As the Lord your God lives, there is not a nation or kingdom where my master has not sent to hunt you. If they said, ‘He is not here,’ then he set fire to the kingdom and its territories, because he did not find you. So now you say to me, ‘Go, tell your master, “Behold, Elijah is here’”! But if I so do, it shall come to pass, when I leave you, the Spirit of the Lord shall carry you to a land I do not know. Moreover, when I go and report this to Ahab, he will kill me. Yet your servant fears the Lord from his youth.
Obadiah was a senior officer in Ahab’s Administration. And Ahab had been hunting Elijah for quite some time, hoping to kill him. He so wanted to find Elijah and put folk on notice not to hide the prophet, that Ahab had entire kingdoms burned to the ground if they said they did not have Elijah.
It was known that Ahab would go to crazy lengths to punish those he thought were hiding Elijah.
And now, Elijah is asking Obadiah to go and find King Ahab to tell him that Elijah is looking for him!!!
Imagine your bosses worst enemy telling you to take your boss a message…
But that happens regularly.
Often times we are confronted by a truth that carries a message for our earthly masters. Maybe it’s a truth with a message for our boss…or for our parents…or for our civic leaders and elected officials…
Maybe that earthly master is your money, or the things of this world that have power over you.
The truth tells us to confront those in power, and we know that those in power have tried to kill the truth.
It’s easier for us to keep our heads down. It’s easier to pretend that we haven’t encountered the truth. We fear our earthly masters more than we fear our Heavenly Master.
We believe our Heavenly Master is a chump…
He has to forgive us. He isn’t really serious about judgment. He isn’t coming anytime soon…so I have time to repent.
Yet, we “know” our earthly masters mean business.
They might fire us or banish us from the family. They might change our inheritance. They might blackball us and prevent us from doing our job (like Colin Kaepernick). So, we’re careful not to cross them.
Obadiah knows all of this to be true about his master, Ahab. Yet, Obadiah “fears the Lord from his youth.” And he fears his Heavenly Master more than he fears his earthly one. And so he’s willing to confront his earthly master with the truth – even if it might cost him everything.
Are you willing to confront your earthly masters with the truth? When you are confronted by a truth that your earthly masters have tried to kill and bury, what do you do?
If we are to see the Lord, we must not ignore or hide from the truth. We must not prefer our earthly masters over our Heavenly One. May the Lord bless you with strength and courage to love Him and His truth over all others!
