1 Kings 22:23

1 Kings 22:23

This chapter gives us an insight into the meaning of that most awful and terrible word "temptation." And yet it is a most comforting chapter, for it shows us how God is longsuffering and merciful even to the most hardened sinner; how to the last He puts before him good and evil, to choose between them, and warns him to the last of his path and the ruin to which it leads.

I. What warning could be more awful and yet more plain than that of the text? Ahab was told that he was listening to a lie. He had free choice to follow that lie or not, and he did follow it. After having put Micaiah into prison for speaking the truth to him, he went up to Ramoth-gilead; and yet he felt he was not safe. He went into the battle and disguised himself, hoping that by this means he should keep himself safe from evil. But God's vengeance was not checked by his paltry cunning.

II. This chapter tells us not merely how Ahab was tempted, but it tells us how weare tempted in these very days. By every wilful sin that we commit we give room to the devil. By every wrong step that we take knowingly we give a handle to some evil spirit to lead us seven steps further wrong. And yet in every temptation God gives us a fair chance. He sends His prophets to us, as He sent Micaiah to Ahab, to tell us that the wages of sin is death, to set before us at every turn good and evil, that we may choose between them, and live and die according to our choice. The Bible is a prophet to us. Every man is a prophet to himself. The still small voice in a man's heart is the voice of God within us; it is the Spirit of God striving with our spirits, whether we will hear or whether we will forbear, setting before us what is righteous, and noble, and pure, and Godlike, to see whether we will obey that voice, or whether we will obey our own selfish lusts, which tempt us to please ourselves.

C. Kingsley, Village Sermons,p. 59.

References: 1 Kings 22:23. T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. vi., p. 85; Preacher's Monthly,vol. vi., p. 101.