Well, good evening once again. Tonight we meet for the 24th session in the study of the life of Elijah. Lessons learned from the life of Elijah. And tonight's lesson title will be Elijah's flight into the wilderness. If you would, open your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 19. We'll be focusing on verses 3-8 tonight, but after completing the last page or so of my notes, I feel that it would be helpful for all of you to be able to know the following verses from verse 9 on down through verse 18. So I'm going to read those tonight, but we'll only be focusing on primarily on verses 3 through 8. So follow with me as we read. 1 Kings 19, beginning in verse 3. And when he saw that, he arose and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belonged to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree, And he requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is enough. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my father's. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, then an angel touched him and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and behold, there was a cake baking on the coals, and a cruise of water at his head. He did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and he did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there, and behold, the word of the Lord came unto him. And said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altar, slain thy prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away. And he said, Go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord, and behold, the Lord pass by. And a great and strong wind rent the mountains and break in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind was 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 a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entering inn of the cave. And behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away. And the Lord said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when thou comest anoint Haziel to be king over Syria, and Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shephath of Abel Mahola shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass that him that escapeth the sword of Haziel shall Jehu slay. And him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." Now, when Elijah received a death threat from Jezebel, he carefully weighed the options before him. We looked at this last week. If he stayed, he would have to fight Jezebel. And in doing so, he would be attacking the office of King Ahab, the inaugurated king of Israel. On the other hand, if he fled, it would be the end of his efforts to restore the nation to the obedience required by the Mosaic covenant. The text does not say that a word from the Lord was given to him to either stay or flee. That's interesting. Because interpreters are prone to make much of that, and either say that he fled because he didn't wait on the Lord, or that he should have stayed. The text doesn't say whether the word of the Lord that came that it would have told him to stay or to leave. Nothing is said of the matter. Even though his fleeing would give the appearance of a failure, he chose to do so. He could not stay and remove Ahab from being king. God would later vindicate his choice by informing him that Jehu would be the next king of Israel, and reveal to him the providential circumstances by which Ahab would be removed from office. Now I want that to sink in for you, because this is going to affect the critics of Elijah. They're saying that he should have stayed and fought. But yet, God is going to tell him later on in the cave about how Ahab is going to be removed. Again, I ask you to get that in your thinking processes, because that's important. Thus, time would show that it was not God's will for Elijah to stay and seek the overthrow of Ahab and Jezebel. God will raise up kings and He will pull down kings in His own time and His own way. Glance down again. down in verse 15, at the close of this section here, in which God gives instructions to Elijah then, not when he flees from Jezebel, but after he's been in the cave. Then he has revealed to him that God has ordained the destruction of Ahab and the very means which will bring that about. So it could not have been God's will for Jezebel to stay and seek the overthrow of Ahab and Jezebel. Now that just blows out of the water the critics of Elijah that call him a coward because he ran. Are you with me? Nod your head one way or another, okay? If you haven't got it, I'll have to keep you after class and we'll go over it again. All right. So Elijah's flight begins in Jezreel. Look at your map that I've given you. It begins in Jezreel. Let's stop and go back to the map in its totality. Look in the middle of the map with Samaria. And there you'll find that Elijah comes out of that region into the brook. Kareth. And then he moves up to Zarephath on the coast. And then he comes down the coastline to Mount Carmel. Then he runs before Ahab's chariot down to Jezreel inland, which is probably the capital. And now then he's going to flee from Jezreel down to Beersheba. and from there into the wilderness to Mount Sinai. This is a very good map, being able to give you tracing the life of Elijah in his travels. And if you'll keep your map in your hand there just for a moment, you will notice that in verse 15, that God says to him, Go return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus. Now look up in your right-hand corner of your map, and you'll see that Damascus is in Syria. And there he's going to anoint a pagan king to take over the political system there. It's going to affect the international relationship, the national relationship, and the spiritual relationship. A new king in Syria, a new king in Judah, and a new prophet to replace Elijah. All right, enough for the map then this evening. So Elijah's flight begins now in Jezreel, located in the middle of the northern kingdom of Israel. And he journeys to Beersheba in the far southern part of the southern kingdom of Judah. This is a distance of about 90 to 100 miles. And there he's out of the political jurisdiction of Ahab and Jezebel. But we have another kingdom here. Remember, the kingdom is split, the northern and the southern. But Jehoshaphat was the king of Judah, and his son had married the daughter of Ahab. That's seen in 2 Kings 8, verse 18. And these two families were so closely united that when Jehoshaphat was later asked by Ahab to join rank with him to war against Syria, that Jehoshaphat said, quote, I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses. 1 Kings 22 and verse 4. And thus Jehoshaphat would have had no hesitancy in returning Elijah to Ahab and Jezebel if he was asked to do so. At this point in his flight, Elijah leaves his servant behind and crosses the border of Judah into the wilderness or the desert. He travels a day's journey into the desert, which is about 15 miles. In a state of exhaustion, he lays down under a juniper tree and goes to sleep. He was awakened probably the next morning by the angel and fed his breakfast. He returns to sleep again, was fed the second time by the angel. And this food would enable him to resume his journey deeper into the wilderness until he would reach his, listen, chosen designation. He knows where he's going. on Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb. And this would be a journey that would take 40 days and nights to complete. Now he could have covered the distance about in half of the time it took him. But he was traveling out here in the desert region on the same ground that Moses and the children of Israel had previously traveled. And no doubt, many thoughts and questions were filling his mind as he sought to understand God's mysterious dealings with him. His flight would end in a cave on Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai. He now realizes that God's providence had guided him and drawn him to the very region where God had revealed His glory to Moses. In fact, many scholars follow the Jewish tradition that holds that the cave was the same as the cleft of the rock in which God placed Moses and His glory passed by. Oh, this is going to get thrilling, at least it does to me when we get into this, because if you look back up in, let's see, verse 11, and God says, Go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord, and behold the Lord what? Just like He did with Moses. Moses was going to be given the instruction that would become known as the Mosaic Covenant. And Moses would know where to go and how to do it. And Elijah is working himself back to this spot to get his mind cleared up as to what in the world God is doing. For Moses was the founder of the Covenant, and God had raised up Elijah, He thought, to be the restorer of the Covenant. And now that it appears that something has interrupted this process. I hope you see the significance of these verses. His flight would there end in the cave where he realizes that God has drawn him to. If you'll look in verse Nine, the scholars point out, that is those who know the Hebrew, I don't, that in verse nine, the Hebrew text uses what is known as the definite article, which should read, and he came unto the cave, a specific cave, if you please. And thus, Jewish tradition has that it was the very cave in which Moses lodged in, in which God took him there to give him the Ten Commandments. It is in this cave that God would cause His glory to pass by Elijah. And Elijah would have his understanding cleared up as to how God was working to advance his kingdom purposes. And there Elijah would learn that God, listen, does not always move his kingdom forward by means of the extraordinary events, but that in the majority of his kingdom's service is spent by his people in quiet, routine, humble obedience to God's will. Do you understand what I just said? Elijah is thinking that the kingdom will advance through the Mount Carmel. God is going to show him all these spectacular things. And the Bible is going to say the Lord wasn't in that. He was in the still, small voice. And Elijah is going to learn a lesson there that primarily God advances His kingdom work in the normal day in and day out routine of Christian living. That's why it's wrong when Oral Roberts said, expect a miracle every day. That's just as foreign as you can get from the way God works in His kingdom. Now that we've traced the path of his flight, let us seek to understand the reasonings which God directed, or which directed his path. What led Elijah to make the decisions that he did? Proverbs 16, 9, we're told that, quote, a man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord Who can complete the sentence? Directs his steps. Now get that. A man uses his own natural faculties, but the Lord directs the steps. We're also told in Proverbs 21, 1, that the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water, he turneth it whithersoever he will. The waters of a stream flow freely according to their nature, and yet their course is determined by the decree of God from heaven. God has predetermined that he would direct Elijah's steps so that he would end up in the cave on Mount Sinai. While at the same time, brother Jim, the reasonings of Elijah's heart would devise the way in which he felt best to take. Both truths are going on at the same time. The hidden decree of God and the revealed actions of the prophet. Now the critics of Elijah maintain that he became so terrified at Jezebel's message that he became irrational and merely started running in a haphazard fashion with no set plan or destination. And I've got commentary after commentary that take that position. Even F.W. Krumacher, takes this position in his classic work entitled Elijah the Tishbite. In commenting on the words he went or ran for his life, Krumacher says, quote, this serves further to intimate the obscurity of his course and the uncertainty of his steps. He went forth into the wide world in uncertainty, distracted by doubts, and unaccompanied by consoling consciousness that he was taking the road for God. Since he went it only for himself and for the sake of his life." I wish Time would have permitted to bring about seven or eight more quotes from noted Bible teachers, good teachers, that make outstanding statements like Krumacher makes, and attributing it to Elijah. That poor Elijah, he just didn't know where he was going. I maintain this view is false. and leads to an erroneous interpretation of the entire passage before us. Again, I use the illustration that if you start out buttoning up a shirt by getting the first button in the wrong hole, then every button thereafter will be wrong. And this is exactly what happens to the critics of Elijah as they work their way through the entire episode. Each element, as we're going to do this in the weeks ahead, we shall see that the critics make a mistaken interpretation because they start off wrong. They start off assuming that Elijah was so terrified that he runs for his life and doesn't even know where he's going. In contrast to this mistaken view, I believe that we see Elijah using his mental faculties to devise his flight so as to determine what the will of God would be for him to do. He's using his brain when he saw that. the consequences of Jezebel's decree. He's using his brain. He can't fight the king, as we learned last week, and why. Now, I want to take us through about ten considerations of Elijah's devising his heart, his reasoning powers, and watch the Lord privately directing the steps. First of all, Elijah realizes that he cannot stay and fight Ahab and Jezebel. Thus, it must be God's will for him to flee. Is that not logical? God is not going to bypass Elijah's brain. That's seen in verse 3 of chapter 19. But enough of this has been said already. Secondly, Elijah realizes that he must get out of the political jurisdiction of Jezebel. And so he flees from the northern kingdom down into the southern kingdom in its furthest most part to Beersheba, and that is also seen in verse 3. The third step in Elijah's rationale, he realizes, Brother Jim, that he cannot leave his servant behind in Jezreel, where the servant could be captured and tortured by Jezebel. And that certainly would have happened. If Jezebel desired any information, and she knew where the servant was, All she'd have to do is capture Elijah's servant and torture him to find out where Elijah might be. And so Elijah is taking his servant with him. He's not leaving him behind to be exposed to the wrath of Jezebel. And thus he takes him with him and leaves him at Beersheba. That's also seen in verse 3. And there the servant would become an unknown figure in this region and thus would be safe from harm. He could disappear into the crowd. The fourth rationale in Elijah's reasoning desires is that he now desires to be alone in the wilderness to pray and to seek the will of God for his life, as seen in verse 4. He went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under the juniper tree and he requested for himself that he might die. Here he's seeking to know what God would do with him. And he's ready to die. Fifthly, Elijah reasons that if perhaps God is through with him as a prophet, Then let him take his life, in that he has nothing left to live for. What has been our prophet's consuming desire since we have gotten to know him? What? Reformation. The desire to please God. Remember his name was? The Lord is my God. I'm on God's side. He's been consumed. This has been what he's been living for. To see the people brought back to obedience to the covenant. So he's saying, Lord, if it pleases you here, it's enough. Let me die. For there's nothing left that I would desire to live for. I've been your prophet. If you've got nothing more for me to do, then let me go on to be with my fathers." After all, he was the one who was to be the restorer of the broken law covenant given by Moses, the founder of the covenant. And now the attempt appears to have failed. It's enough. Just let me die here in the wilderness. And nobody will know what became of me. Do you remember somebody else dying and they never could find out where his grave was? Moses himself. Elijah is in the same region now here in the wilderness. Not where Moses died at. But here he's in this desolate state. If it's God's will for me to die, I don't want to die at the hand of Jezebel. And let her think she's conquered the Lord. Just let me die here in the wilderness where nobody will know. You see then, he's leaving his servant behind. He's wanting to get along with God and pray and find out what the will of God is. And if he's through with Him, then just take his life. Let him go on and be with his fathers. That is, the ones who have preceded him in death. Sixthly, after being reassured by the ministry of the angel that it was not God's will for him to die, now how was he reassured by the angel that it was not God's will for him to die? Anybody? He fed him. You don't feed a dying man. Elijah, God's not going to let you die. He's got work for you yet to do. Do you see the logic of all of this? If the Lord's not through with him, not going to take his life, then he must yet have some purpose for him. And Elijah is getting in on this. He's discovering the mind of God. So after being reassured that it was not God's will for him to die, he determines now to retrace the path of Moses and the people who had spent forty years wandering in the wilderness. And how long is Elijah going to wander here in the wilderness? Forty days and forty nights. The destiny of his journey Look down in verse 7, where the angel says, Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for thee. Huh? The angel, Brother Asa, is not telling Elijah where to go. The angel knows where he's going, either by his faculties or powers of being able to read the mind, or God telling him himself what Elijah had on his mind. Elijah David knows where he's heading. He's not taking a blind leap in the dark out here, just wandering from one place to another. He knows he's on a journey, and the angel knows that. So he's retracing the path of Moses and the children of Israel, and the destiny of this journey would lead him to Mount Sinai where the law covenant had been given. While in the wilderness, he was wonderfully preserved for 40 days and nights. And we must not overlook the connection of the 40 days and nights with Moses who was on Sinai without bread and water. I'm going to give you some texts if you want to write them down. Exodus 34, 28. Exodus 24, 18. Deuteronomy 9, 9. 9, 18. 9, 25. Deuteronomy 10. 10 and 11. Let's look up one for time's sake here this evening. Go back to Exodus 34 and verse 28. We'll cover this more thoroughly when we come back in the following weeks and do more detailed work. We're just focusing tonight on his overall plight. Exodus 34, I believe I said. And verse 28. Verse 27, The Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the Lord forty days and nights, and he did neither what? Now Elijah knows this history, folks. He knows all about the law covenant and the past history of Israel. He did neither eat bread nor drink water. He wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant. The what? The Ten Commandments. Also, the 40 years which Israel spent in the wilderness, are associated with his journey here. Where the Lord fed his people with what? Manna. When they had no bread, to make it known that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Matthew 4.4, the words of our Lord Himself. Man is just not a physical being. He is a spiritual being and God's Word works through him. It is during this time in the wilderness that Elijah is reflecting upon Israel's past history. and is now awaiting a revelation from God's Word as to whether or not God still had plans for him in the service of Israel, and if so, just what those plans would be. Folks, this is an entirely different approach Thirty sources that I've looked up on my bookshelf have all taken. I'm not the only one, incidentally, to come up with this. There are some very old writers that go back further than the newer writers, which take this position, but not in the same detail that I'm giving this evening. Look down in verse 9. He came thither unto a cave, and lodged there, and behold the what? There the Word of the Lord now comes. This is what Elijah is waiting to hear and what he's pursuing out here in the desert, thinking this would be the most logical place to get his mind cleared up as to what the will of God was, was to go back to the beginning where Moses got his mind cleared up as to what God's will was for him and for the people of Israel. So Elijah is seeking the source again. Eighthly. Let's see. No, I need to go back to the seventh. I skipped one. The seventh rationale that originates in Elijah's heart as he is now devising his way but the Lord's directing the steps, is that he reasons that if Moses was given instructions by God for the people on Mount Sinai, then he, Elijah, would return to the same source and wait for the word of the Lord to make known his will. And thus he sets up his lodging in the cave, perhaps the very cave where Moses has lodged and is there. But the Word of the Lord is revealed. I've got a little ahead of myself in verse 9. Now the eighth rationale is seen in verse 10. He confesses his commitment to his calling as a prophet to Israel. He secondly, laments the unfaithfulness of the people. And thirdly, he expresses his concern for his own safety. When God asks him, what are you here for, Elijah, this is what he confesses. I've been very jealous for you. I'm still for you, Lord. But the people, I'm disappointed in them, and I'm concerned about my well-being. Ninthly, after God had explained how he operates his kingdom, and he had revealed his glory, Elijah again confesses to God that he's still willing to be God's prophet and to stand for Him. This is down in verses 11 through 14. Elijah is saying, after he has seen the glory of God, it doesn't make any difference. I still am not ashamed of my name. For my name means, Jim, the Lord is my God. I'm not ashamed of you, Lord. I was jealous for you back there. Now you've shown me your glory and explained to me how you're working in my day-by-day life. I'm still for you. I'm still pro-God, if you please. I'm for God, and I'm against Baal. And tenthly, Elijah now listens as God clearly assigns him a new set of duties which shall comprise his will for Elijah. And this involved anointing a new king in Syria. This is an international policy that he's going to put in place. A new king in Israel. A national policy. is going to be changed, and a new prophet to take his place, a spiritual change or policy is going to be implemented. Now, notice what God did not tell Elijah to do. You ready? He was not to return to Jezreel and confront the wrath of Jezebel. Well, you say, what's so significant about that? Because the critics maintain that Elijah, for fear of Jezebel, deserted his post of duty. Thus disobeying God's will. Elijah got out of God's will when he fled. This is what the critics are saying. This would mean that in his whole flight, Elijah would not only have been an outlaw to Jezebel, but he would have been an outlaw to God as well. If Elijah were an outlaw, if he were out of God's will, then God should have rebuked him and sent him back to Jezreel to carry out the reformation. But he did not do so. So what does that tell us? It tells us that Elijah made the right choice when he fled from Jezebel. In obeying his new assignment, Elijah would live to see the tragic deaths of both Ahab and Jezebel. Let me see a raise of hands. How many of you know how those two people died? One, two, three. four or five, a few, it wasn't a very pretty picture. And it's all going to be arranged by God's providence in this new king out here in Assyria, the new king in Judah, and the new prophet, Elisha. I ask ourselves again, how if this was what God has predestined How then could it have been God's will for Elijah to stay and fight it out with Jezebel when Jezebel was going to die years later? Elijah would learn the lesson of Ecclesiastes 3.7 that God has a time for his prophets to quote, keep silence and a time to speak. This has been Elijah's history. Go and speak to Ahab. And now go and hide by the brook. Am I right? Now then, Jezebel gives his verdict. God does not say, go and speak. But in his providence, he was saying, go and hide. Get along with me, and I'll reveal my glory and show you yet what my future plans are for you, Elijah. That's seen in chapter 19, verses 15 through 17. I believe this best explains Elijah's flight from Jezebel and his flight into the wilderness. I think it also shows that Elijah's critics were wrong about Elijah's flight from the beginning to the end. They missed the whole thing. And beloved, when a Bible teacher makes an error in interpretation, two things happen when he's expounding a text. The first thing is that he will introduce something into the text that wasn't there, and that will be an error. And the second thing, he will miss what was being said in the text, and the hearers will not know the truth of the text. And this is what has happened to Elijah's critics in their attempting to explain his behavior upon hearing the account of Jezebel. Because Elijah's critics got the first button in the wrong hole to start with, they came up with the wrong button in the wrong hole for their conclusions. Next time, we will look at Elijah's state of mind under the juniper tree. But a valuable lesson is available for all of us to learn from Elijah's flight. It is this. It is how to behave when we are confronted with life's disappointments and setbacks. And this is something that all of us ought to want to know if we don't already know it. Because life is filled with disappointments and setbacks. Amen? Is that not true? What's the lesson we learn when life deals us a hard blow? Let us seek to maintain the rational use of our God-given faculties. And delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desire of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday." That is your decision making. You'll have light. thrown on you to use these faculties, to know how to use them, rather than them being clouded up and darkened. Delight yourself in the ways of the Lord. He'll give you the desires of your heart. And we can know when we are making the right desires and are going in the right way when the impulses and desires of our heart are longing to, number one, glorify God, number two, helping our neighbor, and number three, promoting our own good in that particular order. That's why when we do not have a special revelation of the Word of the Lord in this book, we are to use the rational faculties of our mind as these are the impulses that God places within us to give us the light to know the decision-making processes that we're faced with each day. And how do we know those impulses are from the Lord? When we want to see Him glorified, when we want to see our neighbors good advanced, and we want to see our own welfare and good advanced. We'll close there tonight. Thank you again for an evening together lived under the searchlight of your word. Thank you for our prophet and his courage, his stand that he is not ashamed to take for you. And thank you for your word informing us that he was just a man just like us, had the same faculties, same emotions, same passions, and that his burning desire was to see your name glorified in the midst of your people. May you grant us that, for I can say before you tonight that's my burning desire. That's what's in my heart. It's in the faculties of my very being that you've given to me as a free moral agent. I want to see your name glorified and advanced. My neighbor helped out, and I have an interest of my own life that I desire good and to be able to enjoy the fruit of my labors. Send us home tonight with thankful hearts for teaching us from your word. In Christ's name we pray, amen.