John K. Jenkins Sr - The Abundance of Rain

This particular passage from Scripture in First Kings chapter 18 is one of the most fascinating stories in the Bible to me . It's a showdown between two men and, in fact, two deities. My attention is drawn to this passage today because of the component of rain. I'll come back and talk about that in a moment . But those of you who were here on New Year's Eve know what that's about. Amen? The heathens who were not here, look at your neighbor and ask them, "Were you here on any of the three New Year's Eve services we had ?" If they say no, tell them, "You 're a heathen!" Go ahead and tell them, "You 're a heathen."

Elijah the Prophet, I want you to walk with me through three chapters. As a matter of fact, I need to tell you this is a narrative message , so I don't have any particular points to give you. If you're waiting for me to give you a specific point, this is not a point message, but it's not a pointless message either. There will be points that the Holy Spirit, I pray, speaks to you about as we talk through this particular story. I want to tell you the story and pull out applications as we walk along through this passage.

Elijah the Prophet has been instructed to deliver a prophetic word to the political leader of his time, that leader being King Ahab. We can see that statement made to him in chapter 17. If you go back one chapter to verse 1 of chapter 17, here's what it says: "And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, ' As the Lord God of Israel lives , before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years except at my word .'" It is a startling announcement - a prophetic word that the man of God is given to deliver to King Ahab. He says to King Ahab , "There will be no rain or dew." Notice he didn't say for a few years, a few months, or a few days; he said for years. He states, "These years, except at my word, no rain will hit the planet, no rain will hit the land, until I speak the word."

The question is , why would God tell the prophet to make such a prophecy? Why would God decree that there would be no rain ? That 's a major issue, a significant problem. No rain equates to death for the crops; no rain means death for the livestock. In fact, it means death for people. No rain means no crops, no crops mean no food, and no rain equates to no water to drink. You and I can last for a few days, a few weeks, maybe months without food, but we cannot last very long without water. Yet, the prophet comes and prophesies to the king that there will be no rain for these years until I choose to speak the word . What an amazing and startling announcement!

Why would God make such a proclamation? To gain insight into what led the prophet to make that statement , we have to slide back to chapter 16, which is one page before chapter 17. It says in verse 30 of chapter 16 , "Now Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him." Here 's the challenge: here is a man who has been elevated to the kingship of the land, and he has chosen, according to Scripture, to do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord. As a matter of fact, he was considered worse than all the others that came before him.

Verse 31 states, "And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took as his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him." You see, there are two things he did; not only did he commit evil in the sight of the Lord, but the Scripture says he considered his evil a small thing. He gave it no weight; he felt no guilt, no shame. He did it boastfully, proudly , and trivialized his behavior. As a matter of fact, he started worshiping the false god Baal. He went and served Baal and worshiped him.

When you look up the term Baal, what does it mean? Baal is a name for God that is attributed to various gods; it's not just one god, but a variety of gods. There 's a Baal that is the god of the sun, the god of the rain , and the god of the land. In other words , here's what he chose to do: he chose to determine who his god would be. And that's what's happening in our country today. You don 't have to say Amen; we live in the midst of a country where people are choosing the god they want to serve . In verse 32, it says he set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal , which he had constructed.