11/22/2015 God Knows: He Is Not Mocked Pastor Josh Sheldon

Scripture Readings and Opening Texts

This is first from the New Testament, related to chapter 6, verses 7 through 10, which can be found in the Red King Bible, page 786. Now in relation to 1 Kings, chapter 21, the whole chapter, which can be found in the Red King Bible, on pages 271 and 272.

When you have found those verses, if you are able, please stand for the reading of God's Word. Do not be deceived, for whatever man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of his flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunities, let us do good to all, especially to those who are in the household of the flesh.

Now please turn with me to 1 Kings, chapter 21, which starts on page 271, verse 251. And it came to pass after these things, that Nabal, the Jezreelite, had a vineyard, which is in Jezreel, next to the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria.

Ahab as a Failed King and the Need for Christ

So Ahab spoke to Nabal, saying, Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near, next to my house. And for it I will give you a vineyard better than it, or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its worth.

But Nabal said to Ahab, The Lord forgave that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you. So Ahab went into his house, sullen and displeased, because of the word which Nabal, the Jezreelite, had spoken to him.

For he had said, I was not giving you the inheritance of my fathers. And he lay down on his head, and turned away his face, and would eat no food. But Jezreel, his wife, came to him, and said to him, Why is your spirit so sullen that you eat no food?

He said to her, Because I spoke to Nabal, the Jezreelite, and said to him, Give me your vineyard for money, or else, if it pleases you, I will give you another vineyard. And he answered, I will not give you my vineyard.

Then Jezebel, his wife, said to him, You now exercise authority over Israel. Arise, eat food, and let not your heart be cheerful. I will give you the vineyard of Nabal, the Jezreelite. And she wrote letters in Ahab's name, sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who were dwelling in the city of Nabal.

She wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and seek Nabal with high honor among the people. And seek two men, scoundrels before him, to bear witness against him, saying, You have blasphemed God and the king.

Then take him out, stone him, that he may die. So the men of the city, the elders and nobles who were inhabitants of the city, did as Jezebel had sent to them. And it was written in the letters which she had sent to them.

They proclaimed a fast, and seeked Nabal with high honor among the people. And two men, scoundrels, came in and sat before him. And the scoundrels witnessed against him, against Nabal, in the presence of the people, saying, Nabal has blasphemed God and the king.

Then they took him outside the city, and stone him with stones, so that he die. Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Nabal has been stoned and is dead. And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Nabal had been stoned and was dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise, take possession of the bid of Nabal the Jezebelite, which he refused to give you for money, for Nabal is not alive, but dead.

So it was, and Ahab heard that Nabal was dead, that Ahab got up and went down to take possession of the bid of Nabal the Jezebelite. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah from Ishtar, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, who lives in Samaria.

There he is, in the bid of Nabal, where he has gone down to take possession. You shall speak to him, saying, Thus says the Lord, have you murdered and also taken possession? And you shall speak to him, saying, Thus says the Lord, In the place where dogs lick the blood of Nabal, dogs shall lick your blood, even yours.

So Ahab said to Elijah, Have you found me, O my enemy? And he answered, I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord. Behold, I will bring a calamity on you, I will take away your posterity, and will cut off from Ahab every male in Israel, both bond and free.

I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam, son of Nebuchadnezzar, and make yours like the house of Asher, the son of Atenzar, because of the propagation which you have provoked me to anger, and made Israel sin.

And concerning Jezebel, the Lord also said to him, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. The dogs shall eat whoever belongs to Ahab and dies in the city, and the birds in the air shall eat whoever dies in the field.

But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up, and he behaved abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites had done, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

So it was, when Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes, put on a sackcloth on his body, and fasted and laid the sackcloth, and went about mourning. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, See how Ahab has humbled himself before me?

Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his sons, I will bring the calamity on his side. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for making this day for us.

Please make us be glad in your goodness. Help us to understand the sermon that has been so diligently prepared for us. Increase our faith by the preaching of your word. Let your precious promises and their fulfillment be made real to our hearts, that we can escape the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Be pure of heart with a singleness of mind to see you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, Kent.

Ahab, David, and the Pattern of Coveting

We come in 1 Kings chapter 21. It's really one of the saddest records that we have in Scripture. Ahab, this failed king who did more evil than all who came before him, which was a considerable amount of evil, here in 1 Kings 21, sinks to new lows.

He was a failed king. I think that's pretty obvious to all of us. Just in a cursory reading of these chapters, beginning in 1 Kings 17, was never a shepherd of God's people as the kings of Israel were to be.

Wasn't even a man who could in any way be imitated or followed by his example. He was a completely failed king. He sought his own glory, so he couldn't lead people to see God's glory. He used his position to satisfy his own lust and his own greed.

And so he could not teach his people to love the Lord their God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, with all their strength, because he himself was quite the opposite on those.

He took by murder that which was not his. He was a completely failed king. Even the great Hezekiah failed. All the kings failed one way or another. Hezekiah failed when he took the glory that is God's, and he finalized the terrible judgment that had been impending against Judah.

David, the gold standard of kings, he too failed in the matter of Uriah and his wife Bathsheba. They all somehow failed. And if I serve any purpose this morning as I preach through this low point in the history of these low kings of Israel, all of whom did evil, if I serve any purpose this morning would be to make your heart yearn more and more for the king who didn't fail, the one king who did not fail, who cannot fail, and who does not fail.

And of course I speak of the Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of our souls, that one whom God sent to finalize all the kings. Ahab, this lowest of the lows, is found here after his victory over the Syrians.

With his enemies at bay he has this luxury of time, if you will. As had David, good king David, the gold standard David, as he had after his victories over the Syrians long before this, Ahab let his eye rove about.

Now when David did that, he of course found Bathsheba, I referred to her a moment ago, and murdered her husband. What did Ahab do? Ahab found this parcel of land, Naboth's vineyard. Ahab, like David, took what he wanted.

Ahab, like David, secured his stolen possession through murder. Ahab, like David, brought about the crime through a letter. And Ahab, like David, forced others to join him in his sin. David had Bathsheba's husband killed in battle by ordering General Joab to withdraw and leave Uriah on his own.

Ahab's wife Jezebel, in his name, ordered Naboth to be executed in just as wicked a manner, thus drawing in the nobles and the elders and really the people of Jezreel. Even as David had done to Joab when he wrote him the letter, and there's no way we can think other than that Joab knew what was up, what was really behind that letter.

Ahab's desire for Naboth's vineyard was not in and of itself wrong. Good and honest commerce begins with desire. Good and honest commerce is well regarded, especially in the Proverbs. Desire itself, you see, it's not desire that's wrong.

The trouble is letting desire overtake us and turn into covetousness, which is exactly what Ahab had done. See, Ahab's offer wasn't an honest one because he wouldn't take no for an answer. No, declining the offer was never really an option for Naboth.

When Naboth declined to sell his land, Ahab, proving that the offer in the first place was a farce, he goes home sullen and displeased and he lays in bed, faces the wall, and refuses to eat. As we look into this sad incident, I want to speak a bit about Ahab and just exactly what is he doing in bed.

He goes home sullen and displeased and he lays in bed and he wouldn't eat. And we often hear him described here as acting like a spoiled child. Have you heard that before? That he's acting sullen, he's acting like a baby, and he's laying in bed and he just won't eat until he gets his way.

And too often, I think, when this is described, the preacher can get a good chuckle out of the people. They say, poor little Ahab, he's just being a little baby. You know, you can see where that goes and I hear this a lot.

I don't want us to make that mistake here. I really think that there's a very serious error. My uncle David fought in World War II and he was under Patton when he first went into North Africa and fought the Germans there.

And while he was there, he was captured by the Germans and he was a POW for a while. Now he was eventually recovered by U .S. forces. He survived the war. There was a sitcom back in the day when I was a kid called Hogan's Heroes.

You ever see Hogan's Heroes? Okay, Hogan's Heroes was a sitcom. The stars were these Allied soldiers interred at a POW camp by the Germans called Stalag 13. Colonel Klink was the commandant of the POW camp and he was a ridiculously incompetent man.

His subordinate, the one who ran the day-to-day operations, was the absurdly slow-witted Sergeant Schultz. And the smart Alec prisoners, the Allied prisoners, were always able to get away with stuff because these two with the rest of their guards were just really a bunch of morons and they were silly.

Now my Uncle David, getting back to him, and Lord willing, getting back to Ahab, my Uncle David really hated that show because it trivialized just how efficient and competent and brutal the Nazis really were.

How scary it was to be under their jurisdiction. To portray them the way Hogan's Heroes did made light of the sacrifice that was made to defeat them. It made a joke of the men who were actually in the POW camps.

See, that's what it's like to liken Ahab to a pouting child, to diminish him that way. I think too much diminishes the wickedness of the man, the evil of this man, the danger that Naboth is in. Ahab, for all his faults, and there are many, he did more evil than all the kings before him.

The judgment that's going to come upon him and his house, Lord willing, we'll start to get to when we get to the next chapter, which of course brings Ahab's life to an end, but not the end of the judgment of his house, which we don't get to until we get to Elisha in 2 Kings.

This man is bad. He's violent. He is vicious. Naboth is in deep trouble. Ahab is not in there pouting like a spoiled child, sucking his thumb and saying, I'm not going to eat dinner until I get my way.

Now, he's not going to eat dinner until he gets his way, but I don't want us to trivialize just how violent and dangerous and vicious and able to carry out his violent, vicious will. This king was. Remember, this king allowed the massacre of God's prophets.

This king sat by while the prophets of Baal were slaughtered. This king signed a death warrant against Elijah and searched throughout the kingdom and in neighboring kingdoms for Elijah. This king had just annihilated the Syrians.

He's not throwing a tantrum. He was devising the worst kind of evil against the one righteous man that he had come across in all this time, other than maybe the prophets. This one righteous man, Naboth, who would dare to defy him.

We see here why the Ten Commandments ends with the command, thou shalt not covet. Now we see why the book of Hebrews ends with one of its final exhortations, let your conduct be without covetousness, be content with such things as you have.

Was it not covetousness that led to the first murder when Cain coveted Abel's acceptance by God? And covetousness is not the same as desire. There are good things to desire, and there are good ways to go about attaining what we desire.

To desire does not mean we're ready to sin in order to have it, because that's the condition we get into when we allow it to morph into coveting, which is exactly what Ahab had done. Now Matthew Henry says it very well for us.

For Ahab, to desire a convenience to his estate was not evil. There would be no buying if there were no desire of what is bought. The virtuous woman considers a field and buys it. But to desire anything inordinately is a fruit of selfishness, contrary to the law of contentment and the letter of the tenth commandment.

We have a lesson here already, don't we? The difference between desire and coveting is a matter of the heart. What are you willing to do to get this thing you desire? What harm are you willing to bring upon the person who has the thing that you desire?

What chicanery are you willing to go through to get the best deal on it? To desire something, if that something is in and of itself a good and godly desire or a thing that is at least spiritually neutral, you understand what I'm saying there, to desire something is not in and of itself as wrong.

It's when we let it get beyond just a simple desire for something that we can have, if we have freedom to have such a thing. What are we willing to do to get something? Ahab was willing to murder. He was willing to turn a blind eye to his wife Jezebel, who he knew would stop at nothing.

In fact, according to her Phoenician upbringing, she would be in proper support of the king to do that. I sometimes think the only reason that we don't go this far as to commit murder in order to attain what we want is that we just don't have the means at our disposal to do what Ahab and Jezebel did.

I think the warning immediately coming out of this passage is that we need to guard our hearts. We need to guard our hearts and look at the things that we're reaching out for and ask ourselves, what is motivating that hand to stretch out?

Have we stretched into covetousness? By the tone of Elijah's accusation, which Ken read to you a moment ago, it's clear that in God's eyes, Ahab knew what Jezebel was doing. He was fully aware. He knew, even if he didn't know the specifics, he had enough history with her to know that she'd do something and that that something she would do wouldn't be good.

Jezebel, the Nobles, and the Corruption of Justice

Now look at verse 7 again, or let me read it to you again. Then Jezebel, his wife, said to him, You now exercise authority over Israel. Arise, eat food, and let your heart be cheerful. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite.

What she means is, you are going to perform majesty over Israel. For her, in her Phoenician upbringing, it's totally out of bounds to even consider that a king's will can be thwarted, or for that matter, her own.

She's a Sidonian princess, and side on they worship Baal. Her father is named after that abominable idol. Remember his name? Ethbaal. If her husband Ahab wants Baal worshipped, so he shall be. She'll take care of it.

If her husband wants the prophets of God killed, so they shall be. She can take care of that too. If her husband wants Naboth's vineyards, he shall have it. That she is the catalyst behind all this evil is plain.

Verse 25 says that she stirred Ahab up. She was behind it. The word for stirred up is not used often in the Bible. It has the idea of instigating something. Satan incited David to number Israel, or instigated that act.

Isaiah 36 .18, the Assyrians warn Israel not to let Hezekiah mislead them or instigate them into thinking they can defeat them. Deuteronomy 13 .6 warns Israel against being enticed or instigated to follow other gods.

This is how Jezebel instigated a lot of evil with Ahab. But let's be clear. She didn't make Ahab what he was. She didn't make Ahab what he was. His own evil heart did that. But she tapped into something in him.

She accurately assessed the spiritual weakness of the man and she used it to her advantage. This is an example of exactly what James warns us of. James 1 .14 -15. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.

Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death, or brings forth death, excuse me. Temptation creates an irresistible strain when we are drawn away by our own evil desires.

Desire births sin and sin death. We need to take careful note, it is our own desire that is at the start. It was not Jezebel's enticements that are placed at Ahab's door. He's not guilty of her. He's guilty of his own act.

It's his own evil heart that did it. Now, of course, Jesus says very clear to him, woe to him by who the iniquity comes. These things must happen. But woe to him who tempts, who entices the other. Because the one who allows himself to be tempted and enticed and goes into that sin is responsible for it.

But God knows the catalyst behind it. God knows that demonic influence that kind of was able to sort out and see what the weak point is and push that right button and motivate a person to give in to their lowest nature.

You notice the cry of Proverbs to avoid bad company. It's what Paul warns of in 1 Corinthians 15 .33. Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. Not that Ahab seems to have had any good habits.

The warning here is to guard ourselves. Why was Jezebel able to incite Ahab? Because he was predisposed to do the very things she encouraged him to do. Jesus, of course, as you might imagine, said it best.

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. Then what do we do? Then we find someone who will help us along our way. Someone who will help us justify the course that we've already chosen.

A Jezebel, if you will, who as much as we're willing to expose our weak points and allow ourselves to be pushed down that road is able to see those weak points and turn us on that path. I think that's just what Ahab did.

He knew Jezebel would come up with a plan. I can't imagine he had any doubts about whether Naboth would survive her scheme. It's also possible that he planned it all along. He was too visible to overtly bring harm to Naboth.

So maybe he saw Jezebel as a ready henchman. We usually look at this whole thing as her maneuvering behind the scenes. I'm suggesting that it's entirely possible that it was he who manipulated her because he knew what she'd do.

Or at least he knew the kind of things she'd do. But in the end, God doesn't let either of them off the hook. As I said, the judgment that is coming to them for this, Ken read it to you a moment ago, they will both pay the price.

And Lord willing, we will read and study how that price was enacted when we get to 2 Kings. Jezebel's plan, though, is simple, it's simple, it's devious, and it's effective. It's the Lord's law. She who hates God will have a man killed for besmirching him.

And she's going to accomplish this by using the law against Naboth. The proclamation of the fast. It meant that a serious issue was at hand. It was a solemn occasion where they were to examine themselves before God and determine what went wrong and why.

It's sort of like what happened in Joshua 7. Remember when Israel goes to their second great battle after winning at Jericho, after the victory there, they go against the city of Ai. And a few warriors come out of that city and chase them away.

And so they proclaim, as it were, a fast. They don't call it a fast in Joshua 7, but there's a solemn assembly. And they cast lots, and they find out that it was Achan who brought about this disaster because of his sin.

And so after they execute Achan and his family and destroy the devoted things that he had taken, then Israel is again victorious. And that's sort of what it meant here in 1 Kings 21 when they proclaimed a fast.

Now, they don't tell us what the trouble is that they're trying to determine the cause of. The drought is over, and I'm assuming there's no tornadoes or hurricanes or earthquakes happening, which would say, let's proclaim a fast and find out what sin we need to repent of to stop this natural disaster or these enemies from coming in.

We don't have anything like that. It's just proclaim a fast, but this is generally what's behind these sorts of gatherings. It's a solemn time to find out what we've done wrong that's caused God to be so angry with us and allow whatever has happened.

Well, we don't know what the crisis is, but we do know these scoundrels simply state their false charges against Naboth. He is blaspheming God and the king. No problem named that they're trying to alleviate.

Maybe the people just figured that Naboth, if he had not done this, things would just be better than they are. We don't know. But look who's involved now. The nobles and the elders of Jezreel. All the people who come to this solemn fast.

The two scoundrels, obviously. There's no way to feel safer than to expand the number of people involved in sin. The more conspirators we have, the less likely it is that they're going to tell, right?

Because then their guilt is exposed as well. If all are participants, then none can divulge the truth. The whole city comes to the fast. Really, it's a trial. No questions are asked. No one stands to defend Naboth.

The elders, the nobles are especially to be blamed because they knew directly from the king's letter, the one written by Jezebel, under his seal. But they knew that these men were liars. They were told to go find a couple of liars, a couple of scoundrels.

They take on the mantle of religion, ignoring the most basic tenets. Exodus 23, 2. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute, so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice.

Is this providence coming upon Naboth? Is this reminding you of anything? Of course, our mind should be going forward all the way to the book of Matthew, where Jesus Christ, of course, was brought to trial.

And he was accused of blasphemy. Of course, he had never blasphemed any more than Naboth did, though Naboth is not sinless like Jesus. But the parallel is valid. And in order to bring the conviction that was predetermined by this judicial proceeding, judicial and those big quotey-ditto things we do, they had to get these false witnesses, these confused men whose testimonies didn't even match.

I think Naboth's trial here is a forerunner of that. I find here Jezebel's ancestry, Ahab's ancestry really, is completely exposed here. Now, physically she's a Sidonian princess. She's from a land just north and east of there in Phoenicia.

But ultimately, truly, in the most important sense, who is she? She's serpent seed. Going all the way back to Genesis 3, the seed of the serpent that will always be at odds with the seed of the woman.

The seed of the serpent producing what it produces, the seed of the woman ultimately issuing forth into onesie, into Jesus Christ. That's where she's from. And Jesus Christ said this very plainly to the Pharisees in John 8.

You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.

The old adage is the apple just doesn't fall very far from the tree. It works here. She's using or having these nobles and elders in Jezreel use God's law in order to condemn a righteous man. The law of God being twisted and misused and intentionally misapplied.

It's like what the devil did when he tried to use God's word to trip up Jesus during his temptation in the wilderness. We know that the devil quoted things correctly. He got every word, every letter right.

But his application, I mean Jesus just blew him out of the water, didn't he? Misusing it all the way. But intentionally trying to turn God's word, which is a good and holy word, to bring about evil. Jezebel, like the devil, she knew the scriptures.

She knew she could use them to her advantage. As the psalmist says, all day long they twist my words. All their thoughts are against me for evil. Or as Peter put it, untaught and unstable people twist God's word to their own destruction as they do also the rest of scriptures.

Intentionally misusing it. Today there are those who preach same-sex marriage is fine according to the scripture. They can find passages in Romans which actually speak against that sort of thing. Distinctly against it, clearly against it.

They say, see if you just look at it this other way, it proves that it's all okay. There are men like Rob Bell who teach that the Bible says there's no final and eternal punishment for sin. There is, he says, no hell.

There are those who look at the scripture, look at the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as the only Savior. There is one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. See, but all roads will get you to heaven.

It's all okay, so long as you believe something and really believe it and follow it the best you can, everybody will be okay. And they prove it from scripture. Untaught, unstable people twisting God's word to their own destruction as they do the rest of scripture, all of scripture, getting misused.

Naboth, Stephen, and Standing Firm on God's Word

Is this not exactly what's happening to righteous Naboth here? As the word of God, this condemnation of blasphemy being used against him, a man who truly didn't blaspheme, all he did was say, I'm gonna keep my vineyard.

Who is Naboth? If Jezebel represents the devil, who is Naboth? We have to see how he's described. We know very little about him. He's obviously a landowner. There's nothing written about that plot except we know it's in close proximity to Ahab's summer palace and it was a vineyard.

We do know that Naboth, at this solemn fast that was proclaimed, was seated with high honor. It indicates he had some standing in Jezreel. It tells us that maybe this plot of land was pretty extensive and valuable.

We know he didn't want to sell it because it was his inheritance. And here's why I call him righteous Naboth. Leviticus 25, 23, the land shall not be sold permanently for the land is mine. It's of course the Lord speaking.

For you are strangers and sojourners with me and in all the land of your possession you shall grant redemption of the land. There's no provision for anything like eminent domain. This fact alone makes Naboth the righteous, godly one here because he wants to hang on to the land because God's word says it's his inheritance.

The land is God's covenant seal that he keeps his word. We also know of Naboth that he was innocent. There's no record of him blaspheming. Jezebel had to have scoundrels brought in against him. The Hebrew term for these guys is sons of worthlessness.

But we know he was taken out and stoned. He doesn't even seem to have as many questions and answers posed as Jesus did in his trial. He was taken outside and stoned. I talked about this trial pointing forward to Jesus' trial.

But Naboth for me does not point forward to Jesus Christ. I can't push him quite that far. But I go to Acts 7. I think of Stephen who's the church's first martyr. Was he not accused of blasphemy? He was.

Was the charge not false? It was. Was he not taken outside the camp and stoned to death? He was. If Stephen was the church's first martyr, we could say he was the first post-resurrection martyr. Because I believe before Stephen was Naboth.

Like Stephen, Naboth charged with blasphemy. Like Stephen, he was innocent. Like Stephen, he was stoned. Like Stephen, his crime was to stand firm on God's Word. His crime was an unwillingness to bend on the truth that we should be so committed.

Would we stand to death for God's Word? Too often I can't even stand to be embarrassed about God's Word and standing for Jesus Christ. I think that's one of the things we have to look at when we read an account like this.

And read Naboth. And when we read about Naboth, think forward to Stephen because we have so much more about what Stephen said. But the two are so similar. And it's just a question we have to ask in the quietness of our own hearts.

What stand am I willing to make in order to stand firm on the Word of God without compromise? Paul does tell us that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. And really, Naboth wanted no more than that, to live quietly and peaceably, to take care of his vineyard, his land there in Jezreel, which he only had the misfortune of being next to the palace and coming under Ahab's covetous eye.

Naboth's concern for keeping the land and the family was because of his concern for God's Word. The only thing recorded that he says in the whole Scripture, as important as he is here in this history, he only says, the Lord forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to you.

That's it. Now to be completely fair, Ahab didn't say he'd take it. He offered to pay for it or to make a trade. Of course, subsequent actions tell us that Naboth really had no choice. Once Naboth is confirmed dead, I understand I'm skipping over all the details of the trial and stoning, and there's a lot we're leaving on the table.

I understand that. But once he's confirmed dead, the elders of Jezreel let Jezebel know that they did as the king instructed. Now notice how I say this. They told Jezebel because she's the one who sent the letter.

But they did as the king instructed because that letter was under his seal. We must be clear about this. Jezebel is going to answer to the Lord, as we'll see in 2 Kings, in a horrible way. But it's the king who's held responsible for this act.

It's the king whose seal authorized the order. And I believe very strongly, I can't point to a verse that proves this, I'm talking about my view of the tone and tenor of this chapter, and Ahab generally, he knew.

The way Elijah comes to him and says, have you murdered and taken possession? Not, have you allowed your wife to murder? Did you just go along and not keep track of things well enough? This is very much like David in 2 Samuel 12, where Nathan says, you are the man.

Have you murdered and taken possession? It's not really a question at all, it's a statement. You have murdered and taken possession. Jezebel's not even going to be mentioned for a while as the word of the Lord from Elijah comes to this king who did this act.

I said earlier, it's just not credible to think that Ahab had no idea of what Jezebel was doing or might do. He was not a spoiled child pouting in bed. He was violent, he was greedy, he was cruel. He had no affinity for God.

And I would say that Jezebel was the perfect complement for him. She was the wife meet for his needs. His needs were depraved, his needs were sinful, his needs were unrighteous. And she was the one who could fill that.

They sent to Jezebel saying, Naboth has been stoned and is dead. Naboth has been stoned and is dead. But there's yet more evil to account for here. There's yet more wickedness to see. And we have to go all the way forward to 2 Kings 9, verse 26.

And Lord willing, we will come to that as we preach through the Elisha cycle. But in 2 Kings 9, verse 26, the Lord says this, Surely I saw yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons. The blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons.

What God does about this, we'll come to when we get to that chapter. The point is that sin spreads quickly. Sin once indulged knows no bounds. And sin, once we surrender to it, demands that we stay in it and do more and more and more of it.

Naboth was the accused. It was falsely accused. But he was the accused. But the goal was never to uncover a man's sin, to explain a community's troubles. That's what happened after Israel's defeat at Ai in Joshua 7 that we spoke of.

This was different. The royal instruction left no doubt that the charges were false and the law had no provision for the family to die with the accused if it was confirmed that he was a transgressor. But the need of the moment, the whole purpose of this thing, was securing Ahab's title to the land so the heirs had to die too.

See, they didn't just take out Naboth. Naboth was dragged out. He didn't get a chance to answer. At least we have no record of him being able to answer any questions, prove his innocence. His sons. We don't know how many.

Only that it was more than one. Only that had they been left alive, the land would have been theirs. And that's not what Ahab wanted. That's not what Jezebel accomplished. Jezebel accomplished what Ahab wanted, was possession of the whole land with nobody to contest it.