Elijah and Elisha for Today

The Summons

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Elijah

Genre: Sermon Series

Lesson: 4 of 16

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[Rushdoony] Our scripture this evening is from I Kings 18 verses 1-16. I Kings 18 verses 1-16.

“And it came to pass after many days, that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth.2 And Elijah went to shew himself unto Ahab. And there was a sore famine in Samaria. 3 And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house. (Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly: 4 For it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.) 5 And Ahab said unto Obadiah, Go into the land, unto all fountains of water, and unto all brooks: peradventure we may find grass to save the horses and mules alive, that we lose not all the beasts. 6 So they divided the land between them to pass throughout it: Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself. 7 And as Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him: and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said, Art thou that my lord Elijah? 8 And he answered him, I am: go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. 9 And he said, What have I sinned, that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me? 10 As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, He is not there; he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not. 11 And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here. 12 And it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither I know not; and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me: but I thy servant fear the Lord from my youth. 13 Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the Lord, how I hid an hundred men of the Lord's prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water? 14 And now thou sayest, Go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here: and he shall slay me. 15 And Elijah said, As the Lord of hosts liveth, before whom I stand; I will surely shew myself unto him to day. 16 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him: and Ahab went to meet Elijah.”

Thirty years ago when I was on the Indian reservation I sought from time to time one aged Indian who was the most remarkable and unforgettable figure. He was an old man, the son of the Chief Pattycap{?} of the Paiute Indians, and himself name Pattycap {?}. He was very much unlike all the other Indians, in a sense one could say describing him objectively he was a pathetic figure and that he lived in the past. All he could think of the war that his father and he as a very, very young man, almost two generation previously, had fought with his father in Western Oregon. A war that is now a very minor thing in the history of Western Indians, but in its day it was a very bitterly fought campaign. He lived in the past, most of the Indians walked around him, he was intolerant of their trifling ways and their small talk. He was somewhat taller than average, but when you were around him he seemed to loom over you like a giant, and his eyes would flash and his voice was strong with an intensity as he talked about the issues of years and years ago as though they were the only real thing under sun. And because I found him very interesting to listen to he would, when we met, stand erect with his voice and his eyes flashing and strong as he talked of those things. He was a pagan, his life was given over to a hopeless cause, but in a sense he reminded me of Elijah; that total and absolute unswerving dedication to one thing and one only. All of Elijah’s life he speaks about intensity of his dedication. So dedicated to the Lord that when he sees apparently the doors all closed he can only say “oh Lord take away my life.” He lived for one thing.

God schooled Elijah in the three and a half years, prepared him by the brook Cherith and its {?} for the day of confrontation with Ahab and the nation, with the prophets of Baal on Mount Caramel. And now “the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, shew thyself unto Ahab; and I will send rain upon the earth.” Meanwhile Ahab with a trusted governor of his house, was out searching for a stream that might still be flowing where there might be grass to keep some of his horses and mules alive. Only he and Obadiah were involved in that search, which was understandable if you know something about drought. In a time of drought any place where there might be some flowing water and grass is precious. I know some years ago during a drought when one cattleman went alone, he did not send anyone, back up into the mountains to find a place where he could move his cattle and keep them alive or at least keep some of them alive, and he went alone so that no-one else might know of the place if he should find it. He tells us something of the trust that Ahab had in Obadiah.

Clearly Ahab must have known of Obediah’s faith and it is not the first, nor the last, that ungodly men have placed their confidence in Godly men. We know of the trust that Nebuchadnezzar placed in Daniel, as did Darius, and we know that, according to Paul in Philippians 4:22 there was saints in Nero’s household, and the word that is there used for “household” can be translated into more modern English possibly as “cabinet”, men who were important in the administration of the empire. We also know from history that when Genghis Khan took over that vast area that

made up his empire he turned to Christians for many of his most responsible administrative offices. Not because he was a Christian but because he and his heirs to the end of the Mongol empire felt that Christians were the most trustworthy of people, and therefore they used them. This is one reason why the vast number of churches throughout central Asia and China disappeared, because when his emperor was overthrown some generations later the people turned against the Christian as a part of their wrath against a Mongol empire.

Ahab clearly trust Obadiah. He took no-one else with them in this search for water. Now Obadiah has sometimes been treated rather unkindly by commentators and preachers because of his seeming fearfulness on this occasion when Elijah tells him “go, tell Thy Lord, ‘behold, Elijah is here.’” Now Obadiah was a man of courage. Obadiah had protected the Lord’s servants, he had taken his life in his hands in so doing. Why, at this point, was he fearful? We cannot understand the significance of this passage until we grasp the meaning of Obadiah’s shock at being told to summon Ahab. We can understand it if we grasp the meaning of that passage in terms of antiquity, and in terms of the meaning of a summons. When we read the book of Esther, we read for example in Esther 4 verse 11 that no one could approach a monarch unbidden. No-one could go into his presence unless he summoned them. If they did, unless by his grace he extended to them his permission, they died. To go or to come depended upon the sovereign. Not only so, but as we read in verses 10 &11 of this text Elijah [he meant Ahab] had sent messengers into all the kingdoms roundabout with a warrant for Elijah. And when they said “Elijah is not here” he required an oath of these nations that they were indeed telling the truth, there was a price on Elijah’s head

Now what did it mean when Elijah said to Obadiah “Go tell Thy Lord ‘Behold, Elijah is here’”? Only from the crown, only from the sovereign could a summons go forth saying “come”. And Elijah speaks here as God’s throne-man with a warrant from the King of kings, from God almighty, saying to Ahab “come”. Can you understand the shock of Obadiah under these circumstances? This is an unprecedented thing. To order a king to come, and to stand before God’s throne man to receive his word of rebuke or of judgment, or whatever it might be. Hence Obadiah was justifiably fearful, what man would dare speak to a king, to go to him and say “there’s a prophet there with a price on his head and instead of arresting him and bringing him to you I’m summoning you on his authority to appear before him.”

Now Obadiah knew that possibly Ahab would come. After all Ahab would come because he wanted Elijah, there was a price on Elijah’s head, and also because they drought had been ordered by Elijah. He said to Elijah “How do I know that you will not disappear while I go after him? We parted just a little while ago because we divided the land amongst us. But the Spirit of the Lord may take Thee elsewhere.” And Elijah said as the Lord God of hosts liveth, before whom I stand I will surely show myself unto him today. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. This is one of the great moments of scripture. Ahab answers the summons of God and God lays down the conditions of the test to which all Israel shall be witness. But God also here lays down the conditions with which we approach the world, the conditions with which we approach men and nations, the conditions upon which we approach sinners. It is wicked in the sight of God to go before sinner pleading for them to come.

Reformed Evangelism once spoke of itself as a summons, a summons from almighty God to sinners to appear before the throne to be judged, and either to find the grace of God or his reprobation. And in the early church a missionaries went out to the kingdoms from the tribes of their day, and in Northern Europe and into Central Asia and into Eastern Europe and to Britain, and they confronted kings and rulers, chiefs, with summons; “thus saith the Lord.” We did not plead with them; they summoned them in the name of God.

Now we are not Elijah’s and we are not inspired prophets, but we have the same God and we have the same work and we have His infallible law-word so that we can say to men and nations “thus saith the Lord.” And we do not need to plead with them, we declare the word.

It is the infallible word, the word of the Lord stands at the door and knocks. Many there receive him as their Lord or they face Him as the judge. And if almighty God can bend the heart of an Ahab so that he comes to face God’s prophet, and if almighty God has bent the heart of kings and chiefs and pagans over and over again down through the centuries, so that they have responded to the summons of lone men of God, who confronted them with the word of God, he can do the same today. We face the world, but we face it as the throne men of the King of kings, men with a warrant from the most high God. We are sent into the highways and the byways to carry the word of the King of kings to men and nations. “Go ye therefore into all nations, discipling them, teaching them all things that I command you, under orders as men of the throne, men who go out with the sure word, the warrant, the summons of almighty God. And so as we speak to the King of kings, as we pray to Him, we pray as throne men who have access by the grace of God through Jesus Christ to the throne, who can therefore go to him and ask for his summons and go out in his authority, in his power, and by his Spirit. So that we can say to men and nations in the words of Moses “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you. I have sent 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 voice, and that Thou mayest cleave unto him for he is thy life and the length of thy days. Thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord swear unto Thy Father’s Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

Now summons is still today a present reality. A summons is a legal fact, a legal document whereby we are summoned to a court, a court of Alabama or Virginia or California or wherever the case may be. And if we do not heed that order of the court we are liable to the wrath of the court. And the word of God is a summons to the world, to men and to nations, and we should see it as such. It is a summons to us and it commands us, it commands our time so that the Lord has command of our time, commands that says “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” and tells us that every day of the week we are under his summons to glorify Him, to set forth the meaning of his calling in all that we do. It is a summons that commands our means so that we tithe because we are summoned, we are under orders. It is a command word with regard to ourselves and our families so that as the Lord’s people we are not our own, we have been bought with a price, we are doubly His by the fact of creation and by the fact of redemption, so that we are under orders. The word is the summons, every word God is law, because it is binding upon us. And every word of God is grace because God in His sovereign grace deigns to speak unto us and so we hear it as a summons which is binding and is a grace because God deigns to speak unto us, declare His so great salvation unto us, make us his own through Jesus Christ, and give us the adoption of grace. And so we obey him, we delight in Him, and because we know His word to be a command word, we treat it as such when we speak to others. And we know that His word must be to us the inspired and the command word.

Too often people go to the scripture as an inspiring word, that’s not how scripture speaks of itself, it’s very uninspiring you know when it talks to us about our sins. And sometimes when we’re in rebellion against Him we’re loathe to turn to it, or we’ve grown indifferent to him and we have time for everything against that word, it’s anything but inspiring to us, but it is the inspired, the command word, and we go to it because it is our Lord who speaks and we summon all men and nations to it because herein our Lord speaks. Go tell Thy Lord, tell Ahab, “behold Elijah is here.” And if even an Ahab comes when God summons him how can we dare allow anything to separate us from Him and from His word? Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father we thank Thee that we are Thine and we thank Thee that by Thy grace Thou hast not only placed us under Thy summons but given us the Spirit to hear Thy word. Give us willing hearts and ears and feet to hear and to obey. Make us ever ready to surrender all that we are and all that we have unto Thee and to make known Thy Sons unto all men and nations. May the zeal of Thy house consume us and the joy of salvation illumine us that we may be ablaze with the glory of Thy work and the holiness of our calling. We thank Thee our Father for these Thy children, for their delight in Thy house and in Thy word. Strengthen them, bless and prosper them, fill them with the joy and holiness and make them powerful unto the end that they may witness a good witness to all those around them and in Thy name go forth to conquer. We thank Thee our Father that this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Our God we praise Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

[Moderator] In the 60’s when I was visiting in spring and being hosted by David. Strauder {?} preaching in some of the available places where he had ministered we had driven down to Berliencia {?} and into copehenta {?} and I said to him, said the services start at 9 o’clock in view of the fact you couldn’t openly have protestant services at that time in Spain, and he was doing the interpreting, that I would set my message down to about twenty or thirty minutes and deal with only one point making his interpretation of it extend that message out to about an hour. Well we had ministers that had driven up from Gibralta and some that had come in from other places and David said to me, he said, “don’t you dare.” He said “these people have come out at risk of being arrested for being here and some have traveled a great distance. You preach at least 45 min, I’ll interpret at least 45 minutes or they’ll go home disappointed. The services wound up somewhere around midnight and then between then and two o’clock in the morning we ate breakfast, or supper it was, and then sometimes after that we got to bed. I found out why they have those siestas in the afternoons.

So some of you have come a good distance and Rush has chopped you off, he didn’t give you a full meal. Now what he said was a full meal in itself, and I mean he didn’t go on to the second and third course, did he? And as a result we’ll just have some questions, and let him answer them. And I’ll raise the first question a gentlemen said today, “would ask him a question but I felt it might be elementary. And usually the elementary questions are the ones others are wondering about, and his question was “what is humanism?” So you come and answer that and after that you raise any question that might be on your heart or mind.

[Rushdoony] Humanism is that religion which says that man is sovereign. We find the basic document of humanism in the Bible in Genesis 3 verses 1-5 and the heart of Humanism is in the tempters statement “ye shall be as good knowing, or determining, for yourself what constitutes good and evil.” Humanism therefore says that man is sovereign, that man is his own God. Now some humanists believe in God. Of course the devils in hell all believe in God James tells us, and tremble. But the humanist treats God as a great resource for man, not as the Lord. And if we merely treat God as a great resource then we are humanists. But God is the Lord and His word is the binding word, the command word and as our Lord said “man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Humanism is at the heart of all paganism and humanism is basic to every heresy. Humanism today is also the established religion of virtually every country in the world. What we have in the state schools today is a religious establishment of humanism, this is what they are teaching. And unhappily, increasingly, the basis of law throughout the Western world is Humanism so that we are in process of overthrowing Christianity as the foundation of law in the Western world and replacing it with Humanism and a plan of salvation by the works of man.

Are there any other questions? Or further questions on Humanism?

[Audience member] We have a tendency to think of Humanism as a philosophy {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, there is a tendency to think of humanism simply as a philosophy. Humanism is in part responsible for that. You see the earlier name for humanism was the religion of humanity. But the humanists realized that by that name they were alienating churchmen, and they decided that it would be most easy to infiltrate the churches and take them over and turn them into humanistic agencies. By dropping that old term and simply using humanism and humanitarianism and presenting them as something that every reasonable man would be in favor of. Unfortunately too many people would describe religion as a belief in God. And they say “well humanism is not a religion” but virtually all religions are not theistic. After all, Buddhism does not believe in God, Hinduism does not believe in God, it believes, we are told, in many God’s, actually in many spirits. Ultimately it {?}. I think Buddhism believes in nothingness as ultimate. Shintuism does not believe in God, it believes in a multiplicity of Spirits which are ancestors. And we can go on down the line of the major religions of the world, and they lack a belief in God and even those who have that in some form or another have borrowed from either Hebraic or Christian faith, and have a semblance of theism actually are implicit expressions of humanism. So that we have to say only Christianity is an anti and not humanistic religion, the only true theism. All the other religions have only a façade of theism.

I didn’t mention the religions of antiquity but they were clearly humanistic. The Greek and Roman religions, there God’s were deified people. Several cities in Greece, for example, claimed to have a connection with Zeus. That he was born there, or his grave was in another city, or that he had been prominent in still another city. They were very closely aligned in their faith with ancestor worship. Yes?

[Audience member] {?} First is twofold. When you tell us from scriptures to read about the rejoicing {?} and how we are to apply this thinking in our thoughts with an addendum to that, also is a portion of the tithe can be used for the education of the public schools?

[Rushdoony] Yes. On the tithe let me simply say that within a few weeks we will have a book out written by myself and Edward A. Powell, one of my staff associates, entitled “tithing and dominion.” It will go into all the three tithes in great detail and give you all the relatives scriptures. So I’d rather, this is in a sense a plug, have you wait a few weeks and get that book because I do feel that the subject of tithing is extremely important. I believe it’s God’s ordained way for furthering his work. Scripture makes it clear that we are not giving a gift to God unless we’re giving above and over the tithe. The tithe is his due, his tax. And this is why it speaks of tithes and offerings, or tithes and gifts. So this will be a book of about a hundred and forty-five or six pages, and I think it is both concise and thorough. Now what was the second part of the question?

[Audience member] Is a portion of the tithe to be used for the education of the public’s {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, that I will deal with very briefly. Now, in the Old Testament of course, God’s ministry was a two-fold one, priests and Levites. The primary function of the priest was sacrifice. But even then only a small percentage of the priests, because they were a numerous family of the descendants of Aaron could be used at any one time in the temple or earlier in the tabernacle. And we know that the others were used by both Jehoshaphat and Josiah for instruction. Now Deuteronomy 33 verse 10 tells us what the basic function of the Levites was, instruction. And again we find passages in Kings and Chronicles that deal with the role of the Levites in instruction. This is why in antiquity and virtually until modern times the only people where you had an almost universal literacy was the Hebrew people because the Levites had that function. There is a saying that is still commonplace among Jews to this day, that goes straight back into the Old Testament, namely that a man teaches his son to be a thief unless he teaches him the Torah, which by their understanding meant not only the law, but the whole word of God, that is the Old Testament, and a trade to work with his hands. And that was quite strictly adhered too, and it was because of that Levitical function that it gave to Israel the strength and the ability to have a real revival again and again when it seemed to be dead and gone, and which of course through the centuries has kept the Jewish community alive.

Now know that very early this was once a factor which was basic to the life of the early church. It was only after the church was overwhelmed by the vast numbers of pagan who were of a barbarian and very primitive level that this began to collapse, although it was perpetuated to a degree by the monks. In the early days, and you can find full reference to this in Bingham’s Antiquities of the Christian Church. The church, early church, had two things. A school and a library, because they saw themselves as a continuation of the Levitical ministry. The sacrificial ministry, the priesthood, was ended. The Levitical ministry continued. So, instruction was provided by the tithe. Now the Levites received the tithe and they gave 10% of the tithe to the priests. Now true, a little bit more than that went for the temple in that Levites provided the music and a few other things. But you can see that instruction was central to the functioning of the tithe. So we should see Christian schools as central agencies of the ministry and as certainly a part of what rightfully constitutes the tithe.

Yes?

[Audience member] You failed to mention who was publishing on tithing and dominion where we could find.

[Rushdoony] The book Tithing and Dominion is being published by Ross House books and if you simply write to Vallecito California it will be available. It is now in the presses and very shortly in a matter of days will go to the book binder, and depending on his schedule could be out in December, but certainly by the first of January it will be out.

Are there any other questions? Yes?

[Audience member] {?} and I’m very concerned about the attitude of most modern Christianity towards art {?} could you {?} how Christians should react to {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. In the second volume of my institutes of Biblical law, which will be out sometime about a year from now, I do have something on what scriptures tells us about the roles of music. Ours is a, and let me add that unfortunately there’s almost nothing else, that’s a sad fact. There’s one important book about the continuity of music in the early church with Old Testament music by Werner, W-E-R-N-E-R, Columbia The Sacred Circle I believe is the name of it. But our faith is unique in all of history in that it is a singing faith, an entire book of the Bible is given over to music, songs, the Psalms. And the mention of music, of singing, of instruments, is quite extensive. I believe there is something like twenty instruments mentioned in the Bible, at least 20, perhaps the number is far larger.

Now music is singularly absent in other religions and in other cultures except in a very negative sense. The music that you find in other cultures and religions is two kinds. One expressive or revelry and debauchery, so it’s associated with a great deal of clearly immoral activity; and the other with occultism as a means of incantation and spells, of commanding spirits, and that sort of things. So the function of music apart from Christianity is rather a sorry one. So it’s only in terms of Biblical faith, the Old and New Testament, that music has its proper place. It’s one of the sad facts that somewhere along the line in the generation after the reformation music began to take a back seat; and today music is a pretty sorry thing in most churches. But music has an important place in the life of the faith. I do believe that when the church gets back to tithing and to a proper evaluation of its ministry we will again support financially a musical ministry within the churches. It’s thoroughly scriptural, I feel very strongly about the place of music in the life of the faith.

One of the sad facts, let me add just a little more, because as I say I’ve written about this and it’s easy for me to get wound up on this subject. One of the things that made Lutheranism so strong over the years was not its theology, there’s some serious defects in Lutheranism and in its apologetics, but what has kept Lutheranism alive has not been the pulpit, nor the academy, it’s seminaries, it’s been its hymnology. There are approximately fourteen thousand to twenty-one thousand fairly good hymns in Germany. And the average churchman in Germany knows between a thousand and 1500 hymns. And these are of a high order. We have some of them in our English hymnals. The average English speaking Christian knows only, I’ll exempt from there the Welshman, knows only a small handful of hymns, and sings them badly. [laughter.]

[Audience member] {?} To what degree is it our responsibility to provided for the heathen for {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. The question is, we understand that it is clearly our responsibility to provide our children a Christian education. To what extent is it our responsibility to provide this for the unbelieving?

Well the answer is that we are commanded to go and to make disciples and to teach. Now that certainly includes schooling, and there’s no question that it has historically been a tremendous instrument of evangelization. Let me give you one illustration of that. The United States today should be in terms of the immigration, a catholic country. Because after about 1815 or thereabouts the vast amount of immigrates both from Germany and Northern Europe, as well as from central, western, and southern Europe, throughout the century, came from Catholic communities. And of course you had the tremendous flood of immigration from Ireland. It began before the Irish famine but after the famine America was deluged, literally. Every day shipload after shipload at every port discharging vast numbers of Irish. But the interesting fact is the majority of Irishmen, according to a catholic sociologist, in the United States today are Presbyterian. Now how was this done? And the majority, a variety of groups from Catholic countries are protestant. It was done through the Christian schools, missionary schools and were set up in many of the port cities and they provided the schooling for these immigrants children. If that had not been the case today we would have a Catholic country. Now it was a tremendous instrument of missions then, well today we face a pagan America. Now can you think of a better instrument from the Christian school? The Christian school can take the child of the humanist and shape his life and educate him in the word of God in a way that you cannot with the adult convert. So we have a tremendous opportunity there. Moreover we find that these parents, because they’re in despair over what the state schools are, educationally, are increasingly turning to the Christian schools. It’s a tremendous opportunity. It’s one of the most.