Sin & Punishment

"When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly"

1 Kings 21; 27

A very pertinent question for us today is: are we afraid of the Sin or afraid of the punishment? 

Scripture notes that there was never anyone quite like Ahab. He "sold himself" to do evil in the sight of the Lord, heavily influenced by his wife, Jezebel. His actions were considered abominable because he actively pursued idols, mimicking the practices of the Amorites.

According to the verses immediately following (1 Kings 21:28-29), God took notice of Ahab's humbling himself. Because of this display of humility, God delayed the promised disaster, declaring that the calamity would not happen during Ahab's lifetime, but rather during his son's reign

While we do not know if Ahab humbled himself and repented out of fear of the punishment or love and respect for God, Francis Taylor makes a point on this for us today. She says -

"...God sent Elijah to Ahab to tell him the punishment he would suffer because of his sins. When Ahab heard this, he "humbled" himself before God and God took back his punishment. It's not clear in the readings if Ahab was aware of Jezebel's maneuvering to kill Naboth, but he was guilty of all of the other sins of disobedience and rejection of the Law. There are a few lessons here for us. The first is that God knows when we sin. There is nowhere we can go, and no place where we can hide from God. He knows when we sin and he knows when we do the right thing. The second is sins are punished. Usually, the sin carries its own punishment. The liar and the thief cannot be trusted! Violence brings on violence, and it usually escalates. The third thing we see, is that God respects the one who confesses his sin, repents and does penance. We can't be sure if Ahab repented and did penance because he was actually sorry or if he was afraid of the punishment God proclaimed.

The same can be true of us. Do we repent because we fear the punishment we deserve, or because we are truly sorry for our actions? It is our responsibility to examine our hearts when answering this question. "