18 the title of this message
Elijah an example of faith part 2 this is carrying on from last
week last week's message Bible class first Kings 18 you know
we have We have many examples given to us in the Word of God
of faith, of believers who lived and walked by faith. Over in Hebrews chapter 11, turn
over to Hebrews 11. It says in verse 4, By faith
Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,
by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying
of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh. Verse 5, By
faith Enoch was translated that he should not seek death, and
was not found, because God had translated him. For before his
translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. Without
faith it's impossible to please God, to please him. For he that comes to God must
believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being warned of
God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an
ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the
world. and became heir of the righteousness, which is by faith."
By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place
which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed. And
he went out not knowing. How would you like that? I knew
I was coming here when God said to Abraham, I knew I was coming
here when you asked me to come here, and I believe the Lord
sent me here. But Abraham was told just to
pack his bags and leave, leave his family, leave everything.
And we don't read of Sarah complaining. She just went with him. Because
it says a little bit after that in verse 11, Through faith also
Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed. And then it
says over in verse 17, By faith Abraham when he was tried he
offered up Isaac. And then verse 20, by faith,
Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. Verse
22, by faith, Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing
of the children of Israel and gave commandments concerning
his bones. Verse 24, by faith, Moses, when
he was come to you, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter. And 27, by faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing. Verse
31, by faith, the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed
not when she had received the spies with peace. We have many examples right here. And you know, chapter 11 of Hebrews
has been called the hall of fame of faith. And we have many examples
of believers who walk by faith given to us in the Word of God
for our encouragement. It's for our encouragement. We
see the end of their lives. We see how God blessed them.
We see how God's hand was in their lives and in the path that
they took and they walked by faith. And we walk by the same
faith. We are saved by the same faith. No difference. No difference.
The faith in which we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is exactly
the same faith Abel believed and offered that sacrifice. It's
the same faith, there's no difference. These examples are for us to
study and follow as they followed the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we
get to this 1 Kings 18, we'll see the faith of God's preacher,
Elijah. There was a great famine in the
land because of the sin of Ahab. You know, famines don't just
happen ever, ever. If there's a famine in the land,
God sent it for a reason. If he holds the rain or he gives
the rain for a reason, There's no such thing as just an incidental
famine that just happened. No, God sent it. It's of God. And you can see why He did that
back in chapter 16, verse 30 and 33. The sin here, look here
back in that chapter, chapter 16. Look at verse 30, And Ahab the
son of Amri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were
before him. It came to pass as if it had
been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam
the son of Neba. It was just a light thing to
him. Sin should never be a light matter
to us, ever. When I consider that the Lord
Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins, No sin ought to
be light, none. He bore the wrath of God for
her. He took to wife Jezebel, the
daughter of Ethabel, king of the Zidonians, and went and served
Baal and worshipped him. This is the king of Israel here. And he reared up an altar for
Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove, and Ahab
did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all
the kings of Israel that were before him. And so God said,
it's not going to rain. He sent a famine in the land,
and He said, it's not going to rain. And there's one thing evident
here that I jotted down this morning. It's evident that we
do not pass on a righteous nature to our children. How many times
do we read in the Word of God where a king followed the Lord
with his whole heart and then his heir did evil and did not
walk in the steps of his father, but did evil in the sight of
the Lord? We don't inherit righteousness.
That's a gift of God. That's of God. We inherit an
evil nature and we do that. Every last one of us inherit
an evil nature, but that righteous nature is of God. It's born of
God. Now we're going to see here in
verse, look in verse 18. Verse 17, and it came to pass when
Ahab saw Elijah. So he sent out Obadiah to look
for water so they could water the cattle so they wouldn't die.
All of them die. He said, just you go one place
and I'll go another. And then Obadiah ran into Elijah and Elijah
said, you go tell King Ahab I want to see. And so we come down to
verse 17, just to make a longer story short. It came to pass
when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, Art thou he that
troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled
Israel, but thou and thy father's house, in that you have forsaken
the commandment of the Lord, and thou hast followed Balaam. I haven't troubled Israel in
telling the truth. It's telling the truth Troubling? Well, it may be troubling to
you, but I'm not the one troubling you. It's truth. It's the truth. He said, you've troubled Israel
by your idolatry. You're the problem. You're the
problem. Truth is never the problem. He
said, you're the problem. But you'll notice here, he says
here, if you go on down, now therefore, send and gather to
me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal 450,
and the prophets of the groves 400, which eat at Jezebel's table. Did you notice something here,
how Ahab did what God's prophet said? When God sends his word and power,
even the king has to bow to it. Ahab doesn't even realize it.
His sinful self doesn't realize that what's going on here is
that God has sent Elijah and said, you tell him to call these
prophets of Baal, and Ahab did exactly what he said. Things
like that jump out at me. The king, he wanted to kill Elijah. He was so angry with Elijah.
You know, when Elijah told him it was going to not rain for
several years, God hid him. That's when he sent
him to that woman, after he fed him with a raven and then sent
him to that widow woman. God hid him because Ahab would
have taken his head off. But Ahab, listen here, Ahab did
what he said. Now he may be the king, but he's
not God's prophet or God's preacher. I understand I understand this,
I understand that I have the most important responsibility
in all the world. And that's not, I'm not saying
that in a manner to exalt myself. And I know that we live in a
day when preachers are a dime a dozen. And I say you can take
99.9% of them and throw them in the trash. But I'm telling you the truth,
when a man stands to preach God's Word, handle God's Word, preach
the gospel of God's glory, he's got the greatest responsibility
than anybody on the top side of this earth. And I take it
seriously. God sent His preacher to the
king, and His preacher, His prophet, spoke to the king, and he told
the king what to do. It wasn't the other way around.
He told the king what to do. God's Word takes precedence over
everything and everyone, absolutely over everything and everyone. Now Elijah told Ahab back in
chapter 17 that it would not rain for years according to the
Word of the Lord. And so it did not rain. It did
not rain for three and a half years according to the Word of
the Lord. You know, God is good for His
Word. He's good for His Word. It says in Numbers 23 and 19,
HATH HE SAID, AND SHALL HE NOT DO IT? OR HATH HE SPOKEN, AND
SHALL HE NOT MAKE IT GOOD? Boy, I tell you, you need to get into God's Word
and see what He said. All that God has said shall come
to pass, not one jot or tittle shall fail. Written in Ezekiel
24, 14, I, the Lord, have spoken it. It shall come to pass, and
I will do it. I will not go back, neither will
I spare, neither will I repent. According to thy ways and according
to thy doings shall they judge thee, saith the Lord God. But
if I've spoken it, I'll do it. Now, you can take that both ways.
Whosoever shall call the name of the Lord shall be saved. They
said, I've spoken it, I'll do it. But those who reject me, I'll
reject them. They'll perish. He'll do it. He'll do it. It says in Matthew 5.18, for
verily I say to you, the Lord is speaking here, till heaven
and earth pass, not one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass
from the law or the word of God till all be fulfilled. Not one
little comma or jot or tittle. It won't pass. It won't be overlooked,
ignored, until all be fulfilled. Right down to the jot and tittle.
Now we see there in verse 19 that in the third year of that
famine Elijah called all the 450 prophets of Baal and the
400 prophets of the groves. There's a lot of them there wasn't
there? If you put all them together it's 850 prophets. But he called them to Mount Carmel
and challenged them to call on their gods that little g many
they worship many gods many many many and he would call on the
name of the lord singular the one true living god now therefore
sin and gather to me all israel unto mount carmel and the prophets
of bell 450 and the prophets of the groves 400 which eat at
jezebel's table so ahab sinned he did exactly what he was told
to do So Ahab sent unto all the children
of Israel and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel. And
Elijah came unto all the people and said, How long halt ye between
two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him. Follow Him with all your heart
and no one else, and nothing else. But now if Baal, then follow
him. If Baal, in other words, is God,
then follow him. And the people answered not a
word. Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only remain
a prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men. Here's one man and there's 450
prophets. And here's one man, God's man,
God's man. And he has them together all
together. And he says here, and then he
said Elijah to the, well, in verse 23, let them therefore
give us two bullocks. These are for the sacrifice.
And let them choose one bullock for themselves. They don't need
450, just one. They can all, it'll represent
all of them. And you cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood
and put no fire under it. This is important. Put no fire
under it. And I will dress the other bullock
and lay it on wood and put no fire under it. And now you call
on the name of your gods, however many there are. You call on every
one of them, name them name, call upon their name and name
them out. And I'll call on the name of the Lord, the self existing
one, the living God, the only God there is, and the God that
answers by fire. Let him be God and all the people
answered said it is well spoken You see listen our God is a consuming
fire But there's a reason why Elijah said the one that answers
by fire He's the Living God Look over see they'd forgotten this
They had become so sinful and so removed from true worship
and so removed from the God of Israel, they had forgotten that
the God who answers by fire is the God of Israel. Turn over to Leviticus chapter
nine. Look in verse 23. Leviticus chapter 9 and Moses
and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation and came
out and blessed the people and the glory of the Lord appeared
unto all the people and there came a fire out from before the
Lord and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat
which when all the people saw they shouted and fell on their
faces. This is the God that answers by fire. What happened at Calvary? The fire of God fell on Jesus
Christ. The fire of His wrath fell on
Jesus Christ, fell on that sacrifice there at the cross. And He was accepted because we
have His resurrection. He was accepted. But the fire,
the God that answers by fire, He says here, let Him be God. Let him be God. He's the God,
the one that answers by fire. One of the things, the questions
that came up as I was reading this, is this question. Can so many prophets be wrong?
Can 450 prophets of Baal, 400 prophets of the groves, 850?
Can so many be so wrong? And there stands one, one. I bet if you counted up all the
preachers in this whole area around here, it would come to
that or more, wouldn't it? And there's one on every corner.
And someone said to me, why do you think you're right and everybody
else is wrong? Well, I haven't been to all of
them, so I can't say everybody else. But I know this, 99.9%
of them are. I'm confident of that. I'm confident of it. Where there's
ONE TRUE GOSPEL PREACHER, you'll find a THOUSAND FALSE PROPHETS
trying to confuse everything. That's why John said in John
4, verse 1, "...TRY THE SPIRITS, WHETHER THEY BE OF GOD." Because
MANY FALSE PROPHETS have gone out into the world You know this
well, but just because someone carries a Bible, first of all,
doesn't mean that he believes it, and it sure doesn't mean
he's called of God to preach. Can so many be so wrong? Absolutely. Absolutely. And you're going
to notice something here as we go along, that the false gods A FALSE GOSPEL
is what it represents. A FALSE GOSPEL leads to UTTER
FAILURE. You know that God has saved NO ONE under a FALSE GOSPEL. NO ONE. He's not going to honor
that. God's not going to honor a lie.
He only honors that which is TRUTH because it's of HIM. Many
will say to me in that day, Many, we preached in your name. How
can so many be so wrong? We preached in your name. We
cast out devils in your name. Oh, Satan is subtle, isn't he? Cast out devils in your name.
We've done many mighty works. We've flown all over the world.
We've got missionaries everywhere. We've got this going and that
going. How can... How can so many be
so wrong? And the Lord said, depart from
me, I never knew you. I never knew you. Paul speaks of them having the
form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, the power
of salvation. They deny it by their message
and their conduct. A false gospel will not produce
salvation. Now He says here in verse 24,
24 And call ye on the name of your gods, and the God that answers
by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and
said, It is well spoken. 25 And Elijah said unto the prophets
of Baal, Choose ye one bullock for yourselves, and dress it
first. And ye are many, and call on
the name of your gods, but put no fire under it. And they took
the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called
on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal,
hear us, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice. Nor any
that answered. And they leaped upon the altar
which was made. Boy, I thought of false religion
and all the commotion that they make today. You think about all
the stuff that they do and the commotion they make. It's all flash, isn't it? It's
all show. It's just show. And it came to
pass at noon that Elijah mocked them. And he said, Cry aloud
for he's a god. Either he's talking And he can't
hear you or he is pursuing or he is in a journey or perventure,
he sleeps, you got to wake him up. And they cried aloud, listen,
and they cut themselves. They cut themselves. After their
manner with knives, they cut themselves. till the blood gushed
out upon you." When I read that, I read it several times, but
I read that and I thought, the people who are steeped in false
religion believe it. They do believe what they're
doing. They believe that. But that doesn't save. Believing
anything doesn't save. It's believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ that saves. But they cut themselves and they
cried aloud, jumping up and down on the altar like a Can you imagine seeing that mess,
450 of them carrying on like that? Trying to get Bill to act?
Trying to get him to answer? Well, you can't answer because
he doesn't exist. You're calling on a God that does not exist. And then listen here, let me
finish it out here. And then it came to pass, when
midday was passed and they prophesied until the time of the evening,
The time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. You see they
had their time but now it's Elijah's time and it's the time that God
set for the evening sacrifice to be offered. You see God's
a God of order. They had done away with this.
They had just completely gone off the cliff. But God hasn't. God hasn't. He established this.
And so he waited until the time of the evening sacrifice, and
there was neither voice nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. And Elijah said unto all the
people, Come near to me. Now pay attention. Here's God's
man. Here's faith. Here's faith in
action. God's man steps forward. He said,
Now you come near to me, and you listen, and you watch. Because
God's gonna answer by fire. And He's the one who answers
by fire. As we saw back in Leviticus, He's God. And all the people
came near to Him and He repaired the altar of the Lord because
they had broken down the altar. They'd really gotten rid of the
altar and they set up these altars to Baal. So Elijah repaired the altar
of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took 12 stones, according
to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom
the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be thy name. What
he's saying here, he's calling on the one true living God, the
God of Israel, the God of Jacob. And with the stones, he built
an altar in the name of the Lord, made a trench about the altar
as great as would contain two measures of seed. And he put
the wood in order, cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the
wood." Now, he did this. He didn't have nobody else. He
did this. This is God's man. And he said, you fill four barrels
with water, pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. Here's
faith in action. Here's the faith of God's preacher.
And he said, do it again the second time. They did it the
first time. Then he said, do it again. And they did it the
second time. And he said, do it the third
time. Do it again. And they did it the third time.
And the water ran about the altar, and he filled the trench also
with water. And it came to pass at the time
of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that time that God
ordained for the sacrifice to be offered. When was Christ offered
up? In these last days. In these
last days. that Elijah the prophet came
near and he said here's that 63 word prayer that glorified
God. You know prayers don't have to
be long, they just have to be sincere and have to come from
the heart. Elijah he came near and he said
Lord God of Abraham Isaac and Israel Let it be known this day
that our God in Israel and that I'm thy servant and that I have
done all these things at thy word You've commanded me to do this
and I'm doing it I'm acting on faith I believe you Hear me,
O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that Thou art the Lord
God, that Thou hast turned their heart back again. And then what happened? The God
that answers by fire, He's God. Then the fire of the Lord fell,
consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones,
and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. I have to think of our Lord being
that sacrifice upon whom the fire of God fell, accomplished our redemption,
accepted of God The fire of the Lord fell, consumed
the burnt sacrifice, the wood, stone, dust, all of it. When
all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said,
the Lord, He is the God. The Lord, He is the God. He's the God. The one that answers
by fire. The one who consumed the sacrifice. That's the faith of God's preacher.
He did exactly what God told him to do. He gave the message
that God gave him to give. And he even had him to soak it.
He told him to soak the water. I mean, soak the sacrifice, soak
the water, soak the sacrifice, the altar. and the trench that
they dug around it, and that filled up with water. And when
that fire came down, you see, our God is a consuming fire. Water's not even gonna put that
out. And He came down and burned it
up. Now He's God. He's God. Are you not glad? Are you not
happy that the Lord has made you to know who God is? I'm glad that I and you are not
halt between two opinions. I'm not going to stand here and
say, I preach the gospel. And then those who in Arminianism,
they preach another gospel and I'm saying, that's okay too.
No, it's not. No, it's not. It's not okay. People will think
I'm dogmatic or we're dogmatic, but we ought to be. It's only
one gospel. There's only one. There are many
so-called gospels being preached, but there's only one that's of
God. It's only one. And I'm convinced it's the one
we preach here, or there's no gospel at all. No gospel at all
if this is not the gospel. The gospel of God's glory, the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel of His person, His
work, His redemption. of all His children, of all the
elect of God, all the Israel of God. He's God, isn't He? And
I thank God we know Him. All right.