G’day! Welcome to episode 5 of Stories of a Faithful God for Kids – The story where we see how God NEVER gives up on his promises.

Hey… do you ever feel like there aren’t many followers of Jesus in the world? I mean, if you go to church… there are heaps there. But then you go to school… and people use God’s name and Jesus name like a swear word. You watch tv… and the characters are never Christian. You listen to music and people are singing about things that God hates.

We talk about how God is a faithful God… but are his plans really working? Is he really saving people and helping people to follow Jesus? Is God winning… or losing?

At the end of the last episode, everything seemed great. God’s proven that he’s the real God. The people of Israel all seem to come back to him. They all see that Elijah’s been telling the truth. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ll tell you what can go wrong. It’s a person who we’ve mentioned a couple of times, but not really met. Her name… is Jezebel. Get ready for the last episode in this series about God’s work through Elijah… in Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

MUSIC

We’re still in 1 Kings chapter 18. At the end of last week we saw God prove who he was in a really amazing way. He sent fire blasting down from heaven. It burned up the meat… the wood… the stones. It lapped up all the water and burned the ground around the altar. And verse 39 says:

When all the people saw this, they fell down to the ground. They cried, “The Lord is God! The Lord is God!”

Baal is obviously fake. What happens next is a bit… yuck. The prophets of Baal had been doing their best to take people away from the one true God. Since God’s the one who gives eternal life… then these prophets were killing the Israelites… Stopping them from spending forever with God. And so they need to be stopped… and they need to be punished. Verse 40 tells us:

Then Elijah said, “Capture the prophets of Baal! Don’t let any of them run away!” So the people captured all the prophets. Then Elijah led them down to Kishon Valley. There he killed all the prophets.

Then Elijah says to King Ahab… “Guess what. The rain’s about to come. You can go and eat and drink”. Then he goes up to the top of the mountain.

He has a servant with him… and he tells his servant… “Go and look toward the sea.” He wants him to look for the rain that God said would come. This is exciting. Three years of no rain and now its about to happen. The servant goes… looks out to sea… turns back to Elijah and calls out…

“I see nothing.”

Oh. That’s… a bit of a let down. But Elijah knows that God’s a faithful God. He always does what he says he’ll do. So he sends the servant back to look a second time.

Still nothing.

He goes a third time… then a fourth time!

SEVEN times the servant goes. Elijah just keeps waiting, trusting that God will do his thing.

On the seventh time… something’s changed. Verse 44 says:

The seventh time, the servant said, “I see a small cloud. It’s the size of a man’s fist. It’s coming from the sea.”

Its just a tiny cloud in the distance… but it’s a sign of something much bigger to come. Like when you see the first Christmas decorations in a shop. You know its about to get a whole lot more fancy.

There’s no time to lose. The storm’s a comin’. So Elijah sends a message to King Ahab to quickly get home before he gets caught.

The clouds get bigger… and darker. The wind starts blowing. And the first drop in three years falls… falls… falls… and smashes into the dirt. Then another one comes. And another one. Then the whole sky is filled with rain. Big heavy drops washing away all the pain of the last three years. Ahab jumps in his chariot and rides to a city called Jezreel. And Elijah runs in front of the chariot as a servant of the king.

When they get to Jezreel though… that’s where everything seems to go wrong.

Because that’s where Jezebel is.

Let’s just remember who Jezebel is. She’s the queen… Ahab’s wife. She isn’t an Israelite though. She came from Sidon where they worship Baal. She came in and killed all the prophets of the Lord God she could find. She didn’t want anyone to worship Israel’s God anymore.

When Ahab gets home… he doesn’t say, “Hey honey… everything’s gotta change. It turns out the Lord is the real God.” No, he sort of… complains. He tells her what’s happened, especially the bit about all the prophets of Baal being killed.

And her blood starts to boil. Her eyes go all angry red. You can imagine steam coming out of her ears and nostrils.

Chapter 19 verse 2 says this:

So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah. Jezebel said, “By this time tomorrow I will kill you. I will kill you as you killed those prophets. If I don’t succeed, may the gods punish me terribly.”

Has she learned nothing? Her gods have just been shown to be fake. But she ignores all that. She acts like it never even happened. Do you ever do that? You know something’s wrong but you really want to do it… so you just try and forget how bad it is? That’s how dangerous sin is, and we need to pray and ask God to help us to not do it.

Now… up until this point Elijah’s been really brave. He’s faced loneliness and death and an angry Ahab. But now… its like his heart breaks… and he loses all his courage and bravery. And so he runs. He runs as fast as he can. He runs all the way out into the desert… lies down under a tree… and asks God to let him die. Wow.

This is so sad. Its not what you expect from Elijah.

God looks after him though. He doesn’t let him die. He sends an angel to give him some nice food and drink… angels are messengers of God… he lets Elijah sleep and then feeds him again. Then… instead of telling him to go back to Israel… he says… keep running. You’ve got a long trip ahead of you.

So Elijah travels 40 days and 40 nights… and he arrives at one of the most famous places in the whole Bible. Mt Sinai. It also gets called Mount Horeb… but most of the time its Mt Sinai. I know some people say sin-i-ai. Sorry if it hurts for me to say it differently. Leave a comment on the website and see if you can convince me to say it differently.

This is the mountain where God met his people when he saved them out of Egypt. Its where he gave them his law and told them how to live his way. This is where they heard God speak.

And now Elijah’s come to speak with God.

God says:

“Elijah! Why are you here?”

And Elijah basically says… its all gone wrong. I’ve tried to do things your way but still the Israelites don’t listen. These are his words in verse 10:

Elijah answered, “Lord, God of heaven’s armies, I have always served you the best I could. But the people of Israel have broken their agreement with you. They have destroyed your altars. They have killed your prophets with swords. I am the only prophet left. And now they are trying to kill me, too!”

God doesn’t answer straight away. Elijah’s in a cave, and God says, come out, I’m going to pass in front of you.

Before Elijah can get out though, God does huge, amazing things to show his power. This is what it says in verse 11:

Then a very strong wind blew. It caused the mountains to break apart. It broke apart large rocks in front of the Lord.

Whoa! That’s amazing! But then we read…

But the Lord was not in the wind.

Hmm. Ok.

After the wind, there was an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake, there was a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a quiet, gentle voice.

That’s a bit different, isn’t it. A MOUNTAIN BREAKING WIND… A MIGHTY EARTHQUAKE… A ROARING FIRE… AND THEN… a quiet, gentle voice.

Where did all the power go? Remember though… God’s word… his voice… is the strongest thing in the universe. When God made the world, he did it just by speaking. God stopped the rain just by speaking. He used his words to command ravens to feed Elijah. This is the most powerful thing yet, and its Elijah’s cue to come out.

Then we get exactly the same conversation as we heard before. In verse 13:

A voice says to Elijah, “Elijah! Why are you here?”

Elijah answered, “Lord, God of heaven’s armies, I have always served you the best I could. But the people of Israel have broken their agreement with you. They have destroyed your altars. They have killed your prophets with swords. I am the only prophet left. And now they are trying to kill me, too.”

Remember I asked at the beginning if you ever feel like there aren’t many followers of Jesus around?

Well think about poor Elijah. He feels like he’s the only one.

God comforts Elijah in two ways. And you see this all throughout the Bible. There’s the side of punishing people for their evil… and the side of saving people from their evil.

First the punishment side. God basically agrees with Elijah that the whole nation has broken their agreement with God. He’s faithful… they’re not. Even when they all yelled out, “The Lord, he is God”… they were just caught up in the moment. If you read on a few chapters you’ll see… they keep worshipping Baal.

And God’s given them so many chances. God rescued them from Egypt. He’s shown them so many signs and wonders. He’s saved them again and again and again but still they keep ignoring him. And finally God says enough is enough.

God tells Elijah to go and give three people new jobs. There’s one man who’s going to be a new king of a country next to Israel… Its called Syria. Another man is going to be made the new king of Israel. And another man… called Elisha is going to take over as the new prophet.

All these people… the new king of Damascus… the new king of Israel… and the new prophet, Elisha. God’s going to use them to punish his people Israel. They’re going to set off a chain of events. It’ll lead to Israel being kicked out of the land God gave them. He said what would happen if they kept doing ignoring him… and he’s always faithful to his promises.

But he’s also faithful in saving people.

Remember Elijah thought that everyone else was either dead or started worshipping Baal? Well that’s because he can only see a little bit of God’s work. All of us can. We only get to see the things going on around us. But God’s everywhere… and God’s always saving people… and he’s always rescuing them from sin. And that’s what he’s been doing in Israel.

In verse 18 … after God’s told Elijah about the judgement… he gives him this good news. God says:

But I have left 7,000 people living in Israel. Those 7,000 have never bowed down before Baal. Their mouths have never kissed his idol.”

Elijah thought there was basically no-one. But there were thousands. He thought that all of God’s plans had failed. But God is always faithful in keeping his plans. He never fails.

God’s still saving people all over the world. Even in places where they don’t like you following Jesus. Even in places where its against the law to become a follower of Jesus. Nothing stops God. And although we can’t see them all now… when Jesus comes again, we will. Right at the end of the Bible God gives us a glimpse into the future. How many followers of Jesus do you think will be there? 10,000? 20,000? Actually… its more than anyone can count. Let me read it to you. Its in Revelation, chapter 7:

Then I looked, and there was a great number of people. There were so many people that no one could count them. They were from every nation, tribe, people, and language of the earth. They were all standing before the throne and before the Lamb (that’s Jesus). They wore white robes and had palm branches in their hands. They were shouting in a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, Jesus.”

No matter how we feel… no matter what we can and can’t see… God is always faithfully doing his work of saving people.

Elijah had a bit of a wobble. Things were really tough and he kind of forgot to keep trusting God. God reminded him, though, that he’s faithful. Elijah can always trust God in the good times and the bad. And so can you.