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The Prophetc Call (14-20)
By: Hendrik Wieland
End-time Confrontation
It says of Ahab that he was more evil than any of the kings of Israel before him.
The conjunction, therefore, between a political Ahab and a religious Jezebel, an illicit (unlawful or dishonest), strange, ungodly, vile union brings together the worst of things political and things religious, and makes it a consummate power.
We need to understand this, because it is a prefiguring of the last day's world religious and political system to which we are now moving.
It is the logic of our time. There needs to be some kind of a global authority and resolution of the things that are dividing mankind if there is going to be any sanity (common sense) on this globe.
In order to restore peace and order to the nations, there has got to be some kind of unity that ends the necessity for nations to be at war with each other. This union is foreshadowed by the union of Ahab and Jezebel in the time of Elijah.
There is only one who stands up to oppose it, that whatever the benefit that it confers (present) to men in seeming peace, it is not God.
"How long will you hesitate between two opinions?" is spoken to an apostate (runaway) nation that only wants peace at any price, the false thing that allows business to go in as usual.
Elijah sees right through it and will confront it, even when it reaches its most vile form.
Jezebel's specialty was destroying the prophets of God.
There is something about the Jezebel spirit that is so employed in a hatred against that which is prophetic.
It knows that whatever Elijah represents, he threatens the whole system that is implied in the name Jezebel and Ahab.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is true that that God sends Elijah.
Elijah's authority, power and audicity (courage) are not the statement of what he is externally but what he is inwardly and truly, which is the whole truth of what authority in God is.
It is not the audacity that grows from the fact that you are 'macho'.
That is a false pompous audacity and is not the basis for confronting Ahab: "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word (1 Kings 17: 1b)."
Father, thank You for the victory we receive through You.
Bless us with Your triumph in our personal lives, in our relationships, in our churches, and in our communities.
Bless us with goodness, grace, mercy, peace and Your favor in all things.
As we march in prosperity, cause those who are walking in the darkness to recognize that the Light of the world lives in us and be drawn to you, King of kings and Lord of lords.
Let every life be blessed beyond measure this week, because we live to give You the glory.
In Jesus' mighty name we pray and receive this blessing. Amen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prophetic Obedience
And the word of the LORD came to him saying, "Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan.
And it shall be that you shall drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there."
So he went and did according to the word of the LORD, and he went and lived by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan.
And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he would drink from the brook.
And it happened after a while, that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
Then the word of the LORD came to him saying, "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you."
So he arose and went to Zarephath...(1 Kings 17:2-10a)."
Here is a remarkable obedience to the strange requirements of God.
The prophet himself is not exempt from the conditions that are established by the judgment that has come through his own word: the brook dried up.
He did not pick himself up and go when he visibly saw the brook drying up. Logic, self-interest and the necessity for preservation would say that if the brook dries, then you have got to find another accommodation.
Here is the root of what makes Elijah who he is, namely, he was never once moved to any kind of action or conduct on the basis of his own critique, examination, logic, reason or any kind of thing that men will humanly employ to determine their movements.
Only one thing moved that man and that was the word of the Lord.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What if the brook completely dried up and the word of the Lord did not come?
We remain where we are.
The word of God is not the word of God except unto death.
The walk of faith is always unto death.
If obedience means my death then that is what it is going to have to mean.
There is never going to be a point reached where I can on the basis of self-preservation absolve the principle that is the corner stone of my whole prophetic life.
After all, whose life is it? I am moved by one consideration only, namely, the word of the Lord that comes.
We need to be so habituated to that, otherwise we need not think that God will honor our word.
"So he arose and went to Zarephath..."
It is as if in each instance God is not just calling him to obedience, but to an ultimate obedience in everything that defies human logic and religious understanding.
Elijah was called to go to a city that was the birth place of Jezebel and the center of the very religious, occulted civilization from which she came, and he was to dwell there without analyzing.
God spoke and Elijah acts.
Any obedience that hesitates is no longer obedience. Any obedience that is partial is disobedience.
We must not submit God's requirement to our reason.
The remarkable thing is that nothing precedes this description of Elijah.
Here is the full-orbed, totally prepared man thrust on the scene of history in that condition of obedience and without anything to indicate how he came to it.
We need to ponder that. Elijah is indicative in type of the last day's Elijah company also trained up for ultimate obedience’s in obscurity and hiddenness.
God can take the ordinary elements of our lives and use them to discipline and train us up in a long preparation that is not recognized nor seen by others.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Knowledge of a God who Lives "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives..."
This is a statement to an apostate generation that has lost all sense of the living God.
That is why they could take their liberties and follow Baal, and make their altars to false gods and forget the God of Israel: "He no longer lives. Where is He?"
That is also the statement of our generation and particularly the secular Jewish people today.
There is no sense of God nor reference to Him.
Elijah, however, begins his first statement with, "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives..." What does Elijah mean by that, and why does he begin with that?
Having said that, how impressed is Ahab?
Is Elijah saying it merely as a point of introduction or is that the foundation of his life and being and his prophetic authority?
How does he know that there is a God who lives in an age of apostasy, and why is it that he knows it and the others do not?
To what degree does he know that there is a God who lives and how did he get to know it?
We have got to know that our God lives before we stand before the Ahabs and Jezebels of our generation.
That knowledge is not cheap.
How many of us are satisfied with our present knowledge that is satisfactory for most operating circumstances, but it is not satisfactory to stand before Ahab?
Men prefer to remain with the quotient of knowledge that they presently have because anything more would bring requirement.
To know God as Elijah knew him is to welcome suffering, to open ourselves and make ourselves vulnerable for such tearing, such trials, such dealings and the things that cannot be anticipated, that except God be God, we are likely to perish in any one of those things.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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It is total and absolute indifference to what men think and say. This is not to encourage some kind of sophomoric, "Well, I do not care what others say."
It is rather a refusal to seek acknowledgment from men. We cannot have the two.
To stand before God is an absoluteness.
How far are we willing to go with God?
We will not be able to stand before the judgment throne of God with any kind of confidence, but with unbelievable terror, unless we can say in this life, "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand..."and say it in truth.
Whatever the sacrifice in order to make that statement in this life is worth it, just to avoid the terror of standing before the throne of the Lord when he makes that eternal determination of our destiny.
We need to know that we stand and to know it in this life.
That one statement out of a man's mouth gives such an awareness of a history with God, of what it takes to make that statement and make that statement to stand as a truth, that even an Ahab will tremble at the hearing of it.
It is not a cliché coming out of Elijah's mouth.
It resonates with power and authority because it is the word of truth.
It is the statement of the logic of his entire life in God.
We need so deeply to respect the statement of Elijah and God is so discreet that He draws the shade and we are not allowed to peer in and press in with our vulgar curiosity to find out how it was done.
You can believe that it was done with sufferings, anguish, shrieks and cries in the night and, "Where is God?" and the dark night of the soul, that a man can be brought forth at a point of time historically to stand before the most dread enemies of God and make those statements, and not only to make them, but also to invoke a judgment upon the nation by his own word.
End-time Confrontation
It says of Ahab that he was more evil than any of the kings of Israel before him.
The conjunction, therefore, between a political Ahab and a religious Jezebel, an illicit (unlawful or dishonest), strange, ungodly, vile union brings together the worst of things political and things religious, and makes it a consummate power.
We need to understand this, because it is a prefiguring of the last day's world religious and political system to which we are now moving.
It is the logic of our time. There needs to be some kind of a global authority and resolution of the things that are dividing mankind if there is going to be any sanity (common sense) on this globe.
In order to restore peace and order to the nations, there has got to be some kind of unity that ends the necessity for nations to be at war with each other. This union is foreshadowed by the union of Ahab and Jezebel in the time of Elijah.
There is only one who stands up to oppose it, that whatever the benefit that it confers (present) to men in seeming peace, it is not God.
"How long will you hesitate between two opinions?" is spoken to an apostate (runaway) nation that only wants peace at any price, the false thing that allows business to go in as usual.
Elijah sees right through it and will confront it, even when it reaches its most vile form.
Jezebel's specialty was destroying the prophets of God.
There is something about the Jezebel spirit that is so employed in a hatred against that which is prophetic.
It knows that whatever Elijah represents, he threatens the whole system that is implied in the name Jezebel and Ahab.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is true that that God sends Elijah.
Elijah's authority, power and audicity (courage) are not the statement of what he is externally but what he is inwardly and truly, which is the whole truth of what authority in God is.
It is not the audacity that grows from the fact that you are 'macho'.
That is a false pompous audacity and is not the basis for confronting Ahab: "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word (1 Kings 17: 1b)."
Father, thank You for the victory we receive through You.
Bless us with Your triumph in our personal lives, in our relationships, in our churches, and in our communities.
Bless us with goodness, grace, mercy, peace and Your favor in all things.
As we march in prosperity, cause those who are walking in the darkness to recognize that the Light of the world lives in us and be drawn to you, King of kings and Lord of lords.
Let every life be blessed beyond measure this week, because we live to give You the glory.
In Jesus' mighty name we pray and receive this blessing. Amen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prophetic Obedience
And the word of the LORD came to him saying, "Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan.
And it shall be that you shall drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there."
So he went and did according to the word of the LORD, and he went and lived by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan.
And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he would drink from the brook.
And it happened after a while, that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
Then the word of the LORD came to him saying, "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you."
So he arose and went to Zarephath...(1 Kings 17:2-10a)."
Here is a remarkable obedience to the strange requirements of God.
The prophet himself is not exempt from the conditions that are established by the judgment that has come through his own word: the brook dried up.
He did not pick himself up and go when he visibly saw the brook drying up. Logic, self-interest and the necessity for preservation would say that if the brook dries, then you have got to find another accommodation.
Here is the root of what makes Elijah who he is, namely, he was never once moved to any kind of action or conduct on the basis of his own critique, examination, logic, reason or any kind of thing that men will humanly employ to determine their movements.
Only one thing moved that man and that was the word of the Lord.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What if the brook completely dried up and the word of the Lord did not come?
We remain where we are.
The word of God is not the word of God except unto death.
The walk of faith is always unto death.
If obedience means my death then that is what it is going to have to mean.
There is never going to be a point reached where I can on the basis of self-preservation absolve the principle that is the corner stone of my whole prophetic life.
After all, whose life is it? I am moved by one consideration only, namely, the word of the Lord that comes.
We need to be so habituated to that, otherwise we need not think that God will honor our word.
"So he arose and went to Zarephath..."
It is as if in each instance God is not just calling him to obedience, but to an ultimate obedience in everything that defies human logic and religious understanding.
Elijah was called to go to a city that was the birth place of Jezebel and the center of the very religious, occulted civilization from which she came, and he was to dwell there without analyzing.
God spoke and Elijah acts.
Any obedience that hesitates is no longer obedience. Any obedience that is partial is disobedience.
We must not submit God's requirement to our reason.
The remarkable thing is that nothing precedes this description of Elijah.
Here is the full-orbed, totally prepared man thrust on the scene of history in that condition of obedience and without anything to indicate how he came to it.
We need to ponder that. Elijah is indicative in type of the last day's Elijah company also trained up for ultimate obedience’s in obscurity and hiddenness.
God can take the ordinary elements of our lives and use them to discipline and train us up in a long preparation that is not recognized nor seen by others.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Knowledge of a God who Lives "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives..."
This is a statement to an apostate generation that has lost all sense of the living God.
That is why they could take their liberties and follow Baal, and make their altars to false gods and forget the God of Israel: "He no longer lives. Where is He?"
That is also the statement of our generation and particularly the secular Jewish people today.
There is no sense of God nor reference to Him.
Elijah, however, begins his first statement with, "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives..." What does Elijah mean by that, and why does he begin with that?
Having said that, how impressed is Ahab?
Is Elijah saying it merely as a point of introduction or is that the foundation of his life and being and his prophetic authority?
How does he know that there is a God who lives in an age of apostasy, and why is it that he knows it and the others do not?
To what degree does he know that there is a God who lives and how did he get to know it?
We have got to know that our God lives before we stand before the Ahabs and Jezebels of our generation.
That knowledge is not cheap.
How many of us are satisfied with our present knowledge that is satisfactory for most operating circumstances, but it is not satisfactory to stand before Ahab?
Men prefer to remain with the quotient of knowledge that they presently have because anything more would bring requirement.
To know God as Elijah knew him is to welcome suffering, to open ourselves and make ourselves vulnerable for such tearing, such trials, such dealings and the things that cannot be anticipated, that except God be God, we are likely to perish in any one of those things.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do we have a knowledge of God just
sufficient for our need but not the knowledge of God that exceeds our
need, namely, the knowledge of God as a He in fact is and desires to be
known?
Is the knowledge of God so dear to us that we are willing for whatever it takes to obtain it?
The single factor that describes the Messianic age is "that the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas" and it is the knowledge of God as Elijah knew Him.
Intimate Union
"...before whom I stand..."
This is a mutually exclusive relationship.
If we are going to stand before that God, then we cannot stand before any other.
That means that we do not seek the approval of men, nor seek to rise in the religious system and become celebrated.
This is to stand solely and exclusively before Him, with full accountability without so much as looking out of the corner of our eye as to how any other man or authority or religious group or prestigious segment will so much as take note of you.
Is the knowledge of God so dear to us that we are willing for whatever it takes to obtain it?
The single factor that describes the Messianic age is "that the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas" and it is the knowledge of God as Elijah knew Him.
Intimate Union
"...before whom I stand..."
This is a mutually exclusive relationship.
If we are going to stand before that God, then we cannot stand before any other.
That means that we do not seek the approval of men, nor seek to rise in the religious system and become celebrated.
This is to stand solely and exclusively before Him, with full accountability without so much as looking out of the corner of our eye as to how any other man or authority or religious group or prestigious segment will so much as take note of you.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is total and absolute indifference to what men think and say. This is not to encourage some kind of sophomoric, "Well, I do not care what others say."
It is rather a refusal to seek acknowledgment from men. We cannot have the two.
To stand before God is an absoluteness.
How far are we willing to go with God?
We will not be able to stand before the judgment throne of God with any kind of confidence, but with unbelievable terror, unless we can say in this life, "As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand..."and say it in truth.
Whatever the sacrifice in order to make that statement in this life is worth it, just to avoid the terror of standing before the throne of the Lord when he makes that eternal determination of our destiny.
We need to know that we stand and to know it in this life.
That one statement out of a man's mouth gives such an awareness of a history with God, of what it takes to make that statement and make that statement to stand as a truth, that even an Ahab will tremble at the hearing of it.
It is not a cliché coming out of Elijah's mouth.
It resonates with power and authority because it is the word of truth.
It is the statement of the logic of his entire life in God.
We need so deeply to respect the statement of Elijah and God is so discreet that He draws the shade and we are not allowed to peer in and press in with our vulgar curiosity to find out how it was done.
You can believe that it was done with sufferings, anguish, shrieks and cries in the night and, "Where is God?" and the dark night of the soul, that a man can be brought forth at a point of time historically to stand before the most dread enemies of God and make those statements, and not only to make them, but also to invoke a judgment upon the nation by his own word.
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