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Episode 607: In this episode, the hosts recount the story of King Ahab's death as described in 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18. They discuss Ahab's cunning plan to disguise himself in battle while allowing King Jehoshaphat to wear royal robes, ultimately leading to Ahab's demise. The hosts reflect on the irony of Ahab's attempt to outsmart God and how a seemingly random arrow struck him down, illustrating that God is in control of all events, even those that appear to be chance occurrences.
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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Everybody, welcome back, assuming that. This is not your first time, which is a big assumption. That anybody would come back a second time after they heard us the first time. But if you're new to the Bible Guys, I'm Chris, this is Jeff, and we are a couple of pastors and friends who work at the same church who have very similar backgrounds. We really do, and we like to talk about the Bible. Yeah, same age, even though I'm older, better. Looking, substantially older, Yeah, substantially better looking, questionable, opinions. Questionable, and that anyway, we just really just walked through the Bible. We're in a series talking about the highlights of the milestones of the Old Testament, and right now we're talking about a battle between well Israel and Judah going against airmens. Yeah. But before we do, we have a segment. And these are fun segments. We like these sometimes, yeah, because scary people right in. Yeah. And so here's what we would like to say. We'd like to say. We would love for you to write in to email us at info at the Bible guys dot com. Yes, hope, we'll put down on the. Screen right there for the stump the Pastor segment. Yes, or to be honest, any any question that you might have, or comments or emails or feedback. We just love it all and we'd like to use it. But stump the pastor is what is today? This is from Ivy B. Yes, Hi, ivy B, and ivy. B says, I really enjoy listening to both of you daily. Good job for exclamation. Marks four Yes, that might be a record for us. You're measuring exclamation for us. The Bible says, unless we believe in the Son of God, we will not have eternal life. He's the only way to God. What then will happen to the people of the Old Testament. Jesus was born centuries after them, and no one knows about him, only maybe hears about him. Doesn't mean they will not have eternal life. People like Abel, Hagar, Samson, boaz Adam. Well, I get to see them when I go to heaven, says Ivy. Great question is great question. Yeah, and so there's uh you want to you want me to give? Yeah? So, uh, I mean I think that you can really dive. You can go down a big well here with theology on this. But uh, we believe that the Bible is really clear about the the Theophanes in the Bible. Uh. There there there are places in the Bible where Jesus Christ appears in the Old Testament, even though he doesn't physically appear, there are times where Jesus will be present in prophecy or in symbolism, and he's there and he's he's being prophesied uh towards the Cross. So the quick answer is simply this that there are consistent places all the way from the very beginning, from the Garden of Eden, from creation, from creation, all the way up until Jesus Us physically came to the earth where Jesus has been prophesied about, talked about, and the people the Old Testament may not have known his name was Jesus, but they pretty much believed in and looked forward to the Cross, which is why the system that God had put in place represented Jesus. So like, for instance, the animal sacrifices, they didn't remove the sins of the people, but they covered the sins temporarily, and people would practice animal sacrifices and different things like that, looking forward to the cross, everything pointing to Jesus, and we look back at the cross. So we have the privilege of you know, you know, being on the other side of the completed work of Jesus, and his sacrifice actually removes our sins, and it's so complete that it removes our future sins. And so basically the short answer is is that we all get to have in the same way, the people of the Old Testament looking forward to the promised Messiah, and the people of the New Testament, which is Us, and beyond looking backwards to the promised Messiah, which has come. Right. That is right, John fourteen six. Jesus says that no one comes to the Father except through me, and so Jesus is telling the truth. And that means that the only way Adam is going to be in heaven is through Jesus. The only way that you will get to heaven. Is through Jesus. Right, it's from the first to the last. We all will go through Jesus. But there's limited information and knowledge for them. But looking forward to and this is why God would give the sacrifices the innocent, This is why he commanded it that the innocent would pay the price for the guilty, knowing that the Messiah would finally come and pay the ultimate price for the guilty, even though he's completely innocent. That was the totality of what they understood about the purpose of the Messiah. Right. They also began to believe. It began to be a traditional thing to believe that the Messiah was going to come and set them free from Rome. It's purely political and it was social in those last couple hundred years. But prior to that, they were always looking forward to the fact that Messiah would come and solve this sin issue. And then us looking back, we know his name. His name is Jesus, but he did the exact same function for us that he did for them. It was the same. Well, Jesus said, I didn't come to abolish the law. I came to fulfill it, to fulfill it right right, He was the fulfillment of everything that had been put in the place. And then this can be really hard for people. So I like to mess with the people who like to think about these things. But the reason why this works is because God is not bound by time. This is a time based question. I came after Adam came before that's all about time, right, But for God, time isn't an issue. He's the author of time, he's the cause of time. But the Bible says and he's outside of time, right, that's right. The Bible says that a day is a thousand years, a thousand years is a day, kind of referencing the idea that time has no effect on him. So this is why the cross can happen in the middle of humanity and it applies both ways. Is because he wasn't waiting for it to happen. It happened, and we he's not waiting for us, he's not waiting for Adam. All these things is time is not a thing for him, and so because of that, then the cross can solve the problem in the past and in the future completely. That's why even when you trusted Christ, maybe you became a Christian ten years ago, but God forgave all of your sins forever, right, you know, past, present, in the future. And it's because from a cross event that happened two thousand years ago. That's why it applies. Is because he's not worried about this time component. So that's kind of a twist your mind thing, a little bit. But just understand it's not a problem for him. You looking back thousands of years to Adam is kind of a weird thing because it's thousands of years to God, it all just is right. It's not then and now it just is, and so is the cross, and the cross solves. The problem for everybody. So Adam had a limited information, but with the information he had, it applies as long as he was looking forward to the Messiah, and you have more information to who much is given, much has required Jesus said. So now as we look back, we have more complete information. But even then, Paul says, we have limited information compared to what's going to be like in heaven. Right, So he says, we're like looking in a in a mirror with that's foggy, right, But one day we're going to see him face to face. So even while your information is more complete than Adams, none of us have complete information about Jesus until we actually. Mean yeah, well, he says, not the half has been told, right, right, So it's just half. So it's all part. So it's faith in what you do know about Jesus, not not consequences for what you don't know about Jesus name the band. I don't know what this is? Your favorite band? Is it new song? Yes? Okay not the half has been told. I didn't recognize the way you're saying it. Oh, there it is, there it is. Here's the idea of them say it. Yeah, okay, okay. So question, thank you Ivy for writy in. Yeah. Yeah, that was fantastic for sure. Talking about going to heaven. There's some people who don't because they reject God right when they die. And talking about dying. Wow, Ab dies today? Yes? In the stories, yes, yes, wow. Okay, that was a stretch. That was a very that was a bad one. Yeah. Yeah. If you're new to listening, we've been trying to get the worst transitions we possibly can. That's been a goal of ours. And that sort of was a transition that led into another transition. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It was too bad transition. Too bad transition. It's so bad it needed another transition. So this is a These are parallel stories in First King's chapter twenty two. You can find the same story in Second Chronicles chapter eighteen, and it's telling about the death of Ahab. So it's just a few verses here, but it says, So, King Ahab of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah led their armies against Raymouth Gilead. The air Mans had taken Ramoth Gilead, and they wanted to take it back. The King of Israel said the Jehastaphah, as we go into battle, I'll disguise myself so no one will recognize me, but you wear your royal robes. So the King of Israel disguised himself and they went into battle. Meanwhile, the King of Aram had issued these orders to his thirty two chariot commanders. Attack only the King of Israel, don't bother with anyone else. So when the Aramean chariot commanders saw Jehashaphah in his royal robes, they went after him. There's the King of Israel, they shouted. But when Jehosaphah called out, the chariot commanders realized he was not the King of Israel, and they stopped chasing him. An Airman soldier, however, randomly shot an arrow at the Israelite troops and shot the King of Israel between the joints of his armor. Turn the horses and get me out of here. Ahab groaned to the driver of his chariot, I'm badly wounded. The battle raged all that day, and the king remained propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans. The blood from his wound ran down to the floor of his chariot, and as evening ard he died, just as the sun was setting, the cry ran through. His troops were done for Run for your lives. So the king died, and his body was taken to Samaria and buried there, And then his chariot was washed beside the pool of Samaria, and dogs came and licked his blood at the place where the prostitutes bathed, just as the lord had promised. The rest of the events in Ahab's reign and everything he did, including the story of the Ivory Palace and the towns he built, are recorded in the book of the History of the Kings of Israel. So Ahab died and his son a Haziah became the next king. Hey remember the blood profit from the vineyard. Yes, uh huh, that was it. Yeah, that was exactly what happened. When he took Naboth's vineyard. Yes, and so if you were here last week and you listened then you know that his death was prophesied, but then he repented, so God said, Okay, he's not going to bring it in his lifetime, but he carried it out at the end of his life. Yeah, because he said, Hey, where Nathan, we're nay both with stoned. That's where the dogs are liqu your blood. And turns out that they were washing his chariot and uh and as they were doing it, the blood was in the water, and then the dogs came and looked up the blood, which, by the way, is gross. What a gross blalk about? Yeah, sure, I guess, says. When I come home. It's funny I have I have, you know, I put my foot down and said, we are not getting any more puppies, and my wife and daughter went out and got two little tiny yippers. You met him, Yes, Gucci, Chanel Gucci and Chanelle Gucci about. Tough guy names by the way, the worst manly names ever. But it's so it's so funny because I mean they are literally they are the definition of lap dogs. They don't even have fur. I don't know if you know. They don't have fur. They have hair, so they don't shed. They when they get haircuts, they feel so soft, right and fluffy, all this kind of stuff. Uh, they're terrified of everything. And but when I come home, if I bring a deer home, Gucci turns into a wolf. He can't stand it doesn't mean we can bring groceries home with meat. And he's interested, but not aggressive. I bring home venison, fresh venison, and he turns into like this, just fight you to get get the meat. It's the weirdest thing, right, Yeah, it's dogs. That's what they go for. They love it. So this is it. Now. The weird thing is the translation where it says, you know, this is where the prostitutes bathed. The translation could have been and the prostitutes bathed in it. Oh that's a little weird. Isn't that weird? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of one of those mockery kind of things. Yeah. Bathing in the blood of the king. Yeah, bathing in the blood of the king. Yeah, yeah, it's it's pretty talking about shame that that's what happens. But let's talk about this for a minute. Much. If you think about it, it was mixed with water and soap as they were washing. Sure, but they're right to make a statement. It seems like it's they're making a statement. Yeah, yeah, so so the the interesting thing is Jehasha Fat made this really bad decision and allowed his son to marry Ahab and Jezebel's daughter Athelia. It's bad news, right, it's terrible. Yeah. Can you imagine, by the way, as a father signing off for one of your kids to marry into a family that were hedonistic, false worship idling people who didn't recognize the authority of God that. The Bible says, Well, the Bible doesn't tell all of the stories of Ahab and Jezebel. Multiple times, God says these are the most wicked people that ever led Israel. Yeah right, they were worse than all the other kings. So so as horrible as we know the kings had been up to this point, Ahab was by far worse. Yeah. And it was Joosphat. Was it is his son or was it his daughter? It was his son married Ahab's. Daughter, okay, I dally, okay, so maybe he thought my son will lead. Well, it's an alliance, right, right, it's an alliance. But Jesebel's daughter is going to be Jezebel's daughter and she had all this power over Ahab. Yeah, I was only thinking, honestly of just from the vantage point only for a father, Like. I think it was just purely political. It was diplomatic. Daughter is different than giving your son. Giving your son you just hope he leads, but giving your daughter, you know, is subject you know, especially in that day. Well, I think you probably had this sense of jehosh Fat going, hey, here's an opportunity, Ahab, the country is not strong. Judah was strong. Israel was not strong. Judah was economically prosperous. They had a powerful army. They weren't in battle and war all the time. Israel was constantly at war. Ahabs, people did not honor God. God did not bless them. They were living under the curse. And so they have a weaker nation. It's a weak moment, and Judah is strong. So now, hey, what if I marry his daughter? What if my son marries his daughter? Right, we can maybe seize a just a little bit more control over the north. Right, there's I think a strategic thing. And then in return for that, I think it's kind of funny that Ahab goes, hey, listen, as we go to war, you wear your robes and look like a king, and I'm gonna wear a disguise which and pretend I'm not the. King the right, Like, why would you agree to that? I don't know. But Ahab's thinking, maybe I can maybe with Jehoshaphat, because you've got such a good, good army, maybe we can beat Aram. And at the same time, maybe they'll kill Jehoshapat. I can get both kingdoms, right, he's playing both ends against the middle, that's what he's doing. Well, And so so you've. Got I think Jehoshaphat thinking, hey, I'm gonna I'm I'm slack, and we're gonna work out this this family kind of diplomacy, and eventually, over time, I'm gonna play the long game and I'm gonna take over Israel and have a going No, you wear your kingly robes and I'll just wear this. Guys, well, I think that he's also trying to get him killed. Well yeah, but he's also trying to avoid the one prophet who who predicted the truth, right, So in the back of his mind, he's thinking, well, somebody's dying today. Somebody's dying. And by the way, how ridiculous is it to think that he get out smart what God says. Right. So you know all the time in the scripture, you know, when we live our lives, we have promises and guidelines and thou shouts and thou shot knots, and you know, God encourages us, he commands us, he nudges us. You know, he challenges us, and all these different kinds of things. And so here's the thing. God's word is true, and God's word is going to be true regardless of we can't out smart God. What is Galatians saying, right, don't be deceived? God is the moms right, You're gonna saw what You're gonna what you read, and it's just gonna It's just gonna happen. It's going to find you out. It's going to find you and you can't avoid it. It's like Jonah can't run in sale to Tarshis far enough, right, It's like you can't outrun God. And so and so here he wears a disguise. Well guess what it was? Actually think about this. I didn't think about this ti this very second. It was actually his disguise that he wore that did him in because the arrow perhaps would not have Eddie woren his other outfit. It wouldn't have slipped through that exact crack of that exact armor, right, because I mean, think about it, different outfits are gonna have different seams, and they're gonna look different and just be different. And it says that just so happens, this random arrow went through the cracks of his armor, and so he will be wearing a different outfit. Happened. You know, I have had conversations with people before. You know, some Christians will talk about the fact that nothing is random, right, right, but God chooses to use this verse that says it was a random guy. So this guy was not aiming at anybody, right, He was just shooting at the forces of Israel. Right. He wasn't aiming at Ahab, He wasn't intentionally trying to kill him. But God guided that arrow to a crack in his armor, just just just a gap, you know. It's it's where you got to have, you know, in the joint areas. You have to have mobility, and so those would be vulnerable spots. You know, big chunk of armor here, big chunk of armor on your shoulders, whatever, in your back. But you're going to have to have some things for mobility, and it was one of those cracks that got through. And you know, he he bled for a long time from the middle of the day until evening before he. Died, which goes to show you that God, like God trumps. All us absolutely, that's right, He. Trumps all uds. And and you know, so sometimes we think, oh, no, like, how could this possibly work out for the best? How could this possibly you know, go my way? When we're praying and we're thinking ourselves, there's only a certain amount of chance that, you know, this person would be healed. There's only a certain amount of chance that I'm gonna get the promotion or whatever it's going to be. Just remember, God trumps all odds in his exactness of this era. He knew exactly you know, he knew exactly where it was gonna happen. Right, So that's the exactness of God. So you know, so, uh, when I when I when I actually uh decided that God was asking me to go into ministry, I was at a summer camp and and I actually snuck out of my cabin like some people do, and I went out, what I. Know, out of your cabin at camp as a kid. Yeah, and I went out and coming Chris, Yeah, I went. I laid. I laid on this wooden uh, sort of like stage with a big cross on it, on the side of the hill near a lake. And I told my friends, I said, I've never seen a shooting star. I've never seen one. And I said, I'm gonna go out there and I'm just gonna ask God to confirm. You know. It's that whole like being only seventeen years old, and I said'm gonna ask how to confirm and give me a shooting star. So I go out and I was laying there and I looked up and it was beautiful sky of her right, it just was filled with stars because we're in the middle the country. And I started saying, in how great they are? And you know, so then sings my soul, my Savior God to the you know, and of course it starts with the Lord that God, when I also want to consider all the worlds they have, you know. Anyway, So I'm sitting there singing all that, and just as I hit the crescendo of the chorus, right, how great thou art, God said a little shoot star right perfectly untiming, right as I was singing right, how great thou were? And then I thought to myself, wait a minute, stars burn out millions of miles away. Light travels at what one hundred and eighty six thousand miles an hour or something like that, right, So God timed it right. God's like, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna cause the start to burn out. And it's burned out a long time ago. But it'd be a meter, right, but ibe what it'd be an asteroid or a meteorite. Okay, yeah, I mean that's right. That's it's not a real star. That's right. That's right. Okay, fine, fine, still shooting star is what we call it. That's what we call it. Okay. And then but anyway, but it's like, it's like it was the timing. And I thought to myself, I thought, I thought, I tried to calculate all of it, and I thought, I wonder if God decided a long time ago, did he put in motion? And he said, like, I'm going to give it to him right right at the right at the rest. Worked it out. Man, That thing's barreling things barreling through space at tens of thousands of miles an hour. And I just thought to myself like, like can God? Does God really care about me that much? And then I decided, Yeah, I think he does. So so this idea of randomness is really hard for people to understand. That God's in control and yet he allows some things to be random. In some of the other you know, uh translations, it says, and a certain man drew a bow at a venture, right. He just he had no intent, He's just shooting, right, is what it says. Soh when God chooses to intervene, that's a miracle. That's why the Bible tells. Us about it, right, It's because that's not normal, right, And so what was what was extraordinary was this is a random event. And sometimes random things happen. Sometimes you just are in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it wasn't that God was like, I'm going to make that thing happen to you. Sometimes things just happen to you, right. But what God can do is then take that random moment and manage it for his purposes, right, right. And so so when God chooses to take a random moment and intervene, that's super natural. So God created everything in the natural, and he set up all of his natural laws. So then everything functions within the parameters of his natural law. But they function right. But everything functions within the laws that God established, even within our lives. Are respiratory things, digestive things, how gravity works, friction, momentum, all that stuff just happens. It's happening now that he set in place. God's in control of it from the perspective of he can intervene at any moment, but when he chooses not to intervene, it runs in the way that he established it. That's still God's authority. He established it that way. So then a guy can just be riding in his chariot, pull up his bow, shoot an arrow, just to shoot an arrow, because it turns out he's in a war, right, He's in a battle, and so he shoots this thing, but he's not aiming at anybody. And then God goes, Okay, that arrow is the one, and he reaches in and supernatural super means above or beyond. So the natural thing this guy does, centrifical or not centrifical force, thermodynamics right opposite and equal reaction lets that string go. The arrow goes. That's one of God's laws. It's flying through there and goes, God goes. Okay, let's guide that one right in there, because today's Ahab's day, right, and God supernaturally he imposed himself on nature in that moment and guided that arrow to kill Ahab in that moment. So it's okay for you to accept the fact that some things happen. That wasn't so much the plan as it is. It just happens. It just happens, and then it's not wrong for us. That's why we pray for God to intervene in our lives. We pray that God would do miracles. We pray that God would protect us. Jesus said, lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from bad things. Right, Jesus says, we need your provision. There's all these things. We need God to intervene in what is the natural systems, and when that happens, that's when we experience a miracle. Right. And so this can be kind of a confusing thing when you read this phrase, but that's all it is is life happens, and when God chooses to intervene, that's why he tells us about it in the Bible. Yeah right, So. Yeah, well, I mean at the end, the human reaction is almost always hey, what are the yeah right, We always say like, can you believe it's one of the us or. The other one? Is? Well, that was God's will, yeah right now, it was God's will to choose not to intervene. But it may not have been something that God went, oh good, here's a bad thing coming for Chris, right right. It doesn't mean, you know, somebody runs the red light. It doesn't mean that he made them run the red light to. Hit you, right right, yeah, right, yeah. And so that's what I'm saying is life happens, we get caught up in life. Sometimes God chooses to intervene supernaturally. Otherwise we're living within the authority of the systems, the laws that He put in place. And this is one of those passages. There's several in the Bible that just talk about this idea of randomly or unintentional decisions, and then God chooses from that unintentional decision to intervene. That's Rome's eight twenty eight. God causes all things to work together for good for those who love him or called accordingate purpose. It doesn't say God causes all things right right to happen, but it does say God can take everything that is happening and make it work out for good. That's really good. That's really good. Okay, well that's that's our time, and so we're going to pick up tomorrow and hopefully we'll see you then on the Bible gus mhm hm