I. It was a strange work to which Elijah was called when he was bidden to defy the king of his land, to mock the priests of Baal in their high places, and finally to destroy four hundred of them. The glory of the service consisted in this, that it was the victory of weakness over strength, a sign how poor and trumpery all visible power is when it comes into conflict with the invisible. But he who has a commission to declare this truth to the world may be himself in the greatest danger of forgetting it; nay, the very power which has been given him for this end may tempt him to forget it. And therefore it is mercifully ordained that after such efforts, and before the pride which succeeds them is ripened, there should come a kind of stupor over the spirit of the man who was lately lifted so high. Elijah finds how little the recollection of a great achievement can sustain him; he is no better than his fathers, though the fire has come down at his call, and though he has slain four hundred priests.
II. His discipline is a most gracious one. He is taught what power is not, and what it is; he is cured of his craving for that power which shall rend rocks in pieces, and he is taught to prize his weakness; he is shown what kind of strength it is which might come forth through that weakness to move his fellow-men. We also need to have this truth driven home to our hearts. Christ's servants must be taught to hear the still small voice saying to them, "This is the way; walk ye in it," by the experience of their own ignorance, and confusion, and self-will; they must learn that the quietest means are the mightiest, that gentle and loving acts are the best witnesses for the God of love.
F. D. Maurice, Practical Sermons,p. 447.
Elijah is a true type of the heroes of the theocracy. In a time of degradation, of universal idolatry, he was possessed with the thought of the glory of God. His temptation was the temptation of great souls souls whom the thirst for righteousness and holiness consumes. Like all ardent men, Elijah passes from one extreme to the other; discouragement seizes him; his faith is obscured; God forsakes him, the ways of the Almighty are incomprehensible to him, and he charges God with forgetting His cause. The storm, the earthquake, the fire-was it not this that Elijah had asked when he reproached the Lord for His inaction and His incomprehensible silence? He sees the storm, he trembles, and the Lord is not there. In the soft, low sound he recognises the presence of God; and covering his head with his mantle, he bows himself and worships. From this scene we may draw the following instructions:
I. Let us learn not to judge the Almighty. Often the delays of God astonish us. His silence appears to us inexplicable. Let us remember that the anger of man does not accomplish the justice of God; and to overcome evil, let us imitate that Divine Providence which, while able to subdue by force, aims above all to triumph by love.
II. We have here also a thought of consolation. Love is the final and supreme explanation of all that God has done in the history of humanity and in our own history, love and not anger, love and not vengeance, however our heart at times may have thought it.
III. Elijah was told to return to the post and the mission which he should never have deserted. Let us also return to the post of duty, bringing to it a revived faith, a brighter hope, a stronger and more persevering love.
E. Bersier, Sermons,2nd series, p. 244.