Hashkama: Days of Elijah [?]
The opening verse to the song with that title states:
“And though these are days of great trial
Of famine and darkness and sword
Still, we are the voice in the desert crying
‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord!’
If we consider our world today, we might agree with the sentiment expressed in this verse, but the world is in darkness because it loves the darkness (John 3:19). In that sense it is always ‘the days of Elijah’. There is another “but” … Elijah came to the people of God who had by then degenerated into the grave sin of idolatry. (Jesus also came to the people of God first). Elijah turned up, unannounced, to the people of God. This was a people that walked in darkness (Isaiah 9:2a), and they, the people of God, having absorbed the world into their world, chose to walk in the darkness. Jesus’ coming was foretold by the prophets, and when He was born the angels proclaimed, and the shepherds praised and gave glory to God. It was a joyous occasion celebrated in heaven and on earth. Elijah ascended into heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:1, 11), Jesus ascended to heaven in the clouds (Acts 1:9-12). Both Elijah and Jesus performed miracles, and both raised someone from the dead (1 Kings 17:17-24; John 11:38-44). Both asked a woman for water (1 Kings 17:7-16; John 4:7). Both confront and defeat false gods, Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:16-46); Jesus refused the offer of Satan, the god of this world, and defeated him at the Cross (Matthew 4:1-11; Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14-15). Both were prophets of God. There are many similarities in their ministry; you might think of some not mentioned here.
As in ‘the days of Elijah’, our nation finds itself in a similar situation. The Kingdom of Israel had been in decline since its establishment under the reign of king Jeroboam. The deterioration in the nation didn’t happen suddenly, it was a steady progress which speeded up into a rapid degeneration. Britain took a turn for the worse following on from WWII. The deterioration speeded up under the premiership of Tony Blair. The Church is likewise in decline. The decline is speeding up now in all sectors of society – government, education, police, the legal system, the criminal justice system is falling apart, health, and sadly, decline in morality in the Church too. Spiritual and moral decline is a sign of the times. It is easy to see how the religious sins in the days of Elijah went hand in hand with the internal political disintegration of the kingdom. During the period prior to the rise of Omri, rapid degeneration characterized the kingdom.
King Ahab had his queen Jezebel. Today, king Boris has his queen Carrie. If we listen to the main antagonist in today’s political sphere of decline, Dominic Cummings, we might mistake Carrie for Jezebel. There are reports of a brutal campaign to discredit the Prime Minister’s wife with the aim of toppling Boris. The knives are out, and the dogs are baring their teeth; and the Church remains silent on these issues. I wonder how Ezekiel would have handled this political and religious chaos. Certainly, the religious sins run hand in hand with the moral and political decline of today, and it has not escaped God’s attention. Should we comfort ourselves by saying that other nations are in the same situation? Look at the USA, consider Europe. A “tip of the iceberg” investigative exposé by Breitbart News senior contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer reveals how American politicians and executives are selling out the United States to the communist Chinese. That is no comfort at all, and perhaps we can look in more detail in the future. Prime Minister of the UK, Boris Johnson, was informed about King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4:34ff), and how the king raised his eyes to heaven and praised and honoured God. If the Prime Minister would meditate on it, he would see that the kings’ sanity was restored, his honour and splendour were returned to him and so was the glory of his kingdom. He was restored to his throne and became even greater than before. What would have happened to him if he had not turned to God in faith? It is a lesson for all world leaders. Boris Johnson is a Globalist, and as such he supports the human-induced Climate Change agenda as well as other policies and plans for the world that are anti-God; but God has not given up on Boris. Where are the Christians that have access to Parliament and to Boris? I am certain God has someone. This present trouble in No.10, I would say, is Boris’ last stand. By that I mean it is his last chance as leader of the UK to turn to God, and to see himself and the UK restored, and saved out of the world agenda. This is not a time for Christians to “stay safe.” It is a time to be courageous and bold, and to challenge the standards and morals of the world. Not in a stupid way, but in ways that make people stop and think. Christians are silly sometimes. During the charismatic movement in the 80’s, there was great emphasis on the gifts of the Spirit and on healing. One man went striding into a geriatric hospital (I don’t think there are such establishments these days); he marched up to a bed where a patient was lying. The man said to the patient, “I command you in the name of Jesus, rise up and walk!” Then he turned around and marched out of the hospital. The man caused great consternation and confusion. The patient wasn’t healed and could not rise up. So, in challenging the world authorities we need to be as wise as a serpent and as gentle as a dove (Matthew 10:16).
The Hand of Destruction
Partying led to the destruction of Job’s children (Job 1:12-19), and partying led to the destruction of Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians (Daniel 5:30) after he had profaned the holy vessels of God (Daniel 5:22-24). Belshazzar was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the Babylonian kingdom. With the continuous infiltration of the UK by Islamic illegal immigrants, there will come a political and religious shift in the nation, along with the threat of being ruled by foreign gods.
In January of this year, Melanie Phillips wrote “Appeasement mentality brings not peace but war.” She wrote this concerning the developing crisis with Russia and the Ukraine. We might also consider this when the Church tries to appease the world by conforming to it – the Church finds itself at war with God.
We attend church, read Christian literature and so forth expecting to hear the word of the Lord, but if the eye of the one doing the teaching is in darkness, what you are receiving might lead you into the same darkness – “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). I listened to an interview of an Anglican bishop that had left the Church of England. He joined the Roman Catholic church. I could understand his reasons for leaving the Anglican church, but why did he exchange one error for another error? He was a very intelligent man, and a very nice man who said that he loved the Gospel. Perhaps he enjoys the trappings.
Ungodly Laws
The State is not the Church and as we have seen over the years, it is capable of making ungodly laws. There is a list of such laws introduced from 1945 in the link at the end of this article.[i] Ungodly laws being considered by the government at this time are not included in the list. Among a number of situations that the Church needs to revisit are those of divorce, divorce and remarriage, and capital punishment. The Hebraic mind-set on divorce appears to have morphed from God’s mind and heart to that of man’s hard hearts. “He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8; Jeremiah 3:1; 1 Corinthians 7:15). When Jesus was questioned about re-marrying it was in the context of a dead partner, not a living partner that had divorced and remarried (Matthew 22:25-28; Romans 7:2-3). Capital punishment is being mooted, but only for certain situations. The Bible does not distinguish one life from another as the law-makers are seeking to do. God did not rescind capital punishment, man did that. If a person is found guilty of murder, it does not mean that they automatically have to be put to death under capital punishment. Even though guilty, the judge can show mercy to the guilty person or persons. It is one way a nation learns that in judgment there can be mercy. Without capital punishment we devalue life, and we therefore open the way to other ungodly laws such as euthanasia.
Climate Change
Ezekiel brings climate change when he states … “there shall be no dew or rain during these years, except by my word” (1 Kings 17:1). As we saw early, the nation had fallen into idolatry. Climate change was a judgement of God. The lack of rain caused changes to the environment and adversely affected food production. This led to famine, hardship, and death in the land. It is not the lack of rain that is going to lead to hardship and death in the UK as well as the world, it is Net Zero. Net Zero is man’s answer to the imaginary man-made global warming/climate change. This delusion itself might be a judgment from God. The elites promoting it are doing so to enslave mankind and to make themselves richer and more powerful; but God might be using it all the same. Net Zero could bankrupt the Anglican Church. The clergy are extremely worried. Justin (Archbishop) Welby’s push for net zero could force churches to close. If judgment begins with the Anglican Church it will not end there. The Anglican Church has many problems, but so does the Catholic Church; and it will not end there. God will cleanse His Church.
Elijah – “My God is Yah(weh)
Elijah must have been getting on in years by the time when we first meet him in this narrative. The religious life of the northern kingdom was in crisis. The political policies of Omri had tended toward an amalgamation of Israel with the Canaanite enclaves remaining in the land. Tragically for Israel, Ahab took his father’s policies even farther. He was spurred on by the haughty and strong-willed Jezebel – perhaps there are echoes of this in 10 Downing Street! Jezebel was a devotee of the Tyrian Baal Meqart and his consort Asherah/Astarte (Jezebel’s father was Ethbaal king of Sidon. He had been a priest of Astarte, and he established the cult of Baal and Asherah in his capital city of Samaria (1 Kings16:32f.) – Westminster of course has its Masonic lodges[ii]. Jezebel was well into the worship of the false gods and tried her very best to purge the realm of the prophets of Yahweh (1 Kings 16:13). This is beginning to happen in the world which brands the Word of God as “hate literature”. While the wives of king Solomon had exploited him in old age in order to build altars to their gods, for personal worship, Jezebel tried to import idolatrous worship into Israel on a grand scale.
Elijah arrives on the scene (1 Kings 17:1), and declares to king Ahab, “My God is Yah(weh), As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” Another translation of his declaration might be “As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I have stood…”, perhaps echoing Jeremiah 23:18, “For who has stood in God’s counsel, and seen and heard His word.” We are not told specifically that God had instructed Elijah to utter these words to the king. He might have been inspired by the word in the Torah – “Lest … you turn aside and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then God’s anger will burn against you and He will shut the heavens, and there will be no rain” (Deuteronomy 11:16-17). Then, a little bit like the man at the geriatric hospital, Elijah turned and left. The difference between the two events is that God told Elijah to leave. God said to him, “Go from here; take yourself eastward, and hide at Wadi Cherith, which faces the Jordan. And it shall be that you will drink from the wadi, and I have commanded the ravens to sustain you there” (1 Kings 17:2-4). The NIV has “Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan.” So God looks after His prophet; Elijah has food and water to keep him alive, until about a year later when the wadi dries up through the lack of rain. It wasn’t the Ritz, and it wasn’t gourmet food prepared by a top chef – ravens grab their food from wherever they can, but it kept Elijah alive. The ravens, an interesting choice of food supplier, brought bread and meat to Elijah in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the wadi (1 Kings 17:5-6). The ancient custom was to eat two meals a day.
God command him then to “Arise, go to Zarephath of Sidon, and sojourn there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food” (1 Kings 17:8-9). The word “widow” might possibly have prepared Elijah for what to expect. The widow didn’t have a mite, and hardly a bite to her name. She and her son were preparing for death (1 Kings17:12). Elijah the prophet was not living a life of luxury. He didn’t have a star-studded camel to travel about on, and there was no luxury hotel, spa or gym for him to spend his days at the wadi in. The true prophet is in great contrast to those that call themselves prophets today. I think they spell it wrong; it should be profit with an “f” – they profit from the people. They swank about in private jets, and own big mansions and cars, with truckloads of bucks in the bank. It is no wonder Christianity is on the decline in the USA. Instead of continuing on into the story, I want to go back to Elijah confronting the powers that be, king Ahab. Ahab, son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him (1 Kings 16:30). He was king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel for twenty-two years, proving yet again that God is slow to anger (Exodus 34:6). Having married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal (the clue is in the name) king of the Sidonians, Ahab began to serve and worship Baal. He set up an altar and a temple to Baal in Samaria, and he made an Asherah pole to poke God in the eye with; he provoked the God of Israel to anger. Elijah, God’s servant, turns up in Ch.17 to turn the screw on Ahab and his false gods. Elijah shuts off the water-tap, so that the rain doesn’t fall on the plain or anywhere else. God reigns over the environment, let us not forget that in this 21st Century. We have seen evidence of Jezebel’s influence over her husband. Although Ahab had given all his sons Yahwist names (Azariah, Jehoram, Athaliah) he appears to have acquiesced in her designs. It was a marriage made in Hell, one might say. As we have already seen, Elijah abruptly appears on the scene and makes his announcement to king Ahab. It is made clear that rain is Yahweh’s gift, not Baal’s. Baal might be hailed as “Rider of the clouds” and Lightening and Dew as his wives or daughters[iii], but Israel will become like a desert under the hand of Yahweh. According to an early Phoenician [Ugaric] myth, when drought is upon the land Baal is dead, but when he lives “the heavens rain oil, the wadis run with honey”. Yahweh shut Baal’s heaven up. We see in the Gospels that Jesus ascended to Heaven on the clouds (Acts 1:9-12 – Baal was nowhere in sight – perhaps he was asleep [1 Kings 18:27]), and Jesus will return in like-manner and will be visible as lightening flashing from east to west (Matthew 24:27). Amen!
The days are ever darkening but be encouraged. The Bible says it: “Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years” (James 5:17).
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9), “… “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).
Blessings and shalom
Malcolm [04.02.2022]
[i] https://slidetodoc.com/ungodly-laws-passed-in-the-uk-since-1945/
[ii] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/04/two-freemasons-lodges-operating-secretly-at-westminster
[iii] Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (1950)
