When Elijah was discouraged enough to ask God to let him die (and I’ve been there) God confronted him with the big question: “What’s your problem, man?” (a loose rendering of “What doest thou here, Elijah?” I Kings 19:9). Elijah’s response was, “Nobody loves God but me and no matter how much I preach they just want to kill me! I got no fruit for my labor!”
So, I get it. You can’t win all of Israel…or Pakistan…or Senegal…or Tunisia. No matter how many people you talk to, one after one, they reject you with the same arguments that they’ve memorized since a child: “Mohammed is the seal of the prophets!” “Jesus didn’t die! But someone who looked like him.” “The Bible has been changed.” blah blah blah.
If you focus on all of them and the daily rejections of the presentation of the Gospel (and I do hope you are giving it out daily) you’ll find yourself just like Elijah. So the common missionary response is to lament, “There are no good Tunisians.” ‘These Muslims are hard, hard, hard.” “It’s not like the Philippines over here, ya know!” But these just build a negative attitude and don’t bring any real spiritual victory for yourself or any real change in the country.
How, then, can we leave a lasting change in a hard place? Answer: forget gathering a great crowd and start building a great man…or…you can’t convince all of Israel but can you train Elisha? God did not comfort Elijah with a solution to his problem (though he did reveal to him that he has 700 men who had not bowed their knee to Bail) but he gave him a whole new perspective: “Go anoint a man to train to be a prophet in your place.” That man was Elijah. He was a farmer, not a prophet. He was a country boy from the wilderness. he wasn’t much but he was one. And he was one ready to learn and ready to pay the price. Elijah spent the rest of his life with Elisha and God did even greater things with Elisha than Elijah.
I was in the center of town earlier this week to meet a guy who we had given a Bible to earlier last week. He seemed so interested and in my mind I had already seen him converted, baptized, and signed up for seminary! But he didn’t come. I was tempted to be discouraged because we would only have 4 nationals in church that Sunday and I was hoping he’d make it 5. But instead of dispairing God’s Spirit softly spoke to my heart and reminded me of the story of Elisha. So I looked to my left and there was Mbarak, a young man in his early twenties who accepted Christ last year and had come with me to give this guy a Bible. He is from an family in a town in Morocco that everyone jokes about for it’s backwardness. His family doesn’t have much money. He’s from the wilderness. But, like Elisha, he’s ready to do anything to serve God. He spent about 30 hours with me just last week. If God never uses my preaching here to build a great crowd, it will be alright because he is using me to build a great man of God…and he’ll stand and preach in my place long after I’m gone.
So, you can’t win the whole country but can you find an Elisha?