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On a cup of
coffee at McDonalds, warning contents will be hot. – I sure hope so, I like my
coffee hot.
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Under the hood of
your car, there is a warning label about inserting your hand in the fan. - That thing is moving pretty darn fast, I
think putting anything in it would be a bad idea.
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On a stroller,
warning: remove infant before folding stroller for storage. - I remember being
tired as a parent with a young child, but if I was so tired that I might leave
my kid in the stroller I don’t think I would have been awake enough to read the
label.
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A Batman costume
had a warning stating that the cape does not enable user to fly. – I am sure
most of us know that Batman can’t fly, that’s Superman.
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An electric fence
had a sign that said ‘touching wires causes instant death. Two hundred dollar
fine.’ – Great that they warn us about the electric fence, but it is going to
be hard to collect a fine from a corpse.
Most of these examples seem almost ridiculous, but there are times in
life we need to be warned if we are in a dangerous situation. If you touch that
electric fence I mentioned you probably won’t care about the $200 fine, but you
really need to know that there is current flowing through it.
In the story this week, God is trying to give a warning to His people. The question is: ‘Will they respond to God or ignore
the warning label?’ The message that God desires to be heard is delivered by
special servants called prophets.
Because the Bible is arranged topically and not chronologically, many
people will enter the ‘black hole’ of their Bibles at this point. The Old
Testament books are arranged as history, poetry, and prophecy. The story seems
to get jumbled up and confusing. With the division of God’s people into two
kingdoms, 10 tribes called Israel in the north and two tribes in the south
called Judah, and the fall of the north to Assyria and the south to Babylon,
many people give up reading their Bibles. Don’t let this happen to you.
When we left The Story, the nation had split into two kingdoms. While
in the lower story, this was a conflict between Jeroboam and Rehoboam, in the
upper story God was achieving His purpose. The question is, why did God divide
the nation?
God divided the nation that He created because His people were sending
the wrong message. They had gone from people who committed to do whatever God
commanded in the time of Moses to people who ignored God.
God simply wanted His people to be blessed by Him so that others would
see that He is God and would be drawn to Him. They went through a time of
blessings, followed by rebelling, then blessing, over and over and over again.
At this point in time they have continued to rebel from God, disobeying His
commands, and worshipping false pagan gods, idols, and who knows what else.
They had completely turned away from God.
God wanted them to send a message to the world, but they were sending
the wrong message. Instead of saying our God loves us and blesses us, they were
saying that they were no different than the rest of the world. God helped us,
He called us out of Egypt, He repeatedly freed us from our captors, but we no
longer care. Israel was saying, they don’t need God.
If you remember from last week the people of Israel and Judah had grown
so engrossed into idolatry that they no longer honored God. They no longer saw
God as a part of their lives. Thirty-three of the thirty-eight kings continued
to lead the people of Israel and Judah farther and farther away from God.
God divided the Nation of Israel into two nations so that He could
purify the message of Who God is. Does God need all 12 tribes to carry out His
promises?
Genesis 12:1-3
“12 The Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land, your relatives, and your
father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you
into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you
will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, I will
curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be
blessed through you.”
God Promises Abraham that He will create a great nation out of his
offspring. God does not say He will use 12 tribes to carry out His plan. How
about God’s promise to David.
2 Samuel 7:16
“Your house and kingdom will endure before Me forever, and your throne
will be established forever.”
Again I don’t see anything that would require God to use the entire
nation of Israel. If you remember God only saved one family during the great
flood and they repopulated the earth, He could easily accomplish His goals with
only the tribe of Judah.
Abraham was an ancestor of David’s; David is part of the tribe of
Judah, and it is through David’s bloodline that God will bring the Messiah.
God’s promise is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Twelve tribes were not needed to
purify God’s message to the world.
While God did not need all twelve tribes, He did send His prophets to
the 10 tribes of Israel to call His people back to obedience. In a period of
208 years Israel had 19 kings and God sent 9 prophets to get their attention. Sadly
the only prophet that was heard and obeyed in Israel was Jonah. He was heard by
the pagan Ninevites, not the Nation of Israel.
God waited patiently for the Nation of Israel, the northern 10 tribes,
to come back to Him. He wanted them to give up their idols and pagan gods. He
sent prophets from varying backgrounds, noblemen, priests, farmers, and so on.
Their methods and background were different but they had pretty much the same
message. ‘Return to the Lord, obey His laws, and beware of His judgment.’
One of the most known is the prophet Elijah. God caused a drought in
the Nation of Israel and 3 years into it, Elijah challenged king Ahab to a
duel.
I Kings 18:19-24
“19 Now summon all Israel to meet me at Mount Carmel, along with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table.” 20 So Ahab summoned all the Israelites and gathered the prophets at Mount Carmel. 21 Then Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow Him. But if Baal, follow him.” But the people didn’t answer him a word. 22 Then Elijah said to the people, “I am the only remaining prophet of the Lord, but Baal’s prophets are 450 men. 23 Let two bulls be given to us. They are to choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and place it on the wood but not light the fire. I will prepare the other bull and place it on the wood but not light the fire. 24 Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of Yahweh. The God who answers with fire, He is God.” All the people answered, “That sounds good.”
So everyone gathered at Mt. Carmel, two bulls were chosen, and the 850
false prophets went first. They tried and tried from early morning till late
afternoon to get Baal to respond. They prayed, yelled, cut themselves, in a
vain attempt to get his attention. Needless to say it was not working. And I
think Elijah was having a little fun with it and the false prophets.
1 Kings 18:27
“27 At noon Elijah mocked them. He
said, “Shout loudly, for he’s a god! Maybe he’s thinking it over; maybe he has
wandered away; or maybe he’s on the road. Perhaps he’s sleeping and will wake
up!”
Elijah mocking the false prophets and fake gods,
reminds me of the movie Avengers. The Incredible Hulk is fighting an Asgardian,
who are kind of like Roman gods with powers. Well the Hulk was fighting this
Asgardian Loki and Loki is whining saying I am a god and should be treated as
such. Hulk grabs Loki by the ankle and slams him into the ground over and over
and then walks away saying ‘puny god’. While Elijah did not physically slam
Baal and the other gods around, he is calling them out as puny gods.
After their failure to summon their false gods, Elijah
has his turn. He builds an altar out of 12 stones, he had a trench dug around
the altar, he arranged the wood, cut up the bull. All was prepared as he said
it would be, but then Elijah makes it even harder on himself and God. He has
them bring 4 pots of water, not one time but 3 times for a total of 12 pots of
water. The bull was soaked, the wood was waterlogged, the altar was wet, and
the trench was filled with water. I don’t think anyone could have lit that
thing even with a dozen torches. Then Elijah prayed.
1 Kings 18:36-37
“36 At the time for offering the
evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet approached the altar and said, “Yahweh,
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in
Israel and I am Your servant, and that at Your word I have done all these
things. 37 Answer me, Lord! Answer me so that this people will
know that You, Yahweh, are God and that You have turned their hearts back.”
Then God Answered!
1 Kings 18:38
“38 Then Yahweh’s fire fell and
consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and it licked
up the water that was in the trench.”
A faithful prophet prayed, God Answered, and for a period of time the
people of Israel returned to God. The false prophets were put to death and king
Ahab could not wait to get back to his wife Jezebel and tell her what happened.
King Ahab was excited and hoped on his chariot and raced home, with Elijah
being given power by God to run ahead of Ahab and beat him home.
You can almost picture Ahab bursting through the door excitedly telling
Jezebel everything that happened. He probably expected her to be just as
excited as he was, but scripture shows us that her reaction was not as
expected.
1 Kings 19:1-2
“19 Ahab told
Jezebel everything that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets
with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah,
saying, “May the gods punish me and do so severely if I don’t make your life
like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow!”
Elijah had just seen God work in a mighty way. He
responded to a simple prayer and consumed every ounce of the water soaked
altar, and then God gave Elijah the power to run faster than a chariot. You
would think he would have laughed at Jezebel.
1 Kings 19:3-4
“3 Then Elijah became afraid and
immediately ran for his life. When he came to Beer-sheba that belonged to
Judah, he left his servant there, 4 but he went on a day’s
journey into the wilderness. He sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he
might die. He said, “I have had enough! Lord, take my life, for I’m no better
than my fathers.”
Not the reaction I would have hoped for. Feeling
defeated Elijah ran, and ran, and ran. He eventually ended up at the Mountain
of God, where Moses received the 10 Commandments and God asked him a question.
1 Kings 19:9
“Then the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him,
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
What brought Elijah to this point? Elijah forgot who
was God. Ahab is not god, Jezebel is not god, only Yahweh is God. This prophet
who was mocking 850 false prophets and their fake gods, became fearful when he
took his eyes off of God and focused on the things and people around him.
This is a wonderful reminder for us that should help
us to remember to keep our eyes on our Lord Jesus. If we focus on our problems
and difficulties we lose sight of God and all that He has done and can do in
our lives. If we take our eyes off of Jesus our problems overwhelm us and we
have a tendency to let them get the best of us.
Hebrews 12:2
“ keeping our eyes on Jesus, the
source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured
a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s
throne.”
Keep Our Eyes
on Jesus, the Source and Perfecter of our Faith!
Don’t let the troubles of the world take your eyes off
of Jesus. Your troubles are just that, troubles and God is God!
Who do you want to put your faith in?
Thanks for reading, God Bless!
Robert
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