20 ELIJAH FLEES TO HOREB

One would have expected, after such a public and sensible manifestation of the glory of God and such a clear decision of the controversy between God and Baal, to the honor of Elijah, the confusion of Baal’s prophets, and the universal satisfaction of the people, after they had seen both fire and water come from heaven as a result of the prayers of Elijah, and both in mercy to them, the one as it signified the acceptance of their offering, the other as it refreshed their inheritance, which was a weary and dry land, that now they would all, as one man, return to the worship of the God of Israel. It would be correct to take Elijah for their guide and official messenger from God, so he would from that time on be the prime-minister and his directions serve as laws to both king and kingdom. But it was not to be. It was, in fact, quite the opposite; he is neglected though God had honored him. No attention is given to him, no respect is paid to him, no care taken for him, and no use made of him. On the contrary, the land of Israel, to which he had been, and might have continued to be, so great a blessing, does not welcome him to even stay there. He feels he must flee. I will not say that Christian leaders should expect this kind of treatment, but I will suggest that if it happens we should remember Elijah’s story. In this and the next several lessons we will see that a higher power than the power of the throne is watching over, protecting, providing for, blessing and even using this man of God. We may or may not be rejected as obviously as Elijah was, but we surely rely on the God who provided for Elijah to also provide for us.

First, in addition to the treatment Elijah received, there was another factor. It is called Arrival fallacy or post-goal depression. Here is a non-professional sketch of what secular scholars say about this which may help us understand the problem and why Christian leaders need to be aware of the dangers inherent in success. We want success, but how do we handle the feelings of being let down after the success. On a small scale this can happen every Monday. We work hard to prepare for what we want to be a great success in the weekend meetings. We pray earnestly, study hard, prepare the best sermon we can, do everything we can to encourage people to attend the church service and be blessed. After the joy of worship, the thrill of the presence of God and the victories God’s people have experienced on Sundays, how do we react to a subtle feeling of discouragement that often occurs on Mondays? Some psychologists call this feeling “arrival fallacy.” Some suggest that we don’t talk enough about the depression that can come shortly after we actually achieve our biggest goals. Yet this feeling is a real thing.

Whether it’s preaching a wonderful sermon, climbing a difficult mountain, striving toward finishing a project at work or completing a creative project, the comedown from hitting our goals can be surprisingly difficult. Depression that follows a big success, I have read, is a completely normal bio-chemical response in our brains. Arrival fallacy is this strangely specific feeling or the illusion we subconsciously have that once we obtain something, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness. Finding the answers or solutions to this problem can be particularly helpful to Christian leaders, because the ups and downs of spiritual leadership are one of our career hazards. Understanding what Elijah and we experience should help us determine what really makes us happy, rather than chasing other unnecessary achievements to avoid feeling bad.

Maybe we can be better equipped to succeed after the success of our next accomplishment, as we are prepared for the inevitable comedown afterwards. Of course we want to keep on keeping on. We are looking to continue to maintain a sense of meaning, purpose and activity in our lives, more learning, more discovery and more Sunday victories. We want to be spiritual in our outlook, but it does not hurt to think a little about something called dopamine. Dopamine is a delightful neurotransmitter that makes us feel good, brings us pleasure as it is released when we win. I am not a bio-chemist and neither am I a psychologist, but I can read and material on this subject is readily available on the internet. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter made in your brain. It plays a role as a “reward center” in many body functions, including memory, movement, motivation, mood, attention and more. It’s made in your brain and acts as a chemical messenger, communicating messages between nerve cells in your brain and the rest of your body. Our brain uses dopamine to manipulate us into eating, seeking new experiences, exercising, achieving goals, engaging in destructive behavior, and even having intimate times with our spouse.

It is hard to keep our emotions on an even steady keel when our brains keep rewarding us for trying too hard for something. Winning, it appears, can indeed lead to psychological harm. Highly motivated people are particularly susceptible to post-goal depression; the feeling of emptiness or sadness that comes after victory. I think this is what Elijah experienced. In pursuit of his goal he had confronted Ahab, stayed in hiding at the Kerith Ravine, lived abroad in Zarephath in Sidon for two years, confronted Ahab again, prayed for fire to fall, prayed for rain and then outran Ahab’s chariot horses all the fifteen miles from Carmel to Jezreal. He faced each challenge and succeeded again and again. He was a candidate for a problem with dopamine.

Yes, we interpret the Bible the best we can with the knowledge we have and I suspect that learning from what psychologists say about post-goal depression or arrival fallacy can help us understand Elijah’s normal responses to his intense challenges and dramatic successes. Elijah worked toward a goal, reached it and then reacted as a normal human being. If you are a high achiever, you too may experience an emotional low after a victory. I want you to have that victory. Just prepare yourself to win another victory over the emotional low you may feel after the original victory in Jesus’ name.

Second,  Ahab stirred up Jezebel even more against Elijah. That queen-consort, it seems, was in effect queen-regent, as she was more completely afterwards when she, an evil, strong-willed, and highly motivated woman managed the kingdom and did what she would. She lived for about ten more years after Ahab died and was eventually killed by Jehu. Ahab’s conscience would not let him persecute Elijah himself (after all he was an Israelite though Jezebel was not), but he told Jezebel all that Elijah had done as verse 1 says, "Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.” I cannot say if this was to convince or to exasperate her. It is not said he told her what God had done, but what Elijah had done, as if he, by some spell or charm, had brought fire from heaven, and the hand of the Lord had not been in it. Especially he represented to her, surely knowing this would not make Jezebel happy, that Elijah had killed the prophets; the prophets of Baal he calls the prophets, as if none but they were worthy of the name. Ahab reported the slaying of them as Elijah’s crime, without taking notice that it was a just repayment to Jezebel for having killed God’s prophets. Those who, when they cannot for shame, embarrassment or fear do evil themselves, yet stir others up to do it, will have it laid to their charge as if they themselves had done it.

Third, Jezebel sent him a threatening message which is recorded in verse 2, that she had vowed and sworn to be the death of him within twenty-four hours. It says, “So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, ‘May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.’” We do not know what prevented her from doing it that very day, but she resolves it will not be long until it is done. Carnal hearts are hardened and enraged against God by what should convince and conquer them and bring them into obedience to him. She swears by her gods, and, raging like one distracted, curses herself if she does not slay him, and this without any hint of a divine permission. Cruelty and confidence often meet in persecutors. I will pursue, I will overtake.

When we get to heaven we must ask Elijah how it happened that she sent him word of her plan, and so to give him the opportunity to escape? Did she think him so daring that he would not flee, or herself so strong that she could prevent him? Or was there a special providence in it, that she should be in this way flustered or preoccupied by her own fury? Perhaps she desired nothing more than his blood, yet, she dared not meddle with him for fear of the people, all counting him a prophet, a great prophet. Could this be why she sent this message to him to frighten him as though to threaten him not to carry on the destruction of Baal worship which he had so effectively begun? Supporting her threats with an oath and swearing does not prove that she really intended to slay him, but only that she intended to make him believe so. The gods by which she swore could do no-one any harm.

Fourth, Elijah, with this, in a great fright fled for his life probably by night, and came to Beer-sheba as verse 3 says, “Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there,” Shall we praise him for this? No we cannot. Where was the courage with which he had lately confronted Ahab and all the prophets of Baal? What happened to the bravery which kept him at the work of his sacrifice when the fire of God fell on it? He that stood undaunted in the midst of the divine terrors both of heaven and earth trembles now at the impotent menaces of a proud passionate mere human woman. Lord, what is man!

Great faith is not always consistently strong. We too have periods of great faith followed by times of weak faith or even no faith. He could not but know that he might be very useful to God and Israel at precisely this juncture, and had all the reason in the world to depend on God’s protection while he was doing God’s work. Yet he fled. In his former danger God had instructed him as to how to hide himself by the brook Kerith and then at the widow’s house in Zarephath, which he did in obedience and by faith. But now he seeks to hide again only this time it is because of his doubt and fear.

Fifth, from Beer-sheba he went onward into the wilderness, that vast howling wilderness in which the Israelites wandered. Beer-sheba was so far distant from Jezreel, and within the dominion of so good a king as Jehoshaphat, that he could not but be safe there; yet, as if his fears haunted him even when he was out of the reach of danger from Jezebel, he could not rest there, but went a day’s journey even further into the desert. Yet perhaps he fled there not so much for his safety as that he might be wholly removed from society, in order to experience again a free and intimate communion with God.

He left his servant at Beer-sheba that he might be private in the wilderness, as Abraham left his servants at the bottom of the hill when he went up into the mount to worship God, and as Christ in the garden was withdrawn from His disciples. From another perspective, or perhaps it was because he did not want to expose his servant, who was young and tender, to the hardships of the wilderness, which might have led to the failed faith of his servant. If this was Elijah’s reason for leaving his servant at BeerSheba, we can learn that we ought in this way to consider the condition of the faith of those who are under our charge, for God considers ours.

Sixth, being wearied with his journey, he understandably, if we recall what we just learned abut dopamine and post-goal depression, grew irritable and wished he might die, Verse 4 says, “He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. ‘I have had enough, Lord,’ he said. ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.’” Death is life to a good man; the death of the body is the life of the soul. Yet that was not the reason why he wished to die; it was not the deliberate desire of grace, as Paul’s, to depart and be with Christ, but the passionate wish of his human weakness as Job’s. Those who are, in this way, eager to die are not in a good condition for dying. Jezebel has sworn his death, and therefore he in weakness and fear prays for it’; runs from death from her to death from God. But there is this difference, he wishes to die by the hand of the Lord, whose tender mercies are great, and not to fall into the hands of man, whose tender mercies are cruel. He would rather die in the wilderness than as Baal’s prophet died, according to Jezebel’s threatening, lest the worshippers of Baal should triumph and blaspheme the God of Israel.

Wouldn’t the prophets of Asheroh love to think they could produce a fear that would eventually take the life of Elijah. He pleads, “It is enough. I have done enough, and suffered enough. I am weary of living.” Those who have secured a happiness in the other world will soon have enough of this world. He pleads, “I am not better than my fathers, not better able to bear their tiredness, and therefore why should I be longer burdened with it than they were?” But is this my lord Elijah? Can that great and gallant spirit shrink to this? God left him to himself, to show that when he was bold and strong it was in the Lord and the power of his might, but of himself he was no better than his fathers or brothers.

Seventh, God, by an angel, fed him in that wilderness, in the very needs and perils to which he had knowingly thrown himself, and in which, if God had not graciously provided for him, he would have perished. How much better does God deal with His willful and sometimes rebellious children than they deserve! Elijah, in a slump, wished to die; God did not need him, He had others.

Yet God planned to continue to use and honor him, and therefore sent an angel to keep him alive. Our case would be bad sometimes if God should take us at our word and grant us our foolish passionate requests. Having prayed that he might die, he laid down and slept (1 Kings 19:5), wishing it may be to die in his sleep, and not to awake again; but he is awakened out of his sleep and finds himself not only well provided for with bread and water (1 Kings 19:6), but, which was more, attended by an angel, who guarded him when he slept, and twice called him to his food when it was ready for him, (1 Kings 19:5, 7). He did not need to complain of the unkindness of men when it was compensated for like this by the special ministry of angels. Provided for this way, he had reason to think he had fared better than the prophets who eat at Jezebel’s table. Wherever God’s children are, as they are still on their Father’s ground, so they are still under their Father’s eye and care. They may lose themselves in a wilderness, but God has not lost them.

Eighth, he was carried, in the strength of this meat, to Horeb, the mount of God. Verse 8 says,“So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.” The Spirit of the Lord led him to that place, probably beyond his own intention, that he might have communion with God in the same place where Moses had. The law that was given by Moses had been revived by Elijah. The angel had him eat the second time, because of the greatness of the journey that was before him. Verse 7 says, “The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.’” God knows what he designs us for, though we do not know for lack of foresight what service, trials or cares we will face but still trust that we will be furnished for them with sufficient grace. He who determines and appoints what the voyage will be and where it will take us can supply the ship with food accordingly. See how many different ways God took to keep Elijah alive; he fed him by ravens, with multiplied meals at the widow’s home in Sidon, then by an angel, and now, to show that man lives not by bread alone, and that God can give strength even without food, God kept him alive many days without meat, neither resting nor sleeping, but continually traveling the mazes of the wilderness desert, possibly a day for a year of Israel’s wanderings; yet he neither needs nor desires more food.

Some say that the “forty” was a miscopy of “four” by a scribe. I am not prepared to discuss the length of time he traveled went without more food. An important matter, however is that the place no doubt, reminded Elijah of the manna, and encouraged him to hope that God will sustain him here, and in due time bring him to his eventual destination.

God had done great things for Israel as they had earlier traveled north through that same wilderness in spite of their time of weak faith, and now Elijah, would experience some fretful times of weak faith as he moved on in God’s plan for him. The wilderness to which Elijah traveled was forlorn, lonely, barren and desolate, but Israel’s culture, spiritual experience, development and history was strongly influenced by events that took place there. Earlier through Moses and now through Elijah who was about to receive a great revelation that would influence Israel for years to come, God was working.

Elijah was again alone with God.