God is the time-keeper. He says: “Now.” We wonder we can not go just when
it is convenient to ourselves. We think we see the exact juncture when it
would be right to go, but if we went just then a serpent would bite us on
the road.
We want to go to Heaven, but God says: “Not yet.”
We want to begin the battle, but God says: “Wait.”
In the eighteenth chapter of the first Book of Kings we read:
“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 unto Ahab; and I will
send rain upon the Earth.’ And Elijah went to show himself unto Ahab. And
there was a sore famine in Samaria.”
Think of waiting “many days” and doing nothing! But what if waiting be
the best working? What if we can best do every thing by simply doing
nothing? There is a time to stand still and see the salvation of God.
Mark another thing in these verses. The Lord said “Go,” and Elijah went.
Not Elijah “objected,” Elijah “reasoned,” or Elijah “pointed out the
difficulties,” but simply Elijah “went.”
That is the true ideal of life.
Always be ready.
Contrast with this the case of Jonah. Elijah had no fear of Ahab. He
who fears God can not fear man. If you go up to your duties in your own
strength, you will find them difficult; if you come down upon them from
high communion with God, you will find them easy.
The governor of the house of Ahab was called Obadiah. The word Obadiah
means “servant of Jehovah,” and it would seem to have been a true
description of the man, for we read that “Obadiah feared [or reverenced]
the Lord greatly.”
It is possible for a man to be very bad in one direction and very
tolerant in another. It was so in the case of Ahab. He was the worst of
the kings of Israel, yet he kept a governor over his house who feared
the Lord greatly.
The Lord causes the most wicked men to pay His religion the homage
which is due to its excellence. A bad king employs a good governor. He
who himself disobeys Jehovah yet engages a servant who fears the Lord
greatly. The thief likes an honest man for steward. The blasphemer
likes a godly teacher for his child. The great speculator prefers an
unspeculative man for book-keeper. It is thus that virtue has many
unconscious votaries.
He who is the slave of idolatry becomes an easy prey to the power of
cruel tempters. We do not know that Ahab was a cruel man, but we do
know that Jezebel was a cruel woman, and Ahab was greatly influenced by
his passionate and sanguinary wife. Ahab’s provocation of the Lord may
have been in the direction of idolatry alone; but to be wrong in your
conception of worship is to expose yourself to every possible attack of
the enemy. To pray in the wrong direction is to be weak in every other.
Ahab was a speculative idolater; Jezebel was a practical persecutor. Ahab
showed that speculative error is consistent with social toleration. You
must distinguish between Ahab and Elijah in this matter. It was Jezebel
who slew the prophets of the Lord, and Ahab knew that his servant,
Obadiah, had hidden fifty of these prophets in a cave; and yet Ahab kept
Obadiah in his service. But redeeming points do not restore the whole
character. “One swallow does not make a Summer.”
In the same character may be met great faith and great doubt. Obadiah
risked his life to save fifty of the prophets of the Lord, yet dare not
risk it, without first receiving an oath, for the greatest prophet of
all! This mixture we find in every human character. “How abject, how
august, is man!”
In Ahab, Obadiah, Elijah and Jezebel we see a fourfold type of human
society. There is the speculator, the godly servant, the far-seeing
prophet and the cruel persecutor.
Society has got no farther than this today. The Ahabs of the age are
leading us away into speculation that ends in idolatry and in infinite
provocation of the Lord; the Obadiahs of the age are still praying, and
serving God, and saving even the worst households from the wrath of
Heaven; the Elijahs of the age are still hurling their divine thunders
through the corrupt and stagnant air, and piercing with lightning shafts
the gloomy and threatening future; and the Jezebels of the age are still
narrow, bitter, indignant, vengeful and sanguinary.
O wondrous combination! So checked, so controlled, by invisible but
benignant power! Speculative error has its counterpart in actual cruelty,
and patient worship has its counterpart in daring service.
We sometimes hear that Ahab was a covetous man. Are we quite sure that
the charge is just and that it can be substantiated?
This charge is based on the affair of Naboth’s vineyard. How could Ahab
be covetous? He proposed terms, saying:
“Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because
it is near unto my house, and I will give thee a better vineyard than it;
or, if it seems good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.”
The terms do not, upon the face of them, appear to be unreasonable or
inapplicable. Surely this is not mere covetousness, if covetousness at
all. The vineyard was close to the palace, and that fact was assigned
as a reason for wishing to open negotiations concerning its transfer.
But do we not sometimes too narrowly interpret the word covetousness? It
is generally, at least, limited to money. When a man is fond of money,
wishes to add to it, and is not scrupulous as to the means by which he
seeks to enhance his fortune, we describe him as covetous. The term is
perfectly applicable in such a case.
But the term “covetous” may apply to a much larger set of circumstances,
and describe quite another set of impulses and desires.
We may even be covetous of personal appearance; we may be covetous of
popular fame, such as is enjoyed by other men; we may be covetous in
every direction which implies the gratification of our own wishes; and
yet, with regard to the mere matter of money, we may be almost liberal.
This is an astounding state of affairs.
A man may be liberal with money, and yet covetous in many other
directions. Sometimes, when covetousness takes this other turn, we
describe it by the narrower word, “envy.” We say we envy the personal
appearance of some; we envy the greatness and the public standing of
others.
But under all this envy is covetousness.
Envy is in a sense but a symptom; covetousness is the vital and devouring
disease. Under this interpretation of the term, therefore, it is not
unfit or unjust to describe Ahab as a covetous man.
Look at his dissatisfaction with circumstances. He wishes to have “a
garden of herbs.” That is all. He is king of Israel in Samaria; but there
is one little thing of which he has not yet possessed himself, and until
he gets that in his hand he can not rest well. There is a dream that
troubles him; there is a nightmare which makes him afraid to lie down to
sleep.
Look at what he has. Who can measure it? Who can run through the
enumeration of his possessions? Who can take an exhaustive inventory of
all the riches of the king of Israel?
But there is one little corner that is not his, and he wants it, and
until he can get it all the rest goes for nothing.
The great Alexander could not rest in his palace at Babylon because
he could not get ivy to grow in his garden. What was Babylon, or all
Assyria, in view of the fact that this childish king could not cause ivy
to grow in the palace gardens?
Ahab lived in circumstances; he lived in the very narrowest kind of
circumstances. As a little man, he lived in little things, and because
those things were not all to his mind it was impossible for him to be
restful or noble or really good.
Once let the mind become dissatisfied with some trifling circumstance,
and that fly spoils the whole pot of ointment. Once get the notion that
the house is too small, and then morning, noon and night you never see
a picture that is in it, or acknowledge the comfort of one corner in
all the little habitation. The one thing that is present in the mind
throughout all the weary hours is that the house is too small.
Once get the idea that the business is undignified, and you go to it late
in the morning and leave it early in the afternoon, neglecting it between
times; you are also ashamed to speak of it, and will not throw your whole
heart and soul during business hours into its execution.
Once get the notion that the neighborhood is unfashionable, and it goes
for nothing that the rooms are large and airy, that the garden is one of
the best you ever had, that there is ample scope for a rich library, that
all the neighbors are men of peculiar intelligence and goodness. All go
for nothing, because the tempter has said: “This neighborhood is not a
fashionable quarter of the town, and when people come to know that you
are living here they will lose confidence in you and respect for you.”
If we live in circumstances, we shall be the sport of events; we shall
be without dignity, without calmness, without reality and solidity of
character. Let us, therefore, betake ourselves into inner thoughts, into
spirituality of life, into the soul’s true character, into the very
sanctuary of God. There we shall have truth and light and peace; there
the stormy wind can not disturb us, and the great darkness is but an
outside circumstance, for within there is the shining of the light of God.
Then notice in Ahab a childish servility to circumstances.
[Illustration: THE PROPHET AMOS.