Now this story falls in between
chapter 17 where we saw these miracles that the Lord performed
by Elijah. The feeding of the widow woman
and her son and the raising from the dead of the widow woman's
son after that. After the passage that we just
read Is the story of where Elijah
calls down rain from heaven He calls upon the Lord to show
to the prophets of Baal and everybody else that day Who the Lord is
and these are familiar? passages, but this first part
of chapter 18 is Not as familiar it almost seems like an in-between Passage But I believe there's a lot of
wonderful gospel teaching in this passage of scripture, let's
read verse one again and it came to pass after many days that
the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year and
Saying go show thyself into Ahab and I will send rain upon the
earth Well, you'll recall that the last time Elijah saw Ahab
he had told Ahab that it would not rain Anymore on the earth
until Elijah said so Now three and a half years later
it had not rained since Elijah told Ahab that and Ahab wasn't
happy about it As we read in that passage, Ahab had sent servants,
verse 10, into every nation to find Elijah so he could kill
Elijah. Now let's learn a lesson or two,
if the Lord is pleased, right here at the beginning of this.
First of all, when God's servant tells you what God said, it's
not a joke. It's not to be taken lightly.
When Elijah first told Ahab about the drought, no doubt they dismissed
Elijah. He wouldn't have let him leave
then if he had taken him seriously. For Elijah to challenge Ahab's
authority and to defy the whole nation on behalf of the Lord,
they simply dismissed him. But now, Three and a half years
later, I wonder how many people had died. And now they're desperate
for Ahab himself to go out and to send his right-hand man out,
and they themselves to go out and to look for a little patch
of green grass somewhere that maybe they had missed. It's desperation. Another lesson in this right
away is that Elijah represents the Lord Here clearly in this
chapter as well as in this whole story and often in the Accounts
we have of Elijah's life and Ahab had been looking everywhere
for him But not with good motive Religion looks for God also with
bad motive They say they're looking for
God they're searching for God they speak for God they worship
God But if they ever found the true God in the state that they're
in They would kill him we proved that at Calvary Religion looks for God in order
to improve themselves like Ahab and just wanting the rain to
fall. He just wanted to solve his problem.
He didn't care anything about, to put it mildly, he didn't care
anything about Elijah. He wanted him dead. Ahab is not
looking for Elijah because Elijah speaks for God, and Ahab wanted
to inquire of the Lord, or honor the Lord, and this world's religion
is the same. But here's the lesson, you don't
find God. He finds you. Job 11, seven, canst thou by
searching find out God? Can you find out the Almighty
unto perfection? It is as high as heaven, what
can you do? Ahab couldn't even find Elijah
because God had hidden him. Much less find the God of Elijah
without grace It's deeper than hell, what can
you know? We can never find God God has to reveal himself to
sinners and when he does that sinner discovers that God is
not who they were looking for He's not who they were looking
for before God had turned off the spigot
for three and a half years and now he says I'm ready to turn
it back on The famine to begin with was
for what reason It was when the evil of Ahab and Jezebel waxed
worse and worse in the land that God Performed this miracle and
sent this famine for one simple reason and to show who God is. Look at verse 21 of our text. Glad you came unto all the people
and said, how long halt ye between two opinions? Let's find out
who God is. What a beautiful and wonderful moment that is, when it's time. when it's time to settle the
matter. When God brings you to the place where you're gonna
find out one way or the other. If the Lord be God, follow Him. Whoever God is, you need to follow
Him, don't you? You need to hear from Him. You
need to bow to Him like Saul did. Lord, what would you have
me do? And you need to follow Him. And the people answered him not
a word. Now let's read verses two and six in our text. And
Elijah went to show himself unto Ahab, and there was a sore famine
in Samaria. And Ahab called Obadiah, which
was the governor of his house. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly,
for it was so when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord
that Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by 50 in a cave
and fed them with bread and water. And Ahab said unto Obadiah, go
into the land, unto all fountains of water and unto all brooks.
They knew where there were springs and brooks in the land. They
just were going out to see if somewhere there was a patch of
grass that the animals could graze on. Peradventure, we may find grass
to save the horses and mules alive that we lose not all the
beasts. It tells us something, the type
of beast they were wanting to save alive at this point. 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 already know, of course, that
there was no rain for these years, so verse two is not just repeating
that. Verse two is saying it was bad. That's what it's saying. It was
bad. Things were bad. Verse five very
strongly implies that all of the cattle were already gone.
You don't eat horses and mules. Apparently, the animals that
you do eat had already perished in the famine. And assuming that at least generally
speaking, This may be taken too much for granted in a kingdom
run by Ahab and Jezebel, but assuming that generally speaking,
people were given priority over cattle for water, because as bad as you need meat,
you need water more. It was bad. That's what verse
two is talking about. For these two men to go out personally
seems to indicate that Ahab Had sent all of his servants after
Elijah Or maybe many of Ahab's servants
were already dead Maybe a combination of both But it's a sign also
of desperate conditions desperate God had brought this evil man
to his knees. And still Ahab did not seek God
nor repent. That's because it doesn't happen
that way. It's not punishment that brings
repentance. It's not the threat of punishment,
but mercy. Mercy, thank God. if God has
brought you to your knees in the sense of your flesh, in the
sense of any hope of you ever doing anything to please God,
if God has brought you to the end of yourself, and it has caused you, instead
of running from God, to run to Him, thank Him for His mercy. And the goodness of God leadeth
men to repentance. Threats of hell won't help. As
Abraham told the previously rich man in hell in Luke 16, if a
man doesn't have faith from God to believe the word of God, no
spectacle nor threat can convince him. You and I were convinced the
way every sinner who knows God was convinced, by believing what
God said. Verse three shows us that a person
can serve an evil regime in this world or an evil man and still
also fear God. Have you ever wondered about
that? You get your feet dirty in this
world and you're thinking, can I even be a believer and do this?
Yeah, you can. You ever wondered that? I've
wondered that. That's attitude in my life. The Lord told Elijah
in verse 18 of chapter 19, the next chapter in our study, that
he still had 7,000 reserved unto him that had not bowed the knee
to Baal, nor kissed him. And Obadiah was one of them.
He was one of the 7,000. Wonder how many people there
were. and what percentage 7,000 was. I'd say real small. But Obadiah was one of those
ones that God had reserved. He wasn't one of the ones that
was just more spiritual than the rest, or smarter than the
rest, or made the right decisions. He was one of the 7,000 that
God reserved according to the Apostle Paul, according to the
election of grace. Thank God for that. Are you one
of those? Thank God. Obadiah was gifted of the Lord
to get things done in this world. You don't get to be the governor
of the house of the man with all the power unless you're gifted
in some ways to get things done, to accomplish tasks and to follow
orders. He was conscientious. Abel, probably pretty smart fella. When he performed that job in
an evil land, full of evil people, and yet his heart belonged unto
the Lord. That's comforting, isn't it?
Because we kind of find ourselves in that situation, don't we? Not only did Obadiah fear the
Lord greatly, but he had skin in the game.
You know what that expression means? To have skin in the game? Obadiah had skin in the game. And I wonder, you think about
this as we talk about it. I wonder if it's possible. to
fear the Lord greatly and not have skin in the game. What does that mean? Well, what
would have happened to Obadiah if they had found out about those
hundred prophets in the cave? I think we all know the answer
to that. And think about this in terms
of right now, in terms of you, in terms of serving the Lord
and fearing Him and worshiping Him. Your life's not in danger for
serving the Lord today, your physical life. But here's the question, is our
life in any way to be set aside? for the sake of honoring Christ.
Does it cost you anything? You remember what David said
in 2 Samuel 24? Every one of you are thinking,
I remember exactly what he said. Let's turn over there. 2 Samuel 24. Verse 19, when David had sinned and the
Lord sent the plague on Israel, and David's heart smote him. Verse 10, David's heart smote
him. And David said unto the Lord,
I've sinned greatly, and that I have done. He begged God to
take away the iniquity But there were consequences for
his sin Temporal earthly Consequences
for David's sin as there often is And so let's begin reading in
verse 19 when God is would stay the plague, David was instructed
to offer sacrifice. Beginning in verse 19, David,
according to the saying of Gad, the prophet, went up as the Lord
commanded to offer sacrifice. Aaronah looked and saw the king
and his servants coming on toward him. And Aaronah went out and
bowed himself before the king on his face. upon the ground. And Aaron said, wherefore is
my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, to buy
the threshing floor of thee, to build an altar unto the Lord,
that the plague may be stayed from the people. I'd say that's
a pretty good cause, wouldn't you? So that thousands of people
would not continue to die. of this horrible plague. And
Arona said unto David, let my lord the king take and offer
up what seemeth good unto him. Behold, here be oxen for burnt
sacrifice and threshing instruments and other instruments of the
oxen for wood. And all these things did Arona
as a king give unto the king. And Arona said unto the king,
the lord thy God accept thee. And the king said unto Arona,
nay, but I will surely buy it of thee at a price. Neither will
I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord, my God, of that which
doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing
floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver. Now, we know that
man doesn't add anything to the offering that's made unto the
Lord for our sin. That doesn't cost us anything.
It does not mean that it was Christ plus David's best, his
earnings, what his works had earned, that God accepted for
the sins of the people, for David's sin in this case. But I think
we ought to find out what it does mean, don't you think? I think we ought to find out
what it does mean. for the Lord to be honored. Obadiah had skin in the game.
That's the point I wanted to make. And let me put it this
way, on the authority of God's word, fearing the Lord greatly
is not manifested by talking about it. And I'm not talking about doing
great things for the Lord. I tell you something great to
do for the Lord, in my case at least, is just
don't mess anything up. If I can just keep my flesh out
of it, that's a mighty accomplishment. They cost me a little pride. They cost me some hurt feelings.
I'd say it's for a good cause. To fear the Lord is to know who
he is. A fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. It's the beginning. It's when
you begin to know who God is. You can't fear him unless you
know who he is. And when you know who he is,
you can't not fear him. It's really that simple. You
know something by his grace he teaches you something of his
holiness He must and shall punish sin because he's holy He teaches you something of his
sovereignty how that he rules and reigns over all Principalities
and powers and everybody and everything You learned something
of his power. Didn't our Lord say, I'll tell
you who you should fear. It's him who has power to kill
you and then put you in hell. Man can kill the body, but even
only that by God's permission, we found out, didn't we? In Job's
case. I reckon that's true in every
case. But our Lord said after that, what are they gonna do
to you? but fear him who has power, who
has real power. And there are two kinds of fear.
It's important that we understand this. The fear of the Lord that
Adam and Eve experienced in the garden when they hid themselves, tried to cover their shame, is
not this fear that Obadiah had. That's clear to see. It's very
easy to tell the difference. These two fears are known by
their fruits. If your fear causes you to run
and hide from God, avoid God, deny God, then you have an unbelieving
fear that will take you down to hell. But if by God's grace,
you have a fear of God that causes you to run to him, that causes you to open your
heart to him, he sees it anyway. that causes you to fall down
before him, bow to him, serve him, honor him. Obadiah was willing
to die in the cause of honoring the Lord. That is a God-given
fear of the Lord that saves. That's saving fear. It's like
saving faith in the sense that you're not saved because you
have it, You're saved by the God who gives it to you. That kind of fear knows that
God is holy and sovereign and that he ought to destroy you. But also knows that you can't
hide from God anyway. And that God is merciful to whom
he will be merciful. This fear sees how God can be
just and yet justify a sinner like you in Christ Jesus. And so this
fear causes a sinner to flee to Christ, not from. This fear
of faith sees Christ not only as an avenger of God's justice,
and not certainly as Ahab saw him, as someone to just be dismissed
and ignored. This saving fear that God gives,
a fear of God that a sinner has and comes to Christ, sees Christ
as the refuge, the sin offering that he is,
the righteousness in which we can stand before God accepted.
Righteousness we must have in order to ever see God. But not
just accepted, even loved. Though by nature we deserve his
wrath, Christ is our refuge. We must
have him. Look at verse seven in our text. And as Obadiah, back to 1 Kings
18, verse seven, and as Obadiah was
in the way, behold, Elijah met him and he knew him. And he fell
on his face and said, art thou that my Lord Elijah? And he answered
him, I am. Go tell thy Lord, behold, Elijah
is here. And he said, what have I seen?
You remember this part, we won't read it again. What have I seen?
Don't send me to Ahab. He's gonna kill me. And he had
it all figured out in his mind, didn't he? You see any red flags
going up? He had it all figured out. This
is what's gonna happen. We're so good at that, and yet
we're so bad at it. We're good at doing that, but
we're not, we're never right. He had thought this whole scenario
through in every detail and it didn't end well for him. He figured now we've looked everywhere.
Ahab has sent us all out to look for you. Obadiah being the governor
of the house, being his right hand man, I expect he was somewhat
responsible for the search for Elijah. and now you want me to
go tell him that you've been here all along? And then we're
gonna come look for you and God will have sent you somewhere
else and we don't know where and Ahab's gonna kill me. Do you know what the problem
was with his reasoning? And this is an important lesson
for us, for me and for you. The problem with Obadiah's reasoning
wasn't just that he figured it all wrong. That really wasn't
the main problem. The problem with his reasoning
was this. God's man said go. God's man said go. Now, This
was the will of God. That doesn't mean that everything
a preacher tells you to do, you gotta do it. But if he tells
you what God said, do it. That was the problem with Obadiah's
reasoning. It didn't matter about all that.
He said go. Go tell him I'm here. Think of Elijah as Christ telling
us to go and tell. Isn't that what verse 11 says?
Does this ring any bells? Do we have a commission like
this? And now they'll say it's go tell. That's what Elijah said,
go and tell. And our Lord Jesus Christ has
told us to go and tell. But what about this? What about
that? What about these problems? What about these obstacles? It
doesn't matter about all that. Ahab's not worth shooting. It
doesn't matter about all that. Who does Ahab represent in that
picture? Every sinner. Every sinner. What are we telling? Christ is here. He's here. You don't have to
deal with him. And now what the apostles, Peter
and John told the folks in the book of Acts, you got to deal
with him. He's here. He's Lord in Christ. God raised him from the dead.
You don't have to deal with him. A sinner is someone who is such. that the thing that will enrage
them the most and bring out their evil the most is that Christ
is here. That was Ahab. And Christ is
here, and I'll tell you this, he's got some demands. Ahab wasn't used to that, but
he's fixing to get used to it. Christ is not here to apologize
like religious so-called preachers do for God. He's not to cater to the sinner's
wants and the sinner's will. He's not here to do what you
want. He's here to tell you what to do. So preacher, go and tell sinners
who hate Christ and crucified him that murder him in their
hearts every day, that they must bow to him. You see, you think
you're king now. Ahab had his little throne, didn't
he? But what good was that throne when God shut the spigots off? Ahab's not a king anymore, is
he? He's somebody looking for a piece of grass that he can
feed to his horse so he can ride around like the big shot that
he thinks he is. That's who he is. Tell them, go and tell that this
Jesus whom you crucified, God hath made him both Lord and Christ. Go tell them that. And there
is none other name under heaven given among men whereby you must
be saved. He's the one with the water,
you see. And you just have one need. Christ is the water. He is your one need. Obadiah, though he feared the
Lord greatly, was not anxious to be the one to do that. But he did it. Why? Because he feared the Lord greatly. Remember this fear, this fear
is worship. This fear knows who he's dealing
with and knows that he's worthy of our obedience no matter what,
no matter what the cost. We buy his truth and we don't
sell it. It's faith. It's love. To fear the Lord is to love Him.
Let me ask you this. Are you facing anything that
you're not happy about? Have you ever been in that situation? Is there anything that you'd
just rather opt out of or be relieved from the duty of? Having
to bear it It's the fear of the Lord that
will cause you to enter into that and to endure it and to
honor the Lord in it And what a triumph that is in
him what a beautiful thing that is when the Lord gives that kind
of grace I've seen that And it's beautiful It's the grace of God on display. Notice in verse 15 that Obadiah
was never promised that he comes through this in one piece. This is so beautiful. You know what he is assured of?
Let's read verse 15 again. I just said, as the Lord of hosts
liveth before whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto him,
unto Ahab, today. Obadiah is not promised that
Obadiah is gonna come out of this alive, but he is assured
that it's the will of God. And so he says in effect, without
saying a word in verse 16, I won't in on it. If that's the deal,
if that's it, if this is gonna happen with me or without me,
if this is what God's doing, I won't in on it. He never said
a word, he just did it. He just did it. He said that,
and that's not a lesson to miss right there. He said it by what
he did. So do you. Good or bad, so do
I. I say it by what I do. Obadiah's reasoning had this
whole scenario ending badly, but the Lord has already ordained
and revealed that the end result is gonna be there's gonna be
rain. With us or without us, in spite
of us, there's gonna be rain. God's gonna give us what we need. God's gonna give us all we need
in Christ. That's gonna be the result of
this scenario. And I'll tell you what else,
true here, true here, God's gonna be glorified. Dear God, let that be what's
happening here in this place. Let's pray.