Three and a half years after his first appearance before Ahab, there came the day when Elijah stood on Mount Carmel, vindicated as the Lord’s prophet by the fire which fell from heaven upon his sacrifice. It was a notable triumph. Few scenes have been as thrilling as that enacted on the mountain, with one man against eight hundred and fifty.
So manifold were the blessings of God that day that we might well expect the narrative to continue with further triumphs wrought by a prophet greatly cheered in heart. But the notorious Jezebel, who was responsible for so much of Israel’s idolatry and corruption, added to her crimes by sending to Elijah the dire threat: “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time” (1 Ki. 19:2).
The threat bore the stamp of urgency, and when it reached Elijah, it found him overwrought by his exacting experience on Carmel, weary in body, and depressed in spirit. Apparently he expected a greater response from the people than was manifest, and he was greatly downcast. Perturbed by Jezebel’s message, he fled through the territory of Ahab and on through Judah till he came to Beersheba, a hundred miles to the south.
Elijah left his servant there and pressed on alone, but when only a day’s journey from Beersheba, he felt he could travel no further, and so he sat under a juniper tree (or, the broom, a desert shrub common in that district, growing to a height of about ten feet). Under its shade, the very man whom God purposed to translate without death prayed that he might die.
Was this the man who had stood so nobly on Carmel? Could such brief time permit such change?
He was alone, and yet we feel our kinship with him. There have been times when we have ministered to others the certainty of the divine promises but failed to drink of their cheer ourselves. Though perhaps unseen by others, we have fled from opportunity and duty, and have sat where he sat, and like him have prayed in bitterness of soul. It was a veteran toiler of the mission field who once wrote, “There is a juniper tree just outside every mission station.”
His complaints hushed in a merciful sleep, Elijah lay far from the haunts of men, but he was not forgotten. There came One who bore the august title of “the Angel of Jehovah,” an expression used always in the Old Testament in the singular number and borne by one Being alone. We recognize in the Angel none other than our Lord Christ, appearing in angelic guise long before His incarnation.
In all His ministry, whether in Old Testament days, in the days of His flesh, or in His ascension glory, He is the same in heart. “His compassions fail not. They are new every morning” (Lam. 3:22-23). He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.
He knew the frailty of His weary servant under the tree and came to him with a gentleness which only such need could draw forth. On Carmel, “the fire of the Lord fell,” but under the juniper tree there was a nearness not known on Carmel. On the mount was the devouring fire; in the wilderness was the very touch of the Angel’s hand. No word of rebuke was heard. That would come on the proper occasion at Horeb, but here was “love that would not let him go.”
“And he looked, and behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee” (1 Ki. 19:6,7). Elijah saw all that the journey demanded placed at his head, and ready for his use. There was no lavish banquet to intrigue the natural eye, yet that food sustained him as no other could have done.
The lesson is not hard to find. In the cake baked on the coals is prefigured One who would know the fire, who would be the bread of God to all who would believe. He was the Bread from heaven, but that men should eat of Him necessitated His death on the Cross, when He should feel the fierceness of the fire of judgment for their sins. His sufferings are over, but He remains “the cake baken of the coals,” the food of all who walk the heavenward way.
With the cake there was the cruse of water, fit emblem of the Spirit. As the cruse was associated with the cake, so the giving of the Spirit was the result of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Not till His atoning work was complete, and He had taken His place on high, was the Spirit poured out upon His people on earth. In wondrous grace, all who believe on Christ have been made to eat of the living bread, and “to drink into one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13).
Why did the angel give Elijah two meals? Seeing that the food was of such quality, would not one have sufficed? Here again, we see the lovingkindness of the Lord. The first meal looked backward and dealt with the ravages of the strenuous past. The second looked forward and strengthened Elijah for the future. The Angel thus showed His appreciation both of that which had been, in the weariness of the flight, and of that which was to be, in the arduous toil of the journey to Horeb.
This principle of the two meals is seen in John 20 in the appearance of the Lord to His own after His resurrection. He greeted them with His “Peace be unto you,” which looked backward, and comforted them after the bitterness of their experience during the three days of the cross and entombment. Then He showed the ground and reason of their peace in the print of the nails in His hands, and the spear wound in His side. All the sorrow of the past, all their perplexity, all their sense of shame at their forsaking Him was swallowed up in the revelation of those wounds. This word of peace was the first meal.
Then later, as He looked down the years of their service, yes, and of their suffering, and gave them His commission, “So send I you,” He repeated His “Peace be unto you,” and thus strengthened them for all that lay ahead. This was the second meal.
The same thing is seen in the words of comfort in Hebrews 4:16. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”
Mercy and grace are here very closely allied in their meaning, but the difference in the two may be illustrated thus. It is the close of the day, and the believer kneels before the Lord and tells Him of all that has transpired through its hours, and of all the weakness and failure. When all is spread humbly before His gaze, He gives His mercy, and all is dealt with. This is the first meal.
But the heart looks up again to Him and tells of the burden that must be taken up once more, the cares of the new day, and the same inadequacy in self to meet them. Then He gives His grace, His all-sufficient grace, to help in the time of need. This is the second meal.
“And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God” (1 Ki. 19:8). The voice had spoken, “The journey is too great for thee.” Ahead lay the long days and nights, and the prophet must be sustained to endure them.
The journey is always too great for us, be it the whole way homeward, or just one day’s march. Without this heavenly food we will falter and fall, yet the voice of our Lord bids us arise and eat. If we look, we too shall see “a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water.” With the vision of faith, we shall see One who endured the Cross and rose again, and we shall find the living water in the One who was sent down by the exalted Christ to indwell us.
With such supply, we may press on wherever the journey may lead, not in our own strength, for such we shall not have on earth, but “in the strength of that meat.” So shall we prove the truth of that precious word, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
How dear He should be to our hearts–He who is “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” When we fail, He fails not, but abides with us still. He is the God of the hills of triumph; is He not also the God of the valleys of weakness?