“And he, namely Elijah, came thither unto a cave and lodged there. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him and he said unto him, ‘What doest thou here, Elijah?’ And he said, ‘I have been very jealous for the Lord, God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left. And they seek my life to take it away.’ And he said, ‘Go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord,’ and behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and a strong wind rent the mountains and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire, a still, small voice.”

 

And after the reading of God’s word, may the church be edified, may God be glorified, and as always, may the devil be horrified. 

 

In looking at this theme, The Making of an Elijah Generation of 7,000, I would like to give it a sub-text, “What doest thou here?” What doest thou here, oh men and women of God? By the 9^th century B.C.E., Before Common Era, the Kingdom of Israel, which was once united under King Solomon, the son of David, found itself divided and in disarray. To the north was the Kingdom of Israel and to the south was the Kingdom of Judah.  In that particular moment a king by the name of Omri had engaged in pagan worship, in idolatrous worship celebrating the Canaanite gods, tearing down the altars of the Lord, breaking God’s covenant and doing evil in the sight of God.

 

There arose in that time great dissension and turmoil, and the situation was so exacerbated that a need for a prophetic voice was necessary to be able to restore the kingdom and to raise a prophetic voice to bring the people back to God, into a covenantal relationship with God. First and foremost, God had been violated by the breaking of the covenant. And it is said that in King Omri’s time, as he engaged in this idolatrous worship he sought to bring about a sense of unity in government in his kingdom, so he sought to bring about a sense of domestic security by arranging a marriage between his son Ahab and Jezebel, who was a princess of Baal, the pagan god, and also the daughter of the king of Sidon in Phoenicia. Ahab continued the same engagement of idolatrous worship in Israel, continuing to break the covenants. Jezebel even brought in the priests and prophets of Baal, some 400, and gave them a place of safety in the kingdom.   

 

In that generation arose a man by the name of Elijah, also seen as Elias, which is the Hellenized or Greek version of the name Elijah. Elijah comes from the Hebrew, Eliahu, which means Yahweh is God. That’s what the name Elijah means. It is not really known how he got that name, but tradition tells us it’s because he rose up to destroy the pagan god Baal. Since he sided with the Lord God, Yahweh, meaning “I Am that I Am” – because you see, God doesn’t have a name. 

 

When Moses in Exodus 3 asked God what was his name, God had to scratch his anthropomorphic head. God had to answer, no one ever asked me what is my name, but since it is a human proclivity to always want to put a label on things, to always box things in by defining them and naming them and discussing them, I’ll tell you what my name is – “I Am That I Am.” That shall be my name for all generations. Tell them “I Am” sent you. That’s what Yahweh is. Of course Jehovah is a much later rendition of Yahweh. You don’t find Jehovah in the earliest Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible because Jehovah is a contrived name for God, taking the vowels out of Adonai and the consonants out of Yahweh, to come up with the name Jehovah.   I thought you might want to know that.

 

There arose in this generation this man named Elijah. What do we know about Elijah from the text? We know that he was a Tishbite, but that name is problematic because during that particular period there was no city named Tishbe, even though he’s called “the Tishbite.” What is even more an issue is that we don’t know where Elijah came from. We do not know his human origins, which doesn’t surprise me that he would then be taken up to heaven accompanied by chariots. If you closely examine the text, he didn’t even go in a chariot. The word doesn’t say that he went in a chariot. You’ll see this if you examine the text. I guess it’s all a part of storytelling, as long as we keep it within the bounds of Midrash, the Elohists, the Deuteronimic, and the priestly – we’ve got to know what we’re dealing with here. We’ve got to tell the story.

 

One thing we know, he was a prophet. He heard the call from God, that God chose him. He did not choose God. I want to put some weight on that part right there, because things around us have an inordinate amount of time consumption that yields frustration in trying to figure out why did God call me. Why did he choose me? Why am I in this situation, in this predicament? We spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how we got the anointing, especially when some of us consider our dirty, nasty, and filthy ways. But for whatever reason, we did not choose God. God chose us. God chose us for a purpose, for a mission.

 

Our responsibility is to discover what is that mission, that God-given purpose or design for our lives. God does say in Isaiah, “I have purposed it.” Every one of our days has been purposed. So it’s this whole notion that Elijah accepts the call to prophetic ministry, and he’s called to go to Ahab and to say to him that because he has disobeyed the commandments of God, because he has done evil in the sight of God, that there will be no rain or dew that will fall on the land for some three years. 

 

Yet at the same time we must look at the human personality, the attributes of Elijah. Even though he was a prophet, he had signs of insecurity and inadequacy. When you think about it and take a close look at his ministry, he had some things with which he struggled, like we all have things that we struggle with each and every day. Sometimes our struggles can get in the way of our anointing. What we’re going through can be stumbling blocks to our purpose. Sometimes we get so obsessed with our own situation, our circumstances, we get caught up in buildings and programs and activities that we forget about the fundamental reason why we stand in the position where we find ourselves, is that we have been called by God for a purpose, with a mission to be a prophetic voice. Not only to be a prophetic people but to be a priestly people, a kingly people. That’s what the word says, that when you stop to think what gifts the Lord has given to us in being called as anointed, appointed and approved men and women and God, there could be no higher calling.

 

Sometimes we look at our lives and start comparing them to all the entertainers, the athletes, the celebrities, look at all the money, fame, position, prestige and say, how did I get called to ministry? It would have been far better if I could a Shaquille O’Neal, or Justin Timberlake, Mariah Carey. We even say, wouldn’t I love to be the president of the United States. But you forget that the prophet speaks for God. The prophet is the one who gives the president, the king the vision.

When I was thinking about it the other day, I came to the realization that the greatest vocation in all of life is to be called to proclaim the good news. The greatest avocation, the greatest vocation, the greatest profession, the greatest calling is to be able to be the medium, the conduit, the channel through which God speaks to humanity. Elijah in that prophetic role grew and grew to understand that this mission was major, that not only did he have powers to raise the dead, as he did with the son of the widow of Zarephath, but he could bring down fire from the sky, and rise and go up into the heavens. There’s a real prophet there, with extraordinary powers.

 

His mission was to place himself within the context of a situation that required an immediate response of intervention by the man of God. I wonder how many of us, knowing the signs of the times, who can discern the time, the signs of the time and know that this moment requires a prophetic voice in our nation and in our world – I wonder if we might be somewhat overwhelmed with the challenges that stand before us. That’s what Elijah did – he challenged the establishment. He didn’t take the road more traveled. He did not seek complacency. He did not seek the easy way out. The real measure of the man was in his challenging and controversial mission to even correct the erring ways of the king. 

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. said that the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy. The measure of the man, the measure of the woman, the measure of the prophetic, to be willing to speak truth to power, to stand in the position where you can take the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, to stand in a position where you know you have the power and authority from on high to stand not only as one who has been called by Jesus, but to understand what it means to have the in-dwelling of the Spirit, and to have the full power and authority that was in Jesus vested in each one of you and in me. And that it is not enough to simply be a disciple of Christ, but to become a Christ, as Paul said: “It is no longer I that lives but Christ Jesus living within me.” We must stand in the position of the Christ.

 

The reason why we are having a difficult time winning this war in which we are currently engaged – not a physical war in Iraq, Afghanistan, or a war that is potentially simmering in Iran, but a spiritual war, where we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities and rulers of darkness even in high heavenly places is because we fail to realize who we are, what is our God-given purpose and our human destiny. This spiritual war that is taking place on the battlefield of our hearts will either align us with the forces of good or claim us for the work of evil. Where do we stand?

 

What doest thou here? Why are we here? Are we just here for another conference or convocation? Is this simply another gathering for fellowship? Why are we here? Are we here to be challenged? To be pushed to the brink, to the precipice? Are we here to sense the urgency of the moment?

I tell my folk, I’ve got a two-fold mission here today. I have come to comfort the disturbed, and to disturb the comfortable. I think that a lot of us are in that latter position. We have become comfortable with ministry. We’ve become too complacent. We’ve become, as you might say, indifferent, apathetic to the real challenges that confront not only Christianity but humanity, and that we cannot find the prophetic voice that is willing to engage in that which is challenging and even controversial. We don’t want to have our boats rocked. We don’t want to have our fiefdoms tossed and driven. We don’t want to upset the apple cart. We don’t want to disturb the status quo. 

 

So we do not become prophetic. We do not become priestly. We are not kingly, but simply holdovers of someone else’s estate. We don’t make it our own. We don’t buy into it because for some reason it is far easier to be quiet, complacent, and comfortable in our own theologies and religiosity. We are so wrapped up, tied up, and tangled up in religion that we have forgotten that to be spiritual equips us with the means to possess and utilize the powers of God. That is what is required for prophetic ministry. That is what is needed in this day and age so that we can stake out a position that is not compromised by our insecurities, inadequacies, fears and the uncomfortable nature of other people. 

 

What doest thou here? If we desire to possess the spirit of Elijah, we have to understand that it has far more reaching implications and significance than the minimal interpretation we have gleaned from the pages of scripture, particularly when you consider the personality or the person of Elijah, who is not only present in the Hebrew scriptures, but also in the Talmud, the Mishnah, the New Testament, and even in the Koran. 

 

Obviously, Elijah crosses over denominational lines and expressions of faith and is presented as a central figure in world religions. He’s presented in Buddhism and Hinduism. We see this iconic figure, larger than life, somehow speaking to us, even in the context of our ministries. In Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, we hear that the return of Elijah shall signal the imminent coming of the Messiah. Elijah is not just simply a prophet, but it seems as if he stands higher, taller and larger than all the other prophetic voices in the Scriptures whose significance and presence are transported from the Old to the New Testament.

 

The centrality of his mission is that he must so engage himself in this prophetic ministry that he becomes the divine highway commissioner in the Hebrew scriptures, leading into the New Testament, where John the Baptist, wearing the mantle and bearing the mission of Elijah, comes in spirit of Elijah, thus signaling the coming of the Christ, the Anointed One. The role of Elijah is not only to be a prophetic voice. Elijah must lead the way. Elijah must point to John the Baptist. The return of Elijah is in the visible manifestation of John the Baptist. It’s in the word. And the reality is that John did not know who he was. At least the Bible says that. So I’m probably contradicting my co-president in saying that John had an issue with his identity. Even we, as a modern day Elijah, have issues with our real identity. Our mission is not to build a bigger church. It’s not about my church being bigger than your church or that I’ve got more members and assets than you’ve got. It’s not about who is more qualified or has more degrees. When it comes down to the anointing, it doesn’t matter whether you have a degree from Morehouse or no house. It boils down to whether or not you can be a prophetic mouthpiece of God.

 

In the context of Elijah, you and I can wear the mantle not only of Elijah but the mantle of John the Baptist, and that we can ultimately see the way to become the Christ. But we’re afraid of that, just like we’re afraid of Messiah. But the reality is, we are denying our calling. We are not walking in the fullness of our identity because the Christ is the anointed one. The Messiah is the anointed one. And we, too, must become fully engaged in becoming that which God has ordained us to be.

 

Too many of us have taken the low road. We have decided that it is far easier to just get along, not rock the boat, not stir up the pot, and look for the pathway of least resistance in trying to establish a credible ministry, hoping that one day we will become mega churches with everybody getting caught up in the caught-up.

 

Let us switch gears for a moment and go back to the role of the historical Elijah, examining closely why he challenged Ahab. We read it in I Kings 9, and saw it in the 10^th and 14^th verses. “Elijah said, ‘I have been jealous for the Lord God of hosts’.” I know a lot of us have been jealous for the Lord God of hosts. I think some of us are just caught up in God, which is what we should be. I think a lot of us take great pleasure and delight in this vertical relationship with God. God and I. God and thou. Yet we fail to understand that this is only the beginning. Ministry begins when we realize that we have been called to a sacred relationship through which the anointing flows, empowering and enabling us to speak the words of God to the people.

 

Elijah further stated: “I have accepted this [mission/ministry] because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant.” First of all, they have forsaken the covenant. They have forsaken the solemn oath. They have forgotten God. If you need any proof that America has forgotten God, look at the mainline churches. Many of the sanctuaries are empty tombs! If you have any question about whether or not we have forgotten God, look at our culture. We have run God out of the classroom and re-defined God’s definition of marriage. It did not happen overnight, and it did not come out of the sky, or out of the clouds. It did not come by way of e-mail, fax, text message, telephone or telegram. It sprang forth from the family, because the family is the microcosmic expression of a macrocosmic reality.

 

There is a Ghanaian proverb that says, “The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people.” So I would imagine that if the ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people, then the converse must be true, the restoration of a nation begins with family. The restoration of a nation, of a world begins in the homes of its people. So what have we been doing as predicators of the Gospel, the good news, when it comes to our pulpits?  Is there a place for the prophetic word as a clarion call in this day and age? What kind of messages are we delivering? Are we delivering milque-toast or watered down exhortations to tickle their innards, thinking that is going to get people to glory? What kind of messages are we giving them? What kind of prophetic voice are we bringing to the pulpit so that we can stir the people in the pew with power from on high, encouraging our adherents to respond with corporal and spiritual works of mercy that will clearly show that the prophetic message far surpasses all others?

That’s why we need an Elijah generation. Men and women who are not ashamed of the Good News, not ashamed to stand up, not bound by denomination and all of the “BS” out there – Belief Systems. The world needs men and women who are not afraid to take a stand, to be identified with persons, places, and things that are making a difference for the good of our society. 

 

Don’t get caught up in the hype. Don’t get caught up in the noisy gong and clanging cymbals. Don’t get caught up by all the tales being told by idiots that are full of sound and fury signifying nothing. When it comes to what the ACLC is all about, it is not about “what” they think we’re about. And by the very fact that we are here, that we are committed to this providential work in this new age of dispensation is indicative of the stance that we are taking, of the risks that are involved. 

 

We are the American Clergy Leadership Conference because we believe in the anointing, because we believe that God is an ever-present God, because we believe that truth is greater than a lie and that God’s grace is sufficient, because we believe that light is more powerful than the darkness and that the light can dispel it – and when the light is on, the darkness has no place to run and no place to hide. Elijah said, I’m going to go to Ahab and say you have done evil in the sight of the Lord, and he’s not going to send any more rain or any more dew.   If God is not going to send any more rain or dew, then what am I going to do, Ahab the A-RAB?

 

You see, the Lord will always provide. The Lord always will provide so that the anointed man, the anointed woman, can take on with courage the prophetic voice. Yes, God will provide. After the Lord had driven Elijah to the brook, Cherith, the prophet approached the widow of Zarephath. While she was gathering little sticks to make a little meal, Elijah said, “Go and get me some water out of that vessel.” Elijah knew what the situation was. There was hardly any water in the land. “You have not because you ask not.” 

 

What happened? The widow said, “I only have enough for me and my son. I’m going to prepare a meal and then we’re going to die. We cannot deal with this famine and this drought.” Elijah said, “Just do what I told you to do. Make something to eat for you and me and bring it back.” What happened? Because she listened to what the man of God said, what the prophet said, the Bible says the barrel of meal did not go empty and the flask of oil did not run dry. God will provide.

 

In a spiritual, even metaphysical context, God will provide for us when we step out on faith. God will provide for us, even when we cannot see plainly what is involved in being that prophetic voice. You know when the voice is right. You know when the prophecy is real. You know when God is with you. If people are just going along with the program, if they’re just mouthing “yes, yes, yes” and not criticizing or examining it, then you can truly believe that your message is not prophetic! It won’t make the dough rise! Whenever you do something right, somebody’s going to complain, and it’s usually in the leadership. 

 

The leadership will start sowing seeds of dissension. The leadership will try to make things difficult. The leadership will try to put doubt in the fellowship’s mind. The prophetic voice must remain strong, must be determined. That is the way it was with Elijah. Elijah was determined. He kept pressing Ahab and putting the challenge to him. He said, “I tell you what – we’ll have a challenge. You get a bullock and I’ll get a bullock and we’ll slaughter them and put them each on top of wood without lighting the fire. I’m going to show you what my God can do. I’m going to show you that my God is mightier than your god. You serve gods that have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear. You serve gods that have no breath in their nostrils. I’m going to show you what the Lord God, Yahweh, can do.

 

You remember the challenge in I Kings? He said, now you pray to your god and see if your god can cause the first bullock to be offered up as a holocaust. The word says Ahab called in all his priests and prophets. He even called in the 400 priests of Baal that Obadiah, the governor of the mansion of Ahab had hidden away because he feared the prophets of God, keeping them alive on water and bread. Then Elijah said, okay, pray Ahab. Pray to your God, priests of Baal. Let’s see if your God can set this wood on fire. Ahab’s religious establishment prayed from morning to noon, and there was no fire. They prayed until the evening and there was no fire.

Then, Elijah said, let me show you what I’m working with. Let me show you what my God can do. It says he had them dig a trench all around the altar and they poured in four buckets of water, three times around the trench, and then Elijah prayed and fire came from heaven and ignited the wood and burnt the holocaust. The fire was so hot that it consumed all four buckets of water that were in the trench around the altar. Now, that’s some fire!

 

Ahab was mad as hell. And Elijah said, I ain’t through with you yet. They had a contentious relationship, I suppose. It seemed like Elijah was always on the run, after he told the king there would be no dew no rain, he fled. Then after the exposition of fire, the miraculous appearance of fire, Elijah ran again. Ahab was on his trail. He went into the cave. He fled. He went into hiding. He concealed himself.

 

The Lord God ran him down, like Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “The Hound of Heaven,” God pursued him. When you’re on the lam, there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. God said to him, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” Elijah said, “Well, they’re after me. They’re trying to kill me because I took on this prophetic work and it seems like all hell has broken lose.” He continued, “The children of Israel broke the covenant, and tore down the altars, and they slay the prophets with the sword. And I, even I only, am left and they seek my life to take it away.”

 

And God said, “I’ve got to speak to my man. I’ve got to let him know that I am God and he is my prophet.” Sometimes it gets like that in our ministries. We wonder where is God. We start doubting the call. The anointing seems to be drying up. It seems as if we cannot go the last mile of the way, and God pursues us and boxes us into a corner, confronts us with our real identity and our God-given purpose, and says, “What doest thou here? What are you doing over there, rather than being where you’re supposed to be?” And we say, “I’ve been doing all this work and getting persecuted. What do you expect?” 

 

Why are you seeking comfort when you engage in prophetic ministry? Why are you going to allow your good work to be ameliorated by the nay-sayers, the doom-sayers, the hissers, those who do not understand that the anointing requires dying---dying to self, dying to one’s own ways, dying to the past? It means letting go of that which did not work in our ministries and embracing that which will allow us to bear the stamp of the anointed one.

 

So the Lord God had to remind Elijah that he comes in different ways, but oftentimes He comes ways we least expect. He was not in the wind. The Lord said, I’m coming to see you. But the Lord was not in the wind, was not in the earthquake and was not in the fire. But the voice of God was in a still, small whisper. And the Lord will always ask, what doest thou here? Why are we here? We are here to launch an Elijah generation of 7000. And if you want to know the direct biblical reference, it’s I King 19, 18 – ‘Yet I have left me 7,000 in Israel, all those whose knee have not bowed to Baal and whose mouth which has not kissed him.”

 

There are 7,000. There’s a remnant. There’s always a remnant. God will always leave an Abrahamic minority. God will always set aside those men and women who are willing to engage in spiritual warfare with principalities and powers, rulers of darkness in high heavenly places because they are not afraid to be controversial or to challenge the establishment. There were 7000 left in Israel, 7000 who did not bow down to Baal, 7000 who did not kiss Baal. 7000 who were dedicated to God in spite of what was involved and what they would personally lose.

 

The ACLC is challenging you to be the building blocks of the next Elijah Generation. We are calling you to stand up in this generation as Elijah did back in the 9^th century BCE, to be that voice that will speak to powers and principalities and say that we have broken God’s covenant with humanity, and that we have torn down God’s altars and erected altars of narcissism and  hedonism, greed and materialism. We have engaged in the works of iniquity and have failed to prepare and recognize the coming of our God and his Christ in this generation.

 

We need 7000 men and women, anointed, appointed and approved by God who will answer the summons, commit and dedicate themselves to a greater cause, teaming up with others of deep, abiding faith who will belong to this Elijah Generation of 7000. It is possible for us to identify, to pinpoint, and rally 7000 men and women who are willing to surrender to the will of God and accept a higher calling to a prophetic ministry that knows no bounds!  That is why we have placed before you this form of commitment and offering, to be a part of the Elijah Generation 7000. We ask that you not only sign up but to commit yourselves to engage in this work of prophetic ministry in our modern times. Let us prepare this earth to become the Kingdom of Heaven, to receive our God and his Christ. Let us take on the prophetic role of being the returning Elijah of our generation who take upon themselves the mantle of John the Baptist who will point humanity to the way of the Returning Lord so that all flesh might recognize and receive him. 

 

That is the work of the Elijah Generation of 7000. The call and the course will be controversial and challenging, yet the prophetic utterances will rule the day! And God will make a way out of no way for those of us who are willing to take that one small step that will be the giant leap in the transformation of America.