I. The wish for death, the weariness of life, is a phenomenon extremely common, and common because it arises from a multitude of causes; but those causes all run up into this, that, as Scripture expresses it, "man is born to sorrow, as the sparks fly upward." Rebuke this feeling as you will, you must deal with it as a fact, and as an experience of human life. The sense of failure, the conviction that the evils around us are stronger than we can grapple with, the apparent non-atonement for the intolerable wrong there are hours when, under the incidents of these trials, even the noblest Christian finds it hard to keep his faith strong and his hope unclouded. Take any man who has spoken words of burning faithfulness, or done deeds of high courage in a mean and lying world, and the chances are that his life's story was clouded by failure or closed in martyrdom.
II. In this chapter we have God's own gracious way of dealing with this sad but far from uncommon despondency. Elijah had fled into the wilderness, flung himself down under a juniper-tree, and requested that he might die. How gently and with what Divine compassion did God deal with his despair! He spread for Elijah a table in the wilderness, and helped him forward on his way; only then, when his bodily powers had been renewed, when his faith had been strengthened, does the question come, "What doest thou here, Elijah?" The vision and the still small voice may have brought home to the heart of Elijah one reason at least why he had failed. He had tried taunts and violence in the cause of God; he had seized Heaven's sword of retribution, and made it red with human blood. He had not learned that violence is hateful to God; he had to be taught that Elijah's spirit is very different from Christ's spirit. And when God has taught him this lesson, He then gives him His message and His consolation. The message is "Go, do My work again;" the consolation is "Things are not so bad as to human eyes they seem."
III. Those who suffer from despondency should: (1) look well to see whether the causes of their failure and their sorrow arc not removable; (2) embrace the truth that when they have honestly done their best, then the success or the failure of their work is not in their own hands. Work is man's; results are God's.
F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvi., p. 305.
I. Elijah's despondency was partly physical; it was his bodily weariness and discomfort that reacted upon his soul. The practical lesson from this is, that a believer ought, for his soul's comfort and profit, to obey God's material laws; that, for our soul's sakes, it becomes us to care for our bodies. We are to glorify God with our bodies and our spirits, which are His.
II. A second cause of Elijah's despondency doubtless was that his occupation was gone. The same cause tends to much of the religious despondency that exists among ourselves. It is wonderful how hard work will cheer and brighten all our thoughts and views.
III. A third cause which conduced to Elijah's despondency, and which conduces to the despondency of Christians still, is the sense of failure, the feeling that, having done our very best, we have failed in our work after all.
IV. A fourth cause of despondency peculiar to the Christian is the sense of backsliding, the feeling that he is going further from God, and that the graces of the Spirit are languishing and dying. The real reason of the disquiet and depression of many hearts is that they are not right with God; they have never truly and heartily believed in Jesus Christ. Get the great central stay made firm and strong, and all will be well; but if the key-stone of the arch be wrong, or even doubtful, then all is amiss. The great step towards trusting all to God as your Father is to be really persuaded that God isyour Father, and that you are of their number to whom He has promised that "all things shall work together" for their true good.
A. K. H. B., Sunday Afternoons at the Parish Church,p. 259.
References: 1 Kings 19:4. Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,3rd series, p. 63; F. W. Robertson, Sermons,2nd series, p. 73; E. Monro, Practical Sermons on the Old Testament,vol. 1., p. 503; G. Calthrop, Temptation of Christ,p. 162; Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs,p. 79; Ibid., Evening by Evening,p. 140; J. Van Oosterzee, The Year of Salvation,vol. ii., p. 476; G. Bainton, Christian World Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 334. 1 Kings 19:5. Ibid.,vol. xxxi.,p. 36. 1 Kings 19:5-9. J. R. Macduff, The Prophet of Fire,p. 159. 1 Kings 19:7. J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide,p. 149.