Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Sept 1966

The day that Elijah showed himself to Ahab according to the command of God: "Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth" (1 Kings 18.1), was one of outstanding importance and significance to Ahab and to the people of Israel. For three years there had been no rain and the land was reduced to famine conditions. We are told of the wickedness of Ahab in these words: "There was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to do that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, whom Jesebel his wife stirred up, and he did very abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites did, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel" (1 Kings 21.25,16). He was a totally bad man, but his badness was increased by his foreign wife stirring him up in his evil ways. A good and godly wife is a treasure, but alas for the man who is tied for a lifetime to a wife of an evil, cantankerous disposition, who stirs up her husband and others to drive goodness and peace out of their lives!

The first to meet Elijah was one Obadiah. We read of him in the Scriptures only in this chapter. We are told, "Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly: for it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the LORD, that Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water" (verses 3-5). This was an excellent thing for Obadiah to do, he who was over the king's household. His position must have been very difficult, to be one that feared the LORD greatly, and yet to be high up in the king's employment, the royal family being such as it was. To walk a middle path as he sought to do was no easy thing. His policy was to please the LORD and to please Ahab at the same time.

Mr Radcliffe used to speak of things black and white and things grey, a mixture of the two shades, and he sought to warn us against becoming grey In our thoughts and ways and being satisfied with a grey thing. I have no doubt that there are many children of God who are persons that fear God and do much that is right in their individual lives, but they are quite satisfied to be in a grey thing, something that is not right, but not too far wrong, as they think.

Here are three men who stand out as representing the three shades:

Ahab was black, as black as night; Elijah was white; and Obadiah was grey. He was hiding and feeding the LORD's prophets, and he was also out finding grass to feed Ahab's horses and mules. If we are to please the Lord we must take Elijah as our pattern, not Obadiah. Let us be men of principle, not of policy. As men of policy, we may be clever and cunning enough. We may be clever enough to hide and feed prophets, so to speak, and also find grass to feed horses, but that is just compromise. The compromising of Obadiah may never have been found out by Ahab, or it would have been the worse for Obadiah, but we can see that his conduct was far removed from that of the great Elijah. He knew that Elijah walked and lived near td the LORD, and when Elijah told him to tell his master that Elijah was here, he began to plead for his life, supposing that the Spirit of the LORD would carry Elijah away whither he kmew not and Ahab would slay him. He pleaded for his life because of his work in hiding and feeding the prophets in a cave. Being assured that Elijah would show himself to Ahab, he went to meet Ahab and told him. When the black met the white, there was no mixing. Ahab's words to Elijah were furious: "Is it thou, thou troubler of Israel?" There was no apology from Elijah to his royal highness, but a plain and definite charge as to the conduct of Ahab and his royal house. "I have not troubled Israel; but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed the Baalim" (verse 18).

A man of God must be prepared in times of serious wrongdoing to stand alone for God, even as in the case of Elijah, in 1 Kings 15. He was greatly in the minority in the time of Ahab's kingdom. The prophets of Baal were 450, and those of the Asherah 400. Surely, if right and wrong were to be determined by a majority, Elijah's claim would be rubbed out entirely. Such is the voice of democracy. It was heard at the bar of Pilate nearly 2,000 years ago. It is said of that judgement, where were gathered "the chief priests and the rulers and the people", "they were instant with loud voices, asking that He might be crucified. And their voices prevailed. And Pilate gave sentence that what they asked for should be done" (Luke 23.13,23,24). Such was the voice of the people!

Elijah asks that the idolatrous prophets should be gathered to him to mount Carmel, and all Israel as well. When they came, Elijah said to the people, "How long halt ye between two opinions? If the LORD be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him" (verse 21). It is evident that the LORD had to deal with the nation in withholding rain, and reducing their food supply to famine conditions before the people would cease from their idolatry. They had come to a halt and were in that state of not knowing which way to go, whether to follow the LORD or follow Baal. It is ever well when a sinner comes to a halt, for unless he is stopped he will go on to destruction. It was so with the prodigal in the parable of Luke 15. He ended his riotous life by the swine-trough. From there he started on his way back to his father in repentance, willing to take a servant's place, but instead he got the best that his loving father could give.

In Elijah's case, the matter was to be settled by sacrifice. Two bullocks were to be given, one to Baal's prophets and the other to Elijah. No fire was to be put under either bullock, and Baal's prophets were to call on their god, and the God that answered by fire, He was to be God. Elijah said that Baal's prophets were to choose their bullock first, so these prophets chose their bullock and dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning to noon, and leaped about their altar, but there was none that regarded. Elijah mocked them and told them to cry aloud, perchance Baal was on a journey or was asleep and needed to be awaked. They cried aloud and cut themselves with knives till their blood gushed out, and they kept on until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, the same time as the Lord died on the cross.

Then Elijah told all the people to come near to him, and he builded with twelve stones the altar of the LORD which had been thrown down, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob. He cut the bullock and laid it on the wood. Four barrels of water were poured three times on the offering and the wood, and then the trench around the altar was filled with water. Then Elijah called on the name of the LORD, and fire from the LORD consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench. When the people saw this, they said, "The LORD (Jehovah) He is God; the LORD He is God." They knew now through the accepted sacrifice, the acceptance of which was seen by the fire from the LORD. This was the same fire as consumed the burnt offering on the altar in the court of the Tabernacle (Leviticus 9.24).

It is by the sacrifice of Christ that men get to know God through faith in Him, as He said, "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He," and again, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Myself" (John 8.28; 12.32). Following the sacrifice, Elijah said, "There is the sound of abundance of rain," and even so the blessing reaches men through Christ's sacrifice.

J. Miller | Sept 1966
Jottings