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The Prophetic Call (21-28)
By: Hendrik Wieland
Elijah was solely, exclusively and totally God's. He was above culture, tradition, value, history and time.
He was in that realm with God and the realm to which we ourselves are called and to which Abraham was called:
Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you...(Gen. 12:1b).
It was not just an accidental aspect of the call, but at the heart of it.
Those are the places where we are compromised, not because they are necessarily evil, but there is something about the flesh and father's house and about kindred, family and country that keeps us from an Elijah obedience.
How many of us would be ruthless about those things, that though we have fathers and mothers, nations and family, as far as we are concerned, there is effectually a total and radical severance?
We only move when He speaks. That is the call we have, and the ironic thing is that however precious our forebears and their influence, there is a kind of a tie that connects us that needs to be cut of a soulish kind to release us for the Elijah ministry.
It is one thing to shuck off a terrible father and background and a bad past, but how about if it is good?
There is a greater danger of spiritual compromise there than in the casting away of that which had no influence.
May the Lord send His angels before you to prepare your way and behind you to be your rear-guard.
May God the Father give you the rich harvest for which you have been praying and waiting. In Jesus' name, amen.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Word of Judgment
Elijah was in this quality of relationship and therefore he knew when it was God speaking, even though the word that came seemed to contradict his categories.
It implies that Elijah underwent radical, ruthless stripping and purging. Only a man that separated unto God could bring a word of judgment to Israel.
"...There shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word."
How would you like to be a bearer of a word that initiates that kind of judgment?
For Israel that would mean that there would be no food and therefore the end of life, even for children and infants.
Is Elijah some kind of unfeeling robot that God has programmed to speak that word?
He was a man of flesh and blood and like passions as we and who may well have had relatives in Israel.
It was saying 'death' to the nation, Elijah's nation.
A man cannot say that unless he is in the place of God that we are talking about.
It is an utterance toward God and it has got to come through those who have a nature like ours, men of flesh and blood and that is what glorifies God.
God could Himself speak those words to Ahab, but there is as not as much glory in His speaking it Himself as it would be to come from a man of like passions.
That is what glorifies Him for such a man is His handiwork and so it is also a picture of the last days.
May the Lord bless you, and keep you.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and may God Himself give you His peace.
May you walk in total victory and be the conqueror of the King because you have the power of His Name, the blood of the cross, and the authority of the Word.
Live, talk, think, and act like a child of the King, in Jesus' name. Amen
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Ultimate Place of Union
"...I have commanded a widow there to provide for you." So he arose and went to Zarephath...
Elijah's obedience is a statement of an ultimate death that will even allow you to die to what the written word of God says.
God is even allowed to contradict Himself, and we are not put off by that because of some insistence we may have that God has got to be contained within His own Word, however much he has exalted it above his own name!
The Word describes the raven and such animals as beasts of prey that eat rotting carrion.
It is an unclean bird and every Jew knew that, and yet that is the very thing that God selected to feed the prophet.
If it pleases Him to exceed to His Word or to set aside His Word or to go beyond His Word, then that is what makes God God.
This is not to encourage a loose attitude as if the Word is any flippant thing that we can set aside at will.
As we have said, God Himself has exalted His Word above His name, but what if in some peculiar requirement of God, and by His own wisdom, He exceeds His Word or contradicts it or seems to?
Is our relationship with Him great enough, where God can be God even beyond his own Word, and we will not limit the Holy One of Israel, even to His Word?
I would not entrust this statement to a young believer or someone who is yet alive to himself and wants to justify himself in conduct by taking certain liberties.
It can only be entrusted ironically to that one who has the deepest reverence for the Word of God and who lives totally by it.
The word of the Lord came to Elijah and Elijah arose and went. It was a requirement beyond the Word, namely, being fed by ravens and being fed by a Gentile widow.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He knew the God of the Word and he knew the Word, but here there is an ultimate recognition of God that many of us would balk at, that makes Elijah Elijah just as it makes God God.
To be in this place in God, that does not even limit God to His own Word, and will not even require an explanation when the request is at disparity with the Word, is to be in that ultimate place.
Elijah never took God to task: "Does not your Word say that a raven is an unclean animal and You know that I am not allowed to go into a house of a Gentile?" He arose and went according to the word of the Lord-silently.
How did Elijah know that it was the word of the Lord and not the enemy getting him out from the place where God wanted him, moving him to another place outside of Israel itself, and bringing him into the greatest place of jeopardy and danger, the very city and kingdom of Jezebel herself?
There is not even a moment's hesitation as even to debate whether it is God speaking or the enemy, who knows well how to imitate God's voice.
Elijah had such an absolute confidence that the word that came was in fact the word of God that he rendered an immediate obedience.
Such a discernment cannot be performed by a novice.
If we have missed previous whispers and intimations of God and calls to obedience, then how will we hear ultimate ones?
This is why an Elijah is not formed nor fashioned in a day.
He is rather a prized fruit of God with much investment of God to bring such a one, who was flesh and blood and like passions as we, to such a place.
He had no more qualification than us.
He palpitated; he sweat; he had other kinds of bodily functions as well as the same doubts and struggles.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He was a 'son of man,' but he was brought to the place where he could hear the most uncanny statement that violates every known category of religious and spiritual understanding that is authentic about God, and yet recognize it to be God, and instantly to do it.
Why did God send an unclean bird to feed Elijah instead of a bird that was 'kosher'?
Ravens were His express and explicit choosing.
The last, subtle tyranny of self that will find itself in opposition to God is that thing that we have obtained from God.
Even the thing that is correct in God can be employed against God when it has become something religious or something spiritual, as a value in itself.
Until God has got that, then He has not got the man.
Many of us are in the place, where we have a long history in God and we have been brought a long way from obedience to obedience, but the last thing that would never have appealed to us as being even a potential for opposition to God, is the very thing that is religious or spiritual and which we have celebrated, though it is a correct thing in itself.
It only becomes incorrect when it stands as a barrier between a final, last, ultimate and total obedience to God.
The only one who can pass that threshold is not someone who is indifferent or casual about the Word of God, but ironically the man who is most insistent upon it.
The realm of the things invisible are the true determinants of godly living.
Absolute obedience, even unto death, is the wisdom of God contrary to the world's wisdom where everything is reckoned and effected by things visible.
To act and live and have your being in an obedience to an invisible God in the face of the most visible authority that has the power to slay you, and yet be obedient to the invisible God, is the supreme wisdom of God.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elijah was solely, exclusively and totally God's. He was above culture, tradition, value, history and time.
He was in that realm with God and the realm to which we ourselves are called and to which Abraham was called:
Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you...(Gen. 12:1b).
It was not just an accidental aspect of the call, but at the heart of it.
Those are the places where we are compromised, not because they are necessarily evil, but there is something about the flesh and father's house and about kindred, family and country that keeps us from an Elijah obedience.
How many of us would be ruthless about those things, that though we have fathers and mothers, nations and family, as far as we are concerned, there is effectually a total and radical severance?
We only move when He speaks. That is the call we have, and the ironic thing is that however precious our forebears and their influence, there is a kind of a tie that connects us that needs to be cut of a soulish kind to release us for the Elijah ministry.
It is one thing to shuck off a terrible father and background and a bad past, but how about if it is good?
There is a greater danger of spiritual compromise there than in the casting away of that which had no influence.
May the Lord send His angels before you to prepare your way and behind you to be your rear-guard.
May God the Father give you the rich harvest for which you have been praying and waiting. In Jesus' name, amen.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Word of Judgment
Elijah was in this quality of relationship and therefore he knew when it was God speaking, even though the word that came seemed to contradict his categories.
It implies that Elijah underwent radical, ruthless stripping and purging. Only a man that separated unto God could bring a word of judgment to Israel.
"...There shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word."
How would you like to be a bearer of a word that initiates that kind of judgment?
For Israel that would mean that there would be no food and therefore the end of life, even for children and infants.
Is Elijah some kind of unfeeling robot that God has programmed to speak that word?
He was a man of flesh and blood and like passions as we and who may well have had relatives in Israel.
It was saying 'death' to the nation, Elijah's nation.
A man cannot say that unless he is in the place of God that we are talking about.
It is an utterance toward God and it has got to come through those who have a nature like ours, men of flesh and blood and that is what glorifies God.
God could Himself speak those words to Ahab, but there is as not as much glory in His speaking it Himself as it would be to come from a man of like passions.
That is what glorifies Him for such a man is His handiwork and so it is also a picture of the last days.
May the Lord bless you, and keep you.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon you and may God Himself give you His peace.
May you walk in total victory and be the conqueror of the King because you have the power of His Name, the blood of the cross, and the authority of the Word.
Live, talk, think, and act like a child of the King, in Jesus' name. Amen
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Ultimate Place of Union
"...I have commanded a widow there to provide for you." So he arose and went to Zarephath...
Elijah's obedience is a statement of an ultimate death that will even allow you to die to what the written word of God says.
God is even allowed to contradict Himself, and we are not put off by that because of some insistence we may have that God has got to be contained within His own Word, however much he has exalted it above his own name!
The Word describes the raven and such animals as beasts of prey that eat rotting carrion.
It is an unclean bird and every Jew knew that, and yet that is the very thing that God selected to feed the prophet.
If it pleases Him to exceed to His Word or to set aside His Word or to go beyond His Word, then that is what makes God God.
This is not to encourage a loose attitude as if the Word is any flippant thing that we can set aside at will.
As we have said, God Himself has exalted His Word above His name, but what if in some peculiar requirement of God, and by His own wisdom, He exceeds His Word or contradicts it or seems to?
Is our relationship with Him great enough, where God can be God even beyond his own Word, and we will not limit the Holy One of Israel, even to His Word?
I would not entrust this statement to a young believer or someone who is yet alive to himself and wants to justify himself in conduct by taking certain liberties.
It can only be entrusted ironically to that one who has the deepest reverence for the Word of God and who lives totally by it.
The word of the Lord came to Elijah and Elijah arose and went. It was a requirement beyond the Word, namely, being fed by ravens and being fed by a Gentile widow.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He knew the God of the Word and he knew the Word, but here there is an ultimate recognition of God that many of us would balk at, that makes Elijah Elijah just as it makes God God.
To be in this place in God, that does not even limit God to His own Word, and will not even require an explanation when the request is at disparity with the Word, is to be in that ultimate place.
Elijah never took God to task: "Does not your Word say that a raven is an unclean animal and You know that I am not allowed to go into a house of a Gentile?" He arose and went according to the word of the Lord-silently.
How did Elijah know that it was the word of the Lord and not the enemy getting him out from the place where God wanted him, moving him to another place outside of Israel itself, and bringing him into the greatest place of jeopardy and danger, the very city and kingdom of Jezebel herself?
There is not even a moment's hesitation as even to debate whether it is God speaking or the enemy, who knows well how to imitate God's voice.
Elijah had such an absolute confidence that the word that came was in fact the word of God that he rendered an immediate obedience.
Such a discernment cannot be performed by a novice.
If we have missed previous whispers and intimations of God and calls to obedience, then how will we hear ultimate ones?
This is why an Elijah is not formed nor fashioned in a day.
He is rather a prized fruit of God with much investment of God to bring such a one, who was flesh and blood and like passions as we, to such a place.
He had no more qualification than us.
He palpitated; he sweat; he had other kinds of bodily functions as well as the same doubts and struggles.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He was a 'son of man,' but he was brought to the place where he could hear the most uncanny statement that violates every known category of religious and spiritual understanding that is authentic about God, and yet recognize it to be God, and instantly to do it.
Why did God send an unclean bird to feed Elijah instead of a bird that was 'kosher'?
Ravens were His express and explicit choosing.
The last, subtle tyranny of self that will find itself in opposition to God is that thing that we have obtained from God.
Even the thing that is correct in God can be employed against God when it has become something religious or something spiritual, as a value in itself.
Until God has got that, then He has not got the man.
Many of us are in the place, where we have a long history in God and we have been brought a long way from obedience to obedience, but the last thing that would never have appealed to us as being even a potential for opposition to God, is the very thing that is religious or spiritual and which we have celebrated, though it is a correct thing in itself.
It only becomes incorrect when it stands as a barrier between a final, last, ultimate and total obedience to God.
The only one who can pass that threshold is not someone who is indifferent or casual about the Word of God, but ironically the man who is most insistent upon it.
The realm of the things invisible are the true determinants of godly living.
Absolute obedience, even unto death, is the wisdom of God contrary to the world's wisdom where everything is reckoned and effected by things visible.
To act and live and have your being in an obedience to an invisible God in the face of the most visible authority that has the power to slay you, and yet be obedient to the invisible God, is the supreme wisdom of God.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is the place to which we are
called and that is why it requires such an extraordinary investment of
God to break the powers of the things invisible and the things seen that
have such a seeming weight, opulence, prestige, authority, cities and
skyscrapers.
That is the last day's calling of the 'Elijah company,'a prophetic presence that will perform last day's obedience in utterness toward God.
Elijah's Identification with Death
Now it came about after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe, that there was no breath left in him.
So she said to Elijah, "What do I have to do with you, O man of God?
You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance, and to put my son to death!"
And he said to her, "Give me your son." Then he took him from her bosom and carried him up to the upper room where he was living, and laid him on his own bed.
And he called to the LORD and said, "O LORD my God, hast Thou also brought calamity to the widow with whom I am staying, by causing her son to die?"
Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and called to the LORD, and said, "O LORD my God, I pray Thee, let this child's life return to him."
And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him and he revived.
And Elijah took the child, and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother; and Elijah said, "See, your son is alive."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elijah cried to the Lord three times.
The Lord heard the cry of Elijah.
Unless that same cry is emitted from us, then God will neither hear nor answer.
What gives a man the capability to cry? Elijah was qualified to defeat death because he had already passed through death and was on the resurrection side.
This is not a man who is being politely religious and doing the correctly prescribed thing.
This is a man who has passed through death, and his bringing now the application of resurrection life to defeat death in this instance.
How do we pass through the veil of respectable and appropriate prayer to the prayer that is a cry whose voice God hears and answers, and that is sufficient to raise the dead?
This is the nub of the matter for God will not answer until He hears the voice of that cry.
There is something about the whole environment of present Christianity that is contrary to this existential depth and cry.
The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and did not rain on the earth for three years and six months (James 5:16b-17).
That is the last day's calling of the 'Elijah company,'a prophetic presence that will perform last day's obedience in utterness toward God.
Elijah's Identification with Death
Now it came about after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe, that there was no breath left in him.
So she said to Elijah, "What do I have to do with you, O man of God?
You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance, and to put my son to death!"
And he said to her, "Give me your son." Then he took him from her bosom and carried him up to the upper room where he was living, and laid him on his own bed.
And he called to the LORD and said, "O LORD my God, hast Thou also brought calamity to the widow with whom I am staying, by causing her son to die?"
Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and called to the LORD, and said, "O LORD my God, I pray Thee, let this child's life return to him."
And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah, and the life of the child returned to him and he revived.
And Elijah took the child, and brought him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother; and Elijah said, "See, your son is alive."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elijah cried to the Lord three times.
The Lord heard the cry of Elijah.
Unless that same cry is emitted from us, then God will neither hear nor answer.
What gives a man the capability to cry? Elijah was qualified to defeat death because he had already passed through death and was on the resurrection side.
This is not a man who is being politely religious and doing the correctly prescribed thing.
This is a man who has passed through death, and his bringing now the application of resurrection life to defeat death in this instance.
How do we pass through the veil of respectable and appropriate prayer to the prayer that is a cry whose voice God hears and answers, and that is sufficient to raise the dead?
This is the nub of the matter for God will not answer until He hears the voice of that cry.
There is something about the whole environment of present Christianity that is contrary to this existential depth and cry.
The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and did not rain on the earth for three years and six months (James 5:16b-17).
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