The Acts of the Apostles 50

Subtitle: The Fallout of God's Help

Acts 12:12-19.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on August 6, 2023.

I have used the term "Fallout" because it features the repercussions or consequences of powerful actions.  When God acts, it is more powerful than a nuclear bomb, and yet more controlled than them as well.  Thus, it is much better than a nuke.  Still, there are powerful consequences to all involved when He gives His help- helpful to some and as devastating as a nuke to others.

The Bible makes it clear that God will eventually do something that sweeps aside all of the great power of man regardless of the period of time in which we live, or the part of the globe in which we live.  People have always been born and raised in situations of powerful governments and people that appear unlikely to ever change.  You can live your life and die without them changing. 

To our limited minds it appears they are immovable.  However, take heart.  God is doing something that is bigger than you, than a family, than a nation, a republic, or a world.  He will step in and judge the wicked at some point in a powerful act of His Sovereignty.

This can be hard on our faith in between the time of suffering and God's help.  Yet, in countless many little ways, God helps us even in times when it appears that the wicked are untouchable.

When God sweeps away their power structures and authority, it is a source of rage and frustration for the wicked, but it is simultaneously a source of joyful amazement for the people of God!

Let's look at our passage.

The believers are astonished (v. 12-17)

Peter has been freed from prison by an angel of God. As is often the case with prayer, God can astonish us simply by doing the thing for which we are praying.  This surprise can be because of the quickness of the answer, or because it is answered at all.  There is a level of weak faith in this matter.  However, this is not the hardened unbelief of the lost.  Rather, it is a remnant of our close connection to a lost world.  We grow to expect certain things from God, just as we do from certain people.  This doesn't make a person a failure as a Christian, but rather a human in need of God's grace.

The believers of Israel in the first century were not used to angels helping people out of jail.  So, in one sense, we can give them grace.  God was on the move with powerful works and they were not used to it.  However, in another sense, we can see that they have had three and half years of the miraculous ministry of Jesus followed with about ten years of God doing powerful things through the Apostles of Jesus.  Perhaps, they should be softly rebuffed with the response, "Ye of little faith!"

The believers who had been praying for Peter would have presumably been praying for God to spare Peter from execution and enable him to be released.  We can pray things with our mouths that our heart does not expect to happen, i.e., "It would take a miracle...and God hardly ever does that."  Sigh. 

Let us always remember that the simple thing and the impossible thing are both easy for God to do.  God isn't sparing with miracles because they are hard to do, but because they don't always help our faith. Yet, I think that God enjoys astonishing believers from time to time.  He likes to give us surprises from time to time.

Our sanctified minds are not perfect at analyzing God's purpose and plan.  With the execution of the Apostle James, it may have appeared to them that God had finally moved them into martyr-mode.  Others had been killed, but the apostles had been spared up until now.  How quickly our faith meter can rise and fall based upon what we see on the ground.  As the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5:7, "We walk by faith, not by sight."

Finding himself in the street at night, Peter naturally goes to a place where believers would gather.  In those days, this would often be the home of a believer that was large enough to accommodate a bigger group.  One of those places in Jerusalem was the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark.

By the way, there are a lot of women in the New Testament named Mary.  It can be hard to keep them clear.  There are at least six or seven with three different Mary's at the cross when Jesus died.

The believers were in the habit of gathering together and praying together, especially when there was trouble like Peter being in jail.  It is important for us to develop the discipline of praying for one another, but also to pray with one another.  Such a disciplines will serve us well in times of difficulty.  If you wait until trouble hits to reach out to others and try to pray, you will be less likely to do so, and do it effectively, when it comes.

Thus, we should have intentionality in our prayer life.  I don't want to pray only when I feel like it, or I think I need it.  In truth, we always need to pray alone, and to pray with others.  God help us to develop a disciplined relationship with Him through prayer.

As Peter knocks on the door of the gate (verse 13), a young girl named Rhoda answers.  She is so excited about it being Peter that she neglects to open the door and let him in.  She runs into the house and tells everyone that Peter is at the gate.  However, they think she is crazy.

When we are not inclined to believe something, we will grasp at every alternate explanation that we think is more believable.  However, the only evidence they have is that someone claims that Peter is currently at the door of the gate.  Rhoda, who is probably a teenager, claims that Peter is at the door.  She has seen him.  Yet, they say that she is crazy.  The word literally means that she is beside herself.  Of course, their only evidence of her being crazy is that she claims to have seen Peter. 

Think about it.  It is one thing to be skeptical and want to see for yourself.  However, if you were not there when Rhoda claims to have seen Peter, you can't use that as evidence of her being crazy.  You are the one who doesn't know anything.  You have to investigate.

Of course, because she insists that Peter is at the gate, they then change their charge to the idea that she has only seen "his angel."  What do they mean by this?  It is most likely a reference to his spirit, i.e., he must have been killed at the jail and we are being visited by his spirit.  Angels were spiritual beings and the term was sometimes used for all spirit beings by extension.  It is also possible that they are thinking it is Peter's guardian angel.  But, why would the angel look like Peter, and be at their door?

They have put forward the statement that Rhoda is either crazy or has seen Peter's spirit, but in no way, has she seen Peter.  We may not believe everything that everyone says, but we should be careful of making pronouncements about things that we did not see.  You should go and check it out yourself, or hold your peace.  By the way, this has led many an atheist to Christ (checking it out for themselves).

God is not stuck in your boxes.  I am the servant, and He is the master.  We should walk more humbly among one another than that.

Peter, of course, is still at the gate and continues knocking.  He has escaped from prison, and is now standing in the street in the middle of the night.  If the guards come looking, they will find him easily.  The believers finally open the door and now they are astonished.  There is some irony here.  They thought that Rhoda was mad, but now they are "astonished."  This word means to stand outside of one's self, but it didn't have the connotation of actually being crazy.  It meant something more like being amazed at something that seems incredulous.

No matter how much faith you have, you are still a human being who is mortal and framed in by limitations.  However, God isn't.  When He moves, it is often mind-blowing even to His people.  If you think about it, even just the normal activity of God's creation is amazing.  On top of this, He does astonishing things when we are not expecting it.  God has made astonishing promises to believers that are easy to talk about, but do we really believe?  The general resurrection of believers into immortal bodies seems incredulous to 21st century humans, but it is God's promise to the saints of every age.  Prepare to be surprised, and astonished!

Yet, if God could spring Peter with an angel, why not James?  That is the question isn't it.  Why does God do what He does, and not do what He doesn't do?  You will never be satisfied with an answer in that area.  Besides, from another perspective, we could say that James has been promoted to the side of Jesus, but Peter has been left on the earth to continue working.  James' testimony is that Jesus is worth dying for, and Peter gives the same testimony.  Yet, he is spared this time.

It is the privilege of the people of God to be amazed at the grace and mercy of God.  It is our privilege to be amazed from time to time as we pray for God's help.  We can shout together, "That's our God!  That's the One that we've been talking about!"  Let us praise our amazing God, and our amazing Savior!

After explaining all that has happened, Peter tells them to let the other apostles know that he has been freed, and then leaves.  This is one of those "underground church" lessons.  They would be looking for Peter at any time.  The first place that the gestapo will look is at the homes of your known associates.  We must be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves.

The wicked are frustrated (v. 18-19)

We will now look at how God's activity affects the wicked.  Of course, the wicked are always upset when God helps the righteous.

We are told that there is no small stir among the soldiers.  When they awakened and saw that their prisoner was gone, they knew this was a matter of life and death, theirs.  This was the day that Herod intended to try Peter, and execute him, no doubt.  Guards were always under threat of death for losing a prisoner, but especially a prisoner like Peter who "disturbs the Roman Peace."  They would have only so much time to look for Peter and then they would have to come clean to Herod.  They would not be able to sweep this under the rug.

Herod is finally told.  Verse 19 says that Herod searched for Peter and couldn't find him.  Of course, this means that he sent people out to search for Peter.  When they came up empty handed, Herod interrogates the guards and then has them executed.  He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.

Man's military operates much like a machine.  It is very methodical and all about function.  It is not a place of grace and mercy, but of harsh realities.

Though military language is used of believers in the New Testament (i.e., the armor of God, spiritual battle, etc.), God is not a man trying to act the part of God.  Of course, this is what generals, kings, and presidents do.  God is not desperate for you to never fail.  He can afford to have mercy and grace upon those who are more than His spiritual warriors, but are also His children.

This brings us to a principle.  When you are on the wrong side of God, you had better get used to frustration and rage.  Herod ends up with egg on his face and doesn't like it.  He sends a message to the other soldiers through the execution of the guards, and he sends a message to the people of Jerusalem as well.  This is no laughing matter.  Herod will not be made into a spectacle!  He may suspect that the guards had to have helped Peter escape.  Regardless, he is finding out the hard way that it is no fun to be fighting against God.

We are told that Herod then goes down to Caesarea.  It was no longer fun and rewarding to go after these Christians in Jerusalem.  It was fun for a time, but then God stepped in.  Yet, not all of the enemies of God's people are so easily dissuaded.  It is not always fun for believers either.  Yet, we always have the confidence that our God loves us and is working all things for our good.  He fights our battles!

This is the destiny of all the wicked, to be frustrated, and at the mercy of the cruelty of one another.  We could even say that Herod is "beside himself" in anger.  Yet, there is coming a day of great shame and loss for the powerful people of the earth and their armies.

Believers must once again take hold of the truth that God has not given this world to the wicked.  It may appear so, but it is only temporary.  They are taking advantage of God's grace and mercy.  Yet, they will be judged in the end.

God has particular judgments throughout history in which things changed overnight that people though would never change.  On top of this, God has a final day of wrath that will bring this Age of Grace to a close.  What will we choose, desperate frustration and shame, or the joy of amazement as our Savior steps in?  Those who choose the Lord Jesus will not be put to shame in the end!

Let me end by reminding us of the War of Independence.  When the united colonies won their independence from Great Britain, it was a big deal, a judgment of God.  But, it is a drop in the bucket to what Christ will do when He comes back to liberate humanity from the usurpers and their sycophants.  We must choose which side we will be on.  Some will always choose the side of the wicked against God.  Yet, in His mercy, He has given us this Age of Grace so that men can choose.  Choose this day who you will serve!

God's Help audio

Father, Turn Our Hearts

Luke 1:11-17.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on June 20, 2021, Father’s Day.

We are celebrating Father’s Day.  It is easy in life to let your heart turn towards the things that it wants to turn towards.  It doesn’t help when you have a society that elevates following the heart over doing what is right and pleasing God.

Don’t get me wrong.  Sometimes, God puts things in our hearts, but the follower of Jesus will wrestle with those things, seeking to be intellectually honest before God.  They desire more to follow him than to follow their own heart.

Today, we will look at a man who was grieved by the fact that he and his wife couldn’t have any children, and through his interaction with an angel, we are reminded of God the Father’s heart for us.

Let’s look at our passage.

The Father’s impact

In this passage, we are not told whether Zacharias was praying for a child that day in the temple.  He was a priest who had been picked by lot to offer the incense in the Holy Place before the veil, and the Presence of God.  We are told that he and his wife were “well advanced in years.”  This probably means that his years of praying for a child had long since ceased, and his hopes for such had long since died.

God the Father chose a particular day, when it looked like there was no hope, and in fact he wasn’t even looking to see if there was hope anymore.  It was at that moment that He sent an angel to give Zacharias the good news.  God had a present for him, a large measure of grace; he was going to have a son!  As exciting as this news was to Zacharias, notice that this grace is not all about him and his wife.  It is also about the nation of Israel and its need to turn back to God.  We must always remember that the grace of God in our life is a present from a loving Father, but it is also intended to bless more than just me.  It is our natural tendency to be short-sided in regard to the grace of God in our life.

This is probably the first time that Zacharias has seen an angel.  Though we are not given a description in Luke, the angel explains that he is Gabriel who stands in the presence of God.  This angel called Gabriel also interacted with Daniel in Daniel chapters 8 and 9.  There he is described as looking like a man (no wings).   So, it is most likely not what Gabriel looks like that startles Zacharias, but the fact that no one is supposed to be in the Holy Place at that time, but him.

There are things that can make men afraid.  Zacharias is a righteous man who has been serving God “blamelessly.”  It would be easy to say that a righteous man shouldn’t fear anything, even that we shouldn’t fear God; He is on our side!  However, God still does things, or allows things, in our life that we can’t control, and that we weren’t expecting.  Fear is a natural response in these times.

Many fathers try to look like they aren’t afraid, but if we don’t keep our heart and eyes turned towards God, we can become entangled in a web of fears.  You can spend your life trying to become greater than your fears, or you can turn to the One who is greater than all that you fear.  In fact, when we are not living right before God, we often fear things that we shouldn’t.  Proverbs 28:1 says, “The wicked flee when no man pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.”  We can become trapped by a mixture of real things and figments of our warped imagination.

The real problem in life is not that we fear, but that we are truly bad at fearing the right things.  There are many fathers today who are not afraid to abandon their children, or they are not afraid to help a girl abort their baby.  They aren’t afraid to abuse the woman that they are with.  Really, they don’t fear God who has warned those who do such things of the consequences of the things they are doing.  We are not afraid to play God in our labs, businesses, and government buildings.  We are not afraid of throwing off the time-proven wisdom of the past for the seduction of a future that we think we can control.  Yes, the real problem is that we aren’t afraid of running off the cliff with all the other lemmings.

In the end, God is not a danger to those who serve Him in love.  I should add a caveat to this.  It all comes down to the definition of “danger.”  Jesus served the Father faithfully in love, but he died on a cross.  Yet, God is showing us through the resurrection of Jesus that any danger He purposefully brings before us, or even allows to come before us, has a way through it that brings us to the good things that He intends for us on the other side.

In truth, He is a danger to our flesh, but He is Eternal Life, Peace, and Joy to our soul, and to our future.  He really does love you, and will bless you if you will turn to Him in faithful love.  Like Zacharias, we must be those ones who are rare in a land of men who have turned away from God.  We must pass that reality on to the next generation, both with our natural children and with the spiritual children that God brings into our lives.

The Father’s desire

As the angel describes God’s purpose for the child that Zacharias will have, we see the desire of our heavenly Father’s heart, and the things that were keeping Israel in bondage.

The term “children of Israel” is used in this context as a reference to generation, and not as a reference to age.  It is not talking about everyone under the age of 12, but of the current generation who had been birthed by the generation before.  It pictures each generation as Israel giving birth to the next generation of Israel.  The nation of Israel, both young and old, were the children of Israel, just as we today are the children of the United States of America. 

The problem with any nation is that our hearts get turned away from God the Father.  No matter how good our beginning may have been, all nations run into peril as more and more of their people turn their hearts away from God.  The Father’s desire was that the hearts of that generation be turned back towards Him.

We must not see God as a Father who is hurt and mad that His children don’t love Him.  Instead, we must see the reality of what happens to children who turn away from loving parents, and cast off their godly instruction.  Such children turn towards foolish things, and the path of folly always brings ruin to a person and to a nation.  God’s heart breaks over the folly that is taking over, not just our land, but all of the nations on this earth.  With a Father’s heart, He cries out, “Why will you die?  Choose Life, and turn back to Me!”

He also desires to turn the hearts of the fathers towards their children.  When our hearts are turned towards God, He teaches us to have our hearts turned towards each other in the right way.  There is a plague of fatherless children across our land.  Too many fathers have rejected the heavenly Father and His desire to turn their heart towards their wives and children.  This is not just a problem for fathers.  Mothers and children have the same problems too.

However, men, we must be bold as lions and care for the people that God has put in our lives.  Regardless of how they respond, we must love them and seek God’s best for them, by showing them what a righteous man looks like, and how he lives.  This world successfully seduces our hearts away from what really matters because it first seduced our heart away from God.  This is how Satan plunders us from the goodness and inheritance of God.

Ultimately, the Father desires to turn the disobedient towards the wisdom of the righteous.  Israel had become disobedient children.  They were fathers who were disobedient to the heaven Father, and children who were disobedient to earthly fathers.  They refused to hear the words of wisdom spoken through the righteous men of the past, and written down in the Bible.  In short, to turn is to repent.  There is a lot of turning going on in this world.  People turn from one thing to the next seeking their own happiness.  However, it is not good enough to repent of one fleshly pursuit to go after another.  The only repentance that will actually do you any good, and even do good for the people around you, is the repentance that turns all the way around back towards God.  Finally, when we are truly oriented towards Him, He is able to turn us back around to the people and things in our life in wisdom and righteousness, in a way that gives life, and not death.  May God help us to cast aside disobedience, hear the heart of a loving Father, and turn into the path of life!

Being a Righteous Man

Psalm 139:1-12; 19-24.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Father’s Day June 17, 2018.

Our passage today is not so much about fathers as it is about something that every father has to face.  It is necessary for a man to recognize the greatness of God and choose to walk in righteousness before Him.  This is not just for his sake, but also for the sake of his family, and the people around him.  When you step back and look objectively at our culture, there is not a lot of encouragement for a man to be righteous.  In fact, the word has become despised and is projected out of the mouth as if something vile was being expectorated.

Yet, Scripture calls men and women to reject self-righteousness, and embrace the righteousness of God.  This is not an excuse to sidestep the responsibility for decisions we make.  Rather, God’s plan is to set us in a place of safety because of the righteousness of Christ.  From that place of safety we are enabled by the Holy Spirit to hear God and obey Him, thus living out the righteousness of Christ.

In our psalm today we will follow David as he meditates on the truth about God and hopefully we will recognize how it should impact our souls and our lives.  Dads, may you choose to be a righteous man in the eyes of God, rather than in the eyes of this world.

Recognize the omniscience of God

Though David does not use the term omniscience, the word was created in order to name what David is talking about in this psalm.  He defines the truth that God knows all things in a multitude of ways.  In fact, the Bible is filled with a constant barrage of the teaching that God knows all things.

In verses 1-4 David speaks of God’s knowledge regarding the outward and the inward parts of our lives.  In regard to the outward, he mentions the fact that God knows when we are sitting down or rising up.  He knows what path we take and when we lie down.  In regards to the inner life, David mentions that God knows our thoughts even from afar off, and that He already knows the word that is just on the tip of my tongue before I say it.

In a day and age where governments and businesses at all levels seek to have more and more information regarding everything that we do, we can understand how this could be a scary thought.  With man all knowledge is used to restrict and control, and thus an omniscient government would exercise maximum restriction and control upon the people.  However, God is not a tyrant who wants control, despite the propaganda campaign that has been waged against Him.  If He was, we would not be having this conversation right now.  No matter how many years man spends trying to become as omniscient as God, we cannot escape the fact that He is already there, and knows us all completely, inside and out.

In fact in verse 5 David recognizes that he is completely surrounded by God.  He is hedged or enclosed by God, behind, in front, and even has His hand upon him.  Thus God is not only beholding everything, but everything is also within His purview.  Nothing is outside of God’s knowledge and ability to do something about it.  This sets up the next point that God is omnipresent.  But before we go that, let us take a moment to be amazed with David.

When you truly realize the absolute omniscience of God and spend time thinking about its ramifications, you should be filled with amazement, awe, and even a healthy sense of fear.  In verse 6, David recognizes this, but also that God knows us better than we know ourselves.  His level of knowledge is so great that we cannot even come close to attaining it.  All truth brings us to a decision place, where we must choose how we are going to respond to it.  So let’s read on and see how David responds.

Recognize the omnipresence of God

The omniscience of God is wrapped up in a similar idea that God is present everywhere at once.  That is, there is no place that God is not present.  Now notice in verse 7 that David couches this in the language of fleeing.  This should remind us of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  After they had sinned and heard God coming to visit with them, all they could think to do was run and hide from Him.  Of course their attempts to hide were futile, not because they lacked hiding skills, but because nothing can hide from the God who is omnipresent in all places.  Now David expresses that this futility is not just physical but also spiritual by mentioning heaven and hell first.  Of course if we went to heaven God would be there because it is His throne.  But God is in hell?  First, the term translated hell here is technically a word that refers to the spiritual aspect of the grave.  It is the holding place where all spirits, wicked and righteous, go to await Judgment Day.  Thus for the wicked it is a dry, dusty, thirsty, hot place.  But, for the righteous it is a place of peace and rest.  This holding place, or “the grave,” was created by God and is always before Him.  Thus even in death one cannot escape God.  Some live this life believing that there is nothing after death.  They assuage their conscience with the frail hope that there will be no accounting for this life.  But David recognized that God is not just everywhere in the universe, but also in the place our spirits go to when we die.

The futility of fleeing applies to geography too.  Like Jonah, one cannot even flee to the farthest places of the earth, but that God would be there trying to lead you back to the righteous path. And therein lies a twist.  David recognizes the goodness of God in that though he is clearly thinking of ways to flee from God, he recognizes that no matter where he goes, God uses His omniscience and omnipresence not to crush us, but rather to lead us and to hold us (vs. 10).  It is a scary thing for man through his technology to become omniscient and omnipresent, but God who already has these things can be trusted.  He is actually trying to help you, not control you.  Men’s hearts cannot be trusted with ultimate power.  But God has proven Himself time and time again through the millennia.  How great is the grace and patience of our Creator.

David even contemplates being in a place of complete darkness, and yet recognizes that God would see us there.  Sure, science tells us that there are all manner of wavelengths outside of the visible spectrum.  So our military can brag about “owning the night” because they use night vision goggles to pick up the infrared spectrum.  Thus the one who designed our eyes to pick up only a portion of this spectrum must be able to recognize every spectrum.  Yet, this is not what David means.  God is spirit and as such does not have “eyes” that pick up a larger spectrum of the electromagnetic radiation all around us.  Even if a human cooled themselves down to absolute zero and was encased in a shield designed to block out all radiation (Gamma, x-ray, etc.), yet God would still “see” you there and ask you, “What are you doing here?”  This had great encouragement for David because there were times when he was driven far away from the dwelling place of God, the tabernacle.  Yet, God is not held to a particular geographical place on earth.  Thus what could be seen as scary has a comforting side to it.

In fact this is what David goes on to recognize in verses 13-18.  We looked at these verses during Mother’s Day.  So if you want to check out the commentary on those verses go to the entry for May 13, 2018.  Suffice it to say that David recognizes that God was there when he was being formed in the womb.  God created us, knows us intimately, and thinks a great number of thoughts about us.  He is the ultimate loving Father who agonizes over the plight of a child who is far, far away from where they need to be.  God created you, intimately knows you, and thinks about you all the time.  Why would you run from Him?

Respond properly to these truths

In verses 19-24 David moves to his response to this contemplation.  Instead of running from God, David chooses to go towards God.  If Adam and Eve would have truly known the heart of God, they would have fled the serpent at first sight, and ran towards God.  Even after their sin, they should have run towards God, not away.  Only God has salvation and healing for us.  This is the proper response.

Now verses 19-22 can make some people squeamish, at least here in western civilization.  It seems to contradict Jesus who tells us to love our enemies.  It is important to recognize that David is speaking as a man under the law, and not as the Messiah who had come to lead Israel out from under the Law of Moses.  Still, it is better to recognize that the teaching of Jesus is a bit more nuanced than just that we love our enemies.  If you have ever tried to love someone who was bent on wickedness and rejecting the ways of God, then you know the agony of seeking God’s will in this matter.  What does it mean to love someone?  Jesus in no way suggests that the righteous should jump on the same side as the wicked and help them on their way.  Even Jesus warns us that we must make a choice that leaves the world behind in order to follow Him.  “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”  Luke 14: 26.  Ultimately all people must decide for themselves what side they are on, the side of the wicked or of those who follow God’s righteousness.  David has made his choice.  He hates the wicked with a “perfect hatred.”  Of course, being a man of war, it is no shock that he gives such a full-throated declaration of being on God’s side.

We should also notice that David is talking about people who actually hate God and His way.  It is one thing to care about people’s souls and love them enough to share the truth of Christ with them.  But when they spit it back in your face and say all manner of evil against God and Christ, then we cannot say, “O, isn’t that nice.  Blessings, brother.”  C.H. Spurgeon, a British, Baptist preacher of the 1800’s said about this, “To love all men with benevolence is our duty, but to love any man with complacency would be a crime.”  Thus through the years the adage, “love the sinner, but hate the sin,” was created.  The sad truth is that some people will not be separated from their sins and will cling to them in rage against God, no matter how much you love them.  Thus love is not complacent about the lost condition of the wicked, but instead lays down its life in order to open their eyes to Christ.

The last two verses of this psalm focuses on our response towards God.  We should open ourselves up to God and embrace His omniscience.  David has come full-circle.  A righteous man is not righteous because he is so wonderful.  He is righteous because even though his flesh wants to run from God, he has run towards God.  He has opened himself up to God in trust and in faith saying, “O God, search me and show me where I need to change!”  “Teach me the way to live that gives life everlasting!”

Men and women, how can we be righteous?  Not by pretense and image-tending on the outside.  Only by choosing to be vulnerable to The One whom you cannot fool and to whom you cannot defend yourself.  He is The One who loves you better than you can love yourself.  The well known ABC’s of salvation say it well.  We must admit that we are sinners in need of a Savior, believe on the Lord Jesus with full faith, and we must confess this faith in Jesus publicly that all men may know that we have chosen the path of God’s righteousness.  Amen!

Righteous Man audio

Folly or Wisdom? Part I

1 Kings 22:1-18.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on February 18, 2018.

The book of proverbs in the bible is famous for its sayings which warn people to avoid folly and choose wisdom.  Of course the Way of the Lord is always presented as the path of wisdom, and all the ways invented by mankind besides it are presented as the paths of folly.  So, how does wisdom fit in with the New Testament’s emphasis on love?  We will find in this chapter a help in this matter.  Here we find that a person can love God and their fellow man, and yet, make foolish choices.  Foolish choices lead to folly and folly eventually leads to destruction in one form or another.

It can be easy to think that because one has put their faith in Jesus, and have whole-heartedly pursued a love of God and your neighbor, that somehow we would be insulated from making foolish choices.  However, this is not true.  To choose to believe in Jesus and follow Him as your master is the wisest thing you will ever do.  Yet, every choice we face is a test, even if we have strung together a long streak of wise choices.  That said, if love for God and our neighbor is the foundation on which we build, then wisdom is how and what we build on top of that foundation.  May God help us all to be wise followers of Jesus.

A righteous person can act foolishly

As we open this chapter we will find three main characters and three cities that are important in our understanding.  Jehoshaphat is the King of Judah who reigns in Jerusalem.  He has gone north to visit with King Ahab of Northern Israel who reigns in Samaria.  These two kings couldn’t be more different.  Jehoshaphat is described as a righteous king who led his people to worship the God of Israel, and the God of Israel was with him. However, Ahab is described as a wicked king who led his people to worship the Canaanite god Baal, and God was against him.  In fact Ahab has been told by Elijah the prophet that he is under a decree of death from the God of Israel.  Thus, during Jehoshaphat’s visit with Ahab in Samaria, Ahab brings up a city called Ramoth in the Gilead region.  This was on the eastern side of the Jordan River Valley and up on the plains above it.  This city had served as one of Israel’s cities of refuge that belonged to the Levites.  Ben Hadad of Syria had captured it at some point and had not returned it, even though he had been twice defeated by Israel (see 1 Kings 20).  Ahab wants Jehoshaphat to join forces with him and take it back.  Now our last character is the prophet of the Lord, Micaiah.  We know very little of this individual except what is revealed in this chapter.  Though it is not specifically stated, it seems that Ahab may have had him imprisoned within Samaria before this event because of his command in verse 26 to have Micaiah “taken back” to the governor of Samaria in order to be imprisoned.  Regardless, Micaiah is a righteous follower of the God of Israel and will prove to be wise.

Ultimately this chapter is about the folly of people in the face of God’s continued gracious appeal to turn from it.  Ahab’s folly is that of a wicked person who has chosen to be an enemy of God.  All his false prophets can be lumped into that category along with him.  Jehoshaphat, on the other hand, is a righteous person who wants so badly to fix things that he makes foolish choices, instead of trusting in the Lord’s wisdom in regard to actions and timing.  Lastly we see all the soldiers who go along with the folly of their leaders for varying reasons.  Some agree with the king, some are ambivalent, and some no doubt only do so out of fear.  Citizens generally suffer from the folly of their leaders decisions and are blessed by their wisdom.

For our purposes we will focus on Jehoshaphat.  When propositioned by Ahab to join forces, he is quick to agree.  This speedy agreement, no doubt, comes from a good heart.  He hates to see the once united nation of Israel divided and fighting each other.  He thinks his good will and alliance with Ahab will make unity and heal the breach.  In fact, in later chapters we find that Jehoshaphat had strengthened this alliance by having his son Jehoram marry Ahab’s daughter, Athaliah.  This is the same Athaliah who nearly killed the whole royal line of David.  If not for God’s mercy to have the infant Joash hidden from her, she would have succeeded in usurping the Davidic throne and God’s promises to David.  I am sure that Jehoshaphat also hates to see the enemies of God ruling over a city of Israel.  Though he has righteous intentions, Jehoshaphat does not recognize that he is allying with a wicked man whom God is planning to have killed.  To join together with such a person is to put yourself in the crosshairs.  You do not want to be in league with a wicked person when God decides to bring them down.

It may be good to stop and think about how we can be guilty of this today.  Many in the Church of God who want to see unity among the denominations and acceptance within the culture will make love and unity their rally cry.  There is nothing wrong with having these things at the heart of our actions and speech.  However, as we see in this story, it is never good to ally ourselves with people who are at odds with God and His Anointed, Jesus.  There is a proper timing and a proper way to healing the breaches that have happened in our nation and society.  In our zeal to “fix things” we can make foolish choices that lead to further harm.  May God help us to lean only upon His wisdom and wait for His timing, rather than rushing ahead with people who are under the judgment of God.

To his credit, Jehoshaphat asks Ahab to inquire of the God of Israel in verse 5.  At the end of the day this is a wise thing to do and could have been the very thing that saved him from his own naiveté.  But we will deal with that later.  Ahab calls forward 400 prophets who begin prophesying that if they go to battle they will win.  These prophets are clearly not prophets of the God of Israel because Jehoshaphat immediately asks if there isn’t a prophet of the God of Israel.  These are either prophets of Baal or Asherah or both.  It is difficult to tell if Ahab was trying to present them as prophets of the God of Israel, but this is highly probable.  Ahab knows that Jehoshaphat only serves the God of Israel.  Regardless of how Jehoshaphat knows (most likely their demeanor smacked of paganism), he has a big “red flag” moment in his heart.  He knows that these 400 prophets do not represent the message of the God of Israel.  So why not tell Ahab you are not interested in going to battle?  Perhaps he is in too deep and doesn’t want to mess up the good-will that he has obtained with Ahab.  Thus Jehoshaphat disregards a huge red flag and pushes on trying to find a justification to help Ahab.

When Jehoshaphat asks Ahab if there isn’t still a prophet of the God of Israel available, Ahab answers that there is one (notice he doesn’t bring up Elijah).  However, Ahab says that he hates the prophet because he never has anything good to say about Ahab.  Now, a prophet’s job is not to make the king feel good about himself, but rather to tell him the truth.  The prophets of the God of Israel were not enemies of Ahab.  They only told him the truth.  It was his obstinate insistence to reject their words that had led to his death decree.  Jehoshaphat recognizes how dangerous Ahab’s statement is.  To say that you hate a true prophet of God is to hate God.    Though he softly rebukes Ahab, he disregards another huge red flag telling him that he is on the wrong path.

A righteous person can act wisely

As Jehoshaphat and Ahab wait for Micaiah to be summoned, we are told that the false prophets continue to do their prophesying.  One particular false prophet named Zedekiah has fashioned some iron horns for himself as a prophetic prop.  He proclaims that with these two iron horns Israel will gore the Syrians.  In Israel horns were used symbolically of a king and his kingdom.  Thus the two horns are Ahab and Jehoshaphat.

Meanwhile some officer is bringing Micaiah to the Kings and clearly applies some social pressure to him.  He tells Micaiah that 400 prophets are telling the kings that they will be successful and that he should agree with them.   Such social pressure to support the public policy of the king, or the current leaders, is the folly of many a government.  Yes-men never help a leader, but rather fail their duty to fully inform and counsel them.  We see this same dynamic within our own politics and within the culture of our society.  Often believers in Jesus are pressured to speak and act in a socially acceptable way because so many are already going along with it.  Yet, Micaiah is a righteous man who wisely refuses to bow to such pressures.  He states that he will only speak what the Lord tells him to speak.  This sounds familiar with the words of Jesus in John 12:49 (and in many other places), “For I [Jesus] have not spoken on My own authority, but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.”  He also mentions that He only does what He has been told by His Father.  Is this my resolve?  Imagine how different the response of the churches in our land would be if they all followed the path of Micaiah, and ultimately that of Jesus.  Is my resolve to only speak and do what God wants me to speak and do? 

When Micaiah is finally brought before the kings, it may seem strange that he actually does tell Ahab that he will be successful.  But, it is clear in the context that he is being sarcastic.  Ahab immediately adjures him to tell the truth.  I do not believe that Micaiah’s sarcasm presents any ethical problem.  It is clear that he and Ahab have a history wherein Ahab has continually disregarded the word of the Lord from Micaiah.  Thus when Ahab asks for the truth, he is not really asking for truth so that he can obey the Lord.  Ahab will go to war regardless of what Micaiah has to say.  Instead Ahab sees Micaiah as a source of “spiritual chatter.”  He wants to know what the prophets of Yahweh have to say.  Perhaps he can glean enough information to prevent what they are predicting.  All of this is happening in front of Jehoshaphat and should be even another red flag to him.    I believe that Micaiah’s sarcasm actually highlights the hypocrisy of Ahab.  He has never really wanted the truth because he has always embraced the lie of Baal and his religion.

Of course Micaiah then tells the kings what he saw in a vision.  His words are worth noting.  “I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, like sheep without a shepherd.”  These are similar of the words Matthew used in Matthew 9:36.  “But when [Jesus] saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.”  This metaphor of sheep without a shepherd is used throughout the Bible.  Moses used this metaphor when God told him it was time for him to die.  In Numbers 21:17 Moses asks God to appoint another leader so that Israel would not be like sheep without a shepherd.  In other words they would be vulnerable to the world around them without strong, godly leadership.  David used it in Psalm 23 to declare, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”  Of course Jesus used description of the good shepherd for himself.  In Ezekiel 34:12 the Lord says, “As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day.”  Lastly, in Zechariah 10:2 God says, “The idols speak delusion; the diviners envision lies, and tell false dreams; they comfort in vain.  Therefore the people wend their way like sheep; they are in trouble because there is no shepherd.”

Even with Ahab as their king, Israel has been without a true shepherd for years because Ahab is a false shepherd who only cares about himself.  His actions are only leading to a scattering of the sheep both physically and spiritually.  Yet, God has promised to regather His sheep who have been scattered.  Today, Christians are a part of God’s work of regathering the sheep.  However, it is not just the lost sheep of Israel, but of the whole world.  In the midst of God’s regathering process we must be wise and lean upon the wisdom of the Lord rather than our own.  Yes, God so loves the world that He gave His One and Only Son that whoever believes on Him should not perish but have eternal life.  However, no amount of false unity and pretending that the wicked are not in danger will save them.  Only the truth sets us free.  Let’s be righteous people who choose wisely rather than being led into folly.

Folly or Wisdom audio