Turning Fear Back to Faith

Welcome to our Women's Bible Study on 1st and 2nd Kings, entitled Learning from Leaders. And today we're going to cover 1st Kings chapter 17 through 19, most of our time spent on the ministry of Elijah. And it's fascinating what we learn from individual people. This is going to be great learning from Elijah, but also some of the most important parts of our lesson is what we learn about God as well. Last week, the important thing that we learned about God was that he does what he says he's going to do. And so in last week's lesson, we sludged through all these assassinations and these coups in the nation of Israel and all the transfer of power. And we saw that the family lines, the dynasties changed four times just in last week's lesson. But we were reminded then that in Judah, in Jerusalem, there was no change. It was still a descendant of David who was on the throne because God had promised David a lamp in Jerusalem. And God keeps his promises. God does what he says he's going to do. And we will see that all the way through this study. So this week we get a huge break from all the killings and all the coups. And I'm going to show you our chart of the kings that we're going to be looking at this week. Look how brief it is. Basically in Israel, it's only Ahab. The only reason I even put Jehoshaphat on there because he will not even be mentioned this week is just to give a balance. And so this is what we have to do this week. And now the important concept that we learn about God this week is that God wants to rescue his people from deception. God always wants to rescue his people from deception. I want to tell you what I mean. When the writer introduced Ahab to us last week at the very end of our lesson, he also introduced us to a big problem. And this is what it looked like at the end of chapter 16. In verse 30, Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord. Look at verse 32. He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. This is our big problem. We are intended to see this problem. A house of Baal. Now look, first and second kings part one, 11 chapters, was Solomon in the house of the Lord. We already have the house of the Lord. Now we have a house of Baal? What in the world? What is going on? And so Israel now had actually gone so far as to erect a temple for Baal, an altar for Baal, and to completely reject the Lord, which provoked the Lord, the God of Israel. See, Israel had a God. He was the God of Israel. And when you see those capital letters, that's a proper name. That's Yahweh. Provoked Yahweh, the God of Israel. Now just as a reminder, God had already miraculously delivered his people out of bondage in Egypt. He had already given them a special place in his plan of redemption. He gave them a special piece of land, and he gave them promises that his Messiah would come from their people to bless all the peoples of the earth. Okay? Now they have rejected him. They have replaced him by building a house of Baal. The death of a nation always begins with rejection of God and rejection of God moves forward on the wheels of deception. And the thing we're learning is that God always wants to rescue his people from deception. Now God's rescue plan from this particular deception is a very long one, and there are two bookends that I want you to notice. The first bookend is what was just on the screen. It's from the end of chapter 16. They erected a house of Baal. That's the first bookend. The second bookend in this rescue plan is all the way over to 2 Kings chapter 10. Let me put it on the screen. Verse 27 and 28. They demolished the house of Baal and Jehu wiped out Baal from Israel. Yay! That's where we're gonna get, okay? It's gonna take us 22 chapters. So we also find out that God is very patient. This is going to take us weeks three, four, five, and six to take care of this current deception. This will cover the ministries of Elijah, the ministries of Elisha, but we will eventually get to this rescue from the deception of Baal worship. So since it's such a big deal, let's ask the question, what is Baal worship? It's been clear to us already in the first two weeks how destructive it's been for both Israel and Judah as they have opened up their country to the evil principalities that present themselves as gods. From now on, I'm not going to use that phrase again. I'm just going to call them demon gods. All right? You've gotten this far in the Bible study. You've figured that out already. You're not going to be triggered any longer by that phrase. They are demon gods. The apostle Paul confirmed this. I want to show you in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 20, different context, same pagan gods. The apostle Paul said, what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. We could have lifted that out and applied it right here to first Kings. This is the heart of God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. Okay? So let's educate ourselves a little bit on these demon gods. First, we have Baal. And this is the first time that this is introduced now since all the way back really to judges, although there was a mention in first Samuel. But Baal was the supreme God. And I've pronounced him different ways throughout, but I'm just going to go with straight up Baal. Supreme God in ancient Canaan. Okay? He was referred to as the storm God or the one who was in charge of rain, the climate control God, if you will. Okay? And he was often depicted with this lightning rod in his hand. And then we've been introduced to Ashtoreth or Ashtoreth, who was a female deity represented by a carved pole. Okay? And Baal and Asherah were often mentioned together in scripture. But Asherah or Asherah is more often aligned with sexual promiscuity and even sexual confusion. And then we have Molech, who was another demon God associated more or less with the connection with child sacrifice, usually offering the first born human babies in exchange for prosperity. The plural form of all of these is Balaam, and it often refers to any or all of these demon gods. And just like Satan, they claim to have power, but the only power that they really have is to ensnare people in deception and in delusion. Okay? They did not produce prosperity. They only produced delusion. And the evil forces that pervade our own society are the same. They do not really have any power except to promote delusion and deception and make people and society fairly miserable. So, why was Israel so susceptible to these gods? Why was this always such a problem? Well, first of all, almost every god of the Balaam had something to do with fertility kind of a thing. And so there was always a draw towards sexual promiscuity. Sex for passion and sex without responsibility is just something that sinful human nature is drawn to. It just is. And that also explains a little bit about the sexualization of our own culture. Second of all, Israel always had a problem with international peer pressure. Do you remember all the way back to Samuel? They said to Samuel, we want a king just like all the other nations. We want to be like the other nations. And so they always kind of skewed that direction. But our concept here is that God wants to rescue his people from deception. And so as we begin in chapter 17, finally we're getting to our text. Okay? First Kings 17 verse 1 says,

Now we are not told how Elijah got an audience with Ahab to say this. He just pronounced that there would be a drought. And so this is intended to cause the hearers to say, oh, who's in charge of the rain again? Okay. So they should be wondering about this. Also, this proclamation from a prophet was very important because way back in Deuteronomy 11, God had told Moses that when they turned their back on him, he would close up the heavens. He would shut up the heavens in order to get their attention. So there should be a couple of things here that are registering with them. So as God begins to rescue his people from deception, we're going to learn two more things about how God works. One thing is that God uses people with simple but powerful faith. And the other thing that we're going to learn is that God knows how to protect the people that are loyal to him. Now, I like our method of doing things because you have the study guide. You went, you marched verse by verse through chapter 17. So I'm going to summarize it here and summarize the things that we learned, the examples in that passage. The first one was that God sent Elijah to the brook Cherith in order to protect him. East of the Jordan, he told him to hide. He said, the ravens will feed you. The brook will give you something to drink. And it did. It happened just the way God said it was going to happen. And then when the brook dried out, God said to Elijah, now I want you go to Zarephath to a widow and she will provide for your needs. And so there was the miraculous, continuous renewal of the flower and the oil. And it happened just the way God said it was going to happen. And then finally, this widow's son became ill and he died. And the mother initially blamed Elijah. And then Elijah sort of accused God, but his faith prevailed in the moment. And he stretched himself out over the boy. And it ends in verse 22,

And so we have three examples here of how God uses people with simple but powerful faith and that God knows how to protect those who are loyal to him. And so, so far God has not challenged these demon gods at all. This chapter 17 was kind of almost like the warm-up lap. We're just jogging around the lap here. We're not doing the heavy lifting yet. However, Elijah's faith was growing. Clearly, these events are listed here to teach us that his faith was growing and it was improving. So now we get to chapter 18, verse 1.

And so you were introduced there to another one of God's servants, Obadiah. And you noted the interesting dialogue between those two prophets. I love that the writer has shown us in this passage, the natural fears of people, the natural fear of the widow, the natural fear of Obadiah, like, like, are you going to stay put if I say these words, you know? And, but God was faithful through those situations to triumph over their fears. And so in verse 17, now we have the interaction with Ahab.

So we learned there that they're sort of her pets. Okay. She cares for them. She kind of owns them. It seems like. So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel, gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. And I want you to just, I want to say some notes about Mount Carmel. First of all, this is what would have been referred to as a high place earlier and high places were places where Israel would worship their God pre temple of Solomon. But then after the temple of Solomon, it reverted to a pagan place, worshiping pagan gods. And also that Mount Carmel was not in a climate naturally given to drought at all. So this was very unusual to find there. And so Elijah suggested in verse 23, he said, listen, let two bowls be given to us and let them choose one bowl for themselves, cut it into pieces, lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bowl and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. And you will call upon the name of your God. And I will call upon the name of the Lord Yahweh and the God who answers by fire. He is God, the God who answers by fire, whose God is depicted holding the lightning bolt. What happens when lightning strikes on the ground? We have forest fires, right? Okay. So it should be a no brainer for this demon God who holds a lightning rod and all the people answered it's well-spoken. And so the prophets of Baal called upon their God. It says from morning until noon, but there was no answer. And they limped around the altar that they had made. And then Elijah began mocking them and telling them to cry louder. He says in verse 27, either he's musing or he's relieving himself, or I think the living Bible says he's in the bathroom or he's on a journey or perhaps he's asleep and must be awakened. And so they did. They cried harder and they worked harder. Verse 28, they cried aloud and they cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention. Silence. Verse 30. Then Elijah said to all the people, okay, come near me. And all the people came near to him and he repaired the altar of the Lord. This is kind of what makes me think that this was originally a place that they had used to sacrifice to the Lord that had been thrown down. And Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the 12 sons of Jacob. He's connecting with their history. And with the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar and he put wood in order and he cut the bull in pieces and he laid it on the wood. And he told them three times to go fill up the four jars of water and douse this whole area until verse 35, the water ran around the altar and filled the trench. And then at the end of the day, Elijah prayed a simple prayer.

And then fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, Yahweh, the Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is God. And Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape. And they seized them and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Kishon and slaughtered them there. And so we observe a few things from this narrative. Number one, God delights to make his power known. He delights to rescue his people from deception. He did that in that moment in that it was a deception that Baal would do anything. God rescued them from that as God's children. Secondly, we learned that we don't need to jump through a bunch of hoops and do a whole bunch of stuff like the prophets of Baal to get God's attention. It is just a simple prayer of faith that moves the Lord. And thirdly, we are reminded that faith is the key. Training in faith is essential. That warm-up lap that Elijah had in chapter 17, that was training in faith. As we like to say, a person needs to learn how to pray before you're in the lion's den. Learn to pray before you get there. And that's what we saw here. Elijah learned how to pray and have faith in God before he was faced 850 to one with the prophets of Baal. So after this, Elijah announced that it would rain and he kept vigil up on Mount Carmel and he said to his servant multiple times to go check for rain. In verse 44, at the seventh time, the servant said to him, behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea. And Elijah said, well, go up, say to Ahab, prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you. And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind and there was a great rain and Ahab rode and went to Jezreel and the hand of the Lord was on Elijah. Look, he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel, ran before Ahab in the chariot to the entrance of Jezreel. Bible scholars have some different opinions about the distance but it goes from 15 to 25 miles, okay? Now if I were to run before a chariot I don't think I could make it to the end of this parking lot. So 15, let's take the lower number, 15 miles he outran chariots, presumably with horses, I guess. So when it says that the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, that's an understatement. But what I want to do is say, I just want to say how much chapter 18, how much we love it. We get to the end and we're like, yay! We want to cheer. It's like the Super Bowl, Elijah loved it, Obadiah loved it. Elijah's faith had been trained and he triumphed. Let's think about those things. He didn't struggle with fear at the brook, he didn't fear the widow running out of flour and oil, he had faith for God to answer him with the dead child, he had faith for God to answer him with fire when he was standing, 850 to 1 with the prophets of Baal, and he had faith that God was going to send the rain when he said he was going to send it. But chapter 19 is a completely different story. Elijah went from faith to fear and the same can be true of us. Every one of us wants to have stable faith and we want to have stable emotions, but the reality is that sometimes things just come into our life that lay us flat, that send us for a loop. So I've made for us this morning a chart, like last week was Asa's, the spiritual life cycle of Asa. Our chart today is the emotional life cycle of Elijah, and I want to start with the first phase of that cycle, which is faith and confidence in the Lord. And this summarizes chapters 17 and 18, especially at Mount Carmel. Would you not define that as faith and confidence in the Lord? Wow, it was amazing, he'd invested, Elijah had invested a lot of time cultivating his faith and it completely paid off for him in that moment. And sometimes that is where we live. We've invested a lot of time cultivating our faith and living in faith. We have a high confidence that God is going to do what he says he's going to do. Look, we even have that confidence through difficult situations. Some of you have faced really challenging situations, but your faith in God has allowed you to face those situations and move forward. And even though you're in a time of trouble, you say, God is good, God can do this. And then something happens and we quickly enter into phase two. And I'm gonna call phase two, faith turned to fear. And this is what it looked like for Ahab. We're in chapter 19, verse 1. I'm sorry, this is what it looked like for Elijah. Ahab was the one that went home and told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. And then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so may that God's do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow. And what happened to Elijah's faith? Verse 3, and then he was afraid and he arose and he ran for his life and he came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and he left his servant there. Now maybe you have had the same thing happen to you in your life. You've had faith for some really big challenges, really hard things that you've gone through with the Lord, and your faith has prevailed, and then something comes along in your life that just flattens you. Maybe it's a family problem, maybe it's an illness, maybe it's an accident, maybe it's a lawsuit, maybe it is, you know, you find out your kids are doing drugs or something, and then maybe, maybe it's much simpler than that. Maybe like Elijah, it's just a personal attack that comes along. Isn't it interesting in our lives we can have faith for really big things and then all of a sudden something comes along and it turns completely to fear over something fairly small and insignificant. Now I'm not saying Jezebel was insignificant, but really you guys, okay, one woman saying I'm after you compared to standing in front of 850 men, it seems insignificant to us in comparison to what Elijah had just done. And the point is, it doesn't take much in our lives for our faith to turn into fear. So Elijah ended up in Beersheba. Now if you might remember, Beersheba, this isn't just like, you know, walking over to Payette, okay, this is like a hundred miles. This is like, this is pre-Roman roads, so up and down hills, six days, six days of walking, holding on to his fear. Do you remember how we always used to say the kingdom of Israel from Dan to Beersheba? Okay, so this is all the way down at the southern part of the kingdom. And he held on to his fear that whole time. And finally he ditched his servant there, and in verse 4, he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree and asked that he might die, saying, it is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my father's. And he lay down and he slept under a broom tree. And in our cycles, if we hold on to our fears all the way to the outer limits of our kingdom in the same way, we will eventually enter into phase number three, which I have called disappointment, discouragement, and maybe even depression. Elijah found himself in a fairly pitiful place, in a fairly pitiful position, because he curled up under a broom tree, which is no tree at all. A broom tree is a shrub. It's maybe six feet tall. It's scrubby. It has no usefulness except for a little desert animal to maybe curl up and be spared from the heat of the day, or perhaps a person slipping into depression to slip up and crawl under the ouchy branches and just want to die. So that's where he was. And his comment here about being no better than his father's, it sounds to me like something that a person who comes to the end of themselves says. When we come to the end of ourselves, when we have been completely flattened into something fearful, we will say things like, I can't take any more of this, or I have had enough, or we'll say, I've been faithful. Look where it's gotten me, or I've invested my life in these kids. Look what happened. Or we'll say, I think I'll just go find a broom tree and curl up and die, said no one ever in North America. But we say those things because we got nothing left in the tank, and Elijah had nothing left in the tank. He was not able to get himself out of this. And we get to the, look, I've been to those places. I have been to a place where I got nothing left in the tank, and I'm not personally able to get myself out of this phase that I'm in. But what happened next in this story really boosts my confidence in the Lord. And so I'm gonna call the fourth phase refreshing and strengthening from the Lord. Verse 5 in the middle, And behold, an angel touched him, Elijah, and said to him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank, and he lay down. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you. In other words, yeah, you're empty. You are on empty. This is too hard for you. Have you ever raised a teenager with a broken heart? Ever had one of your teens come home with a broken heart, and what do they do? Into the bedroom, close the door, maybe lock the door if that's a feature in your home, and they curl up on the bed, and there they are. And you know, as a mom, probably the best thing you can do for a moment is just let them. Like, they probably need to just sit with their emotions, and they probably need to sleep. So what do you do? You go into the kitchen, you bake chocolate chip cookies, you set it outside the door, you slip a little note under the door when you're ready, and those cookies don't sit there for three weeks. Eventually, they get up, and they eat, and they come out. And I like how first the angel just let him sleep and eat, but then the second time the angel gently told him that he needed to get up, eat some more, get moving, and carry on with life. And when we are refreshing others that have slipped into phase number three, we need to take that role of the angel, and we need to gently say to them, I mean, let them have their space, but then begin to gently say to them, you need to get up, and you need to get moving. It won't always be like this. And when we are the ones that are stuck in this phase, we need to... be warned of the temptation. There's a temptation to begin to identify with that face and actually want to stay there. I don't know if you've ever felt that, but there's this weird sort of a twisted pridefulness that comes over us and it's like, well, this is who I am. No one's gonna make me feel better. I dare you. I will not feel better. I will not get up. I will not move. We need to resist that temptation and we need to be moldable. We need to be incorrigible, not be like Asa who would not rely on God. And so that's a danger point. We need to accept help, even from God, especially from God. And Elijah did. He humbly accepted God's help and he moved forward, but he was still gonna be honest and that's good. That's okay. Look at verse eight. And he arose and he ate and he drank and he went in the strength of the Lord or of that food 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, the Mount of God, which is also Mount Sinai. Now I wanna note here, one thing I found fascinating is that God really offered him no sympathy throughout this whole thing. Like no one said to him, oh, I'm so sorry this has happened to you. It was all just pretty candid, direct conversation on both sides. I don't know what you wanna do with that. Just an observation. Verse 10, Elijah said, look, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant. They've thrown down your altars, killed your prophets with the sword and I, even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away. So now the positive thing that's going on here is Elijah is talking. He is talking, he's honest, and he's candid. The problem here is that Elijah is making a critical mistake. I don't know, in this moment, he turned into a girl. He's talking like a female here, you know, like we do. Like we think everything is up to us, don't we? This is like a female problem. Everything rests on our shoulders. Everything is falling apart and if we don't hold it together, it is gonna just completely untie. That's what he's saying. And I sort of think that Elijah expected on Mount Carmel, like, wow, that was so grand. It's like, okay, deception solved. It's all better now. And then he gets this note from Jezebel and realizes it wasn't that quick, okay? And because God had a plan here and it was going to take many more years and many more players in order for his plan to come to fruition. Elijah wasn't the only one that God was going to use. It wasn't all about him. Now, for God's part of the conversation, he sent a variety of expressions of his voice. Elijah's in the cave and God sends a strong wind and he sends the earthquake and he sends the fire, but it says the Lord was not in those. And then finally God sent this low whisper and that's what got Elijah's attention. And he gently brought him into the fifth phase of this emotional cycle. And I call this the importance of doing the next thing and getting back to work. And look what God says to him. I hear it still in that low whisper, very soft, very gentle. The Lord said to him, go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive and I'll summarize three bullet points of instructions that God told him to do. He said, I want you to anoint Haziel to be king of Syria. I want you to anoint Jehu to be king of Israel. And I want you to anoint Elisha to take your place, to be prophet. Now those weren't just three little errands like, well, I'll give you some little work to do so that you'll feel better about yourself. No, it was a therapeutic. Like having work to do is therapy for us. It was that for sure. But they were also necessary for God's final rescue from deception. By the time we get through our weeks four, five, and six, we're gonna realize that these are the very players that God has put in place to bring us to the end of this deception, to the destruction of the house of Baal, okay? So God's plan did not rest completely on Elijah's shoulders like he thought it did, okay? And you know what? God's plan does not rest completely on my shoulders. And God's plan does not rest completely on your shoulders. Whatever you are carrying, whatever you are fearful of, I'm just gonna bet that God has a timeframe and other players involved to solve the problem that is weighing on your shoulders. It's not all about us. And that's an important lesson for us to see. If you are stuck in phase three, discouragement, maybe you need to be reminded of that, that it's not all about you. God has a plan for your life, a rescue from what's going on. And so this chapter ends with Elijah meeting up with Elisha in a field while he's plowing. And as it unravels, Elisha offers a sacrifice and he does come and follow Elijah. And so they will be partners from now on. But I want to end this teaching with a review of this emotional cycle. Because I feel like it's something that the Lord gave us for today. Where are you in this cycle right now? Because we're all somewhere. Every one of us is at some point in this cycle. If you're in phase one, walking in faith, you got trouble in your life, you got challenges in your life, but you are walking in faith and you believe that God is giving you the strength you need to do that. Well, that's great, but just know, just be aware that when you least expect it, something can come along and turn that faith to fear. And when that happens, it's easy for us to move into the phase three of disappointment, discouragement, and even depression. And if you're in phase three, you need to know that God can strengthen you. God can give you what you need, but you know what? You need to have a humble heart. And we need to not identify with depression. We need to not identify with discouragement, but be willing to say, okay, Lord, I am here, refresh me. Bring me those chocolate chip cookies. I promise I'll eat them. But you know, we need to get rid of the stubbornness that can cause us to just want to stay there. And one of the, I think the most important therapies for us to get back to the top of the cycle, back to walking by faith, is to do what God has given us to do. I always love that statement. Elizabeth Elliot made it the most popular, do the next thing. God is always so faithful to show us what is the next thing that he's given us to do. Do that thing. It is therapy. Doing is therapy, and it will help us. It will enable us to get back to phase one, where yeah, yeah, we got a lot of problems, but we truly do believe that God is bigger than our problems. Well, next week, we get to continue with Ahab and Jezebel, yay. And we're gonna focus on stability versus instability. So let's pray about our emotions. Lord, thank you for this lesson. And thank you, Lord, that you saw fit to really convey the reality of human beings and what we face. And this message about Elijah, someone who is so bigger than life in our eyes, we see, Lord, just the human condition. And we understand, Lord, that we are all susceptible to become fearful at maybe the smallest thing, to let our tires get flattened at the smallest thing. So Lord, since we're on this, we just ask that you would help us to always keep our ears and our eyes open to you, to be willing to be strengthened to you, that we would not fall into an identity of discouragement, but that we would look for your leading, rely on you, Lord, and do the next thing that you've given us to do. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.