Thank you, choir, for that lovely song that you sang for us. I've always appreciated the special music at Park of the Palms, and that includes also the congregational singing. It's always been very fine here, and when I travel about and people say, where have you been? I say, Park of the Palms. They say, they have such good singing there. Nothing ever about the speakers, but they have good singing there. Wonderful singing, wonderful singing. And I agree with him. Always have wonderful singing here at Park of the Palms, even before we had carpet on the floor. I want to thank also all of those of you who are praying for the success, not only of the meetings this week, but also the whole conference season this winter. Truly, we agree with the Lord when he said, Without me, ye can do nothing. And so we need prayer, don't we? We don't want to simply come to here to tell some new thing. or simply become because in the course of the year since we've been saved we've gotten used to going to meetings we truly want the Lord to do something wonderfully new and want him to be exalted and praised among us want questions to be answered and problem solved and needs met not only in the lives of those of us who shall be in this auditorium from time to time but also the folks who are in the perimeters of our life the satellites of people that are in our families and our acquaintances and those that we're trying to See, get saved or go on in the things of the Lord. So we want the meetings this week to be far-reaching, not just within these four walls, but also wherever the Holy Spirit can operate and will operate. So we appreciate the prayers of you for the success of the meetings in the name of the Lord. And also, we want to thank in absentia all the folks who are praying for these meetings who aren't here with us this week. But a number of people write and call and so forth. We see that you're going to be such and such a place. we're going to be praying for the success of the meetings. And so we think this is a wonderful thing to do. So we trust the Lord will bless. Tonight we want to get started in some lessons from the story of Elijah. We won't have time this week to look at all the things we ought to about the story of Elijah, but we want to do that in our evening sessions. And then in our morning sessions at nine-thirty, we want to look at God's arithmetic. And tomorrow morning we'll take up the subject of addition. may give you sort of a hint of where we will be going to and from and so forth. So the morning sessions, God's arithmetic, and then in the night meetings, Elijah. Now this being a night meeting, we have to do Elijah. So we'll get started with Elijah. First Kings chapter seventeen. First Kings chapter seventeen. Very easy to find First Kings. It comes right ahead of Second Kings. Always easy to find. Unless you've got one of the newer translations. I'm a little bit shaken about all the new translations. Maybe that's not the way it's arranged there, but I'm using the old-fashioned Bible. And here I find First Kings ahead of Second Kings. First Kings chapter seventeen. This is where the story of Elijah begins. We don't have much background material about Elijah at all, as you will notice. But at least this is the point of which it begins, and we'll start with verse number one and just read down to verse number seven tonight. First Kings chapter seventeen, beginning with verse number one. We read here, And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be due nor reign these years, but according to my word. And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Kyrath that is before Jordan. And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook then I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord, for he went and dwelt by the brook Kyrith, that is before Jordan. And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook. It came to pass after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. Elijah has been called the greatest prophet of the Old Testament, I always hate to make statements like that because people always argue with me after the service. And incidentally, any of you that teach ladies Bible classes or have occasion brethren to preach or to teach or whatever, after the meeting is over and someone comes up towards you with their Bible still open, you want to beware. Look around for a door to escape from. And if a meeting goes like the one tonight from six-thirty to seven-thirty and the person comes up and is twenty-five to eight, you can say, I'm sorry, I go off duty at seven-thirty or some other sort of a lame excuse and get out of there. But I always hesitate to make statements like he is the greatest prophet of the Old Testament because some people like Jeremiah and some people would say Isaiah is the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. And so you get into all sorts of different estimations and ideas because of the makeup of the personality of that person or some sort of spiritual help that was given by some verse or chapter in the passage or the book that bears the name of that favorite prophet. So it's always a rather difficult thing to say that he is the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. Those of you that like Elijah would agree with that, those of you who like Jeremiah or Isaiah or Daniel, one of the other ones would disagree with that. It's like saying what is the greatest book of the Bible? You get into all sorts of theological difficulties there. What is the greatest chapter of the Bible? What is the greatest verse of the Bible? It's probably the verse that you were told the night that you got saved. But at any rate, these are matters of conjecture and individuality, and we appreciate the whole Word of God. So I always hesitate because basically I'm a coward to say this is the greatest. The greatest person of the Word of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. You will agree with me on that, except you would say, well, I believe the Holy Spirit. Now we're going to go back to about that. At any rate, some of these things are totally individualistic likes and dislikes and preferences, and so we always hesitate to do that. But let's say he is one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament. I noted this afternoon that his name is mentioned about twenty-eight different times in the New Testament. He's rather important. Some of those are repetitive times, such as when he's mentioned in one Gospel account, he's usually mentioned in another Gospel account in the same incident. But at any rate, the name of Elijah appears about twenty-eight or twenty-nine times in the pages of the New Testament. And you remember at one time the Lord Jesus Christ said, whom do men say that I am? And there you got all your sorts of different human ideas, you see. Well, some say that you are Elijah because Elijah would appeal to that sort of person. My mother, bless her heart, she's with the Lord now so I can talk about her. I wouldn't dare do it when she was on earth because she would have taken me out of the will, among other things. But at any rate, my dear mother liked Elijah because he could call down fire from heaven. My mother was that type of person. Scott's Presbyterian before from the aisles, you know, one of the McDonald's of the aisles before he got over here and so forth. And my mother was very militaristic. We kids knew that at an early age. My mother had a little truck with anybody who poo-pooed the Bible and criticized the Lord and the will of God and anything that had to do with church or Bible or Christianity. My mother would have liked to, I think, walked with John on one side and James on the other so that the three of them could have called down fire from heaven on people that didn't believe the first go-around. My mother was that type of person, and she liked Elijah because of that sort of situation. And there's people who are like that. But then there's other Christians among us who say, I like Jeremiah. He is the weeping prophet. Many people have a weeping ministry. They spend a great deal of time in prayer about the needs of those who need to be saved, and Christians whose lives are all torn up because of one reason or another. And they have a real kinship with Jeremiah, the weeping prophet. And so Elijah appears in the New Testament, you see. And whom say men? Well, some say you are the resurrected Elijah. And some say you are the resurrected Jeremiah. And of course, Herod wanted to believe that the Lord was the resurrected John the Baptist. Because if John the Baptist was resurrected, this apparently would take the guilt of murder off the shoulders of Herod. He wanted to believe that the Lord, well, you know how all that goes. We don't need to preach that. But at any rate, Elijah is to come, and the Lord Jesus Christ says Elijah has come. And they understood that he spoke of John the Baptist. That's Matthew eleven, eleven. So Elijah's mentioned a lot of different times in the Word of God. And there's a lot of wonderful things that are done concerning him. Well, I think we need to get into the story here. And in First Kings chapter seventeen, we are introduced to him with a rather meager introduction. Not much is said there concerning him other than he was a tishbite but not much by way of family pedigree at all we don't know as much for instance as we do about Timothy just as a for instance that he Timothy had a godly grandmother and a godly mother but we don't read that about Elijah but at any rate we know that he was a believer and he was certainly a man of God and I think the first place that when we where we need to begin in the story of Elijah is to look at the root system which appears, strangely enough, not here in First Kings, but over in the book of James. There you see the root system of this man named Elijah. James chapter number five, way over there in the New Testament, almost to the end of the book. James chapter number five, it gives you an idea of the root system of this man of Elijah about whom we're going to be speaking, Lord willing, this week. James chapter five. James chapter five, and it begins with verse sixteen. and then seventeen and then eighteen. James chapter five, verses sixteen and seventeen and eighteen. Now the Holy Spirit gives to James to talk to us about Elijah so that we might learn some lessons about Elijah's life. James chapter five, verse sixteen, starts off by making a statement. Confess your faults one to another. It doesn't say confess each other's faults one to another. It says, confess your faults one to another. Of course, it's easier to confess somebody else's faults, but that's not what it says here. Confess your faults one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed. And then in the last part of verse sixteen, you are given the principle of what has just been said. Why should I do this? Why would I recognize there are these faults and failures and foibles in my life as a believer should I pray concerning these things that are very often so So perhaps carnal or fleshly or at least impressive as far as I am concerned, these sorts of, why should I do that? Because the Holy Spirit says, and here's the principle you see, because the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The word fervent there can be translated in wrought by the Holy Spirit. So it's not simply the saying of a prayer. but it is a prayer that has been generated by the help of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit probably has put conviction on the heart because of this weakness, this deficiency in the Christian life, whatever it may be, this thing that you have to confess to your dearest Christian, you see, to your dearest Christian friend, and the Holy Spirit has pointed that out, and so you pray concerning that thing, and the Holy Spirit gives help in that prayer too. It is prayer that is inwrought by the Holy Spirit. And you see, that's a principle because the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. So a statement has been made, and then a principle has been given. Now, in the next verse, you have the illustration of this statement that has just been made. We all like illustrations, don't we? We sure do like illustrations. Some of the preachers of a generation or so ahead of us used to tell the young men in their embryonic stages, well, son, you built a nice house, but you didn't have any windows in it. And we like to have illustrations and sorts of things, not only because it helps to illustrate the truth, but it helps you to turn your mind off for a little while. Oh, good, you're going to tell an anecdote now. You're going to tell a story. You're going to throw out a one-liner, this sort of thing. This sort of helps. And who is the master teacher of this? The Lord Jesus Christ himself. He was a masterful storyteller. He had the ability to go anywhere and any of the generations of mankind and choose exactly the person he wanted. So very often when the Lord gives an illustration, he can say, there was a certain man. The man may have been gone six hundred years, but the Lord has the ability to know everybody. And he can choose exactly the situation and exactly the person that he wants for his illustration. Masterful storyteller, masterful visual arts teacher, taking a penny, taking a child. Look under the fields there, right under the harvest. The Lord did this, you see, nearly two thousand years ago. So you have a statement that's made and then you have a principle given the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much and then Elijah you see is the illustration of this and so you have the illustration in verse number seventeen of still in James five verse seventeen Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly again this is not saying a prayer literally it's he he prayed with prayer He just didn't mouth words. He didn't put together flowery phrases. This came from his heart. He prayed a prayer. He was a man subject to like passions, and he prayed earnestly, or he prayed with prayer that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And so it goes on to tell us these things. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. The part that I want us to see tonight is this introduction to Elijah. He was a man. of like passions as we are. I like that. One of the things I've always enjoyed about the Bible is that God always tells it exactly as it is. And Abraham could be called a friend of God, but when he wanders down into Egypt looking for bread, that's the way the report is given. God doesn't cover it up, but where there's a mistake, where there's a fault, he's down there trying to give his wife away, you remember that. Then his son tried to do the same thing a generation later. Where did the son get the idea? Because that's what dad had tried to do, tried to give mother away, you see. And then the Lord had to work a miracle to get him out of Egypt, but it's recorded. It's in the book. It might be the friend of God. David might be the man after God's own heart, but David sins. And Psalm fifty-one, you see, has to be the result of it. And I've always appreciated that about the Bible. That's one of the internal proofs to me that the Bible is not simply the formulation of man's thinking or man's mind because man would have put heroes and heroines in the Bible and no one would have done any wrong if this is the way it was in the Bible. But God tells it always like it is. And we thank God for that. Here's Elijah, one of the greatest prophets of the book, you see. And yet he had problems as you and I have problems. I don't know if we'll have time to get into it, but you remember he got totally discouraged one day. went out and desired to die under the juniper tree. He'd already run about a hundred and ten or a hundred and twenty miles, so Jezebel wouldn't do the job. But then once he got there, he wanted to die. If he really wanted his prayer answered, he could have stayed where he was and let Jezebel do the job for him. And he'd probably gotten a very expensive state funeral besides. But at any rate, after he was safe, he sat down and said, Lord, I'm the only spiritual one left. I'm the only spiritual one left. Now, this is something you and I don't voice to each other. But some folks maybe in some assembly would say, Lord, you can't afford to take me home because this assembly would collapse, you see. That's the Elijah syndrome. But we have times when we feel down. We've had times when we feel weak. And I'm trying to deal with some Christians now who have given up, trying to serve the Lord, because they say, well, we're in the last days. There's just nothing you can do now. And they're just sitting there twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the return of the Lord. And you know, that sort of thing brings on discouragement. and it brings on a coldness of heart, and it brings on a so-what attitude. Come on, let's get going. Let's do it. Oh, what's the use? What's the use, you see? We're under the juniper tree, and I always appreciate the fact that this is the way God records it in the book. He was a man subject of like passions as we are. And yet, he could pray, and there wasn't any rain, and he could pray again, and there was rain. I see, God uses us in those things. This ought to be an encouragement for hearts. Because you see, the devil comes along and he says, you better save that job for somebody that's more spiritual than you are. And then the devil usually will point you to somebody. You see, you don't have as much faith as she has or he has. You see, you don't have the friends that he, she has, and their outreach is a lot better. You don't have the abilities. You don't have the gifts as he, she's. You're an introvert. She's an extrovert. She can sing. You can't sing. She knows more about the Bible than you do. or he as the case might be, you see. And the devil comes along and feeds these things to us. But be encouraged tonight, dear Christian. Say, I believe God wants me to do this thing, whatever it happens to be, and you can use Elijah as your illustration if you want to. He was a man subject to like passions as we are. The feeling of loneliness, the feeling of discouragement, the feeling of, well, what's it all amount to anyway? And the Lord encouraged them, he said, Yet I have seven thousand that have not bowed the knee to Baal. Elijah could have well said, Well, where are they? I've never seen any of them. I'm the one that had to call down the fire on Carmel all by myself. I'm the one that had to repair the altars of God all by myself. I'd like to know where they are, and I think that probably would have been a legitimate statement to make. Sometimes you and I might be tempted to feel that way, too. There's no spokesman for God. I'm the one that fights this thing. I'm the one that speaks out against it, whatever the case might be. He was a man subject to like passions as we are. I've always appreciated this passage in James chapter five that has to do with Elijah because to me, dear friends, this is the root system of the man that we're going to be talking about in I King seventeen and eighteen and so on and so forth. This is the root system. What does it tell us? Well, according to verse seventeen, as we have just been noted, Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are. This tells me that he is a man who had come to grips with the world in which he lived. And this is what Christians do today. The unsaved world looks at a Christian and says, there's a fellow who doesn't know what's going on. Dear friends, the Christian is the one person in the world today who does know what's going on. Amen. Thank you for that. I knew if I said a lot of different things, I'd hit a nerve once in a while. I'd get an amen. Now I know where the nerve is, you see. But it's true. Your unsaved friends, if you have any, will think you're a rather strange person because you talk about strange things so much. You talk about, well, you know, whatever it is you talk about and they're ready to write off the whole thing and worry about you and this sort of a thing. Periodically, somebody calls up and says, I want you to talk to my daughter or my son and say, well, what's the problem? Well, they got religion. And I've learned by experience to usually say, thank you, Lord, in my heart. But the parent thinks that there's something wrong with the young person, you see. They've gone off the deep end. They've become a, well, whatever, you know, a mooney or some other sort of thing. The young fellow was saved in our meeting over New Smyrna, and he'd saved out of the drug culture, a marvelous conversion. And the father forbade the young man to come anymore. And so some of us went to see the father, and the father was very irate, very mad at all of us. And he says, he's got religion now. He reads his Bible all the time. He wants to run off to your church building every time the doors are open. I'm disgusted. I'm all these sorts of things. And we said, but look what God has done for your son. He's not into drugs anymore, is he? Well, no. He's not into alcohol anymore, is he? No. He's not running around with the crowd. You all know that the Father said, I would rather have my son be a drug addict than to be a Christian. And it's so discouraged a son that we lost him. Hopefully the Lord didn't lose him. Hopefully he was really saved. I said, how can a father talk like that? But those are the sorts of things that you and I confront in this world today. He came to grips with his world. You and I know what's going on. But we know that's what God says is going to be going on. Things aren't going to get better. Things are going to get worse. And the timetable of God is right up to date, right up to this latest split seconds, you see. We don't have much of an encouraging word. To tell unsaved people about the world in which they live today, our encouraging word is in the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? But Elijah was a man, and I want you to see that, who had come to grips with his world. He was a man subject to like passions as we are, with weaknesses and failures and foibles and all sorts of mental conflicts and doubts and so forth, and yet look at what God used Elijah to do. That's the first thing I want you to know. Here's another part of the root system, that is he had recognize God's way of righteousness still in James chapter five verse sixteen the effectual fervent prayer of a what kind of a man a righteous man a righteous man now remember now this is not what Elijah says about himself this is what the Holy Spirit says about Elijah so you know this is an accurate report that we're getting about Elijah the Holy Spirit says Elijah is a righteous man which means what that he is a believer he's a believer righteousness right wiseness proper course of action He has trusted in God as His Savior and He has been redeemed and He is a real believer. So He has recognized God's way of righteousness. This is what we try to do and we talk to people about receiving Christ as Savior. A lot of people think they're on their way to heaven automatically because they go to church periodically and because they try to do good and be good. You know how it goes if you've ever talked to anybody. The whole thing goes along about the same. I think one of my most recent experiences was talking to a man. I said, are you still going to this particular church? And I hoped he was because it was an evangelical gospel preaching church. And he says, no, I don't go there anymore because of their selection of hymns. I thought, oh dear, now what? Why didn't you, what didn't you like about the hymns? And he says the only hymns that that congregation ever sing are Christmas carols. Then I got the indication he only went Christmas Sunday. So he was hearing all the same things. But he didn't, he lost all confidence and all faith in this congregation that didn't know any hymns but Christmas carols. But see, he thought he was on his way to heaven. He thought he was on his way to heaven. Well, you know how it works. We don't have to spend time on this. Elijah had discovered God's way of righteousness. He was a believer. Here's something else. He also enjoyed relationship with God. That's still in verse number seventeen. He prayed earnestly or he prayed with prayer that it might not rain upon the earth, and we'll see more of this in the story of Elijah. He enjoyed his relationship with God. That's one of the precious things, dear Christian friends, tonight that many Christians are losing out on today. That is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Now, usually when we say that, we're talking about salvation. I want to go beyond salvation with that. But there are Christians tonight who are saved, who do not enjoy a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They know about the book. They can quote verses to you. They know various hymns. They know the way their schedule works and all these sorts of things. But there's not much of that, Lord Jesus Christ, I love you. I know you're a mind. The lack of a personal living daily, moment by moment, relationship with Jesus Christ. And it's a sad thing because they're missing out on the greatest blessing that a human being can have on this earth. a personal relationship. And I think this is what Elijah had with God. Even under the juniper tree, he still prayed to God. Now we find that he has a wonderful prayer ministry with God. So he believes in prayer. And he prays earnestly. He prays with prayer concerning this need and then the other need, the rain and the lack of rain and so on and so forth. He has a personal relationship with God. What a wonderful thing that is. What a wonderful thing it is to have the Lord Jesus Christ with us and to know beyond all shadow of doubt The Lord Jesus Christ says, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of this age. That's a wonderful thing. You and I wouldn't dare say that if it wasn't written for us in the book, would we? It would be very presumptuous of a human being living on this earth to say, God is with me all the time. It would be very presumptuous, but that's what the book says, and we believe it, and we know it's true. Lord Jesus, I thank thee. He enjoyed a relationship with God, and his standing... Also, one other thing, coming back now to First King Seventeen, you can leave James, come back to First King Seventeen, and that is his standing. That's also a part of his root system, you see. First Kings chapter seventeen, verse number one. This is what he said to Ahab, as you well know, as the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand. That's the expression there that I want you to see. Before whom I stand. I have a standing with God. That has to do with his salvation experience, his righteousness that we're told about over there in the fifth chapter of the book of James that we just read. He has a standing with God, but he also stands before God. And this shows that he is desirous of doing the will of God. Now, in this day and age in which we live, we find great informality. I shudder sometimes when I hear some of the so-called Christian songs that are sung. One man said, I can hardly wait till I get within range of a moody radio station so that I can hear Christian songs that don't all end with thee, me, and Calvary. And yet we have a lot of Christian songs that are very human-centered rather than some of these wonderful old hymns that we have been singing this morning and this evening hour. Wonderful weighty hymns, weighty words in the book. But this sort of thing that we're living in this informal age when... I even hate to say it, but you know how people refer to the Lord. The man upstairs, my good buddy, all sorts of terrible things. It almost takes me back to the sixth chapter of the book of Isaiah. The seraphim standing there with their faces covered and their feet covered. Holy, holy, holy. The Lord God is the Lord God. Remember, we've come a far cry since that particular time. But here's Elijah. He says, before whom I stand. I have a standing before God because I'm a believer, and I stand before God because I await the will of God for my life. To me, it's similar to the Mediterranean Sea in the story of Jonah, because the sea was tempestuous. And then Jonah went over the side, and your Bible says immediately, the sea, the Mediterranean sea, was hushed and stood, and literally the word is, stood as a servant awaiting the next order of the one who had created it. And Elijah says, I have a standing before God. So you see about this time we should stop and we say, well, Lord, I read these things before about Elijah. I know what the book says. But, Lord, I have to stop and see whether or not this experience is true in my Christian life. I have a standing before God because I know that I'm saved. This Holy Spirit witnesses with my spirit that I belong to God. There's no doubt at all in my mind that I'm a believer. But, Lord, do I also stand before you, ready, willing, and able to do whatever it is you want me to do? This is a great problem these days, especially amongst young folks. They always want to know everything that God's going to do with their life before they commit their life to God as the Lord of their life. I said, well, if I do this for God, what will God do then? I said, I have no idea. Will he make me a missionary to Africa, they very often say. Africa always gets the preeminence for some reason or other. So why? What difference will that make? Well, I wouldn't like to be a missionary to Africa. And I said, well, if the Lord wants you to go as a missionary to Africa, the Lord will give you a desire to go to Africa. I'm not saying he's going to make it easy, but you will feel that this is what you are to do, and anything else you will do, you will feel you are failing God. Ask one who knows by experience. Ask me. And this is true. You can't get away from it. Stand before God in this particular way. Now, friends, that's the root system. And I think that's foundational. I think that's basic. to read what is said to us in the book of James chapter number five as an explanation of the spiritual qualities and the human qualities of this man whose story now we go back and we pick up in first Kings chapter seventeen now those things are true in a human's life back there in James then we can go on and proceed with the story of Elijah here now that's the root system next thing we need to see from first Kings seventeen of course is the raven's sign the ravens are very important in the life of Elijah this particular point and the Lord says, well, there's going to come, as you know, a great time of drought. And so the Lord says, you are well acquainted with this old Bible story. I want you to go to the Brook Kirith and I want you to stay there. And the Ravens are going to bring your bread and meat morning and again at night and you can drink when you're thirsty from the stream that is flowing down through. I want you to stay there. And I imagine Elijah like this idea. I know I would like this idea because, you see, he has no responsibilities. God says, I'll take care of the groceries. You don't even have to pack to go, you see. I'll take care of the groceries. When you're thirsty, you can drink. You can eat twice a day, meat and flesh. And probably the folks in the drought are going to get that much to eat. And he has no responsibilities. There's no one else, apparently, anywhere around. And Elijah can sit there and contemplate and meditate and do whatever he wants to do. And we as Christians usually like that sort of a situation. Well, I like to meditate and I like to contemplate. probably hard for you to believe, but I could very easily become a hermit. I enjoy my study. I like to go in my study. I don't even have a telephone in my study. I like to go in my study and run word studies or begin somewhere in the book and read or some other sort of a thing. And I'm always a little bit frustrated is too hard a word here. I'm always a little bit disappointed when I have to leave the study and go out and do something else. I would like this Elijah type situation by the stream. He's separated unto God, which He needs to be. He is saved from the ravages of sin which are going on round and about because of the obedience of the people. He's separated from that. God has saved us from wrath to come. There's an allegiance to God. He's willing to stand for God, not only to stand before God, but to stand before Ahab. And now He's over on the creek bank. And the Lord will very often call you into a similar situation because of the stand that you take for God. Very often there's going to be some sort of a separation in your life. In fact, the Bible promises this. Come out from among them and be ye separate. And yet again, once again, you and I live in a strange world where supposedly a person can be saved and still keep doing the same things he, she used to do before they made the profession of being saved. This is not biblical. They're supposed to be new creatures in Christ Jesus. The old things are supposed to have passed away and all things have become new. We live in a strange age today, but Elijah was separated under these things, and he was allegiance, he had allegiance to the things of the Lord, and these things are true. That's his separation. And I want you to notice this, because it's very important, and it's in verse number four, First King Seventeen. The Lord says, It shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. Now, the word T-H-E-R-E is the important word there. That's the word to underline. The Lord says, I have. It's in the past tense. I have directed the ravens to deliver the groceries there. And the implication is, you see, if you are there, Elijah, you will enjoy the blessing. If you are somewhere else, you won't get the blessing. Now, that's the same sort of thing. Works today, doesn't it? The Lord always works in certain areas that have to do with the consistency of his holy character. He always works according to his own holiness. Now, he is He's a little general in that area, but he cannot work in an area of sin. That is, he can't be a part of sin in the working of it. And so yet today, this age of the church, in nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, dear friend, the Lord is still delivering the meat and the bread at certain places, and if the Christian is there, he receives a blessing. If he's not there, he doesn't get the blessing. That's pure and simple. I know people who say, oh, I'd love to have a knowledge of the Word of God. Do you ever study the Bible? Oh, no, I never study it. Well, bless your hearts, the ravens are there, but you're not going to benefit if you don't make yourself available. I know many, many Christians' lives that are torn up these days because they never avail themselves of Bible teach. Sunday nights they're somewhere else. Midweek meeting they're somewhere else. They won't read any good books. There's all other kinds of books in their houses, all kinds of magazines, all other sorts of stuff that the kids can watch on television. but nothing to feed their souls with regard to the things of the Lord. And they wonder why they don't get any meat and bread. And their lives are filled with discouragement and lack of spirituality and coldness and sometimes cynicism and all of these things. But the Lord, you see, says, I've told the ravens to go there. Anybody who's there can eat. And if you're not there, you won't eat. Remember Thomas. Oh, they said, the Lord's been here. The Lord's been here. Thomas wasn't there. Anybody remember where Thomas was rather than being there? Oh, I hope nobody raises his hand. We're not told where Thomas was. Could have been a legitimate thing. Could have had the flu, poor Thomas. Took about eight days to get over it, apparently. But see, I think the idea is if you're not there, you missed a blessing. You missed a blessing. And think of the Christians that we know that don't avail themselves of the delivery points. where the blessing is given. More could be said about that and should be said about that. But I'm sure you understand the meaning here. I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there, to feed thee there. Well, our time is up. You know what happened here. Verse seven says, it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up. And the reason is given for you, isn't it? Because there's been no rain in the mountains. Now that can be a negative thing and it can be a positive thing. If I don't want the brook of my life to dry up, I better make sure there's always rain in the mountains. I can apply that to see spiritually. If I want the continued blessing of the Lord in my life, if I want the continued close fellowship of Christ in my life, then I have to make sure that the supply is guaranteed. That is, I have to stay in a place where God can bless me in this sort of an area. Jude puts it this way. He says, keep yourselves in the love of God, or literally keep yourselves where the love of God operates. It's another one of that meat and bread raven type thing. He says, this is where the love of God operates. If you're there, you're there, and you get the blessing. But if I don't want the brook to dry up, I'd better make sure that in spiritual things, the rain never ceases on the mountain. Now, maybe that's the negative side of it. The positive side of it is, dear friends, that the brook eventually dries up because it is a product of nature. And you and I well know in the human bodies of ours that the brook is drying up, isn't it? What did he say? I said the brook is drying up. Yes, I believe that. I believe that. My mother-in-law lived with us, I think, I guess, hundred and fifty years or so. It may not have been that long, but she began to have all sorts of physical problems, and that dear saint used to say, I never thought this would happen to me. And I would say, Mom, why didn't you think that that would happen to you? And she never gave me a reason or an answer. She said, I just never thought this would happen to me. Maybe that's the way we are. In our younger years, you know, we have great vitality and we can go do all these things and work almost twenty-four hours a day and run from one thing to another and go hither and yon and go out with the young people at midnight and have chocolate-covered pepperoni pizza and all this sort of stuff. Things that make you blanch now just to think of it, you see. But dear friends, you'll have to agree with me tonight on this. After a while, the brook dries up. The brook dries up. Now, it doesn't mean the death of Elijah, you see. When the brook dries up, the Lord has other things for him to do, and that's the way it is with Christians today. And as you grow older and get closer and closer to glory, you'll find that you will have a changing ministry sometimes because the brook dries up because it is, after all, a product of nature. You can't do these sorts of things that you used to do and this sort of a problem. So, you know, that's just written in the book, and that's just the way it is. It doesn't mean a cessation of your ministry for God. It means simply that periodically the Holy Spirit changes your ministry for God. Maybe a more mature ministry. Maybe a ministry in which some of those things that you experienced and learned in your younger years can be better applied now in a counseling way or whatever it is the Lord leads you to do. But I want you to see that from the story of Elijah. A changing ministry, not necessarily the same one, but after a while the brook dries up. Shall we pray? Our Father and our God, we thank thee for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is unto us the living water. And Father, we thank thee for the promise of the Word that, as we follow on, that out of our innermost being will flow rivers of living water. The Father, we thank thee that even though the natural brook has a way of drying up after a while, and though the outward man is perishing, yet the inner man is renewed day by day. We thank you, Father, for this. We thank thee for telling us about it. We thank you, Father, for making it true in our lives and in our hearts and in our bodies and in our experiences. We give thee praise, Father, tonight for all that thou art and all that thou hast done and are doing, and we praise thee that thou wilt yet do. Now, Father, we thank you for this time, this day that we have spent together. We pray, Father, Holy Spirit, you'll continue to bless upon our hearts the things of the Word that we have looked at. Again, Father, encourage tonight any hearts that might feel down or might feel sad. Encourage us in the things of thyself to know that thou art still on the throne. We are still the sheep of thy pasture. And Father, we praise thee for these things.