When people, men stand in agreement, they can invoke powers into the earth; because God has designated men to carry authority, men and women to carry authority. So Verse 1: Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, how he'd executed all the prophets with the sword. Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying: let the Gods do to me and more also, if I don't make your life like one of them tomorrow. In other words He said: I'm going to kill you; and when he saw that, he ran for his life to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, left his servant there. He himself went a day's journey in the wilderness, came and sat down under a broom tree, and he prayed that he wanted to die. It's enough! Take my life, I'm no better than my fathers! He lay down and slept; and then an angel appeared to him.
Now you notice here that he had received a messenger of Jezebel, probably someone came to him, and told him exactly what was going to happen. But what had happened was, through the words of that man, the demonic power was released against him. Notice this - it was when he heard the message. When someone spoke to him, that's when this demonic power started to come against him; and you notice a number of things, and these things, each one of them, they reveal an aspect of what you feel and experience when under a witchcraft attack. Notice the first one was his perspective was distorted. He couldn't see clearly when he saw that, so he lost sight of God, and he got focussed on the problems. He lost his sight of God, how great God is, and the call of God, faithfulness of God, the power of God. He lost sight of yesterday's victory. He got totally focussed on the size of the problem facing him.
Second, so it distorted perspective. Second thing he did was, fear filled his heart. He became very afraid. There was a dread, a panicky feeling, a sick feeling filled him and overwhelmed him. Why was that? Because a spirit was against him, to confuse his mind and stop him seeing clearly. Then the next thing you notice is - he isolated. He began to shut down and withdraw. He isolated himself from his companion, and then he withdrew from his responsibility, and began to run away. All he could think of was, how he could get out of the pressure, the struggle, the problem and the difficulty.
Finally he comes to the point where he's depressed, heavy and he sits down under a tree. The last thing you find is, his last prayer is: I want to die, Lord kill me now. So you see a progression of experiences. When a person is attacked by witchcraft experiences, a witchcraft spirit, no matter what the source, the impact on your thinking and emotions will be the same. That's why you can always pick it up so easy. God put it in the Bible so we'd learn.
The first is you lose perspective, what God has called you to do, what God is able to do, what God wants you to do; and you become filled with the problem. Second thing is, fear begins to grip your heart. Fear's the opposite of faith. Fear, you can have a sick feeling in your stomach, a dread in your stomach, whatever. Now you can feel fear, you don't have to yield to it; but if the third thing happens, you're going to go down under that spirit.
The next thing he did was - he isolated, or disconnected. Disconnection is one of the major fruits of witchcraft operating. When people disconnect in relationships, you know something is wrong. Something is affecting the person and causing them to shut down, so witchcraft will cause you to disconnect, to want to withdraw from relationship, because of the turmoil you're facing on the inside. Instead the one thing that would help you in that time, is to lean into relationship; but what the pressure is, is to withdraw from relationship. You find when people come under spiritual attack, one of the most common things that they do is withdraw from fellowship and connection; when that is the one thing that would really help you, coming into fellowship, bringing it into the light, would get you out of the mess.