Careful with Peer Pressure

2 Chronicles 18

I am going to give you a summary of what happened in 2 Chronicles 18, the story it's amazing so go ahead and read it in your Bible!

Jehoshaphat marries the daughter of Ahab. He goes to visit the Northern Kingdom and while he is there, Ahab( his father in law) urged Jehoshaphat to go in battle against Ramoth Gilead.  Jehoshaphat is ok with it, but first, he thinks they should ask God.

Ahab calls together 400 prophets and they all say the same thing. “Go, for God will give it into the king’s hand.” But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there no longer a prophet of the Lord here whom we can inquire of?” 400 said yes , but 401? That's better!

King Ahab knows another prophet but Ahab hates him because he is always prophesying that something bad is going to happen. Jehoshaphat still wants to talk to him, so King Ahab asks a messenger to go look for Micaiah, the messenger says to Micaiah, all the other prophets are predicting success for the king, just agree with them.

But Micaiah said, “As surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what my God says.” Ahab asks Micaiah his opinion and at first Micaiah tells them to go into battle. But Ahab ask him to tell the truth and Micaiah admits that he saw a downfall of Israel. Then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah went up and slapped Micaiah in the face. I love how the Bible explains even these details.  

To summarize... Micaiah said  to Ahab God declared disaster for you.

Ahab gets mad and tells his guard to lock up Micaiah in prison until the he comes back from the battle, but Micaiah said but you won't come back from this battle. ---I love how Micaiah without fear keeps telling the King what God told him was going to happen.

Ahab was scared! He told Jehoshaphat that he was going to  go into battle in disguise.The opponents were given the instructions from the King of Aram to not fight anyone , only the King Ahab.

Whenever the opponents saw Jehoshaphat they thought he was Ahab! They all turned to attack him. But Jehoshaphat cried out to the Lord and He helped him. God drew them away from him. Randomly one of the enemies throw an arrow and unexpectedly hit the king. Later that evening King Ahab died.

I love love loveeee this story!! We can learn so much!!

We need to be careful with peer pressure even from our family! I know this sounds a little bit too harsh, but we can see here how Ahab( Jehoshaphat father in law) urged him to do this!

Examine your life and check if there is close people in your life that sometimes pressure you to do things you know you should not do.

We can see how Ahab thought he could get away with it.  Ahab knew the power that God had, but he still went in disguise thinking that in his way nothing was going to happen.

Sometimes God tells us something and we think we can do it with our own strength, he tells us not to watch that video, not to hang out with that person, not to go to that place, but we like Ahab think that we have the " ability/strength" to do it and not fail.

I love the part where the king says,  put Micaiah  in prison and give him nothing but bread and water until I return safely and Micaiah answers if you return safely, the Lord has not spoken through me, mark my words , all you people! I love how Micaiah spoke and what he answered!  Even though he was getting put in prison he kept saying and believing what God showed him. 

Many times in our life, God tells us He is going to do something with us and we look around us and see people saying the contrary. We get so discouraged whenever one or two people are against us or don't believe in what we are saying but dude 400 people is a lot!! We need to be like Micaiah and not stay quiet with what God showed us He is going to do!

I LOVE how God comes through even though we fail. Jehoshaphat did the wrong thing, he surrounded himself  with the wrong people, HE ALMOST GOT KILLED!! but whenever he cried out to God; He helped him! God is so so good and merciful  and even when we fail He will be there to help us if we ask for His help!

Dakisha Acevedo

4/20/20