Elijah: A Man Subject To Like Passions As We Are

[Posted by permission. Chippenham Old Baptist Chapel.]

1 Kings 17, January 17th 2014

With the Lord’s help this evening I want to speak to you about this very prominent man in Scripture, Elijah. A man spoken of in the epistle of James, towards the end of God’s holy word, which is the last mention of him, he said, ‘Elijah was a man of like passions as we are’. That might be perhaps the title: ‘Elijah, the man of like passions as we are’. But James goes on to tell us, that though he was a man of like passions as we are, he had a wonderful gift, a gift that is given to all of God’s people in measure, but to him in great measure, the gift of prayer. If ever a man knew what wrestling prayer was, it was Elijah. If ever a man knew what it was to besiege the throne of grace, it was Elijah. And if ever there was a man who expected answers, it was Elijah. I hope we may learn something from the example of this good and godly gracious man, Elijah, this evening.

It is very interesting to notice that not only do the Christian church acknowledge the greatness of this man, of course the Jews do, but also the Muslims do, and so do the Drews, which is a form of religion in the Middle East which had its own roots in ancient times. The Jews, taking the prophecy of Malachi of which we will speak a little later, believe that before Messiah that they are looking for will come, Elijah will return in person and usher in the reign of that king that they are looking for. Of course we know that Messiah has come, we also know, as we will notice in a moment that that word has been remarkably fulfilled already in the prophecy of Malachi.

So what about this man Elijah? His parents, we are not told anything about, we know he came from a place called Tishbi, that’s why he was called Elijah the Tishbite, and that is a place east of the Jordan river. His parents, one would think were of a God-fearing nature, because of the name they gave him, Eli-jah. Eli means my God. And you will know that if you know your Bible well, that when our Lord hung on the cross he cried, ‘Eli Eli Lama Sabbacthani’. And that word ‘Eli Eli’ meaning, my God, my God. And Jah is the Hebrew word for Jehovah. The full meaning of Elijah’s name is, Jehovah is my God. No doubt as he was born this was the desire of his parents that it should be so. I hope it’s the desire of every godly parent that it should be so for their children. And I hope it’s the desire of every person here tonight that they might share perhaps not the name of Elijah, but the blessing that belongs to his name. Jehovah is my God.

Now there are three outstanding things about Elijah that make him a unique character in the word of God. We make speak of those in this way: translation, transfiguration and transmission, three long names.

Translation tells us the way in which he died. But he didn’t die, did he? Those of you may remember that he asked to die on one occasion. But he left this world in a very remarkable way at the end of his long and fiery ministry, God sent a whirlwind to gather him up in a chariot of fire, and he was separated from his son in the faith Elisha and carried up into heaven. He did not pass through the valley of the shadow of death that you and I expect to pass through. The only other character in the word of God who was likewise blessed was Enoch. We are not told the circumstances of Enoch’s passing, except the word of God says, he was not, but God took him. And Elijah’s passing was of a similar nature, God took him, his work was done.

Just a side thought, but a very precious one. The Lord Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten dearly beloved Son, though He had all nature at His hand and could call to His side any part of creative works to support Him, had that been His will to do so, yet He willingly submitted Himself to the hour and article of death, that through death He might conquer death and take the sting out of it for those who have the faith of godly men like Elijah. Such was the humility of our dear Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. So Elijah at the end of his days was translated.

Secondly, he was at the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here was an event that took place hundreds of years after he had passed from the kingdom of earth to the kingdom of heaven in the way of translation as I spoke. But we find him, alongside another eminent Old Testament figure, Moses, conversing with our Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration, and we are also told what they were conversing about, and the subject was the death that our Lord should accomplish at Jerusalem; that was their conversation with our Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount. We also know that the glory of Christ overshadowed both Moses and Elijah, and we find that ‘they saw no man save Jesus only’. And Elijah would have wished that and so would have Moses wished that, they would not indeed want to take any glory or any honour away from the crown that belonged to God’s dear Son, but it was a wonderful honour that these two men should appear in glory as it were alongside the Saviour, and telling us how He came to fulfil the law and the prophets.

I now want to turn with me to the third point, transmission, to the prophecy of Malachi, this is the last book of the Old Testament, and the very last chapter, chapter four, and it is very instructive to notice, the very last person mentioned on the Old Testament page is Elijah. Moses is mentioned in verse four in chapter four, but then we come to Elijah. ‘Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse’.

Now the Jewish nation in their blindness refuse to acknowledge the Godhead of our Lord Jesus are still waiting for that event, but I can show you from three scriptures very clearly that this event has already taken place. Turn with me first to Luke chapter 1 verse 17, and here we have the angel Gabriel revealing to the godly man Zacharias the birth of John the Baptist, and we read, ‘and he (that is, John) shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord’. In a very remarkable way the same blessed Spirit that was upon Elijah in anointing him for the work of his day, was also upon John the Baptist, so that he was the one who came in the spirit and power of Elias. Turn to Matthew chapter 11 and you will find the Lord Jesus Christ Himself now confirms this truth in verses 13 and 14, here we are told, ‘For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias (that’s the New Testament Greek name for Elijah), which was for to come’, they are our Lord’s own words. Then turn to Matthew 17 and our Lord underlines the truth yet again, from verse 10, ‘And his disciples asked him (that is, Christ), saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist’. So the fulfilling of that promise in Malachi, the one who would come in the spirit and power of Elias, is the work of that burning and shining light of John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord Jesus Christ. One other very interesting thing, in the second book of the Kings chapter 1 verse 8, there is a description given of what Elijah looked like. One of the kings was asking Ahaziah about him because he felt that Elijah was against him, and he said (in verse 7), ‘What manner of man was he which came up to meet you, and told you these words? And they answered him, He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite’. In Matthew chapter 3 verse 4, we have John the Baptist described, ‘And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey’. A very interesting contrast and yet comparison there between these two godly men who had such a similar office, one in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament.

Yet despite all these great privileges that he had, to be translated, and to be at the transfiguration, and to be as it were the transmission in God’s hand of the truth in his generation, he was nonetheless a man of like passions to us. I’ve listed seven things in the history of Elijah which tell us what sort of a character he was.

He was very bold and courageous against Ahab, he withstood him to the face, we read it in chapter 1, ‘there be neither dew nor rain these years, according to my word’, and then later on in the next chapter, he withstands him again to the face, when Ahab says, ‘Art thou he that troubleth Israel?’ No, said Elijah, it’s you who troubled Israel with your idolatry and your sins. He was a bold man, and yet in 1 Kings 19 we find the very opposite, we find him afraid. Jezebel utters a threat that within 24 hours he would be dead like the prophets of Baal who had been slain, and he runs away, hastens away the fear of man in his heart and lies under a juniper tree.

He was an angry man. At Horeb he became very angry when he considered Israel, and had pulled down God’s altars, and how they had rejected the true and living God, he became very angry in his ministry.

He was weary and depressed, he lays down under the juniper tree thinking there was no point in going on, everything seemed to be against him, what was the point of being the Lord’s prophet when there was so little fruit to it.

He was a zealous man, and his zeal on one occasion outstripped any other man in scripture. We read of no other who did what Elijah did when he ran from Carmel to Jezreel, 17 miles in front of Ahab’s chariot, and godly scholars tell us he must have run at something like 40 miles an hour. Now I don’t know how fast men run these days over short distances, but no one has run at 40 miles at that length whatever marathon they may do. The hand of the Lord was upon him.

He was jealous for God at Mount Horeb, jealous because God’s name had been dishonoured and disgraced by backsliding Israel. And yet in the midst of it all there was something of himself, you know. You notice very clearly what he says in 1 Kings 19 verse 14, listen very carefully and see how many times the word I appears, ‘And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life to take it away’. Something is creeping in there, perhaps he doesn’t realise it, how that great I (the old preacher used to speak about), it creeps in with us all, doesn’t it? And it did with Elijah, even this godly man. But the Lord told him He had reserved seven thousand men in Israel to not bow their knee to Baal, Elijah knew nothing about them, Elijah had to learn this lesson of humility. So he was a man of like passions as we are, plagued with an old nature, knowing the in’s and the out’s, the up’s and the down’s, of the mind and of the way. Despised by his generation, hated by them, but honoured by God; just as Enoch was honoured in his generation, and John the Baptist in his.

But what I want to speak of now, was the amazing man of prayer that he was. This is where we need by God’s help to take example from him. It’s a wonderful example of what a man of like passions as we are, when aided by the Holy Ghost, could move the throne of God on his behalf. We have five things, six things we might say, the godly man prayed for, and received an answer to all but one.

First of all, he prayed for a drought. Now it doesn’t actually say in 1 Kings 17 he prayed for a drought, but we are told in James he did, ‘he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not for three years and six months, and he prayed again, he prayed for rain’, we’ll come to that in a moment. What a strange thing to pray for a drought, why ever should Elijah who loved his nation pray for such a judgment from God. Well, the reason is this, dear friends, first of all the honour and glory of God was at stake, and he realised that stern measures were needed by God to bring the nation back again. They wouldn’t listen to the prophets, they wouldn’t listen to the warnings, so it was time for God’s rod to be brought forth. Elijah loved his nation as much as anyone, but he realised there was a time of judgment, and that’s why he prayed as he did, undoubtedly moved by the Spirit so to do. But it was a very remarkable prayer for a man to be praying, but he had a great insight into the honour and glory of God, and what was needed to bring the nation to its knees in repentance again. I wonder what he would pray for if he was in Great Britain. We must be very careful must we not, in wrath remember mercy, that would our plea, but I think dear friends, we should expect judgments, and judgments have been abroad have they not.

Secondly, he prayed for a life. We read of that young lad whose soul had departed from him, so he had died in the natural sense, that’s what death is, the separation of body and soul, and this prophet who had the ear of God wrestled hard, that the Lord would put back the soul of that young lad into his body. Only God could do that, he knew it. It’s God who holds the souls and the spirits of men in his hand, but he knew if it were God’s will it could be done and it would be done, and so moved by the Spirit he pleads and wrestles and the young lad is restored to his mother, revived. What a wonderful answer to prayer. We read in Hebrews 11, ‘women received their dead raised to life again’, through faith.

Thirdly, this godly man prayed for fire. And you have it on Mount Carmel, that exhibition, that trial of strength between the prophets of Baal and this one prophet Elijah. How the prophets of Baal set up their altar and laid their bullock on it, and cut themselves with lances as they leaped upon it, crying to their god who is no god to come and send fire upon their sacrifice. And all day they danced on it, and what a pitiful sight it was. How as the Israelites looked on who were watching this strange event, must have had a very potent lesson of the inability of idols. ‘Eyes have they but they see not, ears have they but they hear not, feet have they but they walk not, hands have they but they handle not, mouths have they but they speak not, they that trust in them are like unto them’. A very vivid exposition literally on Mount Carmel of that truth. When all was over, Elijah at the time of the evening sacrifice gathers twelve stones together, one for each of the tribes of Israel, lays the bullock upon it, and then he pours twelve barrels of water on the sacrifice, so that there could be hid anything counterfeit, then the dear man begins to pray. Listen to his prayer, oh what a prayer it was! ‘And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and of Israel, let it be known this day thou art God in Israel, that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word, Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know thou art the Lord God, and thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water in the trench’. What a wonderful answer to prayer! Those who looked on fell on their faces and said, ‘the Lord he is the God, the Lord he is the God’.

And then, the most perhaps well-known prayer of Elijah is set before us, when he prayed for rain after three years and six months without rain or dew. The Lord told him, ‘Go show thyself to Ahab and I will send rain upon the earth’. He had done as the Lord had commanded him, he had shown himself to Ahab as we just noticed, and now he knows the Lord had promised rain. But Elijah was no fatalist. The fatalist would have said, well, if the Lord is going to send rain, all I need to do is sit down and wait for it to come. But no, Elijah went on his knees, he wasn’t just a carnal man in this respect. He knew that if God gives you a promise then He will make you pray for it, He will bring you on your knees for it, He will bid you ask, seek and knock for it. God’s people are not idol in this respect. Living faith that lays hold on a living promise, will be praying the Lord, Lord do as thou hast said, for the honour and glory of Thy name and Thy word. There is a sound of abundance of rain, he says to Ahab. He said unto his servant, Go up, look and see for the first sign of this abundant rain that God has promised. And the servant comes back with the discouraging tidings, ‘There is nothing’. The sky is blue as ever, as empty as ever of clouds, not a hint of even a shower, let alone an abundance of rain. Does Elijah give up? ‘Go again seven times’. And each time the dear prophet has the same message come back, until the last time, a little cloud like a man’s hand arises out of the sea. Go and tell Ahab to get down quick to Jezreel, the rain is on its way. Yes, a little cloud. He didn’t despise it, did he? After all, he had lived on a little cake for many months in the widow woman’s Arefath’s house, and now he didn’t despise a little cloud. And nor should you despise that first token, that first answer to prayer that God has given you in the way, thank God for it, there’s more to come yet, it’s the earnest of a heaven full of clouds in God’s time. And Elijah then gets the answer that he begs and the Lord had promised. He prayed again and the Lord sent rain upon the earth. But He will be enquired of, He will be asked about these things.

But then, we can hardly believe the change, can we? Jezebel hears of the goings on at Mount Carmel, instead of humbling herself she threatens God’s servant with revenge, and this dear man hastens away into the wilderness, we find him lying down under a juniper tree. But now he prays a prayer that wasn’t answered, at least not in the way that he thought, ‘Let me die and not live, for I am not better than my father’s, take away my life’. What a prayer! Elijah, your work isn’t done yet. Oh, he would say, but I’m weary, I’m depressed, I can’t see any answers. Yes, I know the rain has come, but the people’s hearts are as fickle as ever, my ministry seems to be just beating the air, I’m not better than my fathers. Lord, take away my life. This poor, depressed, dejected man lies under the juniper tree with a prayer that was not answered, at least not in the way that he thought. The answer God did give first of all, was to feed his weak and weary servant twice over, and then he bid him go, and he went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights to Horeb where the Lord unfolded the mystery of his dealings. The earthquake, the wind and the fire all came, but the Lord was not in those, until he heard the still small voice, and he knew that voice, that was something he recognised straight away. It’s the voice of my Beloved, he would say, this is my God speaking to me, and he goes forth and tells his sad tale to the Lord. What doest thou here, Elijah? The Lord says, and he tells him why. And the Lord re-commissions him, re-anoints him and made provision for him for the remaining days of his life, with the provision of God’s servant Elisha, who was to be his successor. Of course, the way the Lord answered the prayer was that Elijah was taken home, as we said in the outset, by way of a chariot of fire in a whirlwind, and very different to what his prayer was. Friends, when God does not answer our prayers, you can be always sure there is something better for you, always. When He says no, then be content. You can be sure He has something better. Some of us have been thankful for the denials to our poor prayers sometimes, when God has appeared and satisfied the needy sore we had. His manner of satisfying that need was infinitely better than any plan we had in our little minds of how things ought to be.

But then, the hardest prayer that Elijah ever had to pray was right at the end of his journey. You remember that Elisha the prophet accompanied him right to the moment he was translated and taken from this earth, and Elijah said, what shall I do for you before I go? And Elisha prayed for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit – a double portion. He was asking for a double measure of the Holy Spirit in his heart, and that wasn’t a proud request, it was I think that Elisha felt doubly needy, seeing the trials and tribulations and the difficulties, the fires and the deep waters his master had passed through, and he thought however am I going to pass through similar things? He felt doubly needy, so he asked for a double portion. Don’t be afraid to ask for a double portion. But Elijah said, thou hast asked a hard thing. Why was it a hard thing? Because it was something Elijah couldn’t do for him. He knew so to do, and he knew all he could do was lay the matter before his God, and ask Him to answer as He saw fit. And he gave Elisha a token that if he saw him parted from him, then he would have the token for good that he had received this double portion of Elijah’s spirit. And we know he did, he witnessed it, Elijah’s mantle fell to the earth, Elisha takes it up, smites the waters of Jordan, where is the Lord God of Elijah? Not, where is Elijah? He had gone home. Where is his God? Oh, He still stands, He is still here. Dear friends, we ask that question tonight, where is the Lord God of Elijah? He still stands, He is still here. He rules and He reigns, and it is our covenant God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and even on the Mount of Transfiguration that was enforced. Who had the pre- eminence? Was it Moses? Was it Elijah? No. It was Jesus, He had the pre-eminence. He is the Lord God of Elijah. What a mercy He still lives! And still that little hymn we sometimes sing, is just as true,

‘Wrestling prayer can wonders do 

Bring relief in deepest straits, 

Prayer can force a passage through 

Iron bars and brazen gates’.

Well, what are your needs tonight, dear friends? You and I are men of like passions of Elijah. And we have the same need of prayer, the same need of the God who hears and answers prayer. But the great mercy is, that we do have a prayer hearing and prayer answering God. Some of us could write a book about what the God of Elijah has done for us in providing over the years in one way or another, and it would not be unprofitable for some of you who have proved the Lord God of Elijah just to put down on paper a little of what He has done for you, as a poor unworthy sinner needing His mercy.

‘That were a grief I could not bear 

Didst thou not hear and answer prayer 

But a prayer hearing, answering God 

Supports me under every load’.

Well, I don’t know what your load maybe tonight, it maybe sin, it maybe temptation, it maybe affliction, it maybe opposition, it maybe persecution, it maybe a great providential need. Friends, take example from Elijah. ‘The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much’, may you prove it. And may you be able to say with Elijah, he could say it, his name was ‘Jehovah is my God’. Yes he could say with the dear Psalmist, ‘this God is our God for ever and ever, he will be our guide even unto death’. May it be so.

Amen.