2 Chronicles 18:1-34 - Homiletics

The second chapter in Jehoshaphat's career.

This chapter opens with the statement of a fact that portends no good—the "affinity' which Jehoshaphat "joined with Ahab," the King of Israel. This came to pass in the incident of the marriage of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, with Athaliah, daughter of Ahab. Eight years, or a little more, and it seems to bear no evil fruit; but, if so, it was only that it was taking its time to form and ripen, and now too surely is found. Clusters of lessons in this chapter gather round the names of—

I. JEHOSHAPHAT . They now, unfortunately, all descend from that one false position in which he had involved himself and his family with Ahab and his family.

1 . Jehoshaphat has become undoubtedly the leading man, and is proportionately exposed to the dangers inherent in, inseparably inherent in, being courted—courted by attentions, by flattery, by luxurious entertainment, by being appealed to for his opinion on great questions, and tacitly treated as arbiter in high questions of state.

2 . He must repay these, if possible, in somewhat similar coin, and must use large language, speak after the manner of an entangling generosity ( 2 Chronicles 18:3 ), and, before he knows what he means, commit himself to something dangerously near a promise.

3 . After this promise, instead of before it, he admonishes the man who is in tact a rival king to inquire "the word of the Lord," and has to wince under the notorious humiliation of listening to the report of four hundred men, well known for false prophets!

4 . He has to save, if not his credit, the bare necessities of the truth, by asking for a true prophet, "a prophet of the Lord, " without, as it would appear, one word of blank and fiat denunciation of Ahab's troop of prophets, and with only the mildest deprecation ( 2 Chronicles 18:7 ) of Ahab's unqualified assertion that he "hates" the true man, and with utter ignoring and neglect of the favourable opportunity of asking how it may be supposed to have come to pass that the true man "never has prophesied good, but always evil unto" Ahab. Yes, but the inconvenience was that he was a guest in his house, and a guest sumptuously entertained and most deferentially treated.

5 . He has a long sitting's humiliation, when, clothed in his royal robes, he sat, throne by throne, with Ahab, to see "the prophet of the Lord," Micaiah; to hear his parables, every word of which he knew to be truth; to witness the horror of that true prophet being "smitten on the cheek" of the false, and the royal honour of the Lord God proportionately disparaged; to observe the meek forbearance of Micaiah in his reply; and, to crown all, his sentence and relegation to a bread-and-water imprisonment by Ahab. It ought to have been a long day of torture for the king of the true line of David!

6 . Lastly, though it is impossible to doubt that he was in possession of the true state of the whole case, Jehoshaphat has to go on to the end. He does the thing that is wrong ( 2 Chronicles 19:2 ); he seems, at last, to be obeying Ahab rather than to lead him-going into battle and, at his suggestion, clothed for a target for the archers—till the undignified cry to be spared is wrung from his lips, because he would have it known he is Jehoshaphat, and not Ahab! All this was dangerously close steering for the conscience; it brought upon him the distinct reproof and very forcibly expressed condemnation of the seer Hanani, so soon as ever he reached Jerusalem; and all was occasioned by his being dragged on, step by step, in a wrong course from the position, originally a false one, in which he had placed himself.

II. AHAB . Things are very near their end for Ahab. The view is that of a man using up to the best advantage the last of his wits, which he had of long time trusted to his disadvantage, which long time had led him wrong, and were now rapidly going to lead him to the fatal end. We notice:

1 . How he prepared the way by lavish entertainment of the King of Judah and his retinue, in order to utilize the opportunity to persuade him, apparently, to pass his word "to go up to Ramoth-Gilead," but certainly to pass an opinion favourable to doing so.

2 . How immediately he acceded to the proposal of Jehoshaphat that the Lord should be inquired of, but as immediately repaired to and summoned "his" own "prophets" ( 2 Chronicles 18:21 ).

3 . How the force of circumstances extracted from him a faithful statement of the true state of his feelings towards the true prophet ( 2 Chronicles 18:7 ).

4 . How the "officer," or "messenger," sent to bring Micaiah quickly, did his endeavour, no doubt at the instigation of Ahab, to pervert ( 2 Chronicles 18:12 , 2 Chronicles 18:13 ) the testimony which Micaiah should give, but vainly.

5 . How certainly he detected the consequent sarcasm, the veiled compliance of Micaiah ( 2 Chronicles 18:14 , 2 Chronicles 18:15 ), and the rather drew out more fully all the thing as it was from Micaiah, but as he did not want to have it, or to have it uttered!

6 . How the wicked action of one of his false prophets suited him exactly ( 2 Chronicles 18:23-25 ), and bridged the way both to satisfy his own resentment and to put a fair face on the position in the presence of Jehoshaphat. He was, perhaps, trembling all the while lest Jehoshaphat, hearing and seeing all, should have summoned up the moral courage to have done just the thing which he ought to have done, and withdrawn altogether from the enterprise, or from all association with Ahab in it!

7 . Lastly, how Ahab entered the battle-field, ill at ease, dishonouring himself by disguising himself, and with too sure a presage of what was in store for him; and the prophecy of Elijah found its fulfilment ( 1 Kings 21:19 ).

III. THE FALSE PROPHETS . These, wherever found, are the prophets who seek to please man; who would divine, a task only too easy, what man wishes them to say. In this case they are emphatically called, on the highest authority ( 2 Chronicles 18:21 , 2 Chronicles 18:22 ), Ahab ' s prophets, not those of the Lord. Unfaithfulness in the professed teaching of religion never does anything better than lets through those who accept it. The anger and intemperateness of that one of the false prophets who had been most demonstrative, most dramatic ( 2 Chronicles 18:10 , 2 Chronicles 18:23 ), are much to be noticed—noticed as marking, as measuring the personal feeling and, in a word, the very temper which should be most utterly absent from the true messenger of God, of his truth, and his will.

IV. THE ONE BLAMELESS , BEAUTIFUL , AND EVEN TYPICAL FIGURE OF THE TRUE PROPHET . He was already, it appears, a marked man, and, had it been possible, marked down by King Ahab. We notice:

1 . When all pressure was put on him, and he knew very well what it meant, that he asserted the inviolability of his duty—absolute fidelity to his instructions!

2 . We must notice the deep knowledge imparted to him of human nature; how to touch it at its root; how to gain effectively its ear under the most favourable circumstances; how, in the presence of such, even to enlarge its own opportunity for exposition of the truth ( 2 Chronicles 18:14 , 2 Chronicles 18:22 ). The parable, as we may call it, of the sheep on the mountains without a shepherd, and the vision of the council of heaven, or in heaven, which had been vouchsafed to Micaiah,—what tales they tell to all those who now are listening to him! One against not fewer than four hundred and two! The plainness, the point, the forcibleness, and the fearlessness of his utterance are all the perfection of the true prophet. For us, too, this passage most instructively illustrates the method, or one of the methods, by which prophet and seer of old saw and then announced the real revelations of heaven to earth.

3 . But the perfection of the true prophet is yet more intrinsically present in the forbearingness, the patient suffering, the not returning railing for railing, "the fellowship of sufferings" with the One Prophet; as Micaiah was "smitten on the cheek," as he was "thrust into prison," as he was "fed with the bread and water of affliction," as he uttered no provoking word nor murmured, because of the consequences to himself, of his faithful ministry. The day that was fateful and fatal to the wicked king Ahab, who now filled up the measure of his iniquity; that was dismay, confusion, exposure, to four hundred false prophets; that, alas! tarnished even the history and character of Jehoshaphat—was the day in which the blameless Micaiah "shone forth as the sun in the firmament of heaven."