Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on 1 Kings 17:1-6. The main subject of the sermon is God’s provision for Elijah by the book Cherith.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on 1 Kings 17:1-6. The main subject of the sermon is God’s provision for Elijah by the book Cherith.
– SERMON TRANSCRIPT –
Elijah is a stunning figure really to me. One of the most fascinating figures in the Old Testament. There’s some people in church history or in the biblical history that you would love to eat dinner with and some that you wouldn’t. I think he’d be terrifying to eat dinner with, but I’ll tell you, I’d love to ask him questions. This is a man that appears mysteriously, suddenly in biblical history. Really out of nowhere he suddenly appears. He appears with an oath and with a curse. And he disappears just as suddenly in a chariot of fire up to heaven. Now, this is an amazing individual, and I think it’s well worth studying and helping to understand the history of Israel at the time, but also how God can use a single faithful individual to do his will.
Now, he appears at probably one of the darkest moments in Israel’s history. In order to understand what happens in 1 King 17, you have to go back in time some to understand the history of Israel. So we’re really tonight going to be spending a good amount of time in 1 Kings 12-16 setting the stage. This was one of Israel’s darkest hours. God’s people were in a deplorable condition. God’s covenant had been grievously violated. There was gross idolatry and there was wicked leadership. To put it on a historical timeline, it’s been 58 years since the kingdom was split north and south after the death of Solomon. The northern kingdom was called Israel, Southern kingdom called Judah.
The northern kingdom of Israel immediately lurched into idolatry. Take a minute and go back to 1 Kings 12 and look at verse 26 and following. Now, the southern kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem went to Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. He got two tribes. And 10 tribes went to Jeroboam and the northern kingdom of Israel. Well, Jeroboam had a problem. The law of Moses, the book of Deuteronomy, had set aside a single place among all the tribes that all the nations, I mean all the tribes were to go to worship God. He said, “You will assemble there three times a year. The place that I choose.” And the place that had been chosen was Jerusalem and that was in Judah in the southern kingdom. And so Jeroboam thinks he’s got a problem. Look what he says in verse 26, “Jeroboam thought to himself, ‘The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam, king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.’ After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, ‘It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’ One he set up in Bethel and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin. The people went even as far as Dan to worship the one there.” Verse 31, “Jeroboam built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people even though they were not Levites. He instituted a festival on the 15th day of the eighth month like the festival held in Judah and offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made. And at Bethel he also installed priests at the high places he had made. On the 15th day of the eighth month, a month of his own choosing, he offered sacrifices on the altar he had built at Bethel. So he instituted the festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings.” Now, this is a terrible, terrible thing. He has established worship of the true God in a false way. They were worshiping Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God that had brought them out of Egypt. But they were doing it in a self-styled way. Jeroboam made up his own religion. He said, “I choose to worship God in my own way.” Now, his reasons were political. We see behind the scenes exactly what he was thinking. He was afraid he was going to lose his kingdom if they went to Jerusalem. So he had a pragmatic wisdom to it. But we see here immediately, idolatry. You see, idolatry is not just worshiping idols, but it’s also worshiping the true God in a false way, worshiping the true God in a way of your own making. So Jeroboam immediately led Israel, the northern kingdom, into sin, into corruption, into idolatry.
“Idolatry is not just worshiping idols, but it’s also worshiping the true God in a false way, worshiping the true God in a way of your own making. “
Now, AW Pink, whose book I’m following quite closely in Elijah and you can get that, I’d rather you wait until the series is over so you can think, “Wow, all the things that pastor discovers.” So wait, all right? But after I’m done, you’re going to want to pick this book up. Don’t listen to my tapes, just read the book after that. But AW Pink had this comment about the northern kingdom of Israel and he said, “Let it be duly and carefully noted that the apostasy began with the corrupting of the priesthood by installing into the divine service men who were never called and equipped by God.” Now, that’s a devastating thing, isn’t it? It’s my personal conviction that the theme of the book of Judges is the failure of the Levites properly to instruct the people. Because the Levites did not instruct the people they did not know the commands of God and they went into sin no different than Sodom and Gomorrah, ultimately. And so the lips of a priest must instruct in wisdom and righteousness, must teach the law of God. So we have these self-styled religion and these priests coming out of nowhere. We have a new festival date that no one ever thought of except the king. We have a false religious system right away.
Now, in the 58 years that followed this, seven different kings ruled over Israel. Seven different kings. Now, after Jeroboam came a son Nadab, 1 Kings 15, you can turn over there to verse 25-26, “Nadab son of Jeroboam became king of Israel in the second year of Asa, king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years.” Verse 26, “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord walking in the ways of his father and in his sin which he had caused Israel to commit.” Now what is that sin? I think it’s this false religious system. It is the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and at Dan. It is the following of this new festival. It is the submitting to these false priests who have been established by Jeroboam. It’s the sin of religion done in a false and idolatrous way. So Nadab follows the sin of his father, Jeroboam walking in this idolatry. Well, Nadab was assassinated by Baasha and all of Jeroboam’s families wiped out, slaughtered completely by this man Baasha.
Now Baasha was a murderer and a usurper and didn’t last long. And so his son Elah comes along next and he’s a drunkard and an idolater. He reigned only two years and one of Elah’s chariot commander Zimri rose up and assassinated Elah and all of his family, slaughtering them completely. Now, how long did Zimri last as king? Well, seven days. He was king for seven days. You can see the turmoil and the upheaval when you turn away from God away from his law, away from the covenant of Moses. Now, Omri, one of Elah’s commanders hunted Zimri down, surrounded the city he was in and burned the city to the ground. This left a northern kingdom of Israel split. There was somewhat of a civil war within a civil war because the people of God had been split into a northern and southern kingdom. It wasn’t long before Omri’s followers proved stronger than their rival. The rival, Tivni was killed and Omri reigned in Israel for 12 years. That’s a relatively stable rule in the northern kingdom. But look at 1 Kings 16:25-26. “Omri did evil,” it says, “in the eyes of the Lord and sinned more than all those before him. He walked in all the ways of Jeroboam, son of Nebat and in his sin which he had caused Israel to commit so that they provoked the Lord, the God of Israel to anger by their worthless idols.” So we see that they continue in the pattern of idolatry and in false worship. But it’s also progressing. It’s getting worse. It seems each regime is worse than the last one. Finally, Omri died and his son Ahab succeeds in as king. Now, look at 1 King 16:28-33. And this is the assessment of Ahab. If Omri was the worst up until that point, Ahab was the worst of all, “Omri,” it says, “rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria and Ahab, his son succeeded him as king. In the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel 22 years. Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel before him.” So that’s a repeated phrase. We saw it with Omri, now we see it with Ahab. Sin never stays put, does it? It doesn’t stay in one place. It’s always moving. It’s aggressive. It’s like a tumor.
So Ahab comes along and he’s the greatest in doing evil of any king Israel had experienced to that point. He continued in the idolatrous system of Jeroboam and it says he considered it a light thing, a trivial thing, nothing to do so. He’s moving out. He’s looking for religious adventure, I suppose. So he marries Jezebel. Now, Jezebel was a wicked woman and we’re going to find out more about her during our study of Elijah. But it was Jezebel that led him into Baal or Baal worship. He began to serve the Baals and worship. Now, we’ve already seen Baal or Baal worship. That word, by the way, just means lord or master and he’s somewhat like a male god and the Asherahs are the female goddesses of fertility. So we’ve already seen this worship in the book of Judges, but now for the first time after David, it comes back under this king, Ahab.
Now, the thing that we’ve got to understand is just how terrible all of this is. God had made provision for a king in the book of Deuteronomy. Now, we tend to think of the whole kingship of Saul as an aberration. If only that they had continued to follow God, they wouldn’t have asked for king. But God had made a provision in the book of Deuteronomy for a king, but this was what the king was supposed to be: he was supposed to be saturated in the word of God. He was supposed to lead the people in following God’s law. You don’t have to turn there, but you can make note of it. In Deuteronomy 17:18-20, it says this, “When the king takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law,” namely the book of Deuteronomy, “taken from that of the priests who are Levites. It is to be with him and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will,” listen, “reign a long time over the kingdom in Israel.” In other words, he’s supposed to get a copy of the law made for himself. This is where the scribes came in. They were the ones that were copying the law. They did not have printing presses. They did not have reproducing equipment like Xerox machines or other things. And so they had to be written out by hand. And so, a copy would be very costly, but the king had to have one. He had to saturate his mind in the word of God. He had to study it all the time.
Now, part of the law of Deuteronomy was that there was to be no intermarriage with the pagan people surrounding them. Deuteronomy 7, it says, “Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles, burn their idols in the fire for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” And so there’s a strict law against intermarriage. Why? Because it would lead to it immediately to spiritual consequences. We saw it in the life of Solomon as he loved foreign women and took them into his home. They led him astray. Now understand, consistently in the history of Israel, the people of God so to speak, God’s chosen people, the Jews continued to worship Yahweh, the God that had brought them out of Egypt. But they added to the worship of Yahweh, the worship of other gods and goddesses. It was synchronistic. It was never that they abandoned Yahweh per se, but they added to worship of Yahweh, they added the worship of false gods and Solomon instituted that specifically through intermarriage. Again, Pink puts it this way: “The marriage of Ahab to a heathen princess was, as might be fully expected for we cannot trample God’s law beneath our feet with impunity, fraught with the most frightful consequences. In a short time, all trace of the pure worship of Jehovah vanished from the land and gross idolatry became rampant. The golden cows were worship at Dan and Bethel. A temple had been erected to Baal in Samaria. The groves of Baal appeared on every side and the priests of Baal took full charge of religious life in Israel.”
Now, that is the situation into which Elijah is about to stand. It’s a terrible situation. And to boot right at the very end in 1 King 16:34. It says, “In Ahab’s time Heil of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son, Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son, Segub, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua’s son of Nun.” That is a very serious thing. You remember when Jericho fell, this was the very beginning of the conquest of the land of Canaan, Joshua put a curse over the city of Jericho and basically in effect said, “It must never be rebuilt because whoever attempts to rebuild it will begin the building at the cost of his firstborn son and will end the building at the cost of his youngest son.” Well, along comes this man from Bethel and disregards the curse, doesn’t think anything of it and the curse falls on him most directly. He loses two sons to the building. But you can see the attitude of casting off respect for the law of God and respect for his commands. It is terrible to consider the degradation of Israel, the turning away from the law of God, the turning away from the covenant into which Elijah stands at this present time. Only a powerful voice could bring the people of God back to a true and pure worship of God.
There needed to be stern medicine, a shocking figure really and that’s exactly what Elijah was. “In the midst of this spiritual darkness,” said Pink, “and degradation, there appeared on the stage of public action with dramatic suddenness, a solitary but striking witness to and for the living God. The most illustrious Prophet Elijah was raised up in the reign of the most wicked of the kings of Israel. This sudden appearance provides the key to all that follows.” Look at verse 1 of chapter 17. “Now, Elijah,” it says, “the Tishbite from Tishbe in Gilead said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.’” Now, this is incredible, isn’t it? Out of nowhere, this man appears, confronts this wicked and powerful man, King Ahab, and says this to him. Who is this man and what is the right that he has to make such a pronouncement? Well, in order to understand that, you have to understand the office of a prophet.
What was a prophet to God? The law of Moses was a binding covenant into which the people came when they entered the promised land. Basically in effect, God said, “You may keep this land as long as you keep the covenant. If you break the covenant, you will lose the land.” So along with the covenant came blessings and cursings. Blessings for obedience and cursing for disobedience. Repeatedly Israel would sink into rebellion against the covenant and God would send the prophets and the prophets would act in effect like covenant lawyers pressing God’s lawsuit. In effect, the prophets come and say, “You have broken the covenant. You have broken the commands of God. You’ve broken the law of Moses. And so as a result, God is going to send this curse on you.” Now, a good example of this is the idea of calling heaven and earth as witnesses. In the book of Deuteronomy 4:23 and following, take a minute and look there if you would, turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 4. Moses calls heaven and earth as witness against his own people. It says there in Deuteronomy 4:23, “Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you. Do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden for the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. After you’ve had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time, if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and provoking him to anger.” Now, this is Deuteronomy 4:26, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you’re crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.” So there’s a sense in which Moses institutes the law. The book of Deuteronomy is a record of the covenant that God made with Israel that day just before they enter the Promised Land and God calls heaven and earth to witness against his people if they break this covenant. He does it repeatedly. He does the same thing in Deuteronomy 30:17 and following. Same book, chapter 30:17 and following. “If your heart,” it says, “turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.” Chapter 30:19, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live.” You see how it works? Blessings and curses are called down on the people if they break the covenant. Deuteronomy 31:28-29, “Assemble before me all the elders of your tribes and all your officials so that I can speak these words in their hearing and call heaven and earth to testify against them for I know that after my death you are sure to become utterly corrupt and to turn away from the way that I have commanded you.” And then finally in the song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:1, it says, “Listen O heavens and I will speak. Hear O earth the words of my mouth.” And so, he’s about to sing a song, Moses is, in which he ahead of time gives out all the history of Israel. In prophetic perspective, Moses being a prophet said, “This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to rebel against me and I’m going to bring foreign armies in to destroy you.” That’s the morning sermon in Habakkuk. We’re learning about that. The Assyrians came for the northern kingdom of Israel and then later the Babylonians came for the southern kingdom. God kept his promise. It’s interesting in the song of Moses in 32:2, he says, “Let my words fall and descend like rain and dew.” Isn’t that interesting? The words of God liken to rain from heaven watering the land and bringing fruit. So suddenly Elijah appears and what does he say? “Elijah the Tishbite from Tishbe and Gilead said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord, the God of Israel lives whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.’”
Now stay in Deuteronomy for a minute. I told you that prophets were covenant lawyers. They’re appearing and basically issuing a summons to the people to come to God’s bar of justice. And there he’s going to summon heaven and earth against them as witnesses. Isaiah chapter 1:2, “Hear O heavens, listen O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I rear children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.” What is he doing? It’s court time. It’s time for judgment to come on God’s people because they’ve broken the law. So the prophets like Isaiah are God’s covenant lawyers. And so Elijah just stands to represent God to his people. And so what does this matter that, “As the Lord, the God of Israel whom- who lives and before whom I stand as he lives, I swear to you, there will be no rain nor dew until I say so.” What is that coming from? What’s coming from the command of God? Look at Deuteronomy chapter 11. Deuteronomy 11:11 and following. “But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for, the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.” So what is he saying? It’s a good land. There’s lots of rain there. It’s a beautiful place. It’s a land flowing with milk and honey. Verse 13, “So if you faithfully obey the commands I’m giving you today to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul then I will send rain on your land in its season both autumn and spring rains so that you may gather your grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle and you will eat and be satisfied.” But now look at verse 16. This is Deuteronomy 11:16. “Be careful or you’ll be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you.” Did you hear what he said? He said if you worship other gods, if you fall into idolatry, if you turn away from me, then I’m going to shut up heaven from you and there will be no rain. Now, what is Elijah doing? He’s suddenly coming and he’s calling down a curse, the covenant curse on God’s people. And why? Because they’ve broken the covenant. God stated very clearly that it would happen and now the time has come.
Now, when Elijah appears, he appears out of nowhere as we’ve said. It’s a fascinating thing. There’s no record of his parents. There’s no word of his father or mother. That’s relatively unusual. Some prophets were also this way. But I think it’s significant. There’s no mention of Elijah’s parents. Now, Elijah’s parents had given him one thing, they gave him a name. The name Elijah means: “My God is Yahweh.” That’s what it means. Now, that’s going to be significant at Mount Carmel, isn’t it? Because what are they going to call when they fall down? “The Lord, he is God.” Well, they’re just saying Elijah’s name. “You’re right Elijah. We’ve been wrong in worshiping the Baals.” So we have, indirectly, some testimony of the faith of Elijah’s parents and that they named him, “My God is Yahweh.” But we don’t know anything more about them and I think it’s very interesting, significant to me. And in this way I think he’s very similar to Melchizedek. Now, some of us are studying in the book of Hebrews on Thursday. Now, what’s the interesting thing about Melchizedek? He suddenly appears. Go ahead, Herbert. You were going to say it. What were you going to say?
[audience speaks]
Just suddenly: there’s Melchizedek. Brings a gift to Abraham and then suddenly he is gone again. Right? Book of Hebrew says, “Without father or mother, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.” Now that’s, I think, within the context of the written account. Some people think he was literally Jesus. We can talk about that another time. But the fact of the matter is at least this much is the case: within the account. Melchizedek suddenly appears, does his ministry as a priest and a king. He’s a priest king. And then suddenly disappears. How much is that like Elijah? He suddenly appears. He does the work of a prophet and then disappears up to heaven in a chariot of fire. In this way, I think he kind of foreshadows Christ eternal prophetic ministry just as Melchizedek foreshadows the priest king ministry of Jesus Christ. So much so that in Jesus’ day they were waiting for Elijah to come back, weren’t they? We’ll talk about that more later. But Elijah never died. And so there’s a kind of a timelessness to his prophetic ministry. It’s kind of eerie almost. When is Elijah coming back? And they’re always waiting for him. He just suddenly appears dramatically and speaks this oath as the Lord whom I serve lives. And then he gives the curse, “There’ll be no reign or dew” and then he disappears. It’s a stunning thing. I think it’s calculated to shock, isn’t it? I mean it’s just stunning. And Ahab is just stunned with this appearance. And what did Elijah look like? Well, he is wearing a garment of camel’s hair. He had a leather belt around his waist just like John the Baptist would look later. He’s kind of a rough and ready guy. He’s from Gilead, the mountainous region. Imagine one of those old Western mountain men like Jeremiah, somebody. I forget. You know those guys. The guys who were riding around rough and ready. They didn’t need much food. They could ride for days, one of those guys, kind of a tough guy suddenly appearing and making this pronouncement.
Now, we don’t know very much about Elijah’s character. We know in 19:10 he says, “I’ve been very jealous for the Lord, God of hosts.” I think this gives us an incredibly important glimpse into the character of Elijah. He’s very jealous or zealous for God. He’s zealous for the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And that is the key. It fueled his fervent ministry.
Now, something else fueled Elijah’s fervent ministry and it was prayer. Take a minute if you would and go over to James. Look at James 5:17. It’s a fascinating thing. Elijah was a man of prayer. He was faithful in praying for his people. Now one might think, what’s the use? It’s been nothing but 58 years of idolatry. One bad king after the next. And it’s just getting worse. Ahab is worse than Omri was. You could almost feel the sense of desperation. Jezebel is the queen now. All the prophets of Yahweh have been rounded up and many of them have been killed. Others have been driven into hiding. It seems like there’s no one left and at one point Elijah is going to say that, “I’m the only one left.” There’s nothing going on. It seems as though God has been extinguished from the northern kingdom, gone entirely. It’s almost a sense of hopelessness here if it weren’t for faith filled prayer. And so Elijah is zealous for the glory of God. And you know, what the arm of flesh cannot do, the arm of prayer can. The power of God in prayer, faith-filled prayer. Look what it says in James 5:17. It says, “Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again, he prayed and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops.” Well, this gives us an insight into Elijah prayer life. Elijah was a man of prayer, wasn’t he? What did he pray for? What did he pray earnestly for according to James 5:17? He prayed earnestly, that it what? It would not rain. Now, what kind of prayer is that? What kind of harsh, cruel mean guy is that? Do you realize that rain, water, dew, that supports life? And when you’re praying for drought, you’re praying literally in the end that people are going to die. He’s praying earnestly and zealously that the rain would stop. Prayed effectively, didn’t he? The rain did stop. It’s a fascinating thing. Look what it says here. It says he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And what was the basis of his prayer? Deuteronomy 11:17. “Now Lord, you said that if they turn away to false gods that you would shut up the heavens. Now, do what you have said.” Faith is not a matter of thinking what’s best and then going out boldly and doing it, faith is really a passive thing in which you receive the word of God and he has already told you what he intends to do, but you believe it and you trust it and you beg God to do the very thing he said he would do. And that’s what he does. He takes Deuteronomy 11:17 and brings it back to God in prayer. And he keeps praying and praying effectually, fervently. He prays that the rain would stop.
“What the arm of flesh cannot do, the arm of prayer can. “
How different is that from us? Would we have ever done that? What motivated Elijah? It was a zeal for the glory of God. “God, don’t let your name be trampled. These people are sinning against your covenant and it seems like you’re doing nothing.” Same thing with Habakkuk. “God move; God do something.” But unlike Habakkuk, he prays directly for judgment to come on his own people and that is that the heavens would stop raining.
Now, according to James 5:17, how long did he pray? Or how long did the drought last? What was it? Look carefully now, three and a half years. Now it kind of makes a difference, doesn’t it? Look over at Luke 4. Luke 4. Jesus speaks about the same thing. In Luke 4:25, Jesus says this, “I assure you that there are many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land.” Now, why am I making much about the half? Well, because I’m an engineer and I care about precise things, right? Look at chapter 18. 1 Kings 18:1, 1 Kings 18:1. “After a long time,” look what it says, “After a long time in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah. ‘Go and present yourself to Ahab and I will send rain on the land.'” Now, what does that say? “Oh, you see, there’s errors, there’s contradictions in the Bible.” No, there’s not. What does it mean? It means there had already been six months of drought by the time that Elijah presented himself to Ahab. It had already been going on for six months. And then suddenly Elijah appears and says, “No, it’s not going to end. It’s going to go on.” How powerful and effective is that? Probably they’re already looking for stockpiling water. They’re already trying to conserve. They’re already starting to feel the effects of a missed harvest. Six months already of judgment has come and it’s going to continue. And it’s indefinite too. He doesn’t say it’s going to be three more years. He just says it’s not going to happen except at my word. So for six months there’s been drought and all of that as a result of this prayer of Elijah. It’s prevailing prayer. It’s a faith-filled prayer and it’s based on God’s word.
Now, look at Elijah’s God saturated boldness. He appears after I believe six months of drought and presents himself to a wicked man, to a king. He says to King Ahab, “As the Lord, The God of Israel lives, before whom I stand.” I like that in the NASV better than “whom I serve,” “before whom I stand, surely there should be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word.” Now what is he saying here? Well, realize that there was a rainy season and then there was a non-rainy season in Israel, but during the non-rainy times, there would be dew that would come up from the earth and it would water. Nothing like that, “Water is gone. Rain is gone, dew is gone. It’s all gone except at my word.”
Now, where does that boldness come from? Well, I think he says it right in there. Look at the titles he uses about God. First of all, he calls him the Lord. You know, whenever you see in your English text there that capitalizes “L-O-R-D,” that is Yahweh that is God’s name. Eli “Jah”, the Yahweh, that is the name of God. So he uses God’s covenant name and then he calls him God of Israel. He says, “Israel is mine. You’re my treasured possession. You’re not Baal’s, you’re not Ashera’s, you’re mine.” “As the Lord, the God of Israel lives.” And why does he say as he lives? Because Baal doesn’t as I shall eminently prove at Mount Carmel. We’ll get to that later on. “He doesn’t exist. He doesn’t live. But my God lives. And as he lives, I will prove to you that he lives by the things that God does through me. There shall be neither rain nor dew at my word.” But I skipped one part. He says, “Before whom I stand.” Isn’t that powerful? There’s a sense in which Elijah has a sense that he’s always standing before God. Yes, he’s standing before Ahab. And yes, he has literally taken his life into his hands to do this. He could easily have been killed that very day. And it took incredible courage to do this. But he didn’t care about Ahab. He looked beyond Ahab. He looked up to God who had called him to do this. It was a special relationship when he says, “Before whom I stand.”
I love the quote, John Knox’s epitaph. John Knox was a bold man, perhaps one of the boldest ever. I mean, there’s a picture, I saw an engraving of him pointing a finger at Queen Mary, Mary Queen of Scots and preaching right at her. I mean, it was just an incredible courage and boldness to John Knox’s ministry. And she said, “I fear more of Knox’s prayers than of any armies that could be brought against my realm.” That was Knox. And his epitaph said this, “Here lies a man who never flattered nor feared any flesh.” Think about that. “A man who never flattered nor feared any flesh.” I think that was even more true of Elijah. He’s not there to flatter Ahab and he certainly doesn’t fear him. He fears God and he fears God alone. So he stands before him. And it reminds me also of Luke 1:19. “Before whom I stand,” means the one I’m ready to serve. “I’m ready to do anything he commands me to do. I’m standing before him to obey him.” Gabriel speaks this way, “The angel answered, ‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God and I’ve been sent to speak to you and tell you for this good news.’” So what is the root of Elijah’s boldness? It is standing in the presence of God, hearing his word and obeying it regardless of where it carries you, no matter what he calls him to do. I like Proverbs 28:1. It says, “The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” Now, in his prayer time, he’s come to something new, hasn’t he? Not only has the drought come as a result of his prayer, but God has given him a special commission. “I will not send rain again until you pray for it.” Ain’t that incredible? “There will be no rain, except at my word.” Now, that’s incredible arrogance if God didn’t send him to do it. But Elijah’s got that kind of power.
Now what happens next? It says, “Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah.” Verse 3, “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Cherith ravine east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.” Verse 5. “So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Cherith ravine, east of the Jordan and stayed there. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.” Now, this is a fascinating thing and we’re going to close with it. Why did God command at this point, Elijah, to hide, to disappear? The immediate answer you might think is to protect him because Jezebel would try to kill him. But that doesn’t really make any sense, does it? Because at the end of this, God is going to command Elijah to come back and probably it’s going to be even hotter for them then. And after Mount Carmel when he kills 450 prophets of Baal, that’s going to be even more dangerous because Jezebel swears an oath by her gods that she’s going to kill him. God is well able to protect his servant. That is not the point. I believe that he told Elijah to disappear at that moment for two reasons. Number one, to judge his own people. And number two, to humble his prophet.
Let’s take the second one first. How would you like to be the man who gets to say when there’s rain again? I mean, wouldn’t that tempt you to get an over-inflated view of yourself? “I’m the rain man. Okay? And it’s not coming unless I say so.” “Is it coming today Elijah? I don’t think so. If you’re on good behavior, we’ll see what happens.” All right? It tends to go right to your head. Anybody is temptable. So you look at Elijah and Elijah very much, you’re going to see more we study him, is a man of action. He likes to be where the action is and to do great things for God. How tough was it to go sit by a brook and wait? And for a long time too, “I want you to go over there and sit by a brook for a while and we’ll have some prayer time together. I’ll command some unclean birds that you’re not able to eat, okay? But they’ll bring you food and you’ll drink from the brook. The brook will be there.” Of course, a brook is a brook. It’s not a river. It could dry up at any moment. “So day by day, you’re going to be trusting in me for your water and for your food and just sit there for a while.” The humbling of the prophet. And it was humbling. He had to learn to obey him and follow him no matter what God called him to do.
Now, in what sense, however, and this is even greater, I think, was it a judgment on God’s people? In closing tonight, I turn to Amos 8. Remember that I said in the song of Moses, “Hear O heavens, listen, O earth.” This is what he says. And then he says, “Let my words come to you like rain and my teaching like dew.” Right? Well, not only is there going to be a famine of water, there’s going to be a famine of the word of God. And this is what it says, Amos 8:11-12, “‘The days are coming,’ declares the sovereign Lord, ‘When I will send famine throughout the land, not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.’” This was a judgment on Israel, wasn’t it? God isn’t speaking to his people anymore. And they searched for Elijah, didn’t they? They looked everywhere for him, but they couldn’t find him. It’s enigmatic. And you know if you don’t value the word of God, he takes it away. Now, the eternal Word is always here, but as far as you’re concerned, you don’t hear it anymore. It’s gone. Your ears are closed up, your heart is hardened. You cannot listen. And so, he’s represented by just disappearing for a while and they cannot find him. And so, day after day, after day as the drought continues. They’re staggering around looking for some end, some word from God that it’s going to end and they can’t find it. And so God prepares his people to hear when Elijah finally reappears.
Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on 1 Kings 17:1-6. The main subject of the sermon is God’s provision for Elijah by the book Cherith.
– SERMON TRANSCRIPT –
Elijah is a stunning figure really to me. One of the most fascinating figures in the Old Testament. There’s some people in church history or in the biblical history that you would love to eat dinner with and some that you wouldn’t. I think he’d be terrifying to eat dinner with, but I’ll tell you, I’d love to ask him questions. This is a man that appears mysteriously, suddenly in biblical history. Really out of nowhere he suddenly appears. He appears with an oath and with a curse. And he disappears just as suddenly in a chariot of fire up to heaven. Now, this is an amazing individual, and I think it’s well worth studying and helping to understand the history of Israel at the time, but also how God can use a single faithful individual to do his will.
Now, he appears at probably one of the darkest moments in Israel’s history. In order to understand what happens in 1 King 17, you have to go back in time some to understand the history of Israel. So we’re really tonight going to be spending a good amount of time in 1 Kings 12-16 setting the stage. This was one of Israel’s darkest hours. God’s people were in a deplorable condition. God’s covenant had been grievously violated. There was gross idolatry and there was wicked leadership. To put it on a historical timeline, it’s been 58 years since the kingdom was split north and south after the death of Solomon. The northern kingdom was called Israel, Southern kingdom called Judah.
The northern kingdom of Israel immediately lurched into idolatry. Take a minute and go back to 1 Kings 12 and look at verse 26 and following. Now, the southern kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem went to Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. He got two tribes. And 10 tribes went to Jeroboam and the northern kingdom of Israel. Well, Jeroboam had a problem. The law of Moses, the book of Deuteronomy, had set aside a single place among all the tribes that all the nations, I mean all the tribes were to go to worship God. He said, “You will assemble there three times a year. The place that I choose.” And the place that had been chosen was Jerusalem and that was in Judah in the southern kingdom. And so Jeroboam thinks he’s got a problem. Look what he says in verse 26, “Jeroboam thought to himself, ‘The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam, king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.’ After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, ‘It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’ One he set up in Bethel and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin. The people went even as far as Dan to worship the one there.” Verse 31, “Jeroboam built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people even though they were not Levites. He instituted a festival on the 15th day of the eighth month like the festival held in Judah and offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made. And at Bethel he also installed priests at the high places he had made. On the 15th day of the eighth month, a month of his own choosing, he offered sacrifices on the altar he had built at Bethel. So he instituted the festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings.” Now, this is a terrible, terrible thing. He has established worship of the true God in a false way. They were worshiping Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God that had brought them out of Egypt. But they were doing it in a self-styled way. Jeroboam made up his own religion. He said, “I choose to worship God in my own way.” Now, his reasons were political. We see behind the scenes exactly what he was thinking. He was afraid he was going to lose his kingdom if they went to Jerusalem. So he had a pragmatic wisdom to it. But we see here immediately, idolatry. You see, idolatry is not just worshiping idols, but it’s also worshiping the true God in a false way, worshiping the true God in a way of your own making. So Jeroboam immediately led Israel, the northern kingdom, into sin, into corruption, into idolatry.
“Idolatry is not just worshiping idols, but it’s also worshiping the true God in a false way, worshiping the true God in a way of your own making. “
Now, AW Pink, whose book I’m following quite closely in Elijah and you can get that, I’d rather you wait until the series is over so you can think, “Wow, all the things that pastor discovers.” So wait, all right? But after I’m done, you’re going to want to pick this book up. Don’t listen to my tapes, just read the book after that. But AW Pink had this comment about the northern kingdom of Israel and he said, “Let it be duly and carefully noted that the apostasy began with the corrupting of the priesthood by installing into the divine service men who were never called and equipped by God.” Now, that’s a devastating thing, isn’t it? It’s my personal conviction that the theme of the book of Judges is the failure of the Levites properly to instruct the people. Because the Levites did not instruct the people they did not know the commands of God and they went into sin no different than Sodom and Gomorrah, ultimately. And so the lips of a priest must instruct in wisdom and righteousness, must teach the law of God. So we have these self-styled religion and these priests coming out of nowhere. We have a new festival date that no one ever thought of except the king. We have a false religious system right away.
Now, in the 58 years that followed this, seven different kings ruled over Israel. Seven different kings. Now, after Jeroboam came a son Nadab, 1 Kings 15, you can turn over there to verse 25-26, “Nadab son of Jeroboam became king of Israel in the second year of Asa, king of Judah, and he reigned over Israel two years.” Verse 26, “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord walking in the ways of his father and in his sin which he had caused Israel to commit.” Now what is that sin? I think it’s this false religious system. It is the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and at Dan. It is the following of this new festival. It is the submitting to these false priests who have been established by Jeroboam. It’s the sin of religion done in a false and idolatrous way. So Nadab follows the sin of his father, Jeroboam walking in this idolatry. Well, Nadab was assassinated by Baasha and all of Jeroboam’s families wiped out, slaughtered completely by this man Baasha.
Now Baasha was a murderer and a usurper and didn’t last long. And so his son Elah comes along next and he’s a drunkard and an idolater. He reigned only two years and one of Elah’s chariot commander Zimri rose up and assassinated Elah and all of his family, slaughtering them completely. Now, how long did Zimri last as king? Well, seven days. He was king for seven days. You can see the turmoil and the upheaval when you turn away from God away from his law, away from the covenant of Moses. Now, Omri, one of Elah’s commanders hunted Zimri down, surrounded the city he was in and burned the city to the ground. This left a northern kingdom of Israel split. There was somewhat of a civil war within a civil war because the people of God had been split into a northern and southern kingdom. It wasn’t long before Omri’s followers proved stronger than their rival. The rival, Tivni was killed and Omri reigned in Israel for 12 years. That’s a relatively stable rule in the northern kingdom. But look at 1 Kings 16:25-26. “Omri did evil,” it says, “in the eyes of the Lord and sinned more than all those before him. He walked in all the ways of Jeroboam, son of Nebat and in his sin which he had caused Israel to commit so that they provoked the Lord, the God of Israel to anger by their worthless idols.” So we see that they continue in the pattern of idolatry and in false worship. But it’s also progressing. It’s getting worse. It seems each regime is worse than the last one. Finally, Omri died and his son Ahab succeeds in as king. Now, look at 1 King 16:28-33. And this is the assessment of Ahab. If Omri was the worst up until that point, Ahab was the worst of all, “Omri,” it says, “rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria and Ahab, his son succeeded him as king. In the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel 22 years. Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel before him.” So that’s a repeated phrase. We saw it with Omri, now we see it with Ahab. Sin never stays put, does it? It doesn’t stay in one place. It’s always moving. It’s aggressive. It’s like a tumor.
So Ahab comes along and he’s the greatest in doing evil of any king Israel had experienced to that point. He continued in the idolatrous system of Jeroboam and it says he considered it a light thing, a trivial thing, nothing to do so. He’s moving out. He’s looking for religious adventure, I suppose. So he marries Jezebel. Now, Jezebel was a wicked woman and we’re going to find out more about her during our study of Elijah. But it was Jezebel that led him into Baal or Baal worship. He began to serve the Baals and worship. Now, we’ve already seen Baal or Baal worship. That word, by the way, just means lord or master and he’s somewhat like a male god and the Asherahs are the female goddesses of fertility. So we’ve already seen this worship in the book of Judges, but now for the first time after David, it comes back under this king, Ahab.
Now, the thing that we’ve got to understand is just how terrible all of this is. God had made provision for a king in the book of Deuteronomy. Now, we tend to think of the whole kingship of Saul as an aberration. If only that they had continued to follow God, they wouldn’t have asked for king. But God had made a provision in the book of Deuteronomy for a king, but this was what the king was supposed to be: he was supposed to be saturated in the word of God. He was supposed to lead the people in following God’s law. You don’t have to turn there, but you can make note of it. In Deuteronomy 17:18-20, it says this, “When the king takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law,” namely the book of Deuteronomy, “taken from that of the priests who are Levites. It is to be with him and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will,” listen, “reign a long time over the kingdom in Israel.” In other words, he’s supposed to get a copy of the law made for himself. This is where the scribes came in. They were the ones that were copying the law. They did not have printing presses. They did not have reproducing equipment like Xerox machines or other things. And so they had to be written out by hand. And so, a copy would be very costly, but the king had to have one. He had to saturate his mind in the word of God. He had to study it all the time.
Now, part of the law of Deuteronomy was that there was to be no intermarriage with the pagan people surrounding them. Deuteronomy 7, it says, “Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles, burn their idols in the fire for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” And so there’s a strict law against intermarriage. Why? Because it would lead to it immediately to spiritual consequences. We saw it in the life of Solomon as he loved foreign women and took them into his home. They led him astray. Now understand, consistently in the history of Israel, the people of God so to speak, God’s chosen people, the Jews continued to worship Yahweh, the God that had brought them out of Egypt. But they added to the worship of Yahweh, the worship of other gods and goddesses. It was synchronistic. It was never that they abandoned Yahweh per se, but they added to worship of Yahweh, they added the worship of false gods and Solomon instituted that specifically through intermarriage. Again, Pink puts it this way: “The marriage of Ahab to a heathen princess was, as might be fully expected for we cannot trample God’s law beneath our feet with impunity, fraught with the most frightful consequences. In a short time, all trace of the pure worship of Jehovah vanished from the land and gross idolatry became rampant. The golden cows were worship at Dan and Bethel. A temple had been erected to Baal in Samaria. The groves of Baal appeared on every side and the priests of Baal took full charge of religious life in Israel.”
Now, that is the situation into which Elijah is about to stand. It’s a terrible situation. And to boot right at the very end in 1 King 16:34. It says, “In Ahab’s time Heil of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son, Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son, Segub, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua’s son of Nun.” That is a very serious thing. You remember when Jericho fell, this was the very beginning of the conquest of the land of Canaan, Joshua put a curse over the city of Jericho and basically in effect said, “It must never be rebuilt because whoever attempts to rebuild it will begin the building at the cost of his firstborn son and will end the building at the cost of his youngest son.” Well, along comes this man from Bethel and disregards the curse, doesn’t think anything of it and the curse falls on him most directly. He loses two sons to the building. But you can see the attitude of casting off respect for the law of God and respect for his commands. It is terrible to consider the degradation of Israel, the turning away from the law of God, the turning away from the covenant into which Elijah stands at this present time. Only a powerful voice could bring the people of God back to a true and pure worship of God.
There needed to be stern medicine, a shocking figure really and that’s exactly what Elijah was. “In the midst of this spiritual darkness,” said Pink, “and degradation, there appeared on the stage of public action with dramatic suddenness, a solitary but striking witness to and for the living God. The most illustrious Prophet Elijah was raised up in the reign of the most wicked of the kings of Israel. This sudden appearance provides the key to all that follows.” Look at verse 1 of chapter 17. “Now, Elijah,” it says, “the Tishbite from Tishbe in Gilead said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.’” Now, this is incredible, isn’t it? Out of nowhere, this man appears, confronts this wicked and powerful man, King Ahab, and says this to him. Who is this man and what is the right that he has to make such a pronouncement? Well, in order to understand that, you have to understand the office of a prophet.
What was a prophet to God? The law of Moses was a binding covenant into which the people came when they entered the promised land. Basically in effect, God said, “You may keep this land as long as you keep the covenant. If you break the covenant, you will lose the land.” So along with the covenant came blessings and cursings. Blessings for obedience and cursing for disobedience. Repeatedly Israel would sink into rebellion against the covenant and God would send the prophets and the prophets would act in effect like covenant lawyers pressing God’s lawsuit. In effect, the prophets come and say, “You have broken the covenant. You have broken the commands of God. You’ve broken the law of Moses. And so as a result, God is going to send this curse on you.” Now, a good example of this is the idea of calling heaven and earth as witnesses. In the book of Deuteronomy 4:23 and following, take a minute and look there if you would, turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 4. Moses calls heaven and earth as witness against his own people. It says there in Deuteronomy 4:23, “Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you. Do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden for the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. After you’ve had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time, if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and provoking him to anger.” Now, this is Deuteronomy 4:26, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you’re crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.” So there’s a sense in which Moses institutes the law. The book of Deuteronomy is a record of the covenant that God made with Israel that day just before they enter the Promised Land and God calls heaven and earth to witness against his people if they break this covenant. He does it repeatedly. He does the same thing in Deuteronomy 30:17 and following. Same book, chapter 30:17 and following. “If your heart,” it says, “turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.” Chapter 30:19, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live.” You see how it works? Blessings and curses are called down on the people if they break the covenant. Deuteronomy 31:28-29, “Assemble before me all the elders of your tribes and all your officials so that I can speak these words in their hearing and call heaven and earth to testify against them for I know that after my death you are sure to become utterly corrupt and to turn away from the way that I have commanded you.” And then finally in the song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:1, it says, “Listen O heavens and I will speak. Hear O earth the words of my mouth.” And so, he’s about to sing a song, Moses is, in which he ahead of time gives out all the history of Israel. In prophetic perspective, Moses being a prophet said, “This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to rebel against me and I’m going to bring foreign armies in to destroy you.” That’s the morning sermon in Habakkuk. We’re learning about that. The Assyrians came for the northern kingdom of Israel and then later the Babylonians came for the southern kingdom. God kept his promise. It’s interesting in the song of Moses in 32:2, he says, “Let my words fall and descend like rain and dew.” Isn’t that interesting? The words of God liken to rain from heaven watering the land and bringing fruit. So suddenly Elijah appears and what does he say? “Elijah the Tishbite from Tishbe and Gilead said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord, the God of Israel lives whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.’”
Now stay in Deuteronomy for a minute. I told you that prophets were covenant lawyers. They’re appearing and basically issuing a summons to the people to come to God’s bar of justice. And there he’s going to summon heaven and earth against them as witnesses. Isaiah chapter 1:2, “Hear O heavens, listen O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I rear children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.” What is he doing? It’s court time. It’s time for judgment to come on God’s people because they’ve broken the law. So the prophets like Isaiah are God’s covenant lawyers. And so Elijah just stands to represent God to his people. And so what does this matter that, “As the Lord, the God of Israel whom- who lives and before whom I stand as he lives, I swear to you, there will be no rain nor dew until I say so.” What is that coming from? What’s coming from the command of God? Look at Deuteronomy chapter 11. Deuteronomy 11:11 and following. “But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for, the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.” So what is he saying? It’s a good land. There’s lots of rain there. It’s a beautiful place. It’s a land flowing with milk and honey. Verse 13, “So if you faithfully obey the commands I’m giving you today to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul then I will send rain on your land in its season both autumn and spring rains so that you may gather your grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle and you will eat and be satisfied.” But now look at verse 16. This is Deuteronomy 11:16. “Be careful or you’ll be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you.” Did you hear what he said? He said if you worship other gods, if you fall into idolatry, if you turn away from me, then I’m going to shut up heaven from you and there will be no rain. Now, what is Elijah doing? He’s suddenly coming and he’s calling down a curse, the covenant curse on God’s people. And why? Because they’ve broken the covenant. God stated very clearly that it would happen and now the time has come.
Now, when Elijah appears, he appears out of nowhere as we’ve said. It’s a fascinating thing. There’s no record of his parents. There’s no word of his father or mother. That’s relatively unusual. Some prophets were also this way. But I think it’s significant. There’s no mention of Elijah’s parents. Now, Elijah’s parents had given him one thing, they gave him a name. The name Elijah means: “My God is Yahweh.” That’s what it means. Now, that’s going to be significant at Mount Carmel, isn’t it? Because what are they going to call when they fall down? “The Lord, he is God.” Well, they’re just saying Elijah’s name. “You’re right Elijah. We’ve been wrong in worshiping the Baals.” So we have, indirectly, some testimony of the faith of Elijah’s parents and that they named him, “My God is Yahweh.” But we don’t know anything more about them and I think it’s very interesting, significant to me. And in this way I think he’s very similar to Melchizedek. Now, some of us are studying in the book of Hebrews on Thursday. Now, what’s the interesting thing about Melchizedek? He suddenly appears. Go ahead, Herbert. You were going to say it. What were you going to say?
[audience speaks]
Just suddenly: there’s Melchizedek. Brings a gift to Abraham and then suddenly he is gone again. Right? Book of Hebrew says, “Without father or mother, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.” Now that’s, I think, within the context of the written account. Some people think he was literally Jesus. We can talk about that another time. But the fact of the matter is at least this much is the case: within the account. Melchizedek suddenly appears, does his ministry as a priest and a king. He’s a priest king. And then suddenly disappears. How much is that like Elijah? He suddenly appears. He does the work of a prophet and then disappears up to heaven in a chariot of fire. In this way, I think he kind of foreshadows Christ eternal prophetic ministry just as Melchizedek foreshadows the priest king ministry of Jesus Christ. So much so that in Jesus’ day they were waiting for Elijah to come back, weren’t they? We’ll talk about that more later. But Elijah never died. And so there’s a kind of a timelessness to his prophetic ministry. It’s kind of eerie almost. When is Elijah coming back? And they’re always waiting for him. He just suddenly appears dramatically and speaks this oath as the Lord whom I serve lives. And then he gives the curse, “There’ll be no reign or dew” and then he disappears. It’s a stunning thing. I think it’s calculated to shock, isn’t it? I mean it’s just stunning. And Ahab is just stunned with this appearance. And what did Elijah look like? Well, he is wearing a garment of camel’s hair. He had a leather belt around his waist just like John the Baptist would look later. He’s kind of a rough and ready guy. He’s from Gilead, the mountainous region. Imagine one of those old Western mountain men like Jeremiah, somebody. I forget. You know those guys. The guys who were riding around rough and ready. They didn’t need much food. They could ride for days, one of those guys, kind of a tough guy suddenly appearing and making this pronouncement.
Now, we don’t know very much about Elijah’s character. We know in 19:10 he says, “I’ve been very jealous for the Lord, God of hosts.” I think this gives us an incredibly important glimpse into the character of Elijah. He’s very jealous or zealous for God. He’s zealous for the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And that is the key. It fueled his fervent ministry.
Now, something else fueled Elijah’s fervent ministry and it was prayer. Take a minute if you would and go over to James. Look at James 5:17. It’s a fascinating thing. Elijah was a man of prayer. He was faithful in praying for his people. Now one might think, what’s the use? It’s been nothing but 58 years of idolatry. One bad king after the next. And it’s just getting worse. Ahab is worse than Omri was. You could almost feel the sense of desperation. Jezebel is the queen now. All the prophets of Yahweh have been rounded up and many of them have been killed. Others have been driven into hiding. It seems like there’s no one left and at one point Elijah is going to say that, “I’m the only one left.” There’s nothing going on. It seems as though God has been extinguished from the northern kingdom, gone entirely. It’s almost a sense of hopelessness here if it weren’t for faith filled prayer. And so Elijah is zealous for the glory of God. And you know, what the arm of flesh cannot do, the arm of prayer can. The power of God in prayer, faith-filled prayer. Look what it says in James 5:17. It says, “Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again, he prayed and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops.” Well, this gives us an insight into Elijah prayer life. Elijah was a man of prayer, wasn’t he? What did he pray for? What did he pray earnestly for according to James 5:17? He prayed earnestly, that it what? It would not rain. Now, what kind of prayer is that? What kind of harsh, cruel mean guy is that? Do you realize that rain, water, dew, that supports life? And when you’re praying for drought, you’re praying literally in the end that people are going to die. He’s praying earnestly and zealously that the rain would stop. Prayed effectively, didn’t he? The rain did stop. It’s a fascinating thing. Look what it says here. It says he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And what was the basis of his prayer? Deuteronomy 11:17. “Now Lord, you said that if they turn away to false gods that you would shut up the heavens. Now, do what you have said.” Faith is not a matter of thinking what’s best and then going out boldly and doing it, faith is really a passive thing in which you receive the word of God and he has already told you what he intends to do, but you believe it and you trust it and you beg God to do the very thing he said he would do. And that’s what he does. He takes Deuteronomy 11:17 and brings it back to God in prayer. And he keeps praying and praying effectually, fervently. He prays that the rain would stop.
“What the arm of flesh cannot do, the arm of prayer can. “
How different is that from us? Would we have ever done that? What motivated Elijah? It was a zeal for the glory of God. “God, don’t let your name be trampled. These people are sinning against your covenant and it seems like you’re doing nothing.” Same thing with Habakkuk. “God move; God do something.” But unlike Habakkuk, he prays directly for judgment to come on his own people and that is that the heavens would stop raining.
Now, according to James 5:17, how long did he pray? Or how long did the drought last? What was it? Look carefully now, three and a half years. Now it kind of makes a difference, doesn’t it? Look over at Luke 4. Luke 4. Jesus speaks about the same thing. In Luke 4:25, Jesus says this, “I assure you that there are many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land.” Now, why am I making much about the half? Well, because I’m an engineer and I care about precise things, right? Look at chapter 18. 1 Kings 18:1, 1 Kings 18:1. “After a long time,” look what it says, “After a long time in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah. ‘Go and present yourself to Ahab and I will send rain on the land.'” Now, what does that say? “Oh, you see, there’s errors, there’s contradictions in the Bible.” No, there’s not. What does it mean? It means there had already been six months of drought by the time that Elijah presented himself to Ahab. It had already been going on for six months. And then suddenly Elijah appears and says, “No, it’s not going to end. It’s going to go on.” How powerful and effective is that? Probably they’re already looking for stockpiling water. They’re already trying to conserve. They’re already starting to feel the effects of a missed harvest. Six months already of judgment has come and it’s going to continue. And it’s indefinite too. He doesn’t say it’s going to be three more years. He just says it’s not going to happen except at my word. So for six months there’s been drought and all of that as a result of this prayer of Elijah. It’s prevailing prayer. It’s a faith-filled prayer and it’s based on God’s word.
Now, look at Elijah’s God saturated boldness. He appears after I believe six months of drought and presents himself to a wicked man, to a king. He says to King Ahab, “As the Lord, The God of Israel lives, before whom I stand.” I like that in the NASV better than “whom I serve,” “before whom I stand, surely there should be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word.” Now what is he saying here? Well, realize that there was a rainy season and then there was a non-rainy season in Israel, but during the non-rainy times, there would be dew that would come up from the earth and it would water. Nothing like that, “Water is gone. Rain is gone, dew is gone. It’s all gone except at my word.”
Now, where does that boldness come from? Well, I think he says it right in there. Look at the titles he uses about God. First of all, he calls him the Lord. You know, whenever you see in your English text there that capitalizes “L-O-R-D,” that is Yahweh that is God’s name. Eli “Jah”, the Yahweh, that is the name of God. So he uses God’s covenant name and then he calls him God of Israel. He says, “Israel is mine. You’re my treasured possession. You’re not Baal’s, you’re not Ashera’s, you’re mine.” “As the Lord, the God of Israel lives.” And why does he say as he lives? Because Baal doesn’t as I shall eminently prove at Mount Carmel. We’ll get to that later on. “He doesn’t exist. He doesn’t live. But my God lives. And as he lives, I will prove to you that he lives by the things that God does through me. There shall be neither rain nor dew at my word.” But I skipped one part. He says, “Before whom I stand.” Isn’t that powerful? There’s a sense in which Elijah has a sense that he’s always standing before God. Yes, he’s standing before Ahab. And yes, he has literally taken his life into his hands to do this. He could easily have been killed that very day. And it took incredible courage to do this. But he didn’t care about Ahab. He looked beyond Ahab. He looked up to God who had called him to do this. It was a special relationship when he says, “Before whom I stand.”
I love the quote, John Knox’s epitaph. John Knox was a bold man, perhaps one of the boldest ever. I mean, there’s a picture, I saw an engraving of him pointing a finger at Queen Mary, Mary Queen of Scots and preaching right at her. I mean, it was just an incredible courage and boldness to John Knox’s ministry. And she said, “I fear more of Knox’s prayers than of any armies that could be brought against my realm.” That was Knox. And his epitaph said this, “Here lies a man who never flattered nor feared any flesh.” Think about that. “A man who never flattered nor feared any flesh.” I think that was even more true of Elijah. He’s not there to flatter Ahab and he certainly doesn’t fear him. He fears God and he fears God alone. So he stands before him. And it reminds me also of Luke 1:19. “Before whom I stand,” means the one I’m ready to serve. “I’m ready to do anything he commands me to do. I’m standing before him to obey him.” Gabriel speaks this way, “The angel answered, ‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God and I’ve been sent to speak to you and tell you for this good news.’” So what is the root of Elijah’s boldness? It is standing in the presence of God, hearing his word and obeying it regardless of where it carries you, no matter what he calls him to do. I like Proverbs 28:1. It says, “The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” Now, in his prayer time, he’s come to something new, hasn’t he? Not only has the drought come as a result of his prayer, but God has given him a special commission. “I will not send rain again until you pray for it.” Ain’t that incredible? “There will be no rain, except at my word.” Now, that’s incredible arrogance if God didn’t send him to do it. But Elijah’s got that kind of power.
Now what happens next? It says, “Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah.” Verse 3, “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Cherith ravine east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.” Verse 5. “So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Cherith ravine, east of the Jordan and stayed there. And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.” Now, this is a fascinating thing and we’re going to close with it. Why did God command at this point, Elijah, to hide, to disappear? The immediate answer you might think is to protect him because Jezebel would try to kill him. But that doesn’t really make any sense, does it? Because at the end of this, God is going to command Elijah to come back and probably it’s going to be even hotter for them then. And after Mount Carmel when he kills 450 prophets of Baal, that’s going to be even more dangerous because Jezebel swears an oath by her gods that she’s going to kill him. God is well able to protect his servant. That is not the point. I believe that he told Elijah to disappear at that moment for two reasons. Number one, to judge his own people. And number two, to humble his prophet.
Let’s take the second one first. How would you like to be the man who gets to say when there’s rain again? I mean, wouldn’t that tempt you to get an over-inflated view of yourself? “I’m the rain man. Okay? And it’s not coming unless I say so.” “Is it coming today Elijah? I don’t think so. If you’re on good behavior, we’ll see what happens.” All right? It tends to go right to your head. Anybody is temptable. So you look at Elijah and Elijah very much, you’re going to see more we study him, is a man of action. He likes to be where the action is and to do great things for God. How tough was it to go sit by a brook and wait? And for a long time too, “I want you to go over there and sit by a brook for a while and we’ll have some prayer time together. I’ll command some unclean birds that you’re not able to eat, okay? But they’ll bring you food and you’ll drink from the brook. The brook will be there.” Of course, a brook is a brook. It’s not a river. It could dry up at any moment. “So day by day, you’re going to be trusting in me for your water and for your food and just sit there for a while.” The humbling of the prophet. And it was humbling. He had to learn to obey him and follow him no matter what God called him to do.
Now, in what sense, however, and this is even greater, I think, was it a judgment on God’s people? In closing tonight, I turn to Amos 8. Remember that I said in the song of Moses, “Hear O heavens, listen, O earth.” This is what he says. And then he says, “Let my words come to you like rain and my teaching like dew.” Right? Well, not only is there going to be a famine of water, there’s going to be a famine of the word of God. And this is what it says, Amos 8:11-12, “‘The days are coming,’ declares the sovereign Lord, ‘When I will send famine throughout the land, not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.’” This was a judgment on Israel, wasn’t it? God isn’t speaking to his people anymore. And they searched for Elijah, didn’t they? They looked everywhere for him, but they couldn’t find him. It’s enigmatic. And you know if you don’t value the word of God, he takes it away. Now, the eternal Word is always here, but as far as you’re concerned, you don’t hear it anymore. It’s gone. Your ears are closed up, your heart is hardened. You cannot listen. And so, he’s represented by just disappearing for a while and they cannot find him. And so, day after day, after day as the drought continues. They’re staggering around looking for some end, some word from God that it’s going to end and they can’t find it. And so God prepares his people to hear when Elijah finally reappears.
