Elijah's effectiveness stemmed from his profound conviction of the living God's reality and his role as God's representative. The sermon highlights how Elijah, despite facing opposition from King Ahab, stood firm because he recognized he was accountable to a higher authority. This conviction, coupled with his understanding of available resources like fervent prayer and private communion with God, empowered him. The message emphasizes that God's direct provision, as seen in Elijah's sustenance by ravens and a widow, and even the miraculous raising of the widow's son, demonstrates God's power and faithfulness, which are also available to believers today.
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Ten books away. Turn with me all the way to the back. Don't worry, I'm not going to sing. I know we don't normally do this, but while thumbing through the back of the book, turn with me to the Scripture readings, number seven hundred and nineteen. number seven hundred and nineteen in the back of your hymnal. And though we don't perhaps normally do this, let's read this responsibly.
I'll begin, I'll read the first, and then you may follow after. Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Be careful for nothing, providing everything by prayer and supplication to the kind of children as it were requested to be made known from God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. and dear to us about whatever we have. We know that we may have the conditions that we may have. Pray without ceasing. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Let's turn to First Kings chapter seventeen. We began this morning looking at Elijah prophet of the living God. We want to look tonight at what we might call some of the secrets of Elijah's effectiveness, the secrets of Elijah's effectiveness.
In verse one we read the words, And Elijah the Tishbite, who is of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be due nor reign these years, but according to my word. The secret of Elijah's effectiveness. We touched on the first one this morning, and it's found in the words that we have here, the first words that we find recorded of Elijah. as the Lord God of Israel liveth.
And I believe that Elijah was a man who was convinced of the reality of the living God. Convinced of the reality of the living Lord. Now Ahab, as we said this morning, and Jezebel had sought to exterminate the worship of Jehovah from the land. They had killed the prophets of the Lord and sought to cut them off. They had set up Baal worship throughout the land. Yet Elijah was a man who believed that God was alive.
Ahab was in the God is dead, the Jehovah is dead crowd. But they had forgotten one thing. And that one thing was a man, Elijah, firmly convinced of the great reality of the living Lord. And I believe that this is still the most convincing fact of Christianity, and that is its power to change the lives of men. The power of Christianity. and of the gospel to change the lives of men.
As someone once said, facts are stubborn things, especially when they're walking around on two legs. Especially when they're walking around on two legs. You know, I think of people even in the society that we live in. Madeline Murray O'Hare. The one who has the infamous reputation of having prayer struck from the public schools. Bible reading struck from the public schools.
Even in my day, I can remember our teachers opening the scripture every morning and standing to recite the Lord's prayer. Every day. Isn't it interesting that her son now professes to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior? Where did it come from? Certainly didn't come from his upbringing. What would make a man stand up and be against the very thing that his mother has spent her life proclaiming, trying to destroy?
the belief in the teaching of the Bible and the public schools and of prayer. The power of Christianity to change the lives of men. I think back of the Apostle Paul. I don't know what kind of picture you have of the Apostle Paul, but I think of him as I see him in the Scripture. Probably a small man, not very becoming to look at. His speech, they said, was rude and contemptible. And I think of him going into a town like Corinth. Can you imagine going into a town like Corinth? Simple city that it was. He had no advanced promotion.
Nobody there to gather the crowds for him. No, none of the things that are deemed so essential today. No publicity campaign to go before him. No radio. No television. He didn't even have a New Testament. But he went in, and he says that he went not with the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in the demonstration of the spirit and of power. The power of the gospel. And he went into that town, and he preached the gospel. And people were saved. Lives were transformed. And it took the gospel to do it.
Think of another town, think of Thessalonica, think of the Apostle Paul going into that great seaport town, one of the chief towns of the provinces of Rome of that day, and a seaport town with all the vices that would have been known to it in that particular day. And think of him reasoning there in the synagogue for three Sabbath days, opening and alleging that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Messiah. And people got saved. And a church began there. Tremendous church. Tremendous number of people that followed the Lord. Think of the Apostle Paul himself.
Think of the Apostle Paul himself. In one of his epistles that he writes to Timothy, he calls himself the chief of sinners. And I've always said that if Paul was the chief of sinners, And God saved him, then nobody is too hard for the Lord. Nobody is too hard for the Lord. But Paul was a living example of the reality of God in the life of a man. And the reality of the life that was changed. But let's bring it down to home. Think of yourself. You know, I sat on this platform here tonight and I said, why am I here?
I mean, how is it possible that I, Larry Price, am actually going to get up before a group of people and open the Word of God and preach from God's Word? There is no other explanation but the gospel. I think of my life and what it was, and I am convinced of the power of God and the ability of the Lord God to change the lives of men. in the fact of a living God. Elijah was convinced of that great reality. How about in your life? Is there that in your life that can only be explained by the fact of a living God?
That's what we need today. People who are convinced of the great reality that God is alive. The second thing, that we see in this verse is that Elijah says, As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand. He might have been in front of Ahab, but it was the Lord God that he stood before. And Elijah was firmly convinced that he was God's representative. He was God's representative. And it didn't matter that he stood before an earthly king, because he represented the king of kings.
He was on business for the king. He was the king's messenger boy. He was the king's servant, the Lord God that was alive and that living. And I believe that he was thoroughly convinced that he came to represent the living God. How could he stand before a king, especially a wicked king like Ahab? No problem. he stood before God. That's who he recognized himself as being before. And that's who we serve today. I love that little verse that is found in the book of Colossians that says, You serve the Lord Christ.
What a privilege we have today. And I never get up to speak from the Word of God or do anything that pertains to the ministry surrounding the Word of God that I don't Thank the Lord for the great privilege. And I always become cognizant of the great responsibility of handling the Word of God. What a privilege to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And thirdly, I believe that Elijah was convinced of the resources that were available to him. Let's turn to James chapter five for a moment. In the latter part of the verse, it
says, The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not reign. And it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Prayer. He was convinced of the resources that were available to him.
Resources that are available to every Christian. not just to the Elijahs, not just to the John the Baptist, but resources that are available to every Christian. Prayer. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. It says Elijah was a man that was subject to like passions, and yet he prayed. And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. I am becoming more and more convinced of the need in my own life for prayer. And you know, my prayer life has become probably less complex than maybe it was at the first.
I used to try to pray for long periods of time, and I admire people. I admire reading about people, praying high, and others who could pray for endless hours in communion with the Lord. But I'm always reminded of the words of D.L. Moody, who once said, I seldom pray for more than ten minutes at a time, but seldom do ten minutes go by that I do not pray. To be in a constant attitude of prayer and communication with the Lord. In simple prayer, my prayer life has become much simpler.
I simply ask. I take my request to the Lord. That's what he says to do, isn't it? Let your request be made known unto God. And so, if there is a prayer that I have on my heart, and I know it is not contrary to what is revealed in God's Word, I pray, and I ask God to do things. Believing and trusting in His Word that He says that He will hear and answer our prayer. That's very basic and it's very simple. And yet I think sometimes we can complicate prayer too much. There's nothing like the prayer of somebody that is newly saved.
They don't know all of the lines. They don't know all the proper words. But what a joy it is to hear them pray. What a joy it is to hear somebody newly saved get up and just say, God, thanks. Thanks for saving me. Thanks for forgiving me for my sins. Isn't it a joy to hear that? Next to that, I love to hear the prayers of children because children pray for simple things. I often wish I had a tape recorder to record our prayer sessions with my three little children because we have some wonderful times of prayer.
and to hear those children pray. It's just a tremendous thing. Simple, believing that God hears their prayer and that God will answer. Do we avail ourselves of the resources that are available to us? To pray to God, to believe God to work. Elijah was convinced of the resources. And then secondly, in First Kings, in chapter seventeen, not only was one of the resources prayer but the second resource we find begins in verse two of chapter seventeen the word of the lord came unto him saying get thee hence and turn thee eastward and hide thyself by the brook cherished that is before jordan the second resource that was available to Elijah was privacy.
Privacy. The private life. And you'll find that he spent a great deal more time in private than he did in public. For three and a half years, he was in private. God told him to hide himself. And for three and a half years, he was hidden until the time came when God says, In chapter eighteen, go show thyself. But before he could show himself, he had to hide. He had to be in a place of obscurity. And we must learn the lesson, too, to hide ourselves in private time that is spent with the Lord.
And especially if we're going to take part in public. Before we can be effective in public, we must spend time. Privately with God. I'm convinced of this in my own life. More and more. And oh, the time that is spent. To just get up and speak one hour. The time that is spent in private. In prayer. And in study of the word of God. And in communion with the Lord God himself. That's so important. Because you know. In my life as I studied the word of God. I can get so caught up in studying the word. and praying about giving a message that we forget, and I forget, communion with the God of the Word, that the study of the Word of God is more than just getting a sermon or getting a message.
It's to bring me in contact with a living God, with a living God, and to spend that time in private, in obscurity. Every one of God's servants that I can think of, that we read about, had to learn the lesson in God's desert school. Whether it was Moses for forty years on the backside of the desert, whether it was Joseph in his time away from his brethren, or whoever it might have been, the Apostle Paul, who spent that time in Arabia, was there alone with God that he learned to hide himself and to get alone with God.
Privacy. in the private life. It's so important in these busy days in which we live. And then the third thing was the provision that God provided for him, beginning in First Kings chapter seventeen and verse four. The Lord told him, It shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord. For he went and dwelt by the brook, cherub, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening.
And he drank of the brook. And now Elijah learns the provision that God has made. I remember seeing a plaque at some friend's house in Tennessee that was on their wall. And the plaque said, that the will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you. The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you. And I thought about that, and they told us something of the meaning that it had in their own lives. But to learn that God can directly provide for you in this way is a tremendous thing.
To learn the source of our provision, God Himself. And what a tremendous lesson it was in the life of Elijah. There he was, by the brook. There he was, with the bread and the flesh that were sent from God himself. And yet, in verse seven, we read, it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. It's a dangerous thing to pray. The Lord may well make you a part of that answer to that prayer.
Why did the brook dry up? The brook dried up because there was a drought. There was a drought because there was no rain. There was no rain because Elijah had prayed. And now he must come to feel the effect of the same thing that was affecting the lives of those around him. And not only that, he was part, made to be part. of and subject to his own prayer. It came to pass that the brook dried up. Elijah was made to feel the effect of his own prayers. But the brook might have dried up. But as we sang earlier, Jesus never fails.
God never fails. The brook dried up. But when it did, God opens another avenue in verse eight. The word of the Lord came unto him, saith. And as the brook dried up, God opens another avenue. And in verse nine, he tells him to, Get thee to Zarephal, which belongeth to Zidim, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain you. A widow woman, an unlikely source. If God had said, Go down, there is a wealthy woman there to sustain you. But no, it was a widow woman. An unlikely source, and a Gentile at that.
In verse ten we read he arose, and he went to Zareph. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there a gathering of sticks. And he called to her and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel that I may drink. And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruise. And behold, I am gathering two sticks that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die.
And Elijah said unto her, Fear not, go and do as thou hast said, but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruise of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. And she went and did, according to the saying of Elijah. And she and he in her house did eat many days. And so Elijah goes to the widow. You can imagine him going to her. I mean, here was this hairy man. girded about with a leather girdle, a wild man who had just spent a long time in the desert.
And he approaches this widow woman, and he tells her, first of all, fetch me something to drink, and then give me a morsel of bread in thine hand. And she confessed to him that all she had was just a handful of meal in a barrel, and the little oil in a crude. And she was going to go in and eat that, and then her and her son were going to die. The Lord Jesus gives us a commentary on this woman in Luke chapter four. He says there in Luke four twenty five, Luke four, he said, Verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.
Luke four twenty four. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the lands. But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Saripta, a city of Sodom, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliasius, the prophet. And none of them was cleansed. saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him under the brow of the hill, whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.
When the Lord Jesus preached these words in his first sermon in the hometown, in the synagogue of Nazareth, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. He gave them an example. He told them a prophet is not accepted in his own country. And he tells them that of all the widows that were in Israel, the only one that he was sent to was a Gentile widow. And he gives that illustration of the faith of the Gentiles at that time. And of course, they were indignant at this. They were infuriated. as they saw the clear implication of what he was saying, and they sought to lead him out and to throw him headlong over the hill.
The widow was simple enough to believe the message of the man of God. And she very simply believed his message. And that's what it says in verse fifteen of first king seventeen. She went and did according to the saying of Elijah. and she and he in her house did eat many days. She believed the message of the man of God. She believed the word, and it was done according to her faith. And it says in verse sixteen that the barrel of meal wasted not. Neither did the crews of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah.
And for all those many days they continued to eat of that exhaustive supply God miraculously provided for them day by day. The meal, I think that the barrel of meal there speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think the oil speaks of the Holy Spirit, of Christ that is ministered to us by the Spirit of God. That's our food as believers. We feed upon the living Christ in a spiritual way as we partake of Him in the Word of God and in communion. And that is It's that which sustains us. And then the last provision that we see is found in the rest of the chapter, beginning in verse seventeen, and that is the power that was there.
It came to pass after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick. And his sickness was so sore that there was no breath left in him. And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance? and to slay my son. And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom and carried him up into a loft where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried unto the Lord and said, O Lord my God, has thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourned by slaying her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried unto the Lord and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again.
And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down out of the chamber into the house and delivered him unto his mother. And Elijah said, See thy son slither. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is true. The power, the power of God to give life and the power of God to raise the dead is the same power that is available to us today. The provision that Elijah had is provision that is available for every Christian today.
The provision of prayer, the provision of the private life of being hidden away with the Lord and God's direct provision in providing for our needs And as we see here, God miraculously working by His power to give life and to even raise the dead. What was available to Elijah is available to us. We're men and women of like passions such as He was. Let's look to the Lord in a word of prayer. Our Father, we are thankful today that you use men and women.
Redeemed men and women, and yet men and women, just the same. That which was available in the day of Elijah is still available to us today. The provision, the power, prayer and the private life, these necessities to make us effective in our Christian walk and experience. O God, we are convinced that thou art the living God.
We have seen your power displayed in our lives and like the psalmist of old. We long, our flesh longs, our soul thirsts to see thy power and thy glory so as we have seen thee in the sanctuary. We long to see that power displayed and unleashed through our lives in ministry to others. We pray that we might thirst after the things that we see in the life of Elijah. And we give thee thanks in our Lord Jesus' name. Amen.