Both the soldier and King Ahab had neglected their chief duty in their devotion to a multitude of minor duties and aims; and for this neglect the king sentences the wounded soldier to lose his life, and the supposed soldier, stripping off his disguise and reappearing as a prophet, pronounces the same sentence on the victorious king.
I. Here lies our lesson. We are often diverted from the chief duties, the main task, of life by what our Lord calls "the lusts of other things entering in." These lusts and cravings are not necessarily evil in themselves; they may only have become evil by being put in the wrong place; indulged at the wrong time. To be busy is not wrong, but to be so busy here and there, about this and that, as to neglect our chief duty is fatally wrong. For even God cannot treat you as though you had done your chief duty if you have not done it; even God, merciful as He is, cannot give you the blessedness of having reached your chief end if you have not reached it.
II. What, we may ask, is our chief end and duty? The familiar answer of the Catechism is as good as any. Our chief end is to "glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever." To glorify God is to share and reflect His goodness. Our chief duty is nothing short of this: to become good, after the pattern and example of our Lord Jesus Christ.
S. Cox, The Bird's Nest, and Other Sermons for Children,p. 222.
References: 1 Kings 20:40. J. Angell James, Penny Pulpit,No. 1938; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxii., No. 1296, and My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs,p. 84. 1 Kings 21:1-19. Parker, Fountain,March 8th, 1877. 1 Kings 21:2. G. T. Coster, Christian World Pulpit, vol.xii., p. 156.