Partnering with the King

After a long time, in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land.”    So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. (1 Kings 18:1-2) And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.” So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. “Go and look toward the sea,” he told his servant. And he went up and looked. “There is nothing there,” he said. Seven times Elijah said, “Go back.” The seventh time the servant reported, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” So Elijah said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’ ” Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain came on and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. (1 Kings 18:41-45).

This section from 1 Kings is one of the most interesting in all of the Bible. In the middle of the account above, Elijah challenged the prophets of Bail to a showdown on top of Mt. Carmel. He built an altar, placed sacrificial animals on it, and challenged the false prophets to call on their God to consume the sacrifice with fire. They prayed, screamed, danced and cut themselves all day but no response came from their god. Toward the end of the day, Elijah poured huge amounts of water on the sacrifice along with the wood and stones of the altar and called on Jehovah. Immediately, fire came down from heaven consuming not only the sacrificial animals but also the entire altar. Elijah then had the false prophets of Bail executed.

Bookending the demise of the prophets of Bail is the account of the great drought. As punishment on Israel because of her wicked leaders, God had given Elijah a prophetic word to speak in the presence of Ahab. “Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word” (1 Kings 17:1). Then, three years later, just before the Mt. Carmel showdown, God told Elijah that rain was coming. Interestingly, after the showdown, Elijah climbed to the top of Mt. Carmel again and began to pray for rain which God had already declared was coming. Why would he do that? Wasn’t God’s word good enough for him?

Of course it was. But this account once again reveals how God partners with his people to do his will on earth. Undoubtedly, God could have stopped the rain and released the rain whenever he wanted to without involving any human. But remember, God has determined to rule the earth and expand his kingdom through his people – his representatives. God did not stop the rain until his prophet declared the word of the Lord in front of Ahab. God would not begin the rain until his prophet prayed and released the rain through a prayer of faith. What an honor and what a responsibility.

God’s will was done after a man declared the word of the Lord over a situation and after a man prayed fervently for the thing God had already told him he was about to do. God holds much of his will in reserve until his people hear or sense his will and then declare it, command it, or pray it. In Elijah’s case, he apparently prayed seven times for God to release the rain. There will be times when we will have to pray earnestly and persistently for something that we know is God’s will. We know that God desires that all men should be saved. We already have his word on that but we may have to pray for a loved one for years before God’s will is manifested in that person’s life.

The honor is that the King partners with us in accomplishing his will. The responsibility is that we have to seek his will and then declare it, command it, or pray persistently for it. It may not happen if we do no do our part on this end even if it is something God desires. God has decided that we can release his will or stifle his will on the earth – not in all things, but in very many things. So…we need to ask his what he wants us to do to release his will and then do it. After all, much of what heaven wants to do is in our hands and in your hands.

Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent. (Ex.33:8-11).

This section of scripture from the book of Exodus gives us some insight into God’s heart for his people and their hesitancy to respond to the very blessing God offered. Most of us assume that only Moses or the priests of Israel could come near the presence of God in the Tent of Meeting or in the tabernacle. That was true of the Tabernacle and the Holy Place where the Ark of the Covenant rested but previous to the construction of the tabernacle it appears that there was an invitation for any Hebrew to come to the Tent of Meeting and “inquire of the Lord.”

Every Hebrew was invited to come before the Lord and speak to him and to hear his voice. It was an open invitation from Jehovah to enter an intimate relationship with the Creator and yet the people kept their distance – except for Moses and his aide Joshua. In this text we have a picture of God’s people standing back while Moses spoke to the Lord on their behalf. Undoubtedly, the people stayed away from fear more than reverence. When Moses brought Israel to the foot of Sinai, God descended in fire and smoke with the trumpet blasts of a king coming to his people. Moses was drawn to the presence of God because he perceived his goodness while the rest of Israel fell back in terror. Although Joshua was probably a man of courage by nature, he must have also had his view of Jehovah shaped by Moses who had initially met with God on the Mountain.  There he had seen the immensity of his goodness as God passed by while protecting Moses from being overwhelmed by his presence. Although Joshua had a great reverence for the Lord, he was not terrified of him and accepted the invitation to be in his presence even though he was not of the priestly tribe of Levi. The people would stand and worship as Moses entered the tent, but they would not go themselves.

That reminds me of God’s people today in many respects. They will stand and worship once a week but will let the preacher be the one who draws close to God on their behalf. Is it fear, a sense of unworthiness that keeps us away, or is it a sense that if we got close enough to hear the voice of God he might ask us to do things we are unwilling to do? Maybe it’s all three. Perhaps, the Church’s resistance to the Spirit of God moving in our midst comes from the same mindset of God being dangerous. In his book, Holy Fire, R.T. Kendall reminds us of the line from C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia where someone asks if Aslan, the Lion King, is safe? The response was that Aslan is not safe but he is good. Kendall makes the point that the same is true of the Holy Spirit – he is not always safe but he is always good.

If you think about it, God has made the same offer to us that he made to Israel. He invites each of us to come into his presence, to inquire of him, and to hear his voice. He has made each of us priests, made us holy by the blood of His Son, and opened the door to his presence and his voice by the Holy Spirit. And yet many continue to keep their distance while the invitation stands.

There are those who still see God as distant and unapproachable and one who only speaks through his written word. But Israel already had his written word in the Law and his Commandments when Moses erected the tent and issued the invitation for anyone to come and inquire of the Lord – not to know the Law but to know the Father. The issue is that the heart of God still longs to meet with his people and to dialogue with them personally. Because the Holy Spirit lives within us and bears witness with our Spirit, each of us have the potential of being a tent of meeting because we are the temple of God.

God still desires to speak personally with each of us – through his Word, through his Spirit with the “still small voice” of Elijah’s cave, and through his prophetic people as we speak the things of God one to another. My prayer is that we, like Joshua, never want to leave the presence of the Father and hunger to hear his voice. May we pursue him, his voice, and his gifts with the passion of treasure hunters for these are all treasures purchased for us by the blood of the Lamb.

Elijah was the greatest prophet of the Old Testament.  I say that because, Jesus declared that John the Baptist had come in the spirit of Elijah and was the one given the honor to announce the coming of Messiah.  When Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James and John it was Moses and Elijah who met with Jesus on that mountain (see Matt. 17:3).

Elijah simply appears in the pages of scripture in 1 Kings 17.  We know nothing of his parents, his tribe or his upbringing.  He simply appears in the days of King Ahab and his wife Jezebel who promoted idol worship in Israel and who ruled as tyrants.  Elijah seems to be the forerunner of John the Baptist in many ways.  He confronted Ahab about his sins as John confronted Herod. He seemed to live mostly in the desert and wore a garment of hair with a leather belt around his waist (2 Kings 1:8) which sounds very much like John the Baptist.  Elijah differs, however, in that he performed miracles and was provided for miraculously while we have no record of John the Baptist ever performing a miracle.

It was Elijah who declared that there would be no dew or rain in Israel for three and a half years except at hos own word. It was also Elijah who confronted 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah on the top of Mount Carmel.  He stood against then and King Ahab until Jehovah was proven to be the true God and the prophets of Baal destroyed.  He was then instructed to go pray for rain and after doing so God sent rain after the three and a half year drought in Israel.  By the way, if Ahab had ever killed Elijah before he prayed for rain it is possible that it would have never rained again in Israel because the drought was to be broken only by Elijah’s words.

As you read the 17^th and 18^th chapters of 1 Kings, Elijah appears to be the fearless, unshakeable man of God that we all want to be.  But something out of character occurs in chapter 19.  After the confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, Ahab told Jezebel what had happened to her “pet priests.” After hearing about their destruction, Jezebel sent word to Elijah that she had taken a vow to kill him within the next 24 hours.

The text then reads,  “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep” (1 Kings 19:3-5).

What we see in Elijah is a spiritual reality that we all need to be aware of.  Often, after great spiritual victories, we become susceptible to fatigue and fear.  Think about it.  Elijah had just completed an amazing day of spiritual victory – confronting Ahab, calling down fire from heaven, destroying the prophets of Baal, and then ran a marathon (see 1 Kings 18:45) to Jezreel.  He did all of this in the power of the Spirit.  However, when the infinite Spirit of God works through the finite body and soul of a man, spiritual and physical fatigue often sets in.  Even Jesus experienced that in his body so that at times he would separate himself from the crowds to seek a quiet place, rest, and time with the Father.

To put it bluntly, put a fork in Elijah because he is done. Elijah is drained at the end of the day and when the threat from Jezebel is delivered, he just doesn’t have the energy or faith to go another round. We like Elijah need to know that we are often vulnerable to the enemy after great spiritual victories or even spiritual highs.  We especially experience that desire to flee when we thought the battle was over and another assault from the enemy suddenly appears.

We have an event called Freedom Weekend where our team will minister in prayer and deliverance to 60 to 70 people over a period of 4 or 5 hours.  At the end of the day, there is always a sense of thankfulness for what God has done and a sense of victory over the enemy.  But there always comes a moment when our team is “done” and no one wants to hear that someone needs a little more deliverance. Our team goes home fulfilled, excited, and tired. All they want is a warm meal and a warm bed.  We have also noticed that for the next week or two there is often a since of spiritual fatigue and almost a spiritual apathy that sets in.  We call this the “Elijah syndrome.” This is a time that we need to rest but also to be very wary of the enemy who wants to exploit that spiritual vulnerability.

Elijah ran away from more battles at the time but God cared for him along the way and was waiting for him when he arrived at Horeb and hid in a cave. Ultimately, Elijah needed a break from the battle; he needed sleep, food, rest, and some time alone.  He needed to hear the small, still voice of God to renew him.  If we try to analyze Elijah’s thoughts we sense that after his great victory of faith, he thought that Ahab and the world around him would change for the better.  Jezebel’s threat left him feeling as if his efforts for God had made no difference.  The enemy was still bold and enthroned and now he was in the crosshairs of, perhaps, the most wicked woman of her time or any time. However, Elijah has set in motion a sequence that would soon take both Ahab and Jezebel off the throne and out of this world.  He discovered that he was not alone in his love for God and righteousness, and he had won the praise of God which is the ultimate prize indeed.

In my last blog I spoke about being aware of the devil’s schemes and so I wanted to make you aware or to remind you of this natural spiritual let down that often occurs right after a mountaintop experience with God. When you have labored hard for a victory and have won the battle, be prepared to experience what Elijah experienced.  Elijah was disappointed in himself for his spiritual letdown but God cared for him and encouraged him until his spiritual energy was restored.  The letdown doesn’t always occur but it occurs often, so find a way to get some rest, spend a little time alone but get some people around you to pray and talk about the victory and to celebrate the win. Ask them to pray for you to be rejuvenated and spend quiet time listening to God. The enemy would love for you to get down on yourself because you suddenly don’t feel like the great man or woman of faith that you seemed to be 24 hours earlier.  He would love to accuse and condemn but just know that it is a natural cycle that even the greatest of prophets experienced and know that your passion and faith will return soon.

Be blessed today in God’s care.