I Kings 19:7-8, "And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God."
This morning, life is a series of ups and downs. We have joys and sorrows. Truly, if truth was measured by our perception and "feeling" of things, then truth would be relative to our emotions of the day. However, what should bring us the highest ups and cheer us through the lowest downs are the things that do not change. We cannot eliminate the downs in life. Storms, persecutions, tribulations, etc. will come. They are inevitable. However, they are bearable, and the success with which we are able to bear them stems from a proper perspective of the Lord's dealings with us. Quite often, our perception of His dealings is limited; therefore, we do not see all about a situation like He does. Yet, His consistency of dealing with His people should be enough for us to know that what we see Him do is consistent with the things we may not notice. In other words, God is not duplicitous or capricious. He does what is right all the time, every time. Furthermore, He is pleased to do what is right all the time, every time.
In the passage from our study verses above, we see Elijah coming into a "down" time right after an "up" time. If we review the 18th chapter of I Kings, we see that Elijah has one of the highest manifestations that a prophet could have, proving his validity as one of the Lord's prophets. Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal - one against many - and wins the day. By Elijah's supplication, God sends fire down from heaven to consume the offering, alter, water, etc. that Elijah prepared. All Baal's prophets could do was cut themselves and bleed everywhere when there was no answer to their cry. After this happens, Elijah is furthermore blessed to call upon the Lord to send rain to end the 3.5 year drought, kill all the prophets of Baal, and run before Ahab into the city.
How high his experience must have been! Everything from physical strength to outrun a chariot to fire from heaven that prompted speechless and rebellious people to cry out, "The LORD He is the God. The LORD He is the God." Yet, chapter 19 opens with Jezebel threatening the man of God's life for killing her prophets and making a mockery of her system and rule. Compared to the "up" he just had, one might think that Elijah could handle this "down." Even after the repeated blessings, Elijah becomes discouraged. (Verse 4) Then an angel appears and tells him to eat. (Verse 5) In our verses, the angel appears again, and tells him to eat again. Then, Elijah must go for 40 days in the strength of the meat from those two meals sent from the angel's hand.
One might say that this is an interesting story, but what should the purpose be for us today? What is interesting is that even though this story revolves around physical and natural things, it pictures spiritual things seen by faith. Consider that Elijah was much blessed physically with natural fire, natural fleetness of foot, and eventually natural food for sustenance on a natural journey. These things should point us to our spiritual walk, manifestations of spiritual fire, and spiritual food. Like Elijah's natural circumstance, they are not without their persecutions, but we should learn two things about this particular account. The first thing we should learn is that the Lord's consistency in dealing with His people is the same now as it was then. The second thing we should learn is that Elijah's behaviour - as great a man of God as he was - is not something we should mirror when having our "downs" in life.
Let us deal with the second thought first. Elijah has a literal mountaintop experience at Carmel and then immediately wished to die after Jezebel's threat. Oh how similar that is to our case sometimes when we have left God's house rejoicing
In Hope,
Bro Philip