The unfailing love of the lord towards us
1kings 19:1-14 ~ ted Phillips
January 20, 2018
The Unfailing Love of the Lord Toward Us
This morning, once again, we’re going to look at the passage in 1 Kings that we've been studying, the life of Elijah. And this passage, as we have noted many times, is for instruction. And I hope we see it that way. This is part of God's revelation to us and the Lord intends to continue this process of changing our hearts, to conform us into the image of God’s Son.
Last time we were together looking at first Kings, we began chapter 19--- and were going to be there again. And I want to start off this morning by reading the first 14 verses.
Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.” And he was afraid and he arose and he ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and he came and sat down under a juniper tree; and requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.” He lay down and slept under the juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, “Arise, eat.” Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you.” So he arose and ate and he drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.
Then he came there to a cave and lodged there; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.
So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking 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. After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Then he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”
The study of Elijah has revealed to us the character of a godly man. And at the very foundation of those characteristics is an unshakable trust in Almighty God. And this certainly stands out in the life of Elijah. As a result of the faith which he exercised, Elijah was a man who gave himself to prayer. We've seen it over and over again. We spent a lot of time looking at that. Faith is a necessary element of prayer. God requires that we come to Him in faith. And Elijah did just that. Also, as a result of that faith, he demonstrated courage in what would have certainly been death at the hands of King Ahab. And also as a result of that faith, Elijah considered himself, and he was, a servant of God. He followed and he obeyed Him implicitly. We saw this over and over again in chapter 17 and 18 in some very remarkable ways. Elijah trusted the Lord, and the Lord showed Himself to be trustworthy. And of course, on Mount Carmel, He revealed His glory in a most unmistakable way. He did what the prophets of Baal could not do---what Baal himself could not do it. And He did this through Elijah who trusted in the Lord. And as we have seen, just--- last time we got together, chapter 19 brings about an abrupt change in Elijah; a very noticeable change. In verse 2, as we just read, Jezebel threatens his life. In verse 3 we read that Elijah was afraid he arose and he and he ran for his life. This was not the Elijah that we had seen in chapter 17 and 18. Instead of courage we see here he exhibits fear, instead of drawing near to the Lord in prayer Elijah on his own accord runs for his life. And he’s no longer serving the Lord is as the Lord’s servant, he serving himself. And in all of this, he is no longer trusting the Lord as he once did.
Now as we saw last time there were a number of contributing influences involving this change in Elijah. We talked about physical and mental fatigue. We know that Elijah during the last 3 1/2 years had endured much--- and we can be certain of Satan's attacks to thwart the work of the Lord through---through His servant Elijah. But these things were not necessarily new to Elijah, if you think about it. Over the last three years he has certainly experienced fatigue, and without a doubt he had been the target of the evil one. And I do not want to---to lessen or to downplay the seriousness of these two things, but the ultimate cause of Elijah's failure was that he was no longer walking by faith, he was walking by sight. Now we can look at Elijah in chapter 19 and we can feel disappointment in him, we may even have a tendency to look down upon him, but I think we need to be very careful and not deceive ourselves. As we talked about before, Elijah was a man who had a nature just like ours (James 5:17). We’re no different than Elijah. This is an important thing for us to understand, the temptation to walk by sight and not by faith is one of the greatest dangers that anyone of us faces in the Christian life. Whenever God's people suffer from unbelief, and they began to operate according to their own fleshly desires and their own human instincts, and they follow after earthly wisdom---there are consequences to that. And some of those consequences can be very serious. This is a warning, a warning that we are given with Elijah's example here. And again, this is for our instruction, so we need to pay attention to it.
One of those consequences is made very evident in the verses before us here and I want to just have us focus on this for a moment. Again, in verse 2 we see that---Jezebel vows to take Elijah's life. In response, he flees. He runs for his life. He doesn't want to die. And then if you notice in verse 4, only one day's journey into the wilderness and Elijah makes her quest for himself that he might die. Elijah had become literally a walking contradiction at this point. In the span of one day he makes a request for the very thing that he is running from. He runs for his life in fear of death and one day---one day later he wants to die. I think what we are shown here is that when a person ceases to take hold of the truth got of God's word by faith, they become very unsettled--very unsettled. And this is the very thing that we are warned about in James chapter 1 listen as I just read a few verses here. James tells us,
“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given, him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
Does that not describe Elijah, but we just saw in chapter 19? He had become double minded. He had literally become erratic in his thinking. At one point, he's fearful of being put to death another and a moment later he wantsto die. He was fluctuating between two opposite things. He became a double minded man because he had allowed doubt to enter into his thinking by focusing on his circumstances and not the Lord.
There's something for us to learn here, a number of things really.And to start off with, and from the negative perspective,when a person is not controlled by the truths of God's word, they become captive to the fickleness of their own emotions.They literally can become a prisoner of their own imaginations. I would guess that each one of us has known what this is like by experience. Every one of us is subject to the constant and unexpected changes in this temporal world, and when those circumstances turn against us, this is the result---this is the outcome if we are not anchored to God's word by faith.There’s a positive lesson in this as well.Through faith, the word of God settles the soul.Do you experience that? The word of God settles the soul. It sets it free! It liberates it from---from all that is temporal, from all the things that are raised up against us in this earthly realm. And that is where the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension comes from. It comes from the abiding word of God that illuminates our hearts through faith. Think of all the blessings that we forfeit when we walk by sight and not by faith. As we see here in---as we see him here in chapter 19, Elijah had become occupied with himself and with his problems with things that he could see, and therefore he could not be occupied with the Lord. And as such he forfeited the blessings that God had for him.
Now in the second half of this chapter, there is an overwhelming truth that we are given, I want us to look at this, it’s very important. Despite his unbelief, regardless of the double mindedness of Elijah, in the midst of his---his failure, the Lord did not forsake Elijah.The Lord did not forsake him, He did not abandon him. What a great comfort it is to see this here. A wonderful comfort. And better yet this is not something that was confined to Elijah. According to his mercy, God does not abandon those whom the Son has redeemed. God does not abandon those for whom his own beloved son died, that’s you and me. This is a promise made by the Lord that is repeated over and over in Scripture. And as you look through God's word there are numerous examples of this. And I just want to share a couple of them with you.
One of the examples is with Joshua. If remember after Moses had died and the Lord then appointed Joshua to lead His people into the promised land, the Lord makes this statement to Joshua. Joshua chapter 5---or chapter 1 verse 5, He says to Joshua, He says,
“No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.”
And if you look down a few verses then, the Lord---if remember, He---He strongly exhorts Joshua to be strong and courageous. In fact, He exhorts him to be strong and courageous three times. And if you think about this, what a source of strength as must have been to Joshua to follow the Lord's exhortation there, to be strong to be courageous. The very God, who alone is sovereign had promised him that He would not forsake him. And as we know, reading through the book of Joshua, Joshua was indeed strong and courageous. The Lord did not forsake him, did not abandon him.
We’re given this same promise by the Lord in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 5, we are told to “make sure that our character is free from the love of money, being content with what we have.” If you think about this for just a minute living in the prosperity that we do in this in this country---how is that possible? How is it possible to be content? How is it possible when we lose our jobs and money gets tight, “for He Himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.”That's the answer! That's all we need to know, “for He Himself has said.”That's it. That's the promise, I will never forsake you. As wonderful as this promise is the basis for it, the foundation on which it is set is perhaps even more amazing. Listen to what we are told in Psalms 103:17. I'll start back in verse 15.
“As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and its place acknowledges it no longer.”
And as you and I know, the ways of man are fleeting, they’re changeable, they’re fickle. But this is not so with the Lord. Verse 17,
“But the lovingkindness of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting,”
“the loving kindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting,”You see the divine affection that has been set upon us before the foundation of the world, that is the rock on which God's promises are set. His love is unchanging. It has no end.
One other passage, and in this really gets even more to the point of our passage in 1 Kings, in Psalms chapter 89 verses 32 or verse 30 down to 33. The Lord is speaking here about His people, and in particular the descendants of David, and the context here is the covenant or the promise that he had made with them. In verse 30, He says,
“If his sons forsake my law and do not walk in my judgments, if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments, then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.”
In other words, if they fail the Lord, if they do not please Him, which they didn't, notice what He then states in verse 33,
“But I will not break off My lovingkindness from him nor deal falsely in My faithfulness.”
There are times when, just like Elijah, you and I fail. We know that. We struggle with unbelief. There are times when we fear men rather than fearing God. There times when we displease the Lord, but despite our unfaithfulness, God does not abandon us. God does not abandon us. Because of his lovingkindness, He does not forsake us. The love that God demonstrated towards us in Christ---it's a love that does not diminish. It does not fade or even---even grow cold in the least over time. Even when we fail Him it does not falter. His love is everlasting. It endures forever. The great Shepherd of our soul does not forsake or abandon those that belong to His flock. These words from the Lord, are among the most comforting I think in all of Scripture. But we need to be reminded that this does not mean that we can presume upon His grace. This truth in no way should cause us to have a careless view of sin or careless view of displeasing the Lord. We have just seen that even when we sin the Lord, the Lord's love endures. And it is according to that same love that the Lord and chastens His children, chastens those who displease Him and He does so that we might share in His holiness. According to his eternal love, the Lord does not forsake his own.
In verse five of our passage back, in chapter 19 of 1 Kings, really through the end of the chapter, this is the very thing that we see worked out in Elijah's life. In the midst of Elijah's unfaithfulness, the Lord demonstrates His unfailing love towards His servant.There are number of ways He doubted does this, and I want to just look at the first few this morning in the remainder of our time.
The first way that the Lord demonstrates His everlasting love, is that He seeks out Elijah.If you recall back in chapter 17, after Elijah had confronted King Ahab, the Lord directed Elijah to the brook Cherith, and Elijah followed His instructions. And after the brook dried up due to the drought, the Lord once again directed Elijah and He directed him to Zarephath. And again, Elijah followed that direction from the Lord, followed His instructions. He stayed there with a widow if you remember, and her son, and the Lord provided not only for Elijah but for her as well and for her son. And then you move to chapter 18, and at the beginning of chapter 18 the Lord once again directed Elijah. He tells them to leave Zarephath and to show himself now to King Ahab. And once again Elijah follows Lord's instructions. There's an obvious pattern here for us to see here in the life of Elijah. A wonderful standard to live by. In fact, there is no better model for living. Elijah followed all the directions that the Lord gave him. In chapters 17 and 18, Elijah did not go any placewhere the Lord had not told him to go. But in chapter 19, this changes. The pattern that he had established in his life was now broken. After the threat from Jezebel, as we've seen, Elijah runs and he goes a day's journey into the wilderness to hide, and he settles himself under a juniper tree. Now the problem is not so much that Elijah runs off into the desert. The problem is that he did so without direction from the Lord. The problem is that he went out there in the desert without the Lord as His refuge. Because he was walking by sight and not by faith, Elijah reactedto his circumstances. He simply reacted instead of responding to the Lord. Because he was walking by site, Elijah's default was just a mere human response. I think what stands out here, Elijah had faithfully followed the Lord's direction in the past, it had become a pattern of his life, and yet, not once did we see him here in chapter 19 calling the Lord for His direction, calling upon the Lord for His direction. Not once in chapter 19 do we see Elijah seeking the Lord. Instead, what we see is the Lord seeking after His erring servant. Not only did the Lord not abandon Elijah in His time of stubbornness, according to His lovingkindness, the Lord God pursued after His wayward servant despite the fact that Elijah made no effort to seek the Lord's leading. In verse five you see here that the Lord sends him an angel, sends him one of His angels. And then in verse 9, the Lord comes to Elijah Himself at Mount Horeb and gently speaks to him. The Lord is the great Shepherd of our souls, and as such He cares for His sheep. He pursues. He pursues them after they stray. It is true that the Lord often will leave us to bear the consequences of our waywardness, at least for a time, but it seems to me that this is a part of His seeking after us. It softens the heart to long for His nearness. It readies the heart for that time when He will draw near.
I want you to consider this for a moment---what would have happened to Elijah if the Lord had not sought him out at this point in time in his life? What would've happened to Elijah if the Lord had not sought him---If the Lord had not pursued after His erring servant, if he had left in just a wallow in his self-pity? Let me put it another way, what would your life, and my life be like, if the Lord had not pursued after us? What would our lives be like? God in His grace sought us out when we were dead in our sins and when we were at enmity with Him. He saved us, He redeemed us, and He made us new creations in Christ Jesus, and according to His lovingkindness He has not stopped pursuing us. From that very moment after saving us even, He has not stopped pursuing you and I. God began a good work in us and then He promised to perfect that work until the day of Christ. And He is perfecting those whom He has saved. What would you and I be like if the Lord had not continued with what He has started, if He had just left us on her own after He had saved us, if He did not pursue us when we faltered in unbelief? Lovingly and tenderly the Lord seeks after us, that we might come to know the fullness of Him, that we might come to know the joy of the salvation with which he has saved us. The Lord pursues those who belong to Him.
The second demonstration of the Lord’s lovingkindness follows really right after the first, and that is, that the Lord ministers to the needs of His people.Even though we fail the Lord at times, even though we do not trust Him as we should, and often times just go our own way, the Lord never stops caring for us. And this, of course, is what we see with Elijah. Back in verse five again it says that,
“He lay down to sleep under the juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said, “Arise, eat.” Then he looked up and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. So, he ate and he drank he lay down again. The angel of the Lord came to him a second time and touched him, and said, “Arise, eat because the journey is too great for you.” So, he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.”
I think there's a temptation for us to---to really look at this as kind of a small thing. But I want you to notice here what the angel of the Lord says to Elijah in verse 7. He tells him to arise and to eat, why, he says, because the journey is too great for you---it’s too great for you. The journey to mount Horeb must---was more than Elijah could accomplish on his own. It was beyond his capacity, and so out of His lovingkindness, the Lord supplies to Elijah what he himself could not. I would ask you how often do you and I face that which is too great. How often do not come up against something that is too great for us. I would suspect it is more often than we realize, and perhaps even more often than we’d be willing to admit. The Lord Himself often puts us into situations that are too great for us and He does so that He might show forth His love to us, that He might show forth the glory of His grace.
I want you to also notice how the Lord supplies Elijah's needs at this time. He supplies them with two meals. He has His angel provide these two meals for Elijah there. Now from our point of view might we might think, “Lord that’s not enough. I need more. I need something else. Two meals are not going to do it.” But as we see here, those two meals, just those two meals, provided the strength for Elijah to be in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. Do we realize that the Lord does not care for us any differently than He did for Elijah? It's not a matter of just two meals, what we can see, it's a matter of what God will do through faith. Really this gives the full meaning to the promise that we are given back in the New Testament. “Cast your cares upon the Lord,”why, “because He cares for you.”The Lord may not accomplish His care for us in the same way that He did for Elijah, but what He supplies for us is always---always sufficient to meet every need that we have.
One more observation we’ll make this morning and that is, that in His lovingkindness. the Lord exhorts his people.In verse 9, Elijah comes to mount Horeb, and we’re told that he---he enters into a cave to rest, and then we see here that the word of the Lord came to Elijah, the word of the Lord came to Elijah. As we know the Lord cares for us in many different ways. I would suggest to you that none of them are as far-reaching as when He gives to us His word. It seems too small a thing to say that this is a privilege really, but it is. It's a privilege beyond compare. The living and abiding word of God, that's were given, that’s what we have been given. There is not a greater evidence of God's lovingkindness than this. There is nothing that sustains us more, nothing that meets the deepest needs that we have. If you remember back when Peter responds to the Lord, this is the very reason he responded as he did. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”Notice what the Lord says to Elijah, and He puts it in the form of a question, Lord says to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”What are you doing here? That’s an interesting question. This was not just a passing comment by the Lord, if you look down verse 13 the Lord repeats the same question again to him. It’s a significant question. In fact, there was not a better question that could have been asked to Elijah at this given point in time. It was a very searching question. It was designed to penetrate not just his mind, but is perhaps even more so, his heart. Elijah what are you doing here? In other words, “How long will you fear Jezebel, men, rather than Me?” rather than God. How long will you sit here in your self-pity? How long will you allow Satan to have victory over you? How long will you serve just your own whimsical needs and not the Master? This question that the Lord asks of Elijah, I think, really, it's a reminder of the power of God's word. If you recall in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 this is what were told concerning the word of the Lord, it says,
“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
There's nothing else that can do that---nothing. And that is exactly what the Lord's question accomplished with Elijah, it penetrated Elijah's heart and exposed the really underlying motives of his actions, why he ran. I think more than anything. Elijah needed to hear this word from the Lord, this question of the Lord asked him. And I would suggest to you this morning, that's a question that you and I need to hear, perhaps on an ongoing basis. How often we need the intentions of our own hearts, to be exposed, and then to be set straight. I was reminded of a time, as I was studying through this. I was reminded of a time back when I was in college, I think it was my freshman year. The Lord had given me an opportunity to witness to one of the guys on our floor in our dorms there and he had responded positively in fact. It was an exciting thing for me, I remember. A short time after that, we were just hanging around together one night and he suggested that we go downtown and play some video games, asked me if I wanted to go. And what I found out then of course the videogame happened to be located in a bar downtown. I remember struggling with this a great deal. I just obviously had the time to witness to this young man, and as I mentioned, it excited me quite a bit. And I remember struggling a great deal. And I---no matter how I tried to communicate to him my discomfort in---in going down to this bar and playing this videogame, he didn't seem to understand it, and kept---kept after me about it. And not wanting to offend him, at least that's what I thought, I finally gave in. We went down to this bar and when we got there we had to stand in line to take our turn plays that video game. So, we stood there for a few minutes. And within that very short period of time, I had to tell my friend I needed to leave. I felt so uncomfortable. I mean there was obviously all things that are going on in bars, going on. And I was standing there. So, I left. The next day as I was going to my classes, two different people came up to me and approached me and they both---both asking the very same question. I'll never forget the words they asked. They said, “Ted, what were you doing in a bar last night?” I didn't know these two guys, all that well, but nonetheless they knew me. I had never even talked to them while I was at the bar and I hadn’t talked to anybody but my friend, but obviously, they had seen me. “What were you doing there?” That was the question they asked me. And it shook me. I didn’t know how to respond. It was so penetrating. It was as if the Lord and asked me the same question he asked Elijah, “Ted, what were you doing there? What areyou doing there? And I needed---I needed to hear that. I needed---I needed to understand and feel the depth, if you will, of what I had done. I needed to feel the weight of that. And as painful as it was, in His lovingkindness, the Lord used those two young men to exhort me. In the same lovingkindness, that lovingkindness that never fails, the word of the Lord came to Elijah, and like a two-edged sword it exposed the motives of his heart. It was a gentle rebuke, really, if you think about it. And it was one that he needed. And I think what is also implied in this question that the Lord asks Elijah, what was also implied, was a reassurance from the Lord. He was saying to Elijah, “There is nothing that is hidden from My site. I know your heart. I know your---your motives and your intentions. And even though you have turned and gone your own way, I have not forsaken you. I'm here, I never left.” When the Lord rebukes us, when He admonishes us, it can be painful at times we know that, we've experienced that, all of us have I’m sure. But it is according to His eternal love that He does so. And because that is true, it becomes a reassurance of that love, a reassurance that His love never fails, and that it never grows cold, and that He Himself will never, ever, forsake us. Let’s bow our heads this morning in prayer as we close.
This morning, once again, we’re going to look at the passage in 1 Kings that we've been studying, the life of Elijah. And this passage, as we have noted many times, is for instruction. And I hope we see it that way. This is part of God's revelation to us and the Lord intends to continue this process of changing our hearts, to conform us into the image of God’s Son.
Last time we were together looking at first Kings, we began chapter 19--- and were going to be there again. And I want to start off this morning by reading the first 14 verses.
Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.” And he was afraid and he arose and he ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and he came and sat down under a juniper tree; and requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.” He lay down and slept under the juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, “Arise, eat.” Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you.” So he arose and ate and he drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.
Then he came there to a cave and lodged there; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.
So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking 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. After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Then he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”
The study of Elijah has revealed to us the character of a godly man. And at the very foundation of those characteristics is an unshakable trust in Almighty God. And this certainly stands out in the life of Elijah. As a result of the faith which he exercised, Elijah was a man who gave himself to prayer. We've seen it over and over again. We spent a lot of time looking at that. Faith is a necessary element of prayer. God requires that we come to Him in faith. And Elijah did just that. Also, as a result of that faith, he demonstrated courage in what would have certainly been death at the hands of King Ahab. And also as a result of that faith, Elijah considered himself, and he was, a servant of God. He followed and he obeyed Him implicitly. We saw this over and over again in chapter 17 and 18 in some very remarkable ways. Elijah trusted the Lord, and the Lord showed Himself to be trustworthy. And of course, on Mount Carmel, He revealed His glory in a most unmistakable way. He did what the prophets of Baal could not do---what Baal himself could not do it. And He did this through Elijah who trusted in the Lord. And as we have seen, just--- last time we got together, chapter 19 brings about an abrupt change in Elijah; a very noticeable change. In verse 2, as we just read, Jezebel threatens his life. In verse 3 we read that Elijah was afraid he arose and he and he ran for his life. This was not the Elijah that we had seen in chapter 17 and 18. Instead of courage we see here he exhibits fear, instead of drawing near to the Lord in prayer Elijah on his own accord runs for his life. And he’s no longer serving the Lord is as the Lord’s servant, he serving himself. And in all of this, he is no longer trusting the Lord as he once did.
Now as we saw last time there were a number of contributing influences involving this change in Elijah. We talked about physical and mental fatigue. We know that Elijah during the last 3 1/2 years had endured much--- and we can be certain of Satan's attacks to thwart the work of the Lord through---through His servant Elijah. But these things were not necessarily new to Elijah, if you think about it. Over the last three years he has certainly experienced fatigue, and without a doubt he had been the target of the evil one. And I do not want to---to lessen or to downplay the seriousness of these two things, but the ultimate cause of Elijah's failure was that he was no longer walking by faith, he was walking by sight. Now we can look at Elijah in chapter 19 and we can feel disappointment in him, we may even have a tendency to look down upon him, but I think we need to be very careful and not deceive ourselves. As we talked about before, Elijah was a man who had a nature just like ours (James 5:17). We’re no different than Elijah. This is an important thing for us to understand, the temptation to walk by sight and not by faith is one of the greatest dangers that anyone of us faces in the Christian life. Whenever God's people suffer from unbelief, and they began to operate according to their own fleshly desires and their own human instincts, and they follow after earthly wisdom---there are consequences to that. And some of those consequences can be very serious. This is a warning, a warning that we are given with Elijah's example here. And again, this is for our instruction, so we need to pay attention to it.
One of those consequences is made very evident in the verses before us here and I want to just have us focus on this for a moment. Again, in verse 2 we see that---Jezebel vows to take Elijah's life. In response, he flees. He runs for his life. He doesn't want to die. And then if you notice in verse 4, only one day's journey into the wilderness and Elijah makes her quest for himself that he might die. Elijah had become literally a walking contradiction at this point. In the span of one day he makes a request for the very thing that he is running from. He runs for his life in fear of death and one day---one day later he wants to die. I think what we are shown here is that when a person ceases to take hold of the truth got of God's word by faith, they become very unsettled--very unsettled. And this is the very thing that we are warned about in James chapter 1 listen as I just read a few verses here. James tells us,
“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given, him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
Does that not describe Elijah, but we just saw in chapter 19? He had become double minded. He had literally become erratic in his thinking. At one point, he's fearful of being put to death another and a moment later he wantsto die. He was fluctuating between two opposite things. He became a double minded man because he had allowed doubt to enter into his thinking by focusing on his circumstances and not the Lord.
There's something for us to learn here, a number of things really.And to start off with, and from the negative perspective,when a person is not controlled by the truths of God's word, they become captive to the fickleness of their own emotions.They literally can become a prisoner of their own imaginations. I would guess that each one of us has known what this is like by experience. Every one of us is subject to the constant and unexpected changes in this temporal world, and when those circumstances turn against us, this is the result---this is the outcome if we are not anchored to God's word by faith.There’s a positive lesson in this as well.Through faith, the word of God settles the soul.Do you experience that? The word of God settles the soul. It sets it free! It liberates it from---from all that is temporal, from all the things that are raised up against us in this earthly realm. And that is where the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension comes from. It comes from the abiding word of God that illuminates our hearts through faith. Think of all the blessings that we forfeit when we walk by sight and not by faith. As we see here in---as we see him here in chapter 19, Elijah had become occupied with himself and with his problems with things that he could see, and therefore he could not be occupied with the Lord. And as such he forfeited the blessings that God had for him.
Now in the second half of this chapter, there is an overwhelming truth that we are given, I want us to look at this, it’s very important. Despite his unbelief, regardless of the double mindedness of Elijah, in the midst of his---his failure, the Lord did not forsake Elijah.The Lord did not forsake him, He did not abandon him. What a great comfort it is to see this here. A wonderful comfort. And better yet this is not something that was confined to Elijah. According to his mercy, God does not abandon those whom the Son has redeemed. God does not abandon those for whom his own beloved son died, that’s you and me. This is a promise made by the Lord that is repeated over and over in Scripture. And as you look through God's word there are numerous examples of this. And I just want to share a couple of them with you.
One of the examples is with Joshua. If remember after Moses had died and the Lord then appointed Joshua to lead His people into the promised land, the Lord makes this statement to Joshua. Joshua chapter 5---or chapter 1 verse 5, He says to Joshua, He says,
“No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.”
And if you look down a few verses then, the Lord---if remember, He---He strongly exhorts Joshua to be strong and courageous. In fact, He exhorts him to be strong and courageous three times. And if you think about this, what a source of strength as must have been to Joshua to follow the Lord's exhortation there, to be strong to be courageous. The very God, who alone is sovereign had promised him that He would not forsake him. And as we know, reading through the book of Joshua, Joshua was indeed strong and courageous. The Lord did not forsake him, did not abandon him.
We’re given this same promise by the Lord in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 5, we are told to “make sure that our character is free from the love of money, being content with what we have.” If you think about this for just a minute living in the prosperity that we do in this in this country---how is that possible? How is it possible to be content? How is it possible when we lose our jobs and money gets tight, “for He Himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.”That's the answer! That's all we need to know, “for He Himself has said.”That's it. That's the promise, I will never forsake you. As wonderful as this promise is the basis for it, the foundation on which it is set is perhaps even more amazing. Listen to what we are told in Psalms 103:17. I'll start back in verse 15.
“As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and its place acknowledges it no longer.”
And as you and I know, the ways of man are fleeting, they’re changeable, they’re fickle. But this is not so with the Lord. Verse 17,
“But the lovingkindness of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting,”
“the loving kindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting,”You see the divine affection that has been set upon us before the foundation of the world, that is the rock on which God's promises are set. His love is unchanging. It has no end.
One other passage, and in this really gets even more to the point of our passage in 1 Kings, in Psalms chapter 89 verses 32 or verse 30 down to 33. The Lord is speaking here about His people, and in particular the descendants of David, and the context here is the covenant or the promise that he had made with them. In verse 30, He says,
“If his sons forsake my law and do not walk in my judgments, if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments, then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.”
In other words, if they fail the Lord, if they do not please Him, which they didn't, notice what He then states in verse 33,
“But I will not break off My lovingkindness from him nor deal falsely in My faithfulness.”
There are times when, just like Elijah, you and I fail. We know that. We struggle with unbelief. There are times when we fear men rather than fearing God. There times when we displease the Lord, but despite our unfaithfulness, God does not abandon us. God does not abandon us. Because of his lovingkindness, He does not forsake us. The love that God demonstrated towards us in Christ---it's a love that does not diminish. It does not fade or even---even grow cold in the least over time. Even when we fail Him it does not falter. His love is everlasting. It endures forever. The great Shepherd of our soul does not forsake or abandon those that belong to His flock. These words from the Lord, are among the most comforting I think in all of Scripture. But we need to be reminded that this does not mean that we can presume upon His grace. This truth in no way should cause us to have a careless view of sin or careless view of displeasing the Lord. We have just seen that even when we sin the Lord, the Lord's love endures. And it is according to that same love that the Lord and chastens His children, chastens those who displease Him and He does so that we might share in His holiness. According to his eternal love, the Lord does not forsake his own.
In verse five of our passage back, in chapter 19 of 1 Kings, really through the end of the chapter, this is the very thing that we see worked out in Elijah's life. In the midst of Elijah's unfaithfulness, the Lord demonstrates His unfailing love towards His servant.There are number of ways He doubted does this, and I want to just look at the first few this morning in the remainder of our time.
The first way that the Lord demonstrates His everlasting love, is that He seeks out Elijah.If you recall back in chapter 17, after Elijah had confronted King Ahab, the Lord directed Elijah to the brook Cherith, and Elijah followed His instructions. And after the brook dried up due to the drought, the Lord once again directed Elijah and He directed him to Zarephath. And again, Elijah followed that direction from the Lord, followed His instructions. He stayed there with a widow if you remember, and her son, and the Lord provided not only for Elijah but for her as well and for her son. And then you move to chapter 18, and at the beginning of chapter 18 the Lord once again directed Elijah. He tells them to leave Zarephath and to show himself now to King Ahab. And once again Elijah follows Lord's instructions. There's an obvious pattern here for us to see here in the life of Elijah. A wonderful standard to live by. In fact, there is no better model for living. Elijah followed all the directions that the Lord gave him. In chapters 17 and 18, Elijah did not go any placewhere the Lord had not told him to go. But in chapter 19, this changes. The pattern that he had established in his life was now broken. After the threat from Jezebel, as we've seen, Elijah runs and he goes a day's journey into the wilderness to hide, and he settles himself under a juniper tree. Now the problem is not so much that Elijah runs off into the desert. The problem is that he did so without direction from the Lord. The problem is that he went out there in the desert without the Lord as His refuge. Because he was walking by sight and not by faith, Elijah reactedto his circumstances. He simply reacted instead of responding to the Lord. Because he was walking by site, Elijah's default was just a mere human response. I think what stands out here, Elijah had faithfully followed the Lord's direction in the past, it had become a pattern of his life, and yet, not once did we see him here in chapter 19 calling the Lord for His direction, calling upon the Lord for His direction. Not once in chapter 19 do we see Elijah seeking the Lord. Instead, what we see is the Lord seeking after His erring servant. Not only did the Lord not abandon Elijah in His time of stubbornness, according to His lovingkindness, the Lord God pursued after His wayward servant despite the fact that Elijah made no effort to seek the Lord's leading. In verse five you see here that the Lord sends him an angel, sends him one of His angels. And then in verse 9, the Lord comes to Elijah Himself at Mount Horeb and gently speaks to him. The Lord is the great Shepherd of our souls, and as such He cares for His sheep. He pursues. He pursues them after they stray. It is true that the Lord often will leave us to bear the consequences of our waywardness, at least for a time, but it seems to me that this is a part of His seeking after us. It softens the heart to long for His nearness. It readies the heart for that time when He will draw near.
I want you to consider this for a moment---what would have happened to Elijah if the Lord had not sought him out at this point in time in his life? What would've happened to Elijah if the Lord had not sought him---If the Lord had not pursued after His erring servant, if he had left in just a wallow in his self-pity? Let me put it another way, what would your life, and my life be like, if the Lord had not pursued after us? What would our lives be like? God in His grace sought us out when we were dead in our sins and when we were at enmity with Him. He saved us, He redeemed us, and He made us new creations in Christ Jesus, and according to His lovingkindness He has not stopped pursuing us. From that very moment after saving us even, He has not stopped pursuing you and I. God began a good work in us and then He promised to perfect that work until the day of Christ. And He is perfecting those whom He has saved. What would you and I be like if the Lord had not continued with what He has started, if He had just left us on her own after He had saved us, if He did not pursue us when we faltered in unbelief? Lovingly and tenderly the Lord seeks after us, that we might come to know the fullness of Him, that we might come to know the joy of the salvation with which he has saved us. The Lord pursues those who belong to Him.
The second demonstration of the Lord’s lovingkindness follows really right after the first, and that is, that the Lord ministers to the needs of His people.Even though we fail the Lord at times, even though we do not trust Him as we should, and often times just go our own way, the Lord never stops caring for us. And this, of course, is what we see with Elijah. Back in verse five again it says that,
“He lay down to sleep under the juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said, “Arise, eat.” Then he looked up and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. So, he ate and he drank he lay down again. The angel of the Lord came to him a second time and touched him, and said, “Arise, eat because the journey is too great for you.” So, he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.”
I think there's a temptation for us to---to really look at this as kind of a small thing. But I want you to notice here what the angel of the Lord says to Elijah in verse 7. He tells him to arise and to eat, why, he says, because the journey is too great for you---it’s too great for you. The journey to mount Horeb must---was more than Elijah could accomplish on his own. It was beyond his capacity, and so out of His lovingkindness, the Lord supplies to Elijah what he himself could not. I would ask you how often do you and I face that which is too great. How often do not come up against something that is too great for us. I would suspect it is more often than we realize, and perhaps even more often than we’d be willing to admit. The Lord Himself often puts us into situations that are too great for us and He does so that He might show forth His love to us, that He might show forth the glory of His grace.
I want you to also notice how the Lord supplies Elijah's needs at this time. He supplies them with two meals. He has His angel provide these two meals for Elijah there. Now from our point of view might we might think, “Lord that’s not enough. I need more. I need something else. Two meals are not going to do it.” But as we see here, those two meals, just those two meals, provided the strength for Elijah to be in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. Do we realize that the Lord does not care for us any differently than He did for Elijah? It's not a matter of just two meals, what we can see, it's a matter of what God will do through faith. Really this gives the full meaning to the promise that we are given back in the New Testament. “Cast your cares upon the Lord,”why, “because He cares for you.”The Lord may not accomplish His care for us in the same way that He did for Elijah, but what He supplies for us is always---always sufficient to meet every need that we have.
One more observation we’ll make this morning and that is, that in His lovingkindness. the Lord exhorts his people.In verse 9, Elijah comes to mount Horeb, and we’re told that he---he enters into a cave to rest, and then we see here that the word of the Lord came to Elijah, the word of the Lord came to Elijah. As we know the Lord cares for us in many different ways. I would suggest to you that none of them are as far-reaching as when He gives to us His word. It seems too small a thing to say that this is a privilege really, but it is. It's a privilege beyond compare. The living and abiding word of God, that's were given, that’s what we have been given. There is not a greater evidence of God's lovingkindness than this. There is nothing that sustains us more, nothing that meets the deepest needs that we have. If you remember back when Peter responds to the Lord, this is the very reason he responded as he did. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”Notice what the Lord says to Elijah, and He puts it in the form of a question, Lord says to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”What are you doing here? That’s an interesting question. This was not just a passing comment by the Lord, if you look down verse 13 the Lord repeats the same question again to him. It’s a significant question. In fact, there was not a better question that could have been asked to Elijah at this given point in time. It was a very searching question. It was designed to penetrate not just his mind, but is perhaps even more so, his heart. Elijah what are you doing here? In other words, “How long will you fear Jezebel, men, rather than Me?” rather than God. How long will you sit here in your self-pity? How long will you allow Satan to have victory over you? How long will you serve just your own whimsical needs and not the Master? This question that the Lord asks of Elijah, I think, really, it's a reminder of the power of God's word. If you recall in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 this is what were told concerning the word of the Lord, it says,
“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
There's nothing else that can do that---nothing. And that is exactly what the Lord's question accomplished with Elijah, it penetrated Elijah's heart and exposed the really underlying motives of his actions, why he ran. I think more than anything. Elijah needed to hear this word from the Lord, this question of the Lord asked him. And I would suggest to you this morning, that's a question that you and I need to hear, perhaps on an ongoing basis. How often we need the intentions of our own hearts, to be exposed, and then to be set straight. I was reminded of a time, as I was studying through this. I was reminded of a time back when I was in college, I think it was my freshman year. The Lord had given me an opportunity to witness to one of the guys on our floor in our dorms there and he had responded positively in fact. It was an exciting thing for me, I remember. A short time after that, we were just hanging around together one night and he suggested that we go downtown and play some video games, asked me if I wanted to go. And what I found out then of course the videogame happened to be located in a bar downtown. I remember struggling with this a great deal. I just obviously had the time to witness to this young man, and as I mentioned, it excited me quite a bit. And I remember struggling a great deal. And I---no matter how I tried to communicate to him my discomfort in---in going down to this bar and playing this videogame, he didn't seem to understand it, and kept---kept after me about it. And not wanting to offend him, at least that's what I thought, I finally gave in. We went down to this bar and when we got there we had to stand in line to take our turn plays that video game. So, we stood there for a few minutes. And within that very short period of time, I had to tell my friend I needed to leave. I felt so uncomfortable. I mean there was obviously all things that are going on in bars, going on. And I was standing there. So, I left. The next day as I was going to my classes, two different people came up to me and approached me and they both---both asking the very same question. I'll never forget the words they asked. They said, “Ted, what were you doing in a bar last night?” I didn't know these two guys, all that well, but nonetheless they knew me. I had never even talked to them while I was at the bar and I hadn’t talked to anybody but my friend, but obviously, they had seen me. “What were you doing there?” That was the question they asked me. And it shook me. I didn’t know how to respond. It was so penetrating. It was as if the Lord and asked me the same question he asked Elijah, “Ted, what were you doing there? What areyou doing there? And I needed---I needed to hear that. I needed---I needed to understand and feel the depth, if you will, of what I had done. I needed to feel the weight of that. And as painful as it was, in His lovingkindness, the Lord used those two young men to exhort me. In the same lovingkindness, that lovingkindness that never fails, the word of the Lord came to Elijah, and like a two-edged sword it exposed the motives of his heart. It was a gentle rebuke, really, if you think about it. And it was one that he needed. And I think what is also implied in this question that the Lord asks Elijah, what was also implied, was a reassurance from the Lord. He was saying to Elijah, “There is nothing that is hidden from My site. I know your heart. I know your---your motives and your intentions. And even though you have turned and gone your own way, I have not forsaken you. I'm here, I never left.” When the Lord rebukes us, when He admonishes us, it can be painful at times we know that, we've experienced that, all of us have I’m sure. But it is according to His eternal love that He does so. And because that is true, it becomes a reassurance of that love, a reassurance that His love never fails, and that it never grows cold, and that He Himself will never, ever, forsake us. Let’s bow our heads this morning in prayer as we close.
