>> Jen: Well, good morning there, faithful listeners. I hope you all have had a fantastic start to your New Year's so far. We're going to be continuing on in First Kings 18 today and talking about Yahweh versus Baal. So stay tuned for one of the coolest stories in the Old Testament. Let me know what you guys did for New Year's. I did not do anything this year, actually. I did not go to any parties. I did not watch the ball drop, which I think is the first year ever. I did
not watch it. I stayed at home and enjoyed just like, a quiet, restful couple days because Christmas is always so much. There's just so much to do and such a little time to get it all done. And so after Christmas is done, I just want to, like, lay there. So I just enjoyed myself and read a bunch of manga and, uh, watched some TV and hung out with my husband and cleaned my house because it was filthy. And, uh, yeah, that was. That was my New Year's celebration this year. It was a very good one.
So tell me what you guys did for New Year's. I'd love to hear about your plans and your parties and just everything else. But for today, we're going to talk about 1st Kings 18, 1 - 21. This portion of Scripture starts probably one of the most famous Old Testament stories of all time. And this is the battle between God and baal, which is such a fun chapter. So we're going to talk about what leads up to God taking on baal. I'll be reading this portion out of the web as usual
after many days. Yahweh's Word came to Elijah in the third year, saying, go show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the earth. Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria. Ahab called Obadiah, who was over the household. Now, Obadiah feared Yahweh greatly, for when Jezebel cut off Yahweh's prophets, Obadiah took 100 prophets and hid them 50 to a cave and fed them with bread and
water. Ahab said to Obadiah, go through the land to all the springs of water and to all the brooks. Perhaps we might find some grass and save the horses and mules alive that we not lose all the animals. So they divided the land between them to pass throughout it. Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went the other way by himself. As Obadiah was on the way, behold, Elijah met him. He recognized him and fell on his face
and said, is it you, my lord Elijah? He answered him, it is, Go tell your lord Behold, Elijah is here. He said, how have I sinned that you would deliver your servant into the hand of Ahab to kill me. And as Yahweh your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my lord has not sent to seek you. When they said, he is not here, he took an oath of the kingdom and nation that they didn't find you. Now you say, go tell your lord Behold, Elijah is here. It will happen as soon as I leave you that
Yahweh's spirit will carry you and I don't know where. And so when I come and tell Ahab and he can't find you, he will kill me. But I, your servant, have feared Yahweh from my youth. Wasn't it told my LORD what I did when Jezebel killed Yahweh's prophets? How I hid 100 men of Yahweh's prophets with 50 to a cave and fed them with bread and water. Now you say, go tell your lord Behold, Elijah is here. He will kill me. Elijah said, as Yahweh of armies lives before whom I stand, I will
surely show myself to him today. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, is that you, you troubler of Israel? He said, I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father's house, and that you have forsaken Yahweh's commandments and followed the baals. Now therefore, send and gather to me all of Israel to Mount Carmel and 450 prophets of baal and 400 of the prophets of Asherah who eat at, ah, Jezebel's
table. So Ahab sent to all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets together to Mount Carmel. Elijah came near to all the people and said, how long will you waver between two sides? If Yahweh is God, follow him. But if baal then follow him. The people didn't say a word. Recapping the last episode because we haven't talked about this in a week. Elijah was a prophet who lived in Israel when Israel was at its
worst possible time. Basically, they were worshiping baal, which was a very egregious form of worship as I've talked about before. And they were also just as far away from Yahweh as they could possibly get. They had a really wicked king and a really wicked queen, who both were just targeting and persecuting the Israelites and anybody that worshiped Yahweh. So Elijah prays to God for God to send a drought to Israel, and God actually listens to Elijah and sends this drought.
Now, this was not just punishment of Israel, but this was also a display of Yahweh's power because baal was considered to be the god of weather. But God was proving, no, actually I am the God of weather and the God of everything else, and baal is nothing. So Israel is experiencing this terrible drought which is causing a terrible famine because there wasn't enough water to water the crops and there wasn't enough water to water the pasture lands for their animals to
eat. So this drought was just causing terrible famine in the land. But Elijah was protected because he went to the area of Sidon and lived with a widow there who God actually did amazing miracles for her family. He rose the widow's son from the dead and also supplied the widow with enough food to sustain herself, her son and Elijah for many, many days. So Elijah lived in this woman's house for many years, though he did not live in the same house with the
woman. As we, uh, learned in the last chapter, Elijah lived in the upper room, which would have been detached from the house. So Elijah had his own entrance to his own room. But that was how Elijah was protected by living with this widow in a foreign country. So in 1 Kings 18:1, it says after many days, Yahweh's word came to Elijah in the third year. So Elijah was staying with this widow for probably about two years until this point. And not a drop of rain, it seems like, had
fallen on Israel. It seems like. So that is an amazing show of God's power that for three whole years no rain has fallen in Israel at all, which is extremely abnormal. So it says that in the third year, God's word came to Elijah. He says to Elijah, go show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the earth. So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab and the famine was severe in Samaria is what it says. And that is where the capital city was of Israel. Samaria was where Ahab, King Ahab and Queen
Jezebel lived. So while Elijah is traveling to Samaria to see Ahab, it says in verse three that Ahab called Obadiah, who was the servant over his household. Obadiah was the highest ranking servant that King Ahab had. But it mentions here that Obadiah feared Yahweh greatly. So Obadiah did not worship baal in Fact, he protected God's prophets. It says when Jezebel had gone out to try to kill everybody who worshiped Yahweh, any minister of the gospel. Because don't
forget what the word prophet means. A prophet isn't somebody that can see into the future. A prophet is somebody who has a word from God. So in this time period, that would mean pretty much anybody that ministers to God, any believer of Yahweh pretty much was targeted by Jezebel. So Obadiah goes and hides these prophets, these ministers of God who were pretty much always men. And he went and hid a hundred men who worshiped Yahweh in the caves. Now, there were hundreds of caves
in Mount Carmel. So it would not have been difficult for Obadiah to find a cave for these men to reside in. And Obadiah sustained these men the entire time by bringing them food and water. And that would have been difficult for Obadiah to find, you know, in the middle of a drought. But God was obviously with Obadiah, protected Obadiah's life, because Obadiah would have absolutely been killed had he been found out that he was doing this because of how cruel and awful King Ahab and Queen
Jezebel were. But God was protecting Obadiah throughout this entire persecution, and He was protecting those 100 men as well. So Ahab is doing all of this in secret, secretly worshiping Yahweh, and Ahab and Jezebel don't know about it. So Obadiah still has a prominent role in the king's house. So it says, then, that Ahab said to Obadiah, go throughout the land
to all the springs of water, into all the brooks. Perhaps we can find some grass to save the horses and the mules alive, that we will not lose all the animals. Ahab has one thing on his mind, protecting his own animals. Doesn't care about his people, doesn't care about his people's animals, doesn't care about Obadiah. He just wants his own crops and his own animals to be protected. Was Ahab calling on Yahweh throughout all of this? No. He was very likely calling to baal, asking baal to
send rain. And baal was not sending any rain. Now, of course, the logical response would be, oh, uh, baal isn't real. He can't hear us because there is no rain being sent on the land. However, because of the stubbornness of the people's hearts, they probably thought, baal must be very angry with us. And so that is why he is not sending any rain. So Ahab selfishly sends Obadiah out to try to find the last little bit of grass so that he can feed his
animals. And so it says that Ahab went in one direction and Obadiah went in the next direction. It says as Obadiah was searching, Elijah met him. Obadiah recognized Elijah and fell on his face and says, is it you, my LORD? Elijah? So he's actually excited to see Elijah. But you can imagine the average person at this time would be infuriated to see Elijah because Israel hated Elijah. At this point, Elijah's life was in danger in Israel because the people believed Elijah was the one who
had sent this drought. So the people blamed all of this on Elijah, and they probably believed that baal was actually angry at Elijah and that was why rain wasn't being sent on the earth. Elijah was hated, but Obadiah liked Elijah and appreciated him because Obadiah worshiped Yahweh. Now, this brings me to the question. Is this the same Obadiah that wrote the Book of Obadiah later on in the Old Testament? The Book of Obadiah is one of the minor prophets of the Old
Testament. Now, there's no way to actually say if this is the same Obadiah, because there were several Obadiahs mentioned in the Kings and also in the Book of Nehemiah as well. So we're not really sure if this Obadiah was the one that wrote the Book of Obadiah or not, but it could have been. It could have been. So anyway, Obadiah falls on his face because that was the common way to respect somebody in these days. And he asks, is it really you, Elijah?
Elijah says, yes, it is. So go tell King Ahab that Elijah is here. Now, Obadiah then protests for a very long time, for five whole verses, because apparently King Ahab was on a rampage to find Elijah and kill him, and he would kill any false leads. So if anybody was like, oh, we potentially found Elijah and Elijah wasn't in that area, King Ahab would just go and kill the people that claimed to have seen Elijah. So Obadiah's like, yeah, I can't go to Ahab
because he's gonna kill me. It doesn't matter if I'm high up or not. Ahab is a cruel king, Jezebel is a cruel queen, and any misstep on my part means my life. So if you tell me to go to King Ahab and say, hey, I saw Elijah, and God's spirit goes and carries you off somewhere else, then that means that I am going to die because Ahab won't be able to find you. But Elijah says, no, God's spirit isn't going to carry me off to a distant place. I will be right here.
I am going to stay here. You go find Ahab, I will talk to Ahab, and I will get to the bottom of everything. So Obadiah in faith, goes and listens. And you can imagine, you know, how stressful it must be to be Obadiah. Just like constantly being watched. Any misstep on your part means your death. And don't forget that Obadiah is also doing something very dangerous. He is sheltering and feeding and protecting a hundred prophets of God. So Obadiah is going against
the grain already. And you can imagine how on edge he is. So when he is told by Elijah to go tell Ahab that Elijah is here, you can imagine how terrified Obadiah must have been to have to tell Ahab about that. He was probably praying the whole time, you know, please let Elijah be there when Ahab comes to find him. And yes, Elijah is in fact there when Ahab gets there. But before we continue on the story, there is one more thing I want to note. Obadiah does tell Elijah about the 100
prophets that he saved. In verse 13, Obadiah says to Elijah, wasn't it told my LORD, what I did when Jezebel killed Yahweh's prophets, how I hid 100 men of Yahweh's prophets with 50 to a cave and fed them with bread and water? That's actually a very crucial point. Moving on in the story that Obadiah saved 100 of Yahweh's prophets, and Elijah knew that Obadiah saved those prophets. So remember that as we continue on with story, because I will be referencing that in coming episodes.
So Ahab gets to where Elijah is, and immediately Ahab accuses Elijah of being a troublemaker. He says, is that you, you troublemaker of Israel? And Elijah's like, I'm not the troublemaker. You're the troublemaker because you, you start worshiping all the baals. It's not my
fault you're the one that caused the drought. And that's very true, actually, because in Deuteronomy, you know, if Ahab, who was in fact an Israelite man, if he had actually read the Old Testament laws that God gave the Israelites, he would have known that worshiping other gods would cause a drought and would cause a famine, because that was clearly stated in Deuteronomy as prophecy as to what would happen if people turned away from Yahweh because it was a promise that the Israelites
made with Yahweh in the wilderness. God made one with the Israelites. He said, I will always be your God. And the Israelites made one with Yahweh. And they said, we will always be your people. And then God said, okay, here's what's going to happen if you break your promise, because you will break your promise. And a drought was one of the things that would happen if the Israelites broke their promise. And Ahab was the one who was causing Israel to break that promise that they had made with
Yahweh. So Elijah was absolutely right in saying that Ahab was the troublemaker of Israel because he was. He was the one that caused the drought. But before Ahab can kill Elijah, Elijah makes a deal with him. He says, I am going to prove to you that Yahweh is the true God. And here's how. So he asks Ahab to gather all the prophets of baal and all the prophets of Asherah and go to Mount Carmel. So in total, between baal and asherah, there was 850 prophets, and all of them benefited directly
from Jezebel. It actually says Here in verse 19, this is Elijah speaking. Now, therefore, send and gather to me all of Israel to Mount Carmel and the 450 prophets of baal and 400 of the prophets of the asherah who eat at Jezebel's table. Meaning that Jezebel was truly trying to make her religion, that she grew up with the only national religion of
Israel. So this foreign woman who grew up in a foreign place comes into Israel and forces them to stop worshiping Yahweh, targets them, kills them, and persecutes them if they do, and then pushes in her trash ideology and her trash religion to force Israel to worship it and puts this whole fear on Israel if they don't worship it. And King
Ahab, who was an Israelite, just goes right along with it. So all of these, uh, prophets of baal and asherah are benefiting directly from, uh, Jezebel for political gain and power on her part. So Ahab does what Elijah asks him to do. It says that he gathered all the children of Israel and all of the false prophets together at Mount Carmel. So Elijah, before he begins, he speaks this sermon to all the people. And he says, how long will you waver between the two sides? If Yahweh is God,
then follow him. But if baal then follow him. And the people didn't say a word. So it looks like Israel. Even though there was a strong persecution of Yahweh followers in Israel, the people were still kind of trying to hold on at least a little bit to their old traditions of worshiping Yahweh. So they were wavering between Yahweh and also baal. So now the Israelites, when they hear Elijah's sermon, are scared.
They're acting like cowards because they don't want to stand up and recognize that baal is nothing. They want to rather waver between two opinions and be like, oh, you know, we'll take the good stuff that Yahweh gives us, and we'll also, you know, worship baal and get whatever we can from that as well. They were on the fence. They were teetering between these two opinions. And Elijah is like, no, stop all of
that. I am putting a stop to this right here and right now, and I'm going to prove to you that Yahweh is truly God. So on Wednesday, we'll talk about the second half of this chapter, and it's a very fascinating chapter. One of my favorite Old Testament stories, rather. I remember learning about this one in Sunday school as a little kid, and I always loved learning about this particular story. I don't know why, but I always thought it was just super cool.
Anyway, guys, make sure to tune in on Wednesday so that we can discuss the rest of this chapter. And also tune in tomorrow because we are starting 2 Corinthians tomorrow, which is going to be great. I'm, um, looking forward to it, and I hope you guys are also. faithful listeners Have a fantastic and wonderful rest of your day. Happy listening, and God bless.