Digging Deep And Leaning In Series

For a brief period, the Prophet Elijah found himself overwhelmed by persecution. He had just experienced one of the greatest victories of his life on Mt. Carmel (1 Kings 18). But immediately after that victory, Queen Jezebel sent him word that as soon as she could, she would personally put him to death (1 Kings 19).

That is what evil does. It doesn’t quit. It comes back with a renewed vengeance. You would have thought that after such a great spiritual defeat King Ahab and Queen Jezebel would have crawled off somewhere to lick their wounds.

Instead, Queen Jezebel doubled her efforts against the LORD and Elijah. She was more committed than ever to seeing Israel reject God and accept a false god (Baal). She was even more committed than ever to having Elijah caught and burned at a stake, impaled, or crucified.

The Bible tells us that Elijah instead of facing persecution ran away to hide. He ran all the way past Beersheba into the wilderness.

At times, I think we all have either wanted to do that or have done that. When people started lying about us, cursing us, shouting at us or trying to harm us we just became quiet. We stop talking about Jesus. We went to our corner and didn’t say another word.

God came down and rescued Elijah. He helped him find a safe place. He fed him and made sure that Elijah felt safe.

The Lord helped Elijah come to a deeper faith because He knew in the weeks and months to come that Elijah would have to be stronger, understand more and be more established in his faith than he had ever been before.

We must do the same. We can’t face the next few years with the depth of faith we currently possess. We must dig deeper into the Word, our prayer life had to become richer and purer, and we must put on God’s Armor of truth, righteousness, faith and holiness.

II. We must link up and lean into one another.

The LORD deepened Elijah’s faith and then instructed him to go out and link up with others like Elisha, Jehu and Hazael. He was to find other people that he could link up with and lean into for strength and vision.

This is what the Early Church did in Acts chapter four when it came under persecution.

The Early Church could have splintered and disappeared. But it didn’t.

It came together and linked together, and it leaned into one another. It learned the importance that in numbers there is great strength.

It also learned that the more people it brought to faith the less chance there was for persecution.

That is a vital key. For the last 100+ years the Church in America has had to endure less persecution than those who live in other parts of the world. It has been that way because most people in America love God, love country and family.

It is vital today that we don’t hide away because of persecution. It is vital today that we do what these house churches did in Smyrna. They didn’t hide. They didn’t disappear. They linked themselves together like children do when they play the game Red Rover, Red Rover. They leaned into one another and supported one other when someone tried to break them apart.