That I may Know HIM - A Devotional

Day 25 : An Appointment with Ramoth-Gilead

Day 25 : An Appointment with Ramoth-Gilead

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And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?

1 Kings 22:20.

There is a spirit which pushes people out to die, on a day they should have stayed back at home and lived. On the day the cup of the wicked King Ahab got full, the Heavens summoned spirits to go to work on the king, to lure him to his death in a battle at Ramoth-gilead. Sadly, he did not die alone when the occasion came for him to die.

On that day, King Ahab suddenly remembered that Ramoth-gilead, which at that time was under the control of Syria, belonged to Israel his kingdom (v.3). Ahab did not realise what was pushing him out on that day of all days. He had fought two previous wars in which Syria was the aggressor, and God had intervened favourably on his behalf (1 Kings 20; 21:1). Had not Ramoth-gilead been his territory all that while? Was he just waking out of sleep? He did not realize it, but Something was pushing him out. Or perhaps he realized it, but he did not know what was pushing him; pushing him without any provocation from Syria; pushing him into a war which should kill him, in the midst of a peace which he had been enjoying since the past three years (v.1).

Sometimes this spirit comes upon a person and he suddenly remembers the fellow in the other city who had been owing his grandfather half a bottle of wine and ten shillings. Suddenly he realizes a need to travel, very urgently. He sets out and dies in an auto crash, his ‘Ramoth-gileath’ never recovered, but himself successfully persuaded by the instigating devils to "go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead."

Sometimes, a man realizes that he has to visit his business partner in another city, or see an uncle or friend in the other town. There had been no need for that journey until then. When that spirit comes upon him, nobody can prevent him from ‘going up’ to his Ramoth-gilead. He sets out, but never returns. He runs into hoodlums, or into an armed robbery operation, or into some violent civil strife or some other danger that takes his life, or mames him permanently, or costs him a disastrous chunk of his money or fortunes; or there he contracts a disease from which he never recovers. Only in the end is it wondered, from hindsight, why the venture had been necessary at all. Reason is then seen why it could have been done some other time or some other way, and so on. Dreams and ‘ministrations’ then suddenly become strangely significant, but then, too late. Ramoth-gilead has already claimed its prize.

That spirit may use several avenues to achieve its persuasion to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead. It may take the form of a phone call, or an urgent need to get somewhere or see someone, and so on. In Ahab’s case, several of those spirits presented their proposal on how to entrap Ahab into death. But it was the spirit that had a working partnership (a networking) with lying spirits of prophecy that had the day. It was going to be a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab’s trusted prophets. It was going to wear a theological garb, speak a familiar religious language, etc, if only to successfully persuade him into death (vv. 20-23).

That further stresses the fact that the ‘Ramoth-gilead spirit’ often works in concert with other spirits of delusion and death. In the process, it may even use very close and trusted acquaintances. It does not matter whom it uses (whoever will let it), if only to get the targeted person quickly to the grave.

When that spirit begins to work on a person, he or she often becomes very deaf to counsel, any counsel to rethink the adventure into death. In Ahab’s case, the prophet Micaiah represented that restraining Voice, which urged the spell-bound king to stay back home at least then, and save his life. But he would not listen. Those who, by the spirit of delusion, were urging him into death became his friends, and Micaiah became the enemy. The spirit of delusion had got the majority under control, and that majority had the day. The true prophet was a despised minority. The king began to see things upside down. He had to go up to Ramoth-gilead, urgently, and die.

Something in Ahab told him that Micaiah was right but his own four hundred prophets, in spite of their majority vote, were wrong. But sentiments also got into the matter. Thanks to the supervising devils. He had never really liked Micaiah whom it was unfortunate to be the instrument of the prophecy of Truth that day; so he would not accept his prophecy. He only wished his own prophets were right. Before he set out, however, he had to make one positive prayer to cushion his confounded heart. His positive confession was that he would return "in peace" (v.27). He did not realise that the matter had already gone beyond wishful positive confessions.

As a second precaution, Ahab disguised into the battle, but urged his ally, King Jehoshaphat, to go into the Ramoth-gilead battle dressed in his own kingly attire. A diversionary strategy, he hoped, while he pretended through the ploy to have been giving the honour of the battle to the ensnared King Jehoshaphat. He was scheming meticulously to deceive Death (vv. 29-30). It failed. Already seduced into Ramoth-gilead, it mattered little wherever and however Ahab was hiding. He was already in the valley of death. It took merely an adventurous arrow aimed at no specific target to get him. He was found out in spite of his meticulous disguise. He rode back home in his chariot a bloodied corpse. He went up to Ramoth-gilead and fell.

Are there spirits that urge you out on days and at times when you ought to go nowhere? Are there spirits commissioned from Hell to persuade you, often into one crisis after the other? Spirits that would push you out into the streets on a date that Hell has earmarked to litter the streets with corpses through a civil strife or some terrorist adventure? Spirits that urge you to take the car or plane or bus which is making a fatal journey of no return?

Even if they may persuade you, may they never prevail. The spirit that had the ‘contract’ to persuade Ahab to his death was thus empowered: "… thou shalt PERSUADE him and PREVAIL also. Go forth and do so." The sin is not in being tempted or ‘persuaded.’ Even Jesus was tempted. The sin is in yielding to the temptation. Even if you may be persuaded with much ‘reasonable’ pressure to take off to Ramoth-gilead, may those urging, pressuring spirits of death never prevail over you. Amen.

It is time to tell them that you are no longer their candidate. It is time to shut your ears to their manipulations, no matter the calibre of the ‘prophets’ used and the instruments employed. They may come as prophecies, dreams, an urge, etc. They may come through prophets, parents, or friends. Shut them off. It’s not time to die. Amen.