A Day’s Journey into the Wilderness

“But [Elijah] went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die.”

Elijah was done. Many of us have had “mountaintop” spiritual experiences that bit the dust only days later. Elijah’s was unusual in that it was literal. The mount was Carmel, and the glorious moment he experienced atop it was the complete and utter vindication of Israel’s God and his solitary public voice (Elijah) before the entire nation, abruptly followed by the summary execution of 450 false prophets claiming to speak for YHWH’s rival.

It was a good day. A really good day. Everything Elijah asked God did, and he did it in spades.

Back Down to Earth

Then it was right back down to earth. Queen Jezebel got word from her chastened husband that Elijah had killed her prophets, and she swore vengeance against him. “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” She sent this word to Elijah. This was a woman with absolute power in Israel, no fear of Israel’s God, and zero moral scruples. So, after three years of running and hiding from evil men who wanted to take his life, Elijah was on the run again, just as he had begun to believe events were finally turning the corner and that good might eventually triumph in Israel.

He ran for a whole day, then sat down in exhaustion and utter defeat. “No more, Lord,” he said. “No more. I’m done.” And he was, with a few notable exceptions.

Jesus and YHWH

I love this chapter of 1 Kings. It’s beautiful from beginning to end, as if the Lord knew the reader needs to see on occasion the meekness and gentleness displayed so perfectly by the Lord Jesus in his time on earth in the person and work of the God of the Old Testament, the “distant, harsh and angry deity” so regularly pilloried in popular media today. But God was not one thing at a distance and another in person. Jesus was not some kind of watered-down, kinder-gentler version of God produced to suit the ethos of the first century devout. No, the Godhead has always been perfectly unified. In the person of Christ, as the hymnwriter has expressed it, “the Father’s glories shine”. He who has seen the Son has seen the Father. The persons of the Trinity are one in character and purpose, always have been and always will be.

We do not have a schizophrenic God, as some maintain, but we do have an entire generation of skeptics who apparently don’t or can’t read. The gentleness of the Old Testament God of Israel is fully on display in this chapter. You cannot miss it unless you are trying remarkably hard.

No Better Than Dad

Elijah took the failure of the Carmel experience to reverse the spiritual decline in Israel personally. “I am no better than my fathers,” he sulked. In fact, he had done nothing wrong. Israel’s ruling class had not rejected Elijah’s law. They had rejected the Lord’s. Elijah just happened to be a relatively easy target for a vengeful woman so bent on evildoing that even the confirmed account of fire falling from heaven didn’t deter her. Imagine that!

Moreover, there is nothing more funk-inducing than thinking God has finally won the day, only to find yourself right back at spiritual square one. The chronic pessimist, I have often said, is never disappointed. Apparently, that was not Elijah. He had hoped for a better outcome. I have known elders who became worn down by the sheer weight of the number of sad cases they’ve had to deal with, and found it impossible to keep them in perspective. Either that, or they develop a shell of cynicism to protect themselves from being hurt by all the failures of faith they witness. Neither situation is ideal, but the servant of God must get used to dealing with regular disappointment while not losing sight of his long-term objectives or becoming dispirited.

Food, Sleep and a Gentle Touch

Sometimes it happens anyway, and the Lord understands.

In 1 Kings 19, there are no criticisms or stirring speeches. Elijah falls asleep, and an angel appears with first one meal, then another. Amazingly, in the strength of food provided by heaven, Elijah finds the energy to hike forty days and nights to Horeb, the mount of God, more frequently referred to as Sinai, where the Lord gave Israel its law.

At Horeb, the word of the Lord comes to him with nothing but a single question: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”, which the Lord asks twice, because Elijah is only able to respond with a pair of word-for-word identical self-pitying litanies of woe: “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

I, Even I Only?

The Lord does three things in response:

First, he shows Elijah there is light at the end of the tunnel. God will not hold back his wrath from unrepentant sinners indefinitely. He tells Elijah to go anoint three men: the new king of Syria, the new king of Israel, and his own replacement, Elisha. That’s a comparatively easy task. No confrontations involved yet. Relief is on the way, and God will be vindicated once and for all. “The one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death.” There may not be hope for major reform in Israel, but the Lord will not neglect justice. God will have his say. Elijah can take comfort in that. For him, the battle is nearing its end, but the Lord’s work will go on, and it will succeed.

Second, he shows Elijah he’s wrong when he claims, “I, even I only, am left”, yet he does it without humiliating or chastising his prophet. He simply declares the truth: that there are multiple orders of magnitude more faithful men and women in Israel than Elijah imagines. “I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” Unbeknownst to Elijah, all kinds of people have somehow managed to avoid bowing the knee to Baal who remain alive. As a further comfort, the Lord ensures Elijah his coming wrath will not mistakenly sweep these precious souls out with the wicked. “I will leave seven thousand”, he affirms, while using Hazael, Jehu and Elisha to get the job of judging the enemies of God accomplished in ways nobody can mistake.

Third, he graciously accepts his servant’s resignation. Just not quite yet.

The Temptation to Despair

When Paul writes that God is faithful, and he will not let us be tempted beyond our ability, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, he may well be thinking of precisely this situation. “No temptation” means not just the temptations to idolatry, sexual immorality or grumbling. I believe it very much includes the temptation to despair. Despair is one of the hardest sins to feel guilty about (“I didn’t do it, it just happened to me!”), but one of the most likely to be fatal to our service for the Lord. Over the years, I have seen more than a few who started well, then gave up. Yet despair is just one more temptation like any other for which God has provided a way of escape if we will only believe him and take it.

Certainly, the Lord knows all possible failures to which each of his children is inclined, and he foreknew them long before he called us to be conformed to the character of Christ. This is what Paul is saying in Romans: there is always a godly remnant, even if you can’t see them when they’re hiding. That’s a good fact to call to mind when dispirited by the behavior of others who call themselves Christians. We are never alone, and we rarely have all the relevant facts. We can’t be expected to.

Not the End

1 Kings 19 isn’t the end for Elijah. He hangs around for another four chapters, despite anointing Elisha as his replacement at the end of this chapter in one of the most delightful scenes of the OT for everyone except Elisha’s yoke of oxen. But Elijah would still get to testify to Ahab face to face about exactly how God was going to destroy his house and punish his evil. He would get to live through Ahab’s prophesied death and see God’s word through his own mouth confirmed. In fact, Elijah would still be around to denounce Ahab’s son and fry a hundred of Ahaziah’s troops when they came to order him to attend the king at his bedside. More importantly, he would be one of only two men in history to stand on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Lord Jesus, affirming his place in the Lord’s affections notwithstanding his exhausted plea for an early exit. Instead, he got a ride home to Paradise in unique style.

We all have our occasional day’s journey into the wilderness that ends up under a broom tree. It’s those moments that test our faith to the breaking point. But if you want to understand the Old Testament God, don’t look at how he deals with his enemies, even though he is often far more gracious to them than they deserve; more gracious even than his own servants would be.

Look at how he deals with his faithful servants. It’s there that the family resemblance between Father and Son is most obvious.