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The prophet Elijah was born 900 years before Christ in the city of Tishbe which was a small town located in Gilead and situated about 35 miles east of the city of Jezreel, across the Jordan River in what is now the country of Jordan. In Elijah’s time it was the land of Gilead. Elijah was a Tishbite.
Elijah was about 26 years old when Ahab became King of Israel. King Ahab and his wife Jezebel led the people of Israel to worship false gods and filled the nation with wicked and evil practices. They gained and maintained complete control by means of fear and intimidation as well as by hunting down and destroying anyone who disagreed with them, especially the priests who lived and taught the word of God.
When Elijah was about 30 years old, he was sent by God to prophesy to King Ahab that the heavens would be closed and there would be no rain upon the land. This began a 3½ year drought and famine in Israel. King Ahab looked everywhere trying to find the prophet Elijah so he could kill him. Ahab and Jezebel believed if they destroyed those who opposed them that everything would be ok.
During this time God miraculously hid and took care of the prophet first near the brook called Cherith not far from Elijah’s birthplace, and then some 100 miles away by a widow in the town of Zarephath. No doubt it was a long and tiring 3½ years for everyone, especially 30 something year old Elijah.
2 Kings 18 gives us the account of Elijah meeting with King Ahab and 850 of Jezebel’s false prophets on Mount Carmel. I’ve stood in that very place overlooking the Jezreel Valley probably 2 dozen times and many of you have gone there with me. Next September, 50 more of you will be making that trip along with me again and we will read the story we are hearing from the spot where all of this took place.
That day Elijah prayed, and God answered with fire from heaven. The false prophets of Jezebel were all killed, and Elijah told King Ahab to hurry home before the heavy rains made it impossible to travel by chariot across the valley.
The Bible records the amazing ability of someone anointed by God by telling of Elijah tying his clothes on tightly and then outrunning the chariot of King Ahab for more than 15 miles, all the way to the town of Jezreel where Ahab and Jezebel lived.
We pick up the story with the first verse of the 19th Chapter of the book of 2 Kings. Elijah is about 34 years old and about to have a panic attack.
2 Kings 19 NKJV
1 ¶ And Ahab told Jezebel all
that Elijah had done, also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword.
2 Then Jezebel sent a
messenger to Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me, and more also,
if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this
time.”
3 And when he saw that,
he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to
Judah, and left his servant there.
· That’s 100 miles to the south! And he didn’t go by bus …
4 But he himself went a day’s
journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he
prayed that he might die, and said, “It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for
I am no better than my fathers!”
·
You
would have thought the exercise, fresh air, and change of scenery would have
made things better for Elijah …
·
But
he just wanted to die!
·
Actually,
he wanted God to kill him.
· Partly because by this time he is feeling worthless …
5 Then as he lay and slept
under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and
eat.”
6 Then he looked, and there
by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and
drank, and lay down again.
·
Ate
·
Drank
·
Slept
· Now there’s the sign of depression …
7 And the angel of the LORD
came back the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat,
because the journey is too great for you.”
8 So he arose, and ate and
drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as
far as Horeb, the mountain of God.
·
Another
200 miles … now he is at least two months and 350 miles from Jezebel, the
drought, the executions, the fire, the problems, and what he hopes is the
responsibility for having to deal with it all anymore.
·
No
one but God knows where he is, and he likes it that way.
· He gets to the mountain of God where Moses received the 10 commandments …
9 ¶ And there he went into a
cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the LORD came
to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
·
I
love this … finally when he hears the word of the LORD, God said:
·
“What
are you doing here?”
10 So he said, “I have been
very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; for the children of Israel have
forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with
the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.”
·
Poor
me …
·
You
don’t understand …
·
I’m
the only one who is right and just and true and good …
·
I’m
alone
·
I’m
left
· Nobody else cares … they want to kill me!
11 Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the
mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and
strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the
LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an
earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake;
12 and after the earthquake a fire, but
the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.
13 So it was, when Elijah
heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood
in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said,
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
14 And he said, “I have been
very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; because the children of Israel have forsaken
Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword.
I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.”
·
Repeat
…
·
This
is God saying … I don’t have anything else to say to you except … You’re looking for answers in all the wrong places …
· And on top of that, you’re wrong …
15 Then the LORD said to him: “Go, return on
your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as
king over Syria.
16 “Also you shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi
as king over Israel. And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you
shall anoint as prophet in your place.
17 “It shall be that whoever escapes the
sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill; and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha
will kill.
18 “Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
Elijah was looking for answers in all the wrong places. The answers were yet in the hands of those God would anoint to take care of things beyond Elijah’s calling. God continued to use Elijah for another 15 years or so before taking him to heaven in a whirlwind at about the age of 51. But not before Elijah finished what God had called him to do.
One of the greatest lessons I have learned in life from the full account of Elijah’s panic attack is that:
“If I am the only one who is right, I’m probably wrong.”
· It can’t always be someone else.
I’m at my best for God, for myself, and my family, when I recognize God is working in the lives of others as much as He is working in and on me.
God will take note of, and He will punish the truly evil and unrepentant people, but I am not alone, and I am not responsible for the sins of others.
My
salvation and my sanity are not in my enemy’s defeat, they are found in my
healthy relationship with God. We won’t find the right answers looking in the
wrong places. Maybe you just need to go back home and let God fix it.
