1st Kings 19:4 – LORD I THINK I’VE HAD ENOUGH
It is enough; now, 0 LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
Life is composed of experiences and encounters that provide challenge to one’s character and testing to one’s spirit. Life’s greatest wars are never fought on a physical battlefield. Life’s greatest wars are fought on the battlefield of the mind. Life’s most serious conflict is inner conflict, and the scars that inflict the most permanent wound are not found on the skin but in the soul.
And my brothers and sisters not only is life composed of experiences and encounters; it is also composed of question marks. In every life there are questions. "Who am I?" “What am I here for?” "What am I living for?" These are some of the normal questions of life, but when you have lived a little bit; when you have reached a certain level of maturity, when experiences and encounters have led to ups and downs, joy and sadness, friends and enemies, another question arises: “How did I get where I am which is so far from where I am supposed to be?"
This matter of life’s encounters and questions summarizes the prophetic career of Elijah. Elijah was the prophet who had conflict with King Ahab and his Queen Jezebel. Their godless reign brought the nation to an era of immorality that had never been seen in Israel’s history.
Let me remind you that when you do wrong it’s not just you who suffers; others have to unwilling suffer along with you.
So if you can’t do right for yourself, you ought at least do right for the sake of not dragging somebody along with you.
By various means God tried to send a message to Ahab and Jezebel. For three years there was no rain or dew on the earth and still they would not repent. God taught Ahab a lesson when he tried to execute a quitclaim deed on somebody else’s property. I’m not gone tell you the story cause I don’t want to make you lazy. Go read I Kings 21st chapter sometime this week.
By the way you do know that if you’re relying on the person behind the pulpit to get you into heaven you ain’t gon’ make it? Jesus must be known individually. You need to know the word for yourself. And a problem with believers today is they know the God in this book, but they don’t know the book. It shows in their speech, actions. Jesus said you know a tree by the fruit it bears and a whole lot of us are illustrating that we saved but we ain’t sanctified.
We’ve let God saved us but we haven’t allowed his word to change us. And that’s why we give in to sin so much. The psalmist declared, “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might sin against thee.” But if the word is not in me I’ll say what I want, I’ll do what I want and all while being a child of God. Because I let God save me but I’m not allowing his word to change me.
But listen, God didn’t save you just so you could go to heaven. That’s cute and all and it is true but that’s not his complete plan. His complete plan for your salvation is that you be a living witness – that you would live his word in your life.
So you need to know the word for yourself cause when you stand before God on judgment day you can’t stand with the preacher; as matter of fact there’s some preacher’s you may not want to stand with. You got to face God by yourself so you better get to know him and his word for yourself.
On Mount Carmel it was Elijah against 450 prophets of the idol god Baal. God was so powerful on Mount Carmel that fire fell from heaven, burned up the false prophets, burned up the altar built for their false god, and still the Ahab & Jezebel would not repent.
It was in the midst of this victory that Jezebel sent word to Elijah telling him by this same time tomorrow I’m going to make sure your dead. And the word says Elijah ran into the wilderness. Let me pause here and say there are three kinds of people in the world: those who are in the wilderness, those who have just come out of the wilderness, and those who are headed into the wilderness.
Every life spends sometime in the wilderness. You may be alright today, but there is some wilderness time waiting on you. And in the wilderness Elijah sat down under a juniper tree and told God to kill him. It is enough, 0 Lord, take away my life.
Elijah had come to the point where he had to ask life’s most difficult question: How did I get where I am which is so far from where I am supposed to be?
Elijah’s experience tells us that no matter how saved you are you’re going to have some bad days. In case you didn’t know it brothers and sisters salvation is not isolation and our text proves that. For this is not some sinner reaping the consequences of their behavior. This is not some believer who strayed from the path of righteousness. This is God’s child! This is God’s servant suffering for being in God’s will.
It says to us that as a believer your faith will be tried. There are seasons in your life when you will question what you believe, when you will doubt your faith. And perhaps that’s why God moved it upon the writer to pen:
Does Jesus care when my heart is pained
Too deeply for mirth or song,
As the burdens press, and the cares distress
And the way grows weary and long?
Does Jesus care when my way is dark
With a nameless dread and fear?
As the daylight fades into deep night shades,
Does He care enough to be near?
Does Jesus care when I’ve tried and failed
To resist some temptation strong;
When for my deep grief there is no relief,
Though my tears flow all the night long?
Does Jesus care when I’ve said “goodbye”
To the dearest on earth to me,
And my sad heart aches till it nearly breaks,
Is it aught to Him? Does He see?
And the response comes:
Oh yes, He cares, I know He cares,
His heart is touched with my grief;
When the days are weary, the long nights dreary,
I know my Savior cares.
Listen, all of us are tested on different levels. Elijah went through an experience that many of the other prophets did not encounter and vice versa. And so it is not given to us to be unsympathetic to people because their reaction is not your reaction. Seasons of depression do not make a believer less than a Christian.
The bible says; We who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.
If you have strength in the area of my limitation don’t look down on me because of my inability, give me some encouragement, exhortation, build me up. Because you got a devil you can’t defeat, but I could. You got a test you can’t tolerate, but I could. So if you encourage me, if you help bring me back from despair then I can be around when your wilderness experience comes.
Notice this Elijah was in a city called Jezreel, but when he got ready to tell God to take his life, he told Him in a city called Beersheba. Now from Jezreel to Beersheba is over one hundred miles. Now I understand that Elijah was discouraged but if all he wanted to do was die he could of stayed where he was. If all he wanted was to die he could of stayed in Jezreel he didn’t have run over hundred miles to Beersheba just to die.
And that just leads me to believe that everybody talking about how bad it is aint ready to check out yet. Inspite of, dying is not on your agenda today.
You complain, you moan, you groan about how tired you are or how many aches and pains you have but you aint ready to die yet. Because as long as there’s life there’s hope. As long as there’s life there’s the possibility for things to get better.
Elijah ran from Ahab and Jezebel over one hundred miles. Ahab and Jezebel represented a challenge, a risk, an encounter in Elijah’s life, and how many of us are running from our challenges, how many of us are trying to escape confrontation with something or someone? Elijah ran over one hundred miles, but my brothers and sisters you may as well stay where you are because trouble will find you wherever you go. Trouble will follow you.
Don’t ever underestimate the traveling power of evil. No need to move to another town. No need to send your resume for another job. No need to join another church, because the hell you run from over here will meet you over there.
You can’t outrun evil. You can’t turn back the hand of time. You can’t alter the ebb and flow of history. But, If you trust and never doubt, He surely will bring you out. Take your burden to the Lord And leave it there.
In the wilderness when Elijah had reached his breaking point. God’s first care was to give him rest and sleep. Overworked nerves, a tired brain, physical exhaustion, had much to do with the prophet’s troubled spirit. The meeting with Ahab; the preparation for the contest; the strain of the conflict, the tremendous output of faith and prayer; the excitement of God’s work; the fatigue of the long, quick run to Jezreel left Elijah in a state of physical tension.
Much of our low spirits and unbelief among Christians is the result of rush and overstrain. And every now and again God has to slow us down so we can re-focus and re-analyze.
And when Elijah was rested, when God had strengthened him the Lord told him go back the way you came. I know somebody didn’t want to hear that. You trying to get away while God is saying go back. But Elijah went. Elijah’s problem was not Ahab, not Jezebel. Elijah’s problem was Elijah. And if I’m honest in the analysis of my life, the trouble with me is me. And if you’re honest in the analysis of your life, the trouble with you is you.
Elijah came to the understanding that when God gives you an assignment, you had best find yourself doing it. If a doctor has all the equipment to save a life and refuses to do it, somebody will charge him with malpractice. And I’m afraid today a whole lot of Christians can be charged with malpractice. For we are not serving as we should.
Whatever God has told you to do, just do that and leave the rest to Him. We believe in the programme of God, because he wise, he is true, he is good; and so if we believe in what’s he’s doing than let us be confident in knowing that he cannot fail.
