Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20071118.htm
BIOGRAPHIES OF BIBLE SAINTS II. Elijah: Trusting God In A Faithless Generation D. Rebounding From A Faltering Faith In God's Grace (2 Kings 1:1-18)
Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

When God directs us through His Word to make a certain decision, or to perform a certain task, and then trials we face tempt us to doubt that initial decision or effort, it can discourage us, and leave us wondering how to get back to a strong faith that we are in God's will!

For example, several of our members have faced this challenge in attending a funeral of a relative in another church. While sitting next to grieving relatives in the front row to support them, they have been dismayed to see the presiding priest extend his hand to them holding a wafer! These believers did not want to accept the wafer as that Church promotes an errant gospel that one is saved in part by eating of it, yet they did not want to hurt their deeply grieving relatives who are sitting next to them by refusing the wafer without an explanation. In each case, their concern for their relatives has led them to take the wafer, but that had them feeling very guilty over that deed!

[Actually, such an act is very loving, but done in the human weakness of a lack of foresight! It can be corrected by later explaining to the relatives and priest that the believer accepted the wafer opposite his belief out of concern for the relative in his time of grief. Then, the believer should plan in later similar events either to sit in a row out of reach of the priest, or to explain prior to the service his view so those involved will understand when he later refuses the wafer! Scripture has a precedent for all of this in 2 Kings 5:18-19: God's prophet, Elisha held Namaan guiltless when he bowed before an idol in performing his job of helping his weak king in that king's false worship services!]

Elijah succumbed to such a trial in spiritual defeat in 1 Kings 19:1-4: after seeing God wonderfully answer his prayer to ignite the sacrifice on Mount Carmel versus the failure of the idol, Baal to light the sacrifice of his false prophets (1 Kings 18:19-39), Elijah had applied Scripture at Deuteronomy 13:5 to slay Baal's false prophets, cf. 1 Kings 18:40. However, when wicked Jezebel heard about this deed, she threatened to kill Elijah, so he faltered in his faith, and fled for his life from Jezebel while also asking God to kill him, 1 Kings 19:1-4!

Thus, when our faith falters under duress like Elijah's did, we may wonder what God would have us do to "undo" our failure! 2 Kings 1:1-18 provides us the answer (as follows) . . .



(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )

Need: "If I have faced opposition or trying events after an effort to make a decision or to do a task God has led me to make or do, and my walk of faith has faltered, how may I productively respond?!"

1. After Elijah faithlessly fled from Jezebel, God GRACIOUSLY arranged for him to overcome in a SECOND confrontation trial:
1. Elijah had initially faithlessly fled for his life from Jezebel instead of trusting God for his safety as he should have done in view of God's precedents that He wanted to protect Elijah from her and her husband:
1. God had initially directed Elijah to hide from Jezebel's husband, Ahab, and then supernaturally fed him with ravens at Brook Cherith and later at Zarephath, Jezebel's homeland, 17:1-24.
2. This meant God planned to protect Elijah from Ahab and Jezebel.
3. Yet, when Jezebel threatened Elijah with death for his slaying her false prophets, and act done in obedience to Deuteronomy 13:5 (1 Kings 18:40), instead of trusting God to preserve him from her in keeping with these precedents, Elijah fled, 1 Kings 19:1-4!
2. Elijah persisted in faithlessly failing to trust God in 1 Kings 19:5-14, so God replaced him with another prophet, telling him to anoint Elishah to take his place in the prophetic ministry, 1 Kings 19:16b.
3. However, before having Elijah turn his position over to Elisha, God graciously arranged for Elijah to face a second confrontation that called him to succeed in trusting God versus fleeing, 2 Kings 1:1-9:
1. After Ahab was slain, but before Jezebel's death (1 Kings 22:1-40 with 2 Kings 9:30-37), Ahab's son, king Ahaziah (1 Kings 22:51) became seriously injured in a fall, 2 Kings 1:1-2a.
2. He then sought healing from the false god, Baal-zebul(b) versus seeking God's help, Bib. Know. Com., O. T., p. 538; 2 Kings 1:2b.
3. Thus, God had Elijah confront Ahaziah's messengers much like he had once confronted his father, king Ahab, to critique his seeking Baal versus God for blessing, 2 Kings 1:3-4 with 1 Kings 17:1.
4. Yet, this time Elijah had Ahaziah's messengers tell Ahaziah that he would not recover from his injury, but die for his sin of idolatry, a move certain to inflame Ahaziah, Jezebel's son, who, like his mother, would want to retaliate by killing Elijah, 2 Kings 2:4!
5. When Ahaziah heard this message and recognized it came from Elijah, he sent a group of soldiers to arrest Elijah, 2 Kings 2:5-9.
2. Elijah SUCCEEDED in that SECOND trial by APPLYING GOD'S LESSONS given BEFORE his PAST FAILURE, 2 Kings 1:9-18:
1. When the first group of soldiers from Ahaziah approached Elijah, and its leader proudly demanded that he, a "man of God," come down off the hill where he sat, Elijah replied with a play on words: the word "man" in the commander's "man of God" expression is " ish," similar in sound to the word Elijah used for "fire" which is "esh," Ibid.
2. In effect, Elijah's reply to this commander's demand was: "If I am an 'ish' of God as you say, may 'esh' come down from heaven and burn you and your fifty"! (Ibid., 2 Kings 1:9-10) Elijah thus countered the commander's godless demand given in unbelief by relying on the precedent of God's work in his life that came just before his faithless flight from Jezebel so as to STAND against him in faith!
3. In response to Elijah's faith, fire fell from God in heaven and killed the soldiers to show Elijah was the true God's true prophet, 1:10b!
4. When Ahaziah sent a second group of soldiers for Elijah, the same fate befell them, showing that the first group's destruction was not an accident, and that Elijah was the true God's prophet, 2 Kings 1:11-12!
5. The captain of the third group who had then recognized that Elijah was the true God's true prophet submissively begged him not to harm him and his troop, but to come with him to see Ahaziah, 1:13-14.
6. The Angel of the Lord, the Preincarnate Christ (John F. Walvoord, Jesus Christ Our Lord, p. 52) told Elijah not to fear this commander, but to go with him to Ahaziah to deliver God's message, 2 Kings 1:15.
7. Elijah then came to Ahaziah, and announced that his reliance on Baal instead of God would be judged by his imminent death, 2 Kings 1:16.
8. Accordingly, Ahaziah died just as Elijah had said, 2 Kings 1:17-18.

Application: May we (1) trust in Christ to be saved and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, John 3:16; Romans 8:9b. (2) If we then FAIL to trust God in a confrontational or disillusioning trial, may we look to GOD Who in grace ARRANGES for a REPEAT situation of similar issues that we might be "overcomers"! (2) WHEN God allows the second trial to arrive, (a) may we RELY on the lessons God had given that we FAILED to APPLY in our initial trial, and so (b) HEED and TRUST Him for victory the second time around!

Lesson: (1) God graciously provided Elijah a REPEAT confrontation with the family from which he had FLED in UNBELIEF that he might SUCCEED in heeding God's will in the REPEAT confrontation event. (2) Elijah SUCCEEDED in this SECOND trial by RELYING on the LESSONS God had supplied BEFORE his FAILURE to trust in God!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

The Lord supplied this illustration for this message last week while we were still on vacation in California!

As we had done on our Fall break last year, My wife and I had flown to the San Francisco Bay area to visit extended family. One of the scheduled events was a Friday night dinner in an area restaurant highly recommended by the family there. So, after a day of visiting the giant redwoods north of San Francisco and standing atop a rugged Pacific seacoast cliff at Bodega Bay, we had planned to eat at the Cheesecake Factory with its delicious dinners and even better desserts!

However, trying his best to avoid the Friday evening traffic jams that often plague the Bay area freeways, my brother, who was driving us in his SUV, ended up in a traffic jam behind an accident. It slowed us long enough to where he explained we would not be able to make the Cheesecake Factory on time to avoid a two-hour wait for seating, so he suggested a closer restaurant, the Elephant Bar. (It is decorated with an African theme!) I recalled he had taken me to another Elephant Bar restaurant while we were visiting him last Fall.

We arrived at the Elephant Bar, were soon seated and enjoyed a great meal! Even better, I was able to select a special shrimp dish I had desired last year in the other Elephant Bar but had not felt free to choose, for I had not then been aware of my blood illness, and had felt it wise to stick with a red meat selection in keeping with our diet then!

After dining, I recalled I had made a pastoral decision before leaving for California last Fall, a decision I had not doubted until we returned to Connecticut where events left me tempted to doubt the decision's validity. However, since struggling with that doubt, God had graciously exposed my lifelong genetic blood illness that suggests I avoid red meat, and He had also "switched" the whole extended family this year from dining at their recommended Cheesecake Factory to eat at the Elephant Bar. I thus saw God signaling that He had led and sanctioned my pastoral decision made before last Fall's vacation; if not, He would have clarified this as surely as He had since then given us the extensive medical insight to direct me away from red meat, and the opportunity this Fall to enjoy the Elephant Bar's special shrimp dish!

May we thus overcome where we have faltered in unbelief by recalling the lessons God has given us before the failure. Then we will "overcome" in faith, conquering even our false doubts.