Ramoth-Gilead is east of the Jordan river, on the other side
of the Jordan. The tribe of Gilead, if
you recall, chose as its inheritance, land on that side of the river and Moses
required them to go ahead of their brothers into the Land and remain there for
the conquest of the land promised to the remainder of the nation. Ahab
determines it is time to recover that land that has now become part of Syria
and so asks the king of Judah to join him in his battle to win back the land. Four hundred prophets are brought (when was
the last time we saw such a company of prophets – Mt Carmel, the prophets of
Baal), all of whom prophesy victory for the kings in this endeavor but
Jehoshaphat is unconvinced and asks if there is not yet another prophet. The king of Israel says there is yet one
more, Micaiah, who never prophesies anything good for him. Micaiah is a man of integrity and the Spirit. He alone says that this will be a failed
enterprise to go rescue Ramoth-Gilead, that the Lord has, however, determined
that the king will go up because a false spirit has infected the prophets who
have come before Micaiah. The king is
determined to do what he has envisioned and will not listen.
Jesus calls four fishermen to be His first disciples and their
reaction is that they left their nets and their businesses behind and followed
Him. We don’t know what they knew but
surely they at least were familiar with John the Baptist, his extraordinary
birth, his proclamation and possibly the baptism of Jesus as well as John’s
testimony concerning Him. These things
perhaps were part of their reasoning for immediately accepting His call to be
disciples. Matthew tells us that Jesus
began proclaiming the kingdom in word and deeds of healing. The response was that people believed and
brought all those who needed healing from any affliction, physical or spiritual
and that they came from all over the region, from Syria to beyond the Jordan
and all points in between, even from Jerusalem itself. A prophet has arisen in Galilee such as has
never been seen before.
Did Paul preach Christ crucified among the Corinthians
because he lacked wisdom and insight other than this message? Absolutely not, Paul was a well-educated man
who had been trained by Gamaliel, one of the leading rabbis of his day. Paul was a Roman citizen by birth which means
he would have also received education in the best schools of the time. He knew, however, that compared with the
cross of Christ, nothing else had true power.
He was able to debate in the Areopagus but he knew that true wisdom
pointed beyond earth to eternity and the cross was the sign and the power. When Paul speaks of the secret wisdom of God
he is not talking about Gnosticism but about wisdom that is only available to
those who have the Spirit of God, he is speaking of the same things that Jesus
said to Nicodemus that a man must be born again, born of the Spirit, to
understand spiritual things. Wisdom that
surpasses the limits of human inquiry is available to those who have the Spirit
of God. Micaiah had wisdom the four
hundred other prophets did not. We have
wisdom that is inaccessible to even the most learned of men. We can stand in the confidence of the Spirit
of God, leading us into true truth.
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