I. All we know of Obadiah is contained in this chapter, and yet he was a great man in his day. He was, it seems, king Ahab's vizier, or prime minister, the first man in the country after the king. Of all his wealth and glory the Bible does not say one word. His wealth and power did not follow him to the grave, but by his good deed he lives in the pages of the Bible; he lives in our minds and memories; and, more than all, by that good deed he lives for ever in God's sight. In the day when Elijah met him, Obadiah found that his prayers and alms had gone up before God, and were safe with God, and not to be forgotten for ever.
II. The lesson for us is to persevere in welldoing, for in due time we shall reap if we faint not. Cast, therefore, thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days. Do thy diligence to give of what thou hast, for so gatherest thou to thyself in the day of necessity, in which with what measure we have measured to others God will measure to us again.
III. A doubt comes in here what are our works at best? What have we that is fit to offer to God? Bad in quality our good works are, and bad in quantity, too. How shall we have courage to carry them in our hand to that God who charges His very angels with folly, and the heavens are not clean in His sight? Too true if we had to offer our own works to God. But there is One who offers them for us Jesus Christ the Lord. He cleanses our works from sin by the merit of His death and suffering, so that nothing may be left in them but what is the fruit of God's own Spirit, and that God may see in them only the good which He Himself put into them.
C Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons,p. 243.