Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

The contrast between Elijah and Obadiah
Oct 3rd, 2008
CommentaryMorning Meditation
Categories: Today's Headlines;Book Study;Exhortation

Obadiah refused to go without the camp and sought to witness within the camp of Ahab. - 1 Kings 18:

1. IT IS IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO THE TEACHING OF SCRIPTURE. Come out from her, my people, is the one summons than rings like a clarion note from board to board. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord; and touch not the unclean thing" (2 Corinthians 6:17). There is not a single hero or saint whose name sparkles on the inspired page who moved his times from within. All, without exception, have raised the cry, "Let us go forth without the camp;" and have joined the constant stream of martyrs, confessors, prophets, and saints, of whom the world is not worthy, but who can trace their kinship to Him of whom it is written, "He suffered without the gate." The only Scriptural course for God's witnesses is to go out to Him without the camp; in the world, but not of it; wearing the pilgrim garb, manifesting the pilgrim spirit, uttering the pilgrim confession.

2. THIS THEORY WILL NOT WORK. The Man who goes into the world to level it up will soon find himself leveled down. Was not this the case with Obadiah? Instead of getting Ahab to think with himself, Ahab sent him to all fountains of water and to all brooks to find grass for his horses and mules. Surely this was a miserable errand for one who feared the Lord greatly! But this is only a sample of the kind of things which must be borne and done by such as try to serve two masters. Compare the influence exerted on the behalf of Sodom by Abraham on the heights of Mamre, with that of Lot, who, not content with pitching his tent toward the city gate, went to live inside and even became one of the judges in the city (Genesis 19:1). Remember that Lot was carried captive in the sack of Sodom; but Abraham rescued him. But why need we multiply instances? This matter is undergoing daily proof. The Christian woman who marries an ungodly man is in imminent danger of being soon dragged down to his level. The servant of God who enters into partnership with a man of the world cannot keep the business from drifting. The church which admits the world into its circle will find that it will get worldly quicker than the world will become Christian.

The safest and strongest position is outside the camp. Archimedes said that he could move the world, if only he had a point of rest given him outside it. Thus, too, can a handful of God's servants influence their times, if only they resemble Elijah, whose life was spent altogether outside the pale of the court and the world of his time. - F. B. Meyer