It has been many years since the end of King Solomon's life. Unfortunately, as I have read over the past few days, I have seen many unfaithful kings come and go.
We now find ourselves in Israel, with Ahab as king, and Baal has become the predominant god of Israel.
Another transition we are going to see here, is that God begins his predominant communication channel through the prophets. Evidently, God is fed up with prideful, and sinful kings as his messengers to his people.
It is into this long succession of idol worship that we find ourselves introduced to the prophet Elijah.
As is now customary, God must get the attention of his people, now divided into two nations (Israel and Judah), with great misery. This time a great misery is brought upon the people with a tremendous drought.
God calls Elijah to the desert, daily feeds him with food brought by ravens, and then later food miraculously appointed through the house of a poor widow. While staying with the widow, Elijah also raises the widows son from the dead. I am trying to recall whether we have seen this before now in the Hebrew narratives.
We now move to God's confrontation of Ahab:
1 Kings 18:17-19 - When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” 18 And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. 19 Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table.”
Now Ahab calls Elijah a troublemaker because God announced this drought directly to Ahab, through Elijah, in an earlier passage.
This is my first journey through the life of Elijah. Clearly he is an important man in God's view, as we see him on the Mount of Transfiguration with Moses in the gospels.
I wonder, how does God speak to President Obama today? There don't seem to be prophets in our midst. Are we to individually speak through our voices (maybe our blogs), our votes, strengthened and kept straight by our own personal study of God's word?
What do you think?
