Sermon Tone Analysis

Saved and Depressed

Introduction

I’m not a huge fan of movies with weird endings that don’t resolve.

I was watching one the other day and it really seemed like the director just turned the camera off and said, “OK, I’m tired.

That’s a wrap.”

● (I know they are supposed to be more lifelike but I don’t go into the movies for lifelike.

I go to the movies to take a break from life.)

I love movies with a “happy, ever after” ending.

The battle is won; the couple gets together; they ride off into the sunset to revel in their victories for the rest of their lives.

That’s really what should happen here in this story: Elijah, as you recall, has just won a great victory over ba’al before all of Israel.

● Essentially, Elijah had rented out the Madison Square Gardens of his day and challenged ba’al to a public duel.

● His victory was epic …

○ He was outnumbered: 850 to 1.

There was a lot of righteous smack-talking and holy sarcasm;

○ God answered decisively with fire from heaven (didn’t squeak out an undeserved victory in the last 2 minutes of game 7); at the end the whole crowd is on their faces chanting, ‘Eli-Jah’ (the Lord is God!)

● What a moment!

Confetti falling from the ceiling.

That’s when you put your hands up and say, “I’m out, ladies and gentlemen!”

Leave on a high—ride off into the sunset.

● We’d expect Elijah to retire and revel in this victory for the rest of his life.

But instead, his “high” on Mt.

Carmel is followed by a spiritual low—almost, as you’ll see, a kind of depression.

Before we get into this, could we acknowledge: Isn’t your life like that, sometimes?

Right after some victory, some spiritual high, you go back into some spiritual low?

Fall back into some old temptation?

Or something goes wrong?

● It certainly has been that way for me.

Some of my lowest points in struggling with sin came after some great spiritual victory.

● It was that way for Jesus, too … Right after having God the Father declare to him from heaven, “This is my beloved son,” (that’s a baptism moment) he is driven into wilderness for 40 days w/o food and water to be tempted by Satan!

I sometimes tell people after their baptism: it’s coming!

● For many of you, you obeyed God, and experienced some success, but then life took a turn you weren’t expecting—the marriage fell apart; the kids didn’t follow Jesus; the business tanked—and you find yourself wondering,

○ “God, I really thought I could see where this was going.

○ God, did I do something wrong?”

○ Are you even there?”

This is the experience this passage deals with.

It’s dealing with godly people getting depressed.

● I realize that is a loaded word—because there are so many different kinds, ranging from people who are just really discouraged to those with clinical, chemical issues going on.

● My purpose this weekend is not to diagnose the different kinds of depression or provide one solution to all of them—but I think in this passage you’ll see a lot of things that speak to different dimensions of depression.

1 Kings 19:1–18

Context:

● Here’s where we left Elijah.

After this stunning victory on Mt.

Carmel, he, empowered by the Holy Spirit, outruns Ahab’s chariot to Jezreel, which is the Northern Kingdom of Israel’s capital.

● You can imagine that Elijah, at this point, is expecting a revolution—

○ the people are supposed to rise up in unified commitment to God;

○ Ahab, the spineless wimp-king and his wicked-witch-of-the-west-wife Jezebel, will either repent or be deposed.

○ He’s supposed to come riding into Jezreel to a hero’s welcome; holding hands singing Kum-ba-yah and “I love you Lord”; they give him Elijah a nice house next to the palace where he can give godly guidance to the next king,

○ Get a syndicated TV show:

■ Prodigy Prophet

■ Israelite Idol

■ Elijah’s Got Talent

■ Drought Dynasty

○ and any time they seem him in the street they’ll chant “Eli-jah.”

1 Kings 19:2, “Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not (kill you) by this time tomorrow.”

● No revolution.

No deposition.

Elijah doesn’t even get a plaque.

● Jezebel hasn’t repented nor has she been deposed—far from that; she’s still on the throne barking out orders, ordering his death.

He’s got to go back into hiding.

[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] And he went (by himself) 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.”

● Safe to say.

Elijah is depressed.

He wants to die.

What he’s hoped would happen, expected to happen, has not happened.

● He’s angry with God.

He thought he knew God, and what he could expect, but now he’s just not so sure anymore.

Only a few months after Charles Spurgeon became pastor in London (of New Park Street Chapel), the church exploded.

Crowds numbering 10,000 or more came to hear him (in a day when churches were not ever close to that big).

The church was forced to change venues to accommodate the growing numbers.

(They considered going multi-site, which Spurgeon was up for, but the other elders were so backwards—still using flip phones!

and didn’t think video would work so they decided against it.)

Well, Spurgeon had a lot of enemies, which always happens—saying he was a fundamentalist, or a cult-leader, or that churches shouldn’t be that big and this was all about his ego.

They launched all sorts of nasty attacks at him.

One day, while he was speaking to huge crowd, someone came into the crowd, yelled “Fire,” and created a stampede.

Seven people were trampled to death.

The disaster devastated him, and he spiraled into a depression for years that some say he never quite got over.

Have you ever felt like this?

You do everything right.

God seems to come through.

And then, Bam! Setback.

“Where did that come from?”

[5] And he lay down and slept under a broom tree.

And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” [6] And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.

And he ate and drank and lay down again.

[7] And the angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.”

[8] And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.” (high protein pancakes)

[9] … 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.”

What do you see there?

God does 3 things (Tim Keller pointed this out):

1. God sends an angel of rest.

● Angels in the Bible, in case you don’t know, are always on assignment.

They’re never just out roaming around and then come back to God, saying, “Wow, you ain’t never believe this.”

This one is sent to Elijah to take care of him.

● What does the angel say to Elijah? “Hey, why don’t you show some faith!”

Or, “Elijah: get it together.”

“Elijah, here’s a John Piper book—read and think about this!”

● He touches him; makes some nice, hot food for him, and then take a nap, and then sends him to a cabin in the mountains.