Elijah: One Man Totally Consecrated to the Lord
By Pastor Matt Black
25
November 2007
Lord's Day evening
1 Kings 18:17-20
Introduction: Open your Bibles to the book of 1 Kings 18:17-20. We are continuing our study on the life of Elijah. Here is a man that came out of nowhere to change a nation. Remember it had been only fifty-eight short years since Solomon’s death. Just after Solomon went off the scene the Davidic Kingdom split in two. During those 58 years of spiritual blindness—7 kings had reigned over the northern kingdom—all were wicked to the core and followed in the footsteps of the first king in the era of the divided kingdom, Jeroboam.
It shows you how quickly unbelief can spread through a land. But Elijah shows us how much of a difference one person can make. We’re going to talk about that tonight. So the title of this evening’s message is “One Man Totally Consecrated to the Lord.”
Let’s go ahead and read 1 Kings 17:8-16, “And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? 18 And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim. 19 Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table. 20 So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel.”
[Prayer for guidance]
D.L. Moody once famously said "The world has yet to see what God can do with and through and in a man who is fully consecrated to Him.”[1] Moody went on, “I, by God’s grace, shall be that man”. Moody was one of the most influential men of Christ that the contemporary world has seen. I would venture to say that he was not always liked. He would preach in certain places and the bars and liquor stores would close.
Leonard Ravenhill said, "Any true revival can be proven by the fact that it changed the moral climate of an area or a nation."[2]
There were other men like this in history who changed the moral climate of a nation and of the entire world! Now these are not great or extraordinary or special men. These are ordinary men with an extraordinary and Awesome God!
“Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,
I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see”.
Wilberforce vowed to fight until the slavery was abolished in Great Britain. Year after year Wilberforce fought against the wealthiest people in his country, but on 23 February 1807, through a bill written by Wilberforce in the House of Commons, the slave traded in Great Britain was forever ended.
“The world has yet to see what God can do with and through and in a man who is fully consecrated to Him.” Many men have stood alone for God and changed the course of a town, a nation and a world. Will you, by the grace of God be that person?
Elijah was that kind of a person. He was ready to stand against the world. Elijah stood alone for the Lord. He didn’t start a political party. He had no vast organizational network. There were very few believers in Israel at the time. These are, believe it or not, good conditions for a revival.
Israel was in a mess. The people were starving. The landscape was filled with idol groves to Baal and Asherah. Daily, Ahab and Jezebel would worship their god of wood, Baal. And when drought came, Baal had no power. Ahab didn’t care about his people. He was ought with his servant Obadiah looking through every corner of Israel for grass to feed his mules and cattle. He cared more about his animals than his people! What a terrible time this was.
And Obadiah and Elijah remained faithful. Remember Obadiah told Elijah in verse 13, “Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the LORD, how I hid an hundred men of the LORD’S prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water?”
Last week we learned that Elijah and Obadiah had three characteristics to be “vessels fit for the master’s use”? Do you remember what those three qualities were?
So we come to verse 17 with Elijah approaching Ahab, “And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” (1 Kings 18:17).
Ahab recognized that Elijah was a man to be reckoned with. Elijah was standing against an entire country, and he would have stood against an entire world if he had to. But Elijah’s battle was not against armies and kings and peoples. We come to our first point.
I. Elijah’s purpose was to expose the spiritual blindness of a King and a nation. In doing this, he wrestled three and a half years. Not with flesh and blood! No, his battle was “not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). Elijah relied on God to break through the spiritual blindness, and he was willing to do whatever it took to agitate the powers of darkness and to crack the foundations of idolatry in an apostate nation.
Elijah’s battle was not against an army, but against the blindness that was in King Ahab’s heart and the blindness that was in the majority of Israel. Now notice what Ahab calls Elijah. He says, “Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” (1 Kings 18:17). Here is Elijah, serving God faithfully, suffering and sacrificing and serving God, and he is marked out as the bad guy. That is often how we find this in Scripture.
· In exchange for his faithful service to God, the prophet Amos was falsely accused and charged with being a traitor by Amaziah the priest (Amos 7:10).
· It was said of Paul and Silas at Philippi that they did "exceedingly trouble the city" (Acts 16:20).
· In fact the early believers were said to have "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6).
Remember if you are going to be totally consecrated to God…
A. You must be willing to stand alone against the world. Elijah comes face to face against Ahab, and Ahab says Elijah was “the troubler of Israel”. In other words, he was standing alone against the whole current of the pagan culture in Israel. People hate God, and if you love him the world will hate you. When the world hates you, it is not really you that they are hating. According to the Lord in John 7:7, “The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.”
False teachers have changed the Gospel today. Their Gospel is “Blessed are ye when you have riches and good health and men shall say all manner of praise you’re your name.” But the Lord had very different words in Matthew 5:11. He said, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you" (Matthew 5:11-12).
If you are to be totally consecrated to God, you must speak the truth.
B. You must also speak the truth regardless of the consequences. Leave the consequences to God. Look at verse 2: Elijah answered Ahab, “I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim”.
Elijah speaks the truth. He says they follow Baalim. "Baalim" is in the plural number for Baal, since Ahab and his wife worshipped a variety of false deities.[3]
1. Elijah spoke with disregard to his own well being, self preservation, or reputation. Hebrews 13:13, “Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.”
2. Elijah with great peril confronted Ahab knowing that Ahab had already searched the country side to destroy him. Elijah did not care about being recognized as a prophet! He didn’t care about position and donated doctorate degrees! He didn’t care about being called Dr. and highly esteemed of men. Elijah didn’t have education or fame or giftedness, but he had the voice of a prophet! If you are going to change the world, you must have a voice of truth! You must be willing to confront issues even when it is messy and you lose your reputation through it.
3. Elijah named Ahab’s sin specifically. He said, “Thou and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim." Elijah goes to Ahab like Nathan went to David: “Thou art the man”.
4. Elijah stood against the whole culture which had approved of Ahab’s sin. If you are going to stand alone for God, you must courageously confront the culture. Elijah is zealous to give the truth in an environment of total blindness.
But Elijah was not just a prophet of doom. His message was not only repentance, but it was the faith and dependence on the awesome power of God and the God of power!
Elijah is about to demonstrate the mighty works of God before the entire nation. So he sets the stage in verse 17.
So Elijah’s purpose was not just to expose the spiritual blindness of a King and a nation, but…
II. Elijah’s purpose was also to exalt the power of the true and living God. And that is your calling if you are to be one person making a difference. Expose sin. Exalt God. Expose sin. Exalt God. That’s your calling. In verses 19-20, Elijah gives a challenge in preparation to exalt this great and mighty power of God. He says to Ahab, “Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table”. Elijah is so confident, he’s commanding kings around.
A. Elijah was possessed by God’s Spirit and power. Now you must understand, that no ordinary man can stand against an entire nation by himself without a standing army. Yet Elijah had no army. He had no delegation or cabinet. Elijah though WAS given extraordinary power and authority from the Lord. Elijah’s power was so extradinary that the New Testament speaks of this unusual gifting as "the spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke 1:17). I am telling you tonight that you as the New Testament, post-Pentacost church have more power than Elijah ever had available to him. Where are the Elijahs today who will show how powerless paganism is?
B. God’s power is evident even to the hardest unbelievers. We see this in verse 20. “So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel.” There is no reason at all that King Ahab and all the priests of Baal should gather at Mount Carmel and follow Elijah’s demand. Yet they did. It seemed that though he didn’t like it, Ahab saw that it was God through Elijah that had stopped the rain. They were desperate. After three and a half years of drought, it began to dawn on Ahab that Elijah was a man of extraordinary power.
Yet even all this judgment did not turn the hearts of Ahab or his people. Simply sending rain was not going to turn the tide in Israel. They needed a demonstration of great and heavenly power.
Conclusion: In conclusion, isn’t that what we need today? The world doesn’t need another declaration of Christianity, they need a new demonstration of Christianity! Do we have some people here tonight that would pray with Isaiah in Isaiah 64:1, “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence”?
Look what God did through ONE MAN TOTALLY CONSECRATED TO THE LORD. What could God do through an entire church? Oh, that God would raise us all up.
And I am also praying that God would raise up the next generation. And that brings us to our dedication. I’m going to ask Dan and Courtnie Allan and their parents to come up to the front. Perhaps Luke Daniel Allen will be the Elijah for his generation.
Baby Dedication of Luke Daniel Allen