This afternoon, if you'll turn with me in your Bibles to the book of 1 Kings chapter 20, I will read to you the first 30 verses. Have you ever thought that you just couldn't offer the gospel to someone because you thought that they were just too sinful? Well, that's what we want to think about here this afternoon. We know that the gospel is for sinners, and it's for sinners everywhere, and it's for all kinds of sinners, no matter how great of sinners they are. But I want to show you this afternoon that the gospel was offered to Ahab in Old Testament times, and so let's bow together for a prayer before I begin. O Lord, thank you for this time. of blessing around your word where you come to us and in connection with your word you mold us and shape us. into the blessed image of Christ by working in our minds and hearts, causing us to understand just the greatness of what he has done, what you have done, O Lord, for us as sinners. Help us to be those who always are ready to preach and share the gospel to people around us. We pray that we would be zealous for this, and we pray that you would help us to show love to people and giving them the gospel. No matter what their station in life, no matter what their past or circumstances are, help us by the means of this message to grow in our understanding in relation to sharing the gospel with sinners around us, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. 1 Kings chapter 20, and I will read the first 30 verses. Now Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, gathered all his forces together. 32 kings were with him, with horses and chariots, and he went up and besieged Samaria, and made war against it. Then he sent messengers into the city to Ahab, king of Israel, and said to him, Thus says Ben-Hadad, Your silver and your gold are mine, your loveliest wives and children are mine. And the king of Israel answered and said, My lord, O king, just as you say, I and all that I have are yours. Then the messengers came back and said, Thus speaks Ben-Hadad, saying, Indeed I have sent to you, saying, You shall deliver to me your silver and your gold, your wives and your children. But I will send my servants to you tomorrow about this time, and they shall search your house and the houses of your servants. And it shall be that whatever is pleasant in your eyes, they will put it in their hands and take it. So the king of Israel called all the elders of the land, and he said, Notice, please, and see how this man seeks trouble. For he sent to me for my wives, my children, my silver, and my gold, and I did not deny him. And all the elders and all the people said to him, Do not listen or consent. Therefore he said to the messengers of Ben-Hadad, tell my lord the king all that you sent for to your servant the first time. I will do, but this thing I cannot do. And the messengers departed and brought back word to him. Then Ben-Hadad said to him, sent to him and said, the gods do so to me and more also, if enough dust is left of Samaria for a handful for each of the people who follow me. So the king of Israel answered and said, tell him, let not the one who puts on his armor boast like the one who takes it off. And it happened when Ben-Hadad heard this message, as he and the kings were drinking at the command post, that he said to his servants, Get ready. And they got ready to attack the city. Suddenly a prophet approached Ahab, the king of Israel, saying, Thus says the Lord, Have you seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will deliver it into your hand today, and you shall know that I am the Lord. So Ahab said, By whom? And he said, Thus says the Lord by the young leaders of the provinces. Then he said, Who will set the battle in order? And he answered, You. Then he mustered the young leaders of the provinces, and there were 232. And after them he mustered all the people, and all the children of Israel, 7,000. So they went out at noon. Meanwhile, Ben-Hadad and the 32 kings helping him were getting drunk at the command post. The young leaders of the provinces went out first, and Ben-Hadad sent out a patrol. And they told him, saying, men are coming out of Samaria. So he said, if they have come out for peace, take them alive. And if they have come out for war, take them alive. Then these young leaders of the provinces went out of the city with the army which followed them, and each one killed his man. So the Syrians fled, and Israel pursued them. And Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, escaped on a horse with a cavalry. Then the king of Israel went out and attacked the horses and chariots and killed the Syrians with a great slaughter. And the prophet came to the king of Israel and said to him, Go strengthen yourself, take note, and see what you should do, for in the spring of the year the king of Syria will come up against you. then the servants of the king of syria said to him their gods are gods of the hills therefore they were stronger than we but if we fight against them in the plain surely we will be stronger than they so do this thing dismiss the kings each from his position and put captains in their places and you shall muster an army like the army that you have lost horse for horse and chariot for chariot, then we will fight against them in the plain. Surely we will be stronger than they.' And he listened to their voice and did so. So it was in the spring of the year that Ben-Hadad mustered the Syrians and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. And the children of Israel were mustered and given provisions, and they went against them. Now the children of Israel encamped before them like two little flocks of goats. while the Syrians filled the countryside. And a man of God came and spoke to the king of Israel, and said, Thus says the Lord, because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys. Therefore I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord. and they encamped opposite each other for seven days. So it was that on the seventh day, the battle was joined, and the children of Israel killed 100,000 foot soldiers of the Syrians in one day. But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city, and then a wall fell on 27,000 of the men who were left, and Ben-Hadad fled and went into the city, into an inner chamber. Well, in this message I want to show you how the gospel was offered to Ahab at this critical time in his life. There's no doubt in my mind that Ahab was under the wrath of God at this time, and he would continue to be so, but we find here a prophet speaking many encouraging words to Ahab, which proclaim to him that mercy, truth, and hope are all found when we look to God in faith. At this particular time in Israel's history, God would strive with King Ahab through this prophet, strive with him to see whether he would believe in him or not, strive with him so that he would think about repenting of all of his sins. When Ahab saw the Lord's goodness and mercy to him in this great deliverance that God would bring about, he still would not change. But still, God would have his prophet speak to him and declare to him God's promises of help and deliverance to him. Now this has implications for you and I today as we want to share the gospel with people around us. First of all, I want you to see that it was right thing to do to declare the mercy of the Lord to Ahab. You find this in verses 1 to 21. I won't read them over again, but in this chapter, none of the prophets or the sons of the prophets are mentioned by name. And I believe this was done for a reason. And the reason is, is that we will look more closely at the office of the prophet itself, that we wouldn't be distracted by personalities of men, particular men. We're only going to be looking at the first of these unnamed prophets at this time, the one who spoke to Ahab about God's giving him help. In defeating the king of Syria, this man had a difficult job because Ahab was a very wicked king. But God would have him preach the gospel to him in terms of his and Israel's being delivered. from the king of Syria. And in connection with this, we have here a very amazing story of how God humbled a very proud, selfish, covetous, violent man, Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria. God did not save Ben-Hadad's soul, but he humbled him. for his own purposes. And God's purpose in humbling this wicked king was in order that he might show his mercy to Ahab and Israel so that they might trust in the Lord. So we need to see that even though Ahab was such a wicked king that God still had a general love for him as someone whom he had created. By the way, My dear brethren, when you are sharing the gospel with other people will you not remember that God has created all men and he has created them in his image and likeness and it's for this reason that you should have a general love as well for people around you? God does and so you should as well. We should be able to see that people are creations of God, each and every one of them unique, each and every one of them needing to understand the truth of the gospel. How can we share it with them? Well, we can share it with them in this way that I'm describing to you here this afternoon in terms of the Lord's deliverance to them. the Lord's deliverance to them on many occasions. If a person will think about their own life, they'll see that the Lord delivered them from some calamity, perhaps even from death itself, saved their life and gave them another chance for them to repent and to believe the gospel. Ben-Hadad had this great perverted lust we see here to be a conquering king. and to enjoy all the spoils of his unrighteous war with Ahab. He wanted to take away Ahab's silver and gold. He wanted to take away all of his wives, his most beautiful wives it says here in the text. And what a wicked man he was when we think about it. But we also sadly find that Ahab was acting like a wimp. in this whole situation, this whole interchange. He was not being a valiant man. He did not immediately seek the Lord, but he did immediately capitulate. You know what I mean by that. He gave over to the request that Ben-Hadad was giving to him. He agreed to his sinful way of thinking. He said, if you ask for my finest possessions, my wives and my children, I will agree to it just as you say, he says, I and all that I have are yours. Now he really didn't need to say this at all if he had been a believer in God, but he was not a believer in God, and therefore we need to understand that he had no moral courage. And you know, the greater that a person is in their sin, the less moral courage that they have. The less confidence that they have in doing what is right. And that's because they themselves are so very sinful. And sin leads to weakness in terms of being able to do the right thing at the right time. We find here that Ben-Hadad, trusting in the strength of his superior numbers, he insists on sending his servants to Ahab that next day to search his house for whatever is pleasant. in Ahab's eyes, he would take it away. I mean, what a bold, perverse man this Ben-Hadad was. In verse 7, we find that Ahab then called the elders of the land, said to them, now notice how this man seeks trouble. And the elders wisely counsel him not to take any of these bullying threats from Ben-Hadad. They say to Ahab, do not listen or consent to him. So the king refuses. which was the right thing to do. And Ben-Hadad told him that he was coming right away with all of his forces. So what was the gospel that this prophet preached to Ahab? It's found in verse 13 of our text. It says here, suddenly a prophet approached King Ahab and said to him, have you seen this great multitude? Behold, I will deliver it into your hand today, and you shall know that I am the Lord. What a gospel of mercy was preached to Ahab here in a moment's notice. Ahab should have shouted, hallelujah. The Lord is coming and helping me in his great mercy. Praise him for his help to me." And instead, we find him immediately questioning the statement. He says, by whom? He's astonished, as though there's some other national power, or some other great personage that he doesn't know about, that's going to come to his rescue, would suddenly appear on the scene, but the prophet, he patiently explains it to him. in this very reasonable way. He says, thus says the Lord by the young leaders of the provinces. So God was going to deliver Ahab and all Israel in this wonderful way through the young men. He was going to reveal his power, his ability to deliver from a multitude of enemies. And Ahab should have been able to reason, I'm saying, from the lesser to the greater. But he did not. In other words, he should have said, you know, this great multitude, I'm not having to worry about them anymore because God has delivered them into my hands. If He has delivered me from this great multitude, then why can't He deliver me from the great multitude of my own sins? He should have reasoned from the lesser to the greater. But He didn't. He hadn't even considered this possibility that God could somehow deliver this great army of people who were coming against Him. He didn't even know the state of His own army. He says, who will set the battle in order? And the prophet tells him, you are going to set the battle in order. And so the young leaders of the provinces, it says, went out at noon. And Ben-Hadad and the 32 kings helping him were getting drunk at the command post, the providence of God. Here's all I have to say. In their utter sinfulness and weakness, God delivered them over to getting drunk at the very time they were supposed to attack. And so the prophet came to him and he says, well, he says, you know, you should go and do this. They did it. They attacked with horses and chariots. It says they killed the Syrians of the great slaughter. And after the slaughter, the prophet comes back to him. That is Ahab. Again, he says, go strengthen yourself and take note and see what you should do for in the spring of the year, the king of Syria is going to come up against you again. And what's truly amazing here is that Ahab did not pray or praise the Lord in thanksgiving for this great deliverance. Isn't that amazing how sometimes unbelieving people, they've received great help, great deliverance from God, but yet they do not praise God for it. They do not take it as an incentive to prayer, to seek the Lord with all their heart, to prepare their heart even to seek the Lord, as it says that some of the kings did at some time in Israel's history. So it's just an awful thing that Ahab does here. He doesn't even take the time to pray to God and to thank Him for this great deliverance. By the way, that's something that is very provoking to God. When you do not give him thanks, when people are unthankful, when he has provided for them abundantly for many years, all that they need with family and food and all the good things of life that have been brought to them. And then they're not thankful. And then a great deliverance like this comes and it doesn't say a word about Ahab giving thanks to God. He should have set aside a day for prayer and fasting and thanksgiving about the whole situation that he was in. And then turned the nation back to God in their worship. So we see here that God is good, however, to unrighteous and evil men. By the way, do you realize that God is good to unrighteous and evil men? Which means that you and I should preach the gospel to them. And we shouldn't hesitate to do so. They are the ones that need it. If God can show good to them, we can show good to them. We can do good works for them and to them. And we can share with them the gospel. But in this case, we see that Ahab and many in Israel were great sinners against the Lord. They had been idolaters and sinners in many ways against the Lord. And God's righteous wrath was upon Ahab and all the nation. And it was God who had raised up Ben-Hadad to come and strike terror into the hearts of the wicked in Israel. That's what they deserved. That's what they deserved. But I'm saying that we see here that they had not repented when Elijah called down fire from heaven. They had not repented then at this great deliverance that had been given to them. And so we see here that it was only right that God would permit Ben-Hadad to act out his wickedness in relation to all that Ahab held dear. The prophet would rebuke the unbelief of Ahab. by showing him this great mercy of this deliverance that he gave to him. And I want you to turn with me over to Psalm 33. And I want to read you these verses 10 to 22, because they so pertain to this time period that you find Ahab and these people in. It says here, the Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations. He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he has chosen for his own inheritance. The Lord looks from heaven. and he sees all the sons of men. From the place of his dwelling he looks on all the inhabitants of the earth, and he fashions their hearts individually. He considers all their works, and no king is saved by the multitude of an army. A mighty man is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety. Neither shall it deliver any by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him. on those who hope in His mercy to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name. Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, just as we hope in You." It's the very kind of prayer that Ahab should have prayed. But you see this is what God was doing to strive with Ahab in his unbelief. He gave the prophet a word to give to him and this word would have done him good if he would only believe it. He would give him this precious and powerful promise and see what he would do with it. By the way that's what God does with all unbelievers. He at times He gives them promises. He gives them the promises of his word and he sees what they'll do with those promises. That's the importance and the significance of you and I sharing the promises of God with unbelievers. God can take that and by his spirit work in their heart. But they also must consider and must respond in their heart as he strives with them. whether they're going to believe in Him and trust in Him or whether they're not. So why does God even bother to strive with all men if He knows that they will not respond in the way that would please Him? or save them? And in answering that question, we need always to remember something about God's striving with sinful men. In all of his striving with them, God is perfect in everything that he says and does. And this will leave men without excuse on the day of judgment. In other words, his promises are no less real and true They are intended to do men good in every sense of that word. That's how we need to see it. We need to see it that way, not in terms of our own unbelief, oh, they'll never believe this if I tell them this. No, our duty is to share what we do know with them, the promises of God, that God will act if they will believe in the promises that we will give to them or share with them. So God would work in this striving with Ahab. The multitude would be delivered into Ahab's hand that day and the people. And this was intended to give Israel hope. And you see that's what the promises are intended to do. To give hope to those who are sinful. that God has something much better for them if they will only believe. So he was going to bring the counsel of a nation to nothing that day, and he was going to make the plans of Ben-Hadad of no effect. He was saying to Ahab, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance. Will you not believe this, Ahab? He is saying to him, Ahab, I look out from heaven and I see all the sons of men and I fashion their hearts individually and I consider all of their works. Ahab, will you not today be saved by the multitude of an army or your own great strength? Oh no, it will be because I deliver them. into your hand. My eye is on you, Ahab, to see if you will fear me, to see whether you'll open my mercy, to see whether you want me to deliver your soul from death. And it's me who's kept you alive in the recent famine. and I am the one who is your help and your shield against this vast army coming against you. Your heart would rejoice in me if only you would trust in me. So it's a very real offer, do you see it? A very real offer of salvation. The everlasting gospel was being preached to Ahab. And the everlasting gospel is when a prophet or a preacher or any Christian filled with the Spirit speaks to you and tells you of a God of love and mercy in Christ for any sinner. will believe. Well that's the truth of the matter. Titus chapter 3 and verse 3, For we ourselves were once disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior that having been justified by his grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. So even though Ahab had never heard of the gospel as we have heard it and understand it in New Testament times, yet he had the gospel preached to him in that God had great mercy upon him as a king. And he delivered him, delivered him out of all his fears, out of all his earthly troubles. It was meant to lead him to repentance. And this mercy was shown to him so that he would trust in God. But sadly, He was disobedient. He did not believe. He was deceived. And he was deceived because he was serving various lusts and pleasures. And he was living in malice and envy. And he was hateful and hating other people. But now he had no excuse. He'd been shown this great mercy and great kindness. And because he did not believe it, God's wrath would remain upon him. And then second, I want you to see that God's offer of bringing real hope to Ahab was sincere, but he did not receive it. Verses 22 to 28, Ahab did not receive all of this perfect help that he was given of God's mercy to his poor heart. Can you imagine? He didn't fear the Lord. What does it mean to fear the Lord? It means to reverence him. It means to hold him in the highest esteem. It means to have regard for his word to do it. No craven fear should be there. No begrudging what God is asking for. And so the prophet says to him in verse 22, go strengthen yourself. He says, and take note and see what you should do. For in the spring of the year, the king of Syria is going to come up against you. And God reveals to the prophet that Syria was going to regroup. They would come up against him in the spring. And Ben-Hadad's servants came to him and they said, you know, the gods of Israel were the gods of the hills and therefore they were stronger than them. But in the spring, they counseled Ben-Hadad that if they fought with Israel on the plain, they would defeat them. And so they did come up against Israel once again in the spring. And it says in verse 27, And the children of Israel were mustered and given provisions. They went against them. And the children of Israel encamped before them like two little flocks of goats. That's the way it looked on the battlefield that day, with the Syrians filling the countryside. And a man of God came and said, in verse 28, thus says the Lord, because the Syrians have said, the Lord is the God of the hills, but he is not the God of the valleys. Therefore, I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord. So once again, the Lord intended to show this tremendous mercy in this situation to Ahab and Israel and to show them their great need to hope in Him. That's what this was intended to do. So the Lord was most certainly helping them once again. He gave them victory overwhelmingly in the battle. It says in verse 29, they encamped opposite each other for seven days. And on the seventh day, the battle was joined. The children of Israel killed 100,000 foot soldiers of the Syrians in one day. But the rest fled to Aphek into the city and a wall fell on 27,000 men. Wow. and Ben-Hadad fled and went into the city to an inner chamber. You know, it's good for every minister of the gospel and every Christian who shares the gospel to remember this, that God is a God who would have all men and women, no matter how sinful, to repent and to hope in Him for help to be delivered from all of their enemies, no matter how great the opposition is, Oh, God delights to do this kind of great work, by the way. He delights to do these great things in battle, like in the Old Testament, in battle. But He does great deliverances for people nowadays as well, if we'll only pay attention to what He is doing. And the reason He does it is so that people might hope in Him, so that people might see His mercy, so that people might understand His deliverance and that they might be saved by believing in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The greatest enemy that you and I have, the greatest enemy that anyone has, is their own sinful heart, that they will not trust in the Lord. That's the truth of the matter. The greatest enemy that we have is our own sinful heart, that we will not trust in the Lord. But listen to Psalm 130, verses seven and eight. O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, And with him is abundant redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. So you see, this is what God can do for the vilest of sinners. if they will hope in the Lord. So no matter how great the sinner is that you're looking at or talking to, will you not remember that God can save them? That's what I'm trying to share with you. What Ahab should have remembered was this truth in Lamentations 3. This is in the midst of judgment, the judgment of Jerusalem, and Jeremiah says this. He says, this I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It's good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth, Let him sit alone and keep silent, because God has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust, there may yet be hope. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him, and be full of reproach, for the Lord will not cast off forever, though he causes grief, yet he will show compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. So if we remember this, and we hope in him we shall be eternally safe. And let us realize also how great the Lord's power is to save, to save the vilest of sinners who will place their trust in him, and let us not hesitate to preach the gospel to them, and we have it in our power to do so. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this passage which shows us the great calamity that Israel came into because of their king. And yet how you showed such great mercy to this wicked man and even offered him the gospel through the great deliverance that you brought about on his behalf and all of Israel's behalf. And yet they still did not, many of them, believe, and Ahab certainly did not. We pray that we would be faithful to people around us to be able to share with them the gospel. to be able to see that even though vile in their sin, even though we do not understand how you can come to their soul and change them, that yes, you can do so. And we pray that you would do that with all of those people that we come into contact with that we would like to see saved. Help us to be bold. Help us to be steadfast in our faith. Help us to pray to You continually, to see that You do great things for us, Your people, in answer to our prayers. For we do pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. We'll close by singing hymn number 585. Together like Zion's steadfast mount are they. Meaning us, who are trusting in the Lord and all those who trust. in the Lord Jesus. Hymn number 585 and let's stand together. Like Zion's steadfast mount, Are they who in the Lord confide, Secure, immovable they stand, Forever to abide. As round about As-Salaam-Alaikum. Let's do this a cappella. The loving-kindness showed to them that upright heart in heart. that turn from righteousness, with wayward wandering feet. With sinners God will lead them forth, the sinners doomed to meet. who are thy people's shield, their helper and their guide. Upon them thy grace and peace forevermore abide. For the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord gives grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, how blessed is the man who trusts in you. And all of God's people said, Amen. You are dismissed, and may the Lord be with you.