2 Kings 9:26

DIVINE RETRIBUTION

‘I will requite thee in this plat, saith the Lord.’

2 Kings 9:26

One object of the inspired records of events told in the Old Testament is the hidden reason of God’s dealings with people. They tell us, for instance, the true causes of things. In secular history we can only guess at the true causes. The Bible, speaking to us by the Holy Spirit of God, does reveal to us true religion. We learn how the wicked Ahab and his still more wicked wife had murdered Naboth, and taken possession of his property. He has just taken possession when the prophet Elijah comes and dashes all his hopes to the ground, and utters that terrible prophecy that in the portion of Jezreel shall dogs lick Jezebel’s blood. I don’t think after that Ahab enjoyed Naboth’s vineyard much. But he showed some signs of penitence, and the punishment was therefore postponed to his son’s days. ‘In his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house.’ Ah! Ahab little thought when he took possession of Naboth’s vineyard how God’s words, ‘I will requite thee in this plat,’ would be fulfilled. Ahab was not only requited in his crime, but he was requited on the same spot on which the crime was committed.

I. It would have been very little to be requited, but it was to be requited ‘in the same plat.’—‘Be sure your sin will find you out’ is a very old and true saying. I want to call your attention, and especially the attention of the young, to the manner sin proves this in kind. See how sin revenges itself. ‘The child is father to the man,’ says Wordsworth. The child sows, the man reaps. We all know how two lives starting together become farther and farther apart as they grow up. In childhood there are little displays of temper, perhaps selfishness, little acts of disobedience. Oh! it is very terrible to wake up in sin; how terrible the consequences are! Yes, it is hard to get back after falling away. Don’t let us prophesy hard things. Don’t let us deceive any one by saying repentance is an easy thing. Thank God, the wanderer, be he ever so far out of the track, may turn again to the Saviour, and be led back like a little child. You see the state a man finds himself in. It is not the direct punishment, but the consequences, we have to fear. In childhood, he that was selfish, unsubmissive, is the same still. I am supposing that this is unchecked. Thank God, there are many things that can divert these and check them. But the law is requited. Now I want to speak particularly to the young men and young women. It may be too late to tell the older people; it is not too late to tell the young.

II. What, humanly speaking, has made us what we are?—First, our own natural disposition; secondly, our past life. I am not going to say anything about the first; but the second, our past life, which we have made as we are. Each deliberate choice, whether great or small. Ah! my friends, if we wander, how inconsiderate we are to our future selves. We are often unkind and inconsiderate to others, but I think more are inconsiderate to ourselves. First, there are some of you young people day by day bringing yourselves to resoluteness of will. Of course it is easy to give way to momentary impulse. Resoluteness of will makes the strong will, but that is only done by strong observance. He that yields to the momentary impulse has no resoluteness of will. He is a weak man. Then you hear people talk of great men having strong wills; depend on it they have sought hard to mould their character. He that has yielded ninety-nine times to temptation has no right to expect to resist when the hundredth time comes. Do you think so? If there is any one here who wants to carry home something, I would say, Be strong of will.

III. One word about ourselves.—With the young there is little sympathy. True it is there is in boyhood a soul of generosity, but what is thought unselfishness may be only refined selfishness. For there is a sort of inward selfishness in wishing to be generous or kind to others. It may be only to give pleasure to ourselves. To seek to do little kindnesses, though it may be to our own hindrance, this is unselfishness. I have only touched upon forms of sin to which the young, I think, are more exposed. But so it is with the graver sins. But that is a very low motive to base a lesson of unselfishness upon, you may say. I know it is. But I plead you will keep from sin. This law of requital may lead us from the power of sin. Dread the approach of sin, not on account of its penalty, but because God has sent His Son, and ‘hath raised up a mighty salvation for us, that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.’

—Bishop Walsham How.

Illustration

‘Joram ordered his own chariot to be prepared, and went forth with Ahaziah King of Judah, his nephew, to meet the captain of the host, expecting to hear some tidings of the Syrian war, and without any thought, apparently, of any design against himself. In the Providence of God it was ordered that he should meet Jehu on the fatal plot of land which had belonged to Naboth, and which had been the cause of so much evil to his family. Jehoram perhaps did not recognise it at the time; but Jehu perceived in the circumstance a confirmation of his Divine commission.’