Education And Elijah

Here is the text. He is Elijah. And still others claimed, He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago. Mark 6: 15.

 Note, they are not just saying that He resembles Elijah in word and deed, but Jesus is Elijah. We need to continue a bit more on what they most definitely were educated on, about this great prophet. O yes! To these people, Jesus is this great prophet returned.

He is the only prophet who stood unmoved and undaunted as he faced hundreds of false prophets – 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah - making the wildest and most daring claims about his God. No other prophet had done what Elijah did, when he not only showed up the folly and utter deadness of those eight hundred and fifty prophets, to lift their mighty hands to do even the smallest work, or to make the slightest marks to show their gods as powerful. All they were asked to do, was to get their gods to answer them, by setting their sacrifice on fire. However, not one of those 850 prophets, even with their combined, united forces, could get one god to respond. When it came to Elijah however, he showed his God to be extra. Elijah really splashed it on, to make everything as difficult and utterly impossible by the highest human standards. He had the people soak the sacrifice with water. Four large jars were thrown over the sacrifice and this was repeated three times, so the water filled the trenches around the altar, which Elijah had dug. With everything drenched, so that, in the eyes of all humans, it would be impossible for a fire to be lit, Elijah prayed.

O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so that these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again. 1 Kings 18: 36b – 37.    

God does not just hear Elijah, but He answers with such convincing proof, I think that it was much more than even Elijah expected. God sent His fire all right, but look at how He did it. Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and it also licked up the water in the trench. 1 Kings 18: 38. What else can one say of this prophet, but that he was really a great prophet of Jehovah!  Like the totally astounded people, we too can only say, The LORD! He is GOD! 

He is the only prophet to be taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. This is the experience of Elisha, Elijah’s successor, who sought from his master, to inherit a double portion of his spirit. This is what we are told about Elisha and Elijah, in 2 Kings 2: 11. As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.

What we have just shared is what the people would have been told, what they would have read and been taught about their great prophet, Elijah.

That is what they know of the prophet Elijah of the old days and what they are seeing in the present days through the Man they call Jesus.

What have we to say? Who is the Jesus we see and know in our midst?