“Last Call” is a defining moment at the end of the evening’s restaurant and bar service. It is the signal that no other orders will be taken in the kitchen. It is the END of offering something. I have called this message “LAST CALL” because though God spoke into the ancient King of Israel – Ahab’s life throughout his reign with prophetic truth – there finally came a “LAST CALL”.
Ahab’s life offers us a model that yield’s many principles, but an overall look at his life yields one very important truth that every person who has been presented the Word of God needs to take seriously: When we don’t take God and His Word seriously, He eventually closes the opportunity to change.
Go back twenty-two years in time, when God first allowed Ahab to ascend to the throne of his father Omri. Trace Ahab’s high water moments and you will see that God spoke to Ahab five times giving him opportunity to turn around. Don’t take my word for it. Look at the Word and you’ll see God showed up and revealed Ahab’s opportunity to repent:
1) By fire at Elijah’s altar (18): His father Omri built the capital at Samaria six years before he died. Ahab inherited the throne and the new capital city, and had a twenty-two year run as the king of Israel. (1 Kings 16:29). He was described as one who made sin trivial (1 Kings 16:31), and he openly defied God’s warning to future kings (see Deuteronomy 17 below) not to take foreign wives. He erected pagan altars (1 Kings 16:32, and allowed Jericho’s rebuilding in a flagrant disregard of God’s Word. When we disregard the Word, we set ourselves up for heartbreak – because God does not desire to leave a monument to our disobedience!
During this rampage, God shut off the water of the rains, and the agricultural economy dried up (1 Kings 17). Ahab’s answer was not repentance, but to find a solution on foot (1 Kings 18:5). God interrupted his plan through Elijah and brought fire down on the pagan priests in the presence of the people, causing a reformation of Yahweh (1 Kings 18:20-40). Elijah told Ahab to flee back to Jezreel’s palace, escaping the wrath of God and the people (1 Kings 18:41ff). God brought back the rain and Ahab sunk back into palace life for a time. Before the hard hearted can soften to God, they often need times of extreme reversal.
2) Through an unnamed prophet twice in the face of Ben-Hadad (20:13,22), The Aramean king Ben-Hadad brought up thirty-two chieftans to take the northern kingdom from Ahab (1 Kings 20:1ff) and God sent prophets to Ahab to tell him how to fight the battle and win (1 Kings 20:13-14). After a successful rout of the Aramean alliance, God warned Ahab that another assault was coming a year later (1 Kings 20:22ff). God offers opportunities to change, but they must be recognized and responded to with consistent and growing trust! Flash in the pan obedience will yield moments of victory. Steadily surrendered life will yield true power!
3) Another younger prophet in judgment over the release of Ben-Hadad (20:35-43), By God’s leading, Ahab defeated the alliance, but set free Ben-Hadad without consulting God. God chastised him and told him that mistake would come back to hurt him (1 Kings 20:42). God’s revelation was for the purpose of establishing a relationship where God would be consulted and followed. Without that, God communicated in judgment – the only language Ahab seemed ready to listen to!
4) In severe judgment through Elijah after Naboth’s murder (21:20-24), (21:20 AND 25): Elijah calls it clearly – “You have sold out to a lie!” That is the moment of truth in the story. Ahab is confronted with the reality that he has now fully grabbed a lie, and lived it out. When it is clearly pointed out to him, he has a choice. We always do – as long as God gives us breath and we can hear His voice… there is a choice to follow Him. Sadly, even in repentance, Ahab learns of the cost of his continued sin. How like so many believers that walk in resistance throughout their lives, seeking self pleasure. One day they repent, and God lovingly invites them into His arms… but the damage done is not erased. We cannot expect to sow selfishness for years, and then repent in a moment and see all the seeds swept away.
5) The final scenes of Ahab’s life in chapter 22:26-28: Then the king of Israel said, “Take Micaiah and return him to Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king’s son; and say, ‘Thus says the king, “Put this man in prison and feed him sparingly with bread and water until I return safely.” Micaiah said, “If you indeed return safely the LORD has not spoken by me ” And he said, “Listen, all you people.”
This was the fifth time and the revelation of God constituted a final act of God’s attempt to reach into Ahab’s life with truth was complete when Ahab slammed shut the door by locking up the prophet. That was the final act before the battle that took his life! It was the LAST CALL for Ahab, and he missed the opportunity to change anymore. He simply didn’t take God at His Word, and his opportunities were taken away with an arrow carefully planted into his body in a gap in his armor. Remember, when we don’t take God and His Word seriously, He eventually closes the opportunity to change.
I dwell on this one aspect of his life, because I think it is the prevailing lesson of the whole record of his life. Ahab’s rejection of truth that God was hounding him with throughout his reign was ultimately his undoing. When he appeared to soften, he didn’t PERMANENTLY CHANGE because of the revelation of the prophets. Hardening in the face of truth, he finally utterly DISMISSED the value of the words of God’s prophets.
Chapter 22 opens with a three year reprieve of peace from God’s hand to Israel (22:1).
The Conference of Kings (22:1-28)
Three years of peace came to Israel after the battle that set Ben-Hadad free in chapter 20. In the third year, it was the King of Judah, Jehoshaphat, that came to usher in the final opportunity to repent and listen to God’s Word in Ahab’s life. “God will judge” was that king’s name in Hebrew – how very appropriate! (22:2). The conference of kings yielded a discussion in which Ahab noticed that Ramoth-Gilead was a rightful possession of his and he wanted to go and take it out of the hands of those who had taken control of his possession. He asked Jehoshaphat to soldier an army with him.
King Jehoshaphat was agreeable to the idea, but asked that God be consulted (22:5), a move that surely made the estranged from God uncomfortable (Ahab), but what could he do but oblige? He was a Hebrew king! He surely would consult God before any such move!
Here is an important principle to remember: God’s servants don’t always have God’s heart. They may carry a title that exceeds their maturity in walk, or their true passion for God. It happens all the time – but Ahab didn’t want to embarrass himself with the truth. He didn’t consult God regularly. He didn’t like to consult God. God didn’t give him everything he wanted (i.e. remember the words of Naboth in 21:3?)
During the conference, Ahab rounds up 400 lying prophets gave him a message he wanted to hear (22:6,10-12) but Micaiah ben Imlah spoke the truth from God first by sarcastic mimicry (22:15) then by open truth (22:17)- followed by a cheek slap “smack down” among the prophets (22:19-28)!
Because it may be confusing to some who are following the story, let me mention for a moment the truth found in 22:19-23. In the passage Micaiah speaksof his vision granted by God of how God would bring on the prophets a deception. It can be a hard passage to understand, particularly in 22:22. “The LORD said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You are to entice him and also prevail. Go and do so.’
There are a number of commentators that simply say that this was Satan. The problem is that this shows a collusion that would help the plan of God – not something Satan is likely to do. Others say that God simply sent an assigned angel with a lie. The problem is that 1 Samuel 15:29 says: “Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.” I think the best argument is that God simply did through his messengers what He shares elsewhere in Scripture – He GAVE THEM OVER to the desire of their hearts, hardening them into exactly what they wanted to believe. He didn’t provide the lies, he allowed the lies. Note that same phenomenon in Romans 1:
Romans 1:21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. 24Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. (NASB)
The principle of Scripture is this: when we WANT to walk away from God, in judgment He may remove the roadblocks and protective barriers we once had holding us back. He may remove us from the voices of truth and righteousness as we ever increase our run away from them. He may allow judicially false voices to become prominent in our ears. This is NOT His holy desire for us, it is a judgment based on our overwhelming desire to walk in self will!
And now the END of the Story of Ahab…
The COLLAPSE of the King (22:29-40)
The story unfolds with classic Ahab strategy – a deception. He perceives that he will be a target, and talks Jehoshaphat into wearing the king’s robe while he disguises and deceives (22:29-33).
Here is the principle: A life lived running away from God’s truth is a life lived in deception. Eventually, without repentance, it is a life that will create pain for those who follow God’s Word. It will harm people all around them!
The final moments of his life were spent watching his army be routed and flee (22:34-40). Even in those moments on the chariot, Ahab refused to see the error of his ways.
Here is the final principle: We may not realize it, but as we reject truth – the obvious becomes obscure. Even as we LOSE the things we hold dear, we do not change our strategy, but cling to the bitter end. Repentance flees from our sight. We become somehow unable to change. DO NOT POSTPONE a softness to God, for each passing day you will lose the desire to change. One day, in the adopted baseness of your living, you will resign your life to deception! When we don’t take God and His Word seriously, He eventually closes the opportunity to change.
