1 Kings 21:20

So far everyone involved, except Naboth, had left God out of their calculations, and it seemed as if sin had won. Naboth had been stoned, and Ahab was now free to take possession. He went down, and his feet at last stood in Naboth's vineyard. But just as he was about to lay his hand on the possession he had coveted, Elijah the Tishbite confronted him... Miserable king! His view is still limited to the earth, so he could only say, "Have you found me, O my enemy?" It was the Lord who had found him, and who sent His servant to pronounce judgment on Ahab, his house, and on the wicked Jezebel.

Ahab goes down. Is he going to be happy now? This is the moment for him, now that his goal is reached, to have the good time Jezebel had promised him. He has hardly begun to take possession when Elijah meets him. God had sent the prophet to the new estate he had come to look over. His enjoyment, his happiness, disappear. Satan always lures us on. Then he betrays us, drags us into the mire, and leaves us standing before God.

Notice that although Jezebel arranged Naboth's death, the Lord holds Ahab responsible for the crime. He let another act under his authority. He was willing to profit from her wrongdoing, so the Lord charges him with the murder. The guilt went home to Ahab, to the craving of his own heart. He had let it draw him on to covet his neighbour's property... Who can hide himself or his sins from the all-searching eye of God?

Ahab took correction the way most wicked men do. He looked on the fearless messenger of God as an enemy. "Have you found me, O my enemy?" he asks. "Is it you, you troubler of Israel?" he had asked the faithful prophet on an earlier occasion. This time he cannot tie the nation into his guilt with him. So he admits that the prophet's ministry is personal, and calls the prophet his enemy — not the nation's.

Ahab says to Elijah: "Have you found me, O my enemy?" Yes, his enemy! He had taken Satan as his friend; he finds God to be his enemy.

In Romans 7:14 the "wretched man" cries out, "I am of the flesh, sold under sin." The Greek word here for "sold" is piprasko. Used of a person, it means "to sell into slavery." The Greek Old Testament uses it figuratively for selling oneself to sin: of Ahab in 1 Kings 21:20, 25... So Paul may have had these in mind when he cried in desperation, "I am sold under sin." But this is not only the apostle Paul's experience. It is the condition of us all, though we may only discover it when the light of the gospel shines on our fallen state.

Ahab then had to listen to as terrible a sentence as was ever passed on a sinner. It came in three parts. (1) "Behold, I will bring disaster upon you." He personally must suffer... (2) His whole family must perish, like the families of his evil predecessors Jeroboam and Baasha. He had wiped out Naboth's family; God would wipe out his. (3) Jezebel was to be eaten by dogs... Ahab was a hardened sinner, yet the words overwhelmed him as he listened. He tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his body, and went about quietly... The God of all grace responded to Ahab's humbling of himself, and postponed most of the sentence.