By
Rev. Juliet Schimpf
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Broadcast
Notes
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LINK to CFRA broadcast of
Sunday, August 2nd, 2015)
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THANKS for the generosity of Rockland Christian Church,
that made today’s broadcast possible.
"Elijah: God's Heroes Are Only Human"
·
God’s heroes are ordinary people who rely upon an extraordinary God.
·
The heroes of the
Bible are people just like us: “Elijah was a human, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain,
and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.” (italics added; James 5:17)
·
Heroes
go through 3 main phases:
1.
The Preparation
2.
The Exhilaration
3.
The Restoration
1.
THE PREPATION (THE BROOK)
·
Howard Hendricks: “”Man chooses an individual on the basis of
what he is. God chooses an individual on
the basis of what he is to become.”
·
Elijah was probably born sometime in
the decade before 900BC
·
Elijah was a Tishbite of Gilead, an
area in the north of Palestine east of the Jordan—so far from the center of
Israelite life and so undistinguished that it is mentioned nowhere else in the
Bible
·
Gilead was a rough, mountainous area
known for its high peaks and deep valleys. The very name "Gilead" in its Hebrew form means "raw or rugged." This
tells us that Elijah was a backwoods man.
·
When he stepped onto the scene and
began his ministry, his methods,
his mannerisms and his message were as rough and rugged as the place
he called home. 2 Kings 1:8. “He had a garment of hair and had a leather belt
around his waist.” The king said, “That was Elijah the Tishbite.”
·
God’s heroes are
not like the world’s heroes: “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when
you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of
noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world
to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.28 (1
Cor. 1:26-27)
·
God called him to be a prophet at a
time of crisis in Israel during the reign of King Ahab.
·
This weak and vacillating king had
married a foreigner, Jezebel of Tyre.
·
She brought with her the priests and
worship of Baal and goddess Asherah—she supported them financially at the royal
court
·
Her passion in life became the
obliteration of the worship of Yahweh and the establishment of Baal worship as
the national religion.
·
The queen did not foster a blending of
religions, but the exclusive worship of Baal as god in Israel and goddess
Asherah.
·
The prophet’s name spelled out his
mission: “Yas is El” (“Yahweh is God”).
·
Elijah shocked Ahab to attention with a
grim judgement: “As the Lord, the God of
Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain
these years, except by my words.” (1 Kings 17:1)
·
And a long drought began as Elijah had
predicted.
·
During the months that followed, the
Lord prepared Elijah for a decisive battle.
·
God sent Elijah east of the Jordan
where he discovered that the Lord could meet all his needs.
·
He was fed by the ravens which brought
him bread and meat.
·
Then he was led north to Zarephath, a
city of Sidon, where he was cared for by a widow (whose son Elijah brought back
to life).
·
The meager resources of the woman were
miraculously multiplied by the Lord so that she could feed the prophet.
·
The Lord was teaching Elijah to trust
the Lord for the impossible. Elijah was
learning complete dependence.
2.
THE EXILIRATION (THE MOUNTAIN)
·
God had ministered to Elijah. Now
God would minister through
Elijah.
·
Elijah on Mount Carmel
1 Kings 18: 19 Now
summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount
Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four
hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.” 20 So Ahab sent word
throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. 21 Elijah
went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two
opinions? If the Lord is
God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” ….27 At noon Elijah
began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he
is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be
awakened.” 28 So they shouted louder and
slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until
their blood flowed. 29 Midday passed, and they
continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening
sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid
attention. 30 Then
Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he
repaired the altar of the Lord,
which had been torn down. 31 Elijah took twelve
stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of
the Lord had come,
saying, “Your name shall be Israel.” 32 With the
stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two
seahs[a] of
seed. 33 He arranged the wood, cut the bull
into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large
jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.” 34 “Do it again,” he
said, and they did it again. “Do it a
third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. 35 The
water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench. 36 At the time of
sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am
your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37 Answer
me,Lord, answer me, so these
people will know that you, Lord,
are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”38 Then
the fire of the Lord fell
and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked
up the water in the trench.39 When all the people saw
this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he
is God!”
3.
THE RESTORATION (THE VALLEY)
Olgivie: “There is no depletion
as dangerous as that which comes from overextending ourselves for righteous
causes.”
In contrast to generals like Napoleon and Washington who were never more
dangerous than after defeat, Elijah and many of us are never more vulnerable
than after a victory.
·
At the end of the day, Elijah was exhausted….there was nothing
left…..fire had descended on the altar, but Elijah was burned out.
·
Jezebel was enraged when Ahab told her about what had happened on Carmel
and about the slaying of her prophets.
She sent a bitter, threatening message to Elijah: “So may the gods do to me and even more, if I
do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow ab out this time”
(1 Kings 19:2)
·
Elijah experienced an emotion he had never experienced before: he was afraid.
·
He ran for his life…..he ran south to Beersheba and then on into the
wilderness.
Elijah made two key mistakes:
·
perfectionism: “O Lord,
take my life. For I am not better than
my fathers.” --comparison trap!
·
isolation: Mount Carmel: “I alone am left a prophet of the
Lord."--he forgot that 100 prophets had been hidden by Obadiah
God spoke to Elijah in a “still small voice”. If the ashes of discouragement smolder in
your heart, be sure of this: God can and
will cause a flame to be ignited. He is
not finished with us. Listen for the
wind. Sense the quake of his power. Feel the warmth of new fire.
Rev. Juliet Schimpf
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To listen to the above
broadcast, click on the following link:
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