Scripture: 1 Kings 19:1-18
Most of us know the singer and guitarist Joe Walsh. He was one of the lead guitarists and singers in the Eagles. Joined the band before their best-selling Hotel California album. He was also the leader of the James Gang and a solo artist most famous for that song, “Life’s Been Good to Me So Far.”
Long before he was a rock star, however, he had to learn to play his instrument like anyone else. Practice scales. Gain new skills. Gain dexterity. And he had friends who wanted him to learn to play a Beatles song called, “And Your Bird Can Sing”—a highlight from their Revolver album. (It was released in America a few months earlier on Yesterday and Today.) The song features a great and memorable guitar riff. Any self-respecting future guitar-hero and rock star like Joe Wash should be able to play it, right? I mean, Walsh was cocky enough to believe that he was better than George Harrison.
But Walsh struggled to learn this guitar riff… In fact, it took him weeks to learn it! The experience kind of humbled him, you know? Like, “Maybe I’m not as good a guitarist as I thought!” He was depressed, disappointed, discouraged!
But he stuck with it until finally… voila!He mastered the song. Now it was time to play the song for his friends. And when he played it, their jaws dropped… To say they were impressed was an understatement. They couldn’t believe Joe Walsh was that good!
Why?
Because… You see, on the recording, George Harrison… and Paul McCartney… together… play the guitar riff… in harmony: in other words, it took two guitarists,each playing different notes from one another, to pull off that particular riff. Yet Joe Walsh did it using only two hands rather than four.
So I guess he was a pretty good guitarist after all…
But I bring this up because Joe Walsh misunderstood something important about the song. And he misinterpreted what he was hearing and experiencing. And for a while, at least, because of his misunderstanding and misinterpretation, he felt discouraged… he felt disappointed… he felt depressed.
Anyone ever feel discouraged… depressed… disappointed. Of course you do.
We’re in good company. In today’s scripture, the prophet Elijah feels discouraged, depressed, and disappointed. Like Joe Walsh, he also misunderstands and misinterprets something important… in this case, he misunderstands and misinterprets what God is up to in the recent events of his life.
We can learn a lot about how to deal with disappointment, discouragement, and depression from this prophet… That’s what this sermon is about.
First some background: The nation of Israel, at this point in history, is split in two—between the larger northern kingdom, which retained the name “Israel,” and the smaller southern kingdom, which is called “Judah.” Jerusalem is in Judah… that’s where the Temple is.
Unlike in the southern kingdom, Judah—where you would still occasionally have some good and faithful kings—all of the kings of the northern kingdom were awful. And perhaps none is worse than King Ahab and his wife Jezebel. Jezebel was a pagan who worshiped the god Baal. And with her husband’s approval she implemented a plan to completely eliminate the worship of Yahweh, the God of Israel—and, in fact, to murder faithful people who did worship God.
To say the least, if you’re a prophet like Elijah—called by God to minister in the northern kingdom when Ahab was king—you know you’ve got your work cut out for you!
Through Elijah’s prophetic work, in response to Ahab and Jezebel’s evil schemes, God sent a famine on the land—no rainfall for three and a half years.
But by the end of the previous chapter, chapter 18, God ends the famine and sends rain. But it only happened after Elijah had a dramatic confrontation with the 450 prophets of Baal. I preached on this a couple of years ago, during our year-long “Journey Through the Bible” series. Elijah orchestrates a miraculous display of God’s power—and proves that the god Baal and his prophets are powerless. Through Elijah, God sent fire down from the sky and completely consumed an altar that Elijah set up. This frightened the people of Israel so much that, according to 1 Kings 18:39, the people fell on their faces in repentance: They said, in unison, “The Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God.” And Elijah administered capital punishment against all these blaspheming false prophets in Israel.
So… All’s well that ends well, right? Those Israelites are now going to straighten up and fly right!
You know better than that…
Any optimism we were feeling at the end of chapter 18 gets extinguished in verse 1 of chapter 19: “Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, ‘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.’”
And when Elijah got this word, see verse 3: “Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life…”
But why does he run? Why is he afraid?
I want to say, “Elijah, you of all people should know that if God can rain fire down from heaven—as you just saw God do a couple of days ago—among the many other miraculous things you’ve personally witnessed God do—including the raising of the dead—then surely you know that you have nothing to be afraid of here.”
“Don’t you remember Psalm 118:6, one of our church’s memory verses this year? ‘The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’
“Come on, Elijah! Get your act together!”
That’s what I would be tempted to tell him. God is far more compassionate. God sends an angel to him. See verse 5: “And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Arise and eat.’” And he gave him a piping hot loaf of bread and a jar of fresh, cool water.
And the angel does the same thing again after he sleeps a while longer…
I am impressed with how tender, how compassionate, how patient God is with Elijah. God knows that what Elijah needs before anything else… before he needs any kind of help for his spiritual problem… God knows that he needs something more physical, more down to earth. Look at these verses: He needs affection, he needs sleep, he needs food and water.
We church people easily forget that. We often want to spiritualize everything.
Years ago, contemporary Christian singer Sheila Walsh—who, back in the ’90s hosted The 700 Club on a Christian cable network—was suffering from severe, clinical depression. Gosh, like Elijah himself, she felt like dying. She was suicidal. But like Elijah, she had a physiological problem that needed healing. She wisely sought medical intervention. And her doctor treated her physical needs… prescribed her medication… got her into therapy.
And guess what she got in return for receiving this kind of help? She got fire. She lost her job on this Christian TV show! Because… after all, the producers thought… why should she or any other faithful Christian ever be so depressed that they need medication and therapy… if they trust in Jesus?
See what I mean? It’s sad…
Of course Sheila Walsh would be the first one to tell you that she—like the rest of us Christians—also needed to have more faith… also needed to trust in Jesus more… also needed to pray more… also needed to spend more time in God’s Word, etc.
But even if she did all those things perfectly well, she would still need medical intervention to address her mental health. Elijah needs that too! For him in comes in the form of an angel. But for all we know, an angel pointed Sheila Walsh to a doctor and a therapist who would meet her physical or physiological needs.
Is that clear?
I want to make sure, because now I need to add that Elijah also still needs spiritual help and healing… Of course he does! He’s been wounded in battle. I’m not kidding. No one answers God’s call and faithfully carries out God’s will without picking a fight with a far bigger, deadlier enemy than we often imagine.
Let’s look at verse 2 again. Jezebel sends a messenger to Elijah, saying, in so many words, “Tomorrow I’m going to have you killed.” But think about this: If the queen was able to send a messenger to Elijah telling him that she’s going to kill him by this time tomorrow, then that means that she could just as easily have sent a soldier or an assassin to go ahead and kill him today in the same amount of time it took to deliver the message. Right?
Was Jezebel such an evil genius that she knew that she could do worse than merely kill Elijah: After all, if she killed him, he’d go straight to heaven to be with the Lord. That wouldn’t be so bad for him. But no… she seemed to know that she could harm Elijah in a far worse way… by killing his spirit. Which is what she tries to do and very nearly succeeds!
How did she know he would respond this way? How did she know she could hurt him so badly?
I don’t think she did. I don’t think Jezebel even thought any of this through. I don’t think she was ultimately calling the shots here…
See,Elijah has an enemy far craftier than just Jezebel, however wicked she was. And this enemy knows how to harm Elijah not justphysically, but far worse: to harm him spiritually. Our ultimate enemy knows precisely what and where our Achilles’ heel is—he knows our weaknesses, our soft spots, the places where we’re most vulnerable. And that’s precisely where this enemy attacks. Jezebel, in this case, was just the pawn that he used to mount his attack…
And this enemy, of course, is the devil: As the apostle Paul warns us in Ephesians 6:12, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” 1
Which was an ironic thing for Paul to say because—from a worldly perspective—Paul seemed to be fighting against “flesh and blood enemies” all the time: In fact, Paul describes just some of the things his flesh-and-blood enemies do in 2 Corinthians chapter 11: They beat him with rods on many occasions. They whipped him 39 times on several occasions. One time they stoned him and left him for dead. They constantly slandered him and persecuted him. They threw him in prison multiple times… In fact, as we know from history, Paul’s enemies eventually beheaded him. And it’s clear from his letters that he was well aware that his imminent death was coming. He accepted it as the cost of following Jesus.
Paul knew better than anyone the kind of harm that flesh-and-blood enemies could do. Yet none of these human enemies count for anything, Paul says: because we have a more ultimate Enemy—the one who’s working behind the scenes and pulling strings. Satan is our real enemy… our ultimate enemy.
But if that’s the case, if we have such a deadly enemy fighting against us, how are we possibly going to prevail over him?
Fortunately, today’s scripture gives us some important guidance…
As I suggested earlier, at the end of chapter 18, before the start of today’s scripture, it seems to Elijah as if, finally—finally!—things are going to change for the better in Israel. Finally, the people of Israel are going to abandon their idolatry and renew their covenant with God. Finally, even King Ahab and Queen Jezebel will surely repent of their sin and idolatry and worship the one true God… Especially after what they’ve just seen God do!
The future looked bright to Elijah…
But Elijah was wrong. Elijah’s plan, what he thought was going to happen, didn’t come to fruition. His expectations were dashed.
Alcoholics Anonymous has a famous saying, which pertains to Elijah: “Expectation is a planned resentment.” Expectation is a planned resentment.
Do we see resentment in Elijah? Of course… When see resentment in Elijah’s “Now I’m only one left” speech. Self-pity is a form of resentment. Elijah is angry. And what do they say about depression? It’s anger turned inward. I’m sure this is at least a part of Elijah’s depression.
And this brings us to the most famous part of today’s scripture. When Elijah is in the cave on Mt. Horeb—otherwise known as Mt. Sinai, where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. In fact, commentators point out many parallels between Moses and Elijah. We’re meant to think of Moses’ experience on the same mountain when we read about Elijah. Even the appearance of fire, wind, and earthquake are meant to recall the signs of God’s terrifying presence on the mountain in Exodus 19 and 20 when God spoke the Ten Commandments to the people.
But again, God didn’t live up to Elijah’s expectations… Unlike with Moses, the Lord wasn’t present in the wind. Or in the the earthquake. Or in the fire. Instead, Elijah hears what the King James Version famously calls, famously, a “still small voice.”
Just like Elijah expected repentance on the part of Ahab and Jezebel, he no doubt expected God to reveal himself in these big, powerful, spectacular ways—like wind, earthquake, and fire. That’s what God had done on that same mountain centuries earlier! Besides, God revealed himself in fire to Elijah and the people of Israel in the previous chapter!
But not here. And this is God’s way of saying, I think, “Elijah, you expect me to do these spectacular, powerful, dramatic things in your life and in the world, but that’s not the way I work the vast majority of the time. I usually work in infinitesimally small, often invisible, often imperceptible ways. And just because you don’t usually know what I’m up to doesn’t mean I’m not up to something good. You’ll see it eventually… Maybe only in eternity. What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 13? “Now we know in part. Then we shall know fully, even as we are fully known”?
Remember Joseph in the Book of Genesis… His brothers intended to cause him great harm by selling him into slavery in Egypt. And Joseph suffers greatly, is falsely accused of a crime, and languishes in prison for years. But in the midst of this incredible suffering and these heartbreaking setbacks, God is working in small and imperceptible ways. Until after thirteen years in slavery and then prison Joseph became Pharaoh’s prime minister.
Through his wise leadership and stewardship and God’s grace, he saves Egypt from a devastating famine; and he even saves one particular Hebrew family from starvation… a family that includes his brothers, the same ones who got him into this mess in the first place! Years later, after their father Jacob dies, Joseph’s brothers fear that Joseph—now this powerful ruler—would have them executed for what they did to him.
But no… Instead, Joseph says to them, in Genesis 50:20, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
I said earlier that we have a crafty, potentially deadly enemy constantly working against us. And he is capable of causing harm in our lives, to be sure… just like Joseph’s brothers caused him great harm.
But listen: What God did for Joseph—transforming what his brothers intended for evil and, instead, using it for something good for Joseph and the world—God promises to do for all of us who are his children through faith in Christ. Because, after all, “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” 1 John 4:4. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28. And we know that, as Romans 8:31 says, “if God is for us, who can be against us?” Answer: no one and nothing… can be ultimately against us!
So we can literally say of the devil’s worst schemes against us: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”
And how could it be any other way for those of us who are in Christ?
No greater evil was ever done, after all, than the evil that was done to Jesus. Satan and his army of fellow demons, conspiring with the world’s evil powers, could not have done worse evil than they did on Mount Calvary when Christ was crucified. Yet God took that evil—the worst that had ever been perpetrated against the sinless Son of God—and transformed it…
God transformed it into the greatest good the world has ever known: which is, salvation for all who receive God’s gift of eternal life in Christ! Adoption into God’s family forever! The defeat of sin and death! The redemption of God’s creation! New and eternal life!
If God has the power to do that with the worst act of evil ever perpetrated in history—to transform it into something good, to transform it into the best thing ever—then, to say the least, God has more than enough power to do that with all lesser forms of evil that the devil can throw at you and me! Amen?
No human enemy and no supernatural enemy has the power to prevent God from working good and fulfilling his ultimate plan for us in the midst of all circumstances. What a relief! Praise God!
Decades ago, back in the ’70s, a Christian singer-songwriter Phil Keaggy wrote a song called “Disappointment.” It included these words:
Disappointment, His appointment
Change one letter, then I see
That the thwarting of my purpose
Is God’s better choice for me…
God’s appointment… Whew… That’s good. And it is true. And it is biblical. But it’s also… often—and this is the hard part—very difficult to accept!
I mean, if life is going great, it’s easy to say, “God has appointed me… to this success… this prosperity… this impressive achievement… this great blessing in my family… in my career… in my health… in my love life…
It’s much harder to say, alongside Job, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” 2
Just as it was hard for Elijah to accept that his apparent failure and fruitlessness as a prophet was actually going exactly according to God’s plan… That God was in charge, that God knows how to runt he universe better than we do. So we trust him.
John Newton, the Anglican minister from the 18th-century who also wrote the song “Amazing Grace,” once wrote in a letter: “Everything is needful that [God] sends; nothing can be needful that He withholds.”
That’s always true for us children… “I’ve needed everything that’s happened to me”… God’s used everything to make me who I am today. If things had happened differently, I would be someone else. But God loves me… and the person he’s making me into. Let’s tell ourselves something like this: God has used and is using everything that’s happened to me to make me into this person.