Like Passions and Prayers — 1 Kings 17

0:01 I was talking to Ray earlier, and Ray says that he has to wear glasses all the time now. Well, I can do you two better. Contacts and glasses. That's it. I tell you what, it's just really weird, man.

0:20 Your eye is shaped like a football, Chris. It's called astigmatism. And it, you know... I love when they tell you that they get real close to you, too, and the optometrist, you know. And I'm going, Tic tac?

0:43 I'm a little nervous. I'm a little nervous. I really am. That chart intimidates me. That chart intimidates me big time.

0:57 He... And he's digging it. Yeah. He's digging the... Yeah.

1:01 The chart, that's what it's meant to do, Chris. Blow you away. So when they asked me to do bookends, Elijah and Elijah, oh my word. I've... I got so many books out.

1:19 It was unbelievable. It was unreal. And because not much is given about Elijah. We don't know much about his background. We don't know we don't know much about where he even was from.

1:34 He was called the Tishbite, but Tish Tishb is in the South Of Gilead and and you'd... On the East Side Of The Jordan and everybody everybody I look at say, we don't know where really that is. We don't know much about it. But yet they did, like, six paragraphs telling me that they don't know much about it. And I looked at that, and I thought to myself, man, this is really this is really crazy.

2:03 But this guy arrives on the scene. He arrives on the scene. You know, you have no lineage for him. You don't know if he's married or not. Most likely he's not.

2:14 The way he dresses, No wonder they thought he was like John the Baptist because he had a very simple cloak type of thing and put a leather belt around him. That's about it on on the personal appearance of of this guy named Elijah. Elijah. Okay? And not Elijah.

2:42 We'll talk about... My wife is always telling me, say it clearly. Say it clearly, Chris. So we look at this and we we think... And also, one of the things that I I am impressed about him that James says about him is that he is like us.

3:01 He's a man of like passions. And I think to myself, you know, wow. This great prophet, he's not a written prophet. He's not like Isaiah. He's not like Jeremiah, the major prophets.

3:24 They call him major and then you got the minor or or what they call the 12, the 12 prophets. The minor prophets are not prophets that are under 18. That was supposed to be funny, but it it didn't work out too good. So it's just the length of the book. Just the length of the book.

3:47 That's it. And they were all all very interesting. What what makes Elijah really interesting is that Elijah did the miraculous. There's only three guys in the new... Or in the Old Testament that did the miraculous.

4:07 Three prophets that did the miraculous, only three. And the the Hebrew guys would tell me, and you can look this up in bibsac if you want to, whatever bibsac is. It's not for your lunch. But it's... It...

4:23 The bibsac is biblia sacra. It's a it's a thing published by... A journal published by Dallas Seminary. And what what he said, a guy named doctor Carver said this, and it was really powerful because he said there were three guys in the old testament that did the miraculous. And they called them a special word in the Hebrew and I'm gonna say it but I'm not too good at this.

4:50 It's called the shalakim. It's like the like the Ohio State Buckeyes gave them a shellac em, you know? But it gave Youngstown State a shellac king but this is a a they called it like a shellac and that transliterates into in the New Testament into apostolustos or apostle, which really really is interesting to me because the apostles did the miraculous. And we see that in second Corinthians twelve twelve where the signs of the apostle and the and the article is there. The apostle were wrought among you.

5:30 And so, know, the signs, wonders, mighty deeds. Well, this is what Elijah did. Elijah did the same and Moses is the third. Actually, the first. In fact, a lot of people say about about Elijah.

5:45 They say, well, he's in the he's in the tradition or in the in the way that Moses was. In the same way, the same venue, doing the miraculous, and doing the the the shocking, you know, that that kind of thing and then that and then that spirit, he did that. And this is the way John the Baptist. In Micah... In Malachi four four five, I think it is, it says that that, you know, Elijah will come back.

6:57 So, this man named Elijah, taken up in a whirlwind. Taken completely up. One man put it this way. It was a rapture. In fact, there are six raptures in the Bible and we we can talk about that a little bit later but the thing is when you have when you have Elijah, this guy is somebody special.

7:20 He just bursts on the scene. He just comes right on the scene. You've got Ahab, you've got his wife Jezebel, and she she worships another type of god, another type of god, and 400 prophets were a part of that and Baal worshipers, 450 prophets is really really a mess. They were trying to take the 10 tribes which is now called the Northern Kingdom, which is now called Israel Okay, they split. They split the the kingdom, the whole thing, Israel split, you have two tribes to the South, the Southern Kingdom, and they had their own kings but you had 17, I believe, 17 kings in the northern, northern section, and they, every one of those kings was wicked.

8:21 Every one of them and Ahab tried to get and Jezebel too tried to get his wife, Ahab's wife, tried to pull them away from Jehovah God, Yahweh. Tried to pull them away and go after Baal. That's a little background. I mean, you you look at the... You look at this this...

8:50 I mean, think how fast Elijah was. He ran 25 straight miles and beat the guy on a chair, you know, who was riding in a chariot. Beat him. 25 miles. Now, that that that's a marathon.

9:09 That's a marathon for you. He hiked up his his garment and just took off. I I don't know, man. No training. Didn't tell us about how he trained five days a week and, you know, ate, did a lot of spaghetti before he did it.

9:27 You know, all this kind of stuff. No, it didn't say that but he did it. He he did that. I mean, just things that are just amazing. He gave bread and oil to a woman just like the lord Jesus.

9:42 Just like the lord Jesus Christ. I think that's why a lot of people confused him. Confused the two. Are you Elijah? Who do you say that I, the son of man, am?

9:57 And they said, well, say you're this, and some say you're that, and some say you're Elijah, some say... Etcetera. Right? Who do you say that I am? And then that great confession from Peter, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.

10:14 And as he gives that gives that interesting and narrowing and exclusive identity of himself, the lord Jesus. The backdrop is he's standing in, he's standing against a a cliff, a wall. He's standing against the wall where they had in niches, they had niches in the wall carved where the Romans and other people would put their particular gods, carved gods. As the Psalm has said, they have eyes but they see not. They have ears but they hear not.

10:54 They have mouths but they speak not. And that's all these niches all over the place. I I've been there. I've seen it. But on top of that mountain is Mount Transfiguration.

11:07 In which Elijah and Moses speak with the Lord about his death. About his impending death. And that's why Peter, James, and John say, hey, listen. Let's make three booths for these guys. Let's make three booths for them.

11:25 Let's let's enshrine them, you know? And the lord didn't have any of that and then another thing too that's really comforting to me is that they were able to recognize Elijah and Moses without name tags. And the Lord Jesus didn't go, hey, you know these guys? These guys, just famous guys. Here they are, Moses, you know.

11:52 Hey, hey, there's Elijah. There he is. Hey, what do you think of these guys? No. Didn't do that at all.

12:00 They recognize him. So what does that tell me? Well, it tells me a lot. But where it really tells me is that will we be able to recognize people when we get to heaven? And the answer is absolutely.

12:18 Absolutely. Without a shadow of a doubt. Why? Because they recognized Moses and Elijah without ever being introduced. They knew who they were.

12:28 Ain't that a killer? So, Elijah is really really an interesting guy. One of the couple of facts regarding if you want some facts. Elijah's name is mentioned 69 times in the in the Old Testament. 69 times.

12:48 He's also mentioned the balance actually is mentioned a 102 times in the total Bible but 30 times in the New Testament. Now, when we read the King James, when we read the King James, you have this name called Elias. Elia, okay? That's the Greek form of Elijah. That is the Greek form of of Elijah, Elijah's name and modern translators translated Elijah, not Elias.

13:22 But that's why we we see that. Elias, is that the same guy? And the answer is yes. There's two times where Elijah's name in the Old Testament is mentioned in this Ezra but not the same guy. Just twice.

13:37 They were both they were a priest and they had they got married to foreign wives and then they had to divorce and be purified etcetera. Different different Elijah. Different of god. Different guy. So, Elijah's name is mentioned 66 times in the Old Testament and or 60, let's say, seven times and 30 times in the New Testament.

14:39 Yeah. Yeah, that's it. It's in the James chapter five and look at verse 16. He says, five sixteen, James says, confess your faults one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effectual and fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

15:03 Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. That's three and a half years. Can you imagine? And he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit. Wow.

15:31 It's a man of like passions. So, we know a little bit about him and he's a man of like passions but I look at this and and I say to myself, okay, this is this is all cool. Cool facts, cool facts but what does that mean to us? What does it mean to you in your seat? What does it mean to me and you in our lives every day?

15:55 What does it mean for us? We've you got, you know, this is the kickoff for all the prophets, right? Like I said before, Elijah, one of the major, if not, the made, one of the greatest prophets. Let me put it that way. Not a written prophet like Isaiah.

16:13 I'm gonna reiterate that. Not a written prophet like the guys that are gone... Like Jonah, etcetera. But man, what a powerful guy in the Lord. And one of the things I think we're gonna find out about about this as you do your study here and we complete it with Elisha is that these two and and then three including Moses will do things that are just absolutely miraculous.

16:45 Whereas the other prophets, they do... Might do goofy stuff. They might do goofy stuff. They might do strange things, but it is going to be not miraculous in the sense that... I mean, nations will be changed.

16:59 I mean, you look at you look at Nineveh, a whole city changed because of a guy reluctantly wanting to preach. And and he he was he was obedient. But I look at this. These guys, I mean, you we'll talk next in November about how some kids mocked out Elisha because he was bald. Yeah.

17:29 Yeah. Find out in November what happens to him. Yeah. Watch out. Watch out about the, you know, the bald jokes, you know.

17:41 Here you go, you know. Oh, yeah. Watch out. Watch out about the bald jokes and when we get to Elisha, I mean, I couldn't believe it. I'm going, what was this problem?

17:50 You know, anyway, we'll we'll talk. We'll talk about that later but I look at this and I say, okay, the title of it is like passions and prayers and I like us now to look at first kings. Go to the left, a big chunk of your Bible. Go to first Kings and we certainly don't we want to look at this and I thought to myself, okay, what are some what are some life lessons? I got tipped off to that.

18:23 Life lessons. What are some life lessons? And the life and ministry of Elijah shows us five life lessons that we must learn if we're going to have a productive Christian life. We must learn these. He is teaching us.

18:40 In fact, that's exactly what Romans tells us that these things were written for our admonition and whatever things were written earlier in earlier times were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scripture might have hope. So, we're looking at a life, a life that's already, I mean, he was taken up in a whirlwind so he didn't die and then you and you have Enoch too That happened to Enoch as well. But you look at this and you say, how can I take the life of Elijah over here? In fact, I look at this man. I I thought I had to get like 20 power glasses to get to look at the minutia of this.

19:26 I mean, can you imagine this? I go, Oh, really? It's really, really. That's why I never bought something like that. I I really...

19:39 Because I'm going, I can't read this. I can't read this, but it's cool. And so you see Elijah over in that in that chart. It's right there in that section. He's gonna battle Ahab.

20:20 At the same time. You can't do both. Jesus said, you can't serve two masters. You can't do it. You're either going to serve one or you're going to serve the other and that was Ahab's problem and when you look at Ahab, you look at Ahab, what a cheesy weasel.

20:41 That's not in the Hebrew or the Greek. Okay? But what a cheesy weasel that guy was. He says to Jehoshaphat, hey, hey, you dress up like a king and ride in your chariot. That's pretty good.

20:55 We're gonna go to Romeo Of Gilead and we're gonna wage war. I'm just gonna be like a normal foot soldier. And so they... The the the guys... The opposition said, go after the king.

21:11 Go after the king. Right? And so they go after him and then all of a sudden Jehoshaphat... That's a whole another story. How stupid and ungodly Jehoshaphat was at that moment making an alliance with with Ahab.

21:29 That was foolish, you know. And they go to attack him cause they thought he was Ahab. No way. He didn't... He he cried out to the Lord and they relented.

21:39 And some guy... Some... Can you imagine that guy? It's like the guy that said I shot Osama Bin Laden. But, you know, I don't know if this happened, but an archer rears back from the opposition, lets it fly, goes right between the chinks of Ahab's armor and kills him.

22:03 In your face, you can't hide from God. You can't hide from God. Hopefully, Jehoshaphat really understood what he was doing. And... But that's a whole another thing.

22:16 So Ahab Ahab in verse seven in chapter 17 verse one, you see here, he is going to... He's, you know, his reign is awful. He's awful. He's offering people to Baal. He's their children.

22:32 All these kinds of things. Just terrible which taking place in the northern 10 tribes of which is called Israel, the Northern Kingdom and it says, and Elijah, the Tishbite, who is the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab. Okay. So, you look at this. Okay.

22:52 So, what are these five life lessons? You ready to write them down? Here they are. Here's the five life lessons. I should write a book.

23:01 You know, sell it all over the place. I'm... No. I'm only kidding. It's already written in the book.

23:07 The five life lessons is this, be always bold. Elijah was always bold. He was always bold and we see that here in first Kings 17. Can you imagine the I don't even know if this is in the Hebrew. Maybe it is Hebrew, but it's not biblical Hebrew, but it's chutzpah.

23:37 He had the chutzpah to stand against a powerful guy who wanted him dead. It doesn't this first time he's mentioned by the way. First time he's mentioned and Elijah the Tishbite who is in the inhabitants of Gilead said unto Ahab as the lord god of Israel lives before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor not nor rain these years according to my word. It was three and a half years. It's not not gonna happen.

24:15 It is not gonna happen. Well, that's... I mean, if you've ever been in The Middle East, rain is important. It's important for your crops. By the way, Baal is the god of grain.

24:28 Baal is the god of grain and if you ain't got water, you ain't got grain and so, yeah, oh, Elijah, my god is, it really in his name, he's really saying my god's bigger. My god is great. Yahweh who is god. Yahweh who is god. Alaijah.

24:51 Jehovah. Yahweh who Yahweh who is god and he's his name, his name is really putting a pencil in the eye of Baal. They can't say that and so all of a sudden, he's saying, okay, you can't go to Baal. You're going to go to Baal and you're going to try to get this rain back. It's not going to happen.

25:14 It's not going to happen. You, how do you think that Elijah when he went and did that to Ahab regarding all these people, how do you think he felt? How do you think he was he went up there and said, this is going to happen and for three and a half years, you're not going to have rain. You're you're not going to have it at all and so you look at this and you say to yourself, wow. And how does that make application and be, oh, be always bold.

25:46 We have been commanded to be bold. Did you know that? Keep your finger in in in first Kings and go to second Timothy. Second Timothy chapter four if you would and let's look at this. Second Timothy chapter four verse two through five.

26:05 Second Timothy four. And you're probably tapping away on your computer because I don't hear many pages turning. But look at this. It's Look at look at this. Two, second Timothy chapter four verse two, preach the word.

26:28 Be diligent in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering, and doctrine. For the time will come when then men will not endure sound doctrine. But turn, they shall be turned away their ears from the truth and shall be turned to fables. But watch thou in all things, endure affliction, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof thy ministry. Gotta tell you, gotta tell you, it is hard to go up to a person and tell them that they're a sinner.

27:10 Hi, excuse me. How you doing today? You're a sinner. How are you? I think there's a way of doing it that would make it more palatable for a person but we're to do that.

27:26 Always being bold. I like to ask this question, what is more important? What is more important? Did I be a friend of somebody and never tell them about Jesus? Or I tell them about the lord Jesus Christ?

27:46 Maybe not be a friend, maybe be a friend. This friendship evangelism is overworked. We... Sometimes we we to make... We don't wanna make such contact.

27:59 We don't wanna make the contact because people... But think about what's happening to them. They're dying. And he's already commanded us to do the work of an evangelist. We have to be like Elijah and we have to say, lord, help me to be bold.

28:17 In fact, that's exactly what the Bible says in Proverbs twenty eight one. The righteous are as bold as a lion. Wow. And so when we look at this, always be bold, always. Bold is not brash.

28:35 Bold is not being an idiot. You know, just you know, bold is with your internal, you're asking god to give you that internal fortitude to do what he has commanded us to do and he gives us the strength to do it and Elijah, we see that with him. I mean, he was like, you know, but that's what that's what he needed. One time, we were talking talking to a guy over a period of years. A few years anyway.

29:23 This is like here's a here's a two by four, spiritual two by four upside the head. I said, Ray, we've already talked to him a few times, but I said, Ray, you're going to die and spend eternity in the lake of fire. Would you like to get right with God? And he looked at me, he goes, yep. You know, I mean, I couldn't have said it stronger.

29:56 You know, I couldn't have said, hey, man. Maybe I could have. Turn or burn, fly or fry, make make your meet your maker or your baker, you know, this type of thing. But I mean, you know, it's a boldness asking god to give us the boldness. How many of us retreat and shrink and fear with trying to tell somebody about Christ?

30:19 Okay. So... And then also bold in our obedience. And then we go back to we go back to Kings, we go back to Kings there and we look at what he did. He went he went, Elijah went to to Cherith, I think that's how you pronounce it.

30:41 And he went there, and the ravens fed him. The ravens fed him. Does Elijah ever get discouraged? You you betcha. You betcha he gets discouraged.

31:02 He says, why do you... You know, this is the Schroeder loose paraphrase. Why are you calling me to this? I... I'm the only one.

31:14 I'm the only one here. You ever feel like that? Well, god told him, no, you're not. I have so many thousands left that have not been the need to bail. I have these guys.

31:29 You you're not the only one and by the way, let me just say this to about you personally. If you know Jesus as your personal savior, he has never left you, will never leave you. So you can never say, I am alone. You can never say it legitimately. So when you go boldly to talk to your friend that you're scared to death of talking or maybe you want...

31:59 Don't wanna alienate the person, etcetera, You're not alone. God is with you. In fact, you know, what you said today, Bob, was was perfect. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Our lord is with you.

32:17 That is that is powerful and so, you need to be bold in our message and bold in our obedience and then, we see in Romans chapter 12 and I'm going to try to pick this up. Romans 12, we see here that always be always zealous. He was zealous. Elijah was zealous for the things of god. I would like us to to know, are we zealous for the things of god?

32:50 This is this is something that I have to wrestle with in my own heart. You know, there really is. It's something that I am or am I distracted by the things that really I think that are important or they want you to think are important. Politics or whatever. Whatever the football, Ohio State, will they go undefeated?

33:12 I mean, do they have a good quarterback or a lousy quarterback? Are they going to do it? Will he win the high? All that kind of stuff. The distractions of life are always before us and those distractions never give us peace.

33:28 Never give us peace. So, we want to be zealous and how do we do it? We want to seek the face of god. David writes in Psalm 27. The lord said, seek you my face.

33:43 Can you imagine the god of the universe telling David, seek you my seek my face. Come to me all you that are heavy laden and I will give you rest. This is the god of the universe telling you this. Come to me. I want this fellowship.

34:02 It's not religious. It's relational. It's a relationship. I want this. So, he says, thy face lord, will I seek.

34:13 That's zealousness. I want to come after him like I was coming after a meal if I was super hungry. You know, I want, you know, I'm so hungry. I want to get this. I want to be so hungry after god that I come after him with zeal.

34:30 I wanna... I just don't wanna just blase in. I did my fifteen minute quiet time. No. No.

34:36 No. I'm glad you're doing the fifteen minute quiet time. I'm happy about that. I really am. But how's your heart?

34:46 Coming after him with your whole heart. Lord, you're the only one. It's like the disciple said, you're the only one who has the words of eternal life. Where else can we go? You're the only one and that's how we come after because he is the only one.

35:28 The worst thing you can do for your own life is to think that you are somebody. You have to think that he is everything. That's that's that's a terrible... I I know I'm going against conventional wisdom of the world, you know, but we have to seek the face of God. We come to him and we bow the knee to him.

35:58 John, arguably the closest to the lord Jesus Christ. In the book of Revelation, when he sees the risen Christ in the chapter one, what does he do? He falls at his feet as dead. He didn't high five him. He didn't say, how's the big man upstairs?

36:17 All this kind of stuff. No. He fell at his feet as death, As dead. And then the Lord encouraged him. And you look at this and I think I want to do this.

36:28 The closer you get to him, the less you think of you. We seek him with everything we've got. How do we do that? How does that happen? You gotta have the word of god in your life.

36:44 It's not some existential high. I feel it, lord. Yeah. We are in an existential world. That is to say, we are in a touchy feely world.

36:54 We've gotta go to the book to find out who he is and how we come to him. And he desires that and then also, we, Elijah shows us the life lesson of be always prayerful. We read that verse already. He prayed and then we look at Philippians chapter four. It tells us, we pray with fervency, we pray with for everybody.

37:24 We pray for everybody and we pray in everything. We pray in everything. And I... Funny story about my my coworker Murphy. I call him Murphy.

37:37 His name is Greg Steigelman. Right? He preached at a place. He told me this. He goes...

37:44 He preached at a place and he goes, hey. Let's pray. He... The people that were with him, he says, let's pray that God gives us an invitation to go to dinner with a roast. I know.

37:59 It sounds funny. Right? They they prayed. Person comes right up to him. Hey, we're at, would you guys like to have dinner with us?

38:08 We're having a roast. Oh, you think, wow, that's that's the, what a coincidence. No, in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto god and this is what god desires of us. So we pray for everything. We pray for everybody.

38:33 And then also, we walk the... Elijah shows us the life lesson of be always available. Always available. I think of Isaiah and I don't mean to steal the thunder of whoever is speaking on Isaiah. But Isaiah six, he sees the glory of the lord.

38:58 Right? He sees the glory of the lord high in the temple. Right? And he sees this and he just holy holy holy and then he says, woe is me. I'm a man of un...

39:09 I am undone, a man of unclean lips, etcetera. And then the Lord says, who will go for us? So here's the deal. The more you yield your life to him and with with fervency, the more you yield your life to him, he's going to use you. You're available.

39:36 The closest people to the lord are the most available people. Because they are the most humble. And they're going to know... Here's what they're going to know and what you'll know too, is that when God does something in and through you because you've yielded yourself, you give him the glory. Because you know it was him that did it.

40:04 It wasn't your cleverness. It wasn't anything else. It wasn't your ideas. It was your obedience to him, and then he gets the glory. That's what he wants.

40:18 That's what he want and you'll be, your socks will be blessed right off. You'll be going, oh man, that's fantastic and you'll be able to step back and say, wow, you are a great god. You are powerful and what that does is it reinforces your idea and confidence in this God who worked it out and did it. And you go, God be the glory. Great things he has done.

40:48 That's what you do. It's not your education. It's not anything. It's you stepping back and seeing him as you humbly yield yourself to him and watch him. So be available and then always be always obedient.

41:26 Get all these prophets from Baal because there were 400 of Jezebel, I think Azeroth or something like that. But one guy said they didn't have enough guts to show up. They didn't show up, but the four fifty did. They had two two of them. Can you imagine this?

41:46 Two altars cutting up... Get your get your two bullocks and putting on there, put them on there. Why don't you cry out? Cut them cut them in pieces and put it on there and start... Put water on it.

41:59 Cut it. Cut em up and put here, cry out for god to consume it. You're gods, do it. For six hours. Six Oh, man.

42:15 In fact, they weren't getting anywhere. They weren't getting anywhere so bad that Elijah started cat cat calling him a little bit. Hey, what? Hey, maybe he went on vacation. Where's your god now?

42:29 Where is he? Is it... Is your god better? Is is god better than Yahweh? No.

42:35 No. But but go ahead. Cry out some more. So bad were they that they started cutting themselves And the scripture said the blood was all over the place. So they were kinda going kinda deep.

42:47 And they were cutting themselves and thinking that's gonna really shake Baal. And Baal's gonna come in. I tell you what, that's what a lot of people are doing in this world today and thinking that the Baals are are the gods are going to minister to them. And we have to show them that it is not going to minister to them. I love it in the Psalmist.

43:11 He says, eyes have they, but they see not. These these gods that they manufacture. Hears have they but they hear not. Mouths have they but they speak not and you're alike unto them and that's what these people that are doing. We have to show them that the god, Yahweh and this is what Elijah was doing.

43:34 Elijah was doing that very thing when Elijah, he said, okay, guys, douse it with water. It may maybe they want to douse the whole thing with water. In fact, douse it again. Let's put a little trench around there and put water in the trench. What do you say?

43:51 Is that good? In fact, in fact, not just quite. Let's do it three times. Doused the whole thing with water and then he prayed earnestly. Something like this.

44:05 Lord, let your glory be seen. Lord, you do this. Instantly, boom. Like lightning, fire came down from heaven and consumed everything. The dirt, the rocks, the everything.

44:25 You look at the... How much he consumed. He consumed everything. Then sent those guys after the the false prophets of Baal. And consumed them.

44:45 Always be obedient. You know why sometimes our Christian life seems drab? You know why? Because maybe we're not obedient to what god would have us to do. I I like it when as we're saturating ourselves with the word of god, what he does is this, he starts to prompt our hearts.

45:11 I want you to go over here. Specifically, you know, just do this. Go over... I'm in, you know, and it's not like you're hearing his voice, but you're going a prompting of the spirit of God. I like what one translation says, following the promptings of the spirit of God.

45:27 And you're you're going, oh, you know, I I I should do that. And when you do that, you follow that prompting. This is when your heart's yielded to the Lord. This is when you're saturated with the scriptures. You're reading the scriptures faithfully and doing that.

45:46 And you're... And you go, oh, okay. And you go and do it and God blesses you. Can't believe how that thrills your heart, soul, mind. You just say, man, I'm so glad I obeyed the voice of the Lord in that prompting.

46:05 I'm so glad on that and you know what happens with this? I tell you experientially speaking, you will be inflamed to wanna continue to obey god. Do you remember when he was in there? He ran and he was in the cave and earthquake came and then storm came, right? But what was it that got his attention?

46:53 I mean, don't go, I'm waiting. Uh-huh. No. No. No.

46:58 He prompts you. I like that better, actually. A still small voice, he starts to prompt you. You will have, as you obey the word of God and obey that still small voice, you will have a life that's electric. A Christian life that's electric.

47:19 That's what we can learn. That's what we can learn. Always to be bold, always to be zealous, be always prayerful, always available, always obedient, always. God wants... This is the thing that kills me.

47:39 God wants to bless your life. God desires to bless your life. We're... We are sold by by, the world and the devil and his minions that we we... We're better off trusting ourselves.

47:59 We sing the song, don't we? Trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. Two hundred years from now, that's the only thing that's gonna make a difference. Two hundred years from now, we're all gonna be in eternity. The oldest person I ever met met and then took the funeral was 106.

48:49 How about you? I wanna look at Elijah and say, what can I learn? What life lessons can I learn from him? Help us to do this, Lord. Donna Morrison will tell you the same thing.

49:10 This very moment, she would tell you the same thing. Father, I just ask you that you would help us to be faithful to you and to be the person of god you want us to be. Help us to be willing. Help us not to go back in our hearts and in our thinking going back to the mundane and it's really amazing how Satan tries to sell us how exciting the mundane is. It's not.

49:49 Trusting and obeying and seeing you work, that's the excitement. That is the incredible blessing. And we ask you to help us in this. In Jesus' name, amen.