All right, good morning. Good to see everyone.
It's been a busy week, but I'm glad to see you this morning
turning your Bibles to 1st Kings Chapter 18, if you will, First
Kings chapter 18. And hopefully you remember we
are in a series on the valley, the mountains, and the valleys
in the Bible. And if you remember, we started
off, we're going to, we're going to start with the seven
mountains. And the purpose of looking at
these different mountains is to really to inspire us in the, in
these stories that we see in the Bible, not to inspire us in the
way of, oh, that really inspired me.
I'm going to go do something for God as much as it's a reminder
and an encouragement to us to continue to follow God's word.
That's, that's what I mean by that word inspire, because we
see in these different mountains that we're looking at some
really, really great things that happened where God took care of
his, his people and God gave some, some amazing promises.
We looked at Mount Sinai first the first week and that promise
that he gave to Abraham. And then we looked at the, the
10 commandments and the law that was given last week.
And this week we're going to look at Mount Carmel, the mount
of prayer. And it's not an unfamiliar
story. I think we're all very familiar
with this story with Elijah on Mount Carmel.
But we're going to look a little, little closer at it and
see if we can't pull some, some truths out of this story this
morning. So let's go ahead and pray and
then we'll read this passage and then get into our lesson.
Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this day
you've given us. Thank you for another
opportunity we have to open your word.
God, I thank you for your goodness to us.
God, I know we go through some, some some testing and some tough
times, but God, you're, you're good in the midst of it.
God, we, we know even from all of the Psalms that you're
walking through those valleys with us.
And I pray that we would look to you for the strength that we
need and look to you for the guidance that we need the
instruction and understand what it is you're trying to do in our
lives through those valleys that we go through.
And I got to just pray as we look at this Mount Carmel and
Elijah this morning got that we'd learned some truths that we
can apply to our own lives and and God use them to see victory
in our lives the way you want us to see it.
In Jesus name I pray, Amen. So let's jump right into this
story. We're kind of jumping into the
middle of this chapter, but first Kings chapter 18 and we're
going to start in verse 17 and I'm going to read all the way
through verse 41 just so we get the whole picture of this story
because we are going to break it up in all of our different
points. But but I want to read the whole
story first, and then we'll get into the lesson.
So verse 17 and 1st Kings chapter 18, it says, And it came
to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art
thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not
troubled Israel, but thou in thy father's house, and that ye have
forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou has followed
Balaam. Now therefore send and gather to
me all Israel, unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal
450 and the prophets of the Groves 400 which eat at
Jezebel's table. So Ahab sent unto all the
children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto Mount
Carmel. And Elijah came unto all the
people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions?
If the Lord be God, follow him, But if Baal, follow him.
And the people answered him not a word.
Then said Elijah unto the people, I even I only remain a
prophet of the Lord. But Baal's prophets are 450 men.
Let them therefore give us 2 bullocks, and let them choose
one Bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on
wood, and put no fire under. And I will dress the other
Bullock, and lay it on the wood, and put no fire under.
And call ye on the name of your gods.
And I will call in the name of the Lord.
And the God that answereth by fire, let him be God.
And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.
And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one
Bullock for yourselves, and dress it first for year many,
and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.
And they took the Bullock which was given them, and they dressed
it, and called on the name of Bale from morning even until
noon, saying, O Bale, hear us. But there was no voice nor any
of that answered. And they leaped upon the altar
which was made, And it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked
them, and said, Cry aloud, for he is a God.
Either he's talking or he's pursuing, or he is in a journey,
or per adventure. He sleepeth, and must be awaked.
And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner
with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them,
and came to pass when midday was passed.
And they prophesied, until the time of the offering of the
evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to
answer, nor any that regarded. And Elijah said unto all the
people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near
unto him. And he repaired the altar of the
Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took 12 Stones,
according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob,
unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be
thy name. And with the stones he built an
altar in the name of the Lord, and made a trench about the
altar as great as would contain 2 measures of seed.
And he put the wood in order, and cut the Bullock in pieces,
and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill 4 barrels with water
and pour it out, pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.
And he said, Do it the second time, they did it the second
time. He said, Do it the third time,
and they did it the third time. And the water ran round about
the altar, And he filled the trench also with water.
And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening
sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord
God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day
that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that
I have done all these things at Thy word.
Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou
art the Lord God, and that thou has turned their heart back
again. 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. And when all the people saw it,
they fell on their faces. And they said, The Lord, he is
the God, the Lord he is the God. And Elijah said unto them, Take
the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape.
And they took them. And Elijah brought them down to
the brook Keyshawn, and slew them there.
And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink, for
there is a sound of abundance of rain.
Very familiar story, but very interesting.
What's going on here? And I don't know that this is 1
of this is my favorite story, but it's one of my favorite
stories. I love this story of Elijah on
Mount Carmel. I think more so because we all
like an underdog story and I think that's kind of what we
have here. Now Elijah is a little bit
misinformed. He says there in verse 22, he
says unto the people, I even I only remain a prophet of the
Lord and he's misinformed there. He thinks he's the only one
left, which if that's what he truly thinks, you got to give
him credit there also. Hey, I'm the only one left, but
I'm still going to stand. And God had many, many other
prophets that had not bowed the knee to bail that he was holding
in the wings waiting to to support Elijah here, but he
thinks he's the only one. And so let's get right into this
story. We're going to call this Mount
Carmel, the mount of prayer and remember the these mountains are
we're going through these mountains to inspire us to do
the same thing that we learned in these lessons.
So this is a an encouragement for us to to prayer and we heard
that last Sunday morning. So this will go right along with
that. And it'll actually make our
lesson a little quicker because I will use some of what pastor
said and so I don't have to re re say those things.
But let's get right into it. Elijah encounters a problem here
in verses 17 through 20, verse 17, he encounters a problem.
And first of all, it's this accusation came to pass when
Ahab saw Elijah that Ahab said unto him, art thou he that
troubleth Israel? I think it's interesting because
you got to remember the reason it's such a big deal that he's
pouring all this water on the altar is there is no water to be
had. They're in a famine, A drought
for the last three years. And that's what verse 41 says.
At the end of our passage that we read, Elijah says to Ahab,
get up, eat and drink. There's a sound of abundance of
rain. Now we'll look at this at the
end, hopefully, if we have time. There was no rain yet.
It wasn't raining, but Elijah was getting ready to pray to God
to open the heavens back up and send that rain that he had shut
off for three years. And he tells Elijah in the
confidence of his God, it's about to start raining, get up,
eat, get to Jezreel and get ready for this rain that's
coming when there is no sign of rain as of yet.
But anyways, so there's this accusation.
Are you the 1? He he asks.
He is not a stranger to Elijah. He knows exactly who Elijah is.
So he's accusing him here. Oh, it's Elijah, the one that's
troubling Israel. And Elijah shoots right back.
I have not troubled Israel that one.
Thy father's house has troubled Israel in that ye have forsaken
the commandments of the Lord, and thou has followed Balaam.
I want you to go look at a verse real quick.
It's in Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 24, not too far from
where we're at. But I think it's interesting
because Elijah is standing 100% on the word of God here when he
says, no, no, no, no, you're the one troubling Israel with this
drought because of the way you've acted in refusing to obey
the commandments of God. Deuteronomy 28, verse 24 says,
and this is a whole curse of Israel of what's going to happen
if you don't follow and obey God.
But it gets to verse 24. He says the Lord shall make the
rain of thy land powder and dust from heaven shall it come down
upon thee until thou be destroyed.
So he's saying, if you go back in this verse 15, this is, this
is the curse. If what happens in verse 15, it
shall come to pass. If thou wilt not hearken unto
the voice of the Lord thy God to observe, to do all his
commandments and his statues which I command thee this day,
that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee.
And this drought was one of them.
So Elijah was very right, very correct in saying no, no, I did,
I gave you the, the, I told you the promise of what was going to
happen from God. But it's your fault that they,
that we have not had rain for these three years.
You and your father's house have forsaken the commandments of the
Lord and has followed Balaam. So that's it.
That's Elijah's answer. And now he gives King Ahab an
assignment in verse 19. Now therefore send and gather to
me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal 450 and
the prophets of the Groves 400 which eat at Jezebel's table.
I think this is interesting too, just kind of as a side note, we
often think that Elijah went up against 450 prophets of Baal.
There was actually 850 of them here.
We don't really have anything else about the prophets of the
Groves. I did look that up and it is the
they were prophets to the God Ashara, which Jezebel
worshipped. She didn't actually worship Baal
particularly. She worshipped this other God
Ashara, which was a wicked, wicked, very, very sexual
goddess. And that's who these prophets,
these 400 prophets of the Groves were.
And I also looked up that what is the prophets of the Groves?
What was that? Well, they had in their
ceremonies, they had all these Staffs and things that they
would cut down and they would all hold these Staffs and they
call them the Groves. And so that's where the prophets
of the Groves comes from. But just a side note there.
But I think it's also interesting that while the
children of Israel are in this famine, there's 850 prophets of
false gods eating at the King's table every day.
He's feeding them, he's providing for them.
That doesn't just mean he's feeding them lunch, you know,
once a week. They're they're under the the
care of Ahab and Jezebel. They are providing for these 850
at least prophets, not just followers, prophets of Baal and
Asherah and and Ahab, it says which ate at Jezebel's table.
So we've got this, we've got a big problem here that this is
Jezebel was a wicked, wicked queen.
And it's no wonder we even see that name in Revelation and just
just this wicked, wicked person, Jezebel.
And but anyways, so we have this assignment.
Go gather all of Israel. And I think it's interesting
also all of Israel now is coming to Mount Carmel.
And I do wonder, I wrote this down a little bit later.
In fact, I'll wait. We'll get to it in just a
second. So all of Israel comes to Mount
Carmel and the prophets of Baal and the prophets of of Asherah
and King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, they're all here on Mount
Carmel. And the the purpose for this is
what we see next. This showdown, verses 21 through
24. Elijah came unto all the people
and said how long halt ye between two opinions you got to
you got to think this this. These are the children of Israel
that saw God deliver them out of Egypt, that saw God take care of
all their needs for the 40 years in the wilderness and then bring
them into this promised land. This is the children of Israel
that saw all of that and now they're undecided on should they
follow God or should they follow this Bale that they're they're
king and queen have have set up Ahab and Jezebel and so Ahab
Elijah asked them how long are you going to halt between two
opinions. If the Lord be God, follow him
and if Baal follow him. So it goes without saying then
that they definitely were undecided.
They weren't just full blown worshipping Baal Ahab and
Jezebel were that the people weren't at which made Elijah say
if Baal's God follow him. Just do what they're telling you
to do. If he's if he's really God and
that and it says at the end of verse 21.
The people answered him, not a word.
They just didn't know which one to follow.
They didn't, they didn't have an opinion really.
They were halting between the two.
They weren't sure which is which is Elijah's frustration.
You saw God do all this, the the God of Israel do all this and
you're still not sure. All right, fine, we'll put it to
the test. And that's where we get to here
in this next, these next verses. He says then Elijah said to the
people, I even I only remain a prophet of Lord.
But Bale's prophets are 450 men. Let them therefore give us 2
bullocks and let's have a showdown.
Let's see who which God sends fire.
That was ultimately the test. Which one is going to send fire
and whichever one does, that's the one we're going to follow.
Now surely Elijah wouldn't have he'd have gone into hiding no
doubt. But he's telling the people if
Bale's if the God, if Bale sends fire follow because he's
obviously powerful enough to take care of your problems.
That's this showdown they come to.
And you know, I think I skipped something that I wanted to say
in the in the first part when he says, are you the one that
troubles Israel? I think we do that often in our
lives. You know, we maybe we sit, we
have issues in our lives. So we come to the to the pastor
and say, Hey, I need help in this issue.
And he give you some advice, you take it and you start doing it,
but maybe not fully. And and then you say, yeah,
that's, that's that church's fault.
You know, I didn't have any of these problems till I started
going to that church or I started following that pastor or
I started, you know, trying to follow what God wanted me to do.
And then now I have all these problems.
And what Elijah says there is no, no, no, you have forsaken
the commandments of the Lord and followed these other gods, and
that's why you're having the problems you have.
But I think it, it is something we should be careful of, that
often the problems in our lives are, they are our own fault.
And we'd like to point our finger at somebody else and say
it's because of what you, the advice you gave me or whatever
that I'm having these problems. But God's word has the answers.
And if we follow it, he will take care of our problems.
That doesn't mean our life is perfect, but he will take care
of the problems that we have if we do it his way.
So back to Elijah having this shut down now with this, with
this halting between two opinions, you know, Elijah has
come now to the children of Israel, but not only the
children of Israel, the the prophets of Baal and said, you,
you are struggling between this, this decision to follow God or
to follow Baal and what I'm about to do is going to make you
make a decision. And I, and I wrote this down.
I wonder how often God wants to show himself powerful to the
world around us, through us, but because we aren't surrendered to
let him use us or we're caught up so caught up with the world
ourselves, we don't see the opportunity for God to use us to
show himself powerful to the world.
That's exactly what is going on here.
Yes, Elijah is a prophet of God, but he's he has the decision
here to to follow what God told him to do.
God sends him here. He says go to go to Mount Carmel
and and do this what we see here in this story, but he didn't
have to. And I wonder how many of us God
sends us to do a job and we get cold feet kind of in the middle
and I'm the only one that's about to do this.
I'm not doing it and God wanted to show himself powerful through
us, but we're not surrendered to do that.
I think that's something we also need to keep in mind.
But then we have here verse 21. I want to I want to take just a
quick look at this sorry, verse 22 Elijah said unto the people,
I even I only remain a prophet of the Lord and this is where I
almost jumped ahead of myself, but it it makes me ask the
question in my mind, where were all the other priests?
You have a whole tribe of the Levites that that is their only
job. Where are they What what have
they all gone to follow Baal are some of these prophets of Baal
Levites? I don't know.
The Bible doesn't tell us, but where are they all and I know
that God did say I have 700 that haven't bowed the knee to Baal
and all of that. Those were most likely Levites
as well. But where are all these When
Ahab calls the children of Israel to the mountain, remember
in in verse 21, he tells him that sorry verse 20, Ahab sent
unto all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets
together unto Mount Carmel. Where are all these Levites?
Where are all the prophets of God and and the priests of God
that were supposed to be there? But regardless, and I already
kind of mentioned this, Elijah's going to stand by himself and I
think that's a great inspiration to us.
Remember, these mountains are for our inspiration.
It's a great inspiration to us stand.
It's not always easy and it's definitely not always fun, but
the results that we see, the the rewards that we see from God
when we do definitely outweigh the embarrassment or the lack of
confidence that we may have to go do that, to go stand alone.
And we have plenty of opportunities to do that.
The more wicked our world gets, the more opportunities we have
to stand. And so.
Definitely a good lesson there. We see from Elijah.
But then verse 25 we see Elijah then begins to expose this error
in verse 25, Elijah said under the prophets of Baal choose you
a bullet for yourselves and dress it first for your many and
call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under it.
He's going to put their God to the test.
Don't put any fire under it. We want to see which one answers
this request. And they took the bullet which
was given them. They dressed it called on the
name of Bale from morning till noon, saying, O Bale hear us.
But there was no voice nor any that answered.
And they leaped upon the altar which was made.
And Elijah begins to mock them. Hey, cry louder.
Maybe he's sleeping, maybe he's on vacation.
Maybe he's, we all heard this story.
Maybe he's just doesn't hear you.
Maybe he's sleeping and he needs to be awakened.
And these guys don't say, man, stop mocking us.
They do it. They cry louder and cut
themselves after their manner with knives and lancets till the
blood gushed out upon them. And it comes to pass, when
midday has passed and they prophesied until the time of the
offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was still
no voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded their
requests. And I think it goes we we see
this for sure that that Elijah does this knowing there's not
going to be an answer, but he tells them to do it to prove to
the children of Israel. And I don't know what had been
going on now here in these, you know, in Israel that the
children of Israel were so duped that they still couldn't decide.
I mean, surely they have not seen bail answer any of their
their petitions. But there, there was enough,
there was enough sleight of hand or whatever you want to call it
from these prophets to convince them that, well, maybe, maybe
Baal still is a legitimate God. And, and Elijah calls this error
out in making them call on their God and see if he'll answer.
And I wrote this to don't shy away from calling out error.
We can do it kindly, but we must call it out.
Error doesn't have a leg to stand on.
And that's true every time we see error, every time we see
even churches drifting away from what the Bible tells us to do.
When it's called out, there's no leg to stand on.
And and it is error is shown to be error.
So Elijah does that. He begins to ridicule them.
And then we have that result. There is no answer because
Baal's not a living God. And now it's Elijah's turn.
First Kings chapter 18 and verse 30.
And remember the whole point of this lesson is to is the mount
of prayer, the power that we have in prayer to our God
because Elijah didn't have any power in him of himself.
He was standing alone. But we see in his prayer his
lack of his own power. He says in verse, let's see
verse 36, this prayer is only 63 words long, I think 63 words.
And it brings fire from heaven that proves to all of Israel
that God is real. But this is his prayer.
Elijah the prophet came to you and said, Lord God of Abraham,
Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God
in Israel, and that I am my servant, and that I have done
all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me that
this people may know that thou art the Lord God and that thou
has turned their heart back again.
He he is, he is not taking any credit for this in this prayer.
In fact, he is calling on God to say, hey, prove yourself to
these people. And in verse 37, I think it's
interesting that this people may know that thou art the Lord God
and that thou has turned their heart back again, that God
through this incident, through this miracle of sending fire to
this to the sacrifice, was calling the hearts of the people
back to him. Very, very powerful prayer, but
simple words it is. This is not a, a, a super
elegant, super, you know, super prayer that wow.
The prayer itself is what got the ear of God.
It's the fact that he's calling on his God to prove himself to
this unbelieving people. And God answers that.
So that's Elijah's plan here. Is he he?
We see that in verses 30 through 35 of what he does to the altar.
And I think it's interesting, verse 30, Elijah said unto the
people, come near unto me. And all the people came near
unto him. I think he's wanting to make
very certain this is not a trick, this is not magic.
You're going to see God work here and he repaired the altar
of the Lord that was broken down.
This was not the altar that the the prophets of Baal just used.
It wasn't broken down because they've jumped all over it.
As we saw in those other verses. This isn't the same altar.
Elijah is come to repair the altar of the Lord that was
broken down, which I think is the problem in the 1st place,
the prophets of God have disappeared.
They they're, they're nowhere to be found in this time in in the
nation of Israel. They're not calling on God.
They're not sacrificing to him. Those are all commands of God
all the way until the New Testament.
The children of Israel are supposed to be sacrificing until
Christ comes that that command is there and we do see it.
We see it with Solomon and and all the rest of that.
But what happened the the altar of the Lord is broken down and I
think broken down for a long time to where it was almost here
unable to be repaired because in verse 31, he takes 12 Stones
according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob.
Unto him the word of the Lord came saying, Israel shall be thy
name. He takes 12 Stones and builds up
this altar that has been broken down for a long, long time.
And that's a whole nother lesson, whole nother message in
itself that we let these altars, and I know we don't have
physical altars, but we let this our, our, our time of prayer and
devotion to God, We let it break down and, and we're all guilty
of it. I think I'm guilty of it myself.
We get busy and we let those altars that we've erected to God
to remember what he did for us. We let those breakdown and next
thing you know, here comes the gods of this world taking over
in our lives. And they're always ready to do
it. They're always ready to fill
that void when we let our altars get broken down.
But Elijah takes those stones and builds it, builds the altar
back up. And verse 32 And with the
stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord and made a
trench about the altar as great as would contain 2 measures of
seed and put the wood in order. And I think that's interesting
too. If you go, you can write this
down. I'm not going to turn there, but
Leviticus chapter 1 and verse 7. This is very similar to the
language we hear to the Levites when they're building the altar
and we see that in verse 33. And he put the wood in order and
cut the Bullock in pieces and laid him on the wood and said
fill 4 barrels. So Leviticus chapter one, verse
7, though, when they're being instructed on how to do these
sacrifices, it tells them lay the wood in order and so on.
And so very, very familiar language to these prophets and
to the children of Israel. They got the same law the
Levites did. They knew what it was, what they
were supposed to do. They just hadn't been doing it.
So Elijah follows that sacrificial system and lays that
wooden order, and then he prays for exaltation of God's name and
restoration of his people. And in verse 38, we see the
power that comes from this prayer to an almighty 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. And when all the people saw it,
they fell on their faces and said, the Lord, He is the God,
the Lord He is the God. I think it's interesting here.
This altar was used. It was built and it was used one
time. It's gone.
It's it's it, it consumes the rocks.
It consumes the water consumes everything.
It even says that it in verse. Let's see in verse 38, it and it
consumed the stones and the dust.
I mean, this thing is just gone. I don't know that it was like a
bomb went off, but it the fire consumed it.
And I think it's a very interesting picture of, of
Christ. You know, we did the the Savior
in the Shadows series. This is a one time sacrifice.
It was not before and it'll never be done again.
It's gone and Christ was the same way.
I think it's a good picture of the sacrifice of Christ.
It was a one time thing will never need to be done again.
There is no more. We need no savior after that
final sacrifice that was made. But anyway, so, so this prayer
of Elijah consumes this entire altar in the fire.
That was the test, to see which God is the real God.
And the people see that the Lord, he is the God, the Lord he
is the God. And Elijah said unto them, take
the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape.
And Elijah brought them down to Brooke Keyshawn and slew them
there. The Bible doesn't say what
happened to the other 400 prophets.
I don't know if they escaped, but it's very specific.
It doesn't say that they just killed all the prophets.
It says they took the prophets of Baal and that not one of them
escaped. So anyways, I don't know what
happened to those other prophets, but the 450 prophets
of Baal are slaughtered there at the brook Keysham.
And you know, we hear that often all the Old Testament's so
bloody and it's it's so violent. The this is a picture of, of
spiritual warfare. We cannot let sin in our lives
just be defeated and then put in a corner.
All right, you prophets of bail, go back to wherever you came
from, back to your countries, back to your whatever.
No more. No more practicing this bail
worship. No, they were slaughtered.
And we have to do the same thing with our sin.
I think it's a perfect picture of sin in our lives.
Why do we fight the same sins over and over and over again?
Why do we why are we constantly battling them?
And I think it's a good thing that our hearts are soft enough
that when we hear a message and we come to the altar.
But why are we coming to the altar over the same sins over
and over? Because we're not destroying
them. We are not putting them.
We are we are not slaughtering them like they did to these
prophets of Baal. It was a picture to the children
of Israel that that idol worship, Baal worship has no
place. Not just that, it's that's for
the for the fringe. It has no place among the people
of God and sin has no place among God's people.
And I know we battle with it. I'm not saying we need to be
perfect or that we could be perfect, but we must fight it.
We must destroy sin in our lives.
And I think if we really took it serious, it was serious to these
prophets of Baal. They lost their lives.
And I think anybody contemplating going toward Baal
worship after this was going to think twice because this is
serious. They're slaughtered.
And I think sin in our lives is the same way.
If we, if we dealt with sin like this, it's not that sin would be
afraid of us, but we would be very, very cautious to pick up a
sin and run with it if we were destroying it the way and
treating it the way God wants us to treat sin.
And it's not. It's not so that we're more
holy. Pastor preached about this last
Sunday morning when he was talking about prayer.
It's so that God can hear our prayers and so we can have this
kind of power in our prayer. That's why we why we destroy sin
in our lives. It's not so that we can look at
the person next to us and say, yeah, he's still struggle with
it, but if he would just do what I did.
It's so that God so that we have the ear of God and we have power
in prayer when we come to him and we need that.
And then lastly, and we got just a few minutes left, Elijah then
and the people of Israel enjoy a revival.
And we see that in verse 41, Elijah said unto Ahab, get up,
eat and drink, for there's a sound of abundance of rain.
So Ahab went up to eat and to drink.
And Elijah went to the top of Carmel and he cast himself down
upon the earth and put his face between his knees.
And this is where I was saying, Elijah's got confidence in his
God. There was no rain yet.
He's saying to Ahab, there's a sound of abundance of rain, get
up and eat. And and I think some of this
would be, you know, they've at this point, they're rationing
food. They are, you know, rationing
out amongst the children of Israel what they have left.
So when he tells him get up and eat, he's saying and and drink,
stop, forget the rations. Just get up and eat and drink.
This this famine, this drought is about to end and then goes to
God and says, I need this drought to end.
I just told all the people that you were going to end this
drought AF went up, sorry. And Elijah goes up in verse 42
and puts his face between his knees and said to his servant,
go look toward the sea. And he went up and looked and
said there's nothing. He said go again 7 times this
happens. It came to pass The 7th time he
said, behold, there arise at the little cloud out of the sea like
a man's hand. He said, go up and say they have
prepare thy chariot and get thee down that the rain stop thee
not. I think it's just such an
interesting an awesome confidence in God.
There is no rain yet and he's telling get in your chariot and
get to Jezreel. It's about to rain because I saw
a cloud the size of a man's hand.
But you see as he goes from verse 45 came to pass in the
meanwhile that the heaven was black with clouds and wind and
there was a great rain and Ahab road and went to Jezreel in the
hand of the Lord was on Elijah and he girded up his loins and
ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.
But just another interesting story with the whole drought
being ended. And we're not going to get too
much into that. But in verse 39 we see the
repentance of Israel, the Lord, he is the God.
They're not halting between two opinions any longer.
They've realized the Lord is is the God that we need to serve
and he is Jehovah alone. And so they tear down the gods
of the prophets of Baal, the gods of Baal and, and the idols,
and they killed the 450 prophets.
And they see a revival in the land of Israel.
And we see that it's always that that sound of abundance of rain
is a picture of the revival that they saw because they finally
turned back to God. Remember in Deuteronomy 28, we
saw if you don't do these commands that I've given you,
and you don't obey my word and you don't follow me, I'm going
to turn your rain to dust is what God says in Deuteronomy.
And now they've finally turned their hearts back to God.
And I believe all of this is through the power of the prayer
that Elijah, the power of the, the relationship that Elijah had
with his God. None of this I don't believe
would have been possible. The children of Israel weren't
calling on God. Elijah is.
And through Elijah's prayer and the relationship that he has
with God, God sends fire, proves that he is God, and then opens
the windows of heaven and gives them rain again because the
people have finally turned back to, to God.
And, and I think pastor read this verse last week, but James
chapter 5, verse 17, Elijah was a man subject to like passions
as we are. That means he was exactly like
we are. He had no special power.
He had no special gifts, no special abilities, but he prayed
earnestly that it might not rain.
And it rained not by the space of three years and six months.
And then he prayed again, which is exactly what we read here at
the end of chapter 18. And the heaven gave rain, and
the earth brought forth her fruit.
And part of the reason we don't have is because we don't ask.
We see that in James chapter 4. You have not because you ask
not. And the other part is exactly
what we heard last Sunday morning.
Sometimes we have not because God's not even hearing us.
He wants to, but He can't because of sin in our lives.
And that's what was going on with the children of Israel
healed here. But thankfully they had one man
that was left that still had the ear of God because sin was he
had no sin or he had gotten sin out of his life.
Put it that way. And God hears him and proves to
the children of Israel that I am still God.
And we have that's what that's the point here in James chapter
5. He was subject to just like we
are like passions. He was just like us and he was
able to have this kind of power with God.
We are too. How serious are we about it?
That's the, the inspiration of this mount of prayer.
We have that same power, that same access to God that Elijah
had, but we have to make sure our lives are clean and, and,
and clean of sin and idols in our lives.
That's a whole nother message that we could talk about.
But we, we put idols up in our lives.
We do and we make them little gods here and there instead of
destroying them and destroying everything that goes with it.
And then God, we have no power with with the true God, true
almighty God of the universe because of that.
But the mountain of prayer, Mount Carmel and we'll get into
another one next week. Let's pray.
Father, I thank you for this day you've given us.
God, I thank you for these stories in your word.
I thank you that they're not just stories.
There's so much we can glean from them.
I pray that your people would take these stories, myself
included. God, I know when we when I
teach, there's so much more that we can get from it.
There's the the I know that I am inadequate in these lessons.
And so I pray that your people would take these verses, take
these passages, read them through the week and and glean
from your word. God, what you what you have in
store for us. If we would just follow your
word and do what you command us to do.
God, you have so much that you want to do through us.
And I pray that we would see that in our lives.
Pray that you bless this next hour, that you'd meet with us
through the preaching of your word.
In Jesus name I pray, Amen.