Morning Service, 27 September 2009
Oh, Sweet Gentleness! (1 Kings 19:5-8)
What do you do when you see someone in the depth of their weakness? In our better moments we would have compassion, our hearts would be drawn out to them in kindness and acts of kindness.
But what if that someone is one who you trusted even relied on for something, yet here they are before you in weakness and failure? More often than not our response would range from annoyance, frustration, anger, even to disgust. Do we not tend to lose a sense of our own human frailties, forget our own sinful tendencies? Indeed how often we have succumbed to temptation to the neglect or hurt of others.
What was the Lord’s response to Elijah who was not where he should be, was not doing what he should’ve been doing, but lay here crippled by spiritual depression, seeking to be released from his burden by death?
Did He turn away with disgust from such a sight, leaving him to reap what he had sown, to suffer the full and final deserts of his unbelief?
Could the Good Shepherd refuse to take care of one of His strayed sheep, lying helpless by the wayside? Could the Great Doctor refuse assistance to one of His patients just when he needs Him most?
No, God’s response was one of gentleness arising out of His longsuffering towards us. This is the reason for Elijah’s restoration and future usefulness, indeed greatness. It lies in the Lord’s activity as described by the Psalmist in Ps 18:35 – “and Your gentleness makes me great”. That is a strange phrase. We would’ve expected power or wisdom to make him great. But no, it is all down to God’s gentleness.
As we look at these verses we see the kindness and gentleness with which God dealt with Elijah in that
1. He assures Elijah of His love and concern for him
Having in a bout of severe depression prayed to die, we then find that Elijah laid himself down to sleep. The idea was clearly that he might not awaken again but rather die in his sleep. But he is awakened to find that it is an angel of the Lord who has awakened him.
We may have expected a rebuke, a verbal ‘spanking’ but the Lord sends this special token of His loving concern. Yes the Lord could’ve used earthly means such as a raven or a widow to speak to him but in Elijah’s present state of mind he might have misunderstood it as a coincidence. But there was no mistaking this for an angel is not a free agent but serves at the command of God. So if an angel is here it is because God has initiated in love all that followed. It was a way of dealing with Elijah that forced him to come to the only possible conclusion.
But notice also the way the Angel interacted with the sleeping Elijah. He touched him. That is, the angel gently aroused him. How different this is from the angelic treatment of Peter asleep in Herod’s prison! There the angel kicked Peter, making him jump to wakefulness. The reason for the difference lies not in the location nor even in the depth of sleep, but rather largely in the state of the sleeper’s mind. Elijah was of a very fragile state of heart, unlike Peter who was resting in peaceful confidence of the Lord’s sovereign purposes and over-ruling. Elijah was wholly given over to despair, and so he needed a much gentler approach.
By it God was saying two things to Elijah:
(1) ‘Elijah you have not gone beyond the sight of My eye.’ We may lose ourselves in a wilderness, but God does not lose us. In this regard remember the insight into God Hagar was given when driven from Abraham’s tent with Ishmael and lost in the wilderness but also ministered to by God. In Gen 16:13 we read that “she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You-Are- the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, ‘Have I also here seen Him who sees me?’” Wherever we are we may look at Him who ‘lives and sees’ us.
(2) ‘Elijah you have not roamed beyond the love of My heart.’ God as it were plays host and servant to Elijah to express that He loves Elijah. As He does to us in the Lord’s Supper and the regular ministry of the Word – we come here to worship and serve God but we find Him meeting us with the ministry of the spoken and visible Word, speaking to our individual hearts assuring us of His grace, mercy and love.
Let us learn from this that we need to treat people differently according to their emotional and spiritual condition. How gentle we need to be with those of a fragile mind and those weakened spiritually – we cannot use confrontation, our weapon must be assuring gentleness, with demonstrations of genuine kindness and love.
But especially let us note that this is how God deals with His servants, individually and appropriately to their state before Him, and even as that condition may change from one moment in our lives to another. He always deals with us with great wisdom, kindness and love.
2. He meets Elijah’s immediate physical needs
Notice how the angel ministered to him. He did not come initially with spiritual food, ie with a verse or two from Scripture addressing his situation, or exhortations that would lift him out of his despair and move him on to renewed service.
Instead God by this angel came with food with food and drink, and then allowed Elijah to go back to sleep. By this God shows how He deals with sinning servants. If physical weariness and deprivation has in anyway contributed to sin He doesn’t by-pass that as if body and soul are separate entities.
Yes Elijah sought to hide in sleep – but God still knew he needed sleep just as he needed food and drink. Elijah had retreated into sleep as an evasion, but here the angel by not hindering sleep highlights its proper function as being for the recovery of the body and for supplying the physical resources that would be need for future activity.
The angel is making known that there is a vital link between body and soul, and that a weakened body works negatively on the state of the soul.
God is going to deal with Elijah’s sin, He is going to probe His conscience, but He knows that we are not fit to grapple with deep spiritual issues if we are in a state of physical imbalance. That of course, is something we need to give careful thought to in terms of our preparation for worship or the study of God’s Word – get enough rest the night before, have a decent breakfast, don’t rush (leave enough time to get here relaxed). Teachers know the great need of such preparation – how often they find students unable to learn because of their failure to do so!
How can we expect to seriously handle the searching ministry of the Holy Spirit by the Word of God if we are tired physically and mentally, if we are distracted by other things pressing against the use of such times for soul work.
But it is especially something that we need to bear in mind when we are dealing with spiritually fragile brethren. God teaches us here to have a holistic approach to God’s people, to encourage the structuring or restructuring of their lives so that there is a proper balance in life. In dealing with souls we need to be aware of this for inevitably where a believer is in spiritual trouble other aspects of their lives also begin to suffer and compound their problems and work against recovery.
3. He gives Elijah a token of His presence and His power
Having allowed him to rest a second time the angel awakes and feeds him, and this is with a particular journey in mind. He was to travel to Horeb is the mountain where God appeared to Moses, otherwise known as Mt Sinai.
That was normally a journey that would take only 3 to 4 days, this one turned out to take him 40 days and nights of expending energy and exposure to the elements. No wonder the angel told him to eat up. Then in v.8 we are told that he was carried, in the strength of this food, to Horeb, the mountain of God. It was God who wonderfully and miraculously sustained him during this travel.
Why did God do this? Remember 18:46 where we read that Elijah travelled about 30kms in the strength and power of God. He was conscious of the unusual presence and power of the Lord resting upon him, enabling him. Now he experiences that same surge of Divine enablement and power as one day enters into another. By this Elijah would’ve been forced to recognise that there is no other possible explanation than God, and so by this God is effectively giving him an assurance of His presence and power. Does this not remind us of the fact that the shoes of Israel did not wear out and that mana and quails were daily provided for them during the wilderness wanderings? A fitting parallel to encourage Elijah!
Elijah was effectively back-tracking that journey under God’s provision to the mount where God formally entered into His covenant with His people. Here Elijah is being drawn to ponder God’s covenant mercy and covenant faithfulness, which is always the antidote to our depression.
Are we not amazed at the gentleness and kindness of God? He hasn’t yet probed Elijah’s conscience, dealt with him about his area of responsibility, let alone addressed Elijah’s misinterpretation of how God is working. In His grace God first undertakes to meet Elijah’s immediate physical and emotional needs. God deals with us much better than we deserve! He did not take Elijah at his word, and likewise how thankful we should be that He does not take us at our word and grant us our foolish passionate requests.
Did you notice that the angel of v.5 is identified as “the Angel of the Lord” in v.7? In the OT this Angel receives and accepts worship from God’s people, carries the very name of Yahweh in Himself, and does things that are peculiar to deity. Most Bible students agree that the Angel of the Lord is a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ. We are given in other words a glorious picture of Christ fulfilling that role of which Isaiah speaks in 42:3 – “A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench”. The Messiah totally cares for His people even when they are damaged. It is ‘the gentleness of our Saviour that makes us strong.’
As Christians we ought to understand and remember that there is no explanation for your sitting here other than that Jesus is that kind of a kind and tender Saviour, full not only of patience but compassion toward His people. How often we have been such an Elijah, and when it would’ve been easier to have the Lord come with fiery eye and smite us, He has assured us of His love and concern, stooping to minister to our needs. Here is our hope of the journey through life – the only reason any of us will persevere is because the God who has done a good work in us has pledged to perfect it and carry it on till the day of Christ. Have you fallen? Given yourself over to despair and despondency in the midst of trials? Look to Him with hope seeing the fresh tokens of His love. He will not cast you aside but even now is drawing you to refresh yourself from His hand. “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him” (Psalm 103:13)
When faith is tested, as it surely is in times of deep despair or depression, we must, as God encouraged Elijah to do, remember that our God lives, but even more focus on the character of our God who lives – that He is full of compassion to His people, that He acts tenderly to them – He deals with us wisely, and that means as suited by our condition.
The greatly encouraging thing about the Lord’s kindness is that it doesn’t depend on perfection – it is the manifestation of God’s perfection that intersects with our imperfection day after day. Elijah didn’t have to sort himself out, pick himself up from the bootlaces, snap himself out of his deep blue funk before he received it. No quite the opposite, even when he was determined that there was no more life, no more need to expend energy to do anything, in the very depth of it he found God kindly coming near and ministering to him. Sensitively, wisely, suitably.
This is the God we know, and this is the God we are to be like as His children.
Examine your own philosophy. Do you value kindness? Examine your own actions, secret as well as public. Do you values doing acts of kindness?
Has God placed within your horizon, perhaps in very close proximity, who has many problems, and who is not handling them well? Have you ever caught yourself judging that person, wondering if they have brought their problems in upon themselves, blaming them? Are we like Job’s friends, ‘helping’ by enlightening them about sins for which God must be punishing them? I
It is quite possible that our judgements are correct, at least in part. Elijah’s depression found a root in sinful responses to intimidation and in sinful unbelief concerning God’s presence, purpose and power.
But is it possible that God has a double purpose? That God is testing us as well? Is He asking us, ‘Are you going to show kindness to them?’
Every day brings with it many opportunities to express kindness, and above all here we are reminded that whatever else a depressed person needs to experience is kindness, and indeed without which they may not really hear anything else. Kindness builds bridges of hope, pointing to God’s kindness.