When we seek for help hiding in a cave and not in God

STUDY: # 677-Church in the Houses

Pastor: Edith Cruz

From: March 29, - April 4, 2011 TOPIC: "When we seek for help hiding in a cave and not in God" I Kings 19:9-18

Elijah was mentally very occupied by everything that was in his heart. The prophet was full of anger, of discomfort and of many reproaches. Although he had compassion for the town, the hardness of the people made him feel a great deal of anger. In life, all of us need to live certain experiences to be able to grow. But there is a problem when what we live fill us with rage, of anger provoking in us an evil character. Then out of our mouth comes rough answers, we get rough and we act without consideration towards others. There is no one that can change this in a man but only God. Elijah was upset and fighting with his own fears, many things were tormenting him. The greatest mistake is to forget that God is the one that called us and He is who will always come on our behalf in our lives. In those circumstances Elijah had his own justifications. He denounced the evil in the children of Israel according to what he had seen and knew. He knew about the sins of the town and accused them while defending his own fidelity. But, the problem in life is that one cannot know all, we can only see and understand up to where our eyes can reach. Only our God knows perfectly while we cannot see and understand everything that He does. Therefore, we should act according to the faith in which we trust God and not for what we can see. If we do not rest in our faith in the Lord we will despair ourselves and we will act too quickly as Elijah did. Elijah fled from the threats and hid in a cave. It is said that Moses also was in that cave when God let him see his back. Exodus 33: 15, 21, 22 God was seeking for Elijah, therefore He was his son. He sought him and found him in that dark cave. We understand that Elijah no matter how much he wanted to flee he could not hide from the Word of God upon his life. "What are you doing here, Elijah?", God said to him. Nobody can hide from the eye, the arm, neither of the Word of God. And in verse 13 God returns to ask him the same thing twice. It was like telling him: "Elijah, this is not your place." Can you imagine! A cave is not the dwelling place for a prophet. It was not for Elijah playing the part of a man that lives hidden in a solitary desert and in silence. Elijah was a prophet of God. As prophet he had to be present among the men to reprimand the town, the evil Jezebel, the evil king Ahab and to all those perverse men. He also had to be encouraging those who did not walk away from God. However, the reality was that he was fleeing from Jezebel and from the town. Perhaps God was not more powerful than that perverse woman and of any disturbed human?

God confronted Elijah with these words, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" When we are confronted great excuses come out. Elijah evaluated his job saying that all his effort had been in vain. He also became a prosecutor of those men accusing them when he used to be their lawyer. He alleges that they had left God and his covenant. So Elijah was going to leave them. The prophet’s conscience was exhausted. But, God knew very well the job that he had done and that in that hour he lacked of strength to go forward. As Elijah flee and hid he left an enemy that had no compassion with no one or of sacred things, the evil Ahab and Jezebel and the town that followed them. Elijah accused, this is how our frustrations come out. Indeed, the Israelites had the circumcision which was the sign of the covenant, but they had abandoned the service and the worship to the true God. They had knocked down God’s altars. They had killed with swords the prophets of the Lord. This was Elijah’s motive to hide, he was alone. Against him were thousands of men and among them he was not safe. He preferred to preserve his life by fleeing in solitude than to reform those who hated to be reformed. We said that Moses was also in the cave. God wanted Moses to enter the crack of the rock when the Glory of God would be shown. But God worked with Elijah in a different way. God wanted Elijah to leave the cave not to hide in it. The Lord was going to reveal himself to him, so Elijah first heard a real strong wind that broke the mounts, later an earthquake, later a fire, but God was not in the wind, neither in the earthquake, neither in the fire. The Lord came to Elijah in the middle of a whistle or delicate and peaceful whisper. With that God wanted to let the prophet know that in order to defeat evil he didn’t have to always wait for constant miracles of divine power. But should continue with the simple things and regular things each day, which is fruit of patience and of faith in God. That is what Elijah lacked; the patience and the faith to believe that God would always do His work as He had done up till then. When is it that we are useful? Always! We are not useful only when things are well. Elijah, as God’s servant, suffered when he adopted an attitude of self-importance. Nobody can be greater in the kingdom of God; all we give is a service. When Elijah realized that in that whisper was the genuine presence of Jehovah he covered his face with his mantel, he feared before the steps of the Glory of God. He had fled from his duty because he was afraid of Jezebel’s threats when the glory of God omnipotent was so close to him. Now he was standing in the entrance of the cave, and had to be ready under that Glory of Jehovah to listen to what God wanted to speak to him. God ask him again: What are you doing here, Elijah? Elijah answered again; that he had a great zeal for Jehovah, "…the children of Israel have left your covenant, knocked down the altars, killed the prophets, only I have remained." It seems that with the vision and revelation that God gave him he still did not understand that he must continue with the ministry as always.

Elijah had to continue declaring God’s law by ordinary preaching. Elijah sought for great miracles that would frighten the people, because this is what fills men for a moment. But, it was only a matter to preach, faith would arrive by hearing the Word. God sent him again through the desert of Damascus to carry the Word to the rebellious town of Israel. Punishment of God they wanted and punishment they would arrive to that town by means of the three men that Elijah would send to govern according to God’s order. The lesson for Elijah was strong and clear: when evil threatens us we must not flee to hide in a cave. It is better to remain quiet in God and God will come on our behalf to punish the evil and the rebels. We trust in God and we act by means of faith and we do not run neither we judge according to what we see or according to our emotions. Amen.