God’s Clouds – (7.) Elijah and the Heavy Cloudburst
God’s Clouds – (7.) Elijah and the Heavy Cloudburst.
“God thunders marvelously with His voice; He works wonders that we cannot understand.
He commands the snow, ‘Fall to the ground!’ And the downpour of rain, His mighty downpour of rain…
He loads the clouds with moisture and scatters His lightning-clouds…
Listen to this, O Job, and pay attention! Stand still and ponder the wondrous works of God;
Do you have any idea how God controls the storms, and causes the lightning to flash from His clouds?
Do you understand how the clouds are balanced in the sky, floating in the air, which are miraculous works of Him who is perfect in wisdom and skill? (Job 37:5-6, 11, 14-16).
Clouds truly are wondrous, and miraculous, and one of our Creator’s greatest inventions. Each cloud we see in the sky is unrepeatable, completely unique and always changing. They can be dark and forboding, or light and joyous. They can pour down upon us light rain or heavy rain, a blizzard of snow or postcard snowflakes, driving hail or frozen ice. They can strike the earth with dramatic lightning or be a sun-drenched fluffball. Clouds can be practically luminous and filled with sunlight or monstrously dark without any light at all. It’s no wonder clouds have captured the imagination of poets, artists, pretty much all of mankind since the beginning, for they are just hanging there in the sky between heaven and earth, somehow floating and perfectly balanced in midair, above the earth yet still near us as well. Hopefully the science of clouds we now know will not remove the unpredictable mystery and glorious wonder of clouds. As author John Ruskin put it, “You may take any single fragment of any cloud in the sky, and you will find it put together as if there had been a year’s thought over the plan of it – a picture in itself. You may try every other piece of cloud in the heavens, and you will find them everyone as perfect, and yet not one in the least like another.” (The True and the Beautiful, 1858).
Clouds as Theophanies. From the Greek words “Theo” (God) and “phaino” (to appear), a theophany is when God announces Himself in a visible form, and He makes a temporary appearance on earth for reasons of His own. A theophany is God’s temporary visible manifestation to remind us of His permanent presence in the world. A theophany is when God stoops to us in gracious self-revelation in a form that we can experience through our senses. Theophanies, though, are preliminary, because they anticipate the ultimate theophany in the incarnation of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Theophanies in the Hebrew Bible were God’s temporary appearances, but in Jesus we see the fulfillment of theophany, a permanent appearance of God on earth.
“The effective prayer of a righteous person has great power. Elijah was a man like us, with a nature just like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.” (James 5:16-18).
We read about the astounding ministry of Elijah in 1 Kings 17-21 and 2 Kings 1-2. We don’t know the family background of Elijah, though we do know he thundered into town as a country bumpkin from the other side of the tracks in Gilead. He was a shaggy outdoorsman, a loner, and he often felt abandoned as a result. He came onto the scene full of spiritual audacity, right from the beginning of his ministry, and was one of the great personalities in the Hebrew Bible… Sometimes fearful, other times fearless; sometimes weak, other times strong; sometimes discouraged, other times full of confidence; sometimes he ran from trouble, and other times he ran right into the middle of it. Because he was a loner, he often felt isolated and abandoned. We also know he enjoyed an unusual personal relationship with God. He was consistently a man of deep faith and fervent prayer. Elijah was noted for his distinctive wardrobe: a famous cloak made of fur and animal hair stitched together that became a prophetic symbol and later given to Elisha; and a leather loincloth, a homemade piece of underwear that no doubt raised the eyebrows of many. Elijah was a religious reformer and a miracle worker. He was a thorn in King Ahab’s side, and Ahab deserved a few thorns, for he “did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him.” (1 Kings 16:30). Ahab even called Elijah “the troublemaker of Israel.” (1 Kings 18:17). He was unafraid to confront the evil king Ahab, but then ran from Queen Jezebel. Elijah had a flair for the dramatic and the supernatural. Elijah prayed successfully for a drought (1 Kings 17:1), then prayed for a rainfall three and a half years later. He multiplied food and oil for a poverty-stricken widow, and then raised her son from the dead, the first resurrection in the Scripture. He held a divine duel between himself and 850 pagan prophets on Mt. Carmel, and he won. With God on his side, it was no contest. He was fed by ravens in the wilderness, and then by a personal visit by the Angel of the Lord, an authentic Christophany. He listened to God whisper to him on Mt. Sinai, and was ushered into heaven by a chariot and horses of fire. To top it all off, we find Elijah in the Gospel 900 years later, talking with Moses and Jesus at the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor (Matt. 17). Elijah was complicated and unpolished, and James said he was “human just like us.” (James 5:16-18). Just like us? Yes, he had his human frailties like all other humans, but nonetheless he was used powerfully by God in a unique time and setting.
The Duel. There came a time during Elijah’s ministry when he tired of seeing double mindedness among the fickle faith of the Israelites. They can’t seem to choose who they want to worship. Should it be the Canaanite gods of Baal and Asherah, or should it be Yahweh, the God Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Or maybe an interesting mix of them all would be best. So Elijah confronted king Ahab (1 Kings 18:17-19), who was responsible for much of this idolatry, and issued his challenge. Elijah demanded that Ahab bring all his pagan prophets, all 850 of them, to Mount Carmel. Let’s have a duel of gods, says Elijah, and see who wins. We’ll see who has true divine power, so the people can see once and for all who to follow after.
Elijah vs. Baal on Carmel. All the people of Israel seemed to be there on Carmel, because this promised to be quite a spectacular event. Once everyone settled in on Carmel, Elijah shouted to everyone the reason for this moment… “If Yahweh is God, follow Him! But if Baal is God, follow him!” He proposed that the pagan prophets lay their sacrificed bulls on an altar and pray to Baal to light the sacrifice. Once the pagans were completed with that, Elijah suggested that he would do the same. And whoever’s fire was kindled from heaven, that would be the true God. The pagans did as instructed. They prayed and danced around the altar, and even went so far as to cut themselves in religious frenzy in order to convince Baal of the importance of this moment. They hoped that all that blood from the prophets would impress Baal into action. Finally, after a full day of this fervent pagan activity around the altar, it was obvious that nothing would happen. Baal did not in fact rise to the occasion. Now Elijah’s turn at the altar, when he rebuilt the altar, dug a trench around it, and had the people pour large jars of water over the sacrificed bull. Elijah then had water poured over the altar two more times, drenching the altar and filling the trench, convincing the people that a fire now would be practically impossible. After a thoughtful, simple prayer to Yahweh, a roaring fire from heaven descended and burned up everything, including the bull, the wood of the altar, the stones that made up the altar, and even the dirt surrounding the altar. This divine demonstration of power astounded the people of Israel, and they all fell face down on the ground, chanting “Yahweh is God! Yahweh is God!” The duel was over, and it was no contest.
“And Elijah said to Ahab, ‘Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.’ And Elijah returned to the top of Mt. Carmel, and he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees. And Elijah said to his servant, ‘Go up now, look toward the sea.’ And he went up and looked and said, ‘There is nothing to look at.’ And Elijah said, ‘Go again,’ seven times in all. And at the seventh time, the servant said, ‘Behold, a very little cloud, as tiny as the hand of a man, is rising from the sea.’ And in a little while, the sky became filled with dark, monstrous storm clouds, the wind grew wild, and there came huge cloudburst of rain, a torrential downpour.” (1 Kings 18:41-45).
The Drought Ends. Finally, Elijah is ready to ask God for rain to end the drought. Elijah must have thought that, surely, he had made his point, that the Lord is not pleased with the people’s idolatry. Ahab had been fasting to bring rain, so Elijah told him he might as well get off his fast. Elijah smelled rain in the air and knew his prayers for rain had been answered. Baal was the god of rain and fertility, and so the drought was an ‘in-your-face’ message that Baal does not have authority over nature, only the Lord does. In fact, during extended dry seasons, at that time, the people assumed that Baal must have submitted to the death god Mot. Soon after the heavy rainfall, Queen Jezebel, who partnered with Ahab in their promotion of Baal worship, put a bounty on Elijah’s head. She pronounced an official death sentence on Elijah for the slaughter of all her Baal prophets and priests on Mt Cartmel. So Elijah chose to run for his life to a friendlier place in the land of Judah.
More Drama. At the end of his life sometime later, Elijah, true to his life and ministry, went out with a bang. Instead of dying, the Lord sent down from heaven a fiery chariot and fiery horses, and took him home to heaven that way. But that’s still not the end of Elijah. That’s not the last we see of him in Scripture. He is mentioned again in the last lines of the Hebrew Bible (Malachi 4:5). It was prophesied that Elijah would come and prepare the way for the Messiah. Jesus explained that one had indeed come in the spirit and power of Elijah, and that was the prophet John the Baptist (Matt. 11:14). Unbelievably, Elijah still makes another appearance in a dramatic scene during the life of Jesus. During the Transfiguration, Elijah and Moses were seen discussing the coming passion of Jesus, and were engaged in deep conversation with Him. Moses represents the Torah and all that was written down for the benefit of the believers and the Hebrew community. And Elijah represented the prophets, God’s messengers who helped keep the Faith alive. I don’t know how God could have found better representatives to have a talk with Jesus.