, just like the rest. And God will fulfill his prophecy that you will die. Now, we didn't read the rest of the story, but I think you'll find it fascinating. Ahab is such a squirmy, wormy. This guy is incredible. But you have to wonder, who's the worst, Ahab or Jehoshaphat? Ahab figures. I think I'll hedge my bets. You say I'm going to come back, then I'm not going to come back, then I'm going to die. Well, then I think what I'll do is I'll go into battle just like any other soldier. And he goes to Jehoshaphat. He goes, now look, you wear the royal robes. You look so much better in them, Jehoshaphat. Why don't you go in battle? And they'll look at you and say, hey, there's the king. Pretty good idea, huh? What's with Jehoshaphat? He buys into this plan. Okay, we'll do this. So they go into battle. Now, what's going to happen to Ahab? Micaiah said, you're going to die. In fact, Ahab gets so angry at the word of Micaiah, he says, drag him off to prison. Feed him the bread of affliction. Until I come back. Oh, I love the spunkiness of Micaiah. Micaiah says, what makes you think you're coming back? Didn't I speak in the name of Jehovah? And you can say, they're dragging him out. You know what a movie this would make? It's great. He gets to the door, I'm sure, and keeps his foot in the door. One last word. You listen to me, people. If he comes back alive, I didn't speak. By Jehovah. Drug off to prison. That's the last we hear of Micaiah. The bread of affliction for this poor fellow. Ahab doesn't like that. And so he hedges his bets and gets Jehoshaphat to be the visible king. Goes into battle, and the soldiers see Jehoshaphat. They chase after him. Jehoshaphat says, hey, you got the wrong guy. Got the wrong guy. Look, I'm not Ahab. Your beast's not with me. And you might think, well, then they turn and they search out and find Ahab and finally kill him. No, God wants all the glory for this. And so we read that there was a soldier in the Syrian army who apparently was down to his last arrow. And he's thinking, oh, well, I'll just shoot this arrow. There's a crowd of soldiers over there. I'll just shoot it into the crowd and we'll see if anything comes of it at a venture. The Bible says he draws his bow and sends it into the air, and the arrow comes down. And, you know, if he had wanted to do this, if he had been even closer and could have taken aim, he probably could not have done it. If you know what the armor was like in those days. He had to hit the joint of the armor as the arm is extended, so there's just one little strip that's exposed as the arm moves back and forth. And apparently as Ahab moved his arm, the arrow comes down and he's killed. If you ever have any doubt in your mind about the word of God reaching its target, read this story. God takes an arrow shot by chance, as we say, and brings it right, right into the heart of Ahab. Struggles to his chariot, dies in his chariot. And as it's taken back to Samaria and his blood is washed out, the dogs of Samaria lick his blood, just like the word of Jehovah had said. Micaiah said, if you come back at all, God hasn't spoken through me. Well, it's getting late. What kind of word is God's word? It's an inconvenient word. And what God calls upon us to do is to be willing to speak his inconvenient word because he has spoken it. Regardless of what the majority say, regardless of the unanimous vote against us, regardless of the unpopularity of what we have to say, we speak in the name of Jehovah, and therefore we don't. You don't mess with the message. Messengers of God have no right to try to make the message more palatable to their audience. So I'm going to ask you, as the people of God, what kind of prophet do you want? What kind of preacher do you want? What kind of elders do you want? What kind of witnesses do you want to be for the Lord? Do you want to be like Zedekiah, the man who pleases other men with his optimistic message? Are you willing to be a micaiah who represents God and speaks the truth, whether people like it or not? In Isaiah, the 30th chapter, verse 10, Isaiah the prophet has been called to speak a word of condemnation to Israel. And it's interesting how Isaiah speaks of the people. Isaiah 30, verse 10. In the ninth verse we've read, there are rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of Jehovah, that say to the seers, see not, and to the prophets, prophesy not. Unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things. Don't tell us what is right, tell us what is easy to accept smooth things. You know, there are preachers who are constantly in the business. They think of smoothing out the word of God for people so they can accept it more readily. There are people who in the church want their preacher to be like them. There are people who, when they testify at work or in their family or to their neighbors, want to smooth out the word of God, who are, as it were, embarrassed by what the word of God says. Don't prophesy right things to us, smooth it out. What does Paul say in 2 Timothy 4:3 4? Paul speaks to Timothy the pastor about this same problem. 2nd Timothy 4:3. The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and turn aside unto fables. The time will come when they'll no longer want preaching preachers who tell them the truth. They'll want preachers that will tickle their ears. And boy, we got a lot of preachers in our day that will tickle ears. We've got one out in Southern California has A huge glass house that he's very proud of. And he can tickle ears. He draws them in by the thousands, makes the big bucks. And he's written a book in which he says we can't preach about sin anymore because that just doesn't go down well with 20th century people. We've got to tell them that everything's going to be just okay and that God loves them. God's very concerned about them. And this whole idea of repentance and sin and all that is just really old fashioned and ugly and it won't sell anyway. So let's just smooth it out and tickle their ears and tell them what they want to hear. We have evangelical churches that will not preach repentance. They'll preach faith. They'll preach that if you assign a decision card that Jesus will be your savior, but that you have to turn from sin. Oh, we don't want to tell people that that's too inconvenient, that's unpleasant. People don't want to know about that. And so essentially we preach that you can live like hell and go to heaven. You don't have to repent. Just believe Jesus died for all the sins you're committing and don't worry about turning from them because Jesus died for them all anyway. And by the way, while you're at it, these evangelicals will please people by telling them that when they do believe in Jesus, they did it because their own free will was exercised to make them Christians. And they despise those who say no. The Bible says you didn't choose me. I chose you, that you love me because I first loved you. I took the initiative, I paid the price. I changed your heart. And therefore, because it's all of grace, you owe me everything. We don't want a God like that. And so we have evangelicals who please people and won't preach the gospel. We have people in Reformed churches that want worship services that please and entertain people. You think that's why we come to church, to be entertained? Well then why do we worry about drama and dance and worship if we're not trying to please men? We have Reformed churches that won't practice discipline. You know how unhappy people get when you have admonitions, when you have excommunications in your church. Boy, I tell you, people aren't going to go to your church. We have Reformed churches that don't want to preach the law of God as the basis of repentance because, well, the law of, of God says things that are real. Actually, they're embarrassing to us today. Inconvenient things in the Bible put aside so that we will not offend men. Paul says in Romans 3, verse 4, Let God be true, though all men are liars. If God says it and you have the whole world lined up against it, you can conclude the whole world world is full of liars. The word of God doesn't bend for our desires. The word of God is sovereign in our affairs. God doesn't care that you don't like it. Have you ever told that to somebody? Well, I wouldn't want a God like that. You have to say, God doesn't care what you like. It's just because you're following what you like that you're in trouble with the Almighty. What do you mean you don't want a God like that? You think God is going to let you make him after your own image? You've got it backwards. He made you as his image, now live up to it. Let God be true, though all men are liars. Paul puts it this way. In Galatians, the first chapter, verses 9 and 10, Paul says, as we have said before, so I say again, now, if any man preaches unto you any gospel other than that which you received, let him be accursed. And listen to what Paul adds to this. For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ. Oh, if I had my way. If I had my way, a lot of things would change in the church. But if I had my way, every ordination sermon would be preached right out of that. And if I would please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. You cannot be a representative of God the Almighty. You cannot declare the word of his kingdom. If you think you have the right to try to please the audience. And so I have a question for you. What kind of preacher do you want? Really? You want a preacher like that? You want a Micaiah who says, as the Lord lives, what the Lord says? That's what I'll say. You want elders like that? You want a church that practices that? Do you want to be people who are witnesses for God? In that vein, are you willing then to eat the bread of affliction like Micaiah had to, so that God's people might have the bread of life? I have a second question. Not just what kind of prophet do you want and do you want to be, but what kind of word do you think we need for Our day, Micaiah said, the only word that I can preach is what God has given me. And I want to suggest that there are at least three things that we need in our day. First, we need a word of warning. Secondly, we need a word of offense. And thirdly, we need a word of great joy and salvation. First, a word of warning. If we would be faithful servants of God in the advance of his kingdom, then we need to be willing to say things which sound very pessimistic, very down, very hard, very harsh. Because of the deadly religious peril of our day, my friends, we in the church today are proclaiming essentially the lifestyle of the world. Our thoughts are no longer directed upward to hear what God Almighty says, that we might be a light to the world. We take the darkness of the world and throw that back up toward God as though that would please him. In the church, we have as much preaching of tolerance toward sin as I hear in the secular university. You're not going to like to hear that, but I'm telling you the truth. I here in the church, from a philosophical and theological standpoint, as much preaching of tolerance of evil as I see in the secular university, I dare say the church has become the vague reflection of what the university sells much better than we do. At least they make it very interesting. They make it challenging. And we just take it and warm it over and offer it back to our people. Like, who could ever think there's an absolute right or wrong? Wrong. Don't you know that right and wrong is a democratic thing in the church? We have gone along with the deadly tolerant spirit of our day and also the consequences of sin, because our culture teaches that if anything is worthwhile, it must be pleasurable. And we dance that dance in the church too. So we try to make Christianity pleasurable. Why should you become a Christian? Because it will make you happy. Why come to church? Because it's a better entertaining program than what's on TV tonight. You see, the church has forgotten the need for a word of warning that God is angry about sin. And if you want to know what sin is, you're going to have to know about the law of God. We need churches that will proclaim the law of God and God's wrath against those who break his law. Like it or not, We need a word of warning. But we need a word of offense, too. In our day and age, I'm afraid the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and the whole doctrine of blood atonement has been almost forgotten. We? You preach salvation, but do you Ever hear preachers explain what salvation is all about and how God takes care of man's sin problem? I want to tell you why preachers don't get more explicit than they usually do. Because when you get right down to it, God says, if you're going to be saved, someone has to die in your place. And the world hates that message. The world has always hated that message. In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul tells us, the Jews find that a stumbling blood block. And the Greeks, the philosophers of this world, they find it foolishness. I assure you, they find it foolishness. When I was a graduate student in philosophy, taking an advanced course in ethics, one of the leading libertarian philosophers of our day, and also one of the best teachers of philosophy in our day from the standpoint of pedagogy and knowing its material, knew that I was a seminary graduate and constantly taunted me as he taught his course by throwing out little jibes like, well, of course, what kind of justice is it for one man to die for the sins of others? The world hates that idea. The world finds the doctrine of blood atonement barbaric and old fashioned. That Jesus should have to shed his blood and die on the cross for the sins of his people is a reproach to men. If the church would get back on the track in our day, it must not only preach a word of warning, the wrath of God against lawbreakers, it must also preach the word of offense, the word of the cross of Jesus Christ. Remember how Paul said that that is all he would preach, is Christ and him crucified, like it or not. And thirdly, we need a word of joy and salvation in our day and age. If you do understand God's law and God's anger towards sin, and you do understand this offensive, foolish message of blood atonement through the cross of Christ, then there's really good news that God has for you. Then the joy of salvation can be understood. Now isn't that an irony? What I'm telling you is when we preach the high demands and the truthfulness of God's word, as hard as it may seem at the beginning to people, in the end, it is a wonderful glorious message that brings relief to our souls and joy forevermore. Jay Gresham Machen once said, there's a hero for the 20th century if you want one. J. Gresham Machen once said, a high view of the law makes men seekers after grace. A low view of the law allows legalism. If you want people to understand the grace of God, then you must Preach a word of warning. You must preach the offensive cross of Christ. And then they will understand and appreciate that the good shepherd has come, that his people not be scattered any longer, and has given his life for the sheep. How is the word of God? Not like McDonald's. It's inconvenient, that's how. Today's churches are crowded, where Zedekiah and prophets like him are holding forth and hungry souls are asking the question that Jehoshaphat asked. Isn't there a prophet of Jehovah that we may inquire of him? And in a day like that, I'm going to plead with you to have a pastor, to have elders, and to be people of God who are like Micaiah, who will say as the Lord lives, what Jehovah says. That's what I'll speak. Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, we do hallow your holy name. We do thank you that you are such a wonderful God. We bow before you in your sovereignty. We acknowledge that your claims are above all the earth. We acknowledge that you are unchallengeable. We acknowledge that you are right in all that you say, that you have no one who can counsel you. We acknowledge our place of humble dependence before you, that we would be nothing without you, that there is no good thing we enjoy in this world were it not for a gift that you have given, given us by your grace. We acknowledge that we would not live. We would not be enlightened to your word. We would not have salvation at all were it not for your love that sought us out and drew us to yourself. We thank you that you've given us life. We thank you that you've given us the word of life. We thank you that we have your holy word to guide us and pray that by your holy Spirit, we we would be more faithful to it, that we would recognize that we have no right before you to subtract from what you have said or to add to what you have said to make it more pleasing to men. O God, grip us tonight with a full realization that we must not be those who please men, but seek only to please you, to be faithful to you, to long for that day when we will stand, stand before you and hear the word of benediction. Well done, good and faithful servant. O Lord, help us to love and to bow before your inconvenient word and to be Micaiah's in a day that hates your word. And we do pray that you would give your word success. For we know that if we are faithful to it, it is able to break through the barriers of sin and rebellion and unbelief. We know that truly the gates of hell will not prevail against your church as it is faithful to its master, to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.