Something doesn’t add up.

“These are the days of Elijah,” we’ve heard it sung.

“These are the days of Elijah,” we’ve heard it preached.

“These are the days of Elijah,” we’ve heard it prophesied.

But then I look around. “Where is the Lord God of Elijah,” I ask. How is it that for all this singing, preaching and prophesying about “Elijah,” there’s next to nothing to be seen of the real spirit of Elijah in the land? There are some pretenders banging a few tinkling cymbals claiming to represent “Elijah. “ But where is the true spirit of Elijah—confronting kings, calling down fire, raising the dead to life?

As I mused on this—which I have often—the Lord used some writings of a respected prophetic mentor (long since gone to paradise) to remind me of the “other side” of the days of Elijah.

It’s true that every time we hear the name “Elijah” we immediately envision all the miraculous feats that marked his ministry. So this is naturally what we have been expecting in fulfillment of these prophecies. But when we read the entire story of Elijah, we see that there was more to his arrival than the obvious. Of special interest is the part of the tale from I Kings 17:2-5:

The word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Go away from here, turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, east of the Jordan. You may drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to supply you with food there.” So he went and did according to the word of the Lord…

This “hiding away” of Elijah is of great significance. It comes from the very opening of the account of his ministry, long before a single miracle or power-confrontation is ever recorded. The context is this:

Elijah arrives on the scene to make a declaration of drought to king Ahab, and no sooner does he appear than he “disappears.” He has come, and yet he just as quickly is “gone.” He knows where he is. But nobody else does.

This “other” part of the story of Elijah—the “hidden” part—can go a long way to encourage those of us who have been hearing and believing in the manifestation of the end time Elijah spirit, only to see everything but! Let’s try to put some perspective on this. In the process, we’ll see that the days of Elijah are indeed here after all as predicted.

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For decades, people with Elijah-class hearts have been sitting in the backs of churches ruled by Ahabs and Jezebels. Despite their best efforts to remain at peace and to hope for repentance and change, they have been eventually precipitated by the Spirit into confrontations where they have ended having to declare the departure of God’s glory (“Ichabod”) to the leaders of these ministries. This emergence and precipitation of believers to such declarations is in fact the first fulfillment of the prophecies of the return of the days of Elijah.

These “Elijah” believers and their declarations have not made the headlines of the Christian tabloids. Usually they are known only within the church they’ve been led into confronting. And their departures are often a hush-hush affair. But their story has been multiplied thousands fold throughout the body of Christ. Warning after warning and declaration after declaration of the departure of the Spirit has been made by Elijahs to Ahab pastors and leaders of ministries of all sizes.

Now note more carefully the declarations and their effect. When translated into prophetic terms, the essence of these declarations is that “there will be no more rain” in this church. Again, this has been prophesied multiplied times over in thousands of churches by innumerable Elijahs of all kinds—young ones, old ones; men, women; pew sitters, church staff; new comers, old comers—none of whom know the others across the body of Christ. And what we are seeing now in the body-wide church is a veritable dearth and famine in fulfillment of these words.

What is the consequence for the Elijahs? They have been of course ushered straight out the doors of the churches. They are no longer to found or heard. They are in fact, hidden away. This hiding is itself part of the pattern in early fulfillment of the days of Elijah. On the surface, it appears that the Elijahs have been “kicked out.” But from the Spirit’s perspective they have in fact been led to hide themselves away.

Not that the Elijahs have understood this. They haven’t. They usually have not heard a voice saying, “go hide thyself by the brook Cherith.” But in reality, that is what the Spirit has mandated—even against the attempts of the Elijahs to be profitably engaged with the body of Christ. Even in spite of themselves, the Lord has hidden them away.

Meanwhile the dearth continues. The real kingdom word of God and the power of the Spirit are hardly to be found in any western church today. The rain is indeed stopped, just as the Elijahs have declared it would. The land is utterly parched. There’s hardly a morsel of real bread to feed on anywhere. Lots of show and theater—“rainless clouds” (Jude 12). Not much else. The prophecy has come true: a “famine for hearing the word of God.”

Not only this, but the famine in the church is affecting the surrounding culture and governments. The knowledge of God is disappearing from the face of the culture. It’s getting so bad that laws are being passed under various guises (such as “anti-hate speech”) to effectively prohibit the preaching of the gospel—in supposedly “Christian” nations. The Elijahs hidden away and seeing this, like John the Baptist confusedly ask, “Where’s the kingdom power we’ve been looking for?” They can’t understand why they aren’t being released to confront the society and the governments of this world with the bold claims of Christ—why their “hands are tied” as if in prison, having to stand by and watch society totally kick out our God from its midst, and possibly even eventually kill them all like sitting ducks.

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As one who lives in the “east” of his country as Elijah was sent to, I have had larger cause to meditate on this story. But here is what God wants me to understand, and I pass on to you. A time is coming when we will indeed be released to confront the Ahab churches and the godless society they have allowed to fester under their watch. There will be a culture wide Mount Carmel showdown. There will be some kind of repentance, false prophets will be slain, and the true rain will indeed fall that has been prophesied. (Don’t ask me when or how). Meanwhile however, other things will still happen before this:

1)     The Elijah movement will still be fed and watered by the spirit in hiding. We will still find spiritual nourishment and can pass it on to one another, despite the surrounding famine.

2)     The “prophets of Baal” serving a false culture-intoxicated “Jesus” will still keep “rain dancing” in the theater churches, singing meaningless songs about “revival” that they don’t really understand and ultimately don’t really want. Such rain dancing will manifest itself in earnest at the Mt. Carmel confrontation to come.

3)      Before all this happens, the Elijahs will be paired with a “widow people” in “Zarephath” where together they will be mutually supplied by the Lord (the “meal” of the Word and “oil” of the Spirit will not fail here) until the confrontation back in “Israel” is ready. Zarephath was outside of Israel. This means that the present hidden Elijah movement will make some kind of Spirit-directed encounter and form some kind of alliance with a divinely “prepared” yet equally unknowledgeable people outside the church as we know it. Watch for this.

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This is all for the time being. I hope it will help illumine those with burning hearts after righteousness who feel powerless to confront the church and society any longer, who watch the society closing in ever more to smother what little remains of the word of our Gospel, and who wonder “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?”

Be patient. I’ll tell you where He is:

“The spirit of Elijah does not come by looking for him. Neither will they say, ‘Look, here is Elijah’ or ‘There he is.’ For the spirit of Elijah is within you!”