[0:00] You know where we're going to go tonight? Yep. 1 Kings 17. Again. 1 Kings 17. We left off last week.
[0:20] We were talking about the second point, which was Elijah's trust and letter C. Did you catch that, Angela? 2 C.
[0:32] Where it talks about Elijah's conquest. Elijah's conquest. And we were talking about verses 22 and 23, where it says, And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.
[0:49] And Elijah took the child and brought him down out of the chamber into the house and delivered him unto his mother. And Elijah said, See thy son liveth.
[1:00] That's that word prayer. Father, pray that you would help us tonight to, as we finish up this on-the-job training that Elijah's doing, Lord, may we learn the benefits of this on-the-job training.
[1:11] What do we learn from it as we go through life, living with the Lord by our side, as he helps us and as he guides us?
[1:22] Lord, help us to learn that there's things for us to learn. There are things for us to implement. There are things for us to do in order to see you hard at work in our lives, making us into what you want us to be.
[1:37] Lord, we thank you for the way Elijah's going to learn from this, and he's going to take these things that he's learning, he's going to use them later on in his ministry. And Lord, we just pray that we would learn the same things and apply them to our life.
[1:49] In Jesus' name, amen. So Elijah's come to a conclusion, remember, the widow's son had died.
[2:00] And she's accusing Elijah and God of treating her wrongly. And Elijah kind of agrees with her.
[2:12] And so he's been talking to God about what happened, and now he's seeing the results of what he has done. The first point we talked last week, Elijah's prevailing in prayer.
[2:25] We talked about the fact that God honored the faith of the prophet. I made the statement that a faith that honors God is a faith that is honored by God. A faith that honors God is a faith that is honored by God.
[2:39] And we talked about the fact that a number of different verses, Matthew 21, 22, all things whatsoever you shall ask in prayer, believing you shall receive. John 14, 13, whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified.
[2:55] John 16, 23, and 24, and in that day you shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you.
[3:07] Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name, ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. And then 1 John 5, 14, and 15, where we pointed out one very special condition.
[3:20] And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. And if we know that he heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desire of him.
[3:34] Whatsoever we ask, according to his will. And so we talked about the fact that how important that is. We talked about the fact that a lot of people will say, well, that just doesn't work for me.
[3:49] You know, it's never worked for me. And a lot of times you're absolutely right. It's because God won't answer our prayers because he won't answer a prayer of unbelief.
[4:01] And a lot of times we ask kind of like, well, I'll pray about it and I'll ask God to do this, but I know it's not going to happen. You know, you pray believing that God's hearing, God's going to answer one way or another.
[4:15] He's going to take care of things. We talked about in James chapter 1, verses 6, 7, and 8, it says, but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like the wave of the sea driven with the wind to toss.
[4:27] For let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. God's not going to honor a lack of faith. When James is talking about Elijah, he says, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
[4:44] And I gave you the little story at the end about the town that didn't have any alcohol in it until there was a nightclub built. Remember, and the church people got together and started praying about the fact that God would take care of that nightclub and that it would be destroyed and everything, and it got hit by lightning and burned up.
[5:04] And the owner took the church people to the court, blaming them for his fire. And they got a lawyer saying, no, it wasn't our fault. And the judge got all done.
[5:15] The judge said, you know, I don't know who to blame, but, it says, the innkeeper believes in prayer, the church people don't. And a lot of times, you know what?
[5:27] We don't. We don't believe what God's going to do. Which brings us to number two. Elijah presenting the proof. Elijah presenting the proof.
[5:39] When Elijah carried that boy upstairs to his apartment thing that he had there, his loft, he was carrying a dead body, dead weight. Now he's coming back down the stairs with a living miracle.
[5:55] God has answered prayer and that boy is now alive. And God has worked a miracle for Elijah and for the widow woman. They both had things to learn from this.
[6:06] You know, sometimes we talk about the power of faith in God to work. We talk about, you know, moving mountains and things and we don't necessarily follow through.
[6:24] We don't necessarily put our faith in what God can do. Matthew 17, 20, Jesus said unto them, because of your unbelief. For verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
[6:46] We need to count on God to look after us. We need to count on God to take care of us. There's a story, excuse me, about a captain of a large vessel and he had set sail with his family and others from Liverpool and they were heading to New York City.
[7:10] And as they came across the water, they ran into a squall and as they're on the boat that night, the squall comes up, hits them and strikes the vessel and almost capsizes it.
[7:28] And the passengers became aware very quickly that they were in trouble. It was a bad storm because when that squall hit, basically through the ship all around, everything that wasn't nailed down was flying through the air, passengers sitting in chairs or laying in their berth.
[7:54] They were out in the middle of the floor and everyone was alarmed. A lot of them got up and began to get dressed and in panic.
[8:06] The captain's little daughter who was on the boat was only eight years old and she was awakened and she started crying because everyone's all in a panic and everything and then she said, wait a minute, is father on deck?
[8:22] And they said, yes, he's up there. He's taking care of things but you need to be ready because she laid her head back down on the pillow and went back to sleep. If dad was up on deck, everything was okay.
[8:35] And as Christians, we need to remember our father is always on deck. He's always taking care of things. He's always meeting the need. Point number three in your outline there, Elijah's testimony.
[8:51] Elijah's testimony. First thing I want you to see is God's man is vindicated. He has gone there because God told him to go there and this lady was going to take and provide for him.
[9:05] And so he's been there doing what God said and he's told her about God and now she's questioning things because her son died. But he tells her, trust in the Lord.
[9:17] And he's now vindicated by things that happen. See, we have to remember, we started this out a couple weeks ago about the fact that people may mock God.
[9:30] I think of our day and age that we live in. Often you see people put things up on Facebook about different tragedies that happen and say, our prayers are with them and somebody will get on there and we don't need your prayers.
[9:41] We need, you know, gun laws or we need this, that or the other thing and da, da, da, da, da. Prayers don't do anything. But Elijah's proving that prayer does do things.
[9:53] He went to God, he prayed about this young boy, he says, look, the God who feeds the sparrows, the God who clothes the grass of the field as we've read about in the past, he says, he's repeatedly proving his power.
[10:11] I think, just think of Elijah's just what we've looked at so far. He's gone to Ahab and Jezebel. He's got out of there alive. He's gone to the brook Cherith and he's had the ravens bring him food and he's had the water there.
[10:26] He's gone to this widow's house and she has a barrel of meal and a cruise of oil that have not run empty the whole time he's been there. God has proven himself over and over and over again to take care of them.
[10:41] God can take care of those little things like that. And he says, just have a grain of faith. Just a little bit of faith can transform the things that we'll do.
[10:51] Then also notice God's message is validated. God's message is validated. Now, the widow expresses her confidence in the word of God.
[11:06] Look with me at verse 24. It says, And a woman said, I know that thou art a man of God and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth.
[11:17] She says, Now I know. The cruise of oil didn't do it. The meal in the barrel didn't do it even though it was there day after day after day.
[11:28] Now she has her son back. She says, I believe. I believe in what's happening. I believe the word of God. When you tell me God said something, I'm going to believe it from now on.
[11:42] And isn't that the basis of our faith? Romans 10, 17. So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. He says, Get in the word.
[11:54] Get in the word. Listen to the word. He says, Your faith will increase. I remember a story D.L. Moody said he used to pray for faith and pray for faith and pray for faith and pray for faith and pray for faith.
[12:07] He said, Then one day he read that. Romans 10, 17. So then faith cometh by hearing and hear by the word of God. He said, I got back into the word of God. Less time praying and more time reading.
[12:18] Studying God's word. He said, My faith has been growing ever since. Get into the word of God and know what it says. If God has given his word on a matter, then you can rest assured what's going to happen.
[12:33] Elijah, when he went there, what had God told him? He said, There's a widow woman there. She has a family. She has a son. And you're going to go there and I'm going to take care of you guys.
[12:47] There's going to be enough meal. There's going to be enough oil. You're going to be okay. So Elijah could go in and he could pray because he knew that God had said that boy was going to be there with him until it rained again.
[13:01] Because Elijah was going to be there until the time that God said it's time for it to rain. And so Elijah knew God was going to be true to his word and going to keep his promises.
[13:13] Let her see. God's word, God's method is victorious. God's method is victorious. You think about it.
[13:24] Allowing a child to die and then be resurrected was probably not on anybody's plan there. But again, when we started out this thing, we talked about the fact that God's ways are not our ways.
[13:43] His plan is not our plan. God has a way of doing things. Far from what we would ever think. But how dramatic an illustration it was to Elijah and to the mother of what God can do.
[14:01] You know, as we go through this, remember, we're going to get to the point where Elijah's standing on Mount Carmel and he's going to pray for fire to come down from heaven. How in the world could he do that?
[14:12] He's already seen God do things in ways that he would never think of. God has already answered his prayers and taken care of him. The widow was encouraged on your sheet there.
[14:27] The widow is encouraged. She has been strengthened. She has been grounded. She now believes that God can do anything. Do we believe that God can do anything?
[14:40] No matter what's going on in our life, no matter what we're facing, do we believe that God can do anything? That's the place that God wants us to get to.
[14:53] Where we believe him. Where we trust him. Number two, the prophet is enabled. Prophet is enabled.
[15:04] Again, Elijah is going to face more things as he goes along in this battle between God and Baal, battle between him and Ahab and Jezebel.
[15:17] He is going to see more things going to come up and he is now encouraged and enabled to know that God has proven himself to be greater than any problem he will face.
[15:31] God can take care of it. You know, God's method of growing us isn't always pleasant. We go through some things sometimes, but God's going to help us to grow.
[15:45] When we pass through these things, it's a growing process so that we can be better used of God. We have to learn how to trust him and what he does.
[15:58] He takes us through battles and we see him win them by his power. It enables us by faith to keep on going, to keep trusting him.
[16:14] So, these last few weeks, where does it find you? Are you facing problems that you think are impossible? Has it dawned on you that it may not be by accident that you're facing these things?
[16:34] Has it dawned on you that, you know, the things that just don't seem to work out the way you think they should, that God has another plan, that God is working?
[16:47] nothing's going to happen in your life. If you're a Christian, there's nothing going to happen in your life that God has not allowed to happen. He's there preparing you, getting you ready for the things that are going to happen.
[17:03] So, whatever you're facing today, bring it to the Lord. Pray to him. Ask him. He says, look, cast all your care upon me because I care for you.
[17:16] 1 Peter 5.7. He says, come, lay your burdens, find rest. Matthew 11.28.
[17:28] He says, come to me. If your problem is sin, Jesus already died for it. He says, I can move mountains. No matter what you're facing, the answer lies in bringing it to Jesus.
[17:46] Let him work and do his work in your life. The problem is all of us like to hold on to things.
[18:00] We like to be in charge. We like to be in control. We like to think we've got it. God says, trust me. Let me do it. Okay?
[18:11] Think about that. Are you trusting God for what He's going to do in your life? Thank you.