Elijah Runs

Elijah is in a cave when this all happens. And before he exits the cave he hears a wind. And it isn’t just a howling. It is a wind that is ripping the mountain apart. This is a tornado ripping rocks. Elijah is in a cave but he has the be terrified. But the Lord God was not in the wind. And we don’t hear of what Elijah’s reaction is. We just hear what happens. This isn’t just a coincidence that there is a big earthquake that takes place. Again he is in a mountain that has been ripped apart, and now there is an earthquake, and there is no reaction from Elijah, just the narraotr saying the Lord is not in the earthquake, and then a fire, and the Lord is not in the fire. The Lord can shake mountains, he can shake the earth, he can send fire. He can control the skies, he can control the earth, he can control the fire, he just showed that he controled the rain, stopping it or making it rain, earth, wind, fire, water, were the four basic elements, solid liquid, gas, plasma, these are the four basic states of energy, the Lord is showing he has power over all, he has control over all of these things. But he is not those things which he controls. earth, and his wife Jezebel isn’t happy about it either. Ahab goes to Jezebel and tells her what happened. How Baal was shown to be a false God, and the one true God of Israel was shown to be a true God. The God who could stop the sky from raining for three years, and the God who could send fire down from heaven to land on an altar and burn up that altar, and then who could also send rain upon the land after his servant prayed for it. That

God was the one true God. This competition wasn’t just Elijah and the 400 prophets there,

have followed the Baals. 19 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.”

20 So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. 21 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

1 Kings 18:18–21 NIV

“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.

The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 1 Ki 18:18–21.

And when the children of Israel saw who the false prophets were, Elijah leads the people of Israel who were present there to put these false prophets to death. And they do.

And Elijah had put to death all of the false prophets who were worshiping a false God and instead was convincing people to worship the one true God. And Jezebels response to all of this is taking an oath that within the next 24 hours she is going to kill Elijah. She is upset that they killed her prophets. Which is wrong, but she had been so convinced this false religion was true, that even when she heard the truth of what happened on that mountain from first hand witnesses, she sets aside all of that truth, and seeks to Destry Elijah who was telling the truth, and who had done the right thing by putting these false prophets to death.

She must have had a lot of grief. This is the false religion that she had introduced to God’s people. This was here community, and 400 leaders of that community were killed. It was just, they were killed because they were leading the children of Israel away from the one true God and leading them to worship false Gods. They were making the entire nation of Israel suffer by not admitting they were liars, and making them continue in this famine. Understandable Jezabel is upset by this. And the reaction of an Evil person when confronted with the truth is usually not a logical and understating response. Predictably it is to destroy anything that disagrees with her, whether of not that it is really true. We can understand that reaction from Jezebel, but the reaction from Elijah is very different. The reaction from Elijah after he has just been fed by raven, after he has been given food miraculously by the Lord with the widow, after he had by the power of God raised a child back to life. After he had seen the fire from heaven come down, his reaction to the threat of Jezebel in this situation was to run. Which it is easy for us to judge Elijah here. When a world ruler swears publicly that they are going to kill you, the natural reaction that I think we would all have is fear, and I need to run.

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.” 5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

1 Kings 19:4–5 NIV

while he himself 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. All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.”

Especially for Elijah, he was hiding for the last three years from this woman and her husband. So he runs. And he arives at Mt. Sinai, also known as mt. Horeb. He arrived at the same place where Moses met with the Lord.

And when he gets there the Lord does speak to him. But this is what the Lord says.

And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

1 Kings 19:9 NIV

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?”

The Lord knows why he is there. The Lord knows that Elijah is afraid of Ahab and Jezebel. The Lord knows that he is tired of all of the work that he has put in. He is tired of the long famine that took place, he might have thought to himself that after the famine the people are really going to get it and they are going to get rid of the wicked king and queen and restore Israel, or he might of thought that after they put to death all of those false prophets that now things are going to change. He might have though that things were going to be different and all of that time during the famine, all of that time in exile, that grand display of God’s power was going to change the world, but then nothing changed instantly. The famine was over but there were still plenty of problems. Maybe, Elijah was there because he wanted something different from God. Maybe, He wanted to know what God was doing. Maybe, He wanted a face to face experience with him. Maybe he knew this is where the Lord established a nation with Moses, and maybe this is where I need to be. He had gotten used to being alone. He thought that all of his work all of his effor was worthless and now it was time and go and see God. And if God wasn’t going to take him home to heaven, well then he would go to where he might be able to see him here on earth. He answers by saying that they have put your propehts to death and now they are tryign to kill me to. He is upset because he doesn’t feel like what he is doing mattters. He doesn’t feel like it is wroking. He doesn’t feel like he is successful. He feels just hopeless.

He has given up helping people. He has given up serving others. He just wants to be alone. So the Lord teaches him a lesson. He says go stand in the presence of the Lord for the Lord is about to pass by.

Elijah is in a cave when this all happens. And before he exits the cave he hears a wind. And it isn’t just a howling. It is a wind that is ripping the mountain apart. This is a tornado ripping rocks. Elijah is in a cave but he has the be terrified. But the Lord God was not in the wind. And we don’t hear of what Elijah’s reaction is. We just hear what happens. This isn’t just a coincidence that there is a big earthquake that takes place. Again he is in a mountain that has been ripped apart, and now there is an earthquake, and there is no reaciton from Elijah, just the narrator saying the Lord is not in the earthquake, and then a fire, and the Lord is not in the fire. The Lord can shake mountains, he can shake the earth, he can send fire. He can control the skies, he can control the earth, he can control the fire, he just showed that he controlled the rain, stopping it or making it rain, earth, wind, fire, water, were the four basic elements, solid liquid, gas, plasma, these are the four basic states of energy, the Lord is showing he has power over all, he has control over all of these things. But he is not those things which he controls.

And then comes the small, gentle, whisper, not a yelling whisper like a librarian, yelling, *hey!* but a small gentle whisper. When Elijah hears this, he knows that is the voice of the Lord. And he hides. He hides his face, and he listens to what the Lord told him before to go out and stand in front of God. And he stands in front of God, and he says the same thing he prayed earlier. He heard God he heard his voice. And the voice tells him to go back and serve his people. The voice doesn’t tell him don’t be afraid, it tells him to go back and change Israel. Annoint different kings. Annoint a prophet to be with you the rest of your life and to take over after you. There is going to be great change that takes place. God tells ELijah that Israel is going to change, and he will not be alone. There will be new kings. There will be a strong support for him in Elisha. And there are still 7,000 people who have not worshiped baal. 7,000 strong members of the one true church, synogouge at that time. Elijah still has a lot of work to do for the Lord and things are going to be different.

Elijah wasn’t done. He had gone through a lot. He needed something special from the Lord to carry on. But he had much more to do. If we run to the Lord, we don’t run from his plans for us to serve him in this world. We don’t serve God by serving ourselves. We serve God by faithfully carrying out his commands for us and speaking the gentle whisper of his word throughout the world. We change hearts by speaking the word of God. We forgive sins, by calmly rpnoucingin the forgiveness that God gives. We are saved by God, not through repititive displays, but by the pronouncement of grae that God gives to you and I and all beleivers. We’re not done yet. We have plenty more work to do.

Amen.

And he goes to see the Lord. And