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Tag: elijah

  • Running from God – 5 – God pursues

    Running from God – 5 – God pursues

    Are you running from God?

    Here we have Elijah sulking in victory and awaiting defeat under the shade of a broom tree.

    We have heard the same Peter who would glorify Jesus and Moses and Elijah with a shrine, deny knowing Jesus when he risked imprisonment or execution for his confession of Christ.

    We have even seen Moses, God’s hand-picked leader of Israel to lead them to the Promised Land, weary of the weight of leadership.

    Yet God pursues victory beyond the focus of our vision and glory higher than the imagination of our defeat.

    1 Kings 19

    The Lord Speaks to Elijah

    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.”

    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?”

    14 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.”

    15 And the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria.

    WAIT a minute! Elijah, Prophet of Israel who God has used to prove His Almighty Power over the false prophets and worshipers of Tyre and Sidon and places beyond Syria; Elijah, Prophet of Israel, who had thought his battle against Ahab and Jezebel was over (and that they would kill him); GOD commands Elijah to anoint a man Hazael as King of Syria!

    Syria! NOT Israel, NOT Judah. Almighty GOD is anointing a King of Syria; as before Moses, God had anointed a Prince of Egypt named Joseph.

    GOD is strategic beyond the best planning and foresight of man. As with Moses being succeeded by Joshua, God also appoints a powerful successor to the Prophet Elijah. And God also commands the defeated Elijah under the broom tree waiting to die to anoint the next King of Israel to replace his pursuer Ahab. (The fate of Jezebel she has prophesied on herself.)

    [Previously, in 1 Kings 19:2 – “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.” ] Of course Jezebel’s gods are nothing more than stone and wood.

    GOD continues Elijah’s orders:

    16 And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. 17 And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. 18 Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

    Elisha later witnesses the Prophet Elijah taken up into heaven! Seven centuries later Peter, James and John would witness Elijah standing with Moses and Jesus talking about that which is to come.

    And when Peter later denied knowing Jesus, God pursued him. Peter was witness to Jesus after the resurrection.

    NO broom tree to sit under or cave in which to hide – Jesus walked along the road to Emmaus: God pursued Peter.

    And providentially enough, not so much later, Jesus appeared alive once more to another Jew, an Apostle to the Gentiles. And where was it where GOD, in the risen Christ Jesus, pursued Saul, persecutor of Christians?

    GOD met Saul on the road to Damascus, Syria!

    Paul is witness to the risen Christ Jesus! A man from Tarsus (in Turkey) testifies JESUS IS LORD!

    GOD is not ONLY the God of the Jews; GOD is the ONE GOD, over all who believe in Christ Jesus our Lord; any who will listen to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit and return to the way of God’s will.

    Not my will, but thy will be done. – Luke 22:42

    Let us prepare for the return of Christ Jesus our Lord upon the clouds in victory.

    Amen.

     

  • Running from God – 4 – Elijah’s defeat

    Running from God – 4 – Elijah’s defeat

    ‘Wait,’ you’re thinking, Elijah won the contest.

    1 Kings 18: 

    37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”

    38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. 39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”

    40 And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there.

    broom tree in wildernessLook now at the picture of the dejected Prophet sitting under the broom tree. Does this look like a man victorious?

    Look at Moses in the wilderness. Was Moses rejoicing with the people who had walked through the Sea of Reeds while God Almighty lifted a wall of the sea? Was Moses rejoicing to receive manna from Heaven and a diet of food without flavor for forty years? And did Moses seem victorious standing on a mountain top looking at the Promised Land into which God forbid he should enter?

    The victories of Moses, Elijah and Jesus were God’s, not their own.

    Peter wanted to lift up Moses and Elijah (as the Jews still do, along with David).

    Peter was all too happy to be a leader in of the Twelve in the victory parade leading the thousands of captives to the gates of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

    Yet when the crowds disappear and there is no one else left to lead – when there is no hero left to follow: where do you go?

    1 Kings 18: 45 And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. 46 And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.

    We have a brief moment of joy and celebration in the Lord’s victory through us. But then what?

    Reality sets in of the difficulty of our earthly circumstances separate of God.

    Elijah fled God to the broom tree after God’s tremendous humiliation of the leader of his country and the 850 leaders of their favorite churches (so to speak).

    1 Kings 19:

    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.

    17 June - 17 July, in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2015
    17 June – 17 July, in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2015

    Leaders of false prophets hear now the Voice and Power of the Living God!

    You may kill more than 850 enemies, but two more evil ones will pursue your life.

    Take refuge in the One God and Christ Jesus, God’s sacrifice of love for our sins.

    1 Kings 19: [King] Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 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.”

    The true Prophet of God, Elijah, knew he had earthly enemies. The true Christ, the Messiah of God, God With Us, I AM in the Person of Jesus Christ, bowed down only to God the Father.

    And the false leaders of God’s chosen people hung Jesus on a Cross in shame and suffering, until God raised Christ from death and lifted Him up in the flesh from His Blood of sacrifice!

    And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said,

    “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”

    Now Elijah thinks that God has used him and is done with him; but like our loving Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, God has more difficult work for which to prepare him.elijah map&passages

    1 Kings 19: 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.

    The Lord Speaks to Elijah

    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?”

    Indeed, what am I doing in this cave of darkness?

    Led by God; awaiting His word.

    Here the prayer of a sinner, saved in Christ.

    Speak, O Lord, and I will listen.

    Deuteronomy 5:

    And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. 2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb…

    4 The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, 5 while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain.

    BOW DOWN! if you fear the Lord.

    Yet raise your witness of Christ’s love, if you would live in the love of His Sacrifice.

    He IS: Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

    “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”

    He said:

    6 “‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

    7 “‘You shall have no other gods before [ besides] me.

    The LORD, He IS God! And Christ Jesus IS One in the Father and the Father in Him. Jesus IS!

    Christ Jesus IS Lord!

    Muhammad, Smith and many more are as the prophets of Asherah and Baal. 

     To be continued…

  • Running from God – 3 – Elijah

    Running from God – 3 – Elijah

    Are you loyal to God?

    A fair question.

    Deuteronomy 6:5 KJV And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

    You shall love the Lord your God with ALL.

    Jesus even adds some definition for us of the well-recited Hebrew in the familiar Greek.

    Mark 12:30 ESV And you shall love [agapaō] the Lord [kyrios {Note the meaning & implication of calling God, ‘Lord‘}] your God with all your heart and with all your soul [ psychē] and with all your mind [dianoia] and with all your strength.’

    I don’t want to get into the subtlety of this (a whole other sermon), but note that ‘psychē‘ is the Greek word for ‘soul,‘ not ‘mind,’ as you might imagine from all the false teaching of the world and those opposed to God. Jesus and Moses both taught that GOD is to be worshiped personally with ALL of our grateful being.

    Peter had stood on the Mount of Transfiguration and witnessed Jesus and Moses and Elijah together! So how could this man deny three times that he knew the Christ, Jesus, his friend being beaten for our sins?

    As I cautioned earlier, let’s not to hold Peter to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. Elijah also had run.

    1 Kings 17 

    elijahs journeysElijah Predicts a Drought

    17 Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”

    …  5 So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan.

    [So far, so good; like Peter when he wanted to build shines for worship. (But then, of course, Jesus told Peter not to build shrines.)]

    6 And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.7 And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

    It was Elijah’s familiar faith to which Jesus pointed when He taught us:

    Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! – Luke 12:24

    God feeds the ravens; the ravens fed Elijah; therefore have faith: God can even send ravens to feed us.

    The drama and the drought progress.

    1 Kings 18

    After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year…  Now the famine was severe in Samaria.

    The King and God’s people are indicted through Elijah of turning their backs on God.

    Are our national and world leaders – is the 21st c. church so different in our ineffectiveness?

     17 When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?”

    18 And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. 19 Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

    A contest! It would be like saying: Bring in all the Oprahs and Choprahs and Hawkings and Dalis; bring in all your priests who worship ancestors and cows and earth; bring in all your princes of oil and casinos and sports; bring in all your stars of Hollywood and Bollywood and worldwide web brothels!

    Need I suggest more to add up to more than these 850 prophets of false worship in these last days? You know the sects of prophets of angels of destruction and men of reproduction. You know well the crowds opposed to the rule of the Living God!

    A contest here: Almighty GOD and his one Prophet Elijah vs. 850 prophets of idols the people loved.

    To be continued…