Christ’s Ambassador

King Ahab coveted Naboth’s vineyard, and truly, he was decent enough in his manner of approach and proposal. “Look Naboth“, he might have said, “this vineyard is very close to my palace. It could be converted to a nice royal vegetable garden. If you prove a patriotic citizen as I know you are, I am ready to pay you handsomely for it. Just name your price. Or if you wish, I can give you a better vineyard for it. The choice is yours. But far be it from me to rush you in matters like this. You need to sleep over it. Shall we say three days? In three days, let me know your choice, money or another plot in choice location”

Was Ahab shocked? Yes and more than that, dazed. Naboth did not need three days to give the answer. “The Lord forbid” he answered solemnly, “that I should give you the inheritance passed to me by my ancestors“. Now when a Jew says “The Lord forbids” then the issue is a closed matter. NFA - No further Action. Ahab staggered home and plunged into a hunger strike. You can read this story in 1Kg21:1-14

To the peasant Naboth, even the whole wealth in the land of Israel could not take the place of his ancestral heritage. He priced that vineyard higher than the royal promises and mouth watering offers of Ahab. The sanctity of his ancestors’ gift to him would not be defiled by money and neither would he allow other hands to till that sacred soil. Naboth’s loyalty and faithfulness to hsi lineage is very commendable and so was his courage to express it for he knew fully what it meant to refuse the kings’ offer. No one in Israel at that time was unaware of Jezebel’s devices. Yet at the risk of death, Naboth would not give his jewel to a swine.

In today’s world things have not changed. Other forces still struggle for our loyalty and faithfulness. There are still unnumbered Ahabs around eyeing the vineyard the Lord has given us as heritage, and the carrots they dangle are fattter and more attaractive. Bosses still ask for casual sex in return for opportunity for employment or promotion. Bribes have been given pleasant nicknames to make it less offensive. Contracts are inflated to take care of “extraneous costs of doing business“, and projects that have been duly paid for are been abandonned and no one cares. There arre even less visible evils going on. People falsify entry in the timebook when they have come late. We still spend company time and resources on selfish activities, and we falsify age and qualifications to meet employment and promotion requirements. All these practices put believers in Naboth’s shoes, at the risk of seeling their heritage to Satan.

But the Lord forbids all these when he said “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” Mathew 5:48  Let what the Lord has forbidden remain forbidden not only on Sundays in church, but Mondays through Saturday everywhere we may be and most especially in the highcalling of our daily work. Here are a few of what the Lord forbids as compiled in the Message transaltion of Gal 5: 19-21 by Eugene H Peterson:..” trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. ” Are you tempted with any of these? Ask Jesus to  help you today.