The Need to Persevere in God's Appointed Work (1 Kings 19:1-9)

Welcome to God's Word for Youth, a ministry of Sharon Arpey Church in Southeast Iowa. We want to thank you for listening today, and we pray that you'll be blessed by both hearing God's Word as well as having it applied to your life and your heart. 1 Kings 19, verses 1 through 9, and this is the account of Elijah after the famous encounter on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal. And let's hear them, 1 Kings chapter 19, verses 1 through 9. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so may the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by the time this time tomorrow.

And he was afraid and he arose and 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 came and sat down under a broom tree. He asked that he might die, saying, It is enough now, O Lord. Take away my life, for I am no better than my father's. And he lay down and slept under a broom tree.

And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, Arise and eat. He looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came upon him a second time and touched him and said, Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you. And he arose and ate and drank and went into the strength of the food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Gracious Father, we pray now that as we look at your word, that we would take encouragement from what it tells us here, that even as the prophet Elijah faced discouragement and fear, we pray that we would learn that just as he was your messenger for that time, so in the task that you put us in, you will give us the strength that we need for those tasks, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.

Sermon

Every one of us have had those times in our life when we felt like giving up on something. I think, in particular, when I was writing my doctoral thesis, there were times that I just felt like throwing it out the window. Matter of fact, apparently, when I was finishing it up, I had a program that the university gave me that was supposed to work to center the title page because they needed to be slightly off-centered because they had to bind the thing and it wasn't working. And my daughter reminded me one time that I said I was going to throw the computer out the window because it was not doing the way it was supposed to. Or the time in the same thing when I had gone to my thesis defense, and I passed it, but as I was walking out, my advisor, who was noted for spending all day looking at a computer screen over one sentence in a book he was writing, he did.

That's what he told me he would do. He would look at a computer screen all day to get one sentence right. He told me, I wish we would have had time to revise it. It was good, he said, but revise it once more. And I felt like throwing it at him and saying, How many times are we going to revise this stupid thing?

You don't say that to your advisor, of course, but you feel like it. We have those times where you just feel really discouraged. We are faced with those kind of temptations. What resources do we have? Well, this account of Elijah is one of those accounts in which we see Elijah faced with those very things. Because this account is after, and we're going to develop this a little bit more, so I'm not going to do it right at this moment, develop this, but let's just remember the setting.

Elijah has just been used mightily by the Lord. The confrontation with the prophets of Baal. You have to remember that setting. had challenged the prophets of Baal. Four hundred of them. There's lonely Elijah. These are the prophets that are running around, slancing them, cutting themselves, crying out, Baal, O Baal, hear us. And Elijah taunts them. Maybe he's gone. Maybe he went away on a journey. He literally says maybe he's in the bathroom.

And Elijah is taunting them. And Elijah makes it, ups the ante, has water poured all over the stones, calls upon God. The fire comes down from heaven. He tells the people, slaughter, kill, execute the prophets of Baal, the 400 prophets of Baal, and they do.

Man, talk about a marvelous picture of triumph. This is not a picture of triumph. This is a picture of a discouraged man. immediately after this. In the immediate aftermath of the encounter, we're going to find a couple of important truths when we deal with this whole question of discouragement. First of all, even those mightily used by God will sometimes feel like giving up.

As I said, the immediate context was that Elijah had spearheaded a direct assault on Jezebel's fondness for Baal and Ahab's attempt at syncretism. Remember Jezebel. She was the great devotee of Baal. Jezebel's an interesting character in the Bible. She's the picture, the high epitome of a wicked woman. There's one name that nobody ever names their daughters, and that's Jezebel. I dare you, find anybody that's ever named their daughter Jezebel. Nobody names their daughters Jezebel because she is the picture postcard of a wicked woman.

She's also a vain woman. Before she dies, she puts her makeup on. That's true. You read it. She's about ready to throw her out the window, and she says, oh, but I've got to put my eyeshadow on first. When I'm going down, I'm looking good. Talk about a vain woman. Not only is she evil, she's vain. If I'm going down, I'm going to look good when I go down. She was a devotee of Baal. Now her husband, Ahab, was the syncretist.

What's that mean, you say? He's the guy that likes to mix it up. He thought you could have Baal worship and we could have worship of Yahweh the Lord. We can just have a little bit of each. Both of them had been judged on Mount Carmel. Elijah had said, okay, you either worship the Lord or you worship Baal. Don't waver. It's either God or Baal. And Elijah made it very clear who the Lord demonstrated through the power of Elijah, who was really the true God. It was the Lord. Great success.

But then the chapter opens up with Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done. You know, he had killed the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, So may the gods do to me in war, if I do not make your life as the life of one of those by them this time tomorrow." Do you see what Jezebel is doing here? She says, okay, you think you've won a great victory, Mr. Elijah. Not so quick. I am going to threaten your life. She apparently had seen that the tide had turned.

And you can imagine if Elijah had been used by the Lord with this kind of success, the very fact that he got them to kill, execute. I mean, Elijah couldn't have done that by himself. He used all the other people who followed him to execute these prophets of Baal. The tide had swung not only from Baal worship, but the wobbly worship that Ahab wanted to now at least it looked like the worship of the Lord was going to be reinstituted.

And Jezebel basically is pointing his finger at Elijah and saying, you, you're the ringleader. You are the one I'm going to get. Because you're the, remember Ahab had called him the troubler in Israel? You're the troubler in Israel. You're the root of all of this problem. Her vow here was sort of like a covenant of sorts. But she conveniently, by the way, left out what would happen to her if it didn't, because that's, most of those vows, it was something, you know, I'll do this to you, but it'll happen to me.

No, it's Elijah, I'm going to get you. And the text says Elijah left. Now here's where we, I have to read, I had read the ESV. I have to read here out of the New King James, which you have in your, because we have a slight variation on translation that could have some impact on how we can translate this. And normally I'm a big fan of the ESV, but in this case, I think the New King James actually gets it more correct. New King James chapter 19 verse 3 says, ESV says, when he saw that, then he was afraid. New King James says, when he saw that, he arose and ran. No mention of being afraid.

You might say, how do you get those two different translations? What you get is that the Hebrew word for when he saw or that he was afraid The root, the consonants are the same consonants. The vowels are different. The vowels in Hebrew are little dots and dashes and circles that get put above and below the Hebrew word. And we have manuscripts with both.

It looks like this manuscript evidence is stronger for what the New King James translates it. In other words, when he saw that, he ran. So what did he saw? C. He saw that Jezebel was after him.

Most people will argue from the context, this is where they get this, even though it's not as well attested, they will say, he must have been afraid. But I don't think that's really accurately getting at what his problem was. Think about this. Elijah had just confronted the 400 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. Does that look like an afraid man to you? No. Would he be afraid of a boisterous woman as opposed to 400 prophets of Baal? If it is, it's a strange phenomenon. He'd be afraid of one woman as opposed to 400 prophets of Baal.

It's more likely, I think, that it was a combination of fear but also discouragement. I'm not saying there was no fear there. But to say it's all fear, I think, is to miss what's really happening here. The larger context, I think, shows that what Elijah was operating with was a combination of discouragement and fear.

His whole ministry had been an attack on the religion of Baal, Baalism, let's call it. He thought he was having success. I think he really did. I think Elijah thought, okay, We've had real success there. Look it. I've rallied the people around me. They put the prophets to death. And then he gets this message from Jezebel saying, you're a goner.

He knew that in the corridors of power, there was opposition. And that opposition from the corridors of power may very well, as he understood, be just the real problem that he was going to run into. Because while he may have rallied some common people to him, the common people very well may have said, you know, if she's going to threaten an Elijah, what's she going to do to us? It wasn't going as smoothly as he thought.

He had stood up against the prophets, but now he was facing the opposition of Jezebel. There's a lot of severe disappointment here. He had just witnessed the great victory on Mount Carmel, but rather than Ahab and Jezebel repenting, they had been just driven further into opposition. The struggles between the forces of the Lord and the forces of Baal, the forces of darkness, shall we say, forces of Satan, to go back to the ultimate root, had been dealt a severe blow, but they were still fighting. They'd been knocked down, but they were still fighting.

Maybe he had become too much to expect that if I just did the spectacular, if there's anything that was spectacular in the Bible, that was. I mean, pouring all the water, and then having the fire come down from heaven. That's spectacular. Maybe he's thinking, I don't know, I'm just kind of reading in the lines here, but maybe he's thinking, what more spectacular can the Lord do?

This isn't over. That evil woman Jezebel and her cronies are still fighting us tooth and nail. You can see what he says here. He says, I am no better than my fathers. That's a telltale sign. He's saying, oh, oh boy. They couldn't defeat the forces of evil. Look at all the struggles we've had. I'm not doing any better. I don't think that symbolizes just fear. I think that shows real discouragement, maybe even depression. In other words, time to give up. Because what do you see in here? He lies down under a tree and he says, I just need to die. I just need to die.

What good is it? What have I done that's anything better than any of my forefathers? I'm a failure just like they were failures. You can have a stupendous victory. Doesn't matter. The Jezebels of this world are still out there. What can in the world can we do? He just didn't want to die at the Lord's hands, at Jezebel's hands, rather. But he said, Lord, maybe you should take me. Maybe you should take me, Lord. I'm worthless. What good did I do here?

He fled to Beersheba, which is the farthest south point in the original boundaries of Israel. But did you notice that he went farther than that? He's out in the wilderness. where the children of Israel wandered around for all those years. So apparently he felt, well, if I'm not gonna die, maybe at least I can get out of the country. That's what it seems like. He literally gets out of the country, puts himself into exile.

This is important for us because when we are struggling in this world as God's instruments against the forces of evil, and we are, We pray the Lord's prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray also, keep us from the evil one. We are in spiritual battle. I mean, the book of Ephesians chapter six, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. And there are times though, when you ever, let's be honest, aren't there those times you feel like saying, what's the use? What's the use? Why should I keep doing this?

The forces of evil look like they just keep winning. Elijah, if anybody had a reason to say that, it's Elijah. Great victory on Mount Carmel. Immediately Jezebel's saying, I'm going to get you and those associated with you. You think this is over? It's not over, Mr. Elijah. It's just started. That's literally what she's saying. And it's not over. battle is just started. He thought maybe it was over. It's not.

He was God's specially appointed bearer of God's Word for that time. The Lord had vindicated his Word through mighty signs, yet he was seems to have been almost totally devastated by the fact that it hadn't changed that many minds. Think about that. He was God's appointed bearer of the Word. God had collaborated it with mighty signs, yet not everybody's mind was changed. Elijah, just like us, needed to recognize the struggle may be long and hard, and the effect of God's Word can be twofold. It can be blessing, but the effect of God's Word can also be curse. Now, what do we mean by that? It can be words of judgment. What do you think about the response of Jezebel? I'm gonna get you and those like you. I'm gonna get you guys, basically is what she's saying. What does that deserve? But the judgment and curse of God.

That didn't make Elijah's ministry any less valuable. He was still the faithful bearer of God's word. He was still needed there. The Lord didn't say to him, I don't need you anymore. But Elijah felt like his ministry was useless at that time. So too, we need to recognize that the results of anything we do in this world to serve our Lord are in God's hands and in his timing. Our response, of course, is to be faithful. in the work in which he has called us to do, whatever that may be. There was an old German reform minister of about 150 years ago, named Krummacher, who wrote a wonderful devotional commentary on the life of Elijah, and he said these words that are really wise words, and let me read those to you.

Ah, who is warranted yet in saving? It is enough. It is only when the Lord says it is enough. Let me read that again. These are really wise words. Who is warranted in saying it is enough? That's what Elijah—didn't you see? That's what Elijah said. It's enough. I'm done. I'm done. It's enough. And Mr. Krumacher says, no. That's words we really don't have the right to say. I'm paraphrasing, of course, it's enough. Only when the Lord says it's enough, then we give up.

And this is where Elijah is allowing this discouragement and mixed with fear to overcoming. He's saying, okay, that woman, I can't stand up against her. Prophets of Baal, yeah, we can deal with those, but that woman, no, no, not that woman. She can foment more difficulty than anybody.

This is, I thought I'd won the battle. No. And as Mr. Cromacher said, he says, it's enough, I gotta die now. I'm done. And the Lord, that's something that's in the Lord's hands. Elijah wasn't done. God wasn't done with Elijah. He needed to have this discouragement dealt with, of course. But he was still God's messenger. Christ, of course, bore the full brunt of Satan's attack and was triumphant. Elijah needed a reminder that his sufficiency was of God and ultimately due to Christ's victory. He was overcome momentarily by unbelief here. That's really what this is. Unbelief, lack of trust in the sufficiency of God's work here. Think about this.

Someone who has faced prophets of Baal, couldn't he trust the Lord to say, I can face that evil woman and all that she stands for? Yes, of course he should have been able to say, I stood up against 400 plus prophets of Baal. I can stand up against that evil woman as well. But she frightened him. She discouraged him. He needed to trust in the Lord.

Second Point

And it leads us to our second lesson we want to learn, is that God's grace alone can restore us and prepare us for future services. The Lord intervenes here. He does through an angel. It says, an angel comes to him a couple of times. This is the same means, interestingly enough, that the Lord used to minister to Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Maybe the Lord brings angels to minister to us. I don't know. The Lord says there are angels unawares that we don't know about. I don't know how the Lord works through angels.

There's not a lot of material in Scripture about that, but other than here, it says an angel ministered to him. Now, the Lord is obviously answering Elijah's prayer, but not quite in the way he thought. Elijah thought he was alone. The Lord is going to show him he's not.

And a significant portion of this restoration here, you notice this is just simple physical restoration. He eats and sleeps. And then you think about that. This is fascinating. You'd think he would have gotten a big pep talk from the angels, right? Get the stiff upper lip. Come on, Elijah. You're not gonna be a wimp, are you, and let that woman, that evil woman, just drive you crazy like this?

No. He gets fed, and he rests. He needed physical restoration, because it took a toll on him physically as well. It seems to have been a very simple meal. Some have said like a typical Bedouin meal cooked out on the rocks. We don't know exactly what it was, but it was a simple meal. We don't know if there was any miracle in this, not told. But the Lord provided for him.

But then interestingly enough, instead of going back, and I think this is the Lord directing him, he went 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, the Mount of God. Now you might say, what's going on here? Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai. the giving of the law. There are things that should all of a sudden jump out at you. 40 days, that number 40. Elijah seemed to instinctively known that this was beneficial for him to go to Mount Sinai. No direct mention of the Lord telling them. He just seemed to instinctively know this.

You might say, why 40 days and 40 nights? People who've clocked this said, it's about 200 miles. Even if you walked slowly, you could have gotten there a couple of days easily, even if it was a rough terrain. Why 40 days and 40 nights? This is symbolic of the fact of this number. How long did the Israelites wander in that very same area? 40 years. Forty seems to be always a number that's used of spiritual purification in Scripture.

He also rests in a cave. Look at the beginning of verse 9. He came to a cave and lodged there. This is the very same area that Moses was lodged in a cave when the God's glory passed by. And we aren't going to look at this text, but if you go on, he has an actual encounter, the famous still small voice, where he gets encouragement from the Lord. The Lord wasn't in the whirlwind. The Lord was not in the earthquake or fire, but he was in the still, small voice, a soft voice of encouragement.

Elijah, go on. Well, this strengthening that Elijah received was a gift of divine grace, because he was ready to give up. But the Lord still had more for him to do and providentially prepares him for it. He was to be thrown upon the Lord's providential enablement for 40 days. Now this is not a place where it's easy to find food. Remember what the Lord had to do for the children of Israel there. Man, I had to show up. How the Lord fed Elijah, I have no idea. Previously, the Lord had fed him with ravens, bringing him food. How the Lord took care of him, we don't know. This case, apparently, the simple meals had showed up. Do these continue? We don't know. But the Lord was refreshing him.

Not only physically, though, because wandering around 40 days in the Sinai Desert out there, that's not always the most refreshing place. If you've ever seen pictures of the Sinai Desert, it's barren. It's not a pleasant place. Isn't there like grape and blackberries and everything hanging out, so you can just go and pick them off and pop them in, and little brooks everywhere? Well, it's rough territory with not much to eat.

The Lord was taking care of him. And the Lord was reminding him, Elijah, I'm not done with you yet. Think about me. And then he has this encounter with God in the cave. What this is telling us is, Elijah, a period of time for you to refresh and refocus yourself and be reminded, I am not done with you yet.

Thinking about the fact that next week you're celebrating the Lord's Supper. This is a time, of course, for you to spiritually be refreshed and fed again. It's one of the best times bringing God's presence into our experience so that we can be refreshed. But even apart from those times where we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we come to see that we trust in the Lord. We recognize that he will give us both the physical and the spiritual refreshment for us to carry on the task that he's called us to do. As we seek his face, we can be assured that whatever task he's called us to do, his strength is what we need.

23rd Psalm. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are there. We might need times of R&R, as we say. This is a time of R&R here. Nothing wrong with that. Christ did, too.

I still remember when I grew up where I did in Northwest Indiana, there was the Cedar Lake Bible Conference. It was a conference ground. I think it's still there on a small lake, oh, about 20 miles away from where I grew up. And they always had Bible conferences there and church meetings would be held there. And when you go there, They had a tabernacle and they had various preachers there. And on the back they had, in King James English, of course, this is back when I was a boy, it said, come ye apart and rest a while. And that was a big word at the Cedar Lake Bible Conference.

Come ye apart and rest a while. Just a reminder. In other words, yeah, it's good for you to come here to the Bible Conference right on the shore. Cedar Lake wasn't a pretty lake. It was actually a pretty dirty lake because it was too close to Chicago area and boats ran over it all the time. But the point is that it was a pretty place on a conference ground on the shore of a lake. you could come apart and rest and become refreshed.

Sometimes we need that. But above all, we need to have the refreshment, not come apart like Elijah was tempted to do and stew upon all his problems and lie down and say, okay, I'm done, take me, Lord, I gotta die. But instead, receive God's refreshment, both physical and spiritual, and say, okay, Lord, you've refreshed me to get back in the battle. Whatever task you've called me to do, Christ has won the victory. I'm out here in the trenches. You have a task for me to do and to do it.

Even the greatest and most used of God's servants, and if you don't think Elijah is one of the greatest and most used of God's servants, you're missing something here. Because after all, for example, on the Mount of Transfiguration, who is one of the two figures that shows up to meet Jesus? Elijah, Moses, and Elijah. Elijah then is the representative symbol of the prophets, the most mightily used of God's prophets. This doesn't show a man who thinks he's mightily used. It shows a man who says, I'm gonna die. Everything is done. This was a waste. You almost see him saying this was a waste. I can just almost see him saying, this is a waste. Take me, Lord.

No, it wasn't a waste. It's been recorded in Scripture. The encounter is one of the great examples of the Lord challenging and defeating the forces of evil. And Elijah, get up. Let me refresh you. Go down and go down to Mount Sinai. Remember what I've done for the people of Israel in the past. I'm not, when you say you're no better than the fathers, remember what the Lord did with the fathers in the past. Let me retrace you down there. Spend some time down in there, 40 days. I will refresh you physically, but I'll also refresh you spiritually.

Closing Prayer

God has blessings for us. His blessings are new every day, and Elijah needed to be reminded of that. Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Thank you for this message from your word. We pray that we would learn from it and seek our refreshment from you as well in those times of discouragement and wanting to give up. We thank you for being taught this from your word today, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for listening to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon Arkey Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. We pray that you would be blessed as you grow in your love for God, your love for His Word, as well as your love for His people. Until next week, God bless you.