Learning to whistle! - Sketches on the life and times of Elijah the Prophet

 

Chapter Two

The man from nowhere

We turn now to see how the Lord answers the unfortunate and sorry state His people had gone and gotten themselves into, and we immediately observe that He begins by simply raising up a man. We must make sure we do not overlook this just because it is so obvious, and therefore miss its profound importance. When he wanted to retrieve His erring people the Lord raised up a man. He didn't send down an angel, and neither did He call some grand super-saint or influential and famous household name type leader into action. He just used an ordinary man called Elijah. Indeed, someone of whom God's Word says, "…a man of like nature with ourselves..." (James 5v17) This guy had the same feelings as the rest of us. He was subject to the same desires, the same joys and heartaches; and the same weaknesses and sinfulness common to us all. He was in every way a man just like you and I. An ordinary everyday believer who simply sought to serve the Lord and be faithful as best he could. I cannot tell you how important this is.

Many believers seem to think that God only uses extraordinary people through whom to do His work, that there is some kind of spiritual elite, a divinely appointed upper class, so to speak, whom he uses for really important stuff. We accept readily enough that we can all be used for insignificant little things, but for anything more substantial or important then we passively await the arrival of the special believers. We feel intimidated by our very ordinariness as if it somehow goes against us, but I want to tell you that it most certainly does not and that nothing could actually be further from the truth. There has only ever been one truly extra-ordinary man used by God, and that was Jesus Himself, the very man He actually became. He is, I assure you, the one unique exception to what I am saying here. We are going to see what did qualify Elijah to be the Lord's channel though, and in so doing we will learn some rather important things regarding what the Lord wants to do in us as well. It may surprise you to discover that Elijah was qualified to be a vessel for God's use because of his name.

In the ancient world many peoples considered a persons name to be far more than merely a verbal symbol by which they could be singled out and identified as a particular individual. For them a man's name was his character and calling. It was his purpose, his destiny, the very essence, if you like, of his being. This is why the names of so many Bible characters are of such significance and teach us so much. The Lord Himself, Who has a hand in everything, and therefore a finger in every pie too, was all the time having His providential say in the names such people were given.

Hence we read of Jacob, whose name means supplanter. Or, as my dictionary defines it, "One who usurps power through underhanded means." and that is, indeed, what Jacob was like. He spent his days ducking and diving, wheeling and dealing and spinning complex webs of deceit and intrigue to ensure he always got what he wanted, and was most certainly a man with whom you would have been greatly advised not to do too much business. Yet by the time the Lord was through dealing with him he had a new name, Israel, which, by no slight contrast, means prince with God, or God strives. We meet a man called Gideon or, one who hews down, and find him delivering the nation of Israel and cutting down the oppressing Midianites like a bulldozer rampaging through a rockery garden, and who cast his people's false idols down to the ground.

Then, of course, there is Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Whose name is far above all other names. It is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Yeshua (or Joshua) and means, quite simply, God is Saviour. Yes, in the Bible we find that the man was his name and that the name was the man. So what do we learn at this point from Elijah.

The name Elijah means God is the Lord, or Jehovah is God, and here we have the reason why he could be so signally used. He was no-one special in any way at all, just an everyday guy who knew the Lord. What set him apart was the way in which he really did long to show people, and especially God's own unfaithful people, just how wonderful the Lord really is. He wanted to demonstrate God's power and to take on all-comers and show them Who the Boss actually was. He wanted those around him to know the Lord God of Israel and, as summed up by the apostle Peter, to "...show forth the praises of Him Who called us out of darkness into His marvellous light." (1 Peter 2v9) Jesus Himself said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5v16), and this is what gripped Elijah's heart and what drove him headlong in his service to the Lord.

His calling was declared by his very name, to prove to people just how wonderful the Lord is; and you and I do not need to be extraordinary people in any way whatsoever to share in that. We do not need to be clever, or well known or influential. We do not need to be rich, or good looking, or even someone whom people in the world take very much notice of at all. We mercifully do not need to be the Kingdom of God's very own Superman or Superwoman; indeed, anyone special at all. We just need to want to show Jesus, and how wonderful He is to those around us, and therefore live accordingly.

It's ultimately a question of our deep down determination, of what we really want. We are indeed just ordinary people, but then we don't actually need to be anything else. I have met a few Super-Christians through the years and believe me, they really aren't what they're cracked up to be anyway. They are just ordinary Christians who, for whatever reason, are kidding themselves that they are somehow more than that; and their pretence, though sometimes rather comic, is more often quite tragic. The Christian life, and if you don't understand this now I hope you will by the time you get to the end of this book, is not what we do at all, but rather what the Lord Himself does through us. We need that same determination as Elijah had, and we will need his same resolve in allowing Jesus to have His complete way in our lives, however difficult it may often be, but ultimately the Christian life is God Himself living in and through us to accomplish His own will.

We see further just how far Elijah was from being anyone special when we come to consider his early life, and it's instructive to discover we know virtually nothing of it at all. He sort of just bursts onto the scene seemingly out of nowhere. Well, just about out of nowhere at any rate, because he actually came from Tishbe in Gilead, and of such a place absolutely nothing is known at all except that it was in the district of Gilead. Just to complete the picture here Gilead was one of those districts that were the real outback of Israel, one of the thorough going Jewish back of beyonds. In fact, nowhere would be a pretty accurate description of this region, it being a place of no particular importance either historically, economically, militarily or strategically or in any other way. The name of Tishbe in Gilead is mentioned in the Bible, and in the Bible alone. It was just a place, and a forgotten and unknown place too, and little different from a million other forgotten and unknown places on the map.

The region of Gilead was a lonely and rugged area, well away from the hustle and bustle of cosmopolitan city life. It would therefore have remained largely free of the dreadful and idolatrous influences affecting other parts of Israel at that time. It would have been a place of what might be termed 'preserved purity', a 'ghetto of godliness' against which the spiritual and moral mess of the cities, and the more densely populated areas, were brought into sharp focus. It was, in short, the perfect background from which a prophet might emerge, and in Elijah we have the essential 'country boy' confronted by the big city where everything he believes in is being trampled to the ground, and everything sinful he has been brought up to hate and despise is being exalted and readily accepted by all.

But the thing about this particular country boy is that he recognises such a state of affairs to be an insult to his God, and he is willing to stand purposefully and definitely against it regardless of the cost. Not for him any idea of compromise or acceptance of evil, and especially not when the Lord's name was involved. Neither does he assume a stance of passive and defeatist resignation. A people who were supposed to share his allegiance to his Lord and Master were in disobedience to that same Lord and Master's revealed Word, and thereby bringing His name into disrepute and dishonour; and that, as far as Elijah was concerned, was not on. He was therefore prepared to stand on God's Word and act in accordance with a principal of godliness made clear for us by Paul, "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them." (Ephesians 5v11)

Elijah's background was just perfect as part of his preparation for the task the Lord had put before him; and, as we have already seen, the fact of God having His fingers in so many pies means that He also had more than a passing say in your (and my) background too. Like Elijah's, our backgrounds have also been individually designed and planned. I find it comforting and reassuring in the extreme to know that, as God's people, all our personal histories have been tailor-made to perfectly fit us for whatever it is that the Lord desires to accomplish through us. No matter how ordinary or workaday and uneventful, or how sinful, unstable and notorious, our backgrounds are part of our equipping and preparation to serve the Lord.

We are touching on something the Bible teaches here without which my own personal Christian life might have been a vastly different affair. It is a truth without which I personally might not have been able to keep going no matter how much I wanted to. It has kept me from despair and reminded me again and again that faith in the Lord is not blind and need never ignore the reality of what is going on around us. Paul outlined it when he wrote to the believers in Rome, and it is one of the most incredible and grandest things that can be said of the Lord. "We know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose." (Romans 8v28)

That tells me that every single factor that is affecting my life now, along with every single factor that has ever affected my life in the past, and every single factor that ever will affect my life in the future, is going to be a means of blessing and benefit for me, and for the simple reason that the Lord Himself is going to personally ensure it. Whether or not I understand said factors has no bearing upon it. Whether or not I can see any possible way for good to come out of such factors that I perceive to be bad and destructive is neither here nor there. True biblical faith, real and actual trust in the Lord doesn't need to understand or know anything like as much as we tend to think it does. Knowing the One Who does know and understand all things is enough. A little child nestling and resting in its father's arms knows next to nothing, except that Daddy is there: but then that is what counts above all. In knowing that the child actually knows about it all it needs to. In precisely the same way the thing that should matter most to us as believers is simply knowing that Abba, Daddy, our Father in Heaven, is there, and that He has told us that everything is going to work out for our good. What else, I ask you, do we actually need? What further assurances could we actually possibly require?

I hope you can now begin to see just how important your background and past life actually is. As with Elijah, it has been a vital part of your preparation. The very worst aspects of your past need not hinder you because the Lord will work them together for good if you love Him, and the very best aspects of your past need not hinder you either, for you can know they are of His grace and mercy alone, and that there is absolutely nothing for you to be proud or puffed up about, or to feel self satisfied over. Embrace your past! Be assured that, because of the Lord's sovereign power, it is quite safe.

Without this realisation I would personally have never risen above the despair that came to consume me about myself. There was time, and whilst a believer too, when the only thing preventing my past from catching up with me was the speed at which I was running away from it. The skeletons in my cupboard were breeding like rabbits and in that gruelling marathon I became a tired and used-up disciple, guilt-ridden and oppressed by both my past and the bottomless pit of sinfulness that knew was in me. It was only when I could run no more, when I had used up all my resources and strength in that desperate flight, that I had no option but to come to a stop and just trust the Lord with it all. But when that moment actually came, when I turned to actually face that fast approaching spectre of my past that had so haunted me, rather than overwhelming me, as I had so greatly feared it would, it stopped dead in it's tracks and, with a slightly embarrassed and somewhat powerless grin on it's face, just melted away into nothing. Where that now thoroughly busted ghost of my past had stood but moments earlier, I saw Jesus standing instead, and He held a little parcel in His hands, all wrapped up like a gift. He reached out and handed it to me, and as I opened it my whole past fell out and landed on the ground at my feet. I bent down and sifted through it only to find that all the sins and skeletons and guilty secrets were gone, and all that remained was a pile of peace and forgiveness and an endlessly new beginning. I smiled at the Lord, picked my past up off the floor and walked away whistling.

There was an occasion when Jesus healed a man who had been paralysed for thirty-eight years. All this guy had ever done was lie on a mattress and beg, and can you just imagine the state it must have been in after all that time? Can you imagine the smell? It would have been filthy! It would have been infested! It would have been totally disgusting! It would have been horrible beyond description. It would have been somewhat, in fact, like my past! When Jesus healed him, though, it wasn't so he might just walk away from that bed and forget it. Quite the contrary, in fact, because Jesus then said to him, "Rise, take up your bed, and walk." (John 5v1-9)

Do you know why He said that? Do you understand why He wanted that man to pick up his foul, smelly, infested and filthy bed? It was precisely because He wanted him to know that it was safe to do so. He wanted him to know that that putrid mattress, that symbol and essence of his past sickness and filthiness, could no longer harm him. He wanted him to know for himself and to understand just how complete his healing actually was, and that even the risk of fresh contamination through touching it was gone. The Lord didn't want this now healthy man to suffer any lurking fear or doubt in the recesses of his mind to spoil the new start he had been given, and so He had him reach down and take up in his arms his past. I wonder if he caught a fleeting glimpse of a disarmed spectres' silly grin. I wonder as well if he was whistling.

In Monopoly the minimum requirement for staying in the game is that you collect £200 every time you pass Go, and in order to make progress you must continuously return to that same place from where you started. It's the same when you follow the Lord. The night I became a Christian He placed me on the game board of salvation, I call it Theopoly, and I started out with just two things. I knew, firstly, how wonderful Jesus is, and then I knew too that He had forgiven and rescued me from the sinfulness and evil of my past. That is the place to which I must keep returning. That is the Go that I must pass again and again and again. Not for £200 either, might I add, but rather for a continuous supply of His love and forgiveness and grace and power.

We have seen that Elijah, our man from Tishbe in Gilead - our man from nowhere - began in precisely that place! An ordinary man! A sinful man! A weak man! Yes, but a man too on the Lord's Theopoly board. All he wanted to do was to go to those around him holding forth the blessing of a forgiven past in his hand, and the wonder of His God living in his heart. We will see much more of how the Lord works in him to enable him to actually do this thing he so longed for, but for now we have a beginning. Moreover, we have a beginning in which we can share. We can determine to set out with him upon this journey. It will need us to cry to Heaven, "No matter what the cost, take me there Lord!" and nothing shall be able to stop us getting there.

I personally think it's a bit like learning to whistle! Our pitch and tempo will not always be spot on, and we shall often find ourselves to be still out of tune. Our harmonies too will sometimes leave much to be desired, but we will nevertheless have at least begun, and will actually be on our way. Perhaps I can encourage you to come too and join with us? Oh yes, and don't forget to bring your whistle!

 

 

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