James - Elijah and our Wicked King

Today we're actually finishing up our series

that we've been in all summer long going through

the book of James. And I want to give a special

thanks to everyone else that preached as a part

of that. So a special thanks to Gary and Alex

and Jen and Jake and Scott and Eric. Thanks for

being part of this year. So give them a round

of applause. And while Eric's not here, a special

thanks to him because he talked about baseball

last week. So that's great. All right, so let's

actually, we're just going to jump right in.

to the passage so that we can get going, okay?

So we're going to be in James chapter 5. There's

James 5 · chapter mention

Bibles on the table. They're the blue things.

And then there's Bibles out in the lobby. If

you want to take one home, feel free to take

one if you don't have one. Or you can download

a Bible from any of the digital app stores. James

is towards the end of the Bible. There's only

a few things after it. So it's Hebrews, James,

and then you start seeing 1 and 2 Peter and 1,

2, 3 John. So if you see that neighborhood, you

know where to get to, okay? We're going to be

in James. And then we have a tradition of giving

the scriptures our full attention when they're

read in the context of a message or a sermon.

You can do that any way that is going to work

best for you. But if you'd like to stand with

me, you can stand with me now as I read from

James 5, starting in verse 13. Are any among

you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful?

They should sing songs of praise. Are any among

you sick? They should call for the elders of

the church and have them pray over them, anointing

them with oil in the name of the Lord. Prayer

of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will

raise them up, and anyone who has committed sins

will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins

to one another and pray for one another so that

you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous

is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human

like us. And he prayed fervently that it might

not rain, and for three years and six months

it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed

again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth yielded

its harvest. My brothers and sisters, if anyone

among you wanders from the truth and is brought

back by another, you should know that whoever

brings back a sinner from wandering will save

the sinner's soul from death and will cover a

multitude of sins. And the book of James ends.

Let us pray. God of every tribe, every tongue,

every color, every nation, we thank you for the

scriptures that they have persisted throughout

the millennia. We still have them to read, to

consider, to learn from. Whatever you have for

us today, I pray that it would stick, that it

would become a part of the framework of our faith,

that our faith would become stronger as we become

more like your son, Jesus. Amen? Amen. You may

be seated. Elijah is the fourth historical figure

that James has mentioned throughout his short

book of just five chapters. He mentions Abraham.

He mentions Rahab when he's talking about faith,

when he's talking about actions. He mentions

Job. when he's talking about enduring through

suffering. Here in the last few verses, James

mentions Elijah when he's talking about prayer.

Now, we've already talked about prayer, a number

of different sermons, and so I'm not going to

focus on the subject of prayer. I want to focus

on the subject of Elijah, because Bible writers

do this thing quite often where they'll name

drop. They'll just mention someone and maybe

just a little bit of their story, expecting that

you'll know more of the story and that this story

will help you with understanding what's going

on. We do the same thing now. If you have lived

in Rock Island for more than 10 years, and I

say the Walmart debacle, you know exactly what

I'm talking about. It's a similar thing here,

where you drop a topic or a name. And immediately

whatever I say next gets put into the context

of that thing that I just mentioned. Writers

like James do this all the time, knowing that

the basic reference will tell us something. But

they also know that if we have more of the details,

we'll find more meaning in what is being said.

So just a pastor's encouragement, whenever possible,

if a Bible writer mentions something or someone

else or another event that happened way earlier

in the book, it will benefit you to go back and

look at what actually happened. It will tell

you more about what they're saying right there.

And so that's what we're going to do today. We're

actually going to go back. We're going to look

at Elijah because these verses about Elijah might

be about more than just rain and prayer. If you

want to read every word of the story later, you

can. You're going to go back to 1 Kings 11, okay?

And you're going to read at least through. Chapter

19, but I'm going to paraphrase it for us for

the sake of time. In 120 years, Israel had three

kings. Just popcorn it. Who were Israel's first

three kings? Just popcorn it. Saul? Solomon and

David. Yeah. So first was Saul, then came David,

and then came his son Solomon. And then in 1

Kings 11, it says that Solomon dies. Everything

changes. The kingdom of 12 tribes splits into

two kingdoms. Ten tribes in the north keep the

name Israel. Two tribes in the south, they take

the name Judah, which was the name of one of

those two tribes. And over the course of less

than the next 200 years, 120 years, three kings

for everybody. In less than the next 200 years,

the northern king had 19 kings. The southern

kingdom had 20. So when you get to Elijah, you

can tell that the context has already changed.

It's tumultuous. There's something happening.

When you get to Elijah, he's on the seventh king

after Solomon. And every single one of those

kings, if you read it, it says, and this king

did evil in the sight of God. The next one, and

this king did evil in the sight of God. And the

next one, and this king did evil in the sight

of God. And you get to Ahab, and he says, this

king did evil in the sight of God more than any

other king. The evil that he did that was more

than any other king was that he married someone

from outside of Israel, and he brought her cultural

god into Israel. That cultural god was called

what in English? We tend to say Baal, but it

was actually Baal. So he brings her God into

Israel. And not only does he worship Baal, but

he leads the people of Israel into worshiping

Baal. He sets up places of worship for Baal.

And, all right, we'll just keep the Bible quiz

going. Who remembers the first commandment? Thou

shalt have no other gods before me. If you have

a hard time memorizing Ten Commandments or all

the Beatitudes, you know, most of the time any

of us are trying to memorize a list, we at least

remember the first one. You shall have no other

gods before me. Sin wasn't just that he worshipped

another god. It's that he led the people to do

it as well. This is a classic case of what we

still see today, where the leader goes, the people

follow. The leader is worshiping false gods.

A good chunk of those people are going to worship

that false god. The leader is protecting abusers,

cutting funding for the poorest people, and saying

racist, conspiracy -laden nonsense designed to

distract people from God and justice than a great...

number of people will turn around and protect

abusers, praise the neglect of the needy, and

echo racist conspiracy -laden nonsense designed

to distract them from God and from justice. So

Elijah, he knows this is what is happening. He

goes to the king and he says, it's not going

to rain anymore. Your sin, your sin, it's not

going to rain. It's shut up the heavens. And

it will not rain again until I pray. Now, if

you're the king, if you're the leader, you have

two choices. You either repent and change course,

or you try to kill the messenger to keep from

that message getting out to the people. And isn't

that what continues to happen today? For the

next... Three and a half years, Elijah was a

hunted man. And so God hides him near, in the

scriptures it's called a wadi, but it's essentially

just a riverbed that still has water in it. And

for food, my wife will love this. She loves this

part of the story. For food, he had the ravens

bring him food every day. All she wants is a

raven to befriend her. That's all she wants.

Or a crow, one of the two. You just want a bird

to be friends with you. A crow, specifically.

Elijah had plenty of bird friends. I know I'm

joking around a little bit here, but I want you

to hear what I'm about to say. If God tells you

to confront the powers that be, he will feed

you. If God tells you to confront the powers

that be, he will feed you. I think one of our

greatest fears is what we will lose if we speak

up. It will require all of the faith that James

has been teaching us about. It will require all

of the patience that James has been teaching

us about. It will require us mastering our tongue

and our temper the way that James has been teaching

us so that we can use all of the wisdom. That

James has been teaching us. When God says to

speak. With this mouth. As the words come out.

He will give you what you need to go back in.

Now that doesn't mean. That the first way that

God feeds you will be the only way that he feeds

you. It says that eventually Elijah's water dried

up. presumably because the water came up. Maybe

the ravens stopped coming there because they

didn't have water to drink either. And so it

says that God spoke to him and said, Elijah,

I want you to go to a place called Zarephath.

There's a widow there that I have told to feed

you. And he goes. He decides to trust the Lord

once again, trusting the Lord will provide for

him, though he has spoken out and his life is

in danger. And it says that he goes to Zarephath

and he finds this widow at the gate of the city

and she's collecting sticks. And he says to her,

will you please bring me water and provide food

for me? She says, I would, but... I only have

enough left for one day. I only have enough left

for one more meal for myself and for my son.

The reason I'm here is because I'm collecting

sticks to make a fire to bake our last meal so

that then my son and I will die. It's a moment

of realism for Elijah. He's been hidden away.

He's had food and water for his every day. He

has been in hiding, but he has had it relatively

easy. He hasn't seen yet how God's punishment

and judgment against Ahab have been affecting

the people. Because as a leader goes, so goes

the people. And if judgment and punishment comes

against a leader, it will inevitably affect the

people that he leads as well. So Elijah promises.

He says, no matter what, no matter how long your

supplies, How low you think your supplies are.

Even if you think you can see the bottom through

the grain that you're about to use, your grain,

your oil, will never run out until the rain comes.

Again, that is my promise to you as a man of

God. She believes him. She bakes. She gives food

to him. She has food for herself and for her

son, and it happens. single day. How many of

us have the guts to say what we believe God will

do right after our water ran out? How many of

us have the guts to use everything we have left

over to feed a stranger, trusting there would

be more tomorrow? For Elijah, he trusted that

God didn't send him there to die. Or for this

woman, or her son to die. But listen, he was

a man of faith. The real credit should go to

the woman. That she believed. It was her life.

It was her son's life that she was putting on

the line to help a stranger. It was her faith

that kept him alive. Now, this goes on for a

while, probably years. We know that it's three

and a half years in total. It doesn't say how

long until the waterbed dried up. It could have

been years that she was feeding him every day.

And then it says that her son got sick anyway.

It says that he dies. So she says to Elijah,

something most of us have probably felt as well.

She says, after all this, what have you done?

She says, is this my old sin? That I'm being

punished for? That you let my son die? He says

that Elijah cried to God over this boy. He says

to God, why have you saved my life but taken

his? He cries out. He says, let him die. He falls

onto the boy three times. It describes him laying

his body across this boy's body three different

times, crying and praying. And it says that the

life of the child came back into him again. Elijah

knows that none of this has happened because

of her sin. None of this was her fault. Why should

she lose her son because of someone else's sin?

when he was alive because of her faith. And I

think that he knows if her son died and needed

to be brought back to life, how many others are

dying, hoping that there would still be life.

So it was time for him to go back to the king,

to confront not only the king's idolatry, but

to confront... All of the prophets of Baal. To

confront all of the false leaders that were leading

the people into worshiping something that was

wicked. Now remember, all of this, everything

that I've just said is baked into two verses

in James. That Elijah was a human like us. All

of this. And he prayed that it would stop raining,

and then he prayed that it would begin raining.

All of this happened in between there, and we're

not even done yet. So Elijah goes back, and he

says to the king, let's have a contest. All right,

he didn't say that, but that's the kind of way

it plays out. He says, you guys build an altar

to your God, and I will build an altar to the

God, and you guys cry out. Ask your God to answer

and set your altar on fire. I'll ask my God and

see who answers. And whoever answers is the winner.

So the false prophets of Baal, they set up an

altar. They cry out to God all day long. It says

that after a while, they had been crying so loudly

and so longly that they started hurting themselves.

Trying to get... this God's attention. They started

abusing their bodies, just trying to get this

God to listen to them. And then it says that

Elijah, sitting over here, is like, hey guys,

maybe he's taking a nap. It's legit. Go read

it. He starts just straight cold mocking them.

Oh guys, maybe he's on vacation. Picked the wrong

time. And after all day, Obviously, this God

does not answer. So he builds an altar out of

stone. Like the woman at the gate, he tells them

to collect wood for the fire. And like the widow,

he asks for water. And he says, bring water and

douse the entire thing. They dug a moat around

the altar and they doused the thing three different

times. And the moat... filled up with water.

He saturated the offering, the wood, the stones,

all of it with water so that there would be no

chance that something or someone else had done

that. He stands back and he prays a simple prayer.

God, answer my prayer today so that your people

will turn their hearts back to you. And immediately

fire strikes the altar consuming everything.

Not just the offering, not just the wood, not

just the stone, but evaporates all of the water

into thin air, leaving no doubt whose God is

alive and whose God is worthy. All the false

prophets were put to death. God brings back the

rain, and the people have the opportunity to

bring back their hearts to God. When that fire

fell on that altar, it wasn't just about proving

but all wrong. It was about calling a nation

back to God. It wasn't just about proving that

that's fake and the wrong thing to follow. It

was about calling people back from their wandering

to save them from their sins. To call them back

to a God that is real. Instead of following a

wicked, wicked king. In James, verse 15 and 16,

it says, anyone who's committed sins will be

forgiven. Hear that. Anyone, anyone will be forgiven.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and

pray for one another so that you may be healed.

See, some people know when they've done something

wrong and that it's time to say they're sorry.

Some people know. When they've done something

wrong and it's time to turn their hearts fully

back to God. They know when it's time for them

to come home so that they do not abandon their

God and follow a wicked king. But when verse

20 says, whoever brings back a sinner from wandering

will save the sinner's soul from death and will

cover multitude of sins. James knows that some

people don't know. They need someone to tell

them. Over and over again, in the scriptures,

God does this for his people and for the world.

He tells us. He shows us. He confronts the leaders

that have led us away, doesn't he? Doesn't he?

Ultimately, Jesus, the perfect image and presence,

fullness of God, became human like us to show

us, to bring us. Home, like Elijah. Jesus confronted

the powers of his age. Not with violence, but

with his broken body. Not with abuse, but comfort

for the healing that had been hurting. Not with

a sword, but with love. See, Jesus became the

altar. The offering on a cross. The sticks. The

wood for the offering. Confronting the false

gods that we have worshipped. And confronting

the leaders who led us there. Jesus was not consumed

by fire. But he was crushed under the weight

of our sin. So that there would be nothing left

to keep us from coming home. We are a church.

As a church, we have always said that we are

here to call prodigals home, to adopt the spiritually

homeless. And part of that is confronting the

powers that have led them away from God in the

first place. Listen. Listen with ears to hear.

Elijah prayed and it did not rain three and a

half years. In our country. We have three and

a half years left in this current president's

term. And I pray the people do not suffer the

way that the Israelites did for the sins of their

king as they followed their king into idolatry.

I pray that the people of this country, that

the Christians in your neighborhood will not

fall into despair by following. Anything that

would lead them away from Jesus Christ. I can

see it the same way. The same way that the prophets

of Baal hurt themselves for a false god to get

the attention of a god that had no real power.

that did not actually care about them, that today

so many are hurting themselves for empty leadership,

for empty and abusive power, for an authority

that cannot bring the rain back. It will not

listen. It will not bring the rain back. I look

around and it feels like desert. It feels like

drought. It feels like the loudest Christian

voices in our country are the voices approving

cruelty. Cruelty. So much of American Christianity

has wandered off to worship. the gods of presidents,

instead of the God that is Father, Son, and Holy

Spirit. And I hope that we will be like Elijah,

that we will trust that if we speak, that God

will feed us. I hope that this church, the individuals,

the entity, the community, the family, I hope

that we will be like Jesus, that we will use

our voices to confront the leaders that worship

empty idols that lead their people into drought

and famine. Because there are widows. They will

need food. There will be sick sons that will

need healing. It's a timeless truth that as the

leader goes, so goes the people. And so we, we,

we must follow Jesus. We, we must follow Jesus.

Say it with me. We must follow Jesus. Amen.