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Is
God Dead?
by
Pastor Cornelius R. Stam
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“As the Lord of hosts
liveth, before whom I stand…” (I Kings 18:15).
Is God dead? According to the above passage He certainly was not
dead to Elijah, who knew Him intimately as the living God. The prophet had used
similar phraseology on a previous occasion when he had declared to the wicked
King Ahab:
“As the Lord God of Israel
liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but
according to my word” (1 Kings 17:1).
Elijah’s prediction had come horribly true. For three years and
six months there had been no rain nor even dew in Israel. Rivers and brooks
were drying up. The land lay parched and cracked in the sun. There were no
crops, nor any grazing land for the cattle and they had been dying like flies.
The king himself had been brought down from his throne to search
for a bit of green grass along the remaining streams “to save the horses and
mules alive,” lest they “lose all the beasts.” The king’s humiliation had in
turn enraged the haughty Queen Jezebel, so that she hated Elijah with a deep
and bitter hatred.
Indeed, so intensely was the prophet hated by Ahab himself that
the king had sent far and wide to find Elijah and had not given up until he had
taken oaths from the heads of the surrounding nations that he was not to be
found. It was under these circumstances that “the word of the Lord came to Elijah…saying,
Go, show thyself unto Ahab…” (1 Kings 18:1). God was about to use the prophet
to publicly expose the sham and impotence of Jezebel’s god Baal.
As the prophet went to look for Ahab he met Obadiah, the
governor of the king’s house, and said: “Go tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is
here” (1 Kings 18:8). Obadiah shuddered at these words and begged Elijah not to
make him go. He knew the bitter hatred which the king harbored toward Elijah
and he feared that while he went to convey the news the Spirit of God might
take Elijah away to some other place.
It was now, when it meant far more than it had meant three and a
half years before, that Elijah replied: “As the Lord God of hosts liveth,
before whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto him today” (1 Kings 18:15).
As we know, he kept his word.
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Les Feldick Ministries
30706 W. Lona Valley Rd.
Kinta, OK 74552
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