TODAY'S BIBLE TWEET

BIBLE TEXT: “Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty with his fifty. And he went up to him: and, behold, he sat on the top of an hill. And he spake unto him, Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down. And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.” (2 Kings 1:9-10 KJV)

BIBLE TWEET: Elijah is called the Prophet of Fire, because thrice he was proved by fire to be God’s prophet. Once, on Mount Carmel, when fire fell consuming his sacrifice. A second time, here, when fire fell consuming his enemies. And a third and final time, when he hitchhiked a ride into Heaven in a chariot of fire driven by horses of fire. (1 Kings 18:30-39; 2 Kings 2:11)

BIBLE TAKEAWAY: Ahaziah, infuriated over his prophesied demise, sent soldiers to arrest Elijah, the Prophet of God, and the soldiers, in total disregard of Elijah having called down fire on Mount Carmel, disrespectfully demanded that Elijah, who they knew to be a man of God, immediately come down from the hill upon which he was sitting. However, instead of the man of God being forced to come down to the soldiers, the fire of God came down and consumed the soldiers.

Many have literally interpreted and mistakenly identified one of the two witnesses of Revelation as Elijah, because fire is said to proceed out of their mouths to devour their enemies (Revelation 11:5). However, it was not fire that proceeded out of Elijah’s mouth that devoured his enemies, but fire that fell down from heaven that consumed them. In light of this, the two witnesses of Revelation remind us more of the Prophet Jeremiah than of the Prophet Elijah, since Jeremiah was told that God’s Word spoken from his mouth would be like a fire that would devour people like wood (Jeremiah 5:14; 23:29). As Jesus taught in John 12:48, it is His words that will judge us in the last day. Therefore, the fire that proceeds out of the two witnesses’ mouths is the Word of God they preach, which will devour and destroy all of their enemies.