Elijah - the man who nearly gave up

 

LIMAVADY INDEPENDENT METHODIST CHURCH

SERMON NOTES FROM SUNDAY 12 JUNE 2022

1 KINGS 19 VERSES 1 TO 8

 

Elijah – the man who nearly gave up.  We see Elijah as a mighty prophet of God.  The circumstances in Elijah’s life brought change rapidly and quickly.  How that can happen to us too!  How many in our little province and across the nation are not in the same situation as Elijah was here?  There are many today trying to make ends meet.  Many are opening up envelopes and are scared to do so because it is the next electricity or gas bill.  They are sitting in a solitary place.  That is where Elijah was.  James tells us more about this man.  “He was a man of like passions as we are.” (James 5 verse 17)  He was prone to discouragement.  Just like you and me.  Maybe there have been things in the past week that have discouraged us.  Elijah was at the point where his prayer is that the Lord would allow him to die.  He had come to an end in himself.  He was sitting under a juniper tree, and he lifted his voice to God and said, “Lord let me die.”  He was a man ready to give up.  Do you ever get to that stage – where you think life is not worth living anymore?  Some times we don’t fully understand what God says when he says “no” but it is wonderful that God said “no” to Elijah on this occasion and it became a great blessing. Here was a man ready to give up and God says, “no I have so much more for you.”

 

Elijah comes to a lonely place.  We see him sitting alone with his thoughts and fears, taking his eyes off God, getting a handle on the circumstances that were coming in around his life.  He cannot go on another step.  He had taken his stand against one of the wickedest kings in Israel, Ahab.  Elijah was called out by God.  He goes into Ahab and tells him “I have a word from the Lord for you and this nation.  God will close the windows of heaven and there will be no rain.  As a result, there will be great poverty.”  Then we see him on Mount Carmel challenging the false prophets of Baal, 800 of them.  He was standing alone, and he brought the word of God to them.  “Why halt ye between 2 opinions.  I see that you have a longing for the God of Israel, yet you follow Baal.”  He was challenging them.  There is no fear in his heart.  Such a man or woman will be noticed by the enemy of our souls.  If you want to take your stand for the Lord in these days, then you will be attacked at some point.  The devil will do all in his power to bring you down.  There was a day when you saw Calvary, when the Holy Spirit lifted your eyes and showed you the perfect Lamb of God dying for your sin.  That day you bowed your knees and gave your life to Christ.  That is when the devil will follow your footsteps and try to bring you down.  Jezebel sent word to Elijah that she would take his life when she discovered that he had put 800 prophets of Baal to death.  Verse 3 “and when he saw that” - he took his eyes off the God of heaven.  They had been on God when he stood before Ahab, at the brook Cherith and on Mount Carmel, now his circumstances had changed so quickly.  His thoughts were on the threat to his life.  What does he do?  He flees, he runs away.  When I read Psalm 73, a psalm given over to the chief musician Asaph, I read in verse 2 “my feet were almost gone.”  His feet were slipping – why – verse 3 “I was envious at the foolish and saw the prosperity of the wicked.”  He got his eyes off the Lord and placed them on the circumstances of everyone else.  His feet were almost gone.  Nearly given up.  Sometimes we go through a time of serving the Lord just like Elijah, we enjoy the message of the gospel mission then comes the devil with a word of discouragement.  He reminds us of our failures.  Maybe Elijah felt the success of Carmel and thought Ahab and Jezebel would be stirred and follow after God.  In fact, it made Jezebel even harder.  In verse 3 we read “and left his servant there.”  Maybe he had shared with that man.  He had gone with Elijah as far as he could but came to a point where he couldn’t go any further.  Maybe he tried to convince him to go no further.  He stopped at that point.  Scripture says in verse 4 “he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness.”  For a full day he is plodding on.  He has aching limbs, there is a weariness in his body, he was walking in the heat of the day with all his negative thoughts in his mind. Have you ever been there?  Maybe it is a lonely place.  Verse 10 “and I even I only am left, and they seek my life to take it.”  He felt he had nobody, nothing.  Paul wrote to Timothy “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me; I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.” (2Timothy 4 verse 16)  Think of Jesus as he entered the Garden of Gethsemane.  He left his disciples and went a little further.  When he came back to them, he found them sleeping.  He prayed “Father if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” (Luke 22 verse 42)

 

Elijah experienced a living presence.  We can feel that anywhere.  It tells us in verse 5 “an angel touched him.”  The last place where you would find an angel but that is where it was.  Elijah was sitting alone under the shade of a tree.  God knew exactly where he was, and he told the angel to touch him.  God has his messenger there for his servant.  God knew his situation and sent an angel.  A messenger of God.  Could God trust you and me to do that?  To bring his message to someone today.   You don’t know what they are feeling, know nothing about them but God is putting someone in your mind just to reach out to them even today.  God was speaking to his heavenly messenger.  Are we in that place today?  Is there someone like Elijah, all alone, sitting somewhere today waiting for you to stop and talk with them?  “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” (Hebrews 1 verse 14)  Take encouragement from this.  God knows where I am and knows what I am feeling and knows what I need.  Even when Elijah sat at the brook Cherith God knew all about him.  He spoke to the ravens and told them to carry him meat.  Think of Hagar, Sarah’s maid.  Sarah couldn’t have a child of her own to fulfil the promise of God.  She gave Hagar to her husband Abraham to bear him a child.  When Hagar gave birth, she was despised by Sarah and cast out of the home.  She was sent out into the wilderness with a cruise of water.  Hagar wandered in the wilderness until her water was finished.  She put her child under a bush and God heard the boy’s crying.  God spoke to Hagar through the gloom and darkness.  He helped her to see her future was brighter than she ever thought.  It is possible that God’s future for us is brighter than we can imagine because God has great things planned for us.

 

Elijah learned God’s plan.  He was in a very low spiritual condition, yet God hadn’t finished with him.  Perhaps he felt God was finished with him, but God knew better.  The devil brings us under attack, but God is not finished with us.  Elijah was exhausted and weak from his encounter on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal.  The plan from God was simple – rest and eat, then more resting and more eating.  He needed to take care of his physical being.  There comes a time when we need to take rest.  The devil can burn us out very quickly, chasing our tails but God didn’t give up.  Think of it in the life of the Prodigal Son.  He took the inheritance from his father early.  He went off to a far country and had a riotous life.  He ended up as a pauper.  He had no friends.  He was in a lonely place and then he thought “if I go back to my father, I could be a servant which would be better than where I am now.  He never thought of what he would see that day – his father waiting for him.  A demonstration of love so clearly.  God told Elijah “I love you and I am not finished with you yet.”  He says the same to us today.

 

Elijah’s leading was provided.  This man of God has wanted to die.  He saw himself as a failure.  Life was of no more consequence to him.  In verse 7 we see he had a journey to take.  It was too great for the natural mind.  The act of obedience is seen – “and he arose and did eat and drink and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.”  The journey we are on is strenuous.  We are not able for it.  What God gives us will sustain for the task ahead whatever that task may be.  In verse 8 we see the obedience – God took him up and sent him out.  He had a king to anoint and a man to choose to fill his shoes.  So much work to do.  God takes him up and made him get on with the task.  God still takes us up today.  HeE never gives up – that is the message from this passage to us today.