Where Is the Lord God of Elijah?

Edward Griffin (1770—1837)
 

2 Kings 2:14
"Where is the Lord God of Elijah?"

This was the exclamation of Elisha at a time when his master had just been taken up from him in a fiery chariot, and he stood in need of the assistance of that God who had so remarkably displayed his power in the days of Elijah. In that period of declension from the worship of Jehovah, a long suffering God raised up a succession of prophets to bear testimony for him and to work miracles in his name. One of the most distinguished of these prophets was Elijah. The time in which he executed the prophetic office was a remarkable period in the history of that people. Except Moses and Samuel, there had been no prophet whose ministry had been attended with such pre-eminent tokens of divine power. At his request the heavens were shut that "it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months;" when he was hungry the ravens were commanded to feed him; at his word the widow's meal and oil failed not during the famine; he restored the same widow's son to life; he gloriously triumphed over the prophets of Baal by calling fire from Heaven on Carmel; "he prayed again and the Heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit;" he called fire from Heaven to consume the two captains with their hostile bands. At last when the time drew near for him to be received up into Heaven, he came to Jordan with Elisha, and "took his mantle and wrapped it together and smote the waters, and they were divided, so that they two went over on dry ground. And it came to pass as they still went on and talked, that behold there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into Heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces." At this time of distress, when that glorious season of divine wonders was past, (the season of Elijah's ministry,) when Elisha looked back on those delightful days as forever gone—when his trembling soul panted for the return of those displays of divine power and glory—when he ventured, in the strength of the Lord, to attempt the same things that Elijah had done; it was then that he looked upward and inquired, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?"

This inquiry he made when he smote the waters of Jordan with Elijah's mantle and opened a passage for himself on dry ground. This inquiry we may suppose he made when he healed the waters of Jericho—when by his frown he called two she bears from the wood to destroy the children of idolatrous parents who had been taught to mock him—when he multiplied the widow's oil—when he raised the Shunammite's son—when he purified the poisoned pottage, when he fed the multitude with a few loaves—when he healed Naaman—when he smote Gehazi with leprosy—when he made the iron swim—when he opened his servant's eyes to behold the mountain full of chariots and horses of fire—when he smote the messengers of Syria with blindness and again restored their sight. The spirit of Elijah did rest upon Elisha in an increased degree. When the former was about to ascend into Heaven, he "said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee. And Elisha said, I pray you let a double portion of your spirit be upon me. And he said, You have asked a hard thing; nevertheless if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so unto thee."—Elisha saw him when he ascended: he caught his falling mantle, and with it a double portion of his spirit, and in the course of his life performed more miracles than his master had done.

The particular point in which I wish to view the prophet as inquiring for the Lord God of Elijah, is in the act of raising the Shunammite's son. It was her only child—the son of her old age—which God had given her for her hospitality to the prophet. When he was grown and was with his father in the field, "he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had—brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees until noon and then died. And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him and went out." And she hastened away to Carmel to the man of God, and brought him to her house. And "he went in" where the child lay, "and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the Lord. And he went up and lay upon the child." Where now is the Lord God of Elijah who raised the widow's son of Sarepta? "And [he] put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the child, and the flesh of the child waxed warm. And he returned and walked in the house to and fro." Methinks I hear him inwardly crying as he courses the room, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" "And [he] went up and stretched himself upon him; and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. And he called" his servant "and said, Call the Shunammite. So he called her: and when she came in unto him, he said, Take up your son. Then she went in and fell at his feet and bowed herself to the ground, and took up her son and went out." Ah how much might the faith of parents avail to raise their children to life who are dead in trespasses and sins.

This sermon I propose to consecrate to mourning. I heartily wish I had no occasion to address you in any other language than that of congratulation and joy. I could wish that this address was prepared to bid you all a welcome to the privileges of believers, and that I might triumphantly speak to you and your households as together bound to the kingdom of Heaven. I should then be saved from disturbing your peace with the sad tones of grief and depression. But I confess I have no spirits to entertain you with pleasant descriptions. There is a weight at my heart which suppresses every sprightly thought; and instead of giving you pleasure, I must call upon you to mourn. Is there not a cause? Our poor children are dead. Some of our dearest friends are dead. There are many around us, as dear to us as the child of the Shunammite was to his mother, who are dead in the most dreadful sense of the word, dead in trespasses and sins. Many parents among us have not a living child in the world. Some have not a living friend on earth. In some families you see death and life coupled together. Here is a living wife bound to a dead husband; there a living husband united to a dead wife; here a living child is supporting a dead parent; and there a whole family lie dead together. Death and life are in the same sense united in this assembly. On the same seat the dead and the living are crowded together. Should the hand of God deprive of motion every body in this house which contains a dead soul, what lamentation would be heard among us. How many would retire from the house fatherless? how many childless? how many widows? how many whole families would be swept off together? If our friends should be deprived of natural life we should mourn; and have we not a tear for those whose souls are dead and putrid in sin? Shall not a parent mourn who has six or eight dead children in his house?

How many of our poor unhappy youth are wholly destitute of spiritual life. You who have hearts formed for pity, come and look and weep. To see so many promising children—so many youth lovely even in death—scattered over the valley and numbered with the slain, is it not a pitiable sight? It is evident the poor creatures are dead, or they would not be so unmindful of the solemn objects which surround them and the infinitely interesting prospects before them. If they were not dead they would not be so regardless of death and the grave. If they were not dead they would not be so lost to a sense of God their Maker and Benefactor, nor to that holiness and communion with him which are spiritual and eternal life. If they were not dead they would not be so unmoved by a Savior's love; they would not be so insensible of distress under the wounds which sin has given them. You would hear them sigh and complain; but dead bodies cannot feel. If they were not dead they would not be so unawed by the thunders which roll above their heads, so deaf to the entreaties of Heaven, so unaffected by the anxious voice of their minister, so untouched by the tears of their parents. The dear unhappy children little know the sorrows and heart aches of living friends who behold them dead. The dead are unmindful of the lamentations which are made around their hearse, and of a parent's tear that often falls upon their grave. If Ezekiel could weep when he stood by the valley filled with the dry bones of his people, we have no less cause to mourn. What can be done for our poor dead children? Ministers have called to them with an aching heart until their voice and their spirits failed, and they could cry no longer. Their parents have wrung their hands over their lifeless offspring and cried in the ears of the dead, If you ever loved your parent, hear me, answer me once, my child: but there is "neither voice nor hearing." All that the most anxious love could accomplish, has been as unavailing as the staff of Gehazi. When one attempt has failed we have made another, and another still. We have, as it were, put our eyes to their eyes, and our hands to their hands, and endeavored to renew the breath of life in them; but their flesh does not wax warm nor a pulse move. Sometimes with bursting tears we ask, Are then our children irrecoverably dead? Will they never revive? What more can we do? Where can we go? To whom can we apply?

 Where, where is the Lord God of Elijah? He is our last resort. Our last trembling hope hangs on him. He only can raise the dead. I am convinced of it. I yield the point, and our dear friends must lie in eternal death if the Lord God of Elijah do not come to their relief. We may continue to stand over them with extended, pleading hands, and may drench their shroud with our tears, but the dead will not regard it. We may present before them every possible argument; Heaven, earth, and Hell may be drained of motives; but all will be to no purpose. Heaven, earth, and Hell have been drained of motives; the experiment has been often tried: but you see how they lie. Behold, look for yourselves: not a muscle which death has stiffened will move. It is distressing. We have done all we can do, but they are as dead as though nothing had been done. Could any other tones charm the ear of death, those tones should be eagerly sought. If the graver tones of divine authority, of divine threatening, could be heard, they have been often tried. If more sprightly, pleasant, and even sportive strains could allure—as hard as it might be to be mirthful among the dead, we would attempt even that: we would conceal our sorrows, we would quell the rising tear, we would smile among the ruins of death, and though our heart should break we would not give it vent. But I know that whether men weep or smile, both will be in vain. The dead care not for laughter more than for grief. I am discouraged and sick of depending on human efforts. We have exhausted our power, but we cannot even produce one serious thought. Where then is the Lord God of Elijah? It does absolutely depend on him whether there shall ever be another sinner converted in this congregation. Should he put the question to us, "Son of man, can these bones live?" what could we answer but, "O Lord God, you know"? Thus wholly dependant on him, what can we do but take our friends in the arms of faith and carry them up and lay them before God, as the Shunammite carried up her dead son and laid him on the bed of the man of God? If she hastened to Carmel and embraced the feet of the prophet, and said, "As the Lord lives and as your soul lives I will not leave you," let us go and embrace the feet of Jesus, with the determination of Jacob, "I will not let you go except you bless me." As we stand over the dry bones of the valley, unable to make a bone move, let us earnestly cry, "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live." He who raised the widow's son of Nain—he who stood at the grave's mouth and said, "Lazarus, come forth,"—he who burst the bands of death and rose triumphant—he can revive our children.

At the time when Elisha smote the waters of Jordan and cried, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" he looked back on a season which had been marked with divine wonders—the season of Elijah's ministry. That ministry was closed. Elijah had taken his flight to Heaven, and Elisha was left to brood over the recollection of scenes which could never return. Such a period lies before our eyes as they are turned to review the past. The middle half of last century was a distinguished period in the Christian Church. Many with whom we have taken counsel, could well remember that glorious day, when both continents experienced a remarkable visit from the Holy Spirit; when evangelical ministers, like angels flying through the midst of Heaven, traveled from city to city, from state to state, and often rode the Atlantic wave, to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation; when those servants of God bore valiant testimony against the worldling and the formalist arrayed in clerical habits, and prevailed to establish a new epoch in the progress of evangelical piety and preaching. That was a blessed day, never to be forgotten on earth, and which will be joyfully remembered to eternity by thousands who then first began to see the light and live. Christians then were alive; their spirits were tender; religious conversation chiefly occupied their social hours; their hearts were sweetly united in brotherly love; and with the utmost freedom they could communicate to each other their joys and trials. In those days Christians were not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; they were not conformed to the world; they came boldly out and were a separate people. They were not then driving furiously after wealth and distinction: it was enough to fill their desires to see the kingdom of Christ advance. In those days parents with transport received their dead children to life, and Christians wept for joy at hearing songs of thanksgiving poured from a thousand tongues just recovered from death. O give us more such days. Alas those days are fled. The world triumphs now and holds the Church in bondage. O for the return of those glorious scenes. Where is the Lord God of White-field, Tennent, Davis, Brainerd, and Edwards?—Where is the Lord God of our fathers?

In our times also it has pleased the divine Spirit to spread his extensive influences upon earth. The whole of this century, with eight or ten years of the last, has been distinguished by very remarkable events in favor of Zion. During every part of this period we have seen or heard of unusual revivals of religion in different parts of the American Church. Many thousands have been raised from the dead and begun an endless life. A spirit of compassion for the heathen has been poured out, and exertions, greater than have appeared since the days of the apostles, have been made to cheer the abodes of pagan darkness with the light of life. But alas among us returning doltishness has damped the general joy; and the people of God, who have not themselves fallen asleep, have hung their harps upon the willows and weep as they remember Zion. Now and then a fuller tear breaks from their eye as they exclaim, Where is the Lord God of our former revivals?

Time has been, (I would not dismiss the pleasing remembrance though it is fraught with pain,) when the voice of Jesus of Nazareth was heard in these streets—when his majesty sat enthroned in our assemblies—when the interests of the soul were more regarded than paltry pelf—when Christians lived—when sinners trembled—when the new born delighted to lisp the name of Jesus. As we cast our eyes over this assembly we can descry those who will not soon forget the scene. Yes, we have seen the day when some of you were trembling in near view of the eternal judgment—when you truly thought there was but a step between you and death. We have seen the blessed hour when heavenly light broke in upon your despair—when your eyes opened upon eternal day—when your transported souls dropped the calculation of endless sorrows and hugged the hope of immortal joy. I live, I live, you cried, as your grave clothes dropped at your feet. We have seen a parent's eye glisten with a trembling tear as his child looked up to thank his Deliverer. We have seen the solemn hour when, with palpitations before unknown, you stood in companies before the Lord to enter into covenant with him. We have seen the dear youth delighting to speak to each other of a Savior's love, when tenderness melted in every eye, and their societies were full of the presence of Jesus and of love. Let me cleave to the fond remembrance. Tear me not from a scene to which my soul clings as to life itself. But ah it is gone, and what do these distressed eyes now behold? One general waste of doltishness and death. No child is revived; no parent's heart leaps for joy; none are conscious of their guilt and danger; none experience the joys of their espousals. Their divine Deliverer, whose love, in that hour, they thought they never could forget, is forgotten and neglected. The world has rivaled him. The world has carried away the Christian, the convert, and the sinner. The world the world, the world: this is the object which engrosses every care; this is the supreme deity that is adored. "Buy and sell and get gain: out with the thoughts of death: away with judgment and Heaven: name not a Savior's love: my farms and my merchandise I will have, though the earth trembles under my feet and Heaven weeps blood upon my head." And is it thus? Yes, and it is an evil beyond our power to cure. We have done and said all we can do, and it alters not the case. Where then is the Lord God of Elijah? Where is the Lord God of our former sabbaths and sacraments? Where, O where is he? "Look down from Heaven, and behold from the habitation of your holiness and of your glory: where is your zeal and your strength, the sounding of your affections and of your mercies?—Are they restrained?" I do know that it depends solely on the sovereign pleasure of God whether there shall ever be another revival of religion in this place, or whether they who are dead shall remain dead to eternity. One look from him and our sleeping friends shall revive; one frown from him and every unregenerate soul in this congregation shall die in his sins. Men and angels cannot change the decree. Ministers may preach, Christians may pray, parents may weep, and a thousand pious hearts may break; but if the Lord God of Elijah do not revive us the dead will not revive. This sentiment, though it has dwelt upon our tongues, I fear has never sunk deep enough into our hearts. In days of revival we have ascribed too much of the praise to men and means; and now perhaps we look too much to men and means for the relief desired. We never shall be revived until we realizingly feel our absolute and entire dependence on God—until we can heartily and without reserve say, "My soul, wait you only upon God, for my expectation is from him." O for this dependence, that we may go forth in a body and lift our eyes to Heaven as the eyes of one man, and cry, as though the salvation of a world hung upon our prayer, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah? O that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat." Alas can he not be found? While thousands lie dead around us, can we not find the only being who can raise them to life? Where is he? Can we not find him? May we not find him? Where is the Lord God of Elijah?"

But such dependence and such a united cry will never be until caused by him. Ah then our last hope from ourselves has vanished. And now, reduced to the last extremity, we cry with greater distress, Where is the Lord God of all our revivals? O that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat. Can he not be found? While thousands lie dead around us, can we not find the only being who can raise them to life? Where is he? Can we not find him? May we not find him? Why is his power restrained? Is his "hand—shortened that it cannot save," or "his ear heavy that it cannot hear?" No, but our "iniquities have separated between" him and us, and "hid his face from" us "that he will not hear." His power and grace are as abundant as when they were so abundantly displayed before our eyes: and if we would seek him he is to be found on the same mercy seat where we found him before. His mercy is not "clean gone forever." Methinks I see him stretching out his hands to this church and saying, Why weep you? Have you dead children in your houses? here is my power and grace at your service. If you are straitened, you are not straitened in me but in yourselves. Yes, Lord, the reproof is just. Christians do not call upon the God of Elijah with that reverence, humility, and agonizing desire which are needful to obtain a glorious display of his grace. We might witness more blessed days than any before granted, if they were sufficiently sought. And will they never return? Yes, they shall return. It was said in the introduction that the days of Elisha were distinguished with more glory than those of Elijah. It was not in vain that he inquired for the Lord God of his master. Blessed thought! It shall not be in vain that here and there a solitary Christian is asking for the Lord God of Elijah. The time will come when every sinner then living in this congregation shall open his eyes and behold the God whom perhaps his fathers rejected—when these streets shall be full of prayer and of the conquests of Jesus—when this house, if it be standing, shall be crowded with tender and devout hearers—when the happy man whose voice shall be heard from this pulpit, will have less grief of heart than your minister now has. You sacred walls, if you be then standing, tell not the tale to our posterity: disturb not that joyful assembly with the recital of what you witness now. Say not to them, Your fathers who once assembled here, were besought with tears, but some of them mocked and others soon forgot. Before that day arrives this voice shall be silent in death, and I hope this heart will cease to ache. Those seats shall be emptied of their present incumbents, and you will all be gathered to the assembly of your fathers. But let that day come when it may—whether I am in this world or that—I think it will give me joy to see the kingdom of Christ prevail in the place where I once labored, and among the descendants of those I once loved. O the delightful, glorious prospect! I could dwell upon it with rapture until I died. Hasten that transporting day. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.