11/15/2015 Friendship With The World Is Enmity With God Pastor Josh Sheldon

Scripture Readings and the Call to Hear God’s Word

Our scripture readings today are first from 1st Corinthians chapter 20, the entire chapter. And that can be found on page 250 if you're using the Pew Bible. And then following that, 1st Corinthians chapter 10 beginning at verse 6.

When you reach 1st Corinthians chapter 20, please stand for the reading of God's word if you're able. And of course, we have an exceptionally long reading today, so if you feel the need to sit, once you've stood, feel free to do so.

This is the word of the Lord. 1st Kings chapter 20 beginning at verse 1. Now Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, gathered all his forces together. Thirty-two kings were with him, with horses and chariots, and went up and besieged Samaria, and made war against it.

Then he sent messengers into the city to Ahab, king of Israel, and said to him, Thus says Ben-Hadad, Your silver and your gold are mine, your loveliest wives and children are mine. And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, just as you say, I and all that I have are yours.

Then the messengers came back and said, Thus speaks Ben-Hadad, saying, Indeed, I have sent to you, saying, You shall deliver to me your silver and your gold, your wives and your children. But I will send my servants to you tomorrow about this time, and they shall search your house and all the houses of your servants.

And it shall be that whatever is pleasant in your eyes, they will put in their hands and take it. So the king of Israel called all the elders of the land and said, Notice, please, and see how this man seeks trouble.

For he sent to me for my wives and my children my silver and my gold, and I did not deny him. And all the elders and all the people said to him, Do not listen or consent. Therefore he said to the messengers of Ben-Hadad, Tell my lord the king all that you sent for to your servant the first time I will do.

But this thing I cannot do. And the messengers departed and brought back word to him. Then Ben-Hadad said to him, Sent to him and said, The gods do so to me and more also if enough dust is left of Samaria for a handful for each of you.

So the king of Israel said, Tell him, let not the one who puts on his armor boast like the one who takes it off. And it happened when Ben-Hadad heard this message, As he and the kings were drinking at the command post, That he said to his servants, Get ready.

And they got ready to attack the city. Suddenly a prophet approached Ahab, king of Israel, saying, Thus says the Lord, have you seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will deliver it into your hand today, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

So Ahab said, By whom? And he said, Thus says the Lord, by the young leaders of the provinces. Then he said, Who will take the battle in order? And he answered, You. Then he mustered the young leaders of the provinces.

And they were two hundred and thirty-two. And after him he mustered all the people, all the children of Israel, seven thousand. So they went out at noon. Meanwhile Ben-Hadad and the thirty-two kings helping him were getting drunk at the command post.

The young leaders of the provinces went out first. And Ben-Hadad sent out a patrol. And they told him, saying, Men are coming out of Samaria. So he said, If they have come out for peace, take them alive.

And if they have come out for war, take them alive. Then these young leaders of the provinces went out of the city with the army which followed them. And each one of them killed his man. So the Syrians fled and Israel pursued them.

And Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, escaped on a horse with a cavalry. Then the king of Israel went out and attacked the horses and the chariots. And killed the Syrians with a great slaughter. And the prophet came to the king of Israel and said to him, Go strengthen yourself, take note and see what you shall do.

For in the spring of the year the king of Syria will come up against you. And the servants of the king of Syria said to him, Their gods are the gods of the hills. Therefore, they were stronger than you.

But if we fight against them in the plain, surely we will be stronger than they. So do this thing, do this thing. Dismiss the kings, each from his position, and put captains in their places. And you shall muster an army like the army that you have lost.

Horse for horse, chariot for chariot. Then we will fight against them in the plain. Surely we will be stronger than they. And they listened to their voice and did so. So it was in the spring of the year that Ben-Hadad mustered the Syrians and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel.

And the children of Israel were mustered and given provisions. And they went against them. Now the children of Israel encamped before them like two little flocks of goats, while the Syrians filled the countryside.

Then a man of God came and spoke to the king of Israel and said, Thus says the Lord, because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of the hills, but He is not God of the valleys. Therefore I will deliver this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

And they encamped opposite each other for seven days. So it was that on the seventh day the battle was joined, and the children of Israel killed 100 ,000 foot soldiers of the Syrians in one day. But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city.

Then a wall fell on 27 ,000 of the men who were left. And Ben-Hadad fled and went into the city, into an inner chamber. Then his servant said to him, Look now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings.

Please let us put sackcloth around our waists and ropes around our heads, and go out to the king of Israel. Perhaps he will spare your life. So they wore sackcloth around their waists and put ropes around their heads, and came to the king of Israel and said, Your servant Ben-Hadad says, Please let me live.

And he said, Is he still alive? He is my brother. Now the men were diligently watching closely to see whether any signs of mercy would come from him. And they quickly grasped at his word and said, Your brother Ben-Hadad.

So he said, Go bring him. Then Ben-Hadad came out to him, and he had come up into the chariot. So Ben-Hadad said to him, The cities which my father took from your father I will restore, and you may set up marketplaces for yourself in Damascus, as my father did in Samaria.

Then Ahab said, I will send you away with this treaty. So he made a treaty and sent him away. Now a certain man, the sons of the prophets, said to his neighbor by the word of the Lord, Strike me please.

And the man refused to strike him. Then he said, Because you have not obeyed the voice of your Lord, surely, as soon as you depart from me, a lion shall kill you. And as soon as he left him, a lion found him and killed him.

And he found another man and said, Strike me please. So the man struck him, inflicting a wound. Then the prophet departed and waited for the king by the road and disguised himself with a bandage over his eyes.

Now as the king passed by, he cried out to the king and said, Your servant went out into the midst of the battle, and there a man came over and brought a man to me and said, Guard this man. If by any means he is missing, your life shall be for his life, or else you shall pay a pound of silver.

While your servant was busy, here and there he was gone. Then the king of Israel said to him, So shall your judgment be. You yourself have decided it. And he hastened to take the bandage away from his eyes, and the king of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets.

Then he said to him, Thus says the Lord, Because you have let slip out of your hand a man whom I appointed for utter destruction, therefore your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people.

So the king of Israel went to his house, solemn and displeased, and came to Samaria. And now turning to our second reading, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, beginning at verse 6. Again, if you're using the two Bibles, it's on page 772.

1 Corinthians chapter 10, beginning at verse 6. Now these things became our examples, speaking of the Old Testament, I believe. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

And do not become idolaters, as were some of them. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day 23 ,000 fell.

Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents. Nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken thee, except such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.

But with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. Dear Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name we thank you for your word, which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

Father, we thank you for making your ways of mercy clear, but yet you are not a thing to be trifled with, and your word is certainly not a thing to be taken lightly. And so we thank you for, again, just making clear, not only your mercy, but the consequences of disregarding your word.

And we humbly ask that you pour out your Holy Spirit on this gathering, that you open our ears that we might hear, and our eyes that we might see wondrous things from your word, that we might see your glory in all of its facets.

And we ask that you'll pour out your Holy Spirit on Josh, and grant him an anointing of clarity and power, that your words may have the power to penetrate our hearts and change us. And that we just confess our inadequacy and our utter dependence and need for your Spirit, and ask that he be abundantly poured out and provided to us this day.

And we ask these things for your mercy's sake and your glory's sake in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, Steve. Please be seated.

A Sports Analogy for Snatching Defeat from Victory

This passage reminded me a little bit of my dear Oakland Raiders over the most of the last decade, maybe a little bit longer. Now, right now, they're showing some signs of life. They're actually winning some games and playing through four quarters.

But for years, my son and I would watch them play pretty well for three quarters, and somewhere in the fourth quarter, they might even be ahead. And we had this expression, I don't know if we are the two who invented it.

Probably not. We picked it up from somewhere. But it was this, I wonder how they're going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. How are they going to take this apparent win and turn it into a debacle?

How are they going to manage to lose when it looks like they're going to finally have some success? Sometimes, the way the Raiders would give up a game in the fourth quarter, it may still again fall back to those waves.

We've only had half a season of different type of play. But sometimes, it would just be jaw-dropping. It's like they had it. It was right there for them, everything going their way, and they found a way to throw the interception at the wrong time, fumble the ball at the wrong time, miss a tackle at the wrong time, everything.

And they would, as we said, snatch defeat right out of impending victory. This is what Ahab did after his triumph over the Syrians. Now, I had Steve read the entire chapter to you so that the whole history, this entire record, these historical facts would be before you.

And I wanted them all before you because I'm not going to divide this chapter up into three or more sermons or anything like that. I have really a single point to make that I'm sort of drawing out of it, an application for us that I hope will do us good in our walk with Christ as we go through this life.

So there's a lot I'm telling you up front that I'm just going to leave on the table. Why this prophet said, because you didn't punch me and cause me to bleed, I'm going to let a lion attack you. That's a very hard thing to manage.

And if I ever did, it would be a message all of its own. Suffice to say, we just had read to you a historical record and it did, in fact, happen. There's a lot that I'm going to leave on the table. But I want to talk about Ahab, and I want to talk about Ahab and how he turned triumph into disaster, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, what that warns us about in our life.

In other words, this message this morning is just sheer application. In other words, we need to do better. We need to guard our hearts. We need to watch out. Because Ahab, according to 1 Corinthians 10, with the rest of the Old Testament, stands as an example for us.

It's a warning to us. We can look at these men, these instances, these historical records, and we can say, how does that relate to me? Let me not, as James says, close this book and forget what it says about me.

Let me not fail to remember what I look like. Ahab, in this incident, had victory in his grasp and let it go. Pride, self-aggrandizement, one-out over gratitude, over humility. To use another sports metaphor, he just hit a two-out, two-strike, bottom of the ninth inning, game-winning grand slam, and then he's called out because he didn't touch home base.

And he didn't touch home base because he stopped to take a bow to show everybody how grand he was. And of course, if you don't touch the base, you're out. That's what this is like. That he had victory, he had success.

God had delivered this innumerable enemy to him. He had saved his people, pushed the Syrians back to Syria. He had gained these commercial concessions from them, which is what meant that he could set up his marketplaces in Damascus.

He had everything. And he turns it into defeat. He said, he is my brother. He is my brother. With these words, he rescues Israel from impending victory and its attendant blessings and plummets them into defeat.

With these words, his heart is exposed. And I would have us, as we go through this chapter, look to our heart and ask ourselves, is our heart exposed? Where's our affinity? Where is our heart? What do we grasp after?

What is our ambition? What do we value? The scripture read to you is fairly simple. It's a fairly brief history. It's an account of events as they actually occurred. But as we said from 1 Corinthians 10, it has to transcend just the historical record.

It means something to us. And what it means to us has to flow logically from what we have before us. We have to dig a bit for it. But to paraphrase Paul, nor must we ascend to heaven to find it or dig into the abyss to uncover it.

And this is my focus this morning. He is my brother. He is my brother. Such nice words. Today he'd be well regarded for saying that. He'd be considered acknowledging the brotherhood of man. We would laud his restraint, his cultural sensitivity, his diversity awareness, whatever we want to call it.

Ahab, Syria, and the Historical Setting of 1 Kings 20

Our first task is to be sure we understand just what happened though. The record that is given to us. The facts of the matter. Exactly what is related here. Well, Syria. Syria lies just northeast of Israel.

Their access to the Mediterranean depended upon free passage through there, through Israel or Phoenicia to their west. But other than that, they couldn't get to the important Mediterranean routes. Syria is being threatened at this time by the growing Assyrian Empire just to their northeast a bit.

Israel has been weakened by the three and a half years of drought, which was proclaimed back in 1 Kings 17 when we began this series on Elijah. When all of a sudden, chapter 17, verse 1, all of a sudden there appears Elijah.

We didn't hear anything about prior to that. And basically says to King Ahab, Accept my word. You don't get dew or moisture for these three years. So they've been weakened by this drought and the famine that it brought.

Only recently ended. And we don't know quite how long it was after the first rain started and the crops were able to grow that Syria invaded. But it's an interesting thing to look at and see how suddenly they appear.

Like in chapter 19, last time we were in this series on Elijah, that ended with Elijah having met with God on Mount Horeb. Do you remember that? And God appeared to him. He was not in the wind. He was not in the fire, not in the earthquake.

But then he spoke in the still small voice. And he told Elijah, you're not done. You have some more to do. I want you to anoint Yehu as the king of Israel. You got Haziel as the king of Syria. And you have Elisha to take your place as my prophet.

That's the end of chapter 19. And all of a sudden, verse 1 of chapter 20, here are these Assyrians. We think about how weak Israel must have been at the time. Think about how unprepared they seem. That this vast army comes from another nation, just to their northeast, goes all the way across Israel.

And the next thing the king knows, he wakes up, and his capital is surrounded, being attacked by this huge army. Where were the watchmen? Where are the soldiers? Who's supposed to be taking a look at this thing and watching out for this sort of thing?

Makes sense to figure that after the rain started, most of the men were busy planting their crops, anticipating once again being able to feed their families. More focused on that than other matters. But clearly, the nation had not yet recovered.

So they have this powerful Syrian army coming. They being pushed by the growing influence of the more powerful Assyrians to their northeast. And the nation of Israel, physically from hunger, and economically from the drought and not having the exports or the imports, in pretty weak condition.

So that's a very quick thumbnail sketch of what 1 Kings 20 is about historically. Basic structure for this is that we have a single campaign fought in two distinct battles. And I call this a campaign and not a war because war is constant between Israel and Syria.

So let's just say that the Bible has a war between these two. But this is one campaign within that war. It's a single campaign fought in two distinct battles. Each battle is preceded by a word from God through a prophet.

And both times, the word of God through this prophet directly to Ahab is a promise of victory. Both times there's a promise of victory, which of course, both times, God is true to his word. Israel has success.

Both battles end with a word from God. After the first battle, the word from God is, get ready, these guys are coming back. Just put it in very simple terms. After the second battle, Ahab finds himself condemned for not having completed the task.

And also in both of those battles, we need to take note that each time Israel goes out against the invaders, the odds are totally against them. As we said, three and a half years of drought, the men are weakened physically, the country is weakened economically.

I think the men are focused on something other than their military duty at this time. The Syrians had superior numbers. The Syrians had superior position. They had the better ground. The Syrians had battlefield initiative.

In short, the Syrians had everything that a good field general would possibly hope for to ensure success. The Syrians couldn't lose. All of a sudden, there they are at the gate of the capital. Now thank God that in the United States, we're not surrounded by enemies at our borders.

But just imagine if Canada or Mexico or both were our enemies. And we came to church this morning, and just before I started, I opened up a headline, said, by the way, Washington, D .C. is surrounded by our enemies.

It's that quick. It's that sudden. It's that alarming. So Ben-Hadad, King Ben-Hadad of Syria, he sends these emissaries to offer terms to Ahab. Now the hope is, of course, that Ahab will see that he can't win, and he will accept the tribute that Ben-Hadad sets upon him.

That's what is meant when he says, your gold and your silver are mine. It's an early version of a protection racket. Remember the old gangster movies? What was the protection racket? Knock on the door, say, you got to give me money.

Why? So you don't get hurt. Who's going to hurt me? Me. I'm going to hurt you if you just don't give me money. It was almost that brutal, almost that unrefined. Your gold and your silver are mine. When he lays claim to Ahab's wives and children, what did he mean?

He meant that they would be kept as hostages to ensure Ahab's compliance with the terms. So what choice does Ahab have? What's he going to do? We already pointed out that Syria has all the military advantage.

To contest them would be like racing at the Indy 500 with an old Camry or something like that. So Ahab, he makes a realistic assessment of his chances. And he readily agrees. He says, my lord, oh king, just as you say, I and all that I have are yours.

That's an interesting statement. Just to concede all this. You know, about 150 years after this in the southern kingdom, in Judah, Sennacherib, the king of that Assyrian empire that I mentioned earlier, they're going to grow and grow in power and he's going to attack Jerusalem.

Do you remember this? And that king, King Hezekiah, when he gets the letter threatening Jerusalem and demanding terms, he does quite the opposite of what Ahab did here. If Ahab says, I and all that I have are yours, in other words, yes, come set the terms.

I'll do whatever we need to to not have you attack us. I carefully didn't say to have peace with you because that's impossible. Hezekiah does something a little different. Not a little different, he does something diametrically opposed to Ahab.

He brings that letter before the lord and he prays that long and wonderful prayer and says basically, oh lord, this is your enemy. We are your children. We can do nothing. You, father, need to deliver us.

Ahab doesn't consult God. Ahab doesn't even consult the bales that he worshipped and instituted into Israel. He just gives in. So Ben-Hadad, he senses Ahab's weakness. He presses his advantage. He says, my people are going to come and we're going to go through your storehouses, so to speak.

We're going to count it all up to make sure you're holding nothing back. And of course, if Ahab allows that, he has no bargaining position left. He can't say, oh no, that tribute's too much. We've got to cut it down a little bit because Ben-Hadad would know every penny to have.

He'd have no bargaining position. Even for this spiritually weak king, that's too much. So his resolve stiffens, he declines, and Ben-Hadad begins the attack. That little proverb that Ahab returned to him, let not him who puts his armor on boast like one who takes it off.

In other words, don't count your chickens before they hatch. And then given Syria's position, it's all bluff. And all of a sudden, this prophet appears before Ahab. I won't read it again to you, but what does he say in essence?

He says, these Syrians are indeed a huge army. Israel hasn't got a chance. And then he says, God will deliver them to your hand. God will bring victory. And finally, he tells Ahab why God is going to do this.

God’s Mercy to Ahab and the Warning from 1 Corinthians 10

Did you pick that up? Why is God going to do this for Ahab? You shall know that I am the Lord. And you shall know that I am the Lord. You know, I said that I tried to compare Israel contesting against Syria in this current position they're in with going into the Indy 500 with an old Toyota Camry.

There's actually better examples we can have of what this is like. Rather than my Indy 500 example, you may as well go out against Goliath as a young, inexperienced, unarmed youth. Of course, I'm thinking of David here.

David's obviously the youth I mean, and he went out better armed than all his enemies combined. Did he not? You come to me, he said to Goliath, with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. Which, of course, he did. And David knew what the Lord meant for Ahab to learn, which is the power of the only God, the value of trust in him, that God does deliver his people.

But consider here the grace of God. Consider here the goodness of God. We're speaking about King Ahab. King Ahab, according to 1 Kings 16 .30, he did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.

Read those first 16 chapters of 1 Kings leading up to Ahab. And for the scripture to say he did more evil than all before him is saying more than we can put into a message. This is incredible evil. He worshipped Baal, and he tried to make that Israel's national idol.

He married Jezebel, and he sat back while she massacred God's prophets. He considered Elijah an enemy and tried to have him killed. Yet here is God, more than coming to him with a word for him, but it is a good word.

It's a word promising him victory and success. Promising this to a king who not only didn't call upon him, but a king who stands opposed to everything that is good. And more than all this, he states his gracious purpose that Ahab might know that he, Yahweh, is Lord.

He, the living God, not Baal. He, Yahweh, not Asherah, but he, the God of Elijah, is Lord of all. And that's going to be demonstrated in the deliverance he brings Israel against the Syrians. Does this amaze you?

Is that not incredible grace of God to come to a king like this and give him a promise like that? If it amazes us that God would be so kind to so wicked a king as Ahab, we need to remember how that 1 Corinthians passage that Steve read to us ends.

Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Or another place, Paul writes, or such were some of you. I mean, you and I deserve God's word no more than did Ahab. What did Ahab do that was so bad?

We'll let God judge. What did we do? Scripture says we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath just as the others.

Scripture says we were alienated and enemies in our mind by wicked works. To borrow from Paul in Romans 10, he said, do not be haughty, but fear. Take heed how you stand lest you fall. Did Ahab deserve to hear directly from God?

Of course not. Did Ahab deserve a word of revelation of God himself and a word promising peace? Of course not. Did you or I deserve to have the Holy Spirit open our eyes and remake our spirit so that we can know the true and living God, so we can see Jesus Christ and Him crucified and be made able to not just repent of our sins but want to repent?

Who amongst us deserved that? Now, I would say Ahab did not deserve to hear a word from a prophet directly from God, directly for him, promising him all these wonderful things, but then, in that regard, in terms of deserving, we're all with Ahab because not one of us deserve to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation in Him.

Which is not to say that God doesn't reveal himself in circumstances, as he says he will do for Ahab by delivering the searings to him. I mean, how often have we in this place testified to each other of the mighty acts of God in our lives?

Where loved ones have come to salvation just in the nick of time, so to speak. Just before dying, we've heard that testimony. We've heard God revealing himself in healing people we've prayed for, in granting reconciliation for couples we've prayed for.

The other thing that amazes me here is that Ahab listens to the prophet. He listens to the prophet of God. He knows who this prophet represents. He knows the insults he's handed up to God, and all of a sudden, it says, suddenly a prophet appeared before Ahab and makes his prophecy to him, and Ahab doesn't just listen to him.

He asks for some detail. Okay, if we're gonna have success against these Syrians, how are we gonna do it? How do I set the battle? Who goes first? These kinds of things. I mean, I had to set aside for a moment my wonder that there's even a prophet left to speak to him after the trouble the prophets have had under Ahab and Jezebel.

The lesson here is not that God's ways are better than man's ways, so that the strategy that God sends is better than a strategy that Ahab could have come up with, though that would probably be true. Our lesson is to be astounded at the goodness and the kindness and the mercy and the patience of God.

He's a God who punishes sin. That's true. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. What a man reaps, so he will sow. Which is to say, if God did not punish sin, he would be mocked. He wouldn't be much of a God.

But let's be astounded at the lengths that God goes, even to this king. This king who did more evil than all before him in order to reveal himself to him. Why is he gonna bring victory? So you shall know that I am the Lord.

You, Ahab, the most wicked king yet. And yet God has deigned to show himself in this way. And only for that one purpose, that you will know that I am the Lord. And put aside the bells, put aside the ashes, put aside your wife, and worship me, because I'm going to reveal myself to you.

That should be astounding. He is a God who punishes sin. That is true. But he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but he would rather have men turn from the evil ways and be saved. Even men like Ahab.

Even someone like you. Or me. And what he offers Ahab here is worth so much more than just victory in the field. He offers him knowledge of the true and living God. That is the purpose for which God is acting here.

The First Battle: God Delivers Israel Against All Odds

Well, as I said, we're not gonna go through every detail in this chapter. The promised victory is gained. 7 ,000 men march out of the city. They're not the hardened veterans, by the way. They're the young men.

They cut a path through the Syrian army, and they're followed by Ahab with the calvary and the chariots. And this victory is resounding. It's complete. It's total. There's a great slaughter. The Syrians are routed.

Ben-Hadad is running to the nearest refuge he can find. And then the prophet warns that the Syrians will return the next spring. And with that, the first of these two battles is over. Well, the Syrians put together a new plan, of course, and it's pretty simple.

Ben-Hadad is advised to raise another army, which, of course, he'll need. And then he's advised to deploy it differently. Here's the plan. Their gods are the gods of the hills. Therefore, they were stronger than we.

But if we fight against them in the plain, surely we will be stronger than they. Then we will fight against them in the plain. Oh, sorry. That's in there twice. The idea is God is limited. If we fought in the hills and that's where we lost, there's got to be another place where his power doesn't reach.

They understood that their defeat was due to God's power. Try as he might to institutionalize Baal, even this pagan king knows that Yahweh, not Baal, is the king of Israel. Ahab made Baal the official god of Israel, but even Ben-Hadad attributed his defeat and Israel's victory to the true and living God.

Probably not in the right way or for the right reasons, but he got the right God. What they don't understand is pretty obvious, isn't it? The God of Israel is not limited in time and space. He's chosen a single people for himself, yet he's also sovereign over even those who don't acknowledge or believe in him.

What does it say in Philippians 2 .10? That the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth, of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Acts 17 .26 says that God determined the borders and the times of every individual. Why? So that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for him and find him. This is why the Lord spoke to Ahab through a prophet.

So Ahab and Israel with him would know that he is the Lord. Ben-Hadad, as far as he was from the truth, he seems to have grasped this better than Ahab. The battle is joined again. Again, Israel's chances of success, at least on paper, are practically non-existent.

And again, the battle is preceded by a word from the Lord, again promising success. And once more, God is true to his word and the Syrians are routed. And this time in the second campaign, which has the same purpose in the victory that God promises as the first, and you will know that I am the Lord.

But this time, the honor that God offers to Ahab is even higher. Because this time, the Syrians have directly insulted the name of the Lord. They've besmirched his honor. They said, no, he cannot extend his power beyond that immediate place where we incorrectly contested with him last time.

He's a small God. He can't extend his power everywhere. So if he was strong here, he won't be strong there. Now we all know, if we know Jesus Christ, if we know God by faith in Jesus Christ, we know how silly that is.

We know how ridiculous that is. The way I read this text, God didn't hear that as silly or ridiculous. God took that as a personal insult. And he gave Ahab the high esteem and honor of defending God's name because of this direct insult to him by the Syrians.

Well, this time, Israel's victory is so complete, it's so thorough that the Syrian king has to send a delegation to beg for his own life. And this is where Ahab turns triumph into loss. Here he snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

I don't know how many metaphors we could put on it. This is just astounding. His heart is fully exposed in his reply. And here we need to take our warning. We need to ask ourselves, how much affinity do we have for our own pride, for our own self-aggrandizement?