"The Devil Is Not Going To Give Up On You"


BIBLE READING: 1 Kings 17-19

As the spiritual state of the nation of God continues to decline, the prophets of God became afraid of Ahab and Jezebel and hid in caves in groups of fifties. God is looking for a prophet with the courage to, not only confront Ahab and Jezebel, but also make a statement from God against idolatry.  God finds His man in Elijah.  Elijah not only has the courage to confront Ahab and Jezebel, but he is also willing to take on the entire group of the prophets of Baal in a showdown.  The result, God shows His power through Elijah and gets rid of 400 prophets of Asherah and 450 prophets of Baal.  One would think that after such a devastating defeat, that Ahab and Jezebel would either retreat or repent from their wicked ways; but that was not the case.  In fact, the defeat only fueled Jezebels hatred for Elijah and she sets out to kill him.  I always thought that was kind of ridiculous on her part.  I mean… what is she thinking is going to happen? If God protected Elijah against 850 pagan prophets, would He not be able to protect him for the threats of Jezebel?  However, this threat disturbed Elijah. He was so distraught about her threat, that he is sent into a state of depression.  One may ask, “How is that possible?  Was Elijah not on cloud nine?  Did this not just motivate him more to defeat her once and for all?” On the contrary, the exact opposite took place.  Elijah becomes afraid of Jezebel and becomes so depressed that God had to send a raven to make sure he had enough food to survive.  Why would Satan go after a man of Elijah’s caliber and tempt him with fear, especially after such an astounding defeat of evil and wickedness.  Yet even amid defeat, Satan is still at work.  The lesson for us today is that Satan will never give up on us.  He is constantly looking at several options that will cause us to fall into his traps.  As Christians, sometimes we need to be reminded that we are not alone.  Not only are there others out there facing the same temptation we are, they are also battling under the same circumstances.  We also need to be reminded, as Elijah was, that God continues to sustain us even at our weakest point.  That means we can never stop seeking to improve our lives as we follow the example of Jesus.  Since Satan will never give up on his attempts to lure me away from God, it should be comforting for us to know that He doesn’t give up on us either.
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