1 Kings 21:20 And Ahab said to Elijah, Have you found me, O my enemy? And he answered, I have found you… When a man gives way to lust and coveting, does not struggle against them, a tempter is sure to be at hand to put him on gratifying them one way or another. 1. "Be sure," said Moses to the Reubenites, "Your sin will find you out." (Numbers 32:23). What an exemplification here! how literally was Elijah's denunciation fulfilled! Yes, and history and human experience are ever bearing witness to this, that sin finds out the sinner; and that, not simply in punishment following sin, but in the sin becoming its own means of detection and punishment — in a certain correlation of sin and its penalty. "Thine own wickedness" etc (Jeremiah 2:19). "Be not deceived, God is not mocked," etc. (Galatians 6:7). "Whoso breaketh a hedge," etc. (Ecclesiastes 10:8). 2. Success in wrongdoing the sinner's loss. Better indeed had it been for Ahab if Jezebel's scheme had failed. Men often fret and fume if thwarted in attaining some coveted object, yet may it have been their mercy to be so thwarted. It is Divine goodness which again and again hedges up our way, and providentially coerces us. To be given up to the devices and desires of our own hearts is the sorest of judgments. 3. The fatal mistake of resenting righteous rebuke. Terrible was Ahab's mistake in calling Elijah his enemy. That uncompromising rebuker, his truest friend, would he only have listened to him instead of yielding to the siren seductions of Jezebel. (A. R. Symonds, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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