Elijah part 2
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Discouragement
Discouragement
For the last few weeks we have been talking about what it looks like when people are big and God is small.
We talked last week about how Elijah was the poster child for putting God first over people. He did an incredible job at trusting in God.
Elijah has just come off of a terrific victory. Israel had been involved in idol worship. They were worshiping baals, asherah’s and God, apparently.
Elijah calls them out. Calls for a contest to see who’s God would prevail. Yaweh was the God who was able to answer with fire and burned up the sacrifice. What a great story. It is found in .
So there was an opposition, 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of asherah. When God answered with fire and showed himself to be the one true God, Elijah had the people kill all the prophets of baal and ashera which was supposed to happen when God’s people took the promised land.
What an incredible victory. It must have been pretty amazing to witness it. But not everybody was happy about this.
Remember the queen? The wife of Ahab, Jezebel? Those prophets were hers. They were prophets for the God that she worshipped and she wasn’t happy about it.
Jezebel had heard about the demise of her prophets of baal 450 of them. She makes a promise to Elijah.
2 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.”
3 Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
4 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.” 5 And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.”
1 kings 19
What would cause him to be so afraid? This is hard to understand.
What really makes it hard to understand is that if we know the story leading up to this we see God moving miraculously in the life of Elijah...
Drought for 3 1/2 years. God provided food and water for Elijah, the ravens brought him meat to eat.
God brought down fire from the sky to burn up the sacrifice Elijah set up.
Since God did all of these things it really doesn’t make sense that Elijah was scared. So scared that he ran away.
prays that he might die
He is discouraged, he is feeling sorry for himself.
He forgot God’s lessons that he had been taught. His eyes were on his circumstances.
Discouragement is one of the most powerful tools that Satan, yes satan can use against us. It can make our health bad, it can keep us from any kind of joy, but again, it is powerful.
Swindoll’s Ultimate Book of Illustrations & Quotes Discouragement
It was advertised that the devil was going to put his tools up for sale. On the date of the sale the tools were placed for public inspection, each being marked with its sale price. There were a treacherous lot of implements. Hatred, Envy, Jealousy, Doubt, Lying, Pride, and so on. Laid apart from the rest of the pile was a harmless-looking tool, well-worn and priced very high.
“The name of the tool?” asked one of the purchasers.
“Oh,” said the adversary, “that’s Discouragement.”
“Why have you priced it so high?”
“Because it’s more useful to me than the others. I can pry open and get inside a person’s heart with that one, when I cannot get near him with other tools. Now once I get inside, I can make him do what I choose. It’s a badly worn tool, because I use it on almost everyone since few people know it belongs to me.”
The devil’s price for Discouragement was so high, he never sold it. It’s still his major tool, and he still uses it on God’s people today.
—John Lawrence, Down to Earth
Discouragement can be debilitating.
When we focus on what is wrong it is easy to get hung up on what is wrong Instead of remembering and trusting in who God is. Discouragement does that to us.
Elijah runs away. And it seems like all running does is it gets you further away from where you need to be. Elijah exhausts himself and finds himself in the desert sitting under a broom tree.
Now I just want to park here for a second. Elijah is in the desert where of course it is hot and he is looking to get away from everyone and everything and he comes along and rests under a broom tree
I have a picture of a broom tree. It is more like a shrub or a bush. It doesn’t get over 10-12 feet tall. It’s not exactly significant but it is providing a little bit of comfort. Just enough I guess.
I find it very interesting that Elijah rests under this broom tree. Again, it’s not all that, but it is something.
Too often, we Christians will settle for what we think is comfort, what we think is shelter. But that shelter, that comfort we seek is totally inadequate. People seek their own broom trees in all sorts of ways.
They drink, they take medicine, or drugs. They get lost in a new hobby, they exercise, they start new relationships, they binge watch a new show. There are all kinds of ways that we can get some comfort but those comforts are not lasting.
Who is a fan of comfort foods? Mashed potatoes, apple pie, macaroni and cheese? We call them comfort foods because they fill us up and we feel good, but they don’t last… not in the form that makes them comforting, no, they last in things that make you uncomfortable because you don’t fit in your clothes.
But when we are discouraged we want something to comfort us.
Elijah is discouraged and he is looking for some kind of comfort but the comfort he finds isn’t true comfort. He even says that he would like to die.
So he sleeps under this tree and an angel of the Lord touches him, wakes him up and tells him to eat.
I am sure glad that God is forgiving, loving, providing.
He is a God who Refreshes a God who Reveals and a God who Reinstates.
He Refreshes...
He provides an angel who will feed him. (just like he provided food for him before with the Ravens and the brook)God can do this. God had done this before with the manna and water in the desert.
Elijah makes the 40 day journey to the mountain. It’s an interesting destination. Mt Horeb, ( the same mountain where God called Moses through the burning bush)
Here is where God shows up and asks Elijah what is going on.
9 There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”
1 Kings 19
Elijah feels alone. He is discouraged. He is even stretching the truth a little bit. He knows about all those people who threw down the prophets of Baal and Asherah. He knows about 100 prophets of the Lord who are hidden in the caves by Obadiah.
He is feeling sorry for him self and he is totally discouraged.
Again, how merciful is God? How loving, how forgiving He is. God says, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord. And the text says the Lord passed by.
The God who Refreshes is about to REVEAL himself
11 And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. 13 And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
This is God… He is revealing Himself to Elijah. But His revelation is unexpected. You would think that the God of all creation would come with such force and power and might.
I mean Elijah just witnessed Gods fire coming from heaven and it was pretty dramatic. But no, God doesn’t show up here like that. He isn’t in the wind or the earthquake or the fire. That was more of the way God worked with Moses.
With Elijah, God reveals himself by speaking in a whisper, and he is still as strong and still as majestic and powerful even with that still small voice.
Interesting that God does not really address Elijah’s complaint but God Reinstates Elijah. He gives him some more work to do. (lighter work?)
1 & 2 Kings New Confrontation, New Commission, 19:11–18
The great wind that split mountains and broke rocks is like the time of Moses. The earthquake is replicated from Moses. The fire belongs to the tradition of Moses. These are all the characteristic features of theophany, God’s coming marked by cataclysmic disruption of natural phenomena. The tradition of theophany strives to voice in effective ways the sheer power of Yahweh’s irresistible coming.
Interesting that God does not really address Elijah’s complaint but gives him some more work to do. (lighter work?)
The God who Refreshes, the God who Reveals and finally, aren’t you glad that God Reinstates? He is the God of second chances and then some.
We, like Elijah can come to places of discouragement. I bet some of us here today, right now are discouraged with something.
Revealed
We get discouraged. But thankfully we have the mighty encourager. Even when we complain, even if we really don’t have a real reason to complain, our God is an encourager.
Reinstate
You see, we have the opportunity to be encouraged by the Lord.
Our power to overcome discouragement comes ultimately from the presence of the Holy Spirit that lives in the life of the believer. It is a supernatural thing in us that enables us to overcome anything. And even to do it with joy.
That is what Paul, the writer of Philippians talks about in
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Proverbs 3
Have you ever experienced this? Have you ever had peace wash over you so much in such a way that you thought it even a little weird that it was happening? I should be more worried, I should be more bothered by this.
Maybe God is working in your life, bringing peace in the midst of your circumstances.
The one who trusts in the Lord never needs to be discouraged. Our circumstances may wear us down, our situation may seem futile, everything is falling apart around us.
We look for God. We look for him and expect Him in the storm, we look for Him in the earthquake, we look for him in the fire.
We get so intent on focusing on these huge displays that we forget that God is already close. So close that you can hear Him even in a whisper. Even in a whisper.
Every child of God, every believer in Jesus Christ here this morning has the Holy Spirit living in them.
Living in you, not just visiting you, not just popping in for a situation and then leaving.
No, living in you and that means that you already are close enough to hear that soft quiet word that maybe only you can hear. That word that will keep you going on and on and on.
The truth that makes you able to get up, get on with your day with the understanding that you are an ambassador for Jesus Christ, that you are as Oswald Chambers writes:
...to be captives in the train of Christ’s triumphs. We are not in God’s showroom, we are here to exhibit one thing—the absolute captivity of our lives to Jesus Christ.
It means that our lives don’t belong to us, they belong to our Heavenly Father. We don’t have to be discouraged. We remember that even in our difficult, even horrible situations we still belong to God, we still have the Holy Spirit in us and that we are here to love and serve the Father. We are here as servants of the most high God. THere’s no time for discouragement.
I heard an illustration this week about very influential preacher, a man named Martin Lloyd Jones. I had never heard of him but there are guys I listen to who loved and respected this preacher.
The story is told of one of these who was influenced by Jones and knew that every time after Jones would preach he would stand and greet anyone who wanted to greet him.
This man wanted to stand near and hear what it was that Jones would tell people as they filed out. He was a little confused when Jones’ final words to each person who greeted him were the two words, “keep on”. Keep on. That was it.
The man was confused until he thought about it a little longer when he realized that these are the words that all of us need to hear. Keep ON.
These are the words that God had for Elijah. I still have work for you to do Elijah, even though it may not feel like you are very strong and successful at the moment, I still have plenty for you to do. For Elijah, he had to anoint two new kings and a prophet that would eventually replace him when he was finished.
For you, today. There could be discouragement in your life. Discouragement that can be crippling. Do you know that you are to keep on? Do you know that God still has work for you to do? There is no retiring from the work of God. The bible doesn’t mention it.
You and I who are in Christ have a job to do. We don’t just sit back and let it be. No, we are Christ’s representatives here on earth. That means that we are a breath of fresh air to those who are hurting,
It means that we are truth telling exhorters to those who need to hear the truth but might just not know it.
It means that we bring glory to this God with every part of our lives even when our daily walk is incredibly hard. We keep on, we keep on. Because for the Christian failure is never final.
failure is never final