Micaiah said that God had put a lying spirit in the mouth of all Ahab’s prophets, so that he would go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead. This is a dreadfully solemn matter, and one that ought to be a voice to careless shiners. There is a point when God’s Spirit ceases to strive, and where He allows souls to come under the blinding power of Satan. (2 Cor. 4:44In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. (2 Corinthians 4:4).) Indeed He Himself sends a judicial blindness upon those who long refuse to hear His voice, as Ahab had. “He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” Proverbs 29:11He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. (Proverbs 29:1). “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
“There’s a line that is crossed by rejecting the Lord,
Where the call of His Spirit is lost;
And you hurry along, with the pleasure-mad throng;
Have you counted, have you counted the cost?”
Zedekiah, one of Ahab’s prophets, struck Micaiah on the cheek when he heard his solemn message, and said, “Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me to speak unto thee?” What he was really saying was that he was just as likely to be right in his prophecy, as Micaiah was. And so others will say to us that we are too sure we have the truth, that those who think differently are just as sure as we are and that they may be right after all. But Micaiah knew he had spoken the truth (as Zedekiah did too in his conscience!) and so he turned and warned Zedekiah that if he did not believe now, he would when it was too late. Dear unsaved reader, take warning. It is a solemn thing to reject the truth of God. If you refuse to take warning now and to “flee from the wrath to come,” Matt. 3:77But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? (Matthew 3:7), you will find out later, when salvation’s day is past, that God’s Word telling you of hell and “judgment to come” is the truth.
Poor Micaiah had to suffer for his faithfulness. Ahab had said that he wanted to hear the truth, but when he heard it he became very angry, and gave orders that Micaiah was to be carried away and cast into prison. So it is with men and women today. They say they want the truth, but when it is preached they too become angry, turning against the Lord’s faithful messengers. As Micaiah was being carried off to prison he warned Ahab again that what he had spoken was the truth, and he called all the people to witness it. There is always a holy boldness in connection with God’s faithful testimony which makes those who hear it tremble, for the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit.
Ahab trembled and became very uneasy, as we shall see in what follows. The help of Jehoshaphat, the assuring words of his four hundred prophets, and his definite rejection of Micaiah’s message, did not give him peace of conscience or heart. Could one man, a prophet of the Lord, be right and his own four hundred prophets be wrong? Yes, indeed! Oh the folly of following the crowd! Micaiah was right and Ahab knew it — but he was kicking against the pricks of his own guilty conscience and would not give in. As a last resort, he decided to try a plan which he felt sure (or rather hoped!) would enable him to escape the judgment Micaiah had pronounced upon him.
ML 08/26/1956