This Week's Story
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Elijah delivers God's messages.
This Week’s Story relives American history and the Bible through brief inspiring stories presented on mp3 audio recordings and text for reading.
God's Dragon Ambassador,
part one
“Elisha, I have been hearing and reading stories about Elijah since I was a kid. I think he was God’s dragon ambassador. Talk to me about him.”
“My cousin, I have been Elijah’s assistant for years. I have seen him fearlessly give King Ahab and Queen Jezebel messages from God that made them furious. They despised him. It did not matter to them that he was God’s lead prophet in Israel and by God’s power had done miracles to help the Israelites.
“The queen was a foreigner from Phoenicia with no respect for the religion of Israel. She brought priests to Israel. They taught the people to worship idols and that worshipping God was foolishness.
“Elijah challenged the priests to an extraordinary contest. He faced 850 of them. When they were defeated by God’s power, Jezebel sent word to Elijah, ‘May the gods kill me, if by tomorrow I have failed to execute you!’
“When Elijah received the message, he was exhausted and terrified. He fled. He was lonely and told God, ‘I am your only prophet.’ God encouraged and protected him.”
“Elisha, what was it like for you to be Elijah’s assistant?”
“Cousin, do you know how I became Elijah’s assistant?”
“I’d like to know.”
“I was plowing a field with a team of oxen. It was a big operation with eleven teams plowing ahead of me. Elijah came walking across the field and threw his mantle over my shoulders. It was a loose sleeveless garment, but much more than a cloth. It was a symbol that God had chosen me to be one of his prophets. I never went to a prophets’ school, but God chose me.
“I knew that it would not be an easy job! Many of my people, the Israelites, wanted nothing to do with God. They had begun praying to idols who were supposed to have power over weather, strength, fertility, the heavens, and who knew what else. It was called worship of Baal.
“I was troubled and realized, Israel is causing its own problems. We have been taught to believe in one God, who is invisible, but whose power we have witnessed in our history. We call him Yahweh. God has asked us to share our knowledge of him to people in other countries. We have failed.
“When Elijah threw the mantle over my shoulders, he walked away and did not say anything to me. I left my oxen and ran after him. ‘Elijah, let me go home and kiss my father and mother good-bye and then I will go with you.’
“Elijah replied, ‘Go back, but think about what I have done to you.’
“I went back to my oxen, killed them, and used the wood from my plow to roast them. The plowmen who had been working with me gathered. We ate supper from the meat I roasted. Then I went to Elijah and became his assistant.
“Many years later, on my last day with him, he told me, ‘Stay here. The Lord has told me to go to Bethel.”
“I told him, ‘Just as sure as God lives and you are alive, I will never leave you.’
“That day was my last day with him and the last startling chapter in the life of Elijah, God’s dragon ambassador. We will hear about it soon. You might check out II Kings chapter 2 in the Bible.”
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