Elijah and Elisha for Today

The Living God

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

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Genre: Sermon Series

Lesson: 1 of 16

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[Rushdoony] This week I shall be dealing with one of the great men of scripture, the prophet Elijah. A strange and lonely figure, one of the few men in scripture of whom we are told next to nothing, not even his father’s name is given and usually men in scripture are introduced to us as “so and so the son of so and so”. But Elijah speaks the word of God to his generation and to ours. First of all from the epistle of James the fifth chapter, verses 16-18 and then I Kings seventeen verse one. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.” And I Kings 17 verse one “And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”

If we could turn back the clock and step into the Israel of Ahab’s day, or the Israel of any day the men of the northern kingdom would tell us that they were a God fearing nation, faithful to the covenant of the Lord. And they would become indignant at the notion that they were wanting in the sight of God. Again and again as the Lord sent them prophets the reaction of Israel, the northern kingdom, to these prophets was one of indignation. They believed they were the elect of God, as some do today. They believed they were faithful to the covenant, as some do today. They believed that they were a notably God-fearing country, as some do believe today. And as we read through the books of Kings and Chronicles the uniform verdict upon all the kings of Israel from Jeroboam the first through Jeroboam the second and the last few scraggly kings as the nation collapsed and Assyria took them into captivity was that they stood condemned before the Lord. Why?

There is a modern word that is used by some Old Testament scholars to describe Israel’s sin, syncretism s-y-n-c-r-e-t-i-s-m. What does it mean? Now a syncrestist is somebody who maintains the form and the façade of a faith, but not the content. And he brings in and unites with what he calls that faith, almost anything under the sun which appeals to him. His religion thus ends up as a kind of smorgasbord, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and without character. This was the faith of Israel. They believed themselves to be a covenant people but they had re-interpreted the faith and they called by the name of Jehovah a variety of things that were not of the Lord.

The southern Kingdom Judah was again and again apostate, but when a people is apostate it can be recalled because it knows that it is no longer adhering to the word of God. But Israel had so re-interpreted the word of God that it meant whatever they chose to make it mean. Read through the life of Ahab, does Ahab ever say that he is not of the Lord? Far from it. In fact we find on one occasion that he prays very humbly to the Lord, the Lord does hear and answers his prayer and delays the judgment, but he was not a regenerate man. And the nation believed itself to be of the Lord. Jehoram the evil son of Ahab actually abolished the priests and temples of Baal from the land. But the verdict of scripture against him is clear-cut. This then was the faith of Israel, syncretism.

Moreover there is another factor that makes Ahab’s day seem very modern. It was a time of prosperity and a time of inflation, and people loved it. Everybody felt they were getting richer and richer, they grumbled I’m sure as people do today. But somehow they felt they were coming ahead. Was there not all kinds of goods from all over the world flowing into Israel? And was not everybody showing signs of a better income and a better standard of living? And it was not only Ahab’s palace that was inlaid with ivory in the rooms, so that it was the picture of magnificence. But many other people were indulging in like luxuries, and here are these wild-eyed prophets coming out of the hick-areas of the nation thundering about the judgment of the Lord. Who could listen to unsophisticated preachers like that? Their religion was obviously absurd. Was not the Lord blessing them? Were not they great and wealthy? There was another factor about Israel that reminds us of our times. People had a tremendous desire not for virtues, but for things. Does that not mark our time too?

I met in another state not too long ago when I was there to speak a very fine young man, and he reminded me of the young man that our Lord saw go away sadly. He knew the reformed faith, he was in a reformed church, he was more than most delighted with the doctrine and better read than most in it. But he was looking forward to things, not in terms of that which is facing us, but in terms of advancing himself. He wanted a power boat and a place on the lake so he could go water skiing that was his goal. And I told him, I said “I’ve come here from a Christian school trial and I’ve seen men on trial because they refused to teach humanism in the Christian schools, and facing jail.”

Let me add tomorrow night after the meeting here I will fly to Cleveland arriving there about 1:57 to testify the next morning and return here, so I’ll be here to speak Wednesday night, in the trial of a farmer who lives out in the country near a small town – Mansfield. Or rather I should say Mansfield which is a small city is the closest area to him. He has been arrested, why? He is an earnest Christian who believes without any hesitation in the infallible word. His daughter, having reached five, was ready for school. The only Christian school in that area is one right next door to his farm, an Amish school. He placed his daughter in the Amish school and the state authorities promptly arrested him. His trial begins tomorrow and I’ll be there Wednesday morning as a witness and fly back Wednesday afternoon. Is this unusual? No. There are literally hundreds of trials of Christian churches and Christian schools and Christian missionary agencies across the country now and I believe the number is close to a thousand or more, and I expect it to double and triple in the near future. And the sad fact is that in some of these trials we face not only the hostility of these humanists who want to destroy the faith, but also the hostility of men who claim to believe the Bible from cover to cover, who claim to be fundamentalist or Lutheran or Reformed and who get on the stand and their hatred is intense and their attitude is like that of Ahab when he said to Elijah “art Thou he that troublest Israel?” and they accuse us, of course, of bringing dissension and trouble into the ranks of the faithful, and by creating false issues because we will not surrender to humanism as it seeks to destroy the faith. But of course men today have the form of Godliness, but not the power there-of. They want their speed boats and their new cars and many things. But they’re very lackadaisical about the pursuit of holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.

And so the ministry of Elijah is most relevant to our times. Elijah was a man whose dress was desert dress, roughly clothed, survival clothing of men who were living off the land in the wilderness as was that of John the Baptist; signifying to Israel that captivity awaited them. That if they would not hear the word of the Lord they would hear the judgment of the Lord, and Elijah the Tishbite who was of the inhabitants of Gilead said unto Ahab “as the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word.” And James tells us that Elijah prayed for the drought and it came.

We take droughts today as natural events. We become practicing deists, we do not see the hand of God in the events of this world when our Lord tells us that not a sparrow falls apart from our father’s will. That the very hairs of our head are all numbered. That God governments is total and immediate and very present. No, God somehow started it all the beginning and he’s far away and its all kind of a natural thing. And the fact that all over the world today there are dramatic weather disturbances and have been for a few years, things that spell disasters. Men take this as the workings of nature. But what says the scripture? We read in Leviticus 26 verses 18 following “18 And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.” Or in Deuteronomy 28 verses 23 and 24 “And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.”

What does God tell us in Deuteronomy 28, one of the most important chapters of scripture? In fact a chapter once that was, whenever the oath of office was taken in the United States, whether it was in the local county or at the white house, it was on an open Bible open to Chapter 28 of Deuteronomy because the constitution specifies an oath, an oath of office; and when the men wrote that they meant an oath in the Biblical sense, in terms of the specific word of God, invoking the blessing of God if they obeyed him and the curse of God if they disobeyed him. And God says emphatically “this is my judgment on a generation that will not hear me. I will use the storm and the sun and the ground beneath your feet to curse you and to bring my judgment upon you for your faithlessness. Today the whole world is under judgment and it refuses to acknowledge it. It hardens its heart against the fact of judgment.

Our Lord spoke about men and what they were like when judgment came. We read in Matthew 24 verse 37-39 our Lord’s commentary upon an age under judgment. Now I believe, and there will be some who disagree, that this had to do with the judgment on Israel as it was facing destruction in the Jewish Roman war. I also believe that it has to do with every age that is under judgment. When the son of man comes in judgment upon those in every age culminating at the end of the world when men will not hear Him, we either meet Him as our Savior or we meet Him as our judge. And our Lord says that as the days of Noah were so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark and knew not until the flood came and took them all away. So shall also the coming of the son of man be.

What is our Lord telling us here? Why simply this, Noah was a preacher of righteousness unto his generation and he declared the word of the Lord and the judgment that God was going to bring upon them, but they believed that as it was in the beginning so will it ever be that there will be just the cycle of the years and of the weather and judgment is a myth. And the seasons will come and they will go. We’ll have good weather and we’ll have bad weather, it’s all a part of the cycle of nature and we are ruled by nature, not by God you see. Men today are insistent on seeing natural processes that work in history rather than the hand of God. And the Bible tells us he is the captain of the whirlwind and of the storm, that he is the Lord and all things move at his command and that natural processes do not rule, but the Lord rules.

Now Israel professed to believe in the Lord. “Oh yes, way back centuries ago God created things, no doubt, somehow. And there’s a mighty power that we can call God behind the processes and we believe that somehow or other, through natural means he did remarkable things and made us a people. But of course what rules the world is basically the natural forces, and you have to move in terms of the times and the historical moment,” the existential moment to use a modern term, but that was the spirit of Israel and of its Baalism, and we’ll deal with that more tomorrow.

And that’s the only way a man can get ahead. But we believe in what the Torah teaches, we’re basically in favor of righteousness but of course we got to be also realistic and try to bring these ideals to bear on the historical moment and somehow relate them without becoming stiff and wooden. But what they were worshipping was not the Lord, but the natural processes. And in the natural processes of this world who is at the apex but man, the crown of creation? So when men exalt the natural proud processes and push God way back into the past or way back into eternity they are exalting themselves and worshipping themselves and they are saying it is by our might and by our wisdom. But whatever good will come, will come. God’s hand was seen as past, not present, and there are any number of people today who will tell you they believe the Bible from cover to cover and my answer to them is “but you don’t believe what’s in between.” And they believe in all the miracles, and they believe all that. But of course to believe that God is at work today and is very present, closer to me and to you than we are to ourselves, so that the very hairs of our head are all numbered and not a leaf falls, nor spark blazes, apart from His government. And that He has His ways and His judgment and His hand in all things; well now aren’t you getting anthropomorphic? And aren’t you pushing the sovereignty of God to a ridiculous extreme? Won’t you make the faith into a mockery by getting that particular and finicky?

But remember in the first section of the institutes what Calvin deals with as he deals with the creed, because the institutes are really a commentary section by section on the apostle’s creed. And the first section is a commentary on the words “I believe in God, the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” And Calvin takes several chapters to go into the doctrine of providence and to strike out at what he saw was coming, a scientism and interpretation of providence as naturalistic, which did overtake Reformed theology in the 18th century and its never shaken off that curse. So instead of looking to the sovereignty of God it looks to a naturalistic concept of providence which is really nature, and its coined a bastard doctrine, and there are very few words strong enough to describe it, called common grace, which is really natural law theology and paganism. So that God is removed from the world, God is something out there in the past or way out in eternity and not here and now, more present in the world as in eternity then we are ourselves. Closer to us than we are to ourselves because I don’t know the every hair of my head except to know that they are fewer than they once were. The Lord knows every hair of my head, and my beginning and my end are all there in His eternal counsel and decree and in His present, providential, government.

But to push God back is to say that God is dead, and this is why when Elijah confronts Ahab he says “as the Lord God of Israel liveth, He is the living God, he is living and at work right now in the weather.” Not a God who did something centuries ago and has sat back silently since then, no. As the Lord God liveth, and I tell you that until the churches of the land and until the politicians of this land, and of every land, whether they be Brezhnev or Jimmy Carter, recognize that there is the living God at work in this world, closer to them then they are to themselves, they will never know what they have to deal with and with whom, because it is the hand of the Lord that is upon this age in judgment.

And Elijah said “as the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, I stand always in the presence of the living God.” There is no standing except for before his presence for we are all open and naked to His sight, and no man can say Him nay nor escape from Him and from His word and from His government. And so I stand ever in the presence of the living God, and I declare unto you “there shall not be dew nor rain these years.” The Lord is a God of grace and also a God of judgment and I think one reason why there is not much of sovereign grace manifested in our day is that there is not much of praying for either sovereign grace or sovereign judgment, and you cannot separate the two. Grace and judgment go hand in hand. Whenever God’s grace has been manifested in this world it has coincided with judgment. How is God’s grace shown unto the world into His covenant, into the household of Noah? Why on the judgment of the world that perished. And how was God’s grace and so great salvation manifested unto Israel and Egypt? Why with the judgment upon Egypt. And how is it shown upon us? Through Jesus Christ, but by the judgment of the cross wherein all of were sentenced to death and that sentence of death upon every man born of Adam was openly set forth, and the salvation of the elect declared. It was judgment, and it was also redemption and we cannot pray for grace unless we pray also for judgment. We cannot pray for anyone’s salvation unless we pray that the Lord humble him so that he sees the judgment that is upon him so that he knows the judgment of God upon sin.

There shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word. Those words never fail to startle me and astound me, and humble me, they are a mystery. Here we have the word of the word of God that tells us that God’s predestination is so total, known unto God are all His works from the foundation of the world so that an eternity before we were born every hair of our head was all numbered. And yet, the sovereign God declares to Elijah “speak the word, pass the sentence, ‘and there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word’.” Here is a mystery, but it is a part of the glorious mystery of God’s creation. He has made us a little lower than the angels and crowned us with glory and with honor. And He gives unto His servant the word of judgment upon a generation that will not hark unto Him. And it shall not rain Elijah in God’s own good time, gives the word.

This is a summons to us to be in prayer, to be in prayer for God’s judgment and God’s grace upon this generation, upon those around us who do not know Him. For it is the Lord that speaks the word and it is the Lord who tells us of the effectual fervent of a righteous man, and when He gives us that declaration, that the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much He gives it in the context of judgment. We cannot treat God as though He were a kindly grandfather. Now I’m a grandfather, I have ten and two tenths, two ninths, excuse me my arithmetic is a little faulty there, ten and two ninths grandchildren and I confess that while I was a very strict father as a grandparent I tend to be indulgent and they melt my heart. God is not a grandfather, He is our heavenly Father and whom He loves He chases, and can we be in prayer for the church we love, or the people we love without being in prayer not only for God’s grace upon them but God’s judgment upon them. It is then that the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails.

Moses tells us that we are to set forth the word of God, the faithful word. And He says the word is very nigh unto Thee and Thy mouth and in Thy heart, that Thou mayest do it. See I have set before Thee life and good and death and evil. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God and that Thou mayest obey His voices and that thou mayest cleave unto Him for He is thy life and the length of thy days that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord God sware unto Thy Fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob to give them. And our God summons us to know Him as the living God. But our life here and now depends not upon our planning but upon his plan and our faithfulness to Him. And we are summoned not to be like Israel, syncretist’s in our faith and lackadaisical, feeling that as we go down into perdition that we are the Lord’s when we have been our own Lord’s. When we have served ourselves and given Him lip service, when we have only had a form of Godliness and lacked the power thereof.

Elijah the Tishbite faced a king in a nation with the word of the Lord and against that king and nation the Lord gave him a mighty victory and confounded that king and that nation. It’s not by man’s might, nor by man’s majorities, nor by man’s numbers, but by God’s might and by God’s power in word and Spirit that we prevail. And God is not a God who is afar off, He is not grown old nor remote since the days of Elijah, nor has He grown weary of hearing the prayers of a righteous man. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and He declares “I am the Lord, I change not.” Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father we thank Thee that Thou art the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Elijah, and our God. Make us ever mindful oh Lord that we are not alone, that Thou Lord art very near and Thy word is truth and it is Thy word alone that shall prevail. Make us strong therefore in Thy word, that in the power of Thy word and Thy Spirit we may speak unto men and nations, declaring unto them Thy judgment and Thy grace, confounding them in their ways and in their evils and exalting Thee by casting off all our idolatries, casting off the worship of our own will, falling down before Thee and acknowledging that indeed we had sinned and gone astray and that we have served ourselves and not Thee, that we have been zealous about acquiring things for ourselves and slow about the needs of Thy kingdom. Make us oh Lord strong in Thy service, bold in our most holy faith, that we might be more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. In His name we pray.