Our Minds and our Hopelessness — A.J. Higgins

Turn please to the Old Testament and 1st Kings chapter 19. 1st Kings chapter 19 commenced at verse number 1. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and with all how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.

Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah saying, so let the gods do to me and more also if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time. And when he saw that he arose and went for his life and came to Beersheba which belongeth to Judah and left his servant there.

He himself one a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree and requested for himself that he might die and said it is enough now O Lord take away my life for I am not better than my father's.

And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree behold an angel touched him and said unto him arise and eat. And he looked behold there was a cake bacon on the coals and a cruise of water at his head and he did eat and drink and laid him down again.

And the angel came an angel the Lord came again the second time and touched him and said arise and eat because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose and did eat and drink and went in the strength of that meat 40 days and 40 nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

And he came thither unto a cave and lodged there and behold the word of the Lord came to him and he said unto him what doest thou hear Elijah. And he said I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant thrown down thine altars and slain thy prophets with the sword and I even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away.

And he said go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord and behold the Lord passed by in a great and strong wind rent the mountains and break in pieces the rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind an earthquake but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

After the earthquake a fire but the Lord was not in the fire and after the fire is still small voice and it was so when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entering of the cave and behold there came a voice unto him and said what doest thou hear Elijah.

And he said I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts because the children of Israel are forsaken thy covenant thrown down thine altar slain thy prophets with the sword and I even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away.

And the Lord said unto him go return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus and when thou comest anoint Hazael to be king over Syria, Jehu the son of Nimshah shalt thou anoint king over Israel and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Mahola shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room and verse 18 yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal every mouth which hath not kissed him and so he departed thence.

Now that will be sufficient for us to read at the outset as an introduction to what is before us. Now I think it important to just state that the two subjects before us now and after the break at 1230 will not necessarily either appeal or apply to everyone here.

Probably the reality is that especially younger Christians will find these two subjects of little relevance and perhaps wonder what they have to do with everyday Christian living. But I trust you'll bear with me because if you live long enough you may well find that some of the things we are going to be talking about and looking at in Scripture this hour and the hour to follow will someday have relevance for your life even though you may be young now.

Depression, Despair, and the Christian Mind

We want to look at in the meeting before us our minds and hopelessness or God's repair for our despair. The subject of depression, the subject of minds that get into a muddle of negativity and all that follows with it.

The Word of God is not silent on that subject. It is not something that somehow God is embarrassed to address. Not necessarily as a mark of spirituality but as a reality of their spirituality many of the giants, the giants of Christian living have been plagued by depression.

We sing hymns by a man named William Kalper and I think most know that he was a man that was plagued by depression. One of his hymns that we sing was written really when instead of jumping off a bridge and committing suicide he turned back and spoke of the God that moves in mysterious ways as wonders to perform.

C .H. Spurgeon was a man that wrote of his own experiences in the dark valley of depression and so it is part of the experiences of many of the people of God. Not necessarily a necessary experience, not necessarily a spiritual one by any means but nevertheless it is reality and so I think we need to address it and if it is a help only to one or two here then I will feel that it has been time well spent.

Elijah’s Exhaustion, Expectations, and Isolation

So I want to talk to you first of all about the mind which meditates. The mind which meditates. I want you to think first of all of the background of what we have in 1st Kings chapter 19 because I think we get a little bit of an insight into some some danger signs just by looking at the background that's before us.

Because what we see is a time of physical exhaustion. A man who had been on a mountaintop standing alone for God. A man who had been there and had stood for God against all the prophets of Baal and well we read it in a very exciting kind of a triumphant spirit.

It must have been a tremendously exhausting experience. If you've ever been in a situation like that you will understand what I mean and identify with this man. He must have been physically drained after all of that and of course linked with that is not only the fact of a background but it was a moment of great triumph wasn't it?

Single-handedly with the nation looking on he had been vindicated before the eyes of an unbelieving nation and in a moment of exhilaration the nation turned for a moment and destroyed the prophets of Baal and it seemed like he was on a mountaintop of victory.

Now that is always for a believer. It is always a dangerous place. Moments of great victory, moments of tremendous spiritual exhilaration can become moments of danger because linked with his exhaustion then was unfortunately a wrong expectation.

Doubtless he thought that with the destruction of the prophets of Baal and the ridding of the idols that the nation would suddenly turn back to God and instead there's still a wicked woman and there's still power behind the throne and there's still the ability and it was a time when all of his expectations were suddenly thwarted.

You see that's why again and I know it sounds like maybe a broken record, our minds become tremendous influences upon everything else. Our will, our emotion, our behavior. Here was a man with expectations and they were suddenly dashed.

You see the same thing don't you? We didn't take time to read it. There is a tremendously insightful portion, Luke 24. Remember those two on the road to Emmaus? And the Lord Jesus comes alongside. What manner of conversation is this that you have together as you walk together and are sad?

And of course they turned to him. Are you the only one that's a stranger in Jerusalem? Don't you know what's happened? Remember what they said? We thought, we thought it would have been he. Our expectations were up here and suddenly they've been all dashed.

Why were they despondent? Why were they discouraged? Why were they leaving? Why were they just packing it in and going home again? Because all their expectations had been dashed. So we see a man here with exhaustion, with expectations, but we see as well a wrong estimation as we're going to come to.

I alone am left. If you ever fall into the trap of the I alone mentality, come back to 1st Kings chapter 19. It's a dangerous place to be. Nobody else is faithful in the assembly. Nobody else is raising their children right.

Nobody else loves their wife or husband as I do. I am the only one that's doing it. Be careful because that's where Elijah was and that's part of the problem that occurred here. A man with wrong estimations, a man with wrong expectations, a man with physical exhaustion, and we see a mind that is meditating.

This is what he's been thinking about. I want to talk about the feet that separate, the feet that separate. The man who stood for God, the man who was firm and solid, rock-solid against the panoply of the prophets of Baal, now suddenly he is running from a woman.

The feet that separate, all because of self-pity, all because of self-centeredness, all because of self-interest, and he is running for his life. Determination, not just self-occupation, but determination.

Did you notice, I didn't point it out, but did you notice God comes to Elijah and says, Elijah, what doest thou hear? Come out and stand in the mouth of the cave. Now Elijah did not budge because it doesn't tell you he went out until the still small voice, and so he is not going to budge.

He has every right to be angry and to be filled with self-pity and to be filled with self-occupation. He is not going to budge even though God speaks to him. Now maybe some of you have never been depressed and will never be depressed, but it may be that there may be those who you come in contact with who are and who could be helped.

What we are learning here is a vital lesson, and that is linked with that many times is a determination, just I'm not going to change. That's where Elijah was at this moment in time. Even though the Word of God comes to him here in verse number 11, he said, go forth and stand upon the mount before God.

Even though God says that in verse 11, it's not till verse 13 that Elijah does it. He is just going to stay where he is. There's a determination. He isn't going to budge, but the Lord didn't push him either.

The Lord did not push him. The way the Lord deals with Elijah here will give us insight into how we can be a help to other believers who are going through this kind of difficulty. Very wisely, very tenderly, very kindly the Lord deals with him here, but notice as well not only self-occupation and determination, but isolation.

Isolating himself, he goes all the way down through Israel, all the way down through, we read there, through Beersheba. He goes through Judah, down into Beersheba. He leaves his servant, so he leaves a nation, he leaves his people, he leaves his servant, and he's all by himself.

He wants to be alone. Isolation. Now we need discernment more than anything else, I think, at times. Wisdom and discernment. That person who is missing meetings. That person who isn't coming anymore. It may not just be that they're away from God.

It may not just be that they're cold in heart. It could be what you see in Elijah, a person who just wants to be alone. Alone with their misery, alone with their self-pity, alone with their self-occupation, and to be among the Christians, to be among the believers becomes tremendously painful and difficult, and they just want to close the door, pull the covers over their head, and just stay in bed.

It's just where they can enjoy their self-pity. So you see here then feet that separates. You'll look at then at a spirit that captivates this man as well, and the spirit that captivates all who are plagued by difficulty of this nature.

Let me just tell you three things that mark this kind of a mentality. First of all, there is a... What did I do? Everybody's turning pages. The first thing is that there is really a sense of seeing yourself as deficient and seeing yourself as worthless.

People who are depressed actually see themselves as worthless and as somehow lacking. I think it was C .H. Spurgeon who wrote, the only thing you know is that you're guilty, shameful, and worthless. It's not just that you have made mistakes, or that you've sinned, or that you've reaped futility, it's that you're the mistake, you're the sin, you're the futility.

See, that's something of the insight that individuals who have gone through this can give us, something of the tremendous negativity of their thoughts. So wrong thoughts about themselves, wrong thoughts about the world, that the world is unfair and frustrating and has been cruel to them, and then finally wrong thoughts about God, that somehow the future is all hopeless and nothing can ever change, and what's the use, and we might as well give up.

That's where this man Elijah is. I am no better than my fathers, whoever told him he was. He wasn't any better than his fathers, none of us are any better than our fathers, we're all the same frail mortal flesh, but the moment we begin thinking that somehow we were better than others, and then suddenly the crash comes, then it leads to what we see here.

He had a wrong estimation of himself, woke up someday, one day to the reality, I'm just helpless, I'm just so weak and useless. Wrong estimations about yourself. Now that doesn't mean we go around flagellating ourselves and whipping ourselves with the idea that we are useless and worthless and horrible, that's any self-occupation is wrong, even that kind of self-occupation, but that's what this man was mired in, and he saw things as being unfair after all he had done, and his standing for God, here it was, there was still opposition in the nation, and finally it was hopeless.

What's the use, she's going to take my life, there's no hope, and he runs for his life. So you will see then with this spirit, you'll see something of the pain that that begins to mark depression. He sits down and he says, take away my life.

Now just think for just a moment, if he had stayed where he was, his life was going to be taken, so what are we learning here under the juniper tree when he says, Lord, I'm no better than my fathers, better for me to die than to live, take away my life.

Here's a man who is so overwhelmed now with a sense of guilt and failure that he would rather die. Now I know you will have no way of appreciating this if you've never been tainted or plagued by this, but if there's one or two people here who have known what it is to be severely depressed, you will know what I mean when I say that the pain, the physical pain of depression is so great that sometimes people would prefer to die than live.

You can go through the Old Testament and look at men who wanted to die, women that wanted to die, because the pain of their discouragement of their sense of futility was so great, life had lost all of its value.

Depression, Guilt, and Perfectionism

The pain that is marked by depression, the peril that is marked by depression as well, individuals going through this tremendous grief. The progress of thought involved in depression is clear, isn't it?

It involves really a loss that we grieve over and we feel we'll never regain, and we become angry, we become guilty, and we get depressed. That's what happened to this man here, Elijah. But let me just take a moment and talk about potential for depression.

I deal with many, many people in my professional life, many, many unsaved people, so this is not a skewed population, but also because I have a partner who is also a Christian, because of our reputation we also see many, many Christians, both those linked with the assembly and those linked with other denominational places.

But there seems to be something about being a Christian that puts you on the fast track to depression at times. That may sound strange, because after all, Christians don't get depressed, do they? And yet there's something about being a believer that has built into it a liability to depression.

You know what one of those things is? Believers, unlike the rest of the world, are tuned into guilt. We know the value of guilt, because if it weren't for the fact that God convicted us in our guilt, we would have never been saved.

And if it weren't for the fact that whenever we stray, God makes us conscious of our guilt, we would never be restored. So that we have almost begun to elevate guilt to some virtuous level, as though guilt is a good thing to be tuned into.

And we nurture it at times, and we hold on to it. I mentioned last night, and I'll mention it again, that as I search the Word of God, the only value of guilt, whether we're speaking about an unsafe person or a believer, the only value of guilt is to drive me to God.

And when it has brought me back to God, it has done its work. I do not have to do penance for my sin, I do not have to hold on to that guilt, as though somehow I have to wear it as a badge for a while, so everyone knows I'm really penitent, and I've really been restored.

Again, it doesn't suggest arrogance, and it doesn't suggest an in-your-face attitude about sin, but it does mean that when guilt has done its work, when I have been brought to repentance, then guilt should be let go.

Not nurtured, not held on to. So often believers live with years and years of guilt. So we are tuned into guilt, but then sometimes believers also have personality types that can lead to depression. One that is frequently found is perfectionism.

You know, God is perfect. God never does anything that isn't perfect, so if we are believers, then we should be marked by perfectionism. And so we strive to be perfectionists, and whether you call them neat freaks at home, as a housewife, or whether it's an obsessive-compulsive man in his business, or in his own personal affairs, you know, we tend to have this perfectionistic mindset.

Fortunately, I have never been plagued with that. That is not one of my difficulties and deficiencies, perfectionism. But there are people who are. And you know what happens when you're a perfectionist?

The tremendous difficulty is that 99 .999 isn't good enough. It's got to be 100 or it's failure. There's no tolerance. There's no coming close to what is perfect. And so if you somehow achieve a 100 score, you're just doing what you're supposed to do.

That's what you're supposed to do. But if you get 99 .9, you're a failure. And so individuals who are marked by a strive for perfectionism are setting themselves up for constant disappointment, constant sense of failure, constant futility, constant discouragement, and those individuals frequently crash because they just cannot attain to their make-believe goals.

Yes, God is perfect. And yes, we should strive in everything we do to do it to the very best of our abilities. But when we have done it, to recognize that we are only dealing in a world that is fallible.

We are dealing with unknowns. We are dealing with issues that we have no control over. And we do the very best we can and leave results with God. Perfectionism. How about rigidity? You know, we have equated being faithful and being steadfast in spiritual things with rigidity.

I would have trumpeted this a lot more 20 years ago. Now that I'm getting older, I find I don't like change either. And change becomes threatening. Change, it makes you feel like, you know, they're pulling the pins out from under you.

And so, you know, you want to change the seating arrangement in the hall, or somebody's sitting in your seat this Sunday by mistake. And change, you know, I got to think now about where to sit. And change becomes very threatening to us as we get older.

And somehow we have to begin to differentiate between what is scriptural and what can change. Now, that's just in assembly issues, but you'll understand that at every sphere of life, life is marked by change.

It doesn't stay the same. You know, you have difficulty as you're raising your children, and they start to leave, and life changes. And then, you know what I mean, all those changes that occur in life.

And some of us have difficulty adjusting and adapting because of rigidity in our personalities. Others are marked by misconception. I don't know if it's ever been the case here. I know of areas where negativity was a mark of spirituality.

I'm not saying it is. I'm saying of places where this is where it was understood to be. Negativity was a mark of spirituality. The more things you could see wrong with a person, the more things you could see wrong with how they dressed, how they raised their children, how they gave their ministry, how they lived, you know, the more things you could pick out, that was a sign you were discerning and you were really spiritual.

And you could really just see everything that was wrong. And so Christianity became just a negative type of lifestyle. What can I find wrong with you? What can you see wrong with me? And really, it becomes a form of self-righteousness is what it really is.

But people thought it was really a mark of spirituality to see all that was wrong with everyone else. It is not my job to see what's wrong with the domination. They can go their way. It's not my job to say where God's presence is and isn't.

It's my job to obey the Word of God at the very best of my ability. To let them go their way and do their thing and God bless them and God honor them for whatever measure of truth they wish to hold. It's my business to be faithful to the Word of God.

I can't go there because of things that are contrary to the Word of God. But it's my responsibility to live by the Word of God and seek to follow it. And so it's not mine to go around pronouncing judgments on other places, other people, other things.

It is mine to seek to guide my life and to see that the assembly with which I'm associated with guides its behavior by the Word of God. So Christianity is not a negative mindset constantly. Always looking for things that are wrong and always dwelling on the negative.

Christian Identity and the Blessing of a Christian Home

Christianity should be a positive, vibrant thing. I have heard of places, people, not places much, people who have apologized to their children that, you know, we're saved and we're sorry you can't go here, you can't go there because we're saved and, you know, we're not allowed to do that, the Christians wouldn't like that and all the rest.

Listen, never apologize to your children that you're saved. Never apologize to your children that they can't go to the movies and can't go here and can't go there. You ask your children someday how many kids at school have two parents at home.

Ask your kids at school how many of them have friends at school who are living with both their real mother and real father. When my children were growing up, literally, they could travel almost around the world and wherever they were, I could pick up a phone, I could contact a Christian, and sight unseen, that person will be welcomed in their home, given the keys to the house, given the keys to the car if they needed it.

And I've got to apologize to my kids because they're raised in a Christian home. They have got the very best of life. They've got life on a silver platter just because they're not exposed to all the sordid misery that's out there and just because they don't sit in a movie theater watching scenes of absolute disgust in front of them.

I've got to apologize. Don't live your life in a negative mindset. You make sure your kids realize they've got the very best of everything. When one of my daughters professed, I got letters literally from all over the world telling me of people who have been praying for her.

I want to tell you, do you think that those children that come to your Sunday school have people that you pick up from different areas? You think they have kids, families all over the world praying for them, mentioning their names before the throne of God?

Our children are blessed. Our children have been given life in its richest form. Never apologize for your Christianity or feel somehow that you've been deprived or you're depriving them. You're preserving them and you're giving them the very best of life and the very best God can give a family.

And so negativity should not mark us in the least. Along with this, let me just mention that a burden that that depression adds to believers. Unfortunately, almost every one of us here would say the same thing because it's our mindset and that is that Christians shouldn't get depressed.

And so if you're a Christian and you get depressed, knowing that Christians shouldn't get depressed only makes you even more depressed. You feel more guilt, you feel more frustration, you feel more anger, you feel more hopeless because after all Christians shouldn't get depressed.

And here I am feeling depressed. So that's the extra burden. Let me just talk for a moment about the eyes which depreciate. What do I mean by that? There are two things really that are very, very important to know if you're ever trying to help someone who is depressed.

Balancing and Receiving Biblical Truth

One is the inability to balance truth and the second is the ability to twist truth. And what do I mean? The inability to balance truth. That's obvious, isn't it, when you look at the two on the Emmaus Road.

They knew the Scriptures. We thought it was He that would have redeemed Israel. We were looking for the Redeemer. Isn't that what the Scripture says? And what the Lord had to do was to bring what they knew and to add to it that which would balance it.

Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and then to enter into His glory. They were looking at one-sided truth. Now individuals who are depressed look at one side of the truth. But then they have a tremendous ability to twist the truth.

Now what I mean by that is just this. Let me give you, for instance, a scenario if I can. Let's take that verse that we quoted the other night. Thou wilt keep him. You know, here you are. You think you're going to be a help to someone who's really down, really discouraged.

And here, I want to read you a verse. This verse has been a tremendous help to me. And so you turn to Isaiah 25 and read verse 3. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee.

There you see, isn't that a wonderful verse? Look what God has promised. And they'll look at the verse and they'll look at you and they'll say, I'm really a failure. I can't even trust God. You see what they're doing?

They're taking the negative aspect of the verse, turning it on themselves and crushing themselves. Now I don't want to minimize the value of the Word of God. I don't want to minimize the value of prayer.

But everything they read condemns them. Everything they read crushes them. Every verse you give them, they will somehow find a way to twist it and to make themselves feel more hopeless, more useless, more guilty, more depressed.

The ability to twist truth. A merry heart doeth good like medicine. Ah, is it there? It is. Yeah. I really have poison in my heart, don't I? I'm really bad. I guess I'm hopeless. I guess I'll never get there.

And on and on it goes. This unique ability to take scripture that you give and to look just at one side of it and to use it to further their own grief and their own depression and their own condemnation.

Does that mean we don't use the scripture? Does that mean that somehow we close the book and we say, well, what you need is a psychiatrist, so let's go? Well, just bear with me as we look at this man Elijah and look at how God dealt with him.

Because the Word of God did not affect him at first, did it? God came, God spoke, it meant nothing to Elijah. Now you see that, don't you, in 1 Kings 19. The Word of God meant nothing to him at first.

And the Word of God comes with only condemning power to the person who is in this mindset and having this great difficulty. But I want you to look first then at the hands that, at the hands that vegetate.

You'll notice God says to Elijah, what doest thou hear, Elijah? Elijah, you're doing nothing. You're doing nothing. It's not only what, what are you doing here, but what are you doing? So that when an individual gets into this mindset, it interferes with their ability to function in every way.

Function in the home, function in the assembly, function at work. So we're not just talking about having a bad day, having a blue day, having a bad hair day, whatever you want to call it. We're not talking, we're talking about people who can't function.

What doest thou hear, Elijah? A man that was totally inactive. The toll that depression takes, personal usefulness for God is lost and relationships are destroyed. Tremendous stress on the, on the family, tremendous stress on those that are close to a person.

Listening Before Offering Counsel

But then what do we do and how do we do it? So let me just quickly come then to two things to try to deal with. A mouth that must ventilate and a heart that God must penetrate. How did the Lord Jesus deal with the two on the Emmaus road?

What did he do? Did he rebuke them? Did he give them a pep talk? Did he just say, you know, what is wrong with you boys? Don't you know what the Bible says? The first thing he did is he let them talk.

He let them talk. What manner of communications are these that you have as you walk together and are sad? Aren't thou only a stranger in Jerusalem and knowest not the things that are come to pass in these days?

What things? Tell me about it. Now I think you'll agree, and it hardly needs to be emphasized, does it, that the Lord Jesus knew the details far better than they did. So why is he letting them talk? Why is he letting them ventilate, if I can use that word?

Because they need to talk. They need to unburden their hearts. Maybe this is one place where young Christians can maybe get something from this meeting. There are men that you call elders, that you call shepherds, who have to deal with this kind of thing all the time.

And the best way I can tell you is that they have to let people download on them. And most of them are downloading with very slow modems. It takes a long time. They're not using T1 lines. They're using maybe 28k modems, and it could be an hour or two just listening.

All you do is listen. Just listen. Hard. And you're hearing burdens, and you're hearing grief, and you're hearing sorrow, and the story gets repeated time and again during that two-hour session maybe.

And all you're doing is listening. Now you young Christians, you pray for those men. Tremendous burden. Tremendous responsibility to hear other people's grief and other people's sorrow, and to know how to deal with it, how to cope with it.

Tremendous burden. You don't leave those kinds of things feeling good. You leave those things mentally and physically exhausted, and wondering and crying to God for help. That's what those two on the road to Emmaus did.

That seven-mile journey they took together as they went to their village. Now you figure how long it takes to walk seven miles. And during that seven-mile journey, and we weren't talking about walking down Main Street.

We're talking about country roads over hills and so on. So you figure seven miles. Probably, you know, four miles an hour is a pretty good clip on a good clear surface. So you figure a couple of hours at least they walked.

During that time there were two things that went on. They downloaded to him, and he opened the scriptures to them. So however much time each of them took, I don't know, but I do know this, that the Lord let them talk until they were done.

When a person is down, when a person is discouraged, don't go with all of your wise advice. Don't go with your sermons. Don't go with your... just go and listen. Just listen. Ask them what's wrong. How can you be of help?

Tell me about what's on your heart. And they need to listen. The Lord allowed Elijah to ventilate. What doest thou hear, Elijah? And Elijah says what's on his mind. The Lord tells him to come out. He doesn't come out, and you know what happens.

The different experiences, the earthquake, the fire, and so on, the still small voice. And again, what doest thou hear, Elijah? I want you to notice something which is very helpful. If you look back at 1st Kings 19, and you look together at verse number 10, at what Elijah has to say, and you look again at verse number 14, at what Elijah has to say, you will notice that they are word for word identical.

There's not even a variation in it. And while I wasn't there, I would wonder if maybe it was the exact same tone of voice. Everything the same. You know why? Because a depressed person has a little tape running in their mind.

It runs 24 hours, 7 days a week. And they're listening and going over the same story. Why life has been so unfair, why they deserve to be upset and angry and depressed, why they're so hopeless, why they're so useless, why they're so guilty, why they're so bad, why they're so useless.

And the tape runs constantly. That's what was happening with Elijah. The tape was running in Elijah's mind, and it comes out twice. And the Lord just listens. Just listens. Just had to get it out. And that's where we see a lot of exact same words.

God’s Tender Care for the Discouraged

The Lord so tenderly and so graciously deals here with these individuals. Let me just point out a couple of things in the way the Lord deals with Elijah, the way the Lord dealt with the two on the road to Emmaus, the way the Lord dealt with Peter by the Sea of Tiberias.

Now, just be honest for a moment. Here's Elijah running for his life, and he lays down under a juniper tree to sleep. What does God do? Elijah, get back there. What are you doing? No. Actually, makes him a meal.