264
Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
That night a messenger aroused the weary prophet and delivered the
word of Jezebel, given in the name of her pagan gods, that she would,
in the presence of Israel, do to Elijah as he had done to the priests of
Baal. Elijah should have met this threat and oath of Jezebel with an
appeal for protection to the God of heaven, who had commissioned
him to do the work he had done. He should have told the messenger
that the God in whom he trusted would be his protector against the
hatred and threats of Jezebel. But the faith and courage of Elijah seem
to forsake him. He starts up from his slumbers bewildered. The rain
is pouring from the heavens, and darkness is on every side. He loses
sight of God and flees for his life as though the avenger of blood were
close behind him. He leaves his servant behind him on the way, and
in the morning he is far from the habitations of men, upon a dreary
desert alone.
“And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came
to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. But
he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat
down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might
die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am
not better than my fathers. And as he lay and slept under a juniper
tree, behold then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and
eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals,
and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid
him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second
time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is
too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in
the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the
mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there;
and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said unto him,
What doest thou here, Elijah?”
[290]
Elijah should have trusted in God, who had warned him when to
flee and where to find an asylum from the hatred of Jezebel, secure
from the diligent search of Ahab. The Lord had not warned him at
this time to flee. He had not waited for the Lord to speak to him. He
moved rashly. Had he waited with faith and patience, God would have
shielded His servant and would have given him another signal victory
in Israel by sending His judgments upon Jezebel.