Elijah: The Answer—End Self rule
(Matthew 16:24 DKJV) Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to come after me let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and keep on following me.” (Note: the “him” in this passage is generic for either gender.)
(1 Kings 19:8 NKJV) “So he arose and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.”
As we noted earlier, the angel fed Elijah and led him to Horeb, the mountain where Moses met with God. Moses’s first meeting with God on this mountain was at the “burning bush.” This happened after his first and failed attempt to free God’s people; he tried to achieve this through his own youthful exuberance and strength. This ended in death; he killed an Egyptian (Exo. 2:12). Moses then ran into the wilderness to escape the consequences. He stayed there for 40 years, married, and began raising a family. When he was completely broken from self-belief, self-reliance, and his own strength, he finally became aware of God wanting his attention:
(Exodus 3:1-5 BBE) Now Moses was looking after the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he took the flock to the back of the wasteland and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. (2) And the angel of the Lord was seen by him in a flame of fire coming out of a thorn-tree: and he saw that the tree was on fire, but it was not burned up. (3) And Moses said, “I will go and see this strange thing, why the tree is not burned up,” (4) And when the Lord saw him turning to one side to see, God said his name out of the tree, crying, “Moses, Moses.” And he said, “Here am I.” (5) And he said, “Do not come near: take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy.”
In his first meeting with God at Horeb, Moses was in a state like Elijah. He had exhausted his own ideas, dreams, and efforts to help God’s people. He had given up the idea that he was their deliverer. Moses was now living out his days farming in a “waste land.” This was the point at which God spoke to him, revealing His plan to do a new thing. The outcome is history; through the ten plagues etc., God freed His people from Satan’s rule to His.
Once freed from the world’s system under Pharaoh’s slavery, and safely across the Red Sea (without the threat of Pharaoh ever coming after them again); Israel’s descendants met with God at this same mountain. However, the people stayed at the foot of the mountain; only Moses ascended to where God met him and revealed His strategy for the next step of his interaction with man.
(Exodus 24:12-18 NKJV) Then the LORD said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them.” (13) So Moses arose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up to the mountain of God. (14) And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Indeed Aaron and Hur are with you. If any man has a difficulty, let him go to them.” (15) Then Moses went up into the mountain, and a cloud covered the mountain. (16) Now the glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. (17) The sight of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. (18) So Moses went into the midst of the cloud and went up into the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
In Moses’s second meeting with God at Horeb, God’s glory covered the mountain; its sight was “like a consuming fire,” and a smoky cloud cover Horeb. God took Elijah to the same mountain, and presented to him a similar display. When God showed Elijah the wind, shaking, and fire, it was like a parade of the past great moves of God. These came out of what God revealed to Moses—through the covenant he set up with Abraham, Israel, and his descendants. The historic moves of God were good for their times, but something greater was needed for the next victory; a greater move was needed to meet a greater challenge. Elijah may not have realized it, but God was preparing him to receive the revelation of His “new thing.”
Perhaps Elijah wasn’t as excited as he should have been at God’s preparation and invitation for him to receive this revelation. Maybe he still believed that the old way could and should succeed. Perhaps he felt that God had let him down, or that he had let himself down. Could he have been thinking: “What did I do wrong? There must be something I can do better, then the wind, fire, and shaking will change my nation. Perhaps if I try a bit harder and we have even more wind, fire, and shaking, then my nation will repent. What if I double my efforts; I could fast for 80 days next time, call a seven-year drought, and kill 900 prophets of Baal?
Sadly, this type of thinking is self-focused; it misses the central and key point: God produces the results, not Elijah, you, me, or anyone else. This mistaken mindset believes that I can do something different or more that will cause God’s plan to succeed. However, self-reliance is pride; Elijah still had traces of this in his heart. Truly, that part of him had to die before he was ready for God to use him at the next level.
This brings me back to Moses; one part of his story had me perplexed:
(Exodus 4:24 DKJV) And it happened on the way, in the lodging place, the LORD met him (Moses) and sought to kill him.
This passage pops up in a situation that seemed very out of place to me when I first read it. After all, God had waited 40 years for Moses to be ready to go to his next level of usability. Finally, Moses had noticed the burning bush, listened to God, and after some negotiation, agreed to go back to Egypt to free God’s people. Surely, this would be a time for God to be happy with Moses’s readiness and compliance. However, on the road back to Egypt, this verse reveals that God “sought to kill him.”
As a young pastor, my view of Moses’s recruitment and agreement was the same as I had of enlisting a volunteer to help me in the church. If they agreed to do something for me, I certainly didn’t want to kill them or even to cause them to undergo any testing. I would have preferred to pack them in cotton wool or a fortress to keep them away from any testing or enemy attack. However, at the point when God had finally moved Moses into His plan, God not only didn’t protect him from testing; He initiated it.
I was amazed. This does not say that Moses underwent an attack of the enemy or a test by circumstances. To me, this would have been devastating enough—especially if it happened to a new staff member or volunteer in my church. However, this was actually God himself who not only opposed him—but who “sought to kill him.” When this incident first stumped me, I prayed: “My apology Lord, but this did not make any sense to me at all.” In my meditation on this disconcerting passage, I continued asking God: “Why at that point? Why not when he was murdering or running? Why wait until he is finally submissive and cooperative? Why now do you seek to kill him, when he is at last on the move in your will and about to free your people?”
This dilemma perplexed me for a long time. However, it eventually dawned on me that despite Moses’s willingness to have God use him, an unsanctified part of him still remained. It had to die before God could use him to the level he wanted. Similarly, part of Elijah had to die before he could go on to his next level. I soon realized that this also applied to me; I would have to deny a whole lot more of my “self” if I was to see the “new thing” God wanted to do in and through me.
(Matthew 16:24 EMTV) Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”
The “breaking” times we go through are not easy; but from God’s perspective, they are absolutely necessary. They must be, or he would not have needed to put Moses and Elijah through such lethal experiences. Consider, for example, the disciple Peter and his humiliation by the lake after Jesus’s resurrection. The Lord asked him repeatedly if he loved him (John 21:15-17). The embarrassment and conviction must have mortified his residual pride.
Does this mean that we have to seek to kill ourselves? No, the Apostle Paul teaches us that Jesus killed our old nature with himself on the cross.
(Romans 6:6 EMTV) knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin may be done away with, that we should no longer serve sin.
Moses and Elijah were operating under the Old Testament. Under the New Testament, God doesn’t have to seek to kill us; Jesus did that for us on the cross. Our responsibility is to renew our minds to this truth, and to walk in it by faith—putting off our old [dead] nature, and putting on the “new man”:
(Ephesians 4:22-24 EMTV) that you put off, concerning your former way of life, the old man which is being corrupted according to the deceitful lusts, (23) and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, (24) and that you put on the new man which was created in the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness.
However, the New Testament reveals that we do have a responsibility to kill off a couple of aspects of our old life:
(Colossians 3:2-6 EMTV) Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. (3) For you died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God. (4) Whenever Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. (5) Therefore put to death your members on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. (6) Because of which things the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience.
Here the Apostle Paul makes two seemingly contradictory statements: he says that “you died” already; but he also says that you should “put to death your members …” If we are already dead in Christ, aren’t our members already dead? Apparently not!
Thankfully, the Apostle Paul answers this for us. He puts forth two truths: first, that Jesus killed off our old nature—implying that we are not responsible to do this again; second, that we are still responsible to eradicate another aspect of us: He says to “put to death your members on the earth.” Paul then gives us a list of the things he is talking about: fornication, uncleanness, evil desire, etc. Clearly, these sins are an imminent danger for us. The question now becomes, how? How do we kill off these deadly sins? Thankfully, the Holy Spirit had the Apostle Paul answer this for us:
(Romans 8:13 EMTV) For if you live according to the flesh you shall die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live.
We can only kill off the sins of the flesh through the infinite holy power of God’s Holy Spirit. Again, thankfully, he has provided and explained his way of doing this: faith that comes from hearing his word and mind-renewal from the washing of the water of his word.
(Romans 12:2 MKJV) And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind …
(Ephesians 5:26-27 EMTV) in order that He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of water by the word, (27) that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and blameless.
Truly, in view of all that Jesus has achieved for us, renewing our minds to this truth is the process by which we are transformed; this is the way we actualize the new creation realities. It is also the way we release the Holy Spirit’s infinite holy power to kill off our fleshly sins. This is an integral part of putting off the old nature and putting on the new.[1]
However, we often only get serious about doing this when undergoing testing, trials, attacks and pruning. Yet, without doubt, until we deny the old nature access to our volitions—denying its attempts to resurrect itself through our physical bodies—we are not fully useable by God.
Both Moses and Elijah had to come to the end of themselves, before God could reveal to each of them his new move and strategy. (Although these were a progression from one to the other, they were new to each of them at their separate and strategic moments in history.)
If we are to move in the spirit and power of Elijah, our first step is to come to the end of ourselves. Where are you with this? Has God brought you to the place where you are ready to abandon your self-efforts, and to relinquish your attempts to achieve God’s purpose through your own strength?
Are you in the move of God that you’ve known in the past? Are you now ready to end self-rule, redundant vision, and to allow God to use you in his new season? If so, God’s process that makes us more useable is the renewing of the mind to all of Jesus’s wonderful achievements for us in the new covenant. Plus, it is full abandonment to him and his next assignment for you.
Remember, it is of faith that it might be by grace (Rom. 4:16).
[1] For a more detailed explanation of this process, see my book: David W. Palmer, Sweatless Holiness. (write to me for detail)