I
believe them to be the whispers of the Devil himself; and when they
pass away, I believe that it is the Lord Jesus Christ who drives
them away. But if any man gives way to them, determines to keep his
sullenness, and so gives place to the Devil; then those thoughts do
not pass; they take hold of a man, possess him, as the Bible calls
it, and make him in his madness do things which--alas! who has not
done things in his day, of which he has repented all his life
after?--things for which he would gladly cut off his right hand for
the sake of being able to say, 'I never did that?' But the thing is
done--done to all eternity: he has given place to the Devil, and
the Devil has made him do in five minutes work which he could not
undo in five thousand years; and all that is left is, when he comes
to himself, to cast himself on God's boundless mercy, and Christ's
boundless atonement, and cry, 'My sins are like scarlet, Thou alone
canst make them whiter than snow: my sin is ever before me; only
let it not be ever before Thee, O God! Punish me, if thou seest
fit; but oh forgive, for there is mercy with Thee, and infinite
redemption!' And, thanks be to God's great love, he will not cry in
vain. Yet, oh, my friends, do not give place to the Devil, unless
you wish, forgiven or not, to repent of it to the latest day you
live.

And this was Ahab's fate. He knew, I say, that he was wrong; he
knew that Naboth's property was his own, and dare not openly rob him
of it; and he went to his house, heavy of heart, and refused to eat;
and while he was in such a temper as that, the Devil lost no time in
sending an evil spirit to him. It was a woman whom he sent,
Jezebel, Ahab's own wife: but she was, as far as we can see, a
woman of a devilish spirit, cruel, proud, profligate, and unjust, as
well as a worshipper of the filthy idols of the Canaanites. Ahab's
first sin was in having married this wicked heathen woman: now his
sin punished itself; she tempted him through his pride and self-
conceit; she taunted him into sin: 'Dost thou now govern the
kingdom of Israel? I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth.' You
all remember how she did so; by falsely accusing Naboth of
blasphemy. Ahab seems to have taken no part in Naboth's murder.
Perhaps he was afraid; but he was a weak man, and Jezebel was a
strong and fierce spirit, and ruled him, and led him in this matter,
as she did in making him worship idols with her; and he was conte