WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, ELIJAH?

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A Sermon Outline

Presented to

Instructor: B. J. Clarke

Memphis School of Preaching

Memphis, Tennessee

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As a Requirement in

Hebrew history 2

Course # 211

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By

David Jiménez

February 20, 2020

 WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, ELIJAH?
1 Kings 19:9
INTRODUCTION
1. How much could you endure for your preaching of the gospel?
a. The bible is filled with examples of men who give their own lives in order to preach the word.
1. John the Baptist was arrested and beheaded for preaching the truth to an immoral king
(Matt. 14).
2. Stephen was stoned and became the first martyr of the church of Christ (Acts 7:58-60).
b. The times of the divided kingdom were hostile to the law of God as well.
2. During these days Elijah set an example of what it means to stand for the truth.
a. He accomplished by his challenge to the false prophets in Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18).
b. But this brought upon him persecution and sorrow to his life.
c. The account of 1 Kings 19 should make us understand how much this man of God had to
endure and how the Lord was with him in all his troubles.
3. We can see four sections in this narrative:
a. The persecution.
b. The encouragement
c. The encounter
d. The task

DISCUSSION
I. THE PERSECUTION
A. Jezebel is threatening the life of the prophet of God (1 Kings 19:1-2).
1. After a wonderful demonstration of the power of God before all the people, Jezebel is
seeking to kill Elijah. The strong curse that she makes shows the level of hate that she felt
for what Elijah had done.
2. The sin had blinded the people and caused them to kill the prophets that God is sending
for their good. She was opposing the very revelation of God through his prophets and is
now swearing over false gods.
3. When our life is so deep in sin, we cannot differentiate good and bad, and we reject that
which God sends. The Jewish leaders who had their glory in the knowledge of Scripture
could not understand, could not see the promised Messiah when he was on earth and sought
to kill him (John 11:53).
4. Jesus lamented over his nation for his constant rejection of God’s message (Matt. 23:37).
 5. Jezebel embodies the attitude of rebellion; she is seeking to kill a man of God for
revealing to the people that Jehovah is the true living God (1 Kings 18:39).
6. There are still people like Jezebel in this world, people that will seek to silence the truth
as opposed to surrender to it. The faithful preacher will always be under persecution.
B. Elijah fled to Judah in order to save his life (v. 3-4).
1. He goes so far from Israel that he reaches Beer-Sheba the southernmost part of the
country. He left his servant there but he goes even farther in a day’s journey into the
wilderness.
2. Consider now the sad request of Elijah to God: “Lord, take away my life” (v. 4).
3. The prophet who showed his courage before 850 false prophets, who stood up for the
true God of Israel is now disheartened and hopeless sitting by himself under a tree.
4. He felt alone, abandoned, forsaken. He is seeing his country, the people whom he loved
going farther and farther away from the Lord, knowing that this would only bring sorrow
and destruction upon them.
5. This is not something unusual for preachers, we can get discouraged and lose our hope in
fulfilling our purpose in God. The weakness and weariness is part of our nature as humans.
6. But God never leaves us alone.

II. THE ENCOURAGEMENT

A. God sends his angel to encourage and refresh Elijah (v. 5-7).
1. God has not forsaken his prophet; neither leaves alone anyone who does his will.
2. The angel of the Lord touches Elijah and serves him to eat. Probably because of the
weariness Elijah goes back to sleep. The angel wakes him up the second time and now tells
him the reason for this food: “the journey is too great for thee” (v. 7).
3. This type of help sent from the Lord was known in the patriarchal times (Gen. 18:2-16).
4. At the moment where Elijah wished the death, at the darkest moment for him the Lord
sends the help that he needs. The Lord makes himself present.
5. But also makes Elijah know that he still has a purpose, that he still has a journey to
travel.
6. How many times in our lives has God send us help at the moment when we thought that
everything was lost?
7. When Paul arrived to Corinth and saw the rejection of the Gospel by the Jews, he felt
discouraged, but the Lord appeared to him in vision to give him courage and strength to
preach his Gospel (Acts 18:9-10).
8. Probably the Lord will not appear unto us in a vision, a heavenly angel will not come
before us, but the providence will work in our favor.
B. With new encouragement Elijah keeps his long journey (v. 8).
 1. With renewed strength he travels for 40 days and 40 nights until he reaches Hebron: the
mountain of God.
2. This is a special mountain for the people of Israel is the place also called Sinai where
God made the covenant with Moses and the people (Ex. 19:1-6). In Exodus 3:1 Horeb is
called the Mountain of God. This was the same place where Moses spent 40 days and 40
nights in the presence of the Lord (Ex. 24:18).
3. Elijah is looking for God, is trying to be in the very presence of the Lord, in order to find
new direction for his ministry: “in the support and strength imparted by the angel he saw an
indication that he was to follow the footsteps of the divine grace still farther into the desert,
and make a pilgrimage to Horeb, with the hope that there perhaps the Lord would reveal to
him His counsel concerning the further guidance of the people of His covenant, as He had
formerly done to His servant Moses, and give him the necessary instruction for the
continuance of his prophetic service” (Keil and Delitzsch, ESword).
4. The moments of loneliness and discouragement are the perfect time to get closer to God,
to look at him for guidance and direction. We do not have to go to Mount Hebron to have a
revelation from God, but we can look into his revealed word (Psa. 119:105; Psa. 119:11).

III. THE ENCOUNTER

A. Elijah encounters the Lord and receives his revelation.
1. The prophet enters into a cave in Mount Hebron where he rests for the night. Some
commentators (Wiseman, Barnes, Keil and Delitzsch) identify this cave as the “cliff of the
Rock” in which Moses met the Lord as well (Ex. 33:22). (v. 9).
2. The word of the Lord came unto Elijah, in a very simple yet beautiful way, the Lord ask
him: “What doest thou here, Elijah?” (v. 9b).
3. The Lord is not asking the question because He does not know what is Elijah doing. The
questions with which God addresses man are the way which God uses to confront man and
to make him reconsider his position, his condition, his whole life. God puts our existence in
question marks.
4. From the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:9) God is asking the same questions to every man:
“Where are you? What are you doing here?”.
B. Elijah pours his heart before God (v. 10).
1. The answer of the prophet to God’s question is that of one who reveals all that is in his
heart to the Lord.
2. He describes his condition as one who is zealous for the Lord of Hosts and who is
hurting because of what the people has done, because of their infidelity to God’s
commands. He thinks of himself as the only one that is faithful.
3. However these emotions are still signs of human weakness and not necessarily express
the reality of what Elijah had lived. In his passionate zeal he had overlooked the 100
prophets that Obadiah had hidden from Jezebel (2 Kings 18:3-4) and that God had 700
more faithful Israelites (2 Kings 19:18).
4. In such an emotional turmoil God will reassure his presence and faithfulness.
 C. The Lord reveals and conceals his glory (v. 11-15).
1. In a similar way as it happened with Moses the Lord will pass with his glory to show
mercy and kindness towards his servant (Exod. 34:6-7).
2. Elijah goes outside the cave to see the Lord passing by, and there is strong wind, an
earthquake and fire: but the Lord was not in any of them (v. 11-12a). These phenomena are
certainly done by the power of God, but He is not tied to any of them
3. In his zeal Elijah would have wished that God would be a consuming fire or a destructive
wind, but the Lord was not in any of them. That is, God would not effect a judgement
through any of this but he would reveal himself “in a small voice” (sound of sheer silence
NRSV) (v. 12b).
4. “The soft voice of God speaking to the conscience, illuminating the mind and stirring
resolve in individual and nation may follow and is often preferable to the loud roaring and
thunder of cosmic events at Sinai and Carmel” (Wiseman, Accordance).
5. Elijah knew that in this gentle voice was the very presence of God so much that he
covered his face (v. 13a). The God revealed through fire is now revealed in a silence. He
would show judgement as well as mercy and long suffering.
6. From Keil and Delitsch: “now the lord was not in these terrible phenomena; to signify to
the prophet that He did not work in His earthly kingdom with the destroying zeal of wrath,
or with the pitiless severity of judgment. It was in a soft, gentle rustling that He revealed
Himself to him”.
7. After this, the same question is asked by God: “what are you doing here, Elijah?” and the
same answer is given. The Lord now takes this answer and gives answer to it.

IV. THE TASK

A. The Lord will not let the sin unpunished (v. 15-18).
1. The zeal of Elijah will be fulfilled and God will execute vengeance upon those who have
gone astray from his covenant.
2. The Lord commissions Elijah to go and anoint Hazael over Syria and Jehu over Israel
and to anoint Elisha as a prophet and his successor. All of this with one purpose “And it
shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that
escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay” (v. 17).
3. The Lord will bring mercy through the words of the prophets, but will bring righteous
judgement through his own means.
4. Moreover, God makes Elijah realize that He is always in control, for seven thousand
people from Israel have not worshipped Baal.
B. The Lord has a purpose
1. Elijah, commissioned by the Lord, realized that even in the darkest of times, even
wishing for death: God was, is and always will be in control of everything.
2. God will fulfill the purpose in all of those who are faithful to his word, and in some way
or another He will bring them to realization.
 3. God has called us as well to preach the word, to be light in a world in darkness (Matt.
5:16; John 1:5). And in our desperation and anguish we can lose sight of that purpose.
4. We can be sure that there is more work to do and with it, a purpose that God is fulfilling
with us (Phil. 1:6).
5. Imagine what Elijah felt when he saw Elisha, the feeling of knowing that God is faithful
in his promises (v. 19-21).

CONCLUSSION
1. We have seen this short but complex narrative in four parts:
a. The persecution: The sinful nation opposed to the word of God.
b. The encouragement: The care and mercy of God for his servant in his darkest hour.
c. The encounter: The revelation of God to his prophet.
d. The task: God is faithful to fulfill the purposes with the man who obeys his will.
2. As preachers we can be discouraged.
a. We can think that the world will always reject the word of the Lord.
b. We might even think that we are the only ones being faithful
c. But we have to understand this:
1. God still takes care of his servants when they are in need.
2. God still speaks in a gentle voice through his inspired word.
3. God still has a purpose to fulfill in you!