Elijah At The Cave Series

ELIJAH AT THE CAVE

I Kings 19:9-13

Intro: We began studying this prophet of God, Elijah, a couple weeks ago. We saw his experience at Cherith. We studied how the drought came at his preaching, and God separated him out at Cherith. We saw the Division, The Provision, And The Vision he experienced at Cherith. We learned how God will separate us from everything unto himself.

Last week we saw Elijah At Carmel. He dug a trench, and again it was separation. This was separation from the world. This separation was to identify who the true and living God is and who his true believers are. God answered by fire, and the people worshipped God.

This week we will see Elijah At The Cave, and again it is separation. Cherith was a ditch, at Carmel, a trench, and this week a separation in the earth called a Cave. This is separation in the Spirit. Notice how we get there and what it means:

I. THE EXECUTION: 18:40, they took all the prophets of Baal and threw them in the river. Since there has been no rain in 3 ½ years, it would seem likely that it was only a dry river bed at this point. Elijah, with God’s power, was fed and drank water, giving him life at a dry river bed, but the prophets of Baal lay dead in the same setting!

II. THE INTERCESSION: 18:42-45, Elijah went back to the same place where the fire fell and asked God for the rain to fall. God had promised Elijah in I Kings 18:1 if he would show himself to Ahab that God would send rain. Elijah was praying in agreement with his faith in God’s promise. The prayers seemed useless in the beginning as the weather report showed nothing. Even seven reports later there was only a faraway little cloud like a man’s hand, but Elijah believed God and didn’t stop praying. James 5:17-18 “Elias 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 space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.”

III. THE PRECIPITATION: 18:41, before there was rain, before there was a report of rain, before there was even a cloud, Elijah heard the sound of it. This sound was not the sound of water falling from heaven, but it was the sound of the promise of the Lord! When the report came in from the weather man that there was an itty bitty cloud faraway over the sea, Elijah sent word to Ahab to get off the mountain and take cover in town before the rain gets too heavy to travel (v. 44b). AND DIDN’T IT RAIN! v. 45.

IV. THE CONVERSATION: 19:1, Ahab made it back to Jezreel after Elijah but before the rain. When Jezebel asked him about how things went on Carmel, he had good news and bad news… Good news: it’s going to rain. Bad news: all your prophets are dead! Ahab loved horses, but Jezebel loved Baal. Ahab was most excited about rain, but Jezebel was most angry about those prophets who had been eating at her table. What looked like victory on Carmel was a declaration of war. Every victory in this battle sparks a new battle until the war is over.

V. THE COMMUNICATION: 19:2, Jezebel sent a letter. It was not a testimony of her conversion, but it was a threat to kill Elijah! She could have called on the army, sought him out in the rain, and killed him, but I think she was scared of him! She sent the letter to threaten, shake, scare him, and even the score. Satan roars, this world threatens, the flesh is intimidated. Fear defeats us when Satan doesn’t even touch us! The letter was delivered to Elijah, and he had not been selected as man of the year, nor was it news of the conversion of Jezebel’s house to become disciples of Elijah. This world has nothing for you! They are against God and his people. Some of the devil’s crowd will due before they will believe!

VI. THE FRUSTRATION: 19:3, Elijah departed and ran from Jezreel to Beersheba, about 100 miles. Elijah running away is not just out of fear, but it is frustration (v. 10). He’s had it! He has been fighting alone. 100 prophets were eating in Obadiah’s cave, but we have no record where even one of them showed up to help at Carmel or pray for rain. And Elijah was frustrated, felt alone, and just wanted to be alone when God found him under a juniper tree.

VII. THE IMITATION: He went a 40 day journey in the strength of the food that God gave to him under the juniper tree. There he went to hide in a cave. His frustration with the other prophets was that they hid out in a cave instead of standing publicly, and now he is doing the same thing. It is never right to just join the wrong crowd!