I brought a message last Sunday
morning about prayer, and we looked at the prayer of the Old
Testament prophet Habakkuk. Today, I want us to look at another
Old Testament prophet's prayer. But we will begin in the New
Testament. If you will, turn with me to
James, Chapter 5. James, Chapter 5. Verses 17 and 18. Elias, and this is a Greek spelling
of the name Elijah, of course. Elias was a man subject to like
passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain.
and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and
six months. And he prayed again, and the
heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. There are two things that I want
us to see in these two verses this morning. There's much more
here, I realize that, but there are two things that I want us
to see in these two verses. The first thing is the fact that
Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are. This tells us the truth about
Elijah and it reminds us of the truth about the God to whom he
prayed. The only other place in the New
Testament where the word that is here translated subject to
like passions is found is in Acts chapter 14. And there Paul
and Barnabas had come to the city of Lystra to preach the
gospel and there was a man there who was lame and God healed him. And the people of that city,
they were about to sacrifice to Barnabas and to Paul saying
the gods have come down and they withheld them, restrained them
by saying we too are men of like passions. I say that this word tells us
a truth concerning Elijah. He was a man who was born like
every other man with a fallen nature. He came into this world
a sinner. And even though in the new birth
he had been given a new nature, he still was a man subject to
like passions as we are. So it tells us a truth about
Elijah, but it reminds us of the truth about God, and that
is God isn't like we are. You and I, we are men subject
to like passions, but not God. God isn't. You know, we must
keep in mind that while God is personal, and we speak of him
as being a personal God to his people, he reveals himself to
us as compassionate, as loving kind, and yet we cannot allow
ourselves to forget that he is God Almighty. We must not allow
ourselves, by thinking of God as personal, to think that he
is like we are. Luther said to Erasmus these
words, your thoughts of God are too human. And that's a tendency
that all men have. In fact, in Psalm chapter 50,
in verse 21, God said this himself. He said, thou thoughtest, speaking
to men, to the man who wrote the Psalm, and to all men, thou
thoughtest that I was altogether as thyself. Thou thoughtest that
I was altogether as one as thyself. We all are finite. He is infinite. When I say that
we are finite beings, I mean that we are limited. We're limited
to space. We cannot be in two places at
the same time. I'm here. I cannot be where you
are. I'm here. I cannot be at my house. I'm here. God is everywhere. He's here and He's everywhere
in His creation. He fills all space. We're limited to where we are. We're limited by space and we're
limited by time. You and I are creatures of just
a few days. The scriptures reveal unto us
that we're here for just a short while, and then we fly away.
But God is eternal. When you teach your
little children, and I know you do, that God made them, that
God made the earth, that God made the sun, that God made the
moon, and God made the stars, and God made the grass, and then
they ask you, well, Who made God? Well, the answer, of course,
is He didn't need to be made. He already was. God is eternal. And we're limited by our knowledge.
We know just a little, just a little. And God knows everything. God
is omniscient. All knowledge He has. And we are limited by power. We have just so much power. He has all power. Don't you love
the words of the Lord Jesus Christ when he stood before Pilate?
Pilate, a ruler, a ruler that I might say God had raised up,
as all rulers are. God raises up one and puts down
another. And men raised to places of power,
places of position like that, are tempted to pride, as we all
are. And Pilate said unto our Lord,
don't you realize, I may be paraphrasing here, don't you realize that
I have power to release thee, or I have power to crucify thee."
And the Lord Jesus Christ said, Thou couldest have no power at
all against me, unless it had been given thee. We have no power. We don't have power today to
for you to get up out of your seat and leave this building
unless God gives you the power. In Him, the Word of God teaches
us and tells us that we live, we move, we have our being in
Him. He has all power. He is eternal. He is omniscient. And he's omnipresent. He is infinite in every way. And we are finite creatures.
So when we think of God and when we pray and we do know him as
a personal God, but we must not allow ourselves to imagine that
he is like we are. Why would we pray to a being
if he's no more powerful than we are? If He didn't have all
power, why would we pray to Him? If He wasn't able to say to a
woman 90 years old that she's going to have a son and she laughs
and God says, is there anything impossible for me? And you know
the answer. God. Elias, he was a man of subject
to light. He wasn't a super being, a super
saint. People are interested in these
characters. I think they're called super,
super beings or super something. And they go to the movies and
they watch these people that have all this power. Don't allow
yourself to believe that man is a super being or that any
saint is a super saint. Every saint is a saint that's
been saved by the grace of God and that's all. As the Apostle
Paul said, I am less than the least of all saints. The second thing to take away
from this passage is Elijah prayed earnestly two times. He prayed
earnestly two times. One time he prayed that it might
not rain, and one time he prayed that it would rain. The Holy
Spirit who inspired the Word of God, he did not see fit to
record either one of these two prayers. Not Elijah's prayer
that it would not rain, not Elijah's prayer that it would rain. But
he did record one prayer, and that's the one we'll look at
now, if you will, turn to 1 Kings chapter 18. 1 Kings chapter 18 and his prayer
in verses 36 and 37. And it came to pass at the time of the
offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came
near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and of Israel, Let it be
known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am
thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy
word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that
this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou
hast turned their heart back again. Three things about this
prayer that I want us to say today. Some, and I believe rightly so,
most of us understand the situation, but the first thing about this
prayer, the occasion of this prayer. The occasion when Elijah
prayed this prayer that we just read. It was a dark time in the
nation of Israel. Israel had a wicked king by the
name of Ahab, and Ahab who was a weak man and easily influenced
by his wife, had a wicked wife. Her name was Jezebel. Jezebel
was the daughter of a king of the Zidonians, and she, along
with them, were a pagan nation who were devoted to the worship
of Baal. She was responsible for the deaths
of many prophets. of the true God. She died a violent
death. But let me remind us this morning
that spiritual Jezebel is still here. One of the letters to the
seven churches in Revelation, she is mentioned. Not literally,
the same woman is not here, but her spirit, the spirit of Jezebel
is still here, still with us, has been and will be till the
Lord returns. She was guilty of that false
religion, worshiping idols, and that's the spirit today of religion. Worshiping a God who doesn't
hardly resemble the God of the Bible. God who is presented to
men and women under the name God, Elohim, Yahweh, Adonai,
any of these names, but he doesn't have the characteristics of the
God of the Bible. He's a weak and puny God. He's a God that man has manufactured,
a God that man is able to manipulate, a God that man is able to frustrate
in his purposes. The spirit of Jezebel is still
here, that is the spirit of worshiping idols. Not idols necessarily
made of wood and stone and precious metals, but idols which are made
in the minds of men. Our knowledge of God, our understanding
of God, our idea of God, my friends, it must be based, it must come
from the Word of God, or we manufacture a God to our own liking. And anytime man manufactures
a God, you may be sure it's a God who is weaker and smaller than
he is. A God that he can put in his
place. You stay there. And when I need
you, I'll call on you. But otherwise, I'm running the
show. I'm in charge. The spirit of
Jezebel, idolatry, and not only that, but the murder of the saints
of God. False religion is still here.
The spirit of Jezebel is still here, still here to persecute
the people, the true church of God. The occasion of this prayer,
it was a dark time in the nation of Israel. The history of Israel
in the Old Testament is one. When you read through the Old
Testament, you find when God delivered them out of Egypt,
the reason they were 40 years in that wilderness is because
of unbelief. Immediately they were brought
to the shores to go into Canaan, but they didn't believe God.
No, the people in those in Canaan are giants and the cities, the
walls are built up to heaven. So what? God is God and God would
give them that land, but they didn't believe God. And so they
suffered 40 years in the wilderness until all that generation died. That generation had said, God,
you've brought us out here in the wilderness to feed our children
to the evil, the evil ones. And God said, I'll show you.
Your children are going to enter and possess the land. The land
that you believed I was not powerful enough to give unto you. But once they entered in, the
children were like their parents. And the history of Israel, it's
over and over. You begin in the book of Judges
and go through the history books and you see time after time,
they forsook God and they turned to idolatry and worship. They
wanted to be, and this is what they said, we want to be like
the nations around us. We want to have a king. God was
their king. We want to have a king like the
other nations have. That's one of man's problems,
isn't it? Wanting to be like everybody
else. We all want to be accepted. We don't ever want anyone to
say anything bad about us. We want everyone to like us. Let me tell you something. Not
everyone liked the Lord Jesus Christ. And not everyone is going to
like his followers. Elijah appeared on the scene because of their idolatry, because
of their wickedness, and God, through Elijah, told King Ahab,
it's not going to rain until I speak to you again. And so
a drought came. And notice in verse 17. Let me
just point this out. When Elijah appeared after three
and a half years of drought, verse 17, it came to pass when
Ahab saw Elijah that Ahab said unto him, you're the problem. You're the problem, Elijah. It's all your fault. You've brought
all this on us. He never thought about himself,
never thought about his sin, never thought about the fact
that he was an idolater who had forsaken the true and living
God. No, Elijah, you're the problem. And isn't that the way all of
us are by nature? When we hear the gospel, when
we hear the word of God, the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we start blaming other people. And start thinking, well, my
fault, I didn't do the best I could have done, but it's somebody
else's fault. We've got all kinds of ways and
reasons to justify and excuse ourselves just like Ahab did.
Elijah, you're the problem. The withholding of rain was of
the Lord. It was God's rod of chastisement
upon the nation. Elijah had done all of this,
as we will see in his prayer, at God's word. He didn't just
get up one day and say, you know, I think I'm going to go visit
the king and I'm going to tell him it's not going to rain. No,
he did that at God's word. Everything that he does here
is at God's word, at God's command, at God's direction. You know, God said through another
Old Testament prophet, Micah, he said, hear ye the rod, hear
ye the rod and who hath appointed it. Take a rod for correction
when God Corrects when God chastises he says hear the rod Hear the
rod and who hath appointed it But you see Ahab he had not heard
the rod. He did not recognize it wasn't
Elijah It wasn't Elijah who had withheld the rain. How could
a man withhold rain? No, the rain was withheld by
God, and it was God's rod, God's chastening upon this nation because
of their sin. Elijah had the king here at this
time together, if you count them up, 850 prophets of Baal. 850 prophets of Baal on Mount
Carmel, and he asked the people, notice this in verse 21, He asks the people, how long
halt ye between two opinions? And Elijah came
unto all the people. You've got these almost a thousand
false prophets and you've got all the people of Israel there
gathered and Elijah comes and he says unto all of them, how
long halt you between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him,
not a word. Elijah proposes that the God
who answers by fire, and remember fire is a symbol of judgment,
and God is a God of judgment. Yes, he is a God of love and
a God of compassion, God of mercy, but he is a God of judgment as
well. He must be because he's righteous.
So the first thing we see about this prayer is the occasion.
It was a dark day in the history of the nation of Israel. Second,
the necessity in order for Elijah to pray this prayer. This is
very important. The necessity. that allowed Elijah to pray this
prayer. In verses 30 through 32, Elijah said unto all the people,
come near unto me. And all the people came near
unto him and he 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. And
with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord." The
necessity in order for Elijah to pray this prayer, for Elijah
to pray, to speak to God, and for God to hear him, there had
to be a mediator. There had to be a mediator between
Elijah and God with an acceptable sacrifice. We have this picture
to us in Elijah building this altar. He takes 12 stones representing
the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel. And when they first came
out of Egypt, God told them, when you build an altar, Don't
put, don't do anything to it, just stack the stones up there.
If you put your hammer and your chisel, square that stone out, stone
this, and make it ever so pretty, oh it's pretty in man's eyes,
but it's an abomination in the eyes of God. Why? Because when you put your hand
to it, you polluted it. Elijah, He built an altar, stacked
these 12 stones up. The Lord Jesus Christ in the
New Testament declared unto us that the altar sanctified the
offering. The offering didn't sanctify
the altar, the altar sanctified the offering. The Lord Jesus
Christ declared this in the New Testament. In order to approach
God, for Elijah to speak to God, we see there are three things
that are necessary. There are three things necessary
for you to speak with God, and that is there must be a priest,
there must be a sacrifice, and there must be an altar. And that's just so. God, the
holy being he is, for any fallen son of Adam to approach unto
him, to pray unto him, and God here, there must be a priest,
a sacrifice, and an altar. And remember, the altar sanctified
the sacrifice. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. He's our priest. He's our priest,
the high priest, made a priest with an oath God swore. Can you imagine that? Thou art
a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And his body
and soul is the sacrifice and His deity, His Godhead, is the
altar. The altar sanctified the sacrifice. How can that one sacrifice avail
for all of God's elect? How can that one sacrifice, the
blood of that one sacrifice, wash away the sins of all of
God's people? because he is God-man. For Elijah, to pray unto God,
there had to be the repairing of the altar, which pictures
to us, of course, the priest, the altar, and the sacrifice. Christ is all. That's what I'm
saying, isn't it? The apostle Paul had a way with
words. Christ is all. We can just remember
that and live by that. Christ is all. He's all in the
word of God. The word of God. He said, search
the scriptures, for they are they which testify of me. He's
all in salvation. He's all in pleasing God. Christ
is all. Notice the third thing about
this prayer, the praying of this prayer. We read it just a few
minutes ago, but let's read it again in verse 36 and 37. It
came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice
that Elijah, the prophet, came near and said, Lord God of Abraham,
Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art
God in Israel and that I am thy servant, and that I have done
all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that
this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou
hast turned their heart back again." The first thing that
I noticed about this prayer is its brevity. I didn't count the
words, but I Do not believe there are more than 50 words as it
is translated in English and even counting those that are
added by the translators. It's brevity. And I cannot help
but think of what our Lord said in the New Testament about the
heathen, the pagans. He said, they think that they
shall be heard for their much speaking. The heathen, they think that
they shall be heard for their much speaking. This prayer was
a very short prayer. There's some short prayers in
the scripture. Effectual, Lord, save me. That's what Peter prayed,
wasn't it? When he was about to go under
the water. Lord, save me. That's a short
prayer, but it was effectual. This is a short prayer. You know,
men have come up, religious people have come up with their prayer
beads. And they have these beads on
a string. You know, they move one and move another one, move
another one, move another one. And they go all the way around.
They say the same thing on every bead. Again, in contradiction
to what the Lord said about vain repetitions. And they think because
they've made the circle, moved every bead, that God is pleased
and God is going to hear. I've seen reports of men climbing
that mountain in Tibet. And they've got these prayer
wheels, the Buddhists there, the prayer wheels. And wind's
always blowing, and those wheels are always turning. And every
time it turns up, you just stick a prayer on here, and stick a
prayer on here, like a Ferris wheel. And every time it goes
up, it's praying to God. Well, I said a few years ago,
we live in a day of recording. Why don't we just record a prayer,
and every morning just punch play? You think God would be
pleased with that? Of course not. The brevity of
this prayer. And we see how these false prophets,
they had prayed for hours and hours and cut themselves and
cried unto their false God, but there was no answer. The second thing I see about
this prayer, Elijah recognized that God is a God of covenant.
The covenant God, he addresses him, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Israel. God made a covenant with Abraham,
and he renewed that covenant with Isaac and with Israel, or
Jacob. When God appeared to Moses at
the burning bush, remember, he was sending Moses into Egypt
to bring his people out. And Moses, he didn't want to
go. He didn't volunteer for that job. He said, they're going to
ask me when I get there, what's your name? I'm just going to
show up and tell those people God said to follow me out of
this country. I've got to have a name. Remember
what God said? He said, you tell them I am that
I am the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is always
I Am, and He is always the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That shows His covenant relationship,
His promise in that covenant. What was the main promise in
that covenant? Yes, He promised Abraham a seed
like the sands by the seashore and like the stars in the heavens.
But all the promise in thy seed, singular, thy seed, Abraham,
Christ, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Christ. In the New Testament, Now His
name, we call Him the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's still the same God. He doesn't
change, and He's a covenant God. And then the third thing about
this prayer, the desire of this prayer, it's all about honoring
God, isn't it? Elijah said, now God, Eden I
say, I want you to answer by fire so everyone will see how
great I am. So everyone will know who I am. Oh no. Lord, it's all about your honor. It's
all about your glory. And notice he petitioned that
they might know. Notice the last part of verse
37. And that thou has turned their
heart back again. They could not turn their own
hearts. You can't turn your heart if
you're here this morning and you're lost. You can't turn your, you can't
change, you can't give yourself a new heart. God can. In salvation and in revival,
it's a heart work. With a heart, man believeth under
righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.
Heart work, and only God is able to turn the heart, to give a
new heart, a heart that loves God. A heart that believes and
trusts in Him. And that word again, we are reminded
of God's long suffering. And how many times when you read
through the Old Testament did God do exactly this? After they deserted their God
and turned to idols, and yet in their poverty, in their affliction,
they cried unto the Lord. and the Lord heard them and delivered
them out of all their troubles. Now I want to give you four practical
things today, four things that I want us all to learn from this
prayer. The first thing is this, prayer
is always open in the darkest of spiritual times. In the darkest
of times, when you can't go anywhere else and seek help, my friends,
if you're one of God's children, no matter where you are, no matter
what the situation is, no matter how dark and desperate the time
may be, prayer is open. Prayer is open. Secondly, Elijah,
he had the types. He had the types, when he built
that altar, he had the types that pictured Christ. He had
the types that pictured the altar, the sacrifice, the priest. But
you and I, we live now after all of those things, those types
have been fulfilled. And the reality, the real has
been made manifest unto us. And his finished work. Elijah,
he lived before the Lord came and did the work. We live now,
work's finished. Death has died. Christ has arisen. Christ is seated at the Father's
right hand. Oh, what encouragement do you
and I have compared to what Elijah had? And number three, we have,
as he mentioned, a covenant God. We have all the covenant promises. They're all fulfilled in Christ.
They're all yea and amen in him. Some of those covenant promises
is that God would give us a new heart, write his law upon our
heart, that he would remember our sins no more, that he would
be our God and we would be his people. And the fourth thing
to see, the relationship between prayer and the Word of God. That verse in 1 John, again,
we have this confidence that if we ask anything according
to His will, He heareth us. And where are we going to learn
His will? It's here, this is the revealed
will of God, the written word, the relationship between the
word of God and prayer. The best prayer is taking the
word of God and praying it back to God. Lord, you say it. Lord, you say it. It's your word,
you say it. Look down, in closing, look down
to verse 42. 1 Kings chapter 18. This is when I assume he was
praying for rain. This prayer isn't recorded, but
what we learn here about prayer is perseverance. Perseverance. Verse 42, the scripture says,
so Ahab went up to eat and to drink, and Elijah went up to
the top of Carmel, and he cast himself down upon the earth and
put his face between his knees. What was he doing? Well, I assume
he was praying. He's praying for rain. He said,
well, God had already told him. Yeah, he had. But he still tells
us to ask. He's given us his word. He's
given us his promises. And yet he says, ask, and it
shall be given unto you. Elijah prayed and sent his servant,
go look. He came back and said, boy, the
cloud, there's not a cloud in the sky, master. Elijah, there's
not a cloud in the sky. Go back and look again. Go back
and look again. Go back and look again. And on
the seventh time, remember, the servant came back. Now, can you
imagine the big blue sky country? He comes back and he says, you
know what? I see a cloud out there the size of a man's hand.
Man, that's not very big. It's big enough for Elijah to
tell Ahab, you better head home, because there's coming a gully
washer. There's coming a rain like you've
never seen before. And it did. Why? Because he believed God. Because he prayed? Yes, because
God gave him the prayer. And he prayed and God gave the
rain. Man ought always to pray and
not to faint. That's what our Lord said. May the Lord bless this word. We're going to sing a hymn, follow
on, number 398, follow on. And let's stand as we sing.