Life Walk Bible Lesson 67 — In the Spirit of Elijah
Malachi 3:16-18
"Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another,
And the Lord listened and heard them;
So a book of remembrance was written before Him
For those who fear the Lord
And who meditate on His name.
“They shall be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts,
“On the day that I make them My jewels.
And I will spare them
As a man spares his own son who serves him.”
Then you shall again discern
Between the righteous and the wicked,
Between one who serves God
And one who does not serve Him."
Malachi 4:1-6
“For behold, the day is coming,
Burning like an oven,
And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble.
And the day which is coming shall burn them up,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“That will leave them neither root nor branch.
But to you who fear My name
The Sun of Righteousness shall arise
With healing in His wings;
And you shall go out
And grow fat like stall-fed calves.
You shall trample the wicked,
For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet
On the day that I do this,”
Says the Lord of hosts.
“Remember the Law of Moses, My servant,
Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel,
With the statutes and judgments.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
Luke 1:13-17
3 "But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. 15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Luke 1:76-79
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;
For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,
To give knowledge of salvation to His people
By the remission of their sins,
Through the tender mercy of our God,
With which the [a]Dayspring from on high [b]has visited us;
To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Psalm 23:4
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
Elijah’s Ministry
1Kings 17-19
2Kings 1-2
In the Spirit of Elijah
- Climate change
- Provision
- Resurrection
- Prophecy
- Prayed and fire came down from heaven
- Executed the prophets of Baal
- Given supernatural speed
- Assigned to anoint a king, and a prophet
- Parted the River with his mantle
Elisha’s Experience of the Spirit of Elijah
- Prophecy
- Parted the River with Elijah’s mantle
- Healed the bitter water
- Calls down fire from heaven
- Spoke it and it was so
- Cursed those who cursed him (Abrahamic Covenant right according to Genesis 12:3)
Matthew 11:10-15
10 "For this is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.’
11 “Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. 13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. 14 And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. 15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"
Matthew 17:10-13
10 And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”
11 "Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming [a]first and will restore all things.12 But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist."
James 5:17-18
17 "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit."
Isaiah 40:3-5 (Quoted in Luke 3:4-6)
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth;
The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Luke 3:3-6
"And he went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying:
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make His paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough ways smooth;
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”
Regarding: “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children”
Genesis 18:17-19
17 And the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, 18 since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”
Deuteronomy 7:9-15 (V.11 — Malachi 4:4; Exodus 20)
9 “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; 10 and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face.
11 Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them.
12 “Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers.
13 And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land of which He swore to your fathers to give you.
14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock.
15 And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you."
Malachi 4:4
“Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments."
Blessings and Cursings: Deuteronomy 28-30; Psalm 112
[Compare: Deuteronomy 28:13 — Isaiah 9:15]
Deuteronomy 29:29
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Malachi 3:1-6 (V.1 — Matthew 11:10; Luke 1:13-17, 76; Acts 1:5-8)
(V.2 — Revelation 6:12-17, Mark 9:1-4)
Note: Ancient Israel was commanded to utterly destroy the idol-worshipping nations, just as at the consummation of all things pre-flood. It will occur once again, at the end of the ages, for God commanded all evil to be destroyed. (1Enoch 10; 1John 3:8)
When the Body of Christ comes “in the Spirit and power of Elijah” we prepare the way for the coming of the Lord, removing all obstacles in His way.
In the realm of types and shadows, Abraham was very much like our Father in Heaven, Isaac very much like John the Baptist, and Jesus very much like Jacob. There are undeniable similarities, embedded in history's account of the Patriarchs of our faith, between these men and the example set by the Holy Trinity.
With one heart, voice, and purpose we too are commissioned to echo their God-given legacies in our walk with God, with the overwhelming expectation of what good God can do through our willingness to serve Him wholeheartedly, just as they received.
Without question, our common ground, irregardless of denomination, is faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, belief and trust in our Father in Heaven, and "Christ in you the hope of the glory", by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, the greatest deposit of God's treasury, guaranteeing what is to come.
The Great Commission
Matthew 28:19-20
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen."
Mark 16:15-20
It’s Time
Revelation 10-11
