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ELIJAH THE PROPHET

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 9, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 30, No. 4.

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ELIJAH THE PROPHET.

By R. F. Cottrell

BY ELD. R. F. COTTRELL.
TEXT: “Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Mal. iv, 5.
The promise contained in the text had a primary, or incipient, fulfillment in the mission of John the Baptist, the harbinger of the Messiah, the messenger sent before his face to prepare the way before him. But it must be evident to every student of prophecy who carefully reads it with the context, that it must have a more striking and complete fulfillment just before the “great and dreadful day of the Lord,” which will be introduced by the seven last plagues and the second advent, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and will close with the time when the melted earth and elements shall burn as an oven, and the wicked, who will have been dead for a thousand years next succeeding the second advent and first resurrection, will be cast into the lake of fire, which death is the second death. Rev. vi, 17; xix, 11–16; Mal. iv, 1; 2 Pet. iii, 7, 10; Rev. xx, 5–7. But for this work of Elijah, preparatory to the second advent, none would be in readiness to be translated, as was Elijah, but the Lord would come and smite the earth with a curse; so that when the curse shall “devour the earth,” as it will, there would not be so much as a “few men left.” Isa. xxiv, 1–6.
In the first place we inquire, Is the coming of Elijah to be literal or spiritual? We answer, It is to be a spiritual coming; that is, the literal Elijah is not to appear on earth, but the same spirit will be manifested which actuated him, performing a work of restoration or reformation similar to that which he performed when here on the earth. The proof of this is found in the way that the apparent discrepancy between the testimony of Jesus and that of John the Immerser is harmonized in the Scriptures of truth. Speaking of John, Jesus said, “And if ye will receive it, this is Elias [Elijah] which was for to come.” Matt. xi, 14. (Elias, from the Greek of the New Testament, is the same as Elijah from the Hebrew of the Old.) Again, “But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed; likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.” Matt. xvii, 12, 13. “And this is the record [testimony] of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not.” Jno. i, 19–21. This apparent contradiction is harmonized by the consideration, that though John was not the literal, personal Elijah, yet as he came in the “spirit and power” of Elijah, and to do a similar work of restoration or reformation, Jesus could, in the sense of prophecy, say, “If ye will receive it, this is Elias which was to come.”
The testimony of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, makes it clear, and shows that the prophecy was to have a figurative application or spiritual fulfillment. Of John, he says by the Spirit, “And many of the children of Israel shall be turned to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Luke i, 16, 17. The spirit and power of Elijah wrought in the mission of John to prepare a people for the Lord at his first advent; and the same spirit and power will be manifested in the last message of mercy to mankind, to prepare a people for the second and glorious advent, which will take place in “the great and dreadful day of the Lord,” spoken of in the text.
But what was the spirit and work of Elijah? Elijah was the great reformer of his age—the restorer of the commandments of God, at a time when almost all Israel had forsaken the true God and gone into idolatry in the worship of Baal. He called upon the people to make a choice. Said he, “How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.” 1 Kings xviii, 21. He repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down, and restored a portion of Israel to the worship of the true God. He was “the repairer of the breach” for that generation. Isa. lviii, 12.
In like manner John the Baptist preached the baptism of repentance, as well to proud and popular professors of religion, as to the publicans and harlots. “When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his immersion, he said to them, Brood of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Bring forth therefore fruit meet for repentance; and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father; for I say to you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. And now the ax is laid to the root of the trees; therefore every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.” Matt. iii, 7–10. Am. Bible Union.
So also the last message, that of the “third angel,” lays the ax at the root of the trees. It testifies to proud and degenerate professors, as well as others—to those of the last days who have the form of godliness but deny the power thereof, the scribes and Pharisees of our times, as well as to common sinners—those who make no profession: “If any man worship the beast and his image [the antitypical Baal of the last days], and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.” The “wrath to come” is now about to be poured out. Those who will escape, let them lay hold on the commandments of God, and no longer follow Baal. “Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. xiv, 9–12.
No one ever could preach repentance in a proper and intelligible manner, without an appeal to the commandments of God; for “sin is the transgression of the law;” and hence repentance is turning away from transgression to obedience of the law of God. And ever since the days of Cain, who persecuted and slew his brother, “because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous,” true reformers have always met with opposition from false religionists or religious apostates, whose evil ways have been reproved by the zealous preachers of repentance. Hence false religionists are always chagrined by the presence of the true, and think it would be better if the world were rid of them.
On account of the wickedness and gross idolatry of Israel, Elijah, moved by the Spirit of God, had prayed that it might not rain; and a great drought was upon all the land of Israel. Their sins were the cause of this severe chastisement; but the wicked king Ahab would charge the cause of their troubles upon the man of God. He had taken great pains to apprehend,that he might slay, Elijah, who was either hidden away by the brook Cherith, or was boarding with the poor widow of Zarephath, whose “handful of meal” and “cruse of oil” were miraculously increased to sustain them; and the exasperated king, though he had sent to all the neighboring kingdoms to seek him, could not find him. But when the time came that God would punish the leaders in idolatry and rebellion, and send rain upon the earth, that his chosen ones—his hidden church—might not die, he bade Elijah to go and boldly show himself to Ahab. “And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” Reformers, as we said, are always regarded as the troublers of Israel, by corrupters and apostates. They are accused of dividing families and distracting the community, because their teaching leads some to forsake sin and pursue a course that condemns the prevailing, popular sins of the times. But what was the answer of Elijah to the wicked, idolatrous king? He answered, “I have not troubled Israel; but thou and thy father’s house; in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim.” This answer sets the case in its true light. It is those who break the commandments, and not those who adhere to them, that trouble Israel. And it does not excuse the matter that their “father’s house” have for a long time been in the habit of doing so, and that the great majority of the people are in this sin.
It would be interesting to the hearer, and afford scope for declamation to your speaker, to enter into a particular description of the test which ensued between the prophets and the man of God; but as the majority of preachers attend to these things, appealing more to the imagination and passions of men, than to their intelligence and moral sense; and as we wish chiefly to touch those points which are most calculated to shed light upon the understanding and thus improve the heart and the life, and aiming at brevity withal, we pass from this, simply saying that the true God was vindicated to the satisfaction of all honest beholders, the prophets of Baal were taken and slain at the command of Elijah, and the hearts of the people were “turned back again” to the Lord; and they cried out, “The Lord, he is the God, the Lord, he is the God.” Thus Elijah was a reformer and a restorer. Said the Saviour, “Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things.”
John the Baptist, like Elijah, was a bold reformer. He, too, took the law of God and applied it to sin in high places, as well as low. He boldly said to Herod the king, “It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.” This aroused the guilty Herodias against him, as Jezebel the wife of Ahab was aroused to take the life of Elijah, because he had vindicated the truth and slain the prophets of Baal. John was cast into prison, and finally was beheaded to gratify the intense hatred of that wicked woman who sought his life, merely because that, by God’s holy law, he had reproved her sin and that of her husband.
And here we take our leave of John the Baptist, the Elijah of his times; having noticed the chief points of resemblance between the two; and also having found that he did not fill out all the leading features in the history of Elijah; for he fell a victim to his persecutor, whereas Elijah, his prototype, escaped the threats of Jezebel and was translated to Heaven without tasting death; a feature which will be filled up in the history of that people who shall preach the last message of reform, that of the “third angel,” before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and who will be alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord. These will be translated as Elijah of old, and then the characteristics and history of Elijah will have met their antitype and the prediction of our text will have been fully accomplished.
Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, was the instigator and supporter of the idolatry of her time. “There was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.” The four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of the groves ate “at Jezebel’s table.” Hence the spirit of prophecy has taken her as a type of the great apostate and idolatrous church of the gospel dispensation, the great seducer and persecutor, the “mother of fornications and abominations,” or the leader in mixing the sublime truths of the gospel with the false doctrines of heathenism, originated by Satan. To that portion of the true church existing in the dark ages of papal rule, “the Son of God,” says, “I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols.” Rev. ii, 20. This is a vivid description of the Roman church. The woman of Rev. xii, 1, is a symbol of the true church; Jezebel is a symbol of the apostate and false church. Jezebel was a leading spirit in the work of apostasy and idolatry. This is true of the Roman church. Jezebel stirred up Ahab the king to works of wickedness and oppression. The apostate church instigated the civil rulers to put to death the martyrs of Jesus; while she herself was as innocent of their death as the Jews were of the death of their Lord, when they had condemned him, delivered him over to Pilate and clamored for his blood, saying, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
It is against following this apostate church in her corruptions of the word of God, that the voice of Elijah is raised in a final warning to mankind. It threatens the wrath of God on all who adhere to the corruptions of that power that thought to change the times and the laws of the Most High. And the spirit of Jezebel, in the image of the beast, will yet attempt to slay the loyal people, who instead of worshiping the beast and his image, keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus; but the attempt will prove a failure, for they will be delivered, and brought up to stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion—being “redeemed from among men”—translated to the heavenly Jerusalem without death. Rev. xiii, 11–18; xiv, 1–5. It is in this remnant of God’s people that we find the counterpart of the remaining incidents in the life of Elijah, which we proceed to notice.
After the prophets of Baal were slain, and the Lord, in answer to the prayer of Elijah, had sent rain upon the earth, “Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to 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 to-morrow about this time. And when he saw that, he arose and went for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, 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.”
It is remarkable that, after Elijah had, by the power of the Spirit, stood boldly against the host of commandment-breakers in defense of the truth, he should quail at the threat of a woman and flee for his life into the wilderness. But so it was; and so it will be with the remnant of the seed of the woman, when war is waged against them in the time of trouble. Rev. xii, 17; xiii, 15. “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” Jer. xxx, 7; Dan. xii, 1. As it was with Elijah, so it will be with the remnant of God’s people on the earth, those who are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord. After bearing a bold testimony for the truth—“the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”—their lives will be threatened by the family and followers of “that woman Jezebel.” In their extremity they may desire death rather than life; but as God had ordained that Elijah should not die, so he has decreed in respect to the remnant of his people. Jezebel’s threat failed of execution; and the dogs ate her flesh by the wall of Jezreel. Thus will the unburied carcasses of the enemies of the Lord be devoured by beasts and birds in the day of the Lord. Jer. xvi, 4; Rev. xix, 17, 18; Eze. xxxix, 17.
From the form of Elijah’s request that he might die, it may be readily inferred that God had already revealed it to him that he should not die; and that he regarded translation as a special favor vouchsafed to him above his fathers, who were good men like himself. Said he, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. He did not think that death had taken his pious fathers from this world of troubles to a land of bliss; for if this had been his faith, his argument would have been something like this: My fathers have died and gone to Heaven. Now let me follow them; for I think I am about as good as they. No! in his extremity he would accept of death, the common lot of his pious ancestors; but he esteemed an immediate passage to Heaven a special honor and privilege above the lot of those who had died in the Lord. In the time of persecution and trouble, the saints of God will probably feel willing to accept the lot of their fathers who sleep in Jesus, soon to rise; but God has ordered it otherwise. They shall be delivered from the cruel rage of their enemies, and, deathless, go up to meet their descending Lord.
We follow the history of Elijah. “And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baked on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and nights unto Horeb the mount of God.”
Notice the simple diet provided for Elijah by the angel of God. It is just what is promised the saints in the time of trouble. “Bread shall be given him, and his water shall be sure.” Those who plead for a flesh diet refer us to the fact that while Elijah was by the brook Cherith, the ravens brought him flesh as well as bread. This was in the former part of his experience. If he ate flesh then, he now had a change of diet, the flesh being omitted. The Lord could doubtless have strengthened Elijah for his journey without the use of food had he chosen to do so. But he chooses to give him two healthful meals of the staff of life, with a rest between, and he goes in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to the mount of God.
We come now to the subject of the “remnant.” It is a matter of inquiry with some what we mean by this term we so frequently use. While Elijah was lodging in a cave at the mount Horeb, the Lord said to him, “What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts; because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life to take it away.” But the Lord answered to this; “Yet have I left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” Those seven thousand in Israel which remained loyal to the God of Heaven amid prevailing apostasy, were the remnant in the time of Elijah. The apostle Paul comments on this as follows; “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew.” That is, the people he formerly acknowledged, his chosen ones. They may be hidden from our view for a time, in the midst of merely nominal and apostate professors of religion, but the eye of God is upon them. “Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so, then, at this present time ALSO there is a REMNANT according to the election of grace.” Rom. xi, 2–5.
There was a remnant of loyalists amid the apostasy of Israel in the days of Elijah. Amid the general apostasy of the Jewish church at the time of the introduction of the gospel, there was “ALSO” a remnant who believed and obeyed Christ. So amid the general apostasy of the last days, there will be a remnant who will heed the last message from Heaven, by keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus; and war will be waged by them on this account. “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the REMNANT of her seed, which keepthe commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Rev. xii, 17. The remnant in Israel, in the days of Elijah numbered seven thousand; but in the end of this dispensation there will be found a hundred and forty-four thousand who will not bow the knee to the antitypical Baal and his image, by keeping the commandments of this Man of Sin, and thus receiving the mark of the Roman beast. And they, though threatened with death, will be delivered and translated, they will stand with the Lamb upon Mount Zion, having “his Father’s name,” instead of the mark of the beast, “written in their foreheads.” Rev. xiv, 1.
If time would permit, we would like to speak particularly of the incidents connected with the translation of Elijah; of the faith of Elisha, whose confidence was so strong in the promise of the Lord concerning it, that he could say, “Yea, I know it;” and of the infidelity of those called the “sons of the prophets,” who scoffingly questioned him concerning the translation before it took place, and afterward, perhaps believing, with a class of professed Adventists, that man has no promise of going to Heaven at all, wished to send men to look for Elijah among the mountains beyond the Jordan—unbelieving to the very last. Suffice it to say, that the faith of the believers was verified; for “it came to pass as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.”
When Elijah had fulfilled his mission as a reformer, the Lord sent his chariot and took him up to Heaven. So it will be with the remnant in these last days. When they have finished their work of reformation in the proclamation of the last message of warning, the “chariots of God” will descend from heaven for them. “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels; the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive.” Ps. lxviii, 17, 18. Paul applies this text to the ascension of Christ with “a multitude of captives,” those who were redeemed from their captivity in the grave, coming forth “after his resurrection.” Eph. iv, 8; Matt. xxvii, 52, 53. Yet once more the heavenly charioteers will descend; for “the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him.” Then a still greater multitude of captives will be gathered up; for the elect will be gathered from the four winds. “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together” with the resurrected to meet the Lord, and be forever with him. And as the redeemed host, headed by their triumphant King, shall approach the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, again it shall be demanded: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in!” And when it shall be challenged: “Who is the king of glory?” the response shall be: “The Lord strong and mighty! the Lord mighty in battle!”
Oh! it will be enough to be there, and share the humblest place in that mighty and everlasting triumph! Let trials and persecutions come. “One hour with my God shall make up for them all!” Only to witness the triumphal return of the King of kings from the battle of the great day of God the Almighty, with the host of redeemed captives, were better than all the honor and glory of earth. But we shall not only “see the King in his beauty,” but shall be like him, and share his glory forever. May this, dear friends, be your happy lot and mine.