When we think about the history of mankind, we realize that there are many events that brought a great change in society, in politics, and in the planet itself. The invention of electricity was an event that changed the rhythm of life and allowed the development of technology, which we find it difficult to do without today. The discovery of America gave a haven of peace to the many persecuted Christians in Europe, besides setting the basis for a new kind of democracy. But the greatest event of all is still in the future: Jesus’ second coming.
When we study the prophecies we understand that many things will still happen; many of them are already visible today while others are still ahead of us.
In the last book of the Old Testament, the book of the prophet Malachi, we read, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Malachi 4:5
The prophet Elijah lived during the kingship of King Ahab; and here it says that he will come again. Elijah is in heaven. He was one of two people who were translated without seeing death. The description of his ascension in 2 Kings 2:11, is wonderful! Elijah was with his disciple Elisha, “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.”
Shortly before Jesus’ crucifixion, the prophet Elijah and Moses met Him on top of a mountain where the Lord was transfigured, and seen in His glory. How is it possible that he came again to this earth? But that is what the Bible records state.
When I used to live in Greece, about twenty years ago, there was a man who used to wander along the streets of Athens and say that he was the prophet Elijah. He had a long white beard and carried an executive bag with his name: Prophet Elijah. Sometimes I met him in the Post Office and he always had many letters to post. Could he really have been the prophet Elijah? What does the prophecy say that he will do when he comes? “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.” Malachi 4:6. He will perform a work of conversion and reconciliation.
What did the prophet Elijah do when he was alive on this earth? He lived at a time in which God’s people were given over to idolatry; and his mission was to call them to repentance, to conversion. The king of the time was married to a woman who was an enemy of the prophet and of the true God. She was the daughter of a Canaanite king and had made the worship of Baal an official practice in Israel. She had the prophets of God killed. Only 100 of them were hidden in caves and were provided bread and water. Is that not also a promise of the Lord to the faithful in the end of times? (Read Isaiah 33:14-16)
Jezebel, the spiritual leader of the people, is a counterpart of the whore in chapter 17 of Revelation, who rides on a scarlet beast and carries in her hand a cup full of the abominations of her false teachings and the blood of her martyrs. The beast in Revelation is the political power that is ruled by an unclean spiritual power, namely by a satanic power, that works through a church. The same thing happened at the time of Elijah. Ahab, the king, was the political power, but he was completely ruled by his wife who was a spiritualistic leader.
Because of their disobedience and immorality, the people separated themselves from God, and the Lord sent a terrible drought upon the country. When Elijah appeared before the king, he was asked, “Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and thou hast followed Baal.” 1 Kings 18:18, 19
This situation will also repeat itself in the end of time. God’s children, who remain true to the principles of heaven and obey the commandments, will be accused by the political authorities. They claim that the catastrophes that will come, one after another upon the planet, are due to their disobedience to the human laws. Elijah was badly persecuted and he thought that he was alone, although the Lord met him where he had hidden himself and revealed Himself to him, and told him that he was not alone, but that there were another 7000 righteous men who had not bent their knee to Baal. In Revelation it also speaks of such people, but they are not going to be 7000, but more than twenty times that number, from all nations, and people, and tongues.
In the New Testament we find a clue to the Elijah that will come, according to Malachi’s prophecy that is quoted in Luke 1:17, “And he shall 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.” Here it refers to John the Baptist. And it says that he is not Elijah, but will come in the spirit and power of Elijah–in other words, full of the Holy Spirit. John’s mission was the same as Elijah’s: to call a people to repentance. John called sin by its name and while many were touched and converted, many others hated the message, although it was an announcement of the kingdom of grace and forgiveness.
Like in times of Elijah, the people were separated from God due to disobedience, and those who loved sin became John the Baptist’s enemies.
The New Testament Herod was comparable to Ahab, and Herodias is compared to Jezebel, who through her daughter Salome asked for the head of John the Baptist. In the same way that Jezebel ruled over her husband and hated the prophet of God, Herodias influenced her lover and got rid of the faithful servant of the Lord. Murder for these two women with a seared conscience was no problem. Jezebel satisfied her husband’s desire to own Naboth’s vineyard by simply having him killed, after having dishonest people give false testimony against him. This is another example of what is about to happen to us if we are faithful to the Lord.
When John was in prison, Jesus spoke about him to the people and said, “For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath no risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Matthew 11:10,11.
An on another occasion, “… his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elijah truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elijah is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.” Matthew 17:10-13. So John the Baptist was Elijah in spiritual power.
But Malachi speaks about an Elijah that should come “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” Malachi 4:5. Before Jesus’ second coming, the Spirit of the Lord will be poured without measure upon his faithful children, who shall be but a bunch of sheep among a pack of wolves. Who will be this Elijah? Anyone of us who will be chosen by the Lord due to an unwavering faith; anyone, who like Naboth will tell the political authorities who will want to buy our vineyard, “The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.” 1 Kings 21:3.
The whore of Revelation chapter 17 is already riding the beast although the time is not yet come in which the ten horns give their power and strength unto it. “These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them; for He is the Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.” Revelation 17:14.
We all have been called, but we all need to be chosen and found faithful. Let us strengthen one another in faith with the assurance that the Lamb who will overcome the sinners, has already overcome us to His side. “For many are called, but few [are] chosen. Matt. 22:14.
Let us think of ourselves as the Elijah of the present time and do all in our power to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers and vice-versa. Let’s do everything possible and impossible to bring souls to Jesus. The Lord will water every seed we sow and bless every effort we make. “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.” 1 Corinthians 4:1 Amen.
Teresa Corti