“THE RIVER OF GOD’S PURPOSE”

(A study in the life of the prophet Elijah.)

Elijah stands as one of the mightiest prophets of Bible history. He was a man whose faith in God was not staggered in the face of death. His union with God was so close and his word was so powerful that even the climate obeyed him. In both of these things, he was like the Lord Jesus Christ: mighty in word and mighty in deed.

The first glimpse the Bible gives us of Elijah shows him near the very height of his prophetic ministry in Israel—standing before the king in all the majesty and dignity of his office as a prophet of God, pronouncing judgment upon Israel.

Let us get the historical setting. Elijah came on the scene at an hour of great spiritual declension and sin in Israel. A man named Ahab was reigning as the king of Israel.

Ahab had married a foreign woman named Jezebel, the daughter of a foreign king. That was wrong because God had told the people of Israel—a people He had set apart for Himself—not to intermarry with the heathen people. God did not want any mixing of false heathen religions with the true worship of God in Israel.

Jezebel was a worshipper of idols and an ardent patroness of false prophets and false priests. Her name stands, in both the Old and the New Testaments, as a symbol of brazen defiance of God.

Jezebel gave idolatry a place of influence and power at the heart of Israel’s national life. She invited false priests to dine regularly at the royal table and so enjoy the confidence of the king. Jezebel was not only favorable to false priests but she despised the priests and prophets of the Lord. At her insistence they were hunted and killed. Had it been possible to do so, she would have eliminated all of the prophets of God from the nation and filled Israel with false priests, false altars and idols.

When God had led the Jews into the land of Canaan (which became Israel) He had told them to clear the land of idols and false altars of every kind. He would then pour out His blessings upon Israel, so that all the nations could see that He was the only true God.

God had warned Moses: “Take heed, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither you go, lest it become a snare in the midst of you. You shall TEAR DOWN THEIR ALTARS, and break their pillars, and CUT DOWN THEIR ASHERIM. Beware lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they play the harlot after their gods… and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters go after their gods and make your sons play the harlot after their gods.” (Exodus 34:10-16).

The Lord commanded His people Israel: “You shall have NO OTHER GODS before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth below…” (Exodus 20:3-4).

If marrying the daughters of the heathen and making idols was a snare to the ordinary people of Israel, it was ten times a snare to the nation when the king got into it.

Under the influence of Jezebel, King Ahab built an altar and a temple for Baal in the city of Samaria. And Ahab made an Asherah. He should have cut the Asherim down; instead, he put one up! “Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who went before him.”

We also read: “There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited.” (I Kings 21:25).

The floodgates of idolatry opened upon Israel when Ahab committed spiritual adultery by taking Jezebel as his wife and bringing her into his court. Jezebel imported hundreds and hundreds of false priests into Israel. She summoned the prophets of the Lord and had them slain, as many as she could find.

It is in this setting of spiritual declension and            sin that we first see the prophet Elijah. We see him standing before King Ahab and, in all the majesty and dignity of his office as a prophet of the living God, pronouncing the judgment of God upon the nation.

This was a dangerous thing to do. All the power of the state was in Ahab’s hands and Elijah had no bodyguard to defend him. He could have been seized and imprisoned or killed.

But, willing to take that risk, Elijah stands before King Ahab and proclaims, “As the Lord God in Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” (I Kings 17:1).

Idolatry enjoyed the sanction of official policy in Israel at this point. But, bold in God, Elijah had dared to stride into the court whose queen had raised the sword against the prophets of God. He dared to stand before the king and to pronounce the judgment of the Lord—a terrible drought, so severe that even the morning dew was to be withheld. And it was to last for years!

Elijah, a man whose word governed the elements, was soon to become the most wanted and most hunted man in Israel. But God led Elijah into hiding. “And the word of the Lord came to him, ‘Depart from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.’” (I Kings 17:3).

Elijah drank from the brook and “the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening.” In a time of extraordinary need, God provided for Elijah by extraordinary means, keeping His prophet alive.

The drought became severe upon the land. The winds filled the air with swirling dust. Trees withered. Crops failed. Grazing animals grew lean and bony and they searched hungrily for patches of surviving pasture. “And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.” (I Kings 17:7). The very judgment that Elijah had pronounced upon Israel finally reached even to the brook from which his own water came.

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, “Arise, go to Zarephath, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” (Verse 9).

Elijah “arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks.” (Verse 10). You see that this meeting was not arranged by Elijah, nor by the widow. The widow knew nothing of it. The meeting was arranged for Elijah and for the widow for the benefit of each by God.

All Elijah did was get up and walk to the city in obedience to the word of the Lord, and “when he came to the gate of the city,” he saw this widow.

No doubt there were a number of widows in Zarephath. Elijah did not have to search the city, lane by lane, knocking on doors, taking a census of widows so that, when he had a complete list of them, he could try to figure out which widow was going to feed him. The Lord moved the right widow out to the gate of the city to meet him as soon as he arrived. Before he entered the city, she was already there. That is just like our God. He is the God of small details as well as large ones. Once, when Peter wanted to pay the tax collectors, Jesus said to him, “Go the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a coin. Take that and pay the tax for me and for yourself.” (Matthew 17:27).

Elijah called to the widow and said, “‘Bring me a little water in a vessel that I may drink.’ As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, ‘Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.’” (Verses 10 and 11).

Any idea that Elijah might have had that the Lord was sending him to a rich widow ended right here. When the road-weary prophet asked for a morsel of bread, the widow said: “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a cruse. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks, that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” (Verse 12).

This was the widow appointed to feed Elijah. Things had come to a pretty desperate standstill in her life. If anyone ever had a right and a good reason to say no to a request, she had it.

Consider your response if your own larder had been slowly emptied of its provisions, if your shelves, once amply stocked with all kinds of food, had gone bare. Suppose all you had left was a tin container which, when opened, proved to hold a handful of corn meal, plus a small jar with about an ounce or two of oil in it. And suppose you had yourself and your son to feed, with no apparent prospect of resupply. What would you say?

This was the widow’s last meal. “1 am gathering a couple of sticks, that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” It wouldn’t take much of a fire to cook up that little batch. That is why she was only looking for “a couple of sticks” when Elijah walked into her life—just on time. Sent by God.

What is the first thing this divinely sent intruder demands? The woman’s last meal!

She was going to prepare it “for myself and my son.” So Elijah invites himself to be a guest at that pitiful repast. He claims his share in it.

“But Lord,” you say, “You know I can’t possibly give you a tithe this week. All I have is $3.90 and that will barely do for bread and milk.” The very thing that you, with every good reason in the world, have reserved for yourself or for your son—even to your last morsel of bread—God asks you to give Him His share. It is not that He may deprive you of it. What He desires is that He, instead of what you see, may become the source of your supply.

Nor does God want the leftovers of what we have. Elijah said to her, “Fear not, go and do as you have said, but FIRST make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and AFTERWARD make for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel, ‘The jar of meal shall not be spent, and the cruse of oil shall not fail, until the day the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’” (Verse 14).

Put God and God’s man or God’s work first, even in the time of your extremity, and then live on the residue, and see what God will do with it. Watch and see how far He will make it go.

This is the way to handle your tithe (10 percent of all your income) and your offerings to the Lord: Take out His portion first, your tithe and whatever you are going to give, and live on what is left. That alone is a faith pleasing to God, for it is truly faith—a faith that does not falter or fail because of adverse circumstances. Such a faith acts first, and then believes God for His part.

The widow could have refused. She could have said, “So much for your promises of unfailing supply, Elijah. I know what little I’ve got left in my larder, and it’s for myself and my son.”

To a man who leaves God out of the reckoning, that would be a natural and reasonable response. But the widow trusted the word of the Lord spoken by the prophet and she divided her last meal with Elijah. God promised that if she did that, by faith, He would put sufficient food in her cupboard, from that day right on through to the last day of the drought. Not only did she have enough for herself and her son, but she had enough to give to Elijah in the time of scarcity and want. “1 have been young, and now am old,” wrote David in Psalm 37, “yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging bread. He is ever giving liberally and lending.”

Elijah saved the widow’s life. The widow fed Elijah. God has saved you, and you are able to do something for His plan and something for His man. The more you do by sheer faith, in the face of your own obvious needs, the more you will be able to do.

Do you remember that Jesus fed 5,000 people with the five little loaves and two fish that a boy handed over, giving up his own lunch? And when they were through eating, twelve baskets of leftovers were gathered up. Elijah, too, exercised faith for a miracle of multiplication.

The widow provided an upper chamber in her house as a hiding place for Elijah. Later, her son fell sick and died. When this happened, the widow went to Elijah and cried: “What have you against me, O man of God? YOU HAVE COME TO BRING MY SIN TO REMEMBRANCE, and to CAUSE THE DEATH OF MY SON!” (I Kings 17:18).

What a blast of false accusation that was! The widow turned the facts upside down. Elijah had come to save her son from death by starvation, but she charges that he had come “to cause the death of my son” by bringing her old sin back to remembrance.

The widow got into an overwrought condition, as we sometimes do. She was beside herself in her thoughts and statements. She falsely accused God’s anointed prophet.

“God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” If we have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, let us refuse to be driven either by circumstances or by devils into accusing God of seeking to condemn us or to bring our old sins against us again.

Elijah said very quietly and simply, “Give me your son.”

He carried the boy up to his own room, out of the presence of the distraught and temporarily faithless widow, and cried out to the Lord. “And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he was revived.”

Elijah brought the young man down to his mother and said, “See, your son lives.”

Seeing this, the widow said to Elijah: “NOW I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” (Verse 24). Now she knows! The widow did not perceive that Elijah was a man of God when, by prophecy and by a miracle, he took the handful of meal she had in a jar and an ounce or two of oil to feed three people throughout a drought.

Once Jesus said to His unbelieving disciples: “O man of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Don’t you remember the five loaves that fed 5,000 … or the seven loaves that fed 4,000?” (Matthew 16:7-10)

We are Christians. Jesus has given Himself for us. God has made many wonderful provisions for our lives at times of need. Yet there comes an hour when another greater need arises and we do not immediately see God’s provision for this need. Instead of remembering the wonderful acts of God toward us in the past and rising in faith to praise Him ahead of time for His provision for this new need, we doubt. Not only do we doubt, we accuse.

The accusation is false, malicious and unjust. It exactly reverses the facts of the case.

By such accusations we turn God’s forgiveness into remembrance of our sin, though He has said in His Word that He will forget our transgressions and remember them against us no more. Then Jesus wipes our slate clean and does so by His blood. It is close to blasphemy to charge God with remembering what He has solemnly sworn to forget. Let us affirm what God affirms and forget what God forgets.

During the severities of the three-year drought and famine, King Ahab conducted a thorough and far-ranging search for Elijah. “Find Elijah!” he directed his cohorts. “Spare nothing. Search everywhere. Just find Elijah and bring him here to me.”

Ahab knew that the word of Elijah alone could break the drought. But the Lord had hidden Elijah and he was not found.

Ahab called his chief servant, a man named Obadiah. Ahab sent him out, saying, “Go through all the land to all the springs of water and to all the valleys, perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive, and not lose any of the animals.” (I Kings 18:5).

At this point, three years after he had stood before Ahab and pronounced the judgment of the great drought, the Lord told Elijah to show himself again before the king and to announce the return of the dew and the rain to Israel. (I Kings 18:1).

While Obadiah was out searching for some remnants of water, he crossed paths with Elijah. Ahab had no idea when he sent Obadiah forth that he was sending him out to meet Elijah, but God was behind it all, arranging the circumstances to suit His purpose and to help His servant fulfill his mission.

Obadiah was one of the few in Israel who had remained a true worshipper of the Lord. He occupied a high position among the civil servants in the government of Ahab and he had had the courage to use it to some degree for God’s purposes. He was the keeper of the king’s household.

Obadiah knew that Elijah was a man of God. As soon as he saw him, he fell on his face and said, “Is it you, my lord Elijah?”

Elijah did the sensible thing. He said, “Yes. Go tell the king, ‘Elijah is here.’” He used the opportunity presented by their meeting to advance his mission.

God was giving Obadiah the highest privilege of service to Him of his entire life. He was to be linked with Elijah in a mighty move of God for Israel. But instead of turning and obeying the word of the prophet, Obadiah made a speech:

“Wherein have I sinned, that you would give your servant into the hand of Ahab to kill me? As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation whither my lord has not sent to seek you. And when they would say, ‘He is not here,’ he would require an oath of the nation that they had not found you. And now you say, ‘Go tell your lord, “Behold, Elijah is here.” And as soon as I have gone from you, the Spirit of the Lord will carry you whither I know not; and so, when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me, although I your servant have revered the Lord from my youth. Has it not been told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred men of the Lord’s prophets by fifties in a cave, and fed them with bread and water? And now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord, “Behold, Elijah is here”’ and he will kill me.” (I Kings 18:9-14).

Obadiah’s speech is similar in some ways to the widow’s speech. Immediately Obadiah falsely accuses Elijah of suspecting some sin in him and of wanting to cause his death. Next he makes his ridiculous charge of trickery: “As soon as I have gone from you, the Spirit of the Lord will carry you whither I know not, and so Ahab will kill me”—as though Elijah and the Lord were conspiring to trick Obadiah. It is very close to blasphemy. Then Obadiah goes into self-justification and self-praise.

The Lord knew Obadiah’s record. He knew Obadiah had used his position at the royal court—and had run a considerable risk—to hide 100 prophets from Jezebel and to keep them alive by giving them a ration of bread and water, doubtless from the royal supply.

That is probably why the Lord chose Obadiah for this important task and drew him out to meet His prophet, extending to Obadiah the highest privilege of service to God of his life. He brought His servant Obadiah out to meet His prophet Elijah, thus linking the two men in His great purpose. And when he met Elijah, Obadiah “recognized him, and fell on his face.”

Such speeches as the widow and Obadiah made to Elijah are pictures of the kind of speeches believers make to the Lord, saying,     “Lord, this…” and “Lord, that…” or “Lord, the other thing,” in our fretful self-concern. We accuse God of not knowing what He is doing when He knows exactly what He is doing.

Elijah quietly promised Obadiah, “1 will surely show myself to the king today.” So Obadiah went off at last and told Ahab. “And King Ahab went to meet Elijah.”

As soon as Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” There is bitterness and accusation in the tone.

Elijah answered, “1 have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals.” Elijah was, at this time of terrible national declension and sin, the chief vehicle of God’s purpose in Israel. The land was filled with idols and false altars and false priests, and nearly all the people were involved in false religion, from the king on down. (Verse 18). The overwhelming majority of the people were lined up with Satan’s program to re-establish heathenism in the land and to drive out righteousness. God had entrusted virtually His whole purpose of restoration to the one man, Elijah.

“Now therefore,” Elijah instructed Ahab, “gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and gather the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.” (Verse 19) Elijah was about to make the boldest and most wonderful stand for the living God of his prophetic career. Ahab, knowing Elijah to hold the power of rain or drought, had no option but to obey Elijah’s sweeping order.

Ahab summoned the people of Israel—thousands of them, perhaps tens of thousands—to Mount Carmel to stand in a great circle of spectators. Inside that circle stood Elijah and the 850 false prophets Jezebel had brought into the land.

Elijah had set the scene for a mighty demonstration of the power of God. Elijah raised his voice and cried out to the people: “How long will you halt between two opinions? If the Lord is God—follow him. But if Baal is god—then follow him.”

“And the people did not answer him a word.” (Verse 21).

It was time to stand up and be counted, but there was total silence in the camp of Israel to request to a decision between Baal and the Lord. Not one man raised his voice to say, “The Lord is God.”

The people had the power to answer Elijah (and repent), but they had lost the will. They had possession of their wills, of course, and they had the voluntary use of their voices. They could have shouted out their affirmation. But indecision and compromise and doublemindedness had rendered them mute. It had thrown their minds into confusion and uncertainty. They possessed their wills, but they would not exercise them.

They were aware that Jezebel had been slaying the prophets of the Lord and fear of official displeasure may have silenced some. They may have figured, here is Elijah, one prophet of the Lord, and here are 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah, with the king and queen behind them—why take chances?

Do you get into situations where you, by silence, refuse to honor the Lord, because you think it may not go well with you if you speak up? Jesus said, “He who confesses me before men, the Son of man also will confess him before the angels of God.” (Luke 12:8).

Here, under great official pressure to the contrary and in the face of the silence of all Israel, Elijah, standing alone, was boldly and openly honoring God, and God was about to honor His prophet openly, too.

Elijah proposed that two altars be set up on the mountain and that a bull be placed on each—one altar and a bull for the 850 false prophets, and one altar and a bull for Elijah.

“You call on the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the Lord,” Elijah said, “and the God who answers by fire, he is God.”

The people said, “It is well spoken,” They agreed to this contest between the majority and the minority opinion. They would not vote themselves, but they were willing to see how it turned out and, when all the results were in, to join up with the winning side.

That is easy to do. It doesn’t take any courage or character to shout for the right man after he has won. But a man with character will speak out even when the right man is in a minority of 850 to 1.

Today, in our sin laden and spiritually sick society, God needs young men and young women who will, in the face of the vast majority of unbelievers and brazen sinners, stand up and proclaim their fidelity to Jesus Christ openly and boldly. Elijah wasn’t drifting along with the downward trend of the society of his day. He was standing up against the trend.

The prophets of Baal did a devil’s dance around their altar and cried out and cut themselves “until the blood gushed out” from morning until noon. “And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation—but there was no voice; no one answered; no one heeded—no fire.” (Verse 29). None of their rituals succeeded.

Then Elijah “repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down.”

Conditions had sunk so low in Israel that God’s altar had been violently overthrown. Surely the altar of the Lord in our own country, once honored by our people, has been thrown down, and it needs to be repaired if our society is ever to be restored to peace, tranquility, reasonable unity and to a standard of public decency.

Then Elijah prayed aloud, “Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that thou art God, and that thou hast turned their hearts back.”

And the fire of the Lord fell from heaven and consumed the offering on the altar of God that Elijah had repaired. (Verse 38).

“And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces, and they said, ‘The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.’” True worship was at that moment restored among a people who had been totally silent on the same issue but a few hours earlier. It was a great and blessed moment in Israel’s history.

Elijah, the one man to whom God’s great purpose of restoration and revival was entrusted, took full advantage of the opportunity. While the occasion was ripe, he shouted, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let one of them escape!” The people surged forward and seized them all. Elijah led them down to the brook Kishon and killed them there. The land was swiftly cleansed of the spiritual idolatry that had come in on Jezebel’s brazen program against God. If possible, Satan and his minions, Jezebel and her cohorts, would have driven God and His prophets out of the land. But their attempts to supplant the Lord in Israel was overthrown in one day by one man.

Almost as soon as this was accomplished a great rain broke upon the thirsty land. That is always the way in God’s program: let sin be cleared away among God’s people, and the Lord will then send a blessed rain of revival. “In a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain.” (Verse 45).

The dry, brittle, cracked earth received the downpour. The grass revived, crops again flourished in the land, the animals that survived found grazing space and began to take on flesh where bones had poked through shrunken skin. The naked trees were clothed again with green. Israel was again “the pleasant land.”

Through all the sin and declension, God had a program and a plan, and that program found its expression in the surrendered life of Elijah the Tishbite.

Who was Elijah? Was he some kind of special breed of human being? The Bible says, “Elijah was a man subject to the same passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months.” (James 5:17).

Elijah was an ordinary man who had remained so long in the center of God’s will that God was able to use him to make a full and lively display of His power at such a time of national sin that even the altars of the Lord were thrown down in the land of the Lord.

We have seen that Elijah’s ministry was like that of the Lord Jesus: The dead were raised, the hungry fed, the hopeless given hope, the poor supplied. The altar of God was repaired. The false religious leaders were revealed and destroyed. Even the elements were governed by the word and power of Elijah. Revival came to Israel through this faithful man.

So important a place does Elijah occupy among the great figures of the Bible that on the mountain, when Jesus Christ was transfigured, there appeared beside Him two men, Moses and Elijah.

We have seen Elijah at the very height and power of his prophetic ministry, acting triumphantly on God’s behalf when all seemed to be lost. Elijah was a man through whom the purpose of God for his nation, in his time, was expressed and accomplished.

We first saw him standing, in the majesty and dignity of his office as spokesman for the Lord, before the king, pronouncing the judgment of God upon Israel. Yet we may be certain that God’s purpose, as it was expressed through the life of Elijah, did not start with his dramatic confrontation with the king.

The purpose of God in Elijah did not begin there; it came to full maturity and power there. The purpose of God in Elijah’s life had originated years and years before that day. And that purpose had been growing and gathering force for all those years, so that, at the critical juncture, Elijah could step full upon the scene of Israel’s history, face the wicked king and declare the judgment of God.

The years of God’s preparation of Elijah for this tremendous public ministry are all hidden from view. We see Elijah at the peak of his prophetic ministry for 3 ½ years, and then we see him as the Lord takes him home to heaven. But first, in I Kings 19:19, we see another meeting: “So Elijah departed from there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen. Elijah passed by him and cast his mantle upon him.”

One day a young man was plowing in a field and a seasoned prophet of the Lord came by. Two lives touched.

Notice that Elisha, the young plowman, had nothing at all to do with arranging that meeting. It was just an event that happened in his life one day as he was going about his regular business. It was arranged by the Lord, and it was destined to change the life of young Elisha in a drastic and wonderful way.

There were two responses that Elisha could have made to this seemingly chance encounter. He could have regarded it as an interesting incident. But Elisha began to follow Elijah, and when he did, the prophet turned around and said, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?”

Elisha could have finished out his days as a plower of fields. But see what he did: when Elijah cast his mantle on Elisha, the young man “left the oxen and he RAN AFTER ELIJAH, and said, ‘Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I WILL FOLLOW YOU.’”

He made up his mind on the spot. You may recall how the Lord Jesus would come suddenly upon young men who were mending their fishing nets or collecting taxes and He would say, “Follow me.” They would drop whatever they were doing, leave their business behind and go with Him. Elisha’s response to Elijah had much of that same quality. He had twelve yoke of oxen there and a big plowing job—it had rained for the first time in over three years and he was breaking up the hard ground to fit it to receive the rains—but he “left the oxen” and he “ran after Elijah.”

That is how, that very day, Elisha got into God’s program for Israel.

Even when Elijah said, “Go back,” Elisha went straight on. He knew what he wanted. Elisha attached himself to Elijah as his servant. He counted it a blessed privilege to live and work in close association with the prophet of the Lord.

Never once after that do we hear Elisha complain or yearn for home or worry about how his father and mother were going to get the plowing done.

The day came when Elijah was to be taken home to heaven, but not by death. Elijah was taken up bodily and alive to his eternal home.

When the two men had crossed the Jordan, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.’” (II Kings 2:9).

This was Elisha’s moment of supreme opportunity. He was to have the reward of his faithful service to Elijah. Ask what you will, the veteran prophet said to his young servant. What will Elisha ask for? Will be it fame or wealth?

“And Elisha said, ‘I pray you, let me inherit a double portion of your Holy Spirit.’” (II Kings 2:9).

“I have watched you, my master Elijah,” Elisha was saying, “and I know that what you have is of God, and what I want is twice as much of what you have.”

Elijah said, “You have asked a hard thing. Yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you.”

A moment later, as they were talking, “behold a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

“AND ELISHA SAW IT, and he cried, ‘My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!’ And he saw him no more.” For a brief moment his eyes glimpsed the angelic forces of God.

Then all was silent. Elisha was alone. The great prophet of Israel was gone. What next? The very next thing we see is the young man Elisha walking in the spirit of Elijah and occupying the office of his master as prophet in Israel. The next thing we see is Elisha walking in all the majesty and dignity of the prophet Elijah—and with twice the power!

Immediately we see the whole purpose of God for Israel continuing, and increasing, in the life and ministry of Elisha.

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These words are written on Morningside Heights in Manhattan, one block from Riverside Drive and about two blocks from the Hudson River, near Grant’s Tomb. At this point the Hudson River is very broad—well over a mile wide—and it runs fast and strong. If a man walked down the slopes of Riverside Park and got into the Hudson River at this point, he would be carried swiftly along with the strong flowing of the river. Here, near the Grant Memorial, the river is at the height of its strength and power.

But this is not where the Hudson originates. It starts about 304 miles upstate, in a remote section of the Adirondack mountains, at a pool of water called “Lake Tear of the Clouds.”

They call the pool by that name because a man flying over the pool in a plane looks down and seems to see one teardrop nestled among the rugged trees, and also because, since it is at a rather high elevation, the pool is sometimes lost in thick mists.

Some of the great rivers of the world originate in some remote and lonely place, up in the rocks of the mountains, way off of the beaten path of civilization, hidden from the eyes of men.

Way back there, a river begins as just a trickle of water flowing between some rocks, but as it goes on, it gathers force and direction. It grows wider and stronger, it cuts a channel through the mountains and creates a valley, and when it comes near the city of men, it is a fully developed river.

If you were to walk down to the edge and get into the river at that point, you would enjoy all of the benefit of its momentum. You would be carried along in the full energy of its strong, sure flow.

You would not have to put on rugged hiking clothes, strap on a backpack and climb way up among the rocks to get in the river where it starts. You would not have to tramp into the lonely, hidden place—the place of tears and danger—and risk cutting your feet on the sharp rocks. You would not have to grope your precarious way in the mists of the clouds. All that has been accomplished long ago, and now it is your privilege to sail along on the river’s rapid current.

That, you see, is how it was with Elisha.

The plan of God for Israel at this stage in its history had originated way back in the life of Elijah. Elijah had remained so long in the very center of God’s will that, by the time Elisha met him, A MIGHTY RIVER OF GOD’S PURPOSE FLOWED THROUGH THE LIFE OF ELIJAH.

And Elisha got into the river at that point! Elisha quit his job, his home, left his parents and went with Elijah.

When Elijah was taken into heaven, that same river of God’s purpose, which had begun so long ago in the life of the young Elijah and which had been gaining momentum ever since, CONTINUED TO FLOW THROUGH THE LIFE OF ELIJAH. It was exactly the same river, with exactly the same source. But in Elisha it flowed at twice the rate and with twice the power of Elijah!

On the very day on which Elijah was taken into heaven, on that day Elisha began to walk in the power of his double portion of the Holy Spirit. Who was this Elisha anyway? He was a nobody in Israel. He was just a young plowman out working his parents’ farm.

We know that there were many, many prophets in Israel at the time (I Kings 22:6 says the “king of Israel gathered the prophets, about 400 men”), but Elisha was not even a prophet. Nor was he enrolled in the schools of the prophets.

Elisha entirely lacked formal religious schooling. Yet practically overnight we see him transformed into a prophet of the Lord, chief among the prophets of Israel and carrying on the work and ministry of Elijah.

How did he get that way? First, he was chosen. God chose him. But that was not enough. He had to be willing and eager to be chosen—he had to cooperate heartily and immediately with his chosenness.

Elijah tested him in this. In I Kings 19:20 and three times in II Kings, chapter 2—four times altogether—we hear Elijah tell him to “go back” or to “tarry here,” while Elijah went on alone. And we hear Elisha say each time, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” Elisha refused to take it easy, to relax, to linger behind.

Remember that, as soon as he saw Elijah, “he left the oxen, and RAN after Elijah.” There was something in him that valued the things of God above all earthly interests.

Two other actions reveal the heart of Elisha. The Bible says, “he took the yoke of oxen and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen…. Then he arose and went after Elijah and ministered to him.” (I Kings 19:20).

He didn’t just leave the oxen—the tools of his trade—but he slew then and burned the yokes. That is, he put the cut-up oxen into a pot and used the wood of the yokes to build a fire under it. Elisha didn’t leave anything of his former life for himself to go back to. He made his choice—it was the way of Elijah for him from that day forward, with no outs left.

We also read that, when he saw Elijah taken up and got a glimpse of the powers of heaven, Elisha “took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces.”       (II Kings 2:12a) “And he took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water,” and the water parted, making a path through the Jordan for him “and Elisha went over.” (Verses 12-14).

Elisha tore his own clothes up and left them there in a heap. He would never put those clothes on again. His own life, his own ways, his own ambitions and plans, his own desires and above all his own righteousness was cast aside, and he took up the life of Elijah—a daily walk with God.

Isaiah says, “We are all unclean, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6). The Apostle Paul wrote, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own.” (Philippians 3:8).

Elisha was spiritually acquisitive. The moment he found something of spiritual value he destroyed the lesser things that might keep him from gaining the better thing. He slew the oxen and burned the yokes, he took his own clothes and tore them in pieces. He ran after Elijah, leaving home and relatives behind, and stuck with him and would not turn back or stay behind him at any point. You never see Elisha dragging his heels about anything of the Lord. And you never see him leaving any back doors open, any rear exits slightly ajar.

How is it with you, young Christian? Is there anything you want more than you want the will of God? That thing is an idol. It stands between you and God. Smash it.

Some day when you are going about your business and the Lord sends His seasoned servant (His Elijah) into your life, how will you respond? Will you rise up and run, or will you regard your Elijah as an intrusion upon your own private plans? Will you get into the river of God’s purpose? Or will you watch it go by?

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Back near the turn of this century, God put it into the heart of one young man to pray for certain interior sections of Africa, which had never been penetrated with the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The young man was able to convey the urgency of his burden to a few others, who also caught the vision. At last, he and a few others went to Africa.

The first eight people who went out with him to inland Africa died. All eight died! Only the young man to whom God had entrusted His purpose for inland Africa was not cut down. He returned to the United States, where others caught the vision. At length, a few more went out. Those were hard, lean, discouraging days, but as the years went by, inland Africa was penetrated, natives were converted to Jesus Christ, churches were established, heathen practices (including the automatic killing of all twins at birth) were stopped.

After 25 years there were more than (200) missionaries in the heart of Africa, and a whole river of God’s purpose was flowing through those plains and jungles, carrying the water of life to village after village, bringing life to those who were dying in sin.

Those who joined this move of God after 20 or 30 years stepped with relative ease into the river of God’s purpose that was now flowing through inland Africa.

The hard, rocky, lonely, dangerous times were all behind. It wasn’t necessary for anyone to go through the harrowing tests that the young man and his first burden-sharers had experienced. Still their presence was indispensable to the continuation and the growth of God’s plan in inland Africa. The day came when the young man in whom it all began died, but the river went right on.

Back in the midst of the Depression, a young minister in Baltimore, Maryland, said to his wife, “Look, I can’t stand it any longer. The Gospel goes forth in this country on every street corner and some people hear it dozens of times. But there are people down in South America who have never heard it once.”

The young man, Rev. Thomas E. Lowe, told his wife that he was going to Colombia, South America, one of the most difficult mission fields of this hemisphere, to scout the land. She would wait behind.

The day came when the steamer was to leave. Thomas Lowe had booked a third-class passage, and the third-class deck was so close to the edge of the pier that, while he stood on the deck, he could lean over the railing and talk to Mrs. Lowe. But then, as the ship began to pull out of the dock, his voice could no longer reach her. [She] saw her stalwart, handsome young husband, a former Marine, go.

Mr. Lowe took a New Testament he had brought out of his pocket and tossed it. It landed right at the feet of his wife. She knew the message was, “Stand on the Word of God.”

More than a year later, she too went to Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. In those days Protestants were regarded as the sheerest heretics by the official religion in Colombia, and the opposition included physical attacks and sometimes martyrdom.

Rev. and Mrs. Lowe were the first missionaries to carry the full Gospel message to Bogotá. After a while the few people who were sending them a little support from Maryland lost touch and the money stopped. The Lowes had no denominational or official affiliation in the United States. There were hard, lean days of testing.

The altitude in Bogotá is exceedingly high and the air is thin. Ordinary tasks require about twice the energy that the same effort takes at lower altitudes. That is why Bogotá residents stop in midmorning for a bit of food, called “[medias nueves].” Mr. Lowe would now and then tell his wife how much he wished they could afford the few pesos for “[medias nueves],” but they could not.

Mr. Lowe was able to reach priests with the message of salvation by faith, an especially dangerous venture. After a bit more than four years, Mr. Lowe died, a martyr in that land of spiritual persecution.

His widow faced two choices: Retreat home and take up a secure life in Maryland, which would mean giving up the vision. Or cling to the vision of reaching Colombians with the message of salvation and of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. It meant that she would have to persist as a missionary widow, alone. She decided she would stay.

Mrs. Lowe remained In Colombia for nearly all of the next 25 years, with no church affiliation or stated support from the homeland, and known to but a handful of people in the States. She lived in a neat but tiny apartment, rented for $12 a month. For a time, she earned her way by teaching Spanish to American businesspeople in Bogotá and English to Colombians.

Never had anyone been permitted to conduct a public Protestant evangelistic campaign in Bogotá. No one thought that situation was likely to change. One day in Chicago the Lord spoke to a young Spanish-speaking evangelist: “Go to Bogotá.” When he got there all the missionaries he talked to told him it was impossible. Finally, he reached Mrs. Lowe. “Let’s pray about it,” she said. During the prayer, the Lord spoke by prophecy and said, “This is the time. Go ahead.”

Over the years, partly through her teaching of language and partly through circumstances wholly arranged by the Lord, Mrs. Lowe had come to know a number of the top figures of the Colombian government. Now she used her access to them to advance and protect the plan for a public evangelistic campaign in the capital city. The opposition was fierce, and at times the venture was on the edge of being suppressed, but the campaign went forward in a large, modern arena. Many were saved and many healed. It was a breakthrough.

Today, nearly 30 years after the martyr’s death of her husband, the purpose of God to reach Colombia with the full Gospel continues on, undiminished, in Mrs. Lowe’s life and in a group of young men who have caught her vision and who have themselves gone to Colombia.

Colombia is a land to which the manifold blessings of the Reformation, that broke the shackles of the religious system from Europe over four centuries ago, has never come. Just as Israel was in King Ahab’s day, Colombia is a land filled with false altars, dumb idols, priests and religious rote. But the stream of God’s purpose, which began back in the thin and perilous places three decades ago, all hidden from men, is widening into a river whose waters will gladden the hearts of Colombians brought into a liberating relationship to the Savior.

Much of the hardest work has been done. Good facilities have been established in a mission base and soon the Gospel, the power of God unto salvation, will drive the darkness and the idols from hearts and homes in that great land.

In the lives of those young men who have already gone to Colombia to operate and occupy the mission base, the work begun by Thomas E. Lowe in 1936 continues, multiplied, today. Each summer a group of young men from Yale University spend the summer at the base, obtaining missionary training and practical work experience. These young Elis are the modern Elishas of Thomas Lowe’s burden for Colombia.

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If you are a young Christian, and if you earnestly desire to serve your Lord, do not go rushing around searching for an Elijah in your life. But if someday you meet a seasoned servant of the Lord, one who has long kept in the very center of God’s will and who bears a vision and a burden for some great purpose of God, don’t let your oxen tie you down.

God has a river for you to get into!