Warnings That Should Concern Us

Introduction: The Nature and Necessity of Scriptural Warnings

0:08 Let us turn again this evening to 1 Kings chapter 21, 1 Kings chapter 21.

0:19 In the two previous Lord's Day evenings when we have studied this chapter, I have read through the entire chapter, and since probably 95% of you here have heard those two readings, you are familiar with the content, I will not therefore weary you with a third reading, but we will be making references to various aspects of the narrative and some of the principles of God's truth contained therein. This chapter, as we have seen, contains much in the way of instruction, comfort, and warning. We went through it the first time asking the question, what does it reveal about God himself? We saw that it reveals some very vital things about our God. It reveals us that our God is the one who sees and knows all the details of all the sinful acts of all men. When Jezebel and Ahab were comforting themselves and congratulating themselves that they had perpetrated the perfect crime, here comes the hairy, rugged prophet of God, announcing to them that all of this was known to the eye of God. Our God in the second place, this chapter reveals, is the God who often permits the triumph of evil for a time.

1:40 Naboth, and as we will see in our study tonight, his sons, along with him, were cruelly and unjustly condemned to death. And it is as though God stood on the sidelines with his hands tied behind his back and did not twitch a finger for their defense.

1:59 This is the God whom we serve. Thirdly, he is the God who will eventually fulfill all his promises of judgment on the wicked. Promises of judgment made to Ahab. To his sons and to Jezebel, and though long years passed before they were fulfilled completely, they were fulfilled to the letter.

2:19 This is the God with whom we have to do. And then in the last place, this chapter reveals that God is the God who is long-suffering and merciful, never delighting in executing judgment, but delighting in the show and display of his mercy. For when Ahab even has some kind of a surface repentance, God delays the actual confession. This is the God who is long-suffering of judgment.

2:41 Then last week, we looked at the chapter to see what it taught about this matter of sin, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, that terrible moral disease, which this chapter reveals will treat a man like a cruel taskmaster that will turn God's crowning creature, man, into a scheming fiend, make him the slave of his lust, cause him to revert the scripture to his own destruction. This is the God who is long-suffering of judgment. This is the terrible nature of sin. And perhaps there are a few chapters that reveal its ugliness in more vivid lines than the chapter that is before us.

3:21 Now tonight, we want to go through the chapter a third time, gleaning from it some very practical warnings concerning matters about which all of us should be vitally concerned. The whole idea of warning is certainly a scriptural one. In the 19th century, in the 19th psalm, as the psalmist celebrates the revelation of God that comes first of all through creation and then through the word of God, he says in Psalm 1911, by them, that is, by the precepts of God, is thy servant warned. The apostle Paul in Acts 20.31 said that he warned men day and night with tears.

4:04 An integral part of any scriptural ministry is warning. Why? Because of great content. And a great part of the content of scripture is warning.

4:12 So if someone is preaching the whole counsel of God, as the apostle says in Acts 20.26, then he must be found daily warning men. The words beware are found no less than ten times from the lips of our Lord as recorded in the Gospels, warning his own disciples primarily of spiritual dangers. Well, what is a warning?

4:37 Well, it's always an indication of a real danger. You don't warn people about imaginary dangers, but very real dangers. Secondly, a warning is always giving in love from one who wants us to avoid that very real danger. And thirdly, a warning is always couched in such a way as to arouse attention.

4:58 You may come up to someone's yard, and there you see in large print, to all who may be passing this way. And then in small print underneath it says something like this, within these, Fences is an animal not too reputed for his docile temperament and genial ways. And you look at that and say, well, what's all that gibberish? Nothing for me to get concerned about.

5:21 And you go sailing right through the gate, and bam! The dog growls and gets you in the thigh. But if you walk by and it has in big bold letters, beware, vicious dog, you get the message. You see, a warning is given in such a way as to arouse the attention.

5:39 Now, Scripture deals with us in that way. It never warns us about imaginary dangers. This idea that the warnings in Hebrews are hypothetical warnings. Don't buy it.

5:51 God is in the business of hypothetical warnings. He warns about very real dangers. And the warnings are given because of the love of our God, who does not want to see us destroyed by these many pitfalls that can beset us. And the warnings are couched in such a way as to arouse our attention.

Warning 1: Beware of the Destructive Influence of an Unholy Marriage

6:13 And as we come to this chapter, there are at least three very vivid warnings given to us by our God and given in such a way as to arouse us to the very real danger in these areas. First of all, this chapter contains a warning which says, Beware of the destructive influence of an unholy marriage. Beware of the destructive influence. influence of an unholy marriage. We read in the words of the Apostle Paul, most of us are familiar with them, 2 Corinthians 6, 14, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And we say, yeah, I've heard that before. But what's the difference? Well, you come to a chapter like this, and you see not a sign that says, to all who may pass this way, there is an animal within these fences who is not too congenial. You see a warning in bold letters and flashing neon lights, beware of an

7:19 unholy marriage alliance. For this passage tells us in verse 26 that the root of the terrible wickedness of Ahab, its ultimate root, of course, was his own corrupt heart, but the secondary cause, that which provoked the evilness of his heart, that which stirred up the cauldron of wickedness, as it were, until it just vomited out all over the land. Here it is, verse 25, But there was none like unto Ahab, who did sell himself to do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up. And all of the wickedness that was perpetrated by Ahab was in great measure the fruit of this stirring up influence of this unholy marriage alliance, into which he entered. If there's any doubt about it, if this passage does not convince us, then certainly chapter 16 and verse 31 should be sufficient to indicate this to us. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ephbaal, king of the Sidonians.

8:39 And as a result of it, he went and served Baal. And worshipped him, and reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And then the record goes on to say how that he led the whole nation into the idolatry into which this wicked woman had led him. Let me ask you a question. If Ahab could have seen the day he stood wherever he stood and took this woman to be his wife, that she would be the very occasion of his own life being cut off in such a terrible way as it was in the midst of battle, if he could have seen that all of his sons would be destroyed as a result of his wickedness, if he could have seen that Jezebel would be trampled underfoot by the horses and her few remains eaten by the dogs, if he could have seen the devastation that he was going to bring spiritually and nationally to Israel, do you think he would have walked into this marriage?

9:46 Do you? If he could have seen this panorama of terrible judgment spread before him, and had known that this relationship would lead to that, do you think he would have chosen it? Of course not. Of course not, unless something had snapped in his mind, or he were so wholly given over to the devil that there was no sensitivity. And the record does not indicate that. It indicates this man did have a conscience that was sensitive. It was not completely seared. He did for a time walk softly before the Lord. He did it not because he was a man of God. He did it because he was a man of God.

10:17 He did not acknowledge the prophet as a man of God, though he did not want to submit to his message. Well, you say, whatever led him to marry this woman? Well, the record seems to indicate that there were two things that led him to enter into this alliance. Certainly it was not that he welcomed all the judgment upon himself and upon the nation and upon his family that this alliance with her brought, but there were two factors which led to this unholy marriage union. Factor number one was the advancement of his own personal ambition. Ahab reasoned that if he married this daughter of the king of the Sidonians, this would put him in a good relationship with that neighboring heathen nation, and perhaps put his kingdom at least in a more safe place, if not strengthen his hands to expand the kingdom of Israel. So that that which motivated the marriage was personal and political. And then the second thing, she was going to marry Ahab, and she was apparently a beautiful woman as the world tells beauty, for we have a hint of it later on when she is what we would call a relatively old woman, and the time of her judgment is ripening as recorded

11:32 in 2 Kings 9 and verse 30. It says she went up into a tower and painted her eyes and put on her headdress and stood in the window. And if you read between the lines and check the commentators who have gone into the background of this matter, she was apparently married to Ahab, and she was making a real appeal for this man, if not to actually seduce him, at least to attract him to where now that she was a widow, her husband having been killed according to the prophecy of Elijah, this man Jehu might be interested in taking her to be his wife. The record of that is 2 Kings 9 and verse 30. And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her eyes and attired her head and looked out at the window. She was making herself beautiful and attractive, hoping that she could turn him aside from this mission to which he has come. She knew well what the prophet had said, that Jehu would be the instrument of her destruction. Him that escapes

12:38 from the sword of Elisha shall the other king slay, and he that escapes his sword shall Jehu slay. And yet she feels that her own womanly power is not enough to take her to Jezreel, and she will be such as to turn away this very aggressive warrior by the painting of her eyes and the attiring of her head. So we can well reason that if at this age she still had those kind of powers over men, what must she have been like when she was a young woman when Ahab took her? So to gratify his flesh with a beautiful woman, he enters into this marriage relationship. Two things then led into this unholy alliance, something God had completely forgotten. He had completely forgotten to any of the kings of Israel that they should marry daughters of the heathen, something that was forbidden to every Israelite, but explicitly forbidden to the kings as found in Deuteronomy, I believe it's chapter 17. Personal advancement and the gratification of his own lusts. Now let me be very personal in my application. As the devil seeks to ensnare and destroy the

13:46 lives of you young men and young women listening to my voice tonight, one of the most powerful ways that he has in accomplishing this design is to lead you into an unholy marriage alliance. Oh, you read in Scripture, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, but that doesn't say too much. And you say, yes, and I know so-and-so was a Christian and married so-and-so, and he was later converted, and I know, and you begin to rationalize. I trust that what we consider from this passage tonight will be so written in your heart that the first time you even think about it, you'll be able to understand that it's not just a matter of even remotely contemplate from a distance of a thousand miles getting seriously involved with an unregenerate man or woman that the Holy Ghost will bring this chapter back to you and make you tremble in your boots. He'll use the same two things with you that he used with Ahab. You will look upon this relationship as a means to advance your own ambitions. This is the primary temptation of a girl.

14:53 Nothing but raw animal lust will drive a woman to join herself to a man, but that's not generally the case unless it's been a woman who's done a lot of chasing around. But a woman who has kept herself pure cannot contemplate marriage as a purely physical relationship. She much more naturally contemplates this as the involvement of a total person in a total life situation. And from the time she's been a little girl, she's played house. She's played mama. She's played dolls, and she's thought of the time when she'd have her home, when she'd stand at her kitchen and cook her meals for her husband, and she'd dress up her children, and she would have her own home. And along comes this person who seems to be the means to that end, and this individual is looked upon as the one who can grant me the gratification of my own personal desires, or it may be, and this is more primarily the temptation of you young women, you see this girl and she's beautiful, and you can't help but appreciate her beauty. She's attractive to you.

16:06 She's attractive to others. Gives you a real nice feeling when you're found with her and you know that the other people take a second look, and they compliment you. Boy, you've sure got a nice looking girl for a girlfriend. Sure got a nice looking young lady for a lady friend. And so that which the enemy will use to bait you, into an unholy alliance, is the lust of your flesh. He will never parade before your eyes the consequences of that relationship, any more than he paraded before the eyes of Ahab. His own sons lying in a terrible slaughter in the midst of worshipping Baal, for Jehu gathered all those Baal worshippers together under pretense and then slew them. The devil never brought before the eyes of Ahab the body of Jehu. He never brought before the eyes of Ahab the body of Jehu.

16:55 The bodies of his own sons lying in a welter of blood. He didn't bring before the mind of Ahab the terrible experience of finding an arrow, pierce his armor, and slump over, and he also dying in a welter of his own blood. He didn't bring before Ahab the terrible destruction of Jezebel. None of this. None of this. Look, Ahab, she's the one that can meet and gratify your person. She's the one that can meet and gratify your person. She's the one that can meet and gratify and satisfy your lust. Go ahead. Dear young people, whenever you contemplate entering a marriage relationship and all you're thinking about is your own personal ambitions and your own personal lusts, beware your being but a little pawn in the devil's chessboard. For his goal is never your happiness. For the scripture says in John 10, the thief cometh not but for to steal, to kill, and to destroy. He has no ambition but thievery and destruction. That's all. That's all. Can you imagine the

18:11 difference that might have been in Ahab's life? Even in this chapter. Here he is pouting as we looked at him last week like a little boy who can't have his lollipop. And there he is with his face to the wall and Jezebel comes in. Can you imagine the difference that might have been had she come to him and said, Ahab, what's the difference? Ahab, what's the difference? Ahab, what's the difference? And he says, I've gone down there to the field, to this man, Naboth, and I've tried to get his field and he won't sell it to me and I'm disturbed. She had just put her arm around his shoulder and in the way that only a woman can who knows her husband, had reminded him of all the goodness of God and how God had been merciful to him and God had blessed him in the recent battles and given him victory over his enemies and God had showered him with all of these tokens of his kindness. And she had encouraged him to be thankful and content in his present state and with his present possessions. Can you think of the difference that might have been? Can you think of the difference that might have been when Ahab comes down from Mount Carmel after that mighty display of the power of God when the whole nation falls upon its face?

19:22 And Ahab shares the news with Jezebel. Can you think of the difference if instead of saying, by tomorrow that man Elijah will be like those 400 prophets, he'll be dead, if she had said, oh Ahab. How foolish we've been. Let's together seek to restore the worship of the true God in Israel.

19:41 The difference, the great forks in the life of Ahab, and it seemed that each fork, when he stood to move in the direction of righteousness or wickedness that changed the whole course and destiny of his life and the nation and his family, if only there had been a godly woman, a godly consort, to push in that direction, who knows what Ahab might have been. But instead, when he came to those forks of real crisis, there she was, stirring him up to move in the direction of wickedness and sin. My friend, it need not be in the way that Jezebel did here. It may be in far more subtle ways. You young men, don't just look for a professing Christian girl, for a while, and say, oh, I'm going to die. Why? You ask God to give you someone in whose heart Jesus Christ sits as unrivaled king, king above ambition, king above possessions, king above things, king above everything.

20:49 Otherwise, the time may come when the pressure of God begins to be put upon your heart, and you feel perhaps the Lord is calling you to sell your home, leave your job, and go on off to seminary or Bible school, and get further training, and go out into some form of ministry, and then you're going to die. You ask God to give you someone in whose heart Jesus Christ sits as unrivaled king, and there a wife will be, not like Jezebel, saying, curse God and die, but saying, well, you know, it's kind of unreasonable, isn't it? The Lord would call us at this stage. I mean, we have our home, and we have our family, and in a very sweet, subtle way, she can turn a man aside from the call of God.

21:26 The time may come when the children are facing great crises, seeking to know the mind of God, and as you've prayed and counseled with that son or daughter, and you seek to move her in the given place, there may be the wife or husband, not telling them again to leave the pale of Christian profession, not to go outside, as it were, the circle of a legitimate profession as a Christian. No, no. But seeking to steer that individual into a course that would perhaps mean something less than total abandonment to the will of God. One of the greatest heritages that I have had as a man, and growing up as a boy, was the knowledge that I had a mother and a father whose only ambition for their son, at least expressed to him, they may have had some secret ones that I never knew about, was that he know and do the will of God, no matter what that involved.

22:27 What a heritage to have.

22:31 Do your children have that heritage?

22:33 You young people, when you get wedding bell-itis,

22:40 remember that normally the fruit of that is children. And children who one day will stand as grown men and women, will they be able to say of you what I've been able to say of my parents?

22:54 This chapter holds a sobering warning of the terrible, destructive influence of an unholy marriage alliance. And I say to you men and women who are blessed with a holy alliance, thank God daily for it, and bless and praise Him that He didn't allow you to be a man and a woman. And I say to you men and women who are blessed with a holy alliance, to be motivated by personal ambition or by the mere lust of the flesh, or as is the case with some of you, though that was your only ambition in marriage, God in His wonderful grace has overruled the thing and brought husband and wife to the knowledge of Himself or brought one or the other to Himself. And in His grace, He is still able to bring order out of some of the chaos. That's the first warning I see in the chapter, a sobering warning, of the destructive influence of an unholy marriage alliance. Then in the second place, I see a warning which says, beware of disillusioning notions about the life of godliness. Beware of disillusioning notions about the life of godliness.

Warning 2: Beware of Disillusioning Notions About the Life of Godliness

24:08 One of the most powerful destroyers of faith is disillusionment. If you want a classic picture of it, it's chapter 24 of the Gospel of Luke, here are these people utterly disillusioned, dejected, cast down in unbelief. And what was their problem? Well, as the Lord Jesus draws nigh, the record of this is in Luke chapter 24, He begins to ask them about their present state of mind.

24:38 He said, what's your problem? And they tell Him, reading now from Luke 24, and starting with verse 17, and He said unto them, what communications are these that ye have one with another as ye walk? And they stood still, looking sad, disillusioned. One of them, named Cleopas, said, dost thou alone sojourn in Jerusalem and not know the things that are come to pass there in these days?

25:06 And He said unto them, what things? And they said unto him, the things concerning Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him up and condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we hoped that it was He who should redeem Israel. Besides that, three days have already passed and nothing else has happened.

25:33 You see what their problem was? Disillusioned. Why? Follow me now.

25:37 They had unscriptural expectations. We had hoped that it was He who would redeem Israel. But their hope of what that redemption was, was unscriptural. He did redeem Israel.

25:51 And He did it the only way He could. By pouring out His life unto death. But because they had unscriptural, romantic notions about how Messiah would set up His kingdom, and it didn't come to pass, in keeping with their romantic bubble, their faith was dashed to pieces. And here they are dragging their chins along the sidewalk when the Lord Jesus comes near to them.

26:16 And how does the Lord deal with them? He brings them right back to the very scriptures that they had misunderstood and misinterpreted and He said, All fools and slow of heart to believe what? All that the prophets had said. Christ must suffer, must be killed, must be raised.

26:32 Now, that principle is true in the life of every Christian. If you get romantic notions about the life of godliness, and you get expectations about what that life will involve, and then those expectations are shattered, your faith will go right out the window. And you'll grovel in your unbelief. So this chapter contains a very clear warning about having these disillusioning notions about the life of godliness.

27:02 You say, how does it do that? Well, it tells us about the life of a godly layman and the life of a godly preacher. And in both cases, how were they treated? Well, the godly man Naboth, as we considered two weeks ago, is so committed to the law of Jehovah in the midst of a terrible spiritual state in Israel, at the time, Baal worship still rife in the land, a wicked man like Ahab on the throne.

27:29 And yet, when the king himself comes and says, give me that field, I'll pay a price, or get something in exchange, he says, Jehovah forbid it me. The law of my god forbids the selling of the inheritance of my fathers. I cannot do it. Here's a man whose godliness enters down to the most personal realms of his life.

27:49 He's willing to risk the wrath of a petulant king, rather than swerve from the cleft of his heart. This is the clear dictates of Jehovah. And as we saw several weeks ago, how does he get treated for it? He dies beneath a heap of stones, and his name rots beneath false accusation, and 2 Kings 9 and verse 26 indicates that his sons also shared in the same judgment and were slain with him.

28:19 Well, that's a fine way to treat a godly man, isn't it? What about the godly preacher? Here he is, having been restored from this period of dejection, which we studied for some weeks. God has assured him of the continuation of his work of grace in the 7,000.

28:38 God has assured him of the continuation of the prophetic office. He's lived to see the anointing or the calling out of Elisha. Elisha has been by his side for some six years or so, as we come to this point in the narrative, and when he meets the king, how is he treated? Is it thou, O my enemy?

29:01 Well, that's a fine way to treat a man of God who's got nothing in his heart but your good, nothing in his heart but the good of the nation, nothing in his heart but the honor and glory of God and the blessing of God upon the nation, and he gets treated like a common enemy. So you have the godly layman and you have the godly preacher, both of whom are treated with disrespect, with scorn, and one of them, even with an unjust death. And may I say, that is generally the lot of the godly. Oh yes, once in a while, God will turn the tables on a Haman like He did in the book of Esther, and the Mordecai will be vindicated before all the people, but that's the exception down here and not the rule. The rule of Scripture is that the life of godliness is the life where the people of God down here are going to be kicked around and nobody will care, and God won't put His hands to restrain the feet of the people that kick them. That's the picture. Several passages in the New Testament which state this in such explicit terms that only someone who wants to be guilty of willful ignorance can miss the point.

30:18 In John chapter 15, we have the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

30:29 Shortly before His death and subsequent ascension back to the right hand of the Father, our Lord is telling them the kind of treatment they can expect from men. And this is what He says in John 15, beginning with verse 18. If the world hated you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own.

30:56 But because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, A servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, and they did, they will also persecute you. If they have kept My word, and they didn't, they will keep yours also, and they won't.

31:21 You see, here's the inference. But all these things will they do unto you for My name's sake, because they hate you. Because they know not Him that sent Me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin.

31:35 That is, they would not have recognized what their sin was. But now they have no excuse for their sin. He that hated Me hated My Father also. Now how could our Lord state it more simply, more clearly?

31:49 He said the way they treated Me, that is the rank and file of men devoid of the grace of God, is precisely how they'll treat you. In the Sermon on the Mount, as our Lord gives those eight blessings, the characteristics of a true Christian, it's interesting that the last one is this, blester ye when men shall revile you. Not if, but when. Not if, but when.

32:13 When men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. Then there are the statements of the Apostle Paul, 2 Timothy 3.12, Yea, and all, without exception, who will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution. And then it's interesting, this man Peter, who when our Lord first announced that the way to the kingdom was the way of suffering and death, remember what his reaction was?

32:46 Far be it from you, Lord, God forbid, that this should be the course that you walk. Matthew 16, the Lord had to turn around and say, behind me, Satan, you're thinking like a man, not like God. Well, Peter learned his lesson, so that when he writes to Christians, how does he write them? He says in 1 Peter 4, verse 11, Beloved, don't think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.

33:14 He says, don't be like I was. I looked upon the suffering that was to come to my Lord in the accomplishment of His messianic purpose as some strange thing, and so I said, far be it from you, Lord, but I got His message. This is the way the Master went. Should not the servant tread it still?

33:32 Beloved, don't think it strange. This is part and parcel of godliness. Now, don't fight it. Don't be surprised at it.

33:40 Just learn to be prepared for it. Embrace it when it comes, and thank God for it. And then he goes on in that fourth chapter to tell us the purposes of that fiery trial of affliction. Ah, but someone says, well, if you think that way, that'll give you a martyr's complex, make you morose and sad.

33:58 Not if you read your Bible, it won't. For what did Jesus say? When men revile you and persecute, what is it supposed to do? It's supposed to give you a glory fit.

34:06 Joyce! Exceeding glad. How long has it been since you've been exceeding glad? Maybe it's because you haven't suffered.

34:13 When that first group suffered and were beaten by the authorities, what did they do? Come on back to their company and organize some kind of a Christian society for the prevention of cruelty, the Christians? No, it says in Acts chapter 5, they came back and rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for His name. They had a hallelujah meeting.

34:39 No, no, suffering for Christ doesn't create this whole idea, well, you think that way, that'll give you a martyr's complex, morose and sad. No, no, no, no. The Word forbids that. The example of the early Christians gives lie to that.

34:54 What is your concept of the life of godliness? Do you have eyes, ideas that are romantic rather than biblically realistic? No, the Lord has not promised that I shall avoid this same kind of treatment. He's promised I'll get it.

35:13 But here's the wonder of it. He said in the midst of it, you can have my presence. I will never leave you nor forsake you. In the midst of it, I can have the assurance of His care.

35:24 Not one sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge of your Father. The very hairs of your head are numbered. Don't be afraid of what men can do, for though I allow them to do terrible things, my eye is ever upon you. My care and the canopy of my concern is spread over you.

35:42 And then I have the promise of better things to come. We have here no abiding city. We look for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Dear Christians, don't have disillusioning concepts of the life of godliness.

36:04 We, here in America, have literally been living in sort of a fool's paradise for several hundred years. And I don't know when God's going to bring us back to the world of reality. I don't know of any period in the history of the Church where such a great segment of the Church has gone without more active, open opposition and persecution than we have. And I believe the time is drawing to a close when it's going to be that way.

36:28 Now what's going to happen to your faith? Are you going to be disillusioned? If you happen to be a Naboth and God allows your name to be maligned and your life and property and goods to be taken unjustly and cruelly and God doesn't twitch a finger to vindicate your cause, what are you going to do? Well, if you've gotten the message of this chapter, you'll say, even so, Father, if that's good in your sight.

36:57 You see, they couldn't hurt Naboth. All they could do is send him to heaven a little sooner. How can you hurt a man like that? Kill him?

37:05 All you do is give him his greatest joy a little more quickly than he had hoped to get it. How can you hurt a man like that? You can't. But I tell you, the person that's got the idea that I heard this Christian say, no, no, no, no, no, God would never allow any open persecution to come to America.

37:23 Too many Christians here supporting missionaries. I hate to see what happens to that person if and when it comes. Disillusion, why? A romantic idea that God is going to somehow, as Tozer once said, I'll never forget it, take us to heaven all wrapped up like a Christmas present with a pretty little bow on it.

37:40 No, no. He said he's going to drag us through the fire. And then when he's burned out some of the dross and purified us, made us a little bit more like his son, then he'll say enough and he'll take us home. Beware of disillusioning thoughts about the life of godliness, whether as an individual Christian, beware of the success story type thing in Power magazine.

38:05 That's one reason why we don't get that. The whole idea, every guy you read in there, he was just a nobody until he trusted Jesus and now, boy, he's a semi-millionaire. Isn't that the whole thrust? It's the whole success binge that's behind that.

38:17 The American Track Society has a whole series of tracks now called their sports division. And then Matty Alou and there's this one and that one, all these ball players. I was nothing until I trusted Christ, but now, boy, I've made it big. See, the whole success idea.

38:33 It's unscriptural. It's not scriptural. It won't stand the test of the book of God. Imagine Job writing his success story prior to the Lord's restoring him.

38:47 You say, look what God gave me. And he took it all away. Well, he'd have had to stop going around the CBMC circuit, I guess, because he had no success story anymore. How's your God treating you, Job?

38:59 Well, he let all my kids be killed in one day. He let all my goods go in one day. Took my health, my health to be taken away in one day. Had my wife come breathing into one ear, telling me, curse God and die.

39:13 They'd say, hmm, that's the way God treats you. We better not have you going around giving your testimony. That won't be a good advertisement for Christ. See?

39:25 No, no. This is an entirely unscriptural perspective. It's building up a romanticized, unbiblical concept. God is saying in this chapter, beware of those disillusioning notions of the life of godliness.

Warning 3: Beware of the Delusive Effects of a False Repentance

39:40 And then in the third place, this chapter contains a warning which says, beware of the delusive effects of a false repentance. The chapter closes with a record of some kind of a repentance on the part of Ahab. A repentance that, as far as the externals were concerned, was quite impressive. Here's a king, verse 27, who rends his clothes, puts on sackcloth, fasts, a man used to sumptuous living, and he denies himself the luxury of his table, lies down in the sackcloth, and went softly.

40:23 Apparently his whole bearing underwent a change. Instead of being what he may have been in personality, an outgoing, raucous kind of an individual, suddenly the tone of his voice is lighter, and his step has less spring and bounce. Everything about him bespeaks a man who has some heavy concern of mind and of heart. And so the prophet speaks to him in the name of the Lord, saying in verse, God says to Elijah in verse 29, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me?

40:55 Because he humbles himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son's days. But now let's ask the question, was this a genuine repentance? On the outside it looked good, so impressive that even a godly king like Jehoshaphat is willing to enter into a military alliance with him as the next chapter reveals. Apparently word went out, Ahab's been converted.

41:21 He's lay in sackcloth and ashes. He's fasted. He's walking softly. The prophet has come acknowledging that God has seen his repentance, and says there's going to be a bit of reprieve, a bit of delay of judgment.

41:37 But was this a genuine repentance? How can we tell? The only way you can tell if any repentance is genuine, yours or mine, is by the fruit that it bears. That's why the apostle Paul said in Acts 26, 20, I preach that men should repent, turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.

41:58 Well, do we have any grounds in any of these subsequent narratives to assume that this was a deep and genuine repentance? Or do we have grounds to assume or to assert that it was something less than true repentance? Well, sad to say, the latter is true. Notice as the narrative continues in chapter 22, that after Jehoshaphat seeks this military alliance with the king of Israel, that he wants to seek the counsel of a prophet before going up to battle.

42:28 Verse 5, And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Inquire first, I pray thee, for the word of Jehovah. And the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said unto them, Shall I go against you? Shall I go against Ramoth-Gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, Go up, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.

42:49 But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of Jehovah besides, that we may inquire of him? And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, Oh, there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah the son of Emiah, but I hate him, who leadeth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. Now, one more prophet, for all he says are evil things, and I hate him, but he doesn't say smooth things. Make me feel good.

43:23 Assure me that all is well. And then some of you, I'm sure, are familiar with the rest of the narrative. What happens when finally Micaiah indicates that to go up to battle means that the people of God, of Israel, will be left without a king, a veiled way of saying, You had it, eh? Have you go up to battle and the judgment of God will then fall.

43:44 You'll be dead before the battle's over. And the king of Israel responds to this prophecy in the following manner, verses 26 and 27. And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah and carry him back unto Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king's son, and say, Thus saith the king, Put this fellow in the prison and feed him with the bread of affliction and with the water of affliction until I come in peace. I'll teach him a thing or two.

44:13 Give him bread and water and I'll prove his word wrong. And when I come back from this battle then I'll come and, as it were, rub it under his nose and I'll say, Uh-huh. You said I won't come back. Here I am.

44:27 Now I'll let you out. And then the prophet says in the next verse, those sobering words, If thou return it all in peace, the Lord hath not spoken by me. And he says, I'll fool God. And the prophet disguises himself in battle.

44:43 And some young foot soldier knew in the arts of war in a fluster of perhaps nervousness, it says, draws a bow at a venture and pulls it and it finds its mark in the space and the armor of this king. And though disguised and thinking he could escape the judgment of God, he dies in his own chariot and the dogs lick his blood. What does this reveal about the repentance of Ahab? It reveals that it was something less than that repentance which is unto life.

45:24 For his repentance, and I want you to listen carefully, though it involved deep disturbance about the consequences of his sin, for the narrative says when Ahab heard these words, 21, 27, the words pronouncing judgment upon himself, temporal judgment upon his sons and upon Jezebel, when he heard the words about the consequences of his sin, he was greatly disturbed. But now listen, when the consequences of his sin were withheld, he breathed easy and went on in a course of basic insubordination to Jehovah and his word. For never forget, the prophet stood as the representative of God. And what a man did with the prophet, he was doing with God. That's what Jesus meant when he said, whoever receives you receives me, whoever receives me receives him that sent me. Whoever rejects you rejects me.

46:22 This is true of anyone who stands as the mouthpiece of God. People's reaction to God's mouthpiece is a revelation of their attitude to God himself. So when this man says, I hate the prophet, he's saying in essence, I hate the God who speaks through him. If I had my hand, could get my hands on his God, I'd do the same thing that I've done to his prophet.

46:50 There is perhaps nothing that reveals more clearly the reality or the lack of reality in a professed work of repentance than this. Has it changed your basic disposition to the authority of the living God as expressed in his revealed word? There's the test. How much we may tremble at the thought of hell to come and go through some very impressive things as did Ahab.

47:25 This is no evidence of the genuineness or lack of genuineness in our repentance. After the dust is settled and the thoughts of hell no longer terrify and the thoughts of judgment no longer cause us to tremble, what is our basic attitude to the authority of the living God as revealed in his holy word? Is it one in which we say from the depths of our hearts with the psalmist, Oh, how love I, thy Lord! Oh, that my way were directed to keep thy statutes!

48:01 Or is it one of picking and choosing what we shall or shall not consider? The mark of a true Christian, even a little child who's been savingly wrought upon by the Spirit of God, is that attitude of subjection to the word of God because it is the word of the God whom the individual has been brought to love and to trust. For Jesus said, He that loveth me keepeth my words. And that word keep does not mean simply a wooden external obedience but it means to cherish to the heart as well as to obey in the life. And so as we have the record of Ahab's repentance, it is on the one hand from God's standpoint an indication that God delights in mercy. He withholds judgment for a time but it's also a warning and says beware of the delusive effects of a false repentance. The genuineness of your repentance is not to be measured by any past humblings or tears or terrors you have known but by the present obedience demonstrated in your own life before God.

Conclusion: Heeding God's Warnings for Our Good

49:24 That's the mark of true repentance. Your feet have been turned into the ways of the living God. And so we close our study of this chapter having considered what it teaches us about God, what it teaches us about the terrible nature of sin. It then sets before us three very startling yet very necessary warnings.

49:55 Beware of the destructive influence of an unholy marriage. Beware of the disillusioning notions about a life of godliness. Beware of the delusive effects of a false repentance. Those warning posts are there not to harm us but for our good.

50:20 May God grant that we will not be like the foolish person who seeing the sign beware of the vicious dog ends up in the doctor's office for a tetanus shot and seventeen stitches thinking, I know how to handle dogs. When God says beware He's not talking about imaginary warnings very real warnings. And they should throw us back upon our great God so that we can say with the psalmist my eyes are ever unto the Lord He will pluck my feet out of the net. Snares on every hand but God has promised to preserve those who walk with Him in simple trust who walk with Him in the light of His holy word and who daily know what it is to say and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. May God grant that we shall heed the warnings for our good and for His glory. Let us pray.