Following the reign of King David, his son, Solomon reigned in wisdom and the strength of God for approximately 30-35 years before his own apostasy and decline.
After Solomon, the Kings of Israel all did evil in the sight of the Lord. They forsook His ways to serve idols, and led the people themselves into idolatry.
Conspiracy and assassination were the methods used in ascension to the throne; a sharp contrast to the anointing that God gave His chosen Kings; David, and Solomon.
Finally, fifty-five years and six kings later, Ahab comes on the scene. The Bible tells us that Ahab did more evil in the sight of the Lord than all who were before him.
What a legacy; to be known as one who has excelled in evil!
I Kings 16:31 tells us that Ahab considered it ‘no big deal’ to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, who had raised up idols in the land after the death of Solomon; and so little did sin and the doing of evil matter to Ahab, that he even married Jezebel, a devout worshipper of Baal and the daughter of a king who worshipped Baal.
So of course, Ahab raised up altars to Baal and made the Asherah; a fertility altar. According to I Kings 18, there were 450 prophets of Baal, and 400 prophets of the Asherah, who ate at Jezebel’s table. Buddies. Partners in crime. Corrupt government, corrupt religion.
Israel is in crisis. Her kings have forsaken God and His promises. Idol worship is rampant in the land. Evil reigns.
(Can you hear the ‘chink, chink, chink’ of spurs?) Over the rise from Gilead in the East, silhouetted by the rising sun, comes one, lone man; enter, Elijah the Tishbite.
Let me quickly take you up to the verses of our study. Baal was worshipped as a weather-god. Later, the weather-god should have been able to strike his priest’s sacrifice with lightning, there on Mt. Carmel. But God would mock this false god by consuming Elijah’s sacrifice with fire from heaven.
In like manner Elijah, first coming on the scene in chapter 17, mocks Baal’s power by announcing that there will be no rain...not even morning dew...until he, Elijah, says so.
Now as a legitimate prophet of God, we know that Elijah didn’t just decide on his own initiative to make this declaration. It must have followed very earnest and fervent prayer, that God told him to go to Ahab and make the announcement. Ahab would understand that it was Elijah’s God who would hold back the rain; but I don’t want you to miss the way God honors the man who is truly close to His own heart. He has promised Elijah that when the rain finally comes, it would be at Elijah’s bidding. (“...there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”)
God then sends Elijah out into the wilderness where he will be safe from the angry Ahab, and continues to train and care for Elijah, first at the brook Cherith, then in Zarephath; and there is much to learn from those stories also, but we have to skip over them and move on to our study.
Three and a half years have passed with no rain on the land. The nation has proved itself unwilling to receive the rain of spiritual blessing from God, so God matches their deliberate spiritual drought with a physical one.
So it was, “...in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land” said Jesus, in Luke 4:25. For three and a half years, the people have suffered absolute drought on their land; not even dew on the grass; that is, as long as the grass lasted.
Ahab has sent his troops to lands far and wide looking for Elijah, and his anger has grown and burned hotter with the passing days and weeks and months.
This is the condition of things as we enter the 18th chapter of I kings. Let’s read verses 1-19 (Read) (Pray)
Ok, so Israel has seen no precipitation of any kind for over three years, but through it all God has kept his servant safe and provided for. Chapter 18 verse 20 begins the very familiar account of Elijah’s confrontation with the priests of Baal on Carmel. But today I want to focus on the contrast we are shown in these first nineteen verses, between Elijah, Ahab, and Obadiah.
First we must focus on the house of Ahab (the Bad). Here is a king of Israel, an Israelite himself, who has made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience, and been driven headlong into the vilest of wickedness. We can see, in these verses alone, the condition of all of mankind without God.
In verse 5 it says that Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land to all the springs of water and to all the valleys; perhaps we will find grass and keep the horses and mules alive, and not have to kill some of the cattle.”
Not one word in reference to God. Not one small sign of recognition that his own sins have brought God’s judgment upon the entire nation. No acceptance of responsibility, and no repentance. Not even remorse.
In the days of David and again, Solomon, while he still served the Lord God of Israel, the nation flourished like mythical Camelot in the heart of Arthur’s reign. The grass was lush, the flowers bloomed, trees gave their fruit, and monarchs ruled first on their knees, and then on their thrones.
But here is Ahab, leaving the comfort of his castle, unable even to enjoy the company of his own idolatrous wife and her little army of idolatrous priests, to go himself, searching a dry and barren countryside in search of the most fundamental of physical needs. Water, and grass.
So blinded by self and sin is he, that he as king has no concern for the subjects he should have been most concerned about. The people are starving in the midst of a great famine. They slowly wither as the grass has done, with no refreshing, life-giving rains to water the land.
And Ahab is spending all his energies to find grass for his own horses and mules, hoarding for himself with no thought for God or man.
This is the condition of the world we live and move in. Men rise up early, leave the comforts of home and, day after day after day, grovel in the dust of spiritual dearth and dryness to gather to themselves that which is passing away, with no thought for God and little thought for fellow man.
They appease their consciences with involvement in programs and efforts that are decorated with the false fronts of serving mankind and preserving the planet, oblivious to the fact that they are bowing the knee to the very things that are destroying them.
Modern man, you strive, and maybe with genius, for physical gain and future comforts; and where does it lead you? Where will your riches be when your decaying body lays cold in the hospital basement?
What long list of good deeds and humanitarian efforts will you unfold to read to God, when you stand before Him to give account? And what will be your answer then, when He says, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”?
The Holy Spirit has revealed to us, and now reveals to you through me, that you are spiritually dead. You are entirely in sin, and apart from God; and if you leave this world in that condition, you will spend eternity separated from Him, with not one whit of fulfillment for your desires, your lusts; not one whit of relief for your pain and misery, for eternity!
God has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, and the plumb line of His judgment will be the perfect righteousness of one Man, His Man, Jesus Christ. In Him is Life; apart from Him is only death.
But for the one who turns from sin to God through faith in Jesus, there is resurrection power, and life eternal in the presence of God Who is not willing that any should perish.
Come to Him now, man and woman of the world; Today, while it still called ‘Today’, and do not follow Ahab’s nightmarish path. In fulfillment of the prophet’s declaration, Ahab ended with the stray dogs of the city licking up his blood. Sharp contrast to the honor given the man of God, who was swept up to Heaven in a glorious whirlwind!
Now believer in Christ, we are obligated here, to take a closer look at the man in our story who, sad to say, most closely resembles the majority of us. So listen please, with a humble heart tuned to the Spirit, and do not grieve Him today if He speaks to you. Be receptive, not rejecting; believing, not unbelieving; and may you go from this place today, first chastened, then hugged by Him, as we study Obadiah (the Ugly).
Here was a man who served the One True God, even in the house of an idolatrous master. We are constrained to honor Obadiah as one who feared the Lord greatly; as is revealed to us in these verses, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
It is interesting to me, that the Spirit saw fit to tout Obadiah’s praises in his clandestine preserving of the true prophets of God, even though Obadiah blows his own trumpet just a few verses later, in the ears of Elijah.
It is commendable, people, when a believer can be so well established in worldly surroundings that he is placed in charge of a business (in Obadiah’s case, Ahab’s household), and yet keep himself pure from the worship of the idols his master serves.
But do not let it escape your notice, that Obadiah, while fearing the God of Elijah, was weakened in his service to God by his devotion to his worldly master.
He should have said, “But King Ahab, what about the people? Can we work to preserve the beasts of your stables and ignore the infirmity of your subjects?”
Might he have incurred the wrath of a Godless and evil master in even presuming to correct his vision? Yes! But so what?
We are in the world, believer, and must function in the world, but we are not to be OF the world. When man’s goals and aspirations oppose Godly living and conscience, we must stand against them, or be dragged down with them.
How badly Obadiah needed to hear the question Elijah would put to the people in verse 21:
“How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him!”
For a short time before entering Bible College in Los Angeles, I worked at a brokerage firm. The manager of the department to which I was assigned was one of the most blatantly Godless and self-serving men with whom I have ever had association.
In January of that year I took a few days vacation. On my last work day before taking that time off, he called me to his office and told me how proud he was of my work. He even gave me a raise. But within just weeks after I came back, he was beginning to treat me coldly. It didn’t occur to me until later that it may have had something to do with the scripture verse I typed on a 3 x 5 card and placed on my desk.
One day he asked if I wanted to go down to the bar in the lobby with him for a drink. My response was that I’d be happy to go with him, but that I would have a soda.
His friendly demeanor changed instantly to derisive scoffing, and he told me to forget it, and went back to work.
The very next morning, within minutes of his arrival at work, he accused me of an error in my work that both he and I knew was false, and I respectfully told him so.
At that, he jumped up from his chair, told me to clear out my desk, and that he would be back in ten minutes. As he passed by my desk to go get my severance check, he pointed at the scripture verse on the 3 x 5 card and added, “And get rid of THAT thing!”
When he returned with my check he called me again to his office, announced that my work was sub-standard, and fired me.
Folks, I drove home that day, jobless, yes, but with great peace in my heart and a smile so big that my cheeks began to hurt. I knew, and I knew that he knew, why he had really fired me; and I’m here to tell you today that any amount of suffering, when we know in our heart that is in God’s name that we suffer, is bliss.
Oh...and the scripture verse I had on the card? Micah 6:8
“And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Believer, do you find your soul vexed by the wordiness that surrounds you? Are you in a position that constantly challenges your service to God by calling you to pursuits that you know are contrary to His will?
If you are not in that place now, you may have been, and you probably will be in the future. So I have to ask you;
why do you stay in Ahab’s house? Why do you fear God, but serve the old man? Why do you obey the maniacal ravings of
the sin nature, when God’s Word makes very clear that through Christ’s atoning sacrifice sin is no longer master over you?
How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, serve Him!
He has said, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you”. He has promised, “I am with you always”. He has declared that to those who overcome, He will grant to sit with Him on His throne!
And will you turn your back on all of that to grovel with idolatrous men in the dry sands of commerce, gathering the grass of the field...while you neglect the needs of God’s church and your own spiritual health?
Are you an Obadiah, child of God? Is your faith tepid, and your service weak? Is your personal relationship with God such a distant thing, that you fear the hand of Ahab more than you trust the loving hand of your Heavenly Father?
Come out of Ahab’s house. Now, I’m not telling anyone here to go to work tomorrow and quit your job. I’m speaking of spiritual truth here. I’m simply calling you to consider where your trust has been placed and where your loyalties really lie.
Don’t let the mules and horses of this passing world hold your thoughts and energies captive, Christian. There are higher and nobler goals for you. Give your service and devotion to God, not to Ahab.
Now consider Elijah (the Good).
Elijah, who was more comfortable with the loneliness of the brook Cherith and the company of the gentiles of Zarephath, than with all the comforts of Ahab’s court.
Elijah, who had so completely given himself over to the care of God in a barren and hostile land, that he walked boldly back into the presence of the enemy at God’s beckoning, because he was in the center of God’s will; and when we dwell there, friend, then our heart fully understands Paul’s question: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Elijah was able to come out of the wilderness and confront the very one who had been earnestly seeking to take his life, because he knew the One to whom he belonged, and knew that to die doing God’s work was better than to live in hiding or in compromise.
People, this world has finally come to the place of declaring brazenly, that Christ and other religions are the same. One is the same as another. You are free to hold to whatever principles you want, as long as you hold them privately...keep them in the background...and don’t seek in any way to interrupt their terrible downward spiral of morals and ideals of worldly thinking...as long as you unite with others in their fervent pursuit of the phantom of hedonistic happiness.
But Elijah knew already the truth of words penned centuries later, by the Apostle John: “And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever.”
There are two spirits that grow ever stronger and more prevalent in these last days, folks. One, I have already warned about. The Ahab spirit, that bows the knee to idols and closes the eyes and ears to the things of God, and calls us to join with it in spending all our energies to please self and fulfill selfish desires.
But there is another. It is the Jezebel spirit; a persecuting spirit that screams out the lie that it is stronger than your God, and wants you to fear it so much that you will obey the Ahab spirit without question.
Listen to the words of the risen Christ, to the church of Thyatira in Revelation 2:
“I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first.
“But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.
“And I gave her time to repent; and she does not want to repent of her immorality.
“Behold, I will cast her upon a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds.
“And I will kill her children with pestilence; and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.”
Do you dare to stand apart in the spirit of Elijah, Christian? To denounce the Ahab and the Jezebel spirits in the world around you and be known as one of Christ’s own?
They may call you a trouble-maker, as Ahab called Elijah.
But if you have dwelt in the secret places of the Most High; if you have sat at His table, and not at Jezebel’s; if you have learned at His feet, you will go in His strength and with His wisdom. You will be able to trace the true evil back to its source.
It is departure from God and His holy commandments that had brought trouble to Israel, not God’s Word and God’s man.
Mankind will always be prone to forget or ignore the sin that brings their trouble, and think only of the trouble; but true wisdom from God sees sin as the source; and the inner peace and courage that comes from God gives His godly man power to take a decided stand against it.
May the lord give all His people grace to testify against this world that its deeds are evil, and stand apart from its ways, its principles...anything that solely belongs to IT.
“The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand.” wrote Paul. “Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”
Let us put off the old man and put on the new; be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds; set our affection on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of the Father; always remembering that our citizenship is in heaven, and with increasing eagerness, look for the coming of our Savior, Who will “transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”
Ahab’s blood was licked up by dogs. Obadiah is never heard from again. But Elijah, my friends, was caught up to meet the Lord in the air, always to be with Him.
