this down but anyway life of
Elijah this is by the way the 13th of our lessons in this series
on the life of Elijah okay let's begin with a word of prayer Heavenly
Father we thank you for this evening we thank you for those
that could gather and those that are watching via the internet
and we pray that all will receive a blessing Bless me to remember the things
that I have studied and learned from the lesson and allow me
to speak them clearly. We pray this in the name of the
Lord Jesus, amen. Now, we know that all the scriptures
are a testimony of Christ, for the Lord himself said so. Now,
we might wonder why God did not just spell out his entire purpose
of salvation in Christ right at the beginning. You know, why
did he start out with such a mysterious statement as, you know, to the
serpent, that he would strike at the heel of the seed of the
woman, but the seed of the woman would crush his head? That was
just all he told him right there. And, you know, of course, for
the next 4,000 years, God revealed bit by bit, you know, a little
more, a little more light, a little more light. And then he finished
up his revelation with the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
is God in human flesh. He's not only the best revealer,
he is the revelation of God. And Jesus Christ is God's final
and fullest revelation of himself. And so we don't look for any
other message other than that which has already been revealed
in Christ. The apostles received some details
about setting up the church, and John received a vision concerning
Well, it's just a visionary example or picture of the gospel in the
book of Revelation. But none of them actually brought
new information. All of it had been at least alluded
to by our Lord. So why didn't our Lord just start
there? Why didn't he just, as soon as, if he was going to save
people, why didn't he just walk into Eden and tell Adam and Eve
the whole story right then? Well, there's several answers
to this question. Come on in. And there's several answers to
the question. First of all, it's none of our
business. That's the first answer as to
why God revealed himself little by little You know, just kind
of turned up the light over about 4,000 years, at least, until
he appeared in the person of Christ. Why did he do it that
way? Well, we can ask ourselves that question, and I suppose
there's nothing wrong with asking the question, but we gotta realize,
when we ask God why, the answer might be, none of your business.
We would do ourselves a favor if we would quit exercising ourselves
over the question of why God does things the way he does them. It's unbelief that finds fault
with the providence of God. Now, there's different ways to
ask why. I mean, you can, like I said,
there's nothing wrong with asking the Lord why, or for some wisdom
to understand a situation, or why he did things the same way.
But when you ask why, in the sense, well, why in the world
did you do that? It becomes a challenge. Or you ask why, and you're gonna
be upset unless he justifies what he did. You might just tell
you essentially what he told Joe so your business just as a parent does not always
explain his actions to his children so does God often act without
explaining to us why he has done things the way he did and that
applies to why didn't God just tell the whole story right at
the beginning why did he reveal it little by little. Second. Why did God do it that way? Well,
it seemed like a good idea to Him to do it that way. That's
the second reason. First, this is none of our business.
Second, because it seemed good to Him. In Matthew chapter 11,
verses 25 and 26, we read this. At that time, Jesus said, I praise
you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. because you have hidden
these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to
little children yes father for this is what you were pleased
to do now that Those statements by our Lord are found in both
Matthew and Luke but the context is different in each one. Now
I just assume that you know we read two different contexts but
both of them were true at the time of it it's just Matthew
was inspired to speak about one set of events and Luke another
and Matthew was this is all said in the context of when the Lord
had sent out the seventy and they went out to the various
towns and villages preaching the kingdom of God and they came
back And the Lord began to pronounce curses on Tyre and Sidon and
Capernaum and those because of their unbelief. And then he said
he prayed this prayer. So the context here is our Lord
talking about the unbelief of these cities and that he said
it's going to be easier for you than it was in the day of Sodom
and Gomorrah. You know it would be easier for you in the day
of judgment than it was for Sodom and Gomorrah. Well that sounds
like Pretty tough stuff. And it says. At that time. And. In the book of Luke it says
Jesus being filled with the joy of the spirit said I praise you
father. Joy. He gets a report of unbelief
pronounces curses. We might think well. Father,
why'd you do it that way? I sent out all these preachers.
I thought there was gonna be a big revival. Why'd you do that? Lord said, the word that they
translate praise actually means I fully agree. I fully agree
that you've hidden these things. Or I'm in full agreement with
you because you've hidden these things from the wise and prudent and
you've revealed them to little children. And this joy of the
Holy Spirit that he experienced in the presence of what we would
think was a reversal, bad news, this joy, was his understanding
that everything that happened was happening because that's
the way his father wanted it to happen. And that was good
enough for him. Thirdly, why does the Lord Of course I'm answering
these questions why does the Lord do things the way he does
and in particular why did he. Reveal himself the way he did
in such dark shadowy types and pictures you know you realize
that the world was in the darkness of shadows and very deep or very
dim light for much longer than it's had the light. There's at
least four thousand years between Adam and Christ and the only
been two thousand since Christ and us. You know, the world has
not always had the light like it's got it now. Why didn't he
just do it all? Well, here's another reason.
So that it would be impossible for men to discover him naturally. Even the way he had the scriptures
written. Christ is in the Old Testament,
but you won't find him without grace. Those Pharisees studied. And I'll give them credit for
their diligence. I mean, they weren't slack. They studied hard
and they read and they knew their Bible. But it had not been given to
them to see and understand. Not all of the wisdom and learning
of man can bring anyone to the knowledge of the Almighty, the
Lord of heaven and earth. Not even God's book can do it
without God. Adding his grace. And he did
it that way on purpose so that no man will ever find him naturally.
The ones most prone to rejecting Christ are those who have the
most natural capacity to discover natural things. Don't we find
that true? Now we're not talking about innate intelligence. We're
talking about educated people, you know. And when people are so adept at intellectual
things and got their minds so full of the world's wisdom, it's
almost impossible for them to see the wisdom of God. Because
they think that that knowledge is gonna be acquired the same
way all their other knowledge has. And the Lord's just put
a big stop on that, no. There's a scripture, and I don't
know exactly where it is, but I remember it says, who by searching
can find out God? I remember a Russian cosmonaut,
you know, one of the early ones in the 60s. He went up there,
and I don't know whether he was forced to say this, but it wouldn't
surprise me that he was in perfect agreement with it. He said, well,
so much for God. I was up there, and I looked
for him. I didn't see him. Okay, you got 200 miles up in the air
and you think that's close enough to find God. I'm sorry. Natural sight tends to blind
people to spiritual realities. And that brings us to the fourth
reason that God revealed himself the way he did, so that the things
of God might be revealed to babes. Now, children are easily convinced
of things, because they do not have a good deal you know a lot
of life experience that would make them question what people
tell them I mean a five-year-old kid if you tell them you know
that the moon's made of cheese he's likely going to believe
you you know but in this the Lord is not teaching
that only those who are foolish and ignorant can be taught of
God what it means is is only those who understand That their
natural wisdom is not going to give them the knowledge of God.
They can receive the knowledge of God because they know it's
going to come from somewhere else. And God reveals it to them. That's
why I say so many times I can preach this only God can really
teach it. I can tell you. What God said in his book. But
only God. Can give you an understanding
of it. So. What we learn is what we can
discover naturally will never tell us the truth about God.
And what we can naturally learn can never be counted as a sufficient
evidence to deny a single word from God. Now, I did fairly well
in school. I could have had a career in
science. You know, I love science. But you go in science and there's
a whole lot of things that they think they see in the scientific
world that deny some things in Scripture. Well, I just go with
what the Scripture says. Why? Because I realize that the
things they're trying to figure out by natural sight cannot be
figured out that way. It's beyond the reach. Fifth,
He revealed himself the way he did to make us work in order
to discover the truth of him. Just like gold, the truth of
Christ is in the scriptures. Gold is down in the earth. The
truth of Christ is in the scriptures. But like gold, we have to dig
for it. The Lord says, you shall seek me and you shall find me
when you seek me with all your heart. Now this is true when
we look for Christ in the scriptures as well as simply seeking Him
from our hearts. We read in the book of 1 Peter
about the prophets who searched diligently that they might figure
out the times and circumstances the Holy Spirit in them was pointing
to when it told of the suffering of Christ and the glory that
would follow. Even the men to whom God spoke directly When
God was done speaking, they had to think about it. They had to
work it through. We must have hearts that are
willing to do the work necessary to discover Christ in the scriptures. And then sixth, and I liked this
one when I thought about it. I mean, it brought a smile to
my face. so that we might have spiritual
fun when we discover him in the scriptures. What fun is there
on looking for something that's just laying right out there?
Now fun may sound irreverent. So we may want to say spiritual
enjoyment. But what's wrong with the idea
of spiritual fun? What's wrong with our heavenly
father playing a game of hide and seek with us? Did you do
that with your children, son? And didn't they think it was
so great after they looked for you and they found you? Now,
we may be doing a grown-up version of it, but in this story for
tonight, that's what happened to me. I looked and looked and
looked. I was telling Bonnie about this beforehand. I've been
pondering these scriptures since I started this series, and I
didn't know where to go with this story. Then all at once,
there you are. You remember those where's Waldo
puzzles? You remember those? They'd have
a picture. and somewhere in those pictures this guy named Waldo
and he's got a red and white striped shirt on but the picture
is so busy it's hard to find him there's other people in there
and all kinds of things going on and you look and look and
you think you're searching real good but all at once there he
is well if all they did was draw a big picture of Waldo and put
it on a paper say fine Waldo what's it you know all right
we get spiritual enjoyment out of this it's good for us to dig
and to find him Now, I'll just tell you the story
rather than us reading this whole chapter. A man named Naboth,
or Naboth, I don't know exactly how it's pronounced, he owned
a vineyard that was close to Ahab's palace and maybe even
bordered on the king's property. Must have been a nice piece of
property because Ahab wanted it a lot. He tried to get Naboth
to sell it to him. And when Naboth refused, Ahab
tried to get him to trade it for another vineyard. But Naboth
refused, saying that it would not be right to surrender the
inheritance of his father's. This upset Ahab, so he went home
and sulked. And it's interesting, if we were
reading this right out of the Bible, that's what it says at the end
of the previous chapter, after the prophet confronted him about
not grabbing the enemy when he when he had him in his grip.
He says he went home and sulked essentially. And that's what
happened here. He went home with all upset just like a child.
Jezebel saw him sulking and asked him what was wrong. And when
he told her she said Aren't you the king. Get up. I'll get you
a boss vineyard. And Jezebel set in place a plan
to kill Nabof. She told some of the elders and
nobles by way of letters, elders and nobles of Naboth's city in
Jezreel, to proclaim a fast and seat Naboth in a prominent place.
They were to suborn false testimony against him. She said, get two scoundrels,
and they were to claim that Naboth had cursed God and the king,
and then take him out and stone him. And that's what he did. That's what they did. They got
Naboth there in a prominent place. These two false witnesses testified
against him, and they stoned him to death. Once news arrived
that Naboth was dead, the king took possession of Naboth's vineyard. Then God sent Elijah to Ahab
with a word of condemnation and curse. I mean, finally Elijah
could let go of him, and he did. I mean he said there won't be
a one year male descendants left. He said. Dogs are going to devour
Jezreel's body by the wall of Jezreel. And he said in those
of your household remaining in the city will be devoured by
dogs and those remaining out in the country will be eaten
by birds. He said there will be nothing left of your household. Now that was his work from a
point of view that the worst news you can give him. And then the scriptures give
this comment about Ahab, that essentially there had never been
a king as wicked as him, who so heartily went after idols,
and was so vile in his conduct. But when he heard this word from
Elijah, he humbled himself, and he sat
on sackcloth, and he fasted. And the Lord said to Elijah,
Elijah, do you see how he's humbled himself before me? Because of
this, I will not bring this disaster upon him in this day, in his
day. I'll wait till after he dies.
Now, as I was reading this scripture, I was having a hard time figuring
out where is Christ in all of this? I mean, there's good lessons
for us to learn, you know, good examples, bad examples and all
that. Where's Christ? But when Jezebel said, find two
scoundrels and seat them opposite Naboth and have them testify
that he has cursed both God and King. I said, there you are. Because on the day that our Lord
was crucified, they suborned false testimony against him.
and said essentially that he cursed God and king because he
claimed he'd tear down the temple. And that's cursing God. And then
he claimed he was the king of Israel. And that was to curse
the king. I said, there you are. And then
I started reading the story again and seeing all the patterns of
the history of the fulfillment of the gospel and even the spiritual
principles which drove them. Well in summary Naboth pictures
Christ and Ahab and Jezebel pictures the Jews and Gentiles who worked
in league together to crucify him so that the leaders of the
Jews could maintain their grip on the Lord's inheritance which
is his people. Now that's just kind of a summary
of what happened in our Lord's day and this story pictures that
very thing. Now let's note these details.
Naboth pictures our Lord Jesus as he comes into the world to
save his people from their sins. Now, I tried to find the meaning
of Naboth's name, but they don't know. They just said, you know,
unknown source. But he was called a Jezreelite
in the scriptures, and we know what Jezreel means. It means
God sows. Our Lord Jesus came into this
world as a sower who went forth to sow. Remember that parable?
He said, A sower went forth to sow, and some of the seed he
sowed fell by the wayside, and some fell among the thorns, and
some fell on rocky ground, and some fell on good soil. We know
who the sower was. It was the Lord Jesus. He sows
good seed. He came and sowed good seed.
But on at least most of the ground, as it's described, Never brought
fruit, at least most of the kinds of ground. Pathway ground, packed
down hard. Thorny ground, cares the world,
choked it out. Hard-hearted, stony ground. Persecution causes them to wither
up. But wherever it found good ground, it bore fruit. And so
he pictures our Lord in that way. Naboth had a vineyard, and
our Lord calls his people. He says, I am the vine, you are
the branches. And my father, he says, is the
husband that cleans them or prunes them. So, let me see. Still not getting
used to the way this thing flips through pages. There we are, I think. Naboth had an inheritance from
his father. This land was his inheritance.
He hadn't bought it. He hadn't stolen it. He inherited it. A
vineyard that had been given to him, and he would not part
with it, for it would have been a breach of the law. No one was allowed to sell their
inheritance. It would have been a breach of the law, and it would
have been disrespectful to his father. I mean you know you got
to look at this in the way they would in that day to sell what
your father gave you to is essentially to say well that's not really
what I wanted. It is written in Deuteronomy
thirty two verse nine for Jehovah's portion is his people. Jacob
is a lot of inheritance the people of God are God's portion his
inheritance. And the people of God were given
to Christ as his inheritance. And he was determined not to
lose them. This was the inheritance of his
father. And he was not going to give them up. In John chapter
17, verse 6, and then we'll skip down and read verses 11 and 12.
Our Lord praying to the Father says, I have revealed you to
those whom you gave me out of this world. They were you. They were yours. Remember. The
Lord's people are his is his portion. And you gave them to
me. His inheritance. Jacob is his
inheritance. He says. They were yours. You gave them to me. I will remain
in the world no longer, but they are still in the world and I'm
coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name.
The name you gave me so that we may be one. While I was with them, I protected
them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been
lost. I love those words. None has
been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that the scripture
would be fulfilled, which means he wasn't really lost. He just
ran around with them. I moved to wonder at the determination
of Christ to save his people. You think about this, now this
past Sunday I preached on You know it was in first Peter
but it was talking about you know pursuing God with all your
heart was actually talking about being holy and that involves
setting your affections fully or your heart fully on the grace
that will be revealed to you. I mean that's what we're about.
We're about Christ and salvation that's in him and that's what
guides all our life. I preached on that. But do you realize this.
Christ is more determined to save you than you are to be saved
by him. Everybody thinks this depends
on man's will. Christ is more determined than we are. And He
never fails at what He's determined to do. The Lord Jesus spoke through
the prophet Isaiah, beginning in chapter 50, verse 4. The Sovereign
Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue to know the word that
sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning,
wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed. The Sovereign
Lord has opened my ears. I have not been rebellious. I
have not turned away. I offered my back to those who
beat me. So now that's how we know this
is the Lord speaking through the prophet Isaiah. My cheeks
to those who pulled out the beard. I did not hide my face from mocking
and spitting, because the sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be
disgraced. Now listen to this. Therefore
have I set my face like a flint, and I know I will not be put
to shame. Flint was the hardest rock they
knew of. The Lord said, I'm like a flint, you will not deter me.
You're not going to break me to pieces. I'm not going to fall
apart. You can beat my back and pull out my beard. You can curse
me and mock me and spit on me. I'm not stopping. If we sought the Lord with one-tenth
of heart as he seeks us, it'd be something else. I'm glad that
while I ought to seek the Lord and pursue him with all my heart.
It's not my seeking that got me found. Lord said I have come
to seek and to say that which is lost. I remember the first
time I heard Henry say he said and he's going to seek and he
will find every lost one. He's going to save him. He said
you say well then everybody lost. He said No ask them. They're
not lost. He said he will find the lost. All right. It is no honor to the Lord Jesus
to say that the Father gave to him everyone in the world, but
that Christ has lost most of them. It does him no honor to
say that after his work on earth was done, he lost his will and
his flinty determination necessary to ensure that all those who
had been given to him of them none would be lost. Every one
of us will in the end be with him and like him because he will
lose none. And that's how Naboth was about
that vineyard. I'm not giving up one vine. I'm not giving up
a square inch of the inheritance of my father. Now Ahab is a picture
of the Jews and their jealous hatred of Christ. They wanted
his inheritance. In fact, they thought they had
a right to it. The religious leaders of that day, before our
Lord showed up on the scene, they were already grabbing the
Lord's vineyard. And he comes on the scene as
the son and sets himself up as the proper heir. Now they're
mad. And our Lord even spoke a parable
in those terms about a king who sent some ambassadors You know
a succession of them. To some rebellious people. And
everyone he sent. They kill him. And he's talking
there about the prophets. And this man finally says well
then I'll send my son. Surely they'll hear my son. But
when the son showed up they killed him too. You know who the son
was. He is. And that's what these. That's what the Jews did in the
Lord day. And Ahab. who was a Jew, but then Jezebel,
who was a Gentile. The two of them together represent
those jealous Jews and their hatred of Christ, who went to
the Gentiles, Pilate and the Roman Empire, and together they
got the Lord crucified. On the day of Pentecost, Our
Lord, while hanging on the cross, excuse me, on the day of Pentecost,
Peter, as he was preaching, said, this Jesus, you, and he's speaking to Jesus,
you, and he said, with wicked hands, that's a reference to
the Gentiles, you with wicked hands have put to death. Ahab and Jezebel together pictured
that. Well, when our Lord was hanging
on the cross, one of his sayings, and there
are seven statements recorded that our Lord made from the cross,
and one of them was this, Father, forgive them. They do not know
what they're doing. Now here we have a little bit
of a change from the picture to the reality. In the picture,
Ahab repents, and so God relents. Well, there wasn't anybody repenting
when our Lord was being crucified. Some of them would later, on
the day of Pentecost. They were stricken to the heart.
And like Ahab, I mean, they probably felt like Ahab. When he said,
this same Jesus who you crucified, God has made to be Lord in Christ,
what was their response? What should we do? And I don't
think that they thought there was an answer. I think they were
in desperation and really would say, what in the world are we
gonna do? We have sinned beyond redemption. I think that's what
was on their hearts and minds. God had sent them the Christ
and they had crucified him. All that's left for them is destruction.
But it didn't happen till, you know, 43 days after our Lord's
crucifixion, 53 days after our Lord's crucifixion. And, but our Lord, We might say in their place. Pled their cause. He said Father
forgive them they don't know what they're doing now what would
have happened if the Lord had not prayed that prayer. It's the Lord had said in the
law I will rise up another prophet. Like unto Moses from among your
brother. To him will all the people give
ear. And if they won't. He says, if
they won't listen to the prophet I send, I'll destroy them. You
know what? God did not visit his judgment
on that generation. He let them go on, most of them
in the rebellion, but he didn't lift a hand against them. And
when nearly all of the generation that crucified him was gone,
just like once Ahab died, once that generation was gone, Then
the Lord lowered the boom in 70 A.D. and sent Rome in there
and just tore the place up. And every descendant of Ahab. Was eventually wiped out. And
his dynasty came to an end. Never to rise again. In A.D. 70. God sent the Roman army in
there. And he wiped out that dynasty. The dynasty of the old covenant.
The dynasty of those religious leaders. The dynasty of Jewish
identity under the old covenant. He destroyed it. Not a one of
them is left. All the people are there, but
the dynasty's gone. There is no king. There's nothing. Now, I was raised, and you all
were familiar with it, in a view of prophecy that centers everything
about God's dealings with Israel. And they believe that God is
going to resurrect Israel, and that's why they get all excited
every time something happens over there. And they think that
the Jews will rebuild the temple, and all of it, you know? No.
Now, I'm not certain. There's some scriptures that
indicate there might be a spiritual revival. among the Jews but I
guarantee you the old covenants not coming back that dynasty
that sought to take the Lord's inheritance has been destroyed
nothing of it is left and would that whoever of our brothers
and sisters live in this territory would learn that the old covenants
gone there's things we can learn from it but we're not under we're
not a part of it don't try to drag it into the new covenant
God put an end to Ahab. He put an end to that people
as a special people before him. In Christ, there is neither Jew
nor Gentile. It carries no significance whatever. And so here we are. Still a rebel
against God by nature, but oh the mercy of God. He's patient. He has a people. There was a
remnant according to the election of grace while Christ was hanging
on that cross. And the Lord prayed, and God
spared the whole nation to spare them. And once they had been
collected through the preaching of the gospel, then boom, he
put an end to that dynasty. And if we belong to him right
now, why is the world still going on in 2020? because not all of
the sheep of God have been called in yet. It says that the Lord
is long suffering toward us. And who is the us that Paul was
or Peter was talking about? He talked about the elect because
that's who he addressed. In that epistle, there's long
suffering toward us, not willing that any princesses of us should
perish, and therefore he tolerates this world's rebellion. until
the last of his sheep are called in. And that's why the apostle says,
don't you know that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation? Why did he wait until now? Well, evidently the last sheep
hadn't been called in yet. There's still more. He waited
till you were born. Waited till you heard the gospel.
Waited till he gave you grace to believe it. You called on
his name. But once you did, the world didn't end. Why? Well,
there were some more. And we're here tonight because there's
still some more out there. Maybe more to be born yet. Maybe there's
10,000 years more of them. I don't know. I know this. The Lord will wait until the
last one. Till his last Ahab. Has been
brought in. And then it'll be done. And so
we look at this story and we say, there you are. We found
you. And what a blessed discovery
it was. The Lord will not give up his
vineyard. He will not let one branch be
cut from his vine. And the Lord be honored.