The Bible Recap - Day 180 (1 Kings 22, 2 Chronicles 18) - Year 5

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap. Today, we finished our 16th book of the Bible. Congratulations! We spent some time in the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah today, but we start out in the North with Wicked King Ahab. Yesterday, God sent Elijah to pronounce death on Ahab at his family, but then showed mercy on Ahab when he repented. When we open today, we see the kings of the two kingdoms make an alliance. They want to capture Raymoth Gilead, a city that was taken by Syria. Before they put a strategy

together, Joseph had asked that they can seek God for counsel. Smart move. Ahab brings in 400 prophets, and they all say God will grant them success. Then Jehoshaphat is like, but are there any other prophets we can ask? They just ask 400 prophets who are all in agreement, so why does he need another opinion? If 400 out of 400 dentists agree on the best toothpaste,

I'm not looking for the opinion of 401. I'm just buying it. But the thing is, and this is only kindists agree on the best toothpaste, I'm not looking for the opinion of 401, I'm just buying it. But the thing is, and this is only kind of obvious in the original text, these profits weren't inquiring of Yahweh. They were almost certainly the same 400 profits of Asherah mentioned in 1 Kings 18. Remember how Ahab had 450 profits of Baal and 400 profits of Asherah when Elijah called him up to the showdown on Mount Carmel. But only the 450 prophets of Baal showed up.

Elijah killed them, but we never heard anything from the 400 prophets of Asherah. So these are almost certainly those prophets. Wicked King Ahab, even though he repented under the consequence of death, doesn't seem to fully grasp the concept of following Awe. And why is King Jehoshaphat seems to be discerning about that? So he wants a godly opinion. Aheb says there's a prophet named Mekaya, but he doesn't like Mekaya because he never says what he wants to hear. Some commentators believe it was Mekaya who intentionally got himself beat up before he talked to Aheb yesterday. Mykaya appears before Ahab and says,

go up and triumph, the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. Ahab doesn't believe him because this sounds too good to be true, especially coming from Mykaya. So Ahab basically says, are you joking? And that's when things get really confusing. Mykaya's first response had been mocking the king in his prophets, so he shoots straight. He tells a story about how evil spirits came to Yahweh and asked permission to mislead Ahab by speaking lies through the 400 prophets. This may have reminded you of when Satan appeared before Yahweh and asked for permission to test Job.

Evil spirits are subject to God's authority. They're on aie-sh, and they can only do what God allows, and what ultimately fits into his sovereign plan. And God's plan, as he has already said, is to remove King Ahab and his family. The means by which God plans to do this, is through this war. And the false prophets had prophesied falsely. Israel will meet with disaster,

and Ahab will die in battle. Ahab does not like this, of course, so he orders Micahia to be imprisoned. When Ahab and Jehoshaphat go to war, Ahab tries to be tricky. He plans to wear a disguise, but tells Jehoshaphat to wear his royal robes, which will make him stand out as more of a target. For whatever reason, Jehoshaphat agrees to this plan.

One noteworthy thing here is that Mike Hayes' prophecy said the sheep of Israel had no shippard, and here's Ahab trying to blend in with the sheep. He's certainly not a wise leader. His plan to disguise himself seems to work at first, because the Syrian archers go after Jehoshaphat and his royal robes, but when they see it's not Ahab, they withdraw. Then, one of the archers accidentally fires off one arrow and it strikes and kills King Ahab. And things with his death unfold in the ways Micahia prophesied today and Elijah prophesied yesterday. His son Ahaziah takes the throne after him, and he's basically Ahab 2.0, but all worshipping

and wicked in all the ways his dad was. What was your God shot today? Mine was in Second Chronicles 18, 30 through 33. I wanna read it to you, then I'll tell you what I saw about God in it. It says, the King of Syria had commanded the captains of his chariots, fight with neither small nor great, but only with the King of Israel.

As soon as the captains of the chariot saw Jehoshaphat, they said, it is the King of Israel, so they turned to fight against him. And Jehoshaphat cried out and the Lord helped him. God drew them away from him. For as soon as the captains of the chariot saw that it was not the King of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him.

But a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the King of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate. First of all, we see here that God helped Jehoshaphat when he cried out to him. He rescued the righteous in his time of need. But we also see how God has laser focus on accomplishing his plan. Nothing thwarts him. Not Ahab's disguise, not the Syrians mistaking Jehoshaphat for Ahab, and not even the call to

stop firing, because the one man who failed to stop firing hit the very man, got it appointed to die in the very spot that would kill him. The man may have drawn his bow at random, which can also be translated in his innocence or even on accident, but this just goes to show that nothing is random where God is concerned. He's so intentional. He hears the cries of the righteous, he wipes out the wicked, and he can't be stopped. And that's all a great comfort to me.

He's where the joy is. Have you had questions about what we're reading in the Bible over the past few months? Then you probably don't want to miss this month's special bonus content we're offering to our recaptains. For the month of June, I'll be recording and sharing a video where I respond to questions about our Bible reading. This is usually only available to our recaptains at the Q&R tier, but we've made it available this month for recaptains who are at the bonus content tier or higher. If you're a recaptain at a different tier and you want access to this perk, just log into your account and adjust your membership accordingly. And if you're not a recaptain currently, this is the best time to join. By the way, my assistant Olivia asked me to please

remind you that these are questions about our Bible reading, not questions about my dating life, want want. Check out today's show notes for link to join or check out our website, thebibelrecap.com. Most dads feel undervalued, misunderstood, and that no matter what they do, it isn't enough. It seems like fatherhood is often undervalued and heavily criticized. But what if you could be encouraged through real conversations about the value of Christian fatherhood? Text grow to 6-7-101 to grow in your confidence as a Christian father or tell the dad in your life about this great study from way nation. Text grow to 67101.