<inaudible>, We are appreciative of the presence of any everyone, especially those on the stream, as a result of the rain and a few other things we’re running a little behind. So thank you for your patience as we still things up and going, uh, as with previous weeks, the questions for tonight’s lesson are on the website. Um, and so hopefully,
well, I say that and I just tested it and that’s not working. So we’ll have the questions up afterwards. Uh, and we’ll work through that. Uh, we are going to begin with a song, so, uh, we’re going to sing, stand up, stand up for Jesus, and then we’ll have prayer and begin our class period. Stand up,
stand up, or Jeez, uh,<inaudible> live<inaudible> uh, yeah. Uh,<inaudible> No Prob<inaudible> his army. Ah, he, the<inaudible> squished for Christ his lawn and Stand up, stand up. Pose.<inaudible><inaudible> Oh boy.<inaudible><inaudible> Yay.<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> drives with<inaudible> and Strang to strengthen up.<inaudible> Stand up, stand up,
pose. Jeez, uh, Stan in his strength<inaudible> flush we’ll fax you<inaudible> trust your<inaudible> And watching on too<inaudible> Duty calls all day been wanting Stand up, stand up. Jeez. Uh, the strive will not be long this day. The<inaudible> To him that<inaudible>, Uh,<inaudible><inaudible> He with the King? Sorry, shall rainy.<inaudible> Let’s begin with a prayer and then we’ll begin our class.<inaudible> Our gracious heavenly father.
We bound before your throne grateful for the day that you’ve given to us for the life that you’ve granted, the opportunities that we have to serve you. We’re thankful for the rain. The provides nourishment to the ground provides life to this earth. We’re thankful for all of the many blessings that we do not appreciate and do not thank you for on a regular enough basis.
We’re thank you for we thank you for our homes, our families, our loved ones who are safe and doing well. And in good health, we are mindful of those who are struggling with their health or having health issues. We pray for them to return to their health and be back in their desired condition. We’re also mindful of those who are struggling and terminal illnesses.
We pray that you will give them strength to cope and to endure each and every day and that you will be with them and comfort them as they seek that comfort from you, pray that you be with their families and their loved ones and their church families, as they strive to help them and labor with them and encourage them and serve them. We pray for the congregation here at Collierville for all that,
her, for all her works and for all her labors, that they may be blessed by you, that they may grow and prosper and bring fruit into your kingdom. We’ll pray and are mindful of missionaries throughout the world and missionaries throughout this country, we pray that they have opened doors of opportunity and that they remained faithful and are bountifully blessed as they serve you.
Pray this time of study, that the things that we study will encourage us focus our hearts and our minds on your word and help us to become better Christians and better people to understand your working in history and to understand your plan for eternity. All this, we pray in Jesus name, Amen. Our study this evening continues in Kings. We are in first Kings Chapter.
Oh, I’m in second Kings. No wonder it didn’t look familiar. We are in first Kings chapter 21 and our, uh, study this again, is dealing with the reign of a Hab. It is dealing with a hub as the King, over the Northern kingdom of Israel. And of course, during a Habs rain, we have the situation with,
uh, Jessebelle being his wife, a Hab doing that, which he was evil in the sight of God. And so we’re dealing with the repercussions in the SA, uh, the Northern kingdom of Israel of having such a wicked King. We’re dealing with the repercussions of having one who does not stand up to those around him who are doing exceedingly evil things.
And instead is one who will choose a path that looks good for himself instead of serving the Lord, uh, in the last chapter in chapter 20, as we were discussing the, the things and the events of chapter 20, we noticed that God had given deliverance for Israel. Uh, the King of the Syrians had come against Israel and Ben, Hey,
dad had surrounded the city of Samaria and had surrounded, uh, a house and had given him an ultimatum and basically terms of, of tribute and subservience to Ben. Hey, Ned and Ahab had given in, he had agreed to those terms, except when he agreed to the terms, then Ben, Hey, dad came back and changed the terms. And so at that point,
a Hab said, I cannot do this. I cannot agree to the new terms and God would end up delivering the Northern kingdom of Israel. But through the prophet, he will make it clear Ahab. I’m not doing this because of you. I’m not doing this because you deserve to saved or Israel deserves to be saved. I’m doing this so that Syria might know that I am the Lord.
And that you might know that I am the Lord. A Hab was not deserving of what God did for him. Israel was not deserving of what God did for them. And yet God did it because he was the Lord. And because it would declare not only in Israel, that he’s the Lord, the same way he did there during the contest, uh,
at, um, Mount Carmel, with the prophets of bale and the prov and Elijah. But also it would declare this to the nations, around them, to the Syrians that he is the Lord. Now, after that defeat and after that route and the, the, um, running away of the forces of Syria, then in the spring, the next year,
God told Abraham in the spring of the next year, Ben hate ads coming back. He’s going to return you better strengthen your cities. You better be prepared. And so it seems as though Ahab heeds the warning, he’s ready for Ben. Hey dad, when Ben, Hey, dad returns. But the description of Israel’s forces versus Ben, Hey, dad’s forces.
When they go out to meet one another, because they don’t, they don’t besiege the cities. They, it’s not a surprise attack. They’re waiting on them. They’re expecting them. So they meet in the Plains because Ben Hayden’s advisor said, listen, they’re gone is the God of the mountains. We can defeat them in the mountains there, God will defeat us.
So we’ve got to go to the Plains where their God can’t help them not understanding who the Lord was. And so, as a result of that, Israel meets Ben, Hey, dad’s forces in the plane, but the description of Israel versus Ben, Hey, dad’s forces is that Israel is like a small number and the forces of Syria we’re covering the plane Surrounding them entirely.
And yet God defeats Syria again. But in this, God had given Ben, Hey dad, into the hand of a Hab, We find out in the end of chapter 20, as we read the concluding verses the prophet said, verse 42, because you have let slip out of your hand, a man whom I appointed to utter destruction. Therefore your life shall go for his life and your,
for his people, God intended a Hab to be his instrument of judgment against the evil King of Syria, But a rehab cut a deal. Instead I know probably in your life, you’ve turned on the television and you’ve watched, uh, a crime show or a police show where the da has red handed, a bad criminal and cut a deal. And nobody can understand why,
why would you cut a deal with this heinous criminal? God said, here’s the King of Syria. Here’s this one. Now remember back in chapter 18 or chapter 19, God told Elijah, you go anoint the next King of Syria, Okay? God sent his prophet to go anoint the next King because God was getting rid of this King. God had appointed his end,
But a hub didn’t follow through. You may remember a time. Go, go back in your old Testament history to a previous King. God told Saul, you go to the ambula kites and you do battle against the Amalekite and you don’t take any of them alive. You don’t allow any of them to survive. You don’t take any cattle. You don’t take any livestock.
You completely wipe them off the face of the earth because I’m bringing judgment upon them for their sins. So Saul goes out to battle. Saul goes to me, he’s the Amalekite. He comes back from the Amalekite Samuel. The prophet goes out to meet Saul. And as Samuel arrives to meet Saul, Saul says I’ve done what the Lord told me to do.
Samuel says, what’s the bleeding of the sheep that I hear and the lowering of the oxygen. Well, the people wanted to keep those, to bring them back to sacrifice to your God. And then Samuel sees, or, or Saul brings out the King of the AMA guides. He hadn’t obeyed. He had kept the King of the Amalekite it’s alive and brought him back.
Samuel will take the life of the King of the Amalekite, but Samuel makes a point there in that passage in first Samuel chapter 15, that God wants obedience more than worship And to hearken than the fat of lambs. And that rebellion is as the sin witchcraft, Samuel makes it clear when you don’t obey what God said, you can worship all you want.
You can praise God, all you want, but if you won’t obey him, You are rebellious and you might as well be practicing witchcraft. Well, here’s a Hab God put the King of Syria in his hand to bring about judgment. God, by all indications had instructed him what to do. And instead A Hab cut a deal. So God says to Ahab through his prophet,
your life is going for the life of the King of Syria. You have brought your own judgment on your head. Now chapter 21 begins and it came to pass after these things that nave off the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel next to the play next to the palace of Ahab King of Samaria. So Ahab spoke to Naval saying, give me your vineyard,
that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near next to my house. And for it, I will give you a vineyard better than it, or if it seems good to you, I will give you it’s worth in money. Ahab sees this vineyard that he desires. Some people they’re they’re planners, they’re they’re idea. People. They see something go,
you know what? That’d be the perfect piece of property right there. I would just love to have, you know, my garden would just go just so nice right there. And In some nations, Some monarchies, The King gets whatever the King wants. Right? Well, you know, Ahab’s, Ahab’s maybe trying to be a good King. Um,
and at least to some degree, so they have goes to Neval. He doesn’t just take his vineyard. He doesn’t, uh, bring it in by eminent domain. As we would say, in our terms today, he goes to neighbor off and he says, I want to buy your vineyard from you Either. I can give you a better vineyard than this one,
or I can pay you money, whichever you desire. Now something’s interesting here. That’s significant inverse too, Because a how, Yeah. Has the opinion That the quality of the vineyard is determined based upon Maybe the fruit it produces or the soil that it has, or the substance of the vineyard, or maybe even the size, Hey, Habs perspective is I am going to evaluate these two things and I put a value on this one because it’s close to me.
It’s what I want, but I’ll give you a substantively better vineyard. If you’ll give me the one that I want, Notice a Habs valuation of the vineyard. It’s either got a value equating to money or a value equating to this other vineyard, which he declares to be better. Now, all we have is they haves word that it was actually better.
We don’t know. Uh, but we’ll, we’ll just take that at face value. Here’s the problem. A hub Has reduced the value God placed on the vineyard to being of complete no, or completely no consequence. As far as they have is concerned what God said, doesn’t matter what God declared in the law or declared through the inheritance and the giving of the inheritance into the families that didn’t even come into play.
It was a complete non-issue. What mattered to him is this is what I want. And I’ll get it by either buying it or trading something of better substantive value. But here’s the problem when we run into Yeah. When we begin to value things in this life, Okay? Based upon their monetary worth, instead of their eternal worth, Something that is of little value,
monetarily may have great value. Eternally notice neighbor, boss, response, reply to a rehab, but Neval said verse three, the Lord for bid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers to you. Neval said that as long as my Lord’s alive, God forbid that I do this thing. Why? Because according to the law, Moses declared God declaring through Moses that the Israelites were not to sell their inheritance.
Now there was the situation and there was the possibility of a situation where one is, or a light would become a bond slave to another. Maybe he had debts. He couldn’t pay. And his land would perhaps be sold to pay his debts. But on the 50th year, every 50th year, the year of Jubilee, according to the law, if they were keeping the law,
the year of Jubilee was the year of release. Every 50th year, every piece of land went back to its original family inheritance. So whatever family, even if that family had been sold into slavery to another Israel aligned or had become a bond servant to them, they were made free. And if they had property, their property was released back into their hand.<inaudible> Neighbor off comes,
or excuse me, Ahab comes to neighbors and says, let me have your vineyard. I’ll trade it for a different vineyard. Neval says, no, that doesn’t work. That’s not my inheritance. This is my family’s inheritance. I cannot sell you this land. It doesn’t matter if it’s for money. It doesn’t matter if it’s a trade for other lands,
I cannot give you this land. It’s not mine to give. And there’s our lesson about obedience. Nabeel’s perspective is I’m a steward. I don’t get to choose. I don’t get to determine whether or not I obey God’s commands. God already commanded it because God already commanded it. I’m going to do it because God commanded it. That’s not going to sit well with Ahab.
That’s not the life. And the, the, the, the character and attitude of Ahab. So neighbor both said, God forbid that I should give the inheritance of my fathers to use. So Ahab went into his house, Solon and displeased because of the word, which name off the Jezreelite. It is Jezreelite had spoken to him for. He had said,
I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food. When Ahab is told by name off, no, I won’t give you the land. You can’t have the land of my, of my father’s inheritance. You cannot take possession of this land. He goes back into his palace,
lays down on his bed and his Solon and displeased, uh, basically acts like a child. He throws a little pity party and lays down on his bed because he can’t have what he wants In this. You get a picture of a Habs character. Why would a King marry a woman like bell? Well, you can see in this where, which person,
the strong personality is in this family. If opposites attract, and this is the character of Ahab, you can imagine the character of Jezza bell. So notice what happens. But jazz rebel, his wife came to him and said to him, why is your spirit so Solan that you eat no food? And he said to her, because I spoke to name off the Jezreelite and said to him,
give me your vineyard for money or else. If it pleases you, I will give you another vineyard for it. And he answered, I will not give you my vineyard. Then Jesse Bell, his wife said to him, you now exercise authority over Israel. Look at the rebuke. Let’s look at the statement, jazz rebels, like aren’t you King, How can he hold it back from you Use the power.
You have take it by force. It’s yours. You’re the King<inaudible> There’s a event back in the life of David. We discussed a number of months ago Where the arc of the covenant comes back into, comes into Jerusalem and is placed there in the tabernacle that David had prepared for it. And David is the art comes into the city as it’s retrieved and makes it back successfully.
It didn’t the first time He’s jumping with joy and he’s in plain clothes and he’s humbling himself before the people. He’s not acting like a King And Michael, the daughter of Saul Rebukes him for it.<inaudible> And David’s reply is I will be humbled before my God.<inaudible> The perspective of Michael is you’re a King. You need to act like a King.
The perspective of David is I’m a servant of God. I need to act like a servant of God. The perspective of jazz, a belly is your King. You have absolute authority in the land. You take what you want. And the attitude of they have is I didn’t have what I want.<inaudible> Then Jess Bell’s wife Said, you now exercise authority over Israel,
arise, eat food and let your heart be cheerful. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. And she wrote letters in a halves name, seal them with his seal and sent the letters to the elders and the Nobles who were dwelling in the city with nave off. She wrote in the letter saying proclaim a fast and seat. They boss with high honor among the people and seat two men scoundrels before him to bear,
witness against him saying, you have blasphemed God and the King. Then take him out and stone him that he may die.<inaudible> Jesse rebel, who knows no law and no rule, but her own, Who would seek to take the life of God’s profits will now invoke God’s name In her plot to kill neighbors off<inaudible>. And as willing accomplices, she’ll get the elders of the city.
They’re in a Jezreel to go along with her.<inaudible> To me, you see here just a little glimpse forward into the life of Christ. Think about the motivation of the Sanhedrin, the motivation of the chief priests and the elders. This person has to die. Why did Jesus have to die To, to utilize or to paraphrase the words of one of the Sanhedrin?
It’s better. That one man die than the whole nation<inaudible>. But the real reason was they couldn’t get what they wanted so long as Jesus was alive, they would be declared for what they really were so long as Jesus taught the people, their power, their influence was something that was being checked. And if they could get rid of him, if they could kill him,
they’d have their power back. They’d have what they want. And so Jezza bell will enact this decree. She will, you of course use a Habs name. She will use a Hab seal. She will write it as a decree from the King, but here’s where we need to be clear. Ahab’s held guilty for it. Jessica Bell did it, but she was under the rule of a Hab,
As husbands, as fathers, as head of a house. Ultimately we’re responsible For what the people in our house do. We’re responsible for the actions of those in our house. Yeah. And Ahab was responsible for the actions of Jezza bell because he allowed it to happen. There’s a reason why, when you read in the new Testament, concerning elders, that they’re described as those who are worthy of double honor,
because they must give an account for the souls of others. They’re held accountable for the actions of those around them. Those who are members of that body. So Jezza Bella. And actually the plan, the elders will go along with it. So the men of his city, the elders and Nobles who were inhabitants of his city did as Jezza bell had sent them.
And as it was written in the letters which she had sent them, they proclaimed a fast and seated neighbor with high honor among the people. And two men’s scoundrels came in and sat before him in the scoundrels witnessed against him. Uh, Winston witnessed against him against, off in the presence of the people saying neighbor off has blast themed God and the King.
Then they took him outside the city and stoned him with stones so that he died. Isn’t it kind of strange the, the reaction and the animosity of a people. Who’s no longer following the Lord. Who’s no longer obeying his commandments who have allowed the profits of bail on the profits of Ashcroft to just destroy the land with their idolatry will now stone a man.
Okay. Because he blasphemed, God. Don’t see. I think that’s just a little bit strange. Oh, but there was that second part. Yeah. He blasts themed God and the King. See, now you’re touching something that actually matters to the people You’re touching the authority of the King. Yeah. So these people in indignation take neighbors who here they are,
you know, putting him in a position of honor a position of praise. And now they’re taking him out to be stoned. It came to pass. When Jezza bell heard that name off had been stoned and was dead that Jessebelle said to Ahab arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give to you for money for<inaudible> is not alive but dead.
So it was when they have heard that nave auth was dead, that they have got up and went down to possession of the vineyard of Naboth. The Jezreelite Having brought about the demise of name off having, uh, taken his life Jessebelle comes in and she says, all right, I have get off. I, I did your dirty work for you.
I got you. I got you. What you want? Nave auth is dead by the way I have doesn’t protest. Okay. Hey, have does it go on? You kill me? No. And he’s like, I ain’t gonna get my vineyard now because what was important to Ahab was Ahab. Hey, have at the very beginning, wanted something and was willing to spend money or trade to get it,
but he didn’t have that offer accepted. And then he was a willing to allow someone else to do evil, to get it and all throughout the entire thing. The only thing Ahab is interested in is himself. Selfishness Bring so much evil into this world, But Ahab’s only concern was himself. He wasn’t concerned about neighbors off. Even though neighbors was one of his subjects,
one of his servants, one of his people, he was only concerned with himself. Then now I want to point out over this last, these last two chapters, Elijah kind of went away. All I just gaped down. He went to Mount Sinai. Then God told Elijah, you go back through Syria and then you go annoying Elijah and go anoint the next King of,
of Israel. And then during the events with Syria, we don’t read about Elijah. We don’t have the name of the prophet who spoke to Ahab, but it’s no indication that it was aligned to, But now here’s Elijah. He’s back then the word of the Lord came to Elijah. The Tishbite saying arise, go down to meet a ham King of Israel who lives in some area.
There he is in the vineyard of name, off where he has gone down to take possession of it. You shall speak to him saying, thus says the Lord have you murdered and also taken possession. And you shall speak to him saying, thus says the Lord in the place where dogs lick the blood of name off dog shall lick your blood, even yours.
So Ahab said to Elijah, have you found me? Oh my enemy. And he, I have found you because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord. God gives the message to Elijah. Here’s what you’re going to say to Ahab. You’re going to tell a hub in the same place where those wicked people in this city took name off and dumped his body unceremoniously.
They didn’t bury him. They didn’t give him a proper burial. They didn’t take this upstanding citizen who actually loved the Lord and obeyed his commands at give him a dignified barrel. No, they threw his body out For the dogs to consume. And God through Alijah is tells Ahab. You’re going to have the same fate And in the exact same place. So Lija comes to Ahab and AMZ says,
Oh, here, here he is again. Have you found me? Oh my enemy. There’s another place in scripture. Do I become your enemy? Because I tell you the truth. That’s the entire reason why Elijah was the enemy of Ahab is because Elijah spoke the truth. So Elijah says behold, Uh, he says, I have found you because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord.
Behold, I will bring calamity on you. I will take away your posterity. And I will cut off from Ahab. Every male in Israel, both bond and free. I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of knee bent. And like the house of Beja the son of a hijab because of the provocation, which with which you have provoked me to anger and made Israel sin and concerning.
Jessebelle the Lord also spoke, saying the dong shall eat. Jessebelle by the wall of Jezreel. Wait a minute. What city was it that all this happened in? Oh, it was jazz real As though if you picture the palace, remember neighbor’s vineyard was right there near the palace, a have wanted the vineyard because it was right next to his house.
And God says, Ahab, you’re going to die right here. And Jezza bell is going to die right here Because of the wickedness you two have done. So notice what he says. He says, the dog shall eat. Whoever belongs to Ahab and dies in the city. And the birds of the air shall eat. Whoever dies in the field, this is the same proclamation that was made against the descendants of,
uh, of Jeroboam this, the same declaration that was made against the descendants of basic. God says, you’re going to have the same thing happened to you the same way it happened to them because every single one of you were given a chance. Every single one of you were given an opportunity to obey and you didn’t do it instead. You caused more and more and more sin to come upon my people.
But there was no one verse 25, like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord because Jessebelle, he, his wife stirred him up and he behaved very in Bo abominably in following idols, according to all that, the Amorites had done whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel. So it was when they have heard the,
those words that he tore his clothes and put sack cloth on his body and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about mourning. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah. The Tishbite saying, see how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me. I will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his son,
I will bring the calamity on his house For once They have kind of gets it right For once a Hab responds the way he should have. Now, he’s not going to entirely turn back. He’s not going to turn back on his back on idolatry. And as a result of that, he’s not going to get the restitution of his throne. He will get the delay of the condemnation,
But not in regards to his life and not in regards to jazzy bells, just in regards to his descendants. So all of these things are going to occur. The throne is going to be taken from him and is going to be taken in the following chapters as they have will die in battle in chapter 22<inaudible> Weakness. Weakness is a description of a Hab,
Oh, he could do battle. But you remember when the city was surrounded, who went out first, The young rulers, and only when the people of Syria were running away, did they have come out from behind the walls? And here a hat gets turned down and he goes and pouts in his bed. And then when a bell gives him the vineyard,
he doesn’t care a thing about the person whose life was taken to get it. He just has his vineyard. Hey, have, as the Bible describes, it sold him self. How many times do we sell ourselves? How many times do we give ourselves over to iniquity and to sin? Because it’s what we want. Or because we’re just not willing to be strong enough to saying no,
It takes strength to deny yourself. It takes strength to tell yourself, no, It takes a determination of mind to say, just because I want something or just because my body tells me I want something or desire something or hunger for something doesn’t mean I need it. And doesn’t mean it’s mine to have, But we have a society that loves to promote,
take what you want, do whatever you want, fulfill your desires.<inaudible> That’s not compatible with God’s word or with God’s laws. We need to be those who learn the lessons of Ahab, Who are warned by the lessons of women. Like Jessebelle, Oh, it’s not just women who have that kind of influence. But when a woman like Jessebelle exists,
there’s a reason why Jezza Bell’s name comes up so many times, even in the new Testament, all the way into the book of revelation, Jezza Bell’s name keeps coming up. Why? Because she, her influence in her wickedness and her strong personality encouraged so much evil. And even one of the churches in the book of revelation is described as those who were giving in and allowing that wicked Jessebelle to have influence over them,
They were being weak, like a Hab. They weren’t standing up. They weren’t saying no. We need to be those who learn these lessons who are encouraged by them and stand strong as a result of them. Now we will go through the questions. As I mentioned, we’ll post them, also put them in the front lobby, but we’ll go through the questions next week,
uh, as, and review those before we get into it, since we don’t have them out for tonight, uh, we’re going to have one more song and then we’re going to conclude with a prayer to Christ. Be true To who cries<inaudible> true is. Mmm<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> To Christ long beach. True. He will go with you And how You are yours Conflicts through to cries the Lord beat To cry.<inaudible> Lamb Be true.
He needs Bray ball<inaudible> To Stan<inaudible> by frowns on<inaudible> To<inaudible> True. Fuck. He will go away. Uh, And have you all yours Conflicts through to cry the Lord be<inaudible> To cry.<inaudible> true. And no balls.<inaudible> Yo<inaudible> To CrowdRise the lawn bead Four, he will go away<inaudible> And hell<inaudible><inaudible> to<inaudible> To who cries<inaudible> Be true.
And he will be yours. And the fan ding and pro tag<inaudible> try on and to Chrysler long beach. Oh boy. Well go away.<inaudible><inaudible> New York conflicts Through to<inaudible> beach.<inaudible> Let’s close with a word of prayer. Our gracious father in heaven. We are admonished in heart and mind To remember the need for strength, to remember the need to stand up against evil,
to remember the need, to say no to temptation and to wickedness and to weak, wicked into individuals who will come to us with the ability to turn misfortune into fortune, through evil deeds. We pray for those who may be in the midst of temptation in their own lives. They will choose to be strong that they will true choose to be like neighbors and to choose to do what’s right,
no matter who comes to them and encourages them to turn their back and disobeyed God, We pray that you watch over this nation. She struggles with so many evils and so much wickedness inside her, but yet there is great light. And there are so many who are doing good. We pray for the deeds and the works of congregations of your people throughout this great country that their light shine brightly in the dimness and the darkness of the sin of this nation.
We pray for those who make choices every single day to do good. Even when faced with temptation, we pray for those who sorrow for those who are lost because of the evil deeds of others. We ask that you be with those who are sick. Those, especially from our own number, we pray that you’d be with Sylvia and others that are recovering from health issues.
Pray that you watch over us care for us, protect us, give us your grace and your mercy, your kindness as you do each and every day. Forgive us. When we sin and fall short of your glory, all this, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Automated Transcript
<inaudible> The student. Yeah. Then, uh, that, Uh, I am, Ah, Me<inaudible> No, that<inaudible> The, And uh, That, Uh, um, Uh, Uh,<inaudible> that,<inaudible> the, uh, Mmm<inaudible> Nah,<inaudible><inaudible>, Uh,<inaudible> the String then I see, Let us pray. Almighty God,
our father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, father. It is with humble hearts. We come before your throne this hour, acknowledging you as our creator and the creator of this entire universe. And we realize father with our feeble minds, that we cannot begin to comprehend how magnificent your intellect truly is, but we give you all our praise and glory.
We’re so very grateful that you chose to send your son to this earth. That gives us the possibility of a home forever with you. We’re grateful for this congregation, that assembles here in Collierville and all the many attributes that come along with it. We’re mindful also of the number of people that are suffering at this time, especially within our congregation. And those mentioned here in the announcements,
we pray for them a speedy recovery. If it be thy will, and those that have lost loved ones, we pray that you comfort them as only you can, where mindful also father of the turmoil it is in this country, the divisions we pray for unity, and that you allow us the opportunity and the wisdom and the knowledge to correct these problems.
We pray, especially for our president, that he will have the wisdom to continue to draw this country together, to solve the many problems and grant him the strength and the health to accomplish these things. As we go through the further exercise of this meeting, we ask that you bless it, that all things will be done in your will. That all will be to your grace and glory.
It’s in his name that we pray amen To prepare our minds for the Lord’s supper. We will be singing when surveyed the wondrous cross. When I survey the wondrous cross And I serve, Hey<inaudible> Yes. On which the prin, uh, Sorry. Uh huh. Ma hi, rich. Yay. Uh, I can, um, uh,<inaudible><inaudible> Mmm,
uh huh. Uh huh. Oh,<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> Say, Hey man. Uh, dad, uh, CRA nice. Ah, Uh huh. Oh the then dang. Uh, Sure Me<inaudible> Uh, I sacrifice a nice<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> Uh huh. See<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> Okay. Mmm<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> and<inaudible> Me. Oh, thorns come<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> Mmm<inaudible><inaudible> Uh,
Nah.<inaudible> uh, for two years.<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> So<inaudible> Uh,<inaudible> uh,<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible>. We are commanded that as we assemble at the first of each week to celebrate the ultimate sacrifice that God did in sending his son Jesus to live here on earth to teach us, but most importantly die for us the center. So join me in prayer.
As we go to our Lord, God, our father in heaven, we come to you at this time, thanking you for having sent your son Jesus here on earth to live with us and teach us. But most importantly, to sacrifice his body for us, the centers, as we prepare to take this bread, which resembles his body, which hung on that cruel cross at Calvary,
help us to remember exactly the pain and suffering that he endured for us. The center, we pray this through your son, Jesus name. Amen. Let us continue in prayer. God. As we prepared to take this fruit of the vine, which represents Jesus’ blood, the blood that he shed for us in our sins, help us to remember exactly that,
that it was shed his blood for us, the center here on earth. So we may have that opportunity to one day live with you and glory in heaven. We pray this through your son, Jesus name, Amen. This time we’re going to take an opportunity to give back. As we each have been blessed God, our father in heaven, we come to you once again,
thanking you for all that you do. We truly do realize that each and everything we have comes through you from you. And if it weren’t for you, we would have nothing now as each and every one of us prepares to give back a portion of what we’ve been so greatly blessed with. We ask that you help each and every one of us do with cheerful hearts.
We ask also let you help the men of the congregation be thoughtful and mindful of your works and deeds that need to be done on this earth here. As we plan how to spend these fruits that are given back to you, we pray this through your son, Jesus name. Amen.<inaudible> The song before the lesson will be break thou the bread of life break thou the bread of life.<inaudible><inaudible> Dan Lord<inaudible> Uh,
uh,<inaudible> bees.<inaudible> I see<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> um,<inaudible> the thing<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> uh, uh, dad, uh, bruh.<inaudible><inaudible> Did see this. Oh,<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> uh, find my peace<inaudible> Oh,<inaudible> Good morning to those present to those absent and yet present and assembled with, uh, those in their own houses.
We appreciate your presence. We appreciate your time, your energy, your effort, your diligence to the Lord and your service to him. Do you want to make mention of one additional announcement that was sent to us? Uh, and that is, um, that ms. Gladys has gone to Huntsville, Alabama with her son until tomorrow night. So we just wanted to make people aware of that in case you call her and she doesn’t answer,
uh, nothing’s wrong. Don’t don’t uh, think that there’s an issue there. Uh, she is in Alabama for, for right now. Take your Bibles if you will. And let’s begin in first, John first, John chapter one Is where we’re going to jump off this morning. The focus of our lesson is entitled. Real Christians want to utilize this word real,
both this Sunday and next Sunday, as we examine the idea of real Christians. Now we’re not going to approach this from the perspective of what is necessary in order to become a Christian. I want us to focus on what are the things that make a real Christian? What are the things that a real Christian actually cares about and actually does. So we’re going to notice this through a series of points as we go through this,
but we’re going to begin in first, John chapter one, with this fundamental thing, you cannot be a real Christian. You cannot be what the new Testament talks about. If you do not comprehend, appreciate and live your life based around real communication. This idea of real communication is to say that what is stated, that, which we speak about that,
which is the foundation of Christianity, is that, which is true. We do not base our lives and our faith, our whole Bonnie eternity on fables on myths, on things that are not real. The foundation of all Christianity is truth and facts and reality. First John chapter one, we begin in verse one and we read this, that, which was from the beginning,
Which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. John uses the beginning of his first writing. That is the book of John John chapter one. He uses that as the foundation for his writing of first John, because in John chapter, one he begins with in the beginning was the word and the word was with God.
And the word was God. And he goes through a discourse concerning who Jesus really was. Jesus was deity Jesus existed before anything else was created. Jesus was the one who did the creating Jesus is God, But not only is Jesus. God, Jesus became or took on flesh John chapter one, verse 14. And so John begins this letter of first John with this declaration,
that, which was from the beginning, that which was declared from the outset, the message, which we have told you, and we have repeated to you. And you have believed that, which was from the beginning was that, which we touched that, which we laid our hands upon that, which we looked upon, that which we have handled and seen and heard and witnessed to personally.
And that is the existence of Jesus Christ and his walking this earth, The foundation of all Christianity and the foundation of every real Christian is this singular fact. Jesus was a real person. And Jesus really is God. And Jesus really did come to this earth and walk. This earth was born of a Virgin and died on a cross. He had a mother Who,
while he was hanging on that cross, he looked down at this apostle John and looked down at his mother, Mary and told John she’s in your hands. Now<inaudible> John says, We know The truth. We were there, But he goes on in verse Two, the life was manifested this life. Speaking of Christ, the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life,
which was with the father was manifested to us. John says, we didn’t just see him live. We didn’t just see him walk the earth. We didn’t just touch him with our hands and hear his voice and witness him being present. But then we saw him raised from the grave. Then we saw him ascend up into heaven. We saw eternal life inaction Recognize the fact that no one else had done that before.
No one else had ever witnessed eternal life in action. Someone who had gone to the grave and then resurrected and never died again. That’s why the Hebrew writer calls Jesus Christ, the firstborn from the dead, because he was the first one, not the first one ever raised up from the dead. The first one to raise up from the dead, never to die again.
Yeah. They witnessed eternal life that it was manifested in their presence. That which was with the father and was manifested to us that which we have seen and heard. We declare there’s your communication to you that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full Foundation of every real Christian begins with real communication.
A real message that came from God declared through the power of the Holy spirit, through the apostles, to us in this book That we might know the truth and that we might believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. If you don’t have that foundation, You’re not a real Christian. Jesus said, except you believe that I am. He, that is the one who is self existing deity in the flesh,
except you believe that I am, he, you shall die in your sins. Now, the second thing that makes up a real Christian goes beyond communication. It goes to choices. Real Christians Make real substantive choices. Every single person who has ever put Christ on in baptism has made a choice. They have made a choice that should have determined the direction of their life.
Beginning at that day. And every day they would walk the earth moving forward. No First Thessalonians chapter one First Thessalonians chapter one, Paul writes to these Christians at Tesla and ICA. It is believed by many commentators, many scholars that first Thessalonians may have been the very first of pistol written in the new Testament. We certainly know that the, the, uh,
stop in vessel Annika was one of the early stops and that this church was one of the early churches in Paul seems to have written this letter very close to the time that he left there. We begin reading in verse two. We give thanks to God, always for you, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith,
your labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord, Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and father knowing beloved brethren, your election by God, Okay. Paul begins as he and these others are writing to these Christians and they’re going to speak to them about a mint by many different things. He writes to them sent and says, we have been praying for you.
And we are thankful every time we are mindful of you in our prayers, because we know your work. We know that you didn’t take in the gospel and then do nothing with it. We know you didn’t accept that communication and then do nothing. We know your choices. We know the decisions that you’ve made, how you’ve determined to work, how you’ve determined to have faith,
how you’ve determined to labor, how you have determined to love, how you have determined to stand up under or be patient in the trials of life and how you have determined to hope. But then he goes on to say, verse five for our gospel. There’s that communication again, did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy spirit.
And in much assurance, as you know, what kind of men we were among you for your sake, and you became followers of us and of the Lord. Notice the choice. These Christians made known as what these at Thessaloniki determined to do. They determined when they heard the gospel and when they obeyed it, they said, we a pattern to follow.
We have an example before our eyes in Paul and those who were present with him and with the Lord, and we are going to follow them. We are going to walk in their steps. We are going to pattern ourselves after their lives and we are going to serve God. One of the greatest assets, a novice or a babe in Christ or a young Christian can have Is a close companion,
who is a faithful member of the body of Christ, a Christian who has already determined years before that they’re going to live their lives. The way the new Testament actually describes that they’re going to serve others. As Jesus talked about that, they’re going to teach others. As Jesus talked about, they’re going to live their lives with every decision and every choice and every path focused on eternity as the ultimate goal,
Young Christians need to learn and need to see that example. So they can pattern their life after someone who’s already doing it. Right? But always being reminded just as Paul did with those at Corinth. When he told those at Corinth, you follow me as I follow Christ, always being reminded that they don’t follow any man. They might step in those steps that have been tried before them by faithful Christians,
but they always follow the Lord. And if ever those paths, diverged, if ever those paths of that one, who they followed for so many years, who was a Christian and a faithful Christian, when they became a Christian and they followed them and they’ve patterned their life after them, if ever those paths, diverged and the Lord’s going one way, and this person’s going another way,
they’re going to follow the Lord. But he goes on to say this. He says, and you became followers of us and of the Lord having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy spirit that you, so that you became examples of all in Macedonia and Acadia who believe from, for, from you. The word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and a K a,
but also in every place, your faith toward God has gone out so that We do not need to say anything. These Christians in Thesla Nika took the communication. They made the choice, and then they didn’t just live that choice privately. They didn’t just enact that work in their home. They didn’t just determine to be Christians in their own private settings. They determined they were not only going to be Christians in public,
but they were going to teach others to do the same. And so those Christians went out into Macedonia and they converted more people and more people followed them. And they went into Acadia and they converted more people in more people follow them. And their influence kept growing Because they made a choice because they made a choice that they would never turn back And they would obey the gospel And they would teach others as well.
But then consider real Christians are made up not only through real communication, not only of real choices, but also those who come<inaudible> and fully realize real consequences. We are living in a day and in a time, Which is probably very similar to the rest of the days and the rest of the time that’s come before us and will come after us where people by and large reject the idea of consequences,
They don’t want to correct someone. They don’t want to allow anyone to suffer for bad choices. They don’t want others to have any consequences. And they certainly don’t want to raise their children in such a way where those children suffer consequences for wrongdoing. And this is just supposed to be normal. But the reality is based upon the real communication that we have from God.
And the real choices we make as Christians, real conflict Quinces are absolutely necessary. Both consequences when we don’t do what’s right And consequences. When we do consider Matthew chapter 16, Matthew chapter 16, Jesus talks about choices. He talks about choices that will have Consequences, but he sums that up in a passage that most of us I believe are, are intimately familiar with in Matthew chapter 16 in verse 28,
when he’s spoken about the son of man returning, he says, assuredly, that word carries the substance to say you the listener, the one who was present the disciples as well, who were hearing this from Jesus could rest their assurance on this fact. And it was rock solid. They could know beyond a shadow of a doubt. This communication was true.
He says, assuredly. I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom. Jesus said, here’s what you can know to those who were present in that day, the kingdom’s coming. And there are some of you who are going to be standing here. There are some of you who will not taste death,
who will not see the end of their life till that kingdom comes Mark chapter nine, verse one, that parallel reference to this Jesus said, and it will come with power, But you go back to verse 26 and notice the context in which he tells these people, the kingdom’s coming. And some of you, the disciples are going to be present. When it comes.
He says in verse 26, for what profit is it to a man. If he gains the whole world and loses his own soul, Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? The reality is this. There are consequences to the choices that we make based upon the communication that we’ve heard, that the choices that we then determined to make,
have consequences, and those consequences are tied up. In this reality, the kingdom has come. There are not people walking around this earth who are more than 2000 years old, still alive waiting for the kingdom to show up. The kingdom is already here. The kingdom came in, acts chapter two. The kingdom was established when Jesus Christ went to his death was resurrected again and established his reign.
He sat down at the right hand of God. He is reigning. He is the lamb who was dead and who is alive. He is the one who is worthy. He is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the eye Elm, the alpha and the Omega. He is all of those things. And he reigns now. But right before Jesus talked about the kingdom coming,
he made it clear that people make a choice. When they determined to choose riches, when they determined to choose anything in this life over eternity, they make a choice that loses them Any eternity. They lose in eternity because they didn’t determine to lose. Here. You say, well, wait a minute aired. Are you saying there can’t be rich Christians?
No, I’m not saying that. Are you saying there can’t be successful people who are Christians? No, I’m not saying that. What are you saying that I’m saying every single, rich Christian, every single Christian who’s successful in business or in money has something that’s far more important to them than business or money And that’s eternity. And Luke chapter 14, Jesus said,
So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has Can not Be my disciple. Jesus said, here is an impossibility. If you will not forsake everything, if you will not take everything, every substance and everything in his life, every sin and every person that you know, and place them beneath me, You cannot be my disciple, But then consider as well.
As I mentioned before, there’s not just real consequences for one who chooses not to be obedient to God, there are certainly consequences for one who chooses not to obey the Lord first Thessalonians, uh, again, Paul, or excuse me, second Thessalonians. Paul writes to these brethren and says in verses seven through nine of chapter one, he says, there are those who will not obey God who will not obey the gospel and will suffer eternal punishment as a result.
That’s just the reality of the matter. But in Hebrews chapter 10, we learn there are also consequences for the right choice. There’s not only real consequences as Christians. When we make the wrong choice. When we determine not to obey God, there are real consequences. When we determine to obey God, Hebrews chapter 10, The Hebrew writer has written to these Christians about a new and a living way.
That’s the salvation that Christ has provided by going into eternity and being the sacrifice one time for all humanity, that new and living way through the waters of baptism, rising up to walk and news of life. Having been washed spiritually from your sins, being a new creature, That new and living way is available to every individual who will here, who will believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God will repent of their sins and confess his name and be immersed in water,
buried in water for the remission of their sins. That way is available, but it has consequences. Jesus told those who would hear him to count the cost before they chose to be as discipled. He illustrated it with a man who was preparing to build a great building. And he went to go build the building, but he first counted whether or not he had enough money to complete the building project,
the King who had 10,000 soldiers and was going out to face another army of 20,000, who first examined, could he, with 10,000 defeat the army with 20,000, Jesus told people, you count the cost before you decide to become my disciples. Cool, Because there are consequences to that choice. Hebrews chapter 10, not only discusses those who sin, willfully verse 26,
who turned their back on God, but go down to verse 31. He says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living. God, that’s talking about those who are disobedient, but then he says, but recall, recall the former days in which after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with suffering. Partly while you were made a spectacle,
both by reproaches and tribulations. And partly while you became companions of those who were so treated, he says, do you remember that after you were eliminated after you became Christians after you were enlightened by God, because you heard the truth and came to know what it meant to be walking in the light, to be obedient to God. He says, after that happened,
everything didn’t turn out well for you. Things didn’t suddenly start going your way. He said, you endured a great fight of afflictions. And then you endured with those who also were struggling. He goes on in verse 34. He says for you had compassion on me in my chains and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven,
therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. The Hebrew Writer, as he writes to these Christians, he says, there are consequences to your choices and there is suffering that you’re going to endure. But you remember you used to endure it joyfully. You use to go through that pain, that anguish, that suffering and that struggle of being a Christian joyfully,
because you remembered Eternity, You focused on your eternal goals and your eternal reward. You stayed faithful, But in verse 36, he says for you have need of endurance. So then after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise for yet a little while. And he who is coming will come And will not. Terry. Now the just shall live by faith.
But if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him. Then verse 39. But we, one of the things I love about the book of Hebrews is the Hebrew writer never divined himself all from these Christians, these Christians that are thinking about going back to the law of Moses, these Christians that are thinking about turning themselves back to their old ways.
These Christians that are thinking about turning their back on Christ, and this writer never separates himself from them All throughout the book, we need to do this. We need to do this. We need to hold fast. We need to take charge of these things. We need to do this and that, but verse 39, he says, but we are not those who draw back to perdition,
but of those who believe to the saving of the soul,<inaudible> The next week. We’ll talk about the real character of a Christian, But understand this. Every Christian knows there are real consequences. There are real consequences to unfaithfulness. There is a fearful thing called falling into the hands of a living God, Because he will bring justice and vengeance on those who do not obey,
who reject him and serve and love. Only themselves. There are consequences to being faithful to. There are consequences to being one who is a Christian, because this life’s not going to be easy. And you will have to forsake things that you would have accepted. Otherwise you will have to make choices that hurt you instead of help you, Because that’s what a Christian does.
How do I know You skip over just a chapter to chapter 12 verses one and two in the same conversation. The Hebrew writer says it was with joy that our Lord and savior went to the cross. He went to the cross and suffered for us because there are consequences for doing what’s right. And he suffered them for us. If you’re outside of the body of Christ today,
don’t stay that way. There is truth. And it’s right here. If a man tells you, what’s here is wrong. He’s got 3,500 years worth of truth. He’s got to reject before he can hold that position.<inaudible> But if man tells you what here is, right, and then tells you to do something different than what’s right here. He doesn’t really believe what he said because he doesn’t hold to the truth of the communication.
If you’re going to be a Christian and I encourage you to be one, You’re going to have to choose that this book and this book alone is going to guide your life into eternity because he turned it he’s coming. Whether you’re ready for it or not. What are you doing today to become ready for eternity? If you’re outside the body of Christ, you need to be immersed in water for the remission of your sins.
Having repented of your sins, having confessed, his name, having believed that Jesus Christ is the son of God. And you need to rise up added to the body of Christ added to the kingdom that we read about next chapter to add it to the church. And then you need to live faithful until this life is over. You need to live faithful,
no matter the cost, you need to be prepared for that real communication to drive your real choices in view of real consequences. But if you’re a member of the body of Christ, and maybe you got started with that communication, and you got started with those real choices, and then you’ve drifted away. Don’t forget there are real consequences. But if you’re a faithful member of the body of Christ,
don’t ever be dissuaded from the reality, there are real consequences for right choices. There is real suffering in this life. There is the necessity of forsaking, what this life has to offer for what the next life has to offer. And so be like those that the Hebrew writer wrote to and says, we’re not going to draw back. We’re not going to turn around.
We’re not going to go anywhere, but towards Christ, We appreciate your time, your attention and your focus this morning. If you have need of entering into the body of Christ, if you have need of encouragement or exhortation or a better understanding of the truth, we’d be happy to help feel free to reach out to us online or offline through our phone.
However you would like to. We thank you for your time.<inaudible> The song before our closing prayer will be number 749. The battle belongs to the Lord 749. Yeah. In heaven, the<inaudible> a battle being long series. No, No weapons. That’s fashioned against us was Dan the battle being longs to the Lord and we, sorry. Oh,
no power and string to them. We see sorry, power and string to the<inaudible>. When the power of darkness comes in like a FLA the battle being longs too, though,<inaudible> He was raised up a standard, the power of his blah and the battle being longs to the Lord. And we seeing glory. Oh no. Hello and string to the Lord.
We see, sorry. Oh, power and drink too though.<inaudible> When yo man, I mean he presses in har do not fear the battle being long.<inaudible> Take courage. My, you already damn shun his knee here. The bad time have been long. So you’re the Lord. And we seen glory, Oh, power and string to the Lord.
We seen glory O Hauer and string to the<inaudible>.<inaudible> Let us pray. Our gracious father in heaven. We bow before you at this time, humbled and grateful for all that you do for us on a daily basis. Mindful of all those who have endured hardship and suffering throughout the entire world. We know the suffering that is in this world is ultimately a result of sin.
And we pray that we do all that we can each and every day to push back against the effects of sin, to push back against the effects of disease and destruction, to bring comfort and hope, joy and eternal values to this world. We pray for all those who are missionaries, who are throughout the world, who are teaching and struggling, maybe in many,
much more difficult places than here in this country. But we also pray for those in leadership in this country, we pray that they might make choices that open up greater avenues of teaching and instruction and evangelism. Instead of closing them down, we pray for wisdom from every leader in every nation. They might look to your word for that wisdom, understand it,
and be obedient to it themselves. We ask that you be with those who are traveling, especially with ms. Gladys when she comes home and with the Richardsons, as they’re up in Missouri, pray that each and every one will come home safely. All this we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Hello. Okay.<inaudible> Good evening everybody. Our first song this evening will be number 700 at 16. Sing to me of heaven. Sing to me of heaven, singing To me a hair. Then seeing that along up. He’s from the ties that bind me. It will bring release, burdens will be lifted that are pressing. So showers of gray blessing on my heart.<inaudible> to me having led me funny dream of it’s golden glory.
It’s pro league<inaudible> Seeing to me when shadows up<inaudible> Oh seeing to me, I’ve haven’t Swedish a song, um,<inaudible> Sing to me of heaven as I walk. I’m dreaming of the comrades that song long. Um,<inaudible> And<inaudible> the wrong. They are happy.<inaudible> sweet. So Seeing to me led me funny. Dream of its golden glory of its<inaudible><inaudible> Seeing to me when shadows<inaudible> Ball seeing to me of heaven,
sweetest song, um,<inaudible> Seeing to me of heaven and the<inaudible> with the<inaudible>. When my heart is weary, when a day is long seeing to me, I haven’t seen sweet<inaudible> Seeing to me<inaudible> dream. Oh man, it’s gold and glory a bit. It’s really gleam seeing to me when shadows<inaudible> Awe seeing to me.<inaudible> um,
No. Please bow with me for our opening prayer, Our great and awesome father in heaven. How Holy you are. We humbly bow before you this evening and we thank you for this time that we have to study your word and sing songs of praise to you here in the building and online. And we thank you so much for the opportunity of technology that we have to be able to bring your word and fellowship to those that are unable to be here at this time.
Lord, in heaven, we thank you for all of your many blessings and your son’s name. Amen. Yeah. Our song before our class this evening will be number 744 God’s family, God’s family. We’re part of the family That’s Been born. Yay. Part of the family whose love knows no<inaudible> For Jesus has saved us and made us<inaudible>. No,
we were part of the fam. No, it’s on its way.<inaudible> And sometimes we laugh together. Sometimes we<inaudible>. Sometimes we share tear gas, the<inaudible>. Yes. Sometimes we dream together.<inaudible><inaudible> When we all get to, Uh huh. God’s fam. When a brother means<inaudible> We all it<inaudible> When he’s pastor the, uh,
the<inaudible><inaudible> ah,<inaudible><inaudible> Together and big tree through his precious<inaudible>. And um, times we laugh together. Uh, sometimes we<inaudible> Sometimes we share tear gas. Uh,<inaudible> Uh, Sometimes we dream together. Uh, uh, Oh man. Well<inaudible> Well, when we all get to, Uh huh. God’s family<inaudible> And those,
um, go beef<inaudible> Well, all me<inaudible> Just inside the<inaudible> as we enter<inaudible> There’ll be numb<inaudible> Oh, Jesus.<inaudible> So you go there for a day. God damn. And sometimes we laugh together.<inaudible> Sometimes we<inaudible> Sometimes we share the<inaudible><inaudible> Sometimes we dream to get the<inaudible><inaudible> When we all get to, Uh huh.
God’s fam.<inaudible> It’s good to have everyone who is present both online and in person. We appreciate your presence greatly. And we’re looking forward to this study of first Kings chapter 21st Kings. Chapter 20 is going to be our study. This, uh, this evening. Remember to turn my phone on silent. So we get started. Um, the questions for tonight study as,
uh, previously has been mentioned are in the front lobby if you want to come by and pick a set up later. Uh, but they are also on the front page of the website. Uh, if you’ll look, there’s a button there that says a lesson, one 82 questions and you can click on that and those will download. You can get them now or at a later time.
It’s, we’ve been going through this study and we’ve been noticing, uh, the Kings in the Northern kingdom predominantly during the last few lessons and their interactions with Alijah, we’ve been noticing the interactions of not just them with Elijah, but at times we, we read about other prophets and their interactions with the Kings as well. And this is going to be one of the fundamental aspects of the old Testament in this time period.
And that is the relationship of a King to God’s prophets. When a King listens to the profits of God, obeys the prophets of God, does what the prophets of God tell him to do, which is of course in line and in uh, conjunction with obeying the law, that King prospers that kingdom and that rain goes well. It doesn’t mean they never have problems.
It doesn’t mean that everything’s flawless. It means that by and large they are working in accordance with the will of God and God is blessing them for doing so. We’re introduced to Ahab back in chapter 16 the end of that chapter as a King who does more wickedness than all the Kings who came before him. We were introduced to his father Omri as a King who did more wickedness than all the Kings who had come before him.
Okay? A hub is going to be one of those Kings that will stand at the pinnacle of evil in the Northern kingdom of Israel, and yet even a Hab will be used by the Lord to achieve the will of God. This is one of those chapters, chapter 20, where we’re going to find God using an evil King to accomplish judgment upon a more evil people.
So that’s what we’re going to be introduced to here in chapter 20 you know, you remember in chapter 19, let’s, let’s kind of gather in the details from the end of the chapter. God tells Elijah when Elijah is in despair, when Elijah is asking God, just kill me, put me out of my misery. I’ve done all of these things and now the people are trying to kill me.
So God just end my life. God is a series of events will get, uh, Alijah to stop focusing on Elijah and start focusing on God. Then God will tell Elijah to get up and go back to work. He will do so by telling him you go to Syria and notice what he says beginning in verse 15 of chapter 19 the Lord said to him,
that is Elijah, go return your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, anoint hazy L as King over Syria. That command is the leading idea between behind what comes in chapter 20 God tells Alijah, I’m not just the God of Israel and I’m not just the God of Judah. I’m not just the God of the descendants of Abraham.
I’m Jehovah, and because I am I am sovereign over every nation. Daniel made this point to Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel made the point that God puts in power whoever he will Because ultimately Kings are not in charge. Presidents are not in charge. Rulers are not in charge. Tyrants are not in charge. Despots are not in charge. God is in charge And so God sends his prophet to Damascus,
to Syria to anoint the next King of Syria And notice what we read and you shall anoint J Hugh, the son of Nim, Shai as King over Israel. God is not just going to set forward the events that will bring about the destruction of Syria and, or at least the, the change of the King. But he’s also going to bring about the destruction of Ahab Because in everything that proceeded in everything that God did and demonstrated how he was the Lord,
a Hab, still a loud rebel to seek to take the life of Elijah, God is going to bring his judgment on a Hab for a Habs wickedness. And then notice also God tells him, and you shall anoint Alijah the son of Shay fat as a of Abel may Hola as and he shall or excuse me, you shall anoint him as prophet in your place.
So Elijah is going and he is doing these things. So chapter 20 begins now, Ben. Hey Dan, the King of Syria gathered all his forces together. 32 Kings were with him. Bear in mind This day in time, we’re still in a time period where sometimes there were Kings over individual cities. There were Kings over smaller regions than there were Kings over whole nations.
Uh, and so what mixture of Kings we have here among the Syrians, I don’t know, but he’s got 32 Kings that are subservient to him that come with him in battle. So Ben, Hey, dad comes with the Syrians. He gathered all of his forces together. 32 Kings were with him, with horses and chariots, and he went up and besieged some area and made war against it.
Then he sent messengers into the city to Ahab, King of Israel and said to him, thus says, Ben, Hey dad, your silver and your gold are mine. Your loveliest wives and children are mine. And the King of Israel answered and said, my Lord, Oh King. Just as you say, I and all that I have are yours.
Okay. So Ben, Hey, dad comes into Israel. He comes to Syria, He surrounds the city, besieged the city And sends an ultimatum. He says, everything that you have by way of gold, everything that you have by way of silver, all of your best wives, all of your best children, they belong to me. You’re going to hand them over to me and I’ll leave.
Then notice, uh, a rehab is going to say, as you say, we’ll, we’ll do exactly what you say. We will meet the terms of your offer. Then the messengers came back and said, thus speaks Ben. Hey, dad’s saying, indeed I have sent to you saying you shall deliver to me or silver and your gold, your wives and your children.
But I will send my servants to you tomorrow about this time and they shall search your house and the houses of your servants. And it shall be that whatever is pleasant in your eyes, they will put in their hands and take it. Ben, Hey, dad comes with this superior force. He surrounds some Marriott. He besieged as the city. And he says,
I’m not only gonna take your silver and your gold. I’m not only going to take your loveliest wives and your children. I’m going to send my servants in and they’re going to take whatever they want. I mean, these are just the, these are just the terms for me. Now I’m sending my servants and they’re going to take whatever they want on top of that.
So the King of Israel called all the elders of the land and said, notice please and see how this man seeks trouble for. He sent to me for my wives, my children, my silver, and my gold. And I did not deny him. And all the elders and all the people said to him, do not listen or consent. Therefore,
he said to the messengers of Ben, Hey dad, tell my Lord the King, all that you send for to your servant the first time I will do, but this thing I cannot do. And the messengers departed and brought back word to him. Then Ben Hayden sent to him and said, the gods do so to me. And more also if even,
or if enough dust is left of some area for a handful for each of the people who follow me. Hey Brings together the elders of Israel And he says, I was willing to do this to this limit, But now he has acted in bad faith. When he sent his first terms and we agreed to him, now he sent back a revised set of terms,
What am I supposed to do? He says, I can’t do this, that he asks and so they send back to Ben, Hey dad, and they let Ben, Hey dad, no. If you had stayed with the first offer, we would have done it, but this thing we cannot do, we cannot allow you to come in. You step back and think about what’s being stated here.
If it’s we’ll send it out to you. Then they still have their walls up. They still have their protection. They can maintain their security. They married. Even if a battle arises, they might even be able to remain standing and be victorious in some form or fashion, but if they led the man, the soldiers, the servants of Ben, Hey dad in,
they’ve lost all leverage. They’ve lost all possibility of maintaining their security because the force is overwhelming and so they will not allow them in. They would have sent the money, the gold, the things out, but they won’t allow them in, in, and Ben, Hey, dad says, if there’s enough dust for my men to come in and pick up off the ground of some area when I’m finished with it,
then if there’s, if there’s not that much desolation, then this is going to happen to me too. Ben, Hey, dad says you’ve sealed your fate. Men, Hey, daddy is going to make it clear that the city will be completely destroyed because he wasn’t agreed to. Side note, just a, just a lesson to throw in here. When you make an offer And you make a,
an arrangement, make the offer you want the first time because the reality is the first time it was accepted and I, you know, I’ve learned this lesson over the years. Uh, you make an offer and after you make the offer, you said that out and somebody says yes to it. You start thinking, well, maybe I didn’t ask for enough.
Maybe I should ask for a little bit more. He, he answered yes to quickly my mate. Maybe I could get a little bit more out of this. And, and so you make another offer and it’s worth a worse offer than the first one. And the other person goes, well, wait a minute. I agreed to the first one. Now you’re changing the deal,
Ben. Hey, dad changed the deal. Uh, and as a result, uh, the King of Israel, Ahab will tell him no. So the King, verse 11 answered and said, tell him, let not the one who puts on his armor boast like the one who takes it off. It’s an interesting analogy, interesting phrase. Let not the one who puts on the armor boast like the one who takes it off.
What’s, what’s that mean? What they have is saying is let the person who actually finishes what they go out to do be the one boasting, not the one who hasn’t even started to do what they claim they will do. He’s essentially telling Ben, Hey dad, you proved to me that you can bring about the destruction of some area. Don’t just talk like you’ve got the ability to destroy us.
Why don’t you go ahead and put on your armor. And when you take it off, then you can start boasting. You’re boasting a little too early. The battle hasn’t even started yet. Okay. So that’s, that’s the analogy that’s made here. And it happened when Ben hate adverse, well heard this message as he and the Kings were drinking at the command post that he said to his servants,
get ready and they got ready to attack the city. And suddenly a prophet approached Ahab, King of Israel saying, thus says the Lord. Have you seen all this great multitude? I love it when God asks questions that make people go, Uh, yeah, because that’s one of these questions. Here’s the messengers going back between the, the, the people besieging some area,
this great massive people, 32 Kings and all their armies and all their horses and all their chariots that are surrounding the city. And the city’s blocked off. And here comes a prophet who walks up to the King and says, have you noticed this multitude around your city? How have you noticed these people outside the wall? He says, thus says the Lord.
Have you seen all this great multitude, behold, I will deliver it into your hand today and you shall know that I am the Lord in Egypt. Time and time and time again, 10 times. As a matter of fact, God would make the point to Pharaoh because Pharaoh asked at the very beginning, who is the Lord that I should obey him?
And 10 times with 10 separate plagues, God makes it clear who he is, that he alone is the Lord, that he alone is God. And now God’s having to make the same point to Ahab. Now you would think since just a short time ago, there was a contest between Alijah and the prophets of bail and the prophets of bail cried out and cried out and cried out and cried out and cut themselves and bled and did everything they could to get bailed to send down fire from heaven.
And he never could. You would think that they have been present for that whole thing and then hearing Alijah say it’s going to rain and then getting back to his home just as the rain begins. You would think after three years of no rain and then God bringing the rain back then that they have would know who the Lord is. But guess what? Some of us learn very slowly.
And Ahab is one of those people. A house may have known who Jehovah was, a Hab may have known who the Lord was, but he certainly wasn’t acting like it. He certainly wasn’t behaving as if he knew who the Lord was because he wasn’t obeying him. And so God sends a prophet to a Hab and he says, do you see all this,
these, this multitude around your city? I’m going to defeat them. And then you’ll know that I’m the Lord. Verse third or verse 14 so Ahab said, by whom? Hey have, wants to know the terms and conditions of this agreement too. He wants to know who is it according to the prophet that’s going to accomplish this deed, this going out and destroying this great army.
Ahab wants to stay inside his walls by whom? And he said, thus says the Lord by the young leaders of the provinces. Then he said, who will set the battle in order? And he answered you. Hey, have wants to know who’s going out to do the fighting. The prophet says, the young princes are young leaders of the provinces and who’s in charge.
You are a hub. You are. And so then he mustered verse 15 the young leaders of the provinces and there were 232 and after them he mustered all the people, all the children of Israel, 7,000<inaudible>. How many people were there that God said hadn’t bowed the need to bail?<inaudible> Anybody want to guess? 7,000 front row right here. 7,000 There’s 232 of these young leaders of the provinces and Ahab gets them and then he gets 7,000 from among the nation of Israel and they go out to fight 32 Kings And all their men<inaudible> So they went out at noon.
Now you would think if you’re going to attack a force that’s superior to you, if you’re going to destroy and overcome a support of force that’s superior to you, you might want to use some tactics. You might want to make sure that you go in the dead of night. Uh, you think of, think of a, the examples from the book of judges,
maybe, maybe a tackle when they’re not ready. Nope. Broad daylight noon. Here comes this force of 7,000, 233 men and they’re going to come against this multitude of Syria. So they come at noon and uh, meanwhile Ben Hayden and the 32 Kings helping him, we’re getting drunk at the command post. The young leaders of the provinces went out first and Ben Haight ad set sent out a patrol and they told him saying,
men are coming out of some area. So he said if they have come out for peace, take them alive. And if they have come out for war, take them alive. Then these young leaders of the provinces went out of the city with the army, which followed them and each one killed his man. So the Syrians fled and the, and Israel pursued them.
And Ben, Hey dad, the King of Syria escaped on a horse with the Calvary. Then the King of Israel went out and attacked the horses and chariots and kill the Syrians with a great slaughter. I want you to notice the progression of events. Here come the 232 young leaders that God says they’re the ones who are going to do this. They come out of Samaria first.
It’s a small force. It’s so small that the King who’s at noon still are just starting to get drunk with all of his other Kings. They’re in the command post goes, it’s no big deal. Go send some people and if they’re there to be, to come in peace, not, not negotiate, getting peace, take them alive. They become captives.
If they’ve come out for a war, there’s such a small forest, no big deal. Take them alive anyway, But behind the 232 coming out of the Gates of some area are 7,000 okay. And when the 230 to meet the force and kill all the opposing men that come after them, and then the army comes out of Symeria and they kill all that,
come after them. Then the force of Ben hate at is routed, But you notice it’s then when the force is routed that the King leaves some area. A Hab is not coming out outside the city until the Syria or the Syrians are leaving. Yeah, so King of Israel went out and attacked the horses and chariots and killed the Syrians with a gray slaughter and the prophet came to the King and said to him,
go strengthen yourself. Take note and see what you should do. Four in the spring of the year, the King of Samaria will come up against. Okay. Prophet comes to the King, comes day Ahab after the battle is over and he says, don’t let your guard down. You go out among your nation and you strengthen it. You make preparations because Syria is not done.
Just because they fled this time doesn’t mean they’re not coming back. As a matter of fact, they’re going to come back and they’re going to come back in the spring. Okay, so Ahab’s been forewarned. Now, it may seem a little strange. Why in the world is God. In the previous chapter, anointing the replacement for a Hab and in this chapter,
saving a house. God’s making a point. God is doing what sometimes parents and leaders, bosses do. They know what’s going to happen when the person doesn’t Oh Bay, but they’re giving that person the choice to obey or not. God has already set in motion the replacement for a rehab, but he hasn’t said when it’s going to happen, But he’s giving a have the opportunity to repent.
He’s giving a have the opportunity to acknowledge who he is and to change by saving him instead of hurting him by helping him instead of punishing him. He’s giving him one last chance. You and I, as we go through life, we’re given chances. We’re given opportunities, opportunities to repent, opportunities to change, opportunities to do good opportunities to do what we ought to.
We need to learn from Ahab because he had not only a successful moment where God helped him, but he had the opportunity to acknowledge who the Lord was and to change his direction. Question is, did he do it? Let’s go back to the passage. Verse 23 then the Syrian are then the servants of the King of Sarah. Sirius said to him,
their gods are the gods of the Hills. Therefore they were stronger than we, but if we fight against them in the plane, surely we will be stronger than they. So do this thing, dismissed the Kings, each from his position and put captains in their places. The problem is You got the big wigs. The big wigs have come out and they don’t have any taste for battle.
You there these, these Kings, they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re inexperienced. You need captains. You need soldiers leading this army and their God in Israel, the God of Israel, he’s the God of the Hills. You see a King, we’ve got to fight him somewhere else. We went to the wrong spot. We did battle in the wrong place.
We don’t need to be up there in the Hills. We need to be down in the Plains because their God can help them there. This is the mentality of idols. This is the mentality of idolatrous people, that their God is the God of this or that, that the God of thunder or the God of lightning or the God of the sea or the,
this is idolatry. God’s made it clear, I’m Jehovah, I’m the Lord. I’m the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I’m the God of land and sea of mountain and Valley, And he’s going to make that abundantly clear. So then notice they said replace the Kings with captains, then we will fight against them in the plane. Surely we will be stronger than they.
And he listened to their voice and did so. So it was in the spring of the year that Ben, Hey dad mustered the Syrians and went up to APEC to fight against Israel, and the children of Israel were mustered and given provisions and they went against them. Now, the children of Israel encamped before them, like two flocks of goats, while the Syrians filled the countryside.
If you were to look at this battle from above, you’d see two little specks over here that were the army of Israel and you’d see a great swath of people over here. And that’s the army of the Syrians. So it was her, uh, verse 27, uh, is what we just read. Verse 28 then a man of God came and spoke to the King of Israel.
Now notice some differences. Number one, God already told him Syria was coming back. Number two, they met not being surrounded or besieged in the city, but they met out and they came out to do battle. They had provisions, they were ready for war, but they were abundantly outnumbered. So the prophet comes to a Hab King of Israel and said,
thus says the Lord, because the Syrians have said, the Lord is God of the Hills, but he is not God of the valleys. Therefore, I will deliver all this multitude into your hand and you shall know that I am the Lord Ahab. You haven’t quite learned your lesson yet, but I’m not saving you because of you. Okay? I’m not delivering you because of who you are.
I’m delivering you and I am defeating this people because they need to learn the lesson. But I’m not the God of the Hills and I’m not the God of the valleys. I am the Lord. But Ahab, you need to learn the lesson that I am the Lord. And they encamped opposite each other for seven days. So it was on the seventh day,
the battle was joined and the children of Israel, uh, killed 100,000 foot soldiers of the Syrians in one day. Okay. But the rest fled to APEC into the city. Then a wall fell on 27,000 of the men who were left and Ben, Hey, dad fled and went into the city, into an inner chamber. Okay. Israel comes and they come in to this battle after seven days and they defeat the army of the Syrians and kill a hundred thousand foot soldiers in a day.
Just a massive slaughter. And then the Syrians go and escape to APEC and as they’re there, yeah. Oh, wall collapses probably what you have going on there, by the way, it’s not just like, Oh, Hey everybody, let’s stand under this wall and it’s not built real well and we’ll just just stand here and Oh look, 27,000 of us died.
The likelihood is these walls were walls that were intended to be stood upon to be gathered upon, to do battle upon, and so you had a large part of the army that has come into the city and gone up on to the wall. Some are below it, some are behind it, some are on top of it, and the falls. As a result,
27,000 men die. So now the King, because if the wall falls by the way, that means the walls breached, okay? Now that the walls breached, their protection from Israel is gone because the wall has fallen. The wall has been breached. Now Ben, Hey, dad goes into the inner sanctuary, okay, or the inner chamber, verse 31 then his servant said to him,
look, now we have heard that the King of the house of Israel are merciful Kings. Please let us put sack cloth around our waist and ropes around our heads and go out to the King of Israel. Perhaps he will spare your life. So they wore sack cloth around their waist and put ropes around their heads and came to the King of Israel and said,
your servant Ben. Hey dad and says, please let me live. And he said, is he still alive? He is my brother who said that Hey Hab did They come out to Ahab And they say, let Ben, Hey dad live And a Hab accepts their offer. Now the men were watching closely to see whether any sign of mercy would come from him and they quickly grasped at this word and said,
your brother Ben. Hey dad. So he said, go bring him. Then bed. Hey dad came out to him and he had him come up into the chariot. So Ben, Hey dad said to him, the city’s which my father took from your father, I will restore and you may set up a marketplaces for yourselves in Damascus as my father did in some area.
Then Ahab said, I will send you away with this treaty. So he made a treaty with him and sent him away. Seems like everything’s turned out pretty good, right? It seems like the, they were victorious as a result of being victorious. The treaty was reached. Ben, Hey down, realizes he needed to have peace with Israel instead of war.
And now two nations at peace Sounds pretty good. Unless of course that wasn’t what God wanted Ahab to do. What you don’t read here, Okay, Is where a Hab stopped to question the prophet. What does the Lord desire for me to do? And there’s two passages that come to mind. They both say similar things. One’s in Jeremiah, one’s in Proverbs.
The lay that seems right unto a man is the way of death. Okay? We need to be careful that we don’t just do what seems right, But do what is right. This sounded good. This seemed right. It wasn’t. Notice what we read. Verse 35 now a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to his neighbor, by the word of the Lord,
strike me please. Now he’s being polite. He said, please. But before that he said by the word of the Lord, see, there’s something important here and that is when a prophet speaks and he is a prophet, when a prophet speaks and he speaks according to the word of the Lord, it doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t have to be what you want to do.
It doesn’t have to be what you think you should do. It is the word of the Lord and you’re supposed to do it. That’s what Israel was told. That’s what God had told him. That’s what God had said all the way along. Trust me and obey me. So here comes this prophet and he says, I’m telling you the word of the Lord.
Strike me, please.<inaudible> Then notice what happened. The man refused to strike him. Then he the prophet said to him, the man, because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, Shirley, as soon as you depart from me, Elian, she’ll kill you. You say, well, wait a minute. That’s a really harsh punishment.
I mean, here comes this prophet, he says, strike me. And the man refuses to strike another person, a prophet. I don’t, I don’t go around hitting profits.<inaudible> And yet as a result of it, he’s going to lose his life. Yes.<inaudible> Now how do we understand this? How do we make sense of what’s here?
When God tells you to do something, You don’t say, I politely refuse. I don’t think that’s the best idea. You do what God says. Do we not remember a, uh, Abraham when God told Abraham, you take that son of yours, your only begotten son and you take him up on that mountain and you sacrifice him to me. And what is Abraham do say?
God, I appreciate the offer. I thank you for all your consideration. And by the way, I really appreciate this son you’ve given me, but I just don’t think that’s the right choice. No. Abraham does exactly what he’s told And it’s God who stops Abraham’s hand. So the man, as soon as he left a lion found him and killed him and he found another man and said,
strike me, please. So the man struck him inflicting a wound. Then the prophet departed and waited for the King by the road and disguised himself with a bandage over his eyes. Now as the King passed by, he cried out to the King and said, your servant went out in the midst of the battle and there a man came over and brought a man to me and said,
guard this man, if by any means he is missing your life, shall be for his life and or else you shall pay a talent of silver while your servant was busy here and there, he was gone. Then the King of Israel said to him, so shall your judgment be you yourself have decided it. The man with the injury standing by the road waiting for the King to come by.
He tells him, he shouts out to him and he says, here’s what happened. Somebody came to me And he came to me and he gave me a prisoner to take care of and I was supposed to take care of him, but I had other duties. I had other things I had to do. I had things that were important to do, and so I was going here there and doing what I was supposed to be doing and then I looked and the prisoner was gone,
but when the man gave me the prisoner, he said to me, if you don’t keep this prisoner, your life is forfeit instead<inaudible> And as a seemingly regular King would do, he says, well, sounds to me like you for announced your own judgment. You’re going to get exactly what you said. You’re going to die because you didn’t guard the prisoner.
Someone was turned over into your hands and you let him go.<inaudible> Verse 41 and he, the prophet hastened to take the bandage away from his eyes and the King recognized him as one of the prophets. Then he said to him, thus says the Lord, because you have let slip out of your hand, a man whom I, that is the Lord appointed to utter destruction.
Therefore your life shall go for his life and your people for his people. So the King of Israel went to his house, Solon and displeased and came to Samaria. God sends his prophet to Ahab to make the point. You had one job, You had one responsibility, Ahab, you were supposed to exact my judgment, not yours. My judgment on summary on Syria and on its people and you didn’t do it.
You let them get away with a treaty. You let them leave A Hab. You were never in charge, But you didn’t do what I commanded. You didn’t do what I told you to. You didn’t seek my instructions, And as a result, your life is forfeit and your people’s lives will be forfeit. If you think forward to the end of the life of Ahab,
how does he die? He dies in battle As his people are defeated. They died Because he didn’t do his job. We also need to learn the lesson here that sometimes we get a little busy going here and there and as the profit illustrates focusing on everything but the most important thing And we lose what’s most important And sometimes we lose our own lives and the lives of those around us because we fail to do what’s most important instead of failing to do what’s most abundant.
Let’s go through the questions. Question number one, yes or no. Did the Syrian troops attack a Hab first? This is the first battle who came out and attacked first<inaudible> Israel did. Remember the 232 came out and when they were and serious man were told to take them alive. And what did the 232 do? They killed everyone. Their own man.
Okay. Israel attacked first. Yeah, Because God told them to. Uh, what were the Syrians doing in their temporary shelters when they have attack? They were drinking. Getting drunk, yes or no. Number three was Ben. Hey, Dan, King of Syria killed in battle with a Hab. No, Not in. Not in the first battle.
And not in the second battle. No, he was not. Why did question number four, why did this or why did I keep wanting to say us? Syrians. Why did the Syrians want to fight Israel on the plane rather than in the mountains?<inaudible> Not because the plane will be bigger. They thought that God was the God of what? The Hills.
God of the mountains. So they said, we’ll fight them in the plane because then their God can’t help them. They’re at number five. Question number five. At the turn of the year when the Syrians returned to Ahab for battle, who had the larger number of troops, the Syrians or the Israelites? The Syrians, Uh, question six, who guided a hub in his battles with the Syrians?<inaudible> Who guided Ahab?
God did All right. Question seven. First Kings chapter 20, verse 42, the prophet told Ahab that his punishment for letting the Syrian King escape would be His own life and The life of the people. Okay. Thank you for your attention. And we’re going to have another song. Oh my. Uh, I’m, I’m being reminded, uh, everyone who may or may not have seen the email,
uh, Sylvia is home. Um, she did end up having two strokes, one on Thursday and another one on Saturday. Uh, but Sylvia is home, uh, talk to her today and she said, I’m not doing anything other than sitting in this chair because my daughter said I’m not allowed to do anything other than sit in this chair. Uh,
so she did say if you wanted to call you, you would be welcome to call because she said, I’m not doing anything other than sitting in this chair. So, uh, keep Sylvia in your prayers. Um, hopefully she continues to do better and, uh, has no continuing issues and, um, be with all those who have been mentioned in previous weeks that are dealing with<inaudible>,
those who, um, uh, have been injured as well as those dealing with other, uh, longterm illnesses as well. So we’re going to have a closing song and a closing prayer. Thank you for your attention.<inaudible> Our closing song will be number 738. Take the name of Jesus with you. Take the name of Jesus with you. Take The name of Jesus with you.
Child of sorrow and<inaudible>. Well, joy and comfort gave you take it then where you<inaudible> Precious. Yay.<inaudible><inaudible> Uh, Precious<inaudible>, No house.<inaudible><inaudible> take the name of Jesus<inaudible> Uh, as a shim from every<inaudible> If temptations around you.<inaudible> Breed that Holy name and<inaudible> Precious. Yay. Oh, house<inaudible> Oh,<inaudible><inaudible> Precious A house.<inaudible> Oh<inaudible> Yeah.
Oh, the precious name. Huh?<inaudible> Us, uh, thrills our souls with<inaudible> When his loving arms reach<inaudible> Us and his sons aren’t tongues. Oh, sorry.<inaudible><inaudible> Oh<inaudible> Oh.<inaudible><inaudible> Yes.<inaudible> Oh, house<inaudible> Oh.<inaudible> Uh, Let us pray. A father in heaven, great and powerful is your name.
We are thankful for you and we were reminded each day of how you care for us. And you take a, and you love us and, and always bless us each day we pray that you be with those that we have mentioned and that are not feeling well and not doing well. I may have lost loved ones and pray that you bring, give them comfort.
We’re thankful that Sylvia’s home and pray that you’d be with her and, and she will get better soon. We thank you for your word that we can go to and to study, to look at examples like Ahab and learn from his mistakes that he made, the things that he chose to do. And we pray that we will strive to always trust you and what you say and to follow your word.
We thank you always for what you bless us with each day. Be with us as we go through the rest of this week. And Jesus. Amen.
<inaudible><inaudible> Good morning. Welcome to the Collierville church of Christ Sunday morning streaming live stream service. We do have a few with us here this morning. It’s great to see each and every one of you. Glad that you were able to venture out. And for those of you that were unable to make it out this morning, we truly understand that you are staying home to be safe.
It’s unprecedented times that we’re living in, but we know that our good Lord above and we’ll take care of each and every one of us. I have several announcements this morning and they are in no particular order, so bear with me as I get through these. I was joking with Aaron before us. I think I got everything from the start to finish the service today with these announcements.
We want to, uh, congratulate the Kali and Gil’s Bach family in the birth of a new great granddaughter, Eliza Jane. She was born on Friday. The Potter’s Chilton home pantry item for the month of may is bottled water Beverley price. Her father passed away this past week on Thursday. I do believe it was Marvin. Man, there will be a private funeral service for uh,
Marvin man. This week. Uh, our sick Ruby Brad has stage four neuro, uh, blastoma which has stems, uh, doing some STEM cell surgery for that. She is back home, so please keep, uh, Ruby in her prayers. Joan Springer is still dealing with pneumonia, so please keep her in your prayers. Janell Grizzard who is Janet Jones,
his oldest daughter was diagnosed with liver cancer, so please keep Janell and Janet and that entire family and your thoughts and prayers. They’re going to need all the thoughts and prayers that they can get at this time as they work on dealing with what a course of action the medical professionals are going to deal with for her. Paul Montgomery deletes his dad is at home recovering from his ankle surgery and getting better.
Roger Wright, who is a preacher in Indiana, has been diagnosed with cancer, so please keep Roger and his family and your thoughts and prayers. Josh Howe, who was a preacher in Oklahoma, was in a bad car accident. He has 16 broken ribs, so please keep him your thoughts and prayers. Sylvia pass, as most of you probably know from the email that went out earlier this week,
had a stroke, a mini stroke. She did suffer a second stroke yesterday and she’ll, she is back in the hospital. So please keep Sylvia and her entire family and your thoughts and prayers. Uh, Susan MacDonald’s father Tom Boyett, who is a minister for the Pennington ban church of Christ in Nashville, passed away this past Wednesday. Susan and Adam McDonnell used to be members here at Colleyville church.
Christ. So we ask that you please keep each and every one of these and your thoughts and prayers as we go through our week. And again, welcome to our Sunday morning service. Thank you.<inaudible><inaudible> And uh, as we dream, we see, uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, He And uh, nah, fuck me.<inaudible> Right.
Well, a dad, man.<inaudible> Uh, My one Bri chain, um,<inaudible> Uh huh. Mmm<inaudible>. He, As we prepare to partake in the celebration of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, let each and every one of us go to our father in prayer. God, our father in heaven. We come to you at this time thanking you for having sent your son,
Jesus, to live here on earth, to teach us and show us the way that we should live as Christians. But most importantly, we thank you for sacrificing your son. And as we prepare to partake of this bread which represents his body, help each and every one of us remember what he truly sacrificed as he hung on that cruel cross at Calvary.
We pray this in your son, Jesus’ name. Amen.<inaudible> Let us continue in prayer. God, our father in heaven. As we prepare to partake of this fruit of the vine which represents the blood that Jesus said shed for us so that our sins may be washed away. Help us to remember and concentrate and think on that fact of what he truly did for us and that was sacrifice his life so that we may one day have an opportunity to live with you in eternity.
We pray this through your son, Jesus name. Amen.<inaudible> Separate and apart. We are commanded in the Bible to give back, so let us pray. God, our father in heaven. We know everything comes from you and through you. And at this time was we prepared to give back a portion of what we’ve been blessed with. We ask that you help each and every one of us do it with true,
truly cheerful hearts, and that you help the men of this congregation make wise decisions on how these monies should be used to better the spread of your word and your kingdom here on earth. We pray all this in your son. Jesus’ name. Amen.<inaudible> The song before our lesson will be number 450. Give me the Bible. Give me the Bible.
Give me the Bible star of gladness. Gleam me into cheer though.<inaudible> no. Post Ken. Hi dad. Read and speak. Small beam mean since Jesus came to seek and save the us gave me the Holy message. Uh, I need, uh, in light show guide me in a narrow way. Hey,<inaudible> to notch out.<inaudible><inaudible> my heart is bro hook and when’s,
and then grieve. Half filled my soul with<inaudible> gave me the precious words by Jesus. Oh God. Oh God. Face to face. I save your knee. Give me the BA ball. Holy message. Uh, I need, uh, I light shout God, Me and a narrow, Hey Priests, Dan<inaudible><inaudible> to nine sharp<inaudible> Any turn off?<inaudible> Gave me the<inaudible> Or<inaudible><inaudible> by the up<inaudible> from heaven shining.
Oh or Sean, The glory gilding. Jordan<inaudible> Give me the<inaudible> Holy message. A name<inaudible> Me and a narrow Priests. Dan<inaudible>. No. And uh, I’ve come ah, I need to catch up The news. Annie, turn off.<inaudible><inaudible> Good morning. It’s good to see everyone. We’ve got a few here, which is great.
And uh, I’m going to try to figure Out how to preach this direction in this direction. So hopefully I can do that. It was good to see everyone here this morning and, and good to have you that are watching online and we can’t wait until we have everyone back together. I want us to think about what it would be like to receive a letter.
And this letter is not no ordinary letter, but this letter has written in it the good and bad things that you have done in your life. Imagine receiving that type of letter that knew everything, knew every detail, it gave you encouragement, but it also told you what you needed to work on. That’s what the letters to the seven churches of Asia was like.
Our Lord wrote these letters to them. There were some condemnation and there were some commendation for the things that they had done. And it’s interesting what we can learn from these letters. We know as Hebrews chapter four and verse 12 through 13 States for the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing division of soul and spirit and of joints and Morrow and his discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
And there is no creature hidden from his side. But all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. God knows everything. God knew these congregations. He knew what they needed and what things that they had done. And it’s interesting. If you look at the first part, go to revelation. Chapter two is where we’re going to be this morning.
Revelation chapter two and three be noticed the beginning of every letter. For example, look at verse revelation two one 32 says the two, the angel of the church of Ephesus write these things, says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden golden lampstands. I know your works. That phrase is used repeated every two EV in every letter.
I know that works. Think about that statement to someone that’s living right. That’s a great thing to hear, right? You know most people may not know the things that you do. It may not be seen, but God knows and that’s a great thing to hear those words. I know that works, but for someone that’s not living right, for someone that’s thinking that people don’t know what I’m doing,
God knows it’s a scary thing. That’s what it would be like to receive this letter from our Lord this morning. I want to look at some lessons that we can learn from the seven churches of Asia. The first one we can learn is that we should remember our first love. Let’s look at the first congregation. This is emphasis. We already read verse one let’s start in verse two.
It says, I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil and you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not and have found them liars and you have persevered and have patience and have labored for my namesake and have not become weary. This is a congregation that the Lord starts out with a commendation.
He’s saying, you guys have done great works. He lists seven things that they had done. They were great. They were a congregation strong against false doctrine. They tested those who said they were apostles. They tested them by seeing if they were not. They were a congregation continuing to labor for the Lord, but there was another thing. Look at the next verse.
Verse four. Nevertheless, I have this against you that you have left your first love. This congregation. If you read in the book of Ephesians, they were strong for the Lord. They had a great love for the Lord, but they had lost that first love. They had done many works. They continue to labor for the Lord, but their heart was not in it.
They did not have the love that they should. Think about it in a husband and wife situation, you have a husband and wife who feel that they need to keep that marriage together, whether it be for kids, their children, or the obligation to stay together, but they don’t truly love one another. We can do works. We can do go through the motions of life,
go attend to services and and do good things for other people, but if we do not have love, it’s not worth anything. That’s what Paul tells us. Go to first Corinthians chapter 13 First Corinthians chapter 13 in verse one through three Paul speaking here says, no, I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love. I have become sounding brass or a Chang lean symbol,
and though I have a gift, the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. Paul was able to speak any language. He was able to, Hey, I had the faith to move mountains, but yet if he did not have the truly have love,
It was worth nothing. Look at verse three and though I was still all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned but have not love it profits me. Nothing. You’re saying that if I give, if I give my my wealth to others and help those that are not led, that are less fortunate, I’ve done all of these great things,
but if I don’t have love, it’s not worth anything. What if I give my life up for the Lord but I don’t have love? That’s worth nothing. Matthew chapter 22 verse 37 through 39 it tells us that I shall love the Lord thy God with all their heart. With all his soul. Follow your mind. And with all our strength, our first love is Christ is his God.
If we do not have that love, we not love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We’re just going through the motions. We’re just attending services, doing things for others just because we feel like we’re obligated to do that. We have to do that. We should have a true love for the Lord. So you get back to that point,
go back to revelation chapter two so you get back to that point. Look at verse five remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the first worse or else I will come quickly and remove your lampstand from its place. Unless you repent. Go back to rekindle that love you have for the Lord. If we have lost that first love, we need to study his word.
Look at what Christ has done for us and have that true love. So the first thing we can learn is that we should remember our first love. But then the next thing is that we learn in revelation chapter two verse eight through 11 we learned from the church at Smyrna. Now Smyrna, we learned that no matter the status we have in this life,
we are rich in Christ. Smyrna was one of those congregations that didn’t receive any condemnation at all. They were a congregation working hard, striving for the Lord, and we can learn from them that we are, we have a live rich in Christ. Yo read with me, verse eight into the angel of the church in Smyrna, write these things, says the first and the last who was dead and came to life.
I know your works, tribulation and poverty, but you are rich. And I know the blasts, mini blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan. The Jews troubled the Christians wherever they went. And in Smyrna, this was a place where the Jews worked hard to make the lives of Christians miserable. Even to the point where Jesus says here that they are a synagogue of Satan and they were persecuted day in and day out.
And not only that, they were in poverty, they had nothing. We don’t know what caused that. It could be the fact that they were not able to sell their goods. They don’t not work, be able to provide for their families like they needed, but they were in strict, they were in terrible poverty, but yet, notice what Jesus says they were in poverty.
But you are rich. These men though they were greatly persecuted as these people and as Christians in this congregation, though they were greatly persecuted and though they were very poor physically, they were the richest men in the world because they were Christians. They had a great blessings, great blessings, spiritual blessings. Look at second Corinthians, Second Corinthians chapter six Paul is talking here in verse four but notice what Paul says,
but in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God and in much patience and tribulations and needs and distresses in stripes and imprisonments and two mullets and labors and sleeplessness in fastings by purity, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God. By the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left by honor and dishonor by evil report and good report as deceivers and yet true as a known and yet well known as dying and behold,
we live as chastened and yet not killed as sorrowful. Ye always rejoice as poor, yet making many rich as having nothing and yet zesting all things. Paula understood that the things in this life meant nothing because the gospel made them rich. Spiritually. Think about those riches. Go over just another chapter or chapter eight in verse nine Paul States again for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. Ephesians chapter one in verse three blessed be the Lord. Let’s be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ. No matter what status in life we have rich or poor,
we are rich because we are Christians. We have great eternal blessings. We learned that from the congregation at Smyrna and that was an encouragement to them. Go back to chapter two, One of the most famous verses that we use a lot in verse 10 but in the context they were dealing with great persecution and what is, look at this occurring moment for them.
Verse 10 do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer, and Dee, the devil is about to throw some of you in a prison that you may be tested and you will have tribulation 10 days, 10 days means complete. They’re going to have great tribulation and persecution they’re going to deal with, but notice be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life.
They were going to receive a great, great blessing. Eternal life. We are rich and in Christ, so we’ll know. Not only do we learn the no matter the status we have in this life, we are rich in Christ, but notice next that in a world of sin we can still be a shining light. Let’s look at Pergamum chapter two starting in verse 12 says into the angel of the church in Paramus writes these things,
say, says he who has a sharp twoedged sword. I know your works and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is, and you hold fast to my name. It did not deny my faith. Even in the days when Antipas was my faithful martyr who was killed among you where Satan dwells. Now, Pergamon was a congregation that received a commendation and a condemnation.
The condemnation was the fact that they, they did not deal with those that were holding to false doctrine, that were teaching false doctrine. And Jesus tells them they need to fix that. But he starts out by telling them, you have a great, you have endured a great amount of persecution there. Now, Pergamum was an area, it was a set up on a very high Hill and in Pergamum there was tons and tons of different temples and worshiping the different idols.
This city was given over to idolatry. There was the, uh, Pergamum was the first place to have a temple dedicated to emperor Augustus. So they had emperor worship in Pergamum on top of the Hill and the edge of the cliff where you could see down through the Valley there was a temple of Zeus and it was known as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
At that time was this massive building that was shaped like a seat. Jesus was referring to that temple that they saw that they could see from all over this Valley at temple of Zeus, Satan’s seat. Even with all of that evil that was going on with them. I imagine the practices and the wickedness that was going on, it would make today in our community seemed like nothing but yet they still had a shining light.
Go to Matthew chapter five and Jesus his sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five notice what Jesus says in verse 13 Matthew chapter five verse 13 through 16 you are a salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is in good for nothing to be thrown out and trampled under foot of men. Ye you are the light of the world.
A city is set on a Hill that cannot be hid. Think about that. A city that’s set on a Hill that cannot be hid. What was one thing in Pergamum that was set upon the Hill that could not be here, that could be seen from all around? That was the temple to Zeus. Yet Jesus says, you are the lie of the world.
They were that shining light in Pergamum. They endured great persecution and continue to stand by the name of the Lord. They endured persecution and proclaim the Lord Jesus instead of Lord Caesar. You know, do we think about, do we think sin is so rampant in our society? Is today that we think there’s no way that the gospel can reach certain people’s hearts?
A lot of times we think, well, things are just getting so bad. I don’t see how anybody would receive the gospel. Cool. Do we not understand the power of the gospel? Romans chapter one verse 16 for I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is a power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
The gospel has great power, but notice was we started out reading Hebrews chapter four verse 12 through 13 the word of God pierces every, Yeah, They may reject, they may accept it, but it reaches every. So yeah, We learn from program. No matter what is going on in our communities, we can still be a shining light. Next,
we can learn from the next congregation in verse 18 Revelation chapter two in verse 18 notice Thyratira we learn we should never reach a point where we level off in our Christianity. Look with verse 18 it says, until the angel of the church in thyre tire, right these things says the son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like fine brass.
I know your works, love service, faith and your patients and as for your works, the last are more than the first. Here again, another congregation like Pergamum, they received commendations starting out, but there was also condemnation but we’re going to look at the commendation. The condemnation was they had a woman that was like Jessebelle. Her name was not bell.
But if we are member Jaz a bell in the old Testament, in the Northern kingdom, the queen of the Northern kingdom, what Eagle, Eagle, evil and wicked thing she was doing. This woman was seducing people to do terrible and moral things and they needed to deal with her and they hadn’t. But he starts out by saying, you are a congregation that you’re worse.
The last are more than the first. Think about when we become a Christian, we have great zeal, don’t we? We have that fire. I’m a Christian. I look what I have found. We have that great zeal and fire this that helps us to be excited and to tell others about our Christianity and the things that we have. W we’ve just learned.
But after a time, a lot of times that fire kind of dwindles down the honeymoon’s over in a sense. And over time our Christianity can level off if we’re not careful. But notice this congregation didn’t, they had a fire that was greater than it was at the beginning. Their works were increasing, increasing in the Lord incur in, in it loves that.
And tells them he he’s glad that they are doing that. When we become a Christian, we have to continue to grow in our desire and love for the Lord. Go to fests. First Thessalonians, First Thessalonians chapter four the Fessel and Aikins were a congregation that were full of love. They were known throughout Macedonia, how their love, their great works,
their faith, and Paul heard of their faith. He had not spent much time with them. But notice what it says in verse nine but concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write to you. For you, yourselves are taught by God to love one another and indeed you do so toward all brethren who are in Macedonia. But we urge you,
brethren, that you increase more and more, that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, to work with your own hands as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside and that you may lack nothing. They had great brotherly love. They had displayed that, but Paul tells them, don’t stop,
don’t level off. Don’t stay right there, but increase your love. Continue to go forward and increase that love. Think about this. Take a look at your life and ask the question. This is a question I should ask myself. Have I increased in my zeal for the Lord since I became a Christian? Have I leveled off? If we have,
we need to make that change to continue to grow and to do more worse and to love the Lord even more. We learn from Thyratira that we should never reach a point where we level off in our Christianity. Now let’s go to chapter three of revelation. We learn another thing. This is the church at Sardis. Now, Sardis has a great rich history,
but read the first part here. It says into the angel of the church in Sardis writes these things. Say he who has seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die for.
I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you received and heard, hold fast and repent. Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. We learned from Sardis that we need to always be ready. Sardis has a really interesting history,
so artists was very arrogant. They thought that they would never be conquered. They were almost, they were pretty much on a mountain. The city was built around with the walls, right on the edges of the cliff, so there was a hole. It was really difficult to try to get into that city and conquer them. They thought they were in there.
Nobody had ever conquered, but Cyrus the Persian King of Persia and five 49 was standing outside this city with his army surrounding it and they were trying to figure out how to get in. One night, one of the soldiers on the wall dropped his helmet over the wall and they watched him come down a goat path to get his helmet and go right back up that night.
They let a band of soldiers right up that path. That was unguarded cause they were not watching and conquered the city. Jesus used head example to tell them, you’re not ready. You’re not watching. You think everything’s fine. You’re not prepared. Just like in their history, they were not prepared. We need to be ready. They were a dying church.
Notice they were not dead yet, but they were close. Their light. Their candlestick was dim, but they could revive themselves. They could come back, but they needed to prepare, be prepared, be ready. Second Peter, chapter three in verse 10 and first Thessalonians five and verse two says the same thing, that he is going to come as a thief in the night just as he says here,
they needed to be ready just like us. We need to be prepared for the Lord to come. We don’t know when he, when he will come back. We need to always be ready in revel. In verse four revelation three says you have a few names even in Sardis who had not defiled their garments and they shall walk with me in white for they are worthy.
There were still a few that followed God there in that congregation and they could help to recharge them, to get them back on track. So we learn we need to always be ready. Next we can learn. Verse seven from the church at Philadelphia, that strength of a congregation is not in its numbers. Look at verse seven and to the angel of the church in Philadelphia,
write these things, says he who is Holy, he who is true. He who has the key of David. He who opens and no one shuts and shuts and no one opens. I know your works. See I have set before you an open door and no one can shut it for you. Have a little strength. Have kept my word and have done not have not denied my name.
Philadelphia was the second congregation. They never received a common, common condemnation. They were living right and they received encouragement. They were a congregation that was little and strength. Notice what it said, they’re a little in strength. They were small in numbers, but yet they were doing great works. How many times a day we hear that we’re just too small.
We just can’t do a lot. Had Jesus commends them for how much they had been doing because they were small in numbers, but that small number had great string. They were doing a lot. Think about what they could do. Notice that the Lord said that I opened a door onto you. Philadelphia was in the borders of other regions and they were kind of the hub of the spreading of Greek culture.
There was an open door to the Greek culture to all these areas around them and yet they could use that opportunity, that open door to spread the gospel, which they did. Did. How many doors are open to us in this congregation? Think about the things that are going on in this pandemic. People are online more. They can see these videos,
we can show them these live streams. We can send them other videos from PTP, other different areas to help encourage them. People are thinking about God. We can use that open door to spread the gospel. Think about Paul and cloth and Sceptre four and Colossians chapter four. Notice in verse two and three it says continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant and all in it with Thanksgiving.
Meanwhile, praying also for us that God will open to us a door for the word to speak, the mystery of Christ for which I am also in chains. Paul is in prison. He is in chains. He is not able to leave yet. He prays that that he can have an open door If you would think that’s an obstacle. I mean if there’s an obstacle in front of us,
Paul had an obstacle Stickle he was in prison. He couldn’t leave yet. He wanted an open door, which he did. He wrote several letters from the prison. We can do the same. We can take and grab a hold of our opportunities that come before us. The last one we’ll notice. Go back to revelation chapter three Not only do we see that the strength of a congregation is not,
it’s an in its numbers, but we need to learn to be careful not to get stuck in a rut. Lay out of see as the last congregation that’s looked at here and look at verse 14 it says into the angel of the church, to the church, to the angel of the church of the layout of CDNs writes these things, say the amen.
The faithful and the true witness is the beginning of the creation of God. I know your works. That’s you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish that you were cold or hot, so then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth because you say I am rich. I become wealthy and have need of nothing and do not and do not know that you are wretched,
miserable, poor, blind and naked. They were a congregation that was blind to what was going on to what their true state was. The city of Laodicea was in a Valley called the likeness Valley. You have higher Opolis on one side and you had Pergamon on the other side and in higher Opolis there was hot water Springs that would feed a river that would go towards later layout of SIA and the water was hot when it left there,
but when it got to lay out to sea, it was lukewarm. Jesus used that example of that Luke warm water to describe them. They were a very rich city. They were probably one of the richest cities and during that time had medicine. They dealt in a lot of medicine, had an eye SAF that they would sell. There was a black wool of the sheep that were in the Valley that they would make expensive garments and sell.
They were comfortable in their wealth. They were comfortable in their state. They didn’t think they needed to do anything. They were stuck in a rut. That’s what lukewarm means to be stuck in a rut. Can a congregation reach a point where they seem like they don’t care to grow? There’s a lot of congregations in the world today that they’re comfortable where they’re at.
Their numbers keep dropping, but they’re comfortable. They say, we don’t need to do any more. We’re fine. We don’t. We don’t need to increase. We don’t need to evangelize. We don’t need to work out in the community at all. That’s where this congregation was at. And Jesus said, I want to spew you out of my mouth because they were lukewarm.
They let their wealth make them feel comfortable that they didn’t need to do anymore. And we can easily get into that rut. And we need to be careful of that. We need to learn from the example of a layout of CDNs to not get stuck in that kind of rut. So this morning we have learned many valuable lessons. There’s so much information in the seven churches of Asia.
I wish we could cover, but we learn one thing, valuable thing from each one of these congregations. We learned that we should not forget our first love, which is Christ, and that we should not just go through these motions, do not just feel like what we need to do these things because we’re obligated to, but have a true love for God and a true love to do his work.
We learned that no matter what happens in this life, physically, we are richer than we can ever imagine spiritually because we’re in Christ, that we’ve learned that through the world though the world around us seems wicked. We can still make a difference by shining our lights throughout the world and throughout our communities. We learned that we should not reach a point where we think we have made it,
but yet we should always continue to grow and to do good works. We learned that we need to make sure that we are ready because we don’t know when the Lord will come. Though our congregation is small here, we can do a lot of great things, can’t we? There’s a lot of open doors for us and then last we learned that we need to make sure we do not get stuck in a rut,
but always continue to grow. It’s interesting how Christ ended each one of these letters. He started each letter by saying, I know VI works, but he ends each letter with this phrase. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. They had a choice. They could listen, they could listen to this letter,
they could hear it and obey it and change what they were doing or they could reject it. The choice was there and the choice is ours. As we read these examples of these congregations, each one of each congregation today can fit somewhere in these seven examples. Are we going to listen? Are we going to learn from what we read? I pray that we do and I pray.
If you are not a Christian that you will think about your salvation, where you’re at. As we read, the Lord will come as a thief in the night. A thief does not tell you. He does not call you before and say, Hey, I’m coming tonight at nine o’clock he comes when you want to expect, when you don’t expect him,
the Lord will come back and we don’t expect and we may die. Something may happen to us and if we’re not ready, we’re not going to be in heaven. Where are you at? Have you made that choice to put on Christ and baptism to be forgiven of your sins? That only happens through following his plan of salvation. To hear the word and to believe it,
to repent, to have true repentance, have a change of mind and a change of action. Acts chapter three in verse 19 to confess that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Romans chapter 10 verse 10 and to be baptized, to have your sins washed away, it’s acts chapter two in verse 38 tells us, have you done that? If not,
don’t put it off. Contact us, contact Erin or Ryan, we will study more with you and we will work with you. Or if you’ve listened this morning and you fit one of these categories that needs to have some changes or pray that you make those changes today. And don’t wait. Thank you for your attention and for your time this morning.<inaudible> Song before our closing prayer will be number 454 rock of ages,
rock of ages. Okay. Rock<inaudible> On me. Nah.<inaudible> Nice. Then the<inaudible> from<inaudible> side, which<inaudible> be a sin. Uh, duh.<inaudible> Cleanse me from<inaudible>. Not<inaudible>. My hands can fulfill the laws.<inaudible><inaudible> no good mind.<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> did not. Oh No ma’am.<inaudible> then<inaudible> Nothing.<inaudible><inaudible> Sam please.<inaudible> No cross<inaudible> Naked the farm<inaudible> a plus to the far gray.
Hey, a lie to a fountain.<inaudible> wash Me.<inaudible> Alright.<inaudible><inaudible> Let us pray. Gracious father in heaven, we come before you at this time. Grateful for the day that you’ve given to us. Grateful for the opportunity that we have to worship you. We pray that our worship is in spirit and in truth. We are mindful of those who have lost loved ones in recent days and we know there are so many that have lost loved ones as a result of the Corona virus and other illnesses.
We pray that you will be with them and give them comfort and may they seek that comfort through your word. So we go through our lives. May we daily strive to put you first, to look for opportunities to serve, to do good to others, to be kind to others, to speak in a way that uplifts and edifies instead of tearing down.
We thank you for the lesson that we have heard this morning lesson concerning how we should live as Christians and operate and function as a church. We pray that we might implement these things to a greater degree and to a better manner in our own daily walks and in the body of Christ here in Collierville. We pray for the church here and we pray for the church throughout the world that it may be a strong light and encouragement and a hard time,
but that it will also be ready to be a strong light in the days to come. We know there are many things that we do not understand and will not fully comprehend for years. The impact of some choices that will be made in the coming days and months in this nation and in others, but we pray that we might always focus on the primary goal and that is reaching heaven and taking as many with us as we can.
Lord, we ask that you forgive us when we sin and fall short of your glory. Help us daily to strive to walk in the light as you were in the light. All this we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
Class begins about 40 minutes into the video.
<inaudible> one, two. Testing. One, two. Testing. One, two. Good evening. Can you hear me?
Yep, we got it. All right. Good evening. Welcome to the live stream or of our Bible class at the Collierville church of Christ.
We are glad that you can be with us tonight online. And, uh, we were going to start out this evening.
We’ll have a song opening prayer and then we’ll have class and then a closing song. If you have any announcements,
any prayer requests, please send a text to Aaron or I or Tommy and, uh, we will get it on our,
at the end of the livestream this evening. We will start singing our first song, the night be let the lower lights be burning.
Let the lower lights be burning. Yeah. Bradley AB father’s mercy. See for ’em is<inaudible>, but to a<inaudible><inaudible> uh,<inaudible><inaudible> sin a cross.<inaudible><inaudible> yeah,
man.<inaudible><inaudible> the a bang.<inaudible><inaudible> for the lights. Uh, um, uh,<inaudible> uh,
uh,<inaudible><inaudible> Cindy<inaudible> cross.<inaudible><inaudible> you man, harass you.<inaudible><inaudible> I see.<inaudible> the,
so pause.<inaudible> yeah.<inaudible> sure. Uh,<inaudible> uh,<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> Cindy<inaudible> a cross<inaudible> so<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> let us pray our father in heaven,
we are thankful for you and your blessings and your love that you can care you have for us. We were reminded each day of how you watch over us and you protect us and take care of us.
We are thankful for the opportunity to come to you in prayer with the things that are on our minds.
Be with those that are struggling with illness at this time that are stuck at home because of this virus and be with them,
comfort them and pray that we can be an encouragement to you. We are thankful that we can still do what we are doing with our live stream,
with the technology that we have today and we are thankful that we can still study your word even though we are far away from each other.
We pray that you be with those that are dealing with a loss of loved ones, be with the Cooper family and comfort them and pray that you watch over them through this hard time.
Thank you so much for what Christ has done and his sacrifice and his love and care for us to come to this earth and to die and to be on the cross where we should have been.
We pray that we strive each day to shine our lights throughout the world, especially during a time where people are more focused on spiritual things,
that we can be that shining light to them. We pray that you continue to be with us as we go through our study here this evening.
As you, we do pray. Amen.<inaudible> I was joking with Tommy and Eric earlier as to whether or not I should have my iPad up here that had a clock on it so I’d know what time it was when I went 50 minutes.
And uh, they, they both indicated I should actually, uh, just allow them to ring the bell.
Uh, and so we’ll see if you hear a bell ring and you, you’ll know they decided I went too long.
We are in first Kings chapter 19. In our studies this evening as we continue with our series of studies on the life of aligned ship,
uh, uh, Elijah’s life and, and the record of his life as is found here in first Kings,
uh, beginning in chapter 17. As he comes on the scene, chapter 18, you have the confrontation between him and the 450 prophets of bale.
You find the, the rain returns to the land of, um, the Northern kingdom of Israel. After three years where it hasn’t rained,
there’s been no Dew on the ground. The economy’s destroyed the, uh, the, the plant life and,
and the harvest and, and the agriculture is destroyed. People have died. I mean, all of this is in desolation.
And then you have the confrontation on the top of Mount Carmel. God establishes with clarity that he is the Lord,
that he alone is the Lord. That bale has no power whatsoever, that the profits of bail are completely fault and they will die at the end of,
uh, the encounter with Alijah. The people and Alijah will put them to death. And we noticed that,
that it was in complete accordance with the law of Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 13 tells us that one who seeks to draw Israel away from the Lord,
one who makes a prophecy and that prophecy doesn’t come to pass, one who claims to represent another God and it’s not Jehovah.
That individual was to be put to death. And so the enactment of the execution of these individuals was in accordance with the law,
whether or not the King was willing to go along with it or not. Now it’s interesting to know that Ahab’s present and he doesn’t stop it,
but I don’t think he would have succeeded in stopping it had he tried then, uh, when the confrontation is over,
Elijah tells a Hab. Do you hear the sound? The sound of the rain? And he tells a house to go and to go home and he will,
Elijah will go up to Mount Carmel and he will pray for, and each time that he prays, he’ll send his servant to go look out into over the ocean and sea or the over the sea divine out.
Whether or not there are any clouds. First time, nothing. Second time, nothing. Third time,
fourth time, fifth time, six times, nothing. Seventh time the servant comes back and says, I see a small plowed or rising out of the sea.
That’s when Alijah sends his servant to go tell a Hab. You better get home now because the rain is coming.
And then Elijah through the power of the Lord will arrive at Jezreel before a Hab will, even though Ahab will be on a chariot and Elijah will be on foot.
That’s where we pick up in chapter 19 in chapter 19 we find the prophet who scaled the mountain of mountain Carmel will be decimated into the Valley of despair and we’ll confront God at Mount Sinai.
And there are some incredibly powerful lessons to be found here in first Kings chapter 19 but there are also many things that are misinterpreted and and miss taught from these verses.
So we’ll try and cover some of those as we go along. Chapter 19 verse one and Ahab told Jezebel all that aligned you had done also how he had executed the prophets with the sword.
Then Jessebelle sent a messenger to align. Just saying, so let the gods do to me. And more.
Also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time,
Ahab comes home and he tells Jezza bell. Um, you know, those 450 prophets of bale that came probably came with you from,
from uh, uh, Sidon from your father. Uh, those profits that, that came to, to Israel,
um, they’re all dead now. How did they die? A logic killed them. And so jazzy Bell’s response being the,
the thoughtful and, and con, uh, you know, very self conscious person that she was decided to send a messenger to Elijah saying you’re dying before the day’s out.
But just like her prophet whose prophecies were wrong, so was hers and her Val that she made before her God was as good as the profits statements that came from bail.
And that is, it wasn’t kept either. Elijah though will flee. Verse three, we read. And when he saw that he arose and ran for his life and went to bear Sheba,
which belongs to Judah and left his servant there. So Elijah leaves Jezreel, he goes across the border into the Southern kingdom of Israel,
the Southern kingdom of Judah, and arrives at, um, bear Sheba and then leaves his servant, the one who he sent to Ahab to tell him to go home.
The one who he sent to look out at the sea, the servant who’s been with him all this time,
he leaves him at that place. Um, some have questioned, and I think it’s because perhaps Josephus who,
who suggests that this servant is actually the son of the widow, uh, from chapter 18. Um,
or do you mean chapter 17? Uh, I don’t know that there’s any evidence to suggest that one way or another,
it’s simply just simply stated that Elijah has a servant. And so he leaves his servant behind there in Judah and continues on himself.
He goes, another day’s journey, verse four into the wilderness and came and sat down under a Juniper tree and he prayed that he might die and said,
it is enough now, Lord, take my life, or I am no better than my fathers. Alijah has just confronted 450 prophets of bale.
He has just confronted a how and now because of the animosity and the threat of one woman, Elijah has fled the land and sat down under a tree and asked God to take his life.
Now we find two other occasions, uh, that I know of for certain where prophets ask God to be done with them,
uh, to, to, to take their lives. One of them comes in the book of numbers.
Uh, if my memory serves me correctly, it’s numbers. Chapter 11, where Moses has, has just had it up to here with Israel and with their complaining and with their constant lust and desire for more and not being satisfied with what God has given them.
And they’re just growing this towards God and towards Moses. And he finally says, God, will you just kill me?
The second one is Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 20 verses 14 through 18 in that passage where Jeremiah talks about his desire to to stop prophesizing because the Lord is mighty and the Lord is awesome and the Lord is going to do all of this.
But in the meantime, Elijah is receiving such scorn and receiving such mistreatment at the hand of Israel. No one believes in which by the way,
the Lord told him at the beginning, no one would, but no one believes him in all of this.
He’s going through. He just said, God, could you just just kill me? The three things that you see that connect these three different profits and this expression that comes from them is frustration,
frustration and discouragement at the inability of the person, the mouthpiece, the prophet, to change the hearts and minds of the people.
And one of the things that you and I have to think about and you and I have to deal with on a regular basis,
is what do we do? How do we react when people don’t believe what God’s word says? Okay,
what is our reaction? What is our response? When we tell people and tell people and tell people and tell people and tell people and they simply won’t obey.
They won’t look at God’s word. They won’t change their life. They won’t return to him. They won’t repent and stop living in sin.
All of this is the real problem in Elijah’s mindset. Elijah’s running from his life, from the threat of Jezza rebel,
but aligned, just not falling down under the tree in despair because of the threat of jazz rebel and Elijah doesn’t really want to die.
If Elijah had wanted to die, he could have stayed there with jazz rebel and Jessebelle would have taken care of that for him.
She’d have been more than happy to remove his head from his shoulders. The problem isn’t Jesse Bell and the problem isn’t that he really wants to die.
The problem is discouragement. The problem is that Elijah, his focus has gotten into the wrong place and you and I,
as we go through our lives, we have to be careful that we don’t begin to put the focus in the wrong place aligned.
GIA just had one of the most victorious circumstances of his entire prophetic life and his despair comes when it didn’t turn out the way he thought it would.
Now we don’t have recorded here exactly what Elijah, his perspective was on how he fought this confrontation with the prophets of bale and and it wrote,
remember he also sent for the profits of Ashraf though they didn’t come. He there. There’s no indication of a clear indication of what he thought would happen as a result,
but he did confront the people and say, it’s time for you to choose. It’s time for you to decide if you’re going to worship bail or if you’re going to worship Jehovah.
That’s what the whole confrontation was about. Not the profits but the people, but now you find the influence of the leadership of the people specifically Jezza Bella Ahab is enough to turn back the tide against the people’s decision.
It is very hard to convince a multitude of people to repent when their leaders won’t. One of the things that you see over in the book of Jonah is when Jonah is sent to Nineveh,
it’s very interesting to point out and to notice that Jonah goes into the city of Nineveh and even though he’s reluctant to go,
he doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want them to be saved. He goes in and he preaches the message that if in eight days they don’t repent,
they’ll be destroyed. And we read that their repentance was from the least all the way up to the greatest of them,
the entire spectrum of the people from greatest to least and everywhere in between, repented but not so in Israel.
A Hab witnessed the confrontation between the prophets of bale and Alijah and a halves perspective on Elijah has still not changed.
Hey, how has conf has seen this confrontation between the Lord and between bale and the Lord has proven that he is God and yet a Hab still tells Jesse Bell and still allows Jezza to threaten Elijah’s life.
The discouragement comes when we think we’re going to have success and then we don’t. But part of the problem is that definition of success and that’s where God is going to set a Lija correct.
Uh, straight. He is going to set Alijah straight on the definition of success. So Elijah says,
just kill me now. Uh, allow me to die, take my life or I am no better than my fathers.
Somewhere in aligned to his mind, he has a standard, he has a standard to compare himself to.
Um, maybe this is the standard of success that Elijah’s looking for. Maybe this is the indication that we have because Elijah’s saying all the prophets who came before me didn’t turn Israel around and I thought I was going to be different.
I fought, they were going to listen to me. I fought that the nation was going to repent and I’m no better than my fathers.
So I have what value am I? Okay. So perhaps that is what he is saying here. Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree,
suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, arise and eat. Then he looked and there by his head was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water.
So he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came the second time and touched him and said,
arise and eat because the journey is too great for you. One of the factors that comes into discouragement is often exhaustion.
When you are exhausted, you don’t think straight. When you are exhausted, you begin to think about things differently than when you’re rested.
And the fact that Elijah wakes up is a woken by an angel eats and then goes back to sleep is a woken again,
eats it is an indication he is exhausted from fleeing the Northern kingdom of Israel. And from all of the events that have transpired,
uh, how long has it been since he ran from Mount Carmel all the way to Jezreel? We have no idea of,
but probably not very long. So all of this is taking place and Alijah is depleted by way of his,
his health, his resources, his energy, and, and now he’s still going, uh, or he’s about to be.
So the angel wakes him up and says, the journey is long and it is too great for you.
So he arose and ate and drank, and he went in the strength of that food, 40 days and 40 nights.
As far as Horeb, the mountain of God, Elijah leaves the Northern kingdom of Israel and he doesn’t go to Jerusalem.
He doesn’t go to the temple. He bypasses Judah completely and goes to Mount Sinai. Did God tell him to go there?
We don’t read that he did specifically, but the angel knows where he’s going. The angel knows where he’s headed and the angel says,
you’re not getting there on your resources. You’re not getting there on what you have prepared. You need more.
And so God provides for Elijah and Elijah goes in the strength 40 days, 40 nights as he goes to Horeb or Mount Sinai,
the mountain of God. And there he went into a cave and spent the night in that place. And behold,
the word of the Lord came to him and he, that is the Lord said to him, Elijah,
what are you doing here Elijah? Sometimes when we begin to attempt to escape our problems, we’re confronted with someone.
In this case, it’s the Lord with Alijah saying, what are you doing here? Why are you fleeing Elijah?
Why are you running away? The Northern kingdom of Israel is waiting on you. My people are up there.
You have just had this victorious event over the profits of bale. Elijah. What are you doing here?
But this is also for Elijah was sake. Not just because you know. Maybe the Lord doesn’t know why he’s there.
No, the Lord knows God wants a Lija to know why he’s there. What are you doing here,
Elijah and Elijah’s response and it’s interesting. We’re going to read this response twice verbatim word for word. Elijah’s fought through this.
Elijah knows why he’s there. Elijah knows why he’s, I mean you think about this. He’s been traveling for 40 plus days.
He left the land of Israel that day and he has stopped only to sleep and to eat and he’s come all the way to Mount Sinai.
He knows. He’s thought through. He’s all of this travel time to think about why isn’t he where he’s supposed to be?
You know kids do that right there. They’re not where they’re supposed to be and you go, child,
why are you here? And you see the wheels and their minds start turning is they conjure up an answer or they immediately respond with an answer,
which is when you know they’ve fought through why they’re where they’re not supposed to be you. They’ve actually given some thought to this.
All right, what’s my answer going to be when that asks why I’m here? Because here is not where I was told to be.
God told Elijah to go to Ahab. God said it’s time for the rain to come back. God told Elijah that it was time to confront the province of bale.
God didn’t tell Alijah to flee and so God wants a lie. Just explanation for why Elijah is at Mount Sinai.
So he said, verse 10 I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant,
torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone them left and they seek to take my life in the midst of discouragement,
in the midst of despair, we often internalize and look at ourselves and focus on ourselves and lose perspective on reality.
Now, had Elijah been zealous for the Lord? Yes, he had had Israel torn down the altars of God.
Yes, they had had Israel killed the prophets of the Lord. Yes, they had all of the facts in that part of the statement were true,
but the conclusion that Elijah had come to because of those facts was blatantly false, but Elijah was only looking at Elijah.
Were there those in Israel’s seeking to take his life? Yes, there were, but was he the only one left and did Elijah?
No, he wasn’t the only one left. Some might think, and some might even say without stepping back and thinking about it,
well, Elijah has just come to the conclusion he’s the only one faithful Lord. No, this isn’t even true and Elijah knows it.
How do I know that? Turn back. Chapter 18 chapter 18 Alijah meets up with Obadiah, Obadiah the one who has hidden a hundred of the profits of,
of, of the Lord to save them from Jessebelle. He meets up with Obadiah and tells Obadiah, go tell,
Hey, have to meet me. Oh, but I have reveals to him and and apparently believes him to have already known that Obadiah saved the a hundred prophets of the Lord and that Obadiah is fear of the Lord from his youth.
If Obadiah is faithful and you have to assume the servant of aligners is faithful to then we know the statement from Alijah is an overstatement of the reality that Alijah knows to be true.
But when someone is in despair and when someone is, is discouraged, an overstatement of the truth is often what you’ll get because they feel like they’re the only ones.
They feel like I’m the only one doing anything. I’m the only one saving anybody. I’m the only one teaching anybody.
We’ve never heard a preacher say anything like that at a congregation. Have we? I’m the only one.
Rarely true. We need to be thinking about ourselves in view of God. And heres where God is going to confront Elijah.
Then he that is the Lord said, go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And behold the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord.
But the Lord was not in the wind, but after the wind and earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake.
Uh, and after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. No where we get to where the Lord was.
What are the shared elements of these things? Shared elements. These are powerful. I mean, you’ve got,
you’ve got a wind that’s breaking rocks in pieces. This is, this is not, this is not,
you know, your casual nice summer breeze coming off the ocean. This is a wind that’s shattering the rocks and the mountains.
And if that wind was an impactful and dramatic and powerful enough, then you’ve got the, uh, the earthquake that comes.
And if the earthquake wasn’t enough, you’ve got fire that comes. But God’s not in the dramatic nor the powerful forces that are exhibited here.
Now, this is not to say God doesn’t use dramatic events, or God doesn’t do dramatic things, or God doesn’t show his power,
his greatness, his might go back to the plagues. Go back to the confrontation on Mount Carmel. All of these things are extremely powerful exhibits of God’s presence,
but God’s focusing on the profit. Now God’s teaching the profit, not the people. And the prophet needs to learn something important.
So then we read the remainder, uh, verse, well then after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire and after the fire,
a still small voice. So it was when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave.
Suddenly a voice came to him and said, what are you doing here, Elijah? After all the powerful exhibit of God’s power,
majesty mite, and all of them, the presence of the Lord is not there. Yeah. Finally,
the presence of the Lord exhibited not with great power, not with great mind, but in a quiet voice.
This is not to imply, and this is not to proclaim it because this is the only time this occurs,
this way that we should be expecting to hear God in a still small voice or that anyone who claims they heard God in a still small voice actually did that.
That’s not what we’re supposed to learn here.<inaudible> God’s making a point about profits. God’s making a point about his influence and the way he works because all throughout Israel’s history there have been dramatic events and there’s been dramatic turns of events and there’s been dramatic things and none of those dramatic things have caused Israel to be faithful.
They crossed over the red sea and there was great rejoicing and not long after that they were complaining. They were saying,
you brought us into the wilderness to kill us and then God would provide them food from heaven and not later.
Not long after that, they’d be complaining that God brought them in the wilderness to kill them because they were tired of the dry bread.
And then God would provide water from a rock miraculously. Here’s water enough to to, to, to provide water for millions of people and all of their cattle.
And not long later they’re complaining again. The dramatic and powerful events that Israel would see would never turn their hearts to God.
But the quiet teaching and instruction of a prophet would now with Israel always repent. No often Israel would reject to the prophet,
but the message always conveyed God’s presence and fulfilled God’s purpose. You see, Elijah was successful when Alijah trusted the Lord and spoke his word Alijah was not successful when Alijah decided what the results of that were supposed to be.
That’s when Elijah became discouraged, when the results he wanted weren’t the results he got. So then notice what we read.
God again, says, what are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts because the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant,
torn down the uh, your altars killed and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left and they seek to take my life.
Then the Lord said to him, go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus and when you arrive annoying hazy L as King over Syria,
you notice there’s no dialogue back and forth between the Lord about Elijah’s perspective. None at all. God sets Alijah straight by telling Elijah,
get back to work. Your problem, okay is that you are focused on you, so I’m going to give you something to do.
I remind myself so many times of my self and my brothers growing up. Invariably we’d be home and this would happen a lot during the summer because we weren’t doing school.
We would come to mom and be like, Hey, we’re bored, so pitiful. We’re bored. Can we do this?
Can we watch TV? Can we, can we, we’re bored. Mom’s response was always 100% of the time.
If you’re bored, I can find something for you to do. Suddenly, we weren’t bored anymore. We could find something to do that didn’t involve chores and so we would go about our business.
But the problem was we had lost perspective. See, all the things that we chose to do after that moment in time were available to us to begin with.
All of those things were things we could have been doing, but we were too focused on us to see the opportunities to see the things that needed to be done.
God redirects Elijah’s focus back to work, back to Elijah’s purpose, because Alijah needed to remember that his job wasn’t determining success.
His job was doing the work, and that’s where you and I have to be. That’s where you and I have to get to in our hearts and minds in our Christian lives,
is determining our job is not to be the judges of success or failure. Our job is to be doing the work.
Okay, so then God says you go and on your way back. He doesn’t argue with Elijah that there’s somebody trying to kill him.
He doesn’t argue with Elijah that he might die. None of that’s under discussion. He just says you’re going back and on your way,
you’re going to Damascus. And by the way, this is going to set up our dis, our discussion of chapter 20 when he says go to go your way to the wilderness of Damascus.
And when you arrive, anoint hazy L as King over Syria. Also you shall anoint J Hugh, the son of Nimkee as King over Israel and Alicia,
this unashamed font of Abel may uh, may Hola as you shall you shall anoint as prophet in your place.
It shall be that whoever escapes the sort of hazy L J who with kit will kill and whoever escapes the sort of Jay who Elijah will kill.
Yet I ever reserved 7,000 in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to bale and every mouth that has not kissed him.
God says Elijah, you go and anoint the next King in Syria and then you go and anoint the next King in Israel.
By the way, just a reminder here from the Lord, he is not the Lord of one nation.
He is not the God of Israel. He is Jehovah. He is sovereign. When Jesus stands before pilot and says,
pilot, you could have no power except that we’re given you from above is the same point here. God says there’s a new King in Syria.
Go anoint him. Uh, just as it would be with David. When Samuel anoints David, it would be years before he ever comes to the throne,
but that didn’t matter. God said there’s the next King, because God is sovereign, not just in Israel,
but in Syria and every other nation as well. And God’s profits are sovereign in those nations. So God sends Elijah to go to Damascus and anoint the next King.
God sends Elijah to go annoys the next King of Israel. And God CEDS says to Elijah, you need help.
And so he sends him to Alicia. Uh, but he also reminds them, by the way, your statement was an overstatement.
I have 7,000 in Israel who haven’t bowed the knee to bail. I know who belongs to me. So then verse 19 so he departed from there and found a light of the sun or shade fat.
Who was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen before him and he was with the 12th then Elijah passed by and through his mantle on him and he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said,
please let me kiss my father and my mother and then I will follow you. And he said to him,
go back again for what have I done to you? So Elijah turned back from him and took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them and boiled their flesh using the oxens equipment and gave it to the people and they ate.
Then he arose and followed Elijah and became his servant. Elijah. The next prophet will be essentially told in in a similar way as what Jesus came to his disciples and said,
come follow me. Elijah will do it with his mantel. He will take his mantle and he will put it on Alicia.
As Elijah’s plowing the field, and Alicia knows what it means, it means I just became somebody disciple.
I just became a disciple of Elijah. I just became someone who walks in the steps of, follows them day in and day out and learns their ways.
Moses had Joshua. Jesus had the 12. Elijah had Alicia, okay. And it would seem as though part of the largest problem was he needed a companion who could endure the hard times with him.
You might remember that Paul always took someone else with him. There are a few times where Paul was alone,
but almost always, Paul has surrounded himself with helpers and Elijah needs the same thing. So they will depart.
And after Alicia makes this offering and provides for the people, he will become the servant of Elijah. Okay,
let’s go through the questions and then we’ll close. Uh, when Jezza bell threatened to kill Elijah for slaying the 450 prophets of bale,
what did Aligna do? Okay. Of course, he fled the land. He ran for his life.
Why did Elijah beg gone to let him die? The specific quotation is, I am not better than my fathers.
Question number three, when Elijah was standing on Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai, God appeared to him in a great strong wind,
be an earthquake. See a gentle whisper, whisper or D a fire. The answer is C. Number four.
Elijah told God that he alone be he his servant. See he has and his family, or D only the tribe of GAD had not forsaken God’s covenant.
According to verse 14 he alone had not forsaken God’s covenant. Number five, God a let Elijah die as he wished or B gave Elijah work to do.
He gave a Lija work to do. B, question number six who in Israel did God tell Elijah that he would not destroy?
The answer is 7,000 who he had reserved, who had not bowed to bail. Number seven, what was Alijah doing or excuse me,
what was the light show doing when Elijah went to him? He was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen.
What did Alicia want to do before following Alijah? The answer is kiss his father and his mother. By the way,
there’s no indication that he did go back to his father’s house. Instead, he took and sacrificed the oxen and followed Elijah,
and you may remember a time when Jesus was spoken to by an individual who said, let me be your disciple.
And Jesus said, you may. But he said, let me first go and bury my father. And Jesus said,
you can’t turn back. Once you begin this walk of discipleship, you can’t turn back and Elijah is going to learn the same lesson.
And Alicia, unlike the individual in the book of Luke, is going to make the right choice. All right,
we’re going to be, uh, we’re going to have a closing song and then a closing prayer. Again,
a reminder, if you have any announcements that need to be made, uh, go ahead and send those to me.
I do know, um, if he’s, if he’s still, um, struggling through it, but,
uh, uh, Beverly’s father is not doing well and they don’t expect him to live much longer if he’s even made it this long as of when I talked to her last night.
So, uh, keep Beverly pricing your prayers and the entire family as they go through this. It’s,
it’s very hard. Of course they can’t be there. They were able to go in and see him,
uh, one last time, but uh, keep Beverly and her family in your prayers.<inaudible> we will close with our last song and then Aaron will lead us in closing.
Prayer ought to be like the, Oh, it’s been like<inaudible> uh, this is<inaudible> gladly, uh,
for, uh, all of us. She is a fan.<inaudible><inaudible> Oh, to me<inaudible> read.
Uh,<inaudible> a man. A swing. A scar man.<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> Oh, to me<inaudible> loving<inaudible><inaudible> uh,
being uh, uh, uh,<inaudible><inaudible> uh huh. Oh, you mean like the to me like the lesson read?
Uh, yeah. Oh man. I sweet. Uh, scar man.<inaudible><inaudible> deep. Ah,<inaudible> Oh,
to me.<inaudible> me now to receive a no, any, Oh, that I am and have,
I am<inaudible><inaudible> ah, ah, Shami. Oh. To me, I, the odd to me,
uh, like the<inaudible> uh, beer as<inaudible>. I’m in a suite, a scum and I fall on a us stabbed.
I know.<inaudible> deep on my<inaudible> let us pray. Our gracious father in heaven, we bow before you at this time,
grateful for the day that you’ve given to us and the life that we have been granted. Mindful of those who are struggling because of sorrow,
lost, loved ones and difficulties in life. We know that so many of us at times will go through despair like Elijah went through.
We pray that we will be mindful of the lessons of Elijah and the lessons many other times in scripture to remember to hold on to you,
to always serve you and to never give up. Help us to take each day the way that it comes to do good to those who are around us.
Provide for those who were in need and serve you faithfully in spirit and in truth. May we always worship and praise you acceptably and will you always please forgive us when we sin and fall short of your glory.
Allow us to be granted your continued grace and mercy. Give us your peace that we might when this life is over,
have that hope that you have promised to all those who love your appearing. Lord, we pray that you’d be with those who are struggling in foreign mission fields and in many other places throughout the world.
Pray that you watch over them as well. And all this. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.<inaudible>.
Speaker: Michael Dale
Song Leader: Eric Richardson
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
<inaudible>. Good morning. We want to welcome you to our Collierville, the Chuck Colleyville church of Christ live stream this morning.
We are glad you can be with us. We have a few here this morning, so that’s great.
We are slowly getting back together. Um, but if you’re at home, we are praying for you and pray that you stay safe.
One as a for announcements this morning. We need to remember Ruby. Brad, she’s at home and uh,
we pray that continue that she can get, stay getting better. Joan Springer has got pneumonia. Uh,
we need to remember Marvin man, this is Beverly’s dad. He is dealing with pneumonia and is now at home on hospice care.
So we need to remember him and our prayers. Uh, Delisa his dad, Paul Montgomery, he has been recovering from surgery on his injury and his ankle and knee,
but it hurts this morning that he’s going to be coming home today. So that’s good news. So continue to remember him.
Uh, Tina Lance, she’s a nurse and wife of the preacher in Chalmette, Louisiana. She is recovering from the Corona virus and so is Russell client and his wife Tracy.
If you have any more announcements, go ahead and text Aaron or I and we will announce them at the end of our service this morning.
To start out with, we will sing number five seven eight<inaudible> number 578. We’ll have our opening prayer after this and then we’ll have,
uh, Aaron will lead us. So the Lord’s supper and Michael will preach this morning and we’re five,
seven, eight. We will go all rough. Uh, King of Kings. We will car, uh,
uh,<inaudible>. We welcome our a five<inaudible> who is a great<inaudible><inaudible> and majesty. We well<inaudible> um,
we were amp and or a just us. We were worship him.<inaudible> he has on a uh,<inaudible>.
He is on a<inaudible>. He is on a, uh, uh, you know, I have a S a brace dude.
We<inaudible> uh,<inaudible> uh, King of Kings, uh,<inaudible>, uh, uh,<inaudible><inaudible> who is a great uh huh.
Let us pray. A father in heaven, great and powerful is your name. We are thankful for you and how you bless us each day.
We are thankful for your care and your love and concern for us through this time we were reminded of reminded of your love for us and your care for us.
We pray as we go throughout our lives that we will strive to glorify you and all that. We do pray that you’ll be with us as we go through our worship this morning.
Pray that we will worship you in spirit and in truth. We are thankful for all that you do for us each day and we’re thankful for the opportunity that we can come to you in prayer.
We pray that you be with those that are on our than our minds with Ruby, Brad, Joan and Marvin as he is dealing with pneumonia and at home with on hospice.
We pray that you’d be with Paul Montgomery and pray that we’re glad to hear that he’s coming home today and pray that you continue to be with him as he recovers.
Be with Tina and Russell and Tracy as they’re recovering from the Corona virus and many others that are dealing with this virus and pray that a,
they will be able to get better soon. We pray that you watch over our country and our leaders as they make decisions and pray that they make wise decisions and look to you for guidance.
Thank you so much for all you bless us with and GSM new pray. Amen. To prepare our minds for the Lord’s supper,
we’ll see. Number 361 three 61 nailed to the cross. There was one who was willing to, ah,
that, that<inaudible> the mind and, uh, uh, to the cross.<inaudible><inaudible> all the ans,
um, uh, four<inaudible><inaudible> doc Ross<inaudible><inaudible>. Uh, she was with and<inaudible> uh,<inaudible><inaudible> jeez.<inaudible><inaudible> money<inaudible> and with him<inaudible> he is and<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> who?
A colleague<inaudible> my, uh, uh, it’s, Hmm. Uh, there’s okay. Uh,<inaudible> I know.
Mmm. Yeah. Free form.<inaudible> Mmm. Eh, to the<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> Oh,
a G U a well and<inaudible> uh, boy<inaudible> uh, jeez, uh, GRA us buddy<inaudible> nice.
And with him.<inaudible> aye. Going to my same, uh,<inaudible> I will<inaudible> for the<inaudible><inaudible> with the um,
uh,<inaudible> uh, uh, yeah. In my heart and my eyes and uh, and eh.<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> Oh,
wow. A judge. He was willing, uh, well<inaudible> uh, jeez.<inaudible> buddy<inaudible> and with him,
uh,<inaudible> as we prepare our minds for the Lord supper, take your Bibles if you will, and open them to first Corinthians chapter 11.<inaudible> as Paul is writing concerning the Lord’s supper and concerning the assembly of the saints in Corinth,
he says in first Corinthians chapter 11, beginning in verse 23 for I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you,
that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed took bread. And when he had given things,
he broke it and said, take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you.
Do this in remembrance of me in the same manner. He also took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup,
you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Let us pray. Our gracious father in heaven, we bow before you grateful for the opportunity that we have to have the salvation that is offered through the death and the sacrifice of your son.
We thank you for the sacrifice that was made for us that paid a debt we could never pay that bore the sins of many on the cross.
We’re mindful at this time of that body that was broken for us and we pray that as we partake of this emblem we do so in a way that is acceptable to you with a heart and with a mind that has considered these things and remembers Christ and that sacrifice that was made.
All this we pray in Jesus name. Amen.<inaudible> let us pray. Gracious father in heaven. We come before your throne.
Again, mindful of the occasion in the upper room where Christ with his disciples established and instituted the Lord’s supper,
remembering his command to continue on a weekly basis to remember what he has done for us and what he would do in going to the cross.
We know the value of the blood of Christ because it is the only thing that could purchase our redemption and could purchase the church,
the assembly, the body of Christ. We pray that as we partake of this emblem of that blood that we will do as we have been commanded.
And remember as we ought, we pray that all this is done in accordance with your will in Jesus name.
Amen.<inaudible> at this time, we also remember that we have been commanded to lay by in store to give as we have been prospered.
And we encourage each and every one to do that. Uh, remind you that there are opportunities to do that by dropping that contribution off here at the building or giving online.
Let me take a moment and remind us that we give in many ways, we give monetarily as we’ve been commanded,
but we also give in service and in helping others and doing good to others. We give of our time.
We give of our heart. We give of our life. Encourage you in this time where many of us are separated from those whom we love.
Okay. To not only give as we have been commanded on the first day of the week, but to remember day in and day out that it is more blessing to give than to receive and to look for opportunities to give to others,
to help others, and to contribute to uh, that and, and individuals around us in our daily lives.
There will be many in the coming days and months and years who will be effected on a longterm basis by the things that the world is undergoing right now.
And we need to be mindful of that and help where we can. Having said that, take a moment if you will,
and turn to second Corinthians chapter eight. Second Corinthians chapter eight in verse one we read. Moreover, brethren,
we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia that in a great trial of affliction,
the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in riches of their liberality. For I bear witness that according to their ability,
yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we should receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints.
And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us by the will of God.
So we urge Titus that as he had begun, so he would also complete this grace in you as well.
But as you abound in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love for us,
see that you abound in this grace also let us pray for the offering. Our gracious father in heaven.
We have been granted and given so much in this life, but we remind ourselves and we remember that we are stewards of what belongs to you.
We pray that we will be mindful of the stewardship that we have, that we will be mindful of those around us,
and that we will be mindful of our brethren. We will be mindful of the needs of the church and the needs of spreading the gospel.
That we will look for opportunities throughout our lives and throughout our days to do good. But we pray that that which is given back as you have commanded,
is done in a willing heart and with a cheerful heart and in accordance with your will. This we pray in Jesus name.
Amen. Before the lesson, we’ll sing number 300. I think it’s 300 or 679, 679 TIS so sweet to trust in Jesus.
Six, seven, nine. Yes.<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> on his ass, bro.<inaudible> uh, uh,
I said, uh, jeez. Uh, she’s, uh, uh, watch Ross and<inaudible>. Oh,
man. Uh, jeez. Uh, jeez. Uh, yeah, she’s a us. Oh, fuck res.<inaudible> uh,
Oh.<inaudible> jeez. Uh, yes, trust.<inaudible> uh,<inaudible><inaudible> me, Nate, uh,<inaudible> uh,
jeez, uh,<inaudible> uh,<inaudible> and, uh, jeez, uh, jeez. Uh,<inaudible> yeah.
A us. Oh fuck Ray, which us and I am so glad to see<inaudible> had a, I know that a walk with me,
we’re hoping and jeez, uh, shit, uh, uh, trust and uh,<inaudible> and uh,
jeez, uh, geez, geez gray or a dam.<inaudible> and we’ll have a sermon by Michael<inaudible>.
Good morning everybody sermon this morning will be on the process of prayer taken from Nehemiah chapter one. Let’s read Nehemiah chapter one verses one through 11.
Yeah. The words of Nehemiah, the son of hack Aliah. It came to pass in the month of Chis live in the 20th century.
20th year as I was in Shushan, the Citadel that Hannah and I, one of my brother and came with me from Judah and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped,
who had survived the captivity and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, the survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach.
The wall of Jerusalem has also broken down and its Gates are burned with fire. So it was when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned for many days.
I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven and I said, I pray Lord God of heaven.
Oh great and awesome God. You who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments.
Please let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, that you may hear the prayer of your servant,
which I pray before you. Now day and night for the children of Israel, your servants and confess the sins of the children of Israel,
which we have sinned against you. Both my father’s house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments,
the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses. Remember I prayed the word, the word that you commanded your servant Moses saying,
if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you were returned to me and keep my commandments and do them,
though, some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for my name.
Now, these are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.
Oh Lord, I pray. Please let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who desire to fear your name and let your servant prosper.
This day I pray and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. People often ask, how are we supposed to pray?
I remember when I was teaching my son how to pray. He asked me, how do we do this?
And I said, let’s just begin by talking to God. Tell him what’s on your heart. Although prayer can be that simple,
we know that there’s actually more to it and first Timothy chapter two verses one through four Paul tells us that there are different kinds of prayer.
First Timothy chapter two verses one through four. Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and giving of things be made for all men, for Kings and all who are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God,
our savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. The goal of every Christian then should be to learn how to pray in a manner that is acceptable to God.
Jesus, his disciples showed us this and Luke chapter 11 and verse one read with me, Luke chapter 11 and verse one now it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place when he,
when he ceased that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray. As John also taught his disciples,
not only did Jesus, his disciples asked that we’re supposed to know how to pray, but we can also see through this passage that even John’s disciples were asking how to pray.
Jesus gives them the model prayer and the continuing verses verses two through four of Luke chapter 11 so he said to them,
when you pray, say our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us day by day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us and do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.
Jesus didn’t tell them to say this specific prayer, but he gave them a formula of how to pray like Jesus.
I think that Nehemiah gives us a great example of how we’re supposed to pray. Nehemiah went through a process of prayer that has great application in our prayer life.
As Christians today we are to show concern about the problem that is at hand. We are to have a conviction about God’s character.
We are to have a confession of sins, con, a confidence in God’s promises and we are supposed to ask God for a commitment to get involved.
First, let’s talk about concern about this problem we need to show a concern for our brother in Nehemiah shows a concern by demanding answers about his fellow Jews in Jerusalem.
Nehemiah chapter one and verse two, Nehemiah one two that that Hannah and I, one of my brother and came with me with men from Judah and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped,
who had survived the captivity and concerning Jerusalem, he was doing what the exiles were instructed to do. And Jeremiah chapter 51 in verse 50 Jeremiah chapter 51 and verse 50<inaudible> 51 50 you who have escaped the sword,
get away, do not stand, still. Remember the Lord of far off and let Jerusalem come to your mind.
We need to know about and show concern for our brethren. Philippians chapter two in verse four, Philippians two and verse four let each of you look out not only for his own interest,
but also for the interest of others. We show concern so we can bear each other’s burdens in a time of struggle.
Galatians chapter six and verse two. Galatians chapter six and verse two bear one another’s burdens and so fulfilled the law of Christ.
We need to mourn for the problems of our brethren. To mourn is to express grief or sorrow according to Strong’s dictionary.
It is a lament or to be well, which is to show a great sorrow. Nehemiah mourn greatly for the tribulations of his fellow Jews.
Nehemiah chapter one in verse four read with me again Nehemiah chapter one and verse four so it was when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned for many days.
I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven this morning can be compared to when Jesus cried out in painful tears when he observed the hard hearts of those in Jerusalem.
Luke 1941 Luke chapter 19 and verse 41<inaudible>. Now as he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it.
We need to pray for the situation at hand. Nehemiah mourned as he more Nehemiah mourned. As he mourned,
he began to pray for his fellow Jews. Nehemiah chapter one in verse four we read of how he prayed for his fellow Jews while he wept and mourned,
we are to pray for our brother and as Paul did Ephesians chapter six and verse 18 Ephesians six 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit,
being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints<inaudible>. Another example of Paul’s unceasing prayer for our brother in Christ is found in second Timothy chapter one in verse three second Timothy chapter one in verse three I think God whom I serve with a pure conscience as my forefathers did and without ceasing.
I remember you in my prayers night and day, how amazing it is to know that someone is praying for you every single night and every single day.
As we pray, we are always to remember to give reverence to God. We do this by giving a conviction about God’s character.
God deserves to be honored, revered, and feared because of who he is. Nehemiah calls him a great and awesome God.
Nehemiah chapter one and verse five Nehemiah chapter one verse five and I said, I prayed, Lord God of heaven.
Oh great and awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments.
We also see Daniel calling the Lord a great and awesome God and Daniel chapter nine and verse four Daniel nine and verse four and I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession and said,
Oh Lord, great and awesome God who keeps his covenant and mercy with those who love him and with those who keep his commandments,
Jesus and his example of prayer teaches us to give, to give honor and reverence to the father. Matthew chapter six verse nine is a good example shown by Christ.
Matthew chapter six and verse nine in this manner, therefore, pray our father in heaven, hallowed how Holy be your name.
The this, the example of honoring the father in prayer is reiterated again and Luke chapter 11 in verse two by the Christ.
Now once we have exalted and reverence God, we must humble ourselves before him and put forth a confession of sin.
We must confess to the Lord that we have sinned. Nehemiah confesses for all of Israel and for himself.
Nehemiah chapter one in verse six Nehemiah one six please let your ear be attentive and your eyes open that you may hear the prayer of your servant,
which I pray before you. Now day and night for the children of Israel, your servants and confess the sins of the children of Israel,
which we have sinned against you. Both my father’s house and I have sinned. Daniel also confesses for himself and the people of Israel.
As an example. Daniel chapter nine in verse 20 Daniel chapter nine and verse 20<inaudible> now, while I was speaking,
praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people, Israel and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the Holy mountain of my God as rhe confessed the sins of the people while weeping as a chapter 10 and verse one as rhe 10 and verse one now,
while as well was praying and while he was confessing, weeping, and bowing down before the house of God,
a very large assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him from Israel for the people wept very bitterly.
Once we have exalted and reverence God, we must, we must confess specific sins to the Lord. Nehemiah listed specific sins to the Lord.
Nehemiah chapter one and verse seven Nehemiah one and verse seven so it’s not enough just to confess that you have sinned.
You must confess your specific sentence. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments,
the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses. Daniel shows us the same list and Daniel chapter nine and verse five as he prays for the people’s specific sins.
Daniel chapter nine and verse five we have sinned and committed iniquity. We have done wickedly and rebelled even by departing from your precepts and your judgments.
We confess, why do we confess? We confess to find mercy and forgiveness and if we confess our sins,
we have mercy. Proverbs chapter 28 and verse 13 book of Proverbs chapter 28 and verse 13 he who covers his sins will not prosper but whose but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.
If we confess our sins, we are forgiven. Psalm 32 and verse five the 32nd Psalm and verse five I acknowledged my sin to you and my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin and only if we confess our sins can we be forgiven.
We find this in first John chapter one in verse nine first John chapter one and verse nine the inspired writer writes,
if we confess our sins, he is faithful. And just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Once we have reverence the Lord and humbly and humbly confess our sins, we are to show that we have confidence in his promises.
We need to know that the Lord will keep his promises to us. The Lord made a promise to the children of Israel.
Turn with me to do to Ranomi chapter 30 in verses one through five. Deuteronomy chapter 30 verses one through five.
Now it shall come to pass when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you,
and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you and you return to the Lord your God and obey his voice according to all that I command you today,
you and your children with all your heart and with all your soul that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you.
If any of you are driven out of the foot to the farthest parts under heaven. From there, the Lord your God will gather you and from there he will bring you.
Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed and you shall possess it.
He will prosper you and multiply you more than your father’s. Nehemiah showed great confidence in this promise that God made by reiterating it to him and his prayer.
Nehemiah chapter one verses eight through 10 Nehemiah chapter one verses eight through 10 many asks, why do we quote prayer quotes scripture while we’re praying?
Nehemiah quotes scripture while he’s praying. Yeah. Remember I pray the word that you commanded your servant Moses saying,
if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them though,
some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, you know, we’ll gather them from there and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for my name.
Now, these are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed your great power and yours by your strong hand.
Joshua shows us his confidence in the promises of the Lord being fulfilled. Joshua chapter 23 verses 14 and 15 Joshua 2314 and 15 yeah,
behold this day I am going the way of all the earth and you know in your hearts and in your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spoke concerning you all have come to pass for you.
Not one word of them has failed. Therefore it shall come to pass that as all the good things I’ve come upon you,
which the Lord your God promised you. So the Lord will bring upon you all harmful things until he has destroyed you from this good land,
which the Lord your God has given you. Yeah. God will fulfill the promises he makes us if we have confidence enough to do as he commands,
the devil will flee if we submit to God. James chapter four verse seven James four and verse seven therefore,
submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. If we pray, we will have peace.
Philippians chapter four and verse seven Philippians four and verse seven and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
If we believe in our baptize, we will be saved. Mark 1615 and 16 if we walk in his ways,
we will be cleansed. First. John chapter one and verse seven first John one seven but if we walk in the light as he is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us from all sin.
Now that we know to reverence the Lord, humbly make a confession of our sins to him and let him know that we have complete confidence,
that he will keep his promises. We must humbly ask him for a commitment to get involved. We must ask God for help.
Nehemiah asked the Lord to get involved. Nehemiah chapter one and verse 11 Nehemiah one and verse 11 Oh Lord,
I pray. Please let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who desire to fear your name and let your servant prosper.
This day I pray and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. Yeah. Jesus tells us to ask God for his help.
Matthew chapter seven verses seven and eight Matthew seven seven and eight ask and it will be given to you.
Seek and you will find knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks,
finds and to him who knocks, it will be opened. Jesus himself in his example of prayer gives us an example of what we are to ask for Matthew chapter six verses 11 through 13 Matthew six 11 through 13 give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
We must know the Lord answers our prayers. We have to know it. We are told that we can have this confidence by John and first John chapter five verses 14 and 15 first John chapter five verses 14 and 15 now,
this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us and if we know that he hears us,
whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him. We must abide in Christ to have this confidence.
John chapter 15 verses seven and 16 John 15 seven and 16 I’d read the whole thing but it’s a lot so I’m just going to stick to seven and 16 if you abide in me and my words abide in you,
you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you and then down in verse 16 you did not choose me,
but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatever you ask the father in my name,
he may give you. Let us consider that there is a lot more to prayer than we thought. It can be as simple as just talking to God,
but it involves so much more than we think. So we turn to Nehemiah and Jesus who gave us great examples of how to pray.
We need to pray with a concern about the problem at hand, like the concern we’re dealing with right now with the coven.
We need to make a conviction about God’s character. We need to humbly make a confession of our sins broad and specific.
We need to have confidence in God’s promises and we need to humbly ask God for a commitment to get involved.
We must pray first Thessalonians five 17. I will leave you with pray without ceasing. If you have problems in your prayer life and you have questions that you’d like to ask or if you have questions about anything else to do with your salvation,
you can contact us online. Or if you know the number of Eric or I or Erin, we’ll all be here for you.
Thank you.<inaudible> want to thank uh, Michael for that great lesson about prayer. Something we definitely need to be reminded of.
And Nehemiah is a great example of prayer for sure. I want to say, uh, happy mother’s day to the mothers out there.
I forgot to say that as beginning. That’s not a terrible thing to do is forget to say that,
but a happy mother’s day to those that are watching. We’ll have our closing song and then we’ll have a closing prayer by Aaron.
I did not receive any more announcements from anyone. So we will sing number 494, 494 Oh, happy day four,
nine four Oh hat.<inaudible> uh,<inaudible> uh, well<inaudible> and<inaudible>. Uh,<inaudible> uh,<inaudible> when jeans my lesson<inaudible> Hey,
it’s uh,<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> uh,<inaudible> uh,<inaudible> when, jeez<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> Oh, happy on a C is my bass to him.<inaudible> a little a juice.
Well, that, um, it’s uh, well let’s do that.<inaudible> uh,<inaudible> uh,<inaudible> when,
jeez, uh,<inaudible> I’m a sinner.<inaudible> Hey, what’s up to watch<inaudible><inaudible> bread a day.
Uh,<inaudible> uh,<inaudible> when James<inaudible> I’m a sinner, eh?<inaudible> I am. I am and he is,
uh, he drew. Ah, I followed on John, uh, uh, uh, Steve, uh,
uh,<inaudible> uh,<inaudible> when jeans<inaudible> my sins.<inaudible> it’s uh, uh, to watch and pray.<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> ah,<inaudible> uh,<inaudible> Oh geez.<inaudible><inaudible><inaudible> before we pray,
um, let me make mention and remind everyone that we will have a live stream of Bible class on Wednesday night.
And uh, if you do have any needs throughout the week, feel free to reach out to us.
I appreciate all of the work that Paula and many others continue to do, uh, throughout the week.
Also a reminder that we will reconsider, uh, the men will reconvene and reconsider, you know, where we’re at at the end of this month.
Uh, uh, uh, I think actually June 1st is the plan for that. So, uh, we’ll be looking forward to that.
And also as was mentioned at the beginning, we do have a few folks here. Uh, if you feel comfortable getting out there,
certainly more than enough views available, you can uh, come and gather with us and, and we take necessary precautions and social distancing and uh,
that sort of thing. So if you would like to join us, you can, uh, but we definitely understand the concern and encourage all those who have a concern to uh,
to stay home until such time as we’re all, um, uh, beyond that concern. Let us pray.
A gracious father in heaven, we bow before you at this time humbled by the reminder of the power of prayer,
the necessity of prayer and the benefits of prayer. We thank you for the Avenue of prayer to be able to communicate our needs,
our desires, our wants and truly our things giving above all to you for all that you do for us on a daily basis.
We thank you for those in this congregation who love you, who love the souls of every individual that is lost,
that support works of evangelism and edification throughout the world. We are mindful of missionaries throughout the world that are striving to reach the lost and we are mindful of our efforts to reach the lost here in Collierville.
We pray that all that we have done this morning will be acceptable to you and we pray that its value will continue throughout time.
We might take the things that we have learned here today, apply them in our lives and use them for weeks and years to come.
We might spread the gospel that we might teach others to pray and that we might be better each and every day and more faithful to you,
but that also we might remember and be reminded that when we sin and when we fall short of your glory,
if we are Christians and if we have submitted to you that we have an Avenue of forgiveness and the opportunity for the blood of Christ to cleanse us of our sins.
We are thankful this day for all that you have done for us and for all that you will continue to do for us on a daily basis.
While this life continues to exist, we are mindful of those that are struggling with their health and we pray that if it is your will,
that they will return to their full and desired help. We are mindful at this time of many throughout the world that are struggling with,
uh, depression and mental struggles as a result of, uh, this disease. And we pray that they might find,
uh, the help that they need, the strength that they need, the comfort that they need, and that through the trials and difficulties of this life,
they will become stronger, more enduring, and more patient and more faithful to you. We ask that you forgive us when we sin and fall short of your glory.
May we always strive on a daily basis to serve you acceptably. All this we pray in Jesus name.
No. All of the things that you have going on in your life that you are doing well, you are staying healthy and that all is well with your family. We are in first Kings chapter 18 this evening. First Kings chapter 18, uh, for our members and for anyone else who’s following along with us. There are questions, uh, in a PDF that are available on our website. We’ll go over those at the end of our class. So if you go to the front page of our website,
you’ll find a link to download the questions for this evening, uh, for our local members. If you would like to come by and pick up, uh, one of the questions sheets, they will be in the lobby, uh, both from this lesson and the previous lessons we’ve covered to this point. Uh, there’ll be stacks of those in the lobby. You can come by and pick those up, uh, at your convenience. First Kings chapter 17 introduces us to align you and we mentioned that last week that Alijah is probably the most prominent of the old Testament prophets.
Once you moved into the era of the Kings, Alijah is one who stands as a representative of the prophets throughout the old Testament. Elijah is the one who was prophesied, would come before the Messiah came to the earth. And as a result of all of those things, Alijah is seen very prominently both in old and new Testament passages. But in chapter 18, we find probably the most well known event of Alijah his life except perhaps how Elijah left the earth because in L in first Kings chapter 18, we will find the confrontation between Alijah and the 450 prophets of bale that occurs at Mount Carmel.
But some things that we find out before then, remember in chapter 17, as we studied last week, that Alijah comes on the scene. And the very first thing we hear from Elijah is Alijah tells King Ahab the King of the Northern kingdom of Israel, the Northern 10 tribes, he tells a helm there will not be any rain nor do on the ground in Israel until he says though. And having delivered that message from the Lord through, uh, to the King Ahab. He then turns around as it were and leaves and God tells him to go to this Brook,
the Brook Cherith and to there, and God provides both the water from the Brook to give him water and the Ravens of the air bring him bread and meat. When the water at the Brook dries up, God sends him to Sidon, sends him to the city of Zara Fest and sends him to a widow who according to God, God had commanded to provide for him there. And so Elijah will go to this widow. He will dwell with this widow and her son all throughout the remainder of the drought.
It is at this point that chapter 18 begins, but I want to say this about chapter 17 before we leave it behind in our discussion. One of the things that I’ve failed to make mention of this last week that we see in this account of Alijah being sent to this woman who was not in Israel, Israelite, she was not a descendant of Abraham. She was potentially not even at least exclusively a believer in Jehovah as being God. She would later understand who Jehovah was and the truth of what Elijah said.
We find that out at the end of verse or the at the end of verse 24 and chapter 17 but we get this. We get this clear perspective and understanding as we’ve pointed out time and time again, as we’ve seen throughout the old and the new Testament, God is not a God of a single nation. Jehovah is not the God of Israel. Jehovah is not the God of Judah. Jehovah is not the God of America or any other nation. Jehovah is God of gods and Lord of Lords, King of Kings,
the almighty. He is God of heaven and earth and there is no other God. And so what you see in chapter 17 is a clear picture that God doesn’t just care for Israel. The, it may be the case that the old Testament focuses on Abraham and his descendants and those through whom the Messiah comes, but it focuses on them, not because God has a special attachment to them over every other people, but because they were the lineage through whom the Messiah would come. The focus of scripture on Israel has very little to do with Israel and has everything to do with the salvation of all humanity because it wasn’t Israel that sinned and brought death into the world in the garden.
It was humanity and it was that humanity that God would send his son Christ to save. Jesus didn’t come to be the exclusive savior of Israel. He came to be the savior of all mankind. And so here in passages like this, you glimpse God’s provision, God’s acting on behalf of even those who are not Israelites chapter 18 verse one and it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came to Alijah in the third year saying, go present yourself to Ahab and I will send rain on the earth.
Now, you might remember that Alijah said it wasn’t going to rain again until he said so, but Elijah is just simply a prophet. This was not a statement to say that Alijah was now in charge of what the Lord was doing. No, not at all. Elijah is the spokesperson. Alijah is the go between. Aligna is the messenger and now the one who’s really in charge says, okay Elijah, it’s time for the message to go out. Alijah it’s time for you to go to Ahab because I’m going to send rain again.
But God did this act. God brought forth this drought and this famine and all of the things that that came with having no rain for three years. He did it for a reason. He did it to establish two things. Number one, bail is not God. You might remember how many times in the book of Exodus we studied and read concerning God telling Pharaoh that the objective was for him to realize and for Egypt to realize, and for everyone who hears about the plagues, I realize that God is the Lord and there is no other beside him.
And so the objective in all of this is to prove bail is not God. If bail was God, then why didn’t bail bring the rain? Why didn’t bail bring back that which this nation needed? But that, uh, that lesson and that, that focus, because it’s going to be brought to a head here in this chapter, he says, I will send rain on the earth. So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab and there was a severe famine in some area, in a Hab called who was in charge of his house.
Now, Obadiah feared the Lord greatly. This is one of those moments where you have a parent theoretical statement, uh, by those who are, are writing this down, say, Hey, uh, you need to know this about Obadiah. There’s something that is important to the plot line to the story. A Hab goes to Obadiah. And by the way, there’s, there’s no indication, at least unless I have completely missed it, that the Obadiah here is the writer of the book of Obadiah. Uh,
the, the, the two events and the two people are separated by time. So not the same person. This Obadiah is one who is a servant in the house of Ahab. He is the overseer of the house of Ahab. And so much like if you think back to the time of Joseph and Joseph was put over Potiphar’s house, this is the same idea here. A house has a nation he’s ruling over, but he has his own personal house, his own personal effects, his own personal business as it were probably his own business doings.
And as a result of that, that is Obadiah’s position. He comes to Obadiah and he says, we got to think about our flocks and our herds. Notice a called Obadiah, who was in charge of his house. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly for. So it was when Jessebelle massacre the prophets of the Lord that Obadiah, uh, had taken 100 profits and hidden them 50 to a cave and had fed them with bread and water. And Ahab said to Obadiah, go into the land, to all the Springs of water,
to all the Brooks. Perhaps we may find grants to keep the horses and mules alive so that we will not have to kill any livestock. Okay, so Ahab’s desire here is for himself and Obadiah to go out and to search throughout the land and to find water because of the drought, because of the things that are going on. Because where there’s water, there’s plant life, they need food for the animals. They need water for the animals, and so they’re seeking to preserve them. They’re seeking to not have to slaughter them just to get through this drought.
But in the midst of this, as we’re introduced to Obadiah, we find out something about this man. We find out that he is one who defied the queen. Now, did he defy the queen publicly or secretly? Well, every indication is that defied the queen. Secretly the queen Jezza bell would bring about a massacre of the prophets of the Lord. Now here’s something important to realize is as we’re introduced to align Jah, and as we’re going through this old Testament history, even though we’re not reading about prophet after prophet,
certainly not hundreds of profits in the Northern kingdom of Israel, they were there in order for Obadiah to have hidden a hundred prophets of the Lord. There had to event at least a hundred prophets of the Lord and Elijah’s not in that number. So something that we need to be careful that we don’t do is that we don’t jump to assumptions as if, okay, we hear about one prophet doing this. He was the only one. Uh, there will be a point later on in, in our discussion of Elijah where Elijah will claim to be the only one and God will make it clear he’s not,
but yet with a hundred plus profits of the Lord active and working and laboring and teaching and instructing and counseling and rebuking with all of those men in the Northern kingdom of Israel, notice what was still true. The nation still departed from the Lord. The nations still turned its back on God. The nation still refused to repent, and the King and the kingdom went further and further and further down a path of destruction to the point at which now Ahab comes to the throne. And you remember at the end of chapter 16,
we read, Ahab did more evil than all those who had come before him. Well, there’s no indication that Jeroboam,
even though he built the golden cows, and even though many left the Northern came to them and went down to the Southern kingdom because of the changes that Jeroboam made,
there’s no indication that Jeroboam ever set forth his goals to destroy the profits of God. Yeah, there’s no indication that the blood of the profits was ever running in the street because of Jeroboam.
But for Jezza bell, Oh, that’s a whole nother story. Jezza bells set out, not just to introduce male worship into the Northern kingdom of Israel.
She set out not only to take and to turn the Northern kingdom of Israel from a nation that still had some tenuous grasp of the Lord to a nation that would kill and execute and massacre the profits of the Lord.
But Obadiah here, the chief individual, the highest individual in the house of a Hab Obadiah feared the Lord.
Obadiah hid a hundred of these profits and then fed them with bread and water. Obadiah is certainly one to be commended in all of this.
And yet it’s interesting because Obadiah still retains his position in the house of Ahab. He seemingly as one as one who fears the Lord is not worshiping bail,
is not serving the idols. And yet he’s there and he’s active within the house of Ahab. And I think there’s some lessons for us there about the ability to do good even when we don’t always have the ability to shout it from the rooftops.
Now is it important to stand up for the truth? Yes, it is. It is important to speak the truth.
Yes it is, but there is an appropriate way, time and place to do such things. Uh,
and sometimes we’re in situations as for instance, Daniel would have found himself in standing before Nebuchadnezzar or as a Nehemiah would have found himself in standing before Xerxes,
uh, situations where you don’t have the Liberty to say everything you’d like to say, but you still have the responsibility to do everything you can do.
And so we learned some lessons there, hopefully in our country and in our day and in our lives.
There are lessons that may be we won’t ever have to fully realize, but maybe we will. Maybe a time will come where even we will have to decide whether we can open our mouths and say anything and loo and forfeit our lives or whether we must simply act in secret.
So Obadiah will hide the profits and as Jessebelle seeks to massacre the profits of the Lord, and Ahab will come to Obadiah and he’ll say,
we’ve got to go find water. We’ve got to go provide for these animals where we’re going to have to kill them.
So then we read a verse six. So they divided the land between them to explore it. A Hab went one way by himself,
and Obadiah went another way by himself. Now, as Obadiah was on his way, suddenly Elijah met him and he recognized him and fell on his face and said,
is that you? My Lord Elijah, it’s been three years since anyone in Israel has seen Alijah three years where you can imagine the,
the questions, the stories, the front page news, the man who says there won’t be any more rain disappears.
Where did he go? What happened to him? Did he die? Is he alive? You can imagine the headlines as it were going through the,
the, the people discussing this, what happened to Alijah. We’re gonna find out in a moment that Ahab really wanted to know what happened to Elijah,
but Obadiah having saved these hundred profits from being killed by Jezza. Bill is out on this mission sent by Ahab and he sees Alijah and he doesn’t just question is that you?
He recognized him. He fell on his face and said, is that you? My Lord Elijah. This man not only has fear of the Lord,
he has a great respect for Elijah as the prophet of the Lord. Very much in contrast to his master a Hab.
But notice he answered and said, it is Ivor. Say, go. Tell your master Elijah is here.<inaudible> now,
before we go any further might stop and think, well, this is going to be interesting. Let’s see,
let’s see how Ahab responds. But before we get to how Ahab responds, it’s very interesting to see how old the dire response Elijah shows up before Obadiah and he says,
go tell Ahab Elijah is here and notice the response of Obadiah. So he, Obadiah said, how have I sinned that you are delivering your servant into the hand of Ahab to kill me?
Imagine how many times in Obadiah’s life as one who feared the Lord as one who saved these prophets as one who’s in the house of Ahab,
probably day in and day out seeing Jaza bell. How many times do you think Obadiah is on the razor edge of a knife thinking,
I’m going to die if I make the wrong choice or the wrong statement? And yet he’s still being faithful to the Lord.
He’s still fearing the Lord. He’s still acting on behalf of the Lord. And now he says, what have I done?
However I sinned, what I do to deserve this, Elijah, how have I sinned that now you’re going to send me to Ahab and he’s going to kill me?
Notice his reasoning here as the Lord your God lives. There is no nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to hunt for you.
And when they said he is not here, he took an oath from the kingdom or nation that they could not find you.
And now you say, go tell your master Elijah is here and it shall come to pass as soon as I am gone from you that the spirit of the Lord will carry you to a place I do not know.
So when I go and tell a Hab and he cannot find you, he will kill me. But I you’re serving a fear of the Lord from my youth.
Obadiah is afraid because perhaps now Elijah has a reputation. I mean there you’ve got to think through this as,
as the potentials, if a have is searching this diligently for Elijah, how many different Elijah spottings do you think had been reported over the last three years?
Hey, Hey, I’ve saw, I’ve seen Elijah goes, tell a ham, he’s here, he’s here.
And they have send somebody and there’s nobody there and the L, it’s not Alijah. It’s somebody else.
How many times do you think maybe that’s happened and what do you think the reaction has been by Ahab to the person who says,
I found Elijah? Well, I think you get a glimpse of it right here because Obadiah says, you’re going to disappear.
The spirit of the Lord is going to take you away and Ahab is going to kill me. But he also says something about his history.
He says, and I have feared the Lord from my youth. We need more men like Obadiah. We need more young men who decide when they’re young.
I’m going to do what the Lord says, and it doesn’t matter what it costs, I’m going to do with the Lord says,
and it doesn’t matter the danger that puts me in. I’m going to do what the Lord says. It doesn’t matter who my master is on this earth.
I’m going to do with the Lord says, no matter what the nation around me does, we need more Obadiah’s.
We need many, many more Obadiah’s but Obadiah says, Elijah, if I go tell a Hab that you’re here and then I come back and you’re gone because the spirit of Lord has whisked you away,
it’s going to be my life. Verse 13 he says, was it not reported to my Lord? What I did when Jessebelle killed the prophets of the Lord?
How I hid 100 men of the Lord’s prophets, 50 to a cave and fed them with bread and water?
Elijah, didn’t you hear what I did? Why are you putting my life in danger? When couldn’t you think about me for a moment here?
Now you say, go, tell your master Elijah’s here he will kill me. Then Alijah said, and notice the change when Elijah first shows up to Obadiah,
Alijah says, go tell a Hab. I’m here, and Obadiah’s reaction is to argue with Elijah and be concerned about himself,
but notice the drastic shift right here. Then Elijah said, as the Lord of hosts lives before whom I stand,
I will surely present myself to him today. That is to Ahab. So Obadiah went as soon as Obadiah knows,
it’s not just Elijah determining to CA Hab, but it’s the Lord now. Obadiah will go now. Obadiah turns and leaves and goes to Ahab to carry the message.
So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him and Ahab went to meet Elijah. Then it happened when Ahab saw Elijah,
that Ahab said to him, is that you? Oh, troubler of Israel. Ahab wants to know,
uh, Elijah that you the one who’s caused all of this, the one who’s brought destitution to our nation,
the the one who’s brought this drought, the one who’s brought this famine, the one who’s destroyed us is that you,
Elijah. And just imagine, imagine, I mean, here we are in the middle of a pandemic.
Imagine if the world tomorrow saw on the front page of every website on the front line of, of every headline story.
Here’s the person who caused the pandemic. Here’s his name, here’s his address. Here’s his date of birth.
Here’s all the information needed to know about them. Here’s the guy responsible. That’s what they have saying.
Hey, have saying all of this is because of you. Alijah but Elijah’s not going to let a Hab get away with that.
Elijah not going to allow that one to stand. He says, is that you? Oh, troubler of Israel.
And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father’s house have in that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and have followed the bales.
Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me on Mount Carmel, the 450 prophets of bale and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezza Bell’s table.
It may be that there’s a famine in the land. It may be that there’s a drought in the land.
It may be that people are dying, but not the prophets of Asherah. Yeah, not the profits of bail.
They’re well fed. They’re taken care of. They’re sheltered by the King and by Jezza bell. And so Alijah tells the King,
you go get all Israel. Now it’s been three years. Everyone knows they’re waiting on Alijah. I mean,
there’s no doubt. Everyone in Israel knows what Elijah said three years ago. Everyone’s clear. Alijah is the one who can change this.
So if a Hab sends out word to the nation, Elijah’s going to be at Mount Carmel and Elijah said to come,
you better believe everybody showing up. Yeah. This, this isn’t a question of, well I don’t know.
I’m not sure I’m going to get out. No, everybody’s going to be there and Ahab will respond and do exactly as stated.
Why? Because they have needs his nation back. A Hab needs rain. It doesn’t matter how great Ahab’s control is of the nation or how powerful he wants to be in the midst of a famine in the midst of a drought.
He is powerless. So he’s going to act. He’s going to do what he’s told by Elijah because he needs the rain to come back.
So Ahab’s going to send all and send for all the children of Israel. Verse 20 and gathered the prophets together on mountain Carmel and Elijah came to all the people and said,
how long will you falter between two opinions if the Lord is gone, follow him. But if bail follow him.
But the people answered him. Not a word. Alijah does not confront Ahab when all the people are gathered because Ahab is not the important person in this story.
A hub is not the discussion or the focus of Jehovah or Elijah. Their mission is Israel. Their desire is to return Israel to Jehovah.
Three years they’ve undergone a drought and a famine and the destruction of their nation. Three years they’ve received the curses that Moses told them they’d receive when they turned away from the Lord.
Leviticus chapter 26 for three years and now Elijah shows up and says, Israel clock’s ticking. It’s time for you to decide.
It’s time for you to determine who you’re going to follow because you can’t follow both. This passage ought to remind us of what Jesus said in Matthew chapter six Jesus said,
man cannot serve two masters for either he will hold to the one and despise the other or he will love the one and hate the other.
You cannot serve God and money. You can’t serve Jehovah and bale either. You can’t serve yourself and Jehovah either.
You can serve one or the other and the one who you decide to serve as a, as Elijah says,
you follow him, whichever one you believe is the one who really exists, you follow him. And so there will be a contest because when he confronts the people,
now they could have made a choice right there. They were just confronted with a choice. They were confronted as a people.
Could you get the rain to come back? How many times did you cry out to bail? All of these things were just implied in this statement.
Did bail help you? Could bale overcome the word of the prophet of the Lord for three years? No.
So they had a choice right here. Same as in Joshua chapter 24 verse 15 when Josh was his choose you this day,
who you will serve whether the gods of Egypt or the gods were the other side of the river that your father served.
But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. So Israel then had a choice and Israel now has a choice,
but their response is dead. Stone silence. Book of Mark. Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees with a man on the Sabbath who has a withered hand,
and they bring this man to Jesus because they want to see if he’ll heal him on the Sabbath because their philosophy is if he heals him on the Sabbath,
he performed work. If he performs work, we have some way to indict him on breaking the law.
And Jesus knows what they’re doing. Yeah, they bring the man with the withered hand to Jesus. They show him this man’s got a withered hand.
Let’s see what Jesus does. Let’s see if Jesus will heal him. Okay? And Jesus asks the question he looked about on them and ask the question,
is it better to do good or to do evil on the Sabbath? And they answered him, not a word.
And we read in that text and Jesus looked upon them with anger for the hardness of their hearts. Here’s Israel.
How many people had they seen die from the famine? How many of their loved ones died from the lack of rain and the lack of water and the things that were going on?
How many of the profits of the Lord had they seen killed by Jezza bell and all of this. They should have known Jehovah’s God.
When Elijah comes back and offers them a choice and opportunity to repent, they’re silent and so aligned just speaks again.
He says, then Elijah said to the people, verse 22 I alone am left a prophet of the Lord,
but bales, profits are 450 men. Therefore, let them give us two bowls and let them choose one bull for themselves.
Cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put on, put no fire under it and I will prepare the other bowl and lay it on the wood,
but put no fire under it. Then you call on the name of the Lord of your gods. Now notice this statement is to the people he talks about what the prophets of bail will do.
They will do this, those third person. Yeah, you will do this because that’s your God. That’s your God bale over.
There you go. Call upon bail. Go find out if he’s listening. Now as we get into this,
we’re going to find the prophets of bail being the active participants. But Elijah’s telling the people, this is not,
Hey, let’s see which profits or the profits of of the true God, and you all stand over here and be be the audience.
No, he’s confronting them. He’s telling them, you go do this. That’s your God. So notice what he says.
He says, then you call on the name of your gods and I will call on the name of the Lord.
And the God who answers by fire, he is God. So all the people answered and said it is well-spoken.
Now, Elijah said to the profits of mail, choose one bowl for yourselves and prepare it first for you are many,
and call on the name of your God, but put no fire under it. So they took the bull,
which was given them, and they prepared it and called on the name of bale from morning even until noon saying,
Oh, bail here us. But there was no voice, no one answered. Then they leaped about the alter,
which they had made. And so it was at noon that aligned. You mocked them and said, cry aloud for he is a God.
Either he is meditating or he is busy or he is on a journey or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.
You’re not crying loud enough, cry louder. Maybe he can’t hear you. So they cried aloud and cut themselves as was their custom with knives and lances until the blood gushed out on them.<inaudible> when you realize the things that people will do when they are desperate for a belief,
without evidence, when they’re desperate to retain their power, their influence and their authority, when they’re crazed by evil,
these people are cutting themselves. We’re not talking about slicing through the top layer of skin. They’re cutting themselves and the blood is gushing from them and this was normal<inaudible> and when midday was passed,
they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice, no one answered,
no one paid attention. Then Elijah said to all the people come near to me. So all the people came near to him and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.
Alijah hasn’t come to Mount Carmel by sheer accident. Elijah hasn’t come to mountain Carmel for no reason. There was an altar of the Lord there.
There was a time in the past where that Alder meant and something, but it didn’t anymore. Not to this people,
they had allowed it to be broken down. They had allowed it to come into disrepair. They had allowed it to be ignored.
But notice what’s happened. The more the profits of bail kept trying, the more the people stopped believing because they were faced with a situation they couldn’t solve.
And so you can just imagine Israel’s becoming dis, you know, unsettled. They’re becoming restless, they’re getting tired of this is gone on all day and they’re tired of the,
of the things that the profits of Baylor doing and it doesn’t accomplish anything. So Elijah tells them, come near,
pay attention. And he said, or then Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the son of Jacob,
to whom the word of the Lord had come saying Israel shall be your name. Then with the stones,
he built an altar in the name of the Lord and he made a trench around the altar, large enough to hold to she is of seed and he put the wood in order,
cut the bulls in pieces and laid it on the wood and said, fill four water pots with water and pour it on the burn off Erbert sacrifice and yes,
on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. Then he said, do it a second time and they did it a second time and he said,
do it a third time. And they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar and he also filled the trenches with water.
Elijah is taking what very well might be the most precious substance in the entire nation at this point in time.
And he’s pouring it out on the ground. He’s pouring it out on the altar, he’s taking it and he’s getting the people to give the water to pour on the altar.
And you’ve gotta be looking at the people thinking, what? What’s he doing? This is water. It hasn’t rained in three years and he’s pouring water on the altar.
He pours water on it the first time, the second time, the third time, and then he fills the trough around it.
It came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said,
Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word.
Again, the clarification at the beginning, Elijah says, there’s not going to be any rain until I say so.
And that’s probably how the people heard it. It’s a lie just stopping this. But now Elijah wants it to be clear the same way Joseph made it clear to Pharaoh the same way Daniel made it clear to Nebuchadnezzar,
this isn’t me. This is God. Okay, so Elijah wants it to be clear that everything he’s said and everything he’s done to this point has been at the word of the Lord.
And notice what we read. He says, hear me. Oh Lord, hear me that this people may know that you are the Lord gone and that you have turned their hearts back to you again.
Heres the point of the entire three years to tell Israel, it’s time to repent. It’s time to turn back.
Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust and it licked up the water that was in the trench went.
Now, when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, the Lord,
he is gone. The Lord, he is God. Elijah’s made his point. Elijah proved his case.
No one doubted it, and Elijah said to them, seize the profits of bale. Let do not let one of them escape.
So they seized them and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Keshawn and executed them there. And some would immediately go,
wait a minute, that’s not right. You can’t just kill people. This is murder. No, it’s not because there’s still a law in Israel.
Deuteronomy chapter 13 beginning in verse six going through verse 10 the law says, if any man will come you to Israel and will tell you to depart from the Lord and serve other gods,
he forfeited his life. He was to be stoned with stones and those who were closest to him were to cast the first stone.
They were tried and found guilty because they prophesied and what they prophesied didn’t come to pass and they led people away from Jehovah.
This is an act of judicial justice against 450 prophets who had disobeyed the law of God and the law of their nation.
Then Elijah said to Ahab, verse 41 go up, eat and drink for there is a sound of the abundance of rain.
Elijah says they have as it were. Do you hear that? Do you hear that? A lot of a Hab.
The rain’s coming and Ahab went to eat and drink, so Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel.
Then he bound down on the ground and put his face between his knees and he said to his servant,
go up. Now look toward the sea. So he went up and looked and said, there is nothing.
And seven times he said, go again. Alijah goes to the top of Mount Carmel and he bows himself down.
Now who’s he bowing down to? What do you think he’s bowing down to? He’s bowing down to the only one who’s really in charge because even though Alijah said it’s going to be a,
my word that the rain comes, Elijah knows he’s not in charge, and Elijah is humbly being the intercessor between Israel and their God and praying for rain.
And there’s a point to be made here just because the Lord said, I’m going to send rain. Doesn’t mean Elijah was going to get four,
get it the first time he asked. So Elijah bows down and then Elijah sends his servant, go look at the sea serve server,
comes back and there’s nothing bows down again, says to the servant, go again. He bough the servant goes,
comes back. There’s nothing seven more times. And then finally we read, then it came to pass the seventh time that he said,
there is a cloud as small as a man’s hand rising out of the sea. So he said, go up,
say to Ahab, prepare your chariot and go down before the rain stops you is this tiny little cloud.
Uh, I see it. It’s, it’s, it’s rising up out of the sea. I mean,
here’s the mountain Carmel. It’s right on the edge of the Mediterranean sea and he’s looking out over the sea and he sees this cloud just,
it’s just a small little cloud. The Lord’s not contained in the size of the cloud. Immediately Elijah sends his servant to go tell a Hab.
You better go now. You better get on your chariot and go, or the rain will stop you.
So then notice it happened in the meantime that the sky became black with clouds and wind and there was a heavy rain.
So Ahab rode away and went to Jezreel. Then the hand of the Lord came upon a Lija and he girded up his loins and ran ahead of Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel Elijah outruns.
The chariot of the King of Israel, the power of the Lord. I had Alijah me day habit home.
What do you think the look on a Hub’s face was? I don’t have any idea, but in my mind here,
he’s just witnessed the 450 prophets of bale die and now it’s raining. And here’s the man who he called the troubler of Israel who told him,
no, the problem’s not me. It’s you probably wasn’t a really happy sight to see Alijah standing there when he came home.
Yet Elijah was right where God wanted him to be. All right, let’s go through the questions and then we’ll close.
First Kings chapter 18 verse one question number one, Elijah told Abraham that there would be a drought. How long did the drought last?
Answer is three years. Question number two. This is a multipart question. Yes or no. Did Jezza bell destroy all the prophets of God?
The answer is no. Explain. Uh, Obadiah hid a hundred of the prophets of God. 50 in a two caves.
Describe Obadiah as a youth. He is one who feared the Lord from his youth. Why did, and the question number three,
why did Elijah tell him that Ahab himself had caused the drought in Israel? He told him because he and his father’s house had followed the question number four on Mount Carmel aligned just said,
the people were trying to follow bale as God and Jehovah as God. How did Elijah prove that God is really God?
Of course, the answer to that is the test of sending fire from heaven to light the sacrifice. Uh,
and here on question number five, I think I know what the correct answer is, but I’ll be honest with you.
You may, you, you may look at it and think this is another one of those where the answer is D or E all the above.
But we’ll go through this. Um, on Mount Carmel when the 450 prophets were trying to get their God bale to put fire on their alter,
they did not a pray reverently B cry with loud voices. C leap on the alter or D cut themselves.
Um, now if I, as I read the text, and maybe it’s a difference in the versions,
whether the, where the question came from, but the new King James says they leaped around the alter.
So I chose C, but you may say, well, it way, my version reason, they did all of these things.
Uh, cause at the first they just pray that that veil will, uh, uh, bring fire upon the alter.
And then they begin to cry out and then they begin to leap around and then they begin to cut themselves.
Um, so as we’ve entered into, for those who are local here and know sometimes we run into questions,
they’ll go, well, the answer is they did. They did all those things. There’s none of them.
They didn’t do. So, um, you just let me know what you think about question number five later on number six,
what did Elijah do to the 450 prophets of bale? According to verse 40 of chapter 18, he executed them.
Uh, in correspondence with Deuteronomy chapter 13 verses six through 10, what did Elijah warn a ham to do?
Because of the approaching heavy rain? He warned him to prepare his chariot and to go home. That’s first Kings chapter 18,
verse 44. Specifically, the reference in verse 44 is to prepare his chariot. The implication is to return to Jezreel.
Okay, well that is our study of first Kings chapter 18. Uh, Michael is going to lead us in a closing song and then Eric is going to lead us in a closing prayer.
We appreciate your time, your attention, and our prayers are with you at this time as well. Thank you for your attention.
