July 10, 2016 - Elijah and the Ravens

TONY & MICHELLE PAWLAK

MEMORY VERSE

I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit.

             So far we’ve learned that God kept His promise to Israel by bringing them into the Promised Land and enabling them to conquer it.  You would think that after all that, Israel would be faithful to God forever, right?  Well, unfortunately, that’s not what happened.  Over the years, Israel had many ups and downs.  They also had good kings and bad kings, mostly bad ones. 

The worst of all the kings that Israel had was King Ahab.  He even married someone as evil as himself, the evil Queen Jezebel.  They did many evil things but the worst was to lead Israel into worshipping another god…a FALSE GOD named Ba’al.  God decided that He wouldn’t tolerate this so he sent a prophet named Elijah to confront King Ahab. 

Elijah told King Ahab that, since he had sinned so badly against God, there wasn’t going to be any more rain until Elijah called for it.  This made King Ahab so angry that Elijah had to run for his life.  He went across

the Jordan all the way to the Brook Kerith.  There Elijah survived by drinking from the brook but he needed to get food somehow.  God Himself took care of Elijah by having ravens bring him bread and meat twice a day!  This went on for a long time and King Ahab was never able to find him. 

Everything was going well for Elijah but Israel was

suffering greatly.  There was no rain for plants to grow so there was no food for the animals.  This meant that the people didn’t have meat or vegetables to eat and everyone was starving!  Eventually the drought (long period with no rain) even affected Elijah when the brook he was drinking from dried up.  So God told Elijah to go to a city named Zarephath where He had commanded a widow to care for him. 

When Elijah arrived and found the widow, he realized that she was so poor that she couldn’t even take care of herself and her son, much less care for Elijah.  All she had was a little flour and a little oil which she was going to make for her son and herself as a last meal before death.  Elijah told her to do so but to first make him something to eat.  Miraculously, the flour and the oil lasted for a very long time without running out.  All three of them had enough to eat until the drought was over.  Eventually it was time for Elijah to go back and confront Ahab.

When Elijah arrived he told Ahab to gather all the false prophets of Ba’al, four hundred in all, together for a contest between his God and their false god.  They all met on Mount Carmel.  The prophets of Ba’al built an altar and two oxen were chosen to be sacrifices.  Elijah told the prophets of Ba’al to go first and even let

them have their choice of animal for a sacrifice.  There was one catch; nobody was allowed to light the altar.  That was Ba’al’s job.  The same went for Elijah.  This way, everyone could see which was the real God.  Elijah told the people, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” (I Kings 18:21) The contest was on!

All day long the prophets of Ba’al danced, shouted, and pleaded with Ba’al to come and light his altar.  They even cut themselves thinking that this would make Ba’al happy enough to come.  But nothing happened.  This went on so long that Elijah started teasing them saying, “Shout louder! Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.”(I Kings 18:27)  Finally it was Elijah’s turn.

Elijah built an altar made of twelve stones, one for

each tribe of Israel.  Then he dug a trench around the altar and laid the sacrifice on it.  Then Elijah did something that sounded absurd!  He actually poured water on the altar!  Jug after jug he poured until the sacrifice, the wood, and the altar itself was soaked.  He even filled the trench surrounding the altar. In all, he poured twelve jugs of water over the altar.  Surely nothing was going to light this sacrifice on fire, right?

Then Elijah prayed;  “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel (Jacob), let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.  Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” (I Kings 18:36-37)

Then fire from Heaven came down and landed on Elijah’s altar.  The fire burned so hot that it burned up the sacrifice, the wood, and even the stones!  Even the water that was in the trench around the altar dried up.  As the people saw this, they fell down and cried, “The Lord, He is God!” 

Elijah then ordered all the prophets of Ba’al to be arrested and executed.  Afterwards, Elijah and his servant went off to pray for the rain to return.  Elijah sent his servant to go and look for any signs of rain but he saw nothing.  So Elijah prayed again and still nothing! Elijah prayed four more times but each time the

servant saw no signs of rain.  Finally, after Elijah prayed seven times, Elijah’s servant saw a small cloud only the size of a man’s hand.  Elijah knew this was what he had been waiting for.  That little cloud was only the beginning.  He went back and told King Ahab to start heading home or else get caught in the coming rain.  So Ahab got in his chariot and rode off.  God wasn’t done proving his power to King Ahab yet, though.

Elijah tucked his robe into his belt and took off running after the chariot.  God empowered Elijah so that he ran so fast that he outran King Ahab’s horses!  Imagine Ahab’s surprise! 

So what can we learn from all this?  Many things.  First, we should never let anyone lead us away from worshipping God or let anything in our lives take God’s place.  Also, sometimes even the greatest men, like Elijah, have to pray many times before God will give them the answer they seek.  But one of the major points of this story is that God will provide.  He provided for Elijah with the ravens and the brook. He also provided for Elijah, the widow, and her son with the flour and the oil.  And finally, God provided for Israel with rain once they turned back to Him.