“Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the LORD arrives. His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.” Malachi 4: 5, NLT.
Gracious Father, it is with thanksgiving that we approach the throne of grace to offer You our prayers of gratitude for all that You have done for us. Our prayer is, that as we study, You will make plain to us the meaning of Your Words; for Christ’s sake. Amen.
Perhaps in our day, Elijah would be considered a revolutionary. He was a man, who, following the command of God, was busy, and zealous, in an effort to bring about moral change in Israel. God’s people had departed from the obedience of His Law, to obey the laws of the land; and Elijah had responded to the call of God, to rally His people, and place before them the plain, straightforward, non-equivocal message: “If the LORD be God, then serve Him! Long after Elijah had been taken to heaven in “a chariot of fire,” came the prophetic proclamation that one day someone with an “Elijah-like spirit,” would be sent to the earth to bring about reformation and revival.
This proclamation had been made centuries before the coming of the Messiah. This person, “in the spirit of Elijah,” would come “before the great and dreadful day of the LORD arrives.” If we are observing everything that is taking place all round us, surely we cannot miss the handwriting across the skies, “JESUS IS COMING AGAIN!” The “dreadful day of the LORD” is about to interrupt business as we know it!
What we want to look at, for now, is the kind of spiritual atmosphere that will exist within the church, before the coming of the LORD. For this, let us look at the kind of atmosphere that existed in Israel, just before Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal on the top of Mount Carmel. It was a time of spiritual decline. Perhaps the time of greatest spiritual decline ever, with Ahab and Jezebel at the head of the kingdom of Israel. It was a time when Baal worship had almost completely replaced the worship of the true God. At such a time as this, Elijah was called by God to preach a message of reform.
A message of reform is usually not popular, unless, people are under conviction by the Holy Spirit and are desirous of a change in their lives. But if there is ever a time when a message of reform is definitely not going to find ready acceptance, it is when that message is directed against “the powers that be.” Such was the case in the days of the prophet Elijah. His preaching was against the king and the queen, who had led the people of Israel down to the very depths of idol worship! Listen to the manner in which the reign of Ahab is described:
“Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. Ahab also made a sacred pole. Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him” (1 Kings 16: 30-33, NRSV).
It is to address such a situation, and to appear before a ruler such as Ahab, that Elijah the prophet, would have to take this message: ” ‘As the LORD the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word’ ” (17: 1). This was not an easy task. And even after his victory on Mount Carmel, which we shared a devotion on some months ago, the stress of the situation would take its toll on the man of God. But through it all, God never left His servant! Tomorrow, we will dedicate our devotion to that phase of Elijah’s experience.