Who would think that something
as modern as a computer would use the word fetch? All right. You can open your Bibles, if
you want to follow along with them, to 1 Kings 18. our lives and we don't want to
pass over that and miss what benefit can come from it. But
then we also look more deeply into it, if deep is the right
word, and we look at it as the Lord taught us to, saying that
the Old Testament scriptures are the scriptures that testify
about Him. And so we look at this same story and see what
we can learn concerning the Lord Jesus Christ a story in mind. This is 1 Kings
chapter 18, verses one through 16. And I'm gonna turn up the
microphone a little bit. It can be louder than that. Okay, let me get back to where
I was. Okay, 1 Kings 18, verse one. After a long time, in the third
year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah. Go and present yourself
to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land. So Elijah went to
present himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in
Samaria, and Ahab had summoned Obadiah, who was in charge of
his palace. Obadiah was a devout believer
in the Lord. While Jezebel was killing off
the Lord's prophets, 50 in each, and had supplied them
with food and water. Ahab had said to Obadiah, go
through the land to all the springs and valleys. Maybe we can find
some grass to keep the horses and mules alive, so we will not
have to kill any of our animals. So they divided the land they
were to cover. Ahab going in one direction,
and Obadiah in another. As Obadiah was walking along,
Elijah met him. Obadiah recognized him, bowed
down to the ground, and said, is it really you, my lord, Elijah? Yes, he replied. Go tell your
master Elijah is here. What have I done wrong, asked
Obadiah, that you are handing your servant over to Ahab to
be put to death? As surely as the Lord your God
lives, there is not a nation or kingdom where my master has
not sent someone to look for you. And whenever a nation or
kingdom claimed you were not there, he made them swear they
could not find you. But now you tell me to go to
my master and say, Elijah is here. I don't know where the
spirit of the Lord may carry you when I leave you. If I go
and tell Ahab and he doesn't find you, he will kill me. Yet
I, your servant, have worshiped the Lord since my youth. Haven't
you heard, my Lord, what I did while Jezebel was killing the
prophets of the Lord? I hid a hundred of the Lord's
prophets in two caves, 50 in each, and supplied them with
food and water. And now you tell me to go to
my master and say, Elijah is here? He will kill me. Elijah
said, as the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve, I will surely present
myself to Ahab today. for this opportunity to meet
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I ask that you'll
give me grace that I might speak the things concerning the Lord
Jesus Christ, and that I might show him and reveal his glory. I say, reveal, Lord, all I can
do is speak of it. We depend on you to reveal these
things to us. So bless us, Lord, with your
spirit, who takes the things of Christ and shows I've got to get halfway through
this lesson in the notes. There we go. Looking at Elijah
as a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there is no one
of whom it can be said with more force that his God was Jehovah
than our Lord Jesus. Now Elijah's name means and I suppose that Elijah was
the most devoted follower of Jehovah in his day and in the
place where he lived. But none can compare with our
Lord Jesus. When he said from the cross,
my God, my God, my God, of Elijah's name, Eliyahu. It's the way, evidently, the
Hebrews pronounce his name. But that Eli means my God. Nobody,
no human has ever looked to God, trusted in God, obeyed God, or
served God, or worshiped God like our Lord Jesus Christ did.
If no one else in all of creation could ever say, Jehovah is my
God, the Lord Jesus most certainly could. In the 20th chapter of
John, after he is raised from the dead, and Mary Magdalene
goes to the tomb, and he's not there, and then she, through
her tears, she sees a human, a figure, and thinks it's the
gardener, and begins to Speak to him, where have you laid my
Lord, you know? And well, the Lord reveals himself
to Mary. And so she real quick grabs ahold
of him by the legs, you know, didn't want him to disappear
again. And he goes, do not hold on to me, for I have not yet
ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and
tell them I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my
God. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is a mystery. I understand
that. We can't put it together. How
can he be God and yet say Jehovah is my God? Well, because he's
a God man. But he lived his life here on anyone who could rightly say
that Jehovah is his God, he was quick to do whatever his God
commanded him to do. And I look here at the things
of Elijah's life that we've noticed so far. Elijah was sent to the
very seat of power of the most prominent enemy of God in that
day, and he went. And our Lord Jesus Christ was
sent into this world full of people who hate God, and yet
he did not to a deserted place, a place
all alone. And we read in the scriptures
that after our Lord was baptized, he was led by the Spirit, led
by God, into the wilderness. And he went. Our Lord said very
plainly, I have not come to do my own will, but the will of
him who sent me. Elijah was sent to a widow in
Zarephath, and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now
that widow of Zarephath, depends on which translation you're reading,
whether they make that a P or a PH, but I guess it can be pronounced
either way. But that widow represents, I
mean, she was a Gentile. She lived in an area that was
not within the bounds of Israel. She actually lived in the area
from which Ahab's wife, Jezebel, came. And so, God sent Elijah
there, and God sent his son into the world, and he sent him to
the Jewish nation, but look at who he was known He went among the Samaritans.
Now, to the Jews of that day, a Samaritan may as well be a
Gentile. But we know this as what the Jews considered the
Gentiles to be outcasts and worthless. That's the kind of people our
Lord went to. and a winebibber. I know we don't
say winebibber in our day but you know what they mean by that.
They call him that. And so Elijah obediently went
where he was sent and so did our Lord world. I want you to show the
example first. He was sent to someone who hates
God and he was sent here and there and now he's come back.
He's going to face Ahab again and Ahab for all his power could
not turned against him, and we're
gonna pitch him over a cliff and stone him to death. And he
just walked away from it. Why? It wasn't his time. And several times, they tried
to eliminate the Lord. They couldn't touch him. And
even when he stood before Pilate, Pilate said, don't you realize
I have the power to crucify you or let you go? And the Lord Jesus
said, you don't have any power. I'm not part of him in the end. Waddy, a brook known to dry up, and
it didn't dry up. And ravens brought him bread
and meat. Why? He's a lodger. That's why. And the Lord commanded him. Our
Lord came into this world, and everywhere he went, sickness,
demon possession, hunger, was alleviated. Everything that is
a token of the curse and the death that comes by the curse,
with a word, with a touch, he made it disappear. I love those
stories. Gethsemane, where did I say?
Yeah, it was a garden, but it was the one in Gethsemane. When
he was in Gethsemane, he sweat great drops of blood, but we
never see him exorcisms in our day, with what
our Lord did. I just have to laugh. I mean,
they go for days. And I know it's only the Pentecostals,
pretty much, and in the Roman Catholic Church, who claim this
kind of power. And when I see the Pentecostals
do it, the person acts more like they're demon-possessed after
the demon's been cast out than before him, because they flop
around and flail on the floor and all that. And then the Roman
Catholics, they sprinkle holy water and wave crosses at them,
and it may take days, and the people seem worse off when they're
done than before. This man, possessed of multiple
demons, our Lord's presence there caused those demons to make that
man come running to the Lord Jesus Christ, and bow before
Him and worship Him, and beg Him not to send them into the
abyss before His word, his word is power. His word is life. Elijah said,
there will be no rain except with my word. So his word stopped
the rain. Elijah raised the widow's son,
Christ healed the dying and raised the dead. He raised Jairus' daughter,
he raised Lazarus, and he will someday raise all of his saints
to be with him. And more than this, It was dead. Spiritually, we
were as dead as Lazarus was physically in that tomb. And we could no
more come out of our spiritual tomb than Lazarus could come
out of his tomb in the stone. But Christ came, and by his word,
raised us from the dead. And it's a miraculous thing,
as miraculous as any raising from the dead there ever was.
In John chapter one, verse four, it says, was life, and that life
was the light of men. What is it that enlightens people
to a knowledge of the gospel? It's that spiritual life which
is in Christ and is given to his people. And then it says
in John chapter five, verse 24, I tell you the truth. Whoever
hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life
and will not be condemned. He has crossed over from death
to life. I tell you the truth, a time
is coming and has now come, it's already come, when the dead will
hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in
himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself."
What a marvelous thing to say with regard to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now Elijah raised the dead. Elijah didn't have life
in himself. He couldn't just go around raising
anybody he wanted to. In fact, while we say that he
raised the widow's son, he really didn't do it. He asked God to So we see Elijah, the one who
says, my God is Jehovah, is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
Ahab, who does he represent? He represents anyone, anything,
any individual or any group who stands in opposition to God.
He represents the entire world. John said, we know that the whole
world translated, the whole world lies
in the wicked one. Meaning that they're all under
his power. And other scriptures tell us
that. The God of this age hath blinded them, hold them captive
at his will. So that's what Ahab represents. He represents the same thing Now, Ahab hated God, and he hated
everyone who loved God. Now, his hatred was not always
shown as vigorously as it could have been. After all, he was
a politician, and he'd make good use of whoever he could. But
how do we know he hated God? He hated God because he didn't
worship God. It was known that he Now, let me try to show how that
would work in our world today. We realize that if a man is married
to a woman and he believes God and she doesn't, and she goes
to a different church than he does, that doesn't mean he hates
God or anything like that. And you could compare that, say
for instance, I'm a pastor of a congregation. What if I participated
in or willingly allowed the preaching of a false gospel in this church
over which the Lord has put me as a leader? What would that
say about me? It'd say I hate God. And so if I were to fail in that,
especially if I were to fail in that quite willingly, and
sad to say, there are preachers that do that. You listen to them
and you say, wow, what he said was really good. But then you
come back the next week and either he says something that denies His heart was with those who
desired to destroy any remembrance of the true God. opposed to God, he remained that
way, and his heart was aligned with others who were opposed
to God so much that he became one with them, or one with one
of them, in the bonds of marriage and gave her permission, if that's the right
word, And he didn't do anything to
stop it. And he was a man of power and
influence in his kingdom. For the most part, nearly everyone in a position
of power in this world is like Ahab. I realize there have been and
probably are some, like even within our government and some
of the governments of other nations where the gospel is tolerated.
Some of them may be honest believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, but
that's a very, very rare thing. The kingdoms of this world are
generally led So Ahab represents any individual,
or any group of individuals, or all the individuals that ever
have been, and the governments, and the religions, and all that,
that stand opposed to God. And then we get to the character of Obadiah.
Now here's an interesting thing about this character Obadiah.
I think I pointed out, But Obadiah, his name is the
servant or the servant of Jehovah. Now who do you think he represents? and the servant of God quite
happily. I mean, is there any of you here
that considers yourself a servant
of the Lord but you don't like that fact? I would say if a person
does not delight in the fact that he is a servant of God,
it's because he is a woman. I'm not saying we all do a good
job. But we delight to serve our Lord, for He is not our Lord. Willingly, for that is at least
from the willingness of our own heart. The church of the Lord
Jesus does what the Lord sends her to do. Now, Obadiah lived
among those world. We're in this world, but
we're not of it. People say the United States
is a Christian nation. It depends on what you mean by
that, but in all reality there is no culture has been strongly influenced
by the gospel. But I don't know that there's
ever been a time when a majority of the people who lived in our
country truly believed the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor do I think
there's ever been a time when our government was run in the
majority by those who believe Christ. They were religious.
They claim to believe the God of the Bible, but when you read
what they actually believe, they believe the God of the Bible
by just turning Him into whatever they thought He ought to be. And right now, When they stand up with our president,
and let me tell you something, I'd say this is much about a
president whom I respected as one I didn't respect. It doesn't
matter. But act like that he is the one
God has sent to save the church. I mean, I'm talking about preachers
with names that everybody Isn't that awful? What in the world does the Lord
Jesus Christ need from Republicans? What does He need from the President?
What does He need from Senators? He doesn't need them, they need
Him. No, we live among a people that
hate God and we should never expect Now, this does not mean an emotional
type of hatred, but it's the Bible of human power, and there she
takes her testimony, and she cannot be withstood. There are not many, Paul says,
in the church, among God's elect, who are noble, meaning young,
but there are a lot He's got the name of the God
that Ahab hates right in his name. And yet he rules over Ahab's
household. Now why did God put Obadiah there?
Did he put Obadiah there to save Ahab? Obviously not. He put Obadiah
there to save those prophets. He put Obadiah there to save and gave him access to the things
necessary to preserve his people, that they may go on and do whatever
it is he has intended them to do. He was, like the Lord calls
his disciples, he was salt and white in the kingdom of Ahab. He is sent by Christ, for Obadiah
was sent by Elijah, to tell Ahab that he was going to meet Christ.
And the church is sending him to this world to tell the world,
someday you're going to meet Christ. message that says that. And so we go into this world
of God-hating people and tell them, you're going to meet Christ. But you know Obadiah, when Elijah
told Obadiah, you go tell Ahab. He made some pretty powerful
statements. He says, for one thing, I'm paraphrasing,
Elijah hates you and he's been looking for you to kill you,
you know, ever since you last showed up in his court. And he's not been able to find
you. And he's shaped all the trees and he's gone into foreign
nations and made them swear that they can't find you. And if I
go tell him, The Holy Spirit might take you
somewhere else. And Ahab will show up where I told him to go,
and then you won't be there. And it won't matter. Obediah. Surely the Lord my God
lives. I'll be here. And so Obediah
was comforted. He was encouraged that this wasn't
going to end up in his death. It is You and I are not likely in danger
of our lives, but we can be in danger of the loss of other things. But we go anyway. We go wherever
we're sent, and we say whatever we're told to say. And we know
this in the end. We pray that when we tell them
about that, the Lord meets them then and meets them in grace
and saves them. But one way or the other, every
knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to
the glory of the Father. You and I, actually is the central point
of Elijah's entire ministry. Remember, he came, his name means,
my God is Jehovah. And he's going to end up on Mount
Carmel and there's going to be a