child, too, must have years of growth, though his father be disabled and there be none to earn the household bread but himself. So in the case before us. Ahab must be wearied out with searching for Elijah. He must be made to see how fruitless may be the efforts even of a king. And at last when success does come, it must come not from his side at all.

Mark this as a real law in life. It is thus that God baffles and humbles men. He gives them to feel that all searching is useless when he has determined that they shall not succeed in their search. The thing they want may lie within their own shadow, but they cannot find it! It may be under their foot, yet practically it may be miles away! Is not this our own experience? And when success does come, it comes after pursuit has been given up; after we have done our utmost and have failed, then there is the very thing we wanted standing before us as if it had sprung up out of our path! There is quite a mocking spirit in the world. A spirit that watches us working and failing, and then says, What you have been seeking for is here! And in this very mockery there is often solid and useful teaching. It says, He that would save his life shall lose it, and he that would lose his life shall find it. We toil all night and take nothing, and then the Spirit says, Let down the net here, and lo! it is filled with fish. Thus God is always breaking our straight lines into curves, showing us that our arm is just an inch too short to reach the ripest fruits, and that we cannot run backwards except with humbling ungainliness and to the great risk of our limbs. Ahab searched everywhere for Elijah, and though he was a king he could not find the poor prophet who lodged with the still poorer widow. Whom God conceals are well hidden!

1 Kings xviii. 1-16.

"And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth. And Elijah went to shew himself unto Ahab. And there was a sore famine in Samaria" (vv. I, 2).

GOD

AHAB, OBADIAH, AND ELIJAH.

OD is the time-keeper. He says, Now. We wonder we cannot 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. Think of waiting "many days" and doing nothing! But what if waiting be the best working? What if we can best do everything 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; 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 cannot 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

The governor of the house of Ahab was called Obadiah. 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" (v. 3). In verses 3 to 16, we have the conversation between Elijah and Obadiah.

“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 an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty 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: 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. And as Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him and he knew him, and 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 sinned, that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me? As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation nor kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee and when they said, He is not there; he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not. And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me: but I thy servant fear the Lord from my youth. Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the Lord, how I hid an hundred men of the Lord's prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water? And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here: and he shall slay me. And Elijah said, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand, I will surely shew myself unto him today. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him and Ahab went to meet Elijah."

What are the general lessons as affecting Ahab, Obadiah, and Elijah? Some of them are these :—

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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 (xvi. 33) 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.

4. 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 (v. 13), and Ahab knew that his servant Obadiah had hidden fifty of these prophets in a cave, and yet Ahab kept Obadiah in his service.-Redeeming points do not restore the whole character." One swallow does not make a summer."

5. 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, the cruel persecutor. Society has got no further than this to-day. The Ahabs of the age are leading us away into speculation that ends in idolatory 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.

Application: (1) Be the servant of the Lord; (2) To-day, Christ calls for faithful testimony; (3) If we suffer with Christ we shall also reign with him.

WE

E have said that Ahab was a speculative idolater rather than a cruel persecutor. Jezebel acted the part of cruelty; Ahab acted the part of unbeliever and spiritual rebel generally. A proof of the probable correctness of this view is found in the incident before us. When Ahab met Elijah he did not show a spirit of cruelty. He said unto the prophet, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? He did not threaten him with the sword; he did not demand his immediate surrender and arrest; he seems rather to have looked upon Elijah with wonder, perhaps not unmixed with admiration of a figure so independent and audacious. The tone of Ahab's mind may

be inferred from the kind of challenge which he accepted. It exactly suited his speculative genius. Elijah proposed a trial between himself and the idolatrous prophets, eight hundred and fifty in number, proposing that the god that answered by fire should be God. The idea instantly commended itself to Ahab as excellent. He liked the high and practical speculation. He was fond of intellectual combat, and he warmed at the notion of a holy fray. The man who could accept a notion of this kind was not cruel, or wild, or fond of human blood. Ahab was even wickedly religious; the more altars and groves the better,-yea, altar upon altar, until the pile reached to heaven, and grove after grove, until the line met itself again and formed a cordon round the world. If he had started from a right centre, Ahab would have been the foremost evangelist in the ancient Church.

Let us now look at the controversy itself.

This plan was proposed by the prophet of the Lord, and not by the servants of Baal. Truth addresses a perpetual challenge to all false religions and all wicked and incompetent workers. Its challenges have heightened and broadened in tone