The Hope of Glory

by E. C. Dargan - 1919

Lessons From The Ministry Of Elijah

THESE few but impressive words came to the great prophet of Israel at a critical juncture in his life and ministry. They bring him out of previous experiences to face the issues of the present hour. They recall him to his duty and his sphere of activity for God and man. ”We shall consider, however, the main incidents of Elijah’s great career as recorded in 1 Kings 18:16 to 19:18.

The story of a great man at a great crisis is always interesting and instructive. The history of God’s ancient people abounds with such cases. One of the most conspicuous is that of Elijah the Tishbite. He was an extraordinary character and he lived and acted at a period of great importance in the history of his people. His whole life and ministry are full of instructive interest, but in the limits of the passage chosen it is most intense. The salient features of this history may be presented under the three aspects of exaltation, depression and reassurance, as these successively had place in the experience of the man. This is not an uncommon circle for any man to tread; and it is especially likely to be the case with those who bear prominent part in religious life and movement. But even in the hidden recesses of individual Christian experience this same round is often measured over, and we may find encouragement and help in its manifestation in the story of the great Tishbite.

I. EXALTATION

There was trouble in Israel. Ahab, selfish, weak and cruel, was under the influence of Jezebel, his wicked queen. Too often the history of nations has presented the striking but painful figure of a strong, bad, vindictive woman at the head of powerful forces. It is a common remark that when a woman is bad she is very bad. A few of the notably wicked women of history stand out with painful prominence as a disgrace to their sex. Ahab, king of Israel, had unhappily allied himself with a woman of this kind. Shrewd, intelligent, capable, and cruel - she was the guiding and corrupting spirit of the government. To one thing she had set herself, which was to uproot the religion of Israel and substitute the heathen divinities of her own country in place of Jehovah, the true and living God. Along with this she was determined to build up the wealth and power of the king, her husband, and in carrying out this design she stuck at no cruelty or rapacity.

For the sins of king and people, God once again smote the land with famine. Introducing this new appearance of the dreaded scourge, there comes on the scene a marked and wonderful man; a prophet, sent of God, to denounce and rebuke leaders and people for their religious decay and moral corruption. The man of God bursts unexpectedly upon the scene. Shaggy, with long flowing hair, wrapped in a coarse cloak of camel’s hair cloth, stern, uncompromising, magnificent, he accosts the king with this denunciation, ”There shall be no rain for three years except at my word.’’ Conscious that God was speaking through him, and that he was but the messenger of the King of kings, he faltered not to deliver his stern and searching message. So for the three weary years a parched land suffers once more under withering drought. The herbage failed, the springs ran dry, the cisterns were unreplenished, the people and the animals alike were perishing with thirst and hunger. In one way and another God took care of his messenger. And the mighty prophet, now by the instincts of the birds of the air and now at the gentle hands of an impoverished widow, in the providence of God, is miraculously sustained. The weary three years’ period finally comes towards its end. The scourge of God has been felt. The pious in the land have prayed through the suffering seasons, and the day of their deliverance is coming. Penitent, not a few find their sorrowful way back to the living God. Perhaps the mighty prophet thought that even the forces of evil had been shaken and the time had come to make a public test and clear the land of idolatry and decay. Bough and imperious still, he orders the weak and yet not incapable king to summon the priests of the hated religion, the favorites of the wicked queen, to test the issue in a mighty meeting on Carmel’s jagged height.

One of the most vivid descriptions in all literature is that which is brought to us of this great occasion. The simple narrative of the Bible is sublime and striking. No one can tell it better than the sacred historian has done. We recall the description which here may only be touched upon. All day long the assembled multitude of priests called in vain upon their god for some display of power to convince the people that their religion was the right one. Morning came to noon, and noon declined until the long shadows were beginning to stretch along the coast, by the peaks of Carmel, and over the beautiful, though now blistered, valley of Jezreel. Grand and strong the mighty old prophet calls upon Jehovah to show himself by an unmistakable sign as the true God for Israel and the world. Nor does he ask in vain. The lightning, herald of the coming storm, guided from God, finds the wet altar and kindles it into flame. A mighty shout rises from the assembled crowd’’ Jehovah, he is God.’’ Turning in wrath upon the defeated priests of heathenism, the crowd visits swift and terrible punishment upon them all. Meantime the weary but triumphant prophet goes with his servant to the top of the mountain to look out towards the western sea to perceive whether the electric storm portended the rising cloud. And yonder, far away, like a scrap no bigger than a man’s hand, the coming rain shows its first faint sign. Now at last the three years’ drought is to be broken. Forgetful of his fatigue, if he even felt it, the tough son of the desert girds his flowing robe around his waist and dashes with the swift speed of the desert runner before the chariot of the defeated and humbled king toward the capital city. Down pours the rain in such a torrent as has never been witnessed before. The mighty man of God felt assured of victory.

Here let us pause and reflect. This is the summit of Elijah’s exaltation. He seemed to have everything before him. The people had shouted their enthusiastic approval of him and renewed their allegiance to God. The rain had come down in torrents to refresh the long wasted earth. The prophet, victorious but weary, comes to the capital of the kingdom. With what a glow of rejoicing, with what exaltation of spirits, he must have reached the city. His fidelity has been rewarded, his glowing zeal has found response, his faith in God has been justified. We can imagine his joy and triumph in this hour. Nothing sweeter ever comes to a man than the hour in which his long and painful advocacy of righteous things seems to come to its fruition. In greater or less degree all leaders have such moments. These victorious hours in the midst of an arduous career are resting places for faith and confidence. Yet there ever lurks here a hidden peril, a peril which grows out of the reaction of the soul that has been strained to a tense and exalted experience, through the weariness of body and exhaustion of nerve that must follow such tension; and the peril is increased when it must be remembered that no such victory as that of Elijah could ever be complete. The forces of evil, silenced for a moment, are not put out of existence. The slaying of the priests of Baal did not mean necessarily rooting out all idolatrous influence among the people. Popular applause does not always signify a real change in the habits of thought or in the moral character of the people. The reaction must come.

II. DEPRESSION

We may imagine Elijah, wearied but hopeful, waiting for a day or longer, in the capital, hoping for some movement of the people or of the rebuked king, to result in the great religious change which he so earnestly desired. But while he waits, the vindictive spirit of that terrible woman, his sworn enemy and the enemy of God, flashes up in a flame of hate and resistless wrath. Pity that such a dauntless spirit was lodged in a character so corrupt. What a woman she would have been if she had been good! Swearing a terrible oath, she sends a message to the strong man that in twenty-four hours his life would pay the penalty of his daring. Would he quail or stand? A great crisis was there. Would he give way, or, like others of his kind even greater, would he lose his head before he would sacrifice his principles? Alas! human nature proves too weak at the strain, and he who had stood heroic and grand, alone in a crowd, undaunted before a king, trembled in his soul before a woman’s word, and turned in flight. Oh! fatal weakness at a critical moment.

Far yonder to the south, across the desert, a lonely man lies prostrate in the heat, under the scanty shade of a desert bush. The shaggy hair all tangled, the hairy coat all rumpled, the prostrate figure itself a crumpled thing instead of a tower of strength. Let us hear him as his crushed and broken spirit complains. It is the same tongue, but not the same voice that was heard summoning the people to their God. The manly tones have sunk to a whining whisper as the defeated and humiliated hero recognizes his fault and pleads to be dismissed from the scene. It was borne in upon his soul that though God had summoned him to a great task he himself was only human, no better than his brethren, no better than his rebellious and fainthearted fathers. He feels that his work is a failure, his life a blunder, his whole manhood sunken and gone.

Let us approach and listen. The form indeed is that of Elijah. Can we recognize the voice? It does not sound as it did when in bold challenge he dared Ahab to his face, not as when in earnest appeal he pleaded with the people to return to God, not as when in cruel scorn he taunted the baffled priests of Baal, not as when in rapt supplication he poured out his soul to God that he would declare himself to his people. No; the voice has sunk to a low wail of despair and the burden of his request finds utterance in these pathetic words: ”It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.’’ We ask in amazement, Is this possible? Can this be the same man? But before our wonder passes into censure, let us take thought of the patience of God. Where would any of us be if God did not bear with our faults, our failures; if God did not rescue us from our own painful reactions and give us another chance? Can we not understand Elijah’s plaintive cry ? It was the moan of a brave spirit crushed with defeat and mortification. Often do good men and true in the crises of life and after a bold stand suffer some failing of nerve, and fall. Then comes chagrin, despair. And it is all the more bitter if, as in Elijah’s case, there has been great seeming success and exaltation of spirits just before. We cannot fail to comprehend in some measure Elijah’s state of mind; but we need not approve it. On the contrary we should condemn it. We feel the force of James’ declaration that, ”Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are.” So we can deplore his fall, and humbly learn a lesson from it. So quickly does night come after the day, and the brighter the day has been the darker seems the night!

III. REASSURANCE

Again the scene changes. God has not forgotten to be gracious, even though his chosen servant, a mighty man, had broken down and failed at a critical moment. Here in the desert, under the shade, God speaks with him, provides him miraculously with necessary food, cheers him with his presence, and strengthens him in body that he might make the long journey to another place. Fear drives him still further, but he is beginning to find himself. Far across the desert he pursues his way down to that silent mountain where ages before God had spoken face to face with Moses - Horeb, the Mount of God. What associations cluster about this place! It was here that Moses saw the burning bush and in weakness and trembling was sent on his perilous mission to Egypt. It was here that later on he smote the rock and brought forth the water to revive the perishing and murmuring people. Here also was Sinai with its wonderful memories of law and death! Here then we find our prophet next, hiding in a cave. Then comes the searching question, ”What doest thou here, Elijah?”

He, like Moses, meets God in this mountain country. He recounts his zeal for the Lord. He tells the mournful story of apostasy and downfall. He piteously describes himself as the last weak fugitive of what was once God’s people. ”And they seek my life to take it away!” But the command is for him to stand upon the Mount of God. Then comes that wonderful interview. The rending mountains and crushing rocks as they are torn and shaken by wind and earthquake tell of the presence of Jehovah; but yet, ”The Lord was not in the wind,’’ nor the earthquake. Then came flashing fires, as once before here in Horeb, the symbol of God’s consuming might. ”But the Lord was not in the fire.” The grand old prophet doubtless stood awed, but not terrified by these splendors. He might quail and flee before Jezebel’s anger, but he was not afraid to be alone amid crashing mountains with Jehovah. These show him God’s awful might; and yet they are not the last expression of God’s working against sin. ”And after the fire a still small voice.” God was there. ”And it was so that when Elijah heard it he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entering in of the cave.” It was his rebuke. He meekly receives it. ”Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.’’ Not by great victories and alarming displays, but by quiet and blessed influences is God’s work to be done. Elijah repeats his tale of woe and trouble. But God commissions him to new and continued duties. He cannot yet spare his servant and will, when the time comes, take him to himself in a nobler way than he had asked for.

Instructed by these lessons, Elijah must return to his place and his people. But before dismissing him the Lord rebukes his faintheartedness and rekindles his energies and hopefulness by the glad announcement, ”Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal.”

Thus Elijah was reminded that things were not so bad in Israel as in his extreme depression he had supposed. He must go back among his people and ally himself with that minority which still stood for religion and truth. He must be their leader and no more run away and leave them, supposing himself to be alone. If his exaltation at Carmel had lifted him too high, his depression in the wilderness had sunk him too low. He must find the middle ground. It is not too much optimism on the one hand, nor too much pessimism on the other that makes for success.

In accordance with this principle Elijah is instructed on his return to make provision for the continuance of the prophetic office and of the religious life in Israel. He is to find Elisha, the son of Shaphat, whom he must call to be his follower and upon whom afterward the spirit of Elijah shall descend that he might carry on the work of the prophet after his glorious translation to heaven. Nor is this all. On his way back he must anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. He is to be the scourge of Ahab and his people. Elijah must be reminded that God overrules the affairs of men, that he makes the wrath of man to praise him and uses for the chastening of his people the rod which his enemies furnish. Elijah might shrink, but God is not dead. In Israel he has his people. Over the world he has his way. God rules in the affairs of men and cares for the humble and trustful who in bad times maintain their touch with God and hold fast the treasure of divine truth and life.

Is this all that earth shall see of Elijah? No. Far down the centuries, once more upon a mountain top, that majestic figure will reappear to human vision. Three disciples shall see three figures. Moses, Elijah and Jesus will appear to the dazed and wondering eyes of three men, half awake, yet fully conscious of a glorious vision. Somehow these three will recognize the great personality of the ancient prophet as he comes to join with the mighty lawgiver in conversation respecting the coming departure of the Saviour himself. Three mountain-top experiences stand out in the life of this man: Carmel, the scene of his triumph, which ended in disappointment; Sinai, the scene of his rebuke, which brought new activity and showed the right way to work for God; and the Mount of Transfiguration, where Moses and Elijah mingled their counsel and encouragement to cheer the human Christ in view of his own coming death and resurrection.

Many important and powerful lessons come to us as we follow the story of that great life. One above all lingers with us as it is drawn by the inspired hand, in words which remind us that Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves, yet he was a mighty man of prayer. It is not for us to be great as he was great, yet all of us are human as he was human. The greatest are faulty; so are we. Yet from the souls of weak and even unworthy men prayers that reach the throne of God may ascend.

”More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”

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