The Call of Elisha pt 1:
A Great Prophet Departs
1 Kings 19
The Story of Elijah
Over the next couple of weeks we are going to be exploring the call of the prophet Elisha. Before we get to know Elisha however we really need to meet his predecessor and mentor: Elijah. The prophet Elijah is introduced to us in 1 Kings 17. We are going to trace the events of his ministry briefly as we set the scene for the calling of Elisha. As we do this we are going to discover some very practical truths which can help us in our own life of service to God.
Elijah’s Ministry [1]
- Elijah leaves his hometown of Tishbeh in Gilead to deliver God’s message to King Ahab of
- God tells Elijah to flee to the Kerith Ravine and hide there. Ravens bring him bread and meat every morning and evening, and he drinks from the brook.
- Eventually the brook dries up, so God commands Elijah to leave
- After 3 years had passed, God told Elijah to return to
- In front of a large crowd, including King Ahab, Elijah dares the prophets of Baal to see if their god will send down fire to consume a sacrifice they have prepared. After many hours of frantic chanting, dancing and blood-letting, the prophets of Baal give up in defeat. Elijah then builds an altar of stones, places the wood and sacrifice upon it and then has it thoroughly doused in water. He offers a simple prayer to God, and is answered by fire from heaven which burns up the sacrifice, wood, water and even the stones and soil!
- The prophets of the false gods are taken away and killed, and God immediately sends rain from the
- When Queen Jezebel hears about what has happened on Mt Carmel, she sends a messenger with a death threat to Elijah. Elijah is afraid, and flees south to the
3 Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to
All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
7 The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the
- Mt Horeb is also known as Mt Sinai, the place where Moses saw the burning bush and the place where the Israelites received the Ten Commandments from God. Camped in a cave at this sacred location, Elijah has his own encounter with God.
1 Kings 19:9b-18
And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
11 The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
14 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
15 The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the
- Elijah leaves Mt Horeb to accomplish the final tasks the Lord has entrusted to him.
Elijah’s Discouragement
There is so much we can learn from the life and ministry of Elijah, but today we’re going to focus on the way that his ministry was brought to a conclusion.
Elijah saw God achieve such an incredible victory at Mt Carmel before all the people gathered there. Not only that but he had experienced supernatural power at work in his body which enabled him to outrun a horse and chariot for a distance of about 30 kms!
After this incredible showdown he suddenly gets spooked by a threat from the queen and takes off! Eventually, alone in the desert he says to God “I have had enough, Lord. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”
What’s going on here? Elijah is worn out and he is discouraged. We might use another common word and say that he is depressed. For the last 3 years or so he has been living with the tension of being a marked man. He has courageously stood for God and seen God win a great victory. But before one day has passed he receives a death threat and thinks to himself “Nothing has changed. Nothing has really been achieved. Jezebel and Ahab are still in power. The land is still full of idols. I will be killed, and it will seem to the people that God could not protect me any more than Baal protected his prophets.” Elijah lost hope.
Evidence of this is found in his conversation with God at Mt Horeb. Elijah complains: “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
I want us to notice some details in this story which will not only help us to understand Elijah’s situation, but will also help us in our own battles with exhaustion and discouragement.
- Long Term Stress: Elijah had been under stress for a long time. Stress wears us out. It affects us spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically. Elijah may have thought that his troubles were over after Mt Carmel, but they were not. The continuing weight was too much for him to bear. If we are to overcome discouragement we need to be able to identify and do something about the things that are weighing on us over long periods of time.
- Intense Experiences: Elijah had just been through a particularly draining experience. Think of the physical impact of his run from
You know what I find really interesting? The best way to get rid of excess adrenaline is to work it off physically. After an incredibly tense day on Mt Carmel, what does God do to Elijah? He gives him the power to run a marathon like it was a sprint!
Well, that might have helped Elijah get to sleep easier that night, but I suspect that it would have left him feeling pretty worn out! - Negative Self-Talk: In Elijah’s conversations with God we discover some things that would have been adding to his discouragement:
- “I Can’t Take It Anymore”
His first statement was “I have had enough”. He was aware of his own ability to endure, and recognised that he was at his limit. He could go no further. He was tired of fighting and tired of running.
- “I’m a Failure”
Secondly, he said “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors”. He was evaluating himself and his accomplishment based on his own perspective instead of God’s. Most likely he was thinking of faithful Israelites in the past who had not been able to keep the people from idolatry. Faithful kings, priests and prophets had not kept or restored the nation to proper worship of God. He was just one more in a long line of failures.
- “It’s Not Fair”
Thirdly, he has become embittered against those he was called to serve, and has lost perspective. He is feeling sorry for himself. He goes from feeling like a failure to feeling like a martyr. This is what he says to God at Horeb: “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
Elijah is saying “God, I’ve served you faithfully but they would not listen. They’ve killed all the others and now they are coming for me.” I think there is also a tone of accusation here – God has not done the right thing by His faithful servants. He has not protected them from the swords of evil men. Why are good men dying while evil ones prosper? It’s not fair. It’s not right.”
How often have you felt like one of these: “I can’t take any more”; “I’m a failure”; “It’s not fair”?
How often have you heard others express feelings like those? It’s common human experience isn’t it?
Do we ever get worn down by constant stress, by confrontation and opposition, by heavy workloads, by disappointing results? Of course we do. Do we ever feel worn down by feelings of exhaustion, self-doubt and injustice? Of course we do!
If you don’t really know what it’s like to be sapped of strength and will because of discouragement, you still need to pay attention, because I guarantee you that you will be in that situation one day! It happens to all of us at some point or points in our lives. So..
What can we do when we are discouraged?
What happened to Elijah – was he able to pull through this? What did God say to him to help him out of the pit he was in?
Well, before God said anything in response to Elijah, He did something. You see, Elijah was not yet in the right condition or in the right location to receive what God needed to say to him. The first thing God did was to provide food and rest for Elijah. God sent an angel to provide for him, and prepare him for the journey to Horeb.
As we’ve already seen, discouragement affects our bodies. It wears us out physically. In our tiredness it is hard to think clearly and make good decisions. It is hard to find the energy to do what we need to do to recover.
Psalm 6:2-3
2 Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony.
3 My soul is in anguish.
How long, O Lord, how long?
Like Elijah we just want to lie down and give up.
God first restores Elijah’s body and the sends him on a journey to a place where he can better receive what he needs from God. That journey took 40 days and nights. In the Bible the number 40 is often used to represent a period of preparation for something very significant:
· It rained for 40 days and nights in the Flood.
· Moses twice spent 40 days with God on Mt Sinai (Horeb)
· The spies spent 40 days exploring the Promised Land, before the Israelites were sent back into the desert for 40 years to be prepared by God to inherit that land.
· Goliath defied
· Jonah declared the Ninevites had 40 days in which to repent or be destroyed
· Jesus fasted for 40 days before commencing His public ministry
· Jesus was seen for 40 days after His resurrection before He ascended to Heaven.
Elijah’s journey to Mt Horeb was a period of preparation by God to bring Him to a point where he was ready to hear God’s voice. I think the same experience is often true of us.
Very often we are so weighed down physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually that we struggle to hear God’s voice clearly. Sometimes we need to be prepared in order to do so.
Here are some things that we can do:
- Look after our bodies.
Eat and drink healthily – it’s well known that diet makes a huge difference to how well our bodies work and how we feel emotionally. Getting the right amount of exercise is also important in helping our bodies deal with stress as well as just operating as they should – particularly in helping us sleep. Getting enough rest – but not too much – is also important. Of course, there are many medical issues that affect how we feel as well, and getting checked out medically is simply common sense. Elijah needed to eat, drink and rest – so do we!
- Look to God.
Physically restored, Elijah now needed to look to God. He needed to leave the desert and the shelter of a broom tree in order to find his shelter in God.
Psalm 121 says:
I lift up my eyes to the hills— where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over
The Lord watches over you— the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore
Elijah was so busy escaping his problems that he forgot to keep his eyes on the solution – God Himself. In fact, Elijah’s obsession with his problems actually caused him to stop seeing things clearly and accurately. He said that all of God’s prophets had been killed, he was the only one left and now the Israelites were after him too.
Was Elijah really the only prophet of God left? Obadiah had only recently told him of a hundred prophets hidden safely in caves. Elijah’s statement simply isn’t true, but it was true of how he felt. He had not been hiding away with 99 pals, he’d been standing up by himself against the enemy and that’s a lonely position to be in. There were other faithful Israelites, even in Ahab’s own household. And who knows how many Israelites genuinely turned back to God after the showdown at Mt Carmel? But Elijah felt alone and outmatched.
Was he really fighting this battle by himself? Was it him who won the showdown with the prophets of Baal? No! The showdown wasn’t between him and the prophets of a false God. The showdown was between the true God and a fake. Elijah was never alone, and he was never outnumbered. 450 to one - 850 to one if the prophets of Asherah joined in – that’s how it looked to human eyes. That’s not how it was in God’s eyes. In his weariness Elijah’s eyes dropped from what is unseen to what is seen, and what is seen was too much for him to bear.
He needed to lift his eyes toward the
How are you going with that? Do you tend to focus on your problems and magnify them in your mind? Do you find that you become obsessed with thinking about things that you can’t control, searching for ways to solve things yourself? As you do that, you will find that you stop seeing things clearly. Problems become bigger. People become meaner and more wicked. Bitterness and hopelessness grow in your heart like poisonous weeds. Phrases like those we have already looked at will go around and around in your head: “It’s not right”, “I’m an idiot”, “I can’t handle this”, “It’s not fair”. We so easily forget to trust in the sovereign power of God and so we fight our own earthly skirmishes instead.
The One who watches over
Ephesians 1:11 says:
In him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will…
God not only has a plan for our lives – including our salvation – but He works out everything in conformity with that plan. No exceptions.
Proverbs 16:4 says:
The Lord works out everything for his own ends— even the wicked for a day of disaster.
Elijah was not at the mercy of wicked men or women – God is in control!
The same is true for you and I. If we trust in God and follow His ways there is nothing that can interrupt God’s good purposes for us, no matter how difficult the journey seems at times. We need to be reminded of that, so that instead of being dismayed and discouraged we instead look to God and say “Where are You in the midst of this and how can I participate in what You are doing?”
Romans 5:1-5 encourages us with these words:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Instead of being consumed by your problems and your own limitations, learn to rejoice in the love God has for you and the hope of what He is doing and what He will do even through the worst of life’s journey. Rely on Him to give you the ability to persevere. Allow Him to shape your character. Then hope and love will be your experience rather than discouragement and futility.
- Move toward God
There’s a discipline that comes with travelling - you need to keep moving! 40 days and nights is a long time to be on the hiking trail!
Sometimes we need to keep up with the hard work of fixing our eyes on God and moving toward Him, trusting that we will receive what we need from Him. Sometimes it doesn’t happen quickly. Elijah had been told to do one thing – go to Mt Horeb. We need to continue doing the things that we have been told to do in faith that God will meet us. We need to meditate on God’s word, pray constantly with thanksgiving, meet with other believers for worship, teaching, fellowship, service and witness. We need to think on things that are pure, lovely and helpful and not fill our minds with darkness. We need to love others. As we continue to do these things God invariably works in us to prepare us to receive His restoration from discouragement.
Discouragement is something which saps our will and our strength from doing what is good and right. It leaves us stuck under a broom tree waiting to die in Elijah’s case. We need to get up and do what we have been told to do. That is faith.
It’s not denial. It’s not whistling a happy tune while on the inside we’re dying. It’s not putting on a mask and pretending everything’s OK. It’s trusting God to sustain us on a path that we cannot tread by ourselves, and obediently walking that path.
Isaiah 40:28-31
28 Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
What does God do for us when we are discouraged?
First of all we need to remember that it was God who provided for and sustained Elijah on his journey. Even if God feels far off, we must remember that He is present and He is sustaining us even as we seek to draw near to Him for help.
When Elijah finally arrives at Mt Horeb he goes into a cave, and there meets with God. God sends a mighty wind which tears the mountains apart and shatters rocks, then an earthquake and then fire; but God is not found in any of these things. What a great demonstration of power, yet that was not how God chose to connect with Elijah. He chose a quiet whisper.
Don’t miss the significance of this. The Creator of the Universe, who sends down fire from heaven, shatters the mountains with wind and causes the earth to shake – He chose to draw near to Elijah and gently whisper to him.
So often we think of the bigness and the power of God and think that in His great power lies the solution to our problems. We want Him to shake the earth!
A time is coming when He will do that – He will destroy evil once and for all, together with all those who oppose Him. But God very often does not choose to accomplish His will through acts of visible power. Think of how we were saved! Our mighty God entered His world as a helpless babe, intent on dying a cruel death at our hands, in order to take a punishment that we deserve.
Our all-powerful God has chosen to draw near to us, to show us that He understands and cares for us no matter what we are going through. God is not distant and aloof, He loves to draw near to comfort and to guide.
Listen to these words from Hebrews 4:14-16
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Know that we can approach the throne of grace – we can come to God and He will draw near to us, giving us what we need to endure. That’s a promise we can hold to!
What grace did Elijah receive in his moment of need?
Did God give him an army to rid the land of evil? Did He renew Elijah’s confidence and send him back to confront Jezebel with the promise of protection and deliverance? Did he send Elijah back to Zarephath or down to
God decided to take Elijah home! Elijah would not remain to see Baal worship eradicated in
It’s interesting to note that of the three tasks, Elijah accomplishes only one – the appointment of Elisha. It is left to Elisha to anoint both Hazael and Jehu for the tasks that God had ordained for them to complete.
We often think it a tragedy when someone departs this earth not seeing the fulfilment of what they had worked for. I suspect that Elijah actually preferred his view from the stands!
Hebrews 12:1 says:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Elijah had run his race, and was able to take his place in the great cloud of witnesses as others took up the baton and ran their leg.
Sometimes God takes us home to be with Him, and our race here concludes. Sometimes God shifts us in other ways, changing our roles or changing our place of service. Either way, we hand the baton on to others, sometimes not knowing whether our stage has accomplished much at all, or how the next team of runners will perform.
I remember meeting with John Bolton, who together with other missionaries spent many years of faithful service in
We don’t always see what our lives have accomplished, but God does. He is always at work, and we only ever play our part. Elijah was discouraged because all the pain and struggle of the last 3 years or more had seemed to have accomplished little, but it was all part of what God was doing in the nation of
Should we criticise Elijah for feeling the way he did? Of course not. Neither should we judge one another’s struggles. Rather we should love one another and carry one another’s burdens as we discussed a couple of weeks ago.
May we all receive mercy and grace as we draw near to God. As we fix our eyes on Jesus may we be strengthened in order to run the race that He has marked out for us.
Amen.
[1] Norris, D. T. (1997 c1995). Logos Deluxe Map Set. Contains 189 maps by the Review and Herald Publishing Association and 13 maps created by the Logos Bible Atlas.
All Scriptures taken from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984.
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