Sermon given on November 6, 2010 at Community Hospital of SDA, in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

<p>Sermon given on November 6, 2010 at Community Hospital of SDA, in Port of Spain, Trinidad.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

AudioVerse

Norman McNulty

Elijah, 1888, and the Latter Rain

Our Father in Heaven, I thank you for bringing us as a congregation here today, and I pray that you would give us a special blessing as we open your Word.

We believe that we are living in momentous times, that Jesus is coming soon.

And I pray that this message today would lift up the word of God, that it would lift up Christ, and that it would convict each 1 of us of the nearness of the coming of Christ and of our need to be ready.

You know, I really do believe that Jesus is coming soon.

And I really do believe that we as God's people, the Seventh-day Adventist people, need to be ready to meet Jesus in the clouds.

And I believe that we need to be giving this message of preparation, of warning, of proclaiming the near return of Jesus.

We have been given this message as a people to share to the world, have we not?

And if we aren't sharing the message with others, how can we expect for the world to be warned?

And so we as God's people, I believe, we need to wake up.

It is time for the Lord to work through His people in the last days.

And I want to speak today about the concept of Elijah and the latter rain and how they tie together.

And so I invite you to turn with me in scripture to 1 Kings 8, verses 35 and 36.

The setting is the dedication of Solomon's temple, And Solomon is offering a prayer of dedication for God's temple.

Here we read in verses 35 and 36 of 1 Kings chapter 8.

He says, When heaven is shut up and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee, if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, when thou afflictest them, Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants, and of thy people Israel, that thou teach them the good way wherein they should walk.

And give reign upon thy land, which thou hast given to thine people for an inheritance." So notice, Solomon is praying in the temple as it is being dedicated, he is praying to God, if your people ever wander from you, if they come back and repent, please hear their prayer.

Specifically, he says, if heaven has shut up, that there is no rain, because they have sinned, and they confess, please forgive their sin.

This was the dedication of God's temple, And if you look at the history of Israel, this was the pinnacle moment in the history of the nation of Israel.

The whole world knew of the glory of the nation of Israel, and in fact, so much so, that the queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon to find out what is going on in the nation of Israel.

God's people were glorifying His name throughout the world.

And the dedication of the temple was that moment in the nation of Israel when Israel reached its pinnacle.

And of course you could say when the Messiah came, eventually that was even more so.

But up until that point this was the pinnacle of the nation of Israel and Solomon is praying to the Lord.

Now the Lord answers this prayer And you find the answer in 2 Chronicles 7, verses 13 and 14.

And this is the verse that many of us are very familiar with.

And actually we'll start in verse 12 of 2 Chronicles 7.

And Notice the Lord's response to Solomon.

And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice.

If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people, if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." Notice the Lord specifically answers the prayer that Solomon prayed because Solomon said, if you shut up heaven that there be no rain, please hear the prayer of your people if they repent.

And God says, if I shut up heaven as you prayed, if they repent, I will heal their land.

This was a prayer that God answered and God said, if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face, then will I hear from heaven.

And I would ask each 1 of you today, are we God's people?

And do we at this time in earth's history need to humble ourselves and to turn from our wicked ways?

This response of God to Solomon still applies today.

And you may ask, can we look at the history of God's people, specifically the part of heaven being shut up so that there was no rain, and say, was that a condition that was ever fulfilled in the nation of Israel?

Only 100 years later, we come to the story of Ahab and Elijah.

We read, 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 dew nor rain these years, but according to my word." Now what had happened in Israel?

Israel just a hundred years before had reached the pinnacle of its history.

The temple to the Lord had been dedicated.

If you read in 1st Kings chapter 8, the smoke of the glory of the Lord filled the temple so that no man could enter and clearly God was demonstrating his presence to the nation of Israel and at that moment in time the Israelites must have thought, Wow, we are the people of God.

And yet, 100 years later, Elijah the prophet comes to King Ahab and says, according to the word of the Lord, there shall not be rain in Israel.

And James 5, verses 16 and 17 tells us it was for 3 and a half years.

So what had happened in the nation of Israel?

If you look just before 1 Kings 17 verse 1 in the preceding verses, we see starting in verse 30 of chapter 16 that Ahab the son of Omri did evil on the side of the Lord and Continuing on verse 32, he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.

And Ahab made a grove, and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.

So 100 years after the temple of God was dedicated and the presence of God was clearly manifested to his people, within 100 years Israel was worshipping other gods.

And so, God sends a message to the King of Israel and says, there will not be rain.

And we know that God had said such from 2 Chronicles 7 verses 13 and 14.

God said, if they turn away from me, I may shut up heaven so that there may be no rain.

Or I may send a pestilence, or I may send a plague." Well, what he decided to send to Israel in this portion of history was the withholding of rain.

Now the interesting thing is, Baal was worshipped specifically as a God for bringing life and rain.

And God said, you're worshipping this false God who you think sends rain to the earth?

I'm going to show you who the true God is.

And then we come through the 3 and a half years to 1 Kings chapter 18 starting in verse 17.

Elijah had been in hiding and then the Lord told him to go meet Ahab.

Verse 17 of chapter 18, it says, And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel?

And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Balaam.

Now therefore send and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal 450, and the prophets of the grove 400, which ate at Jezebel's table.

So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel." Now notice verse 21, 21.

And Ahab came unto all the people and said, How long halt ye between 2 opinions?

If the Lord be God, follow him, but if Baal, then follow him.

And the people answered him not a word." Now here's what happened in Israel.

The Israelites were not worshipping Baal only.

They were saying, let's be like the world around us and we can worship Baal and we can fit in with the world for worshipping Baal, but we also know that there's a God in heaven and we'll worship Him too.

So we'll worship the God that brought us out of Egypt and led us to Canaan, He opened up the Red Sea, He parted the Jordan, He caused Jericho to fall down and he gave us this promised land.

So yeah, we'll worship him, but we will also worship Bill because that's what all the other nations around us do.

And now the prophet of the Lord comes and says, how long are you going to hold between 2 opinions?

Or in today's vernacular you would say, How long are you going to halt between 2 opinions?

Or in today's vernacular you would say, how long are you going to straddle the fence between the 2 sides?

There can only be 1 God, either the Lord God of heaven or the God of Baal.

How long are you going to halt between those 2 opinions?" And the people didn't answer a word because they knew that it was a showdown on Mount Carmel between the prophets of Baal and the prophet of God.

There were 450 of Baal's prophets and there was 1 of God's prophets.

And they weren't ready to take sides yet.

They were still halting between 2 opinions.

Now we know the story, the prophets of Baal prayed to Baal all day long.

Elijah even mocks them and says maybe he's taking a nap, maybe he went on a journey, Maybe you need to cry louder so he will hear you.

And then when Elijah prays, fire comes down from heaven, consumes the altars, the prophets of Bel are slain by the hand of Elijah, and a signal victory was gained for God.

The story doesn't end there and I'm going to come back to it because the question is can we see ourselves in this story?

And the natural response would be boy what was wrong with the people of Israel?

How could they worship another god besides the true and only living God?

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Elijah, 1888, and the Latter Rain

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