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And Elijah
the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of
Gilead, said unto Ahab, “As the Lord the God of
Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall
not be dew nor rain these years, but according
to my word.”
(1 Kings 17:1 KJV) |
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Unexpected. That is as
good a word as any to describe what happens when God
reveals His heart to His people. From the Incarnation to
the Resurrection, and on through the Ascension to
Pentecost, God’s dealings with mankind leave us reeling
with surprise.
To follow the Lord’s leading is the greatest of all
adventures. Who but God would have thought of sending a
lone man from the mountains to overthrow a royal
dynasty? Like David, who was trained in a cave in order
to reign in a palace, Elijah was reared in a school that
was both sterner and yet sweeter than that to which we
are accustomed. He spent the greater part of his life in
rugged, inhospitable places, separated in heart and
spirit from the prevailing compromise of his day. Elijah
spoke into the heart of his generation with true
perspectives and awesome authority, challenging the
powers of darkness that had invaded the nation.
There can be few more dramatic scenes in the whole of
Scripture. Armed with nothing but the word the Lord had
given him, a rugged man from the mountains burst into
the court of King Ahab. There he proclaimed a truth no
other man alive had had the courage to voice: that the
God whom the playboy king had so recklessly ignored had
declared a time of reckoning on the backslidden nation.
The future of Israel hung in the balance as Elijah
strode onto the pages of recorded history. From a human
point of view it looked foolhardy. Baal-worship had
swept the nation, the prophets of the Lord had been
silenced, and the cause of God appeared to have been all
but defeated.
From heaven’s perspective, things looked very different.
God sent this man, whom he had trained in His own
courts, to testify in the court of a corrupt king
because He knew that the truth of His Word would first
confront, and finally overthrow, the lies of the Baals,
and the arrogance of the king.
Seeing with God’s Eyes
Standing in the courts of the Lord, we see more
clearly the reasons behind the outward events of our
lives, and between spiritual cause and effect in society
at large. We also discern the particular calling that is
on our own lives.
In the presence of the Lord, Elijah had felt God’s grief
over the nation’s backsliding. He had come to share His
anger that the nation had dared to equate the Lord
Almighty with the worthless Baals. His first public
pronouncement imposed a judgement which would entail the
most horrendous sufferings: a terrible drought would
come upon the land.
Why did so drastic a sentence have to be visited
on the nation?After all, it was barely a hundred
years since the golden age of Israel, when David
had ruled in the fear of the Lord.A quick glance
at the preceding century is enough to reveal the
main reasons.
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Solomon’s
infidelities had paved the way for the kingdom to be
torn in two. Of the next seven kings who ruled the ten
tribes, not one can be considered a faithful servant of
the Lord.
The godly foundation that Samuel and David had developed
was all but swept away. The speed at which the nation
fell first into spiritual indifference, and then into
heathendom, is a stark reminder of how quickly a godly
heritage can be eroded, when evil is allowed to spread
unchallenged.
The nation had
strayed so far from their God that nothing but
judgement awaited it. When a still more ungodly
man came to the throne, few were prepared to
oppose him. Lewd and selfish by nature, Ahab
became an unstoppable tyrant when marriage
allied him to Jezebel, the scheming daughter of
the king of the Sidonians.
How the powers of darkness rejoiced to see the
pair united! Jezebel imposed the worship of her
alien gods and flooded the land with her own
priests. An unprecedented storm of suffering
fell on the heads of the true believers. Indeed,
as Baal worship spread, it seemed for a time as
though the worship of Yahweh was about to be
driven once and for all from the face of the
earth.(1) |
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As Elijah saw these things taking place, His heart
burned within him. Tragically few others had the courage
to stand against the new idolatries, and those who did
were quickly silenced. So long as the economy was
booming, and there was food on their table, people saw
little point in risking their lives by speaking out.
After all, since Yahweh Himself did not appear to be
doing anything about the situation, most people
preferred to stifle their conscience and pay at least
lip service to the new gods.
Every generation presents us with similar temptations to
compromise. In our own century, the example of many
Churches in Nazi Germany, and more recently in South
Africa, Russia, Romania and China, reminds us how easy
it is to reach a place of accommodation with evil – to
say nothing of the myriad ways our hearts fall prey to
the more sophisticated idolatries of materialism.
God sees all the dark forces in the world today, just as
He did in the days when the Baals were worshipped in the
land of Israel. He sees every act of injustice and He
hears every cry of pain. He grieves that so few are
prepared to declare war against this temptation to
compromise, and to dedicate themselves instead to
seeking Him.
Elijah would no more have welcomed the prospect of a
prolonged drought than we would, but the Lord had
revealed His will, and His servant had to be prepared to
pay the cost involved in implementing it. Effectively,
Elijah accepted that it was better for the nation to
suffer hardship than to continue in its apostasy. The
spiritual renewal which had not occurred in times of
ease and prosperity might yet be brought about when
harsher measures forced a rethink. As events turned out,
his hope was not entirely disappointed.
The Sovereignty of God
Much of the beauty and power of Elijah’s life comes
from His willingness to embrace the clear directions God
gave Him. His obedience is, as it were, the foreground
of His life. In the background, however, we can discern
the sovereign actions of a God who cares very much what
happens to His servants, and who ordains events
accordingly.
When the Lord commanded the ravens to bring Elijah meat,
and the widow to feed him, neither the ravens nor the
widow would have had any consciousness of being part of
God’s wider plan. This brings us face to face with
something that is everywhere implicit, and often
explicit, throughout the pages of Scripture: namely, the
sovereignty of God.
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When the enemy comes in like a flood, we need not
despair: Satan has never been the ultimate master of any
situation. |
Morguefile |
| God anticipates times of crises and prepares
His witnesses accordingly. Thus Noah built his ark,
Joseph gained favour in Pharaoh’s court, Daniel became
‘Prime Minister’ of Babylon, and Esther Queen in Persia,
all in order to avert the wholesale destruction of God’s
chosen people.
Even in the darkest times, God has never
ceased to undermine the stability of the evil forces,
and to raise up His brightest lights: His Deborahs,
Samuels and Elijahs. |
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As our understanding of
God’s sovereignty deepens, so it becomes no longer a
mere doctrine, but a perceived reality. The events of
our life, the people we meet, the places the Lord takes
us to, and even the needs and delays we experience, all
combine to play their part in helping us to develop a
truly biblical approach to life.
Like Elijah, we need to take time to reflect and to
meditate in order to perceive the Lord’s intimate
involvement in the things that happen to and around us.
The more we embrace this awareness of God having
authority over matters beyond our control, the more we
will enjoy freedom in worship, and confidence in our
decision-making.
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Without such trust in His
sovereign control (both over complex world affairs and
the minutiae of our everyday lives) our hearts will
often be doubt-ridden and anxiety-laden.
The finest truths of Scripture are not placed together
in convenient charts and graphs. They are more like
buried treasure that waits to be explored and pieced
together. The more we study Scripture, the more clearly
we perceive the God of first causes. We must look beyond
purely economic or military reasons to understand that
it was the Lord who brought Israel up from Egypt, the
Philistines from Crete and the Syrians from Kir – just
as it was He who delivered Israel from the tyranny of
the Baals – and us from our own many scrapes!(2)
It is especially in the books of the prophets that we
meet the God who declares, ‘I am (this or that) and I
will (do this or that)’. It is He who raises men up and
who casts them down again.(3) Here is an understanding
that will impart a sense of imminence to our reading of
the Bible. Tempted though we may be to skip over many of
the prophetic oracles in search of more familiar
pastures, a closer study of these passages will repay
the effort a thousand times over. Not only will our
understanding of the heart and character of God deepen,
but we will increasingly discern spiritual meaning and
patterns behind the shifting episodes of life.
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God calls us into His courts not only to deepen our
relationship with Him,
but also to show us how He feels
about things.
His ways are as varied as His means,
but
by one means or another,
He will develop understanding
in our hearts,
fill the ordinary with new meaning
and
turn sight into insight.
In short, we will begin to see
with His eyes. |
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The Supreme Court
Scripture reveals how willing God is to show us not only
what He is doing, but also why. From the moment the Lord
shared His hidden counsel with Abraham, right through
the writings of the prophets until the revelations He
entrusted to John on the island of Patmos, we find God
revealed as the One who is sovereign over men and
nations alike – but who ‘confides’ in those who fear
Him, and takes the upright into His confidence.(4)
Beyond all human courts, where rulers exercise their
authority, Scripture alludes to the existence of a
supreme heavenly court. This is where the decrees are
issued that affect both life and eternity.(5) The Lord
draws us into this court in order to help us to see with
His eyes, and to understand what is on His heart.
All true prophets have stood in the courts of the Lord.
Isaiah and Daniel, were but two of the most prominent
who ‘eavesdropped’ on the worship of heaven, and thereby
discovered more of God’s commission on their own life.
As they saw the Lord seated in His court, they were
granted insight into the workings, as well as the
worship, of this heavenly assembly.(6)
It was not every day that these prophets experienced
great visions. Those they did receive are, as it were,
the recorded highlights of their lives and their deepest
understanding of the ways of heaven.
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When
they saw the Lord seated in His court, for
instance, they realised with a fresh immediacy
that God does not merely watch events on Earth
from Heaven: He directs their outworking.
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When Daniel overheard specific decrees and judgements
being issued in the throne room of God, he perceived
that world empires are allowed to rule only by heaven’s
decree. The power of evil men would, in due time, be
stripped from them. He also understood that, in some
mysterious way, God incorporates the intercessions of
His people into His decision-making process.(7)
The Hebrew word that is used to describe this court is
s”dh.(8) Since this word means both ‘council’ (as in a
council chamber) and ‘counsel,’ the term embraces not
only a circle of intimate friends, but also the
particular affairs discussed between them. From this
court flow mercy and judgement, even as friendship and
understanding develop in our hearts as we draw near to
the King of Kings.
The Prophet’s Task
From time immemorial it has been the function of the
prophet to put the trumpet to his lips and to declare
what he has seen and heard in the courts of the Lord.
The word of God must be made explicit, because
generalities usually fail to convince men of their sin.
Centuries beforehand, Moses had steeled himself to enter
Pharaoh’s court. Now, Elijah knew that the moment had
come to take his message of judgement to king. It does
not take much imagination to realise that the role of
the prophet is a hard rather than a glamorous one.
Because the prophet is called to ‘uproot and tear down’
as well as to ‘build and to plant,’ he (or she) will
inevitably face misunderstanding and opposition.(9)
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| A.G.
Gardener wrote, |
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‘When a prophet
is deified, his message is lost. The prophet is
only useful so long as he is stoned as a public
nuisance, calling us to repentance, disturbing
our comfortable routines, breaking our
respectable idols and shattering our sacred
conventions.’ |
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So high is this calling,
and so solemn its outworkings, that God has to go to
extreme lengths to prepare people to execute this
ministry in humility of spirit.(10)
The Drought Decreed
It is a sublimely fitting irony that God should
choose a rugged man from the mountains to be the one to
take His message to the fineries of Ahab’s court.
Elijah’s task was outwardly as daunting as the
latter-day mission of John the Baptist to denounce
Herod’s extra-marital indulgences. King Ahab, like
Nebuchadnezzar after him, would have to learn the hard
way that all the pomp of earthly trappings could avail
him naught against a decree that was issued from the
throne room of heaven.
Boldly refusing to allow any fear of the consequences to
water down his message, Elijah dared to predict the
unpredictable: a drought of unspecified duration would
afflict the land. The sentence had been pronounced, and
no further rain would fall until he, Elijah, so decreed
it.
The drought was a rebuke to the nation, a direct
rebuttal of Ahab’s complacent assumption that all was
well under his rule, and a challenge to the people to
consider why their God had had to send it. If Elijah had
not brought this specific revelation concerning the
forthcoming drought, people would have been quick to
find some other way of explaining it away. Perhaps, in
those superstitious days, the drought might have been
blamed on bad spirits. In today’s terminology it would
doubtless be attributed to the Greenhouse Effect! The
prophetic declaration marked God’s intended action, and
His decree would not be revoked, unless or until it was
stayed by mercy, through the repentance of His people.
Reflections
To see with God’s eyes is an enormous
privilege. It enables us to see people with the Lord’s
eyes of love, and to understand issues with a greater
degree of clarity. It can be exceedingly painful,
however, for we will come face to face with the same
sins which merited God’s judgement in Elijah’s day, and
must respond accordingly.
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‘Hear and pay
attention, do not be arrogant, for the Lord has
spoken.
Give glory to the Lord your God before He brings
the darkness,
before your feet stumble on the darkening hills
. . .
But if you do not listen,
I will weep in secret because of your pride;
my eyes will weep bitterly,
overflowing with tears.‘(11)
Selah |
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Dear Lord, as I meditate
on Elijah’s life, help me to grasp more clearly how You
feel about Your world. Thank You that You sent Elijah to
Ahab’s court in the power of the Spirit. Thank You that
he did not hold back from following You there. I ask
that You will draw me closer to Your heart, and set me
free from my own preoccupations and willingness to
compromise, so that I may see with Your eyes, and be
more open to Your leading. In Jesus’ name, Amen.(12) |
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