Student Leaders

by Pastor Don Nagy

There is a crazy story in 2 Chronicles 18, where King Ahab is going to war and wants to know if King Jehoshaphat would team up with Him. Jehoshaphat suggests that maybe Ahab should inquire of the Lord before going to battle.

King Ahab tells him not to worry because he has already asked 400 of his prophets and they all said ‘yes’!

But Jehoshaphat wasn’t buying it. See back in the day, evil kings had all sorts of false prophets in their back pocket…all sorts of false prophets on the payroll, who told them what they wanted to hear--so they could do what they wanted to do-- and justify it by saying that they were told it was OK to do. You can always find someone who is willing to support you in your wrong doing, or in your wrong thinking, if you look hard enough.

So Jehoshaphat challenges Ahab on this one and asks him to go to a prophet who actually knows God and can speak for Him.

And look at Ahab’s response in verse 7.

“There is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad.”

"There is one other prophet out there (Micaiah) that we could go to, but I don’t like to go to him because he doesn’t support me, and say good things about me. He doesn’t esteem me and my decisions and my future, so that I can just go and do what I really just want to go and do anyway."

But, he relents and they call in Micaiah and they basically tell him to just say ‘yes’ like all the other prophets did. And here is Micaiah’s response in verse 13.

“As surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what my God says.”

“No, I’m not just going to tell you what you want to hear, I’m going to tell you the truth. I’m going to tell you what God says because ultimately that is what you need to hear.”

And we learn just a few verses later that Ahab ends up dying in the battle that Micaiah told him not to enter. Wanting desperately to believe that which was not true to be true, he follows the advice of those who told him what he wanted to hear, and he died as a result.

It is so easy to surround yourself with people who tell you what you want to hear. People who will tell you that what you are doing is alright, or ok, or permissible, or acceptable, even when it isn’t. Even when it is wrong. Even with the possibility of disaster coming to you as a result.

Because King Ahab listened to people who just told him what he wanted to hear and not what he needed to hear, he paid dearly. The same can happen to you.

Speaking the Truth is not always easy. Micaiah gets jailed for it. Hearing the Truth is not always easy, but you will never reach spiritual maturity by avoiding it. We have to be willing to speak God’s truth to each other and hear God’s truth from each other even when it is hard.