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00:00:01 [Applause] [Music] scripture is from first king chapter 22 verse 1 to 39 for three years there was no war between arams and israel but in the third year jehoshaphat king of judah went down to see the king of israel the king of israel has said to his official don't you know that ramoff gilead belongs to us and yet we are doing nothing to retake it from the king of aaron so he asked jehoshaphat will you go with me to fight against ram of gilette jehoshaphat replied to the king of israel i am as you are my people as your people
00:00:53 my horses as your horses but jehoshaphat also said to the king of israel first seek the council of the lord so the king of israel brought together the prophets about 400 men and asked them shall i go to war against ram of gillette or shall i refrain go they answered for the lord will give it into the king's hand but jehoshaphat asked is there no longer a prophet of the lord where whom we can inquire of the king of israel answered jehoshaphat there is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of the lord but i hate
00:01:37 him because he never prophesies anything good about me but always bad he is my son of imla the king should not say such a thing joshua replied so the king of israel called one of his official and said bring mecca ayah son of imlah at once dressed in their royal robes the king of israel and jehoshaphat king of judah was sitting on their drones at the threshing floor by the entrance of the gates of samaria with all the prophets prophesying before them now zedekiah son of canada had made iron horns
00:02:19 and he declared this is what the lord says with this you will guard the aramians until they are destroyed all the other prophets were prophesying the same thing attack graham of gilead and be victorious this is it for the lord will give it into the king's hand the messenger who had gone to salman mikaya said to him look the other prophets without exception are predicting success for the king let the word agree with theirs and speak favorably but mikhail said as surely as the lord lives i can tell
00:02:58 him only what the lord tells me when he arrived the king asked him mr aya shall we go to war against ram of gilead or not attack and be victorious he answered for the lord will give it into the king's hand the king said to him how many times must i make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the lord then mikhail 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 the king of israel said to jehoshaphat
00:03:41 didn't i tell you that he never prophesied anything good about me but only bad mikaya continued therefore hear the word of the lord i saw the lord sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left and the lord said who will entice ahead into attacking rama killian and going to his death there one suggested this and another dead finally a spirit came forward stood before the lord and said i will entice him by what means the lord asks i will go out
00:04:21 and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets he said you will succeed in enticing him said the lord go and do it so now the lord had put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours the lord has decreed disaster for you then zedekiah son of kanana went up and slapped mikaya in the face which way did the spirit from the lord go when he went from me to speak to you he asked me replied you will find out on the day you go to hide in an inner room the king of israel then ordered
00:05:05 take mikaya and send him back to ammon the ruler of the city and to jewish the king's son and stay this is what the king says put this fella in prison and give him nothing but bread and water until i return safely mikhail declared if you ever return safely the lord has not spoken through me then he added mark my words all you people so the king of israel and jehoshaphat king of judah went up to realm of gilead the king of israel said to jehoshaphat i will enter the battle in disguise but you wear your royal ropes
00:05:47 so the kings of israel disguised himself and went into battle now the king of aram had ordered his 32 chariot commanders do not fight with anyone small or great except the king of israel when the chariot commanders saw jehoshaphat they thought surely this is the king of israel so they turned to attack him but when jehoshaphat cried out the chariot commander saw that he was not the king of israel and stopped pursuing him but someone drew his bow at random and hid the king of israel between the section
00:06:23 of his armor the king told his chariot driver reel around and get me out of the fighting i've been wounded all day long the battle reached and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the aramians the blood from his wound ran into the floor of the chariot and the evening he died as the sun was setting a cry spread through the army every man to his town every man to his land so the king died and was brought to samaria and they buried him there they washed the chariots at the pool in samaria where the prostitute bathed
00:07:04 and the dogs lick up his blood as the word of the lord had declared as for the other events of ahab rain including all he did the palace he built and adorned with ivory and the cities he fortified are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of israel this is the word of god good morning i would like to thank the fbc for inviting me to share god's word with you this morning i sent you greetings from bandai baptist church it's been a while since i visited here and i'm glad to have the opportunity to
00:07:40 have fellowship with you again now sunday church service to worship our lord together and to hear from god and to have warm fellowship with one another has been the expected norm for the best part of the last 2000 years of christian life it is in church that many find our faith for the first time and that includes one of the greatest preachers in history charles spurgeon and perhaps many of us too it is in church that many were and continue to be baptized as a public declaration of our faith in christ and i suspect
00:08:15 that includes many of us too i have the privilege of having it done twice once was not so wet and another one was not so dry the first time was by sprinkling and the second time was done in fracking fbc now sitting at home and staring at the screen to worship and listen to the message is now considered a new norm i must say it just doesn't feel quite right sometimes first google is the warm fellowship and the friendly smile and the catching up the worship god at home sometimes just does not have the same reverence
00:08:49 of worship in church somehow to stand and listen to the tv screen or the smartphone does make the sermon sound rather different now before we feel sorry for ourselves of being in our current new norm perhaps look back at the last roughly 100 000 sundays since the christian church has been far more established over the last 2000 years there has been wars through the ages and in the last two centuries last century alone two world wars in fact and in those days worshipping in church for those caught up in the war would have
00:09:26 been a luxury even today wars are still going on there has been illnesses and epidemics of diseases too now the black death caused by a bacterium called yes senior kill up to 200 million people in europe asia and north africa between 1347 to 1352 over a five year period well more recently the spanish flu caused by h1n1 was thought to have affected 500 million people from 1918 to 1920 a total of two years church service would have been severely disrupted and in those days there was no option like what we do today singing
00:10:09 praises in pajamas and listening to god's word in sometimes horizontal position yes we miss the familiarity of worshipping in church but we should still be able to worship and pray as effectively because god is omnipresent he can he's everywhere we can still listen to god's speaking to us because god is with us we can reach god wherever and whenever as long as we have the heart too and we have the humility to humble ourselves before god in church or in front of the tv this morning now when the curtain of the temple was
00:10:44 torn in half when jesus died on the cross jesus blood was restored has restored the relationship between us and god and we can go to him directly and to worship and talk to him and to allow him to talk to us let's come expectantly in this new norm to worship god and to humble ourselves before him let's pray lord of father we just also god that your presence be with us this morning to direct our thoughts direct our understanding and direct our hearts to what you have to say to us in jesus name we ask
00:11:17 amen i would like to do to i would like to invite you to see how god spoke to his people in 1 kings 22 please turn your bible to the passage and we shall refer to it as we go through the passage and it is a fairly long passage though um this version is taken from the niv and i'll read the 38 verses together with you verse 1 1 kings 22 verse 1 for three years there was no war between aram and israel but in the third year jehoshaphat king of judah went down to see the king of israel the king of israel has said to
00:11:57 his officials don't you know that ramos gilead belongs to us and yet we are doing nothing do we take it from the king of aram so he asked jehoshaphat will you go with me to fight against ram of gilead replied to the king of israel i am as you are my people as your people my horses as your horses but yahushua also said to the king of israel first seek the counsel of the lord so the king of israel brought together the prophets about 400 men and asked them shall i go to war against rammus gilead or shall i refrain
00:12:31 go the answer for the lord will give it into the king's hand but yahushua asked is there no longer a prophet of the lord here whom we can inquire of the king of israel answered jehoshaphat that is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of the lord but i hate him because he never prophesizes anything good about me but always bad he is makaya son of imla the king should not say such a thing jehoshaphat replied verse 9 so the king of israel called one of his officials and said bring makkah son of
00:13:04 imla at once robes the king of israel and jehoshaphat king of judah was sitting on their thrones at the threshing floor by the entrance of the gate of samaria with all the prophets prophesying before them now zedekiah son had made iron horns and he declared this is what the lord says with these he will go the arameans until they are destroyed all the other prophets will prophesy the same thing attack ramos and be victorious they said for the lord will give it into your king into the king's hand
00:13:39 the messenger who had gone to summon makkah said to him look the other prophets without exception are predicting success for the king let your word agree with theirs and speak favorably but makkah said as surely as the lord lives i can tell him only what the lord tells me when he arrived the king asked him makaya shall we go to war against reynolds gilead or not attack can be victorious he answered for the lord will give it into the king's hand verse 16 the king said to him how many times must i make you swear to tell me
00:14:14 nothing but the truth in the name of the lord then makaya 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 the king of israel said to jehoshaphat didn't i tell you that he never prophesizes anything good about me but only bad but continue therefore hear the word of the lord i saw the lord sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left
00:14:44 and the lord said who will entice ahab into attacking ram gilead and go into his death there one suggested this and another that finally a spirit came forward stood before the lord and said i will entice him verse 22 by what means the lord asks i will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets he said you will succeed in enticing him said the lord go and do it so now the lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours the lord has decreed disaster for you
00:15:20 then zeddka son of kanana went up and slapped makkah in the face which way did the spirit from the lord go when he went from me speaking to you he asked makkah replied you will find out on the day you go to hide in and in the room the king of israel then ordered take my car and send him back to eamon the ruler of the city and to joash the king's son he say this is what the king says put this fellow in prison and give him nothing but bread and water until i returned safely makaha declared if you ever
00:15:51 return safely the lord has not spoken through me then he added mark my words all you people verse 29 so the king of israel and jehoshaphat king of judah went up to ramos gilia the king of israel said to jehoshaphat i will enter the battle in disguise but you wear your royal robes so the king of israel disguised himself and man into battle now the king of adam has ordered his 32 chariot commanders do not fight with anyone small or great except the king of israel when the chariot commanders saw jehoshaphat they thought surely this is
00:16:26 the king of israel so they turned to attack him but when jehoshaphat cried out the chariot commander saw that he was not the king of israel and stopped pursuing him but someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of israel between the sections of his armor the lord told his chariot driver wheel around and get me out of the fighting i've been wounded all day long the battle rage and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the aramians the blood from his wound ran into the floor of the chariot and that evening he
00:17:00 died as the sun was setting a cry spread through the army every man to his town every man to his land so the king died and was brought to samaria and they buried him there they watched the chariot at the pool in samaria where the prostitutes bathed and the dogs licked up his blood as the word of god had declared so the message today actually are in three parts three subheadings when god speaks um perhaps if i were to put in a little bit of uh information you may understand a little bit more so the first point is when god
00:17:48 speaks well they're not expecting god to speak the second point is when god speaks or really when is god speaking and what happened when god speaks and the third is when god speaks now and perhaps it may be a little bit more clearer by putting in a different different words perhaps the first point is god does and will speak to us and the second point is god speaks clearly to us whether well when we hear it whether we voice it whether whether we live it and the final point is god still speaks to us today
00:18:25 of course now this is the uh ceramic head found three years ago in an archaeological site in northern israel and this is thought to depict king ahab ahab stories appears in 1 king 16 through to 1 kings 22. he was the seventh king of known kingdom of israel he listened to the council of his foreign wife jezebel daughter of the king of tyre according to the bible the two worked together to spread idol worship obao the canaanite fertility god and fought against the god's prophet elijah and mount camel
00:19:04 remember elijah won the epic battle over baal's prophets of calling fire from heaven to burn the sacrifices on the altar but yet he had to run away in fear of his life because jezebel wanted to kill him under ahab's reign the canaanite council bow had equal status with the worship of yahweh according to one king 1631 ahab built a temple in samaria the capital of israel to bala and with a bowel altar and an image of the female goddess ashira as a result of this action the bible states that ahab did more evil in the sight of
00:19:40 lord than all who were before him not only he worshipped foreign gods he and jezebel were also guilty of bringing force charges against naboth whose vinyard he had wanted but naboth refused to sell to him nepal was stolen to death on false charges made up by jezebel and hebb then took the vineyard it was over this incident that elijah prophesied against ahab in 1 kings 21 19 and he said this is what the lord says have you not murdered a man and seize his property then say to him this is what the lord
00:20:16 says in the place where dogs licked up nervous blood dogs will lick up your blood yes yours now ahab had five major conflicts with god's prophets it was recorded in 1 king 17 right through the 1 kings 22 and the passage we just read was this his last encounter and conflict with god's spokesperson god's prophet in mecca now this is michelangelo's painting and like most of his painting it was painted onto the ceiling or wall he must be the most celebrated graffiti artist in history the guy on the left is
00:20:57 said to be king jehoshaphat he is a king from the southern kingdom of judah after fortifying his kingdom against israel he set himself to cleanse the land of idolatry recorded in 1 kings 22 43 he reigned over for 25 years and died at the age of 60. the kingdom of judah was never more prosperous than under his reign because he sought the lord with all his heart much like king david his great great great grandfather he is in the direct lineage of our lord jesus christ as described in matthew 1 8. the great mistake of his reign was
00:21:34 entering into an alliance with ahab the king of israel as we read today now after this disastrous war uh recorded in two chronicles 19 1-3 when jehoshaphat king of judah returned safely to his palace in jerusalem jehu the seer the son of hanani went out to meet him and said to the king should you help the wicked and love those who hate the lord because of this the wrath of lord is on you that is however some good in you for you have read the land of the ashura pose and set your heart on seeking god
00:22:11 that was exactly what he did he continued to get rid of idolatry and rule his country with justice and righteousness and in the worship of god this is the these are the lists of kings from both judah and israel so we have two contrasting kings of the jewish clans one who sought the lord with all his heart and the other one who consistently turned away from the lord the two kings were related to as you can see from the chart that king jehoshaphat's son jehoram was married to king ahab's daughter athalia
00:22:50 this turned out to be almost a disaster for the house of judah when ahaziyah as aliyah's son was killed by jehu who took over the northern kingdom of israel she decided to kill all the princes in judah and made herself queen it was fortunate that only made the only male heir joash was hidden away and reclaimed the kingdom six years later and the kingdom of judah survived for another 250 years before the babylonian exile the lineage of jesus from david remains unbroken despise athelia's violent and
00:23:25 bloody cool to make herself queen this history recorded in 1 kings 22 tells us that it was king ahab who wanted to take back this place called ramos gilead from the king of arab we can see from the map that ramos is at the border between israel and aram the town used to belong to israel and at this point in history was under iran he was the initiator of the whole scheme and the whole war so he invited king jehoshaphat to join him as allies to take on the king of iran king jehoshaphat was really naive and
00:24:05 knowing what a person came ahead was he then agreed to join in the battle without hesitation in verse four i am as you are my people as your people my horses as your horses one-way pledge given the fact that king jehoshaphat related to king arab by king ahab by marriage this response may be not so surprising after all but in verse 5 jehoshaphat said to the king of israel first seek the counsel of the lord now up to this point king ahab had no intention nor have any expectation to inquire from the god if he should go
00:24:45 into battle in fact i suspect this suggestion by king jehoshaphat called king ahab by surprise sometimes we are the same too we may have been too busy and too caught up with what we have on our plate what we have to do what we need to do we may have been so overwhelmed and by our problems and the issues at hand and we spend hours and all our effort and energy to focus on the problems we forgot we forgot there is a god our father in heaven who we can call upon for help and guidance during this challenging time with the
00:25:24 kovic pandemic things are so uncertain and it can be so easy to be caught up with problems after problems our jobs may be on the line our livelihood may be threatened our health may be challenged nothing seems to go right the list goes on and on and on and it can be endless we are so preoccupied and so immersed in our problems that we forget we have a god a father in heaven who knows and understands the situations and will see us through our problems maybe maybe we think that our problems are too trivial too small for god to be
00:26:02 concerned about maybe we are too proud to ask god maybe just we just we just forgot we forgot we have a god because we are so distracted so busy and so preoccupied in psalm 46 verse 10 it says be still be still and know that i am god i will be exalted among the nations i will be exalted in the earth the lord almighty is with us the god of jacob is our fortress when we are still our heart before god when we speak to our god that creates the universe and yet at the same time was took down so low to be interested about our worries
00:26:42 and concern he will speak to us he confiscates like a shepherd he protects us like an ego he reveals himself to us and directs us however there is always a fear to ask us because we he may not agree with us and would give us an answer that we don't want to hear like jonah the direction that god has asked him to go was the opposite from where he actually wanted to go now when i was a student in the uk the chinese christian fellowship in newcastle would organize a seminar for the graduating students and the cocm
00:27:16 workers would come and speak to us one year a former missionary to malaysia in fact rawang by the name of david day came and had counseling sessions to explore with us what we should do on graduation uh it was quite unnerving and some of us were worried that we should be given a word of wisdom and sent us to a remote area in africa this is exactly what king ahab was thinking of since he knew that to inquire of the lord may get an answer he did not want to hear very often we want to ask god and want
00:27:48 god to agree with us and to endorse our decision rather than asking god to tell us what he wants us to do we are worried we are worried that god would give will not give us an answer that we prefer an answer that we want or or desire we want to decide for ourselves rather than to want god to direct us and for us to submit to god let me just remind you in jeremiah 29 11 for i know the plans i have for you declares the lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future incidentally
00:28:31 none of us ended up in africa from the fellowship in newcastle tammy and i have just found out that one of our university friends from those years who studied education andrew chan has just been appointed the archbishop of hong kong for the anglican church even he didn't end up going to africa would we be like king ahem not wanting and not expecting god to interfere in our lives would be would we be like king jehoshaphat seek god for every endeavor or every decision we are to make god does and will speak to us would we
00:29:08 humble ourselves to hear and listen and to submit to god now king ahab would then arrange to have 400 prophets to prophesy and all of them said he would be victorious however king jehoshaphat smelt the red hair and he knew that something was wrong something was amiss so yahushua asked innocently is there no longer a prophet of the lord here whom we can inquire of in verse seven jehoshaphat in this chapter was not really very wise in how he acted and we saw that he agreed to the alliance without even working out the details and
00:29:47 inquire of the lord later we saw that he was even stupid enough to agree to dress as the king in the battle against the enemy despite him being naive jehoshaphat was actually quite spiritually discerning up to a point at least in this narrative he heard the prophecy of the 400 prophets and yet knew instantly that this was not right when god speaks those who know god would definitely know his voice when the shepherd speaks his sheep recognize his voice when god speaks to us today the holy spirit will help us to identify his
00:30:25 voice among the background noises the holy spirit the helper will help us to cling on to our god but only if we want to listen and only if we want to cling on so reluctantly king ahab then revealed in fact there was another guy who he didn't he didn't call named makaya note that the thought of makaya in king ahab's eyes was because he never prophesizes anything good about me but always bad in verse 8. mccarthy's fault from a king ahab's point of view was not that mackay was not godly or did not inquire of god on
00:31:02 behalf of king ahab but what makaya said was always not to his liking in verse 12 so the word of god is alive and active of this is hebrew 4 12 sharper than any double h sword it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit joins in marrow it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart nothing in all creation is hidden from god's side everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account so the word of god is living and judges and exposes ourselves bare before god
00:31:47 the word of god convicts us and exposes our sin before god as it cuts through our soul and spirit the word of god is all seeing and he's all knowing and he will turn us upside down inside out the word of god drives us to turn from our sinful ways to god to seek him so that we have eternal lives the word of god will cleanse cleanse us and makes us more christ-like the word of god is at work and it will not return empty now have you heard the word of god have you heard god speaking to you have you felt the conviction of sin and
00:32:29 the forgiveness of christ have you felt the invigorating touch of the word of god that gives us new life new meaning new direction speak to a christian friend to find out about this god that can give new lives contact us in church to speak to the pastors or the elders have you felt being loaded down the word of god does not seem as real or god seems to be so far away talk to us let us pray with you now makaya is said to be one of elijah's disciples she really had a difficult job in verse 13 the messenger who had gone
00:33:07 to summon makaya said to him look the other prophets without exception are predicting success for the king let your word agree with theirs and speak favorably wow the pressure of what to say before king ahab is a bit more than subtle here so king her hab wants the prophet of god to say what king ahab wants to hear sikh judea this was what he did perhaps sarcastically and even king heb who wanted him to endorse his plan to go to battle through thought that he didn't sound convincing enough for the audience
00:33:44 so he thought he would give him a second chance at least to sound convincing enough for makkah to redeem himself before king ahab so verse 16 king ahab said to him how many times must i make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the lord hinting wink-wink in fact the question actually means how many times must i make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of king ahab this is in the presence of 400 so-called prophets plus the two kings and the entourage quite a lot of people
00:34:21 verse 17 then makaya answered i saw all israel scattered on the hillside sheep without a shepherd and the lord said these people have no master let each one go home in peace mackay is saying that all the israels would be scattered as they would have no leader the only reason that they had no leader was that their leader has died this meant that if ahab was to go to war with aram he would die then mackay went to describe the vision he saw with god on his throne allowing the deceiving spirit for the 400
00:34:56 so-called prophets to entice king ahab to go to war which eventually would lead him to his death he was then physically and verbally abused by zedekiah one of ahab so-called prophets who made the iron horns as expected mecca was put under arrest for speaking the word of god mackay like elijah before him knew the consequence of speaking the truth and what god wanted him to say he certainly did not shy away from that responsibility not only that he delivered the message with authority and firmness
00:35:30 the confidence of which must only come from god he did not care about redeeming himself before king ahab he knew he knew he has been redeemed by the king of heaven and earth when god has given us a task and god has revealed his will to us then we should do it or speak it as led by the holy spirit we must not run away from the responsibilities and jonah did or crumble under pressure like peter when he denied christ three times this is no easy task and this courage can only come with an unwavering face
00:36:08 in our god you may ask how can god allow ahab to be received well first of all ahab surrounded himself with prophets who would say things that he wanted to hear these were not prophets of god these were not the people who would speak for god king ahab knew that and in fact he didn't even consider seeking counsel of the lord as part of his planning of the war until king jehoshaphat suggested it in verse 5 these prophets obviously did not speak the word of god king jehoshaphat who sought the lord with all his heart
00:36:43 instantaneously recognized that these prophets were not from god and what they say was not from god if we seek after god if we are close to god god would not lead us lead us astray or allow us to go towards destruction remember jeremiah 29 11 plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and the future god's action for his people even to those who are unfaithful to him is always redemptive jesus coming 2000 years ago was to redeem us with his blood peter having denied christ three times was redeemed
00:37:25 and was turned into a different man by the holy spirit just a few weeks later when he stood before the sanhedrin god sent makkah to king ahab was to warn him to get him back from the brim of disaster from the brim of death god's word to ahab through micah mike mckay was supposed to save king ahab's life it was not to condemn him but king heb did not listen and his disobedience condemned himself in fact god did not want king air to march towards his own death he has sent many prophets to king ahab in fact four
00:38:02 times previously before his encounter with makaya in 1 kings 22 that we just read the messages sent by god would have made king understand the character of god and the intention of what makaya said would be for him to stop the war to save his own life however king ahab did not see the lost word as a warning to save him from disaster but he saw god's word as an unnecessary obstacle to his own plan unnecessary obstruction for his own ambition do we see king ahab's shadow in us sometimes the tendency of wanting to do
00:38:42 things my way is so strong sometimes god is always there god is always there for us just like the father of the portugal son waiting at the gate daily yearning for us to turn back and waiting to welcome us back into the house of god maka's turn to kingdom was stern and uncompromising this was the fifth time that god has spoken to ahab through his prophets in the previous four encounters with god's warning ahab had consistently disregarded the prophecy and failed to repent well the king ahab listened to god after
00:39:21 all this time did ahab act upon what god has spoken to him by makaya well actually king ahab didn't completely ignore the message from mackay either he thought he could escape the prophecy of god by taking things into his own hand now in those days during a battle when the king or the commander in charge died or killed the battle would be over with the site losing the leader losing the battle first very often the enemy would target the leader or the king leading the battle in this battle king of aram knew that it was
00:39:57 king ahab who called the shots and he then asked his army to target king ahab now ahab thought that if king jehoshaphat would go into battle in royal road and he went to battle in disguise the problem solved makkah's prophecy might not come true as the enemy would not have known where he was think about it what a way to treat your daughter's father-in-law what a way to treat your chanka king jiahu shaft in this incident though scored highly for being pious he scored zero for common sense by agreeing to go
00:40:38 into battle as the only king in royal road he will become the target for the whole enemy uh army to shoot at well did ahab succeed in escaping god's prophecy by his deceit and scheming of course not remember hebrew 4 13 nothing in all creation is hidden from god's side everything is uncovered and laid back before the eyes of him to whom we must give account well we we learned that from the heat from the story that he was shot by a random arrow and fatally wounded but was the arrow random of course we know that the error was not
00:41:21 random this outcome was prophesized and this was told to king ahab but just he refused to listen he refused to believe and refuse to act upon it he still thought that by disguising himself god would not find him not only his death has been foretold the fact that his blood would be licked up by dogs have also been prophesied by elijah tragic hand could he come to this tragic end could ahab escape the arrow that took his life of course he could not by dressing in disguise god's message is always redemptive god's
00:41:59 message is always to warn and to correct and bring us back to him back to the right path remember john 3 16 and 17 it says god so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish and have eternal life for god did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him ahab could have just listened to makaya and recognized that starting this war would bring death and he should abort the war effort only if well many people would argue that you've
00:42:42 got census profits today and he speak to us directly the message would have been clearer and there would be no doubt the message would be delivered and accepted oh come on come on a prophet sent by god just to stand in front of me for god to speak directly to me how would i ever get the message wrong now even if i don't understand or the message is unclear i can seek clarification straight away can't i surely cannot go wrong one only if only if this happens today we would not have to struggle to hear from
00:43:16 god we would not have difficulty to hear god speaking to us only if let us look at hebrew verse 1 to 3. in the past god spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times in various ways but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom also he made the universe the sun is a radiance of god's glory and the exact representation of his being sustaining all things by his powerful word after he had provided purification for sins he sat down at the right hand of
00:43:54 the majesty in heaven god speaks to us in different ways and various means at different times and circumstances but in christ and through christ god spoke fully finally and perfectly now we look at the old testament prophet is hezekiah spoke of the glory of god but in christ we can see the glory of god as the spirit of god descended on him like a dove when he was baptized in the river of jordan the shepherd two thousand years ago certainly saw the glory of god in the baby jesus how about prophet isaiah he described
00:44:33 the nature of god as holy righteous and merciful but christ showed it in his sinless life on earth but yet had compassion to heal the sick enabled the lame to walk and the blind see prophet jeremiah explained the power of god but christ displayed it by calming the storms and casting out the evil spirit and most of all he raised the dead none of these prophets saw jesus or even heard about jesus then but have you heard about jesus jesus not only spoke the word of god in his life he was the word of god being fulfilled
00:45:10 as he became the ultimate sacrifice of dying for others this redemptive work on the cross is god's action in words in 1 john 1 verses 1 to 3 that which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked at and our hands have touched this we proclaim concerning the word of life the life appeared we have seen it and testified to it and we proclaim it proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and has appeared to us we proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you
00:45:52 also may have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the father and with his son jesus christ christ was displaying god's word in his life we can read this as this has been recorded for us in the bible both in the old testament when christ coming has been predicted and how he was going to be the messiah was also prophesized and of also of course in the new testament when we saw so many of the disciples stood witness how he willingly walked to the cross and was raised on the third day we can see how christ came to fulfill
00:46:29 the word of god through him dying for our sins now christ is living with us and in us and we are having fellowship with him as is god's only son john 14 26 says but the advocate the holy spirit whom the god whom the father will send in my name will teach you all things and will remind you of everything i have said to you so jesus has also sent us his helper the holy spirit to us so that we can be guided to understand god guided to see god guided to worship god guided to listen to god and guided to talk to god
00:47:09 is this not better than waiting for a prophet to turn up at your doorsteps is this this is not more personal and more effective than spoken words from the mouth of another man god speaks to us through the ages through his creation starting from adam and eve he wants to speak to us and have fellowship with us today because we are his children have you heard god speaking to you allow god to speak to us through the reading of his words through the meditation of his words through the prompting of the holy spirit
00:47:46 the psalmist said in psalm 139 if i go up to the heavens you are there if i make my bed in the depths you are there if i rise on the wings of the dawn if i settle on the far side of the sea even there your hand will guide me your right hand will hold me fast god will still speak to us today while worshiping either in church or at home he will speak to us wherever we are even when we are under mco to keep away the virus kobe 19. we can still hear god speaking to us while we need to practice social
00:48:24 distancing from one another god is not far away from us in fact god wants us to draw near to him we just need to come to god and make our heart still and humble before god to hear him to have fellowship with him let's pray lord of father in heaven speak to us and in all times be good or bad when we say here we are we are listening in jesus name we ask amen
