Are These the Days of Micaiah?

Just over sixteen years ago, Chris Anderson of Anglemar Fellowship posted an article on his web site entitled The Other Side of “the Days of Elijah” in which he reviewed the significant sequence of events in Elijah’s life, suggested a parallel to today’s world, and told us what he thought we could expect. As you, dear reader, are no doubt aware, Elijah lived in the days of Ahab and Jezebel, probably the two most wicked people to govern the kingdom of Israel. Elijah warned the king and queen, then went into hiding in the wilderness for over three years while drought and famine consumed the land.

The “Elijah in the wilderness” motif is well-known among many of us who have been disenfranchised by the organized church. We’re in a “famine of the word” though many people don’t seem to notice, or don’t really seem to care. As in Elijah’s day, idolatry in many forms runs rampant, and wickedness in high places is clearly seen. Chris believed in 2008 that we were on the threshold of change. He wrote, “A time is coming when we will indeed be released to confront the Ahab churches and the godless society they have allowed to fester under their watch. There will be a culture wide Mount Carmel showdown. There will be some kind of repentance, false prophets will be slain, and the true rain will indeed fall that has been prophesied.”

Elijah came out of the wilderness and had his victory over the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel. But with Ahab and Jezebel still in power, he turned his prophetic office over to Elisha and checked out. We might expect that it would have been Elisha who subsequently confronted Ahab, but it was Micaiah the prophet who was mentioned in conjunction with Ahab’s death. The story is in the last chapter of 1 Kings and features one of those “behind the scenes” looks at the spiritual reality that played out in their day, and may play out in ours:

Then Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left.  And the Lord said, ‘Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?’ So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner.  Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will persuade him.’ 

The Lord said to him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And the Lord said, ‘You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.’ 

Therefore look! The Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the Lord has declared disaster against you.”

– 1 Kings 22:19-23 NKJV

I find the situation then eerily similar to what’s happening today, with the leaders of NATO and the U.S. inexplicably embracing a view of Russia, China and Iran that borders on delusion. The western political narrative is that Russia is weak, hollow and impotent. They repeatedly assert that China, Iran and North Korea are paper tigers not to be feared. “Ukraine is winning,” is the oft-repeated analysis of the war. Their disconnect from the obvious is painful to watch, but discounting danger and denying the possibility of risk, the West blunders on, continuing to provoke anyone who resists American hegemony anywhere in the world.

This makes no sense … UNLESS there is a “lying spirit” in the mix; someone effectively deceiving the leaders and policy-makers of the U.S. and its NATO allies into believing Russia can be attacked without fear of any meaningful reprisal. And if this is the case, our only reasonable conclusion is that God Himself has marked the U.S. for destruction. Since the U.S. seems to be the “glue” holding NATO together, the end of the U.S. would most probably mean the end of NATO and a new political reality for Europe. This is our eschatological expectation, as the absence of an American global superpower in the last days has been well-noted by prophecy students for a long time.

Ahab sent Micaiah to prison, to be given bread and water until Ahab’s presumed safe return from Ramoth Gilead. Since Ahab died in battle, we can assume Micaiah died in prison. As for Elijah, his return is anticipated in the closing verses of Malachi:

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

– Malachi 4:5-6 NKJV

As we know, John the Baptist came “in the spirit and power of Elijah” and Jesus said John fulfilled the expectation (Matt. 17:13). However, nothing in the gospels suggests that John was particularly effective in or concerned about familial reconciliation. Rather, he had some fierce things to say to the religious leaders of his day who claimed sonship under Abraham and righteousness under the law. He also rebuked the king for adultery, and paid for it with his life.

I’m not clear on exactly what Chris means by “Ahab churches.” Ahab’s defining characteristics seem to be displayed by his desire for Naboth’s vineyard, his inability to control his wicked wife, and his false bravado. “But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the LORD, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up.” (1 Kings 21:25) And as we know, it is the “prophetess Jezebel” who is explicitly connected to corruption in the end-times church (Rev. 2:20).

End times fulfillment remains enigmatic. Will some of us who are “in the wilderness” be brought against the churches and the culture “in the spirit and power of Elijah” to expose sin and effect healing? Will this activity be a harbinger “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” when God will strike the earth with a curse? Will there be reconciliation between fathers and their children, which is the expectation Malachi set? And will some of us then be taken to heaven as Elijah was, while the evil leaders who have been confronted and exposed seethe in impotent anger?

OR: are these the days of Micaiah? Will some of us who “keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” be called upon to pay the price Micaiah paid? (Rev. 12:17)