Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
God uses ordinary people to do his extraordinary work. The common denominator between all of these ordinary people is their personal faith in God. They all are tempted equally; they all have the same basic needs, and they all want to be loved by fellow human beings. However, when the love of fellow human beings is not forthcoming, and the basic necessities of life are in short supply, faithful saints continue to walk in faith toward God. God never fails them, and he has never failed us. The faithful saint does make a lasting impact on their family and society. To be faithful is a choice. One thing God does not do is arbitrarily impute personal faith in people, even his people, Heb.11:6. He lets us decide if we want to believe on his Son and after that he lets us decide if we want to reciprocate our love back to him by walking in obedience to his Word. God gives to you and me the Bible which records his person and his works and his purposes, but we are the ones who have to put faith in the Bible. If one person demonstrates faith and trust in the Lord more than others it is often replied, “I wish I had her faith or his faith, but I don’t.”
However, the truth is we all can demonstrate great faith all of our lives if we choose. Learning the word of God will help convince our personal faith to grow and trust God even more, but obeying the word must still be forthcoming to confirm our faith. Rom.10:17 “So, then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” And James 2:14-20 rightly says our faith without godly works is a dead faith. Works follow faith.
We have another example of the historical impact which a solitary believer of faith demonstrated. It is the story of Elijah the Tishbite as found in I Kings 17-18.
I Kings 17:1-7 sets the narrative for this historical event. The Old Testament prophet of God, Elijah, told wicked King Ahab who[reigned from 874-853 B.C.] that no rain would fall for what would be three and one half years as we see in James 5:17. God was judging Israel for serving the false god Baal, I Kings 18:18. It is said in I Kings 16:29-33 that Ahab was a wicked king who did more to provoke the Lord than any king before him.
Baal was imagined to be the son of El, the father of the gods. Baal is the Canaanite word for lord, or master. They called on their god Baal for blessings of all sorts, especially for rain and the subsequent fruits of the earth.
For this transgression committed by God’s people, Israel, God sent his divine induced judgment which brought thirst and famine. During this drought God provided sustenance for Elijah, first at the brook Cherith 17:2-7, and then at the widow woman’s house in Zarephath, 17:8-24.
According to I Kings 18:1, after three years of hiding out, the word of the Lord came to Elijah telling him that the drought would soon be over.
When the thirst and hunger from the drought first set in Ahab and his wife Jezebel, determined to have Elijah killed. Jezebel had the prophets of God slain when the drought began, and had it not been for Ahab’s personal assistant, Obadiah, all of them would have been killed. God had another man of faith at his disposal.
This Obadiah, who is obviously not the prophet of the fifth century B.C., is not spoken of very much, but this man feared God more than he did King Ahab and Jezebel.
Obadiah secretly hid one hundred of the Lord’s prophets in caves. He took them food and water during the three years of drought.
Obadiah told Elijah that King Ahab and Jezebel wanted Elijah dead. After all, it must have been the messenger of the Lord who was at fault for bringing such suffering to them. Silencing the messenger of unwanted news is not a new slogan, and it is never the solution; repentance was the solution.
In the process of time Elijah and Obadiah found each other and Elijah agreed to meet with Ahab to let him know the drought was coming to an end. As seen in I Kings 18:17 Ahab blamed Elijah for their suffering and Elijah emphatically said no. It is your fault you are suffering, v.18. You have worshipped a false god and have abandoned Jehovah’s commandments. God doesn’t take kindly to being replaced by the people’s gods. Diversity among people in a nation is fine, but not diversity when it comes to worshipping the one and only true God, Jehovah. God will have no other gods before Him and he still means that.
From I Kings 18:20-40 we have the narrative concerning the false prophets of Baal. They eventually were slain and the nation was purged of its false prophets and its licentious idolatry. God cursed the land with no rain which had brought about drought and hunger and economic ruin.
The people repented and slew the prophets of Baal, 18:39-40.
According to I Kings 18:41-46 Elijah prayed for rain to come, and it did come and it brought blessing to the parched land, James 5:18, “And he [Elijah] prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.”
Hallelujah, the drought and famine were over. Israel in spite of herself was again being blessed. This is an example of national blessing, historical blessings through one righteous man, Elijah. Just as Joseph, Elijah was used as an instrument of blessing to his nation. As James 5:16 says the “...effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
It doesn’t take the prayers of a large company of people to save a nation. The present middle participle, effectual, coming from the Greek text as, energoumene from energeo means to be operative. The operative functional fervent prayer, deesis, a supplication; the supplications of a righteous man availeth much.
The word for righteous is dikaiou, the genitive masculine singular of dikaios. The genitive case is the case of description. What kind of man was Elijah, or as the case in our James passage, the pastor of a reversionistic believer who was near the sinning unto death. Elijah was a spiritually mature believer who continually offered up righteous acceptable prayers to God. He functioned under virtue love for Israel. You see, one soul can have great impact if that soul lives a righteous life. God does not need a quantity of people to do his will to get the job done, but he will use a quality people or in some cases a quality person. His prayers “availeth much”. The Greek verb, availeth much, is ischuei, a present active indicative verb meaning, to have force. The operative supplications of a righteous man keep on having much force.
Will you allow God to teach you and use you according to his word in our wayward generation? Will you stand faithful to God when opposition comes upon you? Will you remain faithful to the Bible and to your local church when you are tempted to compromise what is right and responsible on your part? Will you forsake what is best for your eternal future simply to advance your present personal wants?
Men and women of faith do not forsake the glory and repercussions of their eternal destiny to simply satisfy some present personal wants. Bible doctrine teaches responsibility and spiritual maturity demonstrates that teaching.