Intro to the Divine Assembly Part 3: Testing the Spirits

We come to the final part of our little lesson on 1 Kings 22. At the risk of sounding cliché or obsessed with my own knowledge I’ll nonetheless say the truth. We are hardly scratching the surface of this chapter, and the surrounding verses including 2 Chronicles 18 which deals with the same subject matter. That might be a slight exaggeration, but you’d be surprised how deep down the rabbit hole you can find yourself reading connecting passages.

As I already mentioned in Part One, click here far Part Two, King Ahab already suspected that Micaiah was speaking the word of God, and thus he disguised himself in an attempt to avoid his fate. So we have to ask, if he knew that the other prophets were false or suspected this to be the case why did King Ahab go anyway? Or more importantly, as we saw God sent the spirit to entice Ahab to his demise so why give a word to his prophet Micaiah that might have saved the king if he had listened? Seems counterproductive to set up this elaborate trap, and then warn Ahab by showing his hand before the errant King had committed himself. One idea can be seen in Micaiah’s last words to the King before Ahab left on his doomed campaign.

Micaiah declared, “If you ever return safely, the LORD has not spoken through me.” Then he added, “Mark my words, all you people!” 1 Kings 22:28

Things seem clear enough. God made this prophecy for the benefit of the people, and presumably for Christians and later Hebrews to read over the years. I think we can go deeper though. You see God had given King Ahab mercy before when the King had humbled himself before the Almighty after doom had been pronounced upon him.

When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly.

Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite:

“Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.” 1 Kings 21: 27-29

Interestingly we see God give Ahab a chance to follow him once before this when the King of Aram, what would be the Syrian Empire, invades and threatens to destroy Samaria the capital of the Northern Israel kingdom. Here God defeats the massive army not once, but twice laying out the motivations for each event. Once because the Arameans were saying that the God of Israel was only a god of the mountains so they could defeat Israel on the plains (1 Kings 20:28), and second so Ahab would know who the Lord was.

Meanwhile a prophet came to Ahab king of Israel and announced, “This is what the LORD says: ‘Do you see this vast army? I will give it into your hand today, and then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ” 1 Kings 20:13

King Ahab failed to follow the Lord, and allowed his snake tongued wife to rule his actions. Here we can glean some insight. John says that we are supposed to test the spirits to ferret out false prophets. 1 John 4:1-3 Ahab not only failed to properly test the spirits he ignored his own trepidation whether out of pride or greed we will never know. Pride makes the most sense, but that is pure conjecture on my part. God knew this would be the case.

“ ‘By what means?’ the LORD asked. “ ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said. “ ‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the LORD. ‘Go and do it.’ 1 Kings 22:22

“You will succeed in enticing him,” Given Ahab’s previous behavior and God’s pattern, if the King had humbled himself there was a chance he would’ve been spared, but God knew he wouldn’t take that chance. The Lord knew that Ahab was going to ignore his misgivings and let his greed and pride drag him off to his end. 

Question 1: When have you known better, but decided to make a mistake anyway? When have you ignored God’s small voice telling you no?

Does this mean old Ahab was an autonomous vessel meant for destruction? No, God didn’t make him go on that fateful campaign he sent his spirit to entice him, and Ahab jumped in even as he was given one last chance. A chance that God knew well he would ignore, and run off to die anyway without testing the spirit sending him on his way. 

Here we come to the last part of our lesson. If Micaiah taught us to be brave in the face of adversity, and his prophecy gave us a glimpse on how God’s court works and why we must pursue the tasks given to us by our creator, then Ahab teaches us caution in this pursuit. Test the spirits lest you become like Ahab, and as James says:

but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. James 1:14

Test your own desires, test the spirits playing on those desires, and always use the witch test that John lays out:

but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. 

1 John 4:2-3

Question 2: Have you ever desired something so strongly you couldn’t trust your own judgment on if the desire was in line with God’s will? How did you handle it then, and would you handle the situation now?

So we come to the meat of the matter. All of God’s children whether in the Heavens or on Earth have been given tasks and jobs to complete, and we are to pursue these trials with bravery against all adversity. Yet the enemy is crafty, and his spirits do not play fair so we are to also test the spirits to confirm they are from God. Last, and perhaps the most important conclusion of this matter, we must endeavor to improve our character and line ourselves up with the God of Heavens’ Armies will. To be Jesus Christ our savior's good graces and able to recognize our Father in Heaven’s voice so his spirits don’t have to entice us into following the Lord’s will. Lest we end up like a long dead evil King bent on his own selfish gain and pride left to die and his queen eaten by dogs. 

Test the spirits, and recognize your savior and Father’s voice so your bravery will be used to its full potential in a world full of snakes and twisting paths. I will leave you with one last verse to remember as you test the spirits in your own life.

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

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