1 Kings xxi. 2, 3. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy
vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is
near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard
than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of
it in money. And Naboth said unto Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that
I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.
You heard to-day read for the first lesson, the story of Naboth and
King Ahab. Most of you know it well. Naboth's vineyard has passed
into a proverb for something which we covet.
It is good that it should be so. We cannot know our Bible too well;
we cannot have Bible words and Bible thoughts too much worked into
our ways of talking and thinking about everyday matters. As far as
I can see, the best days of England, the best days of every
Christian country of which I ever read, have been days when men were
not ashamed of their Bibles; when they were ready to live by their
Bibles; to ask advice of their Bibles about buying and selling,
about making war and peace, about all the business of life; and were
not ashamed to quote texts of Scripture in the parliament, and in
the market, and in the battle-field, as God's law, God's rule, God's
word about the matter in hand, which was, therefore, sure to be the
right word and the right rule. People are grown ashamed of doing so
now-a-days; but that does not alter the matter one jot. We may deny
God, but He cannot deny Himself. His laws are everlasting, and He
is ruling and judging us by them now, all day long, just as much as
He ruled and judged those Jews by them of old. The God of Abraham
is our God; the God of Moses is our God; the God of Ahab and Naboth
is our God; neither He nor His government are altered in the least
since their time, and they never will alter for ever, and ever, and
ever; and if we do not choose to believe that now in this life, we
shall be made to believe it by some very ugly and painful schooling
in the life to come.
What laws of God, now, can we learn from this story?
First, we may learn what a sacred thing _property_ is. That a man's
possessions (if they be justly come by) belong to him, in the sight
of God as well as in the sight of man, and that God will uphold and
avenge the man's right.
Naboth, you see, stands simply on his right to his own property.
'The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my
fathers unto thee.' I do not think that he meant that God had
actually forbidden him: it seems to have been only some sort of
oath which he used. He may certainly have had reasons for thinking
it wrong to part with his lands; hurtful, perhaps, to his family
after him. Yet, as Ahab had promised him a better vineyard for it,
or its worth in money, I cannot help thinking that Naboth's reason
was the one which shows on the face of his words. It was the
inheritance of his fathers, this vineyard. They had all worked in
it, generation after generation; perhaps, according to the Jewish
custom, they were buried somewhere in it; at least, it had been
theirs and now was his; he had worked in it, and played in it--
perhaps since he was a child--and he loved it; it was part and
parcel of his father's house to him, a sacred spot.
And so it should be. It is a holy feeling which makes a man cling
to the bit of land which he has inherited from his parents, even to
the cottage, though it be only a hired one, where he has lived for
many a year, and where he has planted and tilled, perhaps with some
that he loved, who are now dead and gone, or grown up and gone out
into the world, till the little old cottage-garden is full of
remembrances to him of past joys and past sorrows. The feeling
which makes a man cling to his home and to his own land is a good
feeling, and breeds good in the man. It makes him respect himself;
it keeps him from being reckless and unsettled. It is a feeling
which should not be broken through. It is seldom pleasant to see
land change hands; it is seldom pleasant to see people turned out of
their cottages. It must often be so, but let it be as seldom as
possible. One likes to see a family take root in a place, and grow
and thrive there, one generation after another; and you will find,
my friends, that families do take root and thrive in a place just in
proportion as they fear God and do righteousness. The Psalms tell
you, again and again, that the way to abide in the land, and prosper
in it, is to trust in the Lord and be doing good; and that the
wicked are soon rooted out, and their names perish out of the land.
One sees that come true daily.
But to return to Naboth. He loved his own land, and therefore he
had a right to keep it. We may say it was but a fancy of his, if he
could have a better vineyard, or the worth of it in money.
Remember, at least, that God respected that fancy of his, and
justified it, and avenged it. When (after Naboth's death) Elijah
accused Ahab, in God's name, he put two counts into the indictment;
for Ahab had committed two sins. 'Hast thou killed, and also taken
possession?' Killing was one sin; taking possession was another.
And so Ahab learnt two weighty and bitter lessons. He learnt that
God's Law stands for ever, though man's law be broken or be
forgotten by disuse. For you must understand, that these Jews were
a free people, even as we are. They were not like the nations round
about them, or as the Russians are now--slaves to their king, and
holding their property only at his will. The law of Moses had made
them a free people, who held their property each man from God, by
God's Law, which had said, 'Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not
covet. Cursed is he who removes his neighbour's landmark.' And
their kings were bound to govern by Moses' law, just as our kings
and rulers are bound to govern by the old constitutions of England,
and to do equal justice by rich and poor. But the wicked kings of
Israel were trying to break through that law, and make themselves
tyrants and despots, such as the Czar of Russia is now. First,
Jeroboam began by trying to wean his people from Moses' law, by
preventing their going up to worship at Jerusalem, and making them
worship instead the golden calves at Dan and at Bethel. For he knew
that if he could make idolaters of them, he should soon make slaves
of them; and he succeeded; and the kingdom of Israel grew more
miserable year by year; and now Ahab, his wicked successor, was
breaking down the laws of property and wrongfully taking away his
subjects' lands. Perhaps he said in his heart, 'I am king; there is
no law stronger than I. I have a right to do what I like.' If he
did so, he found that he was mistaken. He found that though he
forgot Moses' law, God had not; that the law stood there still,
because it was founded on eternal justice, which proceeds for ever
out of the mouth of God; and by the Law, which he had chosen to
forget, he was judged; by the Law of God, which deals equal justice
to rich and poor, which is, like God Himself, no acceptor of
persons; but says, 'Thou shalt not covet,' to the king upon his
throne as sternly as to the beggar on the dunghill.
And that Law stands still, my friends, doubt it not. Thanks to the
wisdom and justice of our forefathers who built the laws of England
on those old Ten Commandments, which hang for a sign thereof in
every church to this day. Thanks to them, I say, and to God, the
root of the law of England is, equal justice between man and man, be
he high or low; and it is a thing to bless God for every day of our
lives, that here the poor man's little is as safe as the rich man's
wealth: but there is many a sin of oppression, many a sin of
covetousness, my friends, which no law of man can touch. Make laws
as artfully as you will, bad men can always slip through them, and
escape the spirit of them, while they obey the letter: and I
suppose it will be so to the world's end; and that, let the laws be
as perfect as they may, if any man wishes to cheat or oppress his
neighbour, he will surely be able to work his wicked will in some
way or other. Well then, my friends, if man's law is weak, God's is
not;--if man's law has flaws and gaps in it, through which
covetousness can creep, God's has none;--even if (which God forbid)
man's law died out, and sinners were left to sin without fear of
punishment, still God's Law stands sure, and the eye of the living
God slumbers not, and the hand of the living God never grows weary,
and out of the everlasting heaven His voice is saying, day and
night, for ever, 'I endure for ever. I sit on the throne judging
right; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of My kingdom. I
judge the world in justice, and minister true judgment unto the
people. I also will be a refuge for the oppressed, even a refuge in
due time of trouble.'
O hear those words, my friends! hear and obey, if you love life, and
wish to see good days; and never, never say a thing is right, simply
because the law cannot punish you for it. Never say in your hearts
when you are tempted to be hard, cruel, covetous, over-reaching,
'What harm? I break no law by it.' There is a law, whether you see
it or not; you break a law, whether you confess it or not; a law
which is as a wall of iron clothed with thunder, though man's law be
but a flimsy net of thread; and that law, and not any Acts of
Parliament, shall judge you in the day when the secrets of all
hearts shall be disclosed, and every man shall receive the due
reward of the deeds done in the body, not according as they were
allowed or not by the Statute Book, but according as they were good
or evil.
Another lesson we may learn from this story: that if we give way to
our passions, we give way to the Devil also. Ahab gave way to his
passion; he knew that he was wrong; for when Naboth refused to sell
him the vineyard, he did not dare openly to rob him of it; he went
to his house heavy of heart, and fretted, like a spoilt child,
because he could not get what he wanted. It was but a little thing,
and he might have been content to go without it. He was king of all
Israel, and what was one small vineyard more or less to him? But
prosperity had spoilt him; he must needs have every toy on which he
set his heart, and he was weak enough to fret that he could not get
more, when he had too much already. But he knew that he could not
get it; that, king as he was, Naboth's property was his own, and
that God's everlasting Law stood between him and the thing he
coveted. Well for him if he had been contented with fretting. But,
my friends--and be you rich or poor, take heed to my words--whenever
any man gives way to selfishness, and self-seeking, to a proud,
covetous, envious, peevish temper, the Devil is sure to glide up and
whisper in his ear thoughts which will make him worse--worse, ay,
than he ever dreamt of being. First comes the flesh, and then the
Devil; and if the flesh opens the door of the heart, the Devil steps
in quickly enough. First comes the flesh: fleshly, carnal pride at
being thwarted; fleshly, carnal longing for a thing, which longs all
the more for it because one cannot have it; fleshly, carnal
peevishness and ill-temper, at not having just the pleasant thing
one happens to like. That is a state of mind which is a bird-call
for all the devils; and when they see a man in that temper, they
flock to him, I believe, as crows do to carrion. It is astonishing,
humbling, awful, my friends, what horrible thoughts will cross one's
mind if once one gives way to that selfish, proud, angry, longing
temper; thoughts of which we are ashamed the next moment;
temptations to sin at which we shudder, they seem so unlike
ourselves, not parts of ourselves at all. When the dark fit is
past, one can hardly believe that such wicked thoughts ever crossed
one's mind. I don't think that they are part of ourselves; I
believe them to be the whispers of the Devil himself; and when they
pass away, I believe that it is the Lord Jesus Christ who drives
them away. But if any man gives way to them, determines to keep his
sullenness, and so gives place to the Devil; then those thoughts do
not pass; they take hold of a man, possess him, as the Bible calls
it, and make him in his madness do things which--alas! who has not
done things in his day, of which he has repented all his life
after?--things for which he would gladly cut off his right hand for
the sake of being able to say, 'I never did that?' But the thing is
done--done to all eternity: he has given place to the Devil, and
the Devil has made him do in five minutes work which he could not
undo in five thousand years; and all that is left is, when he comes
to himself, to cast himself on God's boundless mercy, and Christ's
boundless atonement, and cry, 'My sins are like scarlet, Thou alone
canst make them whiter than snow: my sin is ever before me; only
let it not be ever before Thee, O God! Punish me, if thou seest
fit; but oh forgive, for there is mercy with Thee, and infinite
redemption!' And, thanks be to God's great love, he will not cry in
vain. Yet, oh, my friends, do not give place to the Devil, unless
you wish, forgiven or not, to repent of it to the latest day you
live.
And this was Ahab's fate. He knew, I say, that he was wrong; he
knew that Naboth's property was his own, and dare not openly rob him
of it; and he went to his house, heavy of heart, and refused to eat;
and while he was in such a temper as that, the Devil lost no time in
sending an evil spirit to him. It was a woman whom he sent,
Jezebel, Ahab's own wife: but she was, as far as we can see, a
woman of a devilish spirit, cruel, proud, profligate, and unjust, as
well as a worshipper of the filthy idols of the Canaanites. Ahab's
first sin was in having married this wicked heathen woman: now his
sin punished itself; she tempted him through his pride and self-
conceit; she taunted him into sin: 'Dost thou now govern the
kingdom of Israel? I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth.' You
all remember how she did so; by falsely accusing Naboth of
blasphemy. Ahab seems to have taken no part in Naboth's murder.
Perhaps he was afraid; but he was a weak man, and Jezebel was a
strong and fierce spirit, and ruled him, and led him in this matter,
as she did in making him worship idols with her; and he was content
to be led. He was content to let others do the wickedness he had
not courage to carry out himself. He forgot that, as is well said,
'He who does a thing by another, does it by himself;' that if you
let others sin for you, you sin for yourself. Would to God, my
friends, that we would all remember this! How often people wink at
wrong-doing in those with whom they have dealings, in those whom
they employ, in their servants, in their children, because it is
convenient to them. They shut their eyes, and their hearts too, and
say to themselves, 'At all events, it is his doing and not mine; and
it is his concern; I am not answerable for other people's sins. I
would not do such a thing myself, certainly; but as it is done, I
may as well make the best of it. If I gain by it, I need not be so
very sharp in looking into the matter.' And so you see men who
really wish to be honest and kindly themselves, making no scruple of
profiting by other people's dishonesty and cruelty. Now the law
punishes the receiver of stolen goods almost as severely as the
thief himself: but there are many receivers of stolen goods, my
friends, whom the law cannot touch. The world, at times, seems to
me to be full of them; for every one, my friends, who hushes up a
cruel or a dishonest matter, because he himself is a gainer by it,
he is no better than the receiver of stolen goods, and he will find
in the day of the Lord, that the sin will lie at his door, as
Jezebel's sin lay at Ahab's. There was no need for Ahab to say,
'Jezebel did it, and not I.' The prophet did not even give him time
to excuse himself: 'Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also
taken possession?' By taking possession of Naboth's vineyard, and
so profiting by his murder, he made himself partaker in that murder,
and had to hear the terrible sentence, 'In the place where dogs
licked the blood of Naboth, dogs shall lick thy blood, even thine.'
Oh, my friends, whatsoever you do, keep clean hands and a pure
heart. If you touch pitch, it will surely stick to you. Let no
gain tempt you to be partaker of others men's sins; never fancy
that, because men cannot lay the blame on the right person, God
cannot. God will surely lay the burden on the man who helped to
make the burden; God will surely require part payment from the man
who profited by the bargain; so keep yourselves clear of other men's
sins, that you may be clear also of their condemnation.
So Ahab had committed a horrible and great sin, and had received
sentence for it, and now, as I said before, there was nothing to be
done but to repent; and he did so, after his fashion.
Ahab, it seems, was not an utterly bad man; he was a weak man, fond
of his own pleasure, a slave to his own passions, and easily led,
sometimes to good, but generally to evil. And God did not execute
full vengeance on him: his repentance was a poor one enough; but
such as it was, the good and merciful God gave him credit for it as
far as it went, and promised him that the worst part of his
sentence, the ruin of his family, should not come in his time. But
still the sentence against him stood, and was fulfilled. Not long
after, as we read in the second lesson, he was killed in battle, and
that not bravely and with honour (for if he had been, that would
have been but a slight punishment, my friends), but shamefully by a
chance shot, after he had disguised himself, in the cowardice of his
guilty conscience, and tried to throw all the danger on his ally,
good King Jehoshaphat of Judah; 'and they washed his chariot in the
pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked up his blood, according to the
word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah the prophet.'
So ends one of the most clear and terrible stories in the whole
Bible, of God's impartial justice. May God give us all grace to lay
it to heart! We are all tempted, as Ahab was; rich or poor, our
temptation is alike to give place to the Devil, and let him lead us
into dark and deep sin, by giving way to our own fancies, longings,
pride, and temper. We are all tempted, as Ahab was, to over-reach
our neighbours in some way; I do not mean always in cheating them,
but in being unfair to them, in caring more for ourselves than for
them; thinking of ourselves first, and of them last; trying to make
ourselves comfortable, or to feed our own pride, at their expense.
Oh, my friends, whenever we are tempted to be selfish and grasping,
be sure that we are opening a door to the very Devil of hell
himself, though he may look so smooth, and gentle, and respectable,
that perhaps we shall not know him when he comes to us, and shall
take his counsels for the counsel of an angel of light. But be sure
that if it is selfishness which has opened the door of our heart,
not God, but the Devil, will come in, let him disguise himself as
cunningly as he will; and our only hope is to flee to Him in whom
there was no selfishness, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came not to do
His own will, but His Father's; not to glorify Himself, but His
Father; not to save His own life, but to sacrifice it freely, for
us, His selfish, weak, greedy, wandering sheep. Pray to Him to give
you His Spirit, that glorious spirit of love, and duty, and self-
sacrifice, by which all the good deeds on earth are done; which
teaches a man not to care about himself, but about others; to help
others, to feel for others, to rejoice in their happiness, to grieve
over their sorrows, to give to them, rather than take from them--in
one word, The Holy Spirit of God, which may He pour out on you, and
me, and all mankind, that we may live justly and lovingly, as
children of one just and loving Father in heaven.