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[0:00] Take your Bibles, go with me to the book of 1 Kings, 1 Kings 18, 1 Kings 18 is where we will be at, 1 Kings 18 verses 1 through 16.

[0:13] So we'll kind of stop at about halfway through the account, as we get into it you'll know why. The 18th chapter contains one of the most memorable events in the historical writings of the Old Testament, some that you'll be familiar with for sure when we get to it, but we're going to stop just short of that, because that account starts in the 17th verse.

[0:36] But we're, 1 Kings 18 verses 1 through 16 will be our text this evening, and as we just continue to make our way through Scripture.

[0:48] You know, as I'm doing this, there's only one other pastor that I know that preached Genesis and Revelations all the way through.

[0:59] I know there are more that's done it, there's only one that I know of, let's put it that way. That would be W.A. Criswell. W.A. did it every, when he was at First Baptist Dallas, he did it every service.

[1:13] So Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday was just a continuation, just a continuation. It took him 13 years, three services a week, 13 years to go Genesis to Revelation.

[1:24] And his counsel to pastors after that was, don't ever do that. He said it was rewarding, it was encouraging, it was enriching, but you get through some months that is kind of trying.

[1:38] You know, you can get through some. So, after that, he did a balance where he started Sunday mornings different, which I've never done it consecutively. Of course, we do it on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights, but I tried to keep Sunday mornings different from my own sanity and yours as well.

[1:53] So, it'll take us longer than 13 years, but it's still a joy to be together. I thought, man, he was really preaching it to get it in 13 years. If you think about it, that's pretty quick. We are our eighth year into it, and we're just in 1 Kings, so there you go.

[2:08] All right, well, let's open up with a word of prayer, and then we'll get into our text. Lord, thank you so much for this day. Thank you, God, for just the opportunity we have of gathering together.

[2:19] We thank you for the grand privilege it is. We thank you for the word of God as we get to study it with one another, and we thank you for brothers and sisters in Christ. We thank you for the encouragement that fellowship brings to us, the encouragement to walk faithfully in the days ahead.

[2:34] And we pray for those who are working with the children and the youth in the back, and we ask that you be glorified and honored among them. May Christ be exalted, Lord, as they learn the truth of Scripture.

[2:47] Lord, be with us. Help our eyes to be open and our mind to be able to understand the truths that we see, and then to take the truths and put them into application in our daily living for your glory.

[3:00] And we ask it all in Christ's name. Amen. 1 Kings chapter 18, starting in verse 1. Now it happened after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the face of the earth.

[3:19] So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. Ahab called Obadiah, who was over the household. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly.

[3:30] For when Jezebel destroyed the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave and provided them with bread and water. Then Ahab said to Obadiah, Go through the land, to all the springs of water, and to all the valleys.

[3:44] Perhaps we will find grass and keep the horses and mules alive and not have to kill some of the cattle. So they divided the land between them to survey it. Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself.

[3:57] Now as Obadiah was on the way, behold, Elijah met him. And he recognized him and fell on his face and said, Is this you, Elijah, my master? He said to him, It is I.

[4:09] Go say to your master, Behold, Elijah is here. He said, What sin have I committed that you are giving your servant into the hand of Ahab to put me to death? As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my master has not sent to search for you.

[4:24] And when they said, He is not here, he made the kingdom or nation swear that they could not find you. And now you are saying, Go say to your master, Behold, Elijah is here. It will come about when I leave you that the Spirit of the Lord will carry you where I do not know.

[4:38] So when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me. Although I, your servant, have feared the Lord from my youth. Has it not been told to my master what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord?

[4:50] That I hid a hundred prophets of the Lord by fifties in a cave and provided them with bread and water. And now you are saying, Go say to your master, Behold, Elijah is here. He will then kill me.

[5:02] Elijah said, As the Lord of hosts lives before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him.

[5:13] And Ahab went to meet Elijah. 1 Kings 18 verses 1 through 16. You know this is the opening scene of the showdown on Mount Carmel where Elijah will, and just very quickly after this, tell Ahab to go call the false prophets of Baal and those false priests who worship around the Asherah.

[5:35] And they call everybody up on the mountain and the true God reveals himself. But before we can get there, we have to get to this place. This place of bold obedience.

[5:46] So I want you to see this evening some foundations for bold obedience. Because if we put ourselves in context for just a moment, Elijah has been the mouthpiece of the Lord to the wicked king Ahab and has declared to him in a direct attack upon the false god of Baal, who was seen as the fertility god.

[6:07] And therefore being the fertility god, he would have been the god who brought rain into growth and the maturation of plants so that animals could eat and be healthy and all of these things. And as really an attack and the revelation that Baal does not control the weather, but rather the Lord God above does, Elijah is the mouthpiece.

[6:26] He says, surely there will be no rain until my word. And then he leaves. Three and a half years, it tells us in the book of James. He has gone. The famine is very severe. The times are very tragic.

[6:37] We know from our text that Ahab has searched extensively for Elijah and had kings and kingdoms promise that they could not find him. So if there was a wanted man in Samaria, it's Elijah.

[6:50] He's not necessarily wanted for the good. Ahab does more wickedly than any king who had went before him. You know the story. We've said it over and over again. Where other kings tried to bring other gods beside the Lord God, Ahab sought to replace the worship of the Lord God.

[7:06] He sought to replace it completely with a false worship. And in due respect, as we'll see just a minute, it was because of Jezebel, his wife, who is used extensively through the rest of scripture for immorality, idolatry, wickedness.

[7:19] We see all the way that name being played out, even all the way into the book of Revelations. From here on, we see this reality. But Elijah is a most wanted man. And yet here we are told that God tells Elijah to go show himself to Ahab.

[7:34] And it's astounding, really, because Elijah just gets up and he goes and he presents himself. He finds Obadiah. Obadiah goes and gets Ahab. And Ahab comes and there's Elijah waiting for Ahab.

[7:46] That's bold obedience. It was one thing for Elijah to go before a wicked king and make the declaration that it would not rain until he said so and then disappear.

[7:59] It's another thing to go to the widow's house, which was in enemy territory. And there live out a testimony that not only is God in control of rain, but Baal is not held captive by the God, lowercase g, of death, because God is also over death because her son dies and God raises him back.

[8:19] We've seen this reality that Elijah lives among really close to the hometown of Jezebel, where wickedness really came from. It's one thing to do all of those things.

[8:32] It's a whole other thing to go back to the one that you have upset so much, to willingly present yourself before the one that you know has been seeking for you and searching for you and looking for you and has a desire probably at this time to kill you.

[8:46] If he wants to replace worship now, surely he wants nothing to do with Elijah because great detriment has come upon the land. The Bible tells us the famine was severe. During this time, they're trying their best to spare the horses and the mules.

[9:01] That's the modern-day equivalent of tanks, right? They want to make sure their army is still well-fitted because everything else is passing by. And yet, Elijah gets up and goes to Ahab.

[9:14] To me, that's bold. There's no question. There's no doubting. There's no wonder. So how do we get to that point? What foundations are there? Because we don't even see this bold obedience in Elijah. We also see it in Obadiah, who is another case study.

[9:27] We'll kind of spend some time there. I want you to see really just four essential foundations to bold obedience, what it looks like to live it out according to this account, but then it also has application in our own life because we want to be those people that when the Lord God says, then we do.

[9:46] We want to be those people not just of obedience, but bold obedience, those who are willing to faithfully stand and commit to whatever the Lord God asks us to do. The first thing we see is that bold obedience is a natural outcome of conviction.

[10:00] We've said this over and over again, but we cannot depart from it when we study Scripture. The reality is that obedience follows conviction. And we see here the Word of God tells us now it happened after many days, three and a half years, that the Word of the Lord came to Elijah.

[10:15] So here's the conviction. Elijah has been living three and a half years now, apart from the place that God had called him into a ministry assignment publicly, but he's been living out of private ministry assignment. God's faithfulness has been on display as the oil has not run out, the flour has not run dry, the widow's son has been resuscitated and brought back to life.

[10:33] Elijah has seen God moving. God has kept his Word. He fed him at the brook Tenereth with the ravens, and he drank water out of that brook, and then God provided for him with the widow.

[10:44] God has been faithful. But what we find out now, because Elijah is not only declaring the message of the Lord God, he's also living out the message. He is the first prophet in what we call wondrous signs of prophecy.

[10:59] There have been prophets who went before them, but none of it gets such wondrous signs and testimony. Now, you remember, the reason is, is because it is rapidly coming upon the time when the Assyrians will come in and lead the northern kingdom into exile.

[11:13] So judgment is approaching. God, in his grace, and in his mercy, and in his wondrous love for mankind, gives the greatest signs and testimonies right before the preceding judgment.

[11:24] He's longing for man to repent, not with a longing that, oh, I'm sitting on the edge of his seat. He is doing it as an extension of his grace and mercy, and all of his omnipotence and omniscience, fully understanding that man will not repent, but therefore God is without excuse.

[11:42] Man is without argument with the judgment that will come upon them surely. But yet Elijah now is told, it says, the word of the Lord came to him. There's the conviction that whatever the word of God declares, we must do.

[11:58] There's no question. There's no doubting. There's no, God, did I hear you correctly here? I don't know if you realize how much Ahab doesn't like me at the present moment, how much I've stood before him and said this.

[12:09] I don't know if you realize that Ahab is an enemy of yours. But yet we understand that the word of the Lord came to Elijah and declared to him, go and present yourself to Ahab and I will bring rain.

[12:23] So what God is about to do is really dependent upon the obedience of Elijah. God is going to bring rain, but Elijah must first present himself before Ahab and stand alone on that mountaintop, if you will, when all the false priests and all the prophets are there.

[12:41] And he's calling for the people to make a decision. The bold encounter that happens on the mountaintop where Elijah alone stands as the mouthpiece of God must first be wrestled out in the widow's home as God is declaring to him what he is about to do.

[12:56] You never get on the mountaintop and stand alone as the sole witness of the faithfulness of God to his people if while you're in the home of the widow, you don't have the settled conviction that if this is what God wants me to do, I'm going to do it.

[13:10] So we see that obedience, bold obedience starts first with conviction. God declared, so Elijah did.

[13:24] Sounds simple enough. But the reality is, is that is the one thing that seems to be so missing in our lack of obedience in our world today.

[13:36] is this settled conviction that if this is what the word of God declares, then this is what I must do. I would dare say we spend more time trying to decipher what God has already clearly said so that we can get our way out of obedience than we do saying, well, if that's what he said, then this must be what I do.

[13:58] People come quite often and ask for interpretations of scripture. And I believe that the most likely interpretation of any scripture is what you would call the easiest interpretation of scripture.

[14:10] Whatever it clearly says is what God clearly means. We can go back and forth in that and say, well, in that setting, in that time, in context, I understand that. And we want to take things in our historical context.

[14:22] And I've seen it twisted every which and way. And if you're not careful, we can contextualize and really twist anything, twist our way out of any clear word of God.

[14:34] And we can kind of make sure that we see it in such a way that surely that's not what God meant. We also see the conviction of the other individual who's involved in this. This is Obadiah.

[14:45] Obadiah tells us, fear the Lord greatly. Another way would be a fear is not to have a trembling being scared of. It is to have a holy reverence for. Now, this is important because his conviction was, is there was but one Lord.

[15:01] The name Obadiah means servant of Jehovah. He is not the prophet, minor prophet Obadiah with the same name, but his name literally means servant of Jehovah.

[15:12] So the settled conviction of this man, Obadiah, was that God was his Lord and he was his servant. So much so that when Jezebel decided to kill the priest, Obadiah took a hundred of them and hid them in two separate caves, 50 in each cave.

[15:31] We don't know historically when that happened. As a matter of fact, this is the first mentioning of it in scripture. But we do know the reality that it did happen. And we know this humble servant who is in the background, we don't know anything else about him, other than the fact that he hid a hundred priests, he fed them bread and water.

[15:47] And he was the man who found Elijah. That's all we know about Obadiah. But we do know that he had the conviction that he feared the Lord. Now don't leave him because we'll get to this in just a minute.

[15:59] He isn't a very instrumental place. But again, without that conviction, he would not have taken the action. He would not have taken the steps. And he would not probably have responded to what Elijah had declared to him because Elijah's promise is based upon the reality of the Lord God.

[16:20] So therefore, the conviction of God's faithfulness, the conviction of God's position, led Obadiah in his actions, but also led him in going to Ahab and saying, Hey, I have found Elijah.

[16:30] So the first foundation for bold obedience is convictions. What are your convictions? What are your convictions? Because your life will always be dictated by those convictions.

[16:47] These things we know. Number two, it is concern. Bold obedience is built upon the foundation of concern.

[16:58] This is where we get to Obadiah hiding the 100 priests. It says that when Jezebel decided to kill all the priests, stay this course with me too.

[17:12] That's another line we need to trace. When we get to the historical writings, quite often we need to trace every individual that's being introduced to us in that passage of scripture, because they all play a part and a role in what God is doing, which is a good way of saying that when we're studying scripture, we don't just meet people haphazardly.

[17:27] God puts them and brings them to mind and highlights them on purpose. Obadiah here is, it tells us, over the household. We'll get to that position in just a minute.

[17:39] But he's at a place that he knows what Jezebel is doing. And since he knows what Jezebel is doing, he decides to take action. Based upon the conviction that he fears the Lord, so based upon the fear and reverence and holy awe of God himself, he decides that conviction leads him to have a concern.

[17:58] And that concern moves far beyond self. Put yourself in Obadiah's position. Obadiah's name means servant of Jehovah, right? Obadiah is in a pretty comfortable political position.

[18:10] Again, we'll spend more time on it in just a second. And all of a sudden, he hears that the queen is ordering the killing and the execution of every priest of the Lord God. It would have been really, really, really easy.

[18:22] And we don't like to say this, but if we're just going to be honest with ourself for just a moment, it would have been really easy to have a personal faith at that moment, right? I'm going to take care of me. It would have been really easy to say, well, I believe in the Lord God, and I believe that there's a better hope and all those things, and I'm just going to kind of make sure that I don't lose my faith.

[18:41] But he didn't do that because he took that conviction and he displayed a concern. Therefore, he took action. He was concerned about the priest. He was concerned about the individuals.

[18:52] He was concerned enough that he took 100 of them and hit them in two caves, and then concerned enough that he alone provided for them. He bore concern for not only himself.

[19:02] As a matter of fact, it was a very selfless act, but rather his concern for others led him to do things nobody else did. His concern for the sake of their lives led him to take a bold step of obedience and do something that was very radical at that moment.

[19:22] He really not only just rebelled against the command of the queen while living in the same palace, he took the matter in his own hands and took people literally out of her grip and preserved their lives.

[19:37] We've said this. God always has his people, right? God always has his man and woman in place. And he has these people that have enough concern to take actions.

[19:49] His concern could not be kept to himself. His concern led to the preservation of these individuals. Again, we don't know who these individuals are, but we do know that they lived simply because of the concern of Obadiah, that Obadiah's concern led him to take bold steps, that Obadiah's concern led him to take, really, instrumental steps in their life and the preservation of their life.

[20:11] As far as believers go today, we ought to have a growing and greater concern for those around us, not only the saints that are near us, but the people who are suffering and the people who are lost and the people who are falling away.

[20:23] It ought to be a greater and greater concern because, mark my word, we will only step out in obedience on the things that we are concerned about.

[20:36] If it doesn't concern us very much, we'll never do anything about it. So we ought to pray that God would give us a greater concern. God give me a burden, that's what we call it, for the sake of others.

[20:52] We often wonder how people throughout the ages, and you read church history, how people could go to such great lengths, how they could give up everything, how they could walk away from things, how they could just leave it all behind.

[21:05] One of the great testimonies throughout church history is the heir to the Borden, B-O-R-D-E-N, you know, the Borden cheese, the Borden dairy operation, how he left it all behind.

[21:15] When he graduated from college, he was set to inherit millions and millions and millions of dollars because his family, even at that time, was very, very wealthy. He went on an international overseas mission, not mission trip, really just a voyage funded by his parents.

[21:29] And by the time he got back to America, he gave up all of his inheritance and gave himself to the mission field where he eventually died. Why? Because while traveling around the world, his concern grew for the sake of others, greater than the concern of self, so that he may preserve his, quote, unquote, lasting legacy.

[21:44] The family continued on. He went and gave himself for the sake of others. It was a concern that was fostered in his heart and in his mind that caused him to do something different. Each and every case when we read throughout church history and even church history, very distant past and even church history today, it is a concern for others.

[22:05] There's an article in the latest Voice of the Martyrs magazine of individuals that had to flee their home because there was two sisters. Both of them saw their husbands die in fighting. Both of them lost things tragically.

[22:17] And you know what their greatest concern is? Is they want to go back to the very place that the militants killed their husbands. They want to go back and they're asking the church in their town of refuge where they have now been for a number of years and they're there.

[22:31] They're asking the pastor, how can you get us back into that land so that we can preach the gospel? Why? It is because of concern. See, concern leads to bold obedience and if we're not concerned about it, we won't do anything with it.

[22:47] That's just the simple reality. Well, it doesn't concern me. Well, in all of eternity, it should. And this is a prayer that your pastor prays. This is a prayer that each of us ought to pray.

[22:59] God, give us a greater concern. Number three. You have conviction, concern. Number three. Let's look at Ahab for just a minute. Bold obedience only takes place with consistency.

[23:12] We're not looking at Ahab as a model of consistency. We're looking at Ahab and kind of scratching our heads and wondering why there was no consistency. Ahab, very clearly, according to scripture, did more wickedness than any other king who went before him.

[23:24] We would say that Ahab introduces more wickedness than many kings after him. he is kind of the tip of the spear of the bad that is going to really go on in the northern kingdom. But what we do know is verse three tells us Ahab called Obadiah who was over the household.

[23:41] Obadiah's name testified to his faith, yet Ahab allowed Obadiah to remain in a very prominent political position. So we kind of scratch our heads and go, wow, that's...

[23:53] If Ahab was so set on replacing the worship of the Lord God, then why would he... Because names matter in scripture. Okay, they had meaning.

[24:05] Have you ever looked up the meaning of your name? It's kind of hard to find the meaning of Billy Joe because that's two names you have to look up to. But last names, surnames usually have meanings depending on where you come from. I've looked up Calvert's name literally means tender of calves.

[24:19] So we keep cows. That's real... That's what they started calling them in England because they kept cows. I said, well, that's not real higher uppity up, but whatever. It has to be, right? And at that time, they were seen as servants and they kept the calves so they were called Calvert.

[24:33] But names mattered. Surnames began to matter when they were first put on people's names so that they could identify who they were from. Even in scripture, when we get to the naming of the apostles, they matter, right?

[24:45] Who they are, who they belong to, it matters, where you're from. The name Obadiah carries weight because it signifies a relationship with the Lord God. And yet Ahab allows him, Obadiah, to remain to be head of the household.

[24:58] That means he's pretty high up in the political system. And it is him that Ahab calls to go out with him as they go throughout the land looking for water and pasture land.

[25:10] It's astounding because Ahab probably wasn't a very popular king at this time. I mean, when you're the king in a land that is stricken by famine and people are starving to death, you usually want to stay holed up in your palace.

[25:25] You don't want to go out among the people. But yet Ahab freely goes out among the land looking for pasture land and water. Some Bible scholars will tell you, and I think there are a little bit, there seems to be at least an appearance of some good with Ahab.

[25:40] but it's when he's removed from Jezebel because our consistency is completely dependent upon the people we put around us.

[25:53] It seems like that choice of Jezebel, which was the introduction of the worship of Baal, was very detrimental to the faithfulness of Ahab.

[26:04] Now, that door was cracked open all the way back with Solomon. But yet what we see here is consistency is completely dependent upon the crowd of people we keep around us.

[26:21] I'm not saying that we don't ever interact with people who are not like us or don't think like us or who shouldn't want like us. I believe we ought to do that. That's why we're here, right? We are put on earth to be Christ's ambassadors to those who don't know him.

[26:34] But the consistent practice of fellowship, and this is why in the book of Hebrews it tells us to forsake not the assembling together of one another. It is not so that the church building will be full. It's so that we will be encouraged and we will be renewed and we will be challenged and we will continue to walk that consistent life.

[26:50] It ought to be the testimony of David in Psalm 101. By the way, I believe, I love the fact that it's Psalm 101 because 101 just means like a basic class, right? So if you're in college, collegiate classes, the 101 classes are the basic classes.

[27:02] At least that's the best way I understand them. So I love the fact that it's Psalm 101 because it's faithfulness and basic beliefs. And I love how David says here that he would have no worthless individuals stay in his company, that he would have nobody around him that was putting other people down and nobody that was talking to him, no backbiter, no slanderer.

[27:18] He would remove them from his house, that he would walk in faithfulness and righteousness and he would make sure that nobody around him in his household was not walking in that way. Very basic.

[27:28] What David said is the people near and dear to me are going to be those who encourage me in righteousness rather than discouraging me by their common everyday practice. And how often we forget to do that because the reality is is consistency is built upon the character of the individuals, not just that single individual, but upon the character of the individuals that that person surrounds him or herself with.

[27:55] Simple way of saying, I think scripture says, what fellowship has light with darkness? It really matters. Who we are around matters. That's a hard principle to get into your kids' lives and the reason it's a hard principle to get into your kids' lives is because it's a hard principle to get into your own life.

[28:13] If we're just going to be just bone level honest. Consistency is dependent upon that but we will never have bold obedience without consistency.

[28:24] Rather, we will be like Ahab who may have this flash of goodness about ourselves be at the rest and the true testimony is that we do more wicked than anybody else. That was the detriment of Ahab and that is the failure that seems to be the testimony of so many is that they are greatly influenced.

[28:41] I know people say, well I'm just there because I want to be a good light. Yes, but again, we need to shine our light in the darkness but that does not mean we ought to fellowship with the darkness. Sure, you shine that light but that does not mean you surround yourself with it because I have seen it over and over and over again where those who try to make the greatest influence seem to be influenced the most and the failure seems to come so quickly because it was an inconsistency.

[29:15] Boldness is built upon consistency. consistency. So you have conviction, concern, consistency. Here's your last one.

[29:27] It's confidence. We will not take bold steps of obedience without confidence. Now I don't mean self-confidence. Okay? Some people say, oh, well pastor, you're a very confident individual.

[29:41] Well, not really. We ought to have some self-confidence. That is, we ought to know who we are in Christ. Christ never called us to be a doormat for other individuals.

[29:52] Christ never, but he did call us to humble ourselves and submit ourselves to one another. He did call us to serve one another, to love one another, to pray for one another, to be concerned about one another. But we ought to know who we are in Christ, right?

[30:03] We ought to know our worth. We ought to be confident in that position that we call out Abba Father through the spirit of adoption. We shouldn't wrestle with our place.

[30:14] I love 1 John. I love the book of 1 John. I love it over and over again. I've preached to it a couple of times. I've preached to it once here. I've preached to it in other places. Most of the time when a new believer comes to Christ, the very first place I tell him to read is 1 John.

[30:28] And the reason is because John writes so that you may know. He says, these have been written so that you may know who you are in Christ. I think the first thing that we need to understand as a believer and as an individual is we ought to have the confidence of who we are in Christ.

[30:42] Because without that confidence, the enemy of our soul will create such doubt within us that we'll be useless for the sake of the kingdom. But that's not the confidence we're talking about here. Obadiah feared the Lord.

[30:53] He served the Lord. Elijah appears and yet Obadiah is like, I don't want to go tell him. I don't want to go tell Ahab because I also know who you are, Elijah, and I know how the Lord works. He can call you away.

[31:05] And we miss it in our original language, but Elijah is standing because we're still looking at this reality that he is about to present himself on Mount Carmel. He's going to stand before Ahab, Jezebel, and all the prophets.

[31:19] It's a really cool episode, right? Even the ending of the episode is better. He's up on the mountaintop praying that it would rain and then all of a sudden he girds up his loins and he outruns horses and chariots back to the city.

[31:30] It's pretty astounding that man was running. It's a pretty astounding thing, but what does that? Because we know at the end he does what just about every one of us does. After that spiritual high, he goes on an emotional rollercoaster and he hits a very low.

[31:42] I've been there. We're doing it. It happens to every one of us. But yet what leads up to that is the very thing that he is hoping to embolden Obadiah with. To give Obadiah the boldness to go stand before Ahab and say, hey, I found Elijah.

[31:58] And it is resting your confidence not on Elijah, not resting your confidence upon Obadiah, not resting your confidence that Ahab will have a good moment and he won't kill you if I'm not here, but it's resting your confidence upon the person of who God is.

[32:13] He gives us a name of God in this passage. And again, names matter. I don't know if you've noticed it, but Elijah always testifies to the reality of the Lord he stands before.

[32:30] Elisha would do the same thing. As surely and truly as I stand before this individual. And he gives us a name. And the name is recorded for us in verse 15.

[32:43] Elijah said, as the Lord of hosts lives before whom I stand. There it is. Lord of hosts. Jehovah Saba. As the Lord of hosts lives before whom I stand, I will be here.

[33:01] And it is meeting God for who he is, where he is, when you need him. The Lord of hosts, the name literally means when using, when the word host being used with the name of God means the commander of heaven's armies.

[33:24] He is the ruler and the authority and the commander of the heavenly armies. As surely as he is alive and before him I stand, these things will happen.

[33:39] See, confidence is found in the reality that the God he is serving is over an army greater than he will ever face on this earth. Confidence is found in the reality that it may be the commander of world forces who oppose him, but it is the Lord of heavenly armies who is with him.

[33:58] It is found in the reality of who God is, not who the enemy may be. Confidence is never found in self. Confidence is never found like truly found in self.

[34:09] Confidence cannot be found in the hopes and the promises of this world, but rather confidence is found here in the reality of who God is and whom he has trusted and whom he has been sent from and whose command he is following and all of those convictions and those concerns and that consistency, the reality is is he knew who the God he served was and he was the Lord of hosts.

[34:33] Worldly forces may oppose him, grand armies may come against him, but it was the God of heaven's armies that had sent him and he stood on the confidence of God's names and God's position rather than the enemy's strength and he let that name, he let that individual, he let that reality be the one thing that emboldened not only him, but ultimately it emboldens Obadiah so that Obadiah goes and tells Ahab and Ahab comes and sure enough, there's Elijah.

[35:07] Ahab and Elijah meet three and a half years into a famine all because of bold obedience. Elijah got up and walked out of a home that was providing for him.

[35:21] Obadiah turns around and goes back to tell Ahab something that no other commander could do. I have found Elijah. Both of them were bold in their obedience, but it was simply because they were confident in who God was.

[35:38] Confident. We need to have confidence in God that surpasses our fear and doubts of self and others.

[35:50] And in Christ we have that. In Christ we do. See, we have greater. Elijah was a man with a spirit in a like manner like us, it tells us in James. But we have something Elijah doesn't have, didn't have.

[36:04] He depended upon the word of God speaking to him. We have the word of God living in us, making his abode within us. The Bible tells us we have the mind of Christ.

[36:20] Through that relationship with Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we have a greater foundation to build upon so that bold obedience may be the everyday common practice of our lives.

[36:31] But unfortunately, most of the time it's not. And these are the truths that we see in 1 Kings 18 verses 1 through 16. Thank you, my brothers.

[36:42]  Thank you, my brothers.