1 Kings 19:1-4
When Ahab got home, he told Jezebel what Elijah had done
and that he had slaughtered the prophets of Baal. So Jezebel sent this
message to Elijah: "May the gods also kill me if by this time tomorrow I
have failed to take your life like those whom you killed."
Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in
Judah, and he left his servant there. Then he went on alone into the desert,
traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary juniper tree and prayed that
he might die. "I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life, for I am no
better than my ancestors."
"Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are."
James 5:17
We left Elijah in last chapter a hero--accomplishing
deeds of unparalleled prowess and faith. The words employed at a future time
by the Redeemer regarding his great follower, seem equally applicable to
him--"Among those born of women there is none greater." As the stars in
their courses, near this same river Kishon, had fought against Sisera--so
were the very elements of nature made subservient to the Prophet's
will--"fire and hail," and "stormy wind" authenticating his divine mission.
After such remarkable and encouraging tokens of the Divine presence and
power, we expect to find him more the champion of truth than ever; in his
undaunted career, going "from strength to strength"--the torch kindled on
the altar of Carmel, burning with increasing brightness as he bears its
radiance among the homes and cities of Israel. As we see the bold,
lion-hearted man, running amid the rain-torrents along the Esdraelon
highway, in front of the royal chariot--his mind filled with the day's
wonders, we almost fancy we can hear him exultingly exclaiming, "It is God
that girds me with strength, and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like
hinds' feet, and sets me upon my high places. JEHOVAH lives; and
blessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted," (Ps. 18:32,
33, 46.)
As he halts at the gate of Jezreel, we doubt not it is
with a noble resolution to follow up his triumph on the morrow. We expect to
see the leader of God's armies rush, like another Jonah, through the
metropolis of revolt, with the message of Divine rebuke and mercy,"O Israel,
you have destroyed yourself, but in me is your help found"--confirming the
capricious monarch and the wavering people; and if there be frowns still
lingering on brows, which yesterday's defeat has clouded and humbled, what
of that? Will not his answer be ready, "The Lord [the living Jehovah] is on
my side; I will not fear what man can do unto me!" "Now know I that the Lord
saves his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving
strength of his right hand," (Ps. 20:6.)
Alas! a new dramatic, we may rather call it a new tragic,
turn, unexpectedly occurs. This Asahel--swift of foot, and mighty of
soul--degenerates into a craven and coward. We almost fail to recognize the
Elijah of yesterday in the unworthy renegade of today. On Carmel, he had
willingly and without one misgiving or hesitation, staked his life on the
answer by fire. These knives and lancets, which his bold irony had whetted,
would, in the event of failure, have inflicted on him a terrible
retaliation. Yet, with all this certainty before him, he went fearless, in
the strength of the Lord, against the mighty. Now, how different! Poor human
nature reveals itself. "The tower of David, built for an armory, whereon
there hang a thousand shields and all manner of weapons of mighty men,"
becomes in a moment a humiliating ruin. Come and see what the best and
bravest of God's saints are when left to themselves. "O Lucifer, son of
the morning, how are you fallen!"
Let us briefly rehearse the narrative.
Ahab, on reaching Jezreel, without delay conveys to his
queen the astounding news of the day's conflict and victory--that Elijah, by
the most irrefragable proof, has vindicated his authority and established
the supremacy of JEHOVAH; that her idol-god is dethroned, her priests
massacred--and that the solemn amen and shout of the people had ratified the
proceedings. The monarch's own fickle spirit, as we have remarked in last
chapter, could not fail to have been impressed by all he had witnessed; and
doubtless he would cherish the hope that Jezebel, if she did not acquiesce
in the popular enthusiasm, would, at all events, deem it a matter of
political expediency, to waive her own prejudices and biases for the public
benefit. He had mistaken the temper and will of his overbearing consort. The
storm that had burst over Carmel gathered afresh over her brow. Her rage is
irrepressible. "What! to have the cherished dream of years dissolved thus
rudely in a moment! To have her ancestral faith dishonored and degraded; her
priestly confessors stripped of their sacred garments, and their blood spilt
like water. To have her husband and his whole subjects duped and hoodwinked,
and all this by a half Hebrew, half Arab fanatic--the upholder of a worn-out
debilitated system of old-world belief! No! it cannot be endured!"
And if Ahab ventures to interpose in this fit of frenzy,
and speak of the double miraculous attestation; she has her reply ready. The
so-called fire-answer was only the crowning successful trick of the wily old
impostor; the rain falling at his prayer was the merest accident of
weather--a freak of capricious nature--No, no! the shouts and vows of
Carmel--so far as her influence is concerned--shall never be ratified within
the palace of Jezreel; the heavens may again be shut up; the famine may
drain the life of the nation--but on no account shall Baal's altars be
overthrown. By all the gods of Tyre, the insult perpetrated by this Gilead
Prophet shall not pass with impunity. The blood of her priests shall not be
borne unavenged to the shores of Phoenicia! That hour a messenger is sent to
Elijah to confirm the threat--that before the shadows of tomorrow's evening
gather over the hills of Samaria, his life should be as the life of the
ghastly corpses strewing the banks of the Kishon.
And though not precisely stated, we are left too plainly
to infer from the sequel, the effect which this outburst produced on the
mind of wavering, cowardly Ahab. By the time the whirlwind of his consort's
passion had expended itself--alas! his goodness, also, had become that of
the morning cloud and early dew. The deep impression of the Fire and Rain
answers, was already obliterated from his abject soul--his voice is now loud
as that of Jezebel in denouncing the whole day of miracle and triumph as a
gigantic imposture; and Elijah more than ever, "a troubler in Israel"--a
fanatic slaughterer--whose deed of recent blood can only be expiated by his
life.
What was the result of this threatening message and
sudden reverse of feeling on the conduct of the Prophet? We might well have
expected, from his precedents, that he would maintain either a dignified
silence, or send to the haughty idolatress a dignified answer and reproof,
worthy of the ambassador of the living Jehovah--a message, in the spirit of
that sent by a later champion of the faith, to the Jezebel of her age--"Go,"
said Chrysostom to the person sent by the Empress Eudoxia, with a threat of
vengeance, "Go, tell her I fear nothing but sin."
Or if this base appeal to natural fears and to induce an
unworthy flight, were for a moment entertained by him, that he would
immediately exorcize the 'coward thought' with worthier resolves. He who had
not winced or quailed, when he stood, in single-handed combat, against six
hundred antagonists--who had braved, for years, summer's drought and
winter's cold--could it be supposed that for a moment, he would stagger
under the impotent threat of a woman? Impossible! And yet so it is.
Paralyzed with terror--overpowered and overmastered as if by some sudden
temptation--Elijah resolves on escape. "He arose and went for his life."
Mournful transition! We look in vain for the dauntless
vessel which, a few hours before, we beheld holding on its triumphant course
amid buffeting storms. All we can now discern is a forlorn castaway, in the
midst of a dark sea, without sails or oars or rudder--drifting on, he knows
not where--with no star to guide him, and no voice to cheer him in the waste
wilderness of waters! Accompanied by his servant, and probably under the
cover of night, he hurries across the mountains of Samaria; onwards thence,
to the extreme south of Judah in the direction of the Arabian desert. We can
follow him in thought, far away from the hills of Judea--in the wide upland
valley, or rather undulating plain, sprinkled with shrubs and with the wild
flowers which indicate the transition from the pastures of Palestine to the
desert, marked also by the ancient wells dug far into the rocky soil, and
bearing on their stone or marble margins the traces of the long ages during
which the water has been drawn up from their deep recesses. At last he seeks
shelter in the town of Beersheba--'the well of the oath'--the last point
reached by the patriarchs--the last center of their wandering flocks and
herds, where Abraham planted the grove of light feathery tamarisk, and
called on 'the name of the Lord, the everlasting God.'
How the memories of the great Father of his nation--so
fragrant around that sacred spot--must have rebuked his coward flight! He
must have read on every crumbling altar-stone the record of the patriarch's
faith, and the reproof of his own degenerate spirit. Nor is he satisfied
with the refuge which the walls of Beersheba afford him. One of the best
kings of Judah (Jehoshaphat) then swayed the scepter of David's house; and
as Beersheba was situated within his territory, the fugitive Prophet--with
such a guarantee for his security and safety--might well have been contented
there to remain. But his whole nature seems demoralized and panic-stricken.
He had lost, alike all confidence in God and trust in man. He cannot endure
even the company of his servant, or allow him to share his heavy secret.
Leaving his attendant to his fate in the city, he himself
plunges into the depths of the wilderness--the wild arid wasteland
terminated in the far south by the tremendous gorges and precipices of
Sinai. On, on, on, he plods, during a long weary day, until the sun sets
over the burning sands. No ravens of Cherith are there to minister to
him--no sympathizing voices of Sarepta to cheer him. The journey, even for
his iron bodily frame, seems too much. Footsore, travel-worn--with aching
head and fevered brain--he casts himself at the foot of a bush of desert
juniper--one of those shrubs with white blossoms, familiar to travelers in
these cheerless wadys, and under which the Arabian to this day shelters
himself, alike from the sun's heat and the night winds.
There, on a hard pillow lies the forlorn
pilgrim--muttering, with faint lips, a prayer, (how different from the
recent one of Carmel!) "He requested for himself that he might die, and
said, It is enough, now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than
my fathers." "It is enough!"--that is, 'I need go no farther, I feel
I can get no comfort--my life is embittered with cruel failure; what can I
hope for, if the trumpet-tongued miracles of Carmel fail to convince? My sun
has set behind these distant waves of the great sea. I had hoped to have a
grave in Israel--But 'It is enough.' Let me die, uncoffined, unsepulchred!
Let the desert sand be my winding-sheet--let the desert winds sigh and chant
my requiem!'
In the deep, dreadful silence of that night-season, what
visions must have clustered around his pillow, as he laid down his weary
head to sleep. The crowd and the shouts of Carmel--the descending fire--the
blackening heavens--the refreshing rain--the impressed king--the exulting
people--his own prayer! And then, these phantoms, as they troop before him,
chasing one another in succession through his fevered brain, leave, in this
chaos of thought, the altar and sacrifice on which the fire descended,
standing by itself, lonely, desolate, forsaken--the monument of his
triumph--the memorial of his guilt and shame; and, worse than all--would not
the reflection goad him like a scorpion-sting, the thought of the joyful
thousands of penitent Israel who had woke up at his bidding to hope and
faith--deserted all at once by their leader; some relapsing into the old
idolatrous worship; others, if true to their convictions, given over
unshielded to the fiendish vengeance of Jezebel--their blood flowing like
water in the streets of Jezreel--calling, in vain, for aid and support from
the crouching coward of the wilderness--the creed of the palace, "Baal he is
the Lord!" effacing the nobler confession of Carmel, like the writing on the
sand obliterated by the rising tide! Oh, who would covet that uneasy head in
the Beersheba desert? Every star in the sky at Cherith used to look down
upon him like an angel of light. But now these heavens are a dark inky
scroll, written in letters of lamentation, and mourning, and woe--sorrow,
anguish of spirit, wounded pride--were that night his bitter portion. The
torch of "The Prophet of Fire" lay quenched and blackened at his feet. A
prince and a great man in Israel had ignominiously fallen. "Put not your
trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no help. His breath
goes forth--he returns to his earth--in that very day his thoughts perish!"
We may well learn, from this sad crisis in Elijah's
history, the lesson of our own weakness, and our dependence on God's
grace. In the divine life, often the most dangerous and perilous
time for the believer, is after a season of great enlargement; when he is
saying to himself, "My mountain stands strong." The spiritual armor is
loosely worn--he gets drowsy after the flush of victory--the bold, bounding
river, that we have just witnessed taking leap after leap in successive
cataracts, loses itself in the low, marshy swamps of self-confidence. In
prosperity, moreover, whether that prosperity be outward or inward, worldly
prosperity or soul prosperity, or both combined--the Lord often puts His
favored servants at such seasons to the proof; to test the strength and
reality of their faith.
He did so with Abraham. After a season of signal
and unexampled blessing, "God tested Abraham"--the death of an only son and
covenant-heir was the fiery ordeal. But the patriarch stood the trial. He
came forth purified from the furnace, the possessor of a richer heritage of
covenanted promises! He did so with Paul. Lest he should be exalted
above measure, He brought him from the third heavens to endure the misery of
some earthly thorn. But he also came forth unscathed. His "buffeting" led
him to prayer. He leaves the furnace, glorying in his infirmities; exulting
in the power of Christ, and in a deeper personal interest in the blessings
of His grace. Elijah had been thus "exalted." In his elation, he had too
confidently calculated on success. His naturally impetuous spirit, in the
hour of triumph, would be in no mood to brook courtly opposition or to
receive the threat and affront of an insulting message. His strength gives
way just where we would have least expected--under an appeal to the lowest
emotion of a man's nature--fear.
We are often exhorted to "beware of besetting
sins;" but a different lesson is brought home to us from Elijah's
experience. It is rather to beware of sins that are least
besetting--loopholes in the citadel of the heart through which we have least
dread of being successfully assailed. If there was one sin, judging from the
Prophet's previous history, by which he was less likely to be overtaken than
another, it was the sin of weakness or a craven spirit. God often allows His
people thus to lapse, in order to show what broken, bruised, fragile reeds
in themselves they are. Ah! "when you think you stand, take heed lest you
fall." "Be not high minded, but fear." When even a Samson, when shorn of his
locks--becomes weak as other men--what need is there for those of inferior
moral and spiritual stature--the "Feeble Minds," and "Little Faiths," and
"Ready to Halts" to remember, that it is by grace they stand! When a mighty
inhabitant of the forest succumbs to the blast of temptation; what need is
there for the saplings to tremble in grappling with the storm!--"Howl
fir-tree, for the cedar has fallen."
Beware of taking any step without the Divine sanction.
If Elijah, on hearing of Jezebel's rage, had made prayer still his resort;
and asked in simple faith, "Lord, what would you have me to do?" it would
have saved him many a bitter hour and tear. But he constituted himself
judge of what was right, took his own resolution, and abandoned himself to
flight. "He fled for his life;" but, in doing so, he lost sight of
this golden thread of comfort and joy--that life is in the hand of
God. He ignored, for the time, his glorious old watchword--flung aside the
glowing lamp which had hitherto guided his path--"Jehovah lives, before whom
I stand!" Hitherto, with the docility and confidence of a child, he had
followed God's leadings alone. Cherith, Zarephath, Carmel, were like so many
finger-posts on life's journey, bearing the inscription, "This is the
way, walk in it." But now, he followed the dictate of his own cowardly
fears, and wounded, fretted pride. Dearly did he pay the penalty of his
folly! "There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end
thereof are the ways of death."
Let us be careful not to follow our own paths; not
to take any solemn and important step unless it be divinely owned and
recognized. "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your
paths." "Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, in whose heart are
Your ways." Lot followed his own way--it was to the
well-watered plain--the luxurious capital in the valley of Siddim. He rushed
blindfold into evil. Carnal reasons alone lured him there. It was the result
of no prayer--no divine impulse. Jonah followed his own way;
but not with impunity, did the fugitive rush, in blind madness, from God and
from duty. He was tossed into a raging sea--left an outcast on a desert
shore--carrying, moreover, the brand of a wounded conscience--a fostered
spirit of peevishness and discontent with him through life--we fear to the
grave.
So long as Elijah did his God-appointed work earnestly,
unflaggingly, all went well with him. When he paused, hesitated,
faltered--or rather, when, in an impetuous moment, he cast away the noblest
opportunity ever prophet had--shut himself up in a wilderness--settled down
into inaction--shedding ignoble tears under a bush in the desert--then the
great soul and its magnanimous purposes is gone. He has become a fretful,
petulant child, morbidly brooding over his disappointed hopes. He flings
away the oars of duty and obedience--his strong brawny arms have ceased to
pull the bark in which his God had bid him struggle--and now he is at the
mercy of winds and waves.
Beware of murmuring under trial. Elijah's desert
prayer was one of pride, presumption, irritability, impatience,
peevishness--"It is enough, take away my life." Even had his success on
Carmel been marred and counteracted by the evil influences at work in Ahab's
court, and a new era of persecution had in consequence been initiated in
Israel--his duty was patient submission to the Divine will, cherishing the
humble confidence and assurance that light would sooner or later arise out
of darkness. Instead of this, he breathes the prayer, of all others least
warrantable for any creature of God to utter, "Let me die." There are
circumstances, indeed, when such a prayer is permissible--when it
becomes a noble expression of believing faith and hope. Such was the case
when the great Apostle, in subordination to the Higher will which was ever
his guiding principle, made the avowal of "a desire to depart and be with
Christ, which was far better"--making, however, the reservation, that so
long as his Lord had work for him in the Church on earth, he would
cheerfully remain. Elijah's prayer was altogether different. It was the
feverish outbreak of a moment of passion. How forbearing and gracious was
God in not taking him at his word! Had he done so, the Prophet would have
died under a cloud--his name would have been associated with cowardice--his
character would have been a mournful example of greatness ending in
disgrace. He would have lost the glorious closing scene of all--the
chariot of fire, and the deathless victory.
Each of us has, or may yet have, his day of
trial--sickness, bereavement, crushed hopes, bitter disappointments, crossed
wishes--stings and arrows from quarters least expected. How are we to meet
them? Are we to give way to peevish, fretful repining? Are we to say, 'I am
wearied of life. I would I were done with all this wretchedness. What
pleasure is existence to this wounded, harassed, smitten spirit?' No, take
courage. It is not "enough." The Lord has work for you still to do.
It is not for you, but for Him, to say, at His own appointed time, as He
said to Hezekiah, "You shall die, and not live." If we have ever been guilty
of uttering such a rash prayer as that of Elijah--"Take away my life"--let
us be thankful God has not given us the fulfillment of our own wish--the
ratification of our own desire--and allowed us to die, unfit and unprepared!
But we must not close this chapter, picturing the Prophet
in his desert divested of all hope or faith--with no relic remaining of his
own former self. His spiritual life for the moment may have been reduced to
a spark; but the spark was there, and his God will yet fan it into a flame.
Even in his peevish, petulant utterance, as he lies under that juniper tree,
he prays. Even in the far desert he has not forgotten (oh, how could he
forget!) the ONE who, for years, had been his almighty Protector, Guide,
Friend! "It is enough, O Lord"--"O Lord!" "My flesh," he seems to
say, "longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no
water." "As the deer pants after the water-brooks, so pants my soul for You,
O God." "It is enough!" 'Man has deceived me--earthly hopes and expectations
have proved like this desert's mirage--"It is enough, O Lord," I turn
to You.'
Yes, let us leave Elijah on that prostrate couch of
unworthy exile, yet still, mingling accents of fretfulness with accents of
prayer. This poor, battered-down flower seems, in the moment of its
humiliation, to turn towards the Great Sun. Arise, Prophet of the desert!
your God has still for you a noble, unfulfilled destiny. Your future is in
His hands. Say not, in your blind, disappointed pride, "It is enough!" Let
Him work out His own plan of infinite wisdom. Arise! you have much yet to do
and dare and suffer for His sake. He will yet turn your mourning into
dancing, take off your sackcloth, and gird you with gladness. Arise! take
your torch with its expiring flame--The God who gave it to you, is yet to
revive it, and make thousands bless both Him and you for its undying
radiance. The day is coming when you shall say, "It is enough"--but
not, until, your work finished, the chariot and horses of fire are waiting
ready to bear you to your eternal reward!