"A Chink in the Armor"

by James Jacob Prasch

Why paying attention to our affiliations matters when it comes to our personal and public witness of Christ.

  1. Introduction
  2. The Danger of Neoptism
  3. Jehoshaphat & Ahab
  4. When Good Leaders Become Involved with Bad Ones
  5. The Enemy Within
  6. The One True Prophet
  7. God First Stops Correcting
  8. Next God Removes Leadership
  9. Finally God Sends Deception
  10. The Working of God's Judgment
  11. Riding in Ahab's Chariot
  12. The Chink in the Armor
  13. The Danger of Not Listening
  14. The Overall Working of Judgment
  15. Conclusion
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Next God Removes Leadership

Now you have to understand the role of the kings of Israel as a shepherd. King David is the Old Testament shadow of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Jesus is the Good Shepherd in John 10. In Psalm 23 Yehovah ra'ah – “The Lord is my shepherd”. David is the Old Testament type or shadow of Jesus as King. How good a pastor (the word for “pastor” and “shepherd” is the same word in Hebrew and Greek), how good a pastor/shepherd somebody is in the Church is how much like Jesus they are. Peter tells us that in his epistle. (1 Pe. 5:1-4) How good a shepherd a pastor is depends on how much like Jesus he is. The Old Testament shadow of this is seen in how good a king was, and that was measured by how much like King David he was. That's why you see kings in the book of Proverbs or kings in Chronicles compared to David. "He went after Me like his father David" or "You have not sought Me as your father David did". David becomes the barometer of faithfulness because he's the shadow of Christ as Shepherd. Here Micaiah says "These people, they don't have any shepherd." He's telling the king, as far as God's concerned, you're not a real leader.

That is the second stage of God's judgment on a backslidden people. He removes leadership and replaces them with pulpit politicians. He removes leaders, He replaces them with hirelings. He removes leaders, He lets them have theocrats -- not shepherds. First phase of God's judgment, He stops correcting -- treats people just like the world, gives them over. Second stage of his judgment, he removes real leadership. People wind up with the leaders they deserve. That's true of nations in the book of Daniel. He establishes kings and removes kings. (Dan. 2:21) It's true in the political realm and it's true in the Church. He removes leadership.

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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.