VERSES: 1 Kings 22:1-40; 2 Chronicles 18:1-34
MEMORY VERSE: 1 Kings 22:34 "And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel..."
BOOK TO REMEMBER: Daniel. Write "Daniel" on small slips of paper and hand out to the students at the end of class.
PRAYER: Pray that we will always live godly in this world where there is much wickedness.
SPECIAL SONG: Elijah (see March - Songs We Sing In Bible Class #4 on this blog)
VISUAL AID: Make a large Activity (see below) or draw picture on the whiteboard or chalkboard.
LESSON POINTS:
- For three years, there had been peace between Syria and Israel. The King of Syria, who was a neighbor of Judah and Israel's, had taken a city of Israel's named Ramoth. Ahab, the King of Israel, had asked Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, to help him take back the city. Jehoshaphat had said he would, but to ask the LORD if this was a good idea. Jehoshaphat was one of the few good kings of Israel, so it was his habit to ask the prophets of the LORD if the LORD wanted him to do something or not, but King Ahab did not ask the LORD when he made decisions, but Ahab did as Jehoshaphat wished.
- Ahab gathered up 400 prophets and asked them if he should go up and take Ramoth back. All 400 prophets said to go and take the city, but still, Jehoshaphat wanted to be sure, so he asked King Ahab if there was another prophet of the LORD they could ask. Ahab told him that there was another, Micaiah, but that he hated him because he never said anything good about Ahab. Do we know why Micaiah never said anything good about Ahab? That's right! Ahab never did anything good!
- Ahab sent a messenger to call for Micaiah and told the messenger to tell Micaiah that 400 other prophets had said good things about Ahab and he should be like the other prophets. But Micaiah was true to God and said that whatever the LORD would say to him, that is what he would tell the king.
- When Ahab asked Macaiah if he should go take Ramoth and Macaiah said Ahab should go, Ahab did not believe him. After much discussion, Macaiah said that that the LORD had spoken evil concerning Ahab. Finally, Ahab and Jehoshaphat went into battle, but Ahab told Jehoshaphat to go into battle dressed in his royal throne and he would go in disguise, not wearing his royal robe. Ahab thought he could trick the soldiers into thinking he was just a regular soldier. Ahab did not know that the King of Syria had instructed his soldiers to only kill Ahab. When the soldiers saw Jehoshaphat's robe, they thought he was Ahab and turned to fight him until Jehoshaphat cried out and they realized they had the wrong king. That's when a soldier randomly shot an arrow into the air and it flew through the air and hit King Ahab in between two hard pieces of armor and made him bleed into his chariot. King Ahab stayed out on the battlefield until the sun set and King Ahab had lost so much blood that he died.
- When the one who washed the chariots was washing King Ahab's blood from the chariot, the dogs came and licked up King Ahab's blood just like the prophet of God had said. What God said would happen, always happened.
- It is so sad when a man's life is over and all people can remember about that person is how wicked and evil he was when he was alive. At the time of his death, King Ahab was compared to Jeroboam who was a very evil man, but Ahab was even more wicked. Sad, indeed. Let us live our lives in a way that would make the LORD pleased and happy like He was with King David.
ACTIVITY: A Random Arrow?
Materials needed: 9" x 12" yellow piece of construction paper, a scrap of brown construction paper, a scrap of white construction paper, crayons, tape.
- Hand out yellow piece of paper.
- Draw a picture of King Ahab in his chariot with his mouth open.
- Color picture, making sure that there is blood coming from Ahab's wound and going into his chariot.
- Cut an arrow out of brown paper.
- Cut a small slit in Kind Ahab's uniform.
- Stick arrow into slit, so that the arrow is sticking into the air, literally.
- Turn paper over and tape the arrow to secure.
- Write "King Ahab is wounded by an arrow shot into the air and died." and "1 Kings 22."
- On small white scrap of paper, write "King Ahab in disguise."
- Glue small white paper close by Ahab.
- Draw arrow from white paper to Ahab.
- Write "I am wounded!" somewhere on the paper.
- Write "chariot" on the chariot.
