Which passage? Today there are four passages — and in Philippians we are being told to work our our salvation with fear and trembling. But I want to look at example: Obadiah. He was a servant of a fairly evil king — and that king’s wife had made it her business to remove all those who preached and prophesied the LORD Almighty, and instead install the erotic, orgiastic and infanticidal cults of the Levant.
Obadiah had done his job — keeping care of the various flocks and palace. But he also disobeyed his king, put his life at risk, and hid 100 of the very prophets Jezebel was killing — feeding them out of his pocket.
There are some laws you just ignore.
1After many days the word of the LORD came to Elijah, in the third year of the drought, saying, “Go, present yourself to Ahab; I will send rain on the earth.” 2So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria. 3Ahab summoned Obadiah, who was in charge of the palace. (Now Obadiah revered the LORD greatly; 4when Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the LORD, Obadiah took a hundred prophets, hid them fifty to a cave, and provided them with bread and water.) 5Then Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land to all the springs of water and to all the wadis; perhaps we may find grass to keep the horses and mules alive, and not lose some of the animals.” 6So they divided the land between them to pass through it; Ahab went in one direction by himself, and Obadiah went in another direction by himself.
7As Obadiah was on the way, Elijah met him; Obadiah recognized him, fell on his face, and said, “Is it you, my lord Elijah?” 8He answered him, “It is I. Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here.” 9And he said, “How have I sinned, that you would hand your servant over to Ahab, to kill me? 10As the LORD your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom to which my lord has not sent to seek you; and when they would say, ‘He is not here,’ he would require an oath of the kingdom or nation, that they had not found you. 11But now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here.’ 12As soon as I have gone from you, the spirit of the LORD will carry you I know not where; so, when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me, although I your servant have revered the LORD from my youth. 13Has it not been told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the LORD, how I hid a hundred of the Lord’s prophets fifty to a cave, and provided them with bread and water? 14Yet now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here’; he will surely kill me.” 15Elijah said, “As the LORD of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.” 16So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him; and Ahab went to meet Elijah.
17When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” 18He answered, “I have not troubled Israel; but you have, and your father’s house, because you have forsaken the commandments of the LORD and followed the Baals. 19Now therefore have all Israel assemble for me at Mount Carmel, with the four hundred fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”
Does this apply now? We live in societies with constitutions, designed to limit the amount of power that any one person can have. But Obama has just stepped away from the brink — for if he invaded Syria in the hope he would stop the atrocities in a civil war there he is directly affecting Russian and Chinese military interests.
Current democracies can be just as brutal, just as cruel, as the kings of previous years. The USA is the worst example presently: they have more police, more SWAT teams, and more monitoring of the population than the Chekists or the Gestapo would have ever dreamed of. (And the SWAT teams kill: they are as Brutal as the Gestapo, but probably to not match the Chekists or Maoist Red Guard)
Yet.
.
There are some laws you need to ignore. There are some orders that are illegal. You have to act in a different manner.
But if you then do your duty, it will be with fear and trembling. For the fascists will try to destroy you. My fear is that what is now satire but a plan of action.
