Elijah's life demonstrates how to live for God in a setting of apostasy and spiritual decline. The sermon contrasts Elijah, a man of prayer and obedience who knew God's Word, with King Ahab, a man of singular evil who led Israel into idolatry. Despite facing a drought he himself prophesied, Elijah remained God's faithful messenger, highlighting the importance of knowing scripture, praying, and boldly speaking God's truth in challenging times. The message calls listeners to consider if they will be modern-day Elijahs, standing for God in a world moving away from biblical principles.
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I extend the warm good morning to you all, even though the morning, I suppose, is not for you folks all that warm. We have experienced really quite a gracious change in temperature. We've been in a deep freeze up north. In fact, on Friday, in our fair city, it warmed up to twenty-two below zero. That was as warm as it got. We won't talk about how cold it was. And as I feared, we've already been blamed for bringing this cold down here. But I'm going to check when I get back to see if my colleague Dave Glock got credit for bringing warm weather to you last week, you see. Let's be fair now. You have to keep it both ways.
But I trust that in spite of the cooler weather here that we will have a very profitable time together this week. Martha is here with me. We've been looking forward to this time, and I trust that the fellowship and the study of the Word of God will be rich and profitable for us. This morning I'd like for you to turn, if you will, to a part of your Bible that probably is not as well worn as some of the other parts. I'm going to read this morning from First Kings chapter sixteen and the first part of First Kings chapter seventeen. While you turn there to say that God willing in these sessions this morning and then through the evenings of this week, we want to be looking at the life of Elijah and the ministry of Elijah.
a man of God in a setting of apostasy, to learn some important things as to how you live for God in a setting of spiritual decline and trouble, and how you do stand up for Jesus as a soldier of the cross. We're going to be looking at some studies from the life of Elijah. Those of you who are able to come in the morning sessions Tuesday through Friday, we will shift gears quite differently there. I'd like to take you sort of to the classroom, and we're going to do four very basic studies on some of the important doctrines of salvation on Tuesday through Friday morning. So we'll be dealing with New Testament doctrines there in contrast to our evening studies in the Old Testament.
First Kings chapter sixteen, we'll begin reading in verse twenty-nine. Now Ahab the son of Amri became king over Israel in the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah. that Ahab the son of Amri reigned over Israel and Samaria, twenty-two years. And Ahab the son of Amri did more evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. And it came about as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel, the daughter of Ephbael, king of Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshipped him. So he erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria.
and they have also made the Asherah. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him. In his days healed of Bethelite, built Jericho. He laid its foundations with the loss of Abiram his firstborn. He set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son, Sigu, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua, the son of Nun. Now Elijah, the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither do nor reign these years except by my word. And the word of the Lord came to him, saying, Go away from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan.
And it shall be that you shall drink of the brook that I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there. So he went and did, according to the word of the Lord, for he went and lived by the brook chariot, which is east of the Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening. And he would drink from the brook. Then it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land. We'll end our reading there. Trust God will bless his word to us. Father, again we pause to give our thanks. For the privilege of coming together to praise our Lord Jesus, to search the scriptures, we pray that as we focus our attention upon the Word of God, that you will be free to speak to us.
We pray that we may understand your truth and that it may find its appointed place in our heart and conscience. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. It may seem strange for me to say that my thoughts for the series we're going to work on this morning and through the evenings of this week began in a conversation with a bunch of young people. Interestingly enough, in a recent conversation, I was rather impressed by the way these young people, college-aged young people, were talking about the lack of real leadership in our own country, and even those who would aspire to be leaders, so busy destroying one another that you wonder if there's going to be anything left.
And as these young people were pondering this, they were reflecting. I was sitting there sort of listening. They were reflecting on some of the things that they see around them in our Western culture that they understand are far from what the Word of God teaches. And out of this came some very natural questions about how does a Christian live for the glory of God in a setting of apostasy. You understand the concept of apostasy. To stand apart from, to move away from a position that once was at least in a semblance, according to the Word of God, and then to move away from that.
That's the concept of apostasy. And I was rather interested to hear these fairly young heads reflecting on this great question. How do you live for God? in a scene where there is a perceptible move away from that which is biblical and that which is ethical and moral. And I found myself rather appreciating in one sense the fact that these young people were able to think like that, but in another sense I found myself asking a question. It came to my mind, is this conversation, there was a question that a man asked a long time ago.
in a similar setting and he asked the question where is the Lord God of Elijah remember that question now Elijah Elijah's successor Elijah asked that question but as he reflected back on the life and ministry of the prophet Elijah he was so conscious of the fact that here was a man that in a scene of apostasy and departure from God here was a man who had lived for God who had served the living God, who had a strong testimony for the truth of God. And in the light of that, his successor, looking at his own life and his own responsibility, said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah?
Where is he? Have you ever asked that question? As you see the world around us and all of its struggles and all of its crises, particularly in our Western world, our Western civilization, that is fast moving away from many, many dimensions of ethical and moral reflections of biblical truth. It's very common, I think, that we might ask ourselves the question, where is the Lord the God of Elijah? How do you live for God in this kind of a setting? Now, you will note, if you read through the scriptures leading up to the point here of First Kings, sixteen and seventeen, that the setting is very important for us.
The nation of Israel had split. Under Rehoboam, Solomon's son, the northern tribes broke away in rebellion, rebelled against the Davidic throne, and there was a great civil war. At that point in time, what had been one nation, under David, And under Saul prior to that, and Solomon, David's son, during the reign of these three kings, essentially you had a united kingdom of the Hebrews. But after Solomon passed off the scene and his son Rehoboam came to the throne, the nation split. Ten tribes in the north, two in the south.
At least so we say by accommodation. And from the very beginning, that northern kingdom was apostate. Unfortunately, the very foundation of that northern kingdom was one which took them one step after the other, after the other, away from God. You will recall that Jeroboam, who was that self-appointed king of the northern kingdom, he had been an officer, you remember, in Solomon's army, had disapproved of some of the later policies of Solomon, particularly his heavy taxation. And because of his expressed disapproval, he had to flee out of the country. But when Solomon died and his son came to the throne, Jeroboam came back, and he was the one who led the northern kingdom away in their rebellion from the Davidic throne.
And to this day, by the way, that breach in the nation has never been patched. In the kingdom, it will. But to this day, it has not been patched. But here we find, as we see the picture of that northern kingdom... We find a person sitting as the king, a man who gave lip service to the things of God, and yet who brought in apostasy in a very bold way. He built a temple, an idolatrous temple at the very south of the country, and he built one at the very north end of the country. He set up idols there to be worshipped. And of course, he set up his own priesthood, a spurious priesthood.
If you read that period of the history of Israel, you find then that all the Levitical priests in the Northern Kingdom were suddenly out of work, so to speak. And they all filtered down into the Southern Kingdom, leaving that Northern Kingdom in a very desperate condition in terms of spiritual and ethical and moral things were concerned. And all through the history of that Northern Kingdom, there was just one crisis after another. a series of international problems, a series of economic problems, a series of assassinations of leadership. And there wasn't one good king that ever sat on the throne of that northern kingdom. It was a scene of apostasy. And of course, in that scene appeared the man Ahab.
Ahab was the king in that northern kingdom. We've read it here in the scriptures. You will see it in verse thirty-three of chapter sixteen. Although there were many evil kings that reigned over that northern kingdom, the scriptures say that Ahab personally, single-handedly, did more to grieve the heart of God than all those before him. What a record. How would you like to have that kind of a record in the annals of the scriptures, in God's record of your life, to say that you did more to lead people astray and into evil than all the others before you. What an astounding commentary on the life of Ahab. And we're going to come back to that because I think we see in this period of the history of Israel, I think we see a very striking contrast between these two lives of Ahab and Elijah.
God often does that. In the scriptures, he often presents to us lives in contrast. People who live in the same setting, who live in the same culture, who experience the same kind of environment and circumstances, who speak the same language, sometimes who even have the same gene pool, like Abraham and Lot. And yet the contrast of their lives is striking as God by His Spirit presents them to us side by side in the pages of Scripture. And certainly we find that in this period of history with Ahab and Elijah. lives in sharp contrast one a man of faith a man of power a man of God a man of obedience the other a man of impulse a man of doing his own thing a man of moral and ethical degradation what a contrast what a contrast as we look at the pages of this chapter seventeen we realize that this nation the northern kingdom Israel had come into a time of crisis because of their own sin.
This is never easy to face. We know that. It's never easy to face in one's own life the review of light, getting into the quiet of our own study and letting the mirror of the Word of God search our hearts. It's never easy, is it? And yet it's so important. The Bible teaches us that the people of God need to keep short accounts with God. We need to have that cleansing of the scriptures. We need to confess known sin to God. We need to deal with sin in our lives. The scriptures teach us that. And it's not the pleasant part of life, is it?
Sometimes it's the very difficult searching part of life when the Spirit of God of necessity needs to purge and to purify by bringing us into the Word of God. and bringing us to confession before God and forsaking sin in our lives. I think it's even more difficult at the national level. Exceedingly difficult. Now there have been times of national revival. We see them in the page of Scripture. The ancient Judah, tribe of Judah, had periods of revival. Now when the Spirit of God swept through the nation and brought many hearts back to God, we in our own country, I've been thinking recently, as a lover of history reflecting upon the great awakening in the history of our own country here.
And how desperately we need again in our land for the Spirit of God to sweep through this land in revival and in purifying fire and change us as a nation. We need that. But it's very difficult as a nation. Much more difficult even than it is, I believe, for an individual to experience the purging and the cleansing work of God. when they need it. And certainly in the day in which we are focusing our attention here, the nation of Israel was in deep need of the movement of God. And God found a man that he could use. That's so like our God, isn't it?
When there is a need, when there is a crisis, it's wonderful to see how God not only delights to use human instruments, But God actually uses human instruments for his glory. And in chapter seventeen with this dark background of the degradation of that northern kingdom of Israel and of the degradation of the leadership now in Ahab and his evil wife Jezebel. In that black background we come to chapter seventeen and we read now Elijah the Tishbite. Ha ha. A ray of light in a dark scene. We don't know much about Elijah.
We only see here that he was a man of Tishbi, which was of the settlers of Gilead, which means he lived on the other side of the tracks. You please? You remember when Israel had come up out of the wilderness as they were led by Moses and then Joshua into the land of promise, that as they came into the land of promise after their wilderness wanderings, They first conquered that eastern part of the table land there to the east of the Jordan River, what is now the countries of Jordan and Syria. They first conquered that, and then God led them across the Jordan River into Palestine proper. But you will remember at that time of crossing, the two and a half tribes decided that they liked the looks of that country over east of the Jordan.
They'd like to stay there, and so they submitted a formal request to Moses to for the privilege of staying there on the east side of the Jordan rather than living in the main proper Palestine and after consulting with God they were given that permission they were allowed to stay over east of the Jordan with several important important agreements one is that they would never set up a seismatic altar that is there was only one place to worship God And wherever the tabernacle went, that was the one and only place of worship and sacrifice. And they were never to violate that. They were always to travel to bring their sacrifice to the altar.
And as far as we know, they kept that agreement. The other main part of the agreement was, of course, you remember that their armies were to cross over and helped to subjugate the main part of Palestine. And they kept that agreement as well. But then after the land was conquered, they went back on the eastern side there, and in that period of time that followed the conquest of the land, the people who lived over in Gilead and to the east basically became increasingly distant from the other affairs of the nation. In fact, during the period of Judges, there were some very gray crises over this issue. And all through the years that followed, The Jews that lived in the main part of Palestine sort of looked at the people across the river as people who were just distant.
They weren't really spiritually there. They weren't really with them. They were just sort of over there in a separate place. And now out of that kind of distant, rather estranged, rather spiritually questionable context, the man Elijah appeared. Who is this man? Well, up to this point, we haven't seen anything about him. Oh, I hope you've studied the life of Elijah before. I hope that many of the things we consider together will be a review for you. I hope you've pondered some of the New Testament passages, like the one in James, where we're reminded of Elijah as a man of prayer. And James tells us that before this event of chapter seventeen, verse one, in which this man strode into the presence of the king, and made his great pronunciation to him that this man Elijah had been praying James tells us that he not only tells us he had been praying but that he had been praying about the problems of the nation if you go back to the Levitical ordinances you will find there that God had told his people Deuteronomy eleven Deuteronomy twenty eight God had told his people that if
they became apostate if they were spiritually cold, that he would put his hand of punishment chastening upon them. And one of the ways that he would do it would be with famine, with drought. And now Elijah strides into the presence of Ahab and says, King, it's not going to rain until I give the word. He says, what kind of presumption is that? Who is this mad man? Who is this foreigner that dares to come here and tell me that it's not going to rain until he gives the word? Presumption?
I think not. Here's a man who'd been reading his Bible. And here's a man who'd been praying. And as Elijah read in the scriptures, that God would bring His people to their knees in repentance if they got away from Him and He would do it, among other things, through drought and famine. And here's a man who had been praying, Lord, we need this kind of operation of your power and of your redeeming and purging grace in this nation. Lord, we need for you to do what you have already said in your word. We need to have this nation brought to her knees in repentance.
And after praying, he went into the presence of Ahab and said, Okay, King, that's it. No more rain till I give the word. That was not presumption. It wasn't a wild guess. It wasn't Kentucky windage and just hoping something would happen. It wasn't some kook kind of forecast or prediction. Here is a man who had been reading his Bible. Here is a man who had been praying. And in the light of what God said in his word, he was willing to stand up and say, God is going to keep his word. I wonder how many people are willing to say that today.
You know, we have, I'm sure, as they did in that day, so many dimensions of our society that are just so totally a part of our lives. We are so much the part of our own culture. We are so influenced by our culture. It's very difficult to think apart from that. It's very difficult to really get into the Word of God and find out what the living God says about life and about reality. And it's very difficult to take a stand against your own culture. Very difficult. And to do that without being a kook. To do that as a man or a woman of God.
That's what he likes to do. And the drought that he predicted was precisely what God said he would do to bring his people to their knees when they needed. Here was a man who knew his Bible. Here was a man who knew God. Here was a man who had been praying. That's a pretty good formula, isn't it? Yes. And then, of course, after pronouncing that message to the king, the Lord said, all right, Elijah, it's time for you to get out of here and hide yourself.
He sent him down to a little lonely brook near the Jordan River. And there the wonderful story that we learned when we were kids in Sunday school, the Lord provided for this man by causing these ravens very unlike their native natural characteristic to bring food to him and to keep him alive there by the brook. What a marvelous thing that God would not only care for his prophets, but that he would do so in such a unique way. But then we saw in verse seven the brook dried up. After all, had not Elijah prayed for a drought? Had he not prayed to God, Lord, shut the heavens.
You said you'd do it if we needed the punishment, the chastening hand of God upon us. Now it's time to do that, Lord. And the very thing that the man had asked for now begins to afflict his life. and the prophet was languishing in thirst by the dried stream. Do you think that the people of God ever suffer when the hand of God in chastening is upon a nation? I think of Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Now, when we see them over in Babylon, We see them in the special schooling program there that the king of Babylon set up.
We see them standing for God in that very pagan setting. But we don't read the horrible ordeal that it must have been when Babylon invaded Jerusalem, killed off perhaps friends and relatives before their very eyes, slapped them in chains and carried them back to a land of bondage from which they never returned. Yes, does the hand of displeasure upon a nation ever touch even some of the people of God? Yes. And when the nation was drying up under the judgment of God in Elijah's day, the brook where Elijah was dried up, and he became thirsty.
We'll ponder that more as time goes. But in contrast, let's quickly take a moment to look at this man Ahab. Because you see, he's the other outstanding character in this period of time, in the pages of Scripture. We see his life in striking contrast to the life of Elijah. Elijah, a man without a background, a very unpretentious setting, coming out of nowhere, as it were, but a man who knew the Word of God, a man who knew God, a man of prayer, and a man who was willing to stand up and be counted. and to speak the truth of God at a time when it was very difficult to do so.
And then there was Ahab. Just some things I would suggest about this man, and we'll be looking more at him through our studies through the week. Ahab really had a life of great potential. Potential for a number of reasons. He was not only king, which meant he had authority in that whole nation. He could have given that northern kingdom any direction that his heart chose because he was king. A life of great potential. Not only that, he was a man in whose life God brought very clear messages to him. He was not a man left in darkness. He was a man who had a great opportunity to know the truth of God, to know the way of righteousness, Ahab was a life of great potential.
Unfortunately, however, his was a life of singular evil. As we shall see in further glances at his life on throughout this remaining of first kings, we will see that this man was a man who degraded the nation in idolatry. He married a pagan woman. He brought in Baal worship into the nation. He officially established the other parallel pagan deity of the Asherah. He established these firmly right among the people who professed to be the people of God. A man of singular evil. A man we read in the scripture who did more to displease God and bring the displeasure of God upon that northern kingdom than any other person before him.
You also will find, if you read through the scriptures, He was a man of insincere repentance. Later on in his life, as we shall see at one point in time, he did feign a repentance. He began to pout and feel very sorry that things were so bad. And there was a feigned repentance there. He was also a man of prophetic rejection. Because the Word of God came to him in very strong terms about his own death. under the displeasure of God, and so he died. What a contrast. The contrast between an Ahab and an Elijah, between a man of singular evil, a man of only fain repentance, and a man who knew the word of God, a man of prayer, and a man of power.
What a contrast. And we pause in these moments to ask ourselves the question, yes, in a time of apostasy, in a time when the setting in which we live is admittedly moving more and more away from that which is biblically and morally and ethically right, to that which is corrupted by man and his impulses. and his self-religion. You wonder how many Ahab's a society like this can suffer. And you wonder where are the Elijahs?
Have you ever wondered that? Have you ever? A man who knew the book A man who could pray. And a man who was willing to stand up and be counted. And to speak for God. And to speak for righteousness. And to speak for truth. I confess that searches my heart to think of that. I hope it does yours. And so as we see Elijah striding right into the pages of history, right out of that unpretentious background, a nobody, and yet suddenly standing up right in the spotlight of God, having spent time in the Word and having spent time on his knees, now it's time to speak.
And he did. And God used it. Yes, where is the God of Elijah? Where are the Elijahs? Have you wondered about that? My mind goes back again to that very heavy conversation with those young people. Even as young people very conscious of the deep moral and ethical problems of our Western world, of our spiritual degradation, of the shallowness of the church, the powerlessness, of the church and to hear my heart raise the question where are the Elijahs where are they is it any wonder that as we read in the New Testament we read some very striking statements about this man Elijah our Lord had some important things to say about him In fact, our Lord said that when John came, he came in the spirit of Elijah.
He was an Elijah to his generation. He said that Elijah will come in the end time. We will yet see God use a person like he used Elijah. Because this is the way of God. In a time of need, in a time of crisis, in a time of moral and spiritual drifting and degradation, God looks for individuals who will know his word, who will pray, and who will stand up and speak for God. Will you be an Elijah?
Our country certainly needs it. pray father we're grateful today that as we see the life of an individual like Elijah we stand in awe at the way that the power of God and the word of God can be manifested in a simple human life we identify with this man he wasn't important he wasn't prominent He had no royalty in his blood, but he was a man who knew his Bible.
He was a man who could pray. He was a man who was willing to stand up and speak for God, even in a hostile environment. We see the contrast of Ahab, a life of singular evil. a life of degradation, carrying a whole nation down, down, down, spiritually and morally, away from God and into the quagmire of sin itself. Father, as we see these lives in contrast today, we want to pause and pray that you will search our hearts.
We who live in a time of apostasy, we who live in a society that is fast moving away from any semblance of biblical commitment or obedience. Father, we pray that you will speak to our hearts as we study the Scriptures, that you will be free to move us to know your word and to know your truth, that you will move our lives and hearts in prayer. and that you will give us the firmness, the courage to stand up and speak in a day of apostasy. Speak for God. Speak for the truth of God.
And to this end, we quiet our hearts before you and pray that you will be free to work in our lives, to be your instruments, perhaps not at the same scale as a man like Elijah, whose thunderous voice impacted a whole nation. But in the same way, to be willing to stand up for God, stand up for the truth of God in a day of great need. Give us, we pray, Father, that searching of heart and that response of heart, the obedience of heart, to be true to the Word of God.
to be your instrument of blessing to a needy world. We pray in Jesus' name.