Why Kids Need Vacation Bible School VBS DAY1 Elijah

You are invited the first night's Bible Story Elijah. 
Bible stories help us find what is true, good and beautiful. 

Transcript

Ethan: 0:00

Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast dedicated to faithful parents navigating their families through a stormy culture

Paul: 0:08

Well, if you're driving around by a church this time of year, you're going to see a sign that says VBS, Vacation Bible School. This is Raising Joyful Children in an Angry World. I'm your host, Paul Osborne. Today, I want to jump right into a VBS story I hope to use this week and a few others. And then conclude for some comments with parents about the importance of Vacation Bible School. I would say it starts like this. Today, and all this week, we're going to be looking for three things in our stories. What's true, what's beautiful, and what's good. Today's first story is about a prophet, a prophet of God named Elijah. Prophets of God are those folks that tell us the truth from the Word of God, that God speaks to and they then speak to us. And I want you to hear this story about this prophet. Now you won't believe, this is about the nation of Israel, you won't believe what these people are doing. The same God that had saved them generationally, like their parents and their grandparents, had brought them down from a famine that was through all of Egypt and Canaan and where they were living. And he used Joseph to come down and feed them for the seven bad years. The God that led them out of Egypt, and when they were in the desert, they were fed the manna. You won't believe what they're doing now. If you were here last summer, we had this little rhyme that we gave back and forth. And it went like this. There's only one king. There's only one crown. Because there's only one God. that's always been around. And now in the nation of Israel, They got this bad king named Ahab. And he didn't really believe this. And his wife, Queen Jezebel, who was really mean and nasty. Well, she and Ahab and their false prophets, the prophets of Baal, they tricked the people of Israel into believing There are two gods. Even though Moses came down from the mountain and had told them, you shall have no other gods before me, eh, even though God had fed them, they got tricked into thinking, oh, it's okay to have two gods. Well, it was so bad that the prophets of Baal, the false prophets, the lying prophets, They had chased all of God's prophets out of town. They had to go hide in caves, so they didn't get killed. And Ahab and Jezebel and their false prophet teachers, they made sure no one was around that disagreed with them. Even Elijah was out hiding way out in the country. And God, God was feeding him with ravens. Ravens were bringing him bread. Isn't that weird? Like if you have popcorn or chips at the beach and the gulls come and try to steal your food or maybe you're eating french fries out on a patio and they try to get them. But see, God's in charge of you and the birds. And he fed Elijah with ravens who brought him bread. And he met a woman who had a child, and she had a little flour and oil, and she trusted God. She baked him a cake, and the flour and the oil never ran out, and so Elijah was resting, and God was feeding him. And then God said to him one day, I want you to go and gather the people, including Ahab and all those false prophets, those prophets of Baal, because we're going to have a showdown. You see, because God loves us. Even when we mess up, even when the people of Israel messed up, God still sends his prophet, his preacher, to come tell them the truth. So Elijah, he went and he got Obadiah. Obadiah had been hiding all of the prophets of God in the caves. And he said to him, go tell King Ahab, I'm coming to town. And Obadiah said, what did I do? If I tell Ahab, you're coming into town, he'll come after me, and then he'll come after you. Well, he said, that's okay Obadiah, God sent me here, you just go and do it, and so he did. And the minute King Ahab saw Elijah, he pointed at him, he said, you are a troublemaker. And Elijah spoke back and he said, no, no, no, you are the troublemaker. And today we're going to settle it. And so Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, there were 450 of them. He said, you go gather a sacrifice and you get all your wood and you build an altar and I'll get my sacrifice and I'll build an altar of wood. And we'll ask our God, you ask your God, and I'll ask my God, to send down fire and burn up the wood and the sacrifice. And so everybody agreed. And the prophets of Baal went first. And whatever they did, and however they prayed, and they asked their God to send down the fire, but no fire came. And Elijah looked at them, he said, well, maybe Baal's taking a nap, you'll need to wake him up. And they yelled, fire, fire, and they yelled louder and louder. But nothing came, and they were finally exhausted and embarrassed, and they quit. And

5:38

Elijah poured water on his wood

Paul: 5:41

then Elijah asked God to send down his fire from heaven, and boom! Bam, all of a sudden the fire comes down from heaven. And the people say, the Lord is God. You see, God loves us so much. The Bible says while we were yet sinners, while we were doing the bad things, God died for us. He loves us. God comes to our rescue, not because we're so smart or because we're so good, but because he's good. I mean, there's goodness. One of the things we're looking for. God is goodness. Well, when this happened, oh boy, man, Ahab is mad. He's mad at Elijah. He's so angry. He's so angry that he had runs to tell Queen Jezebel. Because not only had Elijah, Gotten the people to see the truth, but he also went ahead and they got rid of those lying false prophets. And Ahab, as it says in 1 Kings, and pay attention because here comes the prize, Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done. He told them about the big fight and the fire and the prophets of Baal being lost. But in fact, Um, he said everything that Elijah had done. Now there's something missing in those words. All that Elijah had done. Anybody know what it is? First one to raise your hand and get it right. Who sent the fire? God sent the fire. What he didn't tell Jezebel is what God had done. Because those who don't tell the truth leave things out. Wow. You see, and so he went and he told her, and when Jezebel heard this, she became so mad. She said, I'm going to get that Elijah if it's the last thing I do. And she sent him a message to tell him she was coming after him. And Elijah, he got scared. See, this is something I want you to know. The truth is hard to say because the truth is hard to hear. And it can make people angry and it can cause us to fear. And this is what happens. We're going to talk about this more. But this is our little rhyme for the day. The truth's hard to say because the truth's hard to hear. It causes people to be angry and it causes us to fear. And so Elijah says, Oh, I'm the only one. I'm the only one trusting in God. I'm the only one that believes there's only one God, one King, one crown. And he runs out of the wilderness. He's exhausted and he's tired, he wants to just go lay down and give up, and so he goes up into the mountains and he into the wilderness, and there's thunder, there's lightning, there's pouring down rain, there's wind, and he doesn't hear God's voice. Instead, after it's all over, God's brought the rain back, which is a way to end the famine. When it's all over, he hears a whisper. He hears a whisper from God. And God tells him, I have kept a remnant of 7, 000 who have not bowed their knee to Baal, who have not believed there are two gods. See, this is the beauty and the goodness of our God. Now you may, many of you, I'm sure, have seen the movie. It's called toy story. Remember there's a song in there and the movie's about this this toy cowboy And he gets picked up by accident by this bad toy maker and then Buzz Lightyear and all the other toys come and rescue him But it's an interesting little song. It says you got a friend in me. You got a friend in me When the road ahead is a long way from your nice warm bed Just remember what your old friend said, right? It's about, you have a friend. Now that's a movie. But in real life, when we're afraid, like Elijah, God is our friend. And we have a song here at church, we say, What a friend we have in Jesus. But God also reserves a remnant. That's the church. That's where friends who believe in the promises of the one true God They're there with us and for us. So you turn to the person next to you, Jesus is our friend and I'm your friend in Jesus. That, that gift, that promise, that is what is true and beautiful and good. You see, you are the remnant. God loves you and you are God's friends and there is nothing more true or good or beautiful than that. Parents, I just want to say this at the conclusion of this podcast. You may be familiar with a, with a text out of Ephesians. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. That word in, in, in our language, train them. It kind of sounds like an athletic thing. You know, you, you go and you train, or, or maybe it's an employee. I'm going to train you on how to do a job, but in this particular training, the word is Padilla. It's to talk about everything, their literature, what they read, what they watch, what they're entertained by the music, the art, Everything, sports, school, teachers, and the idea is that everything, we try to find something truthful in everything to teach our kids what's true. So much, so much of this culture is filled by the prophets of Baal who are trying to teach a lie. And counter to what you want to teach them. That's why things like Vacation Bible School, Sunday school and being in church and understanding the Bible is critical bBS is the antidote to the nurture of this world with its prophets who are telling them their lies.

12:32

The ultimate battle for the heart and soul is a fight for identity. Our king invites our kids to know who they are, what to believe, and where they belong. Until next time, let's remember the words for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.