THE PROPHET ELIJAH: A MAN LIKE US

 

 

Elijah had accomplished many amazing things:

 

·       He prayed and a widow’s son was brought back to life.

·       He prayed and there was a three-year drought.

·       He prayed again and fire consumed his offering on Mt. Carmel.

·       He prayed and the rain came.

·       He prayed, and Jordan River split in two.

·       He prayed and brought down fire to consume two battalions of 50.

 

Nevertheless, Scripture tells us that he was a man just like us:

 

·       Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. (James 5:17-18)

 

If this is so, what made Elijah such a great man of God?

 

Some pastors reason that with enough faith, fervent prayer can heal all. They tend to believe that the 3 1/2 years of drought was brought about by his faith alone. However, Elijah had merely prayed according to the will of God…as directly expressed to him through the Word of God:

 

·       Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word." (1 Kings 17:1)

 

This boldness and confidence did not come from the will of Elijah but from the will of God. God had revealed it to Elijah, who was merely communicating the God’s will.

 

From this account, we learn that the Lord was directing Elijah throughout. According to the Lord’s will and timing, He sent Elijah back to King Ahab:

 

·       After a long time, in the third year, the word of the LORD came to Elijah: "Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land." So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. (1 Kings 18:1-2)

 

The famine wasn’t the result of God having given Elijah a blank check to do anything he so desired, but a direct command. As a result, Elijah had little doubt that his prayer would be answered.

 

Because of the drought, the Lord now had the attention of Israel. Elijah challenged the priests of Baal to call upon Baal to consume an offering with fire:

 

·       “Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire--he is God… Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire." So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made. At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention. (1 Kings 18:24-29)

 

Yet when Elijah prayed, the bull was immediately incinerated. Why was Elijah bold? He knew that he was operating according to the will and Word of his God:

 

·       At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: "O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.” (1 Kings 18:36)

 

But don’t worry because you do not have the faith of Elijah. He also had his other side—perfect meltdowns, which caused him to flee in panic when Queen Jezebel threatened his life:

 

·       Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” (1 Kings 19:1-2, 4).

 

How had Elijah been so bold but then completely melted down at a mere threat to the point that he wanted to die? The easy answer is that Elijah was much like the rest of us. However, I think that the explanation requires more. Our God wants to keep us humble (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Therefore, He created us to be vulnerable and dependent upon Him as sheep upon their shepherd:

 

·       But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:7-9)

 

Too much victory, and we begin to think of ourselves as a “somebody” and become elf-reliant. Paul also had to learn this lesson multiple times:

 

·       For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. (2 Corinthians 1:8-10)

 

How do we rely on the Lord? The answer is always that same. We must trust in the Word of the Lord above all else. Paul explained that this was why our Savior chose David as King:

·       “And when he had removed [King Saul], he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’”

 

I am challenged by this. Would I do everything that the Word of God instructs me to do, or would I place my own reasoning, fears, and desires above it? This is the question that confronts every man and woman of God.

A WORLD OF PAINFUL CONSEQUENCES, MEANING, AND DESIGN

 

I had asked a young man why he had departed from the Christian faith. He responded that if there is a God who is all-powerful and all-good, He should have been able to create a pain-free world.

 

But perhaps we need to suffer and that it might even be a necessary ingredient for growth and maturity.

 

Leprosy is a disease which prevents feeling pain. It points to the fact that we need each nerve to tell us when we might be damaging our body. Without this pain-feedback, we continue to injure our bodies, unaware until we become an absolute crime-scene covered with soars and abrasions.

 

·       Perhaps in the same way, we also need psychological sensors to inform us when we are hurting ourselves and even others.

·       Perhaps we need to be instructed by our sorrows, losses, fears, grieving, guilt, and shame.

·       Perhaps without these consequences, we would never learn essential lessons.

·       Perhaps also we would gradually maim our psyches so badly that we wouldn’t be able to be fit associates or friends, like the psychopath who feels no shame in hurting others.

·       Perhaps we have been physically and psychologically designed to suffer and to learn necessary life-lessons.

·       Perhaps we also need death to teach us thoughtfulness about our lives and appreciation for what we now enjoy.

 

I had seen a video showing a woman who had been discovered and freed from of rubble after four days following the Haitian earthquake. She and her husband were tearfully and thankfully hugging, perhaps like never before.

 

Without the prospect of death, how could we be thankful for the deliverance from death and disease? Without consequences, there could be no thankfulness for anything! Life would just go on monotonously. Nor would there be anything to prompt us to think about the deeper things of life. Would we appreciate our parents, friends, or anything else if we would be deprived of the consequences?

 

I had read about a rock singer who concluded that happiness required him to eliminate his conscience. He thought that he could achieve this by living as wildly as he could, causing his conscience to fall apart like a soggy piece of toilet paper. Instead, it ended in suicide.

 

Instead, our conscience is meant to teach and socialize us. In order to exalt myself, I would put others down. However the painful consequences taught me otherwise as I lost all my friends.

 

We never learn humility or compassion without such consequences. We remain beasts. Nor do we learn to seek for any meaning beyond ourselves and our own immediate gratification. Once again, we remain beasts no better than the beasts we hunt and kill.

 

These considerations should lead us to question, “What is life, and why am I here? Does it all just end with my last breath?”

 

The Bible teaches that the suffering of this life is the necessary preparation for the next:

 

·       So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

 

Suffering teaches us that our lives have meaning and purpose and are not the result of a series of mindless accidents of an uncaring world.