I invite you to turn with me this morning to Deuteronomy chapter 11, Deuteronomy 11 as we read the first 28 verses, we read that in connection with our text which is 1 Kings 17 verse 1, we'll read a few verses from chapter 16 there, but as many of you recall a couple of weeks ago, we began to consider a series on the work of the Lord through Elijah, especially in that time in history regarding Ahab and Jezebel. Deuteronomy 11, we read together the first 28 verses. Hear now the word of the Lord. Love the Lord your God and keep His requirements, His decrees, His laws, and His commands always. Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God, His majesty, His mighty hand, His outstretched arm, the signs He performed and the things He did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to his whole country. What He did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how He overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the Lord brought lasting ruin on them. It was not your children who saw what He did for you in the desert until you arrived at this place, and what He did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth right in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them up with their households, their tents, and every living thing that belonged to them. But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the Lord has done. Observe, therefore, all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, and so that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your forefathers to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end. So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul. Then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord's anger will burn against you, and He will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your forefathers as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth. If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to hold fast to Him, then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you. Every place where you set your foot will be yours. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon and from the Euphrates River to the Western Sea. No man will be able to stand against you. The Lord your God, as He promised you, will put the terror and fear of you on the whole land wherever you go. See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. The curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods which you have not known. 1 Kings 16, beginning at verse 29. In the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab, son of Omri, became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel twenty-two years. Ahab, son of Omri, did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him. In Ahab's time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son, Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son, Segub, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua, son of Nun. Now Elijah the Tishbite from Tishbe in Gilead said to Ahab, As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word. There ends the reading of God's Word. Again, we pray that He will bless it to us, the preaching of it this morning. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Elijah, Jehovah's representative in what we know will be the battle of the gods. It seems that Elijah comes out of nowhere. It seems as if he is dropped onto the scene of history as suddenly as we know that he will be removed from the scene of history by the heavenly horses and the chariot of fire in the whirlwind. Yet after Scripture introduces the infamous and wicked Ahab, the king of Israel, after Scripture gives us a summary of the highlights of his wickedness, Jezebel, Baal, and as we considered a couple of weeks ago, rebuilding of Jericho's walls. After giving those details, all of a sudden, here Elijah stands before this most powerful man in Israel whose wicked actions point to his opposition to the covenant God, the one whom he was called to represent, whose wicked actions point to his direct challenge to and attempt to silence the Word of God as rebuilding those walls taught us. And here now, Elijah stands, appears face to face with Ahab to announce Jehovah's answer to Ahab's challenge. And thus, the battle of the gods, The demonstration of who really is God is about to begin as the Lord announces covenant judgment. First of all, with His covenantal indictment. Now, boys and girls, an indictment is an accusation against someone. It's an accusation against someone that what they are doing is wrong. It is to charge someone with some sort of fault or offense. Now, we can only understand the accusation or the indictment against Ahab in the context of that covenant relationship with God. And therefore, first of all, we need to back up and be reminded of the declaration of the covenant's terms. Really a beautiful summary of it, we might say, in Deuteronomy chapter 11. Now, we know that God formed a people for Himself. He took a people for Himself out of the midst of all the nations of the earth, beginning with Abraham, whom He set apart from His own family, whom He set apart from the foreign gods of His own family. And we know that God formed Israel. He made a covenant with Israel and said, I will be your God and you will be My people. And we find some beautiful language concerning this relationship in Deuteronomy 7, beginning at verse 6. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His people, His treasured possession. The Lord did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath He swore to your forefathers that He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments. God made some absolute claims upon Israel that we see, for example, again in Deuteronomy 7 and in Deuteronomy 11, to mention a few places, and that beautiful phrase in Isaiah chapter 43 when He says, absolutely, you are Mine. You belong to Me. They were to be uniquely Jehovah's people. He would be uniquely their God. God Himself drew the lines. He set the boundaries. And they were called to be exclusively and to live exclusively as His. He said to them, you shall have no other gods before Me. He said, in essence, I claim your whole life. I claim your whole being for Myself. He said, obey Me alone. Be separate from the nations of the world. Now, these were not just some commands from some tyrannical, oppressive being, but these were claims that God made that came with the most wonderful promise. The promise of His blessing. His blessing of land. His blessing of provision. His blessing of protection. His blessing of a future. All the things that we read in Deuteronomy 11. Beloved, God's people have always been called to live the antithesis. The direct opposite of the people of the world. Because good and evil, light and dark, sin and righteousness, believers and unbelievers don't mix. Simply put, that covenant relationship means to be separated from the world and set apart unto God alone. Yet, of course, we know there was a violation of the covenant. We had a taste of that as we considered the rebuilding of Jericho's walls two weeks ago. To put it mildly, the antithesis had become fuzzy. The lines of separation had been blurred, even erased, and it began at the top with Israel's CEO. Her chief executive officer, King Ahab, who had taken for himself the wicked foreigner Jezebel for a bride. He crossed over the boundary, the physical boundary that God had set, not only becoming friendly with the nations, but also intermingling with them through marriage. Indeed, a proof text, if there ever was one, against mixed marriages. Abraham himself was willing to give up his one and only son for God. But Ahab gave up God for his wife and much more. And a blatant violation it was. Not only did Ahab bow the knee to Baal, replacing God in his own life, but he makes Baal worship a major part of the national religion, forcing Baal worship upon the flock that was under his care. Now, sadly, we know that this apostasy was not new. We know that this apostasy was very evident in the time of the judges. There was that declining circle of events. Israel would sin. God would send oppression upon them and send a judge to deliver them. They would have a time of peace. and then they would drop even further in their wickedness. And the apostasy was indeed evident in the kings of Israel listed before Ahab. Many of them, we are told, did evil in the sight of the Lord, following the sin of Nebat, son of Jeroboam. Yet this was the crown of wickedness. This theocratic king, Ahab, led the way to give the cult of Baal an official place above the service of Jehovah. And this was not a simple lapse in judgment on Ahab's part, but this was deliberate covenant breaking. This was deliberately trying to cancel out God's grace of election, treating God's election, God's choice of them, as absolutely meaningless. And the situation, therefore, became very much like the situation at the time of the Protestant Reformation. You may recall that at that time, as it turned out, The religion of the king, we might say. The religion of the ruler became the religion of his territory, of his kingdom. So the king, so as the king, so the kingdom. And not only, it wasn't just that Ahab replaced God, but he gave Jehovah a little place in the corner of the kingdom instead of the Lord giving a place to his people. Through Ahab, Israel was taken to a fork in the road and he forced her down the way to destruction as the worship of God was almost exterminated as Jezebel went on a head hunt for the prophets of the Lord and as Ahab exchanges the service of the Lord for Baal worship. And at the very same time again, Ahab and Israel made alliances with many heathen foreign nations, those nations that they were supposed to drive out with the help of the Lord. but again to Ahab no doubt it was a good idea because those alliances provided protection extra protection prosperity they could trade power a secure future interestingly all the things that the covenant Lord had promised them all the things that they should have been reminded of by the broken walls of Jericho. All it did do was push them into compromise of no return. And to top it all off, they gave Baal credit for their prosperity as the so-called, we might say, God of the heavens. Really, the God of weather, the God of fertility, the God of growth. And being dependent on the rain and proper climate conditions, Therefore, Israel's abomination was seen in that it gave Baal credit for absolutely all of it. It's all because of Baal. Baal is our God. And because Israel was at peace, at least they thought, King Ahab had no conscience. He was not bothered by his sin. He was content walking in his sin. And therefore, instead, he tries to silence the Word of God. Yet, in the midst of Ahab's wickedness, Jehovah would still prove Himself to be the living God. He would prove through His prophet that the contest would not be decided by words, but it would be decided by works. The Lord announces covenant judgment and His covenantal indictment includes that through His prophet, He would give a revelation to Ahab of his covenant violation. Notice the text again. Now, that simple phrase, beloved, was an Old Testament oath formula. Elijah is making an oath. He's taking an oath. He is making a promise in the name of the Lord, a very serious thing to do. But with this oath formula, Elijah indicts Ahab with those very few words. He indicts Ahab by reminding Ahab of what Ahab really already knew to be true. He reminds him of the living God and that this living God is Israel's covenant God. He uses the covenant name Yahweh, thereby calling Ahab's attention to the covenant itself and to the terms of the covenant. He reminds Ahab of Israel's call to be exclusively devoted to the Lord, the God of Israel who lives, contrasted with dead idols that have no life. As Psalm 115 says, they have useless mouths and useless eyes and useless ears and a useless nose and hands and feet, while the eyes of the Lord, as Deuteronomy 11 says, are continually on the land. He cares for it. He's always watching over it throughout the entire year. But idols are lifeless. They cannot give life. They bring only death. With these few words, Ahab is to be reminded of the Lord's covenant faithfulness and nearness and blessing to his people. He was to be reminded of Israel's deliverance from Egypt. And he was to be reminded of the episode at the Red Sea when the Egyptian army was put away forever from them. He was to be reminded of the earth opening up and swallowing those who had sinned against God from His own people. He was to be reminded of the law of God that God had given for the blessing of His people to lead and guide them. He was to be reminded of the land flowing with milk and honey and of the promises and the stipulations and the warnings of the covenant. Ahab was to be reminded of the antithesis and antithesis, beloved, that still exists today. God still commands and expects His people to be separate today. Elijah's opening words point to the true issue here in this very introduction. Mount Carmel's question, which is, Who is God? That question is found here in these opening words. And these words are an indictment that Ahab and Israel stood on the wrong side of the antithesis. Ahab thought that he had successfully embalmed and buried Jehovah worship, but Elijah reminds him that Jehovah alone lives. Beloved, in the world today, we know that there are many, many, countless religions of which Christianity is only one. Yet Christianity is the most despised and hated by all the others. Yet Christianity is the only true religion. And the church of Jesus Christ and God's people are called to live the antithesis defined by the Word of God which says, Come out from among them and be ye separate. Jesus Christ and His Word has set the boundaries and only in Him is there true and eternal protection and provision and a future. And of course, we know that idolatry is found today in many shapes and sizes, even in so many subtle ways in our daily lives. Working to take our alliance and our trust away from God and instead to place it in the things of the world. We know that the doctrine of God's grace of election is offensive to the world, yet Christians are called to accept the world's offense joyfully and not water down that distinction. Through living as set-apart people, God's people demonstrate who God is. That our God will not share His glory, His day, or His people with another. And the fact that God will not share these things is for our benefit. God is jealous for all that is His, and He has proven His righteous jealousy by giving His Son for us. The Lord announces judgment, secondly, through His covenantal representative. Of course, we know that that's Elijah. But notice that Elijah, as the Lord's representative, not only testifies through His words that Yahweh is the exclusive God, But Elijah also testifies through his name. Elijah very simply means, my God is Yahweh. And therefore, even by introducing himself to Ahab, saying, Ahab, I'm Elijah. The name Elijah points to the very presence of God, that God is living, that God is real now and always. Elijah's very name confronts Ahab as if to say, my God is Yahweh, who is your God? my god is living and he is my strength where does your strength come from because your god is dead elijah testifies that yahweh is the exclusive god through his name but also through his relationship with the lord whom i serve notice whom i serve as if to say whom who i stand in service to the Lord continually, habitually, without hesitation, without delay, without interruption. As if to say, Ahab, in the name of the Lord, in whose name I approach you, in whose truth and power I rely without question, in whose indescribable presence I am now consciously standing to whom I have prayed and received an answer. How is Elijah able to make this, take this oath? To whom I have prayed and received an answer. How do we know? Well, listen to what James says all the way later in the New Testament. Beginning in verse 16, the prayer of chapter 5, 16 of James. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crop. Elijah represented the Lord. He stood before Ahab with the Lord's authority. He stood before the king of the nation who hated Elijah's God. Boys and girls, humanly speaking, Elijah was not very safe. King Ahab could have snapped his fingers and in an instant had Elijah put to death. Yet Elijah stood before the king of the nation without fear because his confidence came from the very God that Ahab opposed. His confidence came from the very one who laughs, as Psalm 2 says, at the foolishness of the world, the foolishness of those who bow to the authority of dead idols. The one who, as Proverbs says, holds and directs the hearts of kings and makes their plans come to nothing. He stood before Ahab as God's mouthpiece and said, There will be no rain or dew except by my word. Elijah's word and the word of the Lord were one here. When Elijah was silent, the word of God was silent. Elijah represented Jehovah in truth as the one God, as the living God, as the covenant God. And beloved, as believers, we all represent the living God all the time, but especially out there when we're in the world. And the question we need to consider is how do we represent Him? Do we speak for Him or against Him? Do our lives reflect that He is living and that our confidence is in Him? Do we live as if we know and believe His Word and that it's true? Do we trust Him even when it might cost us something in this world, when it might cost us a position or pleasure or a reputation in the eyes of the world? Do we represent Him without fear? Jesus tells us, at least in part, how we are to represent Him. In Matthew, He says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. The Lord announces covenant judgment with His covenantal indictment and through His covenantal representative, but finally with His covenantal punishment. Notice again its announcement. As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at My Word. Beloved, this announcement of punishment includes a challenge. Do you hear it? It includes a challenge of who God is. Remember what we have said so far. Ahab gave the glory that belonged only to the God of creation. He gave it to Baal. He ascribed to Baal the power of nature and life of the sun and the moon and the rain and the dew. But now Jehovah Himself reclaims that honor and glory. He reclaims it for Himself by demonstrating His covenant wrath upon them through the very forces of nature that they robbed Him of. If Jehovah shut off the rain, no one was going to turn it back on. And notice this announcement is given in advance by Elijah so that no one could credit or even blame Mother Nature. The land flowing with milk and honey, and as Deuteronomy 11.11 says, that drinks water from the rains of heaven, that land would be turned from milk and honey and life to famine and pestilence and death, Baal's plenty, as they thought it was, would be all dried up. Even as we sometimes sing, to live apart from God is death. The announcement of punishment includes a challenge, but also it includes a fulfillment of the Word of God. Remember again what James says. James says that Elijah prayed earnestly. Now, this was not just Elijah's idea that he asked God if God would help him in this idea. Elijah was not praying according to his own disgust and desire, although he might have very well been disgusted with Ahab's wickedness. This was not simply Elijah's personal vendetta. But he prayed according to the Word of the Lord. Remember what we read in Deuteronomy 11, 16 and 17 says, Be careful or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord's anger will burn against you and He will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. The announcement of no dew or rain was the same as saying you have sinned against God. You have violated God's covenant. You have done what He told you not to do. And therefore, He is now keeping His word. He is now keeping His word of curse against you. Our God is a God of His word. But yet, beloved, we cannot close without noticing God's grace. You might say, where? Where do you find God's grace in that short little text? God's grace is demonstrated here in a shining fashion by the very presence of His covenant representative. By the fact that God did not remain silent. His grace is demonstrated in a shining fashion by the hope that His representative's word would eventually renew the dew and the rain. It will not rain for a few years, Elijah says, except by my word, which left them hope that the rains would come again one day. Indeed, a good reason for Ahab not to put Elijah to death. Don't you think? You see, beloved, without a warning, one will only perish in their unrighteousness. But our Lord is gracious. And here we learn that He will get their attention in judgment. He will call them back. He will give them an opportunity to repent. The Word of God would gain victory here and we know that it would gain complete triumph with the Word that would become flesh. Elijah was indeed an instrument of God's judgment but also an instrument of God's grace. But he would not be able to stand in the gap. He would not be able to take away the sin of the people. Elijah points to Jesus Christ, the one whom the Bible says is greater than Elijah. Jesus Christ, whose very appearance and whose very cross is an indictment against us, against the world, against sin, but is also a message of judgment against those who reject Him that one day it will be too late. As we sang, kiss the Son and worship Him, lest ye perish in the way. Blessed are all who trust in Him. Yea, supremely blessed are they. Our God is a God of His Word. And therefore, Jesus Christ and His cross is a sign of grace and restoration that was to come for His people. Jesus Christ fulfilled all covenant obedience for us. He also fulfilled the covenant curse in our place as He endured the punishment of God that was against us. Here in this portion of history, God challenges Baal and He fights for His people and that is the cross of Jesus. He fights for His people. And He won a decisive victory over Satan and sin and death and through Jesus Christ. And God makes a distinction between His people and those who are not. And those who are recipients of the grace of God, we are called to respond exclusively to the exclusive Savior and to respond to Him exclusively. Indeed, apart from Jesus Christ, we know that there is only frustration and competition and compromise and hopelessness. And we also know that the pressures are great on the church today. The pressures are great. And therefore, many have accommodated and many have compromised worship on the Lord's Day and expectations of the Christian life and compromise these things in order to be more accepting of the world, in order to be more tolerant to the world, in order to look more like the world in daily living and practice, and most dangerously, to satisfy their worldly desires. We all have them. And so much has been compromised and justified in order to satisfy these things. The antithesis, the separation that God requires is becoming increasingly fuzzy. Beloved, in Christ we have been set apart by God from the unbelieving world. We have been set apart with a separation that will be made final when Jesus Christ comes again. And until that day, beloved, may we rejoice in that distinction that God has placed us in. May we honor that distinction. May we not compromise it for the sake of the benefits of or the approval of the world. But empowered by the Holy Spirit, may we be wholly devoted to the God of our salvation. May we delight to be identified as the people of the living God because indeed in Jesus Christ, blessed are the people whose God is the Lord. Amen. Let's pray together. Dear Heavenly Father, once again You show us so much of ourselves in Old Testament Israel. Yet we are able to come before You humbly yet confidently in Jesus' name. We thank You and praise You for sending Your Son to rescue us from sin and shame from this present evil age for calling us to be Your people for securing us as Your people and therefore Father in Him we walk forward day by day in Him we find confidence alone for the forgiveness of all of our sins even as we struggle with them day by day. And in Him, we thank You for the work of Your Holy Spirit who continues to transform our lives day by day. That more and more we might be and live exclusively as Your people out of thankfulness and gratitude for bringing us into Your family. Father, we praise You for Your blessing. Continue to lead us and guide us by Your Holy Spirit. Continue to increase our love for You, even as You have loved us first. Hear our prayer, O Lord, for Jesus' sake. And in His name we pray. Amen.