Thou Hast Sold Thyself by B. E. Connerly

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 7, 1912

Thou Hast Sold Thyself

By B. E. Connerly

B. E. CONNERLY

Though that most pitiful accusation, “Thou hast sold thyself,” has applied to wrecked manhood throughout the history of the race, the charge was originally made against Ahab, king of Israel.

Ahab was the contemporary of Jehoshaphat of Judah, and of that greatest of Hebrew prophets, Elijah the Tishbite. He was the seventh king of Israel, the second ruler of the third Israelitish dynasty, and reigned twenty-two years, early in the ninth century before Christ. It is no accident that in Scripture there is more said of him than of any other ancient monarch, for all that is recorded in Holy Writ of Ahab, both as a man and as a king, has been written for the learning and profit of men and kings of after generations.

In biography we do not find a more marked evidence of the divine solicitude than in that of Ahab. Both as a man and as a prince he enjoyed more than average opportunities. In his day the two little Hebrew kingdoms of Judah and Israel attained the acme of power and prosperity, and from a civil viewpoint, Ahab was no doubt a successful ruler. Though the time is remote and the data meager, we may infer that Ahab was a clever statesman, a skilled general, and eminently patriotic in all that pertained to his people and country; but he was a moral coward. Where he should have been strongest, he signally failed. The predominating characteristic of his subjects was their devotion to a monotheistic religion and a semitheocratic civil régime; but Ahab wickedly sold himself to the worship of a plurality of heathen deities, and later enforced their worship upon his people. See 1 Kings 16-22.

In his message Elijah boldly charges the king with committing iniquity before the Lord and before all Israel. His words, “sold thyself,” indicate that Ahab did this wickedness presumptuously. He knew Jehovah as God and his worship as the true religion, but he stubbornly chose idolatry, and “did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him,” his wickedness exceeding that of Jeroboam, of whom it is written that he “drave Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin.”

The first apparent mistake of Ahab was that of entering into an alliance with Ethbaal, his neighbor to the northwest, king of the pagan Zidonians. As a seal to this friendly relationship, he married the daughter of his ally, which union proved to be the most unfortunate and unholy in the annals of history. One of the first acts of Israel’s new pagan queen was to introduce into her adopted country the worship of Baal, the sun-god of Phoenicia. Ahab then seems to have forsaken completely the service of Jehovah, to have given himself entirely to idolatry or to religious indifference, and from that time on was a mere puppet in the hands of that unscrupulous Jezebel, who, emboldened by his indifference, persecuted and put to the sword the prophets of the Lord. All Israel was deceived and captivated by the most enchanting yet demoralizing form of sun-worship by which Satan has endeavored to ruin the race, until the dauntless Elijah lamented before the Lord that he alone was left of all Israel who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.

The lesson in the history of Ahab’s life must be taught by contrasting what he was with what he might have been. There is no beauty of character to imitate, no splendid maxims to follow; but we may profit by beholding his terrible failures. Jesus says: “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light.” It is truly an offense toward God that man, who was made in God’s image and for his glory, should forsake this high privilege, and develop instead the character of God’s adversary. Man was made master of his own destiny, and sovereign of the world. Inspiration alone reveals the exceeding greatness of man’s privilege in bearing the similitude of his Creator; while history, in revealing the degeneracy of the race, tells the measure of his disloyalty and failure. To develop that which it is his duty to develop, man must unite his natural weakness to divine strength, and the result of such a union is perfection of character.

Ahab’s misspent life and inglorious death show how worse than useless it is for man to exchange his loyalty to God and truth for the fleeting bubbles of wealth, worldly pleasure, or social fame. God says of all who do such things, as he did of Ahab, “Thou hast sold thyself.” Isaiah says of those who follow Ahab’s example in this respect, “Ye have sold yourselves for naught.” Men who were sold as chattels brought a stipulated price, but the man who sells himself receives naught for the sale.

Ahab’s time is a type of the thousand years of papal supremacy in Europe; and these two great apostasies, the turning away from truth and seeking to force men to the obedience of religious dogmas (be they true or false), constitute a mighty twofold warning to kings and nations against the enforcement of religion by civil enactments. Jehovah’s message to those who do such things is, “Thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.”

Ancon, C. Z.