Oh, let the Son of God enfold you
With His Spirit and His love Let Him
fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh,
let Him have the things that hold you
And His Spirit like a dove Will descend
upon your life And make you whole Here
was Elijah with a contest with these prophets
of Baal and Asherah, standing up against them,
brave, challenging them, you know, the whole scene.
And now here's Jezebel saying, tomorrow at this
time, man, I'm gonna have your head.
And he gets frightened.
He starts to run.
And he ran south, through the land of
Israel, through the land of Judah, all the
way to the southern end of Judah, to
Beersheba.
When he saw that, he arose, went for
his life, came to Beersheba, which belongs to
the tribe of Judah, and there he left
his servant.
But he himself continued to run for another
day on into the Negev, the journey into
the wilderness, and he came and sat down
under a juniper tree, and he requested for
himself that he might die.
And he said, It's enough, O Lord, take
away my life, for I'm no better than
my father's.
Got it?
I don't want to live anymore, you know.
It's interesting how that fear often transmits into
despair and despondency.
We give in to fear.
He gave in to fear.
The threat of Jezebel.
And as a result, the lack of faith.
You see, fear and faith are mutually exclusive.
If you have real faith in God, you're
not going to fear.
Fear is a sign of a lack of
faith in God.
And so he desires to die.
He's discouraged.
He probably had felt that the victory of
God on Mount Carmel would not only convince
Ahab, but would also convince his wife Jezebel.
He figured when Ahab told Jezebel how the
fire came down, consumed the sacrifice, the altar,
licked up the water, that surely Jezebel would
also become a believer in Jehovah and be
converted.
But such was not the case.
She vows vengeance against the prophet of God.
And discouraged that the revival that he was
hoping for really didn't take place.
There was an emotional experience among the people,
but not really a heart-changing experience.
So many times we can have emotional experiences,
but they can be shallow.
They're not necessarily a deep experience with God.
If you have a deep experience with God,
it's going to affect your heart, the volitional
area of your life.
And so he is here requesting to die.
And he lay down and went to sleep
under the juniper tree.
And an angel touched him and said unto
him, arise and eat.
And he looked and there was a cake
that was baked on the coals and a
cruise of water at his head.
And he did eat and drink and laid
down again.
We remember how that Jesus called his disciples
to come and eat at the Sea of
Galilee.
And when they came to the shore, there
were fish on a bed of coals.
Here the Lord is inviting, the angel of
the Lord is inviting Elijah to his table
that he had prepared, the bread that was
baked on these coals.
God has interesting ways, ways of providing for
his people, ways of which we are not
familiar.
One of our problems is as we look
at a situation and as we try to
analyze and figure out the answers to the
problems.
As we have thought, well, if God will
just do this and this, then my problems
can be solved.
We then are prone to pray that God
will follow our instructions.
The way we've figured out and worked out
the solutions.
God so often times has a much simpler
answer.
And God's ways are not our ways.
His ways are beyond our finding out.
And God has resources that we know nothing
about.
And God isn't confined to one particular way.
And this is the problem of denominationalism.
They usually say this is the way that
God works.
And they've got God in this little rut.
And thus we develop the denomination over the
way God worked in our lives.
You take the way Jesus treated the lepers
or treated the blind people.
In the healing of the blind, he didn't
follow a certain pattern.
To some he just spoke the word of
faith.
To others he laid his fingers upon their
eyes.
And to some he made mud out of
his spit.
Rubbed it in their eyes and told them
to go wash.
You have actually cause for three denominations.
He touched me, he didn't touch me, he
put mud in my eye.
This is the way God worked in my
life.
But God doesn't confine himself to one particular
method or to one particular way.
And with Elijah he provided for him in
different ways.
At the brook Cherith with the ravens.
In Zarephath with the barrel of meal and
the crews of oil that did not waste
away.
And now an angel of the Lord, making
cakes, the crews of water.
He ate and then he laid down again.
And so the angel of the Lord came
unto him the second time and touched him.
He was probably pretty tired.
You'd figure that it's probably a little over
a hundred miles from Jezreel to Beersheba.
And then he kept going another day's journey.
He was really moving and no doubt really
tired.
He ate and went right back to sleep.
And so the angel came the second time.
I don't think he medially, I think he
let the poor prophet sleep for a while.
And he touched him and he said, arise
and eat because the journey is too great
for you.
And so he arose and did eat and
drink and he went in the strength of
that meat for 40 days and 40 nights
unto Horeb, the Mount of God.
Potent, powerful stuff.
It was able to sustain him for 40
days and 40 nights.
Down to Mount Horeb, the Mount of God.
The place where God gave unto Moses the
law.
The area of the plains there in the
Sinai Peninsula.
And he came to a cave and he
lodged there.
And behold, the word of the Lord came
to him and said unto him, What are
you doing here, Elijah?
Here is a prophet of God on the
run.
Fearing Jezebel, his fear takes him clear on
down to the borders of Egypt almost.
Sinai Peninsula to Mount Horeb and hiding in
a cave.
I mean there's no way they're going to
find this guy.
He's come through miles and miles of trackless
desert through the Negev.
And on into the Sinai.
There in the cave, God said, What are
you doing here?
And Elijah answered the Lord.
I've been very jealous for Jehovah, the God
of hosts.
For the children of Israel have forsaken your
covenant.
They've thrown down your altars.
They have slain your prophets with a sword.
And I, even I only am left.
And they seek my life to take it
away.
I mean, how bad can things be?
God has only one prophet left, according to
Elijah.
And he's hiding in a cave on Horeb.
And they're out to get him.
Now it is true that the people broke
the covenant of God.
That covenant incidentally was made down here on
Horeb.
It was there that God gave to Moses
the two tables of stone.
Upon which were written, Thou shalt have no
other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make any graven images to
bow down to them and to worship them.
For I, the Lord God, am a jealous
God.
And as God established the Mosaic covenant, God
said, If you will keep my commandments and
the statutes that I have given unto thee,
Then I will be your God and you
will be my people.
But Elijah is saying, Lord, they have forsaken
your covenant.
Which they did.
They have slain your prophets, which they did.
They were searching for Elijah.
All that he said was true indeed.
But that wasn't the answer to the question.
God didn't say, why are you here, Elijah?
God said, what are you doing here, Elijah?
And so the Lord said, go forth and
stand upon the mount before the Lord.
And behold, Jehovah passed by in a great
and strong wind, Rent or tore the mountains
and broke in pieces the rocks before Jehovah.
Standing there, this powerful, powerful wind, Breaking rocks
in pieces, loosing them, no doubt, from the
ledges.
And they're crashing down.
And this awesome display of the powers of
nature in the wind.
But it said, Jehovah was not in the
wind.
And after the wind there was an earthquake.
But Jehovah was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake, a fire.
But Jehovah was not in the fire.
And after the fire, a still small voice.
There are times when God has been in
the shaking.
There have been times when God was in
the wind.
Times when God was in the fire.
In fact, the Bible says our God is
a consuming fire.
But there is phenomena of which God is
not in it.
There is shaking many times when God isn't
in it.
There is fire at times in which God
is not in it.
A false fire.
I believe that most generally when God speaks
to us, He speaks to us with a
still small voice.
I think that if a person is truly
spiritually sensitive, He will hear and be tuned
in to hear the still small voice.
If a person has a violent kind of
a shaking, powerful emotional experiences, it does not
necessarily follow that that person is a deep
spiritual person or is having deep spiritual experiences.
It could be that he is so spiritually
dull that that's the only way God can
get his attention.
People are usually prone to think of those
services where there's just a lot of shouting
and shaking as being powerfully spiritual.
Not necessarily so.
It could be that they are just so
spiritually dull in their senses to the voice
of God and to the things of God
that that's the only way God can communicate
to them.
Not a sign of deeper spiritual achievements.
How many times God has spoken to me
with that still small voice and I didn't
listen.
And so He had to use the hammer.
It wasn't a sign that I was more
spiritual really if I had listened to the
still small voice I wouldn't have had to
gone through the fire.
Oh that I would be obedient to the
still small voice so that God wouldn't have
to put me into the refining fire.
But I would listen.
When the still small voice came, Elijah heard
it and he wrapped his face in his
mantle and he went out and stood at
the entering of the cave.
And it came to pass as he stood
there the Lord asked him again, Elijah what
are you doing here?
Again Elijah evidently did not understand the question
and he answered in the same way telling
God why he was there.
And he said I've been very jealous for
Jehovah God of hosts because the children of
Israel have forsaken your covenant.
They've thrown down your altars.
They've slain your prophets with the sword and
I even I only am left and they
seek my life to take it away.
And Jehovah said unto him go return on
thy way to the wilderness of Damascus and
when you come anoint Hazael to be the
king over Syria.
Now what the Lord is in essence saying
to Jeremiah, Jeremiah you're doing nothing man and
there's a job to be done.
Now get back to work.
And that's often the greatest therapy for a
person who is discouraged and feels defeated.
God says get back to work.
He wants to quit.
He wants to die.
He wants the Lord to kill him.
God says get back to work Elijah.
There's a job to be done.
Now get on up to Damascus.
The interesting thing when he ran he ran
the opposite direction from which God had his
work.
When you get scared and run you're often
running in the opposite direction from which God
wants you to go.
And so he had to retrace his steps.
Go all the way back.
Go north from Jezreel to Damascus and there
Hazael was anointed as the king over Syria.
And then you're to anoint Jehu to be
king over Israel and Elisha the son of
Shaphat you shall anoint to be the prophet
in your place.
And it shall come to pass that him
that escapes the sword of Hazael shall Jehu
slay and him that escapes the sword of
Jehu shall Elisha slay.
And then God adds a little footnote.
And I have left for me seven thousand
in Israel all the knees which have not
bowed unto Baal and every mouth which has
not kissed him.
You say you're alone.
Hey you're not.
I've got seven thousand still in Israel who
haven't bowed to Baal.
God's faithful remnant.
And you will find that this is always
true through the history of mankind.
God has always reserved a faithful remnant.
Those that would be faithful to God in
the midst of apostasy.
God always has his faithful remnant.
We are living in the midst of apostasy
here in the United States and I pray
God that we will be the faithful remnant.
That we will not bow our knees to
Baal or to Ashtoreth or to Molech or
to Mammon to the gods that are worshipped
here in the United States.
The gods of power, prosperity, the gods of
pleasure.
The gods of the human intellect.
And when God counts those who have not
bowed their knee to Baal to Ashtoreth, may
God be able to count us as his
faithful remnant.
That chorus, I have decided to follow Jesus.
The one verse, though none go with me,
still I will follow.
May we make that kind of a commitment
to the Lord.
Lord, I will be faithful.
I will serve you.
I will not bow my knee to the
gods of this age, the gods of this
world.
I will be faithful unto you.
God had his faithful remnant.
And so he departed from there and he
found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, and this
is our introduction.
We're going to find out an awful lot
about Elisha as we move into 2 Kings.
He is an exciting fellow.
I personally sort of, well, I like him
sort of more than I do Elijah.
He was a guy that really wanted all
that God had.
When Elijah said, what do you want?
You know, he said, give me a double
portion of the spirit that is on you.
I mean, he's a guy that goes for
it.
I like people that go for it.
You know, all that God has.
I want, you know, I want everything that
God has for me.
We'll return with more of our verse-by
-verse study through the book of 1 Kings
in our next lesson, as we continue with
The Call of Elisha.
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[♪ Music ♪ And now, once again, here's
Pastor Chuck Smith.
May we now be doers of the Word
and not hearers only, because that's self-deception.
You've got to put it into practice for
it to have any value in your life.
Let the Spirit of God now minister to
you its truth as he brings to your
remembrance those things that we have studied, and
he enriches you in your walk and in
your faith and in your life in Christ.
May the Lord be with you and bless
you.
Give you a good week.
In Jesus' name.
[♪ Music ♪ Do you want to know
a great story about gang members, drug addicts,
mental patients, society's rejects, and how God turned
their lives around to use them mightily?
It's all right here in the book Harvest.
Join Pastor Chuck Smith as he tells the
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Read the testimonies of Greg Laurie, Raul Reese,
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and see for yourself that if God can
use these guys to spread the gospel worldwide,
then God can use you too.
To read a sneak preview of the book
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