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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

Always do what God says do, and then He’ll take care of the rest. we try to figure out how God’s going to do it. And if I can’t see how he’s going to do it, then he can’t do it. And he’s not going to do it. So I’ve got to intervene and do it my way. And God says, no, no, no, no, no, you’re out of line. So he makes this statement, he says, in verse 14, for the sake of the Lord God of Israel, the barrel of meals shall not waste, neither shall the crews of oil fail until the day that the Lord send the rain upon the earth.”

Now that’s a pretty good guarantee. I just like to have a good health insurance policy like that. I mean, he’d tell her everything. And God’s going to supply this. This is not going to run out. So she pours some oil and she needs some more. She needs some more and it never runs out. Let it be interesting. Buy some food, put it in refrigerator, ready. You can eat all day long, all week long, all month long, all year long.

And still there. Now that would take America with it. I just like to put $100 in the bank and keep drawing on it, but it never goes down and it just always stays at $100. Okay, I’m actually drawing. It’s still self-sacing. You like that part, didn’t you? I figured you like that. So in verse 18, And the barrel of milk, waste did not. That’s the flower. Neither did the cruises of oil fail according to the word of the Lord which he spake by Elijah.

So the Lord told her what to do but through Elijah. And so Elijah is not told everything in advance of what he’s going to do. It’s God leads. And when that happens then you do this. Well okay now you did that. No no no not what to do this. But sometimes we want God’s will be so laid out for so that I can pick and choose. You know what part I’m going to obey and what part I’m not going to obey.

What I like and don’t like. God says, this is my will for you. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I can test. I think we ought to change this and this and this is way too strong right here. We need to lighten this up a little bit. You’re just requiring way too much. Or do you think God just says, look, you just ask for the strength and the grace to do what I want you to do. And you just leave it to me and I’ll take you step by step.

But that’s the way the Lord does. We want him to reveal everything up front so I can See it all in really no. And God says, no, not going to work that away. In other words, the next thing that happens, well, boy gets sick. He dies. And so then the woman, she falls apart. I mean, really falls apart. So look what he says here. In verse 20, she was praising the man of God. She was just, oh, praising the man of God.

Because, hey, I didn’t run out of flour, and I didn’t run out of the boil. praise the man of God. Well, now her son dies. And verse 20, and he cried unto the Lord and says, Oh Lord, my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourned by slaying her son? Because now what did you do to me? You came into my house and you ate my food and you did all of this. And now I look at all the things that’s going on.

See there verse 18, just to back up, just a tad. And she said unto Elijah, what have I to do with thee? Oh, thou, man of God, art thou coming to me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son? Everything was wonderful, and all of a sudden everything goes bad. How fast can excitement go to total discouragement? Don’t take long, does it? Well, anyway, the child lived. And look what she said in verse 24 and the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is true.

Now Israel didn’t believe that. But here’s somebody else that heard the word of God and she can believe it. She saw God do something, But hadn’t Israel seen what God has done? Don’t they remember all the time when God has opened up the doors and blessed them and defended them? Even the miracle of them as a nation to exist coming out of Egypt and across the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty of God, miraculous, and then they forget all of those things.

Well, chapter eighteen, Elijah goes to meet A.M. and go back on towards your notes. And you’ll notice that in the middle of the page, a little paragraph, after more than three years of drop and famine, God tells Elijah to return to A.M. and announce the end of the drought, nor occasion by repentance in Israel but by the command of the Lord, who have determined to reveal himself again to his people. While on his way Elijah meets Obadiah. Now there’s a little book called Obadiah.

But the head of Ahab’s household who had hidden a hundred prophets of the God of Israel when Ahab and Jezebel had been killing them. So this man was a good man. Obadiah was a godly man. And so when Ahab was going to kill the prophets of God, remember they put in a 450 of the evil ones and got rid of all the good ones. You know it’s kind of like somebody getting in political office and getting rid of all the good ones and putting in all the bad ones.

And it’s amazing how you can always see things. Nothing’s new. When you’ve got the Bible and you read these stories, it tells you how it’s going to work. But does that mean that God is through just because somebody did something wrong? And it’s all over. Well, look back here. He lied on his way. He meets Obadiah. In Obadiah, well, he had just been with Ahab. And so Ahab says, we’ve got to find some water because we’re going to lose all of our mules, we’re going to lose all of our cattle, we’re going to lose all of our horses, we’re going to lose our beast.

So we’ve got to start searching out and find water somewhere. And so Ahab says, I’ll go this way and Obadiah, you go this way. And so they split up to try to find some water. And on their way, now, they have, he don’t like Elijah, because Elijah always prophesied against him. Well, he was wrong. But Obadiah had hidden a hundred of the prophets in two different caves with about 50 men in each one. And he was providing them with food and water.

And he went one way and when he did, he comes Elijah. Elijah says, hey, Obadiah. No, Obadiah says, oh no. He says, I want you to go tell Ahab. I’m coming to see him. He says, wait a minute. If I go tell him that you’re going to come and see him, he’s going to kill me because you won’t show up. They’ve looked for you and they can’t find you. He says, you just go tell him. But anyway, it does get exciting.

So you look there in chapter 18, look in verse three. In verse three, an Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house, now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly. For it was so when Jezebelah cut off the prophets of the Lord that Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by 50 in a cave and fed them with bread and water. and they have said unto Obadiah, go into the land and unto all fountains of water and unto all brooks per adventure, we may find grass to save the horses and the mules alive and we lose not all the beast.

So they divided the land between them to pass through it and so forth. And so this was the day, verse seven, and Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him. And he knew him and fell on his face and said, art thou, that my Lord Elijah? He answered him, I am. go tell thy lord, behold, Elijah is here. And he says, what have I said, that thou would have delivered thy servant into the hand of ahab to slay me?

As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whether my lord have not sent to seek thee. And when they said he is not there, he took an oath of the kingdom and nation that they found thee not. Now thou sayeth, go, and tell thy lord, behold, Elijah is here, and it shall come to pass as soon as I am gone from thee, that the Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee, whether I know not. And so when I come and tell they have, and he cannot find thee, he shall slay me.”

But I, thy servant, fear the Lord from my youth. Was it not told, my Lord, what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of the Lord? How I hid a hundred men of the Lord’s prophets and fed them with bread and water. Now thou sayeth, go tell the Lord, behold, Elijah’s here, and he shall slay me. Elijah said, as the Lord of hosts liveth be for whom I stand, I will surely show myself unto him today. And O, but I went to meet ahab and told him in Ahab went to meet Elijah.

One of these wonderful stories in the Old Testament, start reading them and trying to understand and picture it. I love to have a VCR and be able to play, record all of these things that happen. Maybe we get to heaven, we’ll have a thousand years to run and maybe we can play these things back for us of how it really was. I’d love to see that. Anyway, the story is moving on. Showdown is coming. In verse 17, and it came to pass when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, are thou he that troubleth Israel, not stopping things.

Is he really the one that’s trouble in Israel? Is it Elijah that’s the problem? Because he tells the truth, or because Ahab is doing wrong. His decisions are wrong. He married the wrong woman. He got rid of God’s prophets, put in 450 false prophets of the God of Baal. And things were not going very well. Now they’ve had three and a half years of drought. And he says, it’s all your fault. In verse 18, the man of God. And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house.

Now it’s evidently he had not read that book on how to win friends and influence people by Del Carnegie. He stands up to the king and tells him point blank, it’s what you’re doing. You’re the reason and he doesn’t back down. Don’t you like that in the guy? It was just pushed around and hey that’s the king. You can’t do that. We have people today saying, you know, you always have to obey government. I mean whatever laws they passed, that’s the law.

Yeah, but if they ain’t right, Christians are supposed to do right. What if they tell you do something that you’re not supposed to do. And there’s possibilities. Somebody’s want to come in here and they want me to marry them. Two men or two women and they want to get married. I thought about maybe I will. And there’s a standard. I says, will you, you wicked, ungodly, sodomite, take us other abomination and just go through the whole thing just teach the whole Bible and go through every scripture.

And now I pronounce on you the curse of God. You know that might go over pretty good. Maybe they changed their mind. But I’m glad that I don’t just marry somebody who comes in. I talked to them for three, six months. And then after I do that, I still may not do it. So I don’t just marry people just because they want to get married. But I do believe that there’s a showdown coming. There’s confrontation coming. But anyway, it’s nothing new.

These men had to face those things themselves. So He says down here in verse 19, now therefore sinned and gathered to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel and the prophets of Baal, 450 for the prophets of the grows, 400 which eat at Jezebel’s table. She must have a big table. in any way says in verse 21 how long a halt ye between two opinions. If the Lord, L O R D, Jehovah, Yahweh, if he is God, then follow him.

If Baal then follow him. The people answered him not a word. We’re going to hold our comment for the moment. Then said he lied you unto the people, I only remain a prophet of the Lord, but Baal’s prophets are 450 of them. So he says, let’s have a showdown. You know, this is high noon, Gary Cooper. And he’s got to face them all. But Gary Cooper was scared. Elijah wasn’t scared. So anyway, the showdown came and got down to verse 25.

And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, choose you one bullet for yourselves and dress at first. For your many and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire in it. And while they’re doing that, say, because there’s a lot of them to get that thing ready. Well, he got to get his ready. And so they took the thing and they cried out. They cried. And so in verse 26 it says, and they called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, oh, Baal, hear us.

But there was no answer, nor any of that answered. And they leaped upon the altar, which was made. And it came to pass at noon. that Elijah mocked them. You say, what does that mean? He mocked them. He made fun of them, chided them. What did he do? He said, cry aloud, for he is a God. Either he’s talking, maybe he’s on the cell phone. He’s pursuing or he’s in a journey or a per-adventure, he’s sleeping. It must be awake and hollow louder.

Now, isn’t that mocking and making some fun? Well, he did. You see, you shouldn’t make fun of other people’s religion. Why? If it’s wrong, it’s wrong. I have no respect for other people’s religion. Why? Because if it’s wrong, it’s wrong. I don’t respect the heir, the wrong. I respect the Bible, I respect truth, I respect the Lord, I respect what God says. And man wants to say something, well, if it’s not this, it’s a lie. Why should I respect them?

Why? Now living in America, yeah, you have their freedom to believe whatever you want to believe, but doesn’t make what you believe, right? Does it? Don’t think you believe something. Don’t make it right? No. Right? It’s right. When Jesus says, going to all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, that means he had no respect for other people’s religion. He wanted to know this. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.

The name of Jesus Christ. is no other. There is no other God. There is no other God. There’s only one true and living God and He has a son and this is what He said. So when man makes up a religion, why do I have to respect his religion? So no, I don’t. He said, that’s being cruel. No, it’s not. Just decide in what’s right and what’s wrong. This is right. That’s where I stand. I love that statement. The guy called me up the other day.

He wrote me an email and he says, if you and Hank Lindstrom were brothers. He said, it would be Hank trying to keep you out of trouble. I read that the other night. I thought I did. But that’s funny. Okay. Now I’d do everything I can to stay out of trouble. I just don’t want people trying to dictate to me. I got to believe like they do. I don’t have to believe like they do. But anyway he goes down through here and he says, hey, hollow louder.

So it says here in verse 30, and Elijah said unto all the people come near unto me and all the people came near unto him and he prepared or repaired the altar of the Lord that had been broken down. He took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob whom the word of the Lord came saying, Israel shall be thy name, them. And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, Jehovah.

And he made a trench around the altar as great as would contain two measures of seed. And he put the wood in order and cut the bullock in pieces and laid them on the wood and says, fill four barrels with water, pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. In other words, soak everything. Now wait a minute, they’re trying to get God to bring fire down from heaven and they can soon their bullets that they had put up there, the false prophets.

Well they probably wanted everything to keep real dry, maybe a cinder of a catch on fire or something. And here he’s soaking everything just so that there’s no accidents so that you know if this thing catches on fire and burns up, God did it. So he says here in verse 34, and he says, do it the second time as he was talking about and then he second time and he said, do it the third time and they did it the third time and the water ran round about the altar and he filled the trench also with water.

And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came there and says, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that these people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou has turned their heart back again.

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. It sounded like a job well done. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces, and they said, the Lord, He is the God. The Lord, He is the God. And Elijah said unto them, take the prophets of Beyola, let not one of them escape. And they took them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Pishon, and slew them there.

Elijah said under Ahab, get the up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain. So God says there’s going to be some rain and it’s going to come. Now don’t you like that story? You see, it appears that for a while that God lost. Elijah lost. But did they lose? not really, it wasn’t over yet. These decisions that people are making today, it ain’t over yet. When it’s all over, we win. When it’s all over, we win.

Now, you would think a man ought to have the greatest confidence in the Lord. He ought to be so confident and bold. guess what Jezebel says she’s going to do to Elijah for what he killed her prophets? That made a woman mad and you know you shouldn’t make a woman mad price to pay. So in verse 42 and Ahab went up to eat and to drink. He said I had enough of this I’m gonna go eat and drink. Elijah went up to the top of Carmel and he cast himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees and he said to his servant, go up now, look toward the sea.

And he went up and he looked and says, there’s nothing. He said, go again seven times. Why? He just told him there’s a sound of abundance of rain. It’s gonna rain. So if it’s gonna rain, look for a cloud. Because you know, there’s gotta be a cloud if there’s gonna be a rain. What’d you think? It hasn’t rained in three years or more. So now he’s saying, He’s praying. Go up here and see. And verse 41, and he came to pass at the seventh time that he says, Behold, there arises a little cloud out of the sea like a man’s hand.

Now that’s a big cloud. Wouldn’t that be great confidence? I saw a sign. I saw a sign. What? I saw a cloud about the size of a man’s hand. Can you believe that? And he says, go up saying to Ahab, prepare thy chariot and get the down for the rain, stop the knot, that the rain, stop. Now is that confidence or not? He only saw a cloud the size of a man’s hand. And he tells Ahab, you better get down and get out of here because it’s going to rain and your chariot’s going to get stuck in the mud.

Well, verse 45, and it came to pass in the the meanwhile that the heaven was black with plows. All of a sudden, wind, and there was a great rain, and Ahab rode and went to Jezreum, and the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he girded up his loins and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreum. Here’s a man to it out, run a horse. Buddy, that’s moving on. Ahab rode and Elijah ran. Now bad news said sin.

You would think after this, that’s the greatest thing. Man, he’ll never question and never doubt again. But it’s not the end of the story. And we’ll continue that next Sunday morning. Let me show you something. This hand represents you and me. This wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. God loves us, loves the whole world. Regardless of what we’ve done, we’ve all sinned. Now the person tell me one time, well what is sin? I says, I don’t know what it is, but you did it.

Because God says, all have sinned. But whatever sin is. You did. Now you know what it is. It’s disobedience to God. It’s rebellion against God. It’s going your own way, doing your own thing. But God says it, He loves you. He hates your sin. And for us to pay for sin is eternal separation from God in hell. But God loves us. He wants us to go to heaven. To go to heaven, you have to be perfect. It’s righteous as God.

None of us are perfect. None of us are righteous. We’ve all come short of God’s perfection. So the Bible says we all need a Savior. We can’t save ourselves. We can’t save each other. This hand represents Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into this world because He loves us. He hates our sin because our sin separates us from Him. So Jesus Christ who had no sin did not have to die. So He took all the sin of all the world and paid for it on the cross.

You see, we don’t go through life bragging about our sins. Sin. My sin isn’t that bad. as your sin. Or to think that you know other people God hates them more because their sins worse than mine. You know God so low the world pay for all sin regardless of what anybody’s done. But all murderers shouldn’t come to the Supreme Court and say look I think we need a law for taking all murders. Let’s make it legal, or let’s make stealing legal.

Let’s make adultery legal. Let’s make homosexuality legal. You see, it’s a sin. You don’t vote to make sin legal because it’s not right. But God, He loves us, hates our sin. We get so balled up sometimes. But He paid for those sins, came back from the dead and says if we would believe He did it for us, He would put that payment to our account, we get to go to heaven on what Jesus Christ did for us. Fifty-five years ago, little old living room in Athens, Georgia, I heard this for the first time.

And so I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior. I believed that He paid for my sins. And when He paid for my sins, He put that payment to my account when I believed it. And I get to go to heaven on what He did. You see, all of His victories over the devil and over sin and over death, the grave. He came back and he gave me all of his victory. So now I don’t have to fear the devil.

I’m going to heaven. The devil can’t stop it. The devil can’t keep me from going to heaven. Sinful nature, God gave me a new birth without one. I’m going to die here, but I’m going to live until I die and then I’ll live forever. Never die again. And I don’t have to worry about the grave. So I don’t live my life in fear of what somebody may do. We shouldn’t. I already have cheated. I read the last chapter in the book, the see how it’s going to come out.

We win. In your mind, say these words, I win, I win. I will live like a winner.” Let’s pray, shall we? Father, we ask your blessings upon the study of your Word and for each one of us to have the confidence that we should have. And sometimes it seems like it’s only the size of a man’s hand, and yet we’re expecting so much more. So bless us, increase our faith, and thank you for all that you bring us through, and all that you bring us to.

That’s our service today in Christ’s name, Amen. Hello friends, thank you for listening to Bibleline, and thank you to those who write in and tell us how Bibleline is making such a big impact in your lives. It’s such an encouragement when we receive your letters and emails. Can I ask, how is your prayer life? Does it need some help? Most Christians think of prayer as a secondary or last resort. Do you realize that Jesus spent hours upon hours in prayer to his Heavenly Father, and yet we so often fail to practice prayer as a priority in our lives.

Well, during this month, for a gift in any amount, we’re going to send you Dr. Arnold’s Four Sermon Series on the Power of Prayer. Perhaps prayer is a shortcoming in your life, and this teaching is surely able to help. Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634, and don’t forget to include your mailing address as well. God bless you and thank you again for supporting Bibleline. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us.

The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound and we will be changed. caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.