Prayer Works Morning Devotion: July 18, 2025

In The Presence Of God/The Lord

"1 Kings 18:30-39 - Moses And Aaron Interceding For The Israelites After Elijah Called Down Fire From Heaven"

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Good morning, everyone. Blessed morning to you. A peaceful morning to you. Happy Friday, it is indeed. Let's go to the Lord and prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you once again for this morning. We thank you once again for the opportunity to meditate on your word.  

We thank you for this fellowship of faith. We thank you for this Kingdom family that you have blessed us with Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Father as we go into your word, I pray Heavenly Father, that you will speak me. 

And allow me the great privilege to be your witness and bear your truth that you will put in my lips and in my heart. I give you praise, honor and glory, almighty Father. And it's in Jesus name, I pray, Amen.  

Family we have been looking at scriptures that talk about what happens in the presence of God. And this morning I'm going to be focusing on 1 King 18:30-39, but I'm going to actually start at verse 17 to provide a little bit more background.  

So starting at verse 17, 1 Kings 18 starting at verse 17. Then it happened when Ahab saw Elijah that Ahab said to him is that you old troubler of Israel and he answered, I have not troubled Israel but you and your father's house have, and that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and have followed the bails.  

Now therefore, send and gather all Israel to me on Mount Carmel, the 450 prophets of bail and the 400 prophets of Ashura who eat at Jezebel's table.

So Ahab have sent for all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel and Elijah came to all the people and said how long will you falter between two opinions?  

If the Lord is God, follow him. But if bail, follow him. But the people answered him not a word. Then Elijah said to the people I alone and left a prophet of the Lord the bails prophets are 450 men.  

Therefore, let them give us 2, give us 2 bulls and let them choose one bull for themselves. Cut it in pieces and lay on the wood, but put no fire under it and I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood but put no fire under it.  

Then you call on the name of your gods and I will call on the name of the Lord and the God who answers by fire He is God. God. So all the people answered and said it is well spoken now Elijah said to the prophets of bail.  

Choose one bull for yourselves and prepare it first. For you are many and call on the name of your God, but put no fire under it. So they took the bull which was giving them and they prepared and calls on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying oh Baal hear us.  

But there was no voice, no one answered. They leaped about the altar which they had made, and so it was at noon that Elijah mocks them and said cry aloud, for he is a God, and either he is meditating or he is busy. Or he's on a journey. Or perhaps he's sleeping and must be awakened.  

So they cried aloud and cut themselves, as was their custom with knives and lances until the blood gushed out on them and when midday was passed they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice.  

But there was no voice, no one answered. No one paid attention and now we come to the focus Scripture passage, which is verses 30 through 39. Then Elijah said to all the people come near to me. 

So all the people came near to him and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down and Elijah took 12 Stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come saying. 

Israel shall be your name. Then with the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he made a trench around the altar, large enough to hold 2 seers of wood, and he put the wood in order.

Cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood and said fill 4 water pots with water and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.  

Then, he said, do it a second time. And they did it a second time and he said do it the third time and they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar, and he also filled the trench with water.

And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the Prophet came near and said Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel.  

Let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me that this people may know that you are the Lord God and that you have turned their hearts back to you again.  

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust. And it licked up the water that was in the trench. Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, the Lord he is God, the Lord He is God.  

So in the presence of the Lord, the people fell on their faces and they knew, they declared the Lord he is God. But how did the Israelites get here to this point where they had turned their backs on God and worshipped bail and other false gods.  

There was a fertility God who was worshipped in ancient China and Phoenix. Bell was believed to enable the Earth to produce crops and people to produce children. And they're worshipped, involved a number of vile rituals, which I won't get into this early in the morning. 

But how did the Israelites get to this point where they were worshipping false gods? Well, it started at the top with their kings. Go way back to Solomon. Solomon, son of David, the wisest king that they ever had. Solomon but he loved many foreign women.  

And these women came from the nations that the Lord had said to the children of Israel. You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you because surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods Solomon knew. Solomon knew this. The wisest king in Israel.  

He knew this, but yet and still he clung to the hundreds of wives. There were 700 of them 700 and 300 concubines. He clung to them and loved them more than God and his wise ultimately turned away his heart.  

So here's a saying that every king in the north in the north part of the Kingdom, which became known as Israel every king, did evil in the sight of the Lord and did not follow fully the Lord.  

So that was Solomon. But because God loved David and he honored David's memory. God told Solomon that because he went after false God, he was going to RIP the Kingdom from him.  

So after Solomon but in honor of his serving David, he wouldn't do it in Solomon's time. But it would happen in Solomon's sons time and we are born with Solomon's son. Very, very unwise is that something had such a wise father, but he himself was unwise.  

Perhaps it was because he saw how, even though his father was renowned as being wise in the later years of his life, he became very unwise and turned his back on the Lord God who had given him everything that he had.  

So rare Bomb made a foolish decision to keep persecuting the people that Solomon had heavily taxed and put into bondage and slavery to build all of his buildings and everything that he was building up in his Kingdom because he loved his wealth.  

He loved his buildings, he loved all those things. And his son Rehoboam had the opportunity when he was asked by a group of people who felt who were heavily taxed, if he would just give them some relief. And he Rehoboam went to the elders of the Kingdom and asked their opinion.  

They said, you know, yes, give them some relief, you know, give them relief and they will serve you the rest of their lives. But then Rehoboam went to his peers and asked him what he should do went to his peers and asked him what he should do.

And they were like, no, you know, be harder on them, be even harder, be even more harder on them than your father was.  

So he listened to the advice of his peers and it was disastrous. So the Kingdom split and Solomon's servant named Jeroboam ended up leading 10 tribes in the north and Rabone ended up only with two tribes in the South.  

So the 10 tribes in the north became known as Israel. And the two tribes in the South became known as Judah.

So we're going to look at how did the Israelites under Ahab get to the point where they had completely turned their backs on God and were worshipping Baal and other false prophets. 

So we're looking at Jeroboam, who had been Solomon's servant, Jeroboam said in his heart he was so afraid that because the Israelites had to travel to Jerusalem, to the temple to worship that he said in his heart.

If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord of Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn back to their Lord.  

And he said to himself, they'll kill me and they'll go back to Rehoboam, the king of Judah. So what did he do? He made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, it's too much for you to go up to go up to Jerusalem.  

Here these two calves of gold here are your God's. Old Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt, imagine two calves of gold. Jeroboam said here these are the gods that brought you up worship them, so he set them up and this thing became a sin for the people went to worship and Jeroboam made shrines on the high places.  

And if creating 2 calves of gold to worship wasn't bad enough. Jeroboam also made priests from every class of people who were not of the sons of Levi, in direct disobedience to what God had said as who should be a priest.  

They should come from the tribe of Levi, but Jeroboam made shrines on the high places made anybody, anybody, to be a priest. Anybody could be a priest. And Jeroboam was warned about this, but he didn't change. He did not turn from his evil way, but he made priests from every class of people for the high places.  

Whoever wished he consecrated them, and he became one of the priests of the high places, and this thing was the sin of the House of Jeroboam. So and from Jeroboam to Ahab it all went downhill from there.  

There was not one righteous king in the northern part of Israel, not one. So from Jeroboam we had Nadab who was his son, and this saying here that you'll see with all the subsequent kings up unto Ahab the same, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father.  

And in his sin by which he had made Israel sin. So we went from Jeroboam and son Nadab. Then after Nadab, Jeroboam the son served for only for two years, and then he was killed by Baasha and Baasha served for 24 years in Baasha again did evil in the sight of the Lord. 

And walked in the way of Jeroboam. Then after Baasha his son Ela served two years, but he was assassinated by his servant Zimri. I mean, it reads like a. Like one of the worst dramas you could read or watch on TV or reality shows.  

It reads worse than that. Today's reality shows have nothing on what went on back in Israel so. After Ela was assassinated by his servant Zimri. Zimri served, but Zimri served only for seven days.  

Because the people in Israel, like we, can't have this. This person was assassinated. Our king serve as our king. So they raised up they the commander of their army, whose name was Armory.  

They raised him up to be king, and again, Armory did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and he did worse than all who were before him. And then we get to Ahab, who was the son of Omri. 

Now listen to what the Bible says about Ahab. Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him, and he came to pass as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam that he took as wife Jezebel.  

The daughter of Ethbaal, King of the Sidonians, and he went and served they bail  and worshipped him. Then he set up an altar for bail in the temple of bail, which he had built in Samaria.  

And Ahab made a wooden image. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the Kings of Israel who were before him. And Jezebel massacred the prophets of the Lord.  

So this is how we get to this point where the Israelites are worshipping Baal and other false gods, and where Elijah the voice of courage in Israel confronts the false prophets and Ahab and has a showdown with them. 

One thing to I want to note is that even though Jezebel had massacred the prophets of the Lord. Ahab, serving Obadiah, who actually feared God and believed in God. He hid 100 of the prophets in caves to protect them from being killed by Jezebel.  

So Elijah wasn't aware of it at the time, but he wasn't the only prophet remaining in Israel. God still had a remnant and he had protected them. And he used a servant in the House of Ahab to protect his servants his prophets.  

So after reading this, and I encourage you all, at some point to either read or listen to 1st Kings and 2nd Kings and God has me lingering in 1st Kings and 2nd Kings. He's had me in these books for the past few weeks now. 

And as I'm reading them I'm seeing a reflection of who we are and where we are right now. So 9 things that I learned and I'm learning from just studying and meditating and asking God, what does this all mean for us today? 9 things to leave you with this morning.  

One, God always has his people everywhere. Even in the most evil and vile places. Just think of that. So before you condemn an entire nation. An entire city, town, whatever it is, an entire before you condemn an entire place.  

Know that God always has his people everywhere. Two, God gives even the evilest people opportunities to repent and turn from their wicked ways. And if you go back and you study the history of these kings of both Israel and Judah, you'll see that some of them reigned for years and years.  

Because God was giving them time to turn from their evil ways to repent, God gives us time. And three, God is so patient, merciful and just. Let's not get it twisted that you know people want to just emphasize that God is a loving and forgiving God and he is that but he is also a God of justice.  

Which is why we need to study the Old Testament to understand that God has not changed. Everyone will reap the rewards or consequences of their choices. Four, God always preserves a remnant who will be faithful to him and not bend their knees to force God's or worship the works of their hands. 

My brothers and sisters in Christ, I am so happy and blessed that because we believe in God because we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. God is preserving us as part of the remnant here in this time, in this day and age, to be faithful to him and not bend our knees to any false gods or worship the works of our hands.  

Five, be careful who you follow. If Jesus is your king you won't follow after false gods and men and Jesus even said my sheep know my voice they're not going after false gods, they're not going after anyone that is not of me, my sheep.  

So be careful who you follow that Jesus makes sure Jesus is your king. Six, if God has called you, he will equip you for the work. If God has called you, he will equip you for the work.  

You have to be fearless like Elijah. And he tells you to go you go. And he tells you to come, you come. Seven, be willing to go where God leads, trusting in his provision and knowing that when God provides.  

So surprising and phenomenal will his provision be there won't be any doubt that he alone is the source of your blessing. So just think back, think back on the ways God has delivered you and provided for you. In ways you weren't even expecting, think back and don't forget, don't forget and don't give any man God's glory at all.  

Give your praise and glory only to God our father. And final eight, when you're walking in the will of the Lord, God got your back. God had Elijah's back before this showdown with the prophets of bail.  

God had allowed Elijah to say by my word there will be no rain until I say so. And there was no rain in Israel for 3 1/2 years. God so what and for Elijah to take on 450 false profits, 450 of them.  

How much courage it took him alone, standing there, imagining that on the amount of Carmel he's standing there on, the amount of Carmel, him against 450 priests of bail. And then you've got all of Israel's eyes on him and he trusts in God so completely.  

That he told them, you know I'm the God that I serve I'm going to call on him and he is going to bring fire from heaven and to make sure you understand that this is not a coincidence.  

There was no spark in the ground, no spark in the air. I want you to douse this altar 3 times with water and surrounded with a trench of water. So that when God showed up and called down fire from heaven at Elijah's word.  

The people fell on their faces because they knew it could only be God. And finally most important, remember as a people said the Lord, he is God, the Lord he is God. So I want to leave you with that this morning.  

And encourage you to read 1st and 2nd Kings when you have time and think about it in places where you see the Kings think about the rulers that were that we're living under. Think about the church.  

Think about the church and what we read about 1st Kings and 2nd Kings and how it is in mirror for the modern day church. Because everything that happens in the in the Old Testament is a warning for us, there are lessons.  

There's so many wonderful lessons and cautionary tales for us in the Old Testament, so I encourage you to read it and study it. And most importantly, remember the Lord he is God. The Lord he is God. Let's pray.  

Heavenly Father, how we just adore you. How are we just thank you that in your words, you remind us you are God. How we thank you for all the times you have showed up in our lives and we pray your forgiveness, Father, for when we attempted to forget that you are God.  

And we just thank you, Heavenly Father, and we take the time this morning to give you all praise, glory and honor no matter what we're facing right now Heavenly Father, we give you the glory and we trust in your provision.  

We trust in you, we believe in you as your word says we must believe. We must believe and remember, so I pray Heavenly Father, that this day you will help us remember that you are God. 

So that everything that we think we say we do and every place that we go, we will carry you in our hearts and the remembrance that you are God in our hearts and let this knowledge be our guide today.  

So that all that we think all that we see, all that we speak, all that we do everywhere that we go will be guided by your Holy Spirit. Thank you for covering us with the blood of your son Jesus Christ.  

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are seated at the right hand of the Father praying for us, advocating for us and rebuking the enemy on our behalf. Thank you, father. God. Thank you, Lord, that you reveal yourself to us.  

You don't have to come down in a flame to prove to us that you are God. We give you our due, as Jesus said, blessed are those who believe and have not seen. We have not seen the manifestation of your presence, physically Heavenly Father.  

Nevertheless, we believe we believe. Now I pray we, father you guard and guide our steps this day. Bless my Kingdom family bless my brothers and sisters in Christ, bless our brothers and sisters all across the world, bless our brothers and sisters in Israel.

Bless us, Lord, how we need you, how we trust you, how we wait on you. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the privilege and honor to serve you and it's in Jesus name, I pray, Amen.

Amen family go in peace, have a blessed and mighty powerful day in the knowledge that the Lord he is God and we are his children. God bless you. Have a beautiful day. Have a blessed weekend.