Well, good afternoon, church family. It’s good to see everyone here today. We’re going to be in 1 Kings chapter 19 today. 1 Kings chapter 19 will be our focal passage.

But before we get into that, I want to review some of the events in the life of Elijah that happened in chapter 17 and 18, because they’ll apply to our passage today. So in 1 Kings chapter 17 and verse 1, we see Elijah coming to Ahab at the direction of the Lord and predicting that there will be a drought. And then after that, we see the word of the Lord coming to Elijah again, and he’s sent to go hang out by the Lord. And there the Lord sustains him with the water from the brook, and he has the ravens that come and bring him bread and meat. But because there’s a drought, the brook dries up. So in verse 8, we see the word of the Lord coming to Elijah again, and he went to live with the widow and her son. And then when we get to chapter 18, we see the word of the Lord coming to him again in the third year of the drought, and he’s sent to King Ahab. And then we see Ahab once again to say that he, the Lord, will send rain upon the earth once again. Elijah then instructs Ahab to gather all of Israel, gather all the people on Mount Carmel, along with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table. And Ahab does that. And when the people gather, Elijah says to them, How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, follow him. And the people did not answer him a word. So then Elijah issues a challenge. Everyone’s heard this before. All the kids in Sunday school have heard this before. Elijah on the Mount Carmel, each side was going to prepare a sacrifice to their gods. The prophets of Baal went first. They prepared their sacrifice. And the scripture tells us from morning to noon, they cried out to their God, and nothing happened. They were passionate. They were cutting themselves, crying out with all their might. But their God could not answer them, because their God cannot see and cannot hear. So then it was Elijah’s turn. Elijah has to repair his altar, because they’d broken it down throughout the course of the morning. He gathers 12 stones to represent the 12 tribes of Israel. And then he has four water jars filled to the brim. And he has the four water jars filled to the brim. four water jars dumped on the altar three different times. So the sacrifice was fully drenched. And then Elijah has this simple prayer. O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back. And immediately fire falls from heaven, consumes the entire sacrifice. And when all the people see it, they fall on their face and say, the Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is God. And then Elijah has all the false prophets killed and then he prays to the Lord and the Lord does send rain to end the drought.

So these are the events that lead up to our passage today. And we’re going to walk through the first 18 verses of the first 18 verses of the first 18 verses of the first 18 verses. We’re going to start in verse 1. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with a 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 and he arose and he ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and he 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’s. So we’re going to first see that Elijah flees in fear. Jezebel did not witness the events on the mountain. So Ahab tells her all that had happened. And notice something. He says, Elijah’s killed the prophets. Elijah’s done this. There’s no mention of the Lord in Ahab’s, recounting of what happened. It’s as if he said, okay, all of this happened and it’s his fault. The fingers pointed squarely at Elijah. So then Jezebel sends her own message in verse 2. She says, so may the gods do to me and more also that I don’t make your life as the life of one of them today by this time tomorrow. So she said, you’ve taken the life of my prophets. Now I’m going to take yours.

And Jezebel had had a history of killing prophets. In 1 Kings, 18, 13, we see this discussion between Obadiah, who is the master of Ahab’s house, and Elijah. And Obadiah says to Elijah, has it not been told my Lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred men of the Lord’s prophets by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water? So in this verse, we learn two things. Jezebel had a history of killing prophets. So she was going to be a fierce opponent. She’s perhaps as devoted to Baal as Elijah was to the Lord, to Yahweh. So Elijah was taking this threat seriously.

And the other thing we see is that Obadiah, in obedience to the Lord, had preserved a hundred of the prophets who had not been killed. So in verse 3, we see, what is Elijah’s response to this? He was afraid. And he arose and he ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. Elijah responded with fear and he ran to Beersheba. Beersheba was about as far south in the promised land as you could go. So he was going about as far away from Jezebel as he could. But note something that we don’t see here in these verses that we saw in chapters 17 and 18. We don’t see the word of the Lord coming to him telling him to move. In chapters 17 and 18, it seems that every time Elijah moved, it was because it was the Lord’s command. Go to Ahab. Go to the brook Kareth. Go to the widow’s son. Go back to Ahab. It was the direction of the Lord. But now Elijah is moving out of fear. And we have to imagine, this is probably shortly after the events on Mount Carmel, so he’s probably mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually drained. He’s fatigued. After all those experiences. So he’s probably at a low point in his life just because he’s physically drained. Sometimes when we get tired or we’re mentally tired, we may feel that we’re spiritually drained. We struggle with things more and it can put us in a low point.

The enemy of our soul never gives up. It’s often at the low points in life when he seems to attack, when he seems to come and he seems to threaten us. It was true in Elijah’s life here as well. And notice it says he traveled to Beersheba with his servant and he left his servant there. So that may indicate he thought his ministry was over. This is how it ends for me at the hands of Jezebel. It seems that his fear is now turning into discouragement. It seems that his fear is now turning into discouragement.

And then it says in verse 4, he travels himself another day’s journey. So he leaves his servant in Beersheba. He travels another day’s journey, which could be anywhere from 18 to 30 miles. A day’s journey was not an exact number. It really depended on the terrain and the difficulty of traveling. And then what do we see here? He says he went himself a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree and he asked himself, that he might die, saying, it is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my father’s. So it seems that he’s gone from fear to being discouraged by leaving his servant. And now he’s traveled himself alone another day’s journey into the wilderness. And now he says, Lord, I’m just ready to die. Just take me home now.

Which is a bit ironic, if you think about it. Why was he fleeing in the first place? Jezebel was going to kill him. So he was fleeing from her, but now he’s at such a low place in his life that he’s ready for the Lord just to take him on home. And he says, I’m no better than my father’s. Which may suggest he’s in essence saying, I’ve been no more successful than my ancestors in ousting Baal worship from Israel. Yes, on that mountain, you were shown to be the one true God. But in spite of that, Baal worship still continues and it continues in the process. He’s a person of Jezebel and her followers and she threatens me. She’s after me. So it may be that he feels that he’s failed in his ministry.

So it says Elijah’s in the wilderness, which I think we can think of that in terms of both physically in the wilderness and spiritually as well.

He’s moved physically to a strange place and he’s spiritually in a strange place too. He’s moved apart from the Lord’s command to a strange place. So we have to stop and think, how did Elijah get to this point? We saw the events of chapter 18 with this great victory of the Lord. Elijah had used him in such a mighty way. He was standing against 850 false prophets. He was the lone one. But now he’s at a low point in his life. So as I thought about that, I was reminded of what the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5, verses 6 and 7. It says, So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. For we walk by faith and not by sight. So as believers here today, as those who’ve been born again, who’ve been regenerated in Christ, we’re at home in the body. We’ve never seen our Savior with our own eyes. We’ve never seen Him with any physical sense of connection. of our physical senses. So we see Him through the testimony of the Scripture, and the Spirit has awakened our dead spirit to do so. We can see our Jesus in the words of Scripture. We’ve never physically seen Him with His eyes. And so as believers, our goal is to always walk by faith, to always keep our eyes on Him, to walk in the way He leads. But we live in a physical world, don’t we? And sometimes we want to believe more of what we see with our eyes than what we see with our spiritual eyes. We want to get caught up in looking at our circumstances instead of our guide. Think about these examples from Scripture. David, a shepherd boy, standing before Goliath. Goliath’s over nine feet tall. Was David standing by faith? Was he standing by sight? Was he walking by faith or walking by sight? David saw that his God, Goliath, was bigger than Goliath, and he was not going to let this uncircumcised Philistine win the battle. On the other hand, what about David’s brothers and King Saul and the rest of the armies of Israel? What were they seeing? They only saw the situation. They only saw the circumstances they were in. And in their mind, they said, we can’t win this battle. There’s no way.

Think also of the children of Israel, standing at the edge of the promised land, listening to the report of the twelve spies. Ten spies come back and say, the land is everything the Lord said it would be. It’s wonderful. Flowing with milk and honey. But, the people are big, and they’re numerous, and we can’t win this battle. That was the testimony of ten of the spies. And the children of Israel listened to the ten spies. They listened to the majority report. And they chose, they chose to walk by sight, and not by faith in their God. Caleb and Joshua, on the other hand, said, I see all this too, but our God is bigger than that. And so, they were encouraging the people to walk in faith. And because they did, they wandered in the wilderness themselves for 40 years.

When Elijah stood on Mount Carmel, against all those false prophets, was he walking by faith or by sight? It was by faith. Because at that point in his life, he saw that his God was bigger, that his God would win the victory, that his God would show up and show himself stronger and bigger than any God, so-called God, called Baal.

So why is he afraid now? It seems like there’s not a whole lot of time between these two events.

And God has already shown, clearly, on the mountain, Baal is nothing. He’s worthless. He can’t listen. He can’t hear. Jezebel’s God has no power. Yet, at the threat of Jezebel, he runs. And I think, when we think about fear, sometimes fear wants to tell us things that we think irrationally, don’t we? We know this is true, but fear tells us, think this way, or act, or act this way. And so fear makes us even doubt those things that we know are true.

Just like us, right? We get fearful. We get discouraged. We get depressed. But I love the fact that God, in his word, shows us that even Elijah, a great man of faith, a faithful prophet, who stood with our Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration with Moses, even he, he struggled with his emotions and he struggled with responding correctly to those emotions. So now let’s see God’s faithfulness despite Elijah’s flight. Elijah ran, but we’re going to see that God is still faithful. Verse 5. And he lay down and slept under, yes, he lay down and slept under a broom tree, and behold, an angel touched him and said to him, arise and eat. And he looked and behold, there was at his head a cake, a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And 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.

So in verse 4, we see this desperate cry, Lord, take my life. And what we see in verse 5 is we don’t see a verbal response from the Lord, but we see the Lord acting. So Elijah clearly is exhausted, I’m sure, after this long journey. So he’s like, I just want to sleep. You ever been that way? I just want to sleep. I got to sleep. So he falls asleep.

And then we see God sending an angel to miraculously feed him. He had been miraculously fed at Brook Kareth, right, when he was walking in faithfulness. Now he’s on the run in a place where he’s not. He’s in a place of unfaithfulness. And we see God still coming to miraculously feed him. And he does it this time by using an angel. And the angel says, wake up, Elijah, arise and eat. So in verse 6, Elijah wakes up, he finds a cake or hot bread and a jar of water. And so he eats and he drinks and then he’s still tired and he falls asleep again. And then in verse 7, we see the angel coming again saying, saying, arise and eat for the journey is too great for you. Interesting. This time the angel now speaks of a journey.

So Elijah must have been thinking, okay, journey, what journey?

Elijah’s been on the run and he’s apparently thinking he’s at the end of his journey. He’s at the end of his ministry. He wants to be at the end of his life. He’s journeyed to this place and now God speaks of a different journey.

The angel begins to reveal that God has another plan for him. So even though fear, discouragement and despair has brought him to this place, God is not finished with him yet. The angel speaks of this other journey. And so then in verse 8, we see Elijah arising and eating again. And scripture tells us that he goes for 40 days and 40 nights to Mount Horeb. And the strength of that food alone. Amazing. 40 days and 40 nights for meeting basically two meals.

He’s to journey to Horeb, which is another name for Mount Sinai. It’s known as the Mount of God. What do we know about Mount Sinai? That’s where God revealed himself to Moses and he gave the Ten Commandments to Israel. It’s the place where God established his covenant. With his chosen people.

God went to where Elijah was and began bringing him back to a place that he needed to be. Reminding me of the parable of the lost sheep with our Savior, our Lord. Leaving the 99 to find that one that’s gone astray to lovingly bring them back. And that’s what we see here in Elijah’s life.

So friends, when we find ourselves in the wilderness, so to speak, we find ourselves on our own wilderness journey. We find ourselves in a strange place and we’ve perhaps gotten there because we’ve been walking by sight or by emotion and not by faith. We can take heart because God can still use us. God is still faithful to his children. He can still lead us back to a place that he wants us to be. When we’re unfaithful, our God is still faithful.

So God has instructed Elijah via the angel to start a new journey. And it’s on this journey, at the end of this journey, it’s where the Lord will speak to him. Verse 9.

There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him. And he said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? He said, I’ve 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. And they seek my life to take it away. And 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. But 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. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in a cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah? He said, I’ve 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. 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 Shapheth of Abel of Meholah, 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 Elijah 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.

So in verse 9, we see Elijah coming to Mount Oreb, lodging in a cave. And it’s here that we see, we see the word of the Lord coming to him again. Something we didn’t see in the first eight verses. The Lord has come to him, is calling, is directing him again. And he asked a question. What are you doing here, Elijah?

What are you doing here, Elijah? Yes, it is true. The angel had sent him there, had strengthened him and enabled him to make that long journey. Forty days and forty nights in the strength of two meals. But I think there’s an implication in the question from the Lord that indicates Elijah really should not have been there.

The journey to Mount Oreb was necessary because he had journeyed away from where God wanted him to be down into the wilderness.

So this journey was necessary because of the original journey that he took. And I think Elijah understood that by the response he gave in verse 10. Notice he returns to the reason for his despair. What is he focused on? He said, I’ve been very jealous for the Lord. I’m zealous for you. I’m passionate for you, Lord. You, the one true Lord. The one that’s shown to be the only God on Mount Carmel. But, the people, the people have forsaken you. Basically saying that they’re apostate. That they’ve rejected the covenant that God had made with them. They’ve thrown down altars and killed prophets. And he says, I, only I am left. I alone stand faithful to you and they seek to kill me.

So I think the answer Elijah gives here completely devalues what happened on Mount Carmel. Because it seems that in his mind it achieved nothing. Because in his estimation of the facts, the people were still faithless and bell worship would still continue. This is, he says this despite the fact that what did the people do on Mount Carmel? They fell on their faces and said, the Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God. And he’s also discounting the fact that we talked about earlier with Obadiah that he’d hit a hundred who were faithful to him. So, okay, Elijah. You’re not, you’re not correctly relating the facts here.

So again, I think when we’re in that state of being fearful or discouraged or despairing, we don’t think clearly. We think irrationally. Fear is irrational. Fear is irrational for the believer. How many times does the word say, don’t fear? Don’t fear. Don’t fear. Don’t fear. Don’t fear. Don’t fear. But we’re in that state of mind. We’re at such a low point. It can be hard for our minds to accept what we really know to be true. We can be tempted to walk by emotion and not by what is actually true. Here, Elijah is focusing on himself. So in verse 11, we see God’s response to that. God’s response is, go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.

And then we see the Lord passing by. First, there’s a strong wind that tore up the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces. But the Lord was not in the wind. The Lord was in the wind on the day of Pentecost, but he wasn’t in the Lord. He wasn’t in the wind on this day. Then there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. He was in the earthquake when Paul and Silas prayed in jail and the place shook.

Then in verse 12, there’s a fire, but the Lord is not in the fire. He was in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace because they were being faithful. But on this day, God was not in any of those. We see finally the Lord speaking and it’s in a low whisper. Other translations say a still small voice. Sometimes talk about that still small voice or a gentle blowing. It’s literally a quiet, soothing, and calm voice.

God speaks in a quiet voice to a prophet who’s drained of strength. So what is the lesson here? What do you think the Lord’s trying to get across to him?

Elijah had seen him move in a mighty way on Mount Carmel in a way that could be related, to strong wind and earthquakes and fire. But God doesn’t always choose to work that way. Sometimes he works quietly. He’s present quietly. He works quietly. He speaks quietly to us through that still small voice. He wants to work quietly through the hearts and minds of his people and their faithfulness to him. When we’re being faithful, we more clearly hear that voice, don’t we? When we’re afraid and we’re running and we’re walking by sight, we sometimes don’t hear that voice because our minds, again, are irrational. We’re not thinking clearly.

On this day, the dramatic events that Elijah saw were not God’s instruments of self-revelation to himself. And then in verse 13, we see Elijah’s response.

And we see him cover his face when Moses stood before God. When Moses stood before God at the burning bush, he covered his face. In Isaiah 6, with Isaiah’s vision of the Lord high and lifted up, we see the seraphim, and they covered their face with two of their wings. Covering one’s face is a sign of reverence and fear in the presence of holy God. And so I think at that point, Elijah knew he was in the presence of God.

Well, then what happens next? We see the Lord asking the same question. What are you doing here, Elijah? And notice Elijah gives the exact same answer. I’ve been very jealous for the Lord. The people of Israel forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, killed your prophets, and I, even I, only am left, and they seek my life to take it away.

So why the repeated question? Why the repeated same answer?

Scripture doesn’t really tell us. There’s different opinions on that. But, but for me, I think it may be that God is giving Elijah another chance to answer truthfully. He’s not answered truthfully the questions of horror. He’s been focused on himself and this misery that he’s in. He feels like he’s in. And in some ways, it doesn’t seem he really wants to snap out of it. So he gives the same answer. He still wants to focus on what his perception of his circumstances are.

Do you ever get like that? You ever get in this funk that’s just like, yeah, I know I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be thinking this way, but I just want to wallow in it. You know, I just want to be miserable. You may know people like that. You know, sometimes we want to wallow in our misery. And I think that’s a little bit of what Elijah may be doing here.

But then in verse 15, we see God’s response to that. And notice he doesn’t really say anything about his answer. He says, Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. So in my mind, I read that with emphasis. Go, return, enough. It’s interesting in verse 4, Elijah says, It’s enough now, O Lord. Now it’s almost like the Lord is saying, Okay, I’ve had enough of that. I’ve had enough of your pity party. I need you to get back to where I need you to be. I need you back in a place of faithfulness. And the place I need you now is Damascus.

So he sends him there to anoint Hazel, that could be me, king over Syria, which tells us God is sovereign over all nations because he’s choosing the king for a pagan nation. Verse 16, he’s sent to anoint Jehu, king over Israel, and to anoint Elijah to be prophet in his place to succeed him in that office. And the testimony of Scripture tells us he only really did the last one. He really called Elijah. And so he indirectly did these two other things through Elijah.

So in verse 17,

God speaks of new political and religious leaders. And he says, Those bell worshipers, they’re not going to escape Hazel. But if they do, Jehu’s waiting for them. But if he doesn’t get them, those who escape from Jehu, Elisha’s going to put to death.

So Elijah’s role now seems to be to prepare others who ultimately God is going to use to destroy bell worship once and for all. And then in verse 18, it says, I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to bell, and every mouth that has not kissed him. Elijah, it’s just me. I’m alone. Okay. Obadiah’s got a hundred. The Lord says there’s 7,000. God always has his remnant.

So as we think about this passage, we think about these events in the life of Elijah. I think in many ways, Elijah’s experience mirrors our own, doesn’t it? We can go seemingly from that mountaintop where we seem to be faithful to the Lord, where we seem to be in alignment with his will. And we go from that place seemingly quickly to another place where we’re focused on circumstances, things that happen to us, things going on in the world, things going on in our nation we have no control over. Those things can breed fear in us seemingly overnight.

In the face of a threat from Jezebel, Elijah’s faith seems to quickly wane. It seemed to quickly be gone. And he went from trusting in what he knew, to trusting in what his eyes and emotions told him was true. So instead of responding to Jezebel, responding is different than reacting. He reacted. Reaction is, this happens, then this happens. Responding is being thoughtful. It’s looking at the situation, trying to understand it better, trying to get the Lord’s perspective on it.

And when we don’t take the time to respond, we can be like Elijah and let our emotions and our fear dictate our response.

Even as believers today who have the gift of the Holy Spirit indwelling us, teaching us, sanctifying us, guiding us in our daily life, we’re not immune to the temptation to take our eyes off our Lord and put them on our circumstances. That’s what got Elijah into trouble. That’s what gets us into trouble. Our eyes are not where they need to be. We’re not walking in faith. We’re walking by sight. So when we’re afraid, when we allow circumstances to breed fear in us, what should we do?

Psalm 56, verses 3 and 4.

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. And God, whose word I praise, and God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? The psalmist tells us when I’m afraid, what do I do? I trust. I trust in you. I’ll not be afraid because I’m trusting in you. Why should I fear flesh if I’m trusting in you? Why should I fear what flesh can do to me? And if we think about that verse in light of Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, which is well known, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight. So when I think about those two verses together, when I’m afraid, I put my trust in you. I trust in you with my whole heart. I’m not leaning on my own understanding. I’ll not be afraid. I’ll acknowledge you. You will make my path straight. And if I’m doing that, why should I fear what man can do to me?

A lot just seems to have forgotten that. Trust is acting on your faith in a way that is pleasing to God. If we’re walking in faith, it will exhibit itself as trust and trust will dictate, it will reveal who or what we’re trusting in. Our actions will dictate do we really trust what the Bible says? Do we really trust what the Lord says? Are we going to trust what someone on TV says? Are we going to trust what this person says? Are we going to trust what this person says? Or what this person believes? So how do we build more faith and trust in our lives? It’s the work of the Spirit, right? It’s the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Because we’re prone, we’re still drugged down by the flesh and we’re still prone to walk and live by the flesh sometimes. And it’s the Spirit who’s sanctifying us, who’s working in us. He’s teaching us to take our focus off ourself and put it on our Lord where it should always be. So that we can walk in a way that’s pleasing to Him. And what does the Spirit use to build our faith? It’s meaningful. Meaningful time in the Word. Meaningful time in prayer. Meaningful time in community. Yes, we read Scripture quickly sometimes. We read a verse. We start our day. Sometimes we pray quickly. Sometimes we’re here in community with each other and we don’t really engage. And that’s true for all of us. But we should

not neglect meaningful time in the Word, in prayer, and in community. Because if we do that, we’ll be able to respond instead of react. We can walk in faith and be able to handle our fear correctly when we’re tempted to succumb to it. So that’s what we should do. What about when we don’t?

What about when we give in and we don’t handle our circumstances in life in a faithful way? We find ourselves in a wilderness situation, so to speak. We find ourselves in a strange place.

We can be there by things that we’ve caused ourselves. We can be there because of situations in our family or situations in our nation or situations in our world. Those things can put us in a strange place, spiritually speaking.

And then sometimes we have to listen for that still small voice of God that asks, what are you doing here? What are you doing here? You ever sense the Lord saying that to you? I think we all have if you’ve walked with the Lord for any amount of time. We find ourselves in strange places sometimes.

So we need to remember that God sustains His children as we saw with Elijah even when they’re in strange places. Even when they’re not in places of unfaithfulness. When they’re in places of unfaithfulness. God is not aware of our situation. He’s not unconcerned.

Psalm 34, verse 15. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and His ears toward their cry. Who are the righteous? It’s us. If we’re in Christ, we are the righteous. Because we stand before our Heavenly Father not in our own righteousness, which is filthy rags, but we stand before our Father in the righteousness of Christ, which is perfect. And this verse reminds us the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous even when we’re unfaithful or not in those places of faithfulness. And it says, His eyes are toward us and His ears are as well. What about Baal? Baal. Eyes that couldn’t see, ears that couldn’t hear. That’s not our God.

He’s listening. Yeah, He’s listening for us to respond to His still small voice that is calling us to repentance, that is calling us to turn back to Him, to get back to that place of faithfulness, to leave that strange place that we find ourselves in. And the verse assures us that our Lord, our Father, is listening for that.

Psalm 73, verse 26. Psalm 73, verse 26. My flesh and my heart, my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. So when we find ourselves at the end of ourselves, when our strength fails, our flesh and our heart fail, it’s God who is our strength and our portion. He is enough. He is what we need. He is who we need. So to return to the place of faithfulness means that we cry out to the Lord and look to Him. His all-sufficient strength to restore us. And secondly, I want us to notice here, when Elijah was in the place of despair, he was alone. He leaves his servant in Beersheba. He goes by himself into the wilderness.

He was alone on that journey. And that’s not wise for us as believers, is it?

It’s in the midst of our struggles that we forget Scripture. Circumstances dominates our mind and our heart, and it makes us focus inwardly on ourselves and our problems. And when we’re in that state of mind, we often neglect the very spiritual disciplines that would get us out of that, would get us out of that state of mind. We don’t spend meaningful time in the Word. We don’t spend meaningful time in prayer. We don’t spend meaningful time with each other. We can want to isolate. So friends, I hope that you have someone in your life that you allow to speak to, speak into it when you’re afraid, when you’re discouraged, when you’re even despairing. Your spouse, a parent, a close friend, a fellow church member, the elders. Don’t walk through those alone. The Christian life was not meant to live as lone rangers. Our wise Father placed us in community because we need each other in this life. And we need each other to lean on when we’re struggling.

So reach out when you’re struggling.

Don’t wallow in that yourself. Seek wise counsel. Have those people in your life that can ask the hard questions and give you the sometimes tough biblical answers. We need those kinds of people in our life. If you don’t have someone like that, I’d encourage you to pray. We all need someone like that. Pray and the Lord will send someone that can have that kind of relationship with you, that can help you when you’re struggling in those wildernesses, wilderness places, in those strange places.

So in closing, just to summarize maybe what we’ve talked about here, we’ve seen in our passage what can happen when we take our eyes off the Lord and place them on ourself, our circumstances, our predicaments. And the encouragement from Scripture is to avoid that pitfall, to avoid the misery that it will bring into your life, and to keep our eyes firmly fixed on God. To do that is to walk by faith and not to walk by sight. So friends, I encourage each of you to do that. Let’s encourage each other with that, to walk by faith. Let’s pray.

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, Father, we thank you for your word.

Your word that speaks into every situation we face in life. When we’re on the mountaintops, when we’re in the valleys, your word speaks to those situations, Lord. And I just pray that we would be a people that would hear. Lord, that would not want to wallow in that. But would look to you and to your word. And time in prayer and time in community with each other. Lord, we’re prone to fear in this life. Your spirit’s teaching us not to do that. To walk by faith. But Lord, we often get that wrong. Lord, just thankful that you’re faithful to us when we’re not faithful to you. That you come and you find us. And you lovingly draw us back with your still small voice into that place that we need to be.

So Lord, I pray that your spirit would work in each of us. So that we would walk in faith more and more and more in our lives. I pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.