Let's pray. O Lord God and loving Heavenly Father, as we come now to the proclamation of your word, we would confess our finiteness and also our sinfulness before you. We know, Lord, that our minds are incapable of scaling the great heights of your wisdom. And yet you have condescended to reveal yourself to us in your works of creation and providence and flesh, your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the words of your Holy Scripture. And now as we come, to reflect upon those words, we ask Lord that you might speak to us, you might shape us, that you might seal upon our hearts once again the gospel, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray these things in his precious name. Amen. If you would turn with me to 1 Kings, it says in the bulletin chapter 19, 1 to 18, but I'm actually going to take the reading from chapter 18, verse 41 through to 1918 to bring the story that we started yesterday to a conclusion So we'll read from chapter 18 verse 41 through to chapter 19 verse 18 hear the word of the Lord And Elijah said to Ahab go up eat and drink for there is a sound of the rushing of rain Though I have went up to eat and drink and Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And he said to his servant, go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up and looked and said, there is nothing. He said, go again seven times. And at the seventh time he said, behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea. And he said, go up, say to Ahab, prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you. And in a little while, the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garments and ran before Ahab at the entrance of Jezreel. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow. Then he was afraid. He arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah. And he left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, it is enough. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my father. He lay down and slept under a broom tree. Behold, an angel touched him and said to him, arise and eat. And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. And he ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came again a second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you. And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God. There he came to a cave, and lodged in it. Behold, the word of the Lord came to him. He said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? He said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with a sword, and I, even I only, am left. They seek my life, take it away. He said, go out and stand on the mount before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord. The Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak, went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Behold, there came a voice to him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah? He said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. And I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away.' And the Lord said to him, Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu the son of Nimshi, you shall anoint to be king over Israel. And Elisha the son of Shaphat, of Abel Mahola, you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. and the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him." Praise God for his holy word. When I started this short series on Friday night, I said one of the things about the Old Testament is we're very familiar often with the stories, even perhaps Some of the people not in the church these days. Perhaps some of the people who are not in church are relatively familiar with some of the Old Testament stories, even if it's through some of the movies that are made. Generally speaking, I think there are pretty much distortions of what the Bible has to say, but they familiarize people with the characters from the Old Testament. But one of the challenges for Christians is, What do these stories say to us today? These things took place, sometimes thousands of years ago, thousands of years ago, in countries very different to the ones in which we inhabit today. What do these stories have to tell us about life at the start of the 21st century? Well, I want to suggest that probably at their core, what these stories tell us is about God, doctrine, Sometimes we can be a little put off by the idea of doctrine, but what is doctrine? Doctrine is simply a description of who God is, what he's done, what he continues to do, and what he will do in the future. You'll say, well, you know, I prefer to think of Jesus as a great example, rather than a teacher of doctrine. Well, that's the set of a false dichotomy. Because if you understand who Jesus is, You have to have some kind of a description in your mind of who you think God is. And whether your beliefs are correct or not, you have a doctrine of who God is. And I want to say that this story this morning, I think, tells us important perennial truths about God and his relationship to his people, and indeed his relationship to the whole of history of which we today are small part, but still a part. I don't often do this in my sermons, but the four points I want to make this morning actually all begin with the same letter. I didn't contrive it that way, but they just came out that way. This story contains a tale of deliverance, contains elements of danger, describes a man suffering from depression, and it points towards the destiny of a people indeed ultimately towards the destiny of history itself. So I want to talk about deliverance, danger, depression and destiny. Deliverance, well those of you here on Friday and Saturday will know that the deliverance that occurs here is from the drought. The Lord has brought this drought, this judgment against Israel because Israel has chosen to worship the Baals under the leadership of King Ahab. Israel has given its loyalty to the Baals, the gods of fertility, the gods of rain. And in order to prove their impotence, in fact their non-existence, what the Lord has done is closed the heavens, pronounced, if you like, a provisional sentence of death against the nation, because if the drought continues indefinitely, people are going to die. And then there's been this tremendous conflict on Mount Carmel, where the Lord spoke and Baal remained silent. And as a result of that, the priestly hierarchy of Baal has been annihilated. Elisha slaughtered 450 prophets of Baal on the top of Mount Carmel. And now, in the final completion of the victory, rain comes. As Baal was powerless over the elements, so the Lord has shown himself to be powerful. Baal has not been able to bring rain these three years. Now the Lord, having demonstrated the silence of Baal, shows that he controls the elements. As Baal was absent from his people on Mount Carmel, even in the middle of territory that he claimed sovereignty over, the Lord demonstrated that he was present. And as Baal sat idly by and allowed his people to die. The Lord has intervened, brought life to his covenant people. And I mentioned yesterday that the basis for this deliverance is nothing intrinsic in the people of Israel. The one thing Elijah could not do on the top of Mount Carmel was plead that the people of Israel deserve to have God look with grace and mercy upon them. What Elijah does is he pleads the reputation of the Lord. Quoted this yesterday, I'll quote it again today. At the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. The Lord answers. The Lord answers because he wants to vindicate his name publicly. Just as an aside, I noticed some people taking children out. I had an email the other week to our church website that said, one of the things somebody appreciated about listening to servants from our website were the crying children in the background. They love to know that the children are present in the service. So please don't feel the need to remove your child from the service on my account. I cut my teeth teaching theology at a secular university in Britain, which is a bit like learning to be a stand-up comedian in a tough club in Manhattan on a Friday night. So whatever goes on in the congregation, no effect. Very free. The application of all this, of course, I think it's examined that salvation is of grace. Why does the Lord save people? Why does the Lord bring sinful human beings into communion with himself? Does it because he delights to do it? That's who God is. God is the gracious and the merciful God and he demonstrates that by being gracious and merciful. He doesn't reward us for our deeds, he delights to be merciful upon us. despite those who say, well, the Old Testament's got a judgment, it's all nasty stuff. Elijah says otherwise. The Lord vindicates His name by bringing deliverance to His people for no other reason than the fact that He's promised to be a gracious God towards His people. Salvation for Israel, the salvation for those who call upon Christ today is sure, because it is rooted in God's own being. God is faithful to himself, even when his people are unfaithful to him. God has declared that he will be a gracious God towards his people. He will not go back on his word, even in the face of the extreme provocation which the Israelites have subjected him to in this story. And that, brothers and sisters, points us to why doctrine is vital. If God has promised to act in accordance with his nature, then knowing the nature of God and the promises of God has to be one of the most important things we can ever know. It is only because Elijah knows who God is and what God has said that he's able to pray that way on Mount Sinai. Elijah challenges God, if you like, be loyal to his promises. because he knows that his God is trustworthy, and he knows that his God has promised, and it's only because he knows those, it's only because he studied the Word, it's only because he's meditated upon the Word, that Elijah is able to do that. Doctrine, often seen as divisive. Don't often quote the NRA in a positive way. The NRA, to misquote a statement of the NRA, Doctrines don't kill people, people kill people. Doctrine unites us surely. Doctrine gives us an understanding of God. It allows us to live our lives as Christians. So the first thing then, the deliverance. Secondly, danger. Jezebel. Jezebel is an interesting character. She's the daughter of Ephbaal, king of the Sidonians. Remember, this is where the sin of Israel is escalated. All of the previous kings of Israel have engaged in false worship of the true God. Ahab marries Jezebel and he brings Sidonian Baal worship into God's own territory and among God's own people. Jezebel, gotta say of Jezebel and Ahab, she's the brains of Yah. You go back and you read the story of Ahab and Jezebel, she is definitely the brain. She is the one who comes up with the schemes. She's the one in 1st Kings 18 verses 4 and 13. We're told arranges the persecution and killing of the Lord's prophet. She is a driven person. She is fierce in a way that frankly Ahab doesn't seem to be. Ahab by and large comes across as a buffoon. He's evil, but he's really a buffoon. When you read the stories, the man's a wee, really. It's his wife driving the program. And she is utterly committed to Baal. She is an interesting opponent for Elijah at this point. I'm not surprised that Elijah gets fried. There are a number of things she has in her favor. First of all, she is the queen. So she has a civil authority that the prophets of Baal lack. She has civil power behind her. He has the ability to muster troops to deliver on her promise of putting Elijah to death. She's also been very much in the background of the story. We've not yet really encountered. We've heard of her, but we've not really encountered her. She does not appear to have been directly involved in the face-to-face conflict with Elijah. Elijah, I think, is exhausted. That's how I read when he goes up and he puts his head between his knees. I think Elijah's exhausted. Have you been in a business meeting or a presbytery meeting where you've been presenting something controversial and maybe you've been in the firing line six hours of questioning. You're exhausted at the end. Imagine how exhausted Elijah must have been. One man against 450, facing him down on top of the mountain. When it's all over, he goes away and he puts his head between his knees because I don't think he's got the energy at that point to keep his head up. He's tired and he's exhausted. Jezebel is fresh for the battle. What is stunning about this though, is surely Jezebel's attitude. And I think we get some insight into human psychology here. Verse two, Jezebel sent a message to Elijah saying, so may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time. Step back a second and think, well, what has Elijah done? Elijah has proved that Baal doesn't exist. If anybody let Jezebel down on Mount Carmel, it's gotta be Baal. It's not Elijah's fault he didn't turn up. It's not Elijah's fault Baal didn't deliver for Jezebel's profit. But notice Jezebel's reaction. Jezebel's reaction is not to apologize, It's not to sit back and think about what's going on and work through the significance of the non-existence of Balaam. Jezebel looks in the text like her knee-jerk reaction is, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna hunt you down and within 24 hours, you'll be as dead as my prophet. Behold the irrationality of evil. Behold the irrationality of evil. No way you could argue with Jezebel because it's not a bad argument. It's about face, about status. It's about not being able to cope with being proved wrong. It's about asserting her power and her will. 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal, famous for his so-called wager, which I think most people misread. Pascal said this, if you don't believe in God and he does exist, The consequences of your unbelief are vast. If you do believe in God and He doesn't exist, the consequences of your belief are minimal. Therefore, playing the odds, playing the percentages, you should believe in God. That's how most people understand Pascal's Wager. The problem with reading Pascal's Wager that way is it contradicts pretty much everything else Pascal says. And it's possible. It's possible. Everybody can be inconsistent. But I think what Pascal is actually saying is this, even though you know the consequences of unbelief are so vast if God does exist, even though you know which way the percentage will go, yet you still won't believe. You don't even cross the road without taking a risk assessment. Crossing the road at a point when you think you have best chance of survival. Everything you do in life is based upon a risk assessment taking the minimum risks, except for this one thing. What Pascal is actually doing is something very clever. I think he's exposing what motivates Jezebel. It's not that Jezebel can't believe him. It's not that Jezebel isn't clearly presented with the evidence before her eyes, that Jezebel won't believe him. He will not bow her knee to Jehovah. And she will do anything to wipe off the face of the earth, that which reminds her of her antipathy to God. Behold the irrationality of evil. Why do the new atheists spend so much of their lives rubbishing something they don't think exists? There are a lot of things I don't think exist. Some of them make people do stupid things. But I'm not going to waste my life refuting something that doesn't exist, unless I'm driven by something else. So danger, Elijah is in serious danger here, despite having proved to Jezebel that her system, her theology, her God, does not exist. And that leads to the third thing, depression. Elijah's a flesh and blood human being, he's afraid. He flees, one of the things we'll see this evening, one of the things in the Book of Kings is geography's very important, but if they go somewhere, They're usually going somewhere because that place has a particular significance. Elijah flees to Beersheba, the southernmost boundary of Judea. And then he leaves his servant and he goes a further day into the wilderness. It seems that Elijah is placing himself as far away from the Lord and the Lord's people. It's almost as if with his physical movements here, he's retiring or resigning from the ministry. It's a very human moment in the story, isn't it? A very human moment. Because we all know that often depression can follow tremendous successes. One of the sort of geeky things that I'm a fan of is the Tour de France. My wife and I, we even changed our satellite provider a couple of years ago when the provider we use dropped the Tour de France. That's how kind of geeky we are. We don't do very much in July other than record each day's race and watch it in the evening. It is horrifying how many Tour de France winners have gone on to commit suicide. It is a disparate number compared to the rest of the world. If you look at six months after the Olympics, the newspapers start to contain stories of how some or a top athlete or other tried to kill themselves or was suffering from depression. Depression after a huge success is quite a common human occurrence. You can understand it, can't you? If you get a gold medal in the Olympics at 22, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? It's never going to be better than that, is it? A sense in which Elijah's greatest victory he's ever going to have, and he knows it. And yet still she's after him. He's coming down from the high, and he's being persecuted at the same time. He's depressed. What fascinates me is the Lord's response to Elijah's depression on a couple of levels. First thing that the Lord does is he provides Elijah with food and he recommends he gets a good night's sleep. There are strong tendencies within the Christian world to spiritualize depression all the time. Don't get me wrong, some people who've committed bad sins should be depressed about it. And living in a fallen world means that depression is a product of the fall and a product of sin. But it doesn't necessarily mean it's a product of your sin. You can be depressed if you're living in a fallen world. You can be depressed because of the circumstances you find yourself in. You can be depressed because of a physiological malfunction in your body. The Lord here, the first thing he does for Elijah is he gives him food and he tells him to go to good nights. First thing I do whenever anybody comes to me, the church, to tell me they're suffering from depression, or they're feeling depressed, the first thing I say to them is, you need to book an appointment with your doctor. We need to make sure there isn't a physiologic, a brain, or a hormone imbalance. So the first thing I would say about this passage is, it reminds us not to over-spiritualize everything. Human beings are embodied. Our bodies have an impact on the way we think. and there is nothing more cruel than telling a person who is suffering from clinical depression that they've just got to go away and dig around in their lives and find that sin they've got to get rid of. Not good. The thought here I think legitimates realising that there are physical aspects to depression. Here though, there's also a spiritual aspect for Elijah as well. Elijah has to know, has to learn, I think, that satisfaction will only be ultimately found for him in God. Even his spiritual activities and his triumphs are not in themselves permanently satisfying. And the Lord sends him on to Mount Horeb and then meets with him. And there, talks to Elijah, sets up a spiritual frame addressing Elijah immediately. Well, and that brings me to my fourth and final point, destiny. Elijah twice tells the Lord what he's done and what his problem is. What's fascinating to me is how the Lord responds. I have to say, we use biblical counsellors sometimes at my church, but I'm not a huge fan of biblical. I'm not a huge fan of biblical counselling because when I read the Bible, It seems to me that God would fail any biblical counseling class if he ever cared. That's the problem. Passive, not God. Think of the book of Job. At the end of the book of Job, after all the torments Job has been through, what does the Lord do? He appears to Job in a whirlwind. Go away and get hold of a concordance. Look up whirlwind. That's not a particularly pastoral way to approach Job. Whirlwind is a sign of judgment. The Lord comes against Job in judgment. At the end of all that stuff, Job suffers. Here, what does the Lord do? The Lord does not respond to Elijah here by reassuring Elijah of what a good guy he is, or how well he's done. He does two things. Well, he does two things which could actually be embraced under the title of one thing, he makes Elijah very small. How does he do that? Well, the first thing he does is he points to the fact that Elijah is actually part of a much bigger plan. Elijah was never the plan in the first place. If we're looking for a plan, the plan's really Elisha. When the Lord says, you know, you need to go and find Hazael and Jehu and Elisha, it's clear that it's Elisha who's going to bring battle to Baal. I think often our minds are captured by the drama of Mount Carmel. So we tend to think Elijah's the big guy. Actually, Scripture points to Elisha, the big guy. Elijah's just prepared to wear. Elijah, if you like, is landing the boat's sea deck. Elisha is the man who's gonna lead the tanks into the boat. So the first thing he does is he points to Elijah's comparative Elijah, you're preparing the way for these three other men. They're the guys who are going to really finish this off. Hazael of Syria, Jehu son of Nimshi, Elisha son of Shaphat. The second thing, and it's almost, it's almost like an afterthought. It's almost, one might say, cruel in the way it's thrown in, but clearly the Lord is not a cruel God. But it's rather brutal nonetheless. Verse 18. Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed." Almost as an afterthought, the Lord says, oh, and by the way, you're not the only one. I've got 7,000 other guys I could have used. So all of Elijah's, I've been very good to the Lord, and there's only me left now. The Lord dismisses that. There are 7,000 other guys I could have used in this situation. How do we apply that? to us today. I wonder sometimes is discouragement a function of the self-absorbed nature of our culture? I think of my grandad. My grandad never did much of any great significance publicly in his life. What he did do was he worked a humble job and he put food on the table for his children and they never went without shoes. And that was enough for my grandad because that was what life was all about. My grandad found his satisfaction in things outside of himself. Today, and this creeps into the church, we're all affected by this. Today, where do we find our satisfaction? In that which makes us feel good. In that which we find insight. In that which panders to our tastes and needs and concerns. We need to set our age, our church, our congregations, and even ourselves within part of the much, much bigger plan. It isn't about us. It's about God's plan. When Paul talks in 2 Corinthians about this light momentary affliction compared to the weight of glory that is to come, he's not simply talking about what's going to be his experience of heaven. He's talking about the great consummation of history at the end of time. What are my personal suffering compared to the great thing that God is going to work across the universe at the end of time? Paul gets the point of Elijah, but it's not about Paul or his ministry. If he dies, he'll go and be with Christ. If he continues, well, he'll keep preaching the gospel, but it's not about him. We're reminded of that even, I think, in the ministry of John the Baptist. Among the sons of men, nobody greater had arisen than John the Baptist, and yet we see in Matthew 11, what does he do? He sends his people to Jesus. John's in prison. This is John the Baptist who witnessed the presence of Christ even within the womb, when he leapt in his mother's womb, when Mary entered Elizabeth's house. John the Baptist in Matthew 11 seems to have that. He sends Jesus and says, you're the one to come or should we wait for another? And Jesus gives an interesting answer, doesn't he? He doesn't say, I am the one to come. He says, go and tell John what you see. Dead array, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Jesus describes all the works that Elisha did in the Old Testament. John is Elijah. Christ makes that point. Then he describes himself in terms of Elisha. Brothers and sisters, it wasn't even about John the Baptist. The greatest man up to that point ever lived. It was about Christ. Brothers and sisters, it's not about us. about the Lord Christ. The Lord needs no individual Christian. He needs no individual congregation. He doesn't need the OPC or the RPC. The Lord has made his promise for the church. It will be the church that brings him to the end. Let us pray. O Lord God, we do thank you for your word, for the work of rebuke, and the encouragement it contains, and we pray this day, Lord, that you would draw our eyes away from ourselves, as we've already been reminded in prayer this morning, away from looking at ourselves, to gaze upon Christ in heaven, for we know that he is the one in whom the great victory has been accomplished, and through whom the great promises flow, the church. Amen.