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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Tim Arakawa

Lessons from Elijah

I hate to admit it, but I think Eric probably does a better job than I do at giving those announcements.

I remember the announcements better this this week because I listen to them.

Believe it or not, this is I think this is the first time that the Avanhope leaders actually spoken to Avanhope as a group like this.

And so when I was thinking of a topic to speak about, I really selected carefully.

I wanted this to be something that was very meaningful, something that I could communicate to Ab and Hope as part of a vision for what we want to do.

And so that's why I've chosen the topic of revival as illustrated in the story of Elijah.

And I think revival is something that we all want for Evan Hope and that we all want personally for our own lives.

Dear Father in heaven, thank you so much for the stories in the Bible that you have given to us to show us how we can have an experience of power, an experience with your Holy Spirit that can draw us closer to you.

Help us to have that experience this morning.

Will you turn with me in your Bible to to Malachi the last book of the Old Testament Malachi chapter 4 and verses 5 & 6 These are actually the last 2 verses of the Old Testament.

The Bible says, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." Malachi was 1 of the last Old Testament prophets.

And of course, in his book, the last few verses are a prophecy, a promise from God to the children of Israel that before the Messiah came to deliver them, before he came, there would be that he would send Elijah the prophet.

And so the Jewish nation looked for many years for this Elijah that was to come.

In fact, you'll find that when John the Baptist came before Jesus, that people asked, are you Elijah?

There was this idea that Elijah would actually somehow be resurrected.

He would come back and usher in the Messiah.

And so they asked John the Baptist, Are you Elijah?

And of course John the Baptist said, no I'm not.

But we find out later that he came in the spirit and power of Elijah and we'll be talking about that.

When Jesus was on the cross and he said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

When he said it, it sounded like he was calling for Elijah.

And so people said, oh, is he calling for Elijah to come and save him?

There's this idea that Elijah would come back and would save them, deliver them.

So we do know that Elijah did come before the first coming of Jesus.

In Matthew chapter 11 the disciples of John the Baptist actually came to Jesus.

John the Baptist was now in prison and he was very close to execution at this point and he wanted to know, Jesus, are you the 1 or should we look for another?

And so Jesus didn't say much to them, he just told them to watch as he did his ministry.

But after those disciples left, he talked to the multitude and this is what he said, let's look at verse 14 talking about John the Baptist, he said and if ye will receive it, this is Elias Elias being the Greek name for Elijah This is Elias, which was for to come.

In other words, Jesus is saying here that that prophecy in Malachi has been fulfilled by John the Baptist.

He is that Elijah that has been prophesied.

In fact, we can know even more clearly in Luke, Luke chapter 1.

Before John the Baptist was born, his father Zacharias being a priest was serving in the temple.

And an angel came to him and told him that he would have a son, and that this would be John the Baptist.

And part of that message to Zacharias is found in verse 17.

This is what the angel said, And he shall go before, talking about John the Baptist, And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." So here we can see that, first of all, that John the Baptist, He was not actually Elijah resurrected somehow from the dead, but he came in the spirit and the power of Elijah, just like Elisha received a double portion of Elijah's spirit, that John the Baptist came in the same spirit, the same power.

You can even see echoes of the prophecy there, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.

That's a direct repeat of what is prophesied in Malachi.

And finally, look at the last part of the verse.

It says, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

And I would like to submit to you today that just as there is, there was an Elijah that prepared the way for Jesus' first coming, for the incarnation of Christ to this earth, that when Jesus comes a second time, there will also be an Elijah, or perhaps many Elijahs, that have the exact same spirit and power.

In fact, Jesus, I know this because Jesus also talked about this in Matthew.

So really quickly let's turn to Matthew chapter 17.

In this case, this happened right after the transfiguration.

In fact, Elijah and Moses had just appeared beside Jesus, and the disciples were coming back from that experience in Matthew 17 and in verse 10 the disciples asked Jesus, they say, why then say the Pharisees that Elias must first come?

The Pharisees had been talking about that prophecy in Malachi.

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come and restore all things.

But I say unto you that Elias is come already.

And they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.

Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer of them.

Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist." So here in verse 12, Jesus says, Elijah has already come, but he was not well received.

Notice in verse, and that was John the Baptist.

In verse 11, Jesus says though Elias truly shall first come and I just want to note there that the verb tense is very clear shall come is future tense because I might am I right so in other words in the future Elijah will come in the past John the Baptist came in the spirit of power of Elijah.

But in the future, there will also be an Elijah that will come and he will restore all things and so I believe that before Jesus second coming and we live in that time that Elijah will come again not Elijah the the man the physical person but someone that comes in the spirit and power of Elijah.

And I believe that each 1 of us can have that experience of Elijah.

To make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

And somehow Elijah was sent specifically to the people of God with a message of revival.

And So in order for us to be that third Elijah, that Elijah that prepares the way, we need to understand what this message is and we need to be living it ourselves, don't we?

And so we're going to talk a little bit about how revival is reflected in the story of Elijah.

Before we do that I want to document a little bit to you how Israel became in a way you could say it became how they slid into apostasy and that will set up the story of Elijah.

So let's let's move into our story in 1st Kings chapter 16 And let's start in verse 29.

And in the 30 and eighth year of Asa, king of Judah, began Ahab, began Ahab, the son of Omri, to reign over Israel.

And Ahab, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel in Samaria 20 and 2 years.

And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him.

And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Beth-beal, king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal and worshipped him." Now, I first want to mention that Israel was not always this bad.

There was a time when things were going better for the nation of Israel.

Of course, we know about King Saul and King David.

That's when the kingdom really began to prosper.

And under Solomon, They reached the pinnacle of their nation's history.

But after Solomon died, there was some civil unrest.

2 tribes, Judah and Benjamin, split away and became what was called Judah.

And the other 10 tribes became the kingdom of Israel, and they were in the north.

The kingdom of Israel had a king named Jeroboam.

And Jeroboam, after this civil war and the split, he had a little problem.

Because the center of worship for the Jewish religion was where?

In Judah so every year for every feast, every festival all these Israelites are going to travel to the capital of the enemy nation.

And they're going to be drawn away from, they're going to be drawn back to Judah, to Jerusalem.

They're going to defect to the other side.

That didn't seem politically expedient for him.

And so he had to think of something very quickly.

What he did was he crafted 2 golden calves.

That's not the first time that Israel had golden calves.

But he crafted these things and he placed them in 2 cities in Israel, 1 in Dan and 1 in Bethel.

And he told the people, these are your gods, these are the gods that led you out of Egypt, worship them.

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Lessons from Elijah

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