1Kings 18:41-46
Go Get God
This is the ending of a great account in the Bible.
1. \\#1Kings 17:1\\ Elijah stepped onto the pages of Scripture
with a message for the wicked King, Ahab. "There shall be
neither rain nor dew until I say so."
2. That was three years past and not one drop of water had fallen
in Israel since. Crops had failed, livestock had died, and
I am certain, people had as well.
3. The king sought high and low for Elijah but could not find
him. He had even sought for him in other countries, but God
was taking care of Elijah.
4. Then, Elijah stepped into plain view again. He told the king
that it was time for the nation to decide what God they would
worship and he challenged the prophets of Baal.
5. The challenge was to prepare a sacrifice and have the living
God consume it with fire from heaven.
6. Elijah let the prophets of Baal go first. They prayed and
cried and cut themselves for hours. Nothing happened.
7. Elijah prepared his sacrifice, then had barrels of water
poured on it. Barrel after barrel until 12 barrels of
precious water soaked the sacrifice, the altar, and even the
ground.
8. Then Elijah prayed and God answered, consuming the sacrifice,
the water, the altar, even licking clean the dirt the altar
was on.
9. Then Elijah had the false prophets killed and now turns to
pray for rain.
It is time for someone to go get God. Israel was ruined—not just be
the drought but by the sin Israel was committing. God was needed to
bring water and life back to a parched people.
There will come a time when in every life where everyone is going to
want to get God. Death guarantees that so that it is without
question. The question will be, how do you get God.
Three thoughts this morning.
I. Israel’s drought was a picture of their spiritual condition.
A. The Bible is filled with miracles.
1. Blind men receiving their sight, lame men walking, deaf
men hearing, sick souls being made well, and dead bodies
receiving life again.
2. Every one of those is a physical picture of our spiritual
condition.
a. The blind picture those who can’t see sin, God, and
their condition.
b. The deaf picture those who cannot hear and understand
truth.
c. The lame and sick picture those who have been broken
and left helpless by sin.
d. The dead picture those who are dead in their sins,
bound for hell.
B. This drought in this account pictured those who were
spiritually thirsty but had gone to an empty well for drink.
1. The king had gathered hundreds of Baal prophets and
probably Baal worshippers to the top of Mount Carmel to
see this epic show down, but as far as we know, Elijah
stood alone to represent God.
2. One man in a nation to represent God. Indeed, this land
was dry and thirsty.
3. Elijah was to demonstrate to this dry land that there was
a living God. He was to go get God and to get Him
in such a way that even the blind could see and the deaf
would hear.
C. Consider two truths:
1. Elijah did not need to get God. Elijah already had God.
a. For the last three years, while the nation was in a
drought, Elijah had had both water and food.
b. Why? Because God was taking care of Elijah.
c. Elijah is not going to get God because HE needs God.
d. Elijah is going to get God because THEY need God.
e. Remember, those who need God gotten for them are the
blind, the deaf, the sick, the lame, and the dead.
f. They won’t know to go get God for themselves.
g. Someone who has God will have to go get God for them.
h. That is what Elijah was going to do.
2. Elijah followed a pattern.
a. He did not create the pattern.
b. Others had gone to get God before him and after him,
using the same pattern.
c. The pattern that Elijah used worked then and will work
now.
II. Notice how Elijah got God. What was the pattern?
A. Elijah humbled himself.
1Kings 18:42 …he cast himself upon the earth,
and but his face between his knees,"
1. That is a physical position of humility.
2. People today think it does not matter how you pray as
long as you pray. They believe that not because the
Bible teaches it, but because that is what their
logic has lead them to believe.
a. Logic says prayer is me talking and God listening.
b. If I talking, God can listen no matter what position I
am in and no matter what I am doing.
(1) Logically, that is all true.
(2) However, Biblically, when a saint prayed, he or
she would humbled themselves.
(3) They would bow, or fall before God, usually on an
altar.
(4) Why?
(a) Because prayer is not just getting God to
hear you.
(b) Prayer is getting God to answer you.
(c) And humility increases the chances that God
will answer you!
3. Take note - Getting down on your knees while still
standing up in your heart will do not good.
a. The first kind of humility some of us need is to
see ourselves as sinners—both the saved and the
lost.
b. Some need to see how spiritually dry they are
and to turn from it!
4. Humility starts in the heart!
B. Elijah prayed.
1. The Bible does not record Elijah’s prayer, but as
Elijah is following a patter, I think we can figure
out what he prayed by looking at the prayers of
others who went to find God.
a. Nehemiah
Neh 1:4 And it came to pass, when I heard these
words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned
certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the
God of heaven,
5 And said, I beseech thee, O LORD God of
heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth
covenant and mercy for them that love him and
observe his commandments:
6 Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes
open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy
servant, which I pray before thee now, day and
night, for the children of Israel thy servants,
and confess the sins of the children of Israel,
which we have sinned against thee: both I and my
father’s house have sinned.
7 We have dealt very corruptly against thee,
and have not kept the commandments, nor the
statutes, nor the judgments, which thou
commandedst thy servant Moses.
(1) Notice that Nehemiah, a just man, is
confessing sin.
(2) Probably not his personal sin, but the
nation’s sins.
b. Daniel
Dan 9:4 ¶ And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and
made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great
and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy
to them that love him, and to them that keep his
commandments;
5 We have sinned, and have committed iniquity,
and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even
by departing from thy precepts and from thy
judgments:
6 Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants
the prophets, which spake in thy name to our
kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all
the people of the land.
(1) Daniel, another righteous man, followed the
same pattern.
(2) Why are men who probably did not commit
sin confessing sin? Because before you can
go get God, something is going to have to
be done about the sin that has been committed.
(3) Elijah was going to go get God and then cut a
path through the weeds of sin for Him to meet
with Israel that day!
2. Sin is what makes God hard to find. It does not
matter whether it is your sin, mine sin, or our sin.
God does not stay long in the midst of sin.
3. I do not know what Elijah prayed but I suspect he
confessed to God some of the sins of Israel.
C. Elijah kept on praying.
1Kings 18:43 And said to his servant, Go up now,
look toward the sea. And he went up, and looked,
and said, There is nothing. And he said, Go again
seven times.
1. The Bible does not tell us how long Elijah prayed
before he sent his servant to look the first time;
but when he did, there was nothing to see.
2. So Elijah went back to praying.
3. This happened seven times. Someone asks, "How long
would Elijah have prayed?" He would have prayed
until God came because that is what he was seeking.
4. This is the pattern.
Daniel 9:3 And I set my face unto the Lord God,
to seek by prayer and supplications, with
fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:
Neh 1:4 And it came to pass, when I heard these
words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned
certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the
God of heaven,
5. Sometimes I fear that we pray not for the results but
only so that we can say that we prayed.
a. That is not the type of prayer that finds God.
b. We must pray and keep on praying!
1. Elijah believed that God was going to come. That is
what he was seeking for and that is what he expected.
2. Faith has always been an important part of the
"getting God" pattern as so many Bible verses tell us.
3. Four things demonstrate Elijah’s faith:
a. Elijah did not look to see what his prayers were
accomplishing. He knew what they would
accomplish so he kept praying. The only reason
he sent the servant to look was to see if it was
time to start moving before the rain came.
b. Elijah did not quit praying. He knew God was
going to come and would not stop until He did.
c. Elijah did not doubt. Though the circumstances
of that day were tense and what he was seeking
was physically impossible, not one word of doubt
is uttered.
d. Elijah did not wait. When he heard there was a
cloud the size of a man’s hand, he started
heading down the mountain. (If you are going to
pray for rain, at least bring an umbrella!)
E. Elijah offered a sacrifice.
1. We are only reading the end of the account but the
whole chapter goes together. Elijah had offered a
sacrifice.
2. I do not believe that we Christians, myself included,
have the right perspective of the Old Testament
sacrifices.
a. We think of them only as a payment for sin—which
they were a picture of Jesus’ death so that is
correct in part.
b. However, they were also a sacrifice to the
person, a sacrifice which always cost the worshipper.
2Sam 24:24 And the king said unto Araunah, Nay;
but I will surely buy it of thee at a price:
neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the
LORD my God of that which doth cost me
nothing….
c. The Old Testament saints never worshipped God
when it DID NOT cost them something.
d. While we can meet together to worship for free, I
am not sure that God will ever be in a place
where someone did not sacrifice to get Him there.
III. When God showed up, it was small at first.
1Kings 18:44 And it came to pass at the seventh
time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a
little cloud out of the sea, like a man’s hand.
And he said, Go up, say unto Ahab, Prepare thy
chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop
thee not.
A. We don’t know how long Elijah prayed for a cloud no bigger
than a man’s hand!
1. Another man might have said, "That’s not it."
2. Elijah knew it was. Indeed, he was not surprised by the
smallness of what God did at all.
B. Elijah had learned that God not only works in the big things
but in the small things as well.
1. In fact, for the last three years, small birds had feed
him beside a small stream.
2. When that stopped, a widow woman living in a small house
fed him with a small barrel of flour.
3. I have said before, "God never works the way you think He
will…, but God always works."
C. The key is to respond correctly to the small things God does.
1. As God starts to work in small ways, have faith and obey.
2. Elijah knew that small cloud would neither blow away nor
blow by.
3. He had seen God work before so he sent word to the
king that that cloud was about to blow up!
There is a pattern for getting God. Someone needs to go get Him. It
works best when someone who already has Him goes to get Him for those
who do not. Will you go get God for someone today?
<OutlineIndex> <Close Window>
