THE chapter from which my text is taken, which is the first lesson for this evening’s service, is a very awful chapter, for it gives us an insight into the meaning of that most awful and terrible word—temptation. And yet it is a most comforting chapter, for it shews us how God is long-suffering and merciful, even to the most hardened sinner; how to the last He puts before him good and evil, to choose between them, and warns him to the last of his path, and the ruin to which it leads. We read of Ahab in the first lesson this morning as a thoroughly wicked man,—mean and weak, cruel and ungodly, governed by his wife Jezebel, a heathen woman, in marrying whom he had broken God’s law,—a woman so famous for cruelty and fierceness, vanity and wickedness, that her name is a by-word even here in England now—“as bad as Jezebel,” we say to this day. We heard of Ahab in this morning’s lesson letting Jezebel murder the righteous Naboth, by perjury and slander, to get possession of his vineyard; and then, instead of shrinking with abhorrence from his wife’s iniquity, going down and taking possession of the land which he had gained by her sin. We read of God’s curse on him, and yet of God’s long-suffering and pardon to him on his repentance. Yet, neither God’s curse nor God’s mercy seem to have moved him. But he had been always the same. “He did evil,” the Bible tells us, “in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him.” He deserted the true God for his wife’s idols and false gods; and in spite of Elijah’s miracle at Carmel—of which you heard last Sunday—by which he proved by fire which was the true God, and in spite of the wonderful victory which God had given him, by means of one of God’s prophets, over the Syrians, he still remained an idolater. He would not be taught, nor understand; neither God’s threats nor mercies could move him; he went on sinning against light and knowledge; and now his cup was full—his days were numbered, and God’s vengeance was ready at the door.