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Introduction Chapters 1 and 2 Chapter 3 Chapters 4 and 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapters 11 and 12 Chapter 13 Chapters 14 to 16 Chapters 17 and 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Conclusion |
Elijah's flight at Jezebel's threatsUntil now the prophet had stood before Jehovah (1 Kings 17:1; 18:15) and had spoken in His name; but now, terrified by the threats of Jezebel, he flees from the dangers of the place into which his testimony had brought him. Just as we have seen in Moses
at Meribah, Elijah's faith* does not rise to the height of
Jehovah's grace and patience, who is full of goodness and mercy to
His people. It is this failure which puts an end to Elijah's
testimony, as it had shut Moses out of Canaan; for who can equal
Jehovah in goodness? Elijah does not look to God; he thinks of
himself, and takes flight; but God has His eye upon him. He who
had not God's strength amid the evil had no refuge but the
wilderness. There was a heart true to God, but not faith equal to
meet Satan's hostile power in the place of testimony to the
end. He must either be a witness for God amongst His rebellious
people, or be entirely apart from them. God's care over His servantThe heart of Elijah and the hand of God led the prophet into the wilderness, where, overwhelmed perhaps, yet precious in Jehovah's sight, he will be alone with God. Elijah's forty days' journey in the wilderness has only a partial resemblance to the forty days which Moses spent with God, in the same Horeb to which the prophet was going, or to those which Jesus spent in the wilderness for conflict with the enemy of God and man. In the two latter cases nature was set aside. Neither Moses nor the Lord ate or drank. As for Elijah, the goodness of God sustains the weakness of tried nature, makes manifest that He considers it with all tenderness and thoughtfulness, and gives the strength needed for such a journey. This should have touched him, and made him feel what he ought to be in the midst of the people, since he had to do with such a God. His heart was far from such a state. Impossible, when we think of ourselves, to be witnesses to others of what God is! Our poor hearts are too far from such a position. Elijah at Horeb: his complaints
Elijah goes on till he reaches Horeb. But coming before God to
speak well of himself and ill of Israel is a very different thing
from forgetting self through the power of the Lord's presence, and
setting Him before the people in His power which is patient in
mercy in spite of all their evil.* People sometimes come before
God because they have forgotten Him in the place where they ought
to have stood and borne testimony for Him. And thus God asks
Elijah, "What doest thou here, Elijah? "Terrible question! like
those addressed to Adam, to Cain, and now to the world with
respect to Jesus. The answer does but betray (as is always the
case) the sad and fatal position of one who has forgotten God. The
voice was not a voice of thunder, but one that made Elijah feel it
was the voice which he had forgotten. Wind, fire, earthquake,
these heralds to man of the power of God, would have suited the
angry heart of Elijah as instruments of divine power against
Israel; but these manifestations of His power were not God
Himself. The still small voice reveals His presence to Elijah.
That which would have satisfied his will, and that which would
perhaps have been just towards others, did not awaken his own
conscience. But the still small voice by which God reveals
Himself penetrates Elijah's heart, and he hides his face before
the presence of Jehovah. Nevertheless the pride of his embittered
heart is not yet subdued. He repeats his complaints, unsuitable
as they were at the time when he had himself just destroyed all
the prophets of Baal, and proving that his faith had not been able
to find, by the light of his testimony, all that God saw of good
in Israel. God's answer: the patience of His graceGod's answer, although just, is sorrowful to the heart. Vengeance shall be executed, and Elijah is commissioned to prepare its instruments — a sad mission for the prophet, if he loved the people. As to Elijah, he should be succeeded by Elisha in his prophetic office. But if the deserved vengeance was to be executed in his time, and if the saddened prophet was to announce it, God has still seven thousand souls who had not bowed the knee to Baal, although Elijah had not been able to discover them. Oh! when will the heart of man, even in thought, rise to the height of God's grace and patience? If Elijah had leant more upon God, he would have known some of these seven thousand. He would at any rate have known Him who knew them, and who raised up his testimony to strengthen and comfort them. But the time was not ripe for the fulfilment of God's purposes; and God will not give up the patience of His grace towards His people to satisfy the prophet's impatience. Elisha is anointed; but, Ahab having humbled himself when God threatened him on account of his iniquity, the judgments are withheld even during the life-time of Ahab and of his son. This displays another feature in God's government, namely, that judgment upon the evil-doer may not only have been pronounced in the counsels of God, but may be already marked out in His dealings, and be even ready to be executed a long time before it is really poured out. The prophet, or the spiritual man, will know or will understand in spirit that it is so, and will have to wait for the moment that suits this perfect patience, which itself waits upon the slowness of our hearts and the filling up of the iniquity of the wicked, or at least for their refusal to repent. |
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