Elijah & Jezebel Part One from the life of the Prophet

ELIJAH

“Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.”  (James 5:17, 18)

The story of Elijah is the story of prophets and watchmen.  They have enormous faith in God when it's about helping others and in advancing the Kingdom of God, but when it comes to themselves are not quite as confident that God will protect them. They also tend to be always in a state of seeing the spiritual and are often exhausted in doing it. Workaholics. 

They often don't know they can ask God to shut it off and give them rest, and they also are afraid if even for a moment they aren't in spiritual warfare that the world will come to an end, I call this the Superhero complex. 

So here is the Story of Elijah.

 I am going to give you a quick Kim’s Paraphrase of the story of Elijah, please read the story for yourself in, I Kings 15-19 
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=I%20Kings%2015-19%20&version=NKJV 

Elijah was the prophet in the time that Ahab was King of Israel.  King Ahab did more to anger God then any other King of Israel that was on the throne before him (I Kings 16:29-34), which is quite a profound statement since that Baasha, before him was pretty bad, and caused all of Israel to sin. Ahab was the son of Omri and he was the king for 22 years.

     Joshua's curse on Jericho

 King Ahab did the very thing that Joshua had declared a curse to do and that was to rebuild Jericho.  Joshua 6:26.  The curse said that anyone that rebuilt Jericho would lose their oldest and their youngest son.

After this happens the Prophet Elijah goes to King Ahab and says to him, “sorry but God is not very happy with you and guess what it’s not going to rain again until I say so.”   

Then God tells Elijah to go to the east and that He would send ravens to feed him. So he went and sat down by the river Kerith and the ravens came and fed him.

 Then the Lord sent him to a widow in Zarephath, now I am sure that Elijah must have been wondering just how God was taking care of him because when he got there, the widow it would seem, was ready to use the last little bit of flour and oil to make a cake for her and her son, and then die.  Elijah though knew that God had sent him there for “her” and tells the women bring me some first. 

 I am sure if he had just been thinking about how God was going to take care of him he might not have had the faith for this but it was about “a woman and her son”.  While the long and the short of it was her oil and flour did not run out until the drought was over.  So they didn’t go hungry but just a little time after Elijah comes again, her son was dead.  The widow was angry with Elijah “what have you done to me you saved us just so that you could remind me of my sin and then my son could die”.   

The thing about watchman or prophets they are always okay helping others and they often are blamed for what God does to show His Glory.  Again though Elijah sees the other person and takes her son lays on him and brings life back to him.  Now the woman is all “I knew you were sent from God you really are a man of God.”

Now Jezebel controlled King Ahab. Jezebel had Ahab to send the army to murder and destroy the prophet of God and it is at this time that God sends Elijah back to King Ahab and on the way he meets another watchman/prophet Obadiah.  He had with him 150 of the prophets of Baal who King Ahab had sent to find water in the all the springs in the land.  Obadiah it says greatly feared God.  When he sees Elijah at a distance he ran to him and bowed to the ground before him. 

 Elijah tells Obadiah to go back and tell King Ahab that Elijah is here!

Okay now, Jezebel has convinced King Ahab that Elijah must die so Obadiah is not to excited to go back and say he met with Elijah and he told Elijah hey man if I leave and tell King Ahab that then I come back and your not here he will have me killed, but Elijah assured him he would present himself.  

Again another watchman that is not too sure that God will take care of him but believes that God will take care of Elijah and does what Elijah tells him.  King Ahab goes out with the army of Baal and greets Elijah with “is that you trouble maker of Israel.”  The” accuser of the Brethren” always accuses the Prophets and watchman, with personal issues. Which may I add is why the first battleground a person that is a watchman, or warrior must first develop a personal relationship with God and win in the battleground of the mind.

Elijah says “oh no King you have troubled Israel more then any other in history.”  Elijah is also very quick to point out that it is Jezebel that is pulling the strings. 1 Kings 18:19  Now therefore, send and gather all Israel to me on Mount Carmel, the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

So here is when we get all the prophets of Baal and Elijah on Mount Carmel and Elijah presents them with a challenge.  “Okay you guys I’ll tell you what, you build an altar to your gods and I will build one to LORD and which ever one comes down and devours the offering with fire, that prophet will be the prophet of the LORD of Israel.”  So the prophets of Baal they built an altar out of wood probably really dry ready to burn wood, they put the bull on it and I think they might be just a little afraid at what will happen if fire did not come down and devour it they likely did everything to make sure it would be easy for Baal to burn.  Then they danced around the altar and the cried out to Baal from morning to noon. 

 Now it’s important to see that Elijah is having fun because there is no doubt in His mind that God will defend His glory. My little input here--Watchman rarely ever have trouble trusting God for others or proclaiming the Glory of God if they clearly hear from God.

 He mocks the prophets of Baal saying yell a little louder maybe he’s asleep. The prophets of Baal cut themselves with knives and lances and still no fire came down.  

I love what Elijah does next, he prepares the altar for the Lord.  Elijah then he re-builds the altar of the LORD that was broken down he used 12 stones to represents the 12 tribes of Israel. Then he puts some wood on it and builds a trench around it big enough to hold 2 acres of grain he cuts up the bull in the manner of sacrifice (of Moses for the priest) and pours 4 containers of water over the bull and fills the trench.  Then he gets them to pour 4 more.  Now call me crazy but I think that Either Elijah or God were just messing with the heads of the prophets of Baal and with King Ahab.  Now then Elijah waits until evening and the appointed time of the sacrifice and says oh LORD hear me your servant, I have done all these things at your word and  that these people might know that You are the LORD God and that you have turned their hearts back to You again.

In Verse 33 we see that the fire of the LORD fell and licked up the burnt sacrifice the wood the stones and even the dust and all the water that was in the trench (my dad tells me that this proves that God preferred a good pot roast.) then the people fell on their faces and they said The LORD, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”

Then Elijah killed all of the Prophets of Baal. Then he told King Ahab “Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of abundance of rain”  

1 Kings 18

It should be told at this time that in that time period if a prophet prophesied something and it didn’t happen they were stoned.  So now again, Elijah ran with his apprentice and got on his face before God and prayed for rain. 

And Prayed, sent his servant out to look seven times and then prayed again until his servant said I see a cloud the size of a mans hand and Elijah  told King Ahab he had better get home quick because there was going to be a deluge of rain. 
Vs :44  HERE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS STORY:

When King Ahab gets back and tells Jezebel what had happened she writes Elijah a letter:

Dear Elijah “So let the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.”

Now perhaps this would be the normal response by the average person but see what Elijah does when a woman wrote him a letter. A man that knew the power of God to do mighty things and to protect him from both the prophets of Baal sent to kill him and so many other miracles is scared at the letter from a bitter controlling woman.

1Kings 19:3-9

³ And when he saw that, he arose and ran for his life, and went to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
⁴ But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, “It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!”
⁵ Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat.” ⁶ Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again. ⁷ And the angel of the LORD came back the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.” ⁸ So he arose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.
⁹ And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

¹⁰ So he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.”

Now if you remember I started this chapter talking about how watchman and prophets fight with things like depression and a battle in the mind. Here is how that battle goes, first they start to believe that they are all alone and because of that they further isolate themselves by running away. As long as the battle is for God and His children or about someone else, they have immense faith but when the attack becomes personal they do not have the faith instead they tend to run away and hid. 
Because Watchmen watch one direction for long periods of time and are always the first line of defense, they forget that there are other watchmen, intercessors and warriors. There is always more.

The other thing about watchmen is that they don’t really believe that anyone else can do their job and it feels like an endless toil and they all tend to be very zealous and think they need to remind God of this because they don’t believe that God will take care of them personally.  Sometimes this is because they take on too much and burn out but more often it is because their thinking is blurred after looking into the spiritual realm too much. 

If you think about going into the forest and you think that there is a wolf in the woods so you decide that you are going to stay up night after night and protect your family as they sleep in a tent.  And as you are sitting there in the darkness you see things moving to the west of you.  So you stare and stare at the west until you almost become hyper vigilant, and will attack anything that moves, everything is now a threat because you are too focused on one thing, that is often what happens to watchmen. They focus on something in the spiritual world so long and see it through to conclusion, and then when the battle is over, they are still in that hyper vigilant state that when a personal attack comes it becomes exaggerated to the point of wanting to die, to run to hide etc.

For Elijah this is in a place where God in his mercy and grace lets him rest and again feeds him.

 God says “What are you doing here Elijah?”  God is very gracious He works on Elijah both at the brook and then sends him to a mountain and he shows himself as a personal God by talking to Elijah with a still small voice.  Rather then in the wind the earthquake or the fire. 

 He is trying to settle Elijah’s spirit.  God is being incredibly gracious to Elijah, maybe because he is tired or because he was faithful and I have heard many different perspectives on Elijah but God was gracious to him right up until the Chariots came from heaven and took him to heaven and uses Elijah as an example throughout the Bible.

        Before Elijah went to Heaven though he trained his replacement, he has passed on his ministry, he let his anointing fall onto another. One of the unknown watchmen that God had preserved for himself, and God whisked him away in a chariot of fire and now we have Elisha. And the real enemy of Elijah, Jezebel, was killed by a bunch of Eunuchs and an unknown prophet named Jehu. Read the whole story in 1 Kings.

 Interesting definitions

Ahab (means from deep roots) married to-

Jezebel (means A bold, vicious woman; ) the daughter of-

Ethbaal (means toward the idol or with Baal).

The Summary on:  Elijah the Tishbite

 “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. “(James 5:17, 18)
The Old Testament prophet, Elijah, is mentioned 28 times in the New Testament His legacy during the time of the apostles was popular for at least six reasons: 

1.  He was an ordinary man that God used to 
accomplished extraordinary things. As a young man, Elijah embarrassed the sulky King Ahab, which infuriated his wicked wife, Jezebel, Elijah  rebuked a nation almost totally given over to idolatry, and proved that Baal was no god, and absolutely not the LORD of Israel. 

2. Elijah was the first prophet in Old Testament times to raise a person from the dead 1 Kings 17:22

3. King Ahab repented because Elijah prophesied that ““The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall^[a] of Jezreel. ²⁴ The dogs shall eat whoever belongs to Ahab and dies in the city, and the birds of the air shall eat whoever dies in the field.”” So God changed his mind and said “See how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his son I will bring the calamity on his house.”
4.  Because Elijah gave up because of the threat in the letter Jezebel wrote him Elijah trains up a new watchman/prophet in His place Elisha and because Elisha Watched when Elijah went to Heaven and saw what happened he received a double anointing of what Elijah had and did greater things them Elijah

5.  God took Elijah to Heaven in a chariot of fire without experiencing death 2 Kings 2

6.  The last two verses of the book of Malachi end with the promise of a coming Elijah: (Malachi 4:5, 6) Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” 

7.  Peter, James and John saw Elijah on the mountain where Jesus was transfigured. James "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."
Elijah’s ministry lasted 24 years, but he is considered to be one of the greatest prophets in Old Testament times. His greatness had nothing to do with his family tree, his education, his personal wealth, or assets. In fact, James emphasizes this point by saying, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, " Let there be no mistake – Elijah’s greatness came from God’s greatness. This is because he dedicated his life in service to God and glorified His holy name and this at a time when such activities and behavior was politically and religiously incorrect!