Insightful Musings on the Scriptures
by
Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67
Greetings, dear ones.
Time to go…past time to go. We need to make tracks up to St. Helens to attend a memorial for a relative. We’ll do church on the way.
Blessings on your day.
Love. Dad/Ray.
Elijah had been clearly used of God. Among other amazing ministry exploits, he led in that bold and spectacular showdown on Mt. Carmel that set off a dramatic revival in Israel. Being a “man of God” with special divine connections so as to perform sensational miracles is heady stuff. If that’s all he did all the time—on a roll of speaking the “word of the LORD” along with supernatural power dripping from his fingers, along with little or no resistance, he could not avoid becoming an ARROGANT “man of God”—with the potential of proceeding to becoming just a plain ARROGANT MAN. It must be understood that any “man of God” is still a man. Failure to recognize that balance has to pose the greatest danger of being a “man of God.”
At this point in Israel’s history, they were largely just another heathen nation. Baal worship was the predominant national religion. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel functioned in Israel kind of like the movie and media industries function in America today—they were both thermometers and thermostats—reflecting the moral and spiritual temperature of the nation as well as affecting it. To be sure, the fires of revival cannot peacefully coexist with the ice of SIN and heathenism. Both will militate against the other. Even though Elijah’s fire was beginning to thaw the ice, Jezebel’s icy threat on Elijah’s life turned him cold—and he ran for his life.
I don’t mean to be putting words in God’s mouth, but when Elijah, in his exhausted discouragement said, “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors,” it could have been appropriate for the Lord to respond something like, “I am taking your life, Elijah—and you’re right where I want you to be. You’re still learning important lessons—even now. And you’re right—you are no better than your ancestors. At heart level, in and of themselves, they are all SINNERS IN NEED OF A SAVIOR. And the minute you really think you are made of different stuff, you lock yourself on a course of damaging pride. Seeking Me, being right before Me, and nurturing a sensitive ear to My “gentle whisper” (19:12), is far more important than trying to be better than others. An attitude of superiority is not the way I want things run.”
If the illustration the Lord dramatically gave to Elijah outside his cave of hiding (wind, earthquake, fire, gentle whisper) says anything to me, it once again underlines the importance of a HEART AFTER GOD.