The Danger of False Preachers. (2 Chronicles 18: 1-34)

This Podcast is part of season 23 of a project to complete an in-depth study of the entire Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. 

Episode Notes:

Today episode is titled “The Danger of False Preachers.”  And that title, I believe, captures the central warning of 2 Chronicles 18.  

In our last episode, we saw Jehoshaphat at his best. He was balanced, wise, faithful, obedient, strengthening the nation spiritually and practically. But now, in chapter 18, we see Jehoshaphat at his most vulnerable.

 He forms a dangerous alliance with Ahab, the wicked king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and surrounds himself with false prophets who tell him exactly what he wants to hear. He also ignores the one true prophet who speaks the word of the Lord, and he walks straight into a battle he should never have entered.

 Chapter 18 is an important reminder that not everyone who claims to speak for God actually does, and not every preacher is trustworthy. Not every prophet is faithful, and not every voice that sounds spiritual is true.

 Today, I hope we will discover the danger of being seduced by false voices, and what happens when a Godly person listens to the wrong preachers, teachers, prophets or even influencers…..

Transcript

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Hello everyone, welcome to the Bible Journey Daily Podcast. My name is Jeremy McCantlis, and it's a joy to have you with me again today as we continue our study series through the Book of Two Chronicles. Today's episode I've titled The Danger of False Preachers, and that title I believe captures the central warning that we find in today's chapter, Chapter 18. Now in our last episode yesterday, we saw Jehosaphat at his best. He was a balanced man, as I said. He was wise, faithful, obedient, strengthening the nation both spiritually and practically. But now in chapter 18 we see another side of Jehosaphat, where he is at his most vulnerable. We see him make a dangerous alliance with Ahab, the wicked king of the northern kingdom of Israel, and he surrounds himself with false prophets and yesmen who tell him exactly what he wants to hear. He also will ignore the one true prophet who comes and speaks the word of the Lord to him, and he walks straight into a battle he should never even have entered. Now, chapter 18 is an important reminder that everyone who claims to speak for God doesn't necessarily do that. Not every preacher, I'm sad to say, is trustworthy, and not every prophet is faithful, and not every voice that sounds spiritual is necessarily true. And today I hope we'll discover together the danger of being seduced by false voices and what happens when a godly person listens to the wrong preachers, teachers, prophets, or in this day and age, influencers. I do hope you find this episode today really practical and helpful. Welcome to today's episode of the Bible Journey Daily Podcast. Now there are of course times when you should do that, and I have said that myself on occasion when preaching, and I want to emphasize something is really important. God will use and does use faithful preachers to teach, encourage, even correct people sometimes, and overall strengthen his people spiritually. But be careful, friends. Listening to a preacher can be dangerous. It can, even it seems, be deadly. And when I say that, you may be thinking, well, how can that be and how can we discern? Well, I believe the answer is illustrated today vividly in 2 Chronicles chapter 18, a chapter that reminds us, if nothing else, that even godly people, even balanced people, even spiritually mature people can be misled when they listen to the wrong voices in their lives. So let's turn to me with the passage and let me tell you a story that I think really illustrates my point today. And it all starts when in the opening verse we see a dangerous alliance made. It says, Now Jehoshaphat had great wealth and honour, and he allied himself with Ahab by marriage. So Jehosaphat we saw at the end of yesterday had indeed riches. He had achieved honor and respect, he had achieved stability for himself and in the land, and yesterday's chapter showed us that God had indeed blessed him. So in reality, he did not need to make an alliance with Ahab, but it seems he made one anyway through marriage. Jehoshaphat's son marries Ahab's daughter, forming a political alliance between Judah, the faithful kingdom in the south, and Israel, who at this time are the unfaithful kingdom in the north. Now, up to this point in recent history, the northern and the southern kingdoms had been hostile towards each other. But now, through marriage, Jehosaphat has chosen to tie himself, well effectively, to one of the most wicked kings in Israel's history. Now, this chapter, the events in this chapter parallel, as many do, a chapter in One Kings. On this case it is one Kings, chapter 22. But the chronicle writer here gives us more details that Kings does not emphasize for us, especially the spiritual danger of Jehoshaphat's decision here. Verse 2 continues. So Ahab throws a lavish party, a sort of feast of flattery. He kills sheep, oxen in abundance, and he entertains Jehoshaphat and his whole entourage, and he does what we would say today, he's trying to soften him up, butter him up. Then we see he makes his request. Verse 3 Ahab King of Israel asked Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, will you go with me to Ramoth Gilead? Jehoshaphat replied, I am as you are, and my people as your people, we will join you in the war. So Jehoshaphat agrees, and he commits Judah's army, and he links himself now to Ahab's military ambitions. This is the first time that Jehoshaphat is listening and being influenced by the wrong voice. Verse 4 But Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, First seek the counsel of the Lord. So Jehoshaphat agrees to go to war, but he also wants God's approval first. And this part of it is good, this is wise. This was like the Jehoshaphat we met yesterday in chapter 17. But what happens next reveals the danger of false preachers. Because it says, four hundred prophets appear, but we will not hear one word from God through any of them. Verse 5. So the king of Israel brought together the prophets, four hundred men, and asked them, Shall we go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain? Go, they answered, for God will give it into the king's hand. So four hundred voices, four hundred prophets, four hundred preachers, and every one of them says the same thing, Go and God will give you the victory. But Jehoshaphat seems to sense something is wrong. Verse 6 says, But Jehosaphat asks, Is there no longer a prophet of the Lord here whom I can inquire of? So Joseph's question here is revealing, because he implying very clearly that these four hundred prophets he doesn't believe are speaking for the Lord. These men are not true prophets, and their voices are not trustworthy. These preachers are the charlatans who were appointed by Ahab from across all sorts of groups and spheres of influence, as we discovered earlier in the book. Jehosaphat knows something Ahab refuses to admit, being that not everyone who claims to speak for God in the land actually does so. The text continues. So Ahab reply in effect says, Yes, there is one true prophet, so he recognizes him true, but I hate him. And why? Because Mekaiah never tells Ahab what he wants to hear. He speaks truth. He doesn't just flatter, he speaks God's word, God's word, and not what Ahab wants to hear. So Jehoshaphat responds to this quite gently at first. The king should not say such thing. So Ahab, it would appear, reluctantly summons Mekiah in verse 9. Dressed in the royal robes, it says the king of Israel and Jehosaphat, king of Judah, were sitting on their thrones, and all the prophets were prophesying before them. Verse 10. Now Zedekiah, the son of Cana, had made iron horns and declared, This is what the Lord says, with these we will glore gore the Amenians until they are destroyed. So Zedekiah, the leader of the false prophets here, puts on a sort of dramatic prophetic performance. Isn't that interesting? He makes iron horns and he waves them in the air. He claims to speak for the Lord and he promises victory, and all the other prophets join in with him. Verse eleven says, All the other prophets were prophesying the same thing. Attack Ramoth Gilead and be victorious, they said, for the Lord will give it into the king's hand. So four hundred preachers here, four hundred prophets here, all with one message, one single chorus of false assurance and lies. Jehosaphat is surrounded by such voices, and loud voices, confident voices, unanimous voices, but not one of them is speaking for God. And then this true prophet's arise, and the false prophets are exposed, and the scene becomes even more dramatic. So we have two kings here, Jehosaphat of Judah and Ahab of Israel. And they're sitting on their royal thrones, dressed in their full regalia, conducting what looks like a sort of formal prophetic conference, and four hundred prophets have stood before them, all chanting the same message, one that said they were guaranteed of victory. And then Zedekiah, the leader of the false prophets, he we even see him craft these iron horns as a sort of visual aid, an object lesson in how people will sometimes over-dramatize when they claim to be speaking prophecy, but they're false. Now, Bible commentators actually say that the two horns probably symbolize the two kings, Israel and Judah, being united in this battle. Perhaps they were meant to symbolize strength and aggression, but whatever the symbolism, the message they were trying to push across was clear, but it was a false message being you will destroy your enemies. And while the kings are waiting for the true prophets to arise, the false prophets continue their course of, Yes, go and attack, and you will prosper, and the Lord will give you victory. Ah, but then the true prophet arrives in verse twelve. The messenger, who had gone to summon Micaiah, said to him, Look, the other prophets, without its exception, are predicting success for the king. Let your word agree with theirs and speak favourably. Now this is remarkable because even the messenger they sent to get this guy, Micaiah, is essentially saying that everyone else is saying the same thing. So don't ruin this moment. Just go along with the crowd and speak encouragement. Now this is pressure, real pressure, and I would say it's a pressure that every true preacher of the Word of God faces the desire to conform, to be popular, the desire for approval and agreement of the powerful. But Micaiah thankfully refuses. Verse thirteen. But Mekaiah replied, As surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what my God says. And this is indeed, of course, the heart of true Christian preaching also, speaking only what the Lord says. Now Mekaiah's first answer in verse 14 is interesting, but let me tell you it's a voice spoken in sarcasm. Let me read it for you. When he arrived, the king asked him, Micaiah, shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead or shall I refrain? Attack and be victorious, he answered, for they will be given into your hand. Now, this is we have to be careful with, because this is not easy. It's difficult to spot in our modern English translations. But if you read around it and read all the best Bible commentators and experts, they all agree that the language used here says that Mattia's tone is sarcastic here. He is actually mimicking the false prophets, and he gives Ahab exactly what Ahab wants to hear. But there is a tone that makes it obvious that he's not being serious. I hope that helps in understanding this verse. And verse 15 shows that Ahab actually recognizes that this is what's going on to them. The king said, How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord? Ahab demands the truth, even though he also says he hates the truth. Verse 16 Then Mekiah answered, I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the Lord said, These people have no master, let each one go home in peace. So this is devastating. This is saying that Israel is going to be scattered, and the army will be defeated. The king, the shepherd of the people, will die, and the people will have to return home in confusion. And Ahab reacts exactly as we would expect him to. Verse 17 The King of Israel said to Jehosaphat, Didn't I tell you that he never prophesies anything good about me, but only bad? So clearly Ahab, as we said, wants affirmation, not the truth. He wants flattery, not revelation of what God says, and he wants encouragement, and certainly he does not want correction. And now Micaiah reveals the deeper reason behind the false prophet's unanimous message. Reading verses 18 to 21. Micaiah continued, Therefore hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on the throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing on the right and on his left. And the Lord said, Who will entice Ahab king of Israel into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death? One suggested this and another that. Finally a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, I will entice him. By what means? The Lord asked. I will go and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets. And he said, And you will succeed in enticing him, said the Lord. So go and do it. So different spirits propose different strategies. Now this these verses raise a really profound spiritual question in many people's mind. Did God send a lying spirit? Is God really the author of defeat? Well, the answer can only really be understood in having a clear understanding of the sovereignty of God and what that really means. Let me be clear, God did not initiate evil here. God does not create evil, but sometimes God permits evil and even redirects it so it can accomplish his good and righteous purpose. So what's going on here is similar to what we see when God permitted Satan to test Job, or God hardening Pharaoh's heart after Pharaoh had hardened it himself, and God giving people over to their own desires as described in Romans 1. Ahab remember has already rejected God, and he has already embraced idolatry widely. He has already persecuted true prophets, and he has already said by his own words that he despises the truth. So God will now allow him to be deceived as an act of judgment. Micaiah continues, verse 22. So now the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of these prophets of yours, the Lord has decreed disaster for you. Then the false prophet is seen to strike our true prophet. In verse 23, then Zedekiah, son of Caniah, went up and slapped Micah in the face. So this is the classic response of many false preachers and false teachers to true prophets. When they cannot refruit the truth, they attack the messenger. Now it's physical here, in this day and age, it will be metaphorical, or it may indeed even be played out in social media, but it still happens today. True preachers and prophets are regularly slapped down for simply speaking the word of God. So Zedekiah then mocks Micaiah and says, Which way did the Spirit from the Lord go when he went from me to speak to you? And Micaiah, he responds calmly. Verse 24, you will find out on the day you go to hide in an inner room. Meaning you will learn the truth when you yourself are running for your life and hiding in fear from the repercussions of what you said. Ahab then responds by imprisoning our true prophet. Put this fellow in prison, he said, The king of Israel ordered it, and give him nothing but bread and water until I return safely. So Ahab thoroughly rejects the word of the Lord through this true prophet. He rejects him and he rejects the warning that he gave, and Makaiah simply responds by saying, If you ever return safely, then the Lord has not spoken through me. Then he added, Mark my words, all you people. So Ahab's reaction here reveals the heart of the problem. He is determined already to do what he wants, no matter what God says, and this is why God allowed a deceiving spirit. Ahab is not interested in the truth. He's not listening to God, and he's not seeking the Lord. So God gives him over to the voices he prefers, the voices of these false prophets, and Micaiah ends up being thrown into prison. Our true prophet is incarcerated. Now the story now moves from this sort of false courtroom of false prophets to the battlefield itself, where the consequences of listening to these wrong voices will become painfully clear. Verse 28. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, went up to Ramoth Gilead. Now this is the core tragedy of this chapter. Jehosaphat, yesterday, a good godly balanced king, has listened to four hundred false prophets instead of the one true prophet. And he follows Ahab into a battle he should never have entered. And he ignores the warning that God graciously gave him through bringing the true prophet to him. And now both kings march together towards Ramoth Gilead. Verse 29 says, The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will enter the battle in disguise, but you wear the royal robes. Now this is astonishing, because clearly Ahab knows that judgment was prophesied. He knows Micaiah's prophecy, and underneath he must be at some level accepting it as true. He knows that he is a target because of what was says. So he disguises himself, hoping to escape God's decree, and he tells Jehoshaphat to wear his royal robes. In other words, you will go into this battle and you look like the king, and I'll look like an ordinary soldier. So Ahab is willing to let Jehoshaphat take the hit that God meant for him. And this is what can happen to godly people when they align themselves with truly ungodly people. Flirtation with apostrophe has become more than flirtation with catastrophe. And the result we see in the next verse. Now the king of Aram had ordered his chariot commanders, do not fight with anyone small or great except the king of Israel. So their mission was to find Ahab, not Jehoshaphat, and kill Ahab. Then the next verse says, When the charioteer commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they thought this is the king of Israel, so they turned to attack him. Now Jehoshaphat is of course now in mortal danger because he's wearing these royal robes that Ahab told him to wear. But then something amazing happens in verse 31. But Jehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him, and God drew them away from him. So Jehoshaphat calls out to God at last, and God rescues him. So even in his failure, even in his poor judgment, even in and after this dangerous alliance, God delivers him because ultimately he still belongs to the Lord. Next verses. But someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of Israel between the breastplate and the scale of armor. So let's be clear what's just happened here. Jehosaphat, King of Judah, is spared, but Ahab is still the target. And a random arrow of all things hits him, is guided by the sovereign hand of God, as many would say. This is one of the most striking events in this chapter. A soldier who we are told draws his bow completely at random. He does not even think he's aiming at Ahab particularly, he does not know. So who he's shooting at, he simply fires the arrow into the chaos of the main battle, but the arrow just happens to find the one vulnerable gap in Ahab's armor, and the sovereignty of God meets head on the randomness of mind and their actions. And then Ahab tells his chariot driver, final verses, wheel around and get me out of the fighting. I have been wounded. All day long the battle rages, and the king of Israel propped himself up in his chariot, facing the Armenians until evening, and then at sunset he died. So Ahab dies exactly as Micaiah the prophet said he would, exactly as Elijah had also said he would, and exactly as God had decreed. This arrow was random, but the prophecy was not. And this is the sobering truth, friends. Ahab died because he listened to false teachers, false prophets, and people who rejected the word of the Lord. And he rejected the word of the Lord when people came and preached it and gave it to him true and faithfully. The lesson here is that people will often seek counsel that simply tells them what they want to hear. And this chapter is not just recording the history of these events, it's issuing us a warning. Because many people today do exactly what Ahab did here thousands of years ago. They go from one church to another, they go from one preacher to another, they go from one podcast to another, they go from one YouTube or TikTok influencer to another. Why? Because they're simply looking for someone who'll tell them what they want to hear. Someone once said, some people seek counsel like bees, flying from one flower to another, just looking for the sweetest nectar. You've seen it yourself. Someone may come to you and you ask, How many people have you talked to? And they'll say, Three peachers and two counselors. This, my friend, is because they're not seeking the truth. They're really just seeking your affirmation. Paul warned Timothy about this very danger in the New Testament, and that advice is still worth listening to today. In 2 Timothy chapter 4, in verses 2 to 4, Paul says, Preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season, to correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come. This is the word for us, friends, when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. And this is exactly what we've seen happened in this Old Testament book of 2 Chronicles 18. Ahab clearly gathered round himself many teachers, many prophets, many voices, but many people who just simply told him exactly what his itching ears wanted to hear. And he ultimately died because of it. And Paul continues to warn Timothy, but keep your head in all situations. That is the lesson here. The lesson is listen to the true prophet. Keep your head, listen to the word of the Lord and what it says. Listen to the Bible, not the flattery of people around you. Listen to the truth. Don't just follow popular opinion. Listen to God, not the crowd. This is the message of 2 Chronicles 18, and that is the warning of the New Testament in 2 Timothy. I do hope you find that helpful and stay safe and stay close to the Word of God and God's people. Thanks for being with me today. Ahab ultimately died because he listened to the wrong voices. But in it all, remember, he still heard the word of the Lord, he heard the warning of a true prophet, he heard the message of judgment, he heard the truth plainly, directly, unmistakable, but he chose to listen to the 400 false prophets instead of the one true prophet, and the result was death. And that is the lesson of this chapter for us today. Today, people still go from one preacher to another, one church to another, one podcast to another, not because they're seeking truth, but because they're seeking affirmation. They want their prejudices or their false ideas confirmed. They want someone to tell them what they want to hear. They're not really seeking the truth, they're just seeking permission to carry on doing and believing what they always did. And Ahab did this very same thing. We saw him gather around him prophets who would scratch his itching ears, as the text vividly says. He surrounded himself with voices that told him what he wanted to hear, and he rejected the one voice that told him the truth when it came before him. And God will always send at least that one voice to you and I, friends. So we need to listen to it. That is a lesson for us. To be watchful, to be discerning, to be careful whose voices you listen to. Listen to the true prophet, the one who expounds the word of God, and not the false prophet, the one who tells you what to want you to hear. So thank you for joining me in this episode of the Bible Journey Daily Podcast. And I pray that this has encouraged you to be discerning and to listen carefully and to every to weigh every message against Scripture. And yes, that includes my own messages in this and my other podcasts. To follow the voice of the Lord rather than the voice of the crowd. And one final thing: a heartfelt thank you to those who support this ministry or simply follow it and access it through Patreon. Your generosity and your encouragement is the thing that makes this work possible. I am great deeply grateful. Now, today I'm just announcing an additional benefit of anyone who follows me on Patreon, whether they be supporting on the financial tiers or otherwise. I want to keep improving the benefits I offer for free over there. I've become increasingly frustrated with the auto-generated transcripts that are being produced by most of the main podcast websites. They're sometimes not accurate, they're sometimes even misleading. So now I am making my authorized transcript of every single episode available after the episode's notes section on the main Patreon post. It will be authorized by me and will be checked and confirmed as accurate to what I've said. And then at the end of each season, usually about a month, I will quickly run through them and put them all together in a PDF book form, which will also be made available on Patreon over there. So literally all the transcripts reformatted into almost like a book format. That will be free to anyone on the financial tiers. It will have to be a very small charge to cover the iOS download fee for putting that much material and making it available on Patreon, which actually costs me about £1.50, about $2 for every copy that's downloaded. But I do hope you'll benefit for that. And remember that material I'm putting out there in the public domain in a manner where you'll be able to even cut and paste it if you want and use it in whatever way you want, which of course you can't do with the auto-generated transcripts on these uh podcast platforms like Spotify and Apple. Anyway, I hope you can join me over there for that additional benefit. But until then, wherever you're listening and however you're accessing this teaching, I hope the Lord keeps you discerning what is right from wrong, faithful, and I know the promise of scripture is if you trust in him and approach him, his spirit in itself, himself will keep you anchored in his truth. I'll see you in the next episode. Bye bye for now.