Have you ever felt isolated, when it seems all is against you? Maybe your faith is questioned, and motives are under attack? With immorality spreading, does it feel like many people are against the truth of the Bible? Elijah felt the same way in his day. In the time of Elijah, the nation of Israel was ruled by King Ahab, who did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, along with his wife Jezebel 1 Kings 16:30; 21:25. King Ahab did “more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him” 1 Kings 16:33. He led the people to turn to Baal, a pagan god, and reject the Lord as the one true God. The people of Israel were divided. Elijah on Mount Carmel: 1 Kings 18:16-24 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and then Ahab went to meet Elijah. When he saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, Oh troubler of Israel?” “I have not made trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals. Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.” So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing. Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. Get two bulls for us. Let Baal’s prophets choose one for themselves and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. 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 is the one true God!!
There was a problem in Elijah’s day which is very similar to the problem in our day. It’s not so much that we have rejected God, we have just made Him a very small part of our lives. He’s our Sunday God. He's our church God, our “when we need something from Him God!” We put Him in a little section of our life, but not as the one and only true God. We worship Him, but we also worship other things: success, financial achievement, popularity, and so on. Our lives get filled up with other gods and we try to share them with the one true God, Jehovah. But you cannot serve two masters. At the beginning of this event, Elijah addressed the people in 1 Kings 18:20-24. He was essentially calling the people to fully commit to God and to stop dividing their heart between Baal and God. Elijah wasted no time in drawing a dividing line in verse 21: “And Elijah came to all the people, and said, ‘How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him” He challenged the people of Israel to get off the fence. When Elijah used the word falter, it was a Hebrew word used to describe a lame man. He was literally saying, “Quit limping back and forth between two opinions!” They were halfheartedly serving God and halfheartedly serving Baal. There was no more room for compromise.
Elijah has issued Ahab a challenge to the prophets of Baal on the top of Mount Carmel verses 18-19. Elijah wanted nothing short of a great spectacle or showdown on top of the mountain. On the mountaintop, in front of a crowd of witnesses, they would each pray to their god and ask for fire from heaven to burn the sacrifice on the altar Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, "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.” 26 So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.27 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.” 28 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom until their blood flowed. 29 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!!
Then it was Elijah’s turn. He decided to win this contest in such a way that there would be no doubt that God prevailed. 1 Kings 18:30-35 details the meticulous preparation that Elijah required for his end of the showdown. Why did he continue to make them drench the bull and fill the trenches with water? Well, Elijah wanted to make sure that when the fire fell, nobody would doubt it was the one true God. To eliminate any possibility that the altar might be ignited by anything other than a miracle, Elijah saturated the wood with twelve pots of water, drowning the wood, the sacrifice, and space under the wood. Then Elijah offered up a mighty prayer, Verse 38 tells us that the fire from the Lord consumed the sacrifice, the wood, stones, water, and all that surrounded it. The fire consumed everything! In verse 39, the response to this miracle was undeniable: “Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, ‘The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!” Then Elijah commanded them, "Seize the prophets of Baal. Don't let anyone getaway!" They seized them and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered them there. Now if the story was to end here, we would all shout Hallelujah God is Great!! The church services have been awesome, praise night was a great success, the Spirit of God was moving to show Himself in new and exciting ways, and all is good and right in the world. But then comes Monday… Then comes the downward slide - from faith to fear to depression In Chapter 18 we saw Elijah's great victory on Mount Carmel and how he took on the false prophets of Baal. This time however we have quite a change in that Elijah’s massive victory turns to a massive defeat. I am glad the Bible portrays the lives of the saints, warts and all. Elijah had experienced such an incredible victory on Mount Carmel only to be defeated by fear, anxiousness, and panic. The first three verses of 1 Kings chapter 19 tell us about this transition.
1 Kings 19:1-3 Now 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 even more if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time." And he was afraid and arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there At Mt. Carmel it wasn't Baal any longer… it was Jehovah. He was the one who was in control of the weather and He brought down fire. Then the rain came, and Elijah ran before Ahab’s chariot back to the entrance of Jezreel which was 20 miles away. Elijah stopped there, but Ahab went in to see Jezebel. Now I don’t know whether Elijah had expected Ahab to be different because he had just witnessed that Baal was not the true God, or if he thought Ahab would work on his behalf with Jezebel and tell her that because of what had happened on Mount Carmel things had to change in the land. However, Ahab’s heart remained unchanged.
Running in fear...Had Elijah possibly underestimated Jezebel? Or is this just another example of one day we can be on the mountaintop and then running for our life the next, and it can happen so quickly! Elijah was not ready for the things which he saw in Jezebel's message, and this is what could have caused him to be so afraid. Another good example of this from the Bible is Peter. He had enough faith to get out of the boat and walk on the water. Amazingly, he was able to look at Christ and say, “Can I come to You?” and he actually got out of the boat, put his feet on the water and walked. But what does the Bible say happened then? ‘When he saw the wind, when he saw the waves, when he saw circumstances then instantly his gaze was taken off of Christ, and he began to sink’. This is what happened to Elijah. On Mount Carmel, his gaze was upon God who brought the victory. But here in this instance his simple faith and trust in Jehovah seem to have gone out the window. All he can see is a crazy woman's threat and her intentions. The things which he thought would have changed had not. So, Elijah was the one who changed, not Jehovah, Ahab or Jezebel!! So when things do not change with our prayers, challenge our faith or do not come to pass in the way that we desired or anticipated, what is your reaction?? Here you have a negative response that dominated his thinking, so he was unable to move forward. Elijah was not able to look beyond Jezebel's threats so he ran away as far as he could. These things are opposite to faith and when negative thoughts dominate us, we are controlled by them. Has anyone ever had to run for their life? Has anyone ever been threatened by circumstances? Elijah was filled with panic and fear and he ran. He is running for his life. It doesn't say how long it took him, but 80 miles is about the distance from Jezreel to Beersheba in Judah. Fear is an interesting thing. Fear is the little darkroom where negatives are developed. That is so true for us as well as Elijah. There are lots of things that we fear, and everyone is afraid of something different. There are lots and lots of little things that we shouldn't be afraid of, but we are. Fear is that place where all you see are the negatives, unfortunately, it can dominate us if we allow it. This is so true because when you are afraid, you bow to the circumstances; everything seems to be heightened and to be a problem. It is in our DNA to respond to fear in this way. In the first instance when Adam and Eve fell, what was their initial response? They fled from God because they were afraid. He called to them “Where are you?” and they replied, “We are afraid because we are naked." Fear is all part of being fallen and sinful. If our worries, insecurities, and anxieties are allowed to dominate us, they will cause us to fall.
From Fear to depression. Verse 4 while he went a day's journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. So, should Christians get depressed? The answer is no, they shouldn't, but yes, at times they do! We have everything available to us in Christ but when we are not acting in faith and are dominated by fear and insecurities, it can lead to depression and you see here that Elijah, is in that state of mind. When you look at the Bible are there any other saints who have voiced the same thing? Is he alone in this? No, Jeremiah felt the same way and cursed the day that he was born and said, “why wasn't I killed at birth?” He was hated by everyone except God. You could say that Jeremiah was very depressed at times, but he was faithful to God. Moses was another in Numbers 11:10-15. He is burdened with the complaints of the people and he said to God “I just can't carry on, kill me now because the burden is too great for me.” The other person I thought of was Jonah…… So, when I look at this passage, I see that his defeat stemmed from how he perceived what he saw. He was looking only at what Jezebel had written and not at The Lord the God of Israel. This then led to him being depressed. But God was incredibly gracious to Him as He is to all of us, and we must know that at no time does God say, “you are out of here, I am done with you.” He is gracious to Elijah and provides what he needs, for his journey with God was not over. Failure has come into his walk with God, but he was restored, and he was still God’s servant.
I think one of the biggest problems for Elijah comes into view when he repeatedly says, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn 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 think it is possible that Elijah may have got himself a little bit puffed up on Mount Carmel and is possibly a little over-inflated. Through these chapters, you read that Elijah considers himself to be the only true prophet that God has. I think possibly Elijah sees himself as somewhat indispensable to God As one great saint on his death bed said, “Few men are important, none are necessary.” Truth is He was not alone!!!! 1 Kings 18:13 speaks of 100 prophets that were hidden by Obadiah in a conversation with Elijah, and 1 Kings 20:18 describe 7000 in Israel that God has reserved. Fear and self-pity will always produce a distorted view of yourself and your circumstances.
What are you focused on? Just like Elijah you can be on the mountaintop one day and running from the voice of a crazy woman the next. Peter had enough boldness to cut off a guy's ear when he tried to arrest Jesus, only to be terrified soon after by a little girl saying, “Aren't you one of His disciples?” I read that 40% of fear is apparently about things that never happen. 30% of our fears are in the past so shouldn't even really be considered. 12% are “other peoples” business and 10% are about sickness. This leaves 8% of the things that could happen. So, fear is an interesting thing. I was reading about the special forces and what they do to help people with the fears they experience. One drill instructor said a very interesting thing. He said, “Actually fear is not a negative thing but positive as it can heighten your senses and awareness of the things that you need at the moment.” His experience and other evidence conclude that fear is not absent but can be an asset with proper training. This why they practice and practice, over and over so that when fear occurs, their training will take over.” When a situation arises your training (or faith) just kicks in and you are not dominated by your fears. The bible tells us to not be caught off guard or surprised when trouble overtakes you. Which implies that we should be trained and ready. If fear is allowed to dominate our thinking it will control the way we act and so becomes a real problem.1 Kings 19:9 There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the LORD came to him: "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
So, if you find yourself, on the run, or in a cave, like Elijah, and God asks "what are you doing here??” what will your response be?? He always provides a way of escape!!!!
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