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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Adrian Zahid

Is Your Inheritance for Sale?

Dear Lord, help us to realize that You are our Father, and that You gave Your Son to die on the cross, and He paid a price that was precious to You, and that we are Your children, and that our inheritance should never be for sale.

Ever since I was a little boy, I read stories of men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Jesus Christ, events like the fall of Jerusalem, the Civil War, and the Rwandan genocide, and other brutal events that occurred in history.

And I have found through my study of the Bible that there is 1 constant in each event of history and that constant is God himself.

God is there unseen, but he is a watcher.

He watches men and women in those scenes of history, and he is looking for men and women through whom he can show himself strong.

And I believe that there is an opportunity of eternity.

Not an opportunity of a lifetime, but an opportunity of eternity.

Eternity that is within our grasp this morning, today, every day.

And that opportunity is to be part of this group that is called the final generation, the group that actually vindicates God through their lives, through their actions, and sees Jesus come.

Is it your desire to be part of that group this morning?

Open your Bibles with me to 1 Kings chapter 21.

I'd like us to look at this story and see some of the elements, some of the elements of character that are required in this group of that final generation.

And it came to pass after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria.

We have 2 men who are introduced in this story and this story actually took place.

There are some people who say that The stories of the Bible are allegories, but that is not true.

He has a vineyard and he lives in Jezreel.

And later on this chapter, it says that he's the king of Israel.

Ahab's palace is right next to Naboth's vineyard.

If you live next to somebody, what are they?

Ahab came over to Naboth and he said, I have an offer for you.

And in verse 2 we read, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it or if it seemed good to thee I will give thee the worth of it in money." Ahab came with a deal that seemed so logical and so fair a win-win situation for both parties.

He said, give me your vineyard because I want it for a garden of herbs and I will give you a vineyard better than it or if you want I'll give you the worth of it in money.

Satan comes to God's children and he comes with deals that are so logical and so fair on paper but if we examine those deals by the light of God's Word they turn out to be scams and Naboth he examined the deal that Ahab was offering him and he turned it down.

We read in verse 3, The Lord forbid it me, Naboth said, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.

He refused Ahab based on a principle found in God's Word.

Let's look at that principle this morning.

Let's turn to Leviticus chapter 25, verse 23.

Bible says, The land shall not be sold forever, for the land is, finish it for me, mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.

The key point in this verse is that the land is mine.

The land is his and they were sojourners with him in that land.

Even though they were in the land of promise, the land was his.

What happened was when the children of Israel walked into Canaan, they were given land.

Each tribe was given a plot of land, and that plot of land was subdivided into smaller plots and given out to families.

And each family was supposed to have that land.

And then from that time on, the real estate laws were simple.

This chapter contains the real estate laws of Israel.

If a person got poor and he had to sell it, that person who bought it had to return the land to that man's family after at the year of Jubilee Whether it was the next year or whether it was in 49 years He had to return that land back to him So the land would stay in the family each family from generation to generation And the Lord specifically said over here that the land shall not be sold forever or in my margin.

The land, when you do deals for the land, you cannot sell it and transfer your ownership to somebody else.

The land is not yours to own, it is the Lord's.

You are just, when you transfer ownership like that, when you make a deal, it is, you're paying for the crops.

The Lord specifically said that the land cannot be sold.

Ahab came to Naboth with an offer and that offer was I will give you a vineyard that is better than it or I will give the worth of it in money.

He was not promising that that land would be returned back to Naboth and so based on God's Word, Naboth turned him down.

Is that place where you live yours or is it the Lord's?

Does the odometer testify to the fact that most of the errands, all of the errands made in that car are for you?

Or is it some of them, at least some of them, for the Lord?

The New Testament takes this principle to a higher level.

Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's." Paul's reasoning is simple.

He says that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost because you were bought with a price and that price will cost Jesus his life on the cross and because of that your body, your mind, everything you are, everything you will be is God's.

Not only your property, not only your car and everything you own materially, but also your body, your person.

Let's go to Romans 8, verse 14 and pick up another line of reasoning in Paul's writings.

Romans chapter 8, verse 14 we read, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

The Spirit itself bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

And if children, then heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, then we may also be glorified together." Paul's reasoning is simple and clear.

If you are born of the Spirit, you are born again.

Remember Jesus said you cannot be born, you have to be born again, and you have to be born by the Spirit and of water.

And if you are born again, then the Spirit testifies that you are a child of God.

And if you are a child of God, then God is your Father.

And if God is your Father, then you are an heir of God.

And if you're an heir of God, you are joint heirs with Christ.

And if you suffer with Christ, you will be able to be glorified with him as well.

Naboth turned down Ahab based on a principle in God's Word.

I have lived in Asia for 17 years and I am an Asian myself.

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Is Your Inheritance for Sale?

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