The Arrows of Jehovah

I shot an arrow into the air. It fell to earth.

I knew not where. I think all of us have heard that at one time or another. That's by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

You'll probably remember that name also. Because of the association with our text for today, I looked up that poem online this week and discovered that, as far as I'm concerned, only the two first lines are familiar. Most of it's very unfamiliar and really, in some ways, a little bit, I don't know what to say exactly, unexpected. The meter, the rhythm, and so forth don't follow the way that I would have thought, having been able to quote the first two lines. And there's quite a body of interest that has grown up around that poem. You can go online and find a number of sites that will help you understand what the poem means because it's not so easy to figure out what it means.

But that first line, there's not much doubt about that. I shot an arrow into the air. It fell to earth. I knew not where. Somebody just pulled back a bow, shot an arrow at random, and they didn't know where it went. I think that's what happened in 2 Chronicles, chapter 18.

A soldier in the Syrian army just pulled back his bow and shot an arrow into the air. I don't think he probably ever knew that he's the one who killed King Ahab, but he did. It fell to earth. He knew not where.

It fell to earth exactly where God intended for it to go. That aimless arrow was guided by Jehovah, our Lord and God. The intriguing account of two Jewish kings, to which I've already made reference, is found both in 2 Chronicles 18, which is the passage we're going to look at today, as well as in 1 Kings, chapter 22. King Ahab is the king of the northern kingdom of Israel after it divided following the days of Solomon. King Jehoshaphat is at the same time the king of Judah, the southern kingdom.

The lines of these two kings are a real study in contrast. Ahab was exceedingly wicked, perhaps the most wicked king that ever lived and reigned in the land of Israel. His wife was Jezebel, famous for her wickedness. Jehoshaphat, by contrast, was a very godly king who demonstrated his love for God and his trust in the word of God by remarkable ways, including the fact that he removed all the idols from the land of Egypt. And, of course, there were other kings who are not Egypt, but Israel, Judah. There were other kings that had done that at various times, and, of course, they always came back again over time. But he did something that I don't recall any of the other kings doing, and that is he commissioned teachers to fan out throughout all the land of Judah and to teach the word of God to all the people.

That's the problem. The people don't know God's word, so we'll teach it to them. And he did.

He brought about great revival. But this godly King Jehoshaphat faltered in his relationship with King Ahab, and it almost cost him his life. To work our way through this long account, we will follow the four sections that I will now name. The first of all, a dangerous alliance, verses 1 through 3. Secondly, a reasonable request, verses 4 through 12. Third, an unwelcome message, 13 through 22. And finally, an accomplished judgment, 28 through 34.

A dangerous alliance. The chapter opens by telling us that Jehoshaphat prospered materially. Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance.

We read in the opening verse of chapter 18. A prosperous bestowal had come to him by the kindness of Almighty God. Undoubtedly, divine reward for his exemplary obedience. But it apparently encouraged some measure of spiritual carelessness on his part.

He who had been so faithful, so obedient, so committed, so focused upon God and his word became careless with the passing of time. And apparently the mention of the prosperity in the first part of verse 1 and what happened afterwards is linked together to tell us that we need to be careful how we view material possessions because they have a way of bringing spiritual decline if we are not very, very, very careful. Is material prosperity a blessing? Yes, if we will commit it to the Lord and use it for his glory. Yes, if the more God gives to us, the more we give back to God. Yes, if we use the blessings that God bestows to advance the kingdom of Christ and his gospel throughout the world. Is material prosperity a curse? Yes, if it becomes our God.

Yes, if that becomes our main goal in life. Yes, if we hold on to, grasp and hoard and love the things of this world more than we love Almighty God. You cannot, said Jesus, serve both God and mammon. And I don't know to what extent and exactly what way the prosperity of Jehoshaphat figures into what happened next, but the joining of these things together in verse 1 tells me there is a connection. Jehoshaphat prospered by the blessing of God, Jehoshaphat declined as a result therefrom. And that decline is first seen in the questionable arrangement that we read about in verse 1 where Jehoshaphat arranged for his son Jehoram to be married to Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel.

That actually took place about nine years before the account that we're reading about in 2 Chronicles 18. That alliance, of course, was very common. You see that all throughout history, kings looking around for a suitable marriage that will strengthen the kingdom, that will give them political allies, that will help them in their purposes, that will bring people to their side rather than to the side of their enemies. It is a common event, but though politically strategic, it was spiritually problematic because God has warned his people again and again and again, don't make alliances with the enemies of God. Don't make alliances with the enemies of God. There are only two kinds of people in this world, those who belong to God and are his friends and those who disbelieve him and therefore remain his enemies. They don't become his enemies, they remain his enemies by refusal to bow the knee to King Jesus. And so this political alliance of his son to the daughter of Ahab, wise in the ways of the world but damaging to his own spiritual health. And dear friend, don't think it will be any different with you. When you make decisions that may be wise in worldliness but are contrary to the word of God, they are going to create problems for you. They're going to bring about damage to your walk with the Lord.

You can mark it down. And sure enough, verses two and three tell us about the foolish commitment that followed from this marriage. The time came when Jehoshaphat went to visit Ahab, king of Israel. Jehoshaphat left his throne in Jerusalem and traveled to the city of Samaria and came to King Ahab.

After all, he's my son's father-in-law. You have to visit your relatives once in a while, right? And so there he went to visit Ahab. And while there, Ahab says, I need to go up to Remoth Gilead. How about you coming with me?

And Jehoshaphat jumps right in and says, be glad to. Your people are my people. Your armies are my armies. We'll do this together. We are brothers.

We are united. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I was afraid that's what was going to happen when you married your son to Ahab's daughter. You can almost predict what will follow. And sure enough, this unwise commitment was made. Because of family expectations, he had to go and visit his family. And political opportunities, he needed to make this alliance for political reasons.

It led to dangerous affiliations that almost cost him his life. I want to be careful in saying this because I don't want to be misunderstood. But I want to tell you that family can be one of life's greatest blessings or one of life's greatest trials.

Now, staying that on the general level creates no difficulty because everybody knows it's true. A good family, the right kind of family, loving family, family connections are one of the greatest blessings that we can enjoy in this world. Family squabbles, family problems, family difficulties, family disappointments create some of the greatest burdens upon our soul.

It's bad enough when people we know fall into serious problems and difficulties. And it is like an anchor pulling us down when it's one of our own relatives, our son, our daughter, our husband, our wife, our close relatives. But we have to be careful. Though we must be obedient to God, to order our families according to the instructions of God's word, to give attention to our families, to nourish our marriages, to train up our children in the way of the Lord. We must do that, and we are disobedient to the Lord if we fail to do that. But we also have to watch for this possibility, and that is the possibility of actually placing the good thing, the good thing of our family above God himself and turning our family into an idol so that when push comes to shove, family always comes above God. And that, my friends, will become a problem. In some respects, I think that's what's happening here with Jehoshaphat.

It's a fine balance, isn't it? The bigger danger and the one that's most common is the people who ignore their family, don't give proper attention to their family, do not train up their children in the way of God, do not devote themselves to their family, give time to their marriages as they should. That's the biggest problem, the most common problem, no question about it.

But sometimes the problem goes the other way. Remember when Jesus was teaching the multitudes in the house that was crowded, and the Bible tells us his mother and brothers and sisters decided to come and to fetch him home because they thought he was overdoing it. He was stretching himself too thin. And so they came and they couldn't get in to see him, so they were on the outside of the crowd and the word was passed from mouth to mouth up to where Jesus was teaching.

And somebody said, Jesus, your mother and your brothers and your sisters are here. And everybody expected that Jesus would say, oh, please excuse me, I've got something that's very important I've got to attend to, and would have left the crowd and gone out and talked to his family. He did no such thing.

Do you remember what he did? He pointed to those who were sitting around him hanging on every word. His brothers weren't doing that. They hadn't come to hear his word. His sisters weren't doing that. They hadn't come to hear his word. Even his beloved godly mother Mary wasn't doing that.

She hadn't come to hear his word. But Jesus pointed to those who were gathered around him who were listening attentively to his word. And he said, these are my brothers and sisters and mother and father. Those who give attention to God's word are actually closer than those who are my blood relatives. Those who are giving attention to God's word take priority, that's the point here, take priority over my own blood relatives.

What an interesting insight into this issue that I'm talking about right now. There's a verse that puzzled me for a while. It's in Romans chapter 11 verse 9, and Paul is there quoting from a psalm of David, Psalm 6922. And in that psalm, the psalmist says about the enemies of God, let their table become a snare to them. I always wondered, what does that mean, let their table become a snare?

And I think I finally figured it out. It's metaphorical. Table speaks of home. Table speaks of family. Table speaks of close family activities and connections as the family gathers around the table.

Table speaks of one of the greatest blessings of life, to have a close and loving family that you gather together with around the table. But that very relationship can become and did in the case of the Jews, and that's what he's talking about there, did become a great snare because they valued their Jewishness, they valued their Jewish families, they valued their Jewish connections, they valued their table, they valued their Passover table. So much so that they were not willing to listen carefully to the word of God and receive God's Messiah when he came. And so they're holding on to the blessings of family, both immediate and more extended, their Jewish family, holding on and idolizing the blessings of family caused them to miss Christ and go to hell.

Their family idolatry became their downfall. Jehoshaphat, why did you marry your son to Ahab's daughter? But that leads us from a dangerous alliance to number two, a reasonable request. After Jehoshaphat agreed to go with Ahab into battle to Ramoth Gilead, it suddenly occurred to him that he had not consulted God in that decision. After making an unwise decision, now as an afterthought, he says, wait a minute, don't you think we should consult the Lord about this, shouldn't we? It's a respectful request, a little too late, but better late than never. You should have done it sooner, but you didn't.

You forgot. So now do it now. Let's consult God and get guidance about whether we really should go up to Ramoth Gilead or not. And so Ahab says, sure, we'll do that. And he gathered together 400 of his prophets. Now, there's some discussion among commentators as to who exactly these prophets were. Were they prophets of Baal or Asheroth? Those were the gods that were served by Ahab. Or were they professed prophets of Jehovah? And it's possible they were, though I don't think that's quite as likely.

But there are some things in the passage and the language that's used that could lead us in that direction, so we really don't know. But what we know is, whichever they were, openly identified with a pagan god, an idol, or professing to be aligned to Jehovah God but untrue to his word and to his ways, they were very happy to oblige Ahab. They were 400 prophets who no doubt lived by the largesse of the king. He kept them up so they could have them handy for purposes like this. And so he gathers his 400 prophets and asks them what to do, and they know what he wants to hear. And so they tell him what he wants to hear.

He wants somebody to say, go up to rape Methgilead. God will prosper you. You will succeed. Do what you want to do. The Lord be with you. The Lord is with you.

They were happy to do that. But Jehoshaphat wasn't satisfied. He knew this wasn't what he was looking for.

And so he pressed a little bit further with his request. No, no, no. I asked if there isn't a prophet of the Lord, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, a prophet of Jehovah. You haven't shown me prophets of Jehovah.

Is there not at least one prophet of Jehovah around here? And it's possible that there wasn't, but it turns out that there was one. And he was in prison. When Ahab sends him to prison later on, you really carefully realize he's sending him back to prison. That's where he came out of.

He was in prison. Yes, there is one, Micaiah, the son of Imlah. He's a prophet of the Lord, the prophet of Jehovah. But I hate him because he never prophesies good. He always prophesies evil. He always prophesies against me. He always tells me what I don't want to hear. Oh, said Jehoshaphat, please don't say things like that.

Come on, let's see what this guy has to say. So the messengers go to prison and they call Micaiah up and they give him a little word of advice. Micaiah, four hundred prophets have all agreed that King Ahab should go to Ramoth Gilead. Be sure that your words are similarly encouraging to him. Our word of advice to you, get with the program. Go along to get along.

Tell him what he wants to hear. Micaiah says, whatever God says to me that I will speak. So here he comes. All right. Now they're all they've got a grand pageantry now.

The kings are sitting on thrones in the royal robes outside the gate of Samaria. The four hundred prophets are continuing to prophesy. Go up, go up.

God will bless you. In fact, Zedekiah, who seems to be the leader of the four hundred, even puts on quite a demonstration. Quite a show and tell, doesn't he? He has iron horns. Horns were symbols of strength and power. These would be like the horns of oxen. He has iron horns, iron to show how strong and invincible they were. And with those horns, he puts on a little demonstration and says, just like these horns will push away any enemy that comes against those who have the horns, the oxen, so you will prevail. And he puts on this demonstration. And then Micaiah comes and speaks to Micaiah.

What shall I do? And Micaiah says, go up. The Lord be with you. Isn't that what your guards told me to say? The soldiers?

Go up. The Lord be with you. And Ahab's response is, how many times have I told you to tell me nothing but what the Lord speaks to you? Now, isn't that interesting? Number one, it tells us that Ahab had had frequent interaction with this man.

This is certainly not the first time. No doubt this is why he is in prison, because he'd been telling Ahab what he didn't want to hear for a long time. But number two, it also tells me that Micaiah was being sarcastic, and Ahab knew it.

Micaiah was answering a fool according to his folly, and Micaiah knew it. Shall I go up, Micaiah? Go up. The Lord be with you. I know that's a bunch of baloney. That's not what you really want to say. That's not really the message that God has given to you.

Come on now. How many times do I need to tell you? You should tell me only what God says to you. Ahab knew the difference. Ahab knew what he needed to hear.

He needed to hear the word of the Lord, but he didn't want to hear the word of the Lord. So Micaiah says, all right, here's the real scoop. I saw Israel scattered like sheep on the mountainside without any leader. In other words, the leader was dead. In other words, Ahab, you go to battle, you're going to die.

Israel's going to be left without a king. That's the word of the Lord. And Ahab says, see, see, Jehoshaphat, I told you. I told you so.

I told you that's what he'd do. He never speaks any good. How many times have you been in a situation where you can't win no matter what you say?

It's always the wrong thing, no matter what. It reminds me of, who was it? Was it Sarah or was it Rebecca that said to her husband when she was childless, why don't you give me children? As if he could.

You know, I mean, ridiculous things that people say. See there, I told you that's what he'd do after he had told him to say what God had spoken to him. But Micaiah didn't stop there.

He went on. And he said, if I can find the right place here, but he said, this is what happened, and I will give you the inside story because God showed it to me in a vision. He said, I saw God in heaven and the host of heaven were before him on the right hand and on the left. It reminds us of the book of Job where all the sons of God came in to give an account of themselves to God, and Satan was among them. In other words, there were holy angels and there were fallen angels. There were angels and there were demons, and that's the same picture we have right here.

The host of heaven, everybody was there before God Almighty. And God said, who will deceive Ahab for me? And one spirit made one suggestion and another spirit made another suggestion.

They weren't quite on target. And then one spirit stood up to say, and I assume that this would probably have to be a demon because I can't imagine a holy angel volunteering to lie, but I'm not sure I understand all the details here. But what I do understand is a demon, a spirit, stepped up to say, let me go and put lying words in the mouths of his prophets to deceive him and that'll get the job done. And God said, perfect. That's what obviously God intended to do all along. Go. Take care of it.

Do it that way. And so Micaiah says, God has sent a spirit to put lying words in the mouths of your prophets to deceive you. And if you do what they say, you will be deceived and you will pay the consequences. Now, that's a puzzling episode that I don't have time to analyze. How do you explain God using an evil spirit to accomplish his purposes? That would be hard for some people to explain. How do you explain God endorsing lies being put in the lips of people to deceive people, to deceive others?

Well, I don't know that I can explain all the details. I have some thoughts on it that I won't go into right now, but this much I know. This shows us God rules everything and everybody, doesn't he? Satan is even an unwilling servant of Jehovah. He does what God wants him to do and only as much as God wants him to do. And he's on a chain and God jerks him back whenever he doesn't want him to go any farther. God uses the evil, malicious activities of the devil himself to accomplish his grand and glorious purposes. I cannot understand it. I cannot explain it, but I know it's true. And we see the example of it here. God sends, if you want to cut through the secondary causes, God sends a lying spirit to the mouth of these prophets and they lie in order to deceive Ahab.

That's what's going on here. Ahab will die in battle, and it is God who has designed Ahab's destruction by enabling religious deception and by emboldening deceitful messengers. Zedekiah, the indignantly guilty one in this word of Micaiah, that God has put a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets, rose up indignantly, smote Zedekiah, where did the spirit of the Lord leave me and go to you? He said, you'll know.

You'll know when my words come to pass. But even in all of this, before Micaiah is hauled away and thrown back into prison, he voices loudly, probably, as he's being dragged away, he voices loudly back to the people. You see it in the last part of verse 27. In verse 27, Micaiah said, if you ever return in peace, the Lord has not spoken by me. And then this, and he said, take heed, all you people. There's a big gathering of people right there, and as Micaiah has been led away, one gracious appeal to hear, to heed, to listen, to believe, to repent, to believe in God. Listen to this warning. Take it seriously. Hear the word of the Lord. Believe the word of the Lord, all you people. And away he goes to prison.

Which brings us to the fourth section, which is an accomplished judgment. It still flabbergasts me that Ahab would say to Jehoshaphat, what about if I dress up in regular clothes and you wear your royal robes and we'll go into battle? Why is he doing that? Well, because Ahab doesn't want to be recognized as the king. He knows that will make him a target. So why does Jehoshaphat agree to wear his royal robes, which obviously makes him a target? Listen to me, if I can put it to you this way, because he's become an idiot because of his compromise. When you compromise the word of God, you lose some measure of wisdom. If you don't obey the word of God that you've been given, God will take some measure of his word away from you.

That's what's happening. This godly Jehoshaphat, this wise Jehoshaphat, this capable Jehoshaphat does one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of. He dresses himself in royal robes while Ahab goes disguised and into battle they go. And the king of Syria has made a rather unusual request, or should I say command, instruction. He said to all of his captains, don't fight against anybody except Ahab. That's all I'm interested in.

That's all I want. Now normally when you go into battle, you'll kill anybody who's in the enemy's armies. You'll kill anybody who's helping the enemy.

You'll kill anybody who's aligned with the enemy. And though he would certainly want Ahab, in most cases he'd be happy to kill Jehoshaphat along the way to get to Ahab. But for some reason he makes this very unusual request, don't fight with anybody but Ahab. The soldiers see Jehoshaphat in royal robes. He's the only one in royal robes. They assume he's Ahab.

They surround his chariot. They are planning to kill him. It's a wonder they haven't already killed him before he has a chance to cry out. He cries out. Somehow they recognize, I don't know if they've heard him speak before. I'm not sure how they did this. But somehow they recognize this is not Ahab and they let him go. Whew! Jehoshaphat, you really escaped narrowly by, as we say, the skin of your teeth.

That is amazing that you got out of that one. And then the battle goes on. And that soldier, you know, thousands of soldiers out there, they're all supposed to be fighting, but half of them don't know what to do exactly. So got to look busy, right? You know what that looks like.

All right, I haven't stopped. I don't have any particular target in mind, but I got to be in the battle. I got to look busy. Pulls back the bow, shoots the arrow, it flies off in the air. He probably pulled another arrow out of his quiver and pulls back the bow and shoots that one off into the air.

He's looking busy, looking like he's engaged, so his captain won't think that he has shirked his duty. But that arrow just flies, flies, flies, flies, and it finds the disguised king who dressed in such a way that he thought nobody would recognize him. And there it goes, and it lands in the body of Ahab right between the chinks in his armor and strikes a mortal blow. He shot an arrow into the air.

It fell to earth. He knew not where, but he shot an arrow into the air, and God Almighty guided it right to the vital organs of King Ahab. And after some lingering agony, he died at sunset and fulfilled exactly the predictions of the true prophet of God, Micaiah, fulfilled the judgments which God had spoken about him. Everything that God said would happen, happened. Jehoshaphat got away. I'm sure he's thinking a little more carefully about his obedience to God in his latter years, that it had not been as careful as it had been in his early years. But the arrow fatally struck Ahab.

What are the chances of that? And Micaiah's prophecy is fulfilled perfectly, and God guided that aimless arrow. Who is able to hide from God? I've been doing a lot of thinking about the early years lately, and one of the things I think I mentioned in the last beam article is thinking back to those very early years when Becky Sponcella, only a few of you will remember this, but she used to sing a song that said, I cannot hide from God, though mountains cover me.

And it went on from there. And that haunting melody and line has stuck with me for 50 years. I cannot hide from God. I can't. Ahab can't.

You can't. God's warnings are gracious. God's warnings are true.

God's judgments are certain. Don't chafe when a true messenger of God says something you don't like. That may be the greatest blessing that you have ever had. That may be the most gracious thing that can happen to you, is to hear something that you don't like, but it's true. You need to hear it. You need to correct what's wrong in your life.

You need to respond to that truth. Well, let me wrap it up with a few lessons. Lesson number one, beware the desire for human approval. We all have that natural desire. We want to be liked. We want to be approved. We want to be accepted. It's natural.

But if you don't constrain that carefully, it'll become a snare. We all better be working more diligently on how to stand alone for Christ. If others join us, well and good. Praise God for it.

But if not, I'm going to stand alone if I'm the only one standing. Said Micaiah, one prophet out of four hundred, and he stood alone, and God used him mightily and powerfully and no doubt rewarded him greatly in heaven. Beware of the desire for human approval that all of us have so much of. Number two, beware of the unequal yoke. God's word warns against that. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath light with darkness, with concord hath Belial with the God of heaven? And we see it here in Jehoshaphat's unequal yoke with Ahab. He had no business making an alliance with a notorious enemy of God.

But he did, marrying his son. And it often happens that way. Be not unequally yoked together.

How many times have we seen it? A Christian man, young man or woman, falls in love with an unconverted person. And they know, the Bible says, be not unequally yoked together.

But this is the exception. I'm different. We are in love. I can win him.

I can win her. And I don't know if I have ever seen that happen. I have seen people who married when both of them were unconverted, and then the Lord saved one, and now there's unequal yoke. And then, in God's goodness, in the passing of time, he saves the other one.

I've seen that happen many times. I can't think of, I'm not saying it's never happened, but I can't think of a single instance that I remember where a person, knowing that they should not marry an unbeliever, disobeyed God and deliberately did so, and then God overruled and said, okay, I'm going to save your spouse. Almost always, it ends in spiritual compromises and often in divorce. God said, don't do it. Beware the unequal yoke. Beware the unequal yoke of true Christians with apostate Christianity. The Bible warns us about that. Why do you think that you're going to be the exception? Why do you think you've got justification for doing it? Stop it.

Stop it. Apostate Christianity is not true Christianity. Apostate Christianity is not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Apostate Christians are not true Christians. Heed the warning of God's word. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.

The Bible tells us that. Third, and I've already touched on it, beware the seduction of materialism. If you are blessed with more than the average amount of this world's goods, then give graciously and generously in gratitude to God. That's what God has given you that for, to be used for his kingdom.

But you get greedy and graspy and it'll ruin you spiritually when it could make you stronger spiritually if you'll handle it in a God honoring way. Number four, beware the folly of disregarding divine warnings. You are not the exception to the rule. Every person who ignores a divine warning thinks, I'm the one that can get around this. I'm the one that's smarter than this. I'm the one who can outsmart God. You fool. You can't. What makes you think you can? What pride?

What arrogance? If you fail to heed God's warnings, you will be destroyed. God's arrows will always find you. And so I close by saying, embrace Christ. Hold on to Christ. Lay hold on Christ and don't let go. Embrace Christ now and always. Acknowledge you're a sinner. Acknowledge that you need a savior. Acknowledge that you cannot save yourself. Acknowledge that you are not righteous in yourself. Acknowledge that you can only be saved by a merciful God who has given his son, that believing sinners shall be saved by him. Embrace Christ.

Hold on to Christ and never let him go. And receive all the blessings of salvation, both now and forevermore. Shall we pray? Father, help us. Oh, help us to be true to Christ and to your word, regardless of what others may say. And may we be an instrument in your hands, like Micaiah was, to speak the truth to others as we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.