Expectations (1 Kings 19)
April 19, 2020
Elijah Flees
The example of Elijah is a complicated one. At first, it seems like a fairy tale ending as Elijah kills all of the prophets of Ba’al and seems to turn the heart of the people to the Lord. But now we will look at “the rest of the story.” After Elijah prays 7 times for it to rain, the rain storm comes and fills Israel with new life. But when Ahab tells his bride, Jezebel, about all that Elijah has done and how he has slaughtered the prophets of Ba’al, she is furious. Those prophets were always telling her exactly what she wanted to hear. They were always encouraging her and promising her great fortune. She has invested a considerable amount of money and effort in establishing their religion. Now it is all ruined by that troublemaker, Elijah. She sends word, “Ba’al do so to me and more also, if you are not like one of the prophets you killed by this time tomorrow!”
Elijah has just gotten into Jezreel, but now he must tuck tail and run for his life. He and his servant fled down to Beersheba which is on the southern edge of the nation of Judah. Surely no one would ever find him there. Staying alive isn’t all that is on Elijah’s mind. He knows the amount of influence Jezebel is wielding as she shares the throne with Ahab. One would think that the whole city would rise up after what they just experienced and stand on the side of Elijah, but that didn’t happen. The king and all the people are unwilling to accept the truth about Jezebel and her fake god. It is just a matter of time before she convinces all Israel to put their trust in Ba’al again.
Elijah Pleads
Elijah leaves his servant in Beersheba and sets out a day’s journey into the wilderness where he tells the Lord to let him die. He says, “I’m no better than my fathers.” Elijah is tapping out. Elijah is so discouraged by what has happened to him that he wants to die. Elijah is not suicidal. He does not make a selfish or rebellious decision to take his own life. He wants the Lord to take his life. The pain is too much for him and he begs God to end his suffering. Why would he feel this way? Imagine spending 3.5 years praying for drought and hoping that the people would return to worship the Lord. Then, they act like they are returning to him with their heart so you pray for rain. As soon as the rain comes they start to compromise and go back on their decision to worship only the Lord. Elijah has done everything he knows to do and nothing has worked. The miraculous signs could do nothing to turn their heart of stones into flesh. After all of the excitement and wonder of the last chapter, we find Elijah in deep despair.
Have we ever felt this? Have you ever poured yourself out for someone to obey the gospel? All of that blood sweat and tears ended up resulting in nothing. I remember teaching someone in Huntsville when I worked at Stanley Steemer. He seemed very interested and I was driving to pick him up every Sunday. Then, he asked a lot of questions and seemed very receptive to everything I was saying. There was a splurge of enthusiasm in him. Then, it fell flat. Reality hit him. If he were to choose the way of faith in Christ, he would have to give up too much. He never answered a phone call. I showed up at his house and he brushed me off. This is the nature of loving the Lord while caring for the souls of others. If we don’t want broken hearts, we do not need to become Christians. That is the nature of the relationship. God wants us to love others as he has loved us. We killed him for loving us.
Elijah is still faithful to God as he prays for this. His pain and suffering is the result of his zealous love for the Lord not the result of his own selfish gain. He is not ready to die because he didn’t get the job he wanted in the palace. He is ready to die because he feels completely ineffective in his life’s devotion to serve the Lord. All that he wants is to help people. But all that he has experienced is a complete let down and a broken heart. He is ready to die because he can’t make people turn to God like they should.
Elijah Finds God
Notice how God responds when Elijah pleads for God to let him die. God doesn’t let him die. He does not rebuke him or condemn him in any way. God does not take away his calling to be the Lord’s prophet. He does not tell him, “You shouldn’t have these feelings.” He sends an angel to cook for him and tells him to “Arise and eat.” Then, he gives him some more to eat and drink, but this time the angel touches him to strengthen him. This happens with Daniel and Jesus as well. Their weakness is overcome by the touch of an angel. He says, “Arise and eat for the journey is too great for you.” Elijah goes on the strength of that food for 40 days and 40 nights until he gets to Horeb, the mountain of God.
When Elijah comes to Horeb at the end of the 40 days, he comes to a cave where he hears the Lord say, “What are you doing here Elijah?” Why would God ask this question? Did God not tell Elijah to go to Mount Horeb? Even if he did not tell Elijah to go there, God knows why Elijah is there. He knows the answer to every question he would ever ask. Elijah has had 40 days to think about what he might say to the Lord. He says, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” What a bleak outlook on life this is! Elijah has been very jealous for the Lord. The people have definitely broken the covenant that was established there at Mount Horeb/Sinai. But were Obadiah and all of his hidden prophets found and slaughtered? Maybe they exposed themselves with rejoicing thinking that the tide has turned. We do not know for sure, but Elijah seems to think they are dead or that they are unfaithful.
God tells Elijah to go out of the cave and stand in his presence. But as Elijah begins to leave the cave the Lord passed by and a great and mighty wind was tearing at the mountains, shattering cliffs before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. Then, the mountain began to shake with an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. Then, a fire broke out, but the Lord was not in the fire. I imagine that Elijah was terrified. He was just told to go out of the cave, when all of that happened. Imagine the power he would feel as everything around him is falling apart. That would be enough to make us cower in fear. Finally, Elijah heard the sound of a gentle voice. So he wrapped his face in his mantle and stood at the entrance of the cave.
The Lord said again, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” The first time was confusing enough, but now the second time completely throws us for a loop. Was Elijah supposed to learn something from the wind, the earthquake, and the fire? If so, he missed it because he says the same thing as before. He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” Elijah is drawn into the presence of the Lord and this is what he says. He has served the Lord, but he is the only prophet left because of the rebellion of God’s people against his covenant. What does Elijah want? What is Elijah calling for God to do? He brings up the covenant which is important in this context because they are at Mount Horeb/Sinai. By mentioning the rebellion against the covenant, Elijah is calling for God to remember the covenantal promises and deliver the judgment upon Israel that they deserve. It is interesting that Elijah merely mentions how guilty they are without prescribing a recommended punishment. He tried to prescribe the punishment by asking for a drought, but now he wants God to prescribe the punishment. He is looking for God to solve the heart problem. That is why he is here.
This is exactly what God does. God tells Elijah to go to another foreign country and do something bizarre. He tells him to go to Syria and anoint Hazael to be their next king. This is the first time God has sent his prophet to a foreign king in order to anoint him. Then, he tells him to go to Jehu and anoint him to be king over Israel. Finally, he tells him to anoint Elisha to be the next prophet in his place. The purpose behind these anointings is to prescribe judgment. Those who escape the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill, and those who escape the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. God is bringing in a foreign nation and a new line of kings to punish his people for their hard hearts. (Actually Elisha is anointed and Hazael/Jehu kill so many people that Elisha doesn’t have to kill many at all.)
But that is not all that God says. He also tells Elijah that he is still preserving 7000 who have not bowed a knee to Ba’al or kissed him. Elijah’s perception is not reality. Here he was ready to die, thinking that all of his work was fruitless, thinking it was a waste of time, and thinking that he was all alone. But God has used his work to turn the hearts of some of the people back to him. There is still hope because God is still in control.
What Do We Learn?
This is a major event in the Bible. After all of the miraculous things that have happened to Elijah, this is the one event that sets him apart. Why? Elijah has come to the mountain of God to see God. This greatly resembles the time when Moses came to the mount of God and asked to see God’s glory. Notice how the circumstances are similar. The people of God have greatly sinned at a time when they should have the most faith. Under Moses they built a golden calf right after crossing the Red Sea. Under Elijah they killed the prophets after seeing fire come down from heaven and saying, “The Lord, he is God! The Lord, he is God!” The hard heartedness of the people is the exact same. Both Moses and Elijah turn to God as this happens and they seek greater understanding. They both take shelter in a cave or a cleft (which is basically the same thing) and they are both allowed to see the nature of God. He is full of patience, mercy, and abounding in steadfast love for thousands, but by no means clearing the guilty. To Elijah he is a gentle voice.
In the New Testament we see Elijah and Moses together on the mountain at the transfiguration of Christ. They are called together to see God’s glory face to face in human form. They see more fully in Jesus what they were searching for at Horeb. What an amazing image this is and what a statement this makes for the significance of this event. But what does it mean? The point of the story is simple and threefold.
1. God hasn’t changed.
In all of this time, he is still the same God that Moses saw on the mountain years ago. He is still compassionate and merciful, abounding in steadfast love, but also able to judge those who rebel. It seems like God has changed to Elijah, but he hasn’t. The people are worse than ever from Elijah’s perspective. He is in deep despair and very discouraged by all that has taken place. Try to imagine what the worst thing God has seen might be. God has seen people worse than what Elijah has seen. He is not surprised by their disobedience. But somehow he is still able to love them. This is an amazing statement about the resilience of God. He says, “I will leave 7,000 in Israel.” All of this is very encouraging. It is great to know that we serve a God whose patience is so much deeper and more resilient than ours. The depth of his love is endless and eternal
2. The Journey Is Too Far For Us
Throughout this story, we can’t help but relate to Elijah. As James says, his character is a lot like many of us. He is jealous for the Lord, he wants the Lord’s name to be glorified, and so he asks God to demonstrate his power for everyone to see that he is real and believe in him. How many of us think that if God will just do one miracle for everyone to see it would change everything about the way people believe? If he did that, no one would be able to say that he doesn’t exist. But they would. Adam and Eve were in the garden with God and they still rejected him. Jesus said this in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man begs Abraham to send someone back form the dead to tell his brothers about this place, but Abraham says, “They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.” Then, the man pleads with him and Abraham says, “If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.” This story is teaching us a very important lesson: We often fail to understand how the transformation process works.
Elijah comes to God defeated. He comes to God recognizing that all of his effort has not transformed the hearts of people. Maybe he was proud, attempting to be greater than his fathers, but now he is humble and looking for guidance and understanding. Elijah wants to know what we all want to know: How do we address the sin in people’s hearts? To this, God provides nourishment and he tells Elijah, “The journey is too far for you.” I think these words go beyond Elijah’s trip to Horeb. They tell us what we all need to hear on a daily basis. We often think that we can fix society, the church, or each other? The prime example for this is our spouses. We think we can fix our spouse by being critical of them. How does that work out? We tell them what they are supposed to do and provide them with all the proof they should need. Then we get discouraged when we see the problems only get worse. We think that the solution is to come down harder and get angrier, or maybe we try some new approach. But the problem in our spouse does not go away. What can we do? As a result, we become proud, arrogant, and attempting to manipulate or control. Maybe they obey or do what they should for a time, but there is still sin in their heart. Then, we get impatient and think, “It’s all their fault,” or we get depressed and think, “I am no better than anyone else.”
3. The Journey Is Never Too Great For God
But God says, “The journey is too great for us.” Changing people’s hearts to love God is God’s business. He has the power to move mountains. So this story gives those who are jealous for the Lord answers to our frustrating problem. When we feel the depression from our journey we see that God cares for us, and he wants us to rest and find strength in him. The journey is never too great for him. He has more work for us to do. As God was able to use Elijah’s work to keep seven thousand for himself, we must pray that God would use us to do the same. The number of those who reject God will always be more than those who accept him. We may not see the fruit of our own labor. There will be times when we feel like we are the only ones who care, but God is always able to preserve a remnant of faithful followers.
We are always going to be discouraged as we see the hard hearts of this world. But we must go to the mountain and see the glory of God. We must enter his presence without telling him how things ought to be done. He is full of compassion, mercy, and steadfast love for those who love him. He knows the journey is too great for us and he wants us to press on knowing that he will help us along the way. Our prayer has great power as it is working. We may not get what we want, but God will give us what we need. Our jealous request for him to be glorified in our work will not go unanswered, even if it happens after we are dead and gone.