Are You Responding To God's Instruction?

1 Kings 22:30-31,34---And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself, and enter into the battle, but put thou on thy robes. And the king of Israel disguised himself and went into the battle. But the king of Syria commanded his thirty and two captains that had rule over his chariots, saying, Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel. And a certain man drew a bow at a venture and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness: wherefore he said unto the driver of his chariot, Turn thine hand, and carry me out of the host; for I am wounded.

Good king Jehoshaphat must have been awfully naïve or under some kind of spell to want to help evil Ahab. The prophet of God warned them, and they still went into battle. Why in the world would good king Jehoshaphat wear royal robes and become a target while he let evil Ahab hide in regular soldier garb? You can't outwit God. If God says something will happen, it will happen, try as you may to prevent it. In the book of Chronicles, we will see that Jehoshaphat repented over his error of uniting with Ahab. The forces of Aram were ordered to attack the king. Jehoshaphat saw them coming for him and fled to safety. God allowed him to escape even though he was doing something wrong in the eyes of God. But Ahab has had his chances. It was God's time to finish his reign. After all, he had seen and heard, he would not surrender himself to God. A stray arrow found its way between the plates of his armor, and he bled to death in his chariot. The chariot was washed out in Samaria, and the dogs lick up the blood, as was prophesied. The odds are not what matters in the battle of life. God is on the throne of heaven. What matters is what you have done with His revelation of Himself to you. Has it humbled you and broken your proud spirit so that you are His, or are you stubbornly refusing to listen to Him? The outcome of these two men's lives was dramatically different. Both were involved in the same error, but their hearts were different and responded to God differently.