Faith in God's promises is demonstrated through Elijah's prayer for rain, which he commanded Ahab to prepare for before any clouds appeared, illustrating that faith responds and acts before the realization of the answer. This is further shown by Elijah's actions after a small cloud appeared, where he instructed Ahab to hurry before the rain began, highlighting that faith reacts before reason, trusting God's word even when circumstances seem illogical. The sermon emphasizes that true faith, as defined in Hebrews 11, is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, operating on the integrity of God's promises rather than immediate tangible proof. Ultimately, faith reflects on the potential consequences and responsibilities that come with answered prayer, urging believers to be prepared for how God's blessings might impact their lives and service.
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Good evening to you all. Nice to see you here. Does it sometimes seem to you you've no sooner left the auditorium than it's time to come back again? Fortunately, we had just barely enough time to run down to the dining hall three times a day. Not that we need the food, but it's nice to enjoy the fellowship. Well, here we are again for another study in the Word of God, and we're continuing on in the study of Elijah. And I need to make the announcement now before I forget it, and that is typical preacher fashion. We're running out of time before we run out of material. And so we're going to have to skip ahead a little bit. And Lord willing, tomorrow night, we want to get Elijah into glory.
So this means that we'll have to go over into Second Kings Chapter Two, if you'd like to do a little homework and read ahead and renew in your mind the events and the incidents and the details of that particular story. That's in Second Kings chapter number two. That's what we need to do, Lord willing, tomorrow night. But I've also been asked to recommend some books to you, and I went through the bookstore today, and I found a number of excellent books. There's a number of books that have to do with children's ministries, and I don't have much to do about that. My wife and I never had any children. Of course, she's got one. She's got me. But I was never a father.
Maybe I better say it that way. So I've never had to rear children and so forth. But I've seen some books that I know of some of our young Christian friends have recommended. And if you have grandchildren, you might want to peruse the bookstore in the children's section. I was intrigued by a number of good books there, some from the older brethren, such as Dr. Ironside. A number of his commentaries are there. Some of the finest commentaries on the Word of God were written by Dr. H.A. Ironside. very simply written and yet very deeply written. And you can't go wrong by getting one of his books either for yourself or for a gift. Dr. Ironside books are there. Also books by G. Campbell Morgan.
One of my favorites, you see. G. Campbell Morgan is also another one of those writers whose work seems to be timeless. This is not always true of Christian writers. Sometimes you can pick up a Christian book and read it and almost next week it's out of date and out of style and way off in left field somewhere. But some of these old books that are still with us are classics, regardless of the generation in which you find yourself. Dr. Ironside books are that way, and G. Campbell Morgan's books are that way. I noticed also in the bookstore there are a number of books by the brother who will be here two weeks from now, Lord Willing, and that is Dr. Lehman Strauss. We've had him over at our assembly a number of times.
always enjoyed his ministry, always get a group of folks in that usually don't attend our assembly, and every time he comes, we've always retained some of those folks. They said, well, this is the kind of teaching you get here that we want to stay. Of course, they find out that it's not in the caliber of Dr. Strauss, but a number of his books are there, and he has written a number of excellent books, and they are there. And then the devotional book that is out there, in case you have ever read it, and I think the number of you have, and that is any of the books by Philip Keller. They're excellent books of a devotional nature. Shepherd looks at Psalm twenty-three and some of those excellent, excellent books by Philip Keller. And if you don't weep before you finish the book, then there's something wrong with your spiritual life.
Excellent books of a devotional nature. And then a book or two that has to do with the current Christian scene today, and that is there's two or three good books in there by Charles Colson. Sometimes we have a tendency maybe to get a little bit cynical. because somebody gets under pressure of jail or something and suddenly they say, I've taken Jesus into my heart, this sort of a thing. In fact, just by the by over in our way, there was a man that shot and killed somebody else and he said, I'm not a cold-blooded killer, I read my Bible, he said. And so sometimes we say, well, we'll have to wait and see. I think Charles Colson has proved the fact that he really is born again because as you read his books, you see a continuing depth of Christian experience in the things of the Lord.
So this is just sort of a potpourri of books, Bible study books by way of commentaries and also devotional books and also some books on the up-to-date Christian scene today. So let me recommend your perusal in the bookstore and tell them Phil Morgan sent you. Now let's read something from First Kings chapter eighteen. In fact, we're going to read the last six verses of that eighteenth chapter, First Kings. First Kings chapter eighteen, the last six verses, which means we begin with verse forty-one. First Kings chapter eighteen, verse forty-one, and we will go down through verse number forty-six, or the end of the chapter, whichever comes first.
First Kings chapter eighteen, verse forty-one. This is a continuation of the incident that we left off with last night. Verse forty-one, Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain. So Ahab went up to eat and to drink, and Elijah went up to the top of Carmel. And he cast himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees and said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea. And he went up and looked and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time that he said, Behold, there arises a little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand.
And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. And it came to pass in the meanwhile that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab went to Jezreel, and the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he girded up his loins and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. I think we need to insert something here just by way of introduction. And I know that you don't have any problem with this, but every once in a while we seem to bump into folks who have a problem with this. Now, apparently they're usually unsaved people because they say, I cannot believe in a God who is as cruel as he apparently is in the Old Testament, where he goes and says to his people, utterly slay everybody, man, woman, child, flocks, herds, all these sorts of things.
And they say, we just can't believe in a bloodthirsty God like that. Now, we read, you remember, in James chapter number five, that Elijah is used there as an illustration of the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And Elijah is used as illustration of that. And then it goes on to explain in James chapter five, because he prayed and there was a drought in the land and he prayed and then there was rain in the land. And I think we need to see for our own information and so that we can pass it along to these others that are skeptical and very critical of God and his way and his will and his work and his word. I think we need to pass along the fact that that wasn't done at Elijah's behest.
Elijah didn't suddenly decide, well, I'll show you who's boss. I'm going to pray and you won't have any rain for three years. And then after a while he remanded and he said, well, I feel sorry for all these folks and the fox and herds and so on and so forth. So I have decided to pray and rain will be restored. We need to see that that wasn't Elijah's own idea. Over in the eleventh chapter of Deuteronomy, for instance, let me read it to you. Book of Deuteronomy chapter number eleven. and verses sixteen and seventeen gives the direction as to why Elijah did this. Deuteronomy chapter number eleven verse sixteen. Excuse me.
Deuteronomy eleven verse sixteen. Here the word of the Lord is to his people, take heed to yourselves. This is Deuteronomy eleven sixteen. Take heed to yourselves that your heart be not deceived and ye turn aside and serve other gods and worship them. and then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit, and lest ye perish fitly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you. And I see that's not Elijah's idea, this drought and the famine and the rain and so forth. He is simply doing what he is entitled to do under the authority of the Word of God.
Bless your hearts, you and I in this age of the church today have exactly the same authority. You can say anything that God has already said in the Word of God. This is that situation in the New Testament where some folks get switched around, you know, that the Word of God says, To whomsoever ye remit the sins, their sins shall be remitted. And of course, that has been terribly misinterpreted, mistranslated. But you and I can simply say to people, my Bible says, if you'll receive the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior, your sins will be cleansed away, he'll remove the guilt of sin from you forever, you'll be made a child of God and an heir of God and a joint heir with Jesus Christ, an ambassador for Christ, and when your life on earth is over, he'll take you to heaven forevermore.
Now, where do we get all that idea from? Because we like these people that we promise those things to? No. We're simply quoting what God has already said in the Word. And this you can safely do. People come to us today and they say, oh, dear, the world's getting worse and worse. What's the end result going to be? Well, you can tell them what the end of the world is going to be. It's not a very happy sort of a prospect to pass along to somebody else. When they say peace and safety, then come a sudden destruction, things are going to get worse. The Lord says there'll always be wars and rumors of wars, with the exception of the great time of the millennial reign and then be one cataclysmic battle at the end of that apparently. But you can say these things that God has already said in His word.
And you and I no more make these things up when we tell people these things than Elijah made up this whole idea, well, I'll show you, I'm going to pray and you won't have any reign for three years. I think Elijah is working under the authority of that passage there in the eleventh chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. And what he does, you and I also have the authority to do. We can promise what God has promised. We can relay information that God has relayed, and we can do these same sorts of things. After all, that's what we're supposed to do and be, and that is mouthpieces for God. So I want you to remember that. As I said, I know you people don't have any trouble with that, but you might bump into a person who's rather peaked with God because God seems to be so bloodthirsty and cruel.
And you can say, well, this is what God has promised. God says, if you will be obedient to me, your lives will be filled with blessing. And if you are disobedient to me, you will suffer some way. And see, this is the way that Elijah treated those prophets of Baal. Took them down to the brook, Keyshawn, and there he slew them. Why? Because back in that same book of Deuteronomy, God says, Whoso prophets prophesied falsely, and with the intent of leading my people astray, shall suffer the death. So it's not particularly that Elijah's angry with these fellows or he has won the contest and to the victor belong the spoils. I won the contest, therefore you guys all die.
It's not that at all. It's Elijah saying, this is what God told me to do. You have purposely led the people of God astray and you've sealed your own doom by the life that you have lived and that's the way it is. I think we need to remember these things in order to be able to pass along the information to people. That's the way it was in this situation here. All right, we have then these few verses as we bring to a conclusion then, the eighteenth chapter of the book of First Kings. We want to talk about faith tonight. Faith doing certain things, faith seeing certain things. So our theme word then tonight is the word faith. And the first thing we want to see about faith in this passage of Scripture is that faith will always respond before the realization of whatever it is you would like to see realized.
Faith always responds before the realization. You see, we have that in verse forty-one, the point at which we began. Elijah said unto Ahad, Get thee up, eat and drink, because there is a sound of abundance of rain. So far we're not reading about those dark clouds. They come along later on in the passage. So far we're not reading about the great wind, the great tempest which accompanied the rain. The sun is still out. Maybe there's not a cloud in the sky. Apparently there wasn't. But you see, faith responds even before it sees the particular answer as it comes. Now, this takes some faith, doesn't it, to pray this way. Most always we pray a prayer, the Lord answers the prayer, and then we give thanks to the Lord because he answered the prayer.
Faith is that that's spoken of here, the prayer is prayed and we thank the Lord for the answer before the answer gets to us. Now, that faith, you see. It doesn't take any faith to say thank you to the Lord after you have received whatever it is that you're praying for. There's absolutely no faith in that. But faith is that which responds before the answer comes. And that's what Elijah says. He says, Elijah says to Ahab, you better get ready and prepare yourself because there's rain coming. And apparently Ahab knows enough by this time to believe the word of Elijah. He doesn't say, well, I'll wait till the rain starts. It would have been a little bit too late, wouldn't it, for Noah to wait until the rain started before he built his boat.
It's been a little too late then. But this is what we're talking about tonight. Faith responds before realization. You know the definition of faith over there in the book of Hebrews, chapter number eleven. And it explains it exactly this way that we're talking about tonight. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Now, in human thinking, that's paradoxical. You can't say that. Substance of something that's hoped for. And you say, well, you don't have any substance if you don't have it in your hand yet. And so the unbelieving world would say, this sentence is nonsense. Because if you have substance, you have it in your hand.
But the Christian says, no, no, it's as sure with me as if I held it in my hand already. Unless we missed it the first time, the Holy Spirit says it a little bit different. in a different way. In verse number one, still in Hebrews eleven, he says it is the evidence of things not seen or the being convinced of things not seen. And only the Christian, you see, can exercise that sort of belief in God. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Sometimes people translate this word substance as title deed. If you own your automobile, you've got a registration slip somewhere or title deed to it, and I hope you put it away safely somewhere.
People have title deeds to their property when they paid off the mortgage, and usually they put it in a safe deposit box somewhere. Kids today, some of these kids that live together without being married, their argument is, well, what is marriage anyway? It's just a piece of paper. Well, I might say, I think I own my house in Daytona Beach, but I'm not quite sure. I don't have a piece of paper that goes with it. I want that piece of paper because it's the only thing that proves to me I own my property. Now, you don't have any problem with these things either. But pass it along, you see. And it says this sort of a thing. This is the title deed that you have locked away in your spiritual safe deposit box. You say, that's what I hang on to.
And the unbelieving world comes along and says, but it's not logical, it's not reasonable, it'll never happen. It's too fantastic to believe. And you as a believing Christian with faith and the Lord says, I know it as sure as if it is here already. And that's the definition of faith, isn't it? There it is. Hebrews chapter number eleven starts it out. They're a great roll call of faith. Faith is a substance of things hoped for. In other words, dear friend, faith is simply what you believe because God has said something. Faith is that which exists in the promises of God. And the reason it's so valuable to you is because of the integrity of the one who made the promise to you.
The Lord has never let anybody down. He has never failed. He has never recanted any of his promises. And you have faith in him because of the one who made the promise. Now, if some human being came to another one and said, I'll be over at your house Tuesday afternoon. Two o'clock we'll do a little fishing. And so you prepare for it. You get all ready. And the fellow doesn't show up. And finally after a while you call him up and say, what happened to you? Well, they had a flat tire in my car. Couldn't come. Next Tuesday, two o'clock, I'll be sure to get you. And you get ready again. But he doesn't show up again. And you call him up again. And you say, what was the problem? Well, I took a nap and I didn't wake up in time. I forgot.
But next Tuesday, Tuesday afternoon, next week, I'll be sure to get you. So once again, you give him the benefit of the doubt and you get all your stuff ready. But this time the bait's getting a little rancid, you know. But at any rate, besides, your wife doesn't want you to store it in the refrigerator anymore. So I hope he comes this third week. But he doesn't show up again. And you say, where were you? And he hens and haws a little bit, and he says, well, I just put the storm windows up, and my wife wants me to take the storm windows down because it's been up seventy-five this week, so she maybe take the storm windows down, put up the screen. Of course, he won't say that. He'll say something came up at home, you see, because he doesn't want you to think that he does what his wife wants him to do. So this is a problem. But you know, if this occurs, dear friends, pretty soon you don't pay attention to this fellow anymore.
He says, next Tuesday for sure, and you say, uh-huh, and you plan to do something else. Why? Because of the integrity of the one who has made the promises has been shattered, totally shattered as far as you're concerned. But praise God, that's never true with Him, is it? That's never true with Him. It's always, whosoever will may come. It's always, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And we believe the promises of God, and we have faith in them, because of the one who has made the promises. Now that's very simple, that's not a profound thing, but it's true. And that's the basis under which you and I as believers operate. All right, so there is faith in God's promises, and there is also faith in God's providence.
We won't take time to look at that, but over in Luke chapter number twelve, verse fifty-four, the Lord there is talking about rain. And he says to those disbelieving folks who had gathered around about them, he says, now you can predict the rain. He says, you know, the way the wind is blowing and red sky at night, sailors delight and all those other sort of wonderful things. Or you have the farmer's almanac. Or you look and see how thick the fur is on the caterpillars. Whatever. He says, you can denote those things. He says, where do you suppose the rain comes from? The rain falls on the just and on the unjust. And even an unsaving world, I think, ought to thank God just for the providential blessings that He bestows upon them, but they don't seem to do that.
They don't seem to give God credit for anything at all. The only time they seem to notice God is when some catastrophe has struck. Some catastrophe has struck. But at any rate, this is true. The rain falls on the just and on the unjust. And so there's faith in God's providences. This is what he has done. I like it also, too, to come back here to First Kings XVIII. I like the fact that when Elijah now has promised this rain and he believes it and so forth. I like the fact that he goes back to the point where the victory has just been won. I think that's very significant. He doesn't pray just where he happens to be. He doesn't borrow the garden house that belongs to Ahab. Your Bible says he goes back up again to Carmel.
That's the middle part of verse forty-two. Elijah went up to the top of Carmel. Now we'd like to say that, this about that, and this is the basis upon which you and I pray. This is the basis upon which you and I exercise faith in the promises of God and in the will of God concerning the needs for which we are praying and of which things we have special needs and desires. We go to the place of victory. We go and to pray to the Lord upon the basis of the victory which the Lord has given. Fire hasn't fallen in our case, but we go in the basis of saying, Lord, you have told us in the word of God not only to come to the throne of grace, but to come only to the throne of grace. Father, we come before thee, calling thee Abba Father.
We come before you because you have said, Call unto me, and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. We do this, Father, because we are thy children. You have invited us to come. The Lord Jesus Christ is unto us, among other things, the door. And we enter through the door into your presence. We are accepted in the beloved. You know all these promises and a score of others besides. We enter because of these things from the point of victory, the same place from which Elijah is praying concerning the rain. Praying in quotation marks. We'll look at that in a minute. So faith responds then before the realization. Now this takes faith. This takes faith. As I said, it doesn't take any faith at all to wait until God gives the answer and then thank him for it.
It takes faith to thank God for the answer before the answer comes. Before the answer comes. That's where faith is registered. So faith then responds before the realization. Here's something else now. We now move down to verse number forty-four, and that is faith reacts then before reason. Verse number forty-four came to pass at the seventh time. This servant went and looked seven times. He said, the servant said to Elijah, Behold there arise up the little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand. And Elijah said, Go up, say to Ahab, prepare your chariot, and get you down, that the rain stopped enough. Faith reacts before reason. There's absolutely no cloud there that can hold the rain that we need.
But a little indication is enough for Elijah. And he says, You better go ahead and do this particular thing. You better tell Ahab that he'd better go while the going is good because we're going to have a deluge and maybe his old chariot's going to get stuck in the mud and he better go while the situation is this. Faith reacts before reason. There's absolutely no reason to assume they're going to get a big rain. But you see, we're talking about faith here. We're talking about the breaking of the great drought. And he said, what you'd have to do, you better do while you have time to do it because pretty soon you won't be able to. You notice the attitude of Elijah in this situation. He'd prayed for fire from heaven, but then you get a different sort of a position, you see, in verse number forty-two.
The last part of verse forty-two, Elijah went up to the top of Carmel and he cast himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees. Now, it doesn't say he did that when he was praying for fire before all of the prophets abailed. He's prayed a very simple prayer. But now when he's up there by himself, together with his servant, the Holy Spirit is very careful to show us the position and the attitude in which Elijah found himself when he wants his answer to prayer. Now here's another strange thing. It really doesn't say in this account that he prayed. It really doesn't say that he prayed. We have always assumed that he prayed.
And last time we assumed things when we read the Word of God, and we're so sure that it's in there that while we read it, we mentally put it in. But really, it doesn't say that he prayed concerning this. We assume that he did because he seems to be an attitude of prayer, but maybe he didn't say anything. Maybe it was like Romans chapter number eight. We know not the what we should pray for. Maybe he didn't know how to phrase it. But at any rate, I think it's significant, dear friends, that it doesn't say he prayed even though he is in the attitude of prayer here. But whether he actually said words or not, we wouldn't argue about this and split the congregation. We don't get into division until tomorrow morning, so we don't want to divide here tonight.
But at any rate, we assume that probably the man was praying even though your Bible doesn't say that he was. But look at the position here. He's in the right place to pray, the place of victory. And this is the same place from which you and I pray, as we have just enumerated some of these verses, you see. We pray from the place of victory. There needs to be also a place, as the Lord Jesus Christ said. He called it the prayer closet. When thou prayest, enter into thy closet. Now, I don't think the Lord really meant, literally, that you had to go into a closet. I hope he didn't, because there's not a closet in our house that I could get into. It's all filled with my wife's stuff, you know. I have to store my stuff in the glove compartment of the automobile, but I couldn't get into any of our closets.
I don't think it means that. I hope it doesn't mean that. But it means you need a quiet place where you're not going to be disturbed by the telephone, people banging on the door, and the devil's going to make sure you have more interruptions when you get ready to pray than you've ever had before in a sense, you see. I think it means a quiet place. For a while I used to not eat lunch, and I'd take my lunch hour, and I'd walk down on the beach. We'd just live about a block from the beach, and I'd walk down on the beach. I'd walk a mile down one direction, and there was a certain house down there, and I knew when I got to the house I'd walk a mile, and then I walked a mile back again, meditating and praying as I went along. Some of my preacher friends up north thought that was a terribly sacrificial thing to do, to go down on the beach in the wintertime, and walk along in the sunshine, praying.
They thought, I thought this showed great spirituality on the behest of Phil Morgan. Then something happened. We don't do that anymore, but you still have to find a quiet time to pray. The place is very, very important, someplace where you won't be interrupted and where you can really concentrate on the things of the Lord. We have a young friend, a young married woman. I had a baby not too long ago. She lives in Daytona Beach. And she said, I always had a big problem trying to find a quiet place where I could seek the face of God. because I've got a little baby to take care of. And she said, I used to try to sit down and have my reading and my devotions and my prayer time. Of course, the baby wants my attention. The baby climbs to my lap and began to pull the pages of my Bible.
She said, this is not going to work. So she put the baby in the playpen. And then the baby was dissatisfied with that because Mama was right there and not paying any attention to the baby. So the baby would holler and scream and carry on and throw rattles at Mother. And she said, this isn't going to work either. So she solved it by letting the baby run loose and she climbed into the playpen. She said, the baby's content. There's mama, the baby's got the run of the house, you know, goes down to China off the shelves, breaks it against the piano. The baby's perfectly content and she says, I feel as if I have the quiet place. Now that, maybe that won't work for you. Maybe that won't work for you. Don't run out tomorrow to Keystone Heights and buy a bunch of baby playpen or all sorts of rumors are going to go around about parking the ponds.
But anyway, that worked for her. That worked for her, and you have to devise what works for you. What works for you. The quiet time, whatever and however and wherever it is. But the place, dear friends, is very important. The position is also very important. You notice what Elijah does here. It's quite involved in verse forty-two. He cast himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees. Now, it doesn't say he did that when he prayed for fire, you see. And again, it's this abject position before God. Now, we get to the point when because of arthritic joints, and I'm bothered with that too, it's very difficult to kneel.
So we get to the point where we don't kneel. I don't think the physical position is as important as is the position of the heart and the mind and the spirit and the life before God. Now, this sort of a situation here, He is absolutely subservient to God. He will not even look up into the face of heaven, you see. It reminded me this afternoon, as I reread it again, of Abigail, the wife of Nabal, you remember. And David sent the Nabal, you remember, and said, we need some food, you know, and And Nabal was sent back to David and says, I don't give away my groceries. Who do you think you are? And you remember the Bible says David got terribly mad. And he says, I'm going to destroy Nabal and everything that he stands for.
We protected Nabal's crops and his men from the brigands and the robbers that used to come around. And then this is the way he repays us. He won't give us food when we need it. And so David is very, very angry. And he starts down to Nabal's house. And you remember, Abigail, Nabal's wife, ran to meet David. And when she came face to face with David, your Bible says Abigail fell down on her knees and put her face to the ground, just like Elijah did here. Now that's a dangerous thing to do when you're kneeling and your face is in the dust at the feet of a fellow who's terribly mad with you and he's got a sword. That's a very foolhardy thing to do because you don't know what he's doing. You might better look at him because if he takes his sword out, you can duck or run or do something, but it shows a position of absolute humility and subservience.
Lord, whatever happens, it's okay with me. So, dear friends, the place is important, and the position is important, and bless your hearts, the perseverance is important. He said to a servant, go look seven times, and nothing happens until the seventh time, your Bible says. I don't know whether Elijah told his servant just once, well, you're going to have to go and check seven times or whether he said, go look and see if anything's happened. And the fellow came back and said, nothing happened. And then after a while he said, well, go the second time. That may be the way it happened. But at any rate, there's perseverance in this waiting on God. And sometimes God just waits to see how much we are interested in the things of himself.
Now over in the New Testament, same thing occurs you see in the book of Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter six and verse number eighteen. Ephesians six, eighteen, it says here, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. Supplication is mentioned twice. Perseverance mentioned once. Pray with perseverance. Pray with perseverance. Maybe we give up too soon sometimes in our praying. I've heard Christians say, well, I quit praying for him. I didn't think he'd ever get saved. Well, I quit praying for that marriage.
I think it's tied in too many knots to ever get any of them straightened out. Well, I quit praying for that family because they just don't want to go on in the things of God. Maybe we ought not to give up in our praying. Remember people before the Lord. Perseverance is one of the strong quality points of prayer. And this is what Elijah did. The place is important. The position is important. And bless your hearts, the perseverance is important as well. One other thing here about his prayer, you notice there is more agony in this prayer tonight than there was in the prayer last night? Now, when he wants fire from heaven, you see, it's almost a very simple prayer, just given once, apparently, and the words are recorded for us here. He simply said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I'm thy servant.
and that I have done all these things with thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God and that thou hast turned their heart back again. And it doesn't say he repeated that seven times. It doesn't say he was on his face before God there. It doesn't say he had his face pressed into the dust there. There's no agony recorded in that prayer as there is in this later prayer when he wants the drought to be broken. There's real agony in that prayer. And I think this is indicative to us. Sometimes you and I pray an easy prayer. Can we call it that? And God answers. And we say, well, that was easy enough. But there are other situations and people and positions and so forth that you agonize over and probably have been agonizing over for quite a while.
And the tears are not strangers to that particular prayer. Some of our prayers are very easy. Some of our prayers are very, very difficult, and there's a great deal of agony associated with some of our prayers. I want you to see the difference in those two prayers in Elijah's life, the agony of the second one that is not recorded in the first one. More agony in verses forty-three than there is recorded in verses thirty-six and thirty-seven. So, however it comes so far, faith responds before realization. Faith even reacts before reason. The whole thing seems to be totally unreasonable, no way that anybody can work, not even God himself, but faith responds to it.
And faith reacts to the point to where it makes provision for the answer, even though the answer has not yet arrived. Now that's faith, you see. There's one more thing about faith, and that is faith reflects before receiving. And before you pray concerning it, you say, can I really handle this? What if God answers my prayer? My wife and I had supper one night with a young lady, a young widow lady up in Pennsylvania, and she said, I did a terrible thing this week. I said, what have you done? She said, I was in the office. The other ones were off for the lunch, and I finished my sandwich at my desk, and so I was having a prayer time. I caught myself praying this prayer, and I really didn't intend to pray it.
She said, Lord, make me a better Christian no matter what it takes. And she said, I'd gulped the words back. I wondered if I was really prepared for what God might allow in my life to make me a better Christian. She said, I hadn't even intended to pray that. She said, oh, that's one of those very dangerous prayers to pray. Lord, whatever it takes, save my children. The Lord might have to take you home to save your children. She said, well, that's all right. I'd be willing. But you see, this is also found in this story of Elijah tonight. That is, faith reflects before it receives. We say, are you ready for the answer? What if God does answer this question, you see, this prayer? What if God does it?
And I see, here's some of the reflections. Verse number forty-four, you see. He said, Go up, he said to his servant, Say to Ahab, prepare thy chariot and get thee down, that the rain stops thee not. Well, I thought we were praying for rain. Well, we are praying for rain. I thought the drought needs to be broken. It does need to be broken. The fields need to spring back into flowers and grass again, and everybody needs to be refreshed and rejoiced because the rains are coming. But are you ready for the rain? The rain could hinder you, Ahab, from doing what you ought to be doing. So here the Christian stops. And he said, Well, have I received ever an answer to prayer? God has given it to me in response to my prayer, and I found that the rain has hindered me from going out of the Lord.
Sometimes that occurs today. God richly blesses us. We have a higher standard of living than any other generation, I believe, that's ever lived before us. And with some Christians, they stumble over the blessings that God has given to them. We talked to Lester Wilson a while back, and we were rejoicing in all the good work he does down through the Piedmont of North Carolina during the Depression. He said, Phil, you couldn't do that today. He said, people didn't have anything in those days. They were looking for some stability. They were looking for some confidence and some hope. And they responded. He said, they didn't have summer cottages and they didn't have great big motor homes and be gone every weekend from the city. He said, it was just right for that.
He said, I used to preach the gospel in those days and throw out the net, as Lester said. And six people would respond, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen people would come down and say, what must I do to be saved? He said, you don't do it that way anymore. He says, you don't fish with a net. He says, you fish with a single hook. And here you get one. And there you get one. He said, but it's not like it was. It's not like it was. And the very blessings which God has given to us can get in the way, you see, of our journey. And so this is what Elijah tells Ahab. The rain is coming. Well, the rain is a blessing. Well, I know it, but it can hinder you. And this is one of the things I have to reflect upon. Well, back a man told me, he said, you know, We always used to have the young people into our house after Sunday night meeting.
We had an old ramshackle house with furniture to match. A kid could come in and jump all over and throw cushions at each other. It didn't make any difference because they couldn't ruin the furniture anymore anyway. I said, but then I got a promotion and with the promotion came a raise and pay. So we got a better house and my wife wanted white carpets and white furniture. And I said, oh, this is fine. Now we don't dare invite the kids into our house, you see. I said, what's the outcome of the whole thing? He said, we were better off the way we were before. I said, you going back to the old house? And he said, no, I don't think we're going to do that. But see, that's a sort of thing. We have to be careful, don't we? Take the blessing of the Lord, but make sure I don't get so concerned with the blessing that I forget the blesser.
And so this is what he says to Ahab. Faith reflects before receiving. Stop by blessing, you see? What about priorities? Also, you notice the atmosphere to produce a blessing. Verse number forty-five, it came to pass in the meanwhile that the heaven was black with clouds and wind. Lord, I didn't pray for the dark clouds in my life. I didn't pray for the wind in my life. I didn't pray for the tempest, Lord. I just want the rain. And very often the Lord works through the atmosphere of circumstances to produce the blessing. You see, and I have to reflect upon, is this what I really want? In order to get the refreshing rain that's going to produce fruit and flowers and things, am I willing to put up with the possibility of dark clouds in my life in a tempestuous wind?
That may be the atmosphere through which the blessing comes, you see. We could give illustrations about this, but I don't think you need any. But anyway, here's the atmosphere to produce the blessing. This is another reflection, you see. And of course, the blessing requires responsibility. That's verse number forty-six. We better get going. And your Bible says Elijah girded up his robe about his loins, and he ran along ahead of Ahab's chariot. Now, theologians at this point get into an argument as to whether or not this was really a miracle of God, that a man could outrun a chariot. And others recently have come along and said, well, chariot didn't go all that fast.
I don't think I'd try to outrun one. I have no idea why Ahab didn't give Elijah a ride in his chariot. Maybe he was afraid Jezebel would look out the wind and see him, accuse him of fraternizing with the enemy or some other sort of a thing. But what I want you to see in it, this is that of which I am sure, that when the blessings of God come, it still entails responsibility on our part. The rain is coming, but there's something that Elijah has to do and there's something that Ahab has to do, and that is they have to make preparations for it and run ahead of it and try to get under some sort of cover because the blessing of the Lord is coming. The responsibility that God leads his child into in order to support the blessing of God.
Some folks have these wonderful sorts of blessings today. Some assemblies have Awana programs and the kids are crowding out the building, you know, and they say, well, now we've got to build an Awana building. We've got to borrow money to do that. We didn't have that sort of a problem until all these kids came. Well, sometimes with the blessings, you know, there comes more Christian responsibility and you have to be ready for that. So you see, faith reflects on these things before the answer comes. There's going to be responsibility on my part. Am I ready for the blessing of God? Am I ready for it? Faith reflects on that. Let's bow together in prayer. Father God, we thank you again that we can come before thee tonight in the name which is above every name.
Father, we know that there are probably as many different levels of spirituality in this room tonight as there are people here. But Father, we all want to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We know, Father, thou art never satisfied with the level of our spirituality and we should not be either. The Father, help us to go on with thee and to trust the leading of the Holy Spirit and obey the precepts of the Word and enjoy the experience of being saved and being found in the service of the King. Bless, Father, to this end, by the continuing ministry of the Holy Spirit upon us, through the Word of God, that we might continue to rejoice in the goodness of thyself. These things, Father, we pray, all with much thanksgiving in Christ's name and for his sake alone.