Something doesn't add up.
"These are the days of Elijah," we've heard it sung.
"These are the days of Elijah," we've heard it preached.
"These are the days of Elijah," we've heard it prophesied.
But then I look around. "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" I ask.
How is it that for all this singing, preaching and prophesying about
"Elijah," there's next to nothing to be seen of the real spirit of Elijah
in the land? There are some pretenders banging a few tinkling
cymbals claiming to represent "Elijah. " But where is the true spirit
of Elijah-confronting kings, calling down fire, raising the dead to life?
As I mused on this - which I have often-the Lord used some writings
of a respected prophetic mentor (long since gone to paradise) to
remind me of the "other side" of the days of Elijah.
It's true that every time we hear the name "Elijah" we immediately
envision all the miraculous feats that marked his ministry. So this
is naturally what we have been expecting in fulfillment of these
prophecies. But when we read the entire story of Elijah, we see
that there was more to his arrival than the obvious. Of special
interest is the part of the tale from I Kings 17:2-5:
The word of the Lord came to Elijah: "Go away from here, turn
eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, east of the
Jordan. You may drink from the brook, and I have commanded the
ravens to supply you with food there." So he went and did
according to the word of the Lord.
This "hiding away" of Elijah is of great significance. It comes from
the very opening of the account of his ministry, long before a
single miracle or power-confrontation is ever recorded. The context
is this:
Elijah arrives on the scene to make a declaration of drought to
king Ahab, and no sooner does he appear than he "disappears."
He has come, and yet he just as quickly is "gone." He knows
where he is. But nobody else does.
This "other" part of the story of Elijah-the "hidden" part-can go a
long way to encourage those of us who have been hearing and
believing in the manifestation of the end time Elijah spirit, only to
see everything but! Let's try to put some perspective on this. In
the process, we'll see that the days of Elijah are indeed here after
all as predicted.
For decades, people with Elijah-class hearts have been sitting in
the backs of churches ruled by Ahabs and Jezebels. Despite their
best efforts to remain at peace and to hope for repentance and
change, they have been eventually precipitated by the Spirit into
confrontations where they have ended having to declare the
departure of God's glory ("Ichabod") to the leaders of these
ministries. This emergence and precipitation of believers to such
declarations is in fact the first fulfillment of the prophecies of the
return of the days of Elijah.
Note more carefully the declarations and their effect. These "Elijah"
believers and their declarations have not made the headlines of the
Christian tabloids. Usually they are known only within the church
they've been led into confronting. And their departures are often a
hush-hush affair. But their story has been multiplied thousand-fold
throughout the body of Christ. Warning after warning and
declaration after declaration of the departure of the Spirit has been
made by Elijahs to Ahab pastors and leaders of ministries of all sizes.
When translated into prophetic terms, the essence of these
declarations is that "there will be no more rain" in this church.
Again, this has been prophesied multiplied times over in thousands
of churches by innumerable Elijahs of all kinds-young ones, old
ones; men, women; pew sitters, church staff; new comers, old
comers - none of whom know the others across the body of Christ.
And what we are seeing now in the body-wide church is a veritable
death and famine in fulfillment of these multiplied declarations.
What is the consequence for the Elijahs? They have been of
course ushered straight out the doors of the churches. They are no
longer to be found or heard. They are in fact, hidden away. This
hiding is itself part of the pattern in early fulfillment of the days of
Elijah. On the surface, it appears that the Elijahs have been
"kicked out." But from the Spirit's perspective they have in fact
been led to hide themselves away.
Not that the Elijahs have understood this. They haven't. They
usually have not heard a voice saying, "go hide thyself by the
brook Cherith." But in reality, that is what the Spirit has mandated -
even against the attempts of the Elijahs to be profitably engaged
with the body of Christ. Even in spite of themselves, the Lord has
hidden them away.
Meanwhile the death continues. The real kingdom word of God and
the power of the Spirit are hardly to be found in any western
church today. The rain is indeed stopped, just as the Elijahs have
declared it would. The land is utterly parched. There's hardly a
morsel of real bread to feed on anywhere. Lots of show and theater.
Not much else. The prophecy has come true: a "famine for hearing
the word of God."
Not only this, but the famine in the church is affecting the
surrounding culture and governments. The knowledge of God is
disappearing from the face of the culture. It's getting so bad that
laws are being passed under various guises to effectively prohibit
the preaching of the gospel - in supposedly "Christian" nations.
The Elijahs hidden away and seeing this, like John the Baptist
confusedly ask, "Where is the Lord of God of Elijah?" They can't
understand why they aren't being released to confront the society
and the governments of this world with the bold claims of Christ -
why their "hands are tied" as if in prison, having to stand by and
watch society totally kick out our God from its midst, and
possibly even eventually kill them all like sitting ducks.
As one who lives in the "east" of his country as Elijah was sent to,
I have had larger cause to meditate on this story. But here is what
God wants me to understand, and I pass on to you. A time is
coming when we will indeed be released to confront the Ahab
churches and the godless society they have allowed to fester
under their watch. There will be a culture wide Mount Carmel
showdown. There will be some kind of repentance, false prophets
will be slain, and the true rain will indeed fall that has been
prophesied. (Don't ask me when or how). Meanwhile however,
other things will still happen before this:
1) The Elijah movement will still be fed and watered by the Spirit
in hiding. We will still find spiritual nourishment and can pass it on
to one another, despite the surrounding famine.
2) The "prophets of Baal" serving a false "culture-intoxicated
Jesus" will still keep "rain dancing" in the theater churches,
singing meaningless songs about "revival" that they don't really
understand and ultimately don't really want. Such rain dancing will
manifest itself in earnest at the Mt. Carmel confrontation to come.
3) Before all this happens, the Elijahs will be paired with a
"widow people" in "Zarephath" where together they will be mutually
supplied by the Lord (the "meal" of the Word and "oil" of the Spirit
will not fail here) until the confrontation back in "Israel" is ready.
Zarephath was outside of Israel. This means that the present
hidden Elijah movement will make some kind of Spirit-directed
encounter and form some kind of alliance with a divinely "prepared"
yet equally unknowledgeable people outside the church as we
know it. Watch for this.
~ SOURCE: firstloveministry.com