They confessed that Jesus is Christ, meaning that they believed Jesus was the Messiah, but like all Jews, they also knew that Malachi said that before Messiah appeared with healing in His wings, Elijah would come first. So, they asked, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” They did not yet understand that John had come in the spirit and power of Elijah.
Elisha, the next generation, picked up the mantle, and He knew who to call on. He called on the Lord God. He moved by faith, struck the waters, and the waters rolled back, left and right. This was his time now. The mantle was his; he would be anointed as the lead prophet of God to speak truth to power.
He didn’t see black clouds on the horizon. He didn’t see a storm brewing over the sea. He didn’t see rain or clouds forming on the mountain. He saw one small cloud, and back to Elijah singing, “I see a small cloud rising,” and that’s all Elijah needed to hear. He said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot, and go down before the rain stops you.’”
Satan is like a magician, using misdirection to distract us from what is really going on. He creates false narratives to get our attention over here when the real problem is right in front of our faces. There is a crisis in the world right now, and the entire drama of the campaign insanity between a president and a former president is just a sideshow. The real problem is the spiritual and demonic battle that is going on in high places. The clarion call to you today is not to be distracted by things on the periphery. As Elijah so powerfully put it, the real trouble in the kingdom was not him or even the lack of rain, the real problem was a corrupt king, and God was about to deal with that problem.
We know that God could have kept the water in the brook flowing, so why did the brook Cherith dry up? This may seem irrelevant to us; after all, not many of us will find ourselves in the wilderness dependent upon water from a brook. However, there are other kinds of streams in our lives that we depend upon, and sometimes God allows those streams to dry up as well.
My question is, where are the prophets of God? Where are the men and women who will courageously stand up and declare that according to God’s Word, the immoral eethos of our time is neither right nor normal? The body of Christ must never placate or acquiesce to this state of affairs. Yes, we should be compassionate toward the people who are in bondage to sin, but we should never, in the name of compassion, become complicit in the evil that is afflicting the world.
The disciples had previously failed to hear Jesus speak of His coming sacrifice, but now the Father said, “Hear Him,” and then as they walked down the mountain Jesus revisited this topic, because, after all, how could they refuse to hear Him now? Jesus told them again, “the Son of Man … must suffer many things and be treated with contempt” (v. 12b).
