Morning Service, 4 October 2009
The Lord comes to Elijah who was not where he should be, was not doing what he should’ve been doing, but lay beneath the broom tree crippled by spiritual depression, seeking to be released from his burden by death.
The Lord’s response to Elijah in the depth of his despair was not one of disgust, aggression nor of rebuke. As Charles Swindol says, ‘There was no sermon. No rebuke. No blame. No shame. No lightning bolt from heaven, “Look at you! Get up, you worthless ingrate! Get on your feet! Quickly back on the job!”’
Rather the Lord approaches Elijah with tender compassion. We saw from v.5-8 that God assured Elijah of His love and concern for him by sending an angel to him, that even in the wilderness he was not beyond the Lord’s awareness or interest; secondly, God met his immediate needs providing food, water and rest; and then thirdly God gives him a token of God’s power and presence – how else could he explain the ability to travel 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness as he travelled to Mt Horeb.
As we continue the account of God’s dealings with this godly but depressed man, we see that God having dealt with his physical and emotional needs, God also dealt with Elijah’s spiritual needs.
1. God revives his spiritual perspective
If you’ve been in a car on a longish journey with small children, maybe you were one of those small children, inevitably the ‘game’ (for want of a better word) begins: ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’
I wonder if that is how Elijah felt. It was a 3 to 4 day journey but it took him 40 days and nights. Surely this would’ve been a demanding journey – indeed one could argue for someone in such a fragile emotional and spiritual state to be not only demanding but potentially dangerous. The trip would by all human standards be a tiring and exhausting prospect – the very thing that would complicate despair.
But as we have already noted the token of divine power and presence that God gave him through the 40 days and nights travel. Each day it would have loomed larger and larger upon his consciousness that this was only possible by divine intervention. What an encouragement that would have been to his spirit!
Yet there is clearly more than that occurring here. For we are told two important factors that against the background of Scripture scream out importance: the emphasis on the number 40 and the mention of Mt Horeb.
This trip took forty days which would indicate that God, who was controlling the journey, was trying to teach Elijah something. Then also, regardless of whoever initiated the trip it is clear that God wanted Elijah to come to Mt Horeb which is also known as Mt Sinai. This was the very place where God met with Moses at the burning bush, where God entered into a covenant with Israel through the mediation of Moses. It was here that God met with Moses and Israel in the smoke and thunder and gave His Law, but also where God gave the instructions for the tabernacle and the sacrificial system by which God prepared and assured the people of access to Himself upon the forgiveness of sin. Even more it was here on Horeb that Moses saw the glory of God, when God walked by him whilst hidden in the cleft of the rock, where God proclaimed His Name and declared His sovereign grace (34:6-7). Could this cave which we read Elijah entered be that very cleft in which God hid Moses all those years ago?
What we see is God giving Elijah a spiritual context for what was about to happen. God was reminding Elijah of the beginnings of His dealings with Israel. Elijah was being led to see that this journey was a recapitulation of the wilderness wanderings of Israel – a retracing backwards of Israel’s journeys – the result of which would be to redirect Elijah’s own mind and heart back to God and to His covenant.
It was a journey of remembrance, in which he was being brought to remember that he was part of God’s people and under God’s covenant of grace. He was being reminded Who God is, the sovereign Lord and ruler who has given His Law and provided a way of access and fellowship even when this Law is broken. He is being reminded of God’s sovereign grace and distinguishing mercy, that God has compassion on whom He will have compassion.
In coming to Horeb Elijah’s spiritual antennae was being raised, his spiritual sensitivity was being excited by God. God was stirring Elijah’s spiritual awareness and interest, but also giving him a context both to understand what had happened and in which to place what God was about to do for him.
How important in times of despair or depression that we remember God in His essential character, how He has dealt with others and even with ourselves in former days. We need to be reminded of our spiritual heritage, and of our spiritual privileges through Christ. Depression makes everything turn inward. Life is turned inward, but God was getting Elijah to look outward, and especially upward, to God. He was encouraging him to face God, to revive his understanding of God, not merely His power but His grace and mercy, His covenant love and covenant faithfulness – and our place within the circle of His covenant love and purpose.
But it is not enough to remember the truth of God and His dealings with His people in grace, we must look at ourselves in the light of it. That is the second thing that God does for Elijah. Once he comes to Horeb God asks him, “What are you doing here?” Here we see secondly that…
2. God engages him in spiritual probing
God comes with a gracious probing of Elijah’s thoughts and conscience. While God did not do this at the outset this is not the same as saying God is not interested to deal with it at all. Here by this action God shows that it is important that we face not only God but ourselves as well.
This question Elijah is asked remind us greatly of God’s approach to Adam and Eve in the garden after they ate the forbidden fruit. By it we ought to understand that it is not because God is ignorant of what had been happening, rather God wanted them as He now wants Elijah to examine but also especially to know and face their true spiritual condition.
By this question God is calling Elijah to see what God sees about him. This personal reflection is used to bring to the surface all the sins that had brought him to this point in his life.
Personal reflection and heart searching in the light of God’s self-revelation and His Word is an important practice – but we need to do it as we see here, that is in the context of an awareness of God’s grace and mercy – otherwise we may find ourselves entering into a morbid introspection that spirals us into even deeper despair. Given that, as here, often the first step to restoring fellowship with God is serious self-reflection of our present state in the light of the Word of God. The Psalmist said “I considered my ways and turned my feet to Your testimonies” (Ps 119:59). Of the Prodigal Son in Lk 15 Jesus says “he came to himself”, which in the NASB reads “when he came to his senses”. (See also Rev 2:5; 3:3)
When you retrace your steps you find corners cut here and there, first in your private devotion then in public assembly; an unwillingness to face a sin, to make an issue right with God or with man; shirking a duty, skirting an issue.
This is a painful process, but one that is overwhelmed by joy on the other side as we see the springs of divine grace opening up. And that’s what we see here. It was an act of grace on God’s part. He wants His servant restored, and confronts him gently but firmly at the right time and in the right place, even as he is in the place most calculated to recall and desire God’s grace.
But let us not minimise the reality that this process is distasteful to the flesh and the natural reaction is to evade it. Look at Elijah. Twice he says the same thing. He was not lying; he spoke as he saw things; and yet his answer is really an evasion. Let’s be honest and think for a moment: Is what Elijah is saying a reason to be away from his post? How glad we are that when deserted by all Jesus Christ still stuck to His post and died for us on the cross! No, even if what Elijah said is true that is no reason for him to be in your present condition. He was evading the issue by hiding behind this smokescreen. And that’s what depressed people often do, they create smokescreens, they hide behind the failures of others so that they don’t honestly see and deal with their own.
Elijah should’ve said ‘Lord I’m here because I was weary in the conflict and lost my spiritual perspective, I’ve let Jezebel look bigger in my eyes than You, in order to spare my life I’ve deserted my post of duty, using the failure of others to excuse me from my responsibility.’
Doesn’t this show the terrible nature of sin? God comes in grace seeking Elijah, and sin causes Elijah to evade. Of course we never do that do we? God in His grace seeks us, maybe in our private devotions or during the preaching, as a portion of Scripture gets down into our souls and opens up our wounds we begin to shift responsibility, to excuse, to rationalise our feelings and actions. Don’t monkey around. Face God honestly. Tell Him the truth.
3. God reminds him of a spiritual principle
As Elijah seeks to evade spiritual reflection God takes him back to his first error concerning how God works. In v.11-12 Elijah is given what might be called a enacted parable from nature.
He is confronted with a series of mighty displays of power which are often in the Bible associated with the presence of God, yet it says that the Lord was not in them. If we had been asked to describe the Lord’s presence surely we would have used such symbols. But it was the small, still whisper in the air that touched the listening heart of Elijah and drew him with a sense of expectation to the mouth of the cave. When he heard this he knew he was about to meet God face to face as seen also by the fact that he covered his face.
What does this mean? We are not explicitly told but clearly Elijah got the message. I think that F B Meyer is right in suggesting that Elijah had to learn this lesson about God’s working: that though God sometimes works in dramatic ways He doesn’t always, and indeed has a preference to work in the ‘gentle blowing’.
Elijah thought that if there was to be any true reformation there must be, as it were, a baptism of fire. At Mt Carmel he thought the time had come. But the eagerness of the people died down, and Elijah thought God was not working at all. God is pointing out to Hs servant that He is not always to be found in great visible movements, that He loves to work gently and unperceived. He declares that this is the case as evidenced by the 7,000 true believers.
Yet it is often heard, ‘Oh if God would do something that would shake the earth, turn the wicked…’ Not that we should no pray for revival, for powerful visitations of God’s saving power. Oh yes we should pray for such days, such heart-seeking after God for salvation; but until God is prepared to act that way what will we do? Take a 7 year lease on a broom tree? No, learn the lesson that God often works silently and secretly yet powerfully, that God is doing so even now. Do not give upon the work in discouragement, do not despise the day of small things, but labour trusting God to work as He wills.
And that principal applies in every area of life. It is what we are to challenge every cause of discouragement that seeks to embattle our souls into despair. We need to remember that God is not inactive, but even more we need to submit to His sovereign will and purposes in what is happening in our lives.
The person given over to depression often finds that at the very root they have dictated to God how He ought to work, what He ought to have achieved. It is no surprise that such get disappointed and are open to deep discouragement. We need to see it for what it is: idolatry, which always leads to spiritual bankruptcy.
Instead recognise the breadth of God’s ways of working, and not disparage the wisdom of God to work as He will in our life and day, or despise the day of apparent small things. May we have, and if necessary regain, and above all maintain right views of God.
Inevitably involved in depression are spiritual issues that are real and need to be dealt with – issues that arise from and articulate wrong views of God and how He works, and also of ourselves and our expectations/demands of how God should work. We need to repent of any rebellion, of any idolatrous attachment to our ideas and schemes of how God should and if we are honest we believe must work. We must rest in God’s wisdom in the knowledge that He is sovereignly involved in our life.
We all know that if there is insufficient lighting the photo we take will look darker than the reality. One of satan’s tactics is to present thing in such a way that everything is much darker than its reality – particularly our perspective of God and how we relate to Him or how we perceive the way He relates to us. In such times we need to take the journey of grace using the light of God’s Word which shows God and His relationship to us in its proper light as one of grace and compassion, as one of the advance of His kingdom in our hearts and through our lives.