[0:00] 19, 1 Kings 19. We've been talking about Elijah. 1 Kings chapter 19.
[0:14] Last week we finished up. The rain was coming. And Elijah and Ahab were both heading to Jezreel. And Elijah outran Ahab's chariot. And in chapter 19 beginning of verse 1.
[0:34] And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and withal how he had slain all the prophets with a sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah saying, So let the gods do to me and more also if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time. And when he saw that, he arose and went for his life and came to Beesheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree. And he requested for himself that he might die and said, It is enough. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers.
[1:24] Let's stop there. We've been watching Elijah through all kinds of things here as we've been doing this study. If you want a title for today, How the Mighty Have Fallen.
[1:38] How the Mighty Have Fallen. He has seen God work in so many different ways. God has taken care of him at the brook chair where the ravens brought him food.
[1:50] He went to the widow's house at Zarephath. And she had the meal, you know, and all the stuff that we've been talking about. He's seen a boy raised from the dead. He's seen God send fire down on top of Mount Carmel. He's seen the rain held off for three and a half years. He's seen the rain come back.
[2:09] He has seen all kinds of things. We have seen him as a servant. We have seen him standing tall as a soldier, standing for God there on top of Mount Carmel.
[2:20] But we're about to see him in a different light. And there's one that we can relate to, I'm sure. We're about to see him as a depressed saint. He's a saint of God.
[2:30] He loves God. He wants to serve God. But he's about to go into some depression. We've seen him in his humility when he went to Ahab and said, it's not going to rain till I say so.
[2:44] We've seen him be a hero there on top of Mount Carmel. And now we're about to see him in his humanity. He's just, you know, how many times have we talked over the time that we've been together that he's no different than us?
[2:59] We are all just like him, ordinary people. And he's about to show that. James chapter 5 verse 17 says, Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are.
[3:13] And he's about to demonstrate that. We've watched him do all kinds of things, but he's about to show us, yes, he is just like us. He's been pushed in all of these different things to his physical and emotional limits.
[3:28] He has been in places where we could not even dream of, in situations we could not even dream of. He's been put there.
[3:39] And now he's about to enter the time of depression. You know, depression is one of the worst things that can happen to us. And he's about to hit one of those.
[3:50] You know, it shocks us when we learn that great people go through things like that. We look at these people and we look at all the things that they do and say, they don't have any problems. They've got it all together.
[4:01] They know how to do everything in the right way. They've got all the answers. Winston Churchill, one of the leaders of World War II, kept England together, took them through the darkest hours and helped them come out on the other side.
[4:19] He said, depression followed me around like a black dog all of my life. Here's, you know, one of the greatest leaders ever. He says, I was always fighting depression.
[4:31] In the 1800s, there was a young lawyer who suffered from depression, so much so that his friends kept all of the sharp instruments away from him.
[4:45] Razors, knives, things like that. They kept all those different things away from him because they were afraid of what he might do. He wrote these words. I am now the most miserable man living.
[4:56] Whether I shall be better, I cannot tell. I awfully forebode, I shall not. That was written by Abraham Lincoln. We think of Abraham Lincoln, this guy that just somehow he knew how to do everything in the right way.
[5:16] But he says, no. Here's another one for you. Charles Spurgeon. We think of Charles Spurgeon as a great English preacher, one of the great Baptist preachers of all time.
[5:28] You know, we hear his name often, quotes from him. He had times of depression. Matter of fact, history tells us that there were times when he was so depressed that he refused to leave the house in order to go to church.
[5:44] There were times his deacons went to his house and literally carried him to the church and stuck him behind the pulpit. He said, it's Sunday.
[5:57] This is where you belong. There are times that pastors have those feelings. It's like, you know, there's the old joke about a pastor one day.
[6:08] He was talking to his wife and he said something about not wanting to go to church and doesn't want to get up and those people don't care and da, da, da, da, da. She said, you have to go. You're the pastor. But he didn't want to go.
[6:20] So when we hear things like that, you know, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Spurgeon, it kind of shocks us. It's like, really? Those guys? But yeah, those guys had those same experiences, same experiences maybe that you do.
[6:36] When I go to see Mike off and say, how are you doing today?
[6:57] Same old, same old. So, you know, nothing changes. So depression can affect, it doesn't matter what class you're in, what age you are, what sex you are, gender, what race.
[7:15] It affects everybody. And he's about to face this. It's going to be some statistics. It's probably higher than this now. These statistics might be a little old.
[7:25] But over 17 million Americans will deal with some form of depression this year. 17 million. Probably more than that now. One out of every five Americans will experience it during their lifetime.
[7:39] One out of every seven people. There's ten of us here. And one out of every seven will experience it sometimes.
[7:53] The National Institute of Health says over two million work hours are lost each year because of people staying home because of depression.
[8:08] Leading cause of drug abuse, alcoholism, all those things. Number one cause of suicide. It's just a really terrible thing. But we all face some of it sometimes.
[8:20] I like the way I was reading and the guy said, not all depression is bad though. Sometimes, during times of great grief or stress or frustration or illness or things like that, I don't think even, I don't think he's in the office.
[8:40] Anyway, those things, when they happen, depression can actually, chemical reactions in the body can actually numb us so that we don't feel the full force of all of those things taking place in our life.
[8:58] Professionals say that if you're depressed for over two weeks, then you should consider, you know, talking to somebody about it and everything. So, as I said, the title is How the Mighty Have Fallen. And the first thing we see about Elijah is the misery he's facing.
[9:13] We see him on the run. Those first three verses there, of chapter 19, he is about to run when Jezebel talks, sends him that note about what's going to happen.
[9:26] See, he was on Mount Carmel. He had a tremendous high. God worked, God sent fire down, God burned up the thing. The prophets of Baal are now gone.
[9:40] Tremendous victory. But what happens a lot of times after tremendous victories? There's a big drop that takes place. And he's about to face all of that.
[9:53] You know, you think about Jezebel for a minute. She was probably back at Jezreel waiting around, waiting to find out what happened on Mount Carmel.
[10:05] She might have seen the fire coming down from heaven. And she probably was thinking, ah, Baal answered. Baal sent his fire down. The prophets were victorious.
[10:17] And then Ahab comes home and says, nope, that's not the way it worked. Elijah took over. He even slew all the priests and everything.
[10:31] And she is mad. She is upset. And she decides to take matters into her own hand. Jezebel's an interesting woman.
[10:42] She was not Jewish. Ahab had no business marrying her to start with. But, she kind of ran the show.
[10:53] I don't know if you've noticed this, go through this, but she makes a lot of the decisions about what's going to happen. She basically was performing Ahab's job for him.
[11:05] She was making those decisions and enacting them. and she uses intimidation and things of that nature to try to coerce the way things are going.
[11:18] And Ahab, he's a hen-pecked husband. He gets picked on by her in all kinds of ways. He has the king, he's the king, but she's wearing the crown and calling all the shots.
[11:33] And another thing about this, as we get into this, think about Ahab for a minute. Ahab was there at Mount Carmel. He's on top of the mountain.
[11:43] He sees the fire come down. He sees the altar and everything in it burned up. And what is his reaction to it all?
[11:54] Remember the people? The Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God. Doesn't say anything about Ahab saying that. Matter of fact, Ahab goes back and he sees Jezebel.
[12:08] And notice what he says in verse 19. And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done. Doesn't say anything about God. Doesn't say anything about God sending the fire down.
[12:20] Doesn't say anything about God performing a miracle. Elijah did. He refuses to give God the credit for what happened there. You know, you think about lost people.
[12:33] they refuse to confront their sin and they miss heaven because they will not surrender to what God is doing in their life.
[12:49] And what happens if you continue to refuse and refuse and refuse? Genesis 6-3 says, God says, he will not always strive with men.
[13:02] A couple of other verses you can write down and look up is John 6-44 and 2 Corinthians 6-2. So Jezebel hears the news about Elijah and he slain the prophets and she sends him a warning.
[13:16] He says, look, the same thing is going to happen to you. I am coming after you. She knew where he was. Why did she send a messenger?
[13:27] That's a question I have. It's like, why didn't she just send soldiers over to get him? She knew where he was. He was there in the city. I guess she's trying to intimidate him and stuff.
[13:42] So what is Elijah's reaction? He bails. He's on his way out of there. Here's a guy who just stood up to 450 prophets of Baal.
[13:53] Ahab is there. The people are watching to see what's going on. He stood up for all of that and he says, God's going to do this and God's going to take care of this. And then when Jezebel comes along and says, I'm after you, he's gone.
[14:07] Why? Well, like I said, he's been under tremendous pressure. Maybe that was just one step too far. I don't know. But he's under tremendous pressure and he gets out of there.
[14:21] Again, he's already faced all of those different things. The dry brook, the vessels with the food and stuff, the sun dying, all of these different things.
[14:32] So he takes off. He doesn't just leave Jezreel. He runs 125 miles south from Jezreel.
[14:45] He actually leaves Israel and goes into Judah. And he goes into Beersheba, which is on the southern part of Judah. And then he leaves his servant there and he goes another day.
[14:56] Remember she said, if you're not like this by tomorrow. He's put as much distance between him and her as possible. So by tomorrow you're not going to find me.
[15:06] You know, it's irrational behavior for him. He's used to God taking care of him and doing things and stuff. But we often do that when we get depressed. We don't handle things in a way we normally would if we just put our faith in God.
[15:21] His actions make perfect sense when we think about the fact that for a few moments he took his eyes off of God.
[15:35] We need to be so careful. You hear me say over and over and over and over and over looking unto Jesus. When we take our eyes off of him, we do all kinds of strange things.
[15:49] I don't have time to go there tonight, but I'm Psalm 42. Read that later, maybe. The psalmist goes back and forth. There's sorrow, there's joy.
[16:01] There's sorrow, there's joy. He's in pain, he's up, he's down, he's up, he's down, keeps going back and forth. We do that a lot when we take our eyes off of Jesus.
[16:16] Keep your eyes on him all the time. And let's stop there for tonight. We'll talk about how to take care of this next week. Depression is a real thing.
[16:28] Some of you maybe have faced it at times. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Always.