What Are You Doing Here?
Part 1

I Kings 19:13
(I Kings17-19)

As a school teacher and principal I would often find students some place where they didn’t belong. My question to them was usually, “What are you doing here?” Too often their response was, “Nuthin.” To which I would reply, “Go do ‘nuthin’ someplace else.” Although I sometimes wanted to say that, I never actually did. I would find out where they were supposed to be and send them in that direction, sometimes with a personal escort. Everyone in the school had a place they were to be and something they were to be doing.

Which brings us to our text…

He felt alone. He was overcome with despair and believed that there was no reason to go on. He was alone, hiding… It was not always this way. He could look back at great victories, days of great boldness.

Years earlier he had burst onto the scene. He was from Tishba. He was a tough man from a rough area. And he was called by God to do a difficult job. He was Elijah.

Elijah’s adversaries were the enemies of God’s people, and they were formidable. The king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel was Ahab. Perhaps Ahab was a great politician, popular among the people. He could have been a charismatic leader. He undoubtedly did some excellent things from a worldly perspective. But in the eyes of God, he was the worst king of Israel to date.

Synonymous with evil was his wife, Jezebel. She was the daughter of Ethbaal, king and priest of Sidon. Not only was she a pagan worshipper of Baal and Asherah, she led, through her influence on her husband, in a further corruption of the people of Israel. Jezebel was evil, pagan, vindictive, and the power behind the power of the throne.

And the people… The people of Israel were easily persuaded to follow the practices of Baal worship; practices that were pleasing to the king and queen but more so, pleasing to their own physical desires. Were the religious people of that day any different than many of the religious people in this day? How often do we see those who sell out truth for earthly treasure or pleasure? How many people do we personally know who prefer a religion of convenience to a faith of commitment? Commitment cost something. But then again, so does godless compromise!

With a boldness born of faith, Elijah stood before King Ahab. With a faith stronger than any thought to personal safety, he issued a warning from his God. “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years
except at my word” (I Kings 17:1). What’s the big deal? No rain for awhile. I won’t have to mow the grass. The few years turned out to be over three years and the results were devastating. God was in control of the weather then and He is still in control of the weather today regardless of what some politicians would have us believe. The God and Creator of this universe is still running the show.

In the next Studies we will see ways that our Creator is in control.