God’s Work Continues When His Servants Are Weary

Now let’s take a moment to notice what Elisha is doing when the Lord’s calling reaches him. He is in the field. His hands are on the plow. His feet are in the dirt. The oxen are moving ahead of him, and he is doing the work God had already placed before him.

There is a quiet wisdom in Elisha’s example. Most of us don’t know what God has planned for tomorrow, but if we are honest, we usually know what faithfulness requires today.

Everyday faithfulness may be as simple as living with integrity when it would be easier to cut corners. It may mean forgiving the person who hurt you, praying for someone who mistreats you, giving quietly to someone in need, encouraging a discouraged brother or sister, sharing the gospel with a neighbor, or opening God’s Word to hear His voice. Those ordinary acts of obedience may seem small, but they are often the very ground where God prepares His servants for what lies ahead.

Some people spend their lives waiting for a sign from heaven while neglecting the plain duty lying right in front of them. Elisha was not searching the horizon for a prophet. He was plowing his field. And when the call of God came, it found him there.

Then in the middle of an ordinary day’s work, everything changes. Elijah walks by, removes his mantle, and places it across Elisha’s shoulders. There is no speech. No public ceremony. Just an old prophet’s cloak resting on a farmer. Yet Elisha immediately understands what this means. The Lord Himself is summoning him to leave one life behind and begin another.

He leaves the oxen and runs after Elijah. He says, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Then Elijah gives a strange answer: “Go back again, for what have I done to you?” (1 Kings 19:20). When I first read that I was a little confused by what Elijah meant, but the more I pondered and prayed the more I began to understand what the old prophet was saying. When he said “What have I done to you?” he was essentially saying, “Elisha, you need to reckon with the Lord, not with me. You are the Lord’s servant, not mine.” And Elisha does reckon with the Lord.

The young man returns home, says farewell to his family, takes the yoke of oxen, sacrifices them, boils their flesh with the yokes of the oxen, feeds the people, and then rises to follow Elijah. This is a powerful moment in Elisha’s story if we stop and think about what is really taking place. The oxen that pulled Elisha’s plow become the sacrifice. The yokes become the wood for the fire. The tools of Elisha’s former life as a farmer are placed on the altar. He is saying with his whole life, “The Lord has called, and I must follow.”

That is the shape of discipleship. Every believer belongs wholly to Christ. Your work, your home, your speech, your plans, your private thoughts, and your public duties all belong beneath His lordship. God’s Word declares, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). The Christian life is not a little spiritual guidance added to a self-directed life. It is a whole life offered to the Lord who bought us.

And there is also a lesson in comfort here for Elijah. The old prophet was weary. He had felt alone and fearful because he could not see the future. But God already had Elisha in the field. Before Elijah saw him, God had prepared him. Before the old prophet knew the next chapter, the Lord had already written it. Church family, the work of God does not rest on your strength. That is good news, because your strength will fail. The church stands because Christ sustains her. The kingdom advances because the King reigns. God is able to raise up servants where we never thought to look. Our calling is simple: be faithful with the day given to us, and trust the Lord with what comes after.

Surrender Before The Battle Begins

Now at this point, we might expect the story to follow Elisha. He has just left the field, sacrificed his oxen, and begun following Elijah. But chapter 20 turns suddenly. We move from Elijah and Elisha to King Ahab of Israel and King Ben-hadad of Syria.

We read that Ben-hadad, king of Syria, gathers a great army. Thirty-two kings are with him, along with horses and chariots. They surround Samaria and lay siege to the city in Israel. Then Ben-hadad sends Ahab a message: “Your silver and your gold are mine; your best wives and children also are mine” (1 Kings 20:3). This is clearly meant to humiliate the king of Israel. Ben-hadad speaks as though Israel has already fallen, as though the kingdom is already his.

So how does King Ahab answer? He folds to the enemy’s pressure before he even puts up a fight: “As you say, my lord, O king, I am yours, and all that I have” (1 Kings 20:4). Just let those words sink in; “I am yours…All that I have…”

Before a single sword has been drawn, before anyone has fought to defend the city, the king of Israel has already surrendered. Remember this is not just surrendering material things like gold and silver. Ben-Hadad had demanded the best wives and their children too. (1 Kings 20:3).

King Ahab was willing to surrender his family to the enemy. To surrender your silver and gold is cowardly, but not even to be willing to fight for your children… I lack the words strong enough to condemn a man who would willingly surrender his children to the enemy.

Ahab is willing to hand his own household over to the enemy without a fight, but how many Christian parents do the same thing by quietly conceding the war for their hearts without putting up a fight?

How many of us assume that someone else will teach them the Scriptures. We train them for success in school, sports, and careers, but give little thought to training them in the fear and instruction of the Lord. We are careful about scheduling practices, lessons, and extracurricular activities, yet casual about the ordinary habits that shape a soul.

Then, when the world captures their imagination, we act surprised. Make no mistake about it, the world is not passive in seeking your children. Every day, Satan goes to war for the souls of our children. Their phones are already instructing them. Their friends will instruct them. Countless voices will compete for their loves, loyalties, and worship.

If you won’t fight for your own soul, will you at least fight for them? Fight with prayer. Fight by opening the Scriptures. Fight by bringing your children into the life of the church. Fight by showing them, day after day, that Christ is not just someone we sing about on Sunday, but the Lord we love and follow all week long.

Now, to be clear, you cannot change your child’s heart. Only God can do that. You cannot give spiritual life. Only the Holy Spirit can open blind eyes and raise the dead. Even so, God has entrusted these children to us, and He has commanded you to raise them “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). So do not hand them over to Satan without a fight.

And if my words this morning cut you deeply. If you feel that you have fallen short in your duties as a parent, and who among us has not felt that at some point, I pray you do not stay in despair. Repent. Believe the gospel. Begin again. It is never too late to start praying. Never too late to open the Scriptures. Never too late to ask your children for forgiveness. Never too late to point them to the Savior.

The greatest gift you can give your children is not a perfect father or a perfect mother. It is parents who know they need a perfect Savior. Bring your children to Christ as often as you can. If Satan will have our children and our grandchildren then the least we can do is to make it so he has to go through us first. Do not hand them over without a fight.

And before we move on, if this morning you are tempted to hear this and say, “This doesn’t apply to me. All my children are grown and by the grace of God they have all received Christ as their Savior and Lord.” To that I say, “praise God,” but can I also give you a word as well. If we are going to reach the next generation for Christ, we need to do more than just talk about it. We need volunteers to teach in our nursery, and in our children’s and youth Sunday School classes. You may be tempted to say “I have no children so this doesn’t apply to me” or “I am not fond of children so I will sit this one out.” Please hear me, we need all hands on deck. We need people who will help us plan and host events to point children to Jesus, who will invite children and their parents to come to Him and receive new life. Until the good Lord calls us home, we still have work to do.

Learning Again That the LORD Alone Is God

The story now unfolds in three scenes, and each one answers the same question: “Who is the LORD?”

First, the Lord reveals Himself to Ahab. Ahab has already surrendered far too much, but Ben-hadad is not satisfied. Bullies never are. He sends a second message, declaring that his servants will enter Samaria, search every house, and take whatever pleases them (1 Kings 20:5–6).

This time Ahab refuses. The elders tell him, “Do not listen or consent” (1 Kings 20:8). Ben-hadad erupts in drunken pride, boasting that Samaria will be reduced to dust. Ahab answers, “Let not him who straps on his armor boast himself as he who takes it off” (1 Kings 20:11). It seems Ahab has found some courage, and yet the king has still not sought the Lord. He does not pray. He does not humble himself. He does not call Israel to repentance.

And that is what makes the next moment so remarkable. The Lord comes to a king who has not sought Him. An unnamed prophet appears and says, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Have you seen all this great multitude? Behold, I will give it into your hand this day, and you shall know that I am the LORD’” (1 Kings 20:13). That is pure mercy. Ahab did not seek God, but God sought Ahab. Before Ahab ever cried out, the Lord spoke.

Israel marches out at noon while Ben-hadad is drinking with his thirty-two kings. The Syrians flee, and Israel wins a remarkable victory. But before the celebration is over, the prophet returns with a warning: “Strengthen yourself… for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come up against you” (1 Kings 20:22).

The battle is won, but the war is not.

So God has revealed Himself through His prophets and through two decisive victories over Syria. Surely Ahab now sees that the Lord alone is God. You would expect a king who has received such undeserved mercy to walk in humble obedience.

Sadly, that is not the case. Ben-hadad is captured, and the Lord makes it clear that this enemy king has been delivered into Ahab’s hand for judgment. But when Ben-hadad pleads for mercy, Ahab replies, “He is my brother” (1 Kings 20:32), makes a covenant with him, and lets him go (1 Kings 20:34).

At first glance, that almost sounds Christlike.

Didn’t Jesus command us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44)?

He did. But this is not the same thing.

Jesus forbids personal hatred, revenge, and cruelty (Rom. 12:17–21). He commands His disciples to bless those who curse them and pray for those who persecute them (Luke 6:27–28). But Ahab was not deciding whether to forgive a personal enemy. Ben-hadad was a defeated enemy king whom God Himself had delivered into Israel’s hand for judgment. The issue was never vindictiveness. The issue was obedience.

Ahab had no authority to overrule God’s command. The battle belonged to the Lord. The victory came from the Lord. Ben-hadad stood under the Lord’s judgment. Yet Ahab made a political covenant with him as though he were free to negotiate apart from God.

That is why the prophet condemns him. The Lord says, “Because you have let go out of your hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore your life shall be for his life” (1 Kings 20:42).

There is an important difference here. Christ forbids private vengeance. Ahab practiced public disobedience. Mercy is beautiful when it submits to God’s Word. It becomes rebellion when it contradicts God’s Word.

Ahab’s mercy was not Christ-like mercy at all. It was an act of open rebellion against the clear command of God. So King Ahab goes home “vexed and sullen” (1 Kings 20:43). He has heard the Word of God, but he refuses to bow before it.

Ultimately, that brings us to Jesus Christ. Where Ahab resisted the Father’s will, Christ delighted to do it (John 4:34; John 6:38). Where Ahab compromised with God’s enemy, Christ conquered our greatest enemies; sin, death, and Satan through His cross and resurrection (Col. 2:13–15; Heb. 2:14–15). Where Ahab’s disobedience brought judgment, Christ’s perfect obedience brings life to all who believe (Rom. 5:18–19).

At the cross, God did not ignore justice to show mercy. He satisfied justice so that mercy could be freely given. Jesus bore the judgment we deserved, rose again in victory, and now welcomes every sinner who comes to Him in faith.

So do not leave like Ahab, convicted but unchanged. Come to Christ.

The God of the hills is also the God of the valleys, and the Savior who reigns over both is able to save completely those who draw near to God through Him (Heb. 7:25).