I Have Had Enough! Lord, Take My Life!

Despair and Depression

Last week we looked at how David battled anxiety. We said that he acknowledged that life was going to be difficult. He didn’t have unrealistic expectations but by gazing on the beauty and seeking the Lord in his temple, seeking his face and his will, he could face anything. That can give you the power to overcome any anxiety, any fear. We also looked at what those things meant to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

This week I want to look at another prophet, Elijah. He has a very similar experience except unlike Moses he has this incredible display of God come down and prove to the people who he is and the leaders just say meh, no thanks. You’re a dead man. And so after this incredible mountain top experience, Elijah is in absolute despair. And this morning we want to look at how God comforts and motivates him out of this despair. But let’s make sure we understand the context.

A pluralistic, idolatrous society

Sound familiar? They lived, they were spiritual guides, at a time when most people were surrounded by gods, all kinds of gods, all kinds of faiths.

Their question is, “How do I choose? How do I discern the spirits? How do I discern among all the competing spiritual claims and all the options?”

So many people are in constant states of despair and depression. And as we said last week, some people want to reduce these things to purely physical or purely psychological or purely spiritual problems. YES!

We are going to see a huge increase in this with the advent of social media. Everyone trying to live up and perform and there are some real parallels with this passage

The ancients were just more realistic about their idolatry. They called a spade a spade. When they saw beauty, or rain, or whatever that it was a spiritual existence and they would worship it. We do it all the time! We just don’t immediately realize it is idolatry

Ahab and Jezebel

Worshipped a plurality of gods, likely including yahweh

As the kings of Israel before him, Ahab is judged an evil king. That he does more evil to provoke Yahweh to anger is repeated for emphasis (vv. 30, 33). Since the same thing is said of his father Omri (16:25; and the narrator twice names Ahab “son of Omri” [vv. 29, 30] to reinforce the connection), the narrator is indicating that during Ahab’s reign there is a noticeable progression further away from Yahweh. Ahab considers it trivial to continue in the sins of Jeroboam. Going beyond Jeroboam’s apostasy, he marries Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians and worships Baal. While Solomon built high places for foreign gods, and Jeroboam set up calf-idols to represent Yahweh, Ahab builds a temple [literally, “house”] of Baal in Samaria. He also sets up a symbol of Asherah, in this instance the consort of Baal (see comments on 14:14–16). Ahab probably also worships Yahweh. In antiquity, it was common for one to worship numerous deities concurrently, and the king gives his sons Yahwistic names, Ahaziah and Jehoram. Nevertheless, the story of Ahab is framed to emphasize the king’s foreign idolatry, which, with Jezebel, he sanctions in Israel. In spite of Moses’ injunction in Deuteronomy 7:3–4 not to intermarry with the people of the land “for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods,” Ahab marries a “Canaanite” wife. His idolatrous acts follow suit.

1 and 2 Kings (1. The Reign of Ahab Is Framed (16:29–34))

The form of Jezebel’s name in the Hebrew text may represent a parody. The name originally meant, “Where is the Prince [˒îzĕbūl]?” It is derived from the epic of Baal’s battle with Mot (“death”). When Baal is defeated by Mot and is taken to the underworld, the god of rain “neglects the furrow of his tillage.” The search is made for Baal: “Where is the Prince, Lord of Earth?” In the Hebrew rendering of Jezebel’s name, “prince” (zĕbūl) appears to be vocalized as “dung” (zebel signifies dung in Arabic; cf. 2 Kgs 9:37), surely representing the author’s negative view of Israel’s Sidonian queen and her influence on Israel. Idolatry in the northern kingdom of Israel now takes the form of worshiping foreign gods.

During the eighth to ninth century BC, 800 to 900 years before Christ, in Israel, there was a king of Israel, Ahab, and the queen, Jezebel. Ahab and Jezebel, the king and queen of Israel, were going on a very organized and deliberate effort to try to make Israel religiously pluralistic. They were seeking to spread the worship of the Baal of Tyre and Sidon, who was a great rain god, a storm god. They were trying to get that idolatry spread throughout Israel.

The Lord sends his prophet Elijah to Ahab and Jezebel and says, “I’m going to send a drought. There will not be a drop of water. There will not be a drop of dew.” The reason for that is it’s God’s way of challenging the god Baal because in a way, he’s saying, “We’ll see who’s the Lord of the storm.”

So there has been a drought for three years now, and things are desperate. In the beginning of chapter 18, Elijah shows up and says to Ahab, “Here I am. Meet me on Mount Carmel.” He says, “Bring all your prophets of Baal, bring all the people, and we’ll have a contest, and we’ll see who is the true God.”

“My God can lick your god. Meet me on the mountain. Meet me in Madison Square Garden. We’re going to show you,” and he does. He sets up two altars, and he says to the prophets of Baal, “Come on. Pray to your god and see if fire will come down on your altar.” They pray and nothing happens.Then Elijah prays, and down comes fire from heaven. First, it begins to burn up the sacrifice, but then it comes down even further and it begins to burn up the wood. Then it begins to come down further. It begins to actually consume the very rocks and stones of the altar, and it begins to disintegrate. Then the earth begins to become consumed, even though water has been poured on it. Finally, everybody falls down, I guess from heat prostration as well as amazement, and says, “The LORD—he is God!”

He runs to Jezreel because he thinks that there will be a great repentance by Ahab and Jezebel or surely the people will force them out. Jezebel instead wants him dead. So he runs to the desert and to mount horeb the mountain of God

They weren’t even impressed, and the people didn’t rise up. There’s no coup d’état. There’s not even anybody with placards, a couple of demonstrators, saying, “We want the Lord back.” No. Nothing has happened.

God comes to him in his despair with his infinite wisdom and ways

God Comes in Infinite Wisdom

Elijah is in complete despair. Notice verse 3. He’s scared when Jezebel sends him the message, but up on the mountain he was not at all afraid. He was laughing in the face … He shot his wad. He’s out of ideas. He’s out of strength. He’s out of miracles. He has done everything he can do, and nothing has happened. He’s out. He’s spent.Notice in verse 3, he lets his servant go. Why? If Elijah had a servant because he was a rich man, that would be one thing, but he doesn’t have a servant because he’s a rich man. He has a servant because he’s a prophet. This is his staff. He’s letting his staff go. In other words, Elijah is saying, “I quit the ministry.” He’s saying to God, “I’m out of the ministry. My career is over.”Then in verse 4, he looks to God, and he says, “Take my life …” I know because this is a big crowd. I know because this is New York. I know there are some people in here who have in the not too distant past thought about suicide. I know there’s a good possibility there’s somebody here this morning who has very recently thought about suicide.May I point out that Elijah, even in this situation, even in this condition, does not presume that he has the right to kill himself? It’s amazing. As despondent as he is, he does not assume he has the right to take his own life, but what he is asking for is for God to do it, which shows he’s in utter despair.When God begins to treat him, when God begins to deal with him, what does God do? It reveals unbelievable wisdom. What does God do? He does three things, and it shows us so much about God

God comforts in 3 ways

He sends an angel who cooks

What does God do first with this completely despondent prophet?Does the angel come and say, “Fear not”? No. Does the angel come and say, “I bring you good tidings”? No. Does the angel say, “Repent”? No. Does the angel even say, “Do you want to talk about it?” No. What does God do first for Elijah? He cooks. This is the angel of the Lord, by the way. All the angel of the Lord does is cook and touch him and, in a sense, almost reflect his feelings, saying, “You’re tired.”What does that mean? The first thing it means is God is not like an awful lot of Christians, who are sure immediately if you’re depressed or you’re despondent, it must be a spiritual problem right away. We even talked about this last week. In other words, the average Christian and many, many Christians … I shouldn’t say average.Many Christians, what they’ll do with somebody who’s despondent is they’ll say, “Well, you need to pray. This is a lack of faith,” or they’ll go down their troubleshooting list. They’ll say, “Okay, Elijah, have you prayed in faith? Have you confessed all known sin? Have you claimed the promises? Have you rebuked the Devil? Have you pleaded the blood? Have you thanked God?” They’ll go right on down.Elijah has a physical nature, and he lives in the physical world. Sometimes you don’t need prayer. Sometimes you certainly don’t need a lecture. Sometimes you certainly don’t need a sermon. Sometimes you need a walk at the sea and a meal in a great restaurant and to sleep in. God starts there. Let’s spin this out.It’s not just that he has a physical nature and he needs something like this. We have a relational nature, and sometimes we need just touch, just nearness, which is what he gets. We have a creative nature, so sometimes we need art. Sometimes we need music. Sometimes we need a really terrific book. Fiction too, not something like, How to Come out of Despondency.God treats this depressed man with a multidisciplinary approach. He treats him understanding all the dimensions in which he lives. He’s a physical being. He’s a relational being. He is a spiritual being, because here are the three things he does. The first thing he does is he cooks

He listens

He comes, and he asks Elijah, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” When God asks a question, it’s never to get information for him. Can you imagine? He comes to the cave. Is this God saying, “Elijah, what are you doing here? What happened? You look awful.” No, when God asks you a question, it’s never to give him information. It’s to give you information. He asks the question twice, and if you look carefully, you’ll see for a long time all God does is listen.Up in verse 9 and in verse 13, he says, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Basically, in verse 4 he’s talking. “… I am no better than my ancestors.” In verse 10 and verse 14, most of this passage, all we’re getting is listening to Elijah. Now Elijah makes some pretty stupid mistakes. We’re going to see that in a second.He says, “I have been very zealous …” In other words, “My program was perfect. What’s wrong with you, God?” Then he says, “No one is left but me.” We see some mistakes here, but it’s a long time before we finally get to it, because he also has a psychological nature. He has a physical nature, and sometimes you need a bed and breakfast by the sea. We also have an emotional and psychological nature.Sometimes we need to talk. We just need to express ourselves, and we need to have somebody there to touch.

He says dwell in my presence

Eventually, the third thing God does is he says, “You need to spend time with my Word. You need to listen to my voice. You need to listen to my Word. You need to come into my presence,” because we do have a spiritual nature. Being in my presence, hearing my word, knowing my voice, heeding, obeying my will, these are the things that will bring you out of despair. Why are you here Elijah, because you know you need me. You know you need my presence. And yet you saw it rain down fire and it made no difference. So why are you here? Because you need my presence. It is the one thing you know you need.

Look here at the wisdom of this God and look at even the marks of a true worldview. When you watch how somebody treats a depressed person, you very often see their worldview.Some people’s worldview is everything is scientific. Basically, we’re just animals. Basically, we’re just biology. Basically, there is no spirit. There is no supernatural. Therefore, they’re going to say to a depressed person, “It’s chemical. Take a pill,” and they’re going to reduce things to mechanics. They’re going to reduce it to chemicals and synapses and say, “Take a pill.”On the other hand, you have other people … I’ll call them moralists … who reduce everything, not to the physical plane, but to the spiritual plane. The moralists are always sure, “You’re sinning somewhere. You’re not praying. You’re not doing this. You’re not doing that.” These are people who will never take a pill when they’re depressed.Moralistic people tend to be people who want to deny they have a physical being. They want to say, “The physical, the psychological, these things aren’t important. The important thing is the spiritual. The spiritual is the highest.” They talk as if we have nothing but the spiritual plane, and they will never take, ever. They say, “Oh, medicine. I’m depressed. That’s a lack of faith,” because they’ve reduced everything to the spiritual plane.Thirdly, you have a lot of people who reduce everything to the psychological. They say, “Well, you just need to talk. I can’t judge. I could never tell you there’s anything wrong. You just need to talk. We’re not going to evaluate. You’ve been abused. You’ve been hurt. It’s all psychological.”Listen, friends. When a worldview reduces everything to the physical, reduces everything to the spiritual, reduces everything to the psychological, it’s not going to deal with real problems. If you try to reduce everything, you’re not going to really deal with the complexity of reality. You’re not really going to help people.The God of the Bible never does such a thing. The God of the Bible has invented every one of those aspects of reality, and the God of the Bible is redeeming them all. The God of the Bible has not only invented body, soul, and spirit, but he’s redeeming them all. As a result, look at him. He deals with them all. It’s unbelievable.Therefore, this is the mark. If you know you have a worldview that takes all three into consideration … there are even more, I suppose … then you have a worldview that can stand up to reality. If you reduce everything, it doesn’t work. Christians, there’s one thing before we move on.One of the problems with us in dealing with our own discouragement or helping other people is when you see the real God, you’ll see sometimes we’re super-spiritual. Sometimes we’re not spiritual enough. On the one hand, we’re super-spiritual. Instead of really just sitting down and saying this person needs to rest, there’s a tendency for us to start saying, “You need to get into a Bible study.”On the other hand, when is the last time you spent 40 days seeking to hear the voice of God in solitude? On the one hand, what Elijah needed to get back on his feet, which he did, was something far more spiritual than we ever give anybody and far less. The wisdom of God … When God comes, he comes in consummate wisdom.

God comes in 4 ways

Why is Elijah going to Mount Horeb? Why is Horeb called the mountain of God? Many of you may not recognize the word Horeb. That’s not its most famous name. This mountain had another name. It’s Mount Sinai. Elijah is going to Mount Sinai. When he gets to Mount Sinai, he goes into a cave, it says.That’s the way the NIV translates it, but it’s a much more generic word than that. It means a hollow. It means a cleft. This is what commentators say. This is not just my idea. Centuries before, Moses went up on that mountain and said, “I want to see your glory.” He said to God, “I want to know who you really are. I want to see what you really look like. Who are you?” God said, “Moses, get into the cleft of the rock, and I will pass by.”Now we have almost exactly the same situation. Elijah goes into a cleft in the rock, and some commentators say it’s a very good possibility that Elijah went to the very same spot that Moses had gone and he got into the very same cleft in the rock. He says, “I want to see you. Pass by,” and God says, “Okay.”The thing you learn in this chapter, which is fascinating, is in this chapter God shows up in many, many forms, in a sense. He sends all sorts of various forms in which he appears, but there’s no one chapter I know anywhere in which you see such a dizzying range, such an incredible range of his manifestations and his appearances. What do I mean?

It lists three things that happen and says but God is not in them.

Some people would say, “Notice it says God is not in those things,” but the message here does not mean, “Hey, God is never a fire. God is never an earthquake. God is never a wind.” That can’t be what it means. In fact, those three things have obviously come from God. It’s not a coincidence. These three things came from him. He is the God of the earthquake. He is the God of the fire. He sent them, and actually there are numbers of other times …It reminds us of all the times in which he shows up as these things. He is Earth wind and fire—not the rock group

Great and mighty wind

When he showed up to Job at the end of the book of Job, what was he? When he shows up to the apostles on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, what was he? Wind.

Earthquake

When he showed up actually on Mount Sinai to Israel, what was he? He came down, and what was there? Earthquake. What we’re seeing here is almost the entire range of all the things God can show up as, and then in the very end the most surprising of all, the ultimate manifestation of his presence, at least here.

Fire

It reminds us of all the times in which he shows up as these things. When he showed up to Moses in the burning bush, what was he? When he showed up to Abraham in Genesis 15, what was he? Fire

Soft whisper

A still, small voice is what the old King James says. A gentle whisper, the still, small voice.What does this mean? Here’s what it means. Elijah’s problem ultimately … God has been very sweet about this. That’s our whole thing. God has been very gentle. He has been very careful. He has been incredibly patient, but in the end Elijah condemns himself out of his own mouth. Elijah shows you why he’s despondent.He says, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty,” which means, “I had the right plan. I executed it perfectly. What’s wrong with you?” Secondly, he says, “I am the only one left …” The reason we see right there that Elijah is despondent is he has put God in a box. He knows exactly how God should be. He knows exactly what God is, and yet God shows up in this humbling multiplicity of forms to show us, “You can’t put me in a box.”What do I mean? For example, the fact that Elijah puts God in a box leads him to over-optimism. He thought, “This is the plan. I do this on Mount Carmel, and now God has to. This is the time. Why would God ever …? This is what God has to do. He has to overthrow Ahab and Jezebel now. Either he has to overthrow them spiritually so they change in their hearts, or he has to overthrow them physically. This has to happen,” and now he’s despondent.Here’s why. God has not let him down. His plan has let him down, and he had identified God with his plan. Every time you think God has to show up as a fire, he’ll show up as a whisper on you, and every time you think God has to show up as a whisper, he’ll show up as a fire. He showed up as a fire to Moses. He shows up as a whisper to Elijah.God says, “I am not a tame God. I am not a God at hand. You can’t put me in a box. Elijah, your despondency is really your fault.” He has been very careful and slow to show us this, but he says, “It’s your fault. You’re shocked because you said, ‘God had to do this,’ ” but when God finally starts to talk to him at the end, he says, “I have a plan. I want you to go anoint Hazael. I want you to go do this, and I want you to do this with Jehu. I want you to do this … I’ve been working all along. What makes you think I don’t have a plan, Elijah, just because it’s not yours?”Elijah is despondent because he has put God in a box. He was overly optimistic about his plan, and now he’s devastated. On the other hand, he’s now too pessimistic. The other thing he says is, “I am the only one left …” Listen carefully. God has to come and say, “What do you mean you’re the only one left? I have all kinds … I have Hazael over here I’m going to use. I have Jehu. I have 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal, which means they haven’t kissed his idol.

Do we act like this? Are we acting like this? There are a few of us real Christians. There are a few of us who really know, but oh my goodness, there are so few of us.” You look out there, and you don’t see all the incredible stuff that’s going on, because you’ve put God in a box. When Elijah is told by God, “Go anoint Hazael,” now I can’t get into this. Hazael was a pagan king. There is absolutely no evidence that Hazael was a believer or ever became a believer, but God was saying, “I’m going to do some terrific things in the world through Hazael, and I have all kinds of people out there you don’t see because they’re not like you. They’re not theologically correct. They don’t have everything together. You put me in a box. As a result, you are despondent, but you’re paying the price for your own narrow-mindedness.”

My ways are higher than your ways. To paraphrase Elisabeth Elliot in her book Through Gates of Splendor, God is God, and if he is God, then there is no place safe except in his will, and that will will always be immeasurably, unspeakably, infinitely beyond any of your largest notions about what he’s up to. Earthquake, wind, fire, whisper, angel, cooking, listening, then a hurricane.

One of the reasons we are so discouraged and so depressed is we put God in a box, and therefore, we get too pessimistic and sometimes we get too optimistic. Here’s what’s going on. God is teaching Elijah the gospel. What is the gospel? Here’s the gospel. The gospel is you’re more sinful than you ever dared believe, but you’re more loved and accepted in Christ than you ever dared hope.

To some degree we always are slipping back out of Christianity into religion. Religion says, “God is not so holy that I can’t please him by being good.” If you say that, what you’ve done is you’ve shrunk the idea of sin. You say, “I can do it.” You’ve shrunk the idea of God’s holiness, saying, “He can be pleased by me.” You’ve shrunk the idea of grace, because God is really waiting for you to do what you need to do.The gospel says, “No, you’re more wicked than you ever dared believe. You’re more accepted than you ever dared hope.” Only when you push it out to the margins will you be saved from the over-optimism about your own abilities and over-pessimism about everybody else’s. The whole reason Elijah is so just screwed up now is because he’s not looking at the world through the gospel. He’s not understanding. He hasn’t been humbled by the multiplicity of God. He has put God in a box.

By the way, one last thing before we go on is another reason why we need community. Here is Moses, who comes up to the very same spot and asks the very same question. “Show me yourself,” and he gets a fire. Elijah goes up to the very same place, to the very same spot. “Show me yourself,” and he gets a whisper.Mary comes up to Jesus Christ and says, “Jesus, if you had been here, my brother Lazarus wouldn’t have died.” Martha, another sister, comes up to Jesus, “Master, if you were here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” It’s the same situation, same question. Moses gets a fire. Elijah gets a whisper. Mary gets tears. Martha gets a lecture. “I am the resurrection and the life.”What’s going on? Different hearts need different things from the richness of God’s glory, and unless you have close relationships with a lot of other Christians, you’re not going to really have a decent picture of him. Some of you, because of who you are and because of your need or even because of your situation, your experience, even your temperament, your culture, your spiritual gifts, you’re never going to see the whole thing. You’re never going to see the whole picture.You’re never going to really completely know who God is outside of community, outside of deep relationships with other Christians, especially people who have had very different experiences than you.

Why does God come as a soft whisper?

What does a still, small voice mean? It’s very clear that God is trying to say, “The ultimate way in which I come to you, Elijah, is through the still, small voice, not through the earthquake, wind, and fire.” What does that mean? I guess I’m going to say it means he comes in a word of grace. What does that mean?First of all, notice Elijah doesn’t go out. Do you notice that? Do you see the place where God says, “Go out”? Where does it say that? He says, “Go out,” in verse 11, but notice it’s not till verse 13, where he actually goes out. Why not? God says, “Go out,” and all of the sudden a hurricane comes. Then an earthquake comes. Then a fire comes. Elijah is not touched by any of them. Why? The rock shields him. The rock is torn up. The rock is burned. It can’t get through.Finally, in comes the word. On the one hand, this means God is trying to say, “Don’t look to the spectacular. Mount Carmel isn’t really the way I usually do things, Elijah. You thought everybody’s heart was going to be changed. You thought spectacular answers to prayer, you thought miracles, you thought the dramatic arguments were going to change hearts.They didn’t, any more than the earthquake, wind, and fire got into you. It couldn’t penetrate their hearts any more than it could penetrate you and to get to you inside the mountain. It just didn’t do it. Let me tell you what will actually penetrate and change people’s hearts. My voice, my word, my Spirit through my word.”

He is saying, Elijah you want to make a difference? It won’t be at lambeau field. It will be with the mundane. The soft whisper.

Jesus shows in Luke 16 the story of the rich man and Lazarus. What does the rich man ask for? A miracle, that will save my family! They have Moses and the prophets. They have my voice. They have my whisper, they have my presence. A miracle won’t matter. They have never mattered. People need God’s word and his presence.

He was saying if you want to know God, if you want to have your life changed, instead of looking for incredible mystical experiences or looking for signs in the sky, go to the Scripture, Moses and the prophets, and read it as if it’s the voice of God. Don’t just dissect it, though, of course, you have to do some of that. You see me doing it all the time.Eventually, you have to get to the place where you say, “This is the voice of God. Speak to me through the word of God.” Do you take it that seriously? Nothing will change your life like hearing the voice of God through the Scripture. Jesus Christ said so explicitly what God says to Elijah implicitly. Earthquake, wind, and fire … No, the word of God.Not just a word of God, but a word of grace. This is what’ll really change you. This is what’ll really melt your heart. Not shows of power, a word of grace. Why is it that Elijah was not smitten by the earthquake, the wind, and the fire? Do you know what the earthquake, wind, and fire are? Tokens of judgment. Why was it that the God of the earthquake, wind, and fire could become a God of the still, small voice for Elijah? You say, “Because the rock took the earthquake and the wind and the fire, so then Elijah could have the still, small voice.”

Just like Moses, Elijah was hidden in the cleft of the rock. Just as God passed by Moses with the backside of his goodness, Moses couldn’t see his face because it would destroy him. He was hidden in the cleft of the rock. Elijah was hidden in the cleft of the rock. They were shielded from his judgement.

The Mountain of Transfiguration

Years later, centuries later, God brought Elijah and Moses back from heaven for a very special event. In Luke 9, you’ll see Moses and Elijah appeared on another mountain. It’s called the Mount of Transfiguration. They saw Jesus Christ in his glory, and they spoke to him about his death. The greek word for departure is exodus. Moses and Elijah saw the Rock in which they had been hidden so they could have a relationship with God. So they could see the backside of his goodness and hear his soft, gentle whisper. So that they could be shielded by the cleft of the rock and covered with is hand and protected and sheltered in the cave from his justice for sin and his judgement of wind , earthquake and fire.

They finally got to see, these two great leaders and proph ets. The two men who came closer to seeing the glory of God while they lived than anyone else in history. They got to stand on the mountain with Jesus and learn about his exodus, the exodus all the others had pointed to. No a political exodus. Not an exodus from captivity or hardship or physical slavery. But an exodus from sin and death itself.

Jesus got the earthquake. When he died, there was an earthquake. Do you remember that? The graves were open wide because he was shaken with the justice of God. The judgment of God came down on him. He was torn to pieces. He was disintegrated so we could be made whole.When Jesus Christ died, he inherited the wind. Do you know that place in the Bible? Some of you just have heard of it as the title of a play, but it says in the Old Testament, “He who troubles his own house will inherit the wind …” It’s a curse, but Jesus inherited the wind so we could get the gentle whisper of God’s breath.Jesus was the Rock. He got the earthquake. He got the wind. We saw last week he got the fire. This is the reason why at the very end of John the Baptist’s life … John the Baptist had the spirit of Elijah. John the Baptist had the personality of Elijah. In fact, Jesus said he was a reincarnated sort of Elijah.In Matthew 11, he sends Jesus a question from prison. He says, “How could you be the Messiah? How do we know you’re the One?” Jesus knows John’s problem. John is trying to say, “Where’s the fire? You should be coming in judgment.” John is an Elijah. He says, “Where is the spectacular stuff? You should be bring the fire to burn up the enemies. Why am I in prison? You’ve come in weakness. How could you be the Messiah?”What is Jesus’ answer basically? He says the very same thing God says here, “Elijah, you don’t really understand. If I had come with the fire of God, Herod wouldn’t be the only one burned up. So would you. I didn’t come to bring, I came to bear the judgment of God. Because I have borne the judgment of God, because I took in the earthquake, wind, and fire into my heart, you can have a personal relationship with him through his Word.”

Jesus is not one more prophet like Moses and Elijah trying to get near God, he is the God all of the other prophets are trying to get near. The two men who came closer to the glory of God than any other living being, Moses who shown with the reflected glory of God and Elijah, are standing there viewing the glory so white no one could ever bleach it so says Mark. It isn’t them emanating or reflecting the glory. It is coming solely from Christ.

He’s not just a human being

Hebrews 1:3 CSB

3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

If the two men who got closer to God and his glory without dying than anyone else needed the cleft of the rock for protection from his justice, don’t you?

If their goodness wasn’t good enough that they needed the cleft of the rock to cover them up, do you really think your goodness will ever be good enough?

See God is teaching Elijah the gospel. that he is more sinful than he ever dared believe, but more loved accepted and protected in the cleft of the rock.

On the cross, the cleft of the rock of the cave was built once for all. That we can be covered by his hand in the cleft of the rock because his justice came down on Jesus. And if Jesus best friends saw his glory and worshiped, and Moses and Elijah saw his glory and worshiped, what shoulde we do?

Get in the cleft of the rock and behold his glory

Pray into reality—don’t just believe but see the glory

Do it together with a small group

This is my son

We are his children as well

Listen to him

Submit to his authority