“But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no longer a prophet of the Lord here whom we can inquire of?” (1 Kings 22:7)
Jehoshaphat king of Judah really impresses me as someone that is really likable. Not only did he give King Ahab a pledge of his full military support for a war against a foreign country, but he also asked his friend to seek God’s will first.
Let me put it this way. Say, a friend or a relative asks you to invest in a new business venture, someone as winsome as Jehoshaphat would say, “Sure, I will give you everything you need. But, before we move forward, why don’t you spend some time praying about it to make sure that is God’s will for you.”
Smart. That is a very smart thing to say.
King Ahab thought what Jehoshaphat said made sense, so he gathered 400 men whom he considered to be prophets and asked them whether he should go to this war. Unanimously they all told him the same thing. “Yes! You should go. God is on your side. Victory is yours!”
If 400 people tell you to go ahead and do this one thing, won’t you do it?
But King Jehoshaphat saw through these so-called prophets.
Not too long ago, King Ahab employed 450 prophets of Baal in a showdown against a true prophet of God – Elijah. And we know how that went down. (It ended very badly for Ahab.) These 400 men suddenly looked a little dubious. Who were these guys?
King Jehoshaphat somehow sensed there must be one prophet that was not summoned. How he knew that the Bible didn’t say, and he was absolutely right! King Ahab sheepishly admitted that there was still ONE prophet left… but he couldn’t stand him!
“There is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad.” (v. 8)
“I hate him because he never had anything good to say about me.” What a childish thing to say, especially for a king.
This one last prophet had one last prophesy for King Ahab. It was the exact opposite of what those 400 lying men predicted. Sadly for King Ahab, he foolishly listened to the lies and died in the battle.
Someone once said to me, “Not everyone’s opinion weighs the same.” We get advice, both solicited and unsolicited, from people all the time. They can drive us crazy. Who do we listen to? They are not votes that shall carry the same weight.
Know the character of the person before you accept their advice and opinions. One wise man’s word outweighs noisy chatters of a hundred.