After Elijah called down the fire on Mount
Carmel, which fell on the altar which he
had restored, and the prophets, the false prophets
were unmasked for everyone to see, and the
people were crying out, Adonai, who Elohim, Adonai,
who Elohim, there were people falling on their
faces all over the mountain.
He took those false prophets, 450, down to
the river Kishon at the bottom of Mount
Carmel, which runs up in here into Haifa
today, and had them executed, and some people
have criticized him for that, but the law,
the Torah was clear.
The false prophets that lead the people into
idolatry were to be cut off, and he
was trying to cut out the root of
idolatry that had gotten into his people.
Once that was completed, he went back up
to the top of the mountain, and Ahab
and his, all the people with him, all
the famous people, the VIPs, they sat around,
and they had a big sacrificial meal, which
is what you would do after a sacrifice
like that, and so all the people, maybe
they had their lunches, and they were going
home, and people were going back to Galilee
and down the mountain, but there was Ahab,
the holy fire of God had fallen on
the mountain, and Ahab had not changed.
He just was doing business as usual, and
many of the people did not change either.
We hear Elijah talk about it later.
He was so hurt, so disappointed, so disenchanted
that the fire fell, and the people had
this great experience with God, the great manifestation
of his all-consuming love, and fire, and
holiness, and yet they didn't change.
So, as Ahab is having his wonderful meal
with all his famous people there in the
government, or army, or whoever they were, the
false prophets had been killed.
They were all gone.
Where was Elijah?
Elijah was in persevering prayer for the nation.
Then Elijah said to Ahab, go up and
eat and drink, but there is the sound
of abundance of rain.
The prophet heard in the spirit the rain
was coming.
He knew it was coming.
How did he know?
Because the Lord had told him, confront Ahab,
and I will send the rain.
He had the word of God, and he
was going to pray it through until it
was fulfilled, and that's what we need to
do when we get a prophetic word.
We need to pray and hang on to
the Lord until it is fulfilled.
So, Ahab went up to eat and drink.
Elijah went up to the top of the
Mount of Carmel, and then he bowed down
on the ground and put his face between
his knees.
What a picture!
Here we have backslidden, compromised Ahab, the king
of Israel, who knows all about the law
and what he should be doing, and brought
all this false religion in there, still calling
on the name of God.
It's like a lukewarm believer, a carnal believer
today, and he's stuffing his face, eating and
having his meal, and Elijah is on his
face, prostrate, bowed down before the Lord God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who had just
been manifested by the power of the Spirit
in this huge fire that had fallen from
heaven.
Instead of him walking around and basking in,
well, I'm the one who did it, he
was in humility, broken before the Lord, crying
out to the Lord.
He had his head between his legs.
He was in a like a fetal position,
like he was birthing a baby.
He was in travail.
Sometimes we need to move into the prayer
of travail.
It means weeping and crying out to the
Lord until the answer comes.
You know, many years ago, a man named
Charles Spurgeon used to call that kind of
prayer liquid prayer.
Well, it's liquid love too, crying out to
the Lord that he would fulfill what he's
told us that he would do out of
his great love for his people or whoever
we're interceding for.
You know, many years ago in England, the
great General Booth, who founded the Salvation Army,
was a great man of prayer, him and
his wife Catherine Booth.
They changed certain laws in England for orphans
and kids that worked in sweatshops and all
that kind of thing.
Well, they sent teams around the world.
One went to France, I think it was
Paris, and nothing was happening.
They were preaching on the streets and worshiping
the Lord.
So they sent a cable back to London
to General Booth, and Booth, and they said
to him, nothing's happening.
No one's coming to the Lord.
So Booth cabled them back three words.
The words were, try tears, Booth.
Elijah was on his face, crying out to
the Lord, send the rain.
You told me if I confront Ahab, you
will send the rain.
We need the rain.
We need the rain for the crops.
There's famine all over the land.
Not only that, we need the rain of
a great move of the Holy Spirit.
And as he prayed, his servant would go
up to the top of the mountain and
come back and say, I don't see anything.
Seven times he sent this servant back and
forth up to the top of the mountain.
And finally, the servant came back and said,
I see a hand like a man's.
And when you study the Hebrew, it means
it was stretched out, a hand like stretched
out in intercession and travail toward the Lord.
And Elijah then said, the rain is coming.
He got up.
He told the king, buckle up your horses
and get in your chariot and go before
the rain comes down and stops you.
And he ran all the way before the
king, all the way to Jezreel, about 25,
26 miles across the Megiddo Valley, where the
final battle of Armageddon will take place evidently.
You know, this Elijah is such an example
to us.
This legacy has left the fervent, effective prayer
of a righteous man or woman accomplishes much.
It's all about Elijah in James chapter five.
You know, when we started our meetings up
on the top of Mount Carmel, we outgrew
the retreat center where we were meeting, which
was owned by believers from England.
And we got to know them quite well,
and we were going to move our congregation
out of there because we outgrew the retreat
center.
But then they said to us, we would
like to give you a piece of land
behind our retreat center, which is the highest
point on Mount Carmel, if you will build
a worship center or a congregational building.
Well, look, if somebody tries to give you
the top of Mount Carmel free, my advice
to you is take it.
So we took it and we started to
pray, Lord, show us how to make this
contract right.
And there was a lot of obstacles in
the way.
So finally, the people that owned the land
came and met with us on Mount Carmel,
our leadership team, Peter, Sukkahira, and myself.
And we had a meeting that day, and
the message was about the sound of the
abundance of rain.
And it hadn't rained in Israel for five
months.
We were in a period of drought.
And the word came forth, the prophetic word
came forth, I'm going to send rain today.
Well, after the meeting was over, everybody went
back down the mountain to Haifa.
We were sitting outside on the porch of
the retreat center with the people from Britain.
We had the papers, we were going to
sign them, and they were giving this piece
of land to us.
And as we did that, a black cloud
came up and rain started to fall right
on the contract.
We started to laugh.
There had been no clouds, there had been
any rain, a prophetic word had come forth,
the rain is coming.
It fell, we had to run inside and
sign the papers inside because the rain, the
rain was a downpour.
People down in Haifa who had gone there
in our congregation after the meeting, they looked
up at the top of Mount Carmel, they
saw dark clouds and rain, and they started
calling one another up on the phone and
said, look, it's raining on the top of
Mount Carmel, the word's being fulfilled.
The Lord is looking for people of faith
who will pray through until they hear the
sound of the abundance of rain, and then
the rain comes.
We hear the sound of the abundance of
rain all over northern Israel.
For seven years, we went back and forth,
praying in villages and towns, Arabs, Jews, with
Russians, we had a SWAT team of intercessors,
and the word we brought was, abundant rain
is coming, a move of God is coming
to northern Israel.
Now after we built our building, which opened
in 1998, we sent out 10 families, they
have a building, we helped raise up an
Arab congregation, they have a building, we started
a Lebanese congregation, they have a building, there
are buildings now in Akko, a Messianic congregation,
there are more buildings in Haifa, there are
Arab buildings now that congregations all across Galilee
own, and now there's the Peniel, the oldest
congregation in the north, have their own building,
there's another congregation in Tiberias, they're about to
get their building, and these are all barns
for the harvest, and it's because we have
heard the sound of the abundance of rain,
a great move of the Spirit that will
bring the harvest into northern Israel in these
last days, and we pray it, and we
pray it, and we believe it, just like
Elijah.
Brothers and sisters, you need to get alone
with the Lord like Elijah did, and hear
the sound of the abundant rain for your
life, for your marriage, for your ministry, for
your town, for your country, for your city.
May the Lord convict you, and bring you
close to Him, that you might hear the
sound of the abundant rain of His love
and power.