#2 JESUS CHRIST IN THE BOOK OF 1 KINGS - ELIJAH
#2 JESUS CHRIST IN THE BOOK OF 1 KINGS – ELIJAH
Tuesday Morning Bible Study
May 20, 2025
After the death of Solomon, God rent the Kingdom apart by stirring up adversaries; Hadad the Edomite, Rezon, raising up of Jeroboam (11: 14-25) and the folly of Rehoboam (12: 1-24).
The LORD gave the northern kingdom of Judah to Jeroboam, son of Nebat. This followed a revolt of the ten tribes against Rehoboam, Solomon’s son.
Rehoboam will reap the consequences of Solomon’s fence-straddling as God rends a large part of the kingdom from him.
All the kings of Israel and Judah lined up under “two standard men,” David the godly king and Jeroboam the ungodly king.
The history of the two kingdoms is in parallel form and synchronize the ascension of one king with the reign of another. The kings of Judah (age of ascension, length of reign, mother of ruler), and the Kings of Israel (length of rule, and site of royal residence) are paralleled, both giving the statement of death and place of burial. Kings in Israel produced carbon copy sons who duplicated their fathers’ evil ways.
Under David and Solomon, we saw the establishment and glory of the united Kingdom. Beginning in 1 Ki. 12, we see the disruption of the Kingdom into two houses, two Kingdoms, and two dynasties with their declines.
1 Ki: 11-12: Rehoboam reigned for 17 years. He was young and inexperienced as he went to Shechem to be crowned. He conciliated the northern tribes. He took the advice of the young men and became a cruel overlord. This triggered the split and division. After being established he forsook the Law of the Lord and all Israel with him. The prophet Shemaiah warned Rehoboam against fighting as the Priests and Levites remained faithful to the temple in Jerusalem. God sent Shishak, King of Egypt, to humble Rehoboam. The LORD granted a partial deliverance but Judah became a tributary to Egypt. Rehoboam died at the age of 58, and “he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD.”
2 Ch. 123:15-16: The acts of Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies? And there were wars between Rehoboam AND Jeroboam continually. Rehoboam slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David; and Abijah his son reigned in his stead.
Beginning with Jeroboam 1 there were 19 kings of Israel in the northern Kingdom. From the light of church history, a study of the apostasy of the Northern Kingdom, Israel, parallels the apostasy of church history.
As David is used as a model for walking in righteousness, Jeroboam is used as model for walking in wickedness.
Jeroboam reigned for 22 years. This industrious young man was exalted from a low station and made ruler over the house of Joseph. The LORD through Ahijah, the prophet, gave ten tribes to Jeroboam and promised upon conditions to establish the kingdom through him. When the Kingdom divided, this spokesman for the ten tribes became their first King. Shechem was the first capitol of the Northern kingdom of Israel. To prevent the people from returning to Jerusalem and the temple worship, Jeroboam made two calves of gold, erecting them at Bethel and Dan. Rejecting the order of God, he made priests of the lowest of the people. He made a substitute for the Feast of Tabernacle, ordaining his own feast in the 8th month, including a false altar, and false worship. God sent a prophet, the man of God. out of Judah. Jeroboam’s hand dries up and is then restored. Following the incident with the Prophet of Bethel, the threatened destruction of the house of Jeroboam begins. His son, Abijah, (not to be confused with the son of Rehoboam) becomes sick and dies at the word of Ahijah. Later, Jeroboam was defeated soundly in battle by Abijah, son of Rehoboam. The Lord struck him and he died. Jeroboam I was the man who made Israel to sin. As such, this wicked King typifies the MAN OF SIN (2 Thess. 2), the carnal mind, the very SPIRIT OF ANTICHRIST and the BEAST nature of the old man. That he instituted a substitute Feast of Tabernacles, pointed to a false hope of mankind accessing the Glory of God. A man-made system cannot access God’s Glory.
I prefer to skip over the list of kings from Chapter 12 -16 which are worthy of study another time.
1 Ki. 16:28-30: So Omri slept with this fathers, and was buried in Samaria and Ahab his son reigned in his stead. In the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, began Ahab, the son of Omri to reign over Israel… Ahab reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him.
The Church life---the spiritual life of Israel---could not have been at lower ebb than at this period under the reign of Ahab. His own faithful people were counted by units. Thousands were bowing the knee to Baal and kissing his impious shrine.
But Jehovah has His hero prepared for the times.
ELIJAH
Today, I will attempt to cover Elijah. Next week we will cover Ahab and Jezebel.
Elijah was raised up by the Lord in a time of gross national apostasy. Only one of his sermons is recorded in the Holy Bible, but the One true God who rides on the mobile chariot of fire led by His horses of fire (2 Ki. 2:11) gifted him with a supernatural miracle ministry as God’s prophet of fire. He was an oral prophet.
The story of Elijah is surrounded with a blended halo of heroism and saintliness. Though neither angel nor demi-god, but “a man of like passions,” (James 5:17) intensely human---yet he spent more time in conversation with heaven than conversations on earth. His name means “My God the Lord,” or “Jehovah is my God,” Elijah is introduced in 1 Kings 17 as one who is endued with power from on high: not only an ambassador from God, but the very viceroy and representative of Omnipotence. He announces himself as standing before the Lord of hosts, as an emissary of heaven, rather than a citizen of the lower world; coming forth from time to time from his mysterious seclusion to deliver his message, and then retiring again into solitude to wait fresh communications from on high.
2 Ki. 17:1: And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, as the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
Elijah is found 62 times in the Old Testament and 30 times in the New Testament. In the New Testament, he is called Elias. He is one of the most famous men of the Bible.
He served in the Northern Kingdom in the reigns of Ahab and his son, Ahaziah. Elijah was prominent in Jewish prophetic expectations John 1: 21-25. His importance in God’s purpose is seen:
In the prophesied reappearing before the great and terrible day of the LORD (Mal. 4:5).
2. In his presence with Moses and the LORD upon the Mount of Transfiguration, where the three talked about the Lord’s sacrificial death. Luke 9:31: Who appeared in glory and spoke of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.
The Lord Jesus revealed two truths about Elijah. Church folks still debate these truths. Some say that John came in the SPIRIT OF ELIJAH, but the end-time ELIJAH MINISTRY (CORPORATE) IS COMING IN BOTH in the SPIRIT AND THE POWER of Elijah. Note that John worked no miracles.
ELIAS IS COME already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise, shall also the son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spoke unto them of JOHN THE BAPTIST (Mt. 17: 12-13; Mal. 3:1). Elijah had come!
2. ELIAS truly shall first come and RESTORE all things. (Mt. 17:11).
Elijah did come in the person of John the Baptist.
Major principles concerning John:
1. He was born within the Old order, His father being a Priest.
2. He left the religious systems and began to say what nobody else had said and do what nobody else had done (a new move of the Spirit).
3. He had a prophetic ministry that preceded the manifestation of the Son (prepared the way for the King).
4. He preached repentance (change of minds).
5. Many other principles:
a. Lk. 1:13 – An answer to prayer; called by name.
b. Lk. 1:14: - Causes joy.
c. Lk. 1:15: - Great under God’s scrutiny, a Spirit-filled Nazarite.
d. Lk. 1:16: Ministry of reconciliation (2 Co. 5: 17-210.
e. Compare Mal. 4:6
f. Lk. 1:76: Prophet of the Highest (realm or order).
g. Lk. 1:77: Knowledge, proclaiming the remission of sins.
h. Lk. 1:78: Reveals the God of mercy (MERCY-SEAT = LOVE SEAT).
i. Lk. 1:79: Brings light and direction
j. Lk. 1:80: Grew in the place of obscurity until the Father’s time.
The essential purpose of Elijah’s ministry was to demonstrate the SOVEREIGN reign of God in every realm. Thus, God and Jesus are revealed in 1 Kings as:
1. 17: 1-6: The One Who is a Provider in need.
2. 17: 17-24 – The One Who has power over death.
3. 18: 17-41: The One Who is the only true God.
4. 18: 42-246: The One Who is Sovereign over the elements.
5. 20: 13-34: The One Who is the LORD of hosts.
6. 20: 35-43: The One who demand implicit obedience.
7. 21: 1-26: The One Who is a God of justice.
8. 21: 27-29: The One who is the Merciful One
9. 22: 19-23: The One Who is Sovereign over spirits.
10. 22: 30-38 – The One who is the Mighty One.
Elijah was Jehovah’s messenger of wrath to a guilty age. “He stood up as a fire, and his word burned as a lamp.” The most graphic and memorable incidents in Elijah’s life speak and are illumined with the element and symbol of fire. It was the empire of Baal---the fire-god---he came to shake and overthrow. Fire fell at his intercession on the sacrifice at Carmel. God showed him at Horeb, the reflection of his own character in the fire which preceded the “still small voice.” He called down fire on the captains of fifties. In a chariot of Fire, he went up to Heaven. Like a fiery meteor, he appears all at once in the sacred firmament, and as a fiery meteor he vanishes.
“It seems as if this man had the thunder of the Lord for a soul, and that the element in which he was borne to heaven was the one in which he was brought forth.” (Lamartine’s Holy Land, vol. i.p. 189)
The Elijah Ministry is the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the PROPHET LIKE Moses.
The Elijah Ministry is primarily a ministry of restoration. It points to the ministries of Eph. 4:11 who are sent to repair the saints.
The Elijah ministry is an end-time prophetic ministry (in the principle of John the Baptist) that precedes the literal coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We won’t get into the two witnesses.
In John 5: 31-47, The apostle John lists four witnesses of Jesus Christ.
1. Witness of John the Baptist 5:33-35
2. Witness of works 5:36
3. Witness of the Father 5: 37-38
4. Witness of the Scripture 5: 39-40.
There is a MOSES-ELIJAH ministry in Rev. 11 that is paralled by the two sons of oil, the anointed ones of Zech. 4. In this dimension, attributes of Elijah’s and Elisha’s ministry will be revealed in the over comer who has received of the prophetic mantle of Jesus. We will get deeper into this when we study Elisha in 2 Kings.
Elijah had 8 miracles and Elisha had 16.
Such was emphatically the Tishbite, ---bold, brave, trained to habits of endurance. The gigantic evils of the times needed a giant to grapple with them; ---one who could confront wickedness before the throne of kings ---be the scourger of sin and dare anything and everything for the sake of truth. God has His star ready to come forth in the midnight, gloom. When the sword drops from the hand of Moses, He has His Joshua ready to take it up. When the Philistine champion defies the armies of Israel, he has ready the youth with the sling and stones to smite him to the dust. When His people are led captive, he has Daniel, Cyrus, Joshua, and Zerubbabel, ready at His word to turn again the captivity of Zion. He has only to “give the word,” and “great is the company of them that publish it.”
The story of Ahab and Jezebel starts in 1 Kings 16 and continues in 2 Kings. I hope to cover them next week.
Ahab and his whole people except a feeble remnant were guilty of glaring national apostasy. They dishonored the one true God and had adopted a god who presumed to be over the elements. They had made fire, hail, snow, vapor, wind, stars, moon, and the sun objects of their idolatry.
Jehovah metes out judgment in accordance with their guilt. He makes His gifts of the elements the instruments of their punishment which had been the means of their sin. They had un-deified Him in nature. He will make nature wield its mighty force upon their land. They had given to demons sovereignty over the “rain” and the “dew”. He makes these arrows in His own quiver to be the weapons of vengeance, ---with what measure they mete; it was measured to them again.
God acts upon fixed and unchanging principles. Mankind cannot UN-deify Him by the worship of graven images and false gods.
God has always raised up a suitable instrument in every great crisis of His Church’s history. I believe the Lord is again raising up prophets of fire who are standing before God and with a voice of thunder proclaim--- “As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand.”
Lord send the fire of the Holy Spirit on the wings of the fiery Seraphim, the flaming ones of earth, as a burning and shining light; a beacon-blaze of warning set on the hill-tops to stand with men and women of God to go forth in the power of Elijah.
Prophets of Fire resume your sacred mission! Arise in the power of God and again ask the question in faith believing---“Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” May the God “who answers by fire” raise up man “in the spirit and power of Elias,” who shall rekindle the smoldering ashes on the Church’s altar, to consume the dross, and refine the gold.
Luke 1:17: He shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the father to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church, 10114 West Hidden Lakes Lane, Richmond, TX.
Scripture from N.K.J.V. and K.J.V. – I entered into he labors of Principles of Present Truth by Kelly Varner; The Prophet of Fire by John Ross MacDuff. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Pastor MacDuff or Dr. Kelly Varner, both of whom are now in heaven.