A Remnant According to God’s Choosing

Elijah defeated 850 false prophets and worked the miracle of bringing rain upon a land in drought. Yet when Jezebel threatened to kill him, he fled into the wilderness and, under a broom tree, prayed that he might die. God showed him a mighty wind, an earthquake and a fire, but was in none of them; at the last he spoke to Elijah in a still, small voice.

Elijah said, “I alone am left,” but God told him there were seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal. The miracles he had performed came not from his own power but had been entrusted to him by God, and he forgot this, seeing only his own zeal. Those whose eyes are fixed on outward events and miracles alone do not hear the still, small voice, and when people withhold their approval, they lose heart.

Neither the temple nor zeal is a human possession; both are the grace of God. Though Israel forsook God, he did not forsake his own people, and through the remnant he carries on his work of salvation. This is the word to be heard today: not to claim the grace received as one’s own, but to confess that, for all one’s shortcomings, one belongs to the remnant God has chosen.