Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20030914.htm

1 AND 2 KINGS: ENJOYING GOD'S BLESSINGS IN AN APOSTATE ERA
Part XXIII: Recalling The Power For Our Ministry Success Is God's Rather Than Ours
(1 Kings 18:38-19:4; 2 Kings 1:3-16)
  1. Introduction
    1. One of the greatest challenges we believers face in ministry is the battle of faith to see that the success of our mission is not in ourselves, but in God Who empowers us: when we operate by God's enabling and see ministry results, we can errantly assume we are the successful entity, and that leads only to failure!
    2. Elijah fell for the temptation to view his effectiveness as resting on his own shoulders, and it led to a temporary spiritual defeat in his life and ministry. We do well to study his case for our own welfare:
  2. Recalling The Power For Our Ministry Success Is God's Rather Than Ours.
    1. By use of a 3 year drought (Luke 4:25), God initially led Elijah to confront Ahab with the truth that Ahab should reject his worship of Baal and come back to worship the Lord, cf. 1 Kings 17:1.
    2. When Ahab did not repent after this drought, Elijah informed him and all Israel by a series of great miracles that his God, Jahweh was vastly superior to Baal, 1 Kings 18:22-24, 29, 30-38, 39-46:
      1. Ahab did not repent even after the predicted drought came to pass, so Elijah challenged him to a competition to see whether Baal or Israel's true God, Jahweh was superior; the competition involved the making of two sacrifices on Mount Carmel and the test to see which deity would or could ignite his own sacrifice with fire from heaven, 1 Kings 18:22-24.
      2. As we previously learned, Baal's prophets miserably failed to ignite their sacrifice (1 Kings 18:29) where Elijah saw God powerfully ignite and consume his sacrifice, altar, wood, the water in the trench around the altar and the dust dug up to form the trench for this water, 1 Kings 18:30-38, 39.
      3. Elijah triumphantly led the newly repented people of God to capture these false Baal prophets and to slay them in accord with the Mosaic Law, cf. 1 Kings 18:39, 40 with Deuteronomy 13:5.
      4. Next, God answered Elijah's prayer miraculously to bring much rain after the drought, 1 K. 18:41-45.
      5. Finally, God equipped Elijah to run ahead of Ahab's chariot of racing horses for nearly 25 miles in hilly terrain as a sign he was God's true prophet, 1 Kings 18:44-46; Bible Know. Com., O.T., p. 527.
    3. However, in being greatly used of God, Elijah errantly assumed the success of his ministry was on his own shoulders, and this led him faithlessly to flee from a hardened Jezebel when she threatened his life:
      1. Ahab returned to the palace and informed his Baal-promoting wife, Jezebel all that Elijah had done, including Elijah's slaying of her prophets of Baal, 1 Kings 19:1.
      2. Jezebel then sent a message to Elijah with a strong oath in her false gods that she was going to do to Elijah within twenty-four hours what he had done in killing the prophets of Baal, 1 Kings 19:2.
      3. In response to her threat, Elijah fled from Jezebel toward the desert south of Judah, 1 Kings 19:3.
      4. Such a response was unnecessary, for in a later event when Ahab's wicked son, Ahaziah sought to capture Elijah to execute him, God sent fire down from heaven to destroy those who intended to carry out Ahaziah's orders, cf. 2 Kings 1:3-12. Only when a group of soldiers sent by Ahaziah approached Elijah meekly with no intent to harm him did God not send such a consuming fire, and Elijah was allowed to approach Ahaziah safely to give him God's prophetic message of doom, 2 Kings 1:13-16.
      5. However, in 1 Kings 19:1-3, instead of staying put in Samaria and trusting God to send fire down on Jezebel were she to advance toward Elijah to capture and kill him, Elijah faithlessly fled for his life!
    4. The reason for Elijah's failure is seen in his words in 1 Kings 19:4: by telling God he had failed like his fathers, Elijah implied he had failed to eradicate Baalism from Israel, a task God never gave him, Ibid., p. 528. Thus, in being used by God to do great miracles, Elijah had forgotten the POWER of his WORKS was GOD'S, and so had wrongly come to trust in himself! So, when resisted by Jezebel, Elijah compared his OWN lowly human might with Jezebel's official prowess, and fled for his life!
Lesson: Elijah let the EXPERIENCE of being used by God lead him to think the POWER of his EFFORTS was HIS OWN rather than GOD'S! Thus, when his life was threatened by a human who had more "human power" than he himself did as a mere human, he naturally fled for his life!

Application: May we RECALL we serve by GOD'S power so the SUCCESS of our ministries does not go to our head, and all so we stay DEPENDENT upon GOD to handle THREATS by stronger humans!