Interview with Old Testament Figures – Elijah: The prophetic ministry in the church has been so tainted by deceit and operations of charlatans that most Christians do not want to be associated with it. Prophecy is an important tool in the hand of God to communicate His will to humans. In fact, the supernatural aspect of Christianity is incomplete without it because the One who knows the end from the beginning does nothing without revealing His plans to His servants the prophets (Amos 3:7). Today, we are chatting with one of the most iconic prophets of the Old Testament, Elijah the Tishbite.
Shepherd Heart: We are greatly honoured to have you with us Sir.
Elijah: The pleasure is mine.
Shepherd Heart: Kindly give our readers a pen picture of yourself.
Elijah: I was born in Tishbe, Gilead in the 9th century BCE. Jehovah called me into the prophetic ministry after King Ahab and his wife, Jezebel, a citizen of Sidon, introduced the worship of the demon principality, Baal into the Northern Kingdom of Israel. All the encounters I had with them as recorded in the Holy Bible centred around this pollution.
Shepherd Heart: In your opinion, why did Ahab find the Sidonian religion more captivating than the worship of Jehovah?
Elijah: Humans have always tended to choose the easiest path or short cuts. Adam and Eve were not interested in maturing into God likeness. Genesis 1:26 clearly spelt out the A-Z of human development. First the image and then the likeness. The Holy Spirit, who authored the Scripture, did not use the two words interchangeably.
Image has to do with the container, while likeness is the substance in it. Adam and Eve were made in the image of God and would have matured into His likeness if they had rebuffed the devil and his wiles. Their offspring have not fared better. Satan, the trickster uses short cuts to derail humans. Ahab was caught in this deception. He wanted power by any means possible. Of course, he knew getting it from Jehovah was a mirage.
Shepherd Heart: I noticed something strange in the spiritual history of both Judah and Israel. There is no record of the people in both kingdoms revolting against their kings for leading them away from Jehovah to the worship of idols. The trend was the same: when a godly king was in power, the people worshipped the true God. When an idolatrous king ascended the throne, the people joined him to worship whichever demon took his fancy. How do you explain this phenomenon?
Elijah: The root lay in the refusal of Israelis who came out of Egypt to have a relationship with God. You remember that when God visited them at Mount Horeb, they technically chose Moses as the mediator between them and Jehovah. That was not God’s original idea. He wanted a kingdom of priests. He wanted to have a relationship with each of them.
Psalm 103 verse seven articulates this succinctly: “He made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the people of Israel.” When all a people can boast of are the deeds of God (in the case of your generation, His blessings of miracles), they have no strength to resist the enemy if he presents them with something that seems better than what they had received from God.
I assure you that most people in your generation would not have waited 25 years for an Isaac as Abraham did; or confronted multitudes of their adversaries with an army led by choristers as Jehoshaphat the King of Judah did.
Shepherd Heart: You have identified the core problem in the body of Christ. The idea that the centrality of God’s engagement with us is to make us happy and prosperous. Revelation 4:11 clearly states that God created all things to give Him pleasure. He is not our Servant. He loves us and desires to share His life with us, but the universe does not revolve around us. How can Christian leaders communicate this truth to their followers?
Elijah: I can only speak from my perspective as a cloud of witness. It is both a physical and spiritual law that you cannot give what you do not have. From our vantage position in heaven, we see that many Christian leaders are self-serving and totally against the interest of Christ. Many of them called themselves into ministry for pecuniary reasons.
If they do not have any relationship with God, how can they help their followers to build and nurture such a relationship? On the other hand, there are many unteachable people in the church. They embraced the Christian faith as a ladder to reach their destinations, which may not have anything to do with the love of God or true worship.
Moses had that problem with many of the people he brought out of Egypt. They wanted their highs and to enjoy themselves. That was why they quickly chose a golden calf as their object of worship when Moses delayed to come down from the presence of God at Mount Horeb. At the end of the day, those who desire to worship God will seek Him and will not settle for lesser gods.
Shepherd Heart: We totally agree with you that a heart that desires God will not settle for anything less. In the Old Testament, we notice that virtually all the prophets were also seers, as they had the ability to engage with the supernatural or have glimpses of the spiritual world. You were among the heavy weights in this respect, along with Elisha, your successor. Would we be correct to say that a person who does not have such a relationship with God is not qualified to speak for Him as a prophet?
Elijah: God is Spirit; therefore, He has to communicate with us in ways we can understand. He does this through visions, dreams, physical angelic appearances, quickening Scriptures by His Spirit, the still small voice in our consciences and through nature. Some people have the gifting to operate in all these levels, while others may operate in some of them.
I think we should desist from trying to put Almighty God in a box and let Him choose how He communicates with us. He knows how best to get our attention, no matter how dense we are spiritually. Remember that He used a donkey to speak to Balaam.
Shepherd Heart: The question was actually prompted by the rate of failure of prophecies in the modern church. It has gotten to a level where even unbelievers mock Christians over false prophecies. Where is the disconnect?
Elijah: Peter gives you the answer in the first chapter of his second epistle, verses 20 and 21: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” Notice the qualification to speak for God – holiness. If anyone claims to be a prophet, does his lifestyle or conduct testify that he is a holy man of God?
It is also important to test the motive of the prophecy. Is it to boost the ego of the “man of God” in the secular world, attract people to his church, or give him undue advantage over members of his congregation? God is never mocked and will never be mocked. People who use His name to build their kingdom through false prophecies are heaping up wrath for themselves because they bring reproach to His Son’s name.
Shepherd Heart: How can believers protect themselves against false prophecies in the church?
Elijah: Those who are fixated with prophecies, especially personal ones should search their motives. The Holy Spirit indwells every child of God; hence, it is an act of stupidity to go about looking for prophecies when He is available to speak to His children. There is also an aspect of the craze for personal prophecies that border on divination. Why are believers not content to let God take care of their tomorrow? The Messiah’s charge is that you should allow tomorrow to sort out itself. Angling for personal prophecies is another way of telling God that you do not have confidence in His ability to take care of your future. Christian leaders should discourage it.
Shepherd Heart: Wow! You have opened our eyes to the errors associated with false prophecies, especially the aspect that deals with personal prophecies. We appreciate these insights and hope that our readers would find them useful in their quest to build and nurture a relationship with God. Thank you very much Sir.
Elijah: Thank you once again for having me.