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We now turn our attention to the sad condition in Israel during the time that Elijah was hidden with God. The condition of things on earth must really be terrible when “the heaven is shut up.” When Heaven withholds its refreshing showers, this lower world is sterile and dreary, especially the land that was to “drink water of the rain of heaven.” Egypt might not have given much regarding the shutting up of Heaven, seeing she had never looked there for her supplies. Her resources were in herself. “My river is mine own,” was her independent language.

 

But such was not the case with the Lord's land—“the land of hills and valleys.” If Heaven did not yield its supplies, all would be parched and sterile. Israel could not say, “My river is mine own.” No; they were taught to look up; to keep their eyes always on the Lord, as the Lord's eyes were always on them. Therefore, when anything hindered or broke the connection between Heaven and earth, the land of Canaan felt it with painful intensity.

 

So it was “in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land.” Israel was made to feel the dreadful consequences of departing from their only source of real blessing.

 

There was sore famine in Samaria, and 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.

 

Israel had sinned, and Israel must now feel the rod of Jehovah's righteous anger. Their king out looking for grass, what a humbling picture for God's ancient people! What a difference from the rich abundance and glory of Solomon's day! But God had been grossly dishonored—His truth rejected. The pestilential influence of Jezebel's principles went out through her wicked prophets—Baal's altar superseded the altar of God; hence the Heaven above was iron, and the earth beneath brass; the physical aspect of things was the expression of Israel's hardness of heart and low moral condition.

 

There is not a word about God in Ahab's directions to his servants—not a syllable about the sin that had called down the heavy displeasure and judgment of God on the land. No; the word is, “Go unto all fountains and brooks.” Ahab's heart lacked humility; he did not turn to Jehovah; he did not cry out to Jehovah in the hour of his need; thus his word is, “peradventure we may find grass.” God is shut out; self is the all-engrossing object. He cared about finding grass, not about finding God.

 

The horrors of famine drove him out, keeping Ahab from enjoying himself in the midst of Jezebel's idolatrous prophets. Instead of searching out, in self-judgment and humility, the cause of the famine and seeking pardon and restoration at the hand of God, he goes forth, in impenitent selfishness, to look for grass. He sold himself to work wickedness, becoming the slave of Jezebel. His palace became a cage of unclean birds. Like vultures, Baal's prophets hovered around his throne, spreading the leaven of idolatry over the whole land.

 

It is truly awful when the heart ceases to depend on the Lord. Ahab was an Israelite, but he had allowed himself to be ensnared by a false religious system headed by his wife, madding faith and a good conscience shipwreck—driving headlong into abandoned wickedness. One who turns aside from the ways of God is sure to plunge into profound depths of wickedness. The devil seems to take special delight in using such a one as an instrument to carry out his malignant designs against the truth of God.

 

If you have been taught to value the ways of truth and holiness, if you have taken delight in God and His ways, then be watchful; “keep thy heart with all diligence.” Beware of false religious influence; you are moving through a sphere in which the very atmosphere you breathe is noxious, and destructive of spiritual life. With a sagacity sharpened by thousands of years' acquaintance with the constitution of the human mind, the enemy has laid his snares on all sides of us, and nothing but permanent communion with our heavenly Father will preserve our soul. Remember Ahab, and pray continually to be kept from temptation.

 

In connection with Ahab, the following passage of Scripture is a solemn and seasonable warning:

 

Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited (Jer. 17:5-6).

 

Such was Ahab—wretched though favored with a diadem and scepter. He cared neither for God nor his people. In his sayings and doings, we find as little about Israel as about God. There is not one word about the people committed to his care. His earthly mind seems to have been unable to reach beyond “the horses and mules”—the objects of Ahab's anxious solicitude in the day of Israel's calamity.

 

What a contrast between all this low and groveling selfishness and the noble spirit of the man after God's own heart, who, when the land was trembling beneath the heavy stroke of Jehovah's chastening rod, could say,

 

Is it not I that have commanded the people to be numbered: even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed; but as for these sheep, what have they done? let Thy hand, I pray Thee, O Lord my God, be on me, and on my father's house; but not on Thy people, that they should be plagued (1 Chr. 21:17).

 

Here was the true spirit of a king. David, in the spirit of his blessed Master, exposed himself to the stroke, in order that the sheep might escape. David would “stand between them and the foe”; he would turn the scepter into a shepherd's crook, thinking not of “horses and mules.” No; he did not think of himself or his father's house, but of God's people, the sheep of His hand.

 

It would certainly be profitable to further consider the history of Ahab; his unprincipled treatment of the righteous Naboth; the alluring influence exerted by him over the mind of the good king Jehoshaphat, and many other circumstances in his unhappy reign; but this would lead us too far from our subject. But, for a moment let us consider an important member of Ahab's household, and then return to Elijah.

 

The governor of Ahab's house, Obadiah, was one who in secret feared the Lord, but was in a most unhallowed atmosphere. The house of Ahab must have been a painful school for the righteous soul of Obadiah. He was hindered both in service and testimony. What he did for the Lord was done by stealth, because he was afraid to act openly and decidedly. Yet, he did enough to show what he would have done had he been planted in a more congenial soil; cherished by a more healthful atmosphere. “He took a hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.” This was a most precious token of his heart-felt devotedness to the Lord—a triumph of Divine principle over the most untoward circumstances.

 

It was the same with Jonathan in the house of Saul. He, too, was hindered in his service to God and Israel. It would have been better for him to entirely separate himself from the evil in which his father lived; his place at Saul's table should have been vacant as was David's: the cave of Adullam was his proper place, where, in holy companionship with the rejected David, he could have found a wider and more suited sphere in which to manifest his affectionate devotedness to God and His anointed.

 

However, human expediency no doubt recommended Jonathan to remain in Saul's house, and Obadiah to remain in Ahab's house, as being “the sphere in which Providence had placed them”; but expediency is not faith, nor will it aid us in our path of service, whatever it may be. Faith leads us to break through the freezing rules of human expediency, expressing itself in unmistaken ways.

 

At times, Jonathan felt constrained to leave the table of Saul so that he might embrace David: but he should have abandoned it altogether, casting his lot entirely with David. He should not have been satisfied just speaking for David; he should have joined him or at least identified himself with him. But this he did not do, so he fell on Mount Gilboa. In life, Jonathan was harassed and hindered by the unrighteous principle of rule that Saul had set up to entangle and bind the consciences of the faithful, and in his death he was ingloriously mingled with the uncircumcised.

 

It was this way with Obadiah. His lot was to stand with a man who occupied the lowest step of that ladder of apostasy to which the kings of Israel had descended. Therefore, he was obliged to act stealthily for God and His servants; afraid of Ahab and Jezebel; lacking boldness and energy to stand up against all abominations; providing no room for the development of renewed energies or affections, his soul withered by the noxious vapors around him.

 

So, while Elijah was boldly confronting Ahab and openly serving the Lord, Obadiah was openly serving Ahab and stealthily serving the Lord. While Elijah was breathing the holy atmosphere of Jehovah's presence, Obadiah was breathing the polluted atmosphere of Ahab's wicked court. While Elijah was receiving daily supplies from the hand of God, Obadiah was ranging the country in search of grass for Ahab's horses.

 

Truly a most striking contrast! Sadly, too many today are similarly occupied? Too many God-fearing men appear to be in common with this world, laboring in co-operation with its death and misery. Should “the mules and horses” of an ungodly world engross the thoughts and energies of Christians instead of the interests of the church of our Lord? No; it should not be so. A Christian should have a nobler end in view—a higher and more heavenly sphere in which to use his energies. God, not Ahab, demands and deserves our devotion.

 

Before the Searcher of hearts, let us honestly ask ourselves, “What are we doing?” What object are we carrying out? What end do we have in view? Are we sowing to the flesh? Are we working for merely material objects? Have we no higher end in view than self or this present world?

 

These are searching questions. The tendency and affections of the human heart are always downward—toward earth and the things of earth. The palace of Ahab presents powerful attractions to our fallen nature, more powerful than the lonely banks of Cherith or the house of the starving widow of Zarephath. But think of the end! The end alone is the true criterion by which to judge such matters. “Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end “ (Ps. 73:17).

 

By being in the sanctuary, Elijah knew that Ahab stood in a slippery place; that his house would crumble in the dust; that all his pomp and glory was about to end in a lonely tomb—his immortal spirit summoned to render its final account. These things the holy man of God thoroughly understood. Therefore, he was content to stand apart from it all. He felt that his leathern girdle, homely fare, and lonely path, were far better than all the pleasures of Ahab's court. Such was his judgment, and before we close this brief look at Elijah – Servant of God, we will see that his judgment was sound.

 

“The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” Would that all who love the name of Jesus were more uncompromising and energetic in their testimony for Him! The time is rapidly approaching when we will wish that we had been more true and real in our ways here below. Too many today are lukewarm, inclined to make terms with the world and the flesh, ready to exchange the leathern girdle for the robe in which Ahab and Jezebel are most willing to array us.

 

May the Lord give all His people grace to testify against the evil deeds of this world, standing apart from its ways, from its maxims and principles.¹   In a word, standing apart from everything that properly belongs to the world. “The night is far spent, and the day is at hand.” Let us cast off the works of darkness and stand clothed in the armor of light; as those who are risen with Christ, let us set our affection on things above, and not on things of the earth; having “our citizenship in heaven.” With unceasing eagerness, let us

 

Look for the Saviour from thence, who shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

 

Footnote:

¹ In the famous Riverside Church in New York City are two stained-glass windows with scenes from the Gospel accounts of Jesus in Gethsemane.  The first is the famous scene of Jesus in prayer beside a rock.  He is alone in the garden, pouring out His anguish to the Father in Heaven.  In a second window there is another view of the Son of Man in prayer that same night.  In it one sees not only Jesus but His disciples.  They are sound asleep!  Jesus is destined for Golgotha in a matter of ten to twelve hours.  He is in such anguish that sweat is rolling off his body as if He were already gashed and bleeding.  Having asked His closest friends and companions to remain with Him and pray, they sleep.  The disciples dozed off.  They napped.  They took care of themselves in a time when they could have ministered to their Lord in His time of great need.  They weren't “bad” men—just dull and unresponsive when Jesus needed them.  How much like those men are we at critical times?  Jesus is intense and passionate, and we nod off.  He wants someone affirmed, loved, and reached with the Gospel, and we take no notice.  He wants someone fed or a despondent soul encouraged, and we're absorbed with our own needs.  We don't have to be bad people to be sleepy disciples.  We certainly aren't hostile toward Jesus!  After all, we wear His name and think of ourselves as Christian (i.e., Christ-following) people.  But Jesus isn't always the functional Master and Sovereign of our lives.  He isn't always a participant in our decisions about work or money, vacation or friends.  We sometimes don't think about His reaction when we dismiss someone as worthless or undeserving of our attention.  He isn't close enough to keep us from nodding off when we could be partnered with Him.  Again, though, it isn't that we hate Jesus.  It's just that we have domesticated Him to the church building and “private time”—when He wants to be Lord of everything.  Surely, Jesus would prefer that we curse Him than tolerate Him as a vague Sunday presence and a Monday-through-Saturday irrelevance.  Let's be serious about practicing His presence through a conscious effort to think His thoughts, see others through His eyes, use His vocabulary, and treat people as He did.  He has asked us to be His companions in prayer, holiness, and service.  He'll be back someday.  In the meanwhile, rather than getting sluggish and dozing off, here is good counsel: “Think of ways to encourage one another to outbursts of love and good deeds” (Heb. 10:24, NLT).

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