Elijah: A Prophet with a Nature Like Ours

Good afternoon, everyone. I'll start by thanking Mark for the great handoff. It'll make more sense in maybe three or four minutes. Again, hopefully everyone's doing well. I know this time of year can be challenging for some people, for those who are getting a little older and dealing with arthritis and things like that. The cooler weather and sometimes damper weather can be challenging for people. Of course, in our part of the world here, as we've seen the last few days, gray and cold starts to descend along with short days. So this can be a time of year when things get a little gray and disappointing sometimes in our lives. I wanted to focus on a few things around that theme. We're in the longest time period here within our calendar, God's calendar, that we follow without a holy day as we navigate this time from the end of the Feast of Tabernacles through to the Passover. Sometimes people tend to feel a bit spiritually fatigued as we have the winter time around us looking forward to the next holy days to come. And of course, at this time of year, we're also reminded, as the focus of the world is very different than ours, that we're outliers. We do think a little bit differently and don't necessarily fit into everything going on in the world around us.

So, whether it's this time of year or specific events that happen in our lives, as they do because we're all human, we all do go through times of disappointment in our lives. And in those times, it's always helpful to remember not only that God is there, but that He understands in some tangible ways that He does help and support us during those times. And today, I'd like to spend some time, then, on a specific biblical character and to draw out some encouragement about how it is that God works with us and deals with us in times of disappointment.

And that's where we get back to Mark's handoff, because the character that I want to talk about today is Elijah. So, I was pleasantly surprised when Mark ended his sermon there.

And let's talk a little bit about Elijah. Now, we know Elijah as a great and incredible man of God. Chances are, when I mention his name, something comes to your mind along the lines of his incredible victory over the prophets of Baal, the fact that he was the one that God used to perform the first resurrection of a dead person in the Bible. First Kings 17, if you want to look at that later. Elijah personifies a return to God. He's used figuratively, as we heard briefly at the end of the first split, as the spirit and power that would precede the coming of Messiah.

Luke 1, verses 17 through 19 lays that out. Maybe you remember that when Jesus Christ brought a handful of his disciples to the transfiguration, there were two Old Testament characters who were there on the mount there with him for the transfiguration. One was Moses, and the other was Elijah. That's in Matthew 17, if you want to look at it. So again, it shows the prominence of Elijah. Carrying on the theme of Mark's message, it's interesting that with all the things that Elijah did and all the prominence of him, he left no writings that are in the Bible.

So if you want to look from a biblical writings perspective, I guess he's not even a minor prophet in terms of what he left behind in written word, but incredible deeds that God used him to do. And he seems like a very kinetic person. He's at the scene of a lot of very energy-filled events, a lot of action, a lot of motion happening around him. There's something key, though, that I want to focus on for today, and it's not all of those great things that he did. If you'll turn with me to James 5.

James 5. James writes about Elijah. Of course, he's on the mind of a number of different people and the writings of a number of different people in the New Testament. James draws out a very interesting, a very human element here in James 5 verses 17 and 18, talking about the effectiveness of prayer as he's writing.

And in James 5 verse 17, he writes, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. He prayed earnestly. It wouldn't rain. It didn't rain for three years and six months. He prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. But I'd like to focus on that first section of the verse. He was a man with a nature like ours. Now, having grown up as a little kid hearing the scriptures for years, actually before the New King James Version even existed, I always think when I see that passage of the old King James Version translation there that says, Elijah was a man of like passions as ours.

And I find that a really descriptive way of putting it, because it strikes at what's really within our hearts. You can think of passions as something that lies deep within somebody and puts out the view that what drove him, what animated him, the things that he was as a human being was exactly that, human, just like the things that are inside us. The New International Version translates it by saying that Elijah was human as human as we are.

I think that's a great way to put it as well. The New Century Version says, Elijah was a human being just like us. So I think the intent of this verse is very clear.

It doesn't matter all the great things he did. Of course they matter, but in terms of the point being drawn out here, what matters is his humanity. And the fact that despite all of the powerful things that God did through him, he was a human being like us. And that's what I'd like to focus on today, some ways in which Elijah demonstrated his humanity. Not always really pretty, but the ways that he demonstrated his humanity and how it was that God reacted to that, and how we can extend that to the way that we live our lives and how God works with us as we display our humanity in our everyday lives. Let's spend a few minutes just first of all talking about the background of Elijah. We'll just really briefly cover the chronology of what he did. For those who want to go back, lots of homework here. Mark tricked you by saying he was just going to encourage you to read one book, and then he covered all the minor prophets. I'm going to stay true to my word, and my homework will only be three chapters, 1 Kings 17 through 19.

I'll summarize 17 and 18 just in a couple minutes here to refresh our minds, maybe also spur you to going back to this account to see what Elijah did in greater detail. But if we remember, Elijah shows up basically out of nowhere. He just shows up one day and he's there in front of Ahab, the king of Israel. He says, Ahab, it's not going to rain. God has said it. Kind of out of the blue, perhaps, but you know fits in with what was happening within Israel at the time as they were defying God.

He then leaves and he's by a brook for some period of time where he's miraculously fed by ravens.

After that episode, we see him later outside of Israel, living with a widow, where again he's miraculously fed. You might recall the jar of oil and the jar of meal, which never exhausted itself, and so she was able to feed both of them and her son, as well as selling some of that during this drought that was going on for several years. The widow's son becomes sick and dies.

Elijah, the first human being again, the first person used to resurrect another human being, as God performs that very powerful miracle through him. In the third year, he returns and he faces off against the prophets of Baal in a very colorful account that's there in First Kings.

Ends up defeating them, killing them. His prayers answered. Rain comes. Fire comes down from heaven. Consumes the altar after he's poured as much water as you can conceivably put all over something, so it can't physically light on fire, leaving absolutely no doubt that God was performing an incredible miracle through him. And then the unexpected happens. That's the end of the story.

Evil Jezebel is not gone. Ahab, the wicked king, is not gone. And what's going to happen next?

And that's where First Kings 19 picks it up. As Elijah tries to figure out what in the world is going on and to deal with his disappointment of what must have been an expectation for a different outcome. Because you can imagine when you call down fire from heaven, and there it is, you destroy the false prophets. You would think that the next logical thing that is going to happen is utter and complete victory. The king and his evil wife Jezebel are overthrown, and God ushers in a time of complete peace, tranquility, and godliness for the nation. But that's not what happened.

And Elijah was clearly disappointed and had some very human reactions as a result. Let's go through a few of those. See how it was that Elijah reacted, why these are typical human reactions, and how it was that God treated those. And just before we move forward into this section, I do want to pause for one moment and just make one brief comment. And I do want to note that the fact that beyond normal reactions that we have as human beings to periods of disappointment and even tragedy, there is a real thing such as clinical depression, and people who suffer from that in addition to seeking God should also seek proper medical care, just like we would for a broken arm, an infected tooth, or other physical maladies. So I don't want to imply anything other than that. I want to make it clear before we move through this that if we're suffering from something more serious in terms of mental illness, we should not only seek God, but also seek professional help for that. Let's look forward in the story. The first thing I'd like to point out in terms of Elijah's very human reactions and emotions is that in the heat of the moment, when we hit a period of extreme disappointment, logic disappears, and emotion ends up overtaking us. 1 Kings 19 verses 1 through 3. Ahab told Jezebel, after the death of all the prophets at the hand of Elijah, Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had executed the prophets with a sword. And then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them, by tomorrow at this time. And when he saw that, Elijah arose and he ran for his life. He went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and he left his servant there. Now, this defies logic in a way, doesn't it? Because, again, Elijah just called down fire from heaven. By his hand, all of these prophets of Baal were killed.

And if he had stood back and just thought logically through this, in terms of the progression, a logical person could easily think, Hey, Jezebel, you know, next on the list, bring it on, right? Instead, human emotion hit him, and he was afraid. And probably some of what informed that was an outcome so incredibly different than what he would have expected, as God had done all of those things there. And he ran. How many of you have heard something called the amygdala? It's actually part of the brain. I went to WebMD just to get sort of a plain language discussion of this. I think it's interesting to think about, for those of you who haven't heard heard of this before, the amygdala is a part of the brain that's most closely associated with fear.

Fear, emotions, and motivation, in fact. Its name means almond because it's an almond-shaped portion of your brain. So if you see something that frightens you, your amygdala might tell your body to panic. This can be good if you truly need to panic, but this response is not as helpful if you're panicking in a situation that won't harm you, like public speaking. People say a lot of a lot of people, the biggest fear they have is public speaking, and people quite literally get up sometimes to speak in front of others, and you can see this kick in. You can almost see their eyes go blank. You can see them start to shake. You can hear them as they stutter, and these emotions take over what they're doing just because they overwhelm them in that moment.

The WebMD article goes on to say the amygdala determines how we act in a crisis depending on the information it receives, and this means that if your amygdala is overstimulated, your anxiety will outweigh the logical parts of your brain and cause you to panic. Now, if we sit back and think about our own lives, we can probably think about things like that that have happened, whether it's when you're little and something happens and you immediately want to run away because you sense danger, because perhaps it's ways that we might lash out at people because of experiences that we've had in the past, and we feel those experiences coming back at us, and as a result of that, we react in a certain way, and it defies logic because it's not logic. It's emotion and feelings, and if we're not in control of those, if we're not able to recover and think through our actions, all kinds of things that can happen. So I think of animals. Animals, especially mammals, have somewhat similar brains physically. They have an amygdala, and that's why a frightened or a threatened animal is something that's very dangerous to be around, because they're not thinking. They're reacting, aren't they? You hear about, don't get between a mother bear and her cubs. I think about our own pets and what they do when they're scared and how they don't react rationally. You know, a pet that loves you, a dog, might actually bite you if they're scared and you try to intervene because they're not thinking. They're reacting. I read an interesting book by James Mishner that he wrote about the state of Colorado. I think it was called Centennial, and we lived up in the Mountain West for a number of years. There are all kinds of national monuments around there. If you travel through Wyoming, Colorado, those areas that are called Buffalo Jump monuments. And I never knew what those were until I read Mishner's book. I always had this view of Native Americans, you know, getting around in horses and surrounding a buffalo and shooting it with arrows until it went down.

But what actually happened, at least in those parts of the country, is the way that the Native Americans would kill buffalo is they would cause them to stampede. They would cause them to panic, and usually they'd get one or two people and they would dress up in hides and so forth so they might, you know, to a buffalo with not real good eyesight and might look somewhat friendly. And then they would startle them. And then other members of the tribe would be on horseback, and they would use that to trigger a stampede. And they would stampede them towards a cliff.

And sometimes hundreds of buffalo would just go over this cliff because, again, they weren't thinking. They were reacting. And they would die as they hit the ground on the other side of that cliff. And that's how the Native Americans would then catch them. Now that wasn't in all parts of the country. The Plains Indians obviously would have had a difficulty finding cliffs like that, but certainly in the Mountain West area. And again, they took advantage of what they had learned about how the bison brain works, and they knew they could stampede these animals if they got them panicked or shocked. The second thing, which is probably also very familiar to all of us, is the urge to hide. Let's look at 1 Kings 19, verse 4. Here we see that Elijah went a day's journey into the wilderness, and then he came down and sat under a broom tree, and he prayed that he might die. And he said, it's enough. Lord, take my life, so I'm no better than my father's.

So he didn't go to the nearest city. He didn't go find an inn. He went out into the wilderness. He was trying to be alone. He was trying to remove himself to hide, to be away from anything else.

And then in verse 8 of the same chapter, after he was cared for by angels, he arose, ate, and drank, and went in the strength of that food for 40 days and nights, as far as horror of the mountain of God. And there in verse 9, he went into a cave. Again, he hid himself, trying to get away, trying to get away from people, trying to find shelter, just trying to remove himself and be out of the way. And there's something about the way that God creates us. After the running is done, we generally look for somewhere to hide, don't we? As human beings within our own lives, we can probably, if we're honest about it, think of ways that we react in a similar way when something happens, whether it's something that shocks us from a grieving perspective, whether we feel personally attacked, whatever it is. The first thing we usually do, if we don't try to fight, is we try to run, then we try to hide. And again, we see that in animals as well. I've got a cat. I was telling George about my cat. It looks like a little miniature panther because it's a short-haired black cat. And I have a lot of fun with this cat. But one of the crazy things about this cat is it's like the stereotypical fraidy cat. If somebody knocks on the door, if it hears a strange voice in the house, it runs. If it's downstairs, it runs. It takes off upstairs. It jumps up on the bed, and it just frantically starts nosing at the covers until it can get itself under the covers and dive inside the covers of the bed. And we've had people working in the house before. That cat can spend an entire day burrowed under the covers of the bed because it's scared and it's hiding.

And the only thing it can do in that time is react to that emotion. Not different than what Jonah did.

We read briefly through the account of Jonah. What did he do when God called him to do something that he didn't want to do? He ran and he tried to hide. He thought he could hide on a boat. And then it became abundantly clear that was not going to happen. God hid him in a big fish for a few days before he had to get back to work. What did Adam and Eve do? Genesis 3 verse 8. What did Adam and Eve do after they ate the forbidden fruit? God came through the garden as he customarily did. Adam and Eve hid themselves. Natural human reaction. Elijah was a man, a human being, just as we do. We are.

Little children do this as well. I can remember I was thinking back to first grade. I'm actually Facebook friends with my best friend from first grade. His name is Dave. I'll withhold his last name to protect the innocent. And I can still remember the first test that we had in first grade, some sort of a spelling test, you know, something silly, spell cat and dog, right? And Dave wasn't at school. And he came to school the next day and I said, Dave, where were you? I said, well, I didn't feel ready for the test and I was scared. So I told my mom I was sick and she brought out the thermometer and while she was out of the room, I was doing with this with the thermometer to heat it up. So I had a fever and I didn't come to school. I was doing that very human thing. He was hiding. He was afraid of the test and what was going to happen. And he hit himself. Third item that I'll talk about, which we all do as human beings, I was first introduced to this phrase when I took psychology class in college and that is to catastrophize. And you've heard the term catastrophize before? Turn with me, if you will, again, 1 Kings 19. We'll start in verse 4.

We'll read in verses 4, 10, and 14 about how it is that Elijah reacted. He went a day's journey in verse 4 and at the end of this verse it says, it's enough, Lord. Take my life. I'm no better than my father's. I am a total failure. Brought dishonor to my family. I'm not worth, it's not worth living anymore. Verse 10, he goes on, says, I've been zealous for God, for the children of Israel.

They forsaken your covenant. I alone am left and they seek to take my life. Can't possibly be anyone else out there. I'm the last one, so you might as well just get rid of me and have this all over with. And again, it defies logic because you think of all of the events that happened just before that. This would have been days probably before. Then verse 14, we hear the same thing in verse 14, I alone am left and they seek to take my life. Psychology today says that catastrophizing is a cognitive distortion that prompts people to jump to the worst possible conclusion, usually with very limited information or objective reason to despair. When a situation is upsetting, but not necessarily catastrophic, they still feel like they're in the midst of a crisis.

I can tell you I've been there, and I probably will be again because I'm a human being.

What are some examples, the article goes on, of catastrophic thinking? When someone makes a mistake at work, she might engage in catastrophic thinking by exaggerating how poorly the error will reflect on her and concluding she'll be fired for it. And perhaps this will lead to other severe consequences like losing her home. An airplane passenger may catastrophize by interpreting turbulence as a sign of an imminent crash. Someone who incorrectly assumes that a relationship or her reputation with others has been irreparably damaged because of some regrettable behavior could be described as catastrophizing. So chances are we all go through that as well. Something bad happens to us, and we immediately start moving towards all of the ways that this is going to come to a very, very, very bad ending and conclusion. You know, I think of the children of Israel when I read this. Exodus 16 verse 3, perhaps you think of this verse as well, and this is the children of Israel. It's a similar sort of scenario because they just moved across the Red Sea, got it open the Red Sea, killed all the armies of Pharaoh. It should be a time of just great continued rejoicing, but after this monumental event in Exodus 16 verse 3, the children of Israel said, oh that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt. When we sat by the pots of meat and we ate bread to the full, you brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Another example of catastrophizing, right? They were hungry. They needed food. God was going to provide for them just as he did in killing the armies of Egypt in the Red Sea.

But they took their situation, just continued to roll it down into just how terrible it would be. I think maybe of the five-year-old, if we think of a parody of this, who's an hour away from dinner, mom, I am starving to death. If I don't have a snack right now, I'm going to faint from hunger.

We've probably all either said that or heard that at some point in our lives. And so we all experience this in different sorts of ways. For me, it's probably most common in the 3 a.m. wake up in the middle of the night and my brain starts going towards something that either has happened or I think is going to happen. And there's something about the middle of the night for the way my brain works. It goes very quickly through that string of all of the awful things that could come out. And it's not always easy to snap out of it. It happens to us because we're human beings and it happened to Elijah. So it's hard to argue when we look at all of these brief episodes that Elijah did not have very human emotions and reactions that played out in his story. Why does this matter aside from the fact that misery loves company?

The reaction of God to Elijah's very human responses is what's important. That's where I'd like to focus in the rest of this message because if Elijah responded as a human being and we see how God responded to him, we know that God does not change. We know that we have those same types of human emotions and we can have some very real, not only clues, but assurances of how it is that God will work with us as we demonstrate some of those same human emotions and weaknesses.

So how did God show care for Elijah and by extension show that he will to us? First of all, when Elijah ran, God followed him and he cared for him. When Elijah ran, God followed him and he cared for them. 1 Kings 19 verses 5 through 9. Again, we know Elijah ran, went out into the wilderness, he slept under the broom tree, and then in verse 5, an angel touched him and said to him, arise and eat. And he looked, and thereby his head was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water.

And so he ate and he drank and he lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came back the second time and touched him and said, arise and eat because the journey is too great for you.

Look at the care of God. You know, we can think about the things that we might have been inclined to say at a point in time like that. Like, Elijah, how clueless are you? Didn't you just see what I did? The prophets of Baal and I brought down fire from heaven? What are you thinking? That's not what God did. He went to him, he cared for his needs. You get this feeling of a quiet, serene, understated, have something to eat, relax for a bit, and when the time is right, we'll talk. Psalm 27 verse 5. Same attitude that's displayed here in this account with Elijah. As the Psalmist writes, in the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion, in the secret place of his tabernacle, he will hide me, and he will set me high upon a rock. Again, demonstrating this tender care that God shows for his people. Not just the great people who do great things, but everybody who's human and has these human weaknesses. I didn't write down the scriptural quote. You can find it. Jesus Christ talks about the shepherd, the good shepherd, how the shepherd leaves behind the 99 sheep and goes after the one. That's the attitude that God has. Sometimes we're the one, right, at different points of time in our lives. We can take solace in the fact that God doesn't say, hey, you know, one percent, not a big deal. We can lose one percent and move on. He says he leaves the 99, he goes after the one. Secondly, when Elijah hid, God dealt gently with him. Let's read verses 5, 9, and 13 of 1 Kings 19, verses 5, 9, and 13. Verse 5, When he slept under the broom tree, the angel touched him and simply said, arise and eat. Again, he didn't shake him. He didn't accuse him. He didn't do any of those things. He said, just come on, get up, have something to eat. We'll figure it out from here.

Verse 9, after he'd gotten to Horeb and went gone to the cave, the word of the Lord came to him and simply said, Elijah, what you doing here? What's going on? Again, not accusatory. Simply said, Elijah, what are you doing? And then, lastly, and we don't have time to go through the whole account of the wind, the earthquake, and the still small voice, I would encourage you to read that in 1 Kings 19 and reflect on it a little bit in terms of the way that God works. And after all of that cataclysm going around and that very still voice, God came to Elijah in verse 13. Elijah wrapped his face in the mantle and he finally kind of peeked out from the cave and looked out. And a voice came to him and said again, what you doing here, Elijah? Drawing him out, caring for him, dealing gently with him, not coming down with him, on him like a ton of bricks. You know, I think it's important to see what's not said in these passages as much as it is to see what is said. Because you think of all the things that God could have said. I think of all the things that I probably would have said if I was in that situation. And then we read what is not said by God in dealing with Elijah when those emotions came up and when he hit himself. Lastly, when Elijah catastrophized, God helped him to see hope and to move forward. Let's read verses 15 through 18 of 1 Kings 19. When Elijah thought all was lost, there was nothing good that could possibly ever happen again, God helped him to see hope and to move forward. Verse 15. The Lord said to him, Go on your way to the wilderness of Damascus when you arrive, anoint Hasael as king over Syria, anoint Jehu the son of Nimschia as king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Mihola, you shall anoint as prophet in your place.

And it shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hasael, Jehu will kill, whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill, and I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all of whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him. Remember Elijah's response as he was catastrophizing? I'm the only one! There's nobody else out there. This is the way that God chose to communicate with him as he was ready to listen, as he drew him out. He finally said, Elijah, let's get going, time to come out of the cave, and let's get back to work.

A few things to consider here, too. Arguably, Elijah's most important work happened after this point in time, especially when you think of his successor, Elisha. Elisha, you might recall, was given a double portion of God's Holy Spirit, an incredibly powerful prophet. Again, another prophet who didn't write a book, but incredibly powerful. And we saw how Elijah, the spirit of Elijah, was what was in John the Baptist, and it doesn't take long to sort of set up a parallel of Elijah as a forerunner of John the Baptist, Elisha as a forerunner of Jesus Christ.

And Elisha, interestingly, didn't even have to be living himself to resurrect someone. You might remember, so first of all, Elisha performed a resurrection through God's power in 2 Kings 4, somewhat similar situation, where he resurrected the Shunammites' son. But you might not recall, but in 2 Kings 13, if you want to go look at it, there was a battle, and hastily they were trying to bury somebody, and Elisha's sepulcher happened to be there nearby, and they were just trying to get this done quick. And they took the body and they dumped it in there, and when it touched the bones of Elisha, that person was resurrected. So Elisha was so powerful in the Holy Spirit that he didn't have to be alive to resurrect somebody. And we can talk about that and figure that out. But it was, if nothing else, a very strong sign by God about the greatness of Elisha and how strongly the Holy Spirit dealt in him. And then lastly, of course, when we look at these seven thousand in Israel, and that's what Elijah is known for, is the restoration of true worship in Israel after a very bad spell that they'd had with Ahab and with Jezebel. So as we conclude this section, seeing how it is that God dealt with Elijah after he demonstrated these very human emotions, he dealt gently and knowingly with Elijah as he exhibited these emotions, these very real human responses that we all feel as we encounter crises, disappointments, situations in our lives. It reminds me of Matthew 11. Matthew 11. This is one of the very few, maybe the only, sections in the Gospels where Jesus Christ actually talks about himself in terms of his nature. He talks a lot about his identity as a son of David, as a son of man, as a son of God, but he doesn't talk a lot about his own attributes. This is one of the few, if not the only place where he does that. Matthew 11 verse 28, he says, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. How consistent is that with what we see about how God dealt with Elijah and how he deals with us because we know that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever? So as we wrap up this message, Elijah was a man that God used very powerfully. We see the account written all through the these sections of Scripture that we read. His raw humanity is also on display in the way that he handled difficulty in his life. Through these episodes that we looked at briefly today, God showed the deep care that he has, even for our own human frailties. And just as Elijah was a man who's just as human as we are, a man of like passions as us, that God can and will care for us in the same way. When we run, he follows us and he sustains us. When we hide, he gently comes and he finds us. And when we think all is lost, he reminds us of his plan for what's next. We'll all encounter periods and sometimes even years of difficulties and disappointments in our lives, but God does promise to give us care and to give us rest.