“FAINT NOT BECAUSE OF EVIL DOERS,
FOR IN DUE
TIME THEY SHALL BE CUT OFF.”-PSA. 37:1,2.
-I KINGS
19:1-8.-AUGUST 28.-
Golden Text:-“In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me.”
ELIJAH,
flushed at the victory over the priests of Baal, was not thereby made haughty
or boastful toward the king, though evidently he anticipated that the drouth
and now finally its abatement, with abundant rain and with the attendant
manifestation of divine power, would work a reformation in Israel. King Ahab
and the rulers of Israel were evidently converted, at least temporarily, from
Baal to Jehovah,-as evidenced by their willingness to permit the execution of
the 450 priests of Baal. There was one person, however, on whose condition of
heart Elijah had not counted, and that was Jezebel the queen, who really was at
the bottom of the false religious system in which, as we have seen, her father
had been at one time a chief priest in Zidon.
When the queen heard the result of the day’s procedure she was angry-angry with
God, angry with the Prophet Elijah for having shown up the falsity of Baal,
angry with her husband the king for having permitted the demonstration to
proceed to the disadvantage of Baal, and for permitting his priests to be
executed. She was furious, and sent a message to Elijah-according to the
customary form of those times-declaring that he would be as dead as the priests
of Baal within twenty-four hours. Canon Farrar thus graphically pictures the
queen, her message, etc. He says: “We can imagine the bitter objurgations
which she poured upon her cowering husband for having stood quietly by while her
prophets and Baal’s prophets were being massacred by this dark fanatic,
aided by a rebellious people. Had she been there all should have been
otherwise! . . . The oath shows the intensity of her rage-like that of the
forty Jews who bound themselves by the oath that they would not eat or drink
until they had slain Paul-and the fixity of her purpose, as when Richard III
declared that he would not dine until the head of Buckingham had fallen on the
block. She presents the spectacle so often reproduced in history and reflected
in literature, of a strong woman completely dominating a feebler consort.”
GOD’S REPRESENTATIVE INTIMIDATED.
The message sent to Elijah was evidently a boast and threat designed to
intimidate him and to cause him to flee the country, the very effect it did
produce. Jezebel was quite probably at heart afraid to have an encounter with
the man who, as God’s representative, was able to produce the results testified
to by her husband and by the rain: she was too shrewd to risk a defeat, and her
course prospered. Poor Elijah, so courageous previously, so ready to risk his
life, was now panic stricken and fled to Beersheba, the farther part of Judea.
Even then he did not feel himself safe, because Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah,
was a close friend to Ahab, king of Israel; so leaving there his boy servant,
who is supposed to have been the son of the widow of Zarephath, he continued
his flight southward through the wilderness to Mount Sinai-Horeb.
It is useless for us to speculate how Elijah might have done otherwise than he
did-how he might have boldly stood up for the Lord, denounced the Queen,
rallied the heads of the tribes of Israel and carried forward to a general
completion the reform movement which he began. We are to remember that Elijah
was a type, and hence that his doings as well as his words were in a particular
sense and degree ordered of the Lord-beyond any knowledge or motives of his
own. It is only when we view this entire narrative of Elijah and Ahab and
Jezebel from the standpoint of a type of more wonderful things coming afterward
on a larger scale-only then can we grasp in any measure the force and meaning
of the lessons taught through these types.
ANTITYPICAL FEATURES.
Although we have already noticed this matter, we cannot pass the story now
without brief reference to the antitypes. We see in John the Baptist the
repetition of the type, he being a fresh type corresponding to Elijah, as Herod
corresponded to Ahab, and Herodias was an advanced type of Jezebel. Similarly
John the Baptist, like Elijah, sought to effect a reformation in Israel, and
similarly he failed. Let us glance very hastily at the antitype of these
things portrayed in the book of Revelation. There the antitypical Jezebel is
distinctly pointed out, and, in harmony with commentators since the Reformation
time, we understand the antitype to be the apostate Church, the Papacy,-the
civil government of the Roman empire in its decisions corresponding to King
Ahab, consequently the agent of the antitypical Jezebel in accomplishing her
desires, in propagating her system and destroying the prophets of the Lord. As
had been predicted, so it was fulfilled: “She wore out the saints of the most
high God,” and “was drunken with the blood of the saints.”-Rev. 17:6; 18:24.
In the antitype, if Papacy represents the woman Jezebel, and if the civil power
was the antitype of Ahab, where is Elijah? We answer that the antitypical
Elijah all through this Gospel age has been made up of the Lord’s faithful
people, the saints-a body of many members, yet in all a “little flock.” We have
already shown that the antitypical Elijah, who must first come and do his work
before the second advent of Christ in the glory of his Kingdom, is the true
Church of Christ in the flesh-of which Jesus was the Head, of which the
Apostles were prominent members, and to which number all the true saints of the
Lord from then to the end of the Gospel age, while in the flesh, must belong.
This Elijah class was invisible during a large portion of this long period of
nearly nineteen centuries. As Elijah the Prophet disappeared just prior to the
drouth and was not seen and could not be found during the drouth, so with the
antitypical Elijah class. As a class they disappeared about the year 300 and
were not seen for about three and a half symbolic years, namely until the time
of the Reformation, about 1550, even as Elijah disappeared after announcing the
drouth and did not reappear until nearly the conclusion of that period of three
and a half literal years. The drouth really began about 539 A.D. and
the copious showers of refreshing came three and a half symbolic years later in
1799 A.D.
This period of three and a half years, equaling forty-two months or 1260 days,
is particularly mentioned in all three of these different forms in Revelation.
(12:6,14; 13:5) The whole world is witness to the great drouth that prevailed
throughout Christendom from the year 300 until the time of the Reformation. It
is particularly known as the period of the “Dark Ages.” With the reappearance
of the Elijah class prominently before the world, represented in the reformers
of Luther’s time, we have some measure of reassertion of the proper worship of
God. The Reformation work up to the year 1799 was preparatory, just as the
work of Elijah on Mount Carmel and with the priests of Baal was preparatory.
Then followed the great shower of blessing, scattering the Word of God
throughout the whole world in every language under heaven. Nearly all of the
present Bible Societies were organized between 1803 and 1815. There has been a
great and refreshing shower of Grace and Truth come to the world. The antitype
of Ahab, civil government, has to a considerable extent recognized the general
truth of the matter, but they are more or less closely affiliated with and
under the influence of the Jezebel system, and alas! as Revelation clearly
points out, Jezebel today has daughters-systems termed Protestant-which,
nevertheless, copy largely the mother’s spirit. It is through the influence of
the daughters that the antitypical Elijah may expect future persecutions,
instigated by the mother, accomplished through the daughters, as typically
represented in the case of John the Baptist, beheaded by Herod at the instance
of Salome, but at the instigation of Herodias-Jezebel. This, however, is
looking down to a period in the future.
ELIJAH IN THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND.
Elijah under the juniper tree, praying God that he might die because he had
been no more successful than his fathers had been in the mission of restoring
Israel to the true worship, is almost amusing when we think of the fact that
the Prophet had fled panic stricken a few days before to escape Jezebel’s
threat against his life. Why thus flee from death and yet pray the Lord for
death? The Prophet’s experiences and conduct are but an illustration of what
frequently occurs. Amongst the Lord’s people some of strong faith at times
become discouraged, panic stricken, fearful. For the moment they seem to
forget whose servants they are, and the almighty power that is behind them,
able and willing to make all things work together for good to his faithful
ones.
The fact of the matter is that all of the Lord’s
consecrated servants devoted their lives to sacrifice when they became
followers of the Lamb, and if they could but realize their consecration
continually, they would be ready for the consummation at any moment at the
Lord’s pleasure and by whatever means or channel his providences may permit.
The Lord’s consecrated ones of the Elijah class are to remember that not a hair
of their heads could fall without their Father’s knowledge and permission, and
the attitude of their hearts should be that expressed by our dear Redeemer-the
Head of the Elijah body-“The cup which the Father hath poured for me, shall I
not drink it?” The language of their hearts should be that expressed by the
poet:
“Content whatever lot I see,
Since ‘tis my God that leadeth me.”
Doubtless the Prophet’s discouragement of heart was but a natural
consequence of the tension under which he had been for some time laboring in
his zeal for the Truth and the exciting conditions attending his fear and
flight. He slept under the juniper tree, but was awakened that he might
partake of specially provided refreshments: further rest and further supplies
of food brought him strength for a farther journey. We may take from this two
lessons: First, a natural one, that however earnest and zealous the Lord’s
people may be, they need rest and food, and these cannot be neglected with
impunity if we would be strong and courageous in mind and heart. Second, the
feastings and fastings of the typical Elijah may well represent special
blessings and refreshments of the Truth in the experiences of the Church during
the past centuries, and also represent certain fastings. Elijah’s reaching
Horeb, the Mount of God, would seem to typify the Kingdom in its incipient
establishment in the end of this age-which various Scriptures teach us was
reached in 1878. There certain lessons, refreshments, etc., were evidently due
to come to the Elijah class, and so we have found it. Of this we will learn
more in our next lesson.
The Golden Text suggests a personal application of Elijah’s experiences to all
of the Lord’s people at any time. Whatever our distresses, whatever our
discouragements, whatever may be our Ahabs and Jezebels, we may find
consolation by carrying our every trial and difficulty to the Lord in prayer.
No affair of life that comes to the Lord’s people, sorrow or anguish or
distress of mind in any sense, is too small to bring to the Lord. “Cast all
your care upon the Lord, for he careth for you,” is a
very consoling and very encouraging suggestion from the Word. However, the Lord’s
people are to learn more and more distinctly, as their years of membership in
God’s family and tutelage in the school of Christ go on, that they are not to
ask the Lord to guide their efforts according to their wisdom, that they are
not to request that their wills shall be done either on earth or in heaven, but
rather, telling the Lord their burdens, great and small, they are to realize
and appropriate to themselves his sympathy and love, and to apply to their own
hearts as a balm the consoling assurances of his Word, that he is both able and
willing to make all of their experiences profitable to them if they abide in
him with confidence and trust. His grace is sufficient for us, his
strength is made perfect in our weakness.