20240811 6PMp JB Elijah is recommissioned
1 Kings 19:10-18
No one likes to feel like a failure! No one likes that feeling – feeling like they’ve failed. Eljah is feeling devasted. Why does he feel like this? Is it like he has failed? Or is it the Israelites’ failure to turn back to Yahweh? Or like that God has failed him? Or like a combination of these?
Yet in his devastation, God has cared for him, and fed him. And he has gone on a journey for forty days and forty nights to Mount Sinai, (Horeb). And this is setting up for an awesome moment! Sinai is where the nation of Israel started, where the Ten Commandments were given, there Elijah is still devastated! There, the Word of the LORD came to him: “what are you doing here?” Elijah, feeling devastated, experiences the wind, the earthquake, and fire. And then a gentle whisper. And a voice said: What are you doing here, Elijah? Elijah expresses his feelings, “… I am the only one left!” Yahweh is gentle with Elijah. He is told to go back the way he came … and told what he is to do, whom he is to anoint! And he is reassured that the LORD has reserved 7000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him. Yahweh is calling him to trust.
Yahweh will bring justice, Yahweh will give him a companion, and that Yahweh is working to save His people. And this promise of God’s justice applies not only to Elijah, but also to us. In our world, God has not given up. Acts 17 declares that God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice, by the man he has appointed. Jesus, who died for us, and rose again!
Speaker: John Batten.
