St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Pentecost 6 – July 8^th and 11^th, 2004

Dear faithful people of God,

Watch the news lately – Read the newspaper very often – See what is happening in the world around us. What do you see? I see a world that is full of hatred, where killing someone seems like an every day occurrence. I see a nation and a world that has for so many years allowed a person the right to kill an unborn baby and justify it by calling it a choice. I see a nation that has begun to destroy what we call marriage by saying that a marriage is any two people that love each other – not just a man and a woman as God has told us. I see a nation where we call ourselves humane when we end the life of a sick or elderly person just because their health wasn’t what it used to be and their quality of life has deteriorated. I see nations that are willing to destroy each other because they are of a different cultural or ethnic backgrounds. I’m sure that if I allowed everyone to list something we could talk about the problems of this world for quite some time, but I think th! at you get the point. There are many bad things happening in our world.

Have you ever for just a moment wondered how God could allow all these terrible things to happen? Have you ever just a little bit asked a question wondering where is God in all this mess? If God was really in control of things, wouldn’t things be better rather than worse? As we look at our reading for this morning we see a very similar picture being described by the prophet Elijah. He was questioning just a little where was God? He was wondering whether God was really in control of all things. It is through Elijah and God’s answer to Elijah that we will mediate on the theme:

First we need to take a look at the history and background surrounding these words of our text. By understanding what Elijah was going through and what he was called by God to do, we can better understand why he felt the way he did. Elijah had been called by God to preach to the wicked and stubborn people of Israel. His calling was very difficult in the fact that he was the prophet who was to deal with the very wicked king Ahab and his even more wicked wife Jezebel. Elijah’s recent history in a nutshell goes like this. God told Elijah to tell Ahab that a drought would come to the land of Israel that would last three years. That is exactly what happened as Elijah fled to the place where he was fed by the raven and drank from the brook and later moved in with the widow of Zaraphath. Soon after that, Elijah had challenged the prophets of Baal to a duel. He challenged them to see if their god Baal could overcome the power and might of the mighty and all-powerful G! od of heaven. As the story goes the Baal prophets could do nothing, while Elijah prayed and God consumed his sacrifice and the whole altar of the Baal prophets. Jezebel was not happy and threatened to kill Elijah. At this point Elijah fled for his life. He traveled almost 300 miles, and he came to Mt. Horeb or Mt. Sinai, as many know it. Here begins our text for this morning.

Elijah was spending his time in a cave. I'm sure that he had lots of time on his hands to think and ponder. Just think of how much you could think about, if you had just walked 300 miles! I'm sure that he was not very up beat at this time. Then the Lord comes to Elijah and ask him a question, "What are you doing here Elijah?" Elijah saw this as his chance to lay it all out on the table. Elijah used this question to vent his frustration and misery. Elijah told God what he thought of the work he was called to do. As Elijah explains, he had been very zealous in doing God's work. Through trials and misfortune he had still preached God's Word, but as Elijah says, ¹⁴He replied, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too." Elijah had a good point, d! idn't he? What would we have said in the same position? How would we have reacted, if we had been put through this same situation? Most likely everyone one of us would have answered in a very similar fashion. Most likely we too would have vented our anger and disgust with Israel. Most likely we too would have been very depressed.

But let's transfer this story from the time of Elijah to today. Let's take Elijah out of the picture and insert ourselves. Let's think of the many ways that our lives and our ministry are similar to that of Elijah's. First of all we can see that we are preaching the same message of Christ and his death. We can see in many ways that the people we are preaching to are similar to that of Elijah's. There are many people who don't care about God. There are many people who despise us and our message. There seems to be far more people who reject God than who follow and believe his message. Sometimes we think like Elijah that our message isn't working. Sometimes we have those days where we wonder if it is worth being a Christians, or if it is worth our time to try and spread God's message. We become confused and depressed. It just doesn’t seem fair. We work so hard at following God’s will. We come to church as often as possible. We put our offerings in the basket whe! n we have the opportunity. We study our Bibles and read our devotions, but it just doesn’t seem like things are all that fair. Why do others seem to be doing better than me? Why do the unbelievers seem to get away with everything they do, while I sometimes have to just scrape by?

It is at times like this that we need to remember that our lives and the world we live in doesn’t just happen. God is watching over everything and everyone. God is watching those who don’t follow him and he will one day call those people to account. It may not happen at the time that we would like it, but God will bring justice on all people. That is what he reminded Elijah about. He said to Elijah, ¹⁵The LORD said to him, "Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. ¹⁶Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. ¹⁷Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. ¹⁸Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him." ! God saw the wickedness of the people of Israel. God was not happy with their lives and their actions. He was going to bring justice on them in the form of Hazael the king of Aram and Jehu the king of Israel.

As we look at other portions of God’s Word we can see that God used Hazael, the rather ruthless king of Aram, to destroy and torment the people of Israel. He wasn’t a very nice king, but God used him to punish the people of Israel for their wickedness. At the same time he used King Jehu, who happened to be a good king in Israel, to destroy Ahab and his wife Jezebel and return things back to the worshipping of God. This was God’s plan -- a plan that Elijah didn’t see or know about. As we live our lives we need to realize that God has a plan for us and the world we live in. None of us knows that plan, but we trust that God’s plan is perfect. He will bring to justice those who are wicked and he will bless those who follow him. Rather than worrying about others, let us faithfully learn God’s Word and share God’s saving Word with others.

As we look at how God finishes this section, we see who is in control. Elijah thought that he was the only person in all Israel who followed God. He may not have thought this completely, but he did have the idea that not very many people believed in God. God reassures him that there are still 7000 people who have not bowed their knees to Baal. In this instance we can see that God's gospel is working, even when we do not see direct results. How do we measure the success of the Gospel? By outward numbers like how many members we have or by how many people come to church as a result of our efforts, right! That is our way of measuring whether God is really working, but God alone can see the complete results of our preaching his Gospel message. Just as he reassured Elijah that there are still 7000 believers, we can be reassured that our efforts are not in vain. We can know and believe that God is working in his Word, and that he will bless the fruits of our labors, wh! ether we see them or not. It reminds me in a way of being a part of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod or as we know it the WELS. The WELS is not the largest churchbody in the world, instead it is rather small compared to other churches. At times we might be misled by the ways of this world to think that if only we changed God’s Word in some way or left out those controversial parts, more people would come into our synod and into our churches. Just maybe we might ask ourselves at times, whether the gospel is really working. Why isn’t our churchbody growing faster? If we have the truth of God’s Word, then why aren’t more people’s hearts changed to follow this truth? Elijah preached the truth of God’s Word for many years and God reminds him that there are 7000 who believe. Rather than getting caught up in the numbers game, let us always remember that God is in control. He is the one who changes hearts. He is the one who watches over his church. Instead of! always wondering, why don’t we take more time to appreciate the many blessings we have received as we faithfully preach and teach the many truths of God’s Word. Rather than worrying about numbers, why don’t we just faithfully give our offerings to thank God for all that he has done for the WELS, St. Luke’s and more importantly his holy Christian Church. Then we will realize just as Elijah did, that God controls his Church.

God finishes with some words of lasting comfort. God told Elijah that he would now go and anoint Elisha to succeed him as the next prophet. It is a good reminder for us also that God continues to bless his church on this earth by sending us pastors and teachers who continue to bring God’s Word to us. Just think for a moment about the many Pastors or teachers who have been a part of your lives on this earth. Maybe it was Pastor Uetzmann or Pastor Vomhof. Maybe it was some teacher who really touched your life on this earth. The reminder is that God is control, and he knows when and how to accomplish the things necessary for the salvation of his people. He controls our every action. We may plan and we may think that we have done everything in the perfect way, but it is finally God working in and through the Gospel that we present that matters. This doesn't mean we can sit on our duffs using the excuse God will do what he wants anyway. This doesn't mean that we shou! ld not plan a way to reach as many people as we can, but this does show us that the Gospel will work and that God will bless our efforts and our lives on this earth. Our ministry is not in vain, and if there are days when we wonder how we can go on, let us look to this wonderful Gospel filled pep talk that God gave to his servant Elijah. In a way we are like Elijah, and these words of God will help us as face the tasks in front of us with the powerful gospel leading us every step of the way. Amen