ONCE upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was a wicked king, called Ahab, reigning in Samaria. This king had a wife, even more wicked than himself; and that was very sad, for when he would not have done quite such bad things, his queen, Jezebel, stirred him up and made him go on in his evil ways.
Now, Ahab had built a splendid palace at a place called Jezreel, and close alongside of his beautiful gardens was a fine vineyard belonging to a man called Naboth. One day, when Ahab was walking in his garden, in a discontented, covetous state of mind, such as evil men mostly have, his eyes fell on this nice vineyard of Naboth's, and he at once wanted to have it for his kitchen-garden, because, just as the proverb says, " Much will have more."
So he sent round to Naboth, to tell him that he wished to buy his land, and would either give him a better vineyard in another place, or as much money for it as it was worth. But Naboth sent back word to the king, "The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee."
Now, this plain answer made the king very angry, and he went off home, and flung himself on his bed, as sulky and cross as could be, and refused to eat any dinner, just as naughty children will do. And thus his queen came and found him, and asked what it was all about; and when he had told her the whole story she was finely angry, and said, as proudly and scornfully as possible, “Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth."
And how do you think Jezebel managed to do this?
Oh! in such a bad, cruel way ! She invented a lie about Naboth, making out that he was so wicked that he ought to be killed, and then she ordered the men of Jezreel to stone him to death, which they actually did.
So poor Naboth died rather than sell his vineyard, and the king went down and took possession of it.
Now is not this a sad story? Do you know that God tells it us in the Bible? (1 Kings 21), so there must be some lesson in it for you boys and girls, and I will try to show you what it is.
First, you must understand that it was not because Naboth was selfish and unkind that he would not sell his vineyard. You know, he said, "The Lord forbid it me”; now this was because God had said in His holy law, which He gave to the children of Israel, " The land shall not be sold, for the land is Mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me." (Lev. 25:2323The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. (Leviticus 25:23).) Of course, no one has the right to sell what belongs to another. Naboth was the Lord's tenant, and in all honesty he acted towards his Landlord, and died rather than deny that Landlord's rights.
What does this mean for you, dear children? Have you ever thought that God has His claims on you, quite as fully as He had on that land of Naboth’s?
He has not given you a vineyard, to bring to Him the fruits thereof, and to own His rights over; but He has given you a body, in which you dwell as His tenant, which He holds Himself responsible to keep in repair, and for which you have, as it were, to pay rent to Him.
It says (Acts 17:2828For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. (Acts 17:28)), "In Him we live, and move, and have our being." When you are older, I hope you will read some of the interesting books that are written, explaining the wonderful workings of our bodies, so that you will understand something of the miracles that are always going on inside us. Miracles that no hand but the hand of God could work, in repairing, as Landlord, the beautiful little house in which He has put us to dwell.
Now this constant care proves His right to demand rent of us, the tenants. I daresay you have never thought that your body is not your own; yet so it is.
Therefore, you cannot spend all its various powers just on self-pleasing; you cannot injure it or destroy it with impunity; you cannot sell it, as it were, to the world or to the devil, any more than Naboth could sell his vineyard to Ahab, for the Lord God says, “It is Mine." It was little wonder that the wicked king should think lightly of the godly Israelite disposing of his land, for we read (vers. 20, 25), that Ahab had sold himself " to work evil," had dishonestly given himself away to the devil, heedless of the rights of his divine Landlord. The world and the devil may bid high for you by-and-by may you, by the grace of God, say to all their offers, as Naboth did, “The Lord forbid."
Perhaps, dear children, you have till now been living for yourselves, and forgetting God's claims upon you. Well, take care! for you know one of the landlord's rights is to give an unfaithful tenant notice to quit. That is what you find God doing to him of whom we read in Luke 12; he had made up his mind, as it were, to pay no rent, but to spend all the fruits of his land on himself. He was not “rich toward God," so God turned him out. He had "not been faithful in that which was another man’s” (Luke 16:1212And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? (Luke 16:12)), and he was suddenly called to give an account to the One to whom he belonged.
Now, dear boys and girls, you can never thoroughly and happily own yourself the Lord's until you know that you are His, not only by right of creation, but also His by right of redemption. Jesus Christ died to save us—to save us body and soul. He gave His own life-blood to purchase us for His own, so that those who have taken Him as their Savior hold that their body is the Lord's, in which it is their joy to serve Him. They refuse to yield their members to any other (Rom. 6:1313Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. (Romans 6:13)), but try all they can to glorify God in their bodies, which are His (1 Cor. 6:2020For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. (1 Corinthians 6:20)), and so their lives become very beautiful and noble, because Christ is magnified in their bodies (Phil. 1:2020According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. (Philippians 1:20)), "whether it be by life or by death." Do not put off any longer coming to the Savior, for remember, you are getting your rent in arrears all the time you are living without Christ.
To any of you that are His, I would say, determine by His grace, as did one long ago (when he looked at that of which God had put him in charge), "My vineyard, which is mine, is before me: thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred " (Cant. 8:12) which means that Christ, who is the "greater than Solomon," is to have five times more from you than anybody else. Is this your intention?
A. P. C.