1 Kings 19:2

Jezebel's unbreakable will is now stirred to passion. Enraged, she swears an oath to make Elijah's life like the life of her slaughtered favourites. He flees the kingdom in fear. She was clearly the real ruler in Israel. As far as Scripture tells us, Ahab made no protest at all against her murderous threat, not even the mildest.

He seemed unable to view the threat calmly, or even to spread it out before the Lord. A little thought would have shown him that the threat was almost empty. Why should Jezebel give him a day's notice that she meant to kill him? Her messenger could easily have killed him at once, as Herod's executioner beheaded John the Baptist (Mark 6:27). It looks more as if Jezebel's real aim was to drive Elijah out of the country, before his influence grew too strong for her evil purposes.

She swears by her false gods to take her revenge on Elijah within twenty-four hours, and she lets him know it. He flees before a woman — he who had confronted Ahab and resisted the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal! This attitude was so unlike his earlier one. It came because Elijah forgot, at that moment, the source of his strength. He could no longer say, "The Lord before whom I stand." He felt himself to be before Jezebel, not before the Lord. And it was so true that he would have to walk for forty days and forty nights to stand before God again. The moment a believer lets anything come between his soul and God, the distance becomes beyond measuring.

We see here how far the energy of the outward life of faith may continue while the inward life grows weak. This came at the moment of the clearest testimony to God's presence among the rebellious people. Elijah had just had all the prophets of Baal killed by the people's own hands. Then his faith fails completely at a mere threat from Jezebel. His life was not inwardly sustained by faith in proportion to the outward testimony. His testimony stirs up the enemy in a way his personal faith was not prepared for.

It has been truly said that faith in us is never more feeble than right after a great victory... With calm courage Elijah had faced crowds on Mount Carmel; now the voice of a woman terrifies him!

God never gives His servants a store of strength that they can draw on until it runs out. The power is always in Himself, not in them. So He supplies it moment by moment, as the need comes, to those who walk with Him and depend on Him. The brave hero of today may be weak and timid tomorrow.

There you find, perhaps, how the apparent failure of his mission affected a man like Elijah. Looking at that, he was asking God to let him die, and sank down in discouragement. There he was — the very man who was not going to die. He was taken straight into heaven without ever seeing death. Yet the apparent lack of success defeated him, after all this wonderful display of power. Is this not a very healthy warning to us not to look at the success so much as at being with God, which will ensure success?