And I invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me for our New Testament reading to Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Our reading is found in chapter three, verses one through six. Colossians chapter three, verses one through six. Listen to this. This is the very Word of God.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these things, The wrath of God is coming.
And then for our Old Testament reading and the text for this evening’s message, please turn with me to 1 Kings, and our reading will be chapter 21. It’s been a little while since we took a whole chapter at a time in 1 Kings, but this unit is very, very clear cut. And so we’ll read all of chapter 21 in the book of 1 Kings.
Now Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel beside the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And after this Ahab said to Naboth, give me your vineyard that I may have it for a vegetable garden because it is near my house and I will give you a better vineyard for it. Or if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.
But Naboth said to Ahab, the Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers. And Ahab went to his house, vexed and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him, for he had said, I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.
And he lay down on his bed and turned his face away and would eat no food. But Jezebel, his wife, came to him and said to him, why is your spirit so vexed that you eat no food? And he said to her, Because I spoke to Naboth, the Jezreelite, and said to him, give me your vineyard for money, or else, if it please you, I will give you another vineyard for it. And he answered, I will not give you my vineyard. And Jezebel, his wife, said to him, do you now govern Israel? Arise and eat bread, and let your heart be cheerful. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite.
So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal, and she sent the letters to the elders and the leaders who lived with Naboth in his city. And she wrote in the letters, proclaim a fast and set Naboth at the head of the people, and set two worthless men opposite him, and let them bring a charge against him, saying, you have cursed God and the king.
Then take him out and stone him to death. And the men of his city, the elders and the leaders who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them. As it was written in the letters that she had sent to them, they proclaimed a fast and set Naboth at the head of the people. And the two worthless men came in and sat opposite him. And the worthless men brought a charge against Naboth in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth cursed God and the king. So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death with stones. Then they sent to Jezebel saying, Naboth has been stoned, he is dead.
As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money, for Naboth is not alive, but dead. And as soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab arose to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite to take possession of it. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, who is in Samaria. Behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession.
And you shall say to him, thus says the Lord, have you killed and also taken possession? And you shall say to him, thus says the Lord, in the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick up your own blood. Ahab said to Elijah, have you found me, O my enemy?
He answered, I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. Behold, I will bring disaster upon you. I will utterly burn you up and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. And I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah. for the anger to which you have provoked me, and because you have made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel, the Lord also said, the dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel. Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city, the dogs shall eat, and anyone of his who dies in the open country, the birds of the heavens shall eat.
There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord, like Ahab, whom Jezebel, his wife, incited. He acted very abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the Lord had cast out before the people of Israel. And when Ahab heard these words, He tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite saying, have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days, but in his son’s days, I will bring the disaster upon his house.
That’s the reading of God’s word. Let’s pray for his blessing upon it now. Father in heaven, we thank you for the scriptures and for this passage of scripture which we come to consider together tonight. We pray, oh God, that you would instruct us through your word, that you would exalt your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we would be edified and built up and fed from the bread of life, your holy word. And Lord, that you would do mighty things through your word, which is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword. All this we pray in Jesus name. Amen. So we’re nearing the end of the Ahab narrative in 1 Kings. We’ve been observing Ahab for some time because so much of the content of 1 Kings is focused on him.
And it’s in the very next chapter that he’s going to meet his demise, the demise which we just heard in chapter 21. But we see some interesting juxtapositions of the disposition of God himself toward Ahab. Of course, because of Ahab’s tremendous wickedness, we see how curse and doom was pronounced upon not only Ahab himself, but upon his household, including Jezebel. But at the same time, there’s that touching but almost perplexing statement at the end where the Lord observes Ahab’s repentance. And he mitigates the curse against Ahab, such that Ahab won’t live to see it. And so those things kind of put together, forced together in a way for us, in a way that we might not be inclined to put them together, are before us in this chapter. And that teaches us that our God is a God of perfect justice and amazing grace. Our God is a God of perfect justice and amazing grace.
These are the three points we’ll consider just briefly tonight from this text. First of all, it brings to light, which is why we read the passage from Colossians that we did. It brings to light that covetousness is the root sin that gives birth to all other sins. Covetousness is the root sin that gives birth to all others. Secondly, we see that the judge of all the earth will do what is just. And thirdly and finally, God readily responds to contrition and repentance.
So first of all, covetousness. We see it in the passage, Ahab coveted Naboth’s vineyard. His business proposition seems kind of innocent at the first and on the surface because As Jezebel sought to point out, Ahab ruled Israel. He was the king. And in other cultures and in other lands, kings could seize whatever they desired. They didn’t have to ask. They didn’t have to pay. If they wanted something, they took it. And that was the culture from which Jezebel came.
Her father was a king. And no doubt she had seen kings be tyrannical when it comes to things that they wanted. seizing property, seizing lives, seizing whatever they want because they’re the king and they take that prerogative to themselves. But Ahab was a king of Israel and despite all the rebellion and the wickedness of the kings of Israel and the wickedness and rebellion in the whole history of God’s covenant people, they did have standards set for them by God that prevented, prohibited kings from simply just taking what they wanted. They couldn’t do that amongst the covenant people of God. And so what Ahab does is offers a fair, or we might even view it as a generous transaction.
Give me your vineyard. It’s right by my palace. I’d like to make a vegetable garden out of that. And it’d be really convenient. I could just go downstairs and get my veggies. And then I’ll give you a vineyard that’s better. Or I’ll pay you the fair market price.
But there’s a problem with the proposition that Ahab makes, and that’s that because of who this land belonged to. It was God’s law forbid that it be sold. This was land that Naboth had inherited. It belonged to him by inheritance. And according to the civil law of the people of Israel, you couldn’t perpetually or permanently sell land that was your inheritance. It had to stay in your family. If a person were in extreme financial straits, they could lease their land to someone else, even someone outside of their tribe. But it always had to revert to them in the year of Jubilee. So this just wasn’t done. You didn’t sell your inheritance, the inheritance of your fathers.
And Naboth seemed to understand that. And so he refused to sell the property. He refused to give it over to Ahab. And as the king of Israel, Ahab ought to have known those rules. He ought to have known what God’s law said. And he ought to have understood that, although, again, on the surface, it seemed like a very reasonable and even generous proposal, it was an evil request for him to propose that this man give up his ancestral inheritance. And when he was challenged on it, when he was rebuffed, By Naboth, what did Ahab do?
He sulked. It’s almost laughable how childish he acts in this passage. Goes home, lies down in his bed, turns to the wall, and won’t talk to anybody, won’t eat. Because he can’t have the vineyard. And this shows us, his attitude towards being refused shows us his inordinate desire for that vineyard. or to put it in terms that we see so often in scripture, it shows us his covetousness. He coveted Naboth’s vineyard.
And this brings us to an opportune moment in which we can consider the biblical doctrine of sin. Sin is not a pleasant subject. It’s not an uplifting subject. It’s not one that we like to spend a lot of time thinking about or studying, but it is one that we ought to understand. And this passage gives us a very appropriate and fitting opportunity to reflect for a moment on what the scripture says about sin.
And what we see in the Bible is, first of all, sin begins in the heart. Sin begins in the heart. Jesus taught this very thing. And we read, for instance, in Mark’s gospel, chapter 7, verses 21 through 23, that Jesus said, it’s from within, from within, out of the heart of man that come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and they defile a person, is what Jesus taught.
And the reason he was teaching that at that time is because he and his disciples were being criticized because they had failed at some point to observe some ritual cleansing that had been prescribed by the Pharisees. They’re eating with unwashed hands. Now you kids, your moms and dads tell you to wash your hands before you eat, right? And they do that for hygienic purposes so you can be clean and not get germs and get sick. That’s not the kind of cleansing that the Pharisees were talking about. They were talking about this ritual cleansing because they believed that if they had been out in the streets and the byways and could potentially have come into contact with Gentiles, they’d be not hygienically unclean, but ceremonially unclean. And so they would have to come and wash their hands so as to ceremonially wash away the filthiness of the nations before they ate their food. And Jesus’ disciples apparently on some occasions didn’t do this. And the Pharisees criticized Jesus for it. Why don’t your disciples observe the tradition of the elders? And Jesus pointed out their hypocrisy.
And he said, you know, it’s not what goes into a person that defiles them. He even went so far as to say there’s nothing entering into a person that can defile him, quite the opposite. What defiles a person is what comes out of them, out of their mouth, because what comes out of the lips comes from and originates in the heart.
That’s where sin begins. Sin begins in the heart. And we also see in the Bible, that covetousness brings forth and accompanies all other sins. Think about this, before you or anyone else ever commits any other sin, you first must have coveted. Before a person steals, he has to covet that thing that he steals. A man first covets his neighbor’s wife before he ever commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife.
Why? Those are two obvious examples, but why do people bear false witness? Why do they murder? And so on and so forth. Well, James In his letter, chapter 4, verse 2, observes that you desire and do not have, so you murder. There’s that desire of something a person doesn’t have, isn’t rightfully theirs, but they want it. They can’t have it, so they murder.
We won’t labor the point by going through the whole decalogue. But every single command, whether it’s the first table of the law or the second table of the law, whether it’s a transgression against that great command that we love the Lord our God with all of our heart, or that command to love our neighbor as ourself, before we’ve broken any other commandments of God, we’ve already coveted. All transgression originates in coveting. And then one other thing about coveting, as we’re doing this brief study in the doctrine of sin. Coveting, which is the purview of the 10th commandment, is essentially idolatry, which is the content of the first commandment. You shall have no other gods before me. And anytime we have any other god, we’ve got an idol in our hearts. And so you see that relationship.
So the Ten Commandments, I don’t know how you think of the commandments, what pictures come to your mind when you read them, when they’re brought up in conversation or discussion, when we when we read them together on the first Lord’s Day of the month before the Lord’s Supper. But you know, you probably think of them maybe as on two tablets, first table, the second table. Maybe you just picture them as they appear in your Bible. But you know, you can consider and you can think of the Ten Commandments as a circle even.
Because the first commandment is, you shall have no other gods before me. And you go around and you get to the commandments that pertain to our relationship with our fellow man. And when you get to that 10th commandment, you shall not covet. And as scripture teaches us, the passage that we’ve read from Colossians says, covetousness, which is idolatry, that pushes us right back to commandment number one.
So you see God’s law is this beautiful and interrelated complex unity, which is one of the reasons why scripture can also say if you’ve broken one commandment, you’ve broken the whole law. The law in that sense, you could almost think of the law as like an electrical circuit. If you cut it at any point, the circuit is broken. And if you break God’s law at any point, God’s law is broken. So covetousness is the root sin that gives birth to all others. But we also see in this passage, second point, the judge of all the earth will do what is just.
In the days of Ahab, The corruption in Israel was very deep. The corruption in the leadership of the nation of Israel was deep. Jezebel, the queen, exemplifies it. And Jezebel promoted it. She was a ruthless woman. She was shameless. She was treacherous. And in our passage today, she schemes to falsely accuse and execute an innocent man.
And you notice how she had no patience even for Ahab’s minimal vestiges of any kind of scruples. How it must have cramped her style and made her very impatient that that Her husband, who’s the king of Israel, didn’t just take the vineyard if he wanted it. That’s what kings do. But not Ahab. He knew that wasn’t right.
Jezebel exemplified this corruption in Israel. And as I said, she not only exemplified it, but she promoted it. Ahab and Jezebel had their summer palace there in Jezreel. And it was these elders and leaders in Jezreel that went right along with her plan.
And we might think, as we read this passage, how could they do that? How could they just receive such wicked instructions from the queen, or from the king, they supposed, and do it without questioning, without opposing, without taking a stand? Well, because the lifestyle and the moral compass or the lack thereof, the miscalibrated moral compass of Jezebel had influenced the people of Jezreel, where she lived for various points in the year. So the elders and leaders don’t seem to have hesitated to comply.
And the Lord God Almighty was not going to stand for it. So after this wicked deed was carried out, then we see Elijah come on the scene again. Elijah the Tishbite, the mighty prophet. God deploys him. He sends Elijah to Ahab. And the announcement is made that Ahab is not going to escape Yahweh’s justice. Verse 19, you shall say to Ahab, thus says the Lord, have you killed and also taken possession? You shall say to him, thus says the Lord, in the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick up your own blood.
The judge of all the earth will do what is right. In the end, everyone, everyone will reap according to as they have sown. That point, I’m sure you recognize this by having derived and borrowed from the words of Abraham in Genesis 18. Remember, God decided to reveal to Abraham what he’s going to do, that he’s going down to investigate in the cities of the plain, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding cities to see if the cry of their evil that has reached their ears was as bad As it seemed, speaking anthropomorphically, of course, but Abraham figures out God’s planning to wipe these people out for their sins. And he knew they were sinners, but he protests. He pleads in behalf of his nephew and others, perhaps, in the cities that were righteous. And Abraham protests. sweep away the just with the unjust, and he says, shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?
And the answer is yes, the judge of all the earth will do what is just. He always will do what is right. God is a righteous judge. He’s the perfect judge. Psalm 9 verses 7 and 8. It says, the Lord sits enthroned forever. He has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness. He judges the peoples with uprightness. In our Red Trinity hymnal, hymn number 48, Lord most high with all my heart, that’s a setting of portions of Psalm 9. I love that line in there because it borrows from Genesis as well, Genesis 18, the righteous judge of all the earth will make his perfect justice known. And he will.
Now his perfect justice wasn’t being made known when people falsely accused and unjustly murdered Naboth. But that’s a reminder to us that we shouldn’t expect perfect justice in this fallen, imperfect world. But we can be sure of this, that if not before, then in the last day and on the day of judgment, the Lord will finally make his perfect justice known to everyone and upon everyone. The judge of all the earth will do what is just, even though for a time his justice may delay.
Well, we come to our final point now. God readily responds to contrition and repentance. This is an amazing thing. What happens at the end of this passage. And this idea of a broken and contrite heart. and that such a thing is precious in the eyes of God appears numerous times in the scriptures. I draw your attention to one of those places, Psalm 51, David’s great Psalm of repentance. And it says in verse 17, after he is reflected on the fact that sacrifice isn’t really what God is most pleased with, what he’s most interested in. He says, verse 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh, Lord, you will not despise. Let’s all pray that the Lord would work in each of us, brokenness and contrition of heart, that we would be that kind of people, people who are brokenhearted and contrite before God. God readily responds to that. He delights in that. He responds to contrition and repentance.
And in our text, that’s illustrated in of all places in the life of Ahab. Who would have thought? I titled the sermon Ahab the sellout. Because that kind of sums up his reign and his his character. You’ve heard that term used in lots of contexts, I’m sure. Somebody sells out. The popular definition of a sellout is just someone who’s betrayed others, betrayed a community, betrayed some values for personal gain. And so The Holy Spirit’s own performance evaluation for Ahab, his performance review as king, is found in verse 25 of our text. You have this aside, this editorial note that breaks up the narrative in verse 25.
And the spirit-inspired writer says, there was none who sold himself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited. He acted very abominably in going after idols as the Amorites had done, whom the Lord had cast out before the people of Israel.
And that’s the accusation also that Elijah brought against Ahab, when Ahab says, have you found me, O my enemy? If Ahab ever had a friend, if Ahab ever had a friend, it was Elijah. But he calls him his enemy. And Elijah says, I have found you. I have found you, because you have sold yourself. He was a sellout. And if there is a pageant or a contest for worst king of Israel, Ahab would be a finalist, at least. if not the winner.
And yet, and yet, look at verses 28 and 29 with me again. The word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite saying, Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days. But in his son’s days, I will bring the disaster upon his house.
When you read that, after all we know about Ahab, after everything Ahab has done, even in this very chapter, maybe especially this chapter, we read those two verses and we think, can it be? Is that possible? How could God have any pity on this man? Well, yes, it can be, and it was. And there’s at least one other very similar example in scripture.
Because if Ahab was the worst king of Israel, There is a man who pretty certainly was the worst king of Judah, and his name was Manasseh, wicked, wicked king. His wickedness is what really brought on the destruction of Judah. The kingdom limped along for another couple of generations. There are another few kings after Manasseh, but Manasseh was so wicked that he brought Judah to what we could call the point of no return. There was no avoiding the doom of that nation, not even. Okay, so so Manasseh was this terrible, wicked king, the worst king of Judah.
After him came one of the very best. His name was Josiah. Josiah was a wonderful king, a good king, godly king. That’s why so many people name their kids Josiah, because he’s such a godly king. But not even Josiah’s reforms could turn back the judgment that had already been set up and locked and loaded against Judah because of Manasseh’s wickedness. And so in 2 Kings chapter 23, reflecting on Josiah’s reign, It says, before him, there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, with all of his might, according to all the law of Moses, nor did any like like him arise after him. But listen to the next verse. Still, the Lord did not turn from the burning of his great wrath, by which his anger was kindled against Judah because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. But God had mercy on Manasseh.
You wouldn’t know it from reading 2 Kings. You have to read the parallel in Chronicles. And I want you to see that. So hold your place in Kings and turn with me to 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles chapter 33. Things got so bad even during Manasseh’s reign that he was actually for a time deported and carried away. But then he repented. Second Chronicles chapter 33.
Look at me at verse 12. At this point, Manasseh is in chains in Babylon. And in verse 12 it says, And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty, and heard his plea, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Yahweh was God. And without reading the rest of that passage, I can just tell you that Manasseh truly did repent because he spent the rest of his life, the rest of his reign trying to undo all the terrible things he had done in Judah. God had mercy on him, even though he’s the most wicked king that ever reigned in Judah.
And don’t we serve an amazing God? We really do, an amazing God. And he’s amazing in so many ways. His power is amazing. His holiness is dazzling, blindingly bright, and amazing holiness. He’s amazing in his being, he’s amazing in his wisdom, in all of his attributes, but he’s also astonishing, mind-blowing in a way, in his mercy. We could say that he’s amazing in his grace. We sing that. to have mercy on Ahab, to have mercy on Manasseh, to accept repentance from either of them, or from any of us.
Now, there’s no telling whether Naboth, we don’t know anything about him, really, except he owned that vineyard, and he had enough principles to not sell the inheritance of his fathers. But we don’t know whether he was an upright man or not. Some authors and scholars have surmised that when God spoke to Elijah about the fact that he had 7,000, he’d reserve 7,000 in Israel who’d not bowed the knee to Baal, maybe Naboth was among them. Maybe that’s why Jezebel hated him. Maybe that’s why the people of Jezreel were so quick to comply with the plot against him because they were convicted by the righteousness of this man. We don’t know. We don’t know. But at the very least, Naboth knew and intended to adhere to Yahweh’s edict regarding familial inheritance. He wouldn’t sell the inheritance of his fathers.
The tragedy is that he was falsely accused and slain for an offense he didn’t commit. He was convicted in a sham trial. And I hope that as we read it, and anytime you’ve read this on your own, or in any other context, it grieved you the injustice, the abject injustice of the whole scenario. But when we read it, it should also bring to our minds, another man who was falsely accused. put to death, subjected to a sham trial and executed unjustly. And in his case, we know that he was upright. In fact, he was holy. He was innocent, he was undefiled. He did nothing wrong. And yet he suffered and died as if he were a criminal. And he did all that for you.
Our God is a God of perfect justice and of amazing grace, and it’s only through the gospel of Jesus Christ that these attributes of God, his justice and his grace can exist in harmony. Through the atoning death of his son, God’s justice towards our sins is satisfied. His righteous and holy wrath. Is appeased. And through that perfect obedience of his son, righteousness can be credited to sinners. We can be justified in God’s sight. And God can be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
That’s what the psalmist was talking about. That’s what he meant when he, that’s what he envisioned when he wrote those words, righteousness and peace kiss each other. God is a righteous God, he’s a righteous judge, and he can’t tolerate sin, and yet he’s reconciled to sinners.
How? Because of Jesus. Because of the person and work of Jesus Christ, God’s perfect justice is uncompromised, and his amazing grace lavished on us unto everlasting life. Let’s pray. Father, how moving, how amazing it is that you’re so quick to accept and to receive and to respond to contrition and repentance. Thank you that you still respond and you’re ready to respond to contrition and repentance this very day. O Lord God, we praise you for the grace that is found in Jesus Christ. We praise you for your amazing grace and for your perfect justice.
And we pray, O God, that you help us to be more and more diligent students of all of your attributes. May we rejoice in them and may we glorify you for them. And in this coming week, Lord, strengthen us to walk with you and serve you. Thank you for your mercy in Christ our Savior. We pray all this in his name. Amen.