2 Chronicles 18:1-13 // Before the Test

Well, every successful franchise these days seems to have its own spinoff.

And sometimes the side character actually has more depth than people might expect.

The Mandalorian is a good example of that.

He starts off as a kind of relatively obscure figure in the Star Wars universe.

And then suddenly he's got his own spinoff series.

Well tonight we are doing something similar.

Let me introduce you to Micaiah, the forgotten prophet.

You can think Boba Fett without the moral ambiguity.

Now if you've been with us on Sunday mornings before the summer, you'll know that we've been following the main storyline through the book of Kings.

But for the next three Sunday evenings we're going to take a little bit of a detour.

We're going to follow this almost forgotten character who only briefly appears in the story but whose few words teach us something enormously important about what it means to be faithful to God in an unfaithful world.

Because most of us will never stand before Kings.

None of us are Old Testament prophets, but every Christian knows something about pressure.

The pressure to fit in, the pressure to keep quiet, the pressure to soften what we believe perhaps, the pressure simply to go along with everyone else.

And there's something deep within us that makes that pressure, that kind of pressure, surprisingly powerful.

And psychologists have demonstrated this in experiments on group pressure and conformity.

And people can be shown something as obvious as which of several lines matches another.

And on their own, left to their own, almost everyone gets it right.

But put them in a room with a group of people deliberately giving the wrong answer, and remarkably often, about 75% of the time or something like that, people go along with the crowd.

Now here's the interesting bit.

It's not because they can't see the answer.

It's because they don't want to be the one person in the room who says, actually, I don't think you all are right.

And there's something deep within us that wants to conform, that needs to conform.

And whenever everyone around us is confidently saying the same thing, it can be surprisingly difficult to stand alone.

Which brings us to Micaiah.

Well, every successful franchise these days seems to have its own spinoff.

And sometimes the side character actually has more depth than people might expect.

The Mandalorian is a good example of that.

He starts off as a kind of relatively obscure figure in the Star Wars universe.

And then suddenly he's got his own spinoff series.

Well tonight we are doing something similar.

Let me introduce you to Micaiah, the forgotten prophet.

You can think Boba Fett without the moral ambiguity.

Now if you've been with us on Sunday mornings before the summer, you'll know that we've been following the main storyline through the book of Kings.

But for the next three Sunday evenings we're going to take a little bit of a detour.

We're going to follow this almost forgotten character who only briefly appears in the story but whose few words teach us something enormously important about what it means to be faithful to God in an unfaithful world.

Because most of us will never stand before Kings.

None of us are Old Testament prophets, but every Christian knows something about pressure.

The pressure to fit in, the pressure to keep quiet, the pressure to soften what we believe perhaps, the pressure simply to go along with everyone else.

And there's something deep within us that makes that pressure, that kind of pressure, surprisingly powerful.

And psychologists have demonstrated this in experiments on group pressure and conformity.

And people can be shown something as obvious as which of several lines matches another.

And on their own, left to their own, almost everyone gets it right.

But put them in a room with a group of people deliberately giving the wrong answer, and remarkably often, about 75% of the time or something like that, people go along with the crowd.

Now here's the interesting bit.

It's not because they can't see the answer.

It's because they don't want to be the one person in the room who says, actually, I don't think you all are right.

And there's something deep within us that wants to conform, that needs to conform.

And whenever everyone around us is confidently saying the same thing, it can be surprisingly difficult to stand alone.

Which brings us to Micaiah.