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Are You Elijah?
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Mentone Seventh-day Adventist Church, California, USA
Delivery: 2007-05-06 05:27Z
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2007-05-06 05:27Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kir-ruelijah.php
Remember ye the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and the judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: 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 (Malachi 4:4-6).
Introduction
The University Christian Movement, with offices in New York City, voted itself out of existence in 1968. Someone posted this sign on the door: “Gone out of business—didn’t know what our business was.”
Didn’t know what our business was. While the seconds and minutes tick past even this morning, some among God’s own are losing their way. They do not know what it means to be a Christian in the last-days, or what work God has reserved for them. God forbid that one day we might hang out a sign declaring “Gone out of business—didn’t know what God’s business was.”
Therefore, while we listen for God’s word this morning, we want to be clear. There is an answer to the title of this message: “Are you Elijah?” That answer? “You” here, applied for our time, means you and I. And yes, to this generation and at this time and in God’s plan we can say and we must know, that we are Elijah. We must understand what our work is. This is tomorrow. And there are no more tomorrows. We must wake to our destiny before we cooperate in the finishing of God’s work.
The first order of business is to clarify to ourselves precisely what is God’s mission for His church today. If we don’t know what we are about, how will the world ever know? In a nutshell then, Heaven’s plan for Christian believers today, is preparation for translation. We don’t plan to die. God’s purpose is that we walk into the kingdom, and none need ever come along behind us to repeat our words.
Let us focus now especially in the book of Malachi. As the Tanakh (the Old Testament) closes, something interesting comes to the fore in the nation of Israel.
Verse five promises, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” What was happening in Israel when Gos sent this message to them? What were they thinking about their business? Move to chapter oner of Malachi and we will work our way through the text.
Seven crucial questions are asked in Malachi. We won’t address them all in detail, but let’s consider some of these. Notice what was happening in the kingdom of Israel. After the first verse, “The burden of the Word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi,” we have the first statement and question. Verse two: “But you say, where have You loved us?” The answer is given in the first words of verse two: “I have loved you, saith the Lord.” I have loved you. “Yet ye say, wherein hast Thou loved us?” And the Lord’s answer is, “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother, saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.” And Israel said, “We don’t understand what’s unique or special about being Israel at this time. How have You loved us? You claim you love us, God. But we have to ask the question, how have you loved us.” And God says, “I loved you by choosing you, by electing you, by giving you a mission; in all the world I placed you at the cross-roads of the nations.”
From Israel you can get to Europe, to Asia, to the Far-east, you can get to Africa. God placed His representative people there, at very crosswoads of civilization. His purpose for them was that they spread out His truth, teach the nations what the God of Israel was like.
And they said, “What are we doing here? Lord, how have You loved us?” Today, Adventists as well, must realize that God has chosen us, and set us in a unique place and time in history. Israel was loosing sight of itself. There was tremendous decline. Everything seemed to be going wrong. You see that as you read Malachi. But at the close of his book, word comes, that, “I am going to send you Elijah the prophet. And he’s going to 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.” Afterward? Four hundred years of silence.
All the prophets prophesied until John the baptist. And yet, for four hundred years there was no new revelation. As a nation, Israel was not obeying. They weren’t following the light God had already sent. No new prophesying perfumed the air; Heaven hung silent. God continued to speak through the prophets He before had sent, but the people for the most part had stopped responding.
Let’s look at verse four as we work our through this week’s text.
Don’t Be Afraid
“Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel.” What law is this? It is the Ten Commandments, for Horeb is also Mount Sinai (Exodus 33:1-6). And why did He give that law to Israel? Romans 7:7: “I had not known sin but by the law.” But consider also a less familiar text: Exodus 20:20. Right after God spoke the Ten Commandments Israel was afraid. They didn’t want to hear God’s voice any more. But Moses sought to calm them and help them to understand with these words: “Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.”
What did he say first? “Don’t be afraid.” Why not? “God is come to prove you,” that is, He came to educate and prepare His people, to build them. He launched them into a difficult journey, and led them in a round about way. Had He not taken this course, Exodus 13:17 says that they would have been afraid of doing battle with the Philistines.
Their wilderness journey was an opportunity for preparation; a remedial course for a people worn-down by slavery and needing to reestablish their self-discipline. All this was necessary that they might go in and possess the promised land. God knew that He must lead them in a way to cause them to respect Him, to become aware of His presence and power, so that they would “sin not.” And doesn’t 1 John 2:1 speak the same manner? “My little children, these things I write unto you that ye sin not?” God never looses sight of His objective. That’s why the New Testament opens with this very thought in Matthew—the very purpose of the Messiah’s mission: “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). The law shows us our tragic need of Christ and His healing power, thus drawing us to Him and His power to save!
Failure to look into the looking-glass of the law would keep us from seeing the depth of our need of the Lamb of God who takes away our sin (John 1:29). As we thus begin to sense the goodness of our God (Romans 2:4), we are drawn near to Him, and gathered to Him. God’s law is connected with serving Him. An Elijah movement will uphold and proclaim God’s law. Every time. God sends him; he is not self-appointed or self-sent. He is sent at a specific time on a mission of prophetic significance.
Consider now Malachi four, verse five. “Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet.” It’s in the singular isn’t it? It seems to be a reference to one person. And yet, when Jesus came—how many comings are there of Jesus? The suffering servant in Isaiah 53. And there’s the avenging God also, at the Second Coming. Do you remember Luke four, when Jesus reads the Scripture to the synagogue congregation from Isaiah 61? They were waiting for their favorite part, the line that describes His destroying the rest of the kingdoms, “the day of vengeance of our God.” But Jesus stopped short. He refused to utter that line. Jesus knew that He would come again but later in fulfillment of that portion of the prophecy. So He spoke only the first portion. They sat shocked, anxious for the “good” part. But the Scripture actually spoke of two comings. And so, when we see Elijah coming before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, what day is that?
For Israel, their day of decision had arrived. It was at hand (Matthew 3:10-12). Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, says Daniel nine. And so 490 years was determined, cut-off, set aside, for Israel to put an end to sin. And who shows up when Israel has come to the close of that time? John the Baptist! But this is only a portion out of a larger time prophecy. From 457 BC you run the 2300 days (Daniel 8:14; Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:6) all the way out, and you come down to AD 1844.
Lo and behold, there we find a movement urging that the return of Jesus is imminent. And we find another Elijah associated with that other time prophecy. There are two comings of the Lord, and through His prophet God says, “I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before this great and dreadful day.” The first one was the dreadful day for national Israel. After that their place as God’s unique people and nation changes. It then goes to the Gentiles—us. Down at the end there’s a time when the whole world is judged, and all the universe is watching this planet, this little lesson-book to the universe. So an Elijah must come at the end as well. So we see compressed into verse five two Elijahs: the Elijah that is sent before the suffering servant we read of in the gospels, and an Elijah we also will read about in Revelation chapter fourteen.
Multiple Elijahs
What then about John the Baptist? They went out to him and asked, “Are you the Messiah?” Imagine the embarrassment of the religious leaders! The chief leaders and rulers of Israel have to go to someone out over here and they have to ask, “Are you the Messiah?” Then they asked him, “Are you Elijah?” Could it be that were Jesus to come, we’d have to ask Him if He’s the Messiah? They had to ask. And then, John the Baptist said, “No, I’m not the Messiah?” “Are you Elijah?” they persisted. Interesting answer: “No.” Interesting, because the angel had prophesied that this would be his work (Luke 1:16, 17).
John understood his identity as “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” He had Isaiah 40 in mind. Look at that with me. Isaiah 40:2: “Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished.” The marginal reference points out that her “warfare” can also be translated “appointed time.” So we may understand this passage as saying “Tell My people that the prophetic time is come.” When we preach about time prophecies, we are in good company. God doesn’t call just any church to do that. Such a calling is only given to a church that has an Elijah message.
And what is this Elijah’s work? Malachi 4:6: “He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.”
Here, then, are the key elements of an Elijah message: a proclamation of spiritual truths so compelling that they produce a turning of men to God through repentance and a return to our heavenly Father and to each other. Beside this, there is also a personal involvement in more than incidental preparation to see God. Remember Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Who will see God? The pure in heart. But some would have us to believe that you cannot have a pure heart, that no matter how deeply God’s work extends into the human heart, He does not make you pure in this life. He’s just going to have to declare you righteous and grant you entrance into the kingdom apart from your moral character commitments.
It is not so. On Jesus’ authority, it is “the pure in heart” who are thus blessed. Through His power and our cooperation, it becomes reality. Through His power it must be. They will see God! Purity of heart is for us now in this life. Becoming pure in heart is never an accident. As we walk with Jesus He works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). We prepare, because God is holy, and He thus encourages us: “When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own” (Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 69). Heaven waits for that day.
Do you?
We need to be about our Father’s work. Elijah didn’t spend all of his time out there in the wilderness. I believe that the Adventist pioneers tasted the Elijah message. They were God’s children as we are meant to be, and His intent was that their hearts would be turned to their spiritual fathers just as we are meant to turn to ours. And this message, disentangled from the junk and mire that some confused persons pile around it, has the capacity to do that—to finish the work—to change us—to prepare us to see the face of Jesus. We are either an Elijah people or just another church that began and must finish in total irrelevance. We are either a church that should go out of business—because it’s a big lie—or we are God’s Elijahs in these last days. Which is it?
If we reject the message that the first Seventh-day Adventists lived, would we really be willing to say that we are better Bible students and more spiritual people than they were? Is the experience common in the church today really the reflection of a deeper and broader spirituality than those hearty warriors who under God’s guidance carved this church out of nothing? Are we ready so lightly to pass over the foundations today and create for ourselves some new platform where we use the phrases from our early days but teach a different gospel?
Watch out for these people who in so many ways tell us that when darkness enclosed the Christian world after their rejection of the Heaven-sent light of the Advent movement, actually we were in darkness and everyone else was in the light. Oh, I know. Hard to believe. But some really think that way. And the adversary is leading a number of our own people around by the nose right now, singing his sugar-coated, Scripture-surfaced lies into receptive ears. Why? Very simple. Because he is afraid that God just might be able to make them into Elijahs. Remember Mount Carmel? Elijahs are never good for the devil. His time is short and we can shorten it further. But that will mean for every one of us the payment of a price.
Our Work: Great Reform Before Great Reformation
What is our work? Do you know what Elijah’s work is?
And His disciples asked Him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elijah truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elijah is come already, and they knew him not… Then the disciples understood that He spake unto them of John the Baptist (Matthew 17:10-13).
Our work is to be used of God in “restoring all things.” And so, God has raised up a people in these last days to hold up the Bible for a foundation to pattern us in the right way. He knew the age we would live in, He knew the bombardment our hearts and minds would receive. And He made provision for us. That’s the kind of God we call people to. He made provision. He knew what was coming. He saw what was coming, and He’s not afraid to tell His people ahead of time and offer, “Let me take your hand, I’ll guide you through this.” He has prepared weapons for His people. And He knows what we need to do to use those weapons. Consider Desire of Ages, p. 101:
In preparing the way for Christ’s first advent, he [John] was a representative of those who are to prepare a people for our Lord’s Second Coming. The world is given over to self-indulgence. Errors and fables abound. Satan’s snares for destroying souls are multiplied. All who would perfect holiness in the fear of God must learn the lessons of temperance and self-control.
There is grace in that. God is bringing us back to the true humanity. And so, we must learn lessons of temperance and self-control. But let me continue the quotation: “The appetites and passions must be held in subjection to the higher powers of the mind. This self-discipline is essential to that mental strength…” Now listen closely! “This self-discipline is essential to that mental strength and spiritual insight which will” and here’s the verb, “enable us to understand and to practice the sacred truths of God’s word. For this reason temperance finds its place in the work of preparation for Christ’s Second Coming.”
Do you see what’s at stake here? Turn to Romans 3:4. Why are the challenges faced by God’s church today so intense? Why our need so great? Why has God called us at such a tremendous time? Listen! Paul is speaking, and we’re just jumping in here, but let’s jump in anyway. “God forbid, Yea, let God be true and every man a liar, as it is written, that Thou [who? God!] mightest be justified in Thy sayings, and mightest overcome when [who? When God is judged] when Thou art judged.” See, who’s on trial? It’s God who’s on trial. And the universe is watching. And Satan said, “Nobody really can obey Your law. They were right to run from Your law up there on the mountain. And I’m on their side. I’m on the side of the people. You’ve not been fair to them. And You’re not being fair to these angels. We should be able to walk back into heaven. And since You can’t run things, I nominate myself. I’ll take Your throne. I’ll ascend into the sides of the north and into the high places. I will be like You.” And God replies, “I am going to give you the long rope. Go ahead; show what you can do. And I’ll show you what I can do. Have you seen my servant, Job?”
“Have you seen My servant, Elijah? Have you seen My servant, John the Baptist? Have you seen My servant, the Seventh-day Adventist people in the last days?” Satan looks over here, and he says, “ Yes. I am going to take a look at that.” And the universe watches. And they say, “I wonder if God can do it? Can He? Or, has He gone so far out on a limb that even He can’t do it?” Brothers and sisters, I believe that God can! [congregation responds: “Amen!”] Do you believe that?
We Must Become the Message
In order to give this message, one must himself be the message. Don’t you agree? We can never go forth proclaiming this message in all its Elijah spirit and power until everything in the message becomes an actual experience in the life.
On the Adventist Pioneer Library CD-ROM I found this mention of a pastor in Nebraska, a man moved by the Spirit of God. And as he went forth and preached the Third Angel’s Message, the Christian piety of this follower of Jesus became so well known, his Christ-likeness, and everything about him, that as he would walk down the streets, the people would say, “Look! There goes the Third Angel’s Message!” “Look! There goes the signs of the times!”
May we let God work in our lives so that people can look and say, “I read about that in the Bible. That person is living like Jesus! There goes the Third Angel’s Message! There, in the flesh!” Everything in this message must become an actual experience in the life.
Individually and personally we must ask ourselves, “What am I leaving out? Where am I holding back, in my actions denying the power of godliness? Where have I gone around the truth? Where am I not being entirely faithful to my Savior Jesus, and to the gifts of insight for overcoming so graciously given me? Is there in my life still anything to prevent me from being ready when Jesus comes or to hinder me from giving His message?
Comparisons
If we could take a white board here, and draw three columns, and above the first write, “Elijah,” and above the second, “John the Baptist,” and above the third, “Seventh-day Adventists,” we could point out many similarities in their work. Each of the three gathers Israel (For Adventists, see Revelation 14:6). Each of the three calls to obedience. Each of the three gathers to judgment (for Adventists, see Revelation 14:8). Elijah affirms that the Lord is God. John the Baptist affirms that Jesus is Messiah. Seventh-day Adventists affirm that God is just in asking us in His power to keep His commandments (Revelation 14:9-12). Elijah’s obedience means death for Baal’s prophets. John’s obedience means death at the Second resurrection for the rejectors of Messiah. The obedience of Seventh-day Adventists means second death for the lost. How so?
Just as Noah’s obedience condemned those who chose to confirm their rebellion against God, so will our obedience condemn those who do likewise in our day. God has sent a message to the work of His hands. We are obliged to receive it.
But back to the first comparisons. Elijah gathered Israel. In 1 Kings 18:30, verse 36, and others, he drew near, he gathered the people, and they drew near. John the Baptist gathered the people. Many, we are told, went out to Jordan to hear him. All Israel was gathered. And Seventh-day Adventists are called, not because we are any better, certainly not. But God has called us and given us a mission to gather the world to God’s last-day mount Carmel. So, Israel was gathered under Elijah, under John the Baptist, and today that’s our task as well (Revelation 14:6). “Every kindred and nation and tongue and people.”
The call in Elijah’s day was to obedience. John the Baptist called people to accept the Messiah. “Bring forth true works, fit for repentance,” was his message. There's a gathering of obedience and a gathering to judgment all the way across the board. In Elijah’s experience, the prophets of Baal went up and conducted a major worship event. They were on that mountain, milling about, dancing, crying out. The music must have been loud. They leapt onto the altar and pranced and prayed. They cut themselves, and the Bible, speaking of their blood says that it “gushed” out.
But it was the worship of Baal.
Baal could not deliver. There was a showdown, he was impotent. In an ironic way, at the time of John the Baptist, when Jesus went up on the cross, He chose not to deliver Himself either, or the plan of salvation would have been broken. He could have come down off that cross in a flash of glory. Humankind would have been doomed. God Himself would have lost the Great Controversy War. He could have called on His Father for the power. But He hung there and died for you and me. And so, Jesus could not deliver. But in the last days, “Babylon is fallen,” in other words, Babylon cannot deliver. Do you see it? This first angel’s message and the second are parallel to the mount Carmel showdown. Look at 1 Kings 18.
Notice what's happening here at verse 21. “And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him.” And then the last part of verse 21 is the most troubling. Because today, what about us? “And the people answered him not a word.” He called them to make a decision, and they stood there returning only silence. Could it be that God would come to His people in these last days and say, “Here’s the message, go to it!” We’ve been granted this wonderful message from God to draw people and prepare them for Jesus. And we don’t do anything. We just stand there, and say, “We’re not sure what our business is.”
Could that be us? God forbid. “And the people answered him not a word.” And so they went up. But notice verse 30. “And Elijah said unto all the people…” After the Baal-worship had failed, miserably, Elijah finally speaks up. Notice carefully, because this is what is in verse six of chapter four of Malachi. He will draw “the heart of the fathers to the children and draw the heart of the children to their fathers.” Notice what happens in verse 30. “And Elijah said to all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.” Come near unto me, and repair the altar of the Lord that is broken down. Hiram Edson said
The work of Elijah, in the last days, is to restore, to ‘raise up the foundations of many generations,’ repair the breach in God’s law, and to restore the true worship of the true God” (Hiram Edson, ‘Appeal,’ p. 5, 1850, quoted in P. Gerard Damsteegt, Foundations, p. 250.
That’s in 1850. Hiram Edson was right. And our pioneers preached this. And we don’t have anything new to add to that today. We don’t need a new message or new excitement. We don’t need to have multi-media presentations, or satellites. But we do have this [holds Bible up]. If you’ve one of these [Bible], and if you’ve a true walk with Jesus, then people will be able to look at your life, and say “there goes the Third Angel’s Message.” Do you believe it? [congregation response: “yes”]. And our Father will be glorified in Heaven.
Conclusion: Are You Elijah?
Consider then these five points:
- An Elijah message is one that gathers people and calls for a decision about obedience to God. Its very nature and function is to sharpen the contrast between right and wrong by showing where God has drawn His last-day line in the sand. Does it not thrill your soul that God would come down into this corrupt world, and out of all its six billion, He’s come down to your door, into your life and into your heart, and said, “I want you to help Me prepare people to meet their friend Jesus. Would you join Me on that?” Isn’t it awesome that God would do that! An Elijah message also means the restoration of truth about God and the preparation of a people to meet Him in peace.
- Scripture predicts an Elijah message just before both, First and Second Comings of Christ (Malachi 4:5).
- In the last days, God has called a people to give the Third Angel’s Message of Revelation 14, the Bible’s closing message, the climax of a last-day showdown between good and evil involving the entire universe.
- We are and must continue to be that people, living and giving this message. We are alone in giving this message. No other denomination even claims that they are giving this message.
- Change begins with ourselves. Each of must experience great reform before there can be great reformation in the church. What are we holding back from Jesus? I repeat, “Seventh-day Adventists must be awake to their destiny before they can consummate it. Their first order of business is to clarify their mission to themselves.” (Herbert E. Douglass, The End, page 142).
By God’s grace, let us find help from Him so that the mission of this church can be clarified to ourselves. May He continue to be with us, and to help us. May we make material progress in changing our orientation to “the conditions that keep Jesus waiting” (Douglass, The End, p. 19). GCO
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