2º of Chronicles 18
5 And the king of Israel gathered together four hundred prophets, and said to them, Shall we go to war against Ramoth-gilead, or shall I be quiet? And they said, Go up, for God will deliver them into the hand of the king.
6 But Jehoshaphat said, "Is there still a prophet of the Lord here, that we may ask him by him?
Commentary
Jesus said John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; There is a mutual understanding between the sheep and their shepherd. The sheep hear and recognize the voice of their shepherd and follow him and the shepherd knows his sheep. A follower of God knows equally the word of God and the voice of God so that he will never be deceived, an unbeliever can however be easily deceived because he does not know the voice of God. In fact, God allows and lets the impious believe that it is his voice speaking when it is not, since they have not believed the truth God allows them to create the lie. Jehoshaphat was a servant of God, though he did evil in helping Ahab's doer of evil (2 Chronicles 19: 2). God did not like Jehoshaphat to mingle with a malefactor like Ahab. So bad was Ahab that he set a trap for his "ally" Jehoshaphat, telling him to put on real clothes in the battle while he disguised himself (2 Chronicles 18:29) in order, obviously, to kill someone if it were to Jehoshaphat and not to him, God was nevertheless auspicious and saved Jehoshaphat's life, and Ahab lost his.
What happens before going to war is the interesting thing. Ahab commands to call his personal prophets those who would say what he wants to hear not necessarily what God tells him. How many of us do the same today, listening to preachers and masterful falsehoods that are delicious in the ear but lack truth? Every Christian should know the voice of God so that the first word that does not come from the scriptures we can realize. First, the voice of God does not change. It is the same yesterday today and always, so if something was sin 100 years ago we can not accept any voice that now denies that it is sin. These prophets of Ahab secured a forceful victory (verse 5), but Jehoshaphat who knew the voice of God because he constantly listened to him and obeyed him, completely refused these words. In verse 6 Jehoshaphat asks about a prophet of Jehovah implying that he knew that these were not prophets of God.
Jehoshaphat certainly knew who Ahab was, knew his way, and knew that a man like him would not obey or have true prophets of God. This is the same Ahab who pursued the prophets of God among whom Elijah was. The true prophet of God, Micaiah, shows a scene that God allowed him to see in the spiritual realm (like the prophet Daniel), Micaiah gives us a glimpse of what happens in the spiritual world and as certain things happen, in fact , These verses show us how God "deceives" the false prophets (Ezekiel 14: 9). In the vision Micaiah observes that a devil asks permission from God to be a lying spirit in the mouths of the false prophets, because these men are not God-fearing nor serve God, and because they do not know the voice Of God are deceived. So when Zedekiah, one of Ahab's prophets slaps Micaiah and asks him that when he is spirit-source of it and passed to Micaiah, Zedekiah is being sincere he actually believes he is speaking the truth not knowing that he is being deceived, not By God but by a devil with the permission of God. He who knows the voice of God and his word will not be deceived, even if the one who preaches or teaches is giving a word "good" and desirable to our ears, because both the Spirit of God revealed to us the truth and the knowledge of the bible He will show us the falsehood of the speaker.
Written by Robert Pool
Translated by Bruno Smith