8/23/2015 Elijah Begins Pastor Josh Sheldon

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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9/20/2015 Elijah In Sidon – A Testament To God's Glory

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We had some discussion in my office just a few minutes ago as to whether I am this morning going to preach in this place for the first time using not paper but a tablet, a very modern device, this, and I'm not going to move it very much because I don't want the text to move.

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Now whether or not anybody has ever preached with a tablet from here before, we weren't quite certain.

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It could be that Conley Owens has used a tablet once up here some time ago.

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But it is beyond doubt, I will stand on this truth, I have never done this.

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I have always used paper. Now my last version of the sermon that I'm going to try to bring to you this morning on Elijah, and this is obviously not the sermon, this is all introductory isn't it, was on my desk and it was very marked up, my final editing comments and my practice is to come in here early

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Sunday morning, I read it through one more time, I print out my final version, I put it here, and then

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I read to you from that version. The printer this morning did not like that plan.

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The printer said, no, we're not going to work this morning. And we had a couple of the men here who are familiar with how to work with these things and the printer would not cooperate with them either.

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Very graciously they took my text off my computer, emailed it to one of the men who owns this tablet, put it on this tablet, and now it's on this pulpit for me to try to preach to you from it.

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So if I fumble and stumble this morning, more than usual, because I know I often fumble and stumble, that's my excuse, that's my reason,

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I'm trying to use this thing, if it turns, if all of a sudden I stop, I didn't forget where we are,

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I've got to get this thing going again. So with all those excuses, with all that background, it's a time for God to especially be glorified.

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We were talking just a few, even sooner ago, and when these kind of circumstances come, we know that God is sovereign, we know that all is within his providence, and the more my plans fall apart and my patterns are not going to be in place, the more reliant

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I, we, must be upon him. So let's see what he shall do.

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Let's pray. The words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight,

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O Lord, my strength and my redeemer, for it is upon you that we rely, it is you we wish to glorify.

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Help us, help me, in Jesus' name, amen. Well Dale read to you from 1

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Kings chapter 17, and as you who have been here for a while know is my practice when we're going through a narrative, we tend to go at a rather slow pace and repeat things, so you will probably hear that introductory section on Elijah the prophet a time or two more before we move even further into it.

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That will be our text this morning, but before we begin speaking of Elijah and his first meeting with Ahab, and his announcement of the coming drought and the consequent famine, and all these things which we're fairly familiar with, but we will dig into them a bit.

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I want to set as firmly as I can in our minds the state of Israel to which

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Elijah was sent. I don't mean the state geographically, we know where that was, that's the northern kingdom.

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I mean their spiritual state, where they were at. Now, Psalm 14, the first three verses say,

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The fool has said in his heart, let me emphasize that better. The fool has said in his heart, there is no

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God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works. There is none who does good, the

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Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there is any who understand, who seek

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God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt. There is none who does good, no, not one.

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It seems that whenever God in the scripture casts his gaze upon humanity, this is what he sees.

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He sees men playing the fool by denying him. In Genesis 6, the scripture says, when he looked down from heaven, what did he see?

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He saw only wickedness. That man's heart, his imaginations were set on evil continually, it says.

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When he came down to see the city and the tower that man was making so soon after the waters of the flood receded, what did he see?

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He saw man striving to make a name for who? For himself, not for God.

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Reaching up to heaven to glorify who? Himself. Not God. The fool again, over and over in scripture, time and time again, saying there is no

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God. And this is the essence of idolatry.

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Idolatry being the essence of the state of Israel at the time of Elijah. It is man breaking the restraining bonds and casting off God's cords in this constant reenactment of the second psalm.

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Everybody worships something. Even the atheist, when he says he acknowledges no

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God, he recognizes no deity, when he claims that the spirit world is a myth, when he explains all of life by physical laws, at least as best as he can figure them out, he has simply made himself the object of his own worship.

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He is God for him. The other type of idolater, the one who bows down to an actual image that represents a

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God or a deity or some sort of force, like maybe people were wearing or maybe still use those pyramids because there's supposed to be some thing that happens with them.

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No better, no worse, in the same spiritual state, really, as the atheist.

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Well, this was Israel in the time of first and, for that matter, second kings.

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From the beginning of the divided kingdom, when Israel's first king, who was Jeroboam, we spoke of him a few weeks ago, when he set up the altars of the cow gods that represented the true

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God, remember, he said, these are your gods, O Israel, who delivered you out of Egypt. God did deliver them out of Egypt.

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Yahweh, the true and living, eternal God, did do that, but he was not those calves.

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The right God, worshipped, represented wrongly. Ever since Jeroboam, that was the rule of the land.

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But under Ahab, there's a new depth of depravity. He didn't try to worship the true

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God wrongly. He dispensed with God altogether. And who did he raise in favor of the true

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God of Israel? It was his wife, Jezebel's favored object, Baal, capital

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B -double -A -L, the word means master, sort of like the word

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Adonai for Lord, Baal meant master. He was the God of nature.

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He was the dispenser of thunder. He was the bringer of fertility to land and to people. Into this quagmire, into this morass, into this mess,

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God sent the prophet Elijah. We introduced him in some detail last week, so I won't repeat it very much this morning.

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He comes from nowhere, no introduction, no parentage, no prophet school affiliation.

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He just shows up and he stands before the king. Now, let's remember when a man, a prophet, whoever stands before a king is almost never the man and the king.

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Think back to 1 Samuel 12 when Nathan confronted David for his sin with that famous parable about the man who took another man's only sheep.

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A man who had everything took a sheep from a man who had only that sheep. I won't repeat the whole parable,

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I just want to make the point when Nathan finally said, well, you are the man. That was not just Nathan and David.

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That was Nathan. He had waited in a line with all the emissaries, all the ambassadors, all the functionaries, all the people who were always hanging out with the king.

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It was very public. Likewise, we have to assume when

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Elijah went and stood before Ahab, it wasn't just man to man. It was the man,

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Elijah, and the whole court around Ahab at that time. The word and.

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And Elijah the Tishbite said to Ahab, and connects us with what came just before.

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That's verses 16, 29 to 34. We read them last week, but just to remind you, that tells how

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Ahab worshipped Baal and even built a temple for it.

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And there he set up a wooden image, a totem pole of sorts, and he showed even more spite for God.

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You read this at the end of chapter 16, even more spite for God when he had his servant

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Hiel rebuild Jericho. Now why is that spite for God? Because Joshua, the son of Nun, spoke for God when he cursed anyone who should rebuild

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Jericho. What did Joshua say? He shall lay the gates with his firstborn and his youngest son.

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In other words, you're going to lose your children if you try to rebuild this city that God destroyed when

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Israel first came into the land of Canaan. And in accordance with the curse, the truth of God's word that Joshua spoke,

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Hiel lost both of his sons. This is the context into which this most powerful of prophets appears.

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So let's look at this a bit. Let's look at this beginning of Elijah's prophecy, his prophetic ministry.

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As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be not dew nor rain these years except at my word.

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Now, one might expect when telling a king of impending disaster that there might have been more eloquence, at least give some more detail.

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Remember, here's Ahab. He's the wicked king. He's not just a wicked king. The scripture says he was more wicked than all who came before him.

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And the way I read that is if you took all the wickedness of all the kings from Jeroboam up to Ahab's father

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Omri, if you added all that wickedness together and made it into one batch of wickedness and compared it to Ahab, Ahab outdid it.

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So what's Ahab going to say? Well, we don't have a word from Ahab until chapter 18, just before that famous confrontation of Elijah and the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel.

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So we don't have a word that Ahab actually says for a few years. But I'm trying to read into the man a bit, what we know of him from the scripture.

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What would he do when this oddly dressed man who just shows up, knew where to find him, confronts him with that, how was he dressed?

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He was wearing, he was a hairy man wearing a leather belt. Really? No rain?

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Just who are you exactly? Elijah's son of who?

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And you went to which school of prophets? You come, just come stand before me and tell me, a powerful, successful king.

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The economy's rolling along. Our neighbors are afraid of us. We're militarily secure.

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Really? No rain? And you're saying that God gave you the power to stop the rain and someday you're going to pray when you feel like it and it's going to come back.

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Can you feel the sarcasm? The derision? This man who set up Baal? This man who rebuilt

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Jericho? How would he react to Elijah the prophet standing and telling him that God says disaster is coming?

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That's all he said. Accept it my word. The simplicity has its appeal.

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Too often flowery speech is just really fear of man. Elijah was from Gilead which was a rugged land and the people there were known for being like their land, sort of like the

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American frontiersman. Whether Elijah actually had the capacity for flowery speech, we can't be sure.

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We don't have any examples of it. And even at Mount Carmel where we'll be with him in a few weeks

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Lord willing, even there his address and his prayer were models of brevity. They were densely packed with content and meaning but his prayers, his speech was very simple, very brief.

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And so here, standing before this king who is leading Israel into its darkest hour, in one sentence gives him an entire prophecy.

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As the Lord God of Israel lives, he says, I mean the gauntlet is thrown down.

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Who lives? Who's the living God? Is it Baal, the one that you king are worshiping?

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The one that you king have made a statute that Israel must follow? You built him a temple, you set up his image.

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Is he the living God? Or is it Yahweh? As the

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Lord God of Israel lives, the true and living God. Well if Baal is the

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God of Israel, then let him bring rain when the

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Lord God says otherwise. Let him whom you worship

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Ahab, let him overrule this decree that I'm giving you from God.

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Let him show his power in what's supposed to be his land. The gauntlet's thrown down here.

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The whole tone of Elijah's ministry is right here in this opening confrontation.

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And Elijah says, As the Lord God of Israel lives before whom I stand.

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Elijah's standing before God is all that makes it possible for him to stand before men.

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And we can apply that immediately to ourselves this morning. If we're Christians, how are we able to stand before men?

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Because we stand before God and we know that. It's our standing before God that allows us to say anything for him and therefore to be before men.

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Confidence at this point is the only way to remove all fear of man and to speak rightly for God.

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I mean as long as man is feared, the message from God is at best diluted.

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Why is he to be heard? Because he stands before God. And this is important. Luke 119 has the angel saying to doubting

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Zacharias, who said in essence to him, Why should I believe you?

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Do you remember what the angel said back to him? I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God. I stand in the presence of God and therefore you need to believe and act upon what

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I say. I stand in the presence of God that is still Gabriel and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings.

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But behold you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place because you do not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time.

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Do you hear the correspondence between that angel speaking and the authority with which he speaks and what Elijah was saying?

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Because it's before God that I stand. Therefore hear my words and listen.

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I would also say there's another correspondence there. That the angel said to Zacharias, These glad tidings.

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Now what glad tidings? That your wife aged Elizabeth is going to have a son. And of course that son is going to be

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John the Baptist and John the Baptist is going to point to Jesus Christ and say behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

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These are glad tidings indeed. I think there's a correspondence there still with Elijah.

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Because when Elijah said there will not be moisture, there will not be dew, there won't be anything coming from the ground to help these crops except at my word.

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This is a glad tiding. Because God is sending his word. God is giving warning.

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God has sent a prophet to speak the word of God to sinners who need to be corrected by that rod.

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Elijah's boldness before man is no more, no less than any of us who know Jesus Christ should have.

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Peter followed this model when he refused to obey the Sanhedrin's command to stop preaching Christ to the people.

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But this was no in your face audacity. It was a confidence bred from humility.

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And a humility that was birthed in the certainty that he stood before God. If we keep in mind just who it is we claim to represent which is the

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God of all the universe, the maker of men, the holy one who brooks no sin yet forgives all sin for the sake of his son

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Jesus if we remember that we are his ambassadors there will be humility.

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And by humility, power in our speech. Not our power but God's who stands against the proud but gives grace to the humble.

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And Jesus Christ says in that day, in that very hour the

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Holy Spirit will give you words to speak. I don't say that we just walk blithely and start prophesying to people.

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We need to know the word of God. We need to know what God actually says. We'll get to that later.

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So don't leave now and say okay the pastor just said go off and start prophesying to people and announcing doom to them.

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No, that's not what we're saying at all. Do not do that. You, I are not

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Elijah. It's not our power but it's

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God's power. Well eloquence for this prophet eloquence gives way to clarity perfumed words fall in favor of simple truth.

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To stand confident like Elijah to know God's word well enough that we just state it. I think these are good lessons from us.

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We don't like to take the histories that we have in the scripture and just moralize and say therefore be bold like Elijah because these narratives are not given to us for that reason.

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But I think Elijah's certainty that because he stood before God and knew what

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God had said and the confidence that they gave him I think these are good lessons for us. Now the coming disaster the drought that is going to bring famine is going to prove

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God's word. I mean Elijah said no rain and there was no rain. That it would later start again at his word at the very moment he made an end to this judgment confirms all the more that it was

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God who did this. There's another thing that happens or I believe happened because of the drought that came and the famine that it brought.

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You know when people have no hope of food from one day to the next what do they do? You're going to come away from spiritual matters and you're going to focus solely on staying alive.

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You're going to be worried about the day to day matter of getting anything on your plate.

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I've only been hungry in my life I've never been starving. But I believe that one of the things that would happen here is you don't have time to go and worship

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Baal. If Baal's not bringing any water and the crops aren't growing you have no food.

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This is secondary to the fact that it's God who stopped the rain. But hunger focuses us on the stomach and leaves little time for the idolatry that they were going into.

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There shall not be dew nor rain these years except at my word. This man just said first that God said there'd be a drought and second this rough and tumble guy claimed by divine decree that he held the key to bringing back the rain.

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With boldness he stands on the word of God before whom he stands.

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And this is a good time for us to ask how did he know? We have nothing in the scripture that says anything like the burden of Elijah from the

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Lord or as we read over and over in the book of Jeremiah the word of the Lord came to the prophet and said say unto in Jeremiah's case

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Zedekiah king of Israel. We don't have anything like that. It just shows up and it says this.

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We know from reading the scripture he spoke accurately and truly but how did he know that God said there'd be no rain?

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Well James in the

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New Testament James tells us in chapter 5 and verses 13 through 16 he tells us in this ending of the epistle and speaking about praying he says you must pray with faith and I don't want to go too deeply into this because our brother

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Steve has covered it so well in the preaching series that he's had on James and he will Lord willing return to it soon.

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But I only want to point out that James example of this is Elijah praying with faith it's

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Elijah he said he was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.

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His was a prayer of power because it was bathed in faith. But Elijah didn't simply land on what he thought would be an effective way to punish

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Israel and then return the nation to their senses. How did he know this? What was his prayer where he prayed earnestly to the

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Lord God? Why did he pray for drought and not for earthquakes for example?

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Well A .W. Pink he posits that Elijah when he prayed earnestly for this drought he's praying on the basis of the scripture.

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Deuteronomy 11 verses 15 through 17 and a good number of commentators agree with him and this makes sense.

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This is Moses speaking to Israel It's as if Elijah prayed to God something like Lord they have not obeyed your word you did send rain in abundance when they did and as they plummeted towards false gods you remained good you sent sun and rain on the land the unjust all the while waiting for them to repent now they worship other gods as their national symbol it's as if he said heavenly father it's too much do what your word says oh

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God of Israel provide no more for them close the heavens as though they were bronze that your people who are called by your name might repent.

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A powerful prayer is not one of great length or eloquence is not even one that comes from a vast and intricate knowledge of the scripture at least not necessarily so.

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A powerful prayer is one that begins with faith without faith it is impossible to please God a powerful prayer believes that God is and he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him and a powerful prayer is seasoned throughout by scripture by knowing what

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God says I think this is what

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Elijah prayed and I think this is the basis on which he prayed knowing God's word knowing that God said if you act this way this is what

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I will do and Elijah is not saying Lord this is what I think you should do to Israel to make them repent he's saying

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Lord this is what you in your word have said and oh God work through me if that be your will he says there shall be neither dew nor rain we have to stop for just a moment here also we have to understand that there never is moisture falling from the sky unless God says so and what this means is not so much that God is sending drought as that he is not sending the rain now this may seem subtle it may sound to you like a distinction without a difference but the way

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I said it that God is withholding the rain it gives a clearer idea that rain in the first place is actively sent by God Jesus said that God makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust what this means is that if a drop of rain falls on anyone it's because God willed it if rain doesn't come it's not so much that he intervened and stopped what might have happened it means that he did not let that drop of water fall it's the same with the sun we could say that each photon that brings light and comfort goes where it goes and does what it does because of God's direct will for that photon or for that drop of water the next thing the prophet does is by direct command from God is to remove himself from there the word of the

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Lord came to him saying get away from here and turn eastward and hide by the brook

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Cherith which flows into the Jordan and it will be that you shall drink from the brook and I've commanded the ravens to feed you there so he went and did according to the word of the

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Lord for he went and stayed by the brook Cherith which flows into the Jordan the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening and he drank from the brook you have in your bulletins there's an insert that I prepared on one side there's a little map that shows you all the places in the ministry of Elijah on the other side of it is a calendar you'll find different versions of this some of the dates people disagree on but they don't make a huge difference but that's the list of kings of Israel and Judah but you can see how far away from Samaria he was sent

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I didn't calculate the miles I didn't find it in any commentaries but you can see there it's a good number of miles it puts him on the other side of the

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Jordan River a little bit east of his supposed hometown of Tishba and I'll just tell you you see where it says

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Tishba there just west of where the brook Cherith is it points to where he was fed there by the ravens a lot of commentaries say no we have no idea that a

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Tishba ever existed but that map it's the clearest map I could print out for you it posits that it's in that place take that for what it's worth but he's a little bit east of the

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Jordan certainly it's the territory that Reuben and Gad had asked for as their own on the east side of the

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Jordan remember Israel was coming to the land and those two tribes said hey you know this looks pretty good here now it's not the promised land it's not the west side of the

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Jordan but Moses it looks pretty good here well that land was granted to them on condition that they fight with the other tribes for their land on the other side of the river and they promised to do that and they kept the promise and then they went back to the east side where you see that on that map

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I think they went back in much the same way that Lot looked with that wandering eye to the comforts of Sodom in that same way they returned to this inheritance on the east side of the

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Jordan this was part of the northern kingdom it was under Ahab's rule a river makes a natural defense against intrusion any general can tell you that across the

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Jordan Elijah would be safe from Ahab's soon to come search for him this enraged king tried to kill him not unlike how insane

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Saul pursued David not unlike how the serpent seed always has and always will hate the woman's seed

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Cain killed Abel, Ham dishonored Noah, Pharaoh enslaved Israel Saul hated

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David Ahab, Elijah now the final contestants in this drama were of course

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Satan himself the ultimate seed of the serpent no it was the serpent himself and Jesus the seed of the woman the holy and righteous seed of the woman but for now it's played out by the human counterparts clearly

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Elijah is safe from Ahab though for the moment we can't be sure Ahab gave any importance to Elijah's words he would later after some years without rain but not then

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Elijah is not so much safe from pursuit as he is from pressure to speak an end to the drought before God's time but more importantly and to the point made by our narrator

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Elijah becomes a living parable of the power of God over creation why did

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Elijah go from Ahab so quickly on one hand the answer is very simple it's because he was commanded to they said

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Ahab never speaks in his first encounter it's not for a few years that we hear a word from him and then he calls him the troubler of Israel the purpose of his being hidden isn't told to us explicitly or exactly but we know one thing that was proven there at the

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Brook where he stayed during this first part of the drought God's word was proven while he was there not only did the drought come just as he who stood before the living

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God had said but his spokesman was provided for all his needs Elijah's needs were provided you see if Baal was real let him deal with this enemy let him defeat

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God's chosen vessel for that day and place let Baal say to Elijah no the ravens will not help you

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I command otherwise the stream will offer you nothing for your thirst because I do not wish it let him do that I had in my notes that Yahweh the true

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God overruled Baal but it's really not the case Baal couldn't overrule

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Yahweh is the better way to say it the ravens did feed the prophet there was no food from the king's table to entice him to soften his message in the same way that Abraham refused to share in the plunder in order that only

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God got credit for any wealth that he attained so also Elijah would be sustained while the nation starved see what was accomplished there at the brook

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Cherith sustenance for the prophet yes

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God's demonstration that he rules creation by having commanded those ravens to do what they did yes but also only

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God can get the credit only God could get the credit for what happened there with Elijah how long it took

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Ahab to start searching for Elijah is unknown we know that he did in 1st Kings 18 .10

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we learn that Ahab has searched everywhere for Elijah he even made his neighboring kings take oaths and confirm that they weren't giving him refuge this would have taken some time so Elijah wasn't exiled exactly

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Ahab gave no such order in fact we have nothing from him until the middle of the next chapter

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Elijah's departure was really a judgment it was a judgment of Israel when

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Elijah left Israel their famine began immediately and their crops even though they weren't ruined right away nor did they start to starve for a year or so but what began was a famine of a much more serious sort than the one that they would be facing physically

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Amos 8 .11 describes it for us it says behold the days are coming says the

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Lord God that I will send a famine on the land not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water but of hearing the words of the

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Lord see there comes a point when the convicting word of God is withdrawn from those who refuse to be convicted

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Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount he spoke of not casting pearls before swine or giving what is holy to dogs you know he said this in exactly the context of withdrawing from people who like swine or dogs the people of his day would have heard that as filthy pigs and vicious mongrel dogs people who refuse correction people who refuse to hear the word of God now you remember this idea of Jesus saying get the moat out of your eye and then you will see clear, excuse me, get the plank out of your eye then you will see clearly, get that moat out of your brother's eye and immediately then he says don't cast your pearls before swine, don't give what is holy to dogs, they will trample it under the mud they will turn and tear you to pieces what's the context that one with that tiny little speck in his eye, after you've done business with the

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Lord and you're ready to go to him and show him or her their fault and they won't listen that's the context of what

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Jesus is saying there, this is the judgment of the removal of Elijah it's symbolic of the removal of the word of God from that land for that time

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Israel was willingly led by Ahab into the worst kind of idolatry Israel became the fool of Proverbs 13 .13

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he who despises the word will be destroyed but he who fears the commandment will be rewarded excuse me there it goes

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I think I can get used to this but it'll take some getting used to well the brook eventually dried up and Elijah was sent to Zarephath in Sidon and the imagery is important God's sovereignty was magnificently displayed in the ravens and his judgment in the removal of his spokesman and now

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Elijah is sent to a Gentile land not just any place Sidon is where Jezebel, Ahab's wife was from her father was king of that land

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Elijah was sent from isolation at the brook straight into the enemy's stronghold

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I don't think I left myself enough time with some of the logistics here to speak about Elijah and the

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Sidonian widow and I don't want to do that too quickly and I don't want to bring it to you in an inaccurate way because I'm fumbling with the technology here so I think

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I'm going to talk about Elijah with the widow when we come back to this and I'm going to hold back now because with the fact that it's the example that Jesus Christ used when he begins his ministry in Luke 4 it rises to a level of importance and I don't think

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I would have time to begin and finish it and I don't want to treat it that way so I'd rather just make that a separate message

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Just a few thoughts to close us on this What was it that sent

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Elijah to Ahab? We're going to learn when we come back to this that Elijah didn't just go to Sidon, he was sent to that widow, that's the way

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Jesus says it What was it that sent Elijah to Ahab in the first place?

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How are we to view the drought and the famine that ensued?

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It's God's mercy It's all God's mercy and by that I don't mean the warning

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I don't mean just the warning the warning is by God's mercy, yes but showing his power showing his anger showing his judgment all the things displayed in the withholding of the rain and what that brought to the nation that's all from God's mercy because it shows a wayward nation that they are in fact wayward

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Elijah, had God not sent his word, had

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God not provided any judgment all that could only be attributed to him they would have just kept going in their condemnation

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It's the same with all of us Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?

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Have you acknowledged yourself to be a sinner? That's such a hard thing for us in the flesh to understand and one of the most offensive things about Christianity to the world in general is this whole idea of sin

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Sin I'm not going to bring up any names, I don't want to turn this to a polemic but you who have been with us for a while, you know the names that I would bring up now people who just claim to be pastors claim to be preachers of the gospel and yet deny the existence of sin

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There are those in the world who say teaching children about sin is actually child abuse, or should be and yet when

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God sends his word to you and convinces you that you are indeed a sinner and shows you that before him you are depraved in a word worthless before him nothing good in you

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Do we look upon that and say what a terrible thing, now I don't feel good about myself now I don't have self esteem

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No It's the mercy of God It's the mercy of God that gives us the truth

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It's the mercy of God that brings judgment that forces us to face ourselves It's the mercy of God that sent

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Elijah to Ahab The whole idea of the idolatry and this Baal worship and the temple he set up it's only mentioned there at the end of chapter 16 but it's importantly mentioned there

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It's clearly the reason for the prophecy against Israel that Elijah brought Is this just God sending down smiting upon the people

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Now they will be smited but it's God's mercy it's his love, it's his goodness it's his judgment it's his severity against sin it is all those things, yes it's all of that but don't forget it's mercy and it's goodness and it's kindness

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It's not God's will that any should but repent and to repent we need to hear the word of God We need someone to come to us and say, thus saith the

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Lord He's still sending his word

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If it is a word you don't know, it is this it is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that this is a trustworthy saying that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom

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I am chief to save sinners, to save sinners

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I tell you with the same authority that Elijah stood before Ahab that if you will acknowledge yourself a sinner, if you will repent before God and flee to the

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Lord Jesus Christ and trust in his cross and how he suffered for the sins that you committed and the punishment that you deserve and by trusting him to have accomplished all before God, you will be saved

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I can tell you that if you will repent if you will put your hope, your trust your heart, your faith in Jesus Christ you will be saved

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I can stand before you with the same confidence that Elijah stood before Ahab Elijah heard the word of God himself

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I have the same word from the same God in the scripture to be able to make that statement to you. He's still sending his word

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His word has not been withdrawn from you If you don't know Jesus Christ his word is here before you this moment

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Do you know Jesus Christ? Are you like the people of God in Israel in 1st

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Kings 17 who know God maybe know God know of God but have moved away from him?

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Has he been by you forgotten as with them, ignored as with them?

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I can tell you with the same authority Elijah spoke to Ahab draw near to God and he will draw near to you return to God we could say with no damage to the tax, return to God and he will return to you there's no shadow in him there's no darkness in him there's no variation, there's no turning hopefully you don't get tired of hearing this

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I learned it from Steve when he preached this from James. What does all that mean? It means when you sin, when you turn from God, when you forget

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God when you act as though you're not God's his disposition towards you does not change but you still must repent you still must come back to him 1st

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John 1 .9 tells us with the same mercy that God sent

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Elijah to Ahab perhaps this morning God sent this word to you that if you've wandered away from God return to God, he will return to you repent to God and he is righteous and just to forgive all your sin behold the mercy of God love enough to chastise love enough not just to chastise but to warn love enough to chastise and to warn and to make sure that we know that Israel knew then that what came could only be from his hand not just random occurrence but from God himself well let me close with that and say amen

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I appreciate your patience you can see how I had a little bit of trouble with this keeping my eye on my notes here but Lord willing

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I've said something worth having heard on your part about Elijah and about the drought that he brought and the goodness of God that warned and took credit for it in order to what?

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Bring them back Amen. Heavenly Father I give you thanks for the day that you've given us again for being able to come together gathered around your word and I pray

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Lord that if I've been disorganized, confusing in any way that you

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Lord would just grant to take that away and to make your word clear but as I've spoken truly of your word of this history of the prophet

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Elijah, the king Ahab spoken clearly of the Lord Jesus Christ and repentance before him

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I pray Lord that those words would take effect that you would grant us all true repentance to return to God to follow him rightly