A Great Prophet in a Great Crisis

Thus closed the earthly career of one of the greatest men that ever lived. His was not a comparatively long life of service. It was only about twenty-five years from the time he first appeared to Ahab until he was translated. But those were heartbreaking years to the prophet. They were strenuous, wearing years. He had done his work, and the Lord took him to Himself.AGP 104.3

If Elijah’s messages and methods seem stern and harsh, and at times cruel, it should be remembered that he was drawn into one of the most serious and perilous crises in the history of the people of God. The instigators of the movement to make Phoenician heathenism the religion of Israel were clothed with the authority and power of the government. They were determined and persistent in their purpose. As the record shows, no messageAGP 104.4

from God, no judgment that fell upon them, caused them to halt in their mad career. Only death brought their evil work to a close. One writer has well said:AGP 105.1

“God’s revelations of Himself and His purposes to man have always been through men, and by His laws the medium always colors the light which it transmits. The splendor of the noonday sun cannot shine clearly through rough, imperfect glass; and so the conceptions of Deity and of the divine will, as delivered by the prophets, in every case show the nature of the man receiving and delivering the inspired message.”

The crisis brought upon Israel by Ahab and Jezebel called for a man of great courage and resolution—a man who would not fear to meet king and queen, and deliver to them stern and terrible messages. Elijah was chosen and strengthened by the Lord for that mission. He could not be placid, easygoing, and yielding. The situation forbade such an attitude. As another has said:AGP 105.2

“Elijah was not a reformer of peace; the very vision of peace was hidden from his eyes, reserved for later prophets for whom he could but prepare the way. It was his mission to destroy at whatever cost the heathen worship which else would have destroyed Israel itself, with consequences whose evil we cannot estimate. Amos and Hosea would have had no standing ground had it not been for the work of Elijah and the influences which at divine direction he put in operation.” “The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia,” Vol. II, art., “Elijah,” p. 932.