Life of Elijah

This edition features a new, modern typeset.The life of Elijah has gripped the thought and imagination of preachers and writers in all ages. His sudden appearance out of complete obscurity, his dramatic interventions in the national history of Israel, his miracles, and his departure from the earth in a chariot of fire all serve to that end. ‘He comes in like a tempest, who went out like a whirlwind’, says Bishop Hall; ‘the first we hear from him is an oath and a threat.’ Judgement and mercy were mingled throughout Elijah’s astonishing career.It is fitting that the lessons which may be drawn from Elijah’s ministry should be presented afresh to our generation. History repeats itself. The wickedness and idolatry rampant in Ahab’s reign live in our gross twenty-first century’s profanities and corruptions. False prophets occupy large spheres of influence and truths dear to our evangelical forefathers have been downtrodden as the mire in the streets. A. W. Pink clearly felt called to the task of smiting the ungodliness of the age with the rod of God’s anger while at the same time encouraging the faithful remnant. With these objects he undertakes the exposition of Elijah’s ministry and applies it to the contemporary situation.

Born in Nottingham, England in 1886, Arthur Walkington Pink was converted to Christ while a spiritualist medium. He briefly attended the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois, in 1910, before taking up his first pastorate at Silverton, Colorado. Little-known to the outside world, he pastored other churches in the United States and Australia before finally returning to his homeland in 1934. Settling in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, there he died almost unnoticed in 1952. By that date, however, the magazine he had started in 1922 - Studies in the Scriptures - was feeding several of the men who were leading a return to doctrinal Christianity, including Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Douglas Johnson (founder of Inter-Varsity) and, in book form after his death, his writings became very widely read across the world