All over the world, people suffer at the hands of unjust and corrupt rulers.
Sometimes it’s rulers of nations. In the past 5 years, the people of several countries have risen up to try and overthrow an unjust government. Either it succeeds, or the oppression gets worse.
Other times it’s rulers in the workplace, the bullying boss with unreasonable demands you can’t refuse.
Some people have to put up with tyranny in their own homes.
In all spheres of life, there are many good leaders, but many others who bully and repress.
Ahab
One such ruler was king Ahab. He ruled over the northern kingdom of Israel for 22 years, about 860 years before Jesus.
The writer of kings was most concerned at his corrupt worship. Chapter 16, verse 30: Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. If you’ve read the story up to this point, that’s saying something. He’s most famous for changing the national religion of Israel to the Canaanite god, Baal.
But he was also socially and morally cruel as well. The way the writer tells his story, you get the impression he could have told any of a number of stories. The one we get concerns a man called Naboth. 1 Kings, chapter 21.
Naboth had a vineyard near Ahab’s palace. Ahab wanted to buy it for a vegetable garden. Naboth said no – it was against the law to sell your family’s inherited land. Ahab went off like a sulky child. Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, reminded him that he’s king; if he wants a vineyard, he gets it.
She has Naboth accused of crimes he didn’t commit. He’s taken out of the city and stoned to death. Ahab, fully complicit, steals the vineyard.
The people were living under a cruel and despotic regime, a king who ruled solely for his own ends.
God won’t let Ahab commit such an atrocity and get away with it. God sends the prophet Elijah to confront Ahab.
Here’s 1 Kings 21, verses 17 to 19: Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: ‘Go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who rules in Samaria. He is now in Naboth’s vineyard, where he has gone to take possession of it. Say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: have you not murdered a man and seized his property?” Then say to him, “This is what the Lord says: in the place where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick up your blood – yes, yours!”’
By this point, we the readers of 1 Kings have thoroughly gone off Ahab. He’s a hasty piece of work. Naboth was right to refuse to sell. We’re outraged that his humble obedience to God’s law cost him his life. This is right up there with the other examples of tyranny and corruption we can think of from today’s news.
What we want to know is what God will do with a leader like Ahab. Will judgement fall? Or will he be allowed to get away with it forever?
God will judge, and our reading today is the story of it.
Reading
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3 things from that story about the judgement of God against human corruption.
God’s judgement is comforting
First, God’s judgement is comforting. God’s judgement is comforting.
In short, God gets his man. Verse 37: So the king died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried him there. They washed the chariot at a pool in Samaria (where the prostitutes bathed), and the dogs licked up his blood, as the word of the Lord had declared.
This happened because God had said it would. This happened because Ahab murdered Naboth and stole his ancestral land. When God sees injustice, and when God decides to judge a corrupt king or ruler, he does so.
Which is enormously comforting. It is if you’re a member of Naboth’s family. It is if you’re one of the other Israelites from that period who had been trampled on by this tyrant. It is if you’re one of the millions of Syrian refugees with no home. It is if you’re a Palestinian farmer forced to flee to Lebanon. It is if you’ve been on the receiving end of domestic abuse.
So many wrong things in this world never get righted. They don’t make it to court, or it fails for lack of evidence. Even if the culprit is found guilty and sentenced, it doesn’t put things right. It doesn’t wind the clock back. It doesn’t erase the painful memories.
When the apostle Paul was preaching in Athens, he acknowledged that God often appears to put up with great injustices. They don’t always get punished. Acts 17, verses 30 to 31: In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.
Jesus is risen. That, says Paul, is proof that God won’t put up with wrong forever. God’s not told us the date, but in his diary he’s written the day when Jesus will come back and judge the world with justice. It’s a precise entry, with a date and year, with hours and minutes past midnight. Every wrong will be treated exactly as it deserves.
For anyone who’s been on the receiving end of abuses of power, that is comforting. God’s judgement is comforting.
God’s judgement is inescapable
Second, God’s judgment is inescapable. God’s judgement is inescapable.
Not only had Elijah promised Ahab would come to a gruesome death. Another prophet, Micaiah, had said it would be this battle. Ahab’s nervous, so he tries to cheat God.
It’s a joint battle. Ahab, King of Israel, and Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, are putting up a combined army. Verse 36: The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘I will enter the battle in disguise, but you wear your royal robes.’ Nice one!
The king of Aram had a battle plan. He and Ahab had previous. He instructed his commanders only to go for King Ahab. Ahab’s disguise foiled this plot. Some chariot commanders found Jehoshaphat in full regalia. They realised he wasn’t Ahab and left him alone. But they never found Ahab. The King of Aram’s plot failed. He wasn’t the one who’d get Ahab that day.
But then there’s an ordinary foot soldier. Nameless. Unambitious. All he wants, is chalking up one more Joe Israelite on the death tally. Shoots his bow pretty much at random. That random arrow finds the tiny gap between two pieces of Ahab’s armour. I doubt he had the skill to find that gap if he tried. He didn’t even know who he was shooting at. Without even trying, Ahab, king of Israel, dead on the battlefield.
There’s no such thing as chance. The book of Proverbs tells us that during a game of Snakes and Ladders, we think the dice is random, when in fact God determines the outcome. I’m paraphrasing a little. God’s fully in control. How else could a random arrow achieve the very thing that God had foretold? What the king of Aram had failed to do, the king of heaven had done. Ahab’s death was God’s doing.
Ahab thought he could escape, by swapping clothes. Go into battle as a common foot soldier. Get Jehoshaphat to dress like a royal. Too late, Ahab learnt that God’s judgement is inescapable. We look on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.
God’s judgement still is inescapable. Yet many people still make Ahab’s mistake. They think that when Jesus Christ returns to judge the living and the dead, they’ll be able to fool him with a disguise.
I’m sure no-one thinks that a Tony Blair mask or a balaclava would trick Jesus. A new suit and a nice smile might sell a second hand car, but we know Jesus isn’t gullible.
But we pass ourselves off as someone else in other ways. I know one person who hopes it will help them to have a brother who’s a committed Christian. The most popular disguise we think will help is that of the churchgoer. Look like someone who follows Jesus, and hope that’s enough. But Jesus looks on the heart. He said this: Not everyone who says to me “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the person who does the will of my Father.
We laugh at politicians when try to look like ordinary people. Eat a burger for the camera. Get photographed in a pub. Proof-read your parliamentary speech in Starbucks. We don’t mind when they’re just being them. But we see straight through the pretence.
Sometimes, though we’re fooled. Jesus never is.
God’s judgement is comforting. It’s even comforting to know that God’s judgement is inescapable. But only as long as we’re thinking of God judging other people. Once we remember that Jesus will peer into our hearts, see every thought, attitude, word, and deed – God’s judgement may be comforting but it ceases to be comfortable.
We can’t have it both ways. If we want the risen Jesus to deal with the really bad people with justice, we must deal with us too.
God’s judgement is inescapable.
God’s judgement has already fallen
But third, God’s judgement has already fallen. God’s judgement has already fallen.
Fast forward to the death of Jesus.
Amazingly, what Ahab tried to do, God has done for us.
Ahab thought he could escape God’s judgement by pretending to be someone else. Dressing up as a common soldier. Getting someone else to look like him, so they get the arrow.
It doesn’t work if we try it. It does if God sets himself up. God offers to change places with us. He’ll dress like us, let the arrow strike him. He’ll us up in his royal robes, so that we escape.
That’s exactly what happened.
Barabbas was a convicted murderer, possibly a terrorist. Just before Jesus died, he was on death row. Jesus was innocent. Nobody could make any charge stick. Barabbas was due to die. Jesus should have lived. Justice demanded both.
Until the most wonderful exchange took place. Barabbas was set free. Jesus was sent to his death. They didn’t literally swap clothes. But effectively Jesus put on Barabbas’ death row uniform. Barabbas put on Jesus’ garb of a free man.
Old and New Testaments alike say that this is a picture of what Jesus offers to do for anyone who trusts him. His death on the cross can be an exchange for us too. The judgement that should fall on us has already fallen on him. Which means it need never fall on us. When Jesus returns, he’ll look on those who have accepted this offer, and see nothing in need of punishment. God’s judgement has already fallen.
I have to confess to never having read Charles Dickens’ book, a Tale of Two Cities. But the end of the story is too apt not to mention. At the time of the French Revolution, a man called Charles Darnay is imprisoned, sentenced to be guillotined the next day. There is an English barrister by the name of Sydney Carton, who has become good friends with Charles Darnay. They look almost alike. The morning before Darnay’s exaction, Carton visits him in prison. He drugs Darnay, swaps clothes, and has a sleeping Darnay transported out of the prison as though he were Sydney Carton, while Carton stays behind in the cell.
As Sydney goes to his death, Dickens records his last thoughts:. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.” And with that the blade falls. Sydney Carton’s life ends, and Charles Darnay has fled the country and is free. Nobody knew what had happened except a lady who was killed at the same time.
They changed clothes. It didn’t work for Ahab. It did work for Charles Darnay, although it was totally unjust. If we will trust the Lord Jesus, it works and is perfectly just for us. That’s because it is God himself who took our place.
God’s judgement has already fallen.
Conclusion
The world is full of injustice. Will those who perpetrate such things get away with it forever?
1 Kings 22 tells us that God is a God of perfect justice. There is no wrong that will be got away with forever. God’s judgement is inescapable. He’s in control. He always gets his man. Every wrong will be righted. The proof of this is that Jesus is risen from the dead.
We can draw great comfort from this. If we’ve been wronged, if we feel outrage at the sad stories in the news. Justice will be done. Great comfort.
But a God of justice must deal with our hearts as well. God’s justice is inescapable. We need a place to shelter. The Jesus who died for us is just the shelter we need.
Take comfort from God’s justice.
And take shelter in Jesus’ death.