As the public ministry of Elijah had opened with a message of judgment to King Ahab, so it closes with a message of death to his wicked son King Ahaziah. Of this man we read, " He did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin " (1 Kings 22:5252And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in the way of his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin: (1 Kings 22:52)). His character combined the self-indulgence of his father with the fanatical idolatry of his mother. The three and a half years of famine, the exposure of Baal on Mount Carmel, the judgment of the false prophets, the solemn dealings of God with his father, all must have been well known to Ahaziah, but, as far as he was concerned, were all in vain. Heedless of all warnings, " he served Baal, and worshipped him, and provoked to anger the Lord God of Israel, according to all that his father had done."
It is, however, impossible to harden oneself against God and prosper. Troubles gather around the wicked king. Moab rebels, and he himself is prostrated by a fall from an upper chamber in his palace. Will this sickness sober the king and turn his thoughts to the Lord God of Israel? Alas I in prosperity he had lived without God, and in trouble he despises the chastening of the Lord. In health he had served idols with all the fanatical zeal of his mother, and in sickness his depraved mind is unable to escape from their demoniacal power. Instead of turning in contrition to the Lord God of Israel, he inquires of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether he will recover.
Ekron was the great heathen oracle of that day-the shrine of the Sidonian god Baal-zebub, literally the god of flies. By his devotees he was reputed to possess power to heal diseases and to cast out demons. Hence, in New Testament times, the Pharisees accuse the Lord of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub. Generations before, Saul, in his extremity, had turned to demons, only to hear his immediate doom pronounced by the prophet Samuel. Ahaziah, in his day, repeats the awful sin of King Saul. Overwhelmed by troubles, he too, in the most blatant and public way, affronts the living God by craving the help of demons, and in like manner hears his doom pronounced by the prophet Elijah.
Alas, the men of our day and generation have not taken warning by the solemn example of these royal sinners. On every hand, in the midst of their sore troubles and overwhelming calamities, men are once again stretching out their hands to demons. Having lived without God in the days of their ease and prosperity, unrepentant and refusing to own God in the days of their calamity, they fall under the power of demons. Scientists, novelists, and religious professors are eager in their pursuit of spiritism. Neither intellect, imagination, nor human religion can save from falling under the spell of demons, only to find once again that to trifle with the devil is to seal their doom. " The mystery of lawlessness doth already work." Men, having abandoned God and despised the gospel, are preparing to range themselves under the leadership of " him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
Apostasy is making way for spiritism, and spiritism is preparing the way for the man of sin whose coming is after the working of Satan.
But men forget, even as Ahaziah forgot, that our God is a consuming fire, and that, if men despise His grace and affront His majesty, He will at length bring them into judgment and vindicate His own glory. Ahaziah finds this out to his cost. Instructed by the Angel of the Lord, Elijah intercepts the servants of the king with a message from Jehovah that pronounces his doom. The king shall not rise again from his bed " but shall surely die." As another has said: " Death must vindicate the truth and existence of God when unbelief disowns and disallows all other evidence."
This, then, is Elijah's last message before he is taken from a scene of guilt to a scene of glory. To the humble widow in her lonely home he had been a " savor of life unto life "; to the apostate king in his godless palace he was a " savor of death unto death."
Having delivered his message he retires to the top of a hill. In moral separation from the guilty world of his day, and spiritually above it, he was unassailable by the hatred of men and the power of demons. Holy, happy separation that witnesses how completely the man of like passions with ourselves has been restored to that quiet confidence which is the proper portion of the man of God. Apostate kings, persecuting Jezebels, Captains and their fifties no longer have any fear for Elijah, as, in calm confidence in the living God, he sits on the top of the hill, waiting for the last great scene in which he shall pass to a home of glory.
How blessed the position of those who in the midst of the fast-approaching apostasy of Christendom can, like Elijah in his day morally apart from this present evil world, calmly rest waiting the great moment when, at the shout of the Lord, they will pass into a scene of glory to be forever with the Lord.
In this position of moral separation Elijah is not only unassailable by his enemies, but the fire of God is at his disposal for their destruction. He finds in very truth that the Angel of the Lord who sends a message of judgment to the godless king is also the Angel of the Lord who " encampeth round about them that fear Him and delivereth them " (Psa. 34:77The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. (Psalm 34:7)). Accordingly, two Captains and their fifties are destroyed by the fire from heaven. The king, realizing that he has to do with a man of no mean power, sends his captains well equipped to make one man comply with his peremptory command. Perfectly unmoved by this military parade and display of numbers, Elijah calmly replies: " If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty." If Elijah is a man of God, then God is with Elijah, and Ahaziah has to learn that kings, with all their hosts, have no power against one man if God be with him.
There is, however, a deeper lesson in this great scene. Twice in Elijah's history the fire descends from heaven, but how different the occasions. At Carmel " the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the sacrifice." The fire fell upon the victim as an atonement for the sins of the guilty people, and the people go free—not an Israelite was touched by that fire. In result the people were brought to God; " They fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord He is the God." A foreshadowing of that transcendent moment when Christ also " suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God." Years have passed since the fire fell on the victim at Carmel, and the grace of God that provided a sacrifice, and sheltered the guilty people from the fire of judgment, has been forgotten. The sacrifice has been despised, and now, once again, the fire falls on the hill top. God will again vindicate His glory by the consuming fire. But this time there is no victim between a holy God and a sinful people. The sacrifice has been neglected, and instead of the fire falling upon the victim it falls upon the guilty people in overwhelming destruction.
This indeed is but the dim foreshadowing of the doom that awaits this guilty world. For long centuries the good news of forgiveness of sins has been proclaimed through the mighty sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Men have despised it, until at length, in these favored lands of Christendom, it is held in all but universal contempt. God is not to be thus mocked; if men despise the judgment of the cross and trample underfoot the Son of God, " there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries " (Heb. 10:26,2726For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. (Hebrews 10:26‑27)). If men will not learn, through the judgment that fell upon Christ when He made the great sacrifice for sin, that God is a God of grace who can forgive, they will have to learn through the judgment that falls upon themselves that God is a consuming fire who takes vengeance upon all those who despise His Son. Yes, let despisers remember that the One who bore judgment upon the Cross, is the One who will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Well indeed, if in the presence of the warnings of God's word, men will follow the example of the third Captain who pleads for mercy and finds it.
In this last scene, God publicly owns and uses His restored servant, who fearlessly witnesses for God, and that too in the very city from which he had fled at the threat of a woman. In obedience to the word of the Lord, without trace of fear, this solitary man, escorted by the host of the hostile king, goes down into the stronghold of the foe, there to vindicate the glory of God by repeating the message of death. The apostate king is there, the wicked Jezebel may be there, but no hatred of kings, or threats of violent women, awaken any fear in this restored man who once again walks in confidence in the living God with the world behind him and the glory before him.
Centuries later this last public act in the history of Elijah is recalled by the disciples of the Lord Jesus (Luke 9:51-5651And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, 52And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him. 53And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. 54And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? 55But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. 56For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. (Luke 9:51‑56)). His earthly pathway drawing to its close, the time came that Christ should be " received up." Setting His face steadfastly toward Jerusalem, His road lay through the land of Elijah, and, just as of old these Samaritans had rejected the Lord's servant about to be received up, so now, in like circumstances, they reject the Lord Himself. The everlasting doors were about to open to the King of glory. From the victory of the Cross heaven was ready to receive the Lord mighty in battle, but on earth, we read, " they did not receive Him." The disciples resent the insult put upon their Lord and Master. Little they realized the height of glory into which He was going, little could they see the vista of blessing opened out by His new place in glory. But they loved the Lord, and, as Elijah called down fire from heaven on the insulting Captains, so they would destroy with the fire from heaven these insulting Samaritans.
Their request was not morally wrong; affection for the Lord prompted it; righteousness towards Christ's rejectors demanded it, and indeed, as we have seen, the time is coming when the Lord shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire taking vengeance on a Christ-rejecting world. But that time is not yet; between the day when the Lord is received up to heaven and the moment when He comes from heaven in judgment there exists the most wonderful period in the history of the world—the period during which God dispenses grace to this same Christ-rejecting world. It was of this the disciples knew little or nothing. They could understand judgment meted out on earth, but they could not rise to the thought of grace dispensed from heaven. Such, however, is the glorious truth; through the risen Christ, God is proclaiming grace to a world of sinners. " Through this Man is preached... the forgiveness of sins " (Acts 13:3838Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: (Acts 13:38)).