SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, and today is no different.
SPEAKER_00: If you would like a paper copy to follow along with, raise your hand, and it shall be delivered to you.
SPEAKER_00: And as always, on the screen is our Wi-Fi info and the password and our QR code if you want to download that for sermon notes and quotes.
SPEAKER_00: And let's say good morning again to our guests who are watching online.
SPEAKER_00: This past week, we've heard from folks watching from McDonough, Georgia, here in the U.S., and also Bengaluru.
SPEAKER_00: I hope I'm saying that right.
SPEAKER_00: Bangaluru, India, and Kwazan City in the Philippines, which is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Philippines.
SPEAKER_00: So grateful, grateful that you all are joining us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And Jim, we'll see you next week, my friend.
SPEAKER_00: So we're in chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: We're continuing our study of 1 Kings.
SPEAKER_00: And we are in chapter 18 today.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the more well-known chapters in this book, with Elijah facing off against 450 of the prophets of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of the Old Testament version of the shootout at the OK Corral.
SPEAKER_00: And with apologies to one of my songwriting heroes, the brilliant James Taylor, I'm calling this, I've seen fire and I've seen rain.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to sing it for you because you don't want me to.
SPEAKER_00: So, just for context, I'm going to practice with this little guy.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, success.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a map.
SPEAKER_00: And if you see right there, way up in the northwest corner of Israel is Mount Carmel.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually a mountain range, it's not just one single peak.
SPEAKER_00: And right there is the Kishon River, which we'll hear about at one point in our story today.
SPEAKER_00: And here's a, let's see, next next slide is a picture that we took in 2018 while we were there visiting.
SPEAKER_00: And this, it's it's a very high elevation.
SPEAKER_00: You you go up this windy road on the bus and you get out and you climb up.
SPEAKER_00: There's this, as you can see, there's kind of an observation deck with telescopes and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And boy, it is wild and windy up there.
SPEAKER_00: We've been up there several times.
SPEAKER_00: Every time we've been up there, it's just windy and gusty and blustery.
SPEAKER_00: And I just think this confrontation, this day between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, it was the same way, wild and woolly and windy.
SPEAKER_00: Then we've got one more picture.
SPEAKER_00: This is a statue of Elijah there at Mount Carmel.
SPEAKER_00: And he's looking pretty wild and woolly himself, pretty, pretty fierce.
SPEAKER_00: Well, at our sermon prep meeting this week, we talked about this confrontation because it's the bulk of the chapter, right?
SPEAKER_00: It occupies most of the press of this chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: And we talked about this confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that we talked about of why it happened is this thought that God is not neutral when it comes to sin, when it comes to false gods, false prophets, idols.
SPEAKER_00: He's not neutral.
SPEAKER_00: And why is that?
SPEAKER_00: Is it because he's petty and vindictive?
SPEAKER_00: Not in the slightest.
SPEAKER_00: It's because he loves us, who is his creation, and he's firmly set against anything that would do us harm.
SPEAKER_00: He is for us.
SPEAKER_00: And so he is against anything that would do us harm.
SPEAKER_00: He is not neutral towards it.
SPEAKER_00: When he brought the Israelites out of Egypt, out of slavery, and away from Egyptian gods, this is what he had to say.
SPEAKER_00: This is how the Ten Commandments starts out in Exodus chapter 20.
SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
SPEAKER_00: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: He tells the Israelites who he is.
SPEAKER_00: He is a personal God with a name.
SPEAKER_00: He reminds them of what he's already done.
SPEAKER_00: This is how he starts the conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what I've already done.
SPEAKER_00: I brought you out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: I've brought you out of bondage.
SPEAKER_00: I've brought you out of worshiping false gods.
SPEAKER_00: And then the very first commandment that he gives them is to worship him and him alone, the one true God, for their good.
SPEAKER_00: And he's the same God that we'll see in this passage today in 1 Kings 18.
SPEAKER_00: And just a reminder where the the northern kingdom of Israel, following the lead of King Ahab and his wife Jezebel, they've embraced the worship of Baal, the pagan god of rain and fertility.
SPEAKER_00: And if you'll remember from our chapter last week that Pastor Jim taught, we've experienced three and a half years of no rain, drought, and famine.
SPEAKER_00: And old Baal has taken a beating those last three years.
SPEAKER_00: Because you know, when you're the rain and fertility god, if it doesn't rain for three years, and there's a famine and there's a drought, no fertility in people, in animals, in the land, your image is going to get a little tarnished, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: And one of the commentators that I was reading, he thinks that he made the point that if God had just brought back the rain at the beginning of this chapter, then people would have ascribed that to Baal.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, Baal's had a rough couple of years, but look, he's back working again.
SPEAKER_00: We've got fields growing, we've got rain.
SPEAKER_00: But because of this massive defeat of Baal and his prophets on the mountain, there is no way that Baal takes credit for that.
SPEAKER_00: People know that Yahweh is God and God alone.
SPEAKER_00: He's the true God of Israel, the God of this dramatic presentation of fire on the mountain, and he is the God of the daily provision of rain that follows.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we have this dramatic confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, followed by the rain.
SPEAKER_00: There's three basic scenes in our passage.
SPEAKER_00: The first scene involves Ahab, Elijah, and this fellow named Obadiah, who's basically King Ahab's chief of staff.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to see different conversations between them.
SPEAKER_00: The second scene is that scene, the confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal up on the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: And then the final scene is up on the top of Mount Carmel, where Elijah is praying for rain that God has promised.
SPEAKER_00: So let's pray, church, and then get to our text.
SPEAKER_00: What a chapter this is.
SPEAKER_00: Show us your ways, O Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us your paths.
SPEAKER_00: Guide us in your truth and teach us, for you are God our Savior, and we wait on you all the day long.
SPEAKER_00: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Alrighty, so 1 Kings 18, chapter 18, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: After many days, the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah's been out in the wilderness for three years.
SPEAKER_00: And everything that he's seen is preparing him for this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab.
SPEAKER_00: Now the famine was severe in Samaria, which is a little bit of an understatement.
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in West Texas, and we have about five inches of rain a year.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a similar environment, similar terrain, similar weather patterns as Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you, it's pretty dry even on a regular year.
SPEAKER_00: But if you think, so this is February of 2024, go back three and a half years.
SPEAKER_00: It's the middle of summer of 2020.
SPEAKER_00: And we haven't had dew, we haven't had rain since then.
SPEAKER_00: Things would be pretty crunchy, wouldn't they?
SPEAKER_00: Pretty dry, pretty, pretty nonexistent in terms of grass and crops and trees.
SPEAKER_00: So, verse 3, Ahab called Obadiah, who was over the household.
SPEAKER_00: Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water.
SPEAKER_00: This is a little bit of supposition because we're not told the details, right?
SPEAKER_00: But think about a hundred men needing bread and water.
SPEAKER_00: The middle of a famine, the middle of a drought.
SPEAKER_00: These are prophets of the Lord that Ahab and Jezebel want to kill, if they're found out.
SPEAKER_00: And somehow Obadiah manages, we don't know how long it is, we're speculating, but for a long time he's kept these guys alive in the caves.
SPEAKER_00: And even if on rations these men only drank a gallon of water per week per person, which is not very much water, that's still a hundred gallons of water a week plus bread that he's got to find a way to get to these men.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty impressive what he's done.
SPEAKER_00: So Ahab, verse 5, says to Obadiah, Go through the land to all the springs of water and to all the valleys.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive and not lose some of the animals.
SPEAKER_00: Here Obadiah's keeping prophets alive, and Ahab's thinking about his horses and mules.
SPEAKER_00: But in any case, they're looking for hidden springs, maybe where there's a little grass growing.
SPEAKER_00: So they divided the land between them to pass through it.
SPEAKER_00: Ahab went in one direction by himself, and Obadiah went in another direction by himself.
SPEAKER_00: And as Obadiah was on the way, behold, Elijah met him.
SPEAKER_00: God's called him out of the wilderness, and here comes Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: And Obadiah recognized him and fell on his face and said, Is it you, my Lord Elijah?
SPEAKER_00: And he answered him, It is I.
SPEAKER_00: Go tell your Lord Ahab, Behold, Elijah is here.
SPEAKER_00: And then Obadiah says, How have I sinned that you would give your servant into the hand of Ahab to kill me?
SPEAKER_00: As the Lord your God lives, there's no nation or kingdom where my Lord has not sent to seek you.
SPEAKER_00: And when they would say, He is not here, he would take an oath of the kingdom or nation that they had not found you.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he goes to a nation and says, Has Elijah been here?
SPEAKER_00: If they say no, we swear.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, You swear?
SPEAKER_00: And they say, I swear.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Okay, if you're lying, I'm gonna kill you.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the point Obadiah is making here.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11, and now you say, you're telling me, go tell your Lord, behold Elijah's here.
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as I have gone from you, Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah, who disappears all the time, the Spirit of the Lord will carry you, I know not where.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find you, he will kill me, although I, your servant, have feared the Lord from my youth.
SPEAKER_00: Has it not been told, my Lord, what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: How I hid a hundred men of the Lord's prophets by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water?
SPEAKER_00: And now you say, Go tell your Lord, behold, Elijah is here, and he will kill me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying he's wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate how Elijah handles it.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15, Elijah says, As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.
SPEAKER_00: So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah, and I think it's a little humorous that all this stuff that Obadiah was worried about, and then it just ends up, okay, so he went and told Ahab, and Ahab met Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: Well, verse 17, when Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?
SPEAKER_00: And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but you have and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals.
SPEAKER_00: Now therefore, send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table fade to black in scene one.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the 400 prophets of Asherah, we don't read that they show up.
SPEAKER_00: I tend to think that Jezebel might have been a little crafty and realized, I don't think I'm gonna send those prophets up there.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's scene two, verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So he did what Elijah requested.
SPEAKER_00: He gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel, and Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you go limping between two different opinions?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, how long are you gonna keep sitting on the fence, saying that you believe in Yahweh, the God of Israel, and yet choosing to follow Baal in your daily life?
SPEAKER_00: How long are you gonna do this?
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, If the Lord is God, follow him.
SPEAKER_00: But if Baal, then follow him.
SPEAKER_00: And the people did not answer him a word.
SPEAKER_00: Then Elijah said to the people, I even I only am left a prophet of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But Baal's prophets are 450 men.
SPEAKER_00: Let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves, and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it.
SPEAKER_00: And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it.
SPEAKER_00: And you will, meaning the prophets of Baal, you will call upon the name of your God, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.
SPEAKER_00: And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.
SPEAKER_00: Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your God, but put no fire to it.
SPEAKER_00: And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it, and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, answer us.
SPEAKER_00: But there was no voice, and no one answered.
SPEAKER_00: And they limped around the altar that they had made, and at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, Cry aloud, cry louder, come on, yell louder, for he is a god.
SPEAKER_00: Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he's asleep and must be awakened.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And they cried aloud and they cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out upon them.
SPEAKER_00: And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, the evening sacrifice, and listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: But there was no voice, no one answered, no one paid attention.
SPEAKER_00: That is a pretty dramatic scene, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: The lengths that they are going to to try and get a response from this non-existent little god.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 30.
SPEAKER_00: Then Elijah said to all the people, Come near to me, which them just getting near to him and near the altar, that's an act of faith right there.
SPEAKER_00: And all the people came near to him.
SPEAKER_00: And he repaired, this is stunning, he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, we've been reading about this in previous chapters, how different kings there they are leaving up the high places, they're tearing down the altar of the Lord because they're worshiping Baal and Asherah.
SPEAKER_00: So he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be your name.
SPEAKER_00: And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he made a trench about the altar as great as would contain two sea of seed, which each of those would have been about seven and a half liters of dry measurements.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a trench that will hold gallons and gallons of water.
SPEAKER_00: So he put the wood in order, and he cut the bowl in pieces and laid it on the wood.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Do it a second time.
SPEAKER_00: And they did it a second time.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Do it a third time.
SPEAKER_00: And they did it a third time.
SPEAKER_00: And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water.
SPEAKER_00: This strikes me as a double statement of faith on Elijah's part.
SPEAKER_00: Because not only is he pouring gallons upon gallons of water on the offering and the altar and the stones, in faith that God is going to send fire, but he's also using up gallons and gallons and gallons of water in the midst of a horrible drought, in faith that God is going to send the rain as well.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And at the time of the offering of the oblation, the evening sacrifice, which I love the timing of this, it's the time of the evening sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah the prophet came near and he said, O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.
SPEAKER_00: Answer me, O Lord, answer me that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.
SPEAKER_00: Man, he is pointing to God.
SPEAKER_00: I want this to glorify you.
SPEAKER_00: Do this so that the people will know that you are God.
SPEAKER_00: You are the one true God, and you are turning their hearts back to you.
SPEAKER_00: Then 38.
SPEAKER_00: Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
SPEAKER_00: That is miraculous.
SPEAKER_00: Not just consuming the flesh of the offering, but a whole bunch of wet wood, the stones, the very dust that had been around the altar, and the gallons of water that are in that trench.
SPEAKER_00: That is magnificent.
SPEAKER_00: And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, The Lord, he is God.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord, he is God.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, what a statement of faith.
SPEAKER_00: God, we see you.
SPEAKER_00: You are God.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape.
SPEAKER_00: And the people, they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, boy, that's unexpected.
SPEAKER_00: That's really I don't know for you, but for me, that's hard to hard to hear and imagine.
SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, uh you can say that going back as far As Deuteronomy, God explained the blessings of choosing to follow Him and the consequences of following false gods.
SPEAKER_00: And these men, these prophets, have committed their life and fully followed a false God.
SPEAKER_00: So there are consequences to that.
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, there's humanity involved.
SPEAKER_00: And we were talking about this in sermon prep too, that we might find ourselves shaking our fist at God and saying, this is so unfair.
SPEAKER_00: Why are those men being slaughtered?
SPEAKER_00: As if we know and fully understand the context of what God's holiness means.
SPEAKER_00: Or we might, on the other hand, shake our fist at the prophets and prophets and say, Yeah, serves you right for following a false God.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's so hard for us to understand that context, but one of the things that we talked about this week, might there be a place in between where on the one hand, you can have a reverence for God and a reverence for justice, and a reverence for how God is not neutral towards sin and false gods and false prophets.
SPEAKER_00: But then on the other hand, can we have hearts that are broken at the sinfulness of these prophets that have chosen a life of following a false God?
SPEAKER_00: Can we have hearts that are broken by others who are ensnared in sin?
SPEAKER_00: And hearts that are broken at these prophets who were dancing around, calling to a God that's not there, cutting themselves, and then they're slaughtered.
SPEAKER_00: What an interesting thing, isn't it, to hold both of those intention, to be brokenhearted at sin, but also have a reverence for God and his justice and his mercy and what that all looks like together.
SPEAKER_00: And that, my friends, is fade to black, end of scene two.
SPEAKER_00: Well, scene three starts in verse 41.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah said to Ahab, now that God has proven himself without a doubt to be the one true God of Israel, God says to Ahab, Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.
SPEAKER_00: We don't hear it yet.
SPEAKER_00: But Elijah's speaking prophetically because he firmly trusts and believes that God's going to do what he said he would do.
SPEAKER_00: He saw it out in the wilderness, and he just saw it on Mount Carmel.
SPEAKER_00: So Ahab went up to eat and to drink, and Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel, which, as we were saying earlier, you can see the Mediterranean Sea from there.
SPEAKER_00: And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees.
SPEAKER_00: I would do that, but it'd take me just a minute to get back up and be a little embarrassing, frankly.
SPEAKER_00: But he's got his face between his knees, and he said to his servant, he says, Go up now, look towards the sea.
SPEAKER_00: And the servant went up and looked and said, There is nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Go again seven times.
SPEAKER_00: And you just see Elijah full of faith, just down with his face down in between his knees, saying, Oh Lord God, I believe that you are the true God of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: You are the one true God.
SPEAKER_00: You are going to bring the rain.
SPEAKER_00: And he looks up, anything yet?
SPEAKER_00: No?
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I believe that you are going to bring the rain as you said, anything yet, and over and over and over again, as hard as it is, because he's trusting in God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, on the seventh time he said, the servant, Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea, and he said, Ah, go up and say to Ahab, prepare your chariot and go down lest the rain stop you.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, bro, it's going to rain so hard, you got to get out of here now.
SPEAKER_00: And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain.
SPEAKER_00: And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel, and the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.
SPEAKER_00: Fade to black scene three, and that's not the ending I was expecting there either.
SPEAKER_00: It's like all of a sudden, here's this rain.
SPEAKER_00: Prayers have been answered.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah laces up his Nikes, and boom, he outruns the chariot.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: How are we doing, folks?
SPEAKER_00: Hanging in there?
SPEAKER_00: I think this passage raises at least three questions.
SPEAKER_00: At least it does for me.
SPEAKER_00: At least three.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot more, but we are short on time.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the first question that I think this passage raises.
SPEAKER_00: Who is the real God?
SPEAKER_00: Man, I think by far that's the dominating question of this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And reminder, it's again, it's such an important question.
SPEAKER_00: Way back in Exodus, God starts off the Ten Commandments saying this, you shall have no other little g gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: I am the real God.
SPEAKER_00: If we ask ourselves a question, is there a God?
SPEAKER_00: And if we answer that question, yes, I hope you do, well then this question follows right on its heels.
SPEAKER_00: Is there a God?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Well then, who is the real God?
SPEAKER_00: Who's the real God?
SPEAKER_00: Is the real God an impersonal force out there in the universe?
SPEAKER_00: It's just like magnetism or something?
SPEAKER_00: Is the real God an uninterested deity who created the universe and kind of like pulled the chain, pulled the cord to start the universe up, and then just said, see y'all, hope it works out for you.
SPEAKER_00: Good luck.
SPEAKER_00: See you around the bend.
SPEAKER_00: Or, man, is a real God, a someone and not a something.
SPEAKER_00: Someone far more interesting and mysterious than an impersonal force, someone far more personal and knowable than we can even imagine.
SPEAKER_00: That's who I think the real God is.
SPEAKER_00: The God who tells us in Psalm 147 that he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds, implying intimacy and personal knowledge of each of us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's followed by the very next verse that tells that he determines the numbers of stars and calls them each by name, implying that that same personal creator, God that knows each one of us created everything that we know in the cosmos.
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, he has intimate knowledge of every single thing he's created, all of the trillions of stars.
SPEAKER_00: It is unbelievable to think about.
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, this personal and knowable God is actually interested in how we live our lives because he actually cares about our well-being.
SPEAKER_00: This personal and knowable God has revealed himself to us so that we might know him.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing to think about.
unknown: N.
SPEAKER_00: T.
SPEAKER_00: Wright says it like this: God is the one who satisfies the passion for justice, the longing for spirituality, the hunger for a relationship, the yearning for beauty, and God, the true God, is the God we see in Jesus of Nazareth, Israel's Messiah, the world's true Lord.
unknown: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: That is the real God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the next question gets way more personal.
SPEAKER_00: Talking about a personal God, we've asked the broad question, who's the real God?
SPEAKER_00: Well, now we ask the specific and personal question, who is your God and who is my God?
SPEAKER_00: That question gets a little more touchy, a little more ouchy.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 21, remember, Elijah asked the Israelites, why or how long will you go limping between these two different opinions?
SPEAKER_00: How long are you going to sit on the fence?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Israelites were saying they believed in God, but they were living like they believed in Baal, and they were following after Baal.
SPEAKER_00: And my question for all of us is how is that working out in your life?
SPEAKER_00: We might say, bro, I don't believe in Baal.
SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, okay, fair enough, right?
SPEAKER_00: But if you say God is your God, how does that affect your life, my life?
SPEAKER_00: On a Tuesday afternoon, we're bored and scrolling through social media, right?
SPEAKER_00: What do we find ourselves stopping on?
SPEAKER_00: What do we linger on?
SPEAKER_00: What gets our juices inflamed, either excited about or angry about?
SPEAKER_00: So the question is if Yahweh, if God, if Jesus is your God, are you living like He matters or are you living like He doesn't matter?
SPEAKER_00: We found this quote from Craig Groschel, who's the founding pastor of Life Church.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, if we believe that God wants us happy above all else, rather than acknowledging that our role is to serve God, we wrongly believe that God exists to serve us.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, that is painful to admit.
SPEAKER_00: God becomes a means to our end, happiness?
SPEAKER_00: I gotta tell you, I fall into that sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: So my question, church, are we living like God matters?
SPEAKER_00: Does our belief in God affect the way we live?
SPEAKER_00: And are we willing to, at the very least, ask that question?
SPEAKER_00: Does my belief in God affect the way I live?
SPEAKER_00: Are we willing to at least ask that?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm haunted by that visual of the prophets of Baal dancing and limping around their altar, crying out to this non-existent little g God, the God who isn't there, there's no voice, no one answers, no one who is even paying attention to them.
SPEAKER_00: Do we live like that sometimes?
SPEAKER_00: Who or what are we placing our faith in?
SPEAKER_00: Because that ends up being the question, not how firm we are in our belief, but whom we place our trust in.
SPEAKER_00: And Tim Keller, boy, he illustrates this really well.
SPEAKER_00: If you're falling off a cliff, strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation is not finally based on the strength of your faith, but on the object of your faith.
SPEAKER_00: Man, is that great?
SPEAKER_00: Church, Matt Pearson, who is your God?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, last question.
SPEAKER_00: What is our responsive faith look like?
SPEAKER_00: What is faithful waiting and serving look like?
SPEAKER_00: Dale Ralph Davis has a great commentary on 1 Kings, and he contrasts the faith of Obadiah that we met at the beginning of the chapter in Elijah, and he says, the Bible never tells us that there is only one kind of faithful servant.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah's ministry is more public and confrontational.
SPEAKER_00: Obadiah works quietly in a behind-the-scenes fashion and yet is faithful in the sphere where God placed him.
SPEAKER_00: Man, it's important.
SPEAKER_00: Faithfulness is not so dual that it only comes in one flavor.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I find both of these men fascinating, how they both faithfully served the Lord, faithfully waited on him.
SPEAKER_00: Both of these men were placed by God in dark and dangerous surroundings, but they were both faithful in their service.
SPEAKER_00: Think about Obadiah.
SPEAKER_00: He lived, he's a strong believer all his life in God, and yet he lived and worked for an evil king and his wife, but God had placed him there.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't fearless, because we sure saw him being fearful when he met up with Elijah, but he was courageous.
SPEAKER_00: All of that work he did to save those prophets and find a way to feed them and to stand up for them.
SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
SPEAKER_00: And he waited on the Lord this whole time.
SPEAKER_00: Faithful serving, faithful waiting, not knowing he didn't know when the drought was going to end.
SPEAKER_00: And then remembering Elijah, different type of faith, different type of service, different type of waiting on the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, he was sent out into the wilderness by God, where he lived, we're told, for over three years, and a little bit of a foreshadowing of Jesus being called out into the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: Here's Elijah being led out into the wilderness by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: First lived by that brook Cherith that Jim talked about, fed by the ravens, meat and bread.
SPEAKER_00: And then God calls him to Jezebel's home country of Sidon, darkness, darkness land there.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00: With the widow in Zarphath, and all that he saw there, how she was so faithful, how God provided, and miraculously her oil and flour didn't run out, and then how miraculously God brought life out of death when her son died, and Elijah prayed, and the little boy came back to life.
SPEAKER_00: All of this waiting, all of this serving, waiting on God, and then God calls him out of Zarphath to face the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally we see him praying at the top of Mount Carmel for rain.
SPEAKER_00: God told him that he would send rain on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And then we get this front row seat, right, with Elijah as he's praying and waiting and praying and waiting and praying and waiting and praying and waiting.
SPEAKER_00: But he prays and waits with hope because he's seen God's faithfulness over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: So what that what might that look like in your life and in mine?
SPEAKER_00: That's one of my questions here for us.
SPEAKER_00: What is that faithful waiting and faithful service look like?
SPEAKER_00: And is there, for all of us, is there an area of drought where you've been waiting through and you're wrestling with faithfully waiting and faithfully serving?
SPEAKER_00: God may call you to serve in some places that you would never expect, like he did with Obadiah, like he did with Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: He is faithful.
SPEAKER_00: He is trustworthy, and he's worth waiting on.
SPEAKER_00: And what I find interesting about those two men, Obadiah and Elijah, for all their faithfulness, they're not the ultimate hero of the story, are they?
SPEAKER_00: Elijah, verse 37, we'll show it again here on a slide.
SPEAKER_00: He's pointing to the hero of the story when he says, Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord our God, and that you have turned their hearts back.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the hero of the story is the God who is there.
SPEAKER_00: The God who runs after us even while we're calling on a little g God who's not even there.
SPEAKER_00: The God who faithfully will turn our hearts back to Him after we've turned our backs on Him and said, We don't want to have anything to do with you.
SPEAKER_00: He is so faithful to run after us.
SPEAKER_00: The God who tells us in Luke 19, 10 that his mission is to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: The God who knows us and calls us by name.
SPEAKER_00: That's the ultimate hero of this story, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: And I'll close with this quote from Spurgeon.
SPEAKER_00: My hope lives not because I'm not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died.
SPEAKER_00: My trust is not that I am holy, but that by being unholy He is my righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: My faith rests not upon what I am or shall be or feel or know, but in what Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is now doing for me.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Church, can we say amen?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Alrighty, uh, worship team as you all come up, and before we pray, just reminder that we have a prayer team that meets in the back.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, they would love to pray with and for you.
SPEAKER_00: They would love nothing more.
SPEAKER_00: So encourage you, if there's something you're wrestling with right now, if there's something new in your brain today after this, after Elijah and Mount Carmel and the prophets of Baal, go pray with them.
SPEAKER_00: They'd love to do that.
SPEAKER_00: So let's let's pray together, church.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, grateful for your word.
SPEAKER_00: Um, grateful that you are willing to show yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You are willing to reveal yourself to us.
SPEAKER_00: Grateful that you run after us and you will not let us go.
SPEAKER_00: That you are not neutral to that which would cause us harm.
SPEAKER_00: Draw us to you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.