Raising up Micaiahs
“As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me,
that I will speak” (1 Kings 22:14 ESV).
I recently read the story of Micaiah’s prophecy against Ahab. For those who aren’t familiar, the passage centers around the wicked king of Israel, Ahab, and his decision to war against Syria.
For some backstory, King Ahab asked Jehoshaphat of Judah to assist him in battle. Jehoshaphat said, “Inquire first for the word of the LORD” (verse 5).
Ahab assembled around 400 prophets and commanded them to reveal what the Lord was saying. The prophets declared, “Go forth, for the Lord will give it [the battle] into your hands” (6).
King Ahab was satisfied, but Jehoshaphat wasn’t. He asked Ahab, “Is there not another prophet of the Lord of whom we may inquire”(7)?
Ahab admitted, “There is yet one man by whom we ay inquire of the Lord… but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil” (8).
Long story short, Micaiah was brought forth and spoke the Lord’s truth, declaring, “I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, ‘These have no master; let each return to his home in peace’” (17).
In an interesting twist, it turns out God had given Israel’s prophets the wrong word so they would entice Ahab into battle (19-23). Micaiah was the only one who spoke truth.
It was a risky decision. After Micaiah was finished, King Ahab threw him in prison and ordered the guards to “give him nothing but bread and water until I return safely” (27).
It turns out Ahab was killed just as Micaiah prophesied. Interestingly, we don’t know what happened to Micaiah. Did God deliver him from prison? Or did he remain in captivity?
This story both inspires and humbles me. So many Christians, rather than speaking out, avoid hardship. They parrot whatever society tells them and start to resemble the world. This is a dangerous place to be since the world rarely follows what the Lord is truly saying.
In 2021, some of you may recall the Lord told me it would be a year of the power of peace. When I looked up peace in Matthew 5:9, I found “Blessed are the peacemakers.” My immediate thought was peace keepers: those who do not cause conflict.
Upon researching the original definitions of the word, I found “peacemakers” comes from the cognate that means “to bravely declare God’s terms which makes someone whole” (cognate 1518 eirenopoios). So in this case, being a peacemaker is not staying silent but speaking the truth from the Lord, which brings wholeness.