The beginning.

Turn with me to 1 Kings chapter 17.

Today we are beginning a series on the faith of a prophet. Have you ever felt like the world is a bit to much for you to handle? That maybe your problems are just too big and you are too insignificant? Wouldn’t you like to have the kind of faith that we see the heroes of scripture having? Today we are going to dive into the story of one such hero and see how God used him and his faith to impact the world around him.

Begin explanation of where Israel is at this point in history.

Who is Elijah?

In walks Elijah. Lets read 17:1

Only read from Now to Gilead

Stop here for a moment. This first section reveals something about Elijah that I myself never realized until studying for this sermon. Elijah was most likely a gentile. What does that mean? That means that one of the greatest prophets of God was not even of the chosen people of God. This tells us multiple things. One This further elaborates on the point of Israel being a nation lost in sin. Because, not only was Elijah most likely a gentile, he was most likely an Ishmaelite. If that sounds familiar then you are probably thinking of the story of Abraham. If you remember Abraham was promised by God that he would have descendants as numerous as the stars. This promise was astonishing since Abrahams wife was “advanced in years” as Abraham put it. Pro tip boys when you get a wife don’t refer to her as advanced in years. Anyhow, they decide to let Abraham have a kid with an Egyptian woman (again bad idea) this resulted in a boy named Ishmael and God being angry with them. Well Ishmael and his mother were cast out from the rest of Abrahams people. As the years went on the descendants of Ishmael and the descendants of Issac (Abraham and his wife’s son) grew to hate and despise each other over disputes of who was Gods actual chosen people. So God has chosen someone who came from a group of people the Israelites would have disliked (though he was from a family that honored God his name meaning Yahweh is my God) to call out their own wickedness to further emphasize the seriousness of their mistakes. The second reason why this is important is what it means for us as Christians. We often feel like we aren’t “the chosen people” maybe we didn’t grow up in church or we don’t come from the perfect family. Maybe we come from a way of life and a group of people that most others would look down on and consider lesser than themselves. God does not care about where you are from, how you were raised, how much money you have, or what your last name is. What God cares about is are you committed to Him? If the answer is yes then just like Elijah He will use you in great ways.

What is he doing?

So the stage is set for Elijahs story to begin. We know the corruption of the nation and we know who Elijah is. All that is left now is to see what Elijah does.

17:1 Said - V2

So, this is the first that we see from Elijah and it seems as though Elijah is speaking from his own authority. This is common through Elijahs story we will see that he often speaks with such confidence and authority that it can be misunderstood that he is speaking his own prophecies and commands. This is not the case however. God is in every step of the process for Elijah. This prophecy of the rain disappearing was actually a promise made by God back in Deuteronomy 11:16-17 “Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.”

So Elijah here was not commanding that the rain stop but simply letting them know that God has decided it was time to fulfill His promise and that He has chosen Elijah as His messenger. Elijah speaks this though with absolute confidence and authority. Think about it. Elijah who is an Ishmaelite comes to the kings of Israel to let him know that his nation will be punished for their idolatry. This is a situation that would strike fear in the hearts of most men yet Elijah goes boldly before the king to make this proclamation. How can he do this? And more importantly how can we have that same confidence? I can say that right now with confidence I could tell you with certainty my wife’s beliefs on any major topic. I can tell you what my best friends believe and think. I would bet that most of you can tell me right now all about what your friends believe and what they think. Why do you think that is? We spend time with those people. We are around them talking to them all of the time so we hear what they believe and think on a regular basis. This leads to us being able to confidently discuss their beliefs. And, if someone were to do something that contradicts our friends beliefs and it affected our friends then we would be more than willing to defend our friend because we know with certainty that they would not agree with the situation at hand. The same is happening with Elijah. He obviously spends time with God through prayer, meditation, and study of His word so that he knows what the will of God is. We can be the same as Elijah. If we want to have confidence when we are speaking on Gods behalf then we have to know what Gods will is.