Agent Jehu And The End Of Ahab's Line Series

· OK, maybe we can understand why Jezebel was killed. But, why all of Ahab’s family?

· And what about all those priests and prophets of Baal? Weren’t some of them innocently mistaken?

· What happened to the easy-going, gentle God who is all forgiving and ever loving, slow to get angry and quick to forgive? Why was God so determined to have all of Ahab’s family wiped out?

To start with, Ahab was a king who had done more evil in the eyes of the Lord than all those who had gone before him. That’s not a very good position to start with. [LESSON: sin effects those around you]

· Furthermore, Ahab had married Jezebel – a woman who came from a country were people worshipped Baal and was determined to bring Baal worship into Israel. It became her goal to kill the prophets of God and bring in hundreds of prophets of Baal.

· It was in response to this infiltrating of Baal worship that God called Jehu to do something about it.

The question we need to ask ourselves is this: Does it Really Matter if I Accommodate Sin in My Life?

If you are like most people, you’re probably thinking that as long as you do reasonably well in life; your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, you’ll be all right. You don’t murder – even though you might feel like it sometimes. You don’t steal – at least nothing too serious – you might copy someone’s music collection but you don’t take something out of the store. You don’t lie. Unless of course, it’s a white lie, you know, just to make someone feel better, I mean you’re doing it for them. You don’t commit adultery; at least not literally and physically. You might have some wayward thought and you might get a little carried away on the internet, you might have a sexual encounter here and there… but you figure you’re not hurting anyone.

· And slowly but surely, we allow sin to come into our lives.

· We stretch the truth. We develop a hate towards someone.

· We take what really doesn’t belong to us.

· We tolerate lust and sexual sin telling ourselves it is only natural.

We convince ourselves that a little bit of sin is tolerable. That it doesn’t really matter if there is a little bit of sin because nobody is perfect and we figure that God’s grace and mercy will cause him to overlook our sin.

· Or if we have more serious issues with sin, we figure that we still have time… that we’ll deal with it a little later in life.

And the reality we need to come face to face with today is this… Yes, it really does matter if I accommodate sin in my life.

· The Bible says, "…You may be sure that your sin will find you out”. Numbers 32:23

That’s the truth that applies to us today. There will come a time when the wages of sin will be paid.

· There will come a time when grace and mercy will run out.

God has something far greater for you. It is called holiness. Holiness isn’t about perfect conduct; it’s about a pure heart – a heart that is not interested in accommodating sin. That’s really what we’re talking about.

· Does it really matter if we accommodate sin? According to God’s word; absolutely.