Mt. Carmel: The Mountain of Prayer

All right, good morning. Good to see everyone.

It's been a busy week, but I'm glad to see you this morning

turning your Bibles to 1st Kings Chapter 18, if you will, First

1 Kings 18 · chapter mention

Kings chapter 18. And hopefully you remember we

are in a series on the valley, the mountains, and the valleys

in the Bible. And if you remember, we started

off, we're going to, we're going to start with the seven

mountains. And the purpose of looking at

these different mountains is to really to inspire us in the, in

these stories that we see in the Bible, not to inspire us in the

way of, oh, that really inspired me.

I'm going to go do something for God as much as it's a reminder

and an encouragement to us to continue to follow God's word.

That's, that's what I mean by that word inspire, because we

see in these different mountains that we're looking at some

really, really great things that happened where God took care of

his, his people and God gave some, some amazing promises.

We looked at Mount Sinai first the first week and that promise

that he gave to Abraham. And then we looked at the, the

10 commandments and the law that was given last week.

And this week we're going to look at Mount Carmel, the mount

of prayer. And it's not an unfamiliar

story. I think we're all very familiar

with this story with Elijah on Mount Carmel.

But we're going to look a little, little closer at it and

see if we can't pull some, some truths out of this story this

morning. So let's go ahead and pray and

then we'll read this passage and then get into our lesson.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this day

you've given us. Thank you for another

opportunity we have to open your word.

God, I thank you for your goodness to us.

God, I know we go through some, some some testing and some tough

times, but God, you're, you're good in the midst of it.

God, we, we know even from all of the Psalms that you're

walking through those valleys with us.

And I pray that we would look to you for the strength that we

need and look to you for the guidance that we need the

instruction and understand what it is you're trying to do in our

lives through those valleys that we go through.

And I got to just pray as we look at this Mount Carmel and

Elijah this morning got that we'd learned some truths that we

can apply to our own lives and and God use them to see victory

in our lives the way you want us to see it.

In Jesus name I pray, Amen. So let's jump right into this

story. We're kind of jumping into the

middle of this chapter, but first Kings chapter 18 and we're

1 Kings 18 · chapter mention

going to start in verse 17 and I'm going to read all the way

through verse 41 just so we get the whole picture of this story

because we are going to break it up in all of our different

points. But but I want to read the whole

story first, and then we'll get into the lesson.

So verse 17 and 1st Kings chapter 18, it says, And it came

to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art

thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not

troubled Israel, but thou in thy father's house, and that ye have

forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou has followed

Balaam. 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. 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, But if Baal, follow him.

And the people answered him 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.

Let them therefore give us 2 bullocks, and let them choose

one Bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on

wood, and put no fire under. And I will dress the other

Bullock, and lay it on the wood, and put no fire under.

And call ye on the name of your gods.

And I will call in the name of the Lord.

And the God that answereth by fire, let him be God.

And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.

And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one

Bullock for yourselves, and dress it first for year many,

and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.

And they took the Bullock which was given them, and they dressed

it, and called on the name of Bale from morning even until

noon, saying, O Bale, hear us. But there was no voice nor any

of that answered. And they leaped upon the altar

which was made, And it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked

them, and said, Cry aloud, for he is a God.

Either he's talking or he's pursuing, or he is in a journey,

or per adventure. He sleepeth, and must be awaked.

And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner

with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them,

and came to pass when midday was passed.

And they prophesied, until the time of the offering of the

evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to

answer, nor any that regarded. And 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, and made a trench about the

altar as great as would contain 2 measures of seed.

And he put the wood in order, and cut the Bullock in pieces,

and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill 4 barrels with water

and pour it out, pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.

And he said, Do it the second time, they did it the second

time. He said, Do it the third time,

and they did it the third time. And the water ran round 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 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 has turned their heart back

again. Then the fire of the Lord fell,

and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the

stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the

trench. And 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. And Elijah said unto them, Take

the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape.

And they took them. And Elijah brought them down to

the brook Keyshawn, and slew them there.

And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink, for

there is a sound of abundance of rain.

Very familiar story, but very interesting.

What's going on here? And I don't know that this is 1

of this is my favorite story, but it's one of my favorite

stories. I love this story of Elijah on

Mount Carmel. I think more so because we all

like an underdog story and I think that's kind of what we

have here. Now Elijah is a little bit

misinformed. He says there in verse 22, he

says unto the people, I even I only remain a prophet of the

Lord and he's misinformed there. He thinks he's the only one

left, which if that's what he truly thinks, you got to give

him credit there also. Hey, I'm the only one left, but

I'm still going to stand. And God had many, many other

prophets that had not bowed the knee to bail that he was holding

in the wings waiting to to support Elijah here, but he

thinks he's the only one. And so let's get right into this

story. We're going to call this Mount

Carmel, the mount of prayer and remember the these mountains are

we're going through these mountains to inspire us to do

the same thing that we learned in these lessons.

So this is a an encouragement for us to to prayer and we heard

that last Sunday morning. So this will go right along with

that. And it'll actually make our

lesson a little quicker because I will use some of what pastor

said and so I don't have to re re say those things.

But let's get right into it. Elijah encounters a problem here

in verses 17 through 20, verse 17, he encounters a problem.

And first of all, it's this accusation came to pass when

Ahab saw Elijah that Ahab said unto him, art thou he that

troubleth Israel? I think it's interesting because

you got to remember the reason it's such a big deal that he's

pouring all this water on the altar is there is no water to be

had. They're in a famine, A drought

for the last three years. And that's what verse 41 says.

At the end of our passage that we read, Elijah says to Ahab,

get up, eat and drink. There's a sound of abundance of

rain. Now we'll look at this at the

end, hopefully, if we have time. There was no rain yet.

It wasn't raining, but Elijah was getting ready to pray to God

to open the heavens back up and send that rain that he had shut

off for three years. And he tells Elijah in the

confidence of his God, it's about to start raining, get up,

eat, get to Jezreel and get ready for this rain that's

coming when there is no sign of rain as of yet.

But anyways, so there's this accusation.

Are you the 1? He he asks.

He is not a stranger to Elijah. He knows exactly who Elijah is.

So he's accusing him here. Oh, it's Elijah, the one that's

troubling Israel. And Elijah shoots right back.

I have not troubled Israel that one.

Thy father's house has troubled Israel in that ye have forsaken

the commandments of the Lord, and thou has followed Balaam.

I want you to go look at a verse real quick.

It's in Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 24, not too far from

Deuteronomy 28 · chapter mention

where we're at. But I think it's interesting

because Elijah is standing 100% on the word of God here when he

says, no, no, no, no, you're the one troubling Israel with this

drought because of the way you've acted in refusing to obey

the commandments of God. Deuteronomy 28, verse 24 says,

Deuteronomy 28:24

and this is a whole curse of Israel of what's going to happen

if you don't follow and obey God.

But it gets to verse 24. He says the Lord shall make the

rain of thy land powder and dust from heaven shall it come down

upon thee until thou be destroyed.

So he's saying, if you go back in this verse 15, this is, this

is the curse. If what happens in verse 15, it

shall come to pass. If thou wilt not hearken unto

the voice of the Lord thy God to observe, to do all his

commandments and his statues which I command thee this day,

that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee.

And this drought was one of them.

So Elijah was very right, very correct in saying no, no, I did,

I gave you the, the, I told you the promise of what was going to

happen from God. But it's your fault that they,

that we have not had rain for these three years.

You and your father's house have forsaken the commandments of the

Lord and has followed Balaam. So that's it.

That's Elijah's answer. And now he gives King Ahab an

assignment in verse 19. 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.

I think this is interesting too, just kind of as a side note, we

often think that Elijah went up against 450 prophets of Baal.

There was actually 850 of them here.

We don't really have anything else about the prophets of the

Groves. I did look that up and it is the

they were prophets to the God Ashara, which Jezebel

worshipped. She didn't actually worship Baal

particularly. She worshipped this other God

Ashara, which was a wicked, wicked, very, very sexual

goddess. And that's who these prophets,

these 400 prophets of the Groves were.

And I also looked up that what is the prophets of the Groves?

What was that? Well, they had in their

ceremonies, they had all these Staffs and things that they

would cut down and they would all hold these Staffs and they

call them the Groves. And so that's where the prophets

of the Groves comes from. But just a side note there.

But I think it's also interesting that while the

children of Israel are in this famine, there's 850 prophets of

false gods eating at the King's table every day.

He's feeding them, he's providing for them.

That doesn't just mean he's feeding them lunch, you know,

once a week. They're they're under the the

care of Ahab and Jezebel. They are providing for these 850

at least prophets, not just followers, prophets of Baal and

Asherah and and Ahab, it says which ate at Jezebel's table.

So we've got this, we've got a big problem here that this is

Jezebel was a wicked, wicked queen.

And it's no wonder we even see that name in Revelation and just

just this wicked, wicked person, Jezebel.

And but anyways, so we have this assignment.

Go gather all of Israel. And I think it's interesting

also all of Israel now is coming to Mount Carmel.

And I do wonder, I wrote this down a little bit later.

In fact, I'll wait. We'll get to it in just a

second. So all of Israel comes to Mount

Carmel and the prophets of Baal and the prophets of of Asherah

and King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, they're all here on Mount

Carmel. And the the purpose for this is

what we see next. This showdown, verses 21 through

24. Elijah came unto all the people

and said how long halt ye between two opinions you got to

you got to think this this. These are the children of Israel

that saw God deliver them out of Egypt, that saw God take care of

all their needs for the 40 years in the wilderness and then bring

them into this promised land. This is the children of Israel

that saw all of that and now they're undecided on should they

follow God or should they follow this Bale that they're they're

king and queen have have set up Ahab and Jezebel and so Ahab

Elijah asked them how long are you going to halt between two

opinions. If the Lord be God, follow him

and if Baal follow him. So it goes without saying then

that they definitely were undecided.

They weren't just full blown worshipping Baal Ahab and

Jezebel were that the people weren't at which made Elijah say

if Baal's God follow him. Just do what they're telling you

to do. If he's if he's really God and

that and it says at the end of verse 21.

The people answered him, not a word.

They just didn't know which one to follow.

They didn't, they didn't have an opinion really.

They were halting between the two.

They weren't sure which is which is Elijah's frustration.

You saw God do all this, the the God of Israel do all this and

you're still not sure. All right, fine, we'll put it to

the test. And that's where we get to here

in this next, these next verses. He says then Elijah said to the

people, I even I only remain a prophet of Lord.

But Bale's prophets are 450 men. Let them therefore give us 2

bullocks and let's have a showdown.

Let's see who which God sends fire.

That was ultimately the test. Which one is going to send fire

and whichever one does, that's the one we're going to follow.

Now surely Elijah wouldn't have he'd have gone into hiding no

doubt. But he's telling the people if

Bale's if the God, if Bale sends fire follow because he's

obviously powerful enough to take care of your problems.

That's this showdown they come to.

And you know, I think I skipped something that I wanted to say

in the in the first part when he says, are you the one that

troubles Israel? I think we do that often in our

lives. You know, we maybe we sit, we

have issues in our lives. So we come to the to the pastor

and say, Hey, I need help in this issue.

And he give you some advice, you take it and you start doing it,

but maybe not fully. And and then you say, yeah,

that's, that's that church's fault.

You know, I didn't have any of these problems till I started

going to that church or I started following that pastor or

I started, you know, trying to follow what God wanted me to do.

And then now I have all these problems.

And what Elijah says there is no, no, no, you have forsaken

the commandments of the Lord and followed these other gods, and

that's why you're having the problems you have.

But I think it, it is something we should be careful of, that

often the problems in our lives are, they are our own fault.

And we'd like to point our finger at somebody else and say

it's because of what you, the advice you gave me or whatever

that I'm having these problems. But God's word has the answers.

And if we follow it, he will take care of our problems.

That doesn't mean our life is perfect, but he will take care

of the problems that we have if we do it his way.

So back to Elijah having this shut down now with this, with

this halting between two opinions, you know, Elijah has

come now to the children of Israel, but not only the

children of Israel, the the prophets of Baal and said, you,

you are struggling between this, this decision to follow God or

to follow Baal and what I'm about to do is going to make you

make a decision. And I, and I wrote this down.

I wonder how often God wants to show himself powerful to the

world around us, through us, but because we aren't surrendered to

let him use us or we're caught up so caught up with the world

ourselves, we don't see the opportunity for God to use us to

show himself powerful to the world.

That's exactly what is going on here.

Yes, Elijah is a prophet of God, but he's he has the decision

here to to follow what God told him to do.

God sends him here. He says go to go to Mount Carmel

and and do this what we see here in this story, but he didn't

have to. And I wonder how many of us God

sends us to do a job and we get cold feet kind of in the middle

and I'm the only one that's about to do this.

I'm not doing it and God wanted to show himself powerful through

us, but we're not surrendered to do that.

I think that's something we also need to keep in mind.

But then we have here verse 21. I want to I want to take just a

quick look at this sorry, verse 22 Elijah said unto the people,

I even I only remain a prophet of the Lord and this is where I

almost jumped ahead of myself, but it it makes me ask the

question in my mind, where were all the other priests?

You have a whole tribe of the Levites that that is their only

job. Where are they What what have

they all gone to follow Baal are some of these prophets of Baal

Levites? I don't know.

The Bible doesn't tell us, but where are they all and I know

that God did say I have 700 that haven't bowed the knee to Baal

and all of that. Those were most likely Levites

as well. But where are all these When

Ahab calls the children of Israel to the mountain, remember

in in verse 21, he tells him that sorry verse 20, Ahab sent

unto all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets

together unto Mount Carmel. Where are all these Levites?

Where are all the prophets of God and and the priests of God

that were supposed to be there? But regardless, and I already

kind of mentioned this, Elijah's going to stand by himself and I

think that's a great inspiration to us.

Remember, these mountains are for our inspiration.

It's a great inspiration to us stand.

It's not always easy and it's definitely not always fun, but

the results that we see, the the rewards that we see from God

when we do definitely outweigh the embarrassment or the lack of

confidence that we may have to go do that, to go stand alone.

And we have plenty of opportunities to do that.

The more wicked our world gets, the more opportunities we have

to stand. And so.

Definitely a good lesson there. We see from Elijah.

But then verse 25 we see Elijah then begins to expose this error

in verse 25, Elijah said under the prophets of Baal choose you

a bullet for yourselves and dress it first for your many and

call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under it.

He's going to put their God to the test.

Don't put any fire under it. We want to see which one answers

this request. And they took the bullet which

was given them. They dressed it called on the

name of Bale from morning till noon, saying, O Bale hear us.

But there was no voice nor any that answered.

And they leaped upon the altar which was made.

And Elijah begins to mock them. Hey, cry louder.

Maybe he's sleeping, maybe he's on vacation.

Maybe he's, we all heard this story.

Maybe he's just doesn't hear you.

Maybe he's sleeping and he needs to be awakened.

And these guys don't say, man, stop mocking us.

They do it. They cry louder and cut

themselves after their manner with knives and lancets till the

blood gushed out upon them. And it comes to pass, when

midday has passed and they prophesied until the time of the

offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was still

no voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded their

requests. And I think it goes we we see

this for sure that that Elijah does this knowing there's not

going to be an answer, but he tells them to do it to prove to

the children of Israel. And I don't know what had been

going on now here in these, you know, in Israel that the

children of Israel were so duped that they still couldn't decide.

I mean, surely they have not seen bail answer any of their

their petitions. But there, there was enough,

there was enough sleight of hand or whatever you want to call it

from these prophets to convince them that, well, maybe, maybe

Baal still is a legitimate God. And, and Elijah calls this error

out in making them call on their God and see if he'll answer.

And I wrote this to don't shy away from calling out error.

We can do it kindly, but we must call it out.

Error doesn't have a leg to stand on.

And that's true every time we see error, every time we see

even churches drifting away from what the Bible tells us to do.

When it's called out, there's no leg to stand on.

And and it is error is shown to be error.

So Elijah does that. He begins to ridicule them.

And then we have that result. There is no answer because

Baal's not a living God. And now it's Elijah's turn.

First Kings chapter 18 and verse 30.

1 Kings 18 · chapter mention

And remember the whole point of this lesson is to is the mount

of prayer, the power that we have in prayer to our God

because Elijah didn't have any power in him of himself.

He was standing alone. But we see in his prayer his

lack of his own power. He says in verse, let's see

verse 36, this prayer is only 63 words long, I think 63 words.

And it brings fire from heaven that proves to all of Israel

that God is real. But this is his prayer.

Elijah the prophet came to you 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 my 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

has turned their heart back again.

He he is, he is not taking any credit for this in this prayer.

In fact, he is calling on God to say, hey, prove yourself to

these people. And in verse 37, I think it's

interesting that this people may know that thou art the Lord God

and that thou has turned their heart back again, that God

through this incident, through this miracle of sending fire to

this to the sacrifice, was calling the hearts of the people

back to him. Very, very powerful prayer, but

simple words it is. This is not a, a, a super

elegant, super, you know, super prayer that wow.

The prayer itself is what got the ear of God.

It's the fact that he's calling on his God to prove himself to

this unbelieving people. And God answers that.

So that's Elijah's plan here. Is he he?

We see that in verses 30 through 35 of what he does to the altar.

And I think it's interesting, verse 30, Elijah said unto the

people, come near unto me. And all the people came near

unto him. I think he's wanting to make

very certain this is not a trick, this is not magic.

You're going to see God work here and he repaired the altar

of the Lord that was broken down.

This was not the altar that the the prophets of Baal just used.

It wasn't broken down because they've jumped all over it.

As we saw in those other verses. This isn't the same altar.

Elijah is come to repair the altar of the Lord that was

broken down, which I think is the problem in the 1st place,

the prophets of God have disappeared.

They they're, they're nowhere to be found in this time in in the

nation of Israel. They're not calling on God.

They're not sacrificing to him. Those are all commands of God

all the way until the New Testament.

The children of Israel are supposed to be sacrificing until

Christ comes that that command is there and we do see it.

We see it with Solomon and and all the rest of that.

But what happened the the altar of the Lord is broken down and I

think broken down for a long time to where it was almost here

unable to be repaired because in verse 31, he takes 12 Stones

according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob.

Unto him the word of the Lord came saying, Israel shall be thy

name. He takes 12 Stones and builds up

this altar that has been broken down for a long, long time.

And that's a whole nother lesson, whole nother message in

itself that we let these altars, and I know we don't have

physical altars, but we let this our, our, our time of prayer and

devotion to God, We let it break down and, and we're all guilty

of it. I think I'm guilty of it myself.

We get busy and we let those altars that we've erected to God

to remember what he did for us. We let those breakdown and next

thing you know, here comes the gods of this world taking over

in our lives. And they're always ready to do

it. They're always ready to fill

that void when we let our altars get broken down.

But Elijah takes those stones and builds it, builds the altar

back up. And verse 32 And with the

stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord and made a

trench about the altar as great as would contain 2 measures of

seed and put the wood in order. And I think that's interesting

too. If you go, you can write this

down. I'm not going to turn there, but

Leviticus chapter 1 and verse 7. This is very similar to the

Leviticus 1 · chapter mention

language we hear to the Levites when they're building the altar

and we see that in verse 33. And he put the wood in order and

cut the Bullock in pieces and laid him on the wood and said

fill 4 barrels. So Leviticus chapter one, verse

7, though, when they're being instructed on how to do these

sacrifices, it tells them lay the wood in order and so on.

And so very, very familiar language to these prophets and

to the children of Israel. They got the same law the

Levites did. They knew what it was, what they

were supposed to do. They just hadn't been doing it.

So Elijah follows that sacrificial system and lays that

wooden order, and then he prays for exaltation of God's name and

restoration of his people. And in verse 38, we see the

power that comes from this prayer to an almighty God.

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice

and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water

that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it,

they fell on their faces and said, the Lord, He is the God,

the Lord He is the God. I think it's interesting here.

This altar was used. It was built and it was used one

time. It's gone.

It's it's it, it consumes the rocks.

It consumes the water consumes everything.

It even says that it in verse. Let's see in verse 38, it and it

consumed the stones and the dust.

I mean, this thing is just gone. I don't know that it was like a

bomb went off, but it the fire consumed it.

And I think it's a very interesting picture of, of

Christ. You know, we did the the Savior

in the Shadows series. This is a one time sacrifice.

It was not before and it'll never be done again.

It's gone and Christ was the same way.

I think it's a good picture of the sacrifice of Christ.

It was a one time thing will never need to be done again.

There is no more. We need no savior after that

final sacrifice that was made. But anyway, so, so this prayer

of Elijah consumes this entire altar in the fire.

That was the test, to see which God is the real God.

And the people see that the Lord, he is the God, the Lord he

is the God. And Elijah said unto them, take

the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape.

And Elijah brought them down to Brooke Keyshawn and slew them

there. The Bible doesn't say what

happened to the other 400 prophets.

I don't know if they escaped, but it's very specific.

It doesn't say that they just killed all the prophets.

It says they took the prophets of Baal and that not one of them

escaped. So anyways, I don't know what

happened to those other prophets, but the 450 prophets

of Baal are slaughtered there at the brook Keysham.

And you know, we hear that often all the Old Testament's so

bloody and it's it's so violent. The this is a picture of, of

spiritual warfare. We cannot let sin in our lives

just be defeated and then put in a corner.

All right, you prophets of bail, go back to wherever you came

from, back to your countries, back to your whatever.

No more. No more practicing this bail

worship. No, they were slaughtered.

And we have to do the same thing with our sin.

I think it's a perfect picture of sin in our lives.

Why do we fight the same sins over and over and over again?

Why do we why are we constantly battling them?

And I think it's a good thing that our hearts are soft enough

that when we hear a message and we come to the altar.

But why are we coming to the altar over the same sins over

and over? Because we're not destroying

them. We are not putting them.

We are we are not slaughtering them like they did to these

prophets of Baal. It was a picture to the children

of Israel that that idol worship, Baal worship has no

place. Not just that, it's that's for

the for the fringe. It has no place among the people

of God and sin has no place among God's people.

And I know we battle with it. I'm not saying we need to be

perfect or that we could be perfect, but we must fight it.

We must destroy sin in our lives.

And I think if we really took it serious, it was serious to these

prophets of Baal. They lost their lives.

And I think anybody contemplating going toward Baal

worship after this was going to think twice because this is

serious. They're slaughtered.

And I think sin in our lives is the same way.

If we, if we dealt with sin like this, it's not that sin would be

afraid of us, but we would be very, very cautious to pick up a

sin and run with it if we were destroying it the way and

treating it the way God wants us to treat sin.

And it's not. It's not so that we're more

holy. Pastor preached about this last

Sunday morning when he was talking about prayer.

It's so that God can hear our prayers and so we can have this

kind of power in our prayer. That's why we why we destroy sin

in our lives. It's not so that we can look at

the person next to us and say, yeah, he's still struggle with

it, but if he would just do what I did.

It's so that God so that we have the ear of God and we have power

in prayer when we come to him and we need that.

And then lastly, and we got just a few minutes left, Elijah then

and the people of Israel enjoy a revival.

And we see that in verse 41, Elijah said unto Ahab, get up,

eat and drink, for there's a sound of abundance of rain.

So Ahab went up to eat and to drink.

And Elijah went to the top of Carmel and he cast himself down

upon the earth and put his face between his knees.

And this is where I was saying, Elijah's got confidence in his

God. There was no rain yet.

He's saying to Ahab, there's a sound of abundance of rain, get

up and eat. And and I think some of this

would be, you know, they've at this point, they're rationing

food. They are, you know, rationing

out amongst the children of Israel what they have left.

So when he tells him get up and eat, he's saying and and drink,

stop, forget the rations. Just get up and eat and drink.

This this famine, this drought is about to end and then goes to

God and says, I need this drought to end.

I just told all the people that you were going to end this

drought AF went up, sorry. And Elijah goes up in verse 42

and puts his face between his knees and said to his servant,

go look toward the sea. And he went up and looked and

said there's nothing. He said go again 7 times this

happens. It came to pass The 7th time he

said, behold, there arise at the little cloud out of the sea like

a man's hand. He said, go up and say they have

prepare thy chariot and get thee down that the rain stop thee

not. I think it's just such an

interesting an awesome confidence in God.

There is no rain yet and he's telling get in your chariot and

get to Jezreel. It's about to rain because I saw

a cloud the size of a man's hand.

But you see as he goes from verse 45 came to pass in the

meanwhile that the heaven was black with clouds and wind and

there was a great rain and Ahab road and went to Jezreel in the

hand of the Lord was on Elijah and he girded up his loins and

ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.

But just another interesting story with the whole drought

being ended. And we're not going to get too

much into that. But in verse 39 we see the

repentance of Israel, the Lord, he is the God.

They're not halting between two opinions any longer.

They've realized the Lord is is the God that we need to serve

and he is Jehovah alone. And so they tear down the gods

of the prophets of Baal, the gods of Baal and, and the idols,

and they killed the 450 prophets.

And they see a revival in the land of Israel.

And we see that it's always that that sound of abundance of rain

is a picture of the revival that they saw because they finally

turned back to God. Remember in Deuteronomy 28, we

saw if you don't do these commands that I've given you,

and you don't obey my word and you don't follow me, I'm going

to turn your rain to dust is what God says in Deuteronomy.

And now they've finally turned their hearts back to God.

And I believe all of this is through the power of the prayer

that Elijah, the power of the, the relationship that Elijah had

with his God. None of this I don't believe

would have been possible. The children of Israel weren't

calling on God. Elijah is.

And through Elijah's prayer and the relationship that he has

with God, God sends fire, proves that he is God, and then opens

the windows of heaven and gives them rain again because the

people have finally turned back to, to God.

And, and I think pastor read this verse last week, but James

James 5:17

chapter 5, verse 17, Elijah was a man subject to like passions

as we are. That means he was exactly like

we are. He had no special power.

He had no special gifts, no special abilities, but he prayed

earnestly that it might not rain.

And it rained not by the space of three years and six months.

And then he prayed again, which is exactly what we read here at

the end of chapter 18. And the heaven gave rain, and

the earth brought forth her fruit.

And part of the reason we don't have is because we don't ask.

We see that in James chapter 4. You have not because you ask

James 4 · chapter mention

not. And the other part is exactly

what we heard last Sunday morning.

Sometimes we have not because God's not even hearing us.

He wants to, but He can't because of sin in our lives.

And that's what was going on with the children of Israel

healed here. But thankfully they had one man

that was left that still had the ear of God because sin was he

had no sin or he had gotten sin out of his life.

Put it that way. And God hears him and proves to

the children of Israel that I am still God.

And we have that's what that's the point here in James chapter

James 5 · chapter mention

5. He was subject to just like we

are like passions. He was just like us and he was

able to have this kind of power with God.

We are too. How serious are we about it?

That's the, the inspiration of this mount of prayer.

We have that same power, that same access to God that Elijah

had, but we have to make sure our lives are clean and, and,

and clean of sin and idols in our lives.

That's a whole nother message that we could talk about.

But we, we put idols up in our lives.

We do and we make them little gods here and there instead of

destroying them and destroying everything that goes with it.

And then God, we have no power with with the true God, true

almighty God of the universe because of that.

But the mountain of prayer, Mount Carmel and we'll get into

another one next week. Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for this day you've given us.

God, I thank you for these stories in your word.

I thank you that they're not just stories.

There's so much we can glean from them.

I pray that your people would take these stories, myself

included. God, I know when we when I

teach, there's so much more that we can get from it.

There's the the I know that I am inadequate in these lessons.

And so I pray that your people would take these verses, take

these passages, read them through the week and and glean

from your word. God, what you what you have in

store for us. If we would just follow your

word and do what you command us to do.

God, you have so much that you want to do through us.

And I pray that we would see that in our lives.

Pray that you bless this next hour, that you'd meet with us

through the preaching of your word.

In Jesus name I pray, Amen.