In his sermon, Jason Dohm discusses the character of Obadiah as depicted in 1 Kings 18, highlighting his profound fear of the Lord. Obadiah is portrayed as a man who risked his life to protect a hundred of God's prophets during Queen Jezebel's brutal massacre. Dohm emphasizes that Obadiah's fear of the Lord was not superficial but deeply ingrained, beginning from his youth and manifesting in his courageous actions. The sermon stresses the importance of cultivating the fear of the Lord early in life, as it prepares one for future trials and liberates from sinful fears. Dohm underscores that genuine fear of the Lord should visibly affect one's life, urging young men to embrace this fear now, rather than waiting for a crisis. The sermon concludes with a call to recognize the invaluable worth of knowing God and to prioritize this relationship above all else.

If you'll turn to your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 18, my topic is Obadiah, the man who protected the prophets. We have a man set before us who risked his life in order to protect the lives of a hundred of the Lord's prophets. And in the lead up to 1 Kings 18 and 1 Kings 17, God has had his prophet Elijah proclaim a three-year drought to King Ahab. And in 1 Kings 18, we're in the midst of the drought. The water has disappeared, and they're actually searching for pasture land to keep the animals alive.

And Ahab has looked everywhere to to find Elijah and it's not hard to imagine that his intentions are not pure and this is where we pick it up in in first Kings 18. I'd like to read first Kings 18 verses 1 through 16 please follow along as I read. And it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying, go present yourself to Ahab and I will send rain on the earth. So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab and there was a severe famine in Samaria and Ahab had called Obadiah who was in charge of his house. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly, for so it was while Jezebel massacred the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah had taken one hundred prophets and hidden them fifty to a cave and had fed them with bread and water.

And Ahab had said to Obadiah, go into the land to all the springs of water and to all the brooks. Perhaps we may find grass to keep the horses and mules alive so that we will not have to kill any livestock. So they divided the land between them to explore it. Ahab went one way by himself and Obadiah went another way by himself. Now as Obadiah was on his way suddenly Elijah met him and he recognized him and fell on his face and said, is that you, my Lord Elijah?

And he answered him, it is I. Go tell your master Elijah is here. So he said, how have I sinned that you were delivering your servant into the hand of Ahab to kill me? As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to hunt for you. And when they said, he is not here, he took an oath from the kingdom or nation that they could not find you.

And now you say, go tell your master Elijah is here, and it shall come to pass as soon as I am gone from you, that the Spirit of the Lord will carry you to a place I do not know. So when I go and tell Ahab, and he cannot find you, he will kill me. But I your servant have feared the Lord from my youth. Was it not reported to my Lord that what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, how I hid 100 men of the Lord's prophets, 50 to a cave and fed them with bread and water. And now you say, go tell your master Elijah is here, he will kill me.

Then Elijah said, as the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand I will surely present myself to him today." So Obadiah went to Ahab and told him and Ahab went to meet Elijah. We have this man, Obadiah, who isn't presented in scripture before here or after here, but he's given a prominent place in this chapter. And it's said in two places in the chapter that he fears the Lord which of course is the theme that we're really developing through all of the messages last night and today the fear of the Lord and two things are said of Obadiah's fear of the Lord here in 1 Kings chapter 18. Here they are. First, Obadiah feared the Lord greatly.

We see this in the second half of verse 3. So the second half of verse 3 and verse 4 are put by our translators in parentheses. In other words, it's a parenthetical explanation of Obadiah. It explains, it's scripture explaining who Obadiah is and how he figures into this account. So it's sort of an aside.

He's introduced as the one who is over Ahab's house, in charge of his house, that's the first part of verse 3. And then we have the parentheses and an explanation that just tells you what you need to know about Obadiah. What is that? Look at the parentheses in the last part of verse 3. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly.

This is what you need to know about Obadiah. And then in verse 4, it says, For so it was. In other words, in explanation of him fearing the Lord greatly, here's how you know. For it was that when Jezebel was slaughtering the prophets, when there was a great massacre of the Lord's prophets, that this is what this man did. 50 to a cave and he supplied them food and water.

Now pop quiz for the young students in the room. If Jezebel the Queen, she was Bloody Mary before Bloody Mary, it was Bloody Jezebel, this was a woman of blood, and she's massacring the Lord's prophets. Now if you step in to save a hundred prophets, what's going to happen to you? This is a question that doesn't need an answer. It's really a rhetorical question because the answer is so obvious.

If you step in between, if she finds out as she's massacring the prophets that you're saving a hundred of the Lord's prophets, you're in on the massacre. You're the next subject of the massacre. In other words, he proves that he fears the Lord greatly. It's a real fear of the Lord and it's an intense fear of the Lord, and you can tell it is because He puts His life on the line. There's evidence to prove the parenthetical, the explanatory claim that he feared the Lord greatly.

So there's the claim and then there's the proof of the claim. The claim is that he feared the Lord greatly. The proof of the claim is that he put his life on the line in order to defend the Lord's servants and protect them and to provide for them. So the fear of the Lord, the great fear of the Lord in this man's life, this believer's life shows up in the extreme risk he took in order to protect the Lord's prophets. Here's one thing we learned about the fear of the Lord, it always shows up in your life.

If you have the real thing, The real fear of the Lord, not just the talking, I fear the Lord, but real fear of the Lord in your heart. It always shows up in your life. It's impossible that you have genuine fear of the Lord, but there's no outward manifestation of it. It doesn't show up anywhere in your life. That's impossible.

And in this man's life it shows up in his willingness to defend the Lord's people. You're all in with the Lord's people when you fear the Lord. There's no saying, I'll just mind my own business when the Lord's people are being massacred. When you have a real fear of God in your heart because you know how much the Lord loves his people and so his people are your people and you can't just stand by and say I don't see that. So it was of Obadiah.

So the first thing that 1 Kings 18 says about Obadiah, Obadiah's fear of the Lord is that he feared the Lord greatly. And it comes with proof that he put his life on the line. The second thing that is said is that Obadiah feared the Lord from his youth, From his youth. In other words, when he protected the prophets, that was not the beginning of the fear of the Lord in his life. He actually had feared the Lord from a long time, from the time he was a youth.

Look at the second part of verse 12. I your servant have feared the Lord from my youth. When he is talking about his personal history as he is speaking to the Lord's prophet Elijah, this is how he describes his personal history. I your servant have feared the Lord from my youth In other words the fear of the Lord was established in the heart of this man long before the day of testing So the day of testing comes the Lord's prophets are being massacred by this wicked queen Jezebel. But these matters have been settled, these matters have been settled in his heart a long time ago.

Obadiah isn't chewing off his fingernails when the day of testing comes. These matters have been settled in his heart from his youth. He has a personal history where he's decided in his heart what he fears. He's decided in his heart a long time ago what he fears. And it isn't even the most wicked, bloody queen.

It is the God of heaven and earth. It is the God who has given him his life. This is something that has already been said a couple of times in previous messages, and it will be said again a couple of times. I'm confident before we go. But the fear of the Lord is a master fear.

In other words, you're going to be subjugated by some fear, you're going to be governed by some fear. The only question is, what fear? If it's the fear of the Lord, then you'll be freed from all of the sinful fears. The Bible describes fear generally as sinful, as a lack of trust in God, as really the counterpoint to trusting God. There's trusting God and then there's fearing other things, But the fear of the Lord will actually free you from those sinful fears.

And Jesus says this in very explicit terms. Listen to Matthew 10, verse 28. Matthew 10, verse 28. Jesus says, and do not fear those who kill the body But cannot kill the soul But rather fear him Who was able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Obadiah understood this from the time he was a boy, from his youth.

That's what 1 Kings chapter 18 says. It says that this had been accomplished, what Jesus is talking about in Matthew chapter 10 had been accomplished in his heart from the days of his boyhood. So that when it came time to fear someone who can kill the body, Jezebel, and she was killing bodies, she was Massacring, that is the word used in 1 Kings 18, she was massacring the Lord's prophets. She can kill the body, but rather than being governed by that fear, Obadiah says, no, no, no, no, I don't fear the one who can kill the body. I fear the one who can kill the body and destroy the soul in hell forever and ever and ever that is the one who I will fear I will fear God I will risk my life I will put my life on the line and this wasn't new okay I went to a sales training class one time and the sales trainer made this point.

When you need a friend, it's too late to make one. The point being, it takes time to make a friend and so the day you need a friend isn't the day you should be making a friend it's too late like you need a friend that day and it takes longer than a day to make a friend and so you're out of luck if you have no friends on the day that you need a friend you're out of luck and his point was make friends now okay so the day when you need one you'll have one. And so it is with the fear of the Lord. You're gonna cultivate the fear of the Lord on the day of testing? You're gonna cultivate the fear of the Lord in your life on the on the day when you have to decide whether to lay your life on the line or not.

No, when you need a friend, it's too late to make one. When you need the fear of the Lord and the freedom from the sinful fears that comes from fearing the Lord. On that day it's too late to cultivate it. So all of the speakers and all of the fathers want to look the young men in the tent in the eye and say now is the time to cultivate the fear of God in your life because the day of Testing is coming the day when you will have to put your life life on the line is coming and That day will be too late to cultivate the fear of the Lord. That's not the day to cultivate the fear of the Lord in your life.

The day is now, okay, in your youth. Obadiah was ready when there was a bloody king queen and he had to decide lay my life on the line or mind my own business. But these things were settled in his heart years before, maybe decades before. Sons, young men, Now is the day. You do not know what the future holds.

But we can all see the trajectory of our culture. We can all see it. And in one form or another the day is coming where you'll have to decide to stand with the Lord's people to Stand for the Lord or to mind your own business sons The day is coming the day to cultivate the fear the Lord in your life is now Okay is now The day to settle these matters in your heart is now because the day of testing is too late. You cannot sit through these messages and say that's for later. Okay, will not do.

When the Word of God is brought before you, it demands a response from us. This is not a classroom where we're learning a little bit of mathematics. These are the truths of the faith, the fundamental truths of the faith that demand a response, demand either to be received or rejected. And not to receive is to reject young men not to receive the preaching of God's Word and embrace what he says and then act on God's Word is to reject it okay no responses a response young men God is calling you today to cultivate the fear of Him. In other words, to know Him, to fear God is just to see Him as He is.

Just to understand Him as He is. People who don't fear the Lord, It's just because they've not seen Him as He revealed Himself to be in His Word. Anyone who has seen God as He has revealed Himself to be in His Word will fear Him if the Spirit comes to throw light on that. So How do you cultivate the fear of God in your life? You beg God to reveal Himself as He is.

And it's here. You don't need Him whispering in your ear. You need to open your Bible and study the God of this Bible. But not as an academic exercise where you're collecting facts, but you need to prayerfully beg God to reveal Himself to you through the study of Him in His Word, through His self-revelation in the Bible, and beg Him to settle these matters, these fundamental matters in your heart now so when the day comes you'll be like Obadiah and for you it would be unthinkable that you would just mind your own business while the Lord's people are massacred. One last question for the young men in the room.

What is stopping you? What is holding you back? What would hold you back from really giving yourself over to this God? Even to the Christian young men in the room. Young men who have really received saving faith as a gift from God.

Okay, there are young men in the tent who are born again but who are withholding many things. Back to Abraham last night and his complete obedience that he didn't withhold even the most precious thing. I wanna talk to the young men who really are Christians, really are born again in the tent. Like what is holding you back to really yielding, like yielding yourself to this God in full obedience? Whatever it is, It is of no value compared to knowing this God in that way.

Whatever it is, whatever it is, it's such a foolish trade. I've been walking with the Lord for I think three and a half decades now. I just want to tell you, and the older men in the room will all say the same thing. These are terrible trades. Any time we hold something close to ourselves and not wanting to yield it up, and we accept less knowing God in return for the thing that we've cherished.

It's such a terrible exchange. The more we know of God, the more we wish we had let go of those things so much sooner. Sons, the more we know of this God, the more we had we had grabbed hold of more of Him sooner. We feel like fools that we've waited. Sons, don't Wait, don't wait.

God, I pray that your spirit would be here among us, helping, helping our sons especially. Helping us too, but helping our sons especially to see the great worth of Jesus Christ that like Paul we would all consider those former things as rubbish that we may gain Christ and know him. God help us to cultivate the fear of you, the true knowledge of you in our hearts, that when the day of testing comes, all these things would have been settled in our hearts long ago. Oh help us God, in Jesus' name, amen. So we have an exercise, and here's the exercise.

It's for the sons. So, sons, I want you to talk to your dad about this. Okay? I want you to answer this with three things. Okay?

Here's the question. What would it look like to fear the Lord in your youth. Okay, so the first Kings 18 says that, Obediah feared the Lord in his youth. I your servant have feared the Lord in my youth. So just three things, okay?

Fearing the Lord in your youth would look like this, this, and this. Just start thinking of some some ways that that would work itself out in your life. Ten minutes and then we have a half an hour break and then we'll bring you back in.