Part 18

Once let the mind become dissatisfied with some trifling circumstance, and that fly spoils the whole pot of ointment. Once get the notion that the house is too small, and then morning, noon and night you never see a picture that is in it, or acknowledge the comfort of one corner in all the little habitation. The one thing that is present in the mind throughout all the weary hours is that the house is too small.

Once get the idea that the business is undignified, and you go to it late in the morning and leave it early in the afternoon, neglecting it between times; you are also ashamed to speak of it, and will not throw your whole heart and soul during business hours into its execution.

Once get the notion that the neighborhood is unfashionable, and it goes for nothing that the rooms are large and airy, that the garden is one of the best you ever had, that there is ample scope for a rich library, that all the neighbors are men of peculiar intelligence and goodness. All go for nothing, because the tempter has said: “This neighborhood is not a fashionable quarter of the town, and when people come to know that you are living here they will lose confidence in you and respect for you.”

If we live in circumstances, we shall be the sport of events; we shall be without dignity, without calmness, without reality and solidity of character. Let us, therefore, betake ourselves into inner thoughts, into spirituality of life, into the soul’s true character, into the very sanctuary of God. There we shall have truth and light and peace; there the stormy wind can not disturb us, and the great darkness is but an outside circumstance, for within there is the shining of the light of God.

Then notice in Ahab a childish servility to circumstances.

“Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased … and he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.”

Yet he was the king of Israel in Samaria! He actually had subjects under him. He was in reality a man who could give law, whose very look was a commandment, and the uplifting of his hand could move an army. Now we see him surely at his least. So we do, but not at his worst.

All this must have an explanation. We can not imagine that the man is so simply childish and foolish as this incident alone would describe him. Behind all this childishness there is an explanation. What is it?

We find it in the twenty-fifth verse:

“But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up.”

That explains the whole mystery. The man had sold himself to the devil. And men are doing that self-same thing every day.

If it were a transaction in the market place--if the auctioneer were visibly interested in this affair, if he could call out in audible tones “So much is the price, and the man is about to take it,” people would shrink from the villainous transaction.

But this is an affair which does not take place in the open market or in the open daylight. It is not conducted in words. If the men involved in such transactions could speak the words, the very speech of the words might break the spell and destroy the horrible infatuation. But the compact is made in darkness, in silence, in out-of-the-way places. It is an understanding unwritten, rather than an agreement in detail signed in the presence of witnesses. It is a mystery which the heart alone can understand, which even the preacher can not explain in terms, but he can only throw himself upon his own consciousness, and throw others upon their consciousness, and call for a united testimony to the fact that it is possible to sell one’s very soul to evil.

Now we understand King Ahab better. We thought him but little, frivolous of mind, childish and petty, without a man’s worthy ambition; but now we see that all this was only symptomatic, an outward sign, pointing, when rightly followed, to an inward and mortal corruption.

Now, let us look at the case of Naboth and the position which he occupied in this matter.

Naboth possessed the vineyard which Ahab is said to have coveted. Naboth said: “The Lord forbid.” He made a religious question of it. Why did he invoke the Eternal Name and stand back, as if an offense had been offered to his faith? The terms were commercial; the terms were not unreasonable; the approach was courteous, and the ground given for the approach was not an unnatural ground. Why did Naboth stand back as if his religion had been shocked?

The answer is in the Book of Numbers, thirty-sixth chapter and seventh verse:

“So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe; for every one of the children of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.”

So Naboth stood upon the law.

In Ezekiel we read:

“Moreover, the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession; but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession, that My people be not scattered every man from his possession.”

So Naboth was not answering haughtily or resentfully. He was answering both solemnly and religiously. When money was offered for his fathers’ inheritance, he spurned the offer. There are some things, blessed be God, we can not pay for.

When Ahab said “I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it” he knew not of what he was speaking. There can be no better vineyard than the vineyard of the fathers; there can be no vineyard equal to the vineyard that is sown with history, planted with associations, solemnized and endeared by a thousand precious memories. There ought to be some things which we can not barter. Surely there ought to be some things which we should never try to sell.

Verily, when we hear propositions made to us that money shall be given in exchange for certain things, our whole soul should rise in horror and indignation, and repel the approach of a barter which itself expresses an infinite, because a most spiritual, injustice. So Naboth’s position was strong, and he had the courage to answer the king in these terms.

Kings must submit to law. Kings ought to be the subjects of their own people. Ahab was taught that there was a man in Samaria who valued the inheritance which had been handed down to him. Have we no inheritance handed down to us--no book of revelation, no day of rest, no flag of liberty, no password of common trust? Do we inherit nothing? Did we make the age as it is, and is civilization a creature of our own fashioning? And are we not bound to hand on to others what was handed to us intact and unpolluted?

Let us live in a sacred past, and regard ourselves as trustees of many possessions, and only trustees, and as bound to vindicate our trust and have an ample acquittal at the last.

So Ahab lay down upon his bed, turned away his face, and would eat no bread. But there is a way of accomplishing mean desires. There is a way of obtaining what we want. Take heart! There is a way of possessing oneself of almost whatever one desires. There is always some Merlin who will bring every Uther-Pendragon what he longs to have; there is always some Lady Macbeth who will show the thane how to become king. There is always a way to be bad. The gate of hell stands wide open; or, if apparently half closed, a touch will make it fly back, and the road is broad that leads to destruction.

Jezebel said she would find the garden or vineyard for her husband. She taunted him. “Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry. I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite.” Jezebel threw into the word “govern” a subtle and significant emphasis.

How will she proceed? She will be ceremoniously religious; she will proclaim a fast. O thou sweet, white, pure religion, thou hast been forced into strange uses! “Proclaim a fast;” lengthen your faces; mimic solemnity; promise your hunger an early satisfaction, but look as if you were fasting.

It is a sure sign of mischief when certain men become serious. The moment they appear to be religious the devil is just adding the last touch to the building which he has been putting up within their souls. When they talk long words--when they speak about responsibility, obligation, duty, conscience, compulsion of conviction--they are walking over tesselated pavement into the very jaws of hell.

They do not mean their words; they do but use them. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”

First of all, then, be ceremoniously religious, Jezebel; then trample down truth. “Set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying: ‘Thou didst blaspheme God and the king.’” Falsehood is always ready. A great black lie is always willing to be loosed and to be set going in the minds of men to pervert them and mislead them. It is always open to the bad heart to speak the untrue word. Nor is the untrue word always frankly and broadly spoken. If so, it could be answered in some cases.

The false word is hardly spoken at all; it is uttered in a whisper. Falsehood is made to use signs and gestures; even silence is made to bear witness to falsehood. Truly, again we may say: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Tell a lie big enough about any man, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to do away with the consequences of the false accusation. People will always be found to say: “There must be something in it; it may not be just as rumor has it, but surely a statement of that kind never could have been invented. Allowing a good deal for exaggeration, there must be something in it.”

Nor is it always possible to get even righteous men to purge their minds of that damnable sophism. Men who ought to stand up and say “There is nothing in it” hang down their heads, and with a coward’s gesture let the lie pass on.

This is how men insult the Son of God, and crucify the Man of truth. They will not be thorough, bold and fearless, and make the enemy ashamed of himself for either having invented or repeated a falsehood. Nor may the man escape because he says he heard the lie. Tell him he may have heard it, but he is yet responsible for repeating it. He may have no control over the hearing, but the moment he repeats it he adopts it, and renders himself amenable to the Eternal Righteousness.

Make the very law an instrument of injustice! First charge this man with blasphemy and treason, and then take him out and stone him, that he may die! Do not give him time to speak; do not ask for his defense; do not give him an opportunity of interrogating the witnesses. But who would cross-examine two “sons of Belial?” Better almost to die than to taint the hands and eyes with the touch and look of such children of blackness!

“Then they carried him [Naboth] forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died.” It is all over! Jezebel did this. Jezebel--a woman, a king’s wife--did this. High position goes for nothing when the heart is wrong. Great influence means great mischief when the soul is not in harmony with the spirit of righteousness.

Is Naboth quite dead? Yes, he is dead. Take the vineyard--take possession of it instantly. Now grow herbs, and grow them plentifully. The vineyard is now at liberty--take it. “Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.” But who is that looms in the distance? Is it Naboth? No.

How comes this man to be here just now--aye, just now? How the end is marked off into points, and how does providence reveal itself at unexpected times and in ways unforeseen! Who is this? He looks stern. He has an eye of fire. His lips are shut as if they could never be opened. He does but look.

Who is he? “Elijah, the Tishbite.” He has a message:

“Thus saith the Lord: ‘Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?’ … Thus saith the Lord: ‘In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.’”

A sad walk!

Ahab went down to take possession of a vineyard, and a death warrant was read to him! After all, it is safe to live in this universe; there is law in it, there is a genius of righteousness, there is a Force that moves on toward noble issues.

“And Ahab said to Elijah: ‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?’ And he answered: ‘I have found thee; because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.’” Ahab went out to take possession of a garden of herbs, and there he stands face to face with righteousness--face to face with honor--face to face with judgment.

Now take the vineyard. He can not! An hour since the Sun shone upon it, and now it is black as if it were part of the midnight which has gathered in judgment.

There is a success which is failure. We can not take some prizes. Elijah will not allow us. When we see him we would that a way might open under our feet that we might flee and escape the judgment of his silent look.

In the Septuagint version the twentieth chapter of the first Book of Kings immediately precedes the twenty-second. The three years without war is a period which is reckoned from the peace which was so rashly made by Ahab with Ben-hadad.

It is clear that Ben-hadad has recovered his independence, and is probably in a position of superiority. It is certain that he has not restored Ramoth-gilead, as he had promised to do, and his reconstructed army now seems to him to be sufficient to encounter successfully the united hosts of Israel and Judah. In the forty-second verse of the same chapter we have seen how Ahab was rebuked for allowing the enemy to escape.

It has been supposed that this conduct on the part of Ahab may have been due partly to compassion and partly to weakness. The judgment of the Lord was, however, expressed in the severest terms:

“Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people.”

In the third verse we see these words signally fulfilled. The king of Israel seems to have a good cause when he said to his servants: “Know ye that Ramoth, in Gilead, is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?” On this occasion Ahab entered into an alliance with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, for the purpose of taking back the city which belonged to Israel. Jehoshaphat made a deferential as well as a friendly reply, but insisted upon the fulfillment of a religious condition. Jehoshaphat would make inquiry at the word of the Lord.

Thereupon four hundred prophets were gathered together, and with one consent they advised that the attack should be made upon Ramoth-gilead. Surely this was enough to satisfy the judgment and the conscience of the most religious man, yet Jehoshaphat was not content with the unanimous reply which four hundred prophets had returned.

“There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.”

All external unanimity goes for nothing when the conscience itself dissents from the judgment which has been pronounced. There is a verifying faculty which operates upon its own responsibility, and which can not be overpowered by the clamor of multitudes who eagerly rush down paths that are forbidden. Even when imagination assents to the voice of the majority, and when ambition is delighted with the verdict of the prophets, there yet remains the terrible but gracious authority of conscience. Through all the clamor that authority makes its way, and calmly distinguishes between right and wrong, and solemnly insists that right shall be done at all hazards and in view of all consequences.

A vital lesson rises here to all who are anxious to know the right way under difficult circumstances. It is not enough to have great numbers of authorities on our side; so long as the conscience remains unsatisfied all other authorities are “trifles light as air.”

Jehoshaphat was uneasy, therefore, notwithstanding the prophets had said: “Go up; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.” He inquired: “Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might inquire of him?” The word which Jehoshaphat used was the great word, Jehovah. It was not enough for him to use a religious or sacred term. He must have the prophecy identified with the awful name, Jehovah; then it would come with final authority.

The king of Israel knew that there was another man whose very name signified “Who is like Jehovah?” Ahab frankly admitted that he hated Micaiah because he never prophesied good concerning him, but always evil.

Observe the madness of Ahab’s policy, and note how often it is the policy which we ourselves are tempted to pursue. We suppose that if we do not consult the Bible we may take license to do what seems good in our own eyes, and we imagine that by ignoring the Bible we have divested it of authority. We flatter ourselves that if we do not listen to an exposition of the divine word we shall be judged according to the light we have, forgetting the solemn law that it is not according to the light we have that we are to be judged, but according to the light we might have if we put ourselves in right relations to the opportunities created for us by divine providence.

We know that if we go to hear a certain preacher he will insist upon “righteousness, temperance and judgment to come;” and, supposing that we already know every thing that he will say, we turn away from him and listen to men who do not profoundly treat vital subjects, or press home upon the conscience the terrible judgments of God.

What is this but closing our eyes to light, and supposing that darkness is safety? What is this ostrich policy but one that ought to be condemned by our sense as well as shrunk from by our piety?

Our duty under all critical circumstances is to go to the truth-teller, and to get at the reality of things at all costs. Where the truth-teller disturbs our peace and disappoints our ambition, we ought surely to learn that it is precisely at that point that we have to become self-rectifying. The truth-teller is only powerful in proportion as he tells the truth. Officially, he is nothing; his power is simply the measure of his righteousness.

But do not men love to be flattered, even in courses of evil? Is it not pleasant to go to forbidden war amid the huzzas of thoughtless and irresponsible multitudes?

Jehoshaphat, however, was a just man, and as such he protested against the sin of the king of Israel, saying: “Let not the king say so.” Jehoshaphat being so bent upon a complete judgment of the case, Micaiah was sent for. The king of Israel wished to overawe the despised prophet by the pomp and circumstance under which he was introduced to the royal presence. “The king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, sat each on his throne, having put on their robes, in a void place in the entrance of the gate of Samaria,” and, to increase the impressiveness of the occasion, all the prophets prophesied before the kings.

A singular addition was made to the surroundings of the occasion which was intended to impress the imagination and stagger the courage of the despised Micaiah. A man bearing the name of Zedekiah (“righteousness of Jehovah”) made him horns of iron. The use of symbolical acts is quite common in biblical history. We have already seen Abijah engaged in acts of this kind. He “caught the new garment that was on him and rent it in twelve pieces, and said to Jeroboam: ‘Take thee ten pieces.’”

The enthusiasm of Zedekiah inflamed all the other prophets to the highest point of excitement, and they shouted as with one voice:

“Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and prosper; for the Lord shall deliver it into the king’s hand.”

In this instance the prophets, overborne by the enthusiasm of Zedekiah, actually ventured to use the name of Jehovah, which had not been used in the first instance. The excitement had passed the point of worship and had become more nearly resembling the frantic cry that was heard on Mount Carmel: “O Baal, hear us.”

Is it possible that there can be found any solitary man who dare oppose such unanimous testimony and complete enthusiasm?

The messenger who was sent to call Micaiah was evidently a man of considerate feeling and who wished the prophet well. Seeing that the words of the prophets had all declared good unto the king with one mouth, the messenger wished that Micaiah should for once agree with the other prophets, and please the king by leaving undisturbed their emphatic and unanimous counsel.

Thus the voice of persuasion was brought to bear on Micaiah, and that voice is always the most difficult to resist. The temptation thus addressed to Micaiah was thus double in force. On the one hand, there were the pomp and the terror of the king who had sold himself to do evil, and who would shrink from the infliction of no cruelty that would express his unreasoning and unlimited anger; on the other hand, there was the good will of the messenger, who wished Micaiah to escape all danger and penalty, and for once to take the popular side. Micaiah’s reply is simply sublime: “As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak.”

The humility of this answer is as conspicuous as its firmness. Its profound religiousness saves it from the charge of being defiant. Micaiah recognizes himself merely in the position of a servant or medium, who has nothing of his own to say; who is not called upon to invent an answer or to play the clever man in the presence of the kings. He was simply as a trumpet through which God could blow His own blast, or a pillar on which God would inscribe his own message, or a voice which God would use for the declaration of His own will. It is unjust to attribute obstinacy or any form of self-will or self-worship to Micaiah. If he had consulted his natural inclination alone, he would have sought favor with the king, and the logical effect of his subsequent position would have been that Ahab would have endeavored for ever to silence him by constituting him the prince and leader of the four hundred prophets. Micaiah said, in effect, what was said centuries afterward: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels.”

Micaiah lived in God, for God, and had nothing of his own to calculate or consider. Until preachers realize this same spiritual independence, they will be attempting to accommodate themselves to the spirit of the times, and even the strongest of them may be betrayed into connivances and compromises fatal to personal integrity and to the claims of truth.

Now came the critical moment. Now it was to be seen whether Micaiah was to be promoted to honor, or thrust away in contempt and wrath. It is easy to read of the recurrence of such moments, but difficult to realize them in their agony. Yet these are the moments which make history in its sublimest lines.

It is not too much to say that there have been points of time at which if certain men had given way the whole economy of the world have been wrecked.

The king addressed himself to the prophet, saying: “Shall we go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we forbear?” The answer of Micaiah must have been a surprise to all who heard it, for he said: “Go, and prosper; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.”