while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree. Then he requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough. Now, O Yahweh, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.”But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper-tree: and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is enough; now, O Jehovah, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
3 sermons cite this verse
I don't know about you, but there are many times where I have a difficult time identifying with the person of Elijah in chapter 18. Such incredible faith and confidence in God. But I have no problem identifying with the person of Elijah in chapter 19. God does tremendous things. And how does Elijah immediately respond? He responds by shrinking back. He hears one word from Jezebel, and he's ready to give up. Verse 4, he asks that he might die, saying, It's enough now, O Lord, take away my life. I'm no better than my father's. This is a realistic picture of the Christian life, is it not? One day full of faith, full of power, the next day ready to lay down under a tree and give up. And this is where we need to know that the supper exists for you and me in our weak states. It's there for real Christians who struggle, who doubt, who have weak faith. It's meant to nourish and strengthen us wherever we are in our faith. …
You have, in David, another instance of how the fear of man can bring the mighty down. How brave he is as he goes out to slay Goliath, and how grandly he behaves when, twice, he spares the life of his sleeping enemy! Yet see him there at Gath, when the servants of Achish frightened him so that he "feigned himself mad in their hands, and scribbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard." The fear of man had brought down Israel's future monarch to drivel like a madman! Equally sad is the case of Elijah, that grandest of men, as I may truly call him. You see him in his grandeur as he cries, "Take the Prophets of Baal! Let not one of them escape." And as he brings them down to the brook Kishon and slays them there! And then as he goes to the top of Carmel and prays till the rain descends upon the parched land. Yet, after the excitement is over, he is afraid of the woman, Jezebel—and the great Elijah shrinks down into the frightened man who runs away, and cries, "It is enough! Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers." So you see that "the fear of man brings a snare" even to the best of men—it drags them down from their high places and hurls them into the dust. Therefore may God preserve us from it! …
I. My first observation upon this passage is that THE GREATEST BELIEVERS ARE SOMETIMES SUBJECT TO FAINTING FITS. The Apostle James tells us that "Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are." And this fact was very clearly manifest on the occasion to which our text refers. Otherwise he seemed, in most things, to be superior to the ordinary run of men, a sort of iron Prophet—what if I call him THE PROPHET OF FIRE—the man whose whole life seemed to be a flash of flame—a mighty, burning, ecstatic love and zeal towards the cause of God? But Elijah had his flaws, even as the sun has its spots. Strong man though he was, he was sometimes obliged to faint, even as the sun sometimes suffers an eclipse. His fainting, too, took a form which is very common among the saints of God. He cried, "O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers." [See Sermon #2725, Volume 46—ELIJAH FAINTING] A desire to depart, when it arises from wisdom and knowledge, and from a general survey of things below, is very proper. But when a wish to die is merely the result of passion, a sort of quarreling with God as a child sometimes quarrels with its parents, it has more of folly in it than of wisdom and much more of petulance than of piety! It was a remarkable thing that the man who was never to die, for whom God had ordained an infinitely better lot, the man who was to be carried to Heaven by a whirlwind in a chariot of fire drawn by horses of fire—the man who, like Enoch, was "translated that he should not see death"—should thus pray to die! …