By now we have all seen that the prophet Elijah was an amazing human being. Even his name is amazing. In the Hebrew language the name Elijah means, "Yahweh is my God." Obviously, his name defined his mission. He sought to demonstrate to his people that Yahweh is not only God but He is the only true and living God

We have seen that at the time Elijah first appeared in Israel, the nation of Israel, as a whole, no longer worshiped Yahweh. They had slowly but surely integrated the worship of the Phoenician God, BA’AL and his female counterpart, Asherah, into their religion through the actions of their king and queen, Ahab and Jezebel. In fact they were were well on their way to making BA’AL the primary God of Israel. As a result of this apostasy, God had brought a severe drought upon the land and He had commissioned Elijah to announce this divine punishment.

The moment Elijah pronounced this divine judgment to King Ahab, he was told by God to flee to a remote location where he would be fed by ravens and drink from a brook. So, Elijah followed the Lord's instructions and after a while, when the brook dried up, the prophet was told to go and find a certain widow who lived in the Phoenician village of Zarephath, and he was to stay with her.  While Elijah was living with this Phoenician woman and her son, God miraculously supplied them with flour and oil.

During the entire length of the drought Elijah was forced to remain in hiding, because he had become the most wanted man in all of Israel. The King and the Queen wanted him dead, and Elijah knew it. After all, in the course of the drought Jezebel had put to death many of the prophets of the Lord. Yet, the man she wanted most seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

So, for three long years, not a single drop of rain fell on the land and for three long years King Ahab and queen Jezebel searched for Elijah to kill him. But things were about to change. God was preparing to order the prophet to make himself known once again, and that will be the subject of Pastor’s sermon for this morning.

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