SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 31 May 1924, Page 11

SUNDAY READING

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Rev. A. H. Collins.)

ELIJAH AND OBADIAH. “And it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, “Go, show thyself to A'.iab; and I will send rain upon the earth.’ And Elijah went to show himself unto Ahab, and the famine was sore in Samaria.”—l. Kings, xviii., 1-2. The long wait was ended. Cherith and Zerephath had done their work for the prophet, and the famine had done its work for the people. The time for action had come, and the man of God must prepare for Carmel. There is a time when the word of the Lord reads, “Stand still and see the salvation of God”; there is also a time when the voice rings, “Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward.” We sometimes do most by doing nothing, and Elijah had to learn that lesson. But the man who can work is the man who can wait, and now the time for doing had arrived. “Go, show thyself to Ahab.” Will he go? He will. “His not to reason why.” “And Elijah went to meet Ahab.” The bravery of it is worth pondering. For see how the case stood. Ahab hated the Tishbite before God’s judgments had fallen on the land; and you rhay be sure the three years of drought had not softened his anger. Who was this skin-clad alien from Gilead, that he should challenge the national policy and defy the king and sow the air with curses, and stamp the king’s reign with disaster? If only he could lay hands on him! “And the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying. Go, show thyself to Ahab . . and Elijah went!” NATURE SILENCED. Now read on. “And the famine was sore in Samaria.” There is a,world of meaning behind that grim phrase. It was a sickening tight which met the prophet’s gaze. No laughing valleys covered over with corn; noj vineyards with trailing and tangled loveliness; no green patches to rest the eye; the bleating of the flocks was husned; the sickle rusted in the reaper’s cottage; the harp of Nature was silenced, and only grim, gaunt, shadows of men. with glazed eyes and pinched cheeks flitted to and fro! The ground was cursed for man’s sake, and the people learned that it is an evil thing and bitter to forsake God. Light is thrown on the position by the story which follows. There was no grass, save where the fountain® had not entirely dried up under the awful glare of the copper sky; and to find these was Ahab’s great concern. It was grass for the war horses and the mules that troubled Ahab and not the misery of the people! But who could be trusted to rise above selfishness when all were faced bv famine? The problem was solved by Ahab going in one direction, and Obediah in the opposite; and it was while the latter was engaged on this mission that he was startled by the sudden appearance of the prophet. Obadiah had not seen Elijah before; but there was no mistaking the man. His shaggy locks, hie robe of skin, his piercing gaze, and the awful sternness of his swarthy countenance, marked him as the prophet of Israel. He seemed more than human. He was righteous anger incarnate. Springing from his chariot, the courtier prostrated himself, and cried. “Art thou my lord Elijah?” “It is I,” was the curt'reply; “go, tell thy lord Elijah is here.” The courtier was dumbfounded! Had the prophet never heard of the steps Ahab had taken to capture the propliet ? Had no one told the man of God of what the king’s servant had done to save the religion of Jehovah from extinction in Israel? Did he know nothing of the story of a hundred men hidden, and fed, through the three dreadful years? Why, then, this risky command; for no sooner would he start on such .an errand than Elijah would be spirited away to some safe hiding place, and the baffled despot would vent his anger on the courtier who had fooled him! Elijah had one answer: he would surely meet Ahab that very day.

DRAMATIC INCIDENT. The meeting between .Elijah and Ahab lis one of the most dramatic passages in a story that abounds in dramatic incidents. Ahab is white with the wrath of a weak man: and because he was angrv he was insolent. “Is ifi thou, thou troubler of Israel?” “I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house,” is the prophet’s calm and fearless reply. “The cause of the famine is not my menace, but thy sin. Let this controversy come to an end! Jehovah shall decide! Assemble the people ” The challenge was more than fair, it was generous. Baal was the lord of the day. Fire was his symbol. “The god that answereth by fire, let him be the god.” Sullenly and scornfully, the king took up the gage of battle, and assembled the prophets of Baal to Carmel. The result of the contest does not lie within the scope of this sermon. We may leave Elijah and Ahab, and turn our thoughts to a smaller man than either. Obadiah is one of the minor characters oj the Old Testament. There are twelve men mentioned as bearing this name, and neither of them is conspicuous. The chief was one of the minor prophets, and the suggestion has been offered that this servant of Ahab, and the minor prophet, are the same person, though it does not seem probable. Obadiah only once appears on the scene: yet it is plain that he played no small part in keeping Israel from utter collapse. I think preachers have not done this man justice. Dr. Meyer uses him as an example of compromise with evil, and suggests that Obadiah should not have been in Ahab’s service at all. I don’t agree with him. He was not the type of man you would expect to find in the court where Ahab and Jezebel held carnival. But his presence there is another example ofe the fact that bad men often pay tribute to goodness in their choice of servants. Even such a man as Ahab wants such a man as Obadiah to be governor of his household. Ahab disobeyed the law of God himself; but he feels safer with a godly man in charge of his treasures. A thief wants an honest man to keep his books! A gambler does not want a “bookie” to be his financial agent. People who seldom or ever attend church like their children to go to Sunday school. In these ways they unconsciously pay homage to goodness. Perhaps the difficulty is not that Abate

should employ Obadiah, but that Obadiah should be willing to remain in the service of Ahab. RELIGION A HANDY PLANT. How could he walk white in such unclean paths? How could he breathe in such poisoned air? Why did he not bravely challenge the prevailing wickedness? If he had faith, did he not lack courage ? Several answers may be given. It is easier to isolate oneself in a monastery, or a convent, and so escape some forms of temptation, than it is to stand your ground and live the life. It is a poor religion that can only live in a hothouse. A botanist is said to have been exiled, and sought in a nobleman’s house. The nobleman received a rare plant the habits of which were not understood. The gardener treated it as an exotic, and placed it under glass, with the result. that it began to fade. ’When the botanist was consulted, he pronounced it an Arctic plant, and said it was being killed by warmth. Taking it outside he piled ice around it, with the result that it revived and flourished. It isn’t criticisms or persecution that hurts religion; it is luxury and worldliness. Religion may be coddled to death. Religion is a hardy plant. It in the heart of Nehemiah in the Persian court; in the heart of Joseph in Egypt; in the heart of Daniel, in the court of Babylon; in the heart of “the saints of Caesar’s household.” You can serve God where you live and labour. Baal did not get any homage from Obadiah. The king’s servant rendered to Caesar the things that were and to God the things which are God’s. He did not hide his light under a bushel, neither did he flash it into the eyes of others, so as to blind them. He blended fidelity and efficiency, with reasonableness and courtesy; and that is the sort of religion the world wants and will respect. A man may interlard his speech with pious words; but if his work is badly done, if you cannot depend on him, if he is dure and unpunctual, he wont make many converts. Religion has suffered too much and too long from a surfeit of piety on Sunday and an absence of godliness on the other days of the week. GOODNESS IN THE .WORLD. But the chief point in the story has yet to be named. F. W. Robertson has a striking sermon on “Salvation Out of the Visible Church,” and that is a truth we need to ponder. Elijah was eating his heart out with the thought that he only was faithful to Jehovah, and he discovered there were “seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal,” and one of the seven thousand was keeping his garments unspotted in the palace of Ahab! There is more goodness in the world than we imagine, simply because we suppose that goodness must be our type of goodness. If I believed thar only church members will be saved I should despair, and my despair would be deeper if I concluded that only Baptist Church members would be saved. I do not believe that any church, or all the churches, include a’l the redeemed. “They shall come from the east and the west and the north and the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of .God.” I

There is a church larger than any visible church; lamer than Jew, or Gentile, or Christian. There is the Church of Humanity. The church of the groping and struggling, sinning and suffering, sons and daughters of men. whose goodness is marred by many faults, and whose faith is blurred by mutfli unbelief ; yet whose souls send out feelers after God, as sickly plants in a London slum reach out to be kissed by the sun. Francesca Alexander has a poem in which she tells of a hermit, who dwelt in a cave among the mountains. He fasted and prayed and endeavoured by every means to purge his soul of all evil and adorn it with spiritual beauty. He fancied that he alone cared for such things; and as from Iris cave he sometimes saw at nightfall the twinkling lights of the cottages in the valleys, he wept to think the dwellers in them had no love for higher things. One day, however, he was commanded to set out on a journey among the towns and hamlets round about him. All sorts of people were moved to open their hearts to him. He was astonished to find the wealth of the world’s hidden goodness. He returned to his cave, and of an evening found a new delight in contemplating the valley that lay below. Saw the twinkling star glow* Of light in the cottage window far— How many God's hidden servants are. Ah! yes, we need to learn “how many Orod’s hidden servants are.” They don’t use our religions beliefs, or observe our religious forms; and they may be none the worse for that; but they are serving God; and perhaps in the end of the day two surprises will await us—one that pomp will be at God’s right hand whom we never expected to see there; and the other and greater wonder will be that we are there. There is a pharming and humorous story of a quaint device which Catherine Van Bora employed to rouse her husband out of his depression. “At one time,” says Luther, ‘‘l was sorely vexed by my own sinfulness, by the wickedness of the world, and by the dangers that beset the church. One morning, seeing mv wife dressed in mourning. I asked the reason. “Do you not know.” she said, ‘God in heaven is dead?” “What nonsense.” I exclaimed. “How can God die. He is immortal and will live through all eternity.” “Is that really true?” she asked. “Of course: how can von doubt it? As surely as there is a God, He can never die.” “And yet,” she said quietly, “you are so hopeless and discouraged!” Then I observed what a wise woman»_my wife was and mastered my sadness.” Oh! ye despondent prophets, bethink you of that story and read again this chapter in the life of Elijah.