Note: I developed a simple set of homemade PowerPoint slides that I used in presenting this sermon. They're not fancy or professional quality, and for this sermon there were only as small number of slides (most of which are maps), but if you're interested in having the PowerPoint file I will send it by Email. Just send an Email message to me at sam@srmccormick.net with the word "slides" in the title and "The Census Plague" in the body of the message. It would also be appreciated if you will include a few words about your ministry and where you are located (there will be no solicitation or unwanted contact from me). Allow a few days for me to respond.
ELIJAH’S CRISIS
The pandemic seems to go on forever. Instead of getting better, Covid is getting worse.
We are now deprived of some of the things we are pleasantly accustomed to as a church, and we may soon have to forego some of those privileges we have been able to enjoy for the last few months if the guidance we under for the general good gets more restrictive.
We follow a practice of supporting the guidance coming out of the state and county, but are asking for voluntary compliance, not enforcing it.
It has been months since we have seen some of our most at-risk members.
Then we have the sadness and loss of families moving away because of personal circumstances.
We miss them, and we are shrinking.
Let’s face it. These are tough times. Things look bleak.
Will society as we have known it for years ever return to normal?
We may wonder, is the church suffering irreparably?
Are members who are not coming by their choice to avoid the risk becoming settled comfortably with the absence of regular church attendance?
We are anxious about tomorrow.
As one song says, “I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow.”
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When the kingdom of Israel split in two after Solomon’s reign as king, there was a succession of kings in the north kingdom, which retained the name Israel, and in the south kingdom which became known as Judah.
Judah had some kings who were good and some who were bad.
Israel, to the north, had no good kings. All were bad.
One of the bad kings was Ahab, the 7th in a series of bad ones.
One of the bad things Ahab did was marry Jezebel:
1 Kings 16:31 And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him.
Jezebel, the scripture tells us, killed the prophets of God (1 Kings 18:13) – all but 100 who were hid in a cave by the faithful Obadiah, who feared God.
Elijah was a prophet of God. He prophesied to the evil king:
“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.”
Having so prophesied, Elijah was clearly in danger.
God directed him to go to the brook Cherith (seems to have been east of the Jordan river). where Elijah was fed by ravens.
But the prophecy about a famine was true, and the brook dried up.
Next, Elijah is directed to go to Zarephath, where he encounters a widow.
The widow is at the end of the food she had for herself and for her son, but Elijah bids her to make a cake (bread) with the last of the flour and oil.
The widow hesitates to give up the last of her food, but Elijah assures her:
Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’ 1 Kings 17:13-14
Afterward, the woman’s son became ill, and was dead or on the verge of dying.
Elijah took the child upstairs and brought him back down to his mother alive and healthy.
The widow said,
Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.
After these things, God directed Elijah back to Ahab to tell him that he (God) would send rain.
Ahab saw him coming and said,
Is it you, you troubler of Israel?
Elijah answered,
I have not troubled Israel, but you have…because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. Now therefore gather all Israel to me at Mt. Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.
You know the story of what happened.
850 false prophets on Mt Carmel!
All of them combined could not persuade their gods to accept the offered sacrifice.
Their efforts went on all day.
Late in the day Elijah set up an altar and placed the bull on it, doused it and a trench around it thoroughly with water, and said:
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.”
1 Kings 18:38-39 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. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”
The false prophets were captured and slain at the Brook Kishon, which ran at the foot of Mt. Carmel.
Back at the top of Mt. Carmel, Elijah bowed down, told his servant to look toward the sea.
Seven times he did the same. On the 7th time, the servant said,
Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea.
It was going to rain. The drought was broken.
Ahab rode in his chariot to Jezreel while Elijah ran ahead of him (17 miles after a hard day of taunting false prophets, building an altar and the sacrifice, and killing 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah).
Ahab told Jezebel what happened at Mt. Carmel.
Jezebel was – in a word – upset.
She sent a message to Elijah that by this time tomorrow, Elijah would be like one of the dead false prophets.
Elijah fled to Beersheba (about 65 miles from Samaria), left his servant there, and continued alone a day’s journey into the wilderness.
God had done great things and permitted Elijah to have a hand in them.
• Provided an exhaustible supply of flour and oil at the widow’s house in Zarephath
• Raised the widow’s son from death or imminent death
• Called down fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice on Mt. Carmel (with 850 false prophets watching helplessly)
• Killed the false prophets
• Brought rain, ending a 3½ year drought
• Outran a chariot for 17 miles
All amazing demonstrations!
But now that seemed distant, almost irrelevant.
Jezebel was intent on killing Elijah, as she had slain other prophets before him
Now everything was bleak, the future grim and uncertain.
Elijah wants to die.
But the story was far from finished.
God had plans, but God’s plans were not at all what Elijah thought he saw on the horizon.
When God has plans, they will not be thwarted, like our plans often are.
God’s plans don’t often fit within the envelope of our plans.
He doesn’t check to see if his plans will fit our schedule.
What happens next is very touching – literally.
An angel touched Elijah and asked:
What are you doing here, Elijah?
The angel twice provided food, for the journey.
What journey? Elijah is on the move again, this time to Mount Horeb, “the mount of God.”
If the traditional location is correct, the distance from Beersheba was a journey of almost 200 miles!
Something must be very important for Elijah to have to go to the mountain of God instead of hearing what God had to say right where he was.
At Mt. Horeb, the word of the Lord came to Elijah:
What are you doing here, Elijah?
Elijah’s answer sums up all that has been troubling him
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.
There it is.
Read 1 Kings 19:11-18
The wind, the earthquake, and the fire – that was not where God was seen, but the low whisper (v12).
ESV says “the sound of a low whisper,” NASB says “a sound of a gentle blowing,” but I like the KJV which says, “a still small voice.”
God’s hand is not in the spectacular things. Oh, it was a great drama out on Mount Carmel, but it’s not always that way.
Sometimes God’s hand works quietly and is unnoticed.
God has a job for Elijah to do.
“Go to the wilderness of Damascus” (1 Kings 19:15). A very long trip from Mt. Horeb.
Anoint Hazael king of Syria, and anoint Jehu king of Israel, and Elisha to be prophet in your place.
I can almost hear Elijah’s reaction:
What?! I came all the way to Mt. Horeb for you to tell me that?!
Jezebel is trying to kill me! How’s that going to solve my crisis!
I doubt that was Elijah’s response. Instead, Elijah went.
That’s where the still small voice comes in.
I guess Elijah needed to go to the mount of God to see the wind, earthquake, and fire and hear the still small voice for the instruction to make any sense.
God is working, but the work he is doing is not always dazzling.
Things were being set in motion with these anointings that would lead to the thinning out of the population of idol-worshiping Israel, the gruesome death of Jezebel and…
…the preserving of a remnant of 7000 true worshipers, and…
…the repentance of Ahab! Here’s where his turnabout is recorded:
1 Kings 21:23-29 And of Jezebel the Lord also said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel.’ Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the heavens shall eat.” (There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited. He acted very abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the Lord cast out before the people of Israel.) And when Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,“Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son's days I will bring the disaster upon his house.”
The saved remnant is a recurring theme in the bible and an essential pillar of our faith.
The remnant is the population of the eternal kingdom that will never be destroyed.
Not by Covid. Not by anything. It is the unshakable kingdom – the triumphant church against which the gates of hades (or more properly, the gates of death) will not prevail.
Someone might say, “That’s fine for Elijah and the people of his time, but that was then, now is now.”
But in some ways, “then” IS “now.”
Let me explain (forgive me for using a personal example).
At the age of 81 I have been blessed with 5 years beyond the average life expectancy of a man in the US, which s 76.
Those extra years come at a cost.
It is painfully obvious to me that I cannot do all the things I did a few years ago.
Although I can’t detect any lessening of my mental capacity except slow memory recall, my physical strength is declining substantially, and there are other factors. Driving at night is extremely difficult because of the loss of night vision.
I simply cannot do the things I did when I was 50 or 60 years old.
I wondered “what can I do?”
A little less than 4 years ago I decided to publish the notes of the sermons I have preached over the years.
My notes are usually full text although I usually deviate during the delivery.
I have also converted classes I have taught in series to sermons and published those notes as sermons.
So far, I have published 95 sermons, all or nearly all of which I have preached or taught at the church right here in Montrose.
In a few days I will publish this morning’s sermon.
The number of times those sermon notes have been viewed is approaching 3 million views.
None of them have been viewed fewer than 1,000 times, and one single sermon has been viewed over half a million times.
Over the last week, the sermons have been viewed over 700 times in 56 countries.
Those countries colored blue, the darkness indicating the number of times - dark blue being the most views.
Over the last 30 days, there have been over 2,800 views in 92 countries.
Over the last 180 days (all during the world-wide pandemic) the sermons have been viewed over 15,000 times in 146 countries – even Russia and China.
There are 195 countries in the world.
The sermons I have preached in this building have been viewed - and many of them preached - in 75% of the countries in the world in the last 180 days – more over the last year.
I get Email from all over the world, including countries I didn’t know existed.
These are pandemic numbers. The number of views and the number of countries was much higher before Covid struck.
• The sermons are preached in churches
• They are preached in Islamic countries to Muslims
• They are preached in countries where Hindu is the dominant religion, Buddhism, and others.
• The material is used in schools (not in the US of course).
• It is used in lectureships and workshops
• It is used by ladies in ladies’ activities
This is all happening silently.
My phone doesn’t even ding.
No wind, earthquake, or fire. It’s not flashy or noisy, but a still small voice in the world.
I wondered “What am I worth to anyone at my age? Why is God giving me more life than the average man?”
All this has happened since I was over the age of male life expectancy.
You may wonder, “What can you do in the present environment?”
Stop the pandemic? No
You can wear a mask and take other precautions, but you can’t single-handedly stop the spread of Covid in the world.
To us, it might seem we are on our last legs, on the verge of going under as a church.
To Elijah, all looked lost when he was out in the wilderness from Beersheba.
But God had a plan, and Elijah was part of it.
It wasn’t spectacular like the scene on Mt. Carmel.
It was slow unfolding and quiet like a still small voice.
It ended with the death of Jezebel and the repentance of King Ahab.
Things were going to turn out all right after all.
One would come in the spirit of Elijah to prepare the way for the Messiah.
Elijah would stand on the mount of transfiguration with the one whose life’s work would save the human race.
God has a plan for us too.
We don’t know yet what a post-Covid world looks like, but God does.
One of the hardest things a Christian in this busy rush-rush world is to wait for the Lord.
But sometimes we have no choice.
Isaiah wrote this in a very troubled time for Israel:
1 Kings 21:23-29 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Certainly, we can and should make plans and pursue them within the constraints placed upon us, and our abilities, but Covid is a world-wide problem, far too big for us to ignore or solve on our own.
We need a vaccine. God’s hand is in that too.
While we wait, we can do what we are able to do in a Covid world.
But as we just read, the God we serve is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
Whatever happens in the next few months is in the hands of one who loves the church, and gave his son to die for her.
And there’s no better place for the church to be than under the care of the one who built it, and said “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Like the remnant of 7000 in Elijah’s day who had not bowed to Baal, we are today’s remnant Jesus saved from destruction to carry God’s plan forward once the path ahead appears.
