ELIJAH THE PROPHET

                      

A lot of misunderstanding exists because of man’s interpre­tation of Malachi 4:5-6, where it says that the Lord is going to send Elijah the prophet before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. Down through the years man has taught that the Lord was going to send a man, with the spirit of Elijah on him, to the Gentile church. But nowhere in the scriptures do I find that Elijah the prophet is to come to the Gentile church.

Elijah first appears in the scriptures in the book of 1st Kings shortly after Ahab began to reign as king over Israel. But Ahab was a very wicked king and did more to provoke the Lord than any of the kings of Israel before him (1 Kings 16:33). Ahab not only disobeyed the Law of God by taking a Gentile for his wife, but he also began to worship the idol Baal and built a temple of worship for this idol in Samaria.

As a result of the sins of Ahab, the Lord sent to him a prophet by the name of Elijah to point out to him the error of his ways. We need to be aware here that Ahab was an Israelite and God sent the prophet Elijah to him and not to his Gentile wife. Let me say that just once again; God sent a prophet to an Israel­ite and not to the Gentile bride. Nowhere in the scriptures does it say that God ever sent a prophet to the Gentiles, but only to the people of Israel.

Israel was God’s chosen people and He communicated with those people through an anoin­ted prophet. Even though God intend­ed to provide a way in the future for the Gentiles to inherit eternal life, Israel was the only Nation that God was dealing with at this time.

Elijah was such a great prophet for God and very fearless when he was sent by God to prophesy to the people. Since the power of God was upon him performing many signs and wonders when he was obedient to God’s work, God planned to use that same spirit that Elijah had in the future on another person.

So God, speaking through the prophet Malachi, spoke of how He was going to use Elijah’s spirit in the future years.

Mal 4:5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: (6) And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the chil­dren, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

There are three things we need to consider in this prophecy, (1st): Elijah was to be sent before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, (2nd): he was to turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and (3rd): he was to turn the heart of the children to their fathers. So Elijah was coming to perform two tasks, first turn the heart of the fathers to the chil­dren, then to turn the heart of the children to their fathers. Now the question arises, was Elijah to do both of these tasks at the same time when he was to come, or would he be coming two dif­ferent times to perform these two tasks?

The first time that Elijah came was in the form of John the Baptist. Jesus vindicated this when He told His disciples that John the Baptist was the fulfillment of the prophecy of the coming of Elijah.

Mat 17:12 “But I say to you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they wanted. Like­wise shall also the Son of man suffer of them? (13) Then the disciples understood that he spoke to them of John the Baptist. 

Mark 9:13 But I say unto you, That Elias is indeed come, and they have done unto him whatsoever they wanted, as it is written of him.”

With this statement from the Lord Jesus, we see that John the Baptist was the fulfillment of at least one of the comings of Elijah that Malachi prophesied of. But did John fulfill one of the two tasks that Malachi had said he would do? For an addition­al verification of what John was supposed to do, let us look in the book of Luke.

In the first chapter of the book of Luke, we see that an angel visited the father of John the Baptist before John was born. The angel told John’s father Zacharias, that his wife would bear him a son and he should name him John.

This John would make ready a people prepared for the Lord and turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. In addi­tion, the angel told Zacharias that John would “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.”

Luke 1:13 “But the angel said to him, Fear not, Zacharias: for your prayer has been heard; and your wife Elisabeth shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. (16) And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. (17) And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, 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.”

Now this is part of what Malachi prophesied that Elijah would do when he came. So since Malachi had said this is what he would do, and the angel verified the prophecy of Malachi, and Jesus stated that John was the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy, then we can be assured that John fulfilled the task he was sent for, and that was to turn the hearts of the fathers to the chil­dren.

Mal 4:5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the com­ing of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: (6) And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the chil­dren, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

But since John the Baptist was not supposed to fulfill the second half of the prophecy of Malachi, “to turn the heart of the children to their fathers”, Elijah would need to come once more to fulfill that part.

Before proceeding, I believe we need to be sure we have an understanding of what “turning the hearts of the fathers to the children” means. First of all the “fathers” were the ancestors of the Israelites, the patriarchs and the old prophets. And the “children” were the seed of those ancient men, the people of Israel who were alive at the time of John the Baptist’s ministry.

The Hebrew word that was translated into the English word “hearts” also meant “understanding or wisdom”. So the statement of Malachi could be understood to mean that John was to “turn the understanding or wisdom of the fathers of Israel to their chil­dren” or to cause the present children of Israel to understand better what God’s plan was for their generation.

So John did fulfill that task and because of his preaching to the children of Israel, many were prepared for the coming of the Messiah and many were turned back to their God.

But according to the prophecy of Malachi, only one of the tasks had been fulfilled, that of “turning the hearts of the fathers to the children”. The remainder of the prophecy, to “turn the heart of the children to their fathers”, had not been accomplished. Consequently, Elijah would have to come once more to fulfill the remainder of the prophecy.

Now when could we expect the second half of Malachi’s prophecy to be fulfilled? Does the scripture give any indication of Elijah coming again to fulfill it? I believe that it does. First of all, let’s look at the scripture that describes Jesus being transfigured upon the mountain.

Mat 17:1 “And after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and br­ought them up into a high mountain alone, (2) And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his rai­ment was white as the light. (3) And, be­hold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.”

The most interesting and relevant fact is that both Moses and Elijah appeared on this mountain with Jesus, talking with Him. Although there is no scripture stating what they talked about, one can assume that it had something to do with their ministry in the time of the end, and the salvation of their peo­ple, the Jews. In order to support this theory, we must look at some scriptures in the 11th chapter of the book of Revelations and the 4th chapter of Zechariah.

In Revelations, the scripture tells of two prophets that the Lord sends to Jerusalem to testify to the Jews. These two prophets will be instrumental in leading 144,000 of the Jews to the saving grace of the Lord, which is described in the 7th chapter.

Rev 11:3 “And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days (three and one half years), clothed in sackcloth. (4) These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.”

While noting that the scripture calls these two prophets two olive trees that are standing before the God of the earth, let us now review the 4th chapter of Zechariah.

Zec 4:3 And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof. (11) Then an­swered I, and said to him, what are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof? (13) And he answered me and said, know you not what these are? And I said, No, my lord. (14) Then said he, these are the two anointed ones that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.”

Two witnesses have now testified that these two prophets are two olive trees that stand before the Lord of the earth, first in Zechariah, then in Revelations. I believe that both of these scriptures are speaking of the event on the Mountain where Moses and Elijah were seen standing before Jesus talking to Him. Using these scriptures, I believe that they verify that it will be Moses and Elijah who will be sent to the Jews in the end time, to lead their people to the Lord. If we look at the miracles these two prophets perform in Revelations 11:6, we see the same things that Moses and Elijah did when they performed their ministries on the earth.

Now we see the coming of Elijah again to prophesy to his people, the Israelites, just as he did two times before, once when he was sent to King Ahab and again when he was sent to the Jews to announce the coming of the Messiah.

Even Jesus, when He was confirming that the Elijah that was to come at that time was John the Baptist, spoke of Elijah coming to restore all things, which John the Baptist did not do.

Mat 17:11 “And Jesus answered and said to them, Elias truly shall first come, and re­store all things.”

Just to review once more: Malachi spoke of Elijah the prophet coming in the future to perform two tasks, one of “turn­ing the hearts of the fathers to the children”, which John the Baptist did, and to “turn the heart of the children to their fathers”, restoring the faith of the fathers to their children, which Elijah will do in the end time along with the prophet Moses.

Just as in the first part of Malachi’s prophecy, the fathers were the Patriarchs of Israel and the children were the Jews living at the time of the coming of John the Baptist, so in the end time when Elijah comes again, the fathers are those who ac­cepted Jesus as being the Son of God when He first came and the children are those Jews living in the end time. In all of these cases we are talking about the fathers and the children being Israelites, and the prophet Elijah is being sent to Israel just as he was in the time of King Ahab.

The final coming of Elijah will be just before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, when He pours out His wrath on the earth, preceding the final Judgment. We do have some clues when that will be, as the scriptures do describe some of the things that will happen.

Revelations chapter six describes the beginning of this time by the opening of the sixth seal and says that certain signs will appear in the sky. The prophet Joel, Isaiah and Jesus Himself also testified of this.

Mal 4:5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the com­ing of the great and dreadful day of the LORD”:

Rev 6:12 “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earth­quake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; (13) And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casts its untimely figs, when it is shaken of a mighty wind. (14) And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.”

Joel 2:30 “And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. (31) The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD comes.”

Isa 13:6 “Howl you; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. (10) For the stars of hea­ven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.”

Mat 24:29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken”:

Just as the Lord used Elijah the prophet, in the person of John the Baptist, to announce the first coming of Christ to the Jewish nation, He will also use Elijah to prepare the people of Israel for His second coming to them, as the great and terrible day of the Lord approaches.

The scriptures clearly show us that God sent Elijah the prophet to the nation of Israel on two occasions in the past, and intends to send him one more time.

In closing, I will say just once again, nothing in the scriptures indicates that Elijah the prophet was ever, or ever will be, sent to the Gentiles. One exception is the statement that Jesus made in Matthew 17:11 about Elijah coming to restore all things. This does not appear to apply to the Jews, but could apply to the Gentile people. Since the bulk of the Jewish people did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, they can hardly be restored to that faith. But the restoration spoken of by Jesus could be the restoration of the faith of the Christian believers back to the original faith of the church in the first century. This could account for even another working of the spirit of Elijah.

This restoration back to the faith practiced by the original church is covered in more detail in the next chapter on the Restoration.

Return to Main Index Page, click here