Guard Your Heart from the Forbidden Vineyard
Lessons from the Kings • Sermon • Submitted
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· 68 viewsA failure to guard one's heart from forbidden vineyards will bring God's correction and justice.
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Ahab Covets Naboth’s Vineyard
Ahab Covets Naboth’s Vineyard
Naboth refuses to sell or trade his inheritance to King Ahab because of the strict command of God that forbid an Israelite from doing so (Numbers 36:7).
An inheritance belonging to the Israelites must not transfer from tribe to tribe, because each of the Israelites is to retain the inheritance of his ancestral tribe.
Jezebel Takes Action!
“Exercise your royal power!” (v.7) Jezebel thought that King Ahab was a weakling. Jezebel conceives a plan to have Naboth murdered and cover it in a religious fast. They immulate the act of Joshua from Joshua 7 and the sin of Achan. A fast was proclaimed because something was wrong and the wrong had to come out. So everyone had to present themselves and await for God to speak and point out the wrongdoer.
The sin of Achan in Joshua 7
The wrongdoes was only convicted upon the testimony of 2 or 3 witnesses (Deut. 17:6)
“On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.” -Deut. 17:6
To curse God and a ruler is prohibited…led to death (Ex. 22:28)
“You must not blaspheme God or curse a leader among your people.
The elders and nobles carry out Jezebel’s plan (v.11-14).
Elijah Confronts Ahab’s Evil Action (v.17-24)
When you speak God’s truth you will become an enemy to those you confront on God’s behalf.
Devotion is not a one-time thing. It is a reoccuring concerted commitment. It is to be “sold out”.
What or to whom am I “sold out” to?
One will always get caught when “sold out” to doing what God says not to.
God says to be devoted to protecting your heart because it is the source (or well-spring) of life (Proverbs 4:23)
Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.
“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, take possession of it, live in it, and say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations around me,’ you are to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. Appoint a king from your brothers. You are not to set a foreigner over you, or one who is not of your people. However, he must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire many horses, for the Lord has told you, ‘You are never to go back that way again.’ He must not acquire many wives for himself so that his heart won’t go astray. He must not acquire very large amounts of silver and gold for himself. When he is seated on his royal throne, he is to write a copy of this instruction for himself on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to observe all the words of this instruction, and to do these statutes. Then his heart will not be exalted above his countrymen, he will not turn from this command to the right or the left, and he and his sons will continue ruling many years over Israel.
What are we rich in? Which master do we worship?
Still, there was no one like Ahab, who devoted himself to do what was evil in the Lord’s sight, because his wife Jezebel incited him.
Ahab was held guilty because he let his heart be swayed. He abandoned God's strict commands to:
· Worship only Him, meaning love only Him (the Great Commandment - Love the Lord your God only!)
· Did not keep God number one nor the relationship
· Do not marry a foreign wife (or a stranger to God - they will lead you to stray from God and your relationship with HIm)
· to not seek the things of this world (wealth, power, land, influence), nor to be like this world
· He refused to stay connected to God by staying connected to His Word and doing what it said.
· He refused to believe what he saw, change and apply.
The LORD will put His spokesman in your life because of your mislead heart.
I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in Me through their message.
Sermon in a Sentence: Being devoted to possessing foreign vineyards will always produce sour grapes and bring upon oneself the hand of God. By humbling oneself in true repentance God will forgive, but expect consequences to still come.