BEFORE YOU MAKE THAT MOVE

 BEFORE YOU MAKE THAT MOVE.

Read this before you move out this week.

So the king of Israel brought together the prophets — about four hundred men — and asked them, "Shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?" "Go," they answered, "for the Lord will give it into the king's hand." 1 Kings 22:6NIV (I advise you to read the entire chapter).

We could escape many dangers if we are able to know for sure what God’s will is. Unfortunately, only few people have exercised their spiritual senses to be able to distinguish between the voice of their mind, the nudging on of the devil and the genuine voice of the Holy Spirit.

Our text describes what most believers would erroneously refer to as the leading of the Holy Spirit. Ahab just remembered something he overlooked for three years. a spiritual brother would say that it was the Holy Spirit that reminded him. That was the first affirmation.

In today’s parlance, he consulted with another believer (King Jehoshaphat) and got his support to undertake the task with him. Then he consulted some prophets (it is you that refer to them as false prophets. For Ahab, he enquired of men of God and they were four hundred of them). The prophets told him that God has graciously opened the doors of success and prosperity before him. They told him to move on. One should say that Ahab did all that was necessary to be sure he was doing the right thing. 

The other brother suggested that they should also consult another kind of prophet to which Ahab reluctantly consented. When the lone voice of one hungry looking prophet said something different, Ahab shouted, “I knew it! These narrow minded pastors from a never-do-well church of one man and his wife have never liked to hear about my success.”

His statement resulted in a quarrel with prophet when the “old fashioned prophet” went ahead and still declared the true counsel of God. I don’t know how many people that will not take sides with the positive prophecies from four hundred prophets against a lone voice. Too sad that King Jehoshaphat did not rise in defense of the lone prophet that he invited into trouble. 

So we say that Ahab was led by the “Lord”, secondly, a fellow believer (King Jehoshaphat) confirmed it by accepting to go with him and finally and most importantly, the “Lord” confirmed it through the mouth of four hundred prophets.

If you read through that story, even Ahab felt that the lone voice could be saying the truth but still went out to that war because he felt his ego was threatened. For him, “Why should that prophet talk to me like that?” The truth is that most believers are not seeking the true opinion of God when we approach servants of God. Our minds are made up on the kinds of things we want to hear or tolerate. So, if a servant of God tells us something, we only accept if it agreed with what we wanted to hear.

For example, if I told you that God will open door for you to work in an international organization or give a multimillion dollar contract, you will most like jump and declare, “Amen!”

On the other hand, if I told you that you should not accept the same propsosal. You will frown and demand to know why. If I hand you a large sum of money and claim that God told me to give it to you, you will say immediately, “That is my God! Thank you Jesus!” But if I told you that God has asked me to tell you to give some money to support the printing of our gospel, you will tell that you will need to hear from God before you obeyed that. So, what we claim that we are listening to God, the truth is that we are struggling to surrender our will to God.

Some years ago, I warned a man not to honor a foreign business invitation. He was told by a tribe’s man to bring in a large sum of money to start a better business. He was visibly disappointed in me because more than other five prophets had told him that good fortune awaited him. He went and was robbed and had to borrow funds to find his way back to Nigeria. That was exactly what happened between Ahab and the prophet, Micaiah. 

Unfortunately, Ahab died on that trip. It is clear that he was made up in his mind on the kind of things he wanted to hear and that is the real problem. There are those who go out to those who flatter them and sing their praises. They go only to pastors who make positive prophecies and they are bold to say that they avoided those that say “negative things”. These form the greater number of people who have died like Ahab. 

This is a new week and I pray that you will not hear any invitation that will complicate your life in Jesus’ name. It is also important you decide to be open to the opinion of honest people who may say something you don’t want to hear.

Most importantly, decide today that you will obey whatever the instruction from God is. Your life could depend on it.

I like to hear from you

Emma your brother pnurnigeria@gmail.com