The days of Elijah were marked with apostasy, apathy, rejection of God, horrible sin, rebellion and immorality. The people had forgotten about God and had begun worshiping a false god, which was no god at all, named Baal. This idol was considered the god of fertility, so the people worshiped before it with obscenity, vulgarity, fortification and wicked immorality. The women desired to be made more attractive and the men longed for virility. God's people were in desperate need of a spiritual awakening. They needed a personal and national revival.

Wicked King Ahab and his nasty wife, Jezebel, were on the throne of Israel, but God was not dead. He had raised up the prophet Elijah the Tishbite to issue a call for decision:

God or Baal?

Please read 1 Kings 18.

I hope to share with you Three Enemies of Revival from this text.

We shall read about a man named Obadiah (3-6). He was a compromiser. He was a man of faith, yet joined forces with the wicked. Compromise is always an enemy of revival.

Next, we will see that the wicked stand in the way of revival. In chapter sixteen verse thirty-three, we read that Ahab did more to anger God than all the other kings before him. We also see how the majority are often wrong. They can stand in the way of the movement of God. One man, Elijah, stood before four-hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and rebuked them to shame.

We cannot stop the consuming fire of God from falling, but we can influence God to make it the fire of revival instead of the fire of judgement.

In Christ,

Pastor Todd