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 content to be led.  He was content to let others do the wickedness he had not courage to carry out himself.  He forgot that, as is well said, ‘He who does a thing by another, does it by himself;’ that if you let others sin for you, you sin for yourself.  Would to God, my friends, that we would all remember this!  How often people wink at wrong-doing in those with whom they have dealings, in those whom they employ, in their servants, in their children, because it is convenient to them.  They shut their eyes, and their hearts too, and say to themselves, ’At all events, it is his doing and not mine; and it is his concern; I am not answerable for other people’s sins.  I would not do such a thing myself, certainly; but as it is done, I may as well make the best of it.  If I gain by it, I need not be so very sharp in looking into the matter.’  And so you see men who really wish to be honest and kindly themselves, making no scruple of profiting by other people’s dishonesty and cruelty.  Now the law punishes the receiver of stolen goods almost as severely as the thief himself:  but there are many receivers of stolen goods, my friends, whom the law cannot touch.  The world, at times, seems to me to be full of them; for every one, my friends, who hushes up a cruel or a dishonest matter, because he himself is a gainer by it, he is no better than the receiver of stolen goods, and he will find in the day of the Lord, that the sin will lie at his door, as Jezebel’s sin lay at Ahab’s.  There was no need for Ahab to say, ‘Jezebel did it, and not I.’  The prophet did not even give him time to excuse himself:  ’Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?’ By taking possession of Naboth’s vineyard, and so profiting by his murder, he made himself partaker in that murder, and had to hear the terrible sentence, ’In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs shall lick thy blood, even thine.’