Day 67

 

Is There Someone Else Who Could Help?

 

The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, " Didn't I tell you that he never prophesies anything good about me, but only bad?"

 

1 Kings 22:18

 

 

"There is a guy down here that wants to talk to the pastor," I was told. So, I hung up the phone, got in my car and went to the Tru-Value hardware store. A guy on a bicycle had showed up there with a flat tire that needed fixed and had requested a pastor. The guys at the hardware store were fixing his bicycle when I got there.

The man with the bike was insisting that they were putting his tire on backwards. He was wrong. I started talking to him and he told me that he had ridden his bike all the way from Montana to Arkansas and was headed for Florida. The guys at the hardware store were fine Christian folks and they were fixing his bicycle for free but the man looked like he could use some help of a different kind. He had a bad cold and I could see a prescription bottle and some medical papers in his jacket pocket. I also suspected that mentally he wasn't operating at full speed.

"You look like you are sick," I told him. "Do you need to see a doctor or need some medication?"

"I ain't crazy," he informed me.

I was thinking, "I know your crazy, I just want to know if you need some medicine for that cold."

He didn't want to see a doctor or get any medicine, what he wanted was for me to get him a motel room. "I can't get you a motel room but the church has a fully furnished mobile home I can put you up in."

"I want a motel room," he insisted.

"Like I told you, we have a nice mobile home. It has everything in it but a phone. We have missionaries that stay in it from time to time so we keep it nice. You are plenty welcome to stay there."

"I don't want a mobile home, I want a motel room!"

"I can't spend money on a motel room when I have a perfectly nice place for you to stay that will not cost the church anything."

While he was distracted talking to me they had finished fixing his bike. He grabbed his bike and pedaled off down the highway.

That was Saturday morning. On Sunday morning a deacon who owned a local restaurant came in laughing and told me, "This guy came in to the restaurant yesterday riding a bicycle and asked me if I would call a pastor in town for him. He wanted any preacher but the Baptist preacher."

The deacon though that was hilarious and so did I. I had to tell him why the guy with the bicycle was looking for any pastor but the Baptist one. I found out he had got in touch with the Presbyterian pastor and got his motel room.

Some people will look for any help they can get except the help that they need. They will try the most idiotic desperate things before they will come to God and admit they are sinners in need of help.

In 1 Kings 22 King Ahab of Israel was looking for some spiritual advice at the request of King Jehoshaphat of Judah. There were false prophets headed up by a guy named Zedekiah that would tell Ahab anything he wanted to hear. There was a real prophet, Micaiah, who would tell him the truth. Who does he listen to? Zedekiah, the false prophet. What happened when he followed the wrong advice? A random arrow hit Ahab right between the plates in his armor and Ahab died.

Sometimes it is painful to be confronted with the truth. Our pride can get in the way of our doing the smart thing and following the counsel of God. In the long run you will find taking the false help the world has to offer will prove disastrous.  

 

Upon Further Review 

 

Read 1 Kings 22:1-37

• Whose idea was it to seek the "counsel of the Lord?"
• What did the 400 prophets say?
• What kind of prophet was Jehoshaphat looking for? (As opposed to the 400 -see v.7)
• Why did Ahab hate Micaiah?
• What did Micaiah finally get around to prophesying?
• What happened to Micaiah when he told the truth?
• Despite his trying to avoid it what happened to Ahab?