Elijah – confrontation with Ahab
I Kings 18:16-19
In the last section, we saw how God providentially brought Elijah and Obadiah together. Obadiah need to be refreshed spiritual and Elijah needed Obadiah to bring King Ahab to meet with him.
This week we see the theme of confrontation. Confrontation is rarely painless, never easy, often rejected and always risky. Therefore we often try to avoid it, but some times it is necessary to establish spiritual growth, godliness and biblical change. In our text, Elijah is going to confront King Ahab for the purpose of trying to get him to repent and turn to the true God.
Immediately Ahab accuses Elijah as being the “troubler of Israelâ€. What it reveals is the condition of his heart. One gets a sense of resentment and hatred that Ahab has been dwelling upon for the last 3 years against Elijah. Prov 23:7 states “as a man thinks in his hear, so he isâ€. His words represent vain thinking, human strategies by which Ahab seeds to handle life independently of faith in God. It also is a defensive mechanism, name calling rather than to deal with the problem.
Elijah responds to the charge with confidence and boldness. He lists the real cause as “Ahab having abandoned the commandments of the Lordâ€, which brought about the effect of “following Baal†and thus incurred the judgment of God upon the land as foretold in the book of Deuteronomy.
Before we confront anyone, we need to make sure our hearts our right before God (Phil 4:8-9), and if so then we can act with confidence and boldness just as Elijah did with King Ahab and not resort to any anger or name calling.
James 1:22-27, is a good barometer of our hearts condition.