Elijah - Part 2 — Leonard Ravenhill

They don't weep, they don't grieve. And since we've failed so magnificently in the last 25 years, you wonder why we don't have a minister's conference and find out where we got off the track. 4 ,000 preachers met in Amsterdam about three months ago.

A doctor was a friend of mine and his wife went a month after and she said, oh, we were going around Germany and other places. I wanted to get to Amsterdam to feel the power of God in the city. And when she got there, she didn't feel a thing.

The Witness of the Spirit-Filled Church

Isn't it amazing that 120 men from the upper room could turn a city upside down, then turn a nation upside down? And your 4 ,000 preachers gathered together for about 10 days, costing $5 million and nobody could even tell they'd been in town.

Isn't it illogical? Now, I may have many faults, but I'm not afraid of anybody. And I wonder why a preacher says every Sunday morning, I've 4 ,000 students in my school here all filled with the Holy Ghost.

And nobody knows they're in town. But they knew when 120 were in town filled with the Holy Ghost. So here's a question you might work out. What's the difference between the baptism of the Spirit in Acts 2 and the baptism of the Spirit today?

There's an awful discrepancy. You may have a headache thinking about it. Maybe you'll have a heartache before you get through the whole thing. But obviously the Church of the New Testament and the Church today are two very, very different things.

And I hope you'll make some great discoveries while you're in school here. Okay, let's look at this quickly. I'll say that a few times and not go so quickly, I suppose, but anyhow. Here we are in 1 Kings 17.

Ahab's Wickedness and Israel's Spiritual Decline

No, end of 16. Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. Now let's remember that 58 years before this there had been a dividing of the kingdom. Right before Elijah comes on the stage there had been seven kings and every king did more evil than the king before him until finally the final king does more evil than all the previous kings before him.

And that includes Jeroboam, who you may remember once made some gods out of gold and said to the people of Israel, these are your gods, O Israel. I think the thing that amazes me is how short our memories are for all of us.

How quickly we forget the mercies of God. How quickly we forget the judgments of God. But you see, this is comparable to the day in which we live. Let me read it now. Verse 31. It came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam and the sons of Nebat.

And he did a lot of evil things, Jeroboam. He took Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, the king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal and worshipped him. See what he does? He inaugurates worship to strange heathen gods.

He puts an altar for Baal in the house of Baal and he built Samaria. And he made a grove. And Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel and to anger. He did more to stir the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that know.

All the aggregate iniquity of the kings before him, this one king exceeded all their wickedness and he made God very, very angry. And he rebuilt Jericho, which you remember fallen down in the days of Joshua.

And he set the foundation stones in the blood of his son. And as we would say, everything in the garden was lovely. Everything was rolling along perfectly. Like putting the lights out one by one. The nation's morality and spirituality had been pushed away.

The preachers had gone hiding underground. And it looks as though this wicked king... It would be more correct to say he was a very weak king. His wife, Jezebel, was very wicked. And when everything in the garden was lovely, suddenly comes a little man, a rugged, rugged man by the name of Elijah.

Elijah's Prophetic Boldness Against Ahab

Looking here for a description of him. Pardon me. In the second book of Kings and the first chapter in verse 8, this is Elijah who had come up against a man who was going to do something evil. And he says in verse 8 of 2 Kings chapter 1, they answered he was a hairy man, girt with a leather girdle about his loins.

And he said, it is Elijah the Tishbite. Today our prophets have brooks brothers suits on and have their hair, what do you call it, blow-dried and head and nose and they have big rings on their fingers and showmanship.

And here's a little man that makes the whole nation to tremble. Go back to chapter 17. Elijah the Tishbite is of the inhabitants of Gilead. Now there were two Gileads. One of them was a rugged mountainous place.

And my guess is that he lived there and he was as rugged as the mountains. Rough-looking, hairy man. But the word of the Lord came unto him, verse 2, saying, get thee hence and turn eastward and hide thyself.

Elijah's Obedience to God's Command

Now look, mark that phrase there, hide thyself. 17th chapter, verse 3. Now look at 18th chapter and verse 1. Go show thyself. You know, the secret of his life is not difficult to discover. The secret of his life is this, he was obedient.

When God said, hide yourself, he didn't say, well Lord, how long am I going for and what's the apartment like? I mean, does it have hot and cold water and is there a grocery store nearby? The Lord says, you go, I've commanded the ravens to feed thee there.

God's Provision Through the Ravens

Now I don't like that. I wish it was another bird, but it was a raven anyhow. But you see, in the Hebrew, the word raven and Arab are interchangeable. So the smart scholars today say, well, it wasn't a bird that flew with his breakfast every morning.

It was an Arab. Well, have it that way if you like. That's as big a miracle as anything. Did you ever know an Arab feed a Jew? But I don't think an Arab would come flying through the air. But he brought him bread and flesh in the morning, bread and flesh.

Maybe that's a suggestion, you only need to eat twice a day. It's quite natural and yet supernatural for a raven. A raven is a carnivorous bird. What was the first bird that Noah put out of the ark? So everywhere he went, he had a choice.

Noah's Raven and Dove

He could eat a bit of an elephant, he had a smorgasbord. He could have a bit of an elephant now, a bit of a human being the next meal, a bit of somebody else. All the carcasses floating around from everybody who'd been destroyed in the world.

But when the dove went out, what did he do?