For 40 Days – Day 21: Man’s End: Context

Key Episode Scripture: 1 Kings chapters 18 and 19 and 2 Kings chapter 2

After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, “Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth.” (1 Kings 18:1 ESVUK)

People have a problem with God. That problem is evil. How can He allow such evil to exist if He is so good, loving, and powerful? There are even similar questions among God’s people. They ask, why does it appear that evil people prosper?

These are reasonable questions to ask. As He’s God, He does not always give direct responses to resolve the issue. However, He ensures that those who genuinely seek Him recognise Him as still being good, loving and powerful. What He also does, mercifully, graciously and amazingly, is He highlights His character of faithfulness and commitment to His covenant. He does that as He points out that the same people who question Him about evil are the same people who commit evil, especially the evil of infidelity – that characteristic of not remaining faithful to one, often at the cost of critical relationships, like the one to Him.

When Jesus walked the earth, He gave a few of His disciples a remarkable insight into who He is. Known as the transfiguration, James, John, and Peter were given a revelation of Jesus that highlighted that He was indeed the son of God. In that experience, Jesus was joined by two of Israel’s most significant figures – Moses and Elijah. What both of these figures have in common is how the Lord sorted their final destination. There is no reference to the exact burial spots for these two. They’re also significant in representing the two key bases for the revelation of Jesus through the people of Israel – the Law and the Prophets.

Both bases are about God communicating who He is and how He wants humanity to represent Him on the earth – how they’re supposed to mark themselves out as distinct in operating in accord with God, who gave them stewardship of the earth in the expectation that they would rule the earth as He rules in heaven.

This is to be accomplished primarily through a right relationship with God, a relationship that God established through the patriarchs establishing a people and a Promised Land. God remained faithful to that relationship, even as Israel would prove time and again to be faithless—not just faithless but actively adulterous, prone to wander from one of their neighbour’s gods to another.

Having established them in the Promised Land, despite repeated warnings from His spokespeople, Israel persistently failed to remain faithful to God. He granted them a king – to be like their neighbours – and He warned them of the consequences if the king and the people strayed from the standards He set for them. The first three kings of Israel could oversee all twelve tribes united to varying degrees. Yet by the time that third king – Solomon – reached the end of his reign, that unity would be shattered.

Now split into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, there would be an extended season of God interacting with both, primarily through their kings, to restore, reform and reestablish right relations. More often than not, even in the brightest of episodes, the people would still slip into rebellion. The northern kingdom of Israel is particularly intriguing as they would never have a king who would devote himself wholeheartedly to God. Yet, despite this, God would still appeal to this kingdom and people through His prophets.

This is where Elijah did his work as sent by God. His mission included reuniting the fathers’ hearts with the sons in the light of a right relationship with the one true God. Elijah’s story, as written in 1 Kings 17-18, 20 and 2 Kings 1 and 2, is an excellent insight into the profile of a man used by God yet challenged severely by his political, social and religious circumstances. He knew what it was to question his entire existence in what appeared to be a land where evil prospered.

A close encounter of the divine kind would do wonders. That encounter required him to go on a journey that would last 40 days. That encounter and the reason for it form the heart of this episode. The hope is that, as we study it, we’ll learn much about the mission, the One who sends us, the circumstances in which we’re sent, and where our focus should be even in the most challenging times.

Next, we’ll outline the episode’s content, from the heights of the victory over the ruling religious system to the depths of a man’s end after a death threat to the momentous transition from one generation of the mission to the next.

For His Name’s Sake

C. L. J. Dryden

Shalom