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While I am contemplating this flight
of Elijah’s, I can’t help but think about the two questions David posed to God,
“Is there anyplace I can go to avoid
your Spirit? to be out of your sight” (Psa 139:7, The Message)?
The answer is an emphatic, “No!”
Because God is everywhere present. He is not a part here or a part there but
wholly present everywhere. He cannot be spread too thin or too thick like icing
on a cake. He is all there everywhere. I have His undivided attention
here in Cleveland, TN as much as another believer does at the same time in, say,
Bangkok, Thailand, or in Timbuktu, Africa. We can no longer escape His presence
than we can prevent Him from knowing our thoughts! Has it ever occurred to you
nothing has ever occurred to God? Such is the awesome ways of the only God who
possesses the exotic attributes of being omnipresent (everywhere present) and
omniscient (all-knowing), not to mention being omnipotent (all-powerful) as
well.
But Elijah isn’t running from God but
Jezebel who doesn’t have those “only Yahweh can have” attributes above. But
what she does have, or at least Elijah thought she did, was the ability to make
good on her threat (1 Kgs 19:1, 2); Elijah was on her turf, and she certainly had
connections and serious clout. By the way, if I understand the sovereignty of
God correctly, there is nothing that enters our lives unless God permits or orchestrates
it. That is one of those two-edged sword truths
– good when it goes our way and bad
when it doesn’t (cf. Rom 8:28; Job 2:10 which can be hard to swallow at times
as well but no less true). So in actuality, she could muster no force to
overtake Elijah unless God allowed it.
Running from Jezebel is what gives
this flight into the desert the appearance of being kind of cowardly, and I
don’t say that in a strong accusative tone. I know me; I would have already
left for remoteness after being a part of the killing of the false prophets of
Baal and possibly the prophets of Asherah or Ashtoreth, goddess of the Sidonians" (1 Kgs 11:5). Some scholars only believe 450 were
killed, citing the precise phrasing “prophets of Baal” or mentioning "Baal's
prophets" as 450 in number (1 Kgs 18:19, 22, 40). The “prophets of Asherah” (1 Kgs 18:19) were not said to be collected for execution specifically (1
Kgs 18:40), but often Asherah was associated with Baal as perhaps a consort (Jdg 3:7; 6:28; 10:6). There may be a splitting of hairs here; both were idols. Why would Elijah let them escape to spread their heresies and lies once exposed to the people to be false prophets? Anyway, it has been suggested that they may have survived the Mt Carmel crisis and served in Ahab's court, 1 Kgs 22:6.
Elijah was very courageous in going up Mt Carmel thinking he was the only prophet left serving Yahweh (1 Kgs 19:10, “I alone am left”). He definitely was the only one up there representing Yahweh in enemy territory during the contest. But what a contrast in his behavior down in Jezreel not long thereafter! What happened to that courage of the prophet on the top of Mt Carmel claiming that Yahweh is God, not Baal, down in Jezreel?
Elijah was very courageous in going up Mt Carmel thinking he was the only prophet left serving Yahweh (1 Kgs 19:10, “I alone am left”). He definitely was the only one up there representing Yahweh in enemy territory during the contest. But what a contrast in his behavior down in Jezreel not long thereafter! What happened to that courage of the prophet on the top of Mt Carmel claiming that Yahweh is God, not Baal, down in Jezreel?
As soon as he got the message from Jezebel,
the circumstances just became larger than God who is all-powerful, all-present,
and all-knowing, just to name a few immutable characteristics. Elijah was
intimately acquainted with His power. So were the disciples of Jesus witnessing
day after day the amazing miracles performed by Him, but they all ran for cover
when things suddenly went south. This is what usually happens when we take our
eyes off the LORD, and by the way, this makes for good fuel to run post haste
in the opposite direction of His will – the situation becomes bigger than God
Almighty! It’s an insult to His Sovereignty and Majesty don’t you think? It was
William Hendricks that said, "The size of your God determines the size of
everything." He was right on!
Elijah’s God was bigger than life up on Mt Carmel, but down below in
Jezreel, things took a turn for the worse after Elijah received a heartfelt thanks from Ahab's loving wife. It is baffling just how quickly our
perception of God can change because of the circumstances of life that suddenly comes
upon us like a raging river that has overrun its banks: God goes from all-powerful to impotent, from all-present to nowhere to be found, from all-knowing
to questioning His awareness of the situation. We could all write a comic
tragedy entitled, “Honey, I shrunk God.” But God's eternal immutability would strongly argue that is really not the case. "I do not change" (Mal 3:6); not so strangely and inexplicably, it is we who have changed.
Elijah just came down, literally, from
an incredible victory over the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of
Asherah (we’ll talk about these two later). With God on Elijah’s side, he held
the advantage over the 850 false prophets; Baal (the demons behind the Baals) was
long gone before the contest ever got started (cf. 1 Kgs 18:26-29); those critters
knew that Yahweh was God alone! Those demons were power-tripping off the hearts
of the deceived for the purpose of destroying their lives. How Jezebel could
become bigger than God after what just happened on Mt Carmel is puzzling and
frankly, disturbing!
It is disturbing because we all have been guilty of taking
our eyes off God. It takes but a nanosecond once blindsided by something
unexpected to fly the coop, away from where God wants us to remain. Once we got it all figured out that the situation is way too big for God to handle, we feel some internal pressure to do something about our situation! We are in no mood to “wait on God.” There's a volatile threat coming down the pipeline; it's real and deliverable, and we're feeling pretty vulnerable about now! Outta here!
Truthfully, there is nothing too big for the God of the
Bible; we just think sometimes that there is, and you know what? The environment can be
powerfully persuasive if our eyes aren’t fixed or focused on God. Sometimes it may not be about size at all; we just don't want to be subject to a known or unknown alternative not to our liking (cf. Jonah). I am going to
be redundant in this series because this is a common and prevalent problem with all of us who believe Yahweh is God. Whenever we take our eyes off the LORD, it
is a guarantee we are going to stray and wind up in a different location than where we belong, and like spiritual gravity, once we let
go of God willingly, we are without a doubt going to fall. <><
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