Latest / Journey Elgin / Journey Through Scripture - 1 Kings 16-21
Transcript
- Phillip Thomas: All right, it's good to see you today. Welcome to our journey through scripture. My name is Philip Thomas, pastor of Journey here in Elgin, and we are continuing our ⁓ journey through the Old Testament. We're going to be looking at 1 Kings, chapter 16 through 21 today. 1 Kings 16 through 21. We're going to ⁓ dive a little bit deeper into the Northern Kingdom, King ⁓ Ahab. And we're also going to be introduced to Elijah, one of the great prophets. And so this is a very interesting, I really encourage you to read this because I'm not going to be able to hit all the cool stuff in here. But just please, please read this. It's really fascinating. And so again, as we've been talking about, you have lots of political stuff going on, ⁓ changes in kings, kings that are faithful, kings that are unfaithful. ⁓ The Northern Kingdom, pretty much the kings are unfaithful. so, chapter 16 starts ⁓ with ⁓ the introduction of King ⁓ Omri. ⁓ He definitely has some issues there. He rules for a few years. ⁓ He builds ⁓ the capital city in Samaria. ⁓ Remember, you'll notice that that word, Samaria, Samaritans, kind of goes back to this time. so King Omri makes that, builds that city. In verse 25 of chapter 16, it says, Omri did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did worse than all who were before him. Right? So he did not do well. And then his son Ahab reigned after him. And Ahab is a uniquely bad king, ⁓ mainly because, or one of the reasons is because of who he chose to marry, ⁓ and that is Jezebel. So we'll get to her as well. There you'll read about that in verse 29, that King Ahab, son of Omri, becomes king over Israel. Now Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him, and it came to pass that it been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam. that he took his wife Jezebel, the daughter of the king of the Sidonins, and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. Then he set up an altar for Baal and the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. ⁓ So he marries Jezebel. Jezebel is a Baal worshiper. She is very big into that, and so he starts to worship Baal as well. So now we have Elijah. entering into the picture. So God calls Elijah ⁓ and he goes to ⁓ talk to King Ahab and he's there in chapter 17. He says, the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be due nor rain for these years except at my word. And so he was predicting a drought as a result of King Ahab's immorality of his rebellion against God of his worshiping Baal. Really cool, ⁓ God takes care of Elijah by feeding him with ravens and allowing him to drink from a brook when that stream dries up. Then Elijah goes and he ⁓ encounters a widow. The widow doesn't have hardly anything left. She's down to her last bit of food. And Elijah says, and she's going to give it to her and her son. And then it says, and then we're going to die. Right. Cause there's nothing left. And Elijah says, well, if you'll use that food to make me a cake, ⁓ to, know, to, so that he, would, would live and she does it. Well, in return to that, she has enough ⁓ grain to continue to, to use throughout the duration of the drought. the widow's son. then actually dies, and Elijah prays for God to restore his life, and God does restore his life. So it's kind of just an interesting interaction there that Elijah has with this widow as the whole country is going through this time of drought. Then we get to chapter 18, and Elijah is looking to meet with Ahab again. He runs into Obadiah, who is another prophet, and he tells Obadiah, tell King Ahab that I'm here. And Obadiah is like, no, no, no, thank you. You are not number one on anyone's list, especially the King Ahab. He doesn't want to hear from you, and he may kill me just for telling him that you were here. And Elijah says, no, this is what you're going to do. And Obadiah does that, and he finally comes and meets King Ahab. Again, I love this in verse 17 of chapter 18. It says, then it happened when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, is that you, O troubler of Israel? Right? He clearly does not like Elijah, and Elijah's response is great. It says, 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 Baals. Now therefore send together all Israel to me on Mount Carmel, the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table." All right, so things are ⁓ ramping up. You feel that there's a confrontation coming. Ahab says, you're the troubler. ⁓ ⁓ Elijah responds, no, this is all on you. There's a lesson there. There's a little bit of human nature there that we tend to blame others for our own troubles rather than looking at what we have done and our responsibility. And Ahab is no different. He does that and he blames Elijah. And then Elijah says, well, you know what, maybe you shouldn't be worshiping gods and sacrificing to them. And then he challenges him. to a prophetic duel, if you will. This was actually a common way of ⁓ prophets representing two different gods to kind of face off against each other. That they would build an altar and offer a sacrifice, but they would not light the sacrifice. They would not burn it. They would pray to their God to provide the fire. Now, there's actually archaeological evidence and records, historical records of, ⁓ in Phoenician temples, ⁓ that they would have this type of thing. But within the temple, the Phoenician prophets would have rigged ⁓ their altar to be able to ⁓ combust with fire. So it was basically a trick. ⁓ And so they would challenge other prophets. ⁓ But they would have to come into the Phoenician temple to ⁓ conduct the challenge, right? And the Phoenician prophets, they would have it rigged so it made it look like their gods actually started the fire when actually it was just a trick. So Elijah says, we're going up to Mount Carmel. So there was no way for the prophets of Baal, the prophets of Asherah to actually rig anything. This was going to be a true test. And so they both sacrifice a bull. They cut up the bull. They put it on the altar. And Elijah, ⁓ I really, I love this. There's so much informative here, but Elijah tells the prophets, can go first. I'll just wait. And they start, you know, crying out to their God, light the fire, da da da da da. They get really frustrated. They start cutting themselves. They're so frustrated that their God Baal would not light the fire. ⁓ I love what ⁓ Elijah says. It says, so it was at noon that Elijah mocked them and said, cry aloud for he is God. Either he is meditating or busy or he's on a journey or perhaps he's sleeping and must be awakened. So they cried aloud, cut themselves as well as they're accustomed with knives and lances until blood gushed out on them. 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." I love the fact that Elijah just openly mocks them. Sometimes maybe there's a place for mockery of completely pagan ideas. Sometimes we can't just accept the ridiculous ⁓ pagan thoughts and ideas and the culture around us. ⁓ you know, right now there's a lot of ideas and beliefs that are being espoused that are frankly just completely false. ⁓ And sometimes there is a place for mockery. And ⁓ we've got to be very careful with that, but Elijah... He is just all out in mockery mode and he is mocking these ⁓ prophets. And I think it's interesting that they do all of that all through the day and now it's the evening. And that's when Elijah is now going to ask God to start the fire. And that's important because one of the tricks that could be used is using the sun to provide heat, right? Magnifying glass, you can start a... start a fire, something like that. ⁓ Those are things that could be used or could be dismissed. Say, well, the sun was very hot that day, whatever, but it's actually now it's in the evening. So the sun is not a factor. The sun is starting to set. And Elijah, just to add to the mockery, not only he sets up his altar, ⁓ puts the bull on top and then has it doused with hundreds of gallons of water. So it's just completely soaked. There's a trench around it that is filled with water. So everything is soaked. Again, it's proving that there's nothing under there that he could use as a trick. And then Elijah says, and it came to pass the time of offering on the evening sacrifice that Elijah came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and I am your servant. I have done all these things at your word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me that this people may know you are God, the Lord God, and that you have turned their hearts back to you again. 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. Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, the Lord, He is God, the Lord, He is God." Just imagine that, just the fire is coming down from heaven and just consumes everything. Nothing is left. It is obvious that there is no way that this could have been done by human hands. ⁓ God reveals himself in such a magnificent and powerful way that the people of Israel are reminded, they're jolted out of their slumber of how they have become complacent, how they have allowed other gods. that they realize, no, there is only one true God. And what a powerful act that happens. And then Elijah goes on a little bit further. He says, now bring to me all of those prophets. And he has them all killed. And no, is that brutal? Yeah. But you know what? God will not be mocked. And the prophets of Baal, the prophets of Asherah, were deceiving and they were leading the people away from God and one day there will be judgment for that. There will be judgment for following false gods and promulgating the ideas that come from that. And that ends, the drought ends. You can read a little bit about that there at the end of chapter 18. so Ahab doesn't really change, but he's He kind of acknowledges, okay, I guess I'm kind of beat here. But then he goes back and he tells Jezebel what had happened. Well, Jezebel doesn't like the fact that all her prophets had just been killed by Elijah. So she gets upset at Elijah and says, you're going to be dead. Just like you killed my prophets, I'm going to kill you. So Elijah runs away. And he prayed that he might die. He said, is enough. Now Lord, take my life for I'm no better than my father's, right? Elijah is human. He is frustrated. He is overwhelmed with the stress of what he is doing, of interacting with this crazy king and his crazy wife. And now it feels like he may be attacked and lose his life for just being faithful to God. And he's a little frustrated with that. So he actually goes to a cave at where in the same mountain range where God gave the Ten Commandments. And He is in a cave. Here's the word of the Lord. He goes and He's standing at the mouth of the cave. In verse 11 of chapter 19, says, it says, Go out, 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 and pieces before the Lord. but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And 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 the 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? And then Elijah says, I've been very zealous for the Lord God because of the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, killed your prophets with a sword. I alone am left and they seek to take my life. And then the Lord lays out for him what will happen and who he should go and anoint. He should go meet Elisha. That's the next great prophet. And it's interesting. I think there's something powerful there. Sometimes we look for God and we wait for God to do the big thing. Right? And God had just done one of those on Mount Carmel. ⁓ And sometimes we feel like that's the way, the only way that God can work, the only way that he can make a difference. You know, we want something big and flashy and powerful to happen, but sometimes God is just speaking in the still, small voice. Right? We need to be listening for that. rather than always looking for the amazing miracle for God to do something that is incredible, that changes the world in one moment. We need to be listening to God's voice speaking to us. Maybe he's calling us to be making that difference that will lead to major change in the world around us. So Elijah listens to God. He's introduced there to Elisha. You'll see that there at the end of chapter 19. Elijah will come into play pretty soon. Then we get into chapter 20. Chapter 20 and 21 deals with Ahab and the Syrians. So chapter 20 is Ahab is actually going to give in to the Syrians, and then he's encouraged not to, so he doesn't, and he defeats the Syrians. And then the Syrians come again and... ⁓ Ahab is able to push back against them one more time. ⁓ But then he actually makes a treaty with the leader of the Syrians. ⁓ And that is ridiculous. Basically, he's showing that he does not fully trust in God. He's going to take control. And so he ends up being condemned. ⁓ that there's a prophet kind of there at the end of chapter 20, kind of an interesting, we don't really know who this prophet is, but he comes to Ahab, says, then he said to him, thus says the Lord, because you have let slip out of your hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, talking about the king of Syria, therefore your life shall go for his life and your people for his people. So the king of Israel went to his house sullen and displeased and came to Samaria. Then chapter 21 is interesting. So he's sullen, he's depressed, right? The king got news that he didn't like. so he desires to have basically his own winery. It's a big vineyard that Naboth, the Jezreelite, it's his vineyard. So King Ahab says, I want that. And Naboth says, no, it's going to go to my family. And so then King Ahab goes and mopes and mourns and it literally says, he says, so Ahab went to his house sullen to displease because the word which Nabath had spoken to him, I will not give you the inheritance that is my father's. So he turned away and he lay down on his bed, turned away his face and would eat no food. But Jezebel, his wife, came to him and said to him, why is your spirit so sullen that you eat no food? And then Jezebel takes matters into her own hands, has Naboth killed, and then presents the vineyard to Ahab. And Ahab is really excited about it. He's like, ⁓ this is wonderful. You know, what a baby. He's just, it's just horrible. And then what a horrible person Jezebel is that she sets Naboth ⁓ up, invites him to come to a dinner, and then has him killed saying that he is blaspheming God. Just hideous stuff to use. such a godless, evil person ⁓ to have someone killed claiming that they are blaspheming God. ⁓ You really want Jezebel to be struck down at that moment, but of course, her time will come. At the end of chapter 21, Elijah goes back to Ahab and says, And you shall speak to him, saying, Thus says the Lord, in the place where dogs lick the blood of Naboth, dogs shall lick your blood, lick your blood, even yours. So Ahab said to Elijah, Have you found me, O my enemy? And ⁓ Elijah says, I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of God. I will bring calamity. That's an interesting phrase, you have sold yourself to do evil. in the eyes of God. Then down there in verse 23, and concerning Jezebel, the Lord also spoke saying, the dog shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Powerful, powerful prophecy and Ahab definitely takes it seriously because this is Elijah. He's seen what Elijah has done. And so Ahab heard those words. He tore his clothes, put on sackcloth. ⁓ and went about mourning. And then it's interesting, verse 28 there in chapter 21, and the word of the Lord came to Elijah, see how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring the calamity in his day. In the days of his son, I will bring the calamity on his house. God is such a merciful God, even a God in the Old Testament. He gives chance after chance after chance and these evil people, He even shows mercy to them even though there will be consequences. You know, we need to recognize, we need to be careful. We don't want to sell ourselves to evil. We want to keep, remain faithful to God, not give in and start creating our own idols to follow. That is something that is abhorrent to God. and we need to make sure we stay faithful to Him because He will be faithful to us and thankfully He is a merciful God. All right, encourage you read 1 Kings chapter 22 and then 2 Chronicles chapter 17 through 20. So, 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 17 through 20. All right, we'll see you.