walking in the power of God

Power of Elijah

Zechariah 4:6 “He said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”

2 Corinthians 4:7 “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”

Does anybody remember the prophet Elijah. I’m sure most of us are at least familiar with his name and you might remember the famous showdown on Mt Carmel. Elijah calling down the fire of the Lord and then “dispating” a few hundred false prophet to the after life. Well today Kerr, we are going to look back at that famous story from the Holy Bible. Like Samson & Delilah, David & Goliath, our story of Elijah & prophets of baal & Asherah. This is a story that we teach in our children’s Bible study, and that each of us has probably heard a sermon or two preached on it. The account where the powerful prophet of God, our man, Elijah, teaches these false prophets who the real God is, Yawh. in this event prophet Elijah is Calling fire from the sky, a powerful display of our God, the one True God Yawh. Then the prophet has the 450 false prophets, give or take a few, put to the sword. Ya go team God. What a powerful and justifying story; to show everyone how God handles His business. Lets face it Kerr, this is the God we all want. We want displays of his power and control on earth. We want this power of God to yeild in rightouness, right? But is this really what God is telling us? Scripture is not offend taken in full context but rather short verses, we must be careful to have a full picture of scripture, and not just snap short verses. Well before we get into that story , Let me catch everyone, to what the Holy Bible is telling us. This telling of Elijah the tishabite, is tucked right inside 1&2 Kings, the telling of the kings of Israel, which these books read my like a tradgety, which is much like the book of Judges, the telling of the judges of Israel, You see, Scriptures tells us that in this time the people each did what was “right” in their own eyes, and this caused them to do evil in the sight of God. So God would raise up a Judge that would turn the people’s hearts back to God, this works for a while but ultimately the people do evil again and again and again and again, and so on and so forth, it is a tradegy. This pattern is also repeated in 1 & 2 Kings by the very Kings the people asked God for. really it was their own fault, God tried, he actually told them that they were never to have a King and that a King would take everything from them, but they did it anyways. Talk about human nature. And if we look at the very first King , King Saul, we see God’s humor. What do I mean? Well Saul actually means “asked for”, the people asked for a King to rule over them and God gave them King “asked for”, And Kerr, I know that we do not do this today in our culture, with the meanings of names, so we don’t give it a second thought, But in this NE culture of that time all their names were full of the meaning, So I’m pretty sure the people would have gotten it at the time… and I don’t know about you but King “asked for” is pretty funny to me. And what the scriptures tells us in 1&2kings is that God was right. Amen. These Kings did the very same pattern as people did in the time of Judges. This is human nature, we come close to God then we fall away from God, this too is a tradegy. So, as scripture goes King Saul lost the Kingdom because he was not obedient, King David is anointed by God through the prophet Samual, we can find this in 1 Samuel & 2 Samuel, I highly recommend it, and the order goes: Judges, Ruth, 1&2 Samuel and then 1 & 2 kings.

These books recount everything of Israel: the good the bad and the ugly, this is what is special about the Hebrew Scriptures compared to the stories from other cultuers with the lesser gods. God is not afraid of his peoples mistakes, You see Kerr, the God we serve is able to work around and even through our mistakes and downfalls. Sometimes learning what not to do is the lesson, ask me how I know church? The Holy Bible is chalked full of these stories, now sometimes these lessons are right in front of us but still can be very hard to see. What do I mean? Well as we look today more closely at this well know story of the prophet Elijah, I believe we may see things in a new light, because this well known story might actually be a little misunderstood. and God may be trying to tell us something about himself.

So today let us travel to the time of King Ahab. In a time long long ago, The Kingdom of Israel was split, Its starts with King Saul, then King David is really the begging of the Kingdom, a man after God’s own heart and God promised David that he would always have a descendant on the throne because of his heart towards God, and this promise is and was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, because as we know It only took one generation of the flesh to ruin the kingdom of Israel on earth. The Kingdom was torn in two after king David’s son, the wise King Solomon, does anyone remember King Solomon? Again Kerr, right here, we see more of God’s humor. We all know him as the wisest King of Israel, He was definitely wiser in his youth then his old age. but when you read about him, you can see plenty of foolishness, his heart was led astray by foreign women and ultamanitly this sin of marring woman outside Israel was because these women lead him to false gods. There are plenty of stories where women from outside Israel are welcomed into Israel but they were good and faithful women who always adapted Yawh as their own God in place of any of the false gods. King Solomon’s wives never turned to YAHY but rather turned solomon’s heart from YAWH and this caused the Kingdom of Israel to be split and ripped from their hands. But also because of God’s love for David God did not allow this until the next generation, Solomon’s son Rehoboam. Where it said God rose up adversaries against him, he had no chance and no choice, God had declared it because of his father’s sin actions and it was going to take place. Even when it came down to his own desicions, God’ s hand was at work, so let us be careful and know that our sins effect more then just us. Everyone under our aurthory or our influence, are effected by our sins. Our sins effect our children, spouses and those directly around us but the good news is so does our rightous actions which will carry forth to a thousand generations. So the Kingdom of Israel, God’s chosen people, So God chooses to split them into the Southern Kingdom of Judea, where the tribe of Judea and the tribe of Benjamin are together and continued the earthly line of David on the throne, this is where Jerusalem and God’s temple was still at. Then God raised up the other 10 tribes of Isreal against Judea, causing them create a northern Kingdom. The north was who built the golden calves. The Holy Bible tells us that King Ahab done more evil in his sight of God then all the rest of the other kings. He had married Jazabel, a princess from Sidon, she was a devoute follower of the god baal, he was a nature driven God, which makes sense when the biggest thing is crop growth to feed the people. And the city and culture was all into baal worship. they would sacfrcise even their own children and the god would bring rain and a bountyful harvest. and Jazabel was such a follower of baal that she was rounding up and murdering any followers of Yawh. This is presiely where we pick up in our reading 1 Kings 17:1 “Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word”

It starts with a drought, the very thing that baal was to given them, Elijah proclaimed that God would withhold from them. Imagine seeing this country man, probably all dirty from his journey, walking straight into the palace and straight up to the king to pronounce a drought. He immediately vanishes after getting God’s command for him to go to a valley where he would drink from the brook and be fed by raven? He had no problem doing this, even when God tells him to leave the brook and meet the widow at Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, this is outside Israel, and in queen jazabel’s home region where baal worship was in full effect but Elijah has no problem doing this either. And while he lives with that widow, they both as well as her son too were fed by God, Scripture tells us the jar of flour never runs out and the jug of oil never runs out. While everyone else is starving from this drought, they are personally provided by God. He even brings back to life this widows own son after he dies. It’s actually not until her son is brought back to life until she finally says “now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth”. Talk about seeing is believing. You would think the flour and oil never running out but I believe the lesser gods could have also preformed these minor miracles but the power of resurrection in only from Yahw

Scripture goes on to tell us that after a long time, the word of the Lord came to Elijah. This is the important part, let s listen closely, God said: “Go and present yourself before Ahab and I will send rain on the land”. Simple enough task for God to ask, and Elijah does. But he first meets Ahab’s palace administrator, Obadiah, whom himself is a devout believer in God and had actually even hidden 100 prophets of the Lord because Jazabel, Ahab’s wife was killing all of them. When Elijah sees Obediah he tells him to get Ahab and he does. So far so good, When they meet Ahab immediately calls Elijah a trouble maker of Israel, and Elijah kinda loses it a little bit, I know the feel. And actually this where it goes off the rails a little. He says :I’m no troubler but you are troubling all of Israel” Elijah was going to prove to everyone that he was right,his God was the only true God. So Elijah then had Ahab gather all the prophets a baal and asherka to meet mt Carmel for that famous showdown. They are both given a bull to cut and prepare and Elijah allows the prophets of Baal to start. Scripture tells us that from morning till noon they danced around crying out to their god but nothing happens. it goes on to tell us that Elijah began to mock the prophets saying that maybe their god is gone on a trip, possibly sleeping, or might even be stuck on the toilet relieving himself. This made the prophet begin cutting themselves and shedding their own blood until the evening sacrafise was ready to be made and then it tells us that Elijah takes 12 stones, for the 12 tribes of Israal, for whom the word of God came to, he repaired the old alter and placed the wood and the bull on it. But Elijah wasn’t done yet. He had them bring 4 large jars filled with water dumped all over, again again and again. that's 12 large jars of water dumped all over the alter, filling even the trench at the bottom. Soaking wet, dripping and sitting in a pubble. Elijah wanted there to be no question about God’s power and ability. The awe factor of a soaking wet sacrafice burned up and consumed in an instant when Elijah called down fire from Heaven. Scripture says that the fire consumed the bull offering and even licked up every drop of water from the trench around the base. What a sight to see the power of God on full display in front of all these witnesses. Surely this will bring God’s people back to him and Elijah immediately tells them to grab all the false prophets and not to let any of them escape. They were all then put to the sword. 450 prophets cut down in one afternoon. With The mighty power of God put in full sight of all the people to see, Elijah must have believed that this was going to be the turning point in Israel, surely all the people would turn back to the Lord their God. Ahab and Jazabel would recongnize Yawh and turn from their old gods. But this is not what happened, in fact, when Ahab tells his wife Jazabeel, she isn’t quick to turn from baal. instead she double downs and swears to have Elijah killed. And that great spectical of God’s power must have felt good at the time but it doesn’t fill Elijah spiritually. We know this because in the very next paragraph Elijah is running in fearing for his life. That great showing of God’s power, ultimately did no good. Elijah went from kicking butt and taking names to Elijah on the run scared to even becoming suicidal. Kerr we must be careful, Elijah took on a job that God never laid on him. God only told Elijah to present yourself before Ahab and then God would bring rain upon the land. Elijah took it up on himself to challenge these false prophets, yes God still had his back clearly God honors the men and women who are faithful but it also seems that Elijah had a twisted reality view. He felt he was the only person serving God and that it was up to him and that this great spectacle of God’s power would certainly change everything in Israel, I mean how could they deny God when he is showing himself in powerful fire. So, when nothing changed it made Elijah very depressed to the point of even praying for death. And I love God’s response. God does not even acknowledge what Elijah says about ending his own life but rather tells him to eat, God even provides this, and tells him to rest. Talk about showing just how much of children we are in God’s sight, the prophet Elijah , a man of God, able to call down the very fire of God, is told here to eat this snack and take a nap. The same thing we tell your small children whenever they acting like children. Elijah was exhausted both physically and mentally because he stepped out of his role and out on his own faith and belief in what his actions could accomplish, sure he started with God but ultimately let his believe in what Yawh should do and turned it into his own actions. We too do this when we “help” God with our actions before we ever even pray to him for the answers. Like we already know what God wants but this can be dangerous.

But even though Elijah stepped outside of what God asked him to do, God never left Elijah. In fact God sent an angle who woke Elijah and provided food and rest before his 40 days and 40 nights journey to Mt Horeb, where it says he spent the night in a cave. when God asked him: what are you doing here Elijah? So if the name Mt Horeb sound familiar that is because it is Mt Sinai? You know where Moses meant with God for 40 days and 40 nights. We should reconiginze the pattern God is showing us, 40 days and 40 nights. The number forty appears throughout Scripture as a symbolic marker of testing, judgment, renewal, and divine preparation—periods when God refines his people or accomplishes transformative work in them. Let us look at Patterns of Testing and Trial;

The flood lasted forty days and forty nights, destroying the old world and establishing a new covenant with Noah. Moses spent forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai receiving the covenant tablets. Later, Moses lay prostrate before the LORD for forty days and forty nights without eating or drinking because of Israel’s sin. We also can remeber The Israelite spies returned after forty days of surveying the land, but their faithless report triggered divine judgment: so for every day spent spying, Israel would wander one year in the wilderness—forty years of bearing iniquity. Jonah proclaimed that Nineveh would be overthrown in forty days , a deadline for repentance. and in our story today, how Elijah traveled forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb, journeying toward a divine encounter after his crisis of faith. It is here where the Lord appears to Elijah and we go back to that question God asked Elijah what are you doing here? The prophet announces that he has been very vealous for the Lord, and all of Israel as broken the convenient and I am the only one left and they trying to kill me. Elijah was basically saying that he was the only rightous person left and that everyone else had broken God’s rules except him only… Scripture tells us “God said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire came a gentle whisper.”

You see Kerr God is not into the power spectacles that draw crowds of people, Because God knows that whatever it takes to get people is what it will take to keep them as well. And God does not want to feed us signs and wonders continually God wants us to have faith; the believe in the things not seen. God is not into mass specticles and show of force as much as God is into personal whispers of relationships with his children. Kerr let us always hear the gentle whisper of God over any loud specticles, God is not in those, let us pray together:

Heavenly Father,

We thank you so much for all you have done for us. We pray that we may walk in the correct power of your spirit. That we may go about and do your will here on earth. We pray for the strength, wisdom and guidance to do all things for your glory, in your son’s name, we pray, Jesus Christ, Amen

Let us now pray together using the Lords prayer that Christ gave us; Our Father.