1 Kings 16:29-34: in context

The account of Ahab, the worst of Israel's kings, includes a telling phrase about how his evil grew. It was as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the text says; and so he took Jezebel as his wife, served and worshiped Baal, built an altar for Baal, and made an Asherah pole, doing more to provoke the LORD than all the kings of Israel before him. The already-serious sins of the kings before him seemed a light thing to Ahab, and so he went further, deeper, into greater evil than any before.

The phrase as if it had been a light thing captures how sin grows when it is treated lightly. The sins of Jeroboam were serious, but to Ahab they seemed a small thing, not weighty enough to stop at; and so he did not stop there but went further, into the worship of Baal, into greater and greater evil, until he had done more to provoke God than all before him. Sin treated as a light thing does not stay where it is; it grows, deepens, leads further. What seemed a small compromise to Ahab became, step by step, a great corruption. This reveals a danger in treating sin lightly. When we regard a sin as small, not weighty, a light thing, we do not stay where we are; we go further. The sin we excuse as minor becomes the doorway to greater sin; the compromise we treat as harmless leads to deeper compromise; what began as a light thing grows into a great one. Sin has a way of not staying put, of leading further when it is not taken seriously. Take heed, Scripture warns, lest any of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Sin is deceitful precisely in this, presenting itself as a light thing while leading, step by step, into greater evil. Desire gives birth to sin, James says, and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death; what begins small does not stay small. This searches how we regard our own sins. Do we treat some sin as a light thing, small enough to excuse, not weighty enough to stop, and so leave the door open to going further? Ahab treated the sins before him as a light thing and went beyond them into greater evil. And we too, if we treat sin lightly, will find that it does not stay where it is but leads us further, deeper, than we intended. This calls us to take sin seriously rather than treating it as a light thing. The danger is not only the sin itself but the direction it leads when we regard it lightly. Ahab treated serious sin as a light thing and descended into the worst evil of all Israel's kings; and his example warns us that sin treated lightly grows, deepens, and leads further, so that we are called to take our sins seriously, to stop rather than excuse them, and to resist the deceitful pull that would treat a great and dangerous thing as a light one, leading us step by step into greater evil than we ever meant to reach.

Do I treat some sin as a light thing, small enough to excuse and not weighty enough to stop, and so leave the door open to going further, and can Ahab, to whom the serious sins of those before him seemed a light thing so that he descended into the worst evil of all Israel's kings, warn me that sin treated lightly does not stay where it is but grows, deepens, and leads further, moving me to take my sins seriously and resist the deceitful pull that would draw me step by step into greater evil than I intended?