I love this about King Jehoshaphat.
He was not a negative guy. He was positive. He was on board. But before he committed, he stopped and said, let us find out what the Lord says first.
That alone is something to sit with.
But then it gets interesting.
They called in 400 prophets. Four hundred. And all 400 said the same thing. Go, you will win.
Here is what I never caught before. The text does not call them prophets of the Lord. They were just prophets. There is a distinction there, and it matters.
Prophets were supposed to speak from God. So who were these 400? Why were they trusted? Were they just the yes men we so often find ourselves surrounded by?
I think about how many churches are running exactly like this. The head pastor surrounded not by people who will seek God with him, but by people who will default to whatever he says and tell him yes.
And honestly, in our personal lives, this is what we want too.
We do not like to be corrected. We do not like to be challenged. A lot of us do not even have anyone in our life we trust enough to do that. So we end up with our own little circle of 400, all telling us what we already decided we wanted to hear.
Then Jehoshaphat, again, pauses.
He asks if there is a real prophet of the Lord they can ask. And the king of Israel basically says yes, there is one, but I hate him because he never says anything good about me.
That line alone could preach.
So they send for Micaiah. And when he walks in, he sarcastically tells them exactly what they want to hear. Oh yes, go, you will win. He knew the script. He knew what they were waiting on him to say.
And they pushed back. Tell us the truth.
So he did.
And they got angry. And they did what they wanted to do anyway.
That is the part that stings.
They asked. They heard. They did not like it. So they moved forward like they never heard it at all.
How often do we do that?
We pray about something. We get an answer we did not want. So we keep asking, hoping someone else will tell us what we already decided. And when the truth finally comes, we get offended at the messenger and move forward anyway.
There is so much in this chapter.
Surround yourself with people who will seek God with you, not people who will just nod at you.
Be willing to hear the truth even when it is not what you wanted.
And when God speaks, do not ask just to ask. Ask to listen.