The Book of Kings: Ahab, Ben-Hadad, and the Battle of Wits

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The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.

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I simply cannot imagine a greater prophet than Elijah. He was not a smooth man like I suspect Isaiah was. Isaiah was a poet and a great one at that. I see no hint of poetic utterance in any word Elijah ever spoke. Of course, you have to speak some words before you ever get poetic, and he didn’t use many. But then every prophet God ever called was chosen for the job at hand and for the people he was sent to talk to. One prophet was a sheepherder, another a fruit picker. They were pretty much ordinary men until God made them extraordinary. And as far as I can tell, none of them were really looking for the job when they got it. They were not self-assured men either. Take Elijah as a case in point. No prophet who has ever lived before or since has had the massive public validation that Elijah got. I mean, the story of him on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal is proverbial. Everybody, I think by now, surely, whether Bible readers or not, have heard about Elijah on Mount Carmel and calling down fire from heaven. to consume his offering, licking up the stones, the water, taking it all the way down to bedrock before the fire disappeared, and put everyone in the place on the ground. This is a man who had stopped the rain for three and a half years before that just to get everyone’s attention. Can you imagine somebody goes on Fox News tonight and says, I’m telling you something, boys. For the next whatever period of time, it’s not going to be any rain in the United States from Maine to California, from Washington to Key West. There’s not going to be a drop of rain or any dew until I say so. And starting on the next day, tomorrow, we would never be able to find this guy. He just disappears, drops out of sight, and so does the rain. I’d say at the end of three, three and a half years… we would begin to take more attention or pay more attention to what this man might have to say. Well, finally, the story all came down on Mount Carmel when that fire fell, and he’s having ridiculed Jezebel’s prophets in the most graphic of terms, had the people bring them down from the mountain and killed every last one of them. Now, you would think that if prophets were a bear, this was a grizzly. I mean, whatever it was he was about, he was going to get it done. But in a matter of hours, days at the most, he was fleeing for his life before a woman. Well, now, she wasn’t just any woman. Her name was Jezebel. She’s passed into our language as one of the most wicked, nastiest women who ever lived. When Ahab came down from the mountain and told Jezebel everything Elijah had done, how he had killed all of her prophets with the sword, her prophets now, mind you, Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so let the gods do to me and more also if I don’t make your life like the life of one of those prophets by tomorrow about this time. We’re in 1 Kings chapter 19. This expression, let the gods do to me, and more also is idiomatic, by the way, of this period in Hebrew. It’s found only in Samuel and Kings, once in the book of Ruth. It’s a specialized expression. Whatever it is that’s been done, I’m going to do it to you, and if I don’t do it to you, God, do it to me. When he heard that, he got up and went for his life. He came to Beersheba in the south where there was a well. It belonged to Judah, left his servant there. And he went a day’s journey beyond that into the desert and came and sat down under a juniper tree. And he prayed. He requested for himself that he might die. He said, it’s enough. Now, O Lord, take away my life. I’m not better than my father’s. This is probably the best bass area aria in all of Mendelssohn’s Elijah. I did it once in recital, and it will absolutely break your heart. It’s enough. Take away my life. Let me die. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, an angel touched him and said, Get up, eat. And he looked, and behold, there was a cake that had been baked on the coals and a cruise of water at his head. And he ate and drank and laid down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time and said, Get up and eat. The journey ahead is too great for you. So he arose and he ate and drank and went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God. Horeb, another name for Sinai. He came there unto a cave and lodged in it. And the word of the Lord came to him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts. The children of Israel have forsaken your covenant. They’ve thrown down your altars. They’ve slain your prophets with the sword. And I’m the only one left, and they’re seeking my life to take it away. The jig is up. It’s over. I said that you have to love this man. He was real. He was human. He was so human, in fact, he began to feel sorry for himself. And which of us can’t identify with that feeling? And he said, go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. Behold, the Lord passed by. Great, strong wind rent the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice. And it came to pass when Elijah heard that, He wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entering of the cave. Now, this is fascinating. Preachers love to preach about this one. They derive this expression, the still, small voice of God. But, you know, it’s really a true thing. We all want to look for great things. We want to see earthquakes and fire come down from heaven and all these great things. God is very subtle in his dealings with men. Elijah knew that. He didn’t go out for all these other manifestations, but when he heard the voice, he did. Behold, there came the voice to him, saying once again, What are you doing here, Elijah? He repeats his speech. I’ve been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts. The children of Israel have all forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, slain your prophets with a sword. I’m the only one left, and they’re trying to kill me. That’s what I’m doing here to save my life. And the Lord said to him, Go back on your way to the desert of Damascus. When you come, I want you to anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. Jehu, the son of Nimshi, shall you anoint to be king over Israel. Elisha, the son of Shaphat, shall you anoint to be the prophet in your place? Okay, I’m going to let you retire. But while we do this, we have to have another prophet on the scene because we’ve got more stuff to do. He went on to say, It shall come to pass that him that escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu shall slay, and him that escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Now, by the way… God, at this point, puts a misconception to rest and tells us something very important. He says, Now, it’s a curious thing about religious people. They’re tempted to believe that they, or at least their particular brand of believer, are the only true believers that there are. You know, it’s the funniest thing. And even when you are in a church where you seem to agree with most of the people that are there, you still have your own little unique things that you believe, and you’re the only one that really believes this. God says, well, I have left me 7,000 in Israel. And Elijah didn’t know one of them. He didn’t know anyone. He thought he was all that was left. Nor did he know what criteria God had placed on them or how far along his road he had led them. They weren’t everyone, but they were there. I can’t help thinking of the Apostle Paul one day in Corinth when things had not gone well at all. And the Lord came to him in a dream, a vision, and said, Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Stay here. Preach. Nobody’s going to hurt you because I have much people in this city. And I’m sure Paul must have blinked about that time and said, Really? Where are they? Who are they? You see, he didn’t know them. He didn’t know who they were. He didn’t know where they were. All he knew at this time was God said, You stay right here and you work because I got a lot of people here. And we should always try to remember that, that we aren’t all there is to the work that God might do. He’s working His way, His time, and His places. And sometimes we have to try to catch up or at least try to not feel sorry for ourselves and feel that we understand at least what God is doing and that He’s going somewhere with all of this. But sometimes it gets away from us. Think about that for a moment.

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I’ll be right back after this important message. The Real Profits series is available in album form. If you would like to get in on this story from the beginning, write or call and ask for your free CD titled Real Profits. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44. That’s 1-888-242-5344. And tell us the call letters of this radio station.

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So Elijah came down off the mountain, went his way, and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing. He had 12 teams, actually, of oxen in the field with men plowing fields. He was with the 12th himself. Elijah passed by him and took his mantle and cast it upon him. And Elisha left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, Let me, I pray you, kiss my father and my mother, and I’ll follow you. Now, what’s odd about this, in a way, Elijah didn’t say a word. But Elisha knew what it meant when Elijah cast that mantle upon him. And Elijah said, Go back. What have I done to you? So far he hadn’t even said a word. So he said, you can go back if you want to. So he returned, took a yoke of oxen, slew them, cooked the flesh with the instruments of the oxen, gave them to the people, and they ate. And then he arose and went after Elijah and ministered to him. Sort of an assistant prophet. In 1 Kings chapter 20, at this time Ben-Hadad is the king of Syria. He gathers all of his army together. There were 32 kings with him. You talk about a coalition. He had one. They had horses and chariots, which are the armored divisions of the time. And he went up and besieged Samaria and warred against it. So he’s put the city of Samaria, the capital of Israel, where Ahab dwells, in siege. He sent messengers to Ahab, king of Israel, into the city and said to him, Thus saith Ben-Hadad, Your silver and your gold is mine, your wives also, and your children. The best of them are all mine. And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, according to your saying, I’m yours and all that I have. You know, he came to a place to where he said, Well… If he’ll save the rest of the city, and there’s not much I can do about it anyway, look at the size of this army he’s brought up here. I might as well just go ahead and give him everything I’ve got and spare the city. Well, the messengers came back again and said, Thus says Ben-Hadad, Although I have sent to you saying, You shall deliver to me your silver, your gold, and your wives and your children, I think Ben-Hadad said, Hmm, that was too easy. I didn’t ask for enough. I’m going to send my servants to you tomorrow about this time, and they’ll search your house and the house of your servants, and it shall be whatever is pleasant in their eyes. They shall take it in their hand and carry it off. Well, you know, there comes a point in time where even Ahab began to see which way the wind was blowing, and he called all the elders of the land together, and he said, Look at this. This man is seeking mischief. He sent to me my wives and for my wives and for my children and my silver and my gold, and I didn’t deny him. Now, he may have been slow, but there was a point where he realized what he was up against. And all the elders of the people said to him, don’t listen to him, don’t consent. So he sent the messengers back to Ben-Hadad, said, tell my lord the king, all that you ask for me at the first, I will do. But what you’ve asked at the last, I can’t do. So they left and brought word again. And Ben-Hadad sent back to them and said, The gods do so to me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me. I mean, we’re going to take the walls, the stones of the walls, the houses, the wives, the children, whatever it may be, all the silver, all the gold, all the furniture, all the clothing, and the dust on the ground, and we still haven’t really served the people that I’ve brought down here. And the king of Israel, Ahab, answered and said, Well, tell him, Let not him that girds on his harness boast himself as he that puts it off. That’s a classic line there. You might want to remember that for adapting to life situations. You know, it’s sort of like, Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. He says, Don’t let him that puts on his armor boast himself as he that is now taking it off, having won the battle. Well, it came to pass when Ben-Hadad heard this message as he was drinking, he and his kings in the pavilions, he said to his servants, Set yourself in array. And they set themselves in array against the city, lined up all around it. And behold, there came a prophet to Ahab about this time and said, Thus saith the Lord. You see all this great multitude. See this huge crowd out here. I’m going to deliver it into your hand this day, and you will know that I am Jehovah. Now, this is interesting. There are times and places and circumstances where God sends a prophet and says, this is something about to happen here that is extremely unlikely. It’s something that’s impossible. It would never happen, except I made it happen. Why am I doing this? So you’ll know. So there will no longer be any guesswork. This isn’t going to be luck. There’s not going to be an accident. You’re going to know. And Ahab said, well, by whom are you going to do this? This is what the Lord says, even by the young men of the princes of the provinces. He said, who shall order the battle? And the messenger answered, you. So he numbered the young men of the provinces. They were 232. After them, he numbered all the people, the children of Israel, being 7,000. Way outnumbered. And they went out at noon, but… Ben-Hadad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions. He and the kings, the 32 kings who helped him, are all stone drunk in the pavilions. And the young men of the princes of the province went out first. Ben-Hadad sent out, and they told him, saying, There are men coming out of Samaria. And here is where the drink comes into play along with a man’s ego. He said, whether they’re coming out for peace or whether they’re coming out for war, either way, take them alive. This was a huge mistake because he tied the hands of his own men. These young men of the princes of the provinces came out of the city and their army, and they slew everyone his man, and the Syrians ran. Israel pursued them. Ben-Hadad, the king of Assyria, escaped on a horse with the horsemen. And the king of Israel went out, smote the horses, the chariots, slew the Syrians with a great slaughter. And the prophet came to the king of Israel and said, Go strengthen yourself and mark and see what you do. You better really pay attention to your circumstances, because at the return of the year, the king of Syria will come up against you again. The servants of the king of Syria said to him, Look, their gods are the gods of the hills. That’s why they were stronger than us. You know, any old excuse when you’ve gotten your tail whipped, I guess we’ll serve. Their gods are the gods of the hills. Let’s fight against them in the plain. Surely we will be stronger than they are there. You know, there’s certain logic in it. Chariots, horses, and armor, that’s all better on flat land than it is in the hills. But it was a big mistake. Because what it was essentially saying was, God can beat us in the mountains. God can’t beat us on the plains, which is kind of a challenge to God, which is a big mistake. Here’s what let’s do. Take the kings away, everyone out of his place, and put captains in their place. Go, oh, this is an important decision. The kings all were drunk when the key time came, so let’s get all these kings out of here and put captains, let’s put military men in their place who won’t be stoned out of their minds when the time comes. Let’s number an army like you won, you lost, horse for horse, chariot for chariot, and we’ll fight them in the plain and surely we’ll be stronger than they are. And he said, okay, that’s a good idea. Do it. Well, it came to pass at the return of the year, Ben-Hadad numbered the Syrians and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. The children of Israel were numbered and were all present and went against them. And the children of Israel pitched before them like two little flocks of kids. The Syrians filled the whole countryside. It’s an incredible vision you get here of Israel being like little flocks of goats here and the Syrians filling the entire country with men. And here comes a man of God again and spoke to the king of Israel and said, Here’s what God says. Because the Syrians have said the Lord is the God of the hills but not the God of the valleys, therefore I’m going to deliver all this great multitude into your hand and you’ll know that I am Jehovah. Man, you just don’t want to play games like this. God didn’t like Ahab. He was very unhappy with Ahab. He already pronounced one curse on him. He was going to pronounce another one later. But, you know, when your enemies – let’s put it another way. Ahab was very fortunate in his choice of enemies. These stupid people didn’t have any greater brains than to realize, hey, we got whipped by Israel’s God. We’d better find another way of going about this. Well, they pitched over one against each other seven days. It was so in the seventh day the battle was joined, and the children of Israel slew of the Syrians a hundred thousand footmen in one day. And the rest of them fled to Aphek into the city, and there came a wall there and fell on 27,000 of the men that were left and killed them there. And Ben-Hadad fled and came into the city in an inner chamber.” His servants said to him, you know, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings. Let us, I pray you, put sackcloth on our loins, ropes on our heads, and go out to the king of Israel. Maybe he will save your life. Now, I don’t know if this echoes through the chambers of your mind like it does mine. But here we are in the 21st century now, fighting wars out here, and I have little doubt that our enemies look at us and say, well, the kings, the captains, and all the leaders in the Congress of the American people, they’re merciful people. They’re not going to treat us like we would treat them. Well, they girded sackcloth on their loins, put ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel and said, your servant, Ben-Hadad, says, I pray you, let me live. And Ahab said, Well, is he alive? He’s my brother. Now the men observed diligently whether anything would come of him and hastily catch it. And they saw it and they said, yes, yes, your brother Ben-Hadad. And he said, go and bring him. And Ben-Hadad came forth to him and he caused him to come up into the chariot with him. Now, they’re going to make a deal with long-term consequences. We’ll talk about that, but first, grab a pencil and a piece of paper so you can take down some of the information we’re about to give you.

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So here are Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, Ahab, the king of Israel, negotiating in Ahab’s own chariot about what’s to happen from here. And Ben-Hadad said, The cities my father took from your father I will restore, and you shall make streets for you in Damascus as my father made in Samaria. Then said Ahab, I’ll send you away with this deal. So he made a deal with him, sent him away. A certain man of the sons of the prophets… You know, we don’t know a lot about these prophets, but apparently the way they keep coming back in, many of them unnamed, there must have been quite a few of them. He said to his neighbor in the word of the Lord… Now, I think what he means by this is that there were two of them. Both of them were prophets. Both of them were in the word of the Lord. And he said to this fellow, “‘Smite me, I pray you.’ And the man refused to smite him. Wouldn’t do it. Said, “‘No way.’ He said to him, Because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, behold, as soon as you are departed from me, a lion will slay you. I guess he didn’t believe it, because as soon as he was departed, a lion found him and killed him. He found another man and said, Smite me, I pray you. And this one was smarter. He smote him so that in smiting he wounded him. The prophet departed, waited for the king by the way, and disguised himself with ashes upon his face. Otherwise, implication, the king might have known him. As the king passed by, he cried to the king and said, Your servant went out in the midst of the battle, and behold, a man turned aside and brought a man to me and said, Keep this man. If by any means he is missing, your life shall be for his life, or else you’re going to have to pay a talent of silver, which is a huge amount of silver, more than any man normally would expect it to have. And as your servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said to him, Well, you’ve decided your own judgment. And as soon as he said that, he took the ashes away from his face. And the king of Israel discerned that he was one of the prophets. And he said to him, Thus saith Jehovah, Because you have let go out of your hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction. Therefore, your life shall go for his life and your people for his people. And the king of Israel went to his house heavy and displeased and returned to Samaria. And you know, it’s awfully easy. in the modern world, to not think about some of the things that we can learn from the Bible. It’s so striking to me as I read through this, the parallel between where we are today and where they were then, between our attitude that we have as a people and the attitude that Ahab had back then. These men said, hey, the Americans are a merciful people. They’re easygoing folks. They’re not the people you have to worry that much about. They’re not like us. And sure enough, when someone was ready to hand Osama bin Laden into our hands, our leadership let him go. And again and again, we hesitate, not realizing that once you go to war, war is a cruel business. And if you try to be overly merciful… It’s you who are going to die instead of the people you’re fighting with. Listen once again to the words of that prophet. Because you have let go out of your hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore your life shall go for his life and your people for his people.

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And that is really disturbing in this age of atomic weapons. The Born to Win radio program with Ronald L. Dart is sponsored by Christian Educational Ministries and made possible by donations from listeners like you. If you can help, please send your donation to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. You may call us at 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit us online at borntowin.net.

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