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Message
1 Kings 19:1-21
“We All Have Bad Days”
A little girl called Susie had been trying for months to learn how to tie her shoes. She finally grasped the knack and was able to do it by herself.
Susie’s parents expected her to be delighted.
Instead Susie started to cry.
Her father asked why she was crying. "I just learned how to tie my shoes", she sobbed. “But that is wonderful, so why are you crying?". Susie replied, "Because now I’ll have to do it all by myself for the rest of my life".
What Susie experienced is something that most of us have experienced at some time or another.
You can have moments when a great achievement occurs in your life – and then find yourself feeling somewhat flat soon after.
How many times has it been that you have gone on a great holiday – only to find yourself wishing for another one very soon after you got back.
There can be the exhilaration which comes with great blessing – and then reality sets in with a thud.
That is how life seems to go doesn’t it.
And it doesn’t just happen in our day to day life … it can happen in our spiritual life as well. Most of us enjoy a great relationship with the Lord and we can testify to His blessings in so many different ways. But there are the times when it isn’t like that.
We can have days when we feel under the hammer.
The experiences of loneliness can be very real.
There can be a sense where we seem to be sitting on the shelf.
God just doesn’t seem to be present and, if He is, then we’re just not seeing Him work for us. One such person who went through this exact situation is Elijah.
Elijah is a prophet a great prophet. When he first comes onto the scene in the Bible he confronts evil King Ahab from Israel and says, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” (1 Kings 17:1). It doesn’t rain for 3 ½ years.
So you can imagine that there was not a lot of good will between Elijah and Ahab. This lack of will was exacerbated by the fact that Ahab had married Jezebel – one of the cruellest queens in the history of Israel. And she was the one who wore the pants in the palace.
During the drought Elijah with a widow, where they were all looked after miraculously by God who provided a jar of flour that never ran out, and a jug of oil that never dried up. All this time Ahab and Jezebel get angrier ay Elijah – which eventually leads to a showdown on Mt Carmel.
You can read about it in Chapter 18 were we find 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah standing off against Elijah. The challenge is to see who can get their god to send down fire from heaven.
Elijah wins very convincingly.
All of this sparks a hope in Elijah that the nation of Israel is about to experience a spiritual revival.
Elijah expects Ahab to now repent and follow the true God.
Elijah expects Jezebel to be put back in her place and her religion to be denounced.
Elijah is looking for a change in the heart of the nation.
Indeed so confident is Elijah of change that he comes to the Lord in prayer so that the 3½ year drought would come to an end. In many ways it has been Elijah’s greatest day.
…
And then we get to chapter 19. Which is where we want to focus on.
1 Kings 19:1-21
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword …
… so Ahab and Jezebel repented because they realised they had been in disobedience to the Lord.
That’s not what happens.
So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them”.
… then Elijah sent a message back saying, “Who do you think you are woman?. The Lord has just used me to remove 850 heathen prophets – what are you in His sight?”.
No. That is it either.
Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. KEEP READING TO VERSE 18
After all that Elijah has witnessed and done you just can’t imagine the story turning out this way. Single-handedly this prophet of God took on 850 prophets of evil, but one wicked woman says, “I'll get you,” and he caves. “Lord, I've had it. I'm turning in my prophet's badge”.
Now at this point a number of scholars start speculating on the question of why. Why did Elijah have such a dramatic turn around? Most of them come to the conclusion that Elijah is depressed. Perhaps that is true, but I don’t think this passage was written as a psychological case study on how to detect depression and fix it.
Something else is happening here. Something much more significant. This is a testimony from the life of Elijah which reminds us of the fragile nature of sinful man. Elijah is a great saint. Elijah is so esteemed by God that God doesn’t let him die, instead God will bring Elijah to heaven in a fiery chariot. Elijah is a great saint – but he is still only a man who will fall into a screaming heap when he does not put his full hope in God.
Up to this point Elijah was sure that the Lord was bringing about a great transformation in Israel.
Ahab was supposed to go back to the palace and put Jezebel back in her place.
The nation as a whole was supposed to repent.
Elijah’s fight against a faithless nation was supposed to come to an end.
But none of that occurs. And Elijah has become a little disappointed … and even a little desperate. This is not the agenda Elijah had hoped for … indeed it seems that God has changed the agenda.
So Elijah runs. Instead of trusting in the same God who took care of him before, he runs for his life.
He runs clear out of town … and keeps going.
When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there … and kept going.
He ends up being a day’s journey into the desert where he found a broom tree.
Finally he stopped. Elijah has run all the way out of Jerusalem to the southern most part of country and thrown his own pity party. Have a look at verse 4:- I have had enough, LORD. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.
How fragile we can be. Perhaps we have not got to the point where we have asked the Lord to take our life. But we have been there. Discouraged. Disillusioned. Despairing. We have had enough.
“God, I don’t know why I keep trying to be honest where I work. Everyone else at the company cheats and steals, leaves work early and still gets paid for a full day. I just want to give in! I’m tired of keeping my testimony in front of all of these people!”
“God, I’m doing my best to serve you, but the problems keep coming my way, and now I don’t even know how I’m going to pay this bill. I thought I was following you and doing what you want, and this is how you repay me?”
“God, I started that new church ministry, and no one is showing up. And even when they do, I don’t get any positive feedback. I’m so discouraged, I just want to quit!”
“God I’m really struggling in my life. It is hard to get up each day with a smile – in fact I find people just don’t seem to care about me. I’m lonely. I’m afraid. I do so much. Yet no-one seems to notice”.
That is how it goes … or something very similar. And we are there with Elijah and our eyeballs are hanging out from the tiredness and we have just had enough.
Can it be different?
Can we move forward?
Can we change perspective?
Yes we can. But to see it we cannot look at man … we need to look at our situation from God’s perspective.
This perspective comes in verse 9 and following. Let’s recognise that over 40 days have passed since the threats of Jezebel were spoken and still Elijah is in the doldrums. But also notice the way God treats Elijah. It all just starts with a simple question:- What are you doing here, Elijah?
Even though Elijah is the one who needs a strong reminder of the reality of the situation God is still incredibly gracious. If I were God, I don't think I would have addressed him quite that gently. I think I would have said, “Why you ungrateful man!
Look at what I did for you on Mt. Carmel.
I listened to you when you prayed for rain.
I even gave you incredible strength to run to the palace.
But now you’re just sitting here with you lip on the ground worried about the threat of that evil woman Jezebel. Get up and get yourself back to the front line where you belong.
That is what we might be inclined to do – but that isn’t the way of God. Through His question God testifies that He is gentle and patient with those who fail.
That is the nature of God shown to Elijah.
And that is the nature of God which is shown to us as well.
If we need proof all we need to do is look to Jesus and see what He is like.
When Jesus came to this world as an infant He didn’t choose to be born in the household of an aggressive dictator.
Coming as the son of one who got things done.
Growing as a young man who commanded respect from everyone around him.
That isn’t Jesus. He grew up in a gentle home … the home of a carpenter. It was a creative home situated in a poor part of Israel in a town of little significance. As a boy few people knew about Him, and even less cared who He was.
When Jesus started His ministry he was not like the Messianic revolutionaries who had gone before Him.
They used the weapons of warfare, terror and bloodshed.
Jesus used words, prayers and parables.
He came as a man who had time for anyone who was willing to listen. Everyone in society had a chance to be with Jesus if they wanted it. And when it came to those who had failed the most – well Jesus made sure that they got the time they needed. Jesus was gentle.
Then we get to the cross.
Jesus comes into the city gentle and riding on a donkey – He comes not as the conquering King, but as the Suffering Servant.
During the trial Jesus is gentle. He does not rile against the abuse and injustice. Nor does He call on the defense of the angels. As a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.
When they nailed Him to the cross He prayed for them. When they mocked Him on the cross He preached to them. When they were His enemies He died for them.
Through His Son God continues to be gentle and patient with us when we fail. When we have our times of feeling far from God.
Discouraged.
Disillusioned.
Despairing.
When we have these times we can be so thankful that our God is a God who continues to draw alongside us in gentleness in order to restore us and bring peace back into our lives. You see it in the way God reveals Himself in this passage.
Here comes, what could be, an unveiling of the LORD. A great wind. A mighty earthquake. A raging fire. But no, God is not present in these phenomena.
Then comes the gentle whisper. An almost deafening silence. It is the LORD! The LORD declaring His continued gentleness in all circumstances.
You don’t need fire from heaven to know the Lord is at work. You don’t need the mass conversion of people to know the Lord is at work. The proof is not in the spectacular and the powerful. The proof is in the ordinary. Elijah may not see it … we may not always see it … but God is always there. And God refuses to abandon us – even when it feels like He has.
Look at what God does for Elijah.
Twice an angel comes and give him food.
He was given strength to travel 40 days and nights.
Elijah was allowed not once, but twice, to question God.
When Elijah through he was alone God reminded him of 7000 other faithful people.
Elijah thought he was of no value any more but God commissioned him to continue working by going to find Hazael king of Aram; Jehu king of Israel and Elisha the up-and-coming prophet.
God does all that for failing Elijah. Why?
Because God is revealing Himself as a loving Father.
God’s love is completely unconditional.
You may at times be out of His will – in a place where you shouldn’t be.
But you are never out of His concern.
We can be sure that God will pick us up in the midst of our times of discouragement and despairing. And He will do it in a very gentle way. God doesn’t deliver Elijah through a speech full of criticism, or words of reproach, or threats of dismissal. God delivers Elijah with sleep, and food, and kindly thoughtfulness, and love. This is the Father-heart of God fully on display.
Perhaps there is someone here this morning who feels totally wiped out because of troubles that have piled up or because you are overpowered by some temptation.
You have failed, you are ashamed, you are feeling worthless, and you just want to hide.
You may not enjoy coming to church as much as you used to – and you’re here out of habit more than anything else.
You might feel that God is not close – and that He can’t be close.
Look at the testimony in this passage and believe that you are not forgotten by God.
He loves you and wants to restore to you the years that hardship have eaten away
You may not feel His love; you may believe you have forfeited it; you may imagine that you are hopelessly estranged from Him. But you are not.
God continues to treat all His children in the same way that He treated Elijah. For God has promised to meet the basic physical, emotional and spiritual needs of all His children. It will happen in both spectacular and ordinary ways. Prayer
