The Life of Elijah (A. W. Pink)

The Life of Elijah

It is fitting that the lessons which may be drawn from the ministry and life of the prophet Elijah should be studied by each generation: because history repeats itself. The wickedness and idolatry rampant in Ahab’s reign are again thriving in our gross 21st 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.

Table of Contents

1. Elijah’s Dramatic Appearance
2. The Heavens Shut Up
3. The Brook Cherith
4. The Trial of Faith
5. The Drying Brook
6. Directed to Zarephath
7. A Widow’s Extremity
8. The Lord Will Provide
9. A Dark Providence
10. “Women Received Their Dead Raised to Life Again”
11. Facing Danger
12. Confronting Ahab
13. The Troubler of Israel
14. The Call to Carmel
15. Elijah’s Challenge
16. Ears That Hear Not
17. The Confidence of Faith
18. Effectual Prayer
19. The Answer by Fire
20. The Sound of Abundance of Rain
21. Persevering in Prayer
22. In Flight
23. In the Wilderness
24. Dejected
25. Refreshed
26. The Cave in Mount Horeb
27. A Still Small Voice
28. Elijah’s Recovery
29. Naboth’s Vineyard
30. The Sinner Found Out
31. A Dreadful Message
32. Elijah’s Last Task
33. The Minister of Vengeance
34. Elijah’s Departure
35. The Chariot of Fire

About the Author

Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952) was born in Great Britain and immigrated to the U.S. to study at Moody Bible Institute. He pastored churches in Colorado, California, Kentucky, and South Carolina before becoming an itinerant Bible teacher in 1919. From 1925-1927 he Pastored in Sydney, Australia, then resumed ministries in the United States. He returned to his native land of Scotland in 1934, taking up residence on the Isle of Lewis in 1940, where he remained until his death. Most of Pink’s writings first appeared as articles in Studies in the Scriptures, a monthly magazine concerned solely with the exposition of Scripture.

Pink was virtually unknown and certainly unappreciated in his day. Independent Bible study convinced him that much of modern evangelism was defective. When Puritan and reformed books were generally disregarded by the Church as a whole, he advanced the majority of their principles with untiring zeal. The progressive spiritual decline of his own nation (Britain) was to him the inevitable consequence of the prevalence of a “gospel” that could neither wound (with conviction of sin) nor heal (via regeneration). After his death, beginning in the 1960s and through the efforts of the Banner of Truth, his writings began to be rediscovered and Pink has now become one of the most influential Reformed and Baptist authors of the 20th and 21st centuries.