Elijah the Tishbite, a man whose very name proclaimed "Jehovah is God," was God's chosen instrument to confront the spiritual decay of Israel under King Ahab. The sermon traces Elijah's emergence from Gilead, highlighting his prayerful preparation and bold confrontation with Ahab, a meeting that starkly contrasted moral strength with weakness and true faith with idolatry. The core lesson emphasizes that God raises up individuals, like Elijah, to stand in the gap during times of societal decline, equipped with divine authority and an overwhelming God-consciousness. Ultimately, the message calls believers to embrace their role as a "sweet savor of life" in a perishing world, trusting God's purpose and power.
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Before we look to the Word, let us look to the Lord in prayer. Father, we praise you this morning for this blessed privilege of gathering around the risen Christ and the open Word. We ask that the Holy Spirit, our teacher, will take the things of Christ and make them known unto us. And even as our Lord said, He shall glorify me. Give us receptive hearts this morning, clarity of mind, wills that are obedient to thy word, cause this to be a time of rich blessing as we study your word.
We thank you this morning for your abundant mercies upon us. Once again, we would ask you for Our forces in the field today, particularly for our President today, that you will give him wisdom in this time, that he may act wisely. And we thank you today, Father, that you, the sovereign God, are ruling and overruling. And we rest today in this confidence that you do all things after the counsel of your goodwill.
We wait now upon you to hear you speak to us by your Spirit and through your word. And we ask this in the name of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Surely. Have your Bibles open please to the seventeen chapter of First Kings, First Kings chapter seventeen. There are twenty-two chapters in First Kings, twenty-five chapters in Second Kings, a total of forty-seven chapters. These two books give us the history of the kings of Judah and Israel.
And yet in these two books there are fourteen chapters Taken up with the life and ministry of two men, Elijah and Elisha. Over a third of these two books, over a fourth, almost a third, taken up with the lives of these men. And yet these two men led no armies. They negotiated no alliances. They headed no insurrections. Why would the Holy Spirit choose to give this much room to the record of these two men and their ministries?
Well, I think that we must get the mind of God on that as we study the context. And I want to suggest to you this morning four things that we will consider in this introductory study in the life of Elijah. First, the man. Second, the meeting. Third, the message. And fourth, the motive that impelled this man, Elijah. I'll read the first verse this morning. And Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead said to Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, There shall not be dew nor rain these years except at my word.
Elijah steps upon the scene unheralded, unannounced. You notice this seventeenth chapter begins with the conjunction and Elijah the Tishwife. Here is an addition. It is God's addition. At the death of Solomon, the kingdom split. Rehoboam, Solomon's son, became king over the southern kingdom, known as Judah. Jeroboam, who was Solomon's minister of public works, became the king over the northern kingdom, known as Israel.
and for fear that Israel would go back to Jerusalem, the capital of Judah. Go back to Jerusalem to worship and become engaged with Judah and remain there and cease to be part of that northern kingdom. Jeroboam took some desperate means to secure that. Look with me, please, to the twelfth chapter of First Kings. Verse twenty-six of First Kings twelve. And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now the kingdom may return to the house of David.
If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord of Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn back to their Lord, Rehoboam, King of Judah, and they will kill me and go back to Rehoboam, King of Judah. Therefore the king asked advice, made two calves of gold and said to the people, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt. And he set up one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. And the death now began to ring for the northern kingdom of Israel.
In fact, if you study... the record given particularly in chapters fifteen and sixteen. This is what you read repeatedly. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of his father and in his sin by which he made Israel the sin. That's recorded of King Nadab and then of King Bashah. It says he did evil in the sight of the Lord and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin by which he made Israel the sin. And in that succession of kings that followed, there is this repeated record. It's almost like that which you find in the fifth chapter of Genesis, where you read, and he died, and he died, and he died.
Here it is, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and made Israel to sin. after the transgression of his father. And Jeroboam began this rebellion which was continued and fostered by Nadab and Basha and Zimri and Omri. And in this succession of kings, there was a continuing departure from the Lord God of Israel. Following Omri, his son, Ahab, began to reign.
And Ahab married Jezebel, the daughter of Eshbael, king of the Tidonians. Look, please, in verse thirty-one of chapter sixteen. And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing, for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Neba. that he took as wife Jezebel, the daughter of Esbao, king of the Zidonians, and he went and served Baal and worshipped him. He brought that heathen princess to Israel.
I think when Jezebel left the land of the Zidonians, that the priests of Baal must have given her considerable instruction as to how she was to act in the land of Israel. You see, dear friends, it's characteristic of heathen religion, of false religion. It's characteristic of them that they propagate their beliefs. And when she got to Israel, Not only did she influence her husband in the worship of Baal, but he actually built a temple to Baal in the land of Israel.
Until you reach this climax in verse thirty-three, Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. The prophets of God were slain and hunted, and the land swarmed with heathen priests. You recall that Obadiah actually hid one hundred of the prophets of God, fifty in each company, in caves, to protect them from the wrath of Ahab and Jezebel. A terrible condition.
that God was not asleep. God's always on time, folks. He never finds himself in a dilemma. He's never at a loss to know what to do. And in the midst of that terrible condition, with the prophets of Baal and of the groves swarming the land of Israel, And the prophets and priests of God hiding for fear of their lives in the midst of that terrible spiritual decline, God had a man.
And when God gets ready to do something, he doesn't choose an organization. Nor does he select, huh, a machine, or institute a new method. God's method is a man, a woman. And in the midst of this seed, God had a man. Or sometimes, he chooses those with particular skills and training.
I'm certain that God does not ignore that. But many times He chooses those who, humanly speaking, have no promise, have no particular skill. God, in His sovereign purpose and will, puts His hand upon a person. And the record is brief here. Notice there are no details about it. And Elijah the Tishbite. Not followed by a lot of degrees.
No large resume, is there? Just that. And Elijah the Tishbite. His name meant Jehovah is God. Why, that was a witness in itself. In the midst of rampant idolatry, God chose a man whose very name signified what he believed. Jehovah is God. Came from Gilead.
mountainous country from a little town called Tishby, Elijah the Tishbite. Gilead is that portion of the land east of southeast of the Sea of Galilee. Actually, it's just south of that strip of land that we know now as the Golan Heights. And God reached into that land. and chose this man to do his work. Probably a shepherd, no doubt from a godly home. And tidings had reached Elijah from across the Jordan, the other side of the Jordan, as to what was happening in that land.
And those tidings had driven Elijah to prayer. That, first of all, you know the scripture in James, verse five, verse seventeen in chapter five, that Elijah was a man of like passions, such as we, or a man with a nature like ours. And he prayed earnestly. that it should not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. He prayed earnestly.
It's very interesting. As some of you know, that in the Greek there, there is a noun and a verb. There is a noun for prayer and a verb for praying. He prayed earnestly. It's translated in our authorized version. It could be translated this way very literally. In prayer, he prayed. Now folks, sometimes we say prayers, but we don't pray. But in prayer, he prayed. He was moved by God to pray.
And as he prayed, the conviction was born in upon his heart. that God wanted him to go to the country of Israel and to the king Ahab. For faith without works is dead. And this man, probably a shepherd, left his home in Gilead. It was quite a journey. Out of those hills, down into the Jordan Valley, across the Jordan, to the palace of the king. C.
H. McIntosh said, God sent forth from his quiver a polished shaft to pierce the conscience of Israel. God had a man. And that man, Elijah, was commissioned to stand amidst the fragments of a ruined civilization, and he was to stand there with a thus saith the Lord. Beloved, that's where we stand today.
You and I stand in the midst of a ruined, degraded civilization. And it's our privilege to stand there with a thus saith the Lord. Elijah did not go at his own call. He wanted the call of God. He did not go until first he had prayed and prayed earnestly. What about the meeting? Well, this same verse records the meeting. Elijah, the teaspite of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, he was on the sea.
There he was. Where? I think probably in Samaria. Because the father of Ahab, Omni, Omri had moved the capital from a little town by the name of Tirza to Samaria. He had bought a hill. that was owned by a man, and he called that town after the name of the man. And so now the capital was in Samaria. And this rugged hillsman arrived in the capital city of Israel. And you have here perhaps one of the greatest confrontations in all of the Word of God.
Here was this man of the mountains facing... the weakling of the palace. For indeed Ahab was that. The history of Ahab bears that out, that he was a weakling. Elijah came without question in rough garments, perhaps much like John the baptizer came. This man probably was in camel's hair and rough garments. And here he stood in the presence of a king who was robed in soft raiment. And here you have the contrast between moral strength and moral weakness.
Here's the contrast between a man who loved, espoused the religion of Jehovah, the true God. Here he was in the presence of one who had embraced the religion of Baal. Here was a man who believed in supernaturalism, the hand of God in the affairs of nations. Here he stood in the presence of a man who knew only the natural, nothing of the supernatural. And say, well, what does this have to do with us?
Simply this. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in the heavenlys. And you and I are in spiritual warfare today. And when I look at this man Elijah, as he stands in the presence of Ahab, sense what spiritual strength must have been his as he stood there. He had come adequately prepared to deliver the message.
Elijah needed divine help and he had divine help. First there had been prayer and now action and the assurance that God was with him. What delightful surroundings here. This place brings refreshing to my heart almost immediately when I step on the grounds and start meeting God's people here. But beloved, many of us are here for just a week, some for two, three, four weeks, and then we go back from where we came. And you and I are engaged in a confrontation.
It's great. to dwell for these days here in this place, this gracious atmosphere of God's presence because His people are gathered in this place. But there's a world that's against us, and Satan is a treacherous foe. And you and I are engaged in battle, and we need divine help, and that help is available. May we in these days be undergirded with prayer and strength that comes from the Word of God, so that as we return to the places of our abode and employment and are engaged once again, more vitally in the conflict than ever, we'll be prepared for that meeting with the enemy.
Notice the message. A message that touched the prosperity of that people. Elijah said there shall not be dew nor rain these years. Those people are people of agriculture, people of horticulture, and nothing was so important to them in their livelihood as a matter of rain. It's true in many areas of the world. that rain is absolutely imperative. Season before last, I was out in Kansas in ministry, and I was there at the time when the winter wheat should have been at its height.
It had no rain, and little stubble across those fields, patches here and there. and the suffered and how they were deprived of livelihood simply because they did not get rain and these people the people of Israel nothing so important to them as rain but you see God was going to allow drought to come upon that land there is something that is more important and is a smaller calamity than than moral delinquency and that is for physical tragedy or temporal tragedy to come in and sometimes God allows that in order to bring his people back to himself in order to get our attention I could repeat to you this morning incident after incident as over the years I've observed how God works in the lives of His people.
And some of us, myself included this morning, could witness to this also, that God has allowed certain things to come into our lives in order to get our attention, to draw us once more back into that sweet, constant fellowship with Himself. And when sometimes the hearing has not been good, has been deficient as to hearing and obeying the voice of God, then he's allowed something to come in that has all of a sudden thrown a barrier across our ways and caused us to wake up to what he's doing.
I sat in a hotel restaurant in Atlanta. One evening, and across from me sat a captain with one of the major airlines, a young man who had been tremendously successful. I'd had the privilege of performing the marriage ceremony for him and a lovely Christian young lady, both of them believers. He had been unfaithful. And though they were still living in the same house, the stewardess with another airline had become attractive to him and he had engaged in sin.
And that evening across the restaurant where I had called his office and left word that when he came into town on the next flight that I wanted to see him and I knew that he stayed at a certain hotel in town and I met him in the restaurant for coffee and called him by his first name and reminded him of the teaching of the Word of God. And he sat there and acknowledged that he knew what the Word of God said. I pled with him to repent of his sin and forsake it, had prayer with him, found no response in his heart, except that an acknowledgment that what he was doing was wrong.
I shall not repeat to you this morning the details of what has ensued in his life, but great tragedy. And today, I believe that he is in glory. I believe he was a saved man. There came the sin unto death. And in spite of that which God allowed to come into his life, he continued on. And I believe is in heaven as a result of the chastening and of God.
I acknowledge that only God knows whether that's the case or not. Here for Israel, there came this drought, and with that drought there came famine. And if God cannot get our attention any other way, he will allow suffering and calamity and sorrow to come in. So it was in the case of Israel. The last thing I mentioned this morning is the motive, the motive of Elijah's strength. And I think you find it in three phrases here in this one verse. He said, as the Lord God of Israel lives, to Ahab, God meant nothing.
Jehovah meant nothing. To Jezebel, he never existed. But to Elijah, He was the true and living God. His name signified that. Jehovah is God. And his faith was supplemented, supplemented his vision. He saw him who is invisible. And later you find the same motive as he meets the prophets of Baal in the grove on Carmel, chapter eighteen, verse thirty-six. He said, the Lord God of Abraham and Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel.
Verse thirty-seven, hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that you are the Lord God. And this was the motive in Elijah's action, that they might know that Jehovah was the true and living God. May I ask you this morning, is the living God a reality in your life? Second, Elijah said, before whom I stand. Wait a minute. He was standing before Ahab, king of Israel.
But that king, that monarch, pale... into insignificance before the God that Elijah served. What was this? Elijah had an overwhelming God consciousness. Now dear friends, this is greatly missing in the Evangelical Church today. There is, even among evangelicals, a blatant irreference. Let me read something to you.
This was written some years ago by A.W. Tozer. Evangelical Christianity is now tragically below the New Testament standard. Worldliness is an accepted part of our way of life. Our religious mood is social instead of spiritual. We have lost the art of worship. We are not producing saints. Our models are successful businessmen, celebrated athletes, and theatrical personalities. We carry on our religious activities after the methods of the modern advertiser. Our homes have been turned into theaters.
our literature is shallow and our hymnody borders on sacrilege and scarcely anyone appears to care. That may be a little overstated, but I think not. There was with Elijah an overwhelming God consciousness. He says, before whom I stand. Proverbs one seven, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And the third element here, you see in these words, shall not be due nor reign these years except at my word.
Why he had the authority of God behind his message. The key of heaven had been given into his hands, and it was at his word whether dew or rain would come upon that land. Only when Elijah chose to open the door. Look with me, please, to second Corinthians. Chapter two. And with this I close. Verse fifteen. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to the one We are the savor of death unto death, or the aroma of death leading to death.
To the other, the savor or fragrance of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? This is true of every believer. We are a sweet savor of life unto life to those who believe. or we are the savor or the stench of death unto death to those who are perishing. What an awesome position is ours today, dear friends. Even as Elijah said, there's not going to be dew nor rain these years, according to my word.
Remember, he was a man of like passion such as we. He was a man with the nature like ours. And here was this man, disciplined and secret, and he now takes his place. It was a place that had been forfeited by Ahab. J.B. Stoney, whose complete works I have in my study and have greatly enjoyed, much of, said, God in his own counsel appoints the servant who is suited to carry out his will. Thus he appointed Elijah. In the twenty-second chapter of Ezekiel, in the midst of terrible spiritual deterioration in Israel, you hear the words of Jehovah, I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it.
Beloved, God's still looking for men. and women who will stand in the gap in these dreadful days. What a privilege is ours. Let's pray. Father, in the name of your Son, the Lord Jesus, we pray that we shall be those men, those women. who will bear testimony in the midst of a deteriorating age shall bear testimony to the living God. Seal this portion of your word to our hearts and cause the seed sown to bring forth fruit.
And we shall praise thee in the name of Christ our Savior. Amen.