Beneath the burning sun of the Beersheba wilderness, a lone broom tree offers a little shade. Under it lies Elijah, exhausted and afraid, running for his life.
Only days earlier, Elijah had stood upon Mount Carmel against 450 prophets of Baal. They cried out to their god, danced around their altar, and cut themselves with knives. But Scripture tells us:
“There was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.” (1 Kings 18:29)
Elijah repaired the broken altar of the Lord, laid the sacrifice upon it, and poured water over it three times. Then he called upon God:
“Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.” (1 Kings 18:38)
The people fell upon their faces and proclaimed the Lord to be God. Elijah ordered the prophets of Baal seized and killed at the brook Kishon. Soon the rain returned to the drought-stricken land. Elijah had won.
But Queen Jezebel sent him a message:
“So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.” (1 Kings 19:2)
The prophet who had ordered the deaths of his enemies now faced the same threat. He fled into the wilderness, collapsed beneath a broom tree, and prayed:
“It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.” (1 Kings 19:4)
Was Elijah afraid only of Jezebel? Scripture does not tell us everything that troubled him. Had the violence at Carmel followed him into the wilderness? Had his great victory left him with questions he could not answer?
God did not begin with a rebuke. An angel touched Elijah and said, “Arise and eat.” Beside him lay bread baked upon the coals and a vessel of water. Elijah ate, drank, and slept. The angel returned:
“Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.” (1 Kings 19:7)
Before Elijah received another revelation, he received food and rest.
Strengthened by that meal, Elijah traveled forty days and nights to Horeb, the mountain of God. There he entered a cave, and the Lord asked:
“What doest thou here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9)
Elijah answered:
“I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” (1 Kings 19:10)
Elijah still defended his zeal. Yet the question remains: what had the fire accomplished? The prophets of Baal were dead, the rain had returned, but Jezebel remained on her throne, and Elijah had fled into the wilderness wishing for death.
The fire had settled the contest, but it had not settled the human heart.
Even the prophet who called down fire from heaven needed bread, water, and rest.
But another question remained: When we have the power to defeat our enemies, does victory alone make us right?
Thrasymachus offered a troubling answer. In Plato's Republic, he challenged Socrates:
“Justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger.” (Republic, Book I, 338c, Jowett translation)
Thrasymachus argued that rulers make laws to serve themselves, then call obedience to those laws justice. Socrates asked whether a ruler's duty was to serve himself or the people under his care.
Centuries later, the same question appears in the Japanese series Psycho-Pass. Society is governed by the Sibyl System, a machine that measures people's mental states and claims the authority to judge their potential for crime.
But the system has a fatal weakness. Shogo Makishima can murder in cold blood while his psychological readings remain clear. His hue stays pure, and the machine cannot recognize his guilt. Makishima understands the evil of his actions, but the system entrusted with judging evil cannot see it.
During a confrontation with the enforcer Shinya Kogami, Makishima quotes Blaise Pascal:
“Justice is subject to dispute; might is easily recognized and is not disputed. So we cannot give might to justice, because might has gainsaid justice, and has declared that it alone is just.”
Kogami responds with a warning from José Ortega y Gasset:
“I have long since learned, as a measure of elementary hygiene, to be on guard whenever someone quotes Pascal.”
The irony is that Sibyl can measure a person's mind without understanding that person's morality. It has the power to declare someone innocent or guilty, but its judgment is not the same as truth.
Pascal understood how dangerous such certainty could become. In seventeenth-century France, he challenged religious scholars who used clever arguments to excuse wrongdoing. In his Provincial Letters, he exposed how religious reasoning could justify conduct that conscience should condemn.
The danger is not simply that we fail to recognize injustice. It is that we trust our own standards so completely that we can no longer recognize their failures.
And the Sibyl System is no longer entirely science fiction.
Today, we carry computers in our pockets that track our interests, purchases, and movements. Social media algorithms decide much of what we see. An angry story attracts attention, so the system shows us more anger. Soon, we may believe everyone thinks as we do.
Artificial intelligence can imitate voices, create convincing images of events that never happened, and fill our screens with messages from people who do not exist. Falsehood can appear popular simply because it is repeated often enough.
The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas called a related danger the colonization of the lifeworld. He warned that systems of money and power could take control of ordinary human relationships. A conversation becomes a contest for attention. An argument becomes a source of profit. Instead of rewarding understanding, the system rewards engagement.
Like Sibyl, these systems can measure human behavior without understanding human morality. They can tell us what attracts attention, but not whether it deserves our trust.
We have always been impressed by signs and wonders. Today, machines can perform feats that once seemed impossible. But the ability to produce something astonishing does not make its creator wise, and the power to influence millions does not make a person righteous.
Technology itself is not evil. It can heal the sick, connect families, and spread knowledge. The danger comes when we mistake what a system can measure for what is morally right.
Religion faces a similar danger. It can serve as an antiseptic, meant to cleanse the wounds of human life. But an antiseptic used without care can damage healthy tissue while treating an infection. A church determined to eliminate every doubt may destroy the very conscience it was meant to protect.
When protecting its reputation matters more than protecting the wounded, when wealth excuses wrongdoing, or when honest questions are punished, the church has begun serving the institution rather than the people.
A church may have beautiful buildings, crowded services, and millions of followers, yet forget the hungry person at its door.
But the conflict between conscience and authority is older than any institution or machine. Long before algorithms measured our behavior, kings demanded obedience and punished those who questioned them.
High above the Dead Sea stood the fortress of Machaerus. Within its walls, Herod Antipas enjoyed the comforts of power. Below, in a prison cell, sat John the Baptist, a prophet whose only weapon was his voice.
Centuries earlier, Malachi had foretold Elijah's return:
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.”
— Malachi 4:5, KJV
Jesus identified John with that promise:
“And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.”
— Matthew 11:14, KJV
John had come in the spirit and power of Elijah. Both were wilderness prophets, dressed in rough garments and leather belts, who challenged rulers accustomed to having their way. Elijah confronted Ahab and Jezebel. John confronted Herod and Herodias.
Elijah had condemned the worship of Baal, and Jezebel threatened his life. John had condemned Herod's marriage to Herodias, his brother's wife. Herod imprisoned him, although he knew John was righteous. The king feared the prophet and even enjoyed listening to him. Yet he kept him in chains.
John had preached repentance and warned of coming judgment. But Rome still ruled, Herod still held power, and John remained in prison. Meanwhile, reports reached him of Jesus healing the sick and preaching to the poor.
From his cell, John sent two disciples to ask Jesus:
“Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?”
— Luke 7:19, KJV
The prophet who had announced the Messiah was now questioning whether he had understood correctly.
Jesus did not condemn his doubt. Instead, he answered:
“Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.”
— Luke 7:22, KJV
John had warned of judgment and fire, but Jesus pointed to healing and mercy. Perhaps God's kingdom was arriving differently than John expected.
Then came Herod's birthday feast. At her mother's urging, Herodias's daughter demanded John's head. Herod knew John was righteous, but rather than lose face before his guests, he ordered the execution.
John died in the dungeon, and Herod remained on his throne.
Centuries earlier, Jezebel had sworn to kill Elijah. He fled into the wilderness, where he collapsed beneath a broom tree and prayed for death. But God sustained him, and in the end, Elijah was carried into heaven in a whirlwind, without tasting death.
John was given the death Jezebel had promised Elijah.
Elijah had been questioned by God: “What doest thou here, Elijah?” John had questioned Christ: “Art thou he that should come?” Even those who spoke in God's name did not always understand the purpose.
Yet John did not allow uncertainty to silence his conscience. Herod, on the other hand, knew John was righteous but feared the consequences of protecting him.
The danger was never in questioning whether we understood God's will. The danger was in knowing what was right and fearing to act upon it.
But there is another danger: the temptation to create a god who tells us what we want to hear.
While Moses was on Mount Sinai, the Israelites grew impatient. They wanted a god they could see, a god who would lead them. So Aaron gathered their gold and fashioned a calf. The people bowed before it and declared:
“These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”
— Exodus 32:4, KJV
They had made a god in the image of their desires, one they could possess and control.
The danger did not end at Sinai. Centuries later, the book of Revelation addressed seven churches, praising some for their faithfulness and warning others against complacency.
In There's a New World Coming, Hal Lindsey interpreted those churches as representing successive periods of Christian history. Two received no rebuke: Smyrna, a church suffering persecution, and Philadelphia, a church praised for its faithfulness.
Of Philadelphia, the letter says:
“I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.”
— Revelation 3:8, KJV
The church was praised not for its wealth or power, but for its faithfulness.
That missionary spirit was not merely something I read about. I knew a man who lived it.
When I was young, my scoutmaster was a physician we called Doc. At seventeen, he entered the Second World War and later witnessed the devastation of Hiroshima. He spent forty years practicing missionary medicine, treating people suffering from disease, hunger, and poverty.
Doc and his son traveled to Africa to deliver polio vaccines. After returning home, his son took his own life. Doc endured that terrible loss but continued his work. During the Ethiopian famine, he helped bring relief to the hungry. His service earned recognition from President Ronald Reagan, and he was honored as Family Doctor of the Year.
Yet his greatest achievement was not an award. It was the people he helped.
I once asked Doc how we could know whether our faith was genuine. He told me that if our intentions were sincere, our love of God was genuine, and our actions reflected that love, perhaps how we lived mattered more than what we believed..
That generation also gave us two powerful religious voices: Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. Their methods and beliefs differed, but together they represented two sides of a coin: salvation and justice.
King, like John the Baptist, understood the danger of challenging powerful institutions. He went to jail for demanding civil rights and was murdered in Memphis while supporting striking sanitation workers. His faith demanded more than comforting words. It demanded action.
But if we follow Lindsey's interpretation, the missionary church was not the final chapter. The seventh letter, addressed to Laodicea, offers a warning for the church of our own age.
Consider the prominence of Franklin Graham and Joel Osteen. Where the earlier coin represented salvation and justice, this one raises the troubling partnership of wealth and political power. Osteen's preaching often links faith with personal success and prosperity. Franklin Graham has brought evangelical influence into close alliance with partisan politics.
In the information age, prestige becomes the currency of that coin, measured by the algorithm. Followers, views, and engagement become measures of authority, until popularity begins to determine what people accept as truth.
The letter to Laodicea declares:
“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”
— Revelation 3:17, KJV
Jesus had also warned against those who prayed in public to be admired, saying, “Verily I say unto you, They have their reward” (Matthew 6:5). Their reward was the attention they wanted. But applause is not righteousness.
What happened to the missionary spirit that crossed borders to heal the sick and feed the hungry? How can a church honor those who carried medicine to strangers while treating immigrants as enemies? How can it praise the work of missionary physicians while turning medical care into a political battlefield?
A church that once carried bread to the hungry can become more concerned with securing its place at the king's table.
Like the Israelites beneath Mount Sinai, it can fashion a golden calf: a god who blesses its wealth, approves its politics, and never questions its ambitions.
Yet the letter to Laodicea ends not with wealth or judgment, but an invitation:
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
— Revelation 3:20, KJV
The church that claimed to need nothing was being asked to open its door.
The message remains the same. Power is not righteousness. Wealth is not wisdom. And certainty is no guarantee that we understand the will of God.
Will we seek a God who confirms our desires, or will we find the courage to question whether our desires have become our god?
