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Elijah the Tishbite

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 19, 1861

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 18, No. 25.

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Elijah the Tishbite

From "Elijah the Tishbite."

OuR imagination can picture Ahab now arrived at his palace in Jezreel, which appears to have been his summer residence, on account of its agreeable situation. We are certain that Jezebel, his queen, could not have been indifferent as to the issue of the great contest at Carmel; and we may well suppose that she was expecting, with impatience, the return of the king. We have seen that he returned at full speed, in a violent rain; and it is easy to imagine him hastily alighting from his chariot before the palace, and hurrying into the apartments of his imperious consort, to announce to her the wonderful occurrences he had just witnessed. Elijah meanwhile remains in the neighborhood, awaiting the issue of the great events which had been brought to pass. His hopes were probably at this time raised high; perhaps he even promised himself an immediate return, both of prince and of people, to the God of their fathers.
Ahab, full of the tidings of these strange events, "told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword." We can imagine with what emotions he would enter her apartment, and say, "The Tishbite has triumphed! Fire from heaven has confirmed his word. Upon his prayer, with my own eyes I have seen flames fall from the skies, consume the burnt-offering, the wood, the stones, and lick up the water in the trench. All the people can bear witness to it. They fell on their faces and cried out, as with one voice, that Jehovah is God. The priests of Baal are slain; Elijah and the people have destroyed them, and their blood is flowing in the brook Kishon. They were laughed at as liars and impotent deceivers. Their authority and their worship is gone forever. There is universal enthusiasm for Elijah. He is a prophet of the living God. The miracle on Carmel has placed it beyond a doubt, and these heavy rains completely confirm it. At his command they fall; he closed heaven, and he has now opened it again."
In some such manner as this we may suppose the king communicating these tidings to Jezebel, and then breaking off in the midst of his narrative, as if he had been thunderstruck. On what account? Alas, he sees the face of his queen gather blackness like a storm. The weak king, as one "whom Jezebel his wife stirred up," for thus the sacred historian speaks of him, is evidently completely under her influence; and when he perceives the effect his narrative has upon her, his opinion is quite changed; he begins to take another view of the wonders at Carmel, as also of Elijah himself. Jezebel resolves to gratify her blood-thirsty revenge, and she is the adored mistress of Ahab's affections. The deluded monarch appears not to have dared to think differently from Jezebel his wife. He appears as a lamentable instance of one, who, though not totally insensible to the voice of truth, continues a wretched slave to the father of lies. His heart was given to Jezebel, and her affection is the price to which every thing else was to be sacrificed. On her behaviour to him was all the happiness of his life suspended. He was the sport of her tempers; and she exercised over him the most unlimited control. Pliant, like clay on the potter's wheel, and capable of taking any form, he was always ready to be what she was pleased to make him. Sold by affection, under her influence he soon lost the last remains of manly steadfastness; and, before he was aware, his own individuality was so much sunk in that of his proud and imperious mistress, that he heard only with her ears, saw with her eyes, and felt and thought only with her.
A great many persons, in every age, are thus led blindfold by human influence. The chains with which the prince of darkness binds mankind to his yoke and banner, are not always the grosser vices and lusts: he secures thousands of souls to himself and to hell, by attaching them with the silken cords of tender affection to persons who have taken a decided part with the enemies of the cross of Christ. Now, whatever the bond may be, whether paternal, filial, conjugal, or social, the effect is the same. The influential person or persons rule with irresistible power, and the poor captive soul thinks not for itself, has no firmness or independence; friends and party govern it altogether, and this in spite of the most distressing convictions. Nor is it by perverted human affection alone that men are kept back from the truth. There are others, and not a few, who are equally far from the kingdom of God, by reason of the homage they pay to human intellect, either in themselves or others. The corrective of all these different sorts of error would be a heartfelt belief of those plainest declarations of the gospel: "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and your spirit, which are God's." "He that cometh from heaven is above all." "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." And again, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." And you who exercise influence over others, take heed that you prove not, in this respect, the agents of the great enemy of souls; for if through you any "weak brother perish," "his blood will be required at your hands." Remember, that whoso destroyeth a soul, "him will God destroy."
Wo, then, unto those men of talents and acquirements, who, with revolting ingratitude, transmute the gifts and abilities which God has vouchsafed them, into weapons of darkness; who, under the influence of the great deceiver, assault the most sacred things of God. Wo unto those much-admired rulers of literature, who, in wicked self-deification, use the power they possess over the minds of men, to rivet more firmly the bonds of infidelity and hostility to Christ upon the neck of the present generation; and who exert their genius in preparing those intoxicating notions and anti-christian systems which delude themselves and others to their destruction. Wo unto those brilliant heads in laurel crowns, that cover the kingdom of sin with fantastic enchantments, and overturning every sacred restraint, implant the horrible delusion in the mind, that he sinneth not who only contrives to sin poetically and elegantly. Wo to those whose voices give the tone to the world, who have sufficient means for becoming the Ezras and Nehemiahs of their time, but who are a pestilence to the age they live in, by darting forth their wit in seductive and blasphemous falsehoods; and abuse the weak understandings of those who hang in admiration upon their lips, in order imperceptibly, under the pretense of superior light, to scatter sparks of rebellion against Jehovah and his Anointed. Wo, wo unto these betrayers of mankind! Their part will soon be acted. A time is coming, when, from the very lips that now satiate them with their plaudits, only the dreadful thunder of furious execrations will meet their ears; and when the very hands which now crown them with laurel, will be extended toward heaven against them, to draw down upon them the lightning of an eternal curse. Be not deceived! mistake not the present course of things for the final decision. The decision will be pronounced by Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and who weighs with other scales than those of the deluded world, which only pays homage to external glitter. Your glory has its season and its period, like the flower of the grass. "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away."
[Those wielding an influence for error, because it is popular, and those being led by such influence, should ponder the above. And those who contemplate connections of ungodly influence, will do well to pause and consider.]