“‘…but I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.’” 1 Kings 22.8 NKJV
Ahab, probably the worst king in Israel’s history, spoke his heart here. Nobody likes a prophet, and this is because they usually preach the same message: repentance. It’s the message God gave to Jonah for Nineveh, and even Jonah hated it so much that he set a course for the end of the world to get away from both God and His message.
Part of our study through Jonah for the next seven weeks will include the question of what it means to be chosen. Jonah was a lot like Ahab; an exclusivist who wanted what he wanted and wasn’t much interested in truth, in the final analysis.
Ahab was so fully invested in his own deception that he had surrounded himself with 400 yes-men. He called them prophets. But Jehoshaphat, the good king visiting from Judah, could tell they were fakes, so he asked if there was indeed a man of God from whom they could inquire of the LORD. Enter Micaiah, the man Ahab hated because he always told the truth, even about Ahab. What good can a prophet speak to a wicked king?
Ahab had already taken a lifetime of chances. He had been weighed in the scales and found wanting. Now the LORD was determined to put an end to his reign, and it didn’t matter if he entered the battle in disguise like a coward. The arrow of a random archer would find the joint in Ahab’s armor no matter what.
But what’s all this about the chosen people of God and prophets and wicked kings and wicked prophets and lost souls? Are we to be exclusivists, like Jonah or the Pharisees? Or are we to be so inclusive that the gospel is rendered impotent, so relevant that it is irrelevant?
Look to Jonah. He discovered what Paul wrote 800 years later, that not all who are of Israel are Israel. Is that a distinction man makes? No. Only God knows whom He has chosen. This matters greatly. It is also a great help to us in simply speaking the words God gives us to the people He gives us—our family, our connections, our relationships. This state of affairs builds our faith, without which we cannot please God. This state of affairs requires us to trust God, the one Lawgiver and Judge, to do what only God can do.
It could be said that the 400 yes-men in 1 Kings 22 knew what God was "doing" in the sense that they could act like they thought prophets acted. Jesus warned us in Matthew 7.22 that many would come to Him claiming to have prophesied in His Name, even to have done great works. But He will say to these yes-men, “Depart from Me, I do not know you.” We can see plainly that the works are not accomplished because of anything in man but because of the power of God in the Name of Jesus. Therefore it is imperative that we know God.
“Prophets” who know what God is like and can show the outward signs of what God does can fake it to make it.
Prophets who simply know God are going to know and do what He is doing because they know Him. This prophet does not seek to answer the question of whether or not a person or a people is chosen. This prophet simply preaches the Word of the Lord, trusting that, at the end, God will separate the sheep from the goats, whether they are from Nineveh or Jerusalem.
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