Copyright ©2018 by The Good Elder. All rights reserved.
After prayer one recent morning, an initial thought about the conspiracy between a corrupt leader (i.e. a master mind) and a group tasked to check that leader (but afraid or otherwise unwilling to do so) blossomed into a revelation about the pattern in the Cosmos, where evil ones who set themselves up over the people (of God), and must be checked by some divinely sent authority for the sake of the people. This message naturally followed a previous one about being a henchman, since it often seems like people in the "check-group" often become henchmen (wittingly or unwittingly) for the corrupt mastermind. So that I don't preempt my own musings, let me jump immediately into the fruit of those musings.
In the Constitution of the United States, there is enshrined in it the legal doctrine of "checks and balances". The gist of this doctrine is that the power of government is divided among three branches of government, and that no single branch of government is more powerful or important than the others.
However, in the last few decades or so (if not longer), the executive branch of government has emerged as the preeminent force in government, as Congress has ceded much of its oversight role to facilitate the presidents' agendas. We see this most prominently with our 45th president. While he rips through policies and treaties like a bull in a china shop, while he spews racist rhetoric and champions causes and policies that favor the wealthy; while he shamelessly and hypocritically pushes an immigration policy that spares his own wife and in-laws from its punitive provisions, Congress steps aside and lets him continue in the interest of allowing their party to maintain control over the government.
While Congress quietly carves out niches of safety and security for themselves, they stand idly by why the majority of the people suffer. What's worse, many of the people, crippled by their own racial biases, are being unwittingly coerced to support policies that are contrary to their own self-interest!
If the leaders of a people are not leading them in righteousness toward their own advancement and liberation, and if the people are so confused that they cannot see that they're being led like lambs to the slaughter, then there must be a remedy for the people.
We serve a mighty and merciful God, and in order to save the people from such a fate, He sends an Elijah. Let us then explore why Elijah must come.
Let us reflect upon the meeting between Ahab and Elijah after the drought had begun to take hold. Ahab, the king, who was a dutiful henchman for his wife, Jezebel, was upset with Elijah for having prophesied about the drought that was ravaging Israel. Ahab greeted Elijah with the accusation, "Art thou he that troubleth Israel?" Certainly, the drought was a major problem for Israel. However, what Ahab did not grasp was that the drought was an effect, not the cause of Israel's problems.
The true problem, as Elijah summarized, was Ahab himself. As Elijah said to him, "...Thou, and thy father's house... have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim." In other words, "Ahab, the drought that plagues your country is the result of how you, Ahab, are leading the country. Particularly, it is the consequence of allowing idol worship in Israel, and further, allowing your wife to go unpunished while she kills the prophets of God." As a consequence of this poor leadership, the people were confused.
Imagine it... God's people were in the Promised Land that He gave them, and yet, they were worshipping other gods while the king looked on, abdicating his authority to his evil wife!
Of course, we learn later that, thankfully, not all of the people were confused and led astray; but even though these 7,000 still remained faithful to God, they also had to endure the same difficulties caused by the brutal drought. For the rest of the people, however, how would they ever come to see their plight for what it was? For, as we know, one cannot make a change unless one first sees and acknowledges that there is a problem. But, if the people are following the leader, and leader of the people is the problem (or allowing the problem to persist unchecked), what hope do the people have?? THIS is why Elijah must come!
For the outsider looking in, the answer is obvious: look to the Law as a guide to shine light onto the path in darkness. But to the one mired in the darkness, the way is not so clear. In fact, those who would lose their influence or power in the Light of righteousness often go to extraordinary means to "muddy the waters", so that even when the truth is revealed, the people will not accept it, let alone embrace it. We see this in how the people responded to Elijah's question: "How long halt ye between two opinions?"
And yet, Elijah must come, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, to afford the people an opportunity to turn (because salvation is participatory). This is a divine commission of supreme importance, for as Paul said (Romans 10):
[14] How then shall they call on Him in Whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of Whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
[15] And how shall they preach, except they be sent?
Paul's words help us to see that, regardless of the weather, we all have been enduring some degree of drought--not a mere absence of rain, but one caused by the absence of the Word of God. Amos 8 tells us:
[11] Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
[12] And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.
So apropos, then, was the saying of Prophet William S. Crowdy to many who heard his scathing Word against the status quo in the United States at the turn of the 20th Century: "You all have never heard of God!" His Word criticized how the government, as an institution, was enshrining the doctrine of "separate but equal" and leaving an oppressed people with no redress from the government, a government who let the oligarchs run the enterprise against the very people who built the country over whom it sat with authority.
His Word also criticized how religious institutions preyed upon the ignorance and good intentions of parishioners who were seeking God by leading them astray, taking their money, giving them wine, and leaving them no better off, no more empowered or liberated (even in just the mind) than they were when they came in.
His Word criticized the individual who, like the Pharisee in Jesus' parable, saw religion as something to get, as a badge of honor in spite of their sin, and not as a continual duty and activity of self introspection and improvement to eliminate sin.
Someone must arise and say to the dry, broken bones, "Live!" Someone must exhort the sinner who is comfortable in (or perhaps ignorant of his sin) with the words (Ezekiel 18):
[31] Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
[32] For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.
In every age, the LORD has been our hope; and this great God, in His mercy, sees our pitiful plight, sees our aimless wandering, and sends Elijah to turn it around per Malachi 4:
[5] Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
[6] And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
When Elijah comes, the master mind of evil, whether it be oligarchs, governments, religious leaders, or even the evil and sin in our own minds and hearts, must be revealed for what it is (along with any henchmen). This revelation is the fire that must come down, the fire that purges, purifies, transforms, transmutes, and lights the Way so that the people will know the Way to God. By this miraculous fire, our sins can be purged, if we would only accept that the LORD, He is God! This story of Elijah in the Bible, then, describes an archetype of a recurring pattern in life from which we can and must escape if we are to be free.
Jesus taught his followers (John 8:31-32), "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Once we know the truth, we cannot un-know the truth! And when we know the truth, we can't blame our disobedience on the president, on the government, on the preacher, or on our parents.
Even before the drought is broken, we can make ourselves part of that "seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." All we have to do is to follow the formula given by God to Solomon (2nd Chronicles 7):
[13] If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people;
[14] If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Elijah must come because he is the manifestation of God's promise. For, it is Elijah's mission is to turn us, to direct us, and to prepare us to receive healing and restoration, so that we can receive Life everlasting.