Proverbs 21:4 The lamp that guides the wicked — haughty eyes and an arrogant heart — is sin.
1Kings 16:30 Now Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him. 31 And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians; and he went and served Baal and worshiped him.
Ahab was an evil king who ignored what the Spirit of the Lord was saying to the nation of Israel. God’s laws and directions had simply become a trivial thing that Ahab nonchalantly shrugged aside like it was the remains of yesterday’s dinner. This attitude resulted in a problem for Ahab when he inquired of Baal for help, and of course, the false god Baal did not come through for him and left him in need. Like many people today, Ahab could not connect, understand, or fathom how to approach God which resulted in Ahab accepting counsel from Jezebel, thus causing him to fall into deeper problems.
When a person knowingly walks in sin and treats sin as a trivial thing, they lose their reassurance of faith, righteous courage, and spiritual intuition. When anything goes wrong in their life, it becomes an excuse to blame others for all the problems they themselves have created. Choosing to reject God, and to disregard all that God stands for, is choosing death for the foundational basis of one’s life. Talk about a dead end. This proverb indeed declares that when wickedness is our guide, our hearts will dwell in arrogant sin. Prov. 21:4 The lamp that guides the wicked — haughty eyes and an arrogant heart — is sin.
Ahab’s arrogance was so entrenched that he not only blamed his problems on others but also blamed them on the prophet of God for what Israel was going through. Ahab was blind to the fact that he himself and his governing practices, were the reasons Israel was in the grips of God’s punishing drought. 1Kings 18:17 When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is this you, the cause of disaster to Israel?” Elijah sets Ahab straight as to who was causing Israel to go through judgment and punishment. 1Kings 18:18 “I have made no trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “You and your family are the troublemakers, for you have refused to obey the commands of the LORD and have worshiped the images of Baal instead.
When evil becomes a trivial thing in our life, it is time to get on our knees and bow our heads and hearts, while crying out to God for mercy and a new revelation of God’s holiness. It would be prudent of us to ask God for His help in reawakening the first love and dedication we had for the Lord when we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour on His terms. Rev. 2:4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
If we become insensitive to sin, then what happens to our families, brothers and sisters in the Lord who are looking our way for encouragement in choosing the Lord’s righteousness for life? We are all epistles read by men. What are the pages of our testimony saying concerning the holiness of God? Will those who read our hearts simply say, “Well, if he doesn’t care what God says, why should anyone else?” For us to treat the Holy Spirit’s ministry of convicting our sins as a trivial thing, is arrogance and vexation to God’s heart.
This scripture verse may be short, but what Jesus says is explicitly clear. John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments. There it is. If we love the Lord, we will obey what the Lord says to do, and adhere to His directions in life. The best part of this command is that Jesus will help us keep it. How good is that? We can ask God to help us obey His word. What an amazing grace Jesus has procured for us who love Him and walk in His light. 1John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. Notice that the light we are to walk in is not our interpretation of what we want that light to be. We are to live in the light that Jesus says brings fellowship and agreement with the Lord Jesus through His cleansing blood.
Most of us are familiar with someone who has fallen away from the Lord and ruined their life because they treated the conviction of the Holy Spirit as a trivial thing. They stopped obeying and hearing what God was saying to their hearts, resulting in them falling into sin’s merciless grip and losing so much. For those who have repented and come back into relationship with God and obeyed His word, they will tell you that they carry a lot of scars from their time of rebellion and that the whole mess was not worth the pain they suffered. Is there salvation for those who crash and burn their lives? Yes, absolutely there is, when true repentance emanates from our inner being, there is forgiveness and restoration through Christ.
Christ’s sacrifice is that powerful and able to cleanse the worst of sinners who ask for forgiveness. Why lose everything through rebellion to learn that sin and iniquity are not trivial things? The wages of sin is death, and that law has not changed since the first sin in the Garden of Eden. Don’t be an Ahab by looking for life through dead and false gods. Choose Christ who is life, and He will do more than save your life, He will give you a life worth living. Amen!
Very true, great word Norm!