When the Innocent Suffer
Ss, yard sale, cookout
Call to Worship
“We are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it.
But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:9–11 NIV).
*Praise #373 “All to Jesus I Surrender”
*Invocation (Lord’s Prayer) O Lord our God, grant as we gather to worship that we will be vividly aware of your presence. May we be conscious of your power and protection, and may we experience in our beings the wonder and grace of your peace. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen
*Gloria Patri (Sung together) #575
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Amen.
Psalm for Today Psalm 112 NRSV
1 Praise the Lord!
Happy are those who fear the Lord,
who greatly delight in his commandments.
2 Their descendants will be mighty in the land;
the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in their houses,
and their righteousness endures forever.
4 They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright;
they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.
5 It is well with those who deal generously and lend,
who conduct their affairs with justice.
6 For the righteous will never be moved;
they will be remembered forever.
7 They are not afraid of evil tidings;
their hearts are firm, secure in the Lord.
8 Their hearts are steady, they will not be afraid;
in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.
9 They have distributed freely, they have given to the poor;
their righteousness endures forever;
their horn is exalted in honor.
10 The wicked see it and are angry;
they gnash their teeth and melt away;
the desire of the wicked comes to nothing.
Just for Kids
Our Offering to God “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Col. 3:2 NIV).
*Doxology
*Prayer of Dedication Lord Jesus, in your Word you taught us that to whom much is given much is required. Grant that we, whose lot is cast in Christian heritage, may strive earnestly in prayer and giving to encourage the coming of your Kingdom reign among all the world’s people.
*Hymn of Prayer # 387 “Search Me, O God”
Pastoral Prayer Our Father, you have gifted us with numerous abilities that enrich our lives and offer opportunity for service to you. For the ability to think clearly, to plan precisely, to enter joyfully into the full expression of life, we are truly thankful. We are thankful also for strong and healthy bodies with which to offer productive labor. On this Labor Day weekend, we express gratitude for the nobility of work, for the joy that comes in the accomplishment of good things. In your gracious wisdom you put into our hearts such a need. So today we express thanks for each place of employment in our city, for those who are employers and those who are employees. We thank you for a strong economy that encourages the productivity our city enjoys. We pray that you will encourage all of us to become pastors in the marketplace. May we see those with whom we work, or for whom we work, or who work for us as persons of worth and dignity. And may our words and actions express the clear witness
of our loyalty to Jesus Christ. May our worship today—“the work of the people”—express such devotion to you that we will live each day for you and share the gracious good news of Christ’s salvation to all who are in our sphere of influence.—Lee McGlone
*Hymn of Praise # 339 “More About Jesus Would I Know”
Scripture Text 1 Kings 21:1-28 NLT
Now there was a man named Naboth, from Jezreel, who owned a vineyard in Jezreel beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. 2 One day Ahab said to Naboth, “Since your vineyard is so convenient to my palace, I would like to buy it to use as a vegetable garden. I will give you a better vineyard in exchange, or if you prefer, I will pay you for it.”
3 But Naboth replied, “The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance that was passed down by my ancestors.”
4 So Ahab went home angry and sullen because of Naboth’s answer. The king went to bed with his face to the wall and refused to eat!
5 “What’s the matter?” his wife Jezebel asked him. “What’s made you so upset that you’re not eating?”
6 “I asked Naboth to sell me his vineyard or trade it, but he refused!” Ahab told her.
7 “Are you the king of Israel or not?” Jezebel demanded. “Get up and eat something, and don’t worry about it. I’ll get you Naboth’s vineyard!”
8 So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal, and sent them to the elders and other leaders of the town where Naboth lived. 9 In her letters she commanded: “Call the citizens together for fasting and prayer, and give Naboth a place of honor. 10 And then seat two scoundrels across from him who will accuse him of cursing God and the king. Then take him out and stone him to death.”
11 So the elders and other town leaders followed the instructions Jezebel had written in the letters. 12 They called for a fast and put Naboth at a prominent place before the people. 13 Then the two scoundrels came and sat down across from him. And they accused Naboth before all the people, saying, “He cursed God and the king.” So he was dragged outside the town and stoned to death. 14 The town leaders then sent word to Jezebel, “Naboth has been stoned to death.”
15 When Jezebel heard the news, she said to Ahab, “You know the vineyard Naboth wouldn’t sell you? Well, you can have it now! He’s dead!” 16 So Ahab immediately went down to the vineyard of Naboth to claim it.
17 But the Lord said to Elijah, 18 “Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria. He will be at Naboth’s vineyard in Jezreel, claiming it for himself. 19 Give him this message: ‘This is what the Lord says: Wasn’t it enough that you killed Naboth? Must you rob him, too? Because you have done this, dogs will lick your blood at the very place where they licked the blood of Naboth!’ ”
20 “So, my enemy, you have found me!” Ahab exclaimed to Elijah.
“Yes,” Elijah answered, “I have come because you have sold yourself to what is evil in the Lord’s sight. 21 So now the Lord says, ‘I will bring disaster on you and consume you. I will destroy every one of your male descendants, slave and free alike, anywhere in Israel! 22 I am going to destroy your family as I did the family of Jeroboam son of Nebat and the family of Baasha son of Ahijah, for you have made me very angry and have led Israel into sin.’
23 “And regarding Jezebel, the Lord says, ‘Dogs will eat Jezebel’s body at the plot of land in Jezreel.’
24 “The members of Ahab’s family who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field will be eaten by vultures.”
25 (No one else so completely sold himself to what was evil in the Lord’s sight as Ahab did under the influence of his wife Jezebel. 26 His worst outrage was worshiping idols just as the Amorites had done—the people whom the Lord had driven out from the land ahead of the Israelites.)
27 But when Ahab heard this message, he tore his clothing, dressed in burlap, and fasted. He even slept in burlap and went about in deep mourning.
28 Then another message from the Lord came to Elijah: 29 “Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has done this, I will not do what I promised during his lifetime. It will happen to his sons; I will destroy his dynasty.”
Message Rev. Irish
When the Innocent Suffer
Life is uncertain, and bad things do happen to good people. One of the bad things that can hurt good people is a natural disaster, like a tornado, which does not discriminate between the innocent and the guilty. Nature’s bountiful blessing and its destructive power fall on everyone equally. Scripture says that God causes the “sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45).
But the righteous often suffer at the hands of the unrighteous. And that messes up some people’s theology.
An unscrupulous man wreaks financial havoc on the owner of a small business, forcing a godly family to struggle through bankruptcy and deprivation. A drunk driver mows down innocent children playing in their own front yard. A stray bullet from a gang shooting kills a bystander who just happened to be wrong place at the wrong time. A Christian woman is kidnapped, raped, and killed; her family suffers such a devastating loss that they are never quite the same.
If God is in control of all of creation, why does He allow terrible things to happen to His people? Can being raped and murdered really be a part of His plan for a godly woman’s life? How do we understand God’s sovereignty when the innocent suffer?
Spurgeon’s steadfast faith in God’s loving sovereignty did not keep him from questioning God or asking why some things happened. But he never doubted that an infinite God could make sense out of the incomprehensible, and that He would indeed work “all things... together for good” (Rom. 8:28 KJV).
Another example of unwavering trust in God’s sovereignty comes from World War II. A Christian family in Holland was sent to prison for the crime of hiding Jews in their home, in an effort to keep them from being slaughtered in Hitler’s Holocaust. As Betsie ten Boom lay dying in a Nazi concentration camp, she spoke to her sister Corrie of how the Lord would use their experiences. “We must tell people what we have learned here. We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still. They will listen to us, Corrie, because we have been here.”3
There is no pit so deep . . . These were not the pat words of a wet-behind-the-ears believer mouthing untried promises. These were the final words of a frail woman ravaged by the horror of existence in a hellhole named Ravensbruck. Betsie did not live to give her testimony of God’s loving provision for the brutalized, starving, flea-infested prisoners of Barracks 28. But Corrie ten Boom spent the next forty years doing exactly what Betsie had seen by faith: telling a jaded world that God’s love was far greater than any torture man could devise. She knew. She had been there.
We must learn to live with the fact that evil exists in this fallen world and will until the end of time. God has ordained that here on earth. Life is not fair. Sometimes, in fact, it is very cruel. But there will be a day, in the fullness of time, when life will be fair, when the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked will be punished.
God will have the last word. He will hold evildoers accountable. That is why Psalm 37 says, “Do not fret because of evil men” (v. 1). “The Lord laughs at the wicked,” according to verse 13, “for he knows their day is coming.”
A King’s Greed
Elijah understood that God would have the last word when it came to the wicked rulers of Israel, Ahab and Jezebel. We find that an innocent man is suffering because of the evil king and queen.
It was a classic case of unbridled greed. The fever of wanting more and more can only produce perpetual pain and emptiness, and in this instance it led to theft by fraud and murder.
A poor, simple, but faithful man by the name of Naboth owned a small vineyard that butted up against the garden of the king’s summer palace in Jezreel. The vineyard was Naboth’s inheritance, and he refused to sell it to Ahab when the king’s greed determined that he should expand his garden and swallow up the vineyard.
There was a certain psychology of what it meant for a Jewish man to own a vineyard as his inheritance. A vineyard was the very emblem of Israel itself, a sign of fruitfulness. In Isaiah 5, God compared Israel to a vineyard.
But poor Naboth! His inheritance from his ancestors happened to be next to the royal garden. King Ahab felt incomplete without owning all of the surrounding land.
No matter how much a greedy person has, he feels incomplete. So he tries to get more. More does not make him complete, of course, so he strives to get still more. But he never feels complete at all. He never reaches the place of the apostle Paul, who had “learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11).
A tombstone in a cemetery outside of London sums up the futility of greed. It reads, “She died for want of things.” Alongside that stone is another that reads, “He died trying to give them to her.”
Greed was once characterized as one of the seven deadly sins. In days gone by, the word greed conjured up images of a miserly Ebenezer Scrooge in the back room counting and recounting his money. But now, thanks to Hollywood, greed has become much more benign and attractive. In 1987 Michael Douglas earned an Oscar for his portrayal of a financial tycoon in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street. On the big screen Douglas convincingly uttered this memorable line: “Greed is good.”
No, greed is not good. It is as old as the Garden of Eden and as modern as Imelda Marcos’s shoe closet, but it is not good. And greed is often misunderstood. Let me give you a biblical definition of greed.
The Communists consider private ownership, hard work, and the accumulation of property or goods to be the evil greed of Western capitalism. That is not biblical greed.
Liberal politicians often say that it is greed when working people are not willing to toss all their earnings into the big money furnace known as the IRS, to be redistributed among those who can work but won’t. That is not biblical greed.
Simply put, biblical greed is when you look at the one thing God says you cannot have, and you reach out to get it. God told Adam and Eve they could eat from any tree in the garden, except one. That one tree became the object of their greed.
Greed is an obsession with getting what you do not have. It is being discontented no matter what you have or don’t have. It is a constant inner emptiness. Greed is getting in your car and going to the mall to buy something you don’t need and will probably never use. This is the proper definition of greed.
There is a fine line between greed and the breaking of the law to fulfill the desire of your greed.
A Greed That Murdered
Ahab had enough knowledge of the law of God that he would not cross that line, but not Jezebel, the Baal worshiper. She was eager to cross the line to fulfill Ahab’s greed.
When Naboth refused to sell his vineyard, Ahab sulked. Not Jezebel. She went into action. “Get up, eat and drink,” she said. “I will kill to give you what your heart covets.”
Jezebel was a woman of determination, which compensated for the weak-willed Ahab. While the king still had a few moral compunctions, which came from his Jewish heritage, Jezebel had none. She never let anyone or anything stand in her way. Scripture shows how her obsessive determination led to forgery, hypocrisy, and treachery.
First, Jezebel forged a letter in the king’s name. Then she stole his signet ring to stamp his name on the letter. When the media confronted her, she said she was only helping the king do the job he was elected to do. She was the kind of woman who would lie under oath, and everyone thought she was charming and convincing.
Look at the hypocrisy. She told the population of Jezreel to proclaim a day of fasting. Her public relations staff must have explained to her that when the Jewish people wanted to announce a coming judgment, the king would announce a day of fasting. So that’s what she did. She wasn’t the king, but she functioned as one, even if she had to forge his name to do it.
Next, she bribed two false witnesses to testify against this faithful man of God, Naboth. He was one of the seven thousand righteous Israelites who had not bowed down to Baal. Jezebel used the law of God to do her dirty work. She called for a day of fasting and then brought two false witnesses to say publicly that Naboth had blasphemed God and the king, and that he therefore deserved capital punishment, which meant being stoned to death.
Manufactured evidence from false witnesses. A godly man framed for a crime he didn’t commit.
Where Was God?
Scripture says that when Jezebel heard Naboth had been killed, she went to Ahab and said, “The vineyard is yours for the taking.” She probably delighted in telling Ahab that he could now have the vineyard because Naboth was dead. “It’s my gift to you, darling.” And with a cold, calloused heart Ahab went and took possession of an innocent man’s inheritance.
There is a question every honest person asks at some point in life. Great men and women in the Bible have asked the same question: Where is God?
Where was God when an honest man like Naboth was murdered? Where was God when a wicked woman like Jezebel defiled a whole nation? Where was God when a coward like Ahab went into Naboth’s vineyard to enjoy the fruit of his greed? Where was God in all of this?
This is the question the psalmist asked in Psalm 73. In fact, he confesses that he nearly slipped—he nearly lost his spiritual foothold—when he began to ask that question: Where is God? It looked as if the wicked were getting away with their wickedness. “They wear pride like a necklace,” he wrote, “and clothe themselves with violence”(v. 6). And they got away with it. Or so it seemed.
Like the psalmist, we must come to the understanding that God is there. The fact that He is merciful and long-suffering does not mean that He is not just. Do not judge by appearances. And do not think that this life is all there is. The goodness of God will be made manifest, and He will bring justice on the wicked.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge. (Ps. 73:26-28)
God Will Have the Last Word
Let’s return to 1 Kings 21 to see how God always has the last word. God instructed Elijah to go down to the vineyard and confront Ahab. Where was God when an innocent man suffered? He was right there. He saw that the wicked king was now enjoying the fruit of his sin in Naboth’s vineyard.
God even told Elijah what to say to Ahab: “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’” (v. 19).
The message of God for Ahab was that there will be consequences for every wicked act. In this particular instance, God simply sped up the process so we could see His justice. Elijah delivered God’s word to the guilty party. “Don’t enjoy your vineyard too much, Ahab, because you will pay for it dearly. The dogs that licked Naboth’s blood will soon lick yours.” I imagine the king felt a twinge of remorse every time be heard a dog bark after that. Scripture implies that he felt remorse - he tore his clothes (a sign of grief or mourning) and fasted.
What is the lesson for us? Never construe God’s patience as indifference or unfairness. God does not mete out justice according to our timetable, and He rarely executes judgment immediately.
It was an exception that God confronted Adam in the Garden (Gen. 3:8—9). It was an exception that Nathan confronted David with his sin (2 Sam. 12:1—14). It was an exception that Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead immediately after lying to the apostles (Acts 5:1—10).
These may be exceptions, but they are examples. And these scriptural examples remind us that the consequences of sin can be immediate or delayed, but they are inevitable. Make no mistake about it: No one will escape the justice of God. God will always have the last word.
The demise of Ahab and Jezebel dramatically illustrates that God always has the last word. Elijah prophesied God’s judgment against the wicked king and queen. He not only declared that dogs would lick Ahab’s blood, he said that “dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel” (1 Kings 21:23). God’s judgment was fulfilled to the letter.
About three years later, Ahab and Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, went to war with the king of Aram. Another prophet, Micaiah, had prophesied that the Lord was luring Ahab to his death through the battle. Even though the prophet said he would not survive, Ahab went ahead with his war plans. To fool his enemy, who had vowed to destroy the king of Israel, Ahab wore a disguise into battle. Perhaps Ahab thought he could outwit God as well as the Arameans.
Ahab was shot during the battle. Different Bible translations use various words to describe the arrow that struck Ahab, but they all imply that it was an arbitrary thing, a random shot that just happened to hit the king between the sections of his armor. There are no accidents with God, however. God had ordained an arrow with Ahab’s name on it. That arrow found its target, in spite of Ahab’s disguise.
King Ahab told his chariot driver to get him out of the fighting, because he was wounded. The battle continued throughout the day, while Ahab, out of the line of fire, remained propped up in his chariot, watching helplessly, his blood running onto the floor of the chariot. After they buried him, Scripture says, Ahab’s chariot was washed at a pool where the prostitutes bathed. There the dogs licked up his blood— just as Elijah had prophesied. God always has the last word.
There is an irony in God’s justice here. At Jezebel’s insistence, Ahab had introduced the worship of Baal, along with its cultic prostitution, to the nation of Israel. Now the dogs licked his blood from the pool where the prostitutes regularly bathed. Ahab had shed the blood of Naboth; now his own blood was shed.
We do not always see God’s justice carried out so swiftly. But we can be assured that He will judge the wicked for causing the innocent to suffer. And His judgment against the unrepentant is not momentary but will last for all of eternity.
Three Types of Judgment
There are three different types of judgment described in Scripture. First, there is an internal judgment, which happens when you recognize your own sins and deal with them. Internal judgment is a private matter between you and God.
Second, there is an external judgment, which is in God’s hands. This is the kind of judgment meted out against Ahab and Jezebel. As I have said, we do not always see God’s justice carried out. But third, even when there is no apparent external judgment of sin, we can be sure there will be an eternal judgment of sin that will go on forever and ever.
The best judgment of all is internal judgment. When you judge yourself~ you literally stop God from judging you externally. “But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment” (1 Cor. 11:31).
Is there something you need to judge in your heart today? Perhaps it is a relationship that does not belong in your life, perhaps you have possessions or money that should not be yours. Perhaps it is an unbridled greed or covetousness after something or someone. Perhaps it is anger that is eating you up.
Whatever it is, the Holy Spirit is able to tell you what area of your life needs internal judgment. It is the desire of our merciful, loving, compassionate God that we repent of sin the very moment we are convicted of it. You can measure your growth in Christ by how long it takes you to move from conviction to repentance.
If internal judgment does not take place, you will be judged externally. And if that does not bring you to repentance, then you will face eternal judgment. Let the blood of Jesus Christ purify you from every sin.
I am not talking about renewing your commitment or another momentary decision you make under emotional conviction and quickly forget. I am talking about that phone call you need to make. I am talking about that letter you need to write. I am talking about visit you are dreading but you need to make. I am talking about that restitution you need to pay.
You have the choice whether to place yourself under internal judgment or external judgment or eternal judgment. It’s up to you: Will you place yourself under God’s mercy or God’s judgment?
Communion Hymn #220
“Break Thou the Bread of Life”
Communion
*Hymn of Response # 72
“My Jesus, I Love Thee”
*Sending forth
*Postlude