In First Kings, chapter seventeen, the second portion of verse one, as God’s messenger, Elijah spoke a word of judgment from the Lord against disobedient Israel. God would withhold rain for three and a half years, as in Deuteronomy eleven, thirteen through seventeen. The word of judgment also mocked Baal, for the worshipers of Baal believed he controlled the rain and was responsible for abundant crops. The New Testament states that this drought in Israel is due to Elijah’s earnest prayers, as in James five, verse seventeen.
Dew is perhaps put first as more essential to vegetable life. Elijah only denounces a plague already threatened in the law as the punishment of idolatry. He came forward as the vindicator and restorer of the law.
Elijah prefaces his message with his authority. He does not come in his name, nor will the drought be of his bringing. Elijah was appointed by God as the bearer of His word, the word of Him whom Israel had forsaken but who alone was worthy to be called the Living God.
Elijah represents a servant endeavoring to obey and deliver the Word of God to the children of Israel. The people of God have to decide whether to accept or not. Such a life is necessarily a happy life. The one misery of man is self-will: the one secret of blessedness is the conquest of our wills. To yield them up to God is rest and peace. If we ‘stand before God,’ then it means that our wills are brought into harmony with His. And that means that the one poison drop is squeezed out of our lives and that sweetness and joy are infused into them. For what disturbs us in this world is not ‘trouble’ but our opposition to trouble.