Elijah on
The rebellion of Satan
against God is at the heart of the whole sin problem. It caused a fall among
the angels; Satan led about one third of the angels to go along with him in that
rebellion, and then there was a trial of some type in eternity past where God
establishes the guilt of Satan and these fallen angels, and apparently there
was some sort of a challenge to that decision which is why there is human
history. We are, as it were, an exhibit in this trial to demonstrate the
significance of personal responsibility toward God and submission to His
authority. And what happens when the creature disobeys the creator, begins to
act as a god unto himself and begins to act independently of God, what God is
showing is even in something as innocuous as eating a piece of fruit that
because that is done in rebellion against God that act of disobedience alone
has such ramifications and repercussions throughout not only the spiritual realm
but also the physical realm that it is the root of all suffering, wars,
famines, disease, heartache; everything goes back to that act. Therefore it
shows that the simple act of rebellion that came from the volition of Satan in
that initial act is responsible for all of that horror that we see throughout
creation. Therefore there is the punishment of spending eternity in the lake of
fire which is a just punishment
But where it comes down to
where we live we have this basic challenge of authority for us, and that is the
authority of God. How well do we respond to the authority of God and to the
authorities that he has set up.
As we get into 1 Kings 18
there are two questions that are going to be raised related to authority. One
is an explicit question in the text. As Elijah comes to the point where he is
going to challenge Ahab and the false religion of Baal and the Asherah that has been brought in by Jezebel and that Ahab
has willingly allowed to dominate the northern
kingdom, he is going to challenge the people: How long are you going to teeter
back and forth between two opinions? How long are you going to try to blend the
two, doing it your way and stop doing it God’s way? How long are you going to
be in a position where you are going to give lip service to the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob on the one hand, and on the other hand are going to worship
Baal? The parallel of that to us as believers is that we also live, just as
they did, in a culture dominated by paganism, by pagan though, by false views of
the origin of life, the origin of the universe; a world dominated by a
scientific mythology that came from
The second question that we
have embedded in 1 Kings 18 is one which is not expressed but implied, and that
is directed to the believer, a question related to the extent of our obedience
to God, our response to His sovereignty. We have looked at various Bible
passages related to authority established by God. Human government is a divine
institution that was established by God in Genesis chapter nine, and it is
re-established in the New Testament that government comes from God; that there
is no authority except those which have been established by God. The context
shows that it is talking about a government.
Questions:
1. In light of Romans 13 how are we to
understand or interpret what took place during the American war for
independence? It is very difficult to factor in all of the different factors
that were going on during that particular time in history.
2. What about the
In 1 Kings 18 we see three
people who are central to the events of the chapter. Elijah is the prophet of
God, the one who announced to Ahab in 17:1 that it would not rain again until
his command. He is the representative of God representing the Mosaic law. Remember, that God stated that if
For three and a half years it
has not rained. During that time God has continued to train Elijah in terms of
his own relationship to God, his understanding of divine authority, and Elijah
is a man who trusts God extensively and is a great believer and prophet because
he is completely sold out to obeying God no matter what the external
circumstances might be. He is the kind of believer that we find in shirt supply
today. Too many are not like Elijah, they are more like Obadiah. Obadiah as
well is a believer, a believer of some courage and some application. He is not apostate but is a weak believer and limited in his
application.
The third person we see in this
chapter is Ahab. He is ultimately an evil king, evil because he is disobedient
to God and because he imports a false religious system and supports it within
the nation. He is evil because rather than being a leader within the home he is
a passive male to his aggressive wife Jezebel. He is a wimp of a husband and a
wimp of a leader and as a result he is manipulated by whoever is around d him.
As we get into the chapter
there are two basic sections that we look at. The first 19 verses is the
prelude to the great event that occurs from verse 20 down though verse 46. This
is the challenge that Elijah makes to the prophets of Baal on
As we look at these two men,
Elijah and Obadiah, we see three areas initially where they are very similar.
First of all, both men are Old Testament believers. In the Old Testament they
were saved the same way as in the New Testament: by faith alone in the promise
of God. In the Old Testament the promise of God looked forward to or
anticipated God’s solution to the sin problem. So the Old Testament individual
was saved by trusting that God would provide a savior,
a deliverer, and it was through that deliverer alone that they would have
eternal life. In the church age we look back to the fulfilment of that promise
which occurred on the cross of
1 Kings 18:7 NASB
“Now as Obadiah was on the way, behold, Elijah met him, and he recognized him
and fell on his face and said, ‘Is this you, Elijah my master?’ [8] He said to
him, ‘It is I. Go, say to your master, ‘Behold, Elijah {is here.}’ [9] He said,
‘What sin have I committed, that you are giving your servant into the hand of
Ahab to put me to death?
When God directed Elijah
to confront Ahab Elijah goes to the most powerful man in the land who could
have had him killed right there on the spite, but Elijah knows that his life is
in God’s hands and it is not up to Ahab when he lives or dies but up to God. So
Elijah has the courage of his convictions of God’s control over his life and
that he can walk into the presence of Ahab and announce that there will be a
famine until Elijah says that it will reign. But there is a limitation to the
courage of Obadiah and a limitation to his faith. Elijah obeys God without
hesitation; Obadiah questions Elijah—Do you really
think that is a good idea? Let’s have a little discussion over this. Elijah is
bold but not bold in an arrogant way. He is bold with humility toward God, he is bold in his approach to God, and without that
sense of human boldness which is an arrogant type of bravery. In contrast Obadiah
was not bold, he was timid and willing to do what he did in the shadows and
what he did was right and honourable, but he was not one to step out and take a
stand.
1 Kings 18:10 NASB
“As the LORD your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where
my master has not sent to search for you; and when they said, ‘He is not
{here,}’ he made the kingdom or nation swear that they could not find you.
Next we see that one of
the aspects of the mature believer in Elijah is that he is not concerned about
what other people might think of him. He is not concerned about those negative
consequences that come from how others might respond or react to him, he knows
that his life is in the hands and protection of the Lord no matter what
happens. He doesn’t focus on the circumstances or details of life whereas
Obadiah does. Then we will see that Elijah as a strong believer is going to
stake everything on his obedience to God. He understands that God is real and
what God says in His Word is real and so he is willing to stake it all on the
reality of God. Obadiah, when he hears of Elijah’s commission to go to Ahab
goes on the defensive. He talks about what he has already done and why should
he do more and do something that would threaten his life. 1 Kings 18:14 NASB
“And now you are saying, ‘Go, say to your master, “Behold, Elijah {is here}”’;
he will then kill me.” His life is more important to him and his comforts are
more important to him than obedience to God. Elijah commands him again. [15] “Elijah
said, ‘As the LORD of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely
show myself to him today’.” Finally Obadiah does follow him. His doubts have
been satisfied by Elijah and so he goes to meet Ahab announces that Elijah is
on the way.
As we look at these two
men we have to ask ourselves what kind of believer we are. Are we an Obadiah
believer or are we an Elijah believer? Years ago a bumper sticker was seen that
said: “If God doesn’t exist nothing matters; if God
exists nothing else matters.” That has summed up in a nutshell the reality in
Scripture: that if there is a God and the God of the Bible exists then truly
nothing else that we experience in life matters.
Nothing else can stack up against the knowledge of God and relationship with
God and living our life on the basis of that truth, because that is reality. Anything
else is living in a fantasy world, living in a world of our own creation and it
is doomed to failure. If God doesn’t exist then nothing really matters; there
is no basis for morality or ethics or future hope, and there is nothing in life
that really matters, everything is just pure chance and chaos, and we are
nothing more than an accident. But of God exists then nothing else matters.
And that is the challenge we see here. Elijah has understood that, and as we grow as believers we come to understand that more and more and more. But it only comes because we make that initial decision at some point in our life that nothing matters more than knowing God, nothing matters more than knowing His Word, nothing matters more than learning to think about reality and how God says we should think about reality; and therefore nothing that we do in life is more important than studying His Word and absorbing it into our thinking, my life, so that we are saturated with His Word in order to be the kind of believer that Elijah was, and have that courage, that kind of boldness and be one of those solid believers that has a positive impact by association with those around us. Anything less does not contribute to the solution but contributes to the problem. That spiritual life begins because we come to understand the fullness of God’s grace and His love as expressed at the cross.