“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Romans 10:17

Prayer of the Day: Almighty and gracious God, preserve us in the true faith through Your holy Word. Strengthen us when we are discouraged, keep us steadfast amid the evils of this world, and spare us from judgment through Jesus Christ, for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

And he [Elijah] said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; because the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.” Then the LORD said to him: “Go, return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. Also you shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel. And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place. It shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill; and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

Dearly Beloved Fellow Believers,

In the Bible, we read of great men who had courage and performed heroic deeds. We read of David, who slew Goliath; of Gideon, who led a tiny army of three hundred men against the hosts of the Midianites; and of John the Baptist, who rebuked Herod and paid for it with his life. We read of heroic women, such as Rahab, who risked her life when she hid the Israelite spies in her house.

Today we meet another of these figures of great courage and heroic deeds: the prophet Elijah. He, at the command of the Lord, called Israel together at Mount Carmel and held that contest with the prophets of Baal. He did not flinch before the ungodly King Ahab but steadfastly and faithfully proclaimed the Word of the Lord.

Only, when we meet him here, he does not appear heroic at all, for he has given in to discouragement. He does not appear to us as a man of courage, for he is running away. What is it that has reduced this mighty man of faith to a broken man, fearful and despairing? It is this: he imagines that he is alone. “I alone am left,” he complains.

Now, you and I may never have felt quite as alone as Elijah did. Yet we believers do at times feel lonely in this evil world. We see gross wickedness carried on in broad daylight. We see selfishness exalted as though it were a virtue. We see spiritual indifference and shameless materialism. And seeing these things, we may ask, “Am I the only one left who fears God?”

But when we ask such a question, we also know almost immediately that we are wrong to ask it. We know better. We do not have to look very far to find fellow Christians and be reassured that we are far from alone as believers in this world. Elijah, too, found that he was not alone, and it is the Lord’s reassuring word to him that we want to center on this morning. That word also reassures us, showing us that

GOD PRESERVES HIS OWN

He keeps them in fellowship with Him by means of His Word.

Elijah’s problem was not just his sense of being the only one left, nor was it merely his fear of being hunted down by Jezebel. It was also a feeling of failure. That is not so evident in what he says in our text. But it is evident in what he says earlier in this conversation with the Lord. There Elijah says, “Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” (1 Kings 19:4). I take this to mean, “I have not done any better than the prophets who preceded me in turning Israel away from idolatry.” After all his labors, it looked to Elijah as though the entire land was still given over to the worship of Baal. Even after the mighty demonstration of the Lord’s power on Mount Carmel, it looked as though nothing had really changed, as though his ministry had accomplished nothing.

In this, Elijah was very much mistaken, as the Lord showed him. God answered Elijah’s assertion that Israel as a whole had forsaken the Lord’s covenant. He said, “Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” It was not primarily for judgment that Elijah had been sent to Israel. His mission was one of God’s grace and mercy toward His people: to call them to repentance and to bring them back to the covenant with its blessings. To Elijah, it looked as though that mission had been unsuccessful, but it was not so. Through his ministry, many had been strengthened against idolatry and kept faithful. One of them was a man named Obadiah, who was in charge of the king’s household. He risked his life to hide the prophets of the Lord and care for them. Elijah should have remembered that man and his confession of faith: “But I your servant have feared the LORD from my youth” (1 Kings 18:12). But how quickly and easily we forget such encouraging things and dwell instead on that which is disheartening.

The Lord preserves His own, even though they are surrounded by unbelief and all manner of evil. So why do we not see it, just as Elijah did not see it? It is because the Lord does His work of preservation quietly and one soul at a time. The Holy Spirit does His work silently in the heart. When the Word is preached, it is like seed sown in the heart. The preacher does not always see the results of that sowing, for the growth and fruit-bearing may not appear for some time. Sometimes the Lord allows us to see the results in order to strengthen us. But mostly, it is a matter of faith.

The Lord’s preservation of seven thousand in Israel at such a spiritual low point in its history also assures us of our preservation in this world. We are right to be concerned about remaining steadfast in the faith, for we are weak sinners, encumbered by our flesh. We ought to be aware of the spiritual dangers that surround us. We live in an increasingly secular and godless society, which constantly assails us with the message that happiness is to be found in the pleasures of the flesh and in material things. We also, like the Israelites of Elijah’s day, live in an idolatrous society that worships mammon, power, and pleasure. And if it practices any religion, it is the service of a Christless “God” and a vain religion of righteousness by works. We are not immune to these influences, so we ought not to be complacent or careless about them. But the Lord does not abandon His children in this world. He provides protection from evil influences and strength to resist temptation and corruption. The source of that protection and strength is the same as it was in Elijah’s day: the Word of the Lord, spoken by His chosen prophets. The Word that is written in our Bibles and taught in our churches is what keeps us safe and strong.

He spares them from divine judgment.

By preserving His people in the faith in the midst of this evil world, the Lord also spares them from His judgment. The instructions that the Lord gave Elijah had to do with the carrying out of divine judgments upon Israel and its king for their idolatry and wickedness. The anointing of Hazael as king over Syria signaled great trouble for Israel from its neighbor to the north. The anointing of Jehu signaled vengeance upon the house of Ahab. The anointing of Elisha as prophet and successor to Elijah indicated that the Lord would continue to speak to Israel through His prophets. Israel should not imagine that once Elijah had passed from the scene, they would be free from the words of judgment that he had spoken.

But the promise that there would be a successor to Elijah was also a promise of continued grace and mercy toward the remnant of Israel. Through the ministry of Elisha, the Lord would continue to preserve those seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. By God’s grace, they would be able to continue in fellowship with the Lord and would not be condemned with the unbelieving.

The anointing of Elisha as successor to Elijah teaches the continued, uninterrupted flow of grace to God’s people. We still have it today. The Gospel in Word and Sacrament continues among us because the Lord, in His grace, preserves it among us. The Lord continues to raise up faithful teachers of the Word. He continues to raise up and strengthen faithful Christians to support the ministry of the Gospel. In a Christian family, when a faithful, believing mother or father passes away, the children whom they have trained in the faith can, by God’s grace, continue in it, teaching their own children to repent of their sins and believe in Jesus, trusting in His cross for forgiveness and salvation. Our sins have been forgiven by Jesus the Son of God. In this way, we are spared from the divine judgment that will come upon the ungodly and unbelieving world.

Let us recognize, then, the Word and the ministry of the Gospel for what they are: God’s lifeline to us in this condemned and dying world. May we ever take hold of it and live. Amen.

—Pastor Em. John Klatt

Watertown, SD

---

Ministry by Mail is a weekly publication of the Church of the Lutheran Confession. Sermon archives, and subscription and staff information may be found online at www.clclutheran.org/ministrybymail. Audio Sermons are available at: podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ministrybymail

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.