1 Kings 17:1

Today we begin with the life of a man who is mentioned several times in the New Testament, but he is a prophet of the Old Testament.

and it is through his life that we are going to learn some profitable insights or learning how to live like a child of the king in a land of unbelief. This man was one of those who appeared to Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. This man was one who, when Christ asked his disciples, who do people say that I am, the disciples responded, some of them say you are this Old Testament prophet. In the book of James, he is mentioned as just an ordinary man like you and me, but an ordinary man who was a man of great prayer. And he is only one of two people in the whole of Scripture who are identified as having left this earth without physically dying.

One was Enoch and the other was this prophet of the Old Testament. Do you know who he is by now? Somebody tell me. The prophet Elijah. Elijah. I want to get us to where we are in our lesson today by doing a quick overview of the whole Old Testament. Five minutes, the whole Old Testament. I think later this year I am going to offer a Saturday morning class. I'm not going to call it Bible for Dummies, though that has been the title suggested to me by some others, but sometimes it helps us to have the big picture of Scripture.

Many of us aren't able to navigate around Scripture because we just don't have a picture of the whole. And sometimes we need to step back and say, all right, tell me the big benchmarks or the big mileposts in Scripture so I can at any point in time sort of know where I am if I'm studying Scripture. Well, five minutes, you're going to get the big picture. And that's going to help us get to where we are in our study today on the life of Elijah. So here you go.

Are you ready? It begins in the beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The first 11 chapters of the Old Testament are the beginnings. and cover the period from the beginning of time up to about, roughly speaking, 2100 B.C.

We have the creation of all things. We have the humanity rebelling against God. We have the flood of Noah. We have the Tower of Babel, all in that first period of beginnings. It is followed by the period of the patriarchs.

Genesis 12 to 50, the rest of the book of Genesis deals with the patriarchs. And the patriarchs are the fathers of the Jewish people. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. And from Genesis 12 through Genesis 50, we get the stories of those great patriarchs of the faith. That takes us from the period of about 2100 B.C. to roughly 1446 B.C., depending on when you date the Exodus, when the children of Israel left slavery in Egypt.

The third major period of the Old Testament is called, I call it the period of deliverance. It takes us from the book of Exodus to 1 Samuel 8. It's the period when the children of Israel left Egypt. After they had been in slavery, Moses led them out of Egypt. He led them to a place called Mount Sinai where God gave them the law.

And God wanted to give them the land of Canaan. But when they would not go on into Canaan, despite the recommendations of Joshua and Caleb, they then wandered for 40 years in the wilderness. But finally, after those wilderness wanderings, they went and conquered the land of Canaan, and God delivered the land of Canaan into their hands. But then the people began to rebel against God, and God sent judgment. And that judgment was usually in the form of a foreign nation attacking Israel.

but God would then raise up people that were called judges to help deliver the people from these foreign oppressors. Judges were people like Samson. And a guy named Samuel was also the final judge. Then we come to the period of the kings. You know, Israel wanted to be like every other nation.

They wanted to have an earthly king. And so we have the period of kings beginning with King Saul and then King David and then Solomon and a whole host of kings follow. And that takes us from the period about 1050 B.C. to 586 B.C. And in 586 B.C., the temple is destroyed by the nation of Babylon.

and we have a period of foreign rulers where foreign nations are ruling over the nation of Israel. And the Old Testament ends with the book of Malachi and then there's a 400 year period of silence in terms of written scripture before the New Testament begins. So we go from the beginnings to the patriarchs to this period of deliverance to kings of Israel and then to foreign rulers. That's the Old Testament in a nutshell. And if you start to study the Old Testament, you can go into any one of these sections and you can expand your knowledge.

And that's what we do when we try to study. And we're going to expand our knowledge of a particular slice of the Old Testament history. And the slice we're going to be in is in section 4 in the period of the kings. The period of the kings, I'm going to take that section 4, the period of the kings, and I'm going to expand on it just a little bit right now. Under the period of the kings, there are really three periods.

First, the kingdom is united. Is everybody with me? I'm now in section 4 of Old Testament history, the period of the kings. and initially, well I'm in Roman numeral 3, but in the chart, section 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, the period of the kings is section 4. Is everybody with me on that?

But now we're on Roman numeral 3, the period of the kings, which is about section 4 from Roman numeral 2.

Who's on first? We're in section four, the period of kings of Old Testament history, and now I'm going to expand on that section of Old Testament history. Initially, the kingdom is united. Saul, David, Solomon. These are the glory years for the nation of Israel in terms of the kings of Israel.

Saul, David, Solomon. The kingdom is united. It's at its strongest as a nation in terms of this period of the kings under these three kings. It's a united kingdom. You're stronger when you're united, right?

But after the death of Solomon, the kingdom is divided. It is divided into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. In the United States, people from the south understand this, don't we? We understand having a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. We know what it means to have a divided nation.

That's what happened to Israel. There was civil war. And they divided into a northern kingdom, which was the larger of the two nations. And it was called Israel because most of the tribes of Israel went with the northern kingdom. And then the smaller of the two kingdoms was called Judah.

So you've got a divided kingdom.

when you get divided you get weaker right ultimately it will be the kingdoms defeated because Israel will be defeated the northern kingdom by the Assyrians and then the southern kingdom will be defeated by the Babylonians but within the period that section four of the kings the kingdom united three kings Saul David Solomon then the kingdom is divided and there are a whole series of kings for both the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, but then finally both of those kingdoms are defeated. All right, everybody with me on that? Everybody understand that? Okay, now we're going to go one step further. We're going into the kingdom divided era.

That's where we're headed. We're after the period when the kingdom was united, and our study of the life of Elijah is going to be in this period when the nation is divided into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. The northern kings. Let me just say a word about the northern kings. Did everybody get the handout that shows the kings?

Can I hold somebody just for a second? Did everybody get this chart that shows the kings? I did this for you just so you can see it. You can see on the left are the kings of Judah. and on the right are the kings of Israel.

Judah is the southern kingdom. Israel is the northern kingdom. Let me tell you an easy thing to understand. And people from the south and people from the north, I'm poking fun here. I don't really mean this too seriously.

But all of the northern kings, every one of the northern kings is evil. Not a single good northern king. Not a one. Every one of them is evil. In the Old Testament history.

True. True. The southern kingdom is a little better. You have a lot of bad kings, but you've got a few good ones in there. But every one of these is evil.

And there's a recurring refrain. If you go into the book of 1 Kings, where you would be if you're reading about the divided kingdom, there's a recurring refrain about these northern kings. They do evil in the eyes of the Lord. They do evil in the eyes of the Lord. Over and over and over you hear that refrain.

Starting with Jeroboam I, Nadab, Basha, Elah, Zimri, Tibni, Amri. Don't name any of your children these names. These are all bad guys. and particularly don't name a son Ahab. Because when we get to the 8th king, the text of Scripture tells us he did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.

And it is in the era of King Ahab, the 8th northern king of Israel, more evil than any of the kings of Israel who preceded him, that God says, enough. I've had enough. I've had seven preceding kings of evil, evil, evil. And when we get to Ahab, the evil just goes geometrically greater and God says enough.

And he picks out a man and he says, I want you to go talk to the king. And I want you to say thus saith the Lord. That's what prophets do. At critical times in the histories of nations, God sometimes sends someone to point the nation to the truth.

So now we're zeroed in in this era of the eighth northern king of Israel, Ahab.

our focal passage for today is one verse 1st Kings chapter 17 if you have your Bibles I want you to turn there 1st Kings 17

1st Kings 17

your homework here's your homework for next week you to read 1 Kings chapters 17 and 18. Just two chapters. But today we're going to read verse 1 and get introduced to this man named Elijah and the situation he faced. And we're going to start to get some profitable insights for living life like a child of the king in a land of unbelief. And if I don't, I hope you are going to understand what I'm going to try to do here.

I'm going to argue that many of the problems Elijah faced under King Ahab in a nation called Israel that had strayed far, far from God, the problems he faced there are similar to problems that we face in our own land of unbelief. And the remedies for how we live in that land of unbelief that were true in Elijah's day are true in our day. The scriptures give us timeless wisdom. So I want you to be thinking not just that this is ancient history, but it's ancient history that teaches us how we live right now. That's why it's recorded in Scripture.

That's why we need to know the stories of Scripture so we can understand what happened then, what God's solutions were then, and we can better understand how we're to live today. Let me just read it. 1 Kings 17.1 Now Elijah, the Tishbite from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.

this is act one of our study act one in which the prophet Elijah confronts the king Ahab and you almost when you say Ahab you immediately have to say Anjezebel Anjezebel This is why no one names a daughter Jezebel, because of the way this Jezebel was. Now let me say a word to you about Ahab and Jezebel. If you want to learn about them, you just go back a few verses. You start at 1 Kings 16, starting at verse 29. 1 Kings 16, verse 29.

So go back a few verses and read with me. In the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab, son of Omri, became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel 22 years. That's a long time. Ahab, son of Omri, did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, But he also married Jezebel, daughter of Ephba, king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.

He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him. And that's saying a lot because these other kings did a lot to provoke the anger of the Lord.

Ahab is the most evil northern king to date. and he marries Jezebel in clear violation of God's law because she was a pagan. That is, she did not believe in the God of Israel. But my guess is that Ahab married her for strategic, military, and political reasons. She was the daughter of Ethbal, the king of Sidon.

And Sidon was a strong country with natural resources,

access to naval ships, and so forth. And my guess is Ahab saw this as a way to strengthen the position of the nation of Israel. And instead of trusting that God would protect the nation of Israel, chose to violate the law of God and marry someone who was not a believer. There was a clear reason God did not allow the kings of Israel to marry unbelievers. Or Israelites in general to marry unbelievers.

Because the tendency is when married to an unbeliever for one to begin to drift in one's faith. That's the tendency.

and particularly when you have a woman like Jezebel who was obviously a strong-willed woman. She controls, as the story will unfold of Ahab, she's in control. She's the woman not only behind the throne but controlling the throne. She controls it to the point, we know she's a worshiper of the god Baal and I'm going to say more about Baal in just a moment. controls the throne that she convinces her husband Ahab to build a temple using governmental funds of Israel to build a temple for a pagan god. And Ahab erects an altar to Baal in this pagan temple. And he will also set up what is called the Asherah pole. Asherah in the thinking of those who worship Baal was the mother of Baal and very honored in the religion of those who honored Baal because she was considered the mother of Baal.

So Ahab erects basically an altar or a pole that represents Asherah to honor her. If you read further in 1 Kings, you will find that under Ahab's tenure and at Jezebel's of Baal are supported by the government. In fact, the prophets of Baal, their income, their livelihood is derived from governmental funding. So you now have the government funding, the government of Israel funding the prophets who preach and teach about Baal. Many have surmised that Jezebel was herself a priestess of Baal and that's one reason she so presses Ahab to erect the worship of Baal within the nation of Israel.

If you read a little further in the story in 1 Kings, you will see not only does Ahab permit the worship of Baal in Israel, not only does he fund the worship of Baal, not only does he fund the prophets of Baal, but Jezebel begins to systematically execute the prophets of the God of Israel. She begins to kill off those who have served the true God. And the God of Israel says, enough, enough. I want you to keep this in mind.

story at times to us about how God deals with the prophets of Baal may seem harsh, but you need to understand what was happening in the nation. Not only was the nation being taken away from the God of Israel, but the people of God, those who served the true God, were being systematically executed. And God responds vigorously and as the judge in this situation. And we will see that unfold in the story.

The second character in our Act 1 is Baal, the god who Jezebel worshipped.

Baal was considered the god of the storm and god of lightning. He was the chief god worshipped by the Canaanites, the people who lived in the land of Canaan but who were not followers of the true god of Israel. Baal was considered the one, the god who was responsible for the seasons of the year. He was the one who was responsible for providing the crops that would grow rain that would water the crops so that they would grow. He was considered really to control the destiny of the people because he controlled the elements and the crops that they were dependent upon for living.

And as I mentioned, his mother was considered to be Asherah. Well, along comes Elijah, the prophet of God. His name is Elijah. And in your handout, you will see that name has three parts. El, which means God.

Eli, the letter I in the Hebrew language means my. And then Jah is a shortened form of the Hebrew word Yahweh, which means Lord. So when you said the word Elijah, the name Elijah, you were saying, my God is the Lord. My God is the Lord. That is the story of the life of Elijah.

In everything he did, in everything he said, he was trying to tell the people, your God is the Lord. There's only one true God in Israel. And when you said the name Elijah, you were saying what was the theme of his life. My God is the Lord. He was from a little town called Tishbe.

It was so unknown, we've not even found any historical or archaeological remains of it. It was apparently a little backwater town, but we know it was in the area called Gilead. And Gilead was a rugged, austere place of solitude east of the Jordan River.

And so in all likelihood, because of the area from which he came, Elijah was an austere man. A man who was used to living in difficult terrain, in difficult circumstances. He was probably a very rugged outdoorsman. He was probably a little coarse. His clothing wouldn't have been like the city folks wore.

He would have been rough in his clothing. He probably talked a little country. You know, he didn't talk sophisticated. He just talked like plain old folks. And he was a man who didn't mince his words.

And when he went to talk to the king, he talked straight. He didn't talk in pretty flowery language. He talked straight. was always direct and bold. And in his first confrontation with Ahab, he comes with a word from God that there will be no dew or rain for several years in the nation.

And that was the beginning of God's judgment for what was going on in the nation. Why did God say, why did God choose as a method of judgment to say the judgment will be there will be no dew or rain for several years? Use that as the way to judge.

Huh? The God Baal supposedly controlled the heavens and controlled the storms and controlled the rain. And God sends Elijah to say, You want to see? You want to know who controls the heavens? the God of Israel says no rain for several years.

And in that pronouncement, there's a grand contest set up. Who's king? Is it Baal, whom you serve Ahab, or is it the God of Israel? And I'm coming to tell you, Ahab, the God of Israel controls the heavens and there will be no rain. And in that judgment, you're going to see this God Baal is nada.

He is nothing. He is nothing.

Who's the central figure in the story of the life of Elijah? It is the God of Israel. character. And Elijah says in verse 1, as the Lord, the God of Israel lives. He is a living God. He lives, he is sovereign over the heavens, not Baal. He is the king, not you Ahab, not Baal. And he is the judge who will punish unrepentant evil. It's a grand cosmic contest that Elijah sets up here, and the God of Israel is going to win.

What are the lessons that I want you to learn this morning? There's seven of them. Number one, God wants us to be boldly obedient, courageous, and trusting. like Elijah when God called him this man from the back water of Gilead to go and face the king he went it was a dangerous undertaking but he did it and when God shows us what we are to do today he wants us to do it he does not want us to hold back yes we need to be sure we hear what God wants us to do We're responding to what He wants us to do, not just something we've cooked up in our own imagination. But when God's direction for our lives is clear, we are to do it.

And we are to do it boldly and obediently, trusting in Him. And though we may stand alone against the whole world, we're to go and stand for Him. Lesson number two. God often uses unexpected people to accomplish His purposes. Elijah, this coarse, backwards-talking nobody, is used to go and confront the greatest king of the area.

But God uses unexpected people to accomplish His purposes. Who would have believed He would get a tax collector to write the Gospel of Matthew? you? Who would believe that he would take a murdering Pharisee named Saul and turn him into the greatest evangelist of the day? Not only of the day, but of human history. My point to you is God can use any of us. Often we don't think we are good enough, big enough, strong enough, smart enough, attuned enough to do what God wants us to do. God doesn't need strong people. He needs own God. And he can use unexpected people to do marvelous and grand things. You're never too small if you're with God. So if he's called you to do something, don't shrink back. Trust him. Go do it. He's a big God. He'll help you do it. Number three, God often works through a parent under-resourcing.

What do I mean by that? He sends not an army to confront Ahab. He sends not the most sophisticated man of his day. He sends one guy from the backwoods to confront him. Throughout the history of Scripture, you will often see God intentionally using someone or some way that seems completely preposterous from a worldly perspective to accomplish what God wants to accomplish.

One person against Ahab. No way. How about sending a young boy with a few rocks to go stand against the biggest, strongest giant armored with a big sword to fight? Makes no sense. but that's the reason God likes to work through under-resourcing is that he is the one who then gets the glory because everybody knows it wasn't the little man who did it it was the big God who did it.

When Gideon went to fight the Midianites in the Old Testament he had an army of 22,000 people to start with and God said you've got too many people in your army get rid of some of them. And he whittles the army down to 300 people and go fight the Midianites. It's crazy. It makes no sense to send an army of 300 against this huge army of the Midianites. Why did God do that?

Because He wanted the glory.

Too often we approach difficulties in our life or challenges in life thinking we need to go out and work and get up all the resources ourselves. And we need huge budgets and huge organizations God often wants to say look just trust me you may be small but I'll take care of the big stuff and in that way I will get the glory so you may feel small you may seem small the challenge may seem huge the giants may seem overwhelming that's just the situation God loves to work in he loves to work through apparent under resourcing because then he is the one Who gets the glory. How many people would take just 12 people. And say that's enough to change the world. Jesus said don't give me a huge army of people.

Give me 12 committed people. And with 12 committed people. I'll change the world.

Number four.

Individually and as a nation. We are dependent on God's gracious provision. In order to live. He is the one who controls the heavens. He is the one who controls the resources.

Yes, we are to use the resources he provides, and he usually provides in very ordinary ways. He gives us jobs and so forth. But let us never believe that we are the masters of our own fate or the masters of our own destiny. He is the one who provides. And you know, in a lot of ways, that lets us relax.

I've spent a whole lot of my life worrying, too much of my life worrying about making sure I took care of my family and worrying about where the next you know how is the future going to work out in terms of finances and so forth we're to work we're to plan sure but let's relax a little God's in control he will provide he will provide he is the great provider so it allows us to sort of get all this pressure off our backs and just live the way he wants us to live. He is the great provider. Any nation, any individual that forgets he is the great provider is ready for a fall. It's when we become independent that we are weakest. It is when we are most dependent on him that we are in the safest position. Number five, God will judge and will punish unrepentant people. Unrepentant people. He wants people to repent, but he will judge and punish unrepentant people.

It's often in the next life. Often we don't see it here, but sometimes it's in this life. it's going to be in this life for the nation of Israel in the life of Elijah in our own lifetimes I think we've seen it in the fall of communism the fall of the Soviet Union this godless pagan system that attempted to eliminate God overnight just evaporated I think it was God's judgment I was saddened to hear while I was in Costa Rica about the Burnhams you know the Burnhams captive in the Philippines and finally she has been freed but Mr. Burnham was killed as they attempted to free him from the Muslim kidnappers I would hate to have been one of their kidnappers on the day of judgment if that kidnapper has not repented can you imagine what the judge the living God is going to have to say to those kidnappers for what they did to his missionaries. God will judge unrepentant, unrepentant, evil people.

So relax, folks. I know we want to be the judges sometimes. But trust me, God will set things right one day so we can relax a little. He'll take care of it. He'll take care of it.

Number six, God will not share the throne with another. He alone is king.

He wants us to live like he alone is king. And he's not willing to share. He's not willing to share with Ahab. He's not willing to share with Baal. He's not willing to share with me in my own life.

Sometimes I want to be my own king. He's not willing to share. And lastly, there is but one living sovereign king, so why don't we start living like it?

The story of Elijah is there is but one. Let's live like it. Dads, particularly today,

is there one sovereign living king in your life? On this Father's Day, it's a good day to reflect. Because your family's better. Everybody's better. If in your life there's but one who's the sovereign living king, the God of Israel, the God of Elijah.

Thank you. We need to stop. Let me pray. Lord, this day we come before you acknowledging too often we don't live like you are the one true and living God.

to be willing to repent from our stubbornness, our hard-headedness, and to submit to you. I pray for myself in this class that we will honestly examine our lives and ask ourselves the question, who's the king of my life? If it is other than the God of Israel, I pray that we will bend the knee and serve but Him. For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.