“And he was afraid and arose and ran for his life…”
So imagine you’ve just called down fire from heaven, hacked four hundred pagan priests to death, wiped the blood from your tunic, and you get a message from that old whore, Queen Jezebel. She swears by all the gods to put you to the knife by tomorrow night.
What do you do, bro?
You run for your life.
Elijah, as Biblical characters go, is in the Moses and Enoch nuclear carrier task force class. He gets carried away into heaven, at the end of his life, by a chariot of fire. He tells wicked King Ahab the dogs will lick up his blood and that his heathen wife will be turned to shredded beef in the streets. His prayers bring the dead back to life and the pantries of widows full — in the middle of a famine.
He walks with God, in other words. And, yet, even Elijah feels the terrible darkness of the enemy. He understands the blinding, temporary power of the wicked. He fears for his life, and for a time at least, he beats a retreat.
When I consider America today, and my home state, California, I fear a sickening Jezebel darkness descending. I’m told of red flag laws threatening to disarm anyone deemed too passionate about liberty. (Imagine an era of “Pecan resist” weirdos trying to predict massacres on the basis of their last heated discussion.) I hear the shameless rah-rah chorus of deviant den mothers cheering drag queen story hours for kids. I see universities openly celebrating police-state, single-party dogma. I see the entire country of Venezuela darkened by command-economy failures and then I see feel-the-Bern groupies cheering on socialism here. Stupidity, en masse, is a frightening thunder storm, and when you see it in the pulpit, well, it can all feel like one of those nights that never end — cold sweats, shortness of breath, a blinding rim around your vision.
Take heart, Christian. Elijah felt that. Moses felt that. Peter felt that. I think even the the Son of God felt that. I’m sure that David’s brothers felt that when the little guy planted a stone deep in the giant’s forehead. (Imagine the 15 minutes before they saw their little brother cutting off the enemy’s head.)
Someday, the forces of evil will pick on the wrong guy. That guy will have a good wife behind him, and a church, and a few deputies — and the fire of that righteous defiance will be so fierce the entire nation will wake up, grab their muskets, and find their way to Lexington.
