2. He imparts strength for the onward way to where light will break upon the darkness and a new mission will be given. Elijah is fed once and again with angel food, and in the strength of it goes "forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God." We are revived with tender heavenly ministrations: we see His goodness in the land of the living, and pass onward to the place where we shall meet with Him and hear His voice.—J.U
1 Kings 19:9-18
Elijah at Horeb.
I. How GOD DEALS WITH THE DESPAIRING.
1. Elijah's mistake. Because Jezebel's enmity remained unsubdued the straggle was at once given over as hopeless; "and he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there." The same mistake is made by those who labour on with unexpectant toil, whose wrestling with God is given up, whose feeble thought and listless tones proclaim their hopelessness: by those who have laid down the work to which God called them—preachers in retirement or in other spheres, teachers, etc.—and those who have ceased to strive against their own sin.
2. God's remedy.
II. THE PATH OF DELIVERANCE FOR THE HOPELESS.
1. The vision of God. Elijah's thoughts of God's way were corrected.
2. The recognition of ourselves as only part of the manifold agency of God. Other hands as well as his were to carry on the work of judgment and of mercy (1 Kings 19:15-17). To feel our brotherhood with the servants of God fills us with joy and power.
3. The assurance that God never works in vain (1 Kings 19:18). The results may be hid from us, but they are known to Him.—J.U.
1 Kings 19:19-21
The Prophet's Call.
I. THE CALL TO SERVICE.
1. Where it found him—in the field engaged in laborious, careful toil. The Master chooses servants for higher trusts who have been faithful in lower.
2. How it came. The mantle cast upon him was a sign of adoption. It was a call to share the prophet's home and love. Elijah was to find a son in the newly-called servant of God, and Elisha a father in the great prophet of Israel. We pass into God's service through union with His people.
II. INDECISION REBUKED (1 Kings 19:20).
1. The request. He "ran after Elijah," yet with entreaty for permission to go back and kiss father and mother. The new ties and the old were both binding him, and the vain attempt was made to comply with both. God's call must from the first have the mastery. The seeming severity which we are called upon to exercise will yield fruits of joy. God, fully chosen, will be fully known; and the breaking of lower ties may preach the claims of God to those we love best.
2. The answer. "Go back again, for what have I done to thee?" The gift neglected is taken away. As we value it and sacrifice for it, in that measure is it given to us. Treat God's grace as nothing, and to you it becomes nothing.
III. THE CHOICE MADE.
1. The past was broken with. His own yoke of oxen were slain, the instruments of his toll consumed.
2. It was done with gladness. He made a feast for the people.
3. He took the place which God meanwhile assigned him. "Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him." Humble, loving companionship with God's people is preparation for taking up their work.—J.U.
HOMILIES BY E. DE PRESSENSE
1 Kings 19:4 - 21
Return of Elijah to the Desert.
It is well for us to recognize that the great servants of God are men like ourselves, that they were formed of the same clay, and that they share our infirmities. Elijah had no time to magnify himself after his triumph on Mount Carmel. It was at this very moment God allowed him to pass through the most terrible mental conflict. Led into the bare and arid solitudes of Horeb, he fell into a state of depression bordering on despair, and, throwing himself down under a juniper tree in the wilderness, he cried, "O Lord, now take away my life!" (1 Kings 19:4.) spiritual crisis like this comes in the life of most men of God, and may be explained by two reasons.
1. There is a spiritual necessity for it. The man of God who has gained the first great victory is apt to think that it is decisive and final, and that he may now cease to fight. And behold, the evil that was vanquished yesterday lifts up its head again, and the conflict has to be begun anew. "I hare been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant" (1 Kings 19:10).
2. This painful crisis is permitted by God, who will not have His servants uplifted in their own eyes, even by the most splendid triumphs of the cause which it is their honour to maintain. This is the explanation of the mysterious thorn in the flesh with which St. Paul was buffeted (2 Corinthians 12:7). This is the cause of the momentary despondency of John the Baptist, which prompted that utterance of a faltering faith, "Art thou he that shoed come?" (Matthew 11:3.) To the same source we may trace the anguish of Luther in the Wartburg. He who is pleased thus to exercise the soul of his children is Himself their only efficient Comforter. God raises His downcast servant Elijah by means of a glorious vision. The Lord is not in the wind, not in the earthquake; these are but the symbols of His awful majesty. He is in the still small voice, which whispers the name afterwards to be proclaimed to the whole world by the beloved disciple, and written in letters of blood upon the cross: "God is love" (1 John 4:16). Let us not forget, however, that if God is not in the stormy wind and earthquake, these manifestations of His severity necessarily preceded the manifestation of that love which is His true essence. It was needful that the reed which had presumed to lift up itself against God should be bent, that the hard heart, like the stone, should be broken in order that the still small voice might gain an entrance to it. Repentance must come before the deliverance and joy of pardon. It is by this path through the desert that God leads every soul of man; it was thus that He led His servant Elijah. His overwhelming anguish of soul was like the whirlwind which prepared the way for the soft whisper of heavenly peace. This desert of spiritual desolation is to be made to blossom like the rose under the re. riving breath of the Lord (Isaiah 35:1). Elijah comes forth from it with renewed strength and courage, after the wholesome discipline of humiliation, a witness to us of the truth of the Divine assurance uttered by the lips of Christ Himself: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4).—E. de P.
1 Kings
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