Prayer-wishful thinking? (1 Kings 18:16-46)
Ron White - August 13, 2006
1. Introduction
1.1 Get yourself a life! Get yourself a prayer life! But wait a minute someone might say “Isn’t it impertinent to think that if God is as great as you say he is then he is going to bother to listen to you and your trifling concerns?” They may go on to say “Anyway how do you know that what you call answered prayer is nothing more than a coincidence? After all on the law of averages you must get it right sometimes!” Well it is a strange coincidence that there are more coincidences when I pray! When we get a number of coincidences we usually look to see if there is something behind them, some law in operation.
1.2 But, look instead of just entering into some speculative philosophical discussion that will I suspect get us nowhere, why not look at real life events and ask ourselves is there an instance where God answered prayer and there is no other possible explanation? Where it simply could not be coincidence, or have some other entirely rationalistic explanation of the events, or even be the result of some trickery. Where the only plausible explanation is the obvious one: God does really answer prayer. Then when we look at our case study we might ask ourselves whether there are some principles we might discover and, if so, consider how we might apply them in our lives.
1.3 If we want our case study to be rooted in real life what sort of person should be the subject of our study? Well not someone who laid claim to having any special powers, but someone rather like you and me, someone who at times found praying to be really hard work, someone who did not always see their prayers answered. Someone we could all identify with. Let us face it if the subject of our case study had some extraordinary powers then while we might marvel at what they did, it would be of little benefit to us in our lives. There would be no principles to discover that we could apply to ourselves.
1.4 We could do no better than look into a set of case notes that God himself has provided. Indeed in one sense the Bible very largely consists of loads and loads of case studies of people, people who though hugely differing in backgrounds, abilities, status and so on found out something about God in their lives. The Bible is a very practical book it deals with real issues, people suffering, their having to face up to all sorts of different situations, remarkably little of it is abstract thinking, it is rooted in real life events and what happens to ordinary people in everyday life. As we leaf through the pages of God’s book of case studies as we get to the end of the New Testament there is one individual that I think will suit our purpose. We read about him in James 5:17-18: “Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain.”
1.5 According to James Elijah was someone just like you and me. So he fulfils our first criterion, secondly he prayed earnestly so he found it hard work, another of our criteria. But “Foul, cheat” I hear someone cry. “You can’t use that as a case; the drought might have been a coincidence? Throughout history there have been droughts from time to time, how do we know that Elijah did not have a massive stroke of luck?” Well, I take your point, but before we put Elijah to one side let us look at the part of the Bible James was referring to, we find the passage in the Old Testament in 1 Kings 18, which of course was the account we read earlier.
2. The Reality of Prayer!
2.1 To really get a grip of this we need a little bit of background. Let us get into the Tardis and travel back 3,000 years to Israel. What was Israel like then? Well it had a prosperous agricultural economy. It had virtually stopped worshipping Jehovah the God of earlier generations and was worshipping Baal, the god of fertility, which for Israel amounted to worshipping prosperity. Also Baal not only allowed sexual immorality the cult encouraged it. They were enjoying success, wealth was increasing and what is more they were at peace with their next door neighbour, modern day Lebanon, the wealthy city of Tyre. Well how did Israel manage that? Israel had a politically astute king called Ahab. He had married Jezebel from Tyre, a political master stroke. Israel now had all it dreamed of: stability; peace and ever increasing prosperity. Jehovah God had been jettisoned and the Bible forgotten. Jezebel was zealously promoting the worship of Baal and eliminating all opposition especially the prophets of Jehovah. They were living in a post-Jehovah society.
2.2 There was one snag in all this, Ahab despite all his skill at political juggling had made one enemy. Who was it? Well the Bible tells us. We read in 1 Kings 16:33 Ahab “did more to provoke the LORD God to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him”. In a nutshell then, the God of the Bible is on the scrapheap and the god of prosperity reigns. But God was about to do something about it. He was not to be brushed aside. He had prepared a man, his man. Who was his man? It was Elijah?
2.3 Who was Elijah? Well everybody has a CV, so let us read Elijah’s. What does it say? We find it in 1 Kings 17:1 and it says “Elijah the Tishbite from Tishbe in Gilead? That is all. I understand that it could be translated “Elijah the Tishbite from among the sojourners in Gilead”, which suggests that not even the people of Gilead knew much about him. His name means “Jehovah is God”. Elijah bursts on the scene, out of the blue, no family history, no details about him, nothing and immediately he confronts Ahab and says “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” Now this is serious stuff. Elijah is challenging Baal, the god of their prosperity head on. Elijah is saying in effect “OK so you think Baal controls the rain and brings your prosperity, well I will show you what a tin pot god he is, he cannot bring a drop of rain or dew, he will not be able to overrule my word, God is not a mental abstraction, a postulated first cause until we can think of something better, God is the living God, he is present in the here and now and he is concerned for society and he has had enough of your flouting his word and rejecting his authority. He is the God I serve and what I say will be proved right because I got it straight from God himself.”
2.4 How does Ahab react to this confrontation? We are not told. Ahab the great politician so adept in wheeling and dealing cannot manipulate God and his reply, if Elijah waited for one, is not recorded. But Ahab decides to deal with this troublesome man and have him eliminated. He sends out his hit squads to kill Elijah. But God’s men and women are immortal until their work is done and God took care of Elijah and hid him away until God decided it was time for Elijah to come centre stage again. Again he confronts Ahab and issues him with a challenge. Ahab accepts the challenge and we find Elijah on Mount Carmel taking on 450 prophets of Baal. Elijah has already challenged Baal head on once. He has said that it will not rain again until he says so. It has not rained for 3 ½ years, so Elijah is being proven true. He now ups the ante. Mt Carmel had been a centre of Baal worship for hundreds of years so Elijah is taking Baal on on his own territory. Elijah challenges the Israelites (1 Kings 18:21) “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God follow him; but, if Baal is god, follow him.” The next words are spine chilling. “But the people said nothing.” Why are they spine chilling? We will see later.
2.5 The deal is that two bulls should be offered for sacrifice. Each side should get a bull ready for sacrifice and lay the carcass on an altar. However, neither side should set its sacrifice alight. Everyone will wait and see which god answers the prayers of its devotees and sends fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice and the god who answers by fire will be accepted as the true god.
2.6 The followers of Baal are given first go. They choose one of the two bulls and get going. For a few hours they work themselves up into a frenzy, they gash themselves, they shout themselves hoarse. They really are sincere, they are not putting on a show, they really mean business and they go for it. At noon complete silence from heaven. Not a spark. Elijah ridicules them. They carry on until three in the afternoon. There was no response, no one paid attention, no one answered. There is a school of thought that when people pray they generate some kind of energy field and if we can only generate enough of it then we can achieve what we want, world peace or whatever. They can produce no evidence to support their view and certainly none from the Bible, indeed the teaching of Jesus on prayer challenges such a view. The experience of the prophets of Baal certainly does not support it.
2.7 Elijah steps up. He invites everyone to come closer so they can make sure that he does not get up to any tricks. He then rebuilds God’s altar with 12 stones, one for each of the twelve tribes, thereby rebuking God’s people for their sinful divisions. He places the wood in order, puts the sacrifice on it and then, to the astonishment of all instructs those around to collect water presumably from one the few remaining nearby springs and drench the sacrifice and wood with water until it is sopping wet, indeed until the trench around the altar is full. His prayer takes just a few seconds and “then the fire of the Lord fell”.
2.8 This answer to prayer was not the product of wishful thinking, nor could it have been a coincidence. If Elijah’s prayer had not been so spectacularly answered then the bull would have been eaten by the birds, the wood would have eventually rotted away and the altar gradually crumbled to pieces. But Elijah had prayed, prayed to the living God, the God he served. The God who delights to answer prayer.
2.9 Prayer-wishful thinking? No way. Prayer is one of the glorious realities of the Christian life. Sadly it is also one of the neglected realities, perfunctorily performed, and approached with low expectations and little reality. Prayer does involve hard work and many give up when they should press on. Elijah knew something of the hard work of prayer.
3. The Labour of Prayer
3.1 Let us move on in the chapter and look at verses 42 to 44. Elijah is praying again. Once more we find him on Mt Carmel. This time there are no crowds, no publicity, only his servant is on hand. Elijah is alone with God. The showdown with the prophets of Baal has comprehensively demonstrated that the god of prosperity has nothing to offer and that he is indeed a false god. Now is the time for the drought to be ended. The weather forecast is not encouraging, the meteorological evidence suggests that the drought is set to continue, the skies are blue, the sun is still beating down and there is not a cloud in sight.
3.2 Elijah then does something odd, he crouches down with his face between his knees to pray. The position he adopts is that of a woman in labour who is about to give birth. This is apparent if you compare verse 42 with Ex 1:16 and read the verses in the light of the New Bible Dictionary article on midwifery in the ancient Middle East. For Elijah his experience of praying was like that of a woman being in labour. Can you, can I say that is my experience of prayer? God`s purposes are brought into effect here on earth by men and women giving birth to them through prayer. In Romans 15:30 Paul urges us to be in labour in prayer. A similar thought is in view when Paul says we should devote ourselves to pray in Col 4:2. In Col 4:18 one Christian is described as wrestling in prayer. Paul knew something of this himself when in Gal 4:19 he says “I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.”
3.3 Is the primary reason why we see Christianity making so little progress in this country because God`s people know so little about real prayer, Elijah type praying?
Are God’s purposes not being brought to birth in this country because a lot of our prayer does not get beyond the stage of wishful thinking and become genuine intercession? When Elisha succeeded Elijah he cried out to heaven “Where is the LORD God of Elijah?” Perhaps today the heavens would reply “Where are the Elijah’s of the LORD God?”
3.4 In Elijah’s life we have seen a dramatic answer to prayer; we have had a glimpse of the costliness of some aspects of prayer. Did you know that Elijah did not have all his prayers answered? So what about unanswered prayer?
4. The Problem of Unanswered Prayer.
4.1 After seeing such spectacular triumphs you would have thought Elijah would have been on an all time high. But he is not. He soon realises that his mission has failed. There has been no spiritual awakening, no revival, and no religious reform. No great turning back to God. Jezebel is furious, Ahab as ever allows her to do what she wants and she redoubles her efforts to eliminate the worship of the one true God and in particular she is determined to murder Elijah. It seems that the translation of 1 Kings 19:3 where it reads “Elijah was afraid” is unfortunate as it could be rendered “Elijah saw” and this to me makes sense. In verse 4 he prays and what does he ask for? Well he asks that he might die. His mission has failed; the situation seems beyond remedy, there is nothing more that he can do. It is time for him to call it a day and die. In response God goes to extraordinary lengths to keep him alive and in fact Elijah never dies, at the end of his ministry he is taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.
4.2 Why is it that prayer can go unanswered? There are a number of reasons:
-The Bible says you do not have because you do not ask? Yes we may ask in a sort of vague generalised way for God to something about this or that. Sometimes it may not be possible to be more exact, but more often than not it is because we are too lazy to think the matter through or are not really concerned. Elijah was specific in his prayers. When I was a young Christian I remember leaving a prayer meeting and overheard the Vicar despairingly say something to the effect “I wonder if the dear Lord has the foggiest idea what we want” It is a help if you can keep some sort of notebook and record what you pray for and as you continue to pray keep your spiritual ears and eyes open and you will find that through a scripture or something happening you will be able to become more precise in what you are asking for, or you will find a promise that is appropriate to claim. An incidental benefit of making notes about what you pray for is that if like me you frequently forget that you prayed for something, you find when you review your notes that prayers have been answered that you can’t recall praying.
-The Bible says that sometimes we ask and do not receive because we are being selfish. The Lord’s prayer does not say “My will be done” but “Thy will be done.” Our Heavenly Father loves us to bits, more than anyone else can. All true wisdom comes from him. He knows us and our circumstances more thoroughly than we do. And he is all powerful. If therefore we see God`s will for us as an obstacle the problem is not with God but with us. We need to get ourselves in line with God. We have to be honest and it is painful. It is not for nothing that we are told to take up the cross daily.
-We are living in the time of the “already, but not yet”. The Kingdom of God has arrived but not yet in all its fullness. There are times when we do see amazing things happen but at other times we do not.
-God has something better in store. This was the case with Elijah. Hebrews chap 11 is a thrilling chapter, full of the exploits of heroes and heroines of faith. But, it notes what are in effect a number of cases where God`s greatest saints did not see the answers to their prayers. Why was this? Heb 11:40 tells us: “God had planned something better”. God does not know how to disappoint us.
-Finally, not even God will overrule someone’s persistent unbelief and disobedience, though continuing in prayer for such a person may well bring them to a place where at last they bow the knee to God.
4.3 While it is my experience that many of my prayers have not been answered, I firmly believe from Rev 8:1-5 that there is no such thing as a wasted prayer. Because when we pray about something the power and presence of God starts to be released into that situation. That is why “Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint on his knees” as Cowper put it.
4.4 We have seen from Elijah’s life something of the reality of prayer, the labour of prayer and the problem of unanswered prayer. But, why, if Elijah was just like one of us, was his prayer life so rich and ours is so poor?
5. The Essentials of Prayer
5.1 What can we discover from Elijah’s life that would help us to get a prayer life?
-He had a meaningful personal relationship with God. He knew God as the living God whom he served. You cannot begin to have a prayer life until you are on speaking terms with God. Prayer is not the exercise of some mysterious power; it is simply the natural result of having a personal relationship with God. The Bible shows us that in order to truly know God we have to repent of our sin and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross that we might be forgiven. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that we are all sinners, that we all do wrong by nature and choice and that God will not hear us if we hold on to our sin. Have we entered into such a personal relationship with God?
-He was a man who knew the power of God’s Holy Spirit. One of the challenging things about Elijah is that others recognised that the Holy Spirit was upon him, that he was a man anointed by and led by the Holy Spirit.
-The third factor in Elijah’s life that is essential to an effective prayer life is that he was a man of the word of God. In 1Kings 17 there are no fewer than 6 references to Elijah receiving and responding to the word of God. If we do not know the word of God we cannot know the mind of God and we cannot hope to know the will of God. It is essential to have a personal relationship with God through faith in His Son, to know in our experience something of the reality of the Holy Spirit and to be grounded in the Bible the word of God, omit one of these and your spiritual life is at best heading for trouble and your prayer life will whither.
5.2 How can I get started in prayer? Or I used to pray but one way or another prayer has got squeezed out my life. Firstly, you have to recognise that it will take time and you must make time to pray. It will not just happen. If you recognise your genuine need of God to live life as he wants it lived then you will find you will make time to pray with God. If
you are deluded into thinking that you don’t really need God then of course you will not bother to pray, or if you do it will be a meaningless chore.
5.3 On a practical note if you want to get started why not take the advice in “7 minutes with God?” copies of which are available on the table by the entrance? Getting a prayer life is an exciting adventure, there will be hard times, there will be difficulties and discouragements, but there will be times of glorious intimacy with God, of extraordinary liberty and tremendous delight when you look in wonder and see that God has turned situations round and wonderfully answered your prayers.