Matt Parry - Class 1: A Man of Like Passions

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   All right, with that, our brother Matt, who's going to be speaking to us on the topic of Elijah, has asked us to first read from 1 Kings chapter 16 and verses 14 through the end. And I've asked our brother Joey to read that for us. 1 Kings chapter 16 verses 14 to the end.

2. 0:33

   Now the rest of the acts of Elah and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel? In the 27 years of Asa king of Judah, Zimri had reigned in Tirzah seven days, and the people were encamped against Gibethon, which belonged to the Philistines.

3. 0:50

   Now the people who were encamped heard it said, Zimri has conspired and also has killed the king. So all Israel made Omri the commander of the army, king over Israel that day in the camp. Then Omri and all Israel with him went up to Gibethon, and they besieged Tirzah. And it happened when Zimri saw that the city was taken, that he went into the citadel of the king's house and burned the king's house down upon himself with the fire and died.

4. 1:23

   Because of the sin which he had committed and doing evil in the sight of the Lord and walking in the way of Jeroboam and in the sin which he had committed to make Israel sin. Now the rest of the acts of Zimri and the treason he committed, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel?

5. 1:40

   Then the people of Israel were divided into two parts. Half the people following Timni, the son of Ginnath, to make him king, and half followed Omri. But the people who followed Omri prevailed over the people who followed Timni. The people of Ginnath, so Timni died and Omri reigned. In the thirty-first year of Asa king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel and reigned twelve years.

6. 2:06

   Six years he reigned in Tirzah, and he brought the hill of Samaria from Shemur for two talents of silver. Then he built on the hill and called the name of the city which he built Samaria. In the name of Shemur, owner of the hill, Omri did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and did worse than all those who were before him.

7. 2:24

   For he walked in all the ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and in his sin by which he had made Israel sin, provoking the Lord God of Israel to anger with their idols. Now the rest of the acts of Omri, which he did, and the might that he showed, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel?

8. 2:41

   So Omri rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria. Then Ahab his son reigned in his place. In the thirty-eight years of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri became king over Israel. And Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. Now Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.

9. 3:06

   And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbal, king of the Sidonians. And he went and served Baal and worshipped him. And he sat up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.

10. 3:29

    And Ahab made a wooden image. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. In this day, Hael of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundations with Abrium, his firstborn, and his youngest son, Sigub. He set up its gates, according to the word of the Lord, which he had spoken through Joshua the son of Nun.

11. 3:59

    Amen. Thank you, Joey. We'd now like to call up our brother, Matt, who is speaking to us on the topic of Elijah this weekend. And his first class is titled A Man of Like Passions. Brother Matt.

12. 4:22

    Hey. Good day, everyone. So, really nice to be with you all today. Thanks for inviting me out this weekend. I'm excited to play some football and get to know everyone a little bit more. As you can hear, I'm originally from Australia. I've been with my family. I have my wife, Natalie, and we've got three daughters.

13. 4:43

    I've been in the Denver Ecclesia for the last two and a half years. But with COVID, it's nice to get out and nice to meet with people and to have a weekend like this. So, I'm really excited about spending some time together. And we're going to, obviously, look at the life of Elijah.

14. 5:01

    Well, more accurately, we're going to look at half the life of Elijah, aren't we? He's a very unique character in that we only recorded, we have recorded of him half of his life. See, because the other half of Elijah's life is going to be in the kingdom, isn't it? It's going to be all of the work that he does.

15. 5:17

    And we'll witness, God willing, the second half of his life and his mission with our own eyes, which is the really exciting part. But we'll study at least the first half of his life this weekend until he's taken up in the whirlwind. And Elijah, like many Bible characters like ourselves, is a complex, multi-layered person, as we'll see today and throughout the weekend.

16. 5:41

    The story of Elijah is not the story of a great prophet. It's not a great success story. Now, there's definitely successes in his life, as we'll see. But that's not really what the first half of his life is about. That's the second half. When he comes back and he turns Israel's heart back to God and brings them out of the nations and brings them home, that's his great success is still to come.

17. 6:05

    Instead, the first half of his life is God working with him, shaping him, preparing him, educating him, turning the man Elijah into the prophet Elijah. God willing, we're going to spend time this weekend looking at that journey, looking at how God prepared and worked with Elijah and taking a lesson from that. Our first class this morning is called A Man of Like Passions.

18. 6:29

    It comes from James 5, chapter 17, where James says, Elijah was a man just like us, is the literal translation. And how was Elijah just like us? Well, he's very similar, isn't he? He's in command of the weather and can stop the rain at any time. He cools fire down from heaven. He's mysteriously fed by birds and by angels.

19. 6:51

    So a regular person, just like you and I, the normal boring stuff we do every week, right? Not exactly. So some parts of his life, he's not at all like us. He's very different. But once we go through this week, we'll see there's actually a lot of similarities between us and Elijah. The journey that he went on, the journey of understanding that he became, he needed to learn a lot about God.

20. 7:18

    One way that he's like us is, as we mentioned, his life is in two parts. And that's exactly the same as us. We have our life now that we're living, which is the first half of our life. This time now here on the earth is God working with us, shaping us, putting events in our life to mould our character, to help us become more like him.

21. 7:37

    Our big success is still to come. Our main role is in the kingdom, just like Elijah. This is the first half of our life that we're working on. And so God willing, as we look at Elijah's life, we can see the parallels and how God is working in our life. And we can take comfort that Elijah was a man like us.

22. 7:57

    This first part of his life is exactly what we're going through. We'll look at the mistakes he made, the struggles he had, the depression he battled with, making the wrong choices all the time, hurting or misunderstanding people. This is starting to sound more like us, isn't it? We can't relate to the fire from heaven, but we can relate to, you know, making mistakes, misunderstanding who God is, misunderstanding how he works in our life, how being intolerant of people.

23. 8:27

    These are the things that we can relate to, and this is very much how Elijah is a man like us, a person like us. And that's the story that we're going to look at this weekend. As many of you will know, Elijah's story starts with him bursting into the scene. There's no background, there's no introduction.

24. 8:45

    And I think for us to fully appreciate the man, Elijah, we need to take a step back and look at what are the events surrounding his life like. And so we're going to talk about Elijah in the second half of this class. But the first half, I want to take a look at what was the nation like?

25. 9:01

    What was the ecclesia like? What was the environment that Elijah was moving into? I think it's important that we do so. I don't normally like background. I like just to sort of jump in and get into the story. But I think if we do that, we're in danger of misunderstanding Elijah, misunderstanding some of the choices that he made if we don't fully appreciate the environment that he was in.

26. 9:22

    So let's spend a couple of minutes now just looking at the nation. As we know, the nation split into two after Solomon. And so we're looking at actually a little thing here. Fancy clicker. But I say that, yes, it's okay to record this meeting. Okay. So this is the slide we all know and love.

27. 9:53

    So we're dealing with the top half there with the nation of Israel. As we know, Jeroboam started as the king there. Let's take a look at how it started, the nation started off. Come across to chapter 12 of 1 Kings. We can read about the start of this nation and then how it flows into what Elijah is dealing with at this time.

28. 10:14

    So how did this new kingdom start off? Well, look at verse 26 of chapter 12. Jeroboam said in his heart, now shall the kingdom return to the house of David. If these people go up to do sacrifice in the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of these people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam, king of Judah.

29. 10:35

    And they shall kill me and go again to Rehoboam, king of Judah. So he's worried that when the time for the festivals come and for the feast that people will go back down to Jerusalem. They'll catch up with their friends and their family again. This is stupid. Why did we split this whole thing?

30. 10:49

    It's so much easier being back together. Let's forget about this and just become one nation again. So he's worried about losing all of his power. So he says, look, what we can do is let's make it easier. Let's, you know, instead of going back to Jerusalem all the time, why don't we just make it easier?

31. 11:04

    I'll set up a place to worship. You know, I'll make it even easier. I'll put one up the top, one down the bottom of the nation. You don't have to travel as far. It's a lot, a lot easier. And so that's what we see there in verse 28. He says, wherefore the king took counsel and made two cars of gold and said unto them, it's too much for you to go to Jerusalem.

32. 11:24

    Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set one in Bethel and put the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin for the people went to worship before the one even unto Dan. So Jeroboam says, look, let's just put these golden carps up.

33. 11:40

    We'll make it easier. It's a lot. You don't have to travel as much. It's a lot easier to worship God. I mean, in fact, the words he uses there in verse 28 are exactly the same words that Aaron used when he set up the golden car. Now, Aaron wasn't trying to set up a new God.

34. 11:55

    He was just trying to put a physical image there to help the people, you know, worship God. And this is what Jeroboam is doing here. He's not at this stage trying to turn people away from God. He's just trying to make it easier. Well, you know, every time we go, we sacrifice cows every day for the continual burnt offering.

35. 12:11

    We're burning cows. God obviously loves cows. What better symbol to put a cow up here when we're worshiping? So he made a golden calf here and did that. But verse 30 says, as God knew that it would, it became a sin for the people. As soon as he put a physical image around that, that they started to worship that.

36. 12:28

    So that's the first step that he did. But he continued on Jeroboam here. And if we look at verse 31, he made a house of high places and made priests of the lower people, which were not the sons of Levi. So the next step that Jeroboam did was he wanted to water down God in religion.

37. 12:48

    Religion wasn't about God for Jeroboam. It was about controlling the people and about power. So I don't want these people talking about God all the time and saying that I'm doing the wrong thing and we shouldn't worship idols. So let's get rid of those. And anybody can come a priest. Once again, I'll make it easier for you.

38. 13:03

    You don't have to have a degree anymore. You can just come and become a priest. That's fine. So he started to do that. Now, Malachi 2 verse 7 says that the role of the priest was to keep knowledge and they should have the law at their mouth and they're a messenger of God.

39. 13:18

    So the priest wasn't just someone who sacrificed for you. They were the Bible scholars. They taught you about God and did all the study and helped the people understand God. So when he removed that, he removed that element of God out of religion. See, Jeroboam, for him, as I said, religion was about people and power.

40. 13:37

    He didn't want God in there. And so not only that, so he's now replaced the priest. And next there's this huge exodus of all the people that were faithful, that wanted to worship God the right way. They moved out of the nation. Let's try this again. Hey, there we go. So we see this in 2 Chronicles here.

41. 13:58

    And the priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted to him out of all their coasts. For the Levites left their suburbs and their possessions, and they came to Judah, Jerusalem. But Jeroboam and his sons had cast off, which means like pushed aside, rejected from executing the priest's office unto Yahweh.

42. 14:16

    And he adorned him priests for the high places and for the devils and cars which he had made. And after them, out of all the tribes of Israel, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the Yahweh God of their father. So anyone that was still faithful, anyone that still wanted to worship the proper way, they left out of Judah, and they all went down to Israel.

43. 14:38

    So anyone that was left in the nation, which is of Israel, which Elijah is going to be part of, were those that were happy just worshiping that way, that weren't that interested in keeping the purity of the truth and those things. Now, we'll see this weekend, not everybody. There was still a remnant that remained, but the majority of people left that wanted to keep it pure and wanted to worship God.

44. 15:00

    So up there in this nation is sort of, you know, not exactly the cream of the crop. Spiritually, that's left there in the nation. Now, it's going to keep getting worse. If we look at 1 Kings 12, verse 32, once you take God out of religion, what's left? Well, let's read this, verse 32.

45. 15:21

    Jeroboam ordained feasts in the eighth month, on the 15th day of the month, like unto the feasts in Judah. So I said, well, I like the feasts. I like the parties. So let's put those in there. But let's see what happened. And he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made.

46. 15:37

    And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high place, which he had made. So he offered upon the altar, which he had made in Bethel, the 15th day, the eighth month, even which he had devised of his own heart and ordained unto a feast unto the children of Israel, which he offered upon the altar.

47. 15:54

    So religion became all about him. So God is completely removed. It's all about what Jeroboam wanted. And he did this and he put this here and he did this because that's what religion was for Jeroboam. He didn't want God in it. It was all about him and power. So much so, if you look over the page, chapter 13, verse 33, it was enough for him to do everything that he wanted to then become the priest.

48. 16:19

    So after these things, Jeroboam returned, not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest people of the priests. We saw before, whosoever would be consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. So he becomes now the priest and the centre for this worship. So Jeroboam, what was his big sin?

49. 16:39

    He turned religion from being all about God to being all about himself. Now, the important point is this is 60 years before Elijah is going to come onto the scene. So this is 60 years before. This is already what's happening in this nation. All the spiritual people have left, or the majority have left.

50. 16:56

    God's been taken out of religion. It's all about whatever makes you feel good. It's all been watered down. It's all about just being easy, and it's all about humans. So 60 years this has been going on. Nearly two generations. So when Elijah comes onto the scene, the people that he's talking to, they've never worshipped under a proper God.

51. 17:15

    They've never experienced priests that could teach them the true religion and from the law. They have only ever had this Jeroboam way of doing things. They've worshipped the golden cast. That, for them, is what religion is all about. And it says there, as we know, he became the one that made Israel to sin.

52. 17:37

    That was his sort of catch cry that God gave him. So then a new batch of kings is going to arise now, and they're going to try and compete against Jeroboam for the title of who's the worst. God sort of starts ranking them all, and he did worse, and they're going to try and compete.

53. 17:52

    See, who could be the worst king and who could do worse in God's eyes? And that's what we have here that we read for us in 1 Kings 15. Well, actually, while we come back there, 1 Kings 14, verse 9, this is his title here where he says he has done evil above all that were before him.

54. 18:10

    For thou hast gone and made the other gods and multidimages and provoked me to anger. So I'm sorry, 1 Kings 14, verse 9, said there that he'd done everything worse, said that he had provoked me, God, to anger, and has cast me behind thy back. So he had complete contempt of God. God, as we know, is supposed to be on their foreheads and in their hands.

55. 18:30

    He says, you have taken me from the forehead, and you've put me behind your back. Religion is nothing to do with God anymore. It's all about what you want it to be. So they still worshipped God. They still had this essence of God about them, but it was mainly about just human and doing what you wanted.

56. 18:46

    But now we're going to rise up a new generation of kings that are going to take it even further if it couldn't get worse. And if we come back to our reading, chapter 16, and if we look at verse 23, we'll see this is where it starts to kick in here, where we start to read about Omri.

57. 19:03

    So in the 30th and first year of Asa, king of Judah, verse 23, began Omri to reign over Israel. Twelve years and six years reigned he in Terza. And he brought the hill of Samaria. We saw that. Verse 25, but Omri wrought evil in the eyes of Yahweh and did worse than all that were before him.

58. 19:22

    So he becomes the new frontrunner now. So he did worse than Jeroboam. He now becomes the worst. Why? For he walked in all the ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and he sinned wherever he made Israel to sin, to provoke God of Israel to anger with vanities. So he starts now to come on the scene and to do worse.

59. 19:40

    Now, interestingly, just as a side note, it's amazing that we actually have archaeological proof about Omri and the people that we're looking at today. So this is in 1870. This is the Misha steel that was discovered. It's now in the Louvre in Paris, and it actually talks about Omri and the king, and it's one of the first mentions of Yahweh.

60. 20:02

    So we have archaeological proof of what we're considering today, which is pretty cool, but that's just an aside. Instead, let's look at what was the summary of Omri and his son Ahab. So in Micah 6.16, it says there, for the statues of Omri are kept and all the works of the house of Ahab.

61. 20:21

    So these two are often put together, Omri the dad and Ahab the son. And it's because Omri only reigned for a few years, and then Ahab came on the scene and reigned for, I think, 22 years. So Omri started it, and then Ahab picked it up and ran with it and did all of the evil things that were before him.

62. 20:37

    So under Jeroboam, what was his sin? He watered down the truth. He sort of put, as you said, put people in instead of God. That was the focus. Ahab is going to take it even further, where he's going to not only try and involve God worship, but bring in idols and then even further persecute the people as well.

63. 20:57

    So he gets rid of God altogether. He puts idols in and he starts to persecute. So we have this next stage of rebellion in this nation, and this is what Elijah is going to face. It says that if we look at 18, sorry, beforehand, Ahab goes out and he goes and he marries Jezebel, we read today.

64. 21:16

    And Jezebel, she was the daughter of Ethbaal, which means loves Baal or the house of Baal. So there's no sort of misunderstanding what this family, what the family he was marrying into. It wasn't like, oh, I didn't know what they wanted. It's fairly obvious here. I love Baal. Ahab goes, right, that's the perfect house that I want to marry into.

65. 21:35

    That's exactly what I want. And so it goes even further than that. How can I bring in new religion into what we're doing? And then it goes a step further again. If we look at chapter 18 and verse four, it says there that he allowed Jezebel to persecute and to kill the prophets and worshipers of God.

66. 21:55

    So this is the final. So see how we've gone progressively worse over this thing. It's not just watering down God. Then it's bringing idols in. And now it's persecuting any of those believers. So there weren't that many believers left, as we saw many of them left generations ago. But even those that wanted to do the thing were now being physically persecuted.

67. 22:14

    And that's the nation that Elijah's going to come into. That's the ecclesial environment that Elisha's coming into. But it also introduces us here to Ahab. And like Elijah, there's more than meets the eye when we first look at Ahab. He's a really interesting character. God says these two summaries here about Ahab. First, he did more to provoke Yahweh, God of Israel, to anger than all the kings that were before him.

68. 22:39

    So he becomes, he wins. He's the worst one. No one after Ahab has ever mentioned that he did worse than all before him. Ahab is the, depends where you look at it, the highest or the lowest. He is the worst king of everyone before him. He won that contest. But as well, there were none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of Yahweh, whom Jezebel, his wife, stirred up.

69. 23:04

    So he provoked God. He then sold himself. He allowed Jezebel to stir up these things in him. And that's what was so frustrating about Ahab. See, Ahab had so much potential. He wasn't like this black and white, you know, Elijah's good, Ahab's bad. It's a simple little Disney fairy tale. No, there's more to these characters.

70. 23:26

    We often find in the Bible, not all bad people are bad all the time. Not all good people are good all the time. And we'll see this is exactly the case here with Elijah and with Ahab. Ahab had so much potential, as we'll see this weekend. On Mount Carmel, I believe he consented to the killing of the prophets, potentially joined in to the killing of those prophets.

71. 23:45

    He wanted to turn back to God. He was convinced at that time. He believed in God. Later in 1 Kings 21 verse 25, we read that Ahab actually repented and it was genuine. God postponed the punishment on Ahab because he could see he genuinely repented and believed God. So there were times in his life when he does the right thing.

72. 24:07

    He knew what the right thing was, but he refused to commit 100% to God. Instead, he says he sold himself to do. There was something there, but he gave it over to Jezebel and to Baal rather than to God. In fact, Jehoshaphat, who was king of Judah at this time, also got himself into a lot of trouble because he kept involving Ahab.

73. 24:28

    He kept inviting him down, trying to be a positive influence in his life. He could see there was potential there. And it got so much to the point where God had to stop him and say, look, don't waste your time on Ahab anymore. Okay? He hates me. Leave him alone. But even Jehoshaphat could see it.

74. 24:43

    Elijah could see it. There was something there in Ahab that was good. And everyone spent their whole life trying to help him, trying to show him a better way, trying to encourage him. But in the end, no matter how many opportunities that Ahab was given, he couldn't make those changes in his life.

75. 25:00

    It was all too hard for Ahab. And as I said there, he sold himself to do wickedness. He allowed Jezebel to manipulate him, to use him for her own greed. Ahab didn't have the backbone to stand up against her and to work with Elijah. And so we have these two really interesting characters.

76. 25:18

    Elijah who had the backbone, who had the conviction, who had the dedication, but was still needed to be shaped and moulded and changed. And then we have Ahab who had potential, but just, you know, people kept working with him. God kept working with him, but he didn't have the backbone to stand up.

77. 25:35

    And so we have these interesting two main characters in this story that we'll see. Neither of them were perfect. Both of them had potential. Both struggled and wrestled with what God wanted from them. But the lesson really that we'll hopefully see God willing this weekend is that Elijah allowed himself to be changed.

78. 25:55

    He opened himself up to God. He let God in. Both needed work, but one resisted. One sold himself to do it. The other allowed God to work on his life. Ahab submitted himself to the joys of this world, the reward of this life. He chose that rather than trying to resist and stand up for God.

79. 26:15

    And that's one of the, I think that the big lessons hopefully this weekend we'll see, is that God isn't looking for perfection. Neither of these men were perfect. But what was the difference between Elijah and Ahab? Well, Elijah was passionate to do the things of God, and he was meek enough, and meekness just means being able to be shaped and moulded and changed.

80. 26:36

    That's why Elijah becomes the focus of this story rather than Ahab. It wasn't that Elijah was perfect. It's not that we need to be perfect either. We can put ourselves into this story. Which character are we going to be? Because all of us here have that same opportunity. We've all got something that we can give, either give to God or give to this world.

81. 26:56

    The question is, which one are we going to be in this story? And as we'll see, it's the one that has the meekness, the one that has the passion to do the right thing. That's the one that God can latch onto and work and help. They're the difference. So as I said, God isn't looking for us to be perfect.

82. 27:11

    We'll see that this weekend. He's looking for passion, and he's looking for meekness. And if we have those two things, we can be the Elijah of our own story. We can be shaped and moulded and have that amazing second half of our life in the kingdom like Elijah. So that's the two characters here and what we're going to see.

83. 27:29

    But before we jump into Elijah, there's this really interesting, weird, interesting sort of verse here at the end of our reading before we get in. So we hear about all the kings, that makes sense. And then we're about to hear about Elijah, but then there's this verse here about Jericho. Why is there Jericho right before we start to go into the life of Elijah?

84. 27:48

    And I think there's one final thing that God's showing us here before we get into the story of Elijah. Come across to Joshua 6, where we hear about, read about Jericho. So we have in 1 Kings, the rebuilding of Jericho. Why is that mentioned in there? Well, what did Jericho stand for? Why did it have this prophecy that's mentioned?

85. 28:07

    Joshua 6, verse 26 tells us about this. It says there, and Joshua adjured them at that time saying, curse be the man before Yahweh that riseth up and buildeth the city of Jericho. He shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn and in his youngest son, shall he set up the gates thereof.

86. 28:26

    And that's exactly what we have fulfilled there in 1 Kings 15. So we have this little prophecy. Why is it brought up now? What's going on here? What did Jericho stand for? Why was it such a curse? Why did Joshua put the curse on this? Well, let's look at verse 17 of Joshua 6 as well.

87. 28:43

    Why is the city accursed? It says there, the city, Jericho, shall be accursed, even it and all that are therein therein. To Yahweh, only Rahab the harlot shall live and all that are with her in our house because she hid the messages. And ye in any wise, keep yourselves from that accursed thing, lest you make yourselves accursed.

88. 29:02

    When you take of that accursed thing and make the camp of Israel a curse and trouble it. Okay. And then chapter, verse one of chapter seven, but the children of Israel committed trespassing that accursed thing. For Achan, the son of Carmel, the son of Javid, the son of Jeriah, the tribe of Judah, took that accursed thing and the anger of Yahweh was kinder against him.

89. 29:23

    Okay. I don't think God could have stressed it anymore in these verses. What is Jericho? Idolatry. It's this cursed thing. Anything that touched, that was cursed. And so when they came into the nation, the first city that they came to was Jericho. And God wanted to make a real, I guess, a symbol here of Jericho.

90. 29:41

    So all of the idols of the land that were going to come into, stay away from those things. Jericho became a symbol of idolatry. So this thing is cursed. Anything you take into it will ruin your life. And that's what Jericho stood for. And he couldn't stress it enough. It's a consistent thing that idolatry is a cursed thing.

91. 29:59

    It causes issues in our lives. Let's look at a couple of these verses to show us that it's not just, it's not just talking about idolatry in the Old Testament. Here we have it here. Do you know I? The grave images of their God shall be burned with, with fire. You shall not desire the silver or gold that is in them nor take them unto thee lest they be a snare for it's an abomination unto Yahweh their God.

92. 30:28

    Neither shalt thou bring thy abomination into thy house lest thou should be accursed like it. Thou shalt utterly detest it, utterly adhor it, for it is a cursed thing. Right? We're starting to see how seriously God takes idolatry and idols. Do not bring that single thing into your house. But as I said, it's not just, it's not just an Old Testament thing.

93. 30:49

    Colossians, mortified, therefore, your members, which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, in order for affection, evil concupers, covetousness, which is idolatry. Okay? So that's the modern version of this covetousness, which is idolatry. Same in Ephesians. And I could have put a lot more up of these quotes here, but, and walk in love as Christ also loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.

94. 31:18

    But fornication and uncleanness and covetousness, let it not once be named among you that become us saints. Okay? So there's, there's a fairly serious list of sins there and covetousness or idolatry is put in there. Neither filthiness, not foolish talking, not jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving you thanks. This you know, that no whoremonger, nor a clean, nor covetous person or idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

95. 31:44

    So really, really strong language. God doesn't tend to talk about, talk like this very often, but he does when it comes to idolatry. And so he said, this is a really serious thing. And then right in the middle of this, he says, it's covetousness. For us, the modern day idolatry is covetousness. And covetousness, it just means that, that we are worshipping those things that become idols for us.

96. 32:06

    That's why it becomes modern day. So it's not that it's a graven image. It can be anything for us, becomes an idol in our life. Okay? So that's what we think about when we talk about idolatry this weekend. We're talking about here in the modern contents, what are idols in our life? Yes, we don't have the, the religious framework that they had around it back in their day and the sacrificing and all those things, but we obviously have idolatry in our day.

97. 32:29

    And he says, it's this principle is that anything which you desire, which you, you put before God, which becomes something that you obsess over, that becomes an idol. You worship that instead of worshipping God. And that's what covetousness is. When we're desiring something, we sometimes use it in the context of, you know, I covet that instead of this or, you know, but what this principle is the same.

98. 32:49

    We desire something over what we desire God. It becomes an idol. And instead of focusing on God, we focus on that now and the pleasures that that brings now. And that's why it becomes almost like an idolatrous religion for us because we're focusing on being satisfied and gratified now rather than waiting for the kingdom to come.

99. 33:09

    So it's all about self-sacrifice, self-satisfaction and self, just like we saw with Jeroboam. That now is, is what we have to be careful of. And so it's a serious thing. It's not something that we can say, well, when we talk about idolatry now in the life of Elijah and Ahab, that's back then.

100. 33:25

     It's different now. This is just theoretical. Coveting and wanting and lusting after things is something that we all experience and struggle with in our lives as well, doesn't it? Whatever that is, maybe it's physical, car, clothes, house. Maybe it's not always physical though. Maybe it's wanting that job or wanting that girl or boy on the street, wanting that lifestyle, wanting to be famous.

101. 33:47

     Whatever it is, doesn't have to be physical nowadays. It's what do we put before God and what are we spending our energy and our time and our thoughts on? Worshipping is a strong word because I don't, but what do we think about when we have spare time? And that's a good way to say, what's some idols in my life is think back in your last week and think, when I had spare time, when I wasn't doing anything, what did I think about?

102. 34:12

     And we can think about all those times and list them out and add them up and we'll start to see that maybe there are some idols in our life. When we have a spare moment, what do we choose to think about? Do we think about others? Do we think about God? Do we think, and yeah, we'll do those things, but if there's something that we spent a lot of our time thinking about in our spare time or wondering about or researching or Googling up, whatever it is, maybe that's an idol in our life and we need to think about that.

103. 34:36

     That's an audit that we can do to say, do we have any of those imbalances in our life when it comes to idolatry? So let's come back then. What happened here in Jericho? So if we come back to 1 Kings 15, we read there that he set up this idol there. Sorry, 16, 1 Kings 16.

104. 35:01

     And the days of these people here, Hael, which means of the living God, from Bethel, the house of God, he built in his first son, Abram, which means lofty, and his second son, Seagab, is a loft. So I think what we're sort of seeing here is a little snapshot, a cameo of the people.

105. 35:22

     These are good people. These are living God, house of God, lofty. And what are these people doing? They're building up the accursed thing. They're following after idolatry. Not that Jericho was wrong, but we know Jericho became a symbol of idolatry. So I think it's a little cameo of what the people were like.

106. 35:39

     So we saw, yes, the leadership was really bad and Omri and Ahab and all the leaders and Jezebel were really bad. But I think what God's telling us here as well is that the people were just as bad. Here's a random family of supposedly faithful people and what are they doing? They're, you know, in complete defiance to God, building up the very symbol of idolatry that had been established.

107. 36:00

     They didn't care anymore about what that stood for or the curse around it. So I think that's why we have this little, this verse put in here before we get into Elijah to show us that it's not just the leadership, the people, the ecclesia, the nation themselves as people were completely removed away from God.

108. 36:15

     This was a really dark and difficult time that no matter the cost, even if it costs my family, I'm going to rebuild this symbol of idolatry. And that's the nation that Elijah is coming into. And so when Elijah struggles with the faithfulness of the people, when he struggles and says things like, I'm the only one left and has a very black and white view of people, whilst that's not right, hopefully we can understand it a little bit more.

109. 36:40

     This was a really tough time spiritually. It's probably the lowest it has ever been. And that's the environment that Elijah is being pushed, is being presented into at this time. So let's look at Elijah. Well, as you probably know, Elijah's name means my God is Yah. Okay. And that's an absolute summary of Elijah's life and mentality.

110. 37:02

     There was no doubt in Elijah's life. Unlike the people, unlike Ahab who did waver and go back and forth, there was no wavering with Elijah. There was no question in his life. My God is Yahweh. There was 100% dedication and commitment. Elijah had weaknesses as we've talked about, but you could not fault his reliance on his dedication to serve God.

111. 37:26

     It is the whole reason why, one of the reasons why God wanted to work with him and prepared. He was utterly single-mindedly dedicated in his life. No wavering whatsoever. He stood in complete contrast contrast then to everything that Ahab and Jezebel stood for. Not just spiritually, but physically as well. So yes, spiritually and his single-mindedness, but physically as well.

112. 37:47

     This is how Elijah is described here later on in 2 Kings. This is the king said unto him, what manner of man was he which came up to meet you and told you these words because they'd been interrupted by a prophet. And they answered him and said he was a hairy man and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins.

113. 38:06

     And straightaway he said, it's Elijah the Tishbite. He didn't even need to say any more. A hairy guy wearing a leather garment, that's Elijah. In fact, a hairy man, it literally, I kid you not, means lord of the hair. That is Elijah's name, right? He's lord of the hair. So probably a Nazarite, hair everywhere, rough sort of thing like that.

114. 38:26

     So that was the man in contrast to the refined, you know, modern, beautiful Ahab and Jezebel in the temple. Here was the lord of the hair. This unwielding physical presence here in rough clothes and rough presentation. As I said, a wild man, probably a Nazarite there. So I hadn't shaved. We are told that he's from the land of Gilead.

115. 38:52

     Gilead was a very isolated wilderness, a tough, hard land that bred tough, hard people. This is how the people who described from his region, here. And of the Gadites who separated themselves unto David, into the hold of the wilderness, men of might, men of war, fit for battle that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were like the faces of lions and were as swift as the rose upon the mountains.

116. 39:18

     So these are the people of Gad, the Gileadites. This is what they looked like. This was the type of people that Elijah surrounded himself from. Now, he probably wasn't born there. If we look at chapter 17, verse one, it says, Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead. Now, we're not 100% sure where Tishbe was, but it says that he was in the inhabitants or the sojourners, as the word literally means, of Gilead.

117. 39:44

     And so it appears that he left Tishbe and instead chose and he made a conscious decision to go out into the wilderness, into that tough, unforgiving land and to live out there. That's what he chose. They're the people that he wanted to associate and be around with. And honestly, it's a good and a bad thing.

118. 40:02

     I mean, Jesus went out into the wilderness. Paul did. John the Baptist. These people all went out, but they came back to live and to help the people around them. Elijah didn't want to do this. Elijah went out in the wilderness to get away from the people. He came back in a minute, as we'll see, to punish them, not to help them.

119. 40:20

     But see, he naturally just gives you an idea of the kind of man Elijah is. He chose to naturally leave the city and to go out into the wilderness, to live in isolation in the wildness of those plains. As we said, complete contrast to Ahab and to his royal palace. And we see that of verse one of chapter 17.

120. 40:42

     It says, there Elijah the Tishbite, who was the sojourner of Gileads, said unto Ahab, as Yahweh, the God of Israel, liveth, by whom I stand, there shall be no dew nor rain these years, but according to my words. So he bursts onto the scene, he charges into the palace, no warning, no nothing, no ultimate, no sort of decisions, no discussions.

121. 41:03

     He gives this amazing prediction and then races back out again. And as I said, it's sudden. There's no background, there's no introduction, but there's also something else missing when Elijah first appears. Normally, when we have a prophet that starts off their missionary, there's a very important phrase that's used and it's the word of Yahweh.

122. 41:25

     We see, I mean, I could have put more examples up here, but we see them there. Came by the, you know, Jehu, came the word of Yahweh when he did it. Isaiah, word of Yahweh came to him saying, here in Chronicles, the word came to Nathan, to Jeremiah, to all of these prophets.

123. 41:42

     Usually, it starts with the word of God came. They're told to go and do something. But here, we don't have that. And I think it's telling that we don't have this in this phrase. Did Elijah choose to do this off his own back? Did God command Elijah to do these things? Why is that phrase missing?

124. 41:59

     It's elsewhere. God tells him to go down to the brook. God tells him to go to, the word of God came, told him to go to the widow. So it's not that that didn't occur, but it's conspicuously here at the start. And so I want us to look at this a bit more.

125. 42:13

     Come across to James chapter 5. James gives us some more insights into this reign and the motivation of what Elijah is looking at here. And I think it's a really important part. We understand this as we go into the story of Elijah. So James chapter 5, verse 16, we'll start there.

126. 42:35

     It says, confess your faults one to another, pray for one another that you may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are. And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the sace of three years and six months.

127. 42:57

     And he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit. So James, verse 16, his point that he's making is he's saying, prayer is a powerful thing. It can do amazing things. You guys need to pray. It's amazing what prayer can do. And he says, you know what? I'll give you an example of an amazing prayer that had an amazing effect.

128. 43:18

     And he goes through that. He looks through the whole Old Testament and he says, let me find a perfect example of powerful prayer. Here we are. I'm going to choose the life of Elijah. Now, the first thing he says is the verse that we looked after. Firstly, Elijah is a man just like us.

129. 43:36

     So there's nothing special about Elijah. He's just like us. He passions. He's literally the same as us. And he prayed for something and something amazing happened. He prayed that it would not rain and God answered him. Now, to me, that means that Elijah had to have instigated this drought. He was the reason the drought happened.

130. 43:56

     This wasn't directed from God. It wouldn't make sense in James' example if God had appeared to Elijah and said, I'm going to bring a drought on the nation. Therefore, you go and tell Ahab. That's not an example of powerful prayer, is it? That's just an example of doing as you're told or answering God.

131. 44:14

     Here, James says, you want to know an example of where someone prayed and God decided to answer it? It's Elijah. And I wouldn't have picked that as an example, even in Elijah's life. James before talked about the power of prayer for healing. But wouldn't have you picked then, what about when Elijah raised someone from the dead prayer?

132. 44:34

     Wouldn't that be a good example of how powerful prayer is in healing people? But no, James says, that's not as good. This example here of when Elijah prayed and God decided to stop the rain everywhere. So this is a really big deal. Now, it also sheds light on the kind of a man that Elijah was, that he would earnestly pray to stop the rain and that God would say, well, I don't really want to do this, Elijah.

133. 45:02

     This probably isn't how I would have done it, but you've prayed for this and therefore we're going to do this. We're going to stop the rain and we're going to bring it back because you have prayed for this. This is the only reason I'm doing this, Elijah, is because of your prayer. And it also shows the kind of man, as I said, that Elijah was.

134. 45:17

     This was his method or what he thought was the best way to preach to people and to get them to come back to God. He thought that drying up the rain, that people suffering would bring them back to God. That's the best way to do it. I mean, that's a pretty big prayer.

135. 45:34

     That's a pretty big idea to think about. Maybe it's an Australian thing, but I've never prayed something like that for my meeting. Have you? When we start preaching a campaign or when we're about to do the learn to read the Bible seminars, do we start and pray, first of all, that people have a really, really bad day and that then they're forced to come into our seminars?

136. 45:53

     When we're leaving, do we pray that people will have a car crash that will make them, you know, reconsider their life and come back to God? That's not the method of preaching that I would have chosen, but that's what Elijah chose. That's how he thought, what's the best way that I can bring back the people to God?

137. 46:10

     I think they need to suffer through drought so that they'll turn back to God. And remember as well, drought is a massive deal back then. We'll see in our next class, people were literally dying because of what Elijah prayed for. This is a really serious thing that he's asking of God. Now, he did have some scriptural precedence for praying for this.

138. 46:32

     We read it actually yesterday in our reading, but, and as well, Deuteronomy, God talks about it. Then Yahweh's wrath be kindled against you and he'll shut up heaven that there be no rain, that the land yield not a fruit and that you perish. So he's latched on onto this in his life and said, well, here you go.

139. 46:48

     You've said this before, so let's do it. But it shows the type of man that Elijah was. And I think as well, it shows the amazing God that we worship that he listened to that prayer and he answered it. And he said, okay, Elijah, if this is, this is what you want, this is what you're passionate about, if you're fervently praying for this, then I'll work with you on this.

140. 47:09

     I'll do this. And we'll see as we go through this weekend that the drought wasn't really a good idea. It wasn't really successful. It didn't really do what Elijah wanted it to do. But our God was prepared to, as I say, in a sense, change his mind, if you will, to work with Elijah to answer this amazing prayer because Elijah was passionate about it and God could see potential there and wanted to work in his life to show him.

141. 47:36

     And that's why I think James uses the example here of Elijah as an example of the power of prayer. Elijah, this is the most, out of all the Old Testament, this is the biggest example of the power of prayer.

142. 47:48

     You see, as I said, it might seem as a weird example, but he said, why is this powerful? Because here is a man that God was prepared to do incredible things for, to teach him and to work with him because of the opportunity and the potential that he saw in Elijah. Because, as he said, if we're passionate, if we're fervent, God can do the same for us.

143. 48:12

     And once again, it shows us, as I said, that the passion of Elijah, he's asking for a drought to shake people up. And we see as well that this is a man that is deeply rooted into the law and into the faithfuls of old. His mind went back to Deuteronomy and to the, how do I preach?

144. 48:27

     Well, how did it work back in the Old Testament? What did Moses do? We'll see as we'll go through this weekend as well that Elijah's hero is Moses. He maps his life out on Moses. When he goes to Mount Horeb, it's because Moses went there. When he goes to die, he goes to where Moses went.

145. 48:44

     He bases his whole life on the Old Testament and on Moses. What we'll see as well as we go through this weekend is that unfortunately he understood the acts of Moses, but a lot of the times he didn't really understand the attitude of Moses. And that's what God's going to teach him through these events as well.

146. 48:59

     Help him to be more like Moses in the way that he thought about others, not just in the actions that he took. I think thinking through all those things now, a little bit we've learned about Elijah. I think it's helpful to think what would it be like if we had Elijah in our meeting today?

147. 49:16

     Try and picture having that kind of man in your meeting. For how it is, he probably would have caused a lot of issues in the ecclesia. It would have been a difficult person to work with. We'll see that he's insensitive, that he's uncompromising, at times he's unthoughtful. We'll see he had very little social skill.

148. 49:37

     Actually, look at how he interacts with people. Come across to, back in chapter 17 of 1 Kings, look at some of the, I mean, it's easy to look up the words Elijah says, he only says a few things in this whole record other than on Mount Carmel. But look at how he talks here.

149. 49:53

     Well, first of all, verse 1, we saw it there when he bursts onto the scene. He doesn't have a discussion with Ahab. He doesn't, you know, leave the door open for any repentance. He bursts onto the scene, there's going to be no rain and then he's out again. No, no, how do you reply to that?

150. 50:08

     What if Ahab wanted to change? What if he wanted, and we saw he could have been wavered either way, but he wasn't given a chance. It's a negative message and then he's out. It's all about the punishment. Look at verse 18 with this one. We'll look at this later on with the widow, verse 18, and she said unto Elijah, what have I to do with thee, O man of God?

151. 50:29

     Come unto me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son. So her only son had just died. Someone that Elijah had lived with for a few years now, he had built up a relationship. And what's his response to someone who's standing there in front of him with a dead child?

152. 50:44

     He said unto her, give me thy son. And walks out. No, are you all right? You know what? Just give me your son. This woman had just died and this is how he handles it. Look, if we go across the chapter 18 of verse 7, look how he handles Obadiah. Obadiah, who was a man that had dedicated his life to God, had done all this.

153. 51:03

     He's a really faithful person. Verse 7, and as Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him and knew him and fell on his face and worshipped him. You couldn't get a more obvious greeting here. And how does Elijah answer? It's so blunt that in my Bible, they've actually put italics in here to try and at least make sense of what he's saying.

154. 51:23

     If you take that out, he says, I, like, are you Elijah? I am. Go tell thy Lord, behold, Elijah. And that's it. That's all he says. This faithful man, he's very gruff. He's very to the point. As I say, translators had to try and make sense of what he's saying. He will say it later on as well.

155. 51:39

     Not everything he says makes sense. And this was the kind of man that we'll see that Elijah does not have a great empathy or understanding for people. And it's a weakness for Elijah. It's something that God is going to continually work around and teach him. The first, even though this is the first half of his life, the first half of the half of his life, God's actually just spending time trying to teach Elijah to be nice to people and spend time with people and what it means and what he's asked for.

156. 52:04

     We'll see next class. But it's a big part of what God is looking for. It's not enough that you're a man of passion, that you can do remarkable things. God says, if you want to be a leader, if you want to do the work that I want you to do, I want you to do incredible things in the future.

157. 52:20

     I want you to lead people and bring them back to God. But you're not ready to do that, Elijah, until you can deal with people, until you can be more empathetic and encouraging and conversation with people and spend time with them. That's what all of this is about. We'll see this weekend, shaping Elijah to be better.

158. 52:37

     And so, yes, passion and that is important because I actually want you to spend time with people, Elijah. I actually want you to be able to interact with people. It's not just all about Bible study and about righteousness and about being separate. If we want to help people, it's being able to understand and relate to them and connect with people.

159. 52:57

     That's just as important. It's the same with Moses. And Moses had all of this great education, all Pharaoh and all these things. He had all of that. And God said, great. And when you go and spend 40 years in the desert by yourself being a shepherd, then you'll be ready to teach my people.

160. 53:12

     Having all the education, having all the passion, Moses was ready to take it on. You know, who's made you a leader over us? You know, he wanted to be the leader already. Because there's no, you can't be a leader until you've learned compassion and empathy, until you're humble and meek. Then you can be a leader.

161. 53:28

     And it's the same that we're going to see here with Elijah. This is a really important point that he needed to develop. Same with us as well. So as we look on, you know, I don't want us to all be too negative on Elijah. Obviously, he had a huge amount of positives of why God chose him.

162. 53:46

     Everything he did was so that he would try and turn the people back to God. Yes, his methods were a bit unconventional, but his passion and his dedication to God were really important. Everything he did, praying for the drought, the motivation for the contest on Carmel, they're all big things, but everything was about how do I help people?

163. 54:07

     How do I save them and turn them back to God? As we talked about, that's the thing that God wants to see in us. So we'll leave that there as sort of a background to Elijah. We've run out of time and we'll come back and we'll start looking at this event in the next chapter, God willing, after our break.

164. 54:23

     Thank you.