1 Kings 18:1-6
After many months passed, in the third year of the
drought, the Lord said to Elijah, "Go and present yourself to King Ahab.
Tell him that I will soon send rain!" So Elijah went to appear before Ahab.
Meanwhile, the famine had become very severe in Samaria. So Ahab summoned
Obadiah, who was in charge of the palace. (Now Obadiah was a devoted
follower of the Lord. Once when Jezebel had tried to kill all the Lord's
prophets, Obadiah had hidden one hundred of them in two caves. He had put
fifty prophets in each cave and had supplied them with food and water.) Ahab
said to Obadiah, "We must check every spring and valley to see if we can
find enough grass to save at least some of my horses and mules." So they
divided the land between them. Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah
went another way by himself.
"Your silver and gold will be of no use to you on that
day of the Lord's anger. For the whole land will be devoured by the fire of
his jealousy. He will make a terrifying end of all the people on earth. Beg
the Lord to save you—all you who are humble, all you who uphold justice.
Walk humbly and do what is right. Perhaps even yet the Lord will protect you
from his anger on that day of destruction." Zeph. 2:3
Elijah had come to the lowly dwelling where still he
tarries--a homeless Jewish prophet--an unbefriended stranger. Now, we have
good reason to suppose, he was regarded, alike by mother and son, as an
angel of God--a Heaven-sent messenger of mercy--who had "delivered their
souls from death, their eyes from tears, and their feet from falling."
We know not how long he continued at his adopted home
after the miraculous raising of the child. But be the time long or short, he
quietly waits the Divine will regarding his departure. As we have already
noted, in speaking of the place of his former seclusion at Cherith, so still
more on the present occasion might he have been disposed, with his ardent
impulsive spirit, to fret under this long withdrawal from active public
work. Three of the best years of his life spent in inaction! He who could
exercise (as we shall find afterwards) an almost magic power over
multitudes--why should he be pent up for this protracted period in a cottage
of Gentile Phoenicia, when he might have been doing mighty deeds amid the
many thousands of Israel? Why should so noble a vessel be left lazily
sleeping on its shadows in the harbor, when, it might have been out
wrestling with the storm, conveying priceless stores to needy hearts?
But it was enough for Elijah, now as formerly, to feel
assured that it was part of the Divine plan. He felt that he was glorifying
his God, just because he was occupying his assigned and appointed place for
the time, as much in that humble habitation as he did on the heights of
Carmel. The Christian poet represents those angels in heaven who "only stand
and wait," as "serving"--doing their Lord's will--as truly as the
swift-winged messengers who carry to and fro the behests of His
pleasure--and of the Church militant on earth, "Thus says Jehovah," by the
mouth of His prophet, "In returning and rest shall you be saved--in
quietness and in confidence shall be your strength."
We can serve God in rest and in quietness--in the
noiseless tenor of an uneventful existence--as well as in the feverish
bustle or prominent position of an active one. Let this be the comfort of
those whose lot may be lowly, obscure, uninfluential. They are accepted
according to what they have, not according to what they have not. The
domestic servant in her kitchen; the mechanic with his begrimed hands at his
daily toil; the weaver at his shuttle, the cobbler at his stall; the
ploughman at his team, the lonely sick one on his or her couch of
languishing--these being each in the way of duty, or necessity, may, in
their peculiar sphere and work, as truly glorify their Maker and Redeemer,
as the philanthropist at his desk solving great social problems, or the
minister of the gospel in his pulpit; swaying thousands by his words!
Elijah, however, did not love for its own sake inglorious
ease. So long as it was his Lord's will, he remained seated under this
pleasant vine and fig-tree. But, like a true soldier, he was prepared at the
bugle note to jump from his pillow, assume his armor, and rush into the
fight. That summons in due time was heard. "After many days the word of the
Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, show yourself unto Ahab,
and I will send rain upon the earth." He did not hesitate. With cheerful
alacrity he grasps his pilgrim staff, flings the prophet mantle once more
around his shoulders, and crosses into the valleys of Samaria.
How his spirit must have been bowed with sadness as he
traversed the famine-stricken land! Wherever he looked, the scourge of
God--the scourge of sin met his eye. The green pastures and the still
waters, of which the great Hebrew poet sang, gleamed no longer under the
joyous sunshine. Hushed were the notes of the shepherd's pipe, and the
bleatings of the flocks. The sickles hang rusting on the closed granary
doors. A hundred skeleton forms flitted with glazed eyes across his
path--the vintage shoutings had ceased--the fig-tree no longer
blossomed--there was no fruit in the vine--the labor of the olive tree had
failed--the fields yielded no food. Oh, what a comfort, amid these scenes of
misery, to repose on the word of the living Jehovah, "I will send
rain upon the earth;" knowing that what the Lord had spoken he would
faithfully perform; that perhaps but a few brief days would elapse, before
the funeral pall should be rolled aside.
But a new character here reveals himself in the sacred
narrative in the person of Obadiah, the prime minister or
steward of Ahab's palace. We are called to witness in him another wondrous
instance of God's sovereign grace. We have had occasion, in a recent
chapter, to refer to a signal example of that sovereignty in the case of a
heathen widow--a votary of Phoenician Baal. We have now a miracle and
monument of divine mercy in the court of a wicked and licentious king of
Israel--for "Obadiah feared the Lord greatly."
How, we may ask, could a worshiper of Jehovah reside in
the midst of so much degeneracy, idolatry, and crime? How could the lily
rear its head amid these thorns--this sheep of the fold survive in the midst
of ravening wolves? We answer--just in the same way as divine grace, in the
earlier part of this century, molded and quickened and sustained such men as
Wilberforce, Fowell Buxton, and others, in the midst of the lax, irreligious
society, and the dissolute, licentious court-life of England. Yes, and just
as, in the midst of much ridicule and derision in the present day, there are
those in the high places of the land, who are able boldly to take up their
cross, and who count this the brightest gem in their coronets--"We serve the
Lord Jesus."
The natural influence of the corrupt moral atmosphere of
Ahab's court, would be to rear, in the person of the chief officer, a cruel,
unscrupulous tyrant--the creature and myrmidon of Ahab and Jezebel--who
would climb to power and favor by his severity against the prophets of the
God of Israel. If Obadiah had been a base time-server, his life aim would
have been to assist and instigate the diabolical designs of the royal
persecutors. But the grace of God and the fear of God were in his heart, and
he knew no other fear. Under the insolence of oriental rule, he might well
have dreaded the combined influence of the queen and the idolatrous priests
on the despot's will, in compassing his degradation and ruin; but, sustained
by the power of religious principle, this righteous man was bold as a lion.
He gave one specially unmistakable proof of his heroism and true moral
chivalry--for when Jezebel was involving the prophets of Jehovah in an
indiscriminate massacre, Obadiah hid and sheltered them by fifties in a
cave, and fed them on bread and water.
It is easy for us, in an age of fashionable profession,
to espouse the Christian name, and subscribe the Christian creed, and call
ourselves worshipers of the Lord God of Elijah. But it was no ordinary test
of spiritual courage to stand alone, a witness for Jehovah in the midst of a
godless palace--to raise a solitary altar--a solitary protest on the side of
insulted Goodness--when polluted incense was rising from Baal's shrines all
around, and the very people of the land were in guilty accord with their
monarch, ignoring their great heritage--the truth bequeathed to them in
sacred trust--"Jehovah lives!"
Obadiah, moreover, is a remarkable testimony to that
singular respect which sterling character and worth command, even from
irreligious men. Uprightness, purity, consistency, honesty of purpose, have
always an irresistible influence and charm even to base natures. Bloated
vice stands rebuked and abashed in the presence of virtue. The wretched
slave of sin and pollution respects the purity which degrading habit forbids
himself to practice. Herod--the parallel of Ahab in the gospel
history--hated John's religion and that of his Master; but he could not help
admiring and respecting his honesty, self-sacrifice, self-denial, and
boldness. "When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes his very enemies to
be at peace with him." As it was with Joseph in the court of heathen
Pharaoh, or Daniel in the palace of heathen Babylon, Obadiah's piety, worth,
and goodness exalted him to the highest honors which his sovereign had in
his power to bestow. Ahab may have hated from his heart the
Jehovah-worshiper--but he revered and reverenced the faithful counselor,
with his stainless honor and unblemished life.
But Obadiah is brought before us in connection with a
mission in which he was engaged in conjunction with his royal master--a
mission which, oriental writers tell us, is frequently still undertaken in
seasons of temporary drought by chiefs and petty kings in Syria, Persia, and
Hindostan. Fountains of water--so precious in pastoral districts, and
specially in the desert--are spoken of in the figurative language of the
East as "eyes;" and when these eyes--these fountains--in a season of great
scarcity are closed, it seems to be considered a sort of royal prerogative
to visit them in person; as if some charm or magical power were possessed by
the chiefs of the land to reach or bribe their locked-up treasures. It was
in accordance with this immemorial usage that Ahab said unto Obadiah, "Go
into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all
brooks--peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive,
that we lose not all the beasts. So they divided the land between them, to
pass throughout it. Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another
way by himself."
We shall conclude this chapter by drawing TWO LESSONS
from the conduct of Ahab as here presented to us.
Let us note the lowliness and cruelty of a selfish
nature. How terrible--how appalling must have been the scenes
which presented themselves to the eye of the king in this strange journey!
But what are we told was his object in thus traversing his dominions, either
all alone or probably with his staff of followers? Noble would it have been
to minister consolation to the dead and dying, even by his presence and
sympathy, or to devise means in the desperate circumstances to ameliorate
the condition of his famishing subjects. But he has no higher, no other
object than to save his animals--his mules and horses! Let the horses and
mules--let the royal herds browsing in the park of Jezreel--let them
be saved. Let the coursers be fed and kept alive which grace his cavalcade
or draw his chariot--let fountains and brooks and patches of verdure be
diligently sought for them; but let the people be left to their
miserable fate!
Has this intense selfishness, this guilty squandering on
personal pleasure, to the exclusion of the claims of human misery and woe,
been confined to Ahab or his age? Alas! may not the conduct of Ahab be seen
in many still, who lavish a fortune on the animals which perish, while they
withhold the humblest mite from the starving orphan or the perishing brother
or sister? Do we then condemn these or kindred luxuries? By no means. In
this mighty country, wealth was given to be enjoyed, as well as employed.
Whatever a man's tastes may be, if innocent and ennobling, let these, within
due limitation, be cultivated and gratified. Only, (and here is the
qualification,) the pampering of self must not be at the expense of
the prior and pre-eminent claims of the destitute and needy. A man is
entitled to turn, like Ahab, to his stables; to his horses and mules--his
carriages and equipages; only after he has resolved this question in the
sight of God, and of his own conscience, "Have I done my duty to the poor?
Have I answered, according to my means, the calls of distress? Have I given
my proportion to that languishing mission cause? Have I helped as I ought
that starving charity?" Yes! Then, have your luxuries as you like,
and enjoy them with satisfaction.
When one goes--shall we say, to see some country
residence with its lordly manor--some modern park of Jezreel with its
antlered children of the forest feeding in picturesque groups, or bounding
through the glades--or when, leaving the park, you enter the ancestral halls
which wealth has been permitted to enrich with rare works of art--walls
glowing with lavish decoration, hung with the priceless creations of
genius--how is the pleasure of gazing on all enhanced, when you are told
that the owner scatters with princely liberality the gifts of fortune; that
he is known for miles around as the benefactor of the poor; and that
missions abroad and charities at home would feel terribly the blank of his
name and generosity!
Or, how a new sunshine seems to light up hall and
corridor within, and landscape outside--as, from some oriel window, you gaze
on school and church amid the village trees, which Christian munificence has
reared, or on smiling cottages, which the open hand and the large heart have
built for the aged and infirm to spend the evening of life!
But take another case. How the dream of delight and
satisfaction vanishes, when you enter the drawing-room which wealth has
furnished with lavish costliness--enter it with the pledge-paper in your
hand--headed with the urgent claim of a starving neighborhood, or, it may
be, a starving empire--and from the jeweled hand to which you consigned it,
you have it returned with the answer, "I cannot afford it!" Cannot
afford it!! The grotesque figures on wall and tapestry, on slab and
pedestal, silently refute the lie. The mute creations of genius smile
blushingly and incredulously from their gilded heights. The pampered dog on
his velvet couch glances up with reproachful look. The horses standing at
the door, fling the foam from their polished bits in sympathetic sarcasm and
scorn! This is not an overdrawn picture. Such extreme instances may be rare;
but such could be photographed from real life.
There are such houses with this grotesque, selfish
misery--gilded dungeons with cold icicles for their tenants; frigid
themselves, and freezing all around; who have abundance to lavish on self,
but nothing to spare for their brother man--or the cause of the Divine
Brother-man who died for them! Wealth is an dreadful trust! How solemnly
will the thought of mis-spent wealth confront many on a death-bed--What
would Ahab, if time for reflection had been allowed him at the hour of his
death--what would he then have thought of this saying of his
manhood--manhood in its prime and glory?--"Go into the land, unto all
fountains of waters, and unto all brooks peradventure we may find grass to
save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the animals."
We may learn yet farther, the terribleness of
unimproved warnings. What a mournful picture have we here. For
three years God had tried this monarch with sore judgments. He had shut up
heaven, closed the fountains of the land, decimated his people with famine.
The voice seemed too loud, too solemn and dreadful to be disregarded. We
might have expected to see Ahab, like the heathen king of Nineveh, put
sackcloth on his loins and dust on his head, calling his people to
humiliation and repentance. But, alas! the Divine monition seems utterly
disregarded. God has emptied His quiver upon him--but arrow after arrow has
bounced back from that heart of adamant. He has neither tear for his own
guilt, nor tear for his suffering subjects. So far as we are told, the
one miserable, petty thought which fills that narrow soul is, to get
provender for his stable, and save his mules and horses. Ah, terrible,
indeed, it is, when judgments thus lead to an open defiance and resistance
of the Divine will; a mocking of His hand, a laughing to scorn of His
righteous reproofs--no penitence, no remorse; but rather a more intense
selfishness. This miserable king fought against his trial--fought against
God--rushing against the Almighty's shield!
Let those on whom chastisement has been laid remember
that affliction itself is no blessing unless it be improved. It is the
reverse. An unsanctified trial becomes a curse. It hardens if it does
not soften. It is like the heat of the sun, which melts the wax, but hardens
the clay. Affliction never leaves us as it finds us. If it does not bring
the soul nearer to God, it sends it farther from Him. If the result is not
improvement, it is deterioration. And what then? When the
Divine patience has been wearied and exhausted, the irrevocable doom must go
forth--"Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone!"
For the space of three years God had spoken to
Ahab by severe judgment; for three years He had blighted his land,
and arrested the fall of rain and dew. It was for the same period, the
husbandman, in the Gospel parable, waited for fruit on his cumbering
fig-tree--"Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this
fig-tree and find none; cut it down, why cumbers it the ground?" Three
years! Far, far longer than this, may He have been dealing with many of us!
dealing by mercies--dealing by chastisements. What has been the result? Has
it been, as in the case of Ahab, only a stouter-hearted rebellion--an
intenser selfishness--a deeper love of the world--a life of pleasure, which
is a life of death? the guilty cumberer--a cumberer still; robbing the
ground of space which others would more worthily occupy--drinking in dews
and sunshine for its own useless existence, which might load other boughs
with plenteous fruit, and make the world better and happier. Can such expect
always to be borne with? Can such dream of continuing to presume on the
Divine forbearance? The voice of the Intercessor, in the case of such, may
even now be heard, for the last time, pleading with despised and
injured Mercy--"Lord, let it alone this year also--and if it bears
fruit, well--and if not, then, after that, you shall cut it down!"