Last week was my first time to enter the amazing world of Wii gaming system.

And I discovered that racing Mario Kart is not my spiritual gift. I also discovered that losing a race to my seven year old son gives the flesh all sorts of creative opportunities to reveal itself!

The problem with video games is you sit down to play just one game. Just one! You finish, and...you have to play just one more time. I mean come on, how long does it take? Five minutes? Tow hours later...just one more time!

It’s like Frito Lays. You put one chip in your mouth and some how the whole bag of chips ends up in your stomach.

Why isn’t following Jesus like that? Why don’t we read a chapter in the bible and say, “Just one more chapter!” or finish praying and say, “Just one more prayer!” or go to bed and say, “God, give me just one more day to serve You before taking me home!”

I am convinced it is because we make the same mistake Elijah made. When God seems to go silent, we stop being amazed at Him. We are no longer dazzled at His presence.

But why? Why must God be doing something loud and big for us to go, “Whoa! Amazing!”? Because something else has amazed us more. Something else has stolen our affection, our time, or our energy, and God has become the stepchild.

Frito Lays may excite your taste buds, and Mario Kart may kindle your racing adrenaline, but when was the last time God just blew you away?

When God is Strangely Quiet

I admit, it doesn’t always feel natural to walk around constantly blown away by our awesome God. “Man, look at that blade of grass! God made that!” “Yesterday I had the cold, and I prayed, and the next day I didn’t use one Kleenex!” It is our human nature to get boringly used to the amazing...especially when God seems to go silent.

• When your newborn child comes out with a heart defect and three days after surgery...her little heart stops beating.
• Or when your employer calls you into the office to talk about the company downsizing. You know where that ends up.
• Or when your washer machine decides to go on strike on the same day your car’s transmission goes out.

Or maybe you feel it in different ways. Maybe God seems most silent, ironically, when...

• You study the Word. You read it and it feels dry. It feels like eating wood chips for dinner.
• Or you’re trying to turn away from a very fun sin. No matter how hard you try, this sin looks a lot more amazing than God.
• Or when you pray. And every time you get on your knees every possible irrelevant thought floods into your mind like an army of Hunns.

Is there some way we can recapture amazement for the only One who deserves to be amazed at?...Even when He’s very, very quiet?

I want you to meet a man who’s been there. A man whom James the brother of Jesus tells us had a nature just like ours (James 5:17). This man suffered dis-amazement so badly that he asked God to kill him. His story is in 1 Kings 19.

It was a sad time in Israel’s history. Thanks to Solomon’s unbridled lust for more women than days in a year, the nation split in half and the northern kingdom called “Israel” rejected God’s law and now paid homage to the Phoenician god named Baal. When the rain clouds played hide n’ seek and the crops dried up, the people of Israel dragged their own children to the altar, and burned them alive to appease the wrath of this Baal god (2 Kin 16:3; 2 Kin 21:6).

Imagine living in a nation where parents practice child sacrifice. Mothers and fathers in Kalamazoo showing up at festivals at the Arcadia Festival Site, and bringing their children to tie them down to altars, pour oil on their little bodies, and set them on fire.

Imagine living in a nation where the leaders have murdered every prophet of God but one, and this one has given up hope and asks God to kill him.

Like we sometimes experience, this prophet felt hopeless. God wasn’t winning and the enemy was only growing stronger.

From this passage you can take three steps of faith. Three steps that this last prophet had to take.

First step of faith: Honestly admit your inadequacy.

Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword (1 Kings 19:1).

Guess who wear the pants in this home! Instead of going after Elijah himself, Ahab complains to his wife Jezebel, telling her that Elijah wiped out 450 prophets of Baal (1 Kin 18:22; 1 Kin 18:40).

Slaughtering 450 heretics doesn't sound too Christian, but we must remember that Elijah's action was in direct obedience to God’s law. As a theocratic nation under the leadership of God Himself, Israel was required to execute false prophets without mercy:

If your brother, your mother's son, or your son or daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entice you secretly, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods” (whom neither you nor your fathers have known, of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end), you shall not yield to him or listen to him; and your eye shall not pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him. But you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. So you shall stone him to death because he has sought to seduce you from the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such a wicked thing among you (Deut 13:6-11).

Jezebel does not wait around...

Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So may the gods do to me and even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time” (1 Kings 19:2).

Jezebel swears by the gods she worships that she will do to Elijah what he did to her 450 prophets. Here polytheistic religions comes out in her vow, and she gives Elijah a timeframe, “Twenty-four hours and you’re a dead man.”

And he was afraid and arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there (1 Kings 19:3).

“And he was afraid.” No kidding. Jezebel was not the kind of woman you wanted on your trail. She was the one person as committed to Baal as Elijah was to Yahweh. She was the equivalent of an ancient witch and would sooner slit your throat than a butcher would hack a piece of meat.

Elijah literally “ran for his soul” from Jezreel to Beersheba (18:46), a 100 mile trip to the southern tip of Judah. Elijah was the ultimate Bible-times marathon runner. He outran Ahab’s horse in the end of chapter 18, running around 20 miles from Mt. Carmel to Jezreel, and now he’s on a 100 mile marathon with his prophetic afterburners on max. I never read about a prophet in better physical shape than this man.

One might ask, “Elijah was so bold in chapter 18, destroying 450 prophets of Baal, how could he run like a coward?” For the same reason we live one moment in courage for Jesus and the next minute act like we never knew Him.

Sometimes all it takes is just one phone call. One job interview. One comment from a colleague. One class at the university, and the trial looks ten times bigger than God our protector.

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4).

Elijah leaves his servant in Beersheba and travels another day’s journey on foot into the wilderness. This is in the middle of nowhere. If you live in Michigan it’s like taking a trip to the middle of the Upper Peninsula. Elijah is doing all he can to get lost.

Discouraged, tired, and afraid, he sits under a Juniper tree and asks God to kill him.

Elijah ran from death by the hand of Jezebel only to seek death by the hand of God. Matthew Henry comments, “He wishes to die by the hand of the Lord, whose tender mercies are great, and not fall into the hands of man, whose tender mercies are cruel.”¹

How often an outstanding victory is followed by suffocating despair. Depression. Discouragement. Fear. Monday morning. The day after retirement. The month after graduation. A week after a missions trip.

Elijah’s desperation comes out in one sentence, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.” Apparently many of Elijah’s ancestors tried to oust Baal worship and they failed. And Elijah thought: I’m no better than them. So why live?²

Don’t you love how Elijah fits the perfect greeting, grinning, gaiting church goer? No matter what he’s doing, he’s got that church grin pasted on to let the world know that Christians are plastic perfect people!

A few Sundays ago I asked this lady, “How are you doing?” and with teary eyes she says, “Horrible.” Just yesterday I was out on a prayer walk and here comes my neighbor, out on a walk too. “How are you today?” I asked. “I’m doing terrible,” he said. “My wife just had an aneurism.” The truth is, life is not a stroll through Disneyland park with balloons, candies, and fireworks parades. Sometimes, it’s brutal. Elijah’s depression is not a freak of Bible nature but a reality of life.

Elijah had taken one step in the right direction. He honestly admitted his inadequacy. He came to grips with his own weakness.

But that was only the first step. Elijah was still looking to himself instead of God, and that’s why his hope dried up. And when the believer looks to himself, his perspective of reality goes haywire. He ceases to be amazed with God. That brings us to...

Second step of faith: Wholeheartedly believe God’s sufficiency.

He lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, “Arise, eat” (1 Kings 19:5).

Sorrow turns to exhaustion and he falls asleep. Suddenly, he wakes up. Something touched him. His eyes widen as he sees an heavenly being standing before him.

Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again (1 Kings 19:6).

The angel points at bread cake, oozing with the aroma of a fresh bakery. Next to it is a jar of water. A simple meal but healthy. I wonder how good that unearthly bread tasted. It was probably the same food as the manna which God fed Israel with over five centuries before, since Psalm 78:25 calls the manna the “bread of angels.”³

And you wonder where the Touched by an Angel TV show got their title from! But this is even better, it’s “Fed by an Angel”! Elijah must have been exhausted for as soon as he consumes the food he falls back to sleep. If an angel just fed me, I'd be online blogging about it!

The angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you” (1 Kings 19:7).

God knows that Elijah must go on a great journey so he brings him seconds.

How gracious our God is! Elijah runs from his post, doubts God’s protection, and asks God to kill him. And what does God do? He brings him two meals straight from the kitchen of heaven.

So he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God (1 Kings 19:8).

Forty days and forty nights. Elijah walks to Mt. Horeb and then climbs it. That’s 200 miles south of Beersheba. That’s equivalent to running from Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids and back and then doing it all again.

Elijah is not only a marathon runner but a mountain climber (see 2 Kin 18:42). Mt. Horeb is called “the mountain of God” because it is the same mountain where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments 600 years earlier. It is also known as Mt. Sinai. It is the same mountain where Moses fasted for forty days and forty nights (Ex 3:1; Ex 24:18; Ex 34:28; Deut 9:9; Deut 9:18). It is the same general area where Israel wandered for forty years because of their disobedience to God (Num 14:26-35). And here Elijah must learn to trust God’s sustenance for forty days, just as Moses and the nation of Israel had to do before him (see Deut 8:3-5).

My wife flew to the West Coast for a high school reunion and I took a week an a half of vacation and stayed home with the four kids. Some people call that vacation. Others call it insanity. As you can tell, my wife has great faith in me. Probably too much!

One evening I took my kids to one of their favorite spots: Barnes & Nobles Bookstore. In our Barnes & Nobles is a Starbuck’s Coffee shop. And most people get coffee. It’s just what you do. But I didn’t.

Do I like coffee? Absolutely!
Did it smell good? Wonderful!

But earlier that day I had enjoyed two cups of my own organic coffee blend. Even in a store with Starbuck’s exotic percolating aromas floating through the room, I didn’t need their coffee. Why? Because I was already satisfied! My coffee was sufficient.

When you find satisfaction in God you don’t need anymore of what the world offers. To have God is to have enough. Even if it’s just two meals that’s supposed to carry you for forty days—God’s provision is always sufficient!

When God seems silent and your amazement starts waning, take three steps of faith:

1. Honestly admit your inadequacy.
2. Wholeheartedly believe God’s sufficiency.
3. And finally...

Third step of faith: Reencounter the majesty of God’s glory!

On my eighth birthday, my Dad bought me my first BB gun. I loved it. I felt like a warrior, stalking sparrows and squirrels through the thick woods of east Texas. One day I fell and dropped my rifle. I didn’t think much of it and kept hunting. But I suddenly noticed that every shot I took, the bb would hit off target by several inches. Later that night, my Dad explained to me what happened. When I dropped the rifle, the sites got shifted. They were no longer aligned to the barrel. Elijah had the same problem. He admitted his inadequacy and was starting to believe in God’s sufficiency, but his spiritual sites were still whacked out. His view of God was way smaller than reality. So of all things, God uses natural disasters to teach him his final lesson...

Then he came there to a cave and lodged there; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:9).

Elijah becomes a temporary caveman, and God’s question is a gentle rebuke. A prophet’s work was among the people, not hidden away in a dark cave. Elijah had left his post. Unlike the postage stamp, he was not sticking to his role.

How often we escape to the cave of our favorite video game or the cave of our circle of friends or the cave of our hobby or entertainment or even our occupation or family to avoid dealing with issues we’d rather not touch.

He said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts...” (1 Kings 19:10a).

That was an understatement. Elijah just took out 450 prophets. That’s God-fueled zeal. But now comes Elijah’s excuse for running away.

“...for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword...” (1 Kings 19:10b).

The people of Israel had committed three horrid sins:

1. They betrayed God’s faithfulness - “...for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant...”
2. They desecrated God’s worship - “...torn down Your altars...”
3. They murdered God’s leaders - “...and killed Your prophets with the sword” (see 18:4).

Notice the emphasis on “Your.” Elijah’s zeal for God bleeds off the page. He’s moved to rage and desperation because God’s name has been dragged through the mud while Baal’s has been praised. The Israelites not only silenced the prophets, they murdered them.

Yet even though his words are true, his excuse is lame. Elijah blames his shirking of duty on Israel’s sins.

“...And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:10c).

We absorb a large amount of confidence simply from knowing that there are other believers in this world. We go to church and Christians surround us. We go to class and discover that student sitting three people down from you is saved. We go to work and are delighted to find out that our manager goes to our church. But how would it feel to be the only believer on the face of the earth? Add to that, the queen of the kingdom with an army of hundreds of thousands is coming to kill you.

I’ve counseled people struggling with depression. I’ve talk to people considering suicide. But I have yet to experience someone walk into my office and say, “Pastor Seth, I’m depressed because I’m the last Christian alive on the planet, and the US federal government has commissioned the FBI to take my life.”

Elijah didn’t tell God anything new. God knew Elijah’s situation. And he’s about to give Elijah a major object lesson...

So He said, "Go forth and stand on the mountain before the Lord." And behold, the Lord was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord... (1 Kings 19:11a).⁴

This was no Looney Tunes Tasmanian devil whirlwind. This was a mighty wind like a hurricane or tornado. This wind was so powerful it violently ripped apart mountains. Elijah ran from the mortal queen of Israel into the presence of the living Creator of the universe!

As a child I was one of those brave kids who needed to see three hundred people jump off the three foot dive and land safely in the water before I’d dare to do it. But after my first time leaping off a high dive, fifteen feet above the water, the three foot dive seemed like nothing. Now that Elijah has encountered the God of the universe, Queen Jezebel has just become like a toy figure by comparison.

When you’ve encountered the living God of the universe, all other fears become like plastic toy figures by comparison.

The author of adds a surprising explanation about this wind:

But the Lord was not in the wind (1 Kings 19:11b).

God caused the wind, but His presence was not in it.

It is one thing to marvel at creative architecture. It is another to talk to the architect.
It is one thing to read a moving novel. It is another to meet the novelist.
It is one thing to witness God’s power. It is another to encounter God Himself.

And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake (1 Kings 19:11c).

God now turns His focus from the wind to the ground and brings another natural disaster: an earthquake. Knowing the impact of the wind, it is not presumptuous to assume that this earthquake was also immensely powerful, creating massive faults in the ground, probably dropping 600 year-old Tabor oaks and boulders into the earth.

The author informs us, “...but the Lord was not in the earthquake." Again, another catastrophic force of nature, caused by God but not in-dwelt by God.

After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire... (1 Kings 19:12a).

Moving from element to element, God now sends a fire. I doubt it was a smoldering twig. It probably took out a few hundred acres. Elijah stands face to face with three natural disasters, but God was not in any of them. What point is God making? Why this terrifying exhibition of divine power? What is He trying to say? I can do whatever pleases Me, whether I am present or not!

Grab a copy of the Guinness Book of World Records and you’ll see pictures of men bench-pressing cars. That’s impressive. I have a long way to go before I can do that. I’m up to a tricycle right now. But have you ever heard of a man bench-pressing a car without getting near the car? Have you heard of a man batting a .360 without picking up a bat? God is so powerful, omnipotent, and full of divine muscle that He does not have to be in the tornado or in the earthquake or in the fire to make it happen. He just says, “Let it be!” and it be’s!

Like a king before battle or a pastor before Sunday morning, Elijah was worried about numbers. “I’m just one guy! And they are many. Why should I even live? My next step into a city will mean certain death for me.” Elijah was looking at things through man’s eyes instead of God’s. God does not have to resort to earth-shaking forces to get His work done on earth. He delights in using small people who are outnumbered and out-weaponed to advance His kingdom.

At this point, you figure, “God is building the suspense. He’s not in the wind cause that’s just not big enough for Him. An earthquake? Nope, still to small. What about fire? Big, but not big enough.” And now you’re waiting for something really big. The grand finale, the ultimate natural disaster—maybe a combination of disasters all in one, the ultimate disas-thalon!”

...and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing (1 Kings 19:12b).

A gentle breeze. What? This is God’s climactic act? Like a cool summer evening at South Haven beach when the breeze ripples over the waters and past your face, God sends a gentle blowing so low and insignificant that had God not sent the three previous disasters, Elijah might have thought it was just the weather.

The writer doesn’t even tell us if there was actual wind. It could have only been the sound of a wind. The ASV calls it “a still small voice,” the NIV “a gentle whisper”, and the ESV “the sound of a low whisper.” Two commentators put it well, “Even God [does] not always operate in the realm of the spectacular!”⁵

We are too easily impressed with moving compositions, wealthy executives, stirring performers, mind-blowing technology, skyscraper IQ’s, gravity-defying athletes, elaborate titles, and knockout bodies. Compare any one of them to their Creator and you have held a lit match in the sun.

Elijah’s struggle with fearing the created rather than the Creator is not unique. In Zechariah 2:6 God sends Zechariah the prophet to tell Zerubbabel the builder that God’s temple will be rebuilt but not by the muscle of man: “Not by might...nor by power...but by My Spirit!”

Elijah thought he was the only man who hadn’t bent the knee to the wicked Baal god, yet God knew there were 7,000 in Israel who would stand behind Elijah and worship the one true God. It is interesting that God doesn’t tell him that until verse 18. Why? God didn’t want Elijah’s confidence coming from the 7,000 but from the God in the unimpressive breeze.

We so often crave man’s approval or some sign of affirmation. And this is so important to us that it affects our entire outlook on life. we feel happier, more confident, even more sure of ourselves because our manager, or parent, or boyfriend believes in us.

But if man’s affirmation is where you derive your identity from, what are you going to do when he buckles?

Perhaps Elijah wished God would show up in a clap of thunder and blinding lightning like He did years before at this very same mountain when He made a covenant with Israel (Ex 19:16-19).

Elijah needed to trust God just as much in the gentle breeze as when He's sending fire from heaven (2 Kin 18:38). Just because you can’t see God working, does not mean that He isn’t.

When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:13).

Did you notice that Elijah has changed places? In verse 11, he's commanded to "stand on the mountain before the Lord." This means outside of the cave. But now he's back inside! The natural disasters probably sent him retrieving into the cave for protection.

Why does he wrap his face? I don’t think he was worried about getting a sunburn. Elijah knew that God was in this breeze and he knew the Torah which records God telling Moses, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” (Ex 33:20).

Just the still, quiet presence of God is more dangerous and powerful than all the natural disasters of earth put together. To encounter God Himself is to encounter the most dangerous thing in the universe!

God again asks him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Then he said, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:14).

Elijah gives the exact same response he did last time. But this time Elijah has been through the fire of trial. This time he’s tasted firsthand the power of God to do as He wishes, when He wishes. This time he’s read to reenter the race.

Ready to Reenter the Race

But now that Elijah has admitted his inadequacy, believed God’s sufficiency, and reencountered God’s glory, he is read to return to his post, and serve to the end:

The Lord said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when you have arrived, you shall anoint Hazael king over Aram; and Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place. It shall come about, the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall put to death...” (1 Kings 19:15-17).

God instructs Elijah to return down the mountain to the wilderness of Damascus which was far northeast of Israel. Another long journey. Three hundred miles. It would be a detour around Israel. When he arrives he is to anoint three men (verse 16):

1. Hazael as king of Aram. That’s an international move.
2. Jehu as king of Israel. That’s a national move.
3. And Elisha as his successor. That’s a ministry move.

These three men were appointed by God to vindicate His name which had been dragged through the mud by the house of Ahab. “Through these three men God would complete the purge of Baal worship that Elijah had begun.”⁶ Elijah was not the only one concerned for the glory of God’s name. God was too.

Of the three men, Elijah would personally only anoint Elisha (1 Kin 19:19), and the rest he would do by proxy. Elisha would commission Hazael as king of Aram (2 Kings 8:7-13) and appoint Jehu as king of Israel (2 Kin 9:1-10).

But what does God mean when He says in verse 17, "...the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall put to death"? This refers to the execution of every member of Ahab's house.

Through the foreign King Hazael of Aram, and through Jehu, the future king of Israel, God would destroy every member of the house of Ahab as punishment for that king’s wicked reign (2 Kin 9:14-15; 2 Kin 10:1-11; 2 Kin 10:18-33; 2 Kin 13:22; 2 Chro 22:5; 2 Chro 22:7). Elijah was indirectly anointing the executioners of one of the most wicked families of Israel.

Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him (1 Kings 19:18).

Having taught Elijah through his forty day fast and natural disasters encounter, God puts to death the excuse Elijah was leaning on: “Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel.”

The form of the Hebrew verb for “I will leave” brings the focus upon the actor’s force in causing something to happen. It could be translated, “I will cause to remain,” or even as it is in the NIV Bible, “Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel.”

That’s why in Romans 11:4 Paul quotes this same statement from the Septuagint saying, “yet I have kept for myself..” Paul uses this passage to prove that God is not done with Israel. He will keep a remnant for Himself! These 7,000 people are precious in the eyes of God and He’s not letting them go!

Had God not preserved a remnant of 7,000 people, Jesus would never have been born, and you and I would have no relationship with God.

Perhaps Elijah started wondering if God was checking out. But God will not give up on His people. And he proved that when He sent the ultimate prophet, Jesus Christ.

A Bigger Prophet

Does Elijah remind you of anyone? The similarities between Elijah and Moses is striking.

Both were prophets of God.
Both fasted 40 days in the wilderness.
Both walked out of this life in unusual ways. Elijah was taken up in a chariot. Moses’ body was hidden in the mountain by God.
Both were frequently opposed by the very people they came to help.
Both struggled with fearing man more than God (Ex 3).
Both performed great miracles.
Both encountered God in the wilderness.
Both would get so depressed they’d ask God to take their life.
But most importantly, both foreshadowed the ultimate Prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.

Jesus too was a prophet.
Jesus too fasted for forty days in the wilderness (Matt 4:2; Luke 4:2).
Jesus too walked out of this life in a non-customary way.

And when Jesus gave Peter, James, and John a flash of His glory on the Mountain of Transfiguration, who do you think showed up to chat? Moses and Elijah (Matt 17:1-8)!

Like Elijah, the Jews wanted God to do big things in fancy ways. The Jews wanted a Messiah to come in on a white steed and make war on Rome, set them free, conquer the world, and set his throne up in the temple.

And what does God do? He sends a carpenter. This humble guy from a no-name town comes in and gets crucified.

Moses and Elijah represent two eras as similar as they were distinct. But neither could redeem Israel. Neither could save Israel. Neither could ultimately bring in the kingdom rule of God.

We can learn lessons from the lives of Moses and Elijah. But the ultimate lesson is found in the sinless prophet, Jesus Christ. Jesus not only models perfect trust in God the Father, but paid the full price for every time you failed to trust Him.

If God could keep 7,000 for Himself in Israel, and if God sustained a worn-out, under-prozacked, depressed guy like Elijah, and if God could send His only Son cloaked in humility and shame to die for the sins of the world, do you think He’ll have a problem taking care of you?

God may be silent. But that doesn’t mean He isn’t working!

Endnotes

1. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Peabody: Hendrickson), 1 Kings 19:1.

2. The Scriptures frequently called him “Elijlah the Tishbite” (much like Ruth was labeled “Ruth the Moabitess.” The Bible tells us almost nothing about the tribe or people of the “Tishbites” (in fact, Elisha is the only personal Tishbite the Bible speaks of). He was of the Jewish settlers in Gilead from the tribe of Manasseh (Num 26:29).

3. This was not the first time God miraculously provided for Elijah’s sustenance (17:4, 6).

4. No Jew who knew his Scriptures could read this story and not be reminded of something very similar God did with Moses on the same mountain in Exodus 33:18-23.

5. Richard D Patterson and Hermann J. Austel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), 150.