F4F | Jennifer Toledo And Waterless Rain Clouds

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Rosebro.

I am your servant in Jesus Christ. This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the

Word of God. Now, have you ever had that kind of feeling, nagging thought right in the back of your mind that maybe, just maybe, the

Bible is way better and the stories in the Bible are way more cooler and amazing, and I do mean that, than what you may be led to believe because of how poorly your vision casting leader,

Pastor Pastrix, or whoever is on stage, is not really telling the story? You ever get that feeling that maybe, just maybe, the

Bible is a little bit better than this? If so, hit the subscribe button down below, like the video, and don't forget to ring the bell, because I'm going to demonstrate what this looks like, and demonstrate that the

Bible is really an amazing, an amazing book, and it's God -breathed, it's theanoustos, it's living and active, and if you would tell the stories that are found in the

Scriptures, far more compelling, far more comforting and amazing than what you may have been led to believe because of how bad the preaching is.

Let me give an example. We're heading over to Expression 58. Yeah, I don't know what

Expression 57 or 56 was, but apparently they abandoned that one and went straight to Expression 58.

What a name for a church. Anyway, Expression 58. This is where Sean Bowles, the

Google prophet, the guy who prophesized while looking at a smartphone and has

Facebook up and stuff. Anyway, you know, he's a Google prophet. This is where he holds court, and one of the pastrixes, yeah, there's no such thing as a female pastor, but anyway, one of the pastrixes on staff is

Jennifer Toledo, and she's gonna be preaching from First Kings 18, and this is just awful what she's gonna end up doing.

It's like missing the whole point, and it's like, if you would just give a living voice to the written

Word of God, it's so much better than what you're about to hear. So you kind of get the point, and we're gonna be doing a lot of work in the biblical text ourselves, so if you want to grab a

Bible, you can. I'm gonna be in First Kings 17 and 18 because the story is just kind of that amazing, and we'll tell the whole story because it's so great, and watch what

Jennifer Toledo is doing because what she's doing is not uncommon. It's quite common.

It's so common that it's like one of the major subtexts of my entire podcasting, radio, now

YouTubing career, you know, but I think you get the point. So the name of the sermon that we'll be listening to a portion of is titled

Pro versus Rookie, and let's see what Jennifer Toledo has to say, shall we?

I'm genuinely impressed this many Angelinos made it out of their house on a rainy day.

I mean, give it up for yourself. Let's give ourselves a good pat on the back, shall we?

It's pretty awesome. Yeah, we are. Well, it is good to be here this morning.

I love being at this church. I think I've said this so many times, but when we talked about first planting this church, one of our friends,

Wesley Campbell, him and his wife had planted a church, and he said, oh my gosh, I just need to tell you this.

He says, if you're gonna actually do that, if you're gonna plant a church, you better make sure it's a church you actually want to go to, and I was like, that's some good advice right there because there's a lot of people out there going to churches or leading churches they don't even like being at, and I'm like,

I love this church. I love everything about this church. I love you guys. I love this community. We feel so incredibly honored just to get to be on the

God journey with you guys, so happy Sunday. Happy Sunday. It's good to be on the

God journey, yeah. All right, well, I have been, as I've just been praying for this word this morning and asking

God what's on his heart, I feel like God's going after something with us. Okay, so right off the bat, this bad sign.

This is a bad sign. So, you know, let's talk about a common practice, shall we?

It's not merely a charismatic process or practice. This is kind of like throughout the visible church.

Pastor gets up and says, you know, I really feel that the Lord is like leading me to like chuck my sermon notes, and I'm just gonna tell you what

I feel that God is saying right now. No, that's manipulation, because at this point, anybody who says, wait a second,

Pastor, what you said is not biblical, or you contradicted the

Word of God, the pastor says, no, the Lord laid out on my heart, so you're opposing

God now by critiquing my sermon. Yeah, it's a form of manipulation.

So, note then, the job of a pastor is to preach the Word, and let me kind of throw this in at the beginning here.

Let's take a look at Acts chapter 20, shall we? Acts...let's

see, I got to spell it right. Yeah, Acts...yeah, I got to learn how to type. Anyway, Acts chapter 20, and Acts chapter 20, we see the

Apostle Paul is giving his farewell address to the pastors in the congregations in Ephesus, in the city of Ephesus.

And I want you to consider the magnitude of what he says here, because it's actually quite weighty.

So Paul, in his farewell address, says to these pastors, you yourselves know how

I lived among you the whole time, from the first time that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility, with tears and trials that happened to me through the plots of the

Jews, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public from house to house.

And so you'll note here, he's talking about not shrinking back from declaring to you anything that was profitable.

It's common practice today, unfortunately. A lot of pastors, they shrink back from declaring the whole truth, because they know if they were to give a living voice to the truth of Scripture and what it says in its entirety, that they could find themselves forced out of their job, and out onto the streets, and so they shrink back from declaring the whole truth.

That's a real possibility. And so the Apostle Paul goes on, and he talks about, again, the things that he did, and so we'll continue as he continues his address then.

So, I was testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance towards God, and of faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ. Now behold, I'm going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the

Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value, nor is precious to myself, if only

I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

Now behold, I know that none of you among whom I've gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore, I testify to you this day, and here's the part we want to pay attention to,

I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all.

Innocent of the blood? Huh? For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

Hmm. So you'll note here, you know, the way he phrases it makes me go, wait a second, are you saying that pastors who shrink back from declaring the full counsel of the

Word of God, that they could have blood on their hands?

Oh yeah. You shrink back from preaching the full counsel of the Word of God, and somebody in your congregation ends up in hell on your watch, because you didn't do your job, their blood is on your hands.

Read the Prophet Ezekiel. So you get the idea here. Now, by way of practice then, so this is a big deal, the job of a pastor is not only to preach the

Word, but to preach the whole counsel of the Word of God. All of God's law, sin, and repentance, and the forgiveness of sins, and bearing fruit in keeping with repentance, placarding

Christ, not shaving off any of the hard edges, and you got to preach the whole counsel of the Word of God.

This is one of the reasons why, very early on, Christianity adopted a system that was called a lectionary.

And the idea behind the lectionary is that in one calendar year, there are assigned readings for every single

Sunday, and every single church service, and that in the course of a 12 -month span, you would cover all of the major doctrines of the

Christian faith in one year, and then you would do it again the next year, and do it again the next year.

Now, as a pastor, I follow a lectionary. I follow a three -year lectionary, and note that every single year, every 12 months, in that course of time, as I preach through the lectionary, we cover all of the points of creation, of the

Bible, from creation to the fall of mankind into sin, the death, resurrection, burial of Christ, we cover the virgin birth, we cover his bodily resurrection from the grave, the expansion of the church, the importance of sound doctrine.

All of the major doctrines of Christianity are covered every single year, so that I can say, after I've run my course, that I'm innocent of the blood of all, and I don't shrink back from declaring to anybody the whole counsel of the

Word of God, and so you'll note that's kind of an important thing. So the idea of coming to my congregation on a

Sunday morning and saying, you know, I was really seeking, Lord, what's on your heart this

Sunday? What was it that you'd like to say? The Bible's already clear on this.

The job of a pastor is to preach the Word, and it's the whole counsel of the Word of God, lest you be guilty of the blood of some of the people in your congregation.

Just saying! So, you know, this is nonsense. Let me back this up so we can hear Jennifer kind of spew this out.

Sorry for the bunny trail and the tangent, but you know, I'm prone to those from time to time. All right, well,

I have been, as I've just been praying for this Word this morning and asking God what's on his heart,

I feel like God's going after me. God, what's on your heart, Lord? What's on your heart?

What do you want to share? No, this is nonsense. Something with us. How many of you guys were at salt

Friday morning when I talked about circling Jericho? Okay. Have you circled your

Jericho yet? So I feel like this message, don't worry if you weren't there, but I feel like this message is a little bit going after the same thing.

I believe it, and I know that there are people in this room that are believing God for some crazy things right now. Are you believing

God for the crazy stuff? Yeah. People in this room that are believing to see some things shift. Are you praying for some shiftings?

Okay. People that are believing to see some miracles, people that are believing to see some, you know, just a shift in your industry.

Are you believing for a shift in your industry? Family, or in your health, or whatever it is, and this is a community that believes what we're saying this morning, that he is the

God of miracles, and so I feel like God has us like in an intensive training program.

I feel that, yeah. I feel feelings. Nothing more than feelings.

Yeah, okay. Of how we can truly know who he is in the undiluted gospel, and truly be disciples of his, and get really good.

Rather than talk about it, why don't you like get on to it, you know, like get into the text. Just do it.

Not being intimidated by the impossible, because... Are you intimidated by the impossible to dream the impossible dream?

We're called to shift things. No, the church is called to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching all that Christ has commanded. Yeah, this is nonsense.

This is a house that is called to shift things. You are people. This is a house. Yeah, everybody else, they're not called to do the shifting thingy, but we are!

We're shifty here, yeah. Who are called, when in the face of impossibility, to say, not my

God. That impossibility needs to sit down. Have you stared impossibility in the face, and told it to take a seat?

Yeah, well, you may not be called to do that in your house, but the people there at Expression 58, that's what they're called to do in their house, yeah.

Right, that sickness needs to bow its knee. That injustice needs to stop. Sickness needs to bow its knee.

Uh -huh. That's who our God is. Our God is the God who does the wild, the impossible, the crazy.

You can't, there is no such thing. All right, so note with the setup here. I mean, what she's gonna end up omitting from this story doesn't make any sense, because she's huge emphasis on the miraculous, right?

Yeah, we tell impossibility to take a seat. Impossibility, you can't be standing in my presence.

Sit down, yeah. That you'd think that where she would spend her time, is that the actual miracle portion of like 1st

Kings 18, because there's an amazing miracle that happens there. It's bonkers, crazy, awesome, but yeah, let's keep going here.

No matter what anybody might try to sell you, there is no such thing as like a sterile, watered -down, safe, little vanilla

Christianity. There's no such thing. Yeah, no such thing at all.

Not the God of the Bible. No. He's wild. He's wild, man, yeah. Jesus, he's crazy, man.

He's crazy to go nuts, dude. He's powerful. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Our God, our God is all just. Our God is all powerful. He's the God who raises the dead.

He's the God who can turn a heart. He's the God who can save a nation in the day. That is the... Granted, Christ is all powerful.

This is most certainly true, but Richard, this is kind of sloganizing in the abstract here. I mean, the text you're gonna be looking at, you know, 1st

Kings 18, whoa, man, there's some powerful stuff that God's up to here. Let's see if you can tell the story.

The God we serve, and you and I are made in his image. We are designed for the wild.

We are designed to see the impossible shift. I'm designed for the wild. No, I'm just too tired.

I'm old, man. It's like, I I'm not into the wild. I'm into, like, getting to bed by, like, 9 o 'clock, you know, sleeping until 7 if I can.

We are designed for the hard. It's who we are, and so I'm excited this morning for the word that I feel like God has some, just some really good practical life points for us.

Yeah, she feels that. God has some great practical life points. Yeah, remember the setup here?

You ever get the feeling that the Bible's, like, way better than, yeah, than what you're led to believe if you're listening to bad sermons like this one?

I'm gonna be in 1st Kings 18 if you have your Bibles. Yeah. 1st Kings 18. It'll be on the screen for you as well.

I'm gonna read verses 1 and 2 and then jump down to 41 through 46. What? Why?

1st Kings 18. 1 and 2. 41 to 46.

Let me ask you a question. I mean, have you ever seen, and I mean the original

Star Wars, A New Hope, right? Oh man, when I was a kid that thing came out.

I went to the Grauman's Chinese Theater. I was living in Southern California at the time. My parents took me to see it at the Chinese Theater, man.

Place where the cement, where the stars put their handprints and their footprints and stuff. Sauce! And it blew my mind.

It was, I couldn't stop talking about it for like ever, right? Of course, I was in grade school at the time.

But that being said, I mean, could you imagine saying, you know, it's like, alright, let me tell you about Star Wars.

Okay, so what happened? Alright, so there's this guy, his name is

Luke Skywalker, and he lives on a planet called Tatooine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, and then at the end,

Princess Leia puts a medal on him and Han Solo and Chewbacca.

The end. What happened in the middle of the story? Well, I don't really feel like that's important because, you know, we got some practical life tips that we need to be gleaning from the story.

You know, who tells a story like that? You know, you got, what? You know, so that's what she's doing.

It's like, she's just like, kind of like in the beginning -ish part and then like right to the end and she skips all the juicy, awesome middle parts.

Why would you do that? Let's let her read. I want to say this.

This is a house that loves the Word of God. No, you don't. You don't love the

Word of God and do what you're doing with this story. We love the Word of God. No, if you love the

Word of God, you don't even have to say you love it. It will be obvious based upon how you handle the text and how you can't wait to get into it.

It seems like you're trying to avoid what it's teaching and saying. It's not like a, oh,

I better throw a little verse in my sermon. This is, the Word of God instructs us.

It changes us. It is living. It is active. Indeed. Why did you cut out all the big, juicy parts of the story?

It brings us into alignment. There is so much in the Word of God that we need in our lives.

So, yay for the Word of God. Okay. Yay for the Word of God. Go read your

Bible. Um, all right, 1st Kings 18. All right, so 1st Kings 18. Here comes verses 1 and 2.

After a long time, in the third year, the Word of the Lord came to Elijah. Go and present yourself to...

Third year of what? In the third year. Third year of what? How do you tell a story this way?

Ahab, and I will send rain on the land. So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab.

All right, so that's verses 1 and 2. Verse 41. I feel like I need to put on my

Evel Knievel outfit, you know, like put on my Stars and Stripes helmet and get on my motorcycle. We're gonna jump!

Verses 3 to 40, right now! What is he doing here?

Who does this? And Elijah said to Ahab, go eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.

So Ahab went off to eat and drink. Why is there rain? I hear the sound of a heavy rain.

Where'd that come from? Why is that important? But Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground, and put his face between his knees.

Go and look towards the sea, he told his servant. Note the sea part. That's kind of important.

We'll talk about that in a minute. And he went up and looked. There's nothing there, he said.

Seven times Elijah said, go back. Seven whole times back. The seventh time the servant reported, a cloud as small as a man's hand is rising from the sea.

So Elijah said, go and tell Ahab, hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.

Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling, and Ahab rode off to Jezreel.

The power of the Lord came on Elijah, and tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.

Sometimes you're just like reading through the Bible, and then you like stop and actually think about what you're reading. You're like, dude, that's crazy. So this is a story of a nation coming out of a drought.

You don't say! Really? Yeah, whole nation coming out of a drought. Why were they in the drought?

What caused the drought? Was there a mitigating circumstance behind the drought? Tell me more.

And what had happened here is actually Elijah had prophesied that there would be a drought. Right, why?

Why did he prophesy there would be a drought? Three and a half years prior, and for three and a half years, the nation is in a terrible drought.

Therefore famine, therefore suffering, therefore hard, dry time.

And you know, I think it's interesting because I think so for so many of us, we're afraid of dry times.

We hate dry times. And there's the reason why she jumped the

Grand Canyon of verses here and avoided verses 3 and through 40.

37, that's a 37 verse jump! Why? Because she just wants to allegorize the drought and talk about dry times in our life.

That's not what this text is about. In fact, it's so much better than this.

All right, let's do a little bit of work, shall we? All right, we are going to go to 1

Kings chapter 17, and this is where the story begins. And I gotta tell you,

I mean, this is one of the best stories in all of the Bible. There are few that are this amazing.

And what we're gonna read about is like the the Super Bowl death match of religious showdowns.

And that's in chapter 18 in the 37 verses she skipped. And chapter 17 gives us the setup for this the showdown, and it's unbelievable, and it's comforting and convicting all at the same time when you consider the implications of what has happened here.

So, a little bit of the background. We're in the northern kingdom of Israel. Israel has split off into northern and southern kingdoms, and the northern kingdom is steeped in idolatry, so much so that the reigning king of Israel, of the northern kingdom,

Ahab, has married a woman whose name is Jezebel, and you would pronounce it in Hebrew Jezebaal, and the reason is quite simple.

She is the daughter of a priest of Baal, and Jezebaal means the princess of Baal.

Now, if you're not familiar with the with the false god Baal, Baal, according to his believers,

Baal was the god of the sky who brought the rain. And so, you know, you would sacrifice to Baal, and in some sects and splinters of Baal worship, it also involved human sacrifice.

These people were wicked beyond belief, and and so as the mythos God went, Baal is the one who brings the rain, and so what

God is doing in this text is having mercy on the people of Israel who are ensnared in idolatry, and he is going to miraculously demonstrate that Baal does not exist.

Baal does not bring the rain, but that he does, and the purpose of all of this is to call people back to himself, to call them to repent of their idolatry, to be forgiven, and for them to be restored, you know, to be reconciled to the

God against whom they had sinned so grievously by by abandoning the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods, and whoring after the false god

Baal. That's really what the story is about, and so we'll take a look at this, and you know, there's even connections in one way or another that point us back to Christ, and I'll show you those because they are utterly amazing when you consider what's in this text.

Alright, so 1st Kings 17, here's the setup. Elijah the Tishbite of Tishbi in Gilead, so this is the first appearance of Elijah, he said to Ahab as Yahweh.

Now, some of you ask the question from time to time, why do you say Yahweh? The reason why is actually quite simple, is because when you look in the

Old Testament, there's a fascinating thing that happens in the Old Testament, and that is that when you look at your

English translations, it says capital L, capital O, capital R, capital

D, and here's an example. I have it highlighted on the screen here. Lord.

The Hebrew word behind that is the actual name of God. The actual name of God is

Yahweh. That's God's name. You ever heard the phrase

Hallelu -Yah? Praise Yahweh.

Yah, that's his name. So Joshua, yeah, yeah, you get the idea. There's all kinds of, you know, names that help us understand that Yahweh is the name of God, and so that's the tetragrammaton.

So here's what Elijah said to Ahab. As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives before whom

I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word.

So this is a throwdown, man. Basically, Elijah's saying, Baal don't bring no rain, man.

I'll prove it to you, it ain't gonna rain until I say so. And so as soon as he says this, the word of the

Lord came to him and said, depart from here and turn eastward. Hide yourself by the brook

Kerith, which is east of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.

So he went and did according to the word of Yahweh. He went and lived by the brook

Kerith, that is east of the Jordan, and the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook, and after a while the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land.

Then the word of Yahweh came to him, rise and go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there.

So we're now heading into total pagan territory in the region of Tyre in Sidon, which is along the coast of the

Mediterranean north of Israel. And so he's heading off to Zarephath, behold I have commanded a widow there to feed you, and when he arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold a widow was there gathering sticks, and he called to her and said, bring me a little water in a vessel that I may drink.

And as she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.

And she said, as Yahweh, your God, not mine, your God, Elijah, lives,

I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I'm gathering a couple of sticks that I might go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and dine.

So Elijah said to her, do not fear, go and do as you said, but first make a little cake of it, bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son.

For thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, the jar of flour shall not be spent, the jug of oil shall not be empty until the day that Yahweh sends rain upon the earth.

And she went and did as Elijah said, and she and he and her household ate for many days.

The jar of flour was not spent, and neither did the jug of oil become empty according to the word of Yahweh that he spoke by Elijah.

And after this, the son of the woman, mistress of the house, became ill, and his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.

And she said to Elijah, what have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son.

And so at this point, her son has become deathly ill, and he's gonna die here.

And he has died, actually, he has died. And she is, at this point, believing that the reason why her son has died is because of her sin, that God is punishing her.

And you'll know that God is miraculously sustaining her at this point, you know, keeping her alive in the midst of the severe famine.

And so she is convinced, O man of God, what have you got against me?

You've called to bring my sins against me, it is my sin who's killed my son. And you're gonna know then that God acts in mercy, rather than Elijah saying, yeah, you're right, woman, you're such, you're a pagan unbeliever, how dare you?

You know, you got what you deserved, woman. No, instead, Elijah prays on behalf of her, and prays for the life of this boy.

And God has mercy, mercy on her.

So he said to her, give me your son. So he took him from her arms, carried him up into the upper chamber where he laid him on his own bed.

And he cried to Yahweh, O Yahweh, my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom

I sojourned by killing her son? So then he stretched himself upon the child three times, father, son,

Holy Spirit, right? Yeah, little allusions there to the Trinity. And he cried to Yahweh, O Yahweh, my

God, let this child's life come into him again. And this is an amazing statement.

Listen to this one. Yahweh listened to the voice of Elijah. He listened. And the life of the child came in him again, and he revived.

And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother.

And Elijah said, see, your son lives. And the woman said to Elijah, now

I know you are, and that the word of Yahweh in your mouth is truth.

And so now, now she believes in Yahweh.

And God has had mercy on her. Rather than giving her what she deserves, he has sustained her through the, you know, through the drought, through the famine.

And he has had mercy on her, although she felt guilty and was convicted of her own sin and felt that she was the one responsible for the death of her son.

God had mercy on her and restored his life, brought him back from the dead after listening to the voice of Elijah.

And he had mercy on her. And now she believes in God, the one true

God. So, so far, so good. Now we come to chapter 18.

This is where Jonah Toledo begins, and she only reads the first two verses, and then does the 37 verse jump over the, over the best part of the story.

And so here's, here's where things get interesting. So, after many days, the word of Yahweh came to Elijah in the third year, saying, go show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth.

So now, okay, enough is enough. I've made my point, but Baal is powerless to bring the rain, and so God is sending

Elijah back, and he's to present himself before Ahab, and then God is going to bring rain, because Baal can't.

So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. Now, the famine was severe in Samaria, and Ahab called

Obadiah, who was over the household. Now Obadiah feared Yahweh greatly, and when

Jezebel cut off the prophets of Yahweh, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.

So now we get a feel for just how wicked Jezebel is. She cuts off the real prophets of God, cuts them off even to the point of killing them, and so Obadiah, in, in quiet civil disobedience, he takes the prophets of the

Lord, he's, he can, he can sustain a hundred of them, and he's hidden them in caves, and he's fed them himself, fed him, that he's fed them himself.

So Ahab said to Obadiah, you go through the land, all the springs of water, to all the valleys, perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and the mules alive, and not lose some of the animals.

So they divided the land between them to pass through it. Ahab went in one direction by himself, and Obadiah went in another direction by himself, and as Obadiah was on the way, behold,

Elijah met him, and Obadiah recognized him, and fell on his face, and said, is it you, my

Lord, Elijah? And he answered him, it is I. Go tell your Lord, behold,

Elijah is here. And he said, how have I sinned that you would give your servant into the hand of Ahab to kill me?

As Yahweh, your God, lives, there's no nation or kingdom where my Lord has not sent to seek you.

And when they would say he's not here, he would take an oath of the kingdom, or the nation, that they had not found you.

And now you say, go tell your Lord, behold, Elijah is here, and as soon as I have gone from you, the spirit of Yahweh will carry you.

I know not where, and so when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find you, he will kill me, although I, your servant, have feared

Yahweh from my youth. Has it not been told, my Lord, what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of Yahweh?

And so again, you can see just how wicked Ahab and Jezebel are. Jezebel has murderously killed, slain, the true voices of the one true

God. That's how wicked and evil and idolatrous this woman is. He says, so has it not been told, my

Lord, what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of Yahweh? How I hid a hundred men of Yahweh's prophets by fifties in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.

And now you say, go and tell your Lord, behold, Elijah's here? He'll kill me! And Elijah said, as Yahweh, the

God of armies, lives before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.

So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. And now,

I mean, here's the big reveal. I mean, Elijah hasn't been seen for three years, and Ahab is now going to see him for the first time in three years.

And listen to just how blind and upside down Ahab is in his religious beliefs.

He literally is so deceived and under the clutches of the dominion of darkness, that he thinks that good is evil, and that evil is good.

That's a state that all of us can be in. In fact, some of us have been there and done that.

If it's not for the grace of God, we would be as blind and wicked as Ahab and Jezebel.

But listen to what he says. So when Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, is it you, you troubler of Israel?

Now, Elijah is not the problem here. Ahab and Jezebel are the problem here because of their idolatry, their murdering of the true prophets of God.

So Elijah answered, I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of Yahweh and followed the

Baals. Now therefore, send and gather all of Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal, and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table.

So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel, and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel.

Now, I'm gonna do a little aside here. I want to point something out to you, and I'm gonna do a little search.

So here's how the false teaching goes. And the false teaching goes something like this, that during the drought, when

Elijah reestablishes the altar of God, and he tells the people of Israel to pour water on it, not once, but not twice, but three times, and we'll talk about that in a minute, that when he tells them to pour water on it, that what that means is that God was expecting them to tithe first before he would perform a miracle.

That's not how that works at all. And so you'll note, although it's in the middle of a drought, and there's a severe famine, and there's rain has not been on the land of Israel for three years, that the answer to the question, where'd the water come from, is actually quite simple.

The big blue wet thing. It's the big blue wet thing right there called the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, if you were to on the

Google Maps website here, and you were to take a look at photographs of what it looks like from, you know,

Mount Carmel, well here's one of the views from Mount Carmel. Lots and lots and lots and lots of water right there.

You know, just saying. So you kind of get the idea. Less than a mile away.

So there's plenty of water there for them to put water on the sacrifice.

I'm just saying that that was a little bit of a side, but let's come back to the story. All right, so verse 20 again.

So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel, gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel, and Elijah came near to all the people.

He said, how long will you go limping between two different opinions?

If Yahweh is God, follow him. If Baal, then follow him.

And the people did not answer him a word. That's some stubborn, stiff -necked kind of stuff going on here.

And so rather than judge them though, God's gonna have mercy on them.

So Elijah said to the people, I, even I only, I am left a prophet of Yahweh, but Baal's prophets are 450 men.

So let two bowls be given to us. Let, and let them choose one bowl for themselves, cut it in pieces, lay it on the wood, put no fire to it.

I'll prepare the other bowl, lay it on the wood, put no fire to it. And you call upon the name of your

God, I'll call upon the name of Yahweh. And the God who answers by fire, he is

God. And all the people answered, well, that is well spoken. So Elijah said to the prophets,

Baal, choose for yourselves one bowl, prepare it first, for you are many, and then call upon the name of your

God, but put no fire to it. So they took the bowl that was given them, and they prepared it, and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying,

Oh, Baal, answer us. But there was no voice, and no one answered.

And you know why? Because Baal don't exist. He's a myth.

Yep, that's right. You can kind of think of it this way, if you had a phone, Baal, you would get this annoying sound, doo -doo -doo, we're sorry, but the number you're trying to reach is no longer in service, or has been disconnected.

Please check the number and try again. So, yep, there they go, then, Baal's not answering. Of course, this is not looking good for Baal, because remember,

Baal, according to these believers in Baal, Baal's the one who brings the rain, right?

Hadn't rained for three years. So, Oh, Baal, answer us. There was no voice, no answer, so they limped around the altar that they had made.

And then probably one of the most amazing couple of verses in the

Bible. And so at noon, Elijah mocked them and said, cry louder.

He's a God, right? Maybe he's musing. Next part is a little more graphic in the

Hebrew. Or maybe he's relieving himself. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, the picture is actually quite graphic in the Hebrew. Maybe he's in the latrine, pinching off a loaf.

You know, just saying, that's what, yeah, maybe your God's relieving. So, you gotta shout louder, he can't hear you, because the door is closed.

He's reading a newspaper or something, right? So, maybe he's on a journey. Maybe, I know, he's asleep.

Yeah, that's right. Baal's asleep, and he must be, he's got to be awakened. So, they cried aloud, and then they cut themselves after their customs with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them.

Now, a little bit of a note here. And now we see the major difference between the one true

God and a false god like Baal. The prophets of Baal are cutting themselves as if somehow their blood will propitiate the wrath or invoke the grace and the mercy and the favor of their deity.

But see, this is where the difference between the one true God and the false God stands out starkest.

God doesn't expect you to bleed and to die. You cannot get his attention by cutting yourself, nor is he turned aside from you unless your blood gushes.

Instead, the one true God became a man, was born of the Virgin Mary, and he suffered, he bled, he died for you, so that you can be reconciled to the

Father, so that the Lord would hear his voice and would not be turned away from you because of your sin.

And there's the stark difference. So, here the prophets of Baal are cutting themselves as if somehow that will finally get

Baal's attention, as if somehow Baal would miss the great showdown, the Super Bowl of religious showdowns, death match here, you know, celebrity death match between Baal and Yahweh, and as if somehow

Baal has something better to do, right? It's nonsense. So as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no one answered, no one paid attention because this

God doesn't exist. So Elijah said to all the people, come near me, and all the people came near him, and he repaired the altar of Yahweh that had been thrown down.

There was an altar there, and Israel in their blindness and in falling for the snares of the devil and the deceptions of the devil and believing in worshiping

Baal, they had thrown down the altar that had been there, set up to the one true

God, and now Elijah rebuilt it. So Elijah took 12 stones, invoking the 12 patriarchs, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of Yahweh came, saying,

Israel shall be your name. And with the stones he built an altar in the name of Yahweh, and he made a trench about the altar as great as would contain two seers of seed, and he put wood in order, cut the bowl in pieces, laid it on the wood, and he said, a little bit of a note here, you'll note that the sacrifice is laid on the wood.

So was Christ. Christ was laid on the wood of the cross, and he had his hands and feet nailed to the cross.

He was the sacrifice for our sins. And so you'll note here, the bowl is laid on the wood of the cross.

And so Elijah said, fill four jars with water, pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.

He said, do it a second time, and did it a second time. And he said, do it a third time, and he did it a third time.

Now it's as if this sacrifice is being baptized in the name of the Father, and the

Son, and the Holy Spirit. So note, I mean, you can see all the connections, but wait till you see what the next connection is.

So the water ran around the altar, filled the trench also with the water. And at the time of the offering of the oblation, pause right there.

What time of the day is it? This text tells us exactly what time of the day it is.

It's 3 in the afternoon. This is the time of the evening sacrifices. According to the Mosaic Covenant, there were two sacrifices that were part of a daily sacrifices that had to be done.

One was the morning sacrifice, the one was the evening sacrifice. The evening sacrifice that was a sacrifice at the time of the prayer of the oblation.

And even the psalmist talks about this time of the day. Oh Lord, let my prayers rise before you as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

The evening sacrifice, the time of the oblation. This was the time of the day in Jesus's parable of the

Pharisee and the tax collector, that the Pharisee prayed about himself. Oh Lord, I thank you that I'm not like other men.

He goes on to pat himself on the back so bad he gets tennis elbow. But that tax collector, at the time of the oblation, at the time of the evening sacrifice, couldn't even lift his eyes to heaven.

And he said, Lord have mercy on me. Be propitious towards me.

He's making, he's referencing the sacrifice that's on the altar at 3 in the afternoon.

Have mercy on me a sinner. And so now it's 3 in the afternoon. This, by the way, is the exact time when

Jesus Christ breathed his last, as he was languishing, suffering, bleeding, and dying for your sins and mine on the cross.

At 3 in the afternoon he cried out in a loud voice to Telistai, it is finished.

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. 3 in the afternoon, this is a big time of day biblically.

This is the time now when God is gonna have mercy on his idolatrous people who have abandoned him and his commands and his word and forsaken him, thrown down his altars and followed after the

Baals. And he's gonna have mercy. You'll see this. So the time of the offering, the oblation,

Elijah the prophet came near and he said, O Yahweh, God of Abraham, of Itzhak, of Israel, let it be known this day that I, that you are

God in Israel. And that I am your servant, that I have done all these things at your word.

So answer me, O Yahweh, answer me, that this people may know that you,

O Yahweh, are God. And listen to the next part of the prayer. And that you have turned their hearts back, that you are bringing them to repentance.

That's what he's praying. And that was his prayer. And then the fire of Yahweh fell, consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.

And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, Yahweh, he is

God. Yahweh, he is God. And you're gonna note that the fire of God fell on the sacrifice, not on them.

These adulterous, idolatrous people who have betrayed and turned their backs on God, he burned up the offering, not them.

And they now fall in repentance, and they confess that Yahweh is the true

God. But God's judgment now will be meted out against the false prophets, because according to the

Mosaic Covenant, when somebody is a false prophet and an idolater in Israel, the penalty is the death penalty.

And so Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of all, let not one of them escape. And they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the

Brook Kishon and slaughtered them there. So then Elijah said to Ahab, go up and eat and drink, for there is the sound of the rushing of rain.

And now you can see, this by the way, verse 41, is where where Jennifer Toledo landed, you know.

So yeah, she jumped verses 3 to 40, and then she lands on verse 41.

But I mean, even verse 41, when you put it back in its context, is mind -blowingly amazing.

It's, the drama is unbelievable. So Ahab was there, he saw this all go down, now all of the prophets of all that ate at Jezebel's table, they're dead in the

Brook Kishon, and Elijah says, hey Ahab, you go up and eat and drink, for there's the sound of the rushing of rain.

I told you it wasn't gonna rain until I said so. And unfortunately

Ahab doesn't repent. So Ahab went up to eat and to drink, and Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel, and he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees, and he said to his servant, go now and look toward the sea.

And you'll note, yeah, of course the sea is quite visible, it's less than a mile away from Mount Carmel. Go now and look toward the sea.

So he went up and looked and said, there's nothing. He said go again, seven times.

And at the seventh time he said, behold a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea.

He said, you go up and you say to Ahab, prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.

It is like, it's as if he's like twisting the knife here. Yeah, hurry up before the rain stops you, because it ain't bringing no rain.

Yahweh is bringing the rain. It's coming now, you better hurry up, right? So in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain, and Ahab rode and went to Jezreel, and the hand of Yahweh was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.

Now the story continues, it's kind of a there's an epilogue to this, it's kind of fascinating, but I think you get the point here.

This is an amazing story. This is one of the pinnacle stories in all of Scripture, of the mercy that God had on an idolatrous nation that had forsaken him to worship a false

God, and the mercy he had in calling them back to himself, and obliterating, obliterating any doubt in their minds that he was the true

God, and of destroying the claims of the worshipers of Baal, that Baal is the one who brings the rain.

It's not. Baal, it's the one true God who brings the rain. And so, I mean, and even the connections at the time of the oblation that connect back to Christ, and his suffering, bleeding, and dying for our sins, that's all in there as well, if you pay attention to the details, and listen to what

Jesus says about the fact that the Scriptures testify about him. Well, Jennifer Toledo, like we've already noted, jumped 37 verses.

Just shot right over them, and now she's talking about how the drought somehow is symbolic of dry times in our life.

Like I said, the Bible's so much better than this, but let's back up Jennifer Toledo. We'll back her up 15 whole seconds, and hear it again.

Drought, therefore famine, therefore suffering, therefore hard, dry time.

And, you know, I think it's interesting because I think so for so many of us, we're afraid of dry times.

We hate dry times. I assure you, this text has nothing to do with any dry times in your life.

We do everything in our power to get out of a dry time. Maybe it's a dry time financially, or in your health, or in your religion.

I assure you, this 1st Kings 17 and 18 has nothing to do with financial dryness.

Relationships, or a dry season. I want to just say this, we don't need to fear the dry seasons, because dry seasons aren't always bad.

You see what I mean? I mean, give me the Bible, as opposed to this nonsense.

I mean, the Bible is so much better than what she's doing to it. She's completely butchering it and mangling it.

She shouldn't be preaching in the first place. And what she's doing is evacuating this text of all of its real meaning and significance, and its connection back to Jesus.

And she's turned it into an allegory about financial dry seasons in your life, and nonsense like that.

Really? In fact, certain lessons can only be learned in a drought.

There's a certain growth that happens in your life, that your roots are only forced to grow deeper, and stronger, to withstand more fruit.

In a dry season, right? Dry seasons can change you, and sometimes God will use dry seasons to work some things out in us.

Yeah, like how God used a dry season in that drought to work some idolatry out of Israel.

He's gonna work, he's gonna use dry seasons to, you know, work some stuff out. This is gobbledygook.

This is utter nonsense. Is it any wonder that, you know, let me show you,

I'm gonna do this from memory here. All right, hang on a second here. I'm going to look for the word waterless.

It's in the book of Jude. Hang on, waterless, there we go. And hang on a second,

I gotta do a New Testament search. In the, not the Gospels, I want the epistles. There we go, let's see here.

Yeah, here we go. Talking about the false teachers. Peter and Jude talk about the false teachers this way.

These are waterless springs, mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.

Jude verse 12 says this of false teachers. These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear.

Shepherds feeding only themselves, they are waterless clouds swept along by winds.

Fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted. And I think that's what

Jennifer Toledo is. She's a waterless cloud. I mean, this, she's not bringing the rain.

She's doing everything she can to make sure the rain doesn't come. It's so sad.

It's into alignment to mature us, and this is, you know, in a lot of ways what's happening in this story, I mean, there was some real sin happening.

Yeah, like idolatry. God, you know, there was some judgment happening as well. Yeah, why didn't you talk about that?

Old Testament style over here. But this is, but also you have this opportunity where God is refining his people, and he's inviting them to come into alignment, and he's inviting them to come into alignment.

He was calling him to repentance. He's, you know, working on some mess and some things, and creating some opportunities.

God created some opportunities for him, really, yeah. For his people. Uh -huh. And, and so this is, this has been a hard season.

Hard, yeah, difficult season, yeah. And, you know, of course God wants you to be blessed and thriving, but sometimes to get you blessed and thriving, he has to take you through a dry season.

Okay. I, I, I have to, I gotta stop now. Otherwise my brain's gonna explode, and I might end up sinning or something.

Anyway, so yeah, I think you get the point. The Bible's so much better. So much better.

Read it. Mark it. Inwardly digest it. Study it. Meditate on it. Read it in context.

And don't settle for a pastor who hopscotches around biblical texts, or even worse, jumps over entire segments of a critical story in Scripture, like one of the best ones like this one, and turns it into nonsense.

Again, the Scriptures are very clear that false teachers are waterless rain clouds.

They are trees with no fruit in the autumn. It's twice dead is what we're talking about here.

Yet the Bible is living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword, and it all points us back to Christ, and continues to call us to repent of our own sin, and assures us that God is merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and pardoning and forgiving our iniquity for Christ's sake.

So, I think you get the point. So much better. She didn't bring the rain, she just is...

In fact, I'm pretty sure Jennifer Toledo's sermon is a great example of a dry season.

It's about as dry as they get. Waterless cloud is what she is. So if you found this helpful, all the information on how you can share the video is down below in the description.

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And so until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and the mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.