I Kings 18: 19-40
Matthew 26:53
Ephesians 6: 12
In one of his Prairie Home Companion monologues, Garrison Keilor told a story about a pastor in Lake Wobegon who made it a habit to visit one of his aging parishioners immediately after Sunday Services. This lady, who had been faithful in attending church while she was able, was now homebound and very hard of hearing. So, the pastor came to her house to bring the message to her. But her way of hearing the message was a bit of a challenge to the pastor. “Don’t preach me the sermon,” She would tell him, “Just whisper in my good ear what the point of it was.”
And so, the pastor had to get right down to brass tacks. No humor, no rhetorical flourishes, no embellishments. Just tell me the point. Maybe not all that easy to do, and maybe forcing the pastor to reconsider what it was he had actually said in his twenty minutes before the congregation.
Last week after Sunday School I had the pleasure of sitting down with Luke to talk over the week’s events with him. Tell me about your Sunday School lesson, he said.
And so, I started on about Elijah the great prophet running for his life from Jezebel and Ahab. About how Elijah showed all the signs of depression – signs that we moderns are familiar with – and how the Lord met Elijah’s needs in a very mundane way. Rest, food, and water. And all of this coming on the heels of Elijah’s great triumph over the prophets of Baal.
“Well, what about that story?” Luke asked. “The one with fire coming down from heaven and all that. What are we to make of that one. Here is Elijah doing trash talk. What are we to learn from that scene?”
And so, like the Lake Wobegon preacher, I was taken aback and I started tap dancing. “I didn’t really prepare that lesson,” I said. I was focused on what came after. “But what about that other scene.” Well, I said, I don’t know what we can make of that.
And the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that what I had assumed was the point of that story may not have been the point at all. I had heard, or maybe just assumed, that the point was obvious. It was about the great and awesome power of God. And it was about the impotence of those that those crazy prophets called gods. Plain enough. Why then ask any questions?
But if you look at the story in its entirety – if you ignore the chapter delineation, which was added more than a thousand years after the story was recorded, then maybe the point of the story is something other than what I had always blithely assumed.
For when you look at the chapters together and see them as one story, Elijah’s triumph is not so glorious. It is dramatic and dynamic and complete in the moment. It had to have been gratifying to him then and there. It is a real Hollywood action movie scene. Lots of blood and gore. Fire from heaven.
But when we look at the story as a whole, what is there for us to whisper in the old lady’s ear? What is the point? Just tell me the point.
Maybe we can start our analysis by looking at the opinion of one who was there. Who actually saw what went on. That person, of course, is Elijah himself. What did he have to say about the overall or net effect of this great wonder that he had called down from heaven?
And his take on the matter may be inferred from his prayer as he stands before the Lord on Mount Hebron after fleeing from Jezebel. Here it is:
10 He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”
In other words, the net effect of Elijah’s great triumph, as he here admits, was zero. In his prayer, Elijah lays it on the line. Nothing has changed. He may have won the battle, but, so far as he could see, the war is lost. Fire from heaven nothwithstanding, he is no better off, and the nation is no better off, than the day before. Jezebel is unaffected. She still holds power, and he fears her now more than ever. The great drama of yesterday was all for naught.
What is the point of the story then? Why did this event occur and why has this account of it been preserved these three thousand years and why has the church included in in the canon of scripture and why is it set before you and me here this bright Sunday morning in this spring of 2023?
This morning I want to offer you an alternative, maybe contrarian, opinion about that. I want to say that the point of the story is not so much to illustrate the great power of Almighty God and the impotence of those spirits that the crazy prophets of that day called gods. Although the story does both of those things, that cannot be the main or final point. The main or final point – made so vividly to Elijah in that day and to you and me as we read the chapters as one story – is this: we battle not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities. That is to say that the battle against evil cannot be won using physical tactics. Elijah may slay 450 bad guys with the sword, but the cause of evil is unaffected. Baal reigns on. Jezebel is still on the throne.
Before we dismiss this idea as anathema, let us see how consistent it may be with the life and teaching of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
When the Roman officers came to arrest Jesus, Peter attempted to defend the hour with physical strategy. He pulled his sword. He cut of the ear of one of the officers. But our Lord stopped him:
Matthew 26:53
English Standard Version
53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?
This is not patience, it is wisdom. It is not mercy, it is strategy. It is not because He wants to be kind to evil, it is because He knows what works and what doesn’t work.
The entirety of Jesus ministry is shot through with the message that the kingdom of God – that is, righteousness, justice, mercy, and peace – will not be ushered in through military or coercive means. It will not come or be fostered by force. In the final analysis, evil will not be defeated by the sword or by tanks or nuclear bombs. The foe is not physical, it is spiritual, and its defeat must be accomplished through spiritual means.
Here is the Apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesians:
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
The term “principalities” has different meanings depending on the context it is used in. It can refer to a state, office, or authority of a prince1. In Christianity, principalities and powers are levels of demons or the presence of demonic activity2. They are real beings whose primary goal is to harm humans2. In the Bible, principalities and powers can mean demonic forces themselves or false prophets and teachers empowered by demonic forces to come against the truth and deceive us3.
The faces of evil: war, famine, and disease
Then look again at our ancient story. Taking the two chapters, 18 and 19 together. What is the end note? It is a still, small voice. It is a whisper. As if to emphasize to Elijah that the battle is not to be won in fire and explosions, God arranges wind and fire and even an earthquake, and He is not in them. That’s not His strategy. That is not how His kingdom comes. His voice is a whisper.
If we take this lesson to mean that the battle we face as Christians is a spiritual battle and not to be fought or won through physical or political means, then what does the fight look like? How do we fight against the forces of evil, the powers and principalities in high places that hold sway in the world and delight in limiting human potential, human life?
We are told to endure and to withstand. Faith is necessary here. We cannot hold on against an onslaught unless we believe that the end is a good one. If we know the ending, we may endure. I’ve learned a new exercise lately. It’s called a “dead hang.” You grab the pull up bar and just hand there for as long as you can. It’s supposed to do all kinds of good things for you, but the idea is to hold on as long as you can. One of the benchmarks for people of a certain age, like me, is 90 seconds. If you can hold on for 90 seconds, you’re considered to be in good shape. When you’ve hung there a while, things start to hurt, but it’s easier to hold on when you can see the clock, when you know that you’re almost there, you know that a good end is possible, is in sight.
friends in Christ 