Title: Elijah's Prayer (1)/James 5:13-18
Description Elijah is a representative prophet of the Old Testament who acted as a prophet from the time of King Ahab (876-854 B.C.) to Ahaziah (854-853 B.C.) in the middle of the 9th century B.C. The name Elijah means “Jehovah is my God.” As his name indicates, he lived a very noble life, devoting his life to God only to exalt God's name. At the same time, he was a figure who received a lot of attention from the Jews as a symbolic figure of Judea to appear in the last days (Mal. 4:5; Matt. 17:12,13). In Matthew 17:1 and Mark 9:4, the transfiguration of the kingdom of heaven that will come along with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration was also shown. Elijah was a man of miracles and a man of prayer who had many prayers answered. He was a superhuman being who ascended into heaven on the chariot of fire without seeing death.
At this time, we want to receive grace through his three prayers shown in 1 Kings 17 and 18.
1. His prayer was a prayer that believed that only God was the Sovereign of life.
He raised the dead son of the widow of Sarepta by prayer (1 Kings 17:21). The widow of Sarepta was originally a foreign woman. He received grace through Elijah, but he was indifferent to God. He thought that the material favor that Elijah had shown him was also a reward for treating a passer-by with sincerity.
After 6.25, when I was in the military, a woman I met in Hwacheon was no different from the woman who said that she wore an old skirt last Christmas and went to church for 6 months. In any case, despite Elijah's favor and many days of famine, this widow had little interest in the God behind human history. This woman experienced God's grace for so many days and tasted God's power, but when her son died, she complained against Elijah (1 Kings 17:17,18). But when the dead son was brought back to life by Elijah's prayer, the woman was greatly moved and confessed, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is true."
Christianity is a religion of experience. No matter how full of God's power and God's miracles in outer space, it will not be yours until I believe it. Dear saints, spring is the season of life and the season when all things come to life. In spring, water comes up on the dried old tree, buds appear on each branch, and leaves and flowers bloom on each branch, resulting in beautiful fruit. In this season of life when all things are revived, won't you experience the resurrection of my dead soul as my sleeping faith is revived?
2. His prayer was a prayer of victory.
When Elijah prayed earnestly, the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the soil, and licked the water in the trench (1 Kings 18:38).
In the Old Testament, there are often examples of fire coming down from heaven and burning the sacrifices on the altar.
1) With the help of God, King David punished the South and raised the national prestige, but he declared the census to the whole country because he believed that he could defeat the enemy and keep the nation safe without God’s help. There were one hundred thousand men in Israel and four hundred and seventy thousand men in Judah who could fight the enemy without the sword, in total, one and a half million men. How disappointing God must have been when he saw this. So God declared a disaster and told David to do three choices. He told us to choose whether we would choose 3 years of famine, 3 months to be pursued by the sword of the enemy, or 3 days of pestilence. Then David chose the latter. At this time, as many as seventy thousand people died from this disease. David repented deeply before God, bought the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite for six hundred shekels of gold, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings to God. Then fire came down from heaven and consumed all the burnt offerings on the altar (1 Kings 21).
2) When Solomon completed the temple, gave the inauguration ceremony, and finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple, so he could not enter the temple.
The sacrifices offered at this time were twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep. Even counting the value, it is indeed an astronomical number. This inauguration ceremony will be an unprecedented inauguration ceremony (2 Chronicles 7:1-10).
3) Let's look at the fire of God that fell on Elijah's altar on Mount Carmel. Before the fire fell on this altar, Elijah first rebuilt the old altar that had been destroyed by his ancestors. This is the place where there used to be an altar where sacrifices were made to Jehovah God during the golden age of David's kingdom. Unfortunately, when King Ahab worshiped the idol of Baal and the whole nation turned away from God, the altar naturally collapsed. Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of Jacob's sons and began to build the altar. To shrink means to rebuild what has been torn down, that is, to restore the old.
Let us also begin the work of reconstructing the broken altar of our hearts. We who have immigrated to the United States have nostalgia and nostalgia for our old beliefs. The faith they received from their ancestors! The enthusiasm I had in Korea! that passion! the love! that hard work! The pleasure of that service! That morning prayer! When did those beliefs crumble? Come to think of it, it seems that they all drowned in the Pacific Ocean when they crossed the Pacific by plane. We need to shrink the old beliefs that have broken down in our hearts. Americans must rebuild the faith of their ancestors, the Puritans, and we must restore the faith that we had in our country, Korea. Christianity in Europe is past midnight, and Christianity in America is getting darker. No matter where you go in Europe, you can see that newspapers have a narrow space for advertisements for churches.
This year, let our church make a decision and build the altar of prayer. To face Baal, let's start with the collapsed altar first.
Elijah prayed at the reduced altar. How clearly you prayed! May you know that the LORD is God! Let them forsake Baal and turn to God! Mission is nothing other than to go to other peoples according to Elijah's prayer and make them know that the Lord is God only, and to make them abandon foreign gods and return to Jehovah God. This is mission, and this is evangelism. This is the mission of the church.
Serving Baal contains all the fun of the world. According to 1 Kings 18:28, the first characteristic of serving Baal was to cry out loudly. These are the so-called popular secular music, satanic music that demons like, and Baal music that makes men and women mingle together and shake their bodies to trance. Then, at the climax, they injure themselves with swords and spears until they bleed, and even worse, they engage in perverted sexual acts, which are characteristic of Baal worship. We are now living in the age of religious pluralism. So now, the whole world is suffering as one in heathen religions, misogynistic religions, sashin religions and superstitious religions. Look at the recent atrocities and polarities of cults. In the 1960s, there was a mass suicide case at the People's Temple, in 1990 there was a case of the Odaeyang Incident of the Korean Salvation Sect, and in 1992 there was a fanatical incident of the time-limited apocalypse. You can also see the David Coleridge case in Waco, Texas.
We are now living in the time of Baal. What do we need at this time? Isn't that the same prayer as Elijah on Mount Carmel? Jehovah! May you know that the Lord alone is God! Let them all forsake Baal and turn to God! Isn't this the prayer we face and the task of evangelism?
"Can't you go far and save the Gentiles?
There are many criminals who go around my house and rescue them.
I can't speak like an angel, I can't speak like Paul
Please tell me that Jesus has redeemed you."
As Elijah prayed so earnestly, fire came down from heaven. In the Bible, the fire of the Holy Spirit is promised in several places. The Lord baptizes with the fire of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11). Jesus said, I have come to throw fire on the earth (Luke 12:49). On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit of fire came upon those who prayed in the upper room like the cleft of tongues (Acts 2:2,3).
Let our altars become altars of flaming fire. Let our cold hearts become an altar of burning fire. Let our homes become an altar of burning fire. I heard the sound of the sacrifice being burned at the early morning prayer meeting this morning. I also heard the sound of burning wood.
Dear brothers and sisters, let's do a prayer movement that burns the fire of the Holy Spirit on us and burns out our innermost sins. Then you will hear the pouring rain of grace. Let's hear the rain next time. Amen.