Take your Bibles if you would. First Kings chapter 17. First Kings chapter 17. First Kings 17 We're just going to read verse one to start with. Again, first Kings 17 verse one.

And Elijah, the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said on Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel live it, before whom I stand, there shall not be a dew, not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. Let's go to the Lord in prayer once more. Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for your word. We pray that you would bless it today.

Pray Lord that you would use it, work mightily in our hearts, in the hearts of those that are here. That they might be brought closer to you, that we might be changed into your image, that if there be one here today that's never trusted in you as Lord and savior that today would be their day of salvation. Lord, we pray that you would challenge us today in your service and help us Lord to trust you more. In Jesus name, amen. So, Elijah, he is the subject of our sermons over the next few weeks and we're going to learn good bit about Elijah and particularly a lot about his ministry.

A lot of times, when you read about these different characters, the Bible tells you a good bit about them. You know who their parents are. You know what situation they came from. There's a good bill of good bit of biographical information. Here is the biographical information of Elijah right here.

Elijah the Tishbite who was of the inhabitants of Gilead. That's it. That's all the biographical information you get about Elijah is right there and those two phrases at the beginning of verse one and that's why I've titled the message this morning, Elijah, who? Who who is who is this Elijah? Elijah that we know very little about.

He essentially in the grand scheme of things in Israel in that day, Elijah was a nobody. That's who he was. He was a nobody. We're not given his heritage here. We don't know who his parents are.

We don't know what the trade or other things that he'd attempted as a child and places he went or people he knew. He just jumps on to the scene out of basically nowhere in our story. He is for all intents and purposes and nobody like a fisherman from Galilee or a carpenter from Nazareth. We're not sure where Tishby was. He is called a Tishbite.

If indeed there was a city named Tishby, we don't know where that city is. There's a lot of cities in Israel that they've dug up and they know exactly where all these different cities and towns were. They found many of them but they have never found a place called Tishby. So, we don't know where Tishby was. Probably just some little small village that was in existence for, you know, a few decades or a century or two and then just vanished.

That is the village where Elijah was from. He was from Gilead, it says here. Gilead is the area on the East Side. I always get my East and my West mixed up, okay? It is the area on the East Side Of The Jordan River where two and a half tribes of Israel settled.

After a time, it was no longer the people over there were no longer called usually in scripture by the name of the tribe that they were from but the area was just called Gilead and the people were called Gileadites and as time went along, the people of those two and a half tribes became less and less involved with the rest of Israel that was on the West Side Of The Jordan between the Jordan and the Mediterranean and so, therefore, they were considered more and more to be outsiders in Israel. They weren't quite Gentiles but they weren't quite Jews. They were they were Gileadites. They were kind of a lesser Jew because they were from the other side of the tracks or the other side of the river, okay? And so, being from Gilead is not high praise for Elijah.

He's from the other side of the tracks so to speak. The East Side Of The Jordan River and that's that's all we know about Elijah. The thing is, as we see in scripture, and as you may have noticed in your own life and experience, God usually uses nobody's. The people that God likes to use the most are the people that the world does not recognize. The people that the world does not acclaim.

Those are the people that God likes to use. First Corinthians one twenty seven and twenty nine, I I read out of the bulletin a moment ago. We'll read it again here. It says, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. That would be the worldly wise and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.

That no flesh should glory in his presence. You see, all the glory for what happens in this world that is good should always go back to who? It should go back to God. Well, why why is it that God should get all the credit for it? Well, here's the reason.

He created it all. He made it all. Therefore, anything we accomplish in the name of God for good is really goes back to who? Goes back to him because he made me. He created me.

As a Christian, he saved me. He gave me his holy spirit to help me. He gave me his word to guide me. All the glory should go back to the creator and savior of men and that is God. If when well known, acclaimed people in the world, garner great followings in the name of Christ.

Oftentimes, their head gets what? Bigger and bigger and bigger. As they gain popularity in the world and sadly, even if many of them start out on the right path, things kind of go awry sometimes near the end of their ministry because their head gets too big. Sadly, many of whom today are applauded by the world or applauded by such because they never were starting off on the right place to begin with. Their message isn't the message of the gospel.

It's similar but it's not the what? It's not the same. Paul warned about that in Galatians. He said, if if any other gospel is preached unto you, then that which I preach to you, let him that message be accursed. Why?

Because if it's not the same, it's not the same, okay? It may be close to the same, maybe sort of the same but if it's not the same, it's not the what? It's not the same and don't believe it and we see that the world, however, likes the other. We talk about that in Sunday school with the antichrist. The antichrist is a counterfeit Christ.

He is going to do many of the same signs and wonders that Christ did but he is a counterfeit and the world likes the counterfeits. They like the ones that pump them up. That's what Satan did in the Garden Of Eden. He said to you, Eve, he said, you will be as God's knowing good and evil. So, God usually doesn't use the acclaimed of this world.

He usually uses the nobodies. The world usually responds with respect and adoration to those who come from a prominent family. Prominent family. See, what would that be? Kennedy?

Rockefeller? The world responds with respect and admiration for those who come from well known places like, you know, New York or California. Or from a prestigious school like Harvard or Yale. But God most often uses those in his service which the world overlooks. Like a shepherd boy, from a little town in the Hills of Judea.

Named David. Or carpenter's son. From another one of those little villages in the Valley Of Galilee. Called Nazareth. Fishermen, from the world really didn't have any respect for.

Don't make the mistake of thinking God can't use you because you are ordinary in the eyes of the world. Because you are not ordinary in the eyes of who? God. Not if you are his child. You are anything but ordinary in the eyes of your redeemer.

You may be a nobody as far as the world is concerned but you are a somebody to Jesus and that was Elijah. A nobody who springs onto the scene here in first King 17. To whom did this nobody speak? In verse seventeen one, who did he speak to? And it said, Elijah said unto who?

Ahab. As the Lord God liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word. He spoke to Ahab. Now, there's nobody was speaking to one of the mightiest kings of his day, King Ahab, the king of Israel. After Solomon died, the kingdom of Israel split from the North North and the South.

This North often still called Israel, the South called Judah or in Jesus' day, Judea. Ahab was a king in the North. He was the king of the North. It was the larger area of the two and under Omri, his father, and Ahab, it became a very wealthy and seemingly successful kingdom for a time. Ahab was the king of Israel.

He is the husband of Jezebel. Jezebel, a Sidonian princess and Baal worshiper. Ahab was the most wicked of kings and he instituted the religion of his wife, Baal worship as the official religion in Northern Israel. This was the first time that a completely different God or idol had been declared the God of Northern Israel. Though the Israelites had gone into idolatry before, this was the first time as a nation they adopted a completely different God, the God Baal, the God of Jezebel, who was a Sidonian, a Canaanite, the Sidonians who lived North Of Israel trace their heritage back to the Canaanites and they worship Baal.

Where this is described for us in first Kings chapter 16. If you look in chapter 16 and look in verse 29, we see what God has to say about King Ahab and in the thirty and eighth year Asa, king of Judah, that's the southern area, began Ahab, the son of Omri to reign over Israel, the northern area, and Ahab, son of Omri, reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty two years and Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. He was the absolute what? Worst of all the kings before him. Having proclaimed Baal worship as the official religion.

Verse 31, 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 Ethbaal, king of Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. And 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. He was a wicked man. He was a man who had no heart for God, no interest in the things of God. And yet he was a very powerful king.

Now, does that happen in the world today? Oh, yes, it does. It's happened throughout history. But one day, everyone of these kings will answer to who? The king of kings and the Lord of lords, Jesus Christ.

We'll see today that this king who seemed to have all the power is no match for nobody named who? Elijah. No match for Elijah. He was the one who supposedly all the power but neither he nor his false god were any match for Elijah and his almighty God. There are those who are so called gods in this world.

But they are dead. They are not living. They are made of stone. They are animals. They are celestial beings.

They they are not living. There is only one true God. And that true God is the almighty God. And if you are on the side of almighty God, then you are on the side of eternal power. We see this not only in Elijah's life.

We see it in David's life. As he stood before who? As he stood before Goliath and he looked at Goliath and he pointed and says, today, my God is going to deliver you and your armies into our hands and I am going to take and smite thee and cut off thy head. This little pipsqueak in front of this big giant but that's exactly what happened because greater is he that's in us than he that's in the what? Than he that's in the world.

The same was true with Moses as he stood before Pharaoh. What was Moses as he stood before Pharaoh? Here's what Moses was, a slave. That's who he was in the eyes of Pharaoh. He was a slave.

He had no power. He had no authority. Yet, he stood toe to toe with Pharaoh and he could do it because he had the power of almighty God behind him and the gods of Egypt fell one by one by one plague after plague after plague as God proved and demonstrated in Egypt that there is only one God and Moses, his servant. Stood strong before the mightiest man of his day, Pharaoh. Gideon and his 300 men as they stood against the hundreds of thousands in Midianites army and won the battle.

David Livingston, as he trod the jungles of Africa to bring the message of good news to the people who live there. Hudson Taylor, as he invaded China, not with a sword, but with the sword of the what? With the sword of the spirit and the word of God. And did what even Christians said was impossible, as he brought the gospel and saw souls upon souls upon souls saved in the interior of China. I think of a group of 13 colonies of people who stood against the greatest empire and navy of the day, twice in fifty years and one.

The providence, I believe, of almighty God. For those people, for the most part came here, that they might be free to worship God. It is sad that so many of their descendants today have lost sight. Of that purpose. We see over and over again that greater is he that's in us than he that's in the world.

We need not fear. We need not be afraid when standing before the enemy because God has our back when we stand for him, when we serve him, when we speak his word, and we, nobodies, do not need to be afraid. Deuteronomy chapter 20 verse one. When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies and seized the horses and chariots and the people more than thou. Be not afraid of them.

For the Lord thy God is with thee which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. Joshua one nine says, have not I commanded thee be strong and of a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee. Whithersoever thou goest. Second Chronicles chapter 20 verse 15 and he said, hearken you all Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem and thou King Jehoshaphat, thus saith the Lord God, the Lord unto you, be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude for the battle is not yours but God's.

Yes, you are diminutive. Yes, the army that's coming to take you is many many times your size. But they're no match for who? They're no match for God. They're not fighting you.

They're fighting God and in that case, they're going to lose. Second Chronicles 32, and verse seven. Be strong and courageous. Be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria nor for all the multitude that is with him. For there be more with us than with him.

There be more with us than with him. Hezekiah's army in Judah was no match for Assyria's army. Not at all. But yet God said, there's more with us than with him. Why?

Because Hezekiah had the army of heaven on his side. And Assyria's army was no match. For that night, they all went to bed and when they got up the next morning, the 180, zero soldiers camped outside the Gate of Jerusalem were all dead. God took care of them. God said, you don't need to be afraid.

Acts 18 and verse nine, then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision. Be not afraid but speak and hold not thy peace. God came to another nobody in the eyes of the world a kind of diminutive Jewish man who the world wouldn't have looked up to his stature, his ability but God used him to plant church after church after church after church after church in Europe where the gospel was not for the most part welcome but yet God did it. How did he do it? Well, he used a nobody named Paul.

He's a somebody to us, isn't he? But to the world, he was a nobody and he said to Paul, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Hold not thy peace. Be bold.

Say whatever I tell you because I'm going to be with you. We are not told how Elijah came to have an audience with Ahab but God made it happen. And so this brazen young man confident in the power of his God did not cower in fear but spoke bluntly to Ahab that it would not rain again in Israel until Elijah said so. He stood before Ahab and he says, not going to rain in your country again until I say so. And he stood there and he told Ahab, he gave him the words of God.

This was a direct attack on Ahab's new God, Baal. Baal is the Sidonian God of rain and fertility. So, when egg so when Elijah stood before Ahab, he was standing before he was standing up to Ahab and to his God and he said, my God is greater than your God. It's not going to rain. And guess what?

It didn't rain. For three and a half years until who said so? Until Elijah said so. Who was speaking in the behalf of God? You see, the key being for whom Elijah spoke, whose words he spoke, Whom he served?

If you look again in verse one, and said unto Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel live it, before whom I stand, which means whom I serve. There shall not be dew nor rain these years according to my word. The key is, for whom Elijah spoke, the key is for whom Elijah served. He served the Lord, Jehovah, the living God of Israel. Ahab and Jezebel had essentially declared that the God of Israel was what?

Was dead. That's what they had declared. When they adopted Baal as the God of Israel, they essentially declared that the God who brought them out of Egypt, that the God who brought them into the land, that the God who had blessed them in the land was for all intents and purposes, powerless, and dead because Aho, Ahab, and Jezebel chose a different God. And they threw away the God of Israel. As many in our society have today.

I'm sad to say, we are long down the path of making the same mistake that Ahab and Jezebel did. There are people in our society who have brazenly said, God is dead. But God is not dead. God is very much alive. He is alive in heaven.

He is alive on earth. He is alive at hearts of his children. God is not dead and Ahab was about to find out. That God was very much still alive. If you are a born again believer in Christ, in God, then you are a somebody.

You are a child of God. For as many as received him to them, gave you power to become the sons of God, the children of God, even to them that believe on his name. If you are a born again believer in Christ, you are a joint heir with Christ. Romans eight seventeen, joint heir. That that kind of sounds like royalty.

That that sounds good, doesn't it? Romans eight seventeen and if children, then heirs, heirs of who? God. And joint heirs with Christ. Man, I don't deserve that.

Jesus Christ is the son and only begotten son of God. He he has a a kingdom that he will one day inherit and claim. But I'm a joint heir with him. Through Jesus, my savior, who died and rose again. I don't deserve that but boy, am I privileged and you are too who know Christ.

You are a somebody in the eyes of God. A joint heir with Christ. You are a witness, an ambassador for Christ. Acts one eight, but you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost have has come upon you and you shall be what? Witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

You are a witness for Christ. Christ went back to heaven and he says, as the father has sent me, so send I, you, and we are his representatives, we are his mouthpiece, we are his witnesses today as Elijah was in that day to give forth his word, to tell the world about our savior, to represent him as the ambassadors of heaven, of Jesus Christ to a lost world. In second Corinthians five twenty, it says, now then, we are the ambassadors of Jesus Christ. The ambassadors for Christ. That's who you are Christian.

You are an ambassador for Christ to this world. What a privilege. We are somebodies. When we represent the king of kings and Lord of lords in this world. We do matter.

We are somebody. When you speak the word of God, you are a person of power. Elijah had no power, no authority, nothing backing him up when he stood before Ahab. He was a nobody but yet he stood before him and he bluntly said to him, it's not going to rain again until I say so. How did he become a person of power?

Because the word of God is what? The word of God is powerful. Now, the words of Elijah, not powerful. Not if they're not backed up by the words of who? In the authority of God.

There are some in religious circles. They they use this word, this this phrase declare and decree. And they teach that your words are powerful. But your words are not. Unless they are repeating the words of who?

The words of God. You see, the word of God is powerful. My, I can't change you. I can't persuade you. I can't I can't change your eternity but I know someone who can and here's his word.

He knows something I can read it. I can preach it. I can teach it and guess what? When I am doing that, I am a person of power. Not only me but also who?

You. You. Hebrews four twelve. For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword. Piercing even the dividing asunder of soul and spirit of joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

The word of God is powerful. You think of a soldier with a sword or with a gun or with a tank or whatever. They're powerful. Nah, they're no match for the power that's in the word of God. It is more powerful because you see, God created this whole world out of nothing simply by the words of his wife.

Words of his mouth. By faith, we we believe, we know that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that which we see came from that which did not exist until God what? Spoke it into existence. Psalm nineteen seven says this, the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul Converting the soul. You know, you can go to a library bookstore and you can look at the self help books and each year, the aisle gets longer and the books get more numerous and why is it they have to keep writing and writing and writing and writing because they don't work.

They can't satisfy the human soul. They can't fill the void. They can't convert the soul. All they need on that shelf for the most part is this, maybe some books that help to teach this but that's all they need. Sad to say that so many people are putting their faith in those things and not in the thing that is truly powerful.

The word of God. God's word indeed is powerful and when you speak it, repeat it, teach it, share it, you are powerful too because God word carries with it the authority and transformative power of God himself and it will not return void. The prophet spoke it with authority like Elijah and with confidence in so doing, they changed the hearts of kings, the course of nations, and the plight of millions. Evangelists and preachers have taken up those same messages and spread them to all the world and brought great revivals, bringing salvation to the souls of millions. And still teachers and deacons and everyday Christians use those same words every day to deliver their children from destruction.

Their friends from hopelessness and despair. To spur on the next generation to do great things. In the name of the king of kings and Lord of lords. You possess that same book and those same words. And you can share them.

And you can change lives. You don't have to be a somebody in the eyes of the world to do that. You don't have to have a title other than Christian. And God will use his word to do things through you. Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

Elijah spoke with confidence as we can as well and the rain stopped because God stopped it. James reminds us in James five and encourage us to pray in faith. Believing that God is able to do mighty things in behalf of those who speak his word and trust in him to see it through. James five sixteen. And 17.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The word availeth means accomplishes much. Accomplishes much. Elias, who's Elias? Well, that is the Greek form of the name Elijah, okay?

So, James is referring back to Elijah And he says, here is an example. Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are. In other words, he was a frail human being, a nobody to the world in which he lived, like most of us are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. Elijah claimed the word of God. He claimed the power of God.

He put his trust in God and he stood before Ahab and he said, it's not raining again till I say so. And it didn't because he trusted in God. Sometimes we and I'm going stop right there. I have another section. We're just going have to wait till next week because it's five till twelve already.

But sometimes we get the idea, well, I don't have a title and I don't have a position and and nobody knows my name. Well, somebody knows your name. God in heaven knows your name. You are a somebody to him. He died for you.

He's redeemed you by his blood. You are a child of the king and you have the weapon of almighty God. You have the powerful tool in your possession. The Holy Spirit and the word of God and you can go from this place today and you using God's word as directed by his spirit can change lives. They say that the majority of people that get saved and start coming to church are not saved on visitation through canvassing, through knocking on doors, through programs, They are saved and brought to Christ and brought to church.

80 some percent of the time. By the people sitting in the pew, who share the word of God and their testimony with their neighbor, who share their God and their testimony with their coworker. That is how the kingdom of God for the most part grows. It doesn't take a preacher. You're welcome to bring em here so I can share God's word to em and I I try to reach out to them out there like you do.

But it's God's word. Whether it comes from my mouth or whether it comes from yours and it is powerful. And we need to thank the Lord for that. We need not be afraid and we need this week to find somebody to share God's message with. Whether it's the message of the gospel that they might be saved or whether it's a Christian who's floundering, who needs encouragement, We need to find somebody to share God's words with.

It is powerful. It can change their life. My final question this morning is, has it changed your life? It, if you have not received it by faith, if you have not trusted in Jesus as Lord and savior, then it has yet to change your life. But it can today.

It can today. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And so I invite you today, if you've never trusted Christ as savior. If you're unsure, you say, well, maybe I have. Don't walk out of this room with a maybe.

Walk out of this room with assurance from God that you are his child and that the word of God and the power of God and the son of God has changed your eternal destiny. Let's pray. Dear heavenly father, thank you Lord. For your word today, thank you for the example of Elijah, a nobody but a somebody to you. You chose him, you commissioned him, you gave him the words to speak, and those words are recorded for us along with many others, for us to share.

They change the lives of millions in their day and they can change the life of millions today. Lord, thank you for your word and I pray Lord that we would go forth to this place that we might study it more. Might memorize more. We might learn it more. We might only apply it to our lives but that we might share it with others and as it changes our life, it can change theirs too and we pray Lord if there's one in here that's never trusted Christ as saviors.

We give this hymn of invitation today. We pray that they would come and be saved. In Jesus name, amen.