19:1-18 Elijah on Mt Horeb.

   
19:1-18 Elijah on Mt Horeb. Here we see another side of Elijah's character, altogether more human, frail and fallible. In terror of Jezebel he fled to the desert south of Beersheba, not merely outside the boundaries of Israel but beyond the southern border of Judah. There, in the depths of depression and despair, he prayed that he might die. There is no indication that he had planned to travel further than this. The journey which followed was only possible because an angel (or perhaps simply 'a messenger') ministered to him. The end of the journey was Mt Horeb, the place where God had commissioned Moses (Ex. 3) and later appeared in smoke, fire and thunder to give Israel the Ten Commandments (Ex. 19-20).
    On Mt Carmel we saw Elijah the great spiritual leader, saving Israel by his faith and faithfulness. On Mt Horeb we see him weak, mistaken and in need of God's rebuke. God's opening question shows that, although God's own messenger had enabled Elijah to make the journey, Elijah should not really have been there. Elijah's answer completely devalued what had happened on Mt Carmel. He ignored God's victory over Baal as though it had achieved nothing. By implication, he dismissed the people as utterly faithless. He disregarded the faithful Obadiah and the possibility that there might have been many more like him. Perhaps he saw Obadiah's position in the royal court as a sign of weakness and compromise. Once again, he stated that he was the only prophet of Yahweh left alive (cf. 18:22), thus setting no value on the hundred prophets which he knew had been concealed in caves by Obadiah. Presumably because they had not stood up to be counted they were swept aside as hopelessly ineffectual. Elijah, now (ironically) sheltering in his own cave, conveniently overlooked the fact that he had lived in hiding himself for three years and had shown his own weakness by running away.
    God's response was to pass by while Elijah stood at the entrance to his cave. Wind, earthquake and fire manifested themselves in succession, but God is said not to have been in any of these. Then a different phenomenon followed. The translations a gentle whisper and 'a still small voice' (RSV) do not do full justice to the enigmatic Hebrew expression, which may be better rendered 'a brief sound of silence'. Although the text does not explicitly say so, it implies that God was at last passing by in the silence which followed the storm.
    These events provide a vivid demonstration that God is not always at work in ways which are visible and dramatic. He may choose to be present silently. Elijah's diagnosis of the situation he had left behind was therefore challenged, for God can work in ways which even his servants cannot detect.
    However, when God repeated his opening question Elijah's reply was the same as before. God did not repeat the lesson but gave Elijah instructions to anoint three people who would, in their different ways, carry forward the work of purifying Israel. The instructions ended with the information that God had no less than 7,000 loyal followers in Israel (18)! The lesson of the silence was hammered home by this closing rebuke. Elijah had dismissed everyone's faith but his own and had failed to appreciate ways in which God was at work. This is an attitude which often leads to a divisive arrogance and even fanaticism among God's people today.
    It is often suggested that Elijah was suffering from depression. Depression can have many different causes (from suppressed anger to vitamin deficiency) and we should not assume that when we are depressed our problem is the same as Elijah's, or his the same as ours. In his case, depression and discouragement seem to have stemmed from his skewed perspective. He both underrated his own achievement and undervalued the contribution of others. The answer, in part at least, was for him to be given a glimpse of things from God's point of view. We need such glimpses too, if we are not to become discouraged in the Christian life.

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Regards,
Ryan Chia

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Mission exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.

From John Piper, Let The Nations Be Glad