But Micaiah said, “As surely as God lives, what God says, I’ll say.” With Micaiah before him, the king asked him, “So Micaiah—do we attack Ramoth Gilead, or do we hold back?” “Go ahead,” he said. “An easy victory. God’s gift to the king.” “Not so fast,” said the king. “How many times have I made you promise under oath to tell me the truth and nothing but the truth?” “All right,” said Micaiah, “since you insist. I saw all of Israel scattered over the hills, sheep with no shepherd. Then God spoke: ‘These poor people have no one to tell them what to do. Let them go home and do the best they can for themselves.’” 1 Kings 22:14-17
When prophets fight each other for who is right instead of uniting together to seek the Lord, the kingdom in is trouble. Here the Lord has decreed destruction for Israel, and led the prophets to prophecy a lie to the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat. When all of them agreed, they asked Micaiah, even though the king said this guy never preaches anything good to him. Think about it. Here was a man who was declaring the words of God but the king of Israel said he never preached anything good to him. There will be times in our lives that when we preach the truth, to the people who had been disobeying God, it is nothing good to them. They might even say, we are against them or personally decided not to preach good to them... it's all a make believe statement. If that is what they need to tell themselves so they can go to sleep what can you and I do. We still have a responsibility to declare the words of God to the people. When Micaiah was asked if they shall go, he said go and attack. When he was asked to swear an oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, he told them what exactly will happen if they will attack. Micaiah understands that saying the right thing will not always be popular. He may even become the recipient of the kings anger bu saying so, but are we to bend the words of God to please men? Are we to bend the words of God just to make our lives "safe". Keep speaking the words of God no matter what. 15 April
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