Elijah – rebukes the sin of Ahab and Jezebel
I Kings 21:1-29
It is now about five years since the crisis of Mount Carmel and the nation has settled back to its old way of life in which God is all but forgotten. John 3:19, comes to mind “the people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil” and Rom 1:28 “and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”
In out text, King Ahab desired a piece of property, but Naboth on legal grounds (Lev 25:23-28; Num 36:7) refused to sell it. Ahab becomes sullen over this and Jezebel proposes a plan, involving worthless individuals in whom they would lie about Naboth, and where upon Naboth would be executed for the crime of blasphemy.
God sees all that transpired and has Elijah go to King Ahab and expose his sin and pronounce judgment on the entire house of Ahab. Prov 15:3 states “the eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good”. Also Num 32:23 states “… be sure your sin will find you out”. The principle being that all of us, one day will have to stand before the Lord and give account for everything that we have done (Rom 14:12). Upon hearing God’s judgment, King Ahab repents and God lightens the sentence imposes upon him, revealing just how gracious our Lord is to all of us.
Notice the progression of sin in this chapter: desire leads to covetousness, covetousness leads to discontentment, discontentment leads to evil counsel, evil counsel leads to lies and lies leads to murder. James 1:14-15 is a good verse for all of us to contemplate for ourselves.
Some lessons to be learned are: 1) do not uses piety and legality to cloak acts of injustice, 2) those who support the plots of a Jezebel, whether by silent acquiescence or overt complicity share in her crime and will experience the judgment hand of God upon them and 3) there is awesome power in the conscience and protest of the believer as we stand up against evil practices going on around us, Taking a stand against abortion is our duty as children of God.