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Spirit of Elijah 1
Carolyn Vanderwal; 17th July 2011
Over the past few years as a family of believers we have heard the term spirit of Elijah used many times. At the start of this year I felt it was time as a people that we grew in understanding of the spirit of Elijah. I hope to spend a couple of our sessions together to get into the Word of God concerning Elijah and the significance of his life and ministry for us in 24/7 as well as for the church at large in the days to come.
Elijah is no doubt one of the most significant figures in the story of God’s people. He was a prophet who knew God’s heart and proclaimed God’s word to the people of Israel in one of their darkest times as a nation. Elijah first appears during the reign of King Ahab, a King whose fame is recorded by scripture as being one who “did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all the kings of Israel who were before him.” This was the time period in history when the Jewish people were divided into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms – Israel in the North and Judah in the South. Ahab was King over the northern kingdom of Israel. He married a foreign woman, Jezebel, the daughter of the Sidonian King and he allowed her to lead him and the nation of Israel into all sorts of evil practices. Ahab set up an altar to Baal in a temple he built for Baal worship and he led the nation to worship Baal and Asherah – demonic deities of the nations around them. 450 prophets were raised up to serve Baal and 400 prophets were raised up to serve Asherah. These prophets ate at Jezebel’s table. (1 Kings 16, 18) Ahab and Jezebel were responsible for propagating idolatry, temple prostitution and immorality and even child sacrifice. Jezebel was responsible for systematically killing off the prophets of Israel, those who were speaking the Word of the Lord to the nation of Israel. The hearts of the people were turned by Ahab and Jezebel away from the Lord to serve demonic powers – they didn’t totally denounce and deny the Lord as their God, they simply worshipped other gods along with the Lord. It is into this setting of depravity and spiritual darkness that the prophet Elijah is sent to confront and to call the nation back to God.
The story of Elijah’s life is found in 1 Kings 17- 2 Kings 2. I encourage you to read and study it yourself over the next month.
In 1 Kings 17, Elijah begins to confront Ahab with the word of the Lord. He declares that there will be no rain, not even dew in the land except at his word and in so doing begins a drought that is designed by God to draw the heart of the nation back to Himself. Elijah takes off and God keeps him safe and hidden and provides for him through a Sidonian widow. The nation does not repent, even when the lack of food and water cause great hardship. It’s during the first three years of the drought that Jezebel gets mad and begins to destroy the prophets. After three years Elijah calls Ahab and the prophets of Baal and the people of Israel to a showdown on Mount Carmel. Can you imagine how much courage this took?! Elijah confronts the people of God with an ultimatum – if Baal is god then follow him, but if the Lord is God then follow Him. The Lord is a jealous God and He will not share his glory with another! He is jealous for our hearts, jealous for our affections too. How did the people respond to Elijah’s ultimatum? They said nothing… they were silent.
Elijah sets up the challenge – the prophets of Baal were to set up a sacrifice on an altar and he would do the same. The God who answers by fire – he is God! Elijah gives the false prophets time to display the power of their gods… nothing happens. After about 6 hours it’s his turn… he builds the altar with 12 stones, one for each of the 12 tribes, reminding them as he does of God’s choosing of them as a people. He gets the sacrifice ready then soaks the whole thing in water… three times. Then Elijah steps forward and simply calls on the name of the Lord and God responds by sending fire to consume the offering. The people immediately fell face down on the ground and in one voice declared, “The Lord, He is God!” Their hearts are turned back to the Lord and this is the beginning of a turnaround, although not a lasting one, in the nation. Elijah releases the heavens to rain again and in the outworking of time both Ahab and Jezebel, neither of whom repented of their idolatry are destroyed. However, the nation of Israel continues to be led into idolatry by subsequent kings and they are overthrown completely in 722 BC.
The next time the scriptures mention Elijah it’s in the context of the final words of the Old Testament in Malachi 4:5 “See I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” And so the chapter closes and the Lord is silent for about 400 years. The Jewish people are watching and waiting, expecting their Messiah, their deliverer, to come and preceding his coming they anticipate the coming of Elijah. Each year when they celebrate the Passover in their homes, they prepare an extra seat at the table… just in case Elijah decides to come back that year to herald the messianic era.
Then… as the gospel accounts of the birth of Christ begin, the name of Elijah crops up again. Luke 1:13-17. John the Baptist’s birth is foretold and his mandate is explained to Zechariah. Note that the angel said John would go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah. The Jews were expecting Elijah the prophet to visit them again – he didn’t die and they were expecting his return, but this is the first time there is the mention of one coming in the spirit and power of Elijah. When you read ‘spirit’ in this sense it doesn’t mean Elijah’s actual spirit – it means the anointing or grace that rested on him. In other words he would be a man who was anointed by God with the same anointing that Elijah carried. John would have the power to turn the hearts of the people in the same way that Elijah did and he would go before the Messiah as a forerunner. A forerunner is someone whose job it is to run ahead to herald the arrival of someone or something, to herald the coming of a King into a place. John the Baptist was a forerunner for Christ. His job was to go ahead of Jesus and to prepare the way.
In John 1 the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent out the priests and Levites to find out who John the Baptist is. They had to walk about 6 hours into the desert to the river Jordan where John was preaching and baptizing. They are going to find out… Could this be the Messiah? Is he Elijah? Is he a Prophet? The Jewish people were watching and waiting for God to break into history once more as he had foretold through the prophets of old. They knew the prophetic passages that contained the promises of God for their nation’s deliverance and they were watching to see them fulfilled. John is very clear in answering them. He says, I am not the Messiah. I am not Elijah. I am not the Prophet. Instead he picks up the prophetic words of Isaiah 40 and says, this is who I am… “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness… make straight the way of the Lord.” John was under no delusion about his call. He knew his job was to prepare the way for Jesus… to be a forerunner for the Messiah. He was not Elijah, but he did carry the spirit and power, the anointing that rested on Elijah – for those that had eyes to see, they must have been matching John up with the message of Malachi 4:5 “I will send Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord” and Malachi 3:1 which says, “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple…” When Christ appeared, was baptised and began his public ministry, John’s mission was complete.
What did Jesus have to say about John the Baptist? In Matthew 11 Jesus says of John, “This is the one about whom it is written; “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you,” quoting from Malachi 3. He goes on to say, “If you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. Whoever has ears, let them hear.” It seems confusing doesn’t it! John says, I am not Elijah. Jesus says, he is Elijah?!
Jesus clarifies the whole thing for us in the conversations recorded in Matthew 17, Mark 9 and Luke 9. Let’s look at the Matthew account of the transfiguration in Matthew 17:13. On the mountain Jesus is transfigured and then Moses and Elijah turn up and talk with Jesus, not as some vision or apparition, but in the flesh. There is some mystery surrounding Moses death and some Jewish tradition states that like Elijah, Moses didn’t die a normal death and remain dead. In any case, both men appeared on the mountain with Jesus and talked with him. Then the voice of the Lord spoke from heaven saying “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” God separated Jesus and elevated him above Moses and Elijah. From our standpoint this is obvious, but the disciples were still trying to put the pieces together and the voice from heaven was very significant. They got it – Jesus is Messiah… not Elijah, not another prophet. This stirs things up with the disciples and they have lots of questions for Jesus as they come down the mountain. Something is not adding up in their theology. They ask, “Why then do the teachers of the law say Elijah must come first?” If you are the Messiah, then where is Elijah who is to come before the Messiah? Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.
Look at what Jesus said… Elijah is coming and will restore all things – future tense, not yet accomplished. But Elijah has already come and they didn’t recognise him – past tense in the form of John the Baptist, carrying the anointing or spirit or power of Elijah.
So… as with many prophetic words, the fulfillment of the prophetic passage in Malachi is not found in a single event. John the Baptist carried the spirit of Elijah and prepared the way for the first coming of Jesus the Messiah, the Christ – in this sense he was a fulfillment in part of the Malachi 4 passage. There is more to be fulfilled. The spirit of Elijah will again be manifest on the earth on those who live as forerunners of second coming of Christ, heralding his return and calling people to be ready for his return. Some theologians believe that Elijah himself will also reappear on the earth in the events immediately preceding the return of Christ and suggest that he may be one of the two witnesses spoken of in Revelation 11 – the two witnesses who will preach to the nations for a time, only to be martyred and left a public spectacle. After three days they will be raised to life and will be taken into heaven. There are different thoughts on who these witnesses are and whether they are literal or figurative… it is possible that they are Elijah and Moses. In any case, Jesus clearly said to the disciples that Elijah will come and will be involved in the restoration of all things. He didn’t die and it is possible that he may return in the flesh.
I have said all that to lay a foundation for looking at the spirit of Elijah as it relates to us today. What I want you to understand is that there are three time periods in history outlined in scripture when the anointing and power, the spirit of Elijah, manifests on earth:
- The times of Elijah and then Elisha
- The times of John the Baptist as forerunner to the first coming of Christ
- The church as forerunners to the second coming of Christ (including perhaps Elijah himself)
What are the characteristics of the spirit of Elijah?
We can gain an understanding of this anointing or spirit of Elijah by looking at the life of Elijah and at related passages including Isaiah 40, Malachi 4 and Luke 1:17
- “Calling the disobedient to the wisdom of the Righteous”
Confronting compromise, dead religious systems and idolatry and calling people to repentance – turning hearts to God who is our Father, the one who has loved us and called us to walk in relationship with Him, to worship Him with our whole heart and to serve Him by ruling with him in the Kingdom of God. This is the heartbeat of 24/7 – it is one of the foundational values we carry and Pete will provoke and confront when as a people we settle for any form of compromise in our lives.
- “Turning the hearts of the fathers to their children”
The spirit of Elijah is the anointing that restores God’s intended purpose for families, for Fathers and sons – both in a spiritual sense and in a natural sense. The message of sonship and fathering is foundational to who we are as a people. We don’t have it all worked out, but we’re learning to walk in the paradigm of being sons and fathers. This impacts the way we operate in our natural families too. At the first Bootcamp we had Teena had a vision of our children going before us. Over the years God has been building a paradigm concerning children and we know that we are called to raise young ones to know and walk with God and to be like arrows in his hand. This is a corporate thing, it requires equipping of natural parents to raise their children in the ways of God and it requires still different ways of celebrating life together that involves the children at every level. I remember when we began the Prayer Room… what I saw was a movement of prayer that extended across the generations… old and young learning to pray, old and young standing before the face of the Lord and being built into his house of prayer for all nations. This is the reason we have been working with the 5-10 year olds in His Kids, labouring to lay a foundation in their lives of encountering God and learning to pray.
- “Make ready a people prepared for the Lord”
This is the calling of a forerunner, one who goes ahead of the King, announcing His coming and calling people to be ready. This is something the Lord has spoken to us corporately at different times over the last 8 years. We are not called to ‘business as usual’ Christianity. Part of our mandate is to see the church made ready as a bride is made ready for her wedding day.
Challenge for today
Does this resonate with your heart today? Do you see it? How then do we respond? It is an anointing, a grace that we will grow to carry in greater measure. It is not ours to call down or strive after… our role is simply in positioning ourselves in faith to receive and walk in that which God has called us to.
It starts as always with each individual before God. Our introduction to Elijah contains a key… 1 Kings 17:1 says Elijah … as surely as the Lord God lives, before whom I stand…
Our introduction to Elijah is to one who had learnt to stand before the Lord. This must surely be our starting place also. In James 5:17 it says, “Elijah was a man just like us.” He knew what it was to feel alone, to feel afraid, to want to give up. At times the battle seemed to overwhelm him and he couldn’t see clearly – he wanted to lay down and die. But he kept on going – he continued to position himself in the presence of God and he waited to hear from the Lord. Even in his darkest hour when Jezebel was hunting him down to destroy him, Elijah was weak and ready to give up, but he made his way to the mountain of the Lord because he knew that there he would hear from God again.
If God could anoint Elijah with the power and grace to confront and turn the hearts of people back to God and to each other, then God can anoint any one of us in the same way. Our part is to build a life that stands before the Lord, to choose over and over and over again to be in the place of waiting on God, of seeking his presence, of worshipping him, of feeding on his word. To be able to stand in the days to come when everything around us is shaken we must learn the power of a life lived before an audience of One. Only then will our lives become carriers of the authority and power of the spirit of Elijah. That invitation is given to each of us today…
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