1 Kings 18 (3) — David Petterson

I'd like to read one last time then from 1st Kings 18, we have to finish this chapter. 1st Kings 18, and we'll break into the reading at verse 41, where we left off, verse 41. 1st Kings 18, 41, and Elijah said unto Ahab, get thee up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain.

So Ahab went up to eat and to drink, and Elijah went up to the top of Carmel, and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees, and said to his servant, go up now, look toward the sea.

And he went up and looked, and said, there's nothing. And he said, go again seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand.

And he said, go up, say unto Ahab, prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. And it came to pass in the meanwhile, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain.

And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel, and the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. And we look to the Lord to bless this reading from his word.

Fire, Rain, and the Promise-Keeping God

So the title for tonight is, I've Seen Fire and I've Seen Rain. Now, if you don't know that song, you're probably better off than the rest of us. But in 1 Kings 18, we've seen fire, and finally now, we've seen rain.

And we have to remember that that was the real need. That rain was the real need. The God contest at Carmel is not over yet. Yes, he has shown that he is the real God, and he has shown that Baal and Asherah are false gods.

But the Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah, he must show that he is a giving God, and that he will come through on the promise that he has given. And you remember what that promise was? It's all the way back at the beginning of our chapter in verse 1, where he says, I will send rain upon the earth.

And he comes through, and he sends rain upon the earth. Now, that was many verses ago, but we must not forget it. So in our chapter, yes, this is about proving who the real God is. And he has shown himself to be a powerful God, a God who can send fire.

He has shown himself to be a pardoning God who accepts the sacrifice. He has shown himself now to be a promise-keeping God. The rain that was promised now comes. Now, there are four things I wish to stress about these last six verses.

Praying in God's Will

First we have praying in God's will. We will see, we will listen to Elijah giving us an example of what it means to pray in God's will. And maybe you've wondered about that. I certainly did. What does it mean when we come to the New Testament about praying in his will?

So we will listen to Elijah praying in God's will. And then we will see Elijah watching for God's answer. He's prayed in God's will. Now he's going to be watching for God's answer. And he's quite persistent in it.

And then third, we can't help but notice that Ahab and Jezebel are still alive. So we have what we might call living by God's grace. God is a very gracious and merciful God. And we'll say something about living by God's grace.

And finally, we watch Elijah running in God's strength, running in God's strength. So praying in God's will, watching for God's answer, living by God's grace, and then running in God's strength. It won't take us the whole time to go over these four things.

But afterwards we'll close with some important, what I think are important prayer principles from this incident in the life of Elijah. Because we're going to notice that he prays and then look throughout all of the chapter together at some prayer principles that we can glean from his life.

So first then, we hear Elijah praying in God's will. So look at verse 41 again. Elijah said unto Ahab, get thee up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain. Now he's not praying yet, but we have to say something about this verse.

He says there's a sound of abundance of rain, and yet there's no rain. There's no rain until much later. We know his servant goes out and he's looking seven times to see if there's any indication, but he says he could hear, somehow Elijah could hear the sound of rain.

I'm not sure that anybody else could hear it. Maybe this was part of his prophetic gift. I'm not sure, being able to hear what was coming. But anyway, he says there's a sound of abundance of rain. He tells Ahab to go sit down for a meal, right?

Get up, eat and drink, rain is on the way. God's going to come through on his promise. And then verse 42 says, so Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel and he cast himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees.

By the way, you'll notice that Elijah is still the one giving the orders here. Elijah is calling the shots. He commands and Ahab complies. And that's the way these offices were intended to function within Israel.

And when these offices were not functioning like this, that's when they got into trouble. The king was to obey the word of God and the word of God would come through his prophets, true prophets, not false ones.

And so we have this order being established here where Elijah is telling Ahab what to do and Ahab is obeying that word. We're watching a restoration of the divine order. We'll have more to say about that in a moment.

Now we're told that Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel and he bows himself down to the ground. He puts his face between his knees. What is he doing? What's he doing? I don't think it has anything to do with regulating his blood pressure.

No, I'm not quite certain of that. What's he doing? He's praying. He's praying. Now the word isn't there in the text, but how do we know it? You say, well, his posture suggests it. That's true. But the apostle James helps us out here, doesn't he?

James writes in chapter five of his epistle, he says, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth.

Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit. And so here we seem to find that second prayer of Elijah. He's praying for the rain to come. Now this is quite interesting. This is quite interesting.

So Elijah comes to Ahab initially then, according to James, this is what happened. Elijah comes to Ahab initially and he tells him that it is not going to rain except at my word. And then Elijah prays that it won't rain.

So he's the one giving the word of the Lord to Ahab. He's a prophet of God. The word of God comes through him as a mouthpiece. He gives the word of God and then he prays that the word of God will come to pass.

And now he does it again. James says, he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit. So the message the next time was right here in our text, that there's going to be rain upon the earth.

Back to verse one again, the Lord said, the word of the Lord came and said, there's going to be rain and then Elijah prays for it. So, I think Elijah is carrying out here to what Solomon asked the Lord in first Kings chapter eight.

If you remember when the temple was being dedicated, one of the things that Solomon prayed, he said, when heaven is closed up and there's no rain because they, the people have sinned against you. If they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, dot, dot, dot, and grant rain upon your land.

I think Elijah here as a representative for his people, Israel, is praying just like this and he's interceding for them. Maybe he's even positioned himself to face Jerusalem if they pray toward this place.

But anyway, God had said in verse one that he would send rain upon the earth and Elijah prays that God will. This I think is an example of what it means to pray in God's will. It's not just some nebulous thing.

It's not something we're just not sure about. It's that if God has said something in his word, if God has promised something in his word, we can pray that. We can turn that into a prayer. God has spoken something very specific and Elijah prays that that something specific will take place.

We might have more to say about that later on when we look at the prayer principles. But anyway, we can see here in verses 41 and 42, we hear Elijah praying in God's will. Now, in verses 43 and 44, we see Elijah watching for God's answers, watching for God's answers.

Watching for God's Answer

So look at verse 43. He says to his servant, go up now and look toward the sea. And he went up and looked and said, there's nothing. He said, go again seven times. So this must have taken some time. He sends him down to look.

He comes back. He says, I don't see anything. Go again. He comes back. I don't see anything. Go again. Go again. Go again. Seven times. This takes place. So a considerable amount of time seems to have transpired.

And then finally, verse 44, and it came to pass at the seventh time that he said, behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand. And he said, go up, say unto Ahab, prepare thy chariot and get thee down that the rain stop thee not.

So seven times, that's a lot of looking. That's a lot of waiting. That's a lot of watching for an answer to his prayer. He's been praying that God would send rain, and now he's waiting and he's watching.

We spend a lot of time doing that, don't we? We ought to be very good at waiting and watching. We have a lot of experience in it. And I'm not even talking about in the prayer realm. I mean, I'm thinking about my flight home tomorrow, and I'm going to be doing a lot of waiting and watching, right?

That's what happens. You get into this line, you wait. Get into the next line, you wait for that, and then you wait to get on, and then you wait to get off, and then you wait to get your bag, and then you wait for a pickup.

We ought to be very good at waiting, but we're not. God has given us a lot of opportunity to get good experience at it, and somehow we fail. Well, Elijah, well, he waited and he watched. How different from his last prayer.

He prayed in verses 36 and 37, didn't he? Prays for fire. And the answer came right away. He didn't have to wait. The answer was swift. And here it was slow, but the answer was sure. It was a matter of waiting for God's timing and not our timing.

That's hard for us, isn't it? When we pray, we want God to come through like he did in verses 36 and 37. We would like this to happen, and we would like to happen now, Lord, but more often than not, it's like verses 43 and 44.

And with all this experience we have waiting, you would think we would be better at it, but we're used to getting things quick. And when we don't, we get upset. We get upset at the microwave that it's taking a minute and 45 seconds to finish the hot pocket, right?

And it takes 18 hours to cool down. I don't know if you eat hot pockets, but we just want it now. And why do we have to wait, Lord? What is the point of all this waiting? Of course, that's where most of the good life lessons come, isn't it?

When we're waiting on the Lord, and he's preparing us to receive an answer. We wait and we watch and we wait some more, but we can trust God to answer in his time if we're praying in his will. And that's a big if, because sometimes we get frustrated that nothing is happening and it may very well be because we're not praying in his will.

But then his servant comes back with a report at last. He comes back, I've got news. What do you have? I see this tiny little cloud. I don't know about you, but that wouldn't maybe impress me whatsoever.

We need rain. We don't need a tiny little cloud. I mean, how much rain can a tiny little cloud really contain? It's going to take a lot of cloud seeding and weather manipulation to get anything out of this.

Like a tiny little cloud? No, it's going to have to be more than that. But that was enough to convince Elijah that a downpour was on the way. And so that's why he ends up saying what he says after the fact.

And he's telling Ahab, get ready, get your chariot, otherwise you're going to be in an awful mess here with all the rain that's going to come. Just a little cloud was enough to convince him. If you remember other events in the life of Elijah, you would remember that in the previous chapter just a little handful of meal in a jar was enough.

Right? It was enough for that widow, for that woman. And now a little cloud in the sky would be enough in the next chapter. God often works through small beginnings. What began as something insignificant soon brings this downpour of rain.

And of course the imagery of the, it might be a little cloud, but it's rising from the sea. It's rising, which suggests growth and movement, signaling that God's work is underway. But very often it may start with something small, like a handful of women praying in Enfield, Connecticut in 1741.

This wasn't learned until many years later, but they were praying for a revival. Apparently the Lord heard them because then Jonathan Edwards preached in Enfield, centers in the hands of an angry God and revival swept throughout all New England and eventually most of the U .S.

Just a handful of women, there was just a handful of men praying in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1934 on pasture land. And one of them says in his prayer, Lord, that out of Charlotte you would raise up someone to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth.

And then there's a young man saved that summer in gospel meetings who's from Charlotte and his name was Billy Graham, just happened to be the son of the man who owned that pasture. Just a small prayer meeting.

There weren't that many people there. But God often works through small beginnings, including things like little clouds. So we need to be praying in God's will and then watching for God's answers, which come in his time, not ours.

Living by God's Grace

Number three in verse 45, I put a label over this, living by God's grace. That might need a little explanation, but first notice in verse 45 at the beginning, it came to pass in the meanwhile that the heaven was black with clouds and wind and there was a great rain and Ahab rode and went to Jezreel.

The rain comes, the little cloud has expanded and brought many companions with it. There's a great rain. God has been true to his promise and he always is true to his promise. The God who sent fire to restore his people now sends rain to refresh his people and fill their barns.

This is grace. He's the God of the spectacular, isn't he? The fire. And he's the God of the routine, the rain. He's the God who burns up altars and he's the God who fills pantries. This is our God. But don't miss the end of verse 45.

And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. Ahab's still around. Why isn't he taken to the Kishon River and treated like the 450 prophets were? The prophets of Baal have been executed. Ahab's still living. And the next verses tell us that so is Jezebel.

She lives too. They permitted this Baal worship. In fact, they participated in this Baal worship. In fact, it seems that they led the way in this Baal worship. And then, of course, Jezebel butchers the true prophets of the Lord.

Ahab and Jezebel, they don't deserve to even be in the story anymore. And in fact, they want Elijah's death. We're going to see that in the next chapter that, well, you'll see that in the next chapter that that's what Jezebel wants to do with Elijah, right?

She wants him dead. We half expect to read this story to end the same way Herod's story ended in Acts 12, the man who opposed God. And Ahab and Jezebel were eaten by worms and gave up the ghost. That's almost what you expect to read here.

But we don't. God's merciful. God in his rich mercy and grace spares them and gives the king, gives Ahab the opportunity to lead the people of God with Elijah's prophetic word once more. That's living by God's grace.

And they're not the only ones who would have known something about living by God's grace. I have a feeling that this room is filled with the same kind of people. We can all relate to Paul's sentiments in 1 Corinthians 15, right, where he talks about the man that he used to be, the man that he was before.

He said he persecuted the church. He was unworthy of the calling given to him. He says, but by the grace of God, I am what I am. Can't we all say that? By the grace of God, I am what I am. We're saved by grace, and here we are, every one of us, and we're living today because of his grace and mercy.

We failed him. I failed him time and time again. But God has been gracious and merciful. And so we have praying in God's will, and we have watching for God's answer, and we have living by God's grace.

Running in God's Strength

And then in verse 46, we see Elijah running in God's strength, right? Verse 46, And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he girded up his loins and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. Now, you look at the distances, you'll come to the conclusion this is probably a 16 or 17 or 18-mile trek.

That's a long way to run. And not only is he running, he's outrunning a man that has horses. I think he set all kinds of world records. They've probably never been beaten yet. This is called running in God's strength.

Ahab's in his chariot. Elijah's on foot, running in the strength of the Lord. The hand of the Lord was on him. What are we supposed to make of this? What exactly does Elijah's running in front of Ahab signify?

It says he was before, he ran on before Ahab. What does that signify? As mentioned earlier, this is the restoration of the proper order in Israel. God's prophet is leading God's king. The word of the Lord goes before the king.

He is to follow the word of the prophet. The word of the Lord leads the way for Israel's monarch. And for at least a couple of hours, or however long it took to do these 16 miles, for at least a couple of hours on the way to Jezreel, Ahab would have a visual reminder of this order that God intended.

This is how it's supposed to be. Royal power must seek prophetic direction, not from false prophets, but from genuine prophets of the Lord, like Elijah, who's running in front of him. And as Ahab saw the feet of Elijah ahead of him outrunning his horses, he would know that God had given him power, that it was supernatural power to speak his word, and that he could have faith that God would give the people the word they needed to follow at the right time.

And he'd be wise to listen to all Elijah had to say. Now the other half of our time we want to use on looking at some prayer principles from the prophet Elijah. And I wrote down six of them. And there's nothing earth shattering about this either.

These are things that you'll find elsewhere in the scripture, and we're just repeating truth that we would have heard for many, many years, and that's just fine, because that's most of the time what we need to be reminded.

Elijah's Relationship With God

The first prayer principle is very simple and very basic, and it is this, that Elijah had a relationship with God. That he had a relationship with God so that he could call upon him. Now this is basic, but we have to get it.

Because maybe there's someone here tonight, and you're thinking, wow, I could really use these prayer principles in my life. They'll be really helpful, but you've never been brought into relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

And God is not your father, he wants to be your father. Christ is not your savior, but he wants to be your savior. And the moment you put your faith in him, Christ becomes your savior, and God becomes your father.

And you can bring all of your needs to him. But Elijah had this, he had this relationship with God. It's clear, he says to the Lord in prayer, in verse 36, he says, I am your servant. I'm your servant.

He's got this relationship where he recognizes who is over him. The Lord is master, and he is servant. In the previous chapter, chapter 17, verse 20, he calls out to the Lord and he says, Oh Lord, my God, my God, he has a relationship with the God of heaven.

Let me just stop and ask everyone here, do you? Do you have a relationship with the God of heaven? It can only come through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. You must be saved, you must be born again. And when you are, not only is Christ your savior, but God is your heavenly father.

And you will have a father who will listen to you all the time. He'll always have time for you. Now every one of us has had an earthly father. And some, the relationships may have been a little bit difficult, to say the least, maybe.

And sometimes you would love to talk to your father, and maybe you'd have no time. Maybe he'd give you a few seconds, and that was enough. Listen, you have a heavenly father who will listen. He will always have time for you.

That's a great blessing. Elijah had a relationship with God. That's very basic, but it's fundamental and it's necessary to understand that when we have a relationship with God through Christ, now we can truly pray and bring all of our needs to one who will hear us.

Getting Alone With God

So that's the first principle, Elijah had a relationship with God. The second, you'll notice that Elijah got alone with God. Verse 42, Ahab went up to Eden to drink, but Elijah went up to the top of Carmel and cast himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees.

Maybe his servant was nearby, but listen, he left at least hundreds of people behind there where the contest took place, and he goes up to Mount Carmel. He wants to get alone with God where he can really pray.

Do you get alone with God? Well, it's difficult. It is. And if we don't make it happen, it really won't happen. We have to make it happen. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6, verse 6 in his Sermon on the Mount, When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who's in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you.

Do you have a place? Do you have a place where you spend time with the Lord? And there in Matthew 6, the Lord was addressing the kind of praying that just wanted to get people's attention. So he was kind of giving them truth that would shield them against that possibility.

He says, go into your room and close the door. The audience that you need is actually just an audience of one. The only person who needs to hear what you have to say is your heavenly father. So go and speak to him.

Just you and him alone. And that's one of the hardest things in life to do. Because so much of what we do, we do because we want other people to know that we did it. Even when it comes to prayer. Well, it'd be nice to just post that little message to them.

Other people will see it too. That's true that I'm praying for you, brother, sister, right? Or you could just send a private message. But then nobody else would see it. That's right, and that's just fine.

But that's a challenge for all of us. It's hard to get alone with God. Elijah saw that he needed to get alone with God in order to really pray. And that's what he does here. And so that's the second challenge for us is to get alone with God to truly pray.

Praying the Promises of God

The third thing here, and I want to spend a moment or two on this, is that Elijah prayed the promises of God. Elijah prayed the promises of God. God says first, there'll be no rain. How did God say it?

Through Elijah. He's the one who actually spoke the word of God. There will be no rain except at my word, he says to Ahab. And then he gets down on his knees and day after day prays to God that it won't rain.

He's praying what God has promised. He's praying consistent with the will of God. This is what it means to pray in the will of God. And then the very opposite, right? Verse 1 of our chapter, the Lord comes to Elijah and says, Go show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth.

And as James has told us, then he prayed that it would rain. God has said this is what I'm going to do. And then he prays that God would do that very thing. He had shown himself to Ahab. The fire fell from the skies.

Consumed the sacrifice. The people of Israel responded with worship. They were down with their faces to the ground saying, The Lord, he is God. The Lord, he is God. And so Elijah believed it's time for the rain.

And so he begins to pray for it. He viewed the promise in verse 1 as an invitation to prayer. And that's what God's promises are. They're indeed invitations to prayer. Now, this is where we can get into trouble.

We have to know which promises in Scripture apply to us so that we can properly pray in God's will. If praying in God's will means we pray according to his revealed will and word, then we have to know what part of his revealed will and word applies to us.

So people get their covenants mixed up. And then they get into trouble. And so they look at old covenant promises given to the nation of Israel under that covenant, and they say, I like that. That flocks and family and that all sounds really good.

Food and filling the barns and all of that. I'll pray that. And then nothing happens. And then there's frustration. And you say, well, I can't really believe the Bible. Got to get the covenants right.

Or you'll get frustrated and you'll be disappointed. We're not under the old covenant. We don't come into the blessings of God's promises to Israel. Those were largely earthly. Those were largely material.

But we are part of the church, which is Christ's body. And our blessings are largely spiritual, right? And we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, Paul says. And so we have the blessing of adoption.

We have the blessing of justification. We have the blessing of redemption. We have the blessing of sanctification. We have the blessing of promised glorification that's going to come. God's word. So what are some examples, then, of praying in God's will for us?

I heard one tonight by Cal. God's word promises our ultimate glorification. In Romans 8, that we are going to be conformed to the image of his son. That's what God says. That's what God's will is for his people.

And so we can pray something like what we heard this evening. Lord, we want to be more like your son. We want to be more conformed to the image of your son. That's praying in God's will. That's praying according to his promises.

We might come across John 15. Abiding in Christ. He that abides in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me you can do nothing. Oh, it would be nice to be fruitful as Christians, right?

Well, we can pray, Lord, help me to abide in Christ. I want to bring fruit that will be for your glory and for the blessing of God's people. And so these can be, these, God's word and these promises contained within it are invitations to prayer and we can make them ours.

Persistence in Prayer

So Elijah prayed the promises of God and so can we. So that's the third one. Now just a few more. Number four, Elijah showed persistence with God in his prayer. I mean, seven times would you have given up?

You have to keep telling your servant, go and look, go and look, go and look, right? Verse 43, he said to his servant, go up now, look toward the sea. He went up, he looked, he said, there's nothing. And he said, go again seven times.

Over and over and over. Elijah didn't give up easily. The Lord delights to see persistence in prayer. That's another thing that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 7, right? He's asking it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened unto you. There is to be persistence. And you remember too, the Lord told that story of the persistent widow and the unjust judge, right, Luke 18.

And she eventually just wore that judge out, essentially forcing him by her persistence to grant her request. And so then Jesus comes to the conclusion, right? He says, won't God, the just, God, the just one, do the same for us who cry out to him day and night, ones that he knows, ones that he loves?

That judge didn't know her. That judge didn't love her. But our God knows us and loves us. He says, won't he do the same for us who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay to help them? And the obvious answer to those questions is no, he will not.

We give up so easily, right? I prayed that. I prayed this would happen. Nothing happened. Elijah showed persistence with God in prayer. He said, go again and go again. What do you think he was doing when his servant was checking things out at the coast?

I think he was still there with his face between his knees, crying out to the Lord, Lord, that there might be rain. Lord, that there might be rain. Lord, that there might be rain. He persisted in prayer, and he saw the Lord come through.

Sometimes the Lord tests us. How much do we really want his will to be done? How much do we really want his word to come to pass? So he showed persistence with God in prayer. Now, two more, then get out early again.

Desiring Restoration for God's People

Elijah desired restoration for God's people. We saw that back in verse 37, just to remind us, when he cries out to the Lord there about sending the fire. Remember what he said? Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that you are the Lord God and that you have turned their hearts back again.

He wasn't just praying that the rain would come. He's praying that revival would come. This is always something good to desire, isn't it? How often do we, I mean, we sing it, revive us again. How often do we pray it?

That's what the psalmist said, Psalm 85, 6. Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you? Now, revival begins with ourselves, right? We need to say what David did in a different psalm, Psalm 51.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. I don't know how to affect revival anywhere else, but I can make sure that it starts right here. And Elijah wants this for his people.

He wants them to be turned back to the Lord. That's ultimately what he wants to do when he sees the fire fall. He knows God's going to answer in his time, but he wants the people to know that it is God that has now turned them back.

Seeking God's Glory in Prayer

Do we pray this for ourselves? Do we pray this for the Lord's people? That we might be renewed, that we might be revived, that we might be restored. Now, finally then, the last prayer principle here, and there's probably others that I'm missing, but the last one is that Elijah sought the glory of God.

He wanted God to be glorified when he prayed. Now, verse 36 has Elijah praying that the people would know that he was God's servant. That was important, but there's something much bigger than that. We just read it in verse 37, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, that you are the God.