What I Learned From Preaching About Elijah

May 29

This week, I wrapped up preaching through a six-week study on Elijah.

Strangely enough, Elijah is overlooked by many in the church, but Elijah is a critically important figure in the story of the Bible. Elijah is also named as the one who would precede the Messiah (Malachi 4), and John the Baptist fufilled this prophecy by coming in the power of Elijah (Luke 1). Further, Elijah along with Moses are with Jesus during the transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-8). Clearly faithful followers of Jesus need to pay attention to Elijah.

I’ve linked my messages below, which ends up being four hours of content on Elijah. That is too much to distill to one blog post! But as I’ve reflected on what I’ve learned, one lesson come to the forefront: the death-dealing consequences of idol worship.

Death-Dealing Consequences

“The human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols.“ - John Calvin

Israel found itself in a state of chaos, and this was due to their idol worship. Commentator Tony Merida called Elijah’s context “national apostasy.” This national apostasy provoked the Lord to anger. You can see the repeated mention of the Lord’s anger throughout 1 Kings chapters 14-16, prior to Elijah’s coming onto the scene.

Here’s the bottom line: idol worship took the Israelites further than they wanted to go, and cost them more than they wanted to pay. The same is true of us. Though we do not have statues in our houses, we have idols in our hearts. What we depend on is what we end up worshipping. Tim Keller said it something like this, that an idol may be a good thing but we make it an ultimate thing. We worship our financial stability, our job, our family, our talents, our own competency, our routine, perhaps destructive addictions, etc. Idols of the heart can be nearly anything, often good things, but it destroys our relationship with God.

“The story of Elijah showed me how far God is willing to go with His protective grace to pull His people away from idols, and how destructive idol worship is when people don’t listen.”

The story of Elijah showed me how far God is willing to go with His protective grace to pull His people away from idols, and how destructive idol worship is when people don’t listen. God is not insecure or jealous (in the way we typically mean it), rather, God knows that our hearts are restless until it finds rest in Him. The Lord pursues and rescues us from our idols. God sent Elijah to bring Israel back from idol worship, but unfortunately many did not repent. The prophets of Baal were killed (1 Kings 18:40), Ahab died in battle (1 Kings 22:35), Ahab’s son (Ahaziah) also died as God’s judgement (2 Kings 2:17) and Ahaziah sent two captains with their men to kill Elijah and they too were killed (2 Kings 2:9-12). Very often we do not repent either, and we suffer the consequences.

You might say, wow, death? That feels like an over-the-top consequence… right?

Many stories in the Old Testament are almost “hyper-real.” This is not to say it is not history, it is. I mean something else.

“Many stories in the Old Testament are almost “hyper-real.” ”

The story of Job is one where he loses everything in a very short time span, and the question is “Job, do you love God? Or do you love God’s gifts? Will you persevere when you suffer? Or will you only follow God when life is good?” We may not lose everything in the span of a few hours or days, but we will suffer loss throughout our lives. The same questions remain, though spread out, that Job wrestled with.

In the same way, Elijah’s story shows the death-dealing consequences of sin in a compressed fashion. Our idols lead to similar consequences, it just usually takes longer. But the principle remains: no one escapes the consequences of idol worship. Will we listen to Elijah’s warning?