1.
Grace,
mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word today comes from
1 Kings 22:1-23 (READ TEXT). It’s
entitled, “Hear the Word of the Lord,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
What
kind of a role reversal was this? A prophet of the Lord by the name of Micaiah
was telling wicked King Ahab of Israel to go ahead and do what he wanted to do,
with the Lord’s blessing! Needless to say, prophets of the Most High God weren’t
in the habit of telling wicked kings to fulfill their hearts’ desires. Another
topsy-turvy thing came when the king responded to Micaiah. King Ahab admonished
the prophet to tell him nothing but God’s own truth. Wicked kings generally did
not want to hear God’s own truth from the prophets.
3.
Really,
this role reversal only seemed to take place. Micaiah was being sarcastic when
he told King Ahab to do what he wanted, as must have been evident from his tone
of voice. As a prophet, Micaiah was saying what the Lord told him to say,
complete with the proper tone. Ahab, for his part, was simply being insulting.
He knew that he got God’s true Word from Micaiah every time, whether or not he
wanted to hear it. Furthermore, this time he knew Micaiah could say more. He was
curious to hear it all. The entire episode had begun when Ahab wanted to take
Ramoth-gilead back from Syria. Ramoth-gilead used to be Israelite territory
back when the kingdom was still united, all twelve tribes together. Ahab wanted
to annex it to his ten-tribe Northern Kingdom.
4.
In
preparation for the battle to re-take Ramoth-gilead, Ahab appealed for help to
the king of the Southern Kingdom, Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat was a godly king. It
was possible, even probable, that he would refuse to become involved in a plan
hatched by wicked Ahab. Somewhat surprisingly, though, Jehoshaphat committed
his troops and horses to the effort. Now Ahab was riding high. With
Jehoshaphat’s help, how could his plan fail? Some 400 prophets were quite
willing to assure Ahab that the Lord would grant him a smashing victory at
Ramoth-gilead. The king had grown cocky to the point of overconfidence.
5.
Yet
there remained one prophet Ahab did not bother to ask: Micaiah. Micaiah brought
the true message of the Lord, unlike the many prophets who turned out to have a
lying spirit in this case. Ahab complained that Micaiah never said anything
good about him. He was always prophesying things that wicked Ahab did not want
to hear. It could well have been that Micaiah was languishing in jail at the
time because he had not said good and pleasing things to and about the king in
the past.
6.
The
world often blames the messenger. It blames preachers. In fact, it blames Christians,
period. For we tell a wicked world that no one escapes God’s judgment. We tell
an irresponsible world that the Creator of all things has not stopped holding
people responsible. We say to a smug and self-assured world, “I don’t belong
to me. You don’t belong to you.”
7.
These
are things that people in authority often do not want to hear. For example, it can
strike legislators and other government officials as inconvenient and
politically incorrect, to say the least, to hear that in God’s creative design
marriage was, is, and should be the union of a man and a woman. But there are
other power structures, perhaps less formal but certainly no less real, where
the words and actions of Christians will not necessarily find a welcome. When
someone stands up to peer pressure and does the right thing, at any age, those
who have chosen to go along with the group will chafe with discomfort and
sometimes seethe with resentment. Even within the Church it can become
necessary to cling to God’s Word when others seem to have forgotten it. Yes, even
in the Church the supposed “good of the organization” can rank higher
in peoples’ minds than what the Lord says. Like the apostles of old and in
all sorts of settings, then, we say that we have to obey God instead of men.
That is something the world will not want to hear.
8.
The
old, sinful nature in us Christians does not want to hear it either. The sinful
nature does not want to hear anything God says, whether he speaks in curse or
blessing, judgment or forgiveness, whether he is giving us bad news or good.
Not surprisingly, when the time comes to step forward and be counted for
Christ, our old Adam backpedals furiously. If he takes a stand at all, he would
rather stick with the comfortable words from the four hundred lying prophets
than with the words from the one who tells God’s own truth. When Ahab did this,
it spelled disaster, and it still will. This is why, despite the protests of
the world outside us and the sinful nature within us, we desperately need God’s
Word. No less than the world around us, we need to hear the Word of the Lord. Only he can help us.
9.
There
was someone in the text who realized this. Jehoshaphat, the godly king of Judah,
wanted very much to hear what the Lord said. Although it may have seemed he was
tossing a bucket of water on the flames of Ahab’s ambition, Jehoshaphat
insisted on consulting the prophet Micaiah about the venture at Ramoth-gilead. God’s
people always want to hear his Word. Jesus said, “Whoever is from God hears
the words of God” (John 8:47).
10.
“God’s
Word cannot be without God’s people, and conversely, God’s people cannot be
without God’s Word.” (1 AE 41:150). That is, God’s Word will always touch human
hearts. Inherent in it lies all the creative power of the Creator God. It never
returns void. It always creates a people for the Lord, and these people will in
turn cling to his Word.
11.
God’s
people go back to his Word again and again. It remains our very source of life. For God’s Word not only shows us our sin;
it also shows us our Savior. Truthful and effective as God’s Word is in
pointing out our iniquity and the ways we do not deserve his love, so truthful
and effective it remains when it directs us to the crucified and risen Christ and
the forgiveness of our sins on account of him.
12.
On
account of Christ, God has a much better word for us than Micaiah had for Ahab in
the text. For God did not send his Son to condemn but to save. Jesus was like a
lightning rod for God’s wrath against sin and sinners. He took your
condemnation and mine, as our Substitute. When he rose from the dead it was to
proclaim not only his victory but also ours—our victory in him. For he died
under the weight of our sin, and he lived to tell the tale.
13.
One
word from this crucified and risen Lord changes everything. It is very
significant that on the first Easter, Jesus came right into the Upper Room
where his disciples were. These men had
abandoned him and even denied him. At the moment, they weren’t capable of standing
up to anyone. Any word from Jesus that they remembered now struck them as cold
comfort. Yet when the risen Lord stood in their midst—obviously alive and well,
yet still bearing the marks of the crucifixion—his word for them was “peace.”
He said it not once but twice. A word from the crucified and risen Christ
changed everything. his Word remains that powerful. We need to hear the powerful Word of this
powerful Lord.
14.
A
man bought a very sophisticated barometer at a store that specialized in
weather instruments. He brought it home and took it out of its box. To his
surprise, it was showing a pressure reading that was so low, it could only be
produced by a hurricane. Convinced he had a defective barometer, he boxed it
back up and walked out to his car. Determined as he was to return the
barometer, the man failed to notice that it had started to rain. He drove to
the store where he had purchased the barometer, but he found it closed, all the
windows boarded up. He drove back home and tried to telephone the store, but
all he got was an answering machine. Then he phoned the Better Business
Bureau, with the same result. Finally, after trying a number of other
places, the man called the police to ask why he could not reach a live person
anywhere downtown in the middle of the day. The police operator replied that everyone
must be at home—because of the hurricane!
15.
The
man who bought the barometer had his mind set on the one thing he wanted to hear:
that his barometer was broken. Maybe then he could get a new barometer or a refund.
He was wrong, though. The barometer had been right all along. We need to stay focused on God’s Word. No
less than the world around us, we need to hear the Word of the Lord. His Word
is right and powerful, right in everything it says. After all, it comes from him. Moreover, we
need this message of peace and life that brings God’s peace and life.
16.
As
for what we in our sin might want to hear, we never lack for people out who
will tell us things such things. Like Ahab with his four hundred prophets, we
can find their words very agreeable. Such words call for no penitence on our
part. They demand no change. They set us up for no potentially undesirable
situations. Then, too, they also bring no lasting peace and convey no eternal
forgiveness. Remember the message of Micaiah and the lesson of the barometer: hear
the Word of the Lord. Fix and focus on it.
This remains the way not only for individual Christians to be strong in
the Lord but also for the Church to draw strength from the rock of our
salvation. We need his Word no less than the wicked world around us. Hear
the Word of the Lord.
17.
Suppose
you were suddenly hauled up into court. Imagine how you would feel if the judge
read charge after charge against you, and suppose that the charges were valid.
You know so, and everyone else knows too. But then suppose that the judge
summarily were to pronounce you not guilty of each and every charge, one after
another. How much that pardoning word from the judge would mean to you! Of
course, you would delight in his pardoning word because it says you are not
guilty and free to go. You would also value the fact that the pardoning word
comes from none other than the judge. For unlike others in the courtroom, the
judge’s word really counts. One word from him changes everything. When he says
you are not guilty, you must be treated as not guilty by the court and all its
officers. They must let you go.
18.
Here
is the most important reason to cling to God’s Word. It pronounces you not guilty
on account of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of
the world. Therefore, hear the Word of the Lord. Now the peace that passes all understanding
guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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