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The neighbor was also moving.

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And so Aaron was able to get his 83-year-old father-in-law, that's the father there, father-in-law,

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and they flagged down the neighbor and the neighbor gave them a ride.

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So they got into the car with the neighbor.

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And almost as soon as they got out onto the road, evacuating from their home in Pacific

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Palisades, well guess what?

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Everybody else was on the road too.

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And so now they're suddenly stuck in traffic as these fires get closer and closer.

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And they said they could even feel the heat and the police officers came by and said,

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you're going to have to walk.

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You're going to have to get out.

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This traffic jam is not going to clear up.

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So you need to get out and walk.

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And so here's Aaron with his 83-year-old father-in-law, Ron, with a walker making their

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way down these steep roads out of Pacific Palisades.

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And pretty soon the rest of the crowd had gone on.

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And it was just these two.

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And Ron, the 83-year-old said, if the fire comes, just leave me.

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Go and save yourself.

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Just leave me.

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And Aaron wasn't sure what to do.

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And about that time, a car that they didn't recognize pulls up.

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And the door opens or the window comes down, and Andrew Lin, driving this car, he was headed

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back to his house on the other side of town to go and rescue some pets, two cats and a

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dog.

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But he said, you know what?

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These people are more important.

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So he opened the door and said, get in the car, almost like a come with me if you want

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to live moment.

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And they got into the car, and they proceeded to drive to a place of safety, an incredible

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story in an incredibly tragic situation.

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Would you get into a car?

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Would you trust a stranger in that moment?

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Now, I've always been taught since I was little, don't trust strangers.

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Don't trust a stranger.

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But in that moment, I think I would have gotten in the car with a stranger.

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And the fact is, you may not want to tell your mama, but you trust strangers every single

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day.

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You trusted strangers on your way here this morning.

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You trusted that somebody you don't know was going to stop at a red light so that you could

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drive through the intersection.

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But we know sometimes they don't, and there's accidents.

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Anytime you go out to eat at a restaurant, you trust somebody that you don't know, that

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you don't even see back in the kitchen, that they're going to cook your food in such a

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way that it's not going to make you sick.

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You're trusting a stranger.

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Just coming in here, I don't know who built this structure.

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And yet we trust that these beams, this roof, it's not going to fall in, even when there's

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a pipe that freezes up like happened a week ago or so.

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We trust strangers.

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We trust other people.

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And so we have to ask ourselves the question, do we trust God?

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If we trust people we don't know, are we willing, are we able to trust God?

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With that in mind, let's turn to 1 Kings chapter 17.

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We're beginning a brand new sermon series on the weeks that I'm here.

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We're going to be looking at several stories from the life of the prophet Elijah.

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Now you may remember there's two prophets that come back to back.

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One is Elijah, he's the first, and what's his friend, Elisha?

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We sometimes get those mixed up, but we're going to be talking about the prophet Elijah.

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And so we're going to start in 1 Kings verse 17.

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So we'll have some of these scriptures on the screen, but I hope you'll look them up

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for yourself as well.

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And it says, out of nowhere, we don't have any background for this gentleman.

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It says Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead.

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That's all we know.

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He lives in the land of Gilead, which is on the east side of the Jordan River, probably

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about where the modern nation of Jordan is.

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That's all we know about him.

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We don't know his background, we don't know his lineage, we don't know what career he

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had before he was a prophet.

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All we know is that God came to him and gave him a mission.

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And it says Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead said to Ahab, Ahab, King Ahab.

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Now since we're going to be spending a couple of weeks talking about this story, we've got

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to set some context here.

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King Ahab, who was the very first king that the nation of Israel had?

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King Saul.

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And then after him, probably the most well-known was King David, and David's son was the wisest

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man, King Solomon.

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So after King Solomon, that nation divided up into a northern kingdom and a southern

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kingdom.

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Solomon's son and another gentleman kind of had a dispute and you can see the yellow

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down here is the kingdom of Judah.

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That's where Jerusalem is.

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That became the southern kingdom where the descendants of David and Solomon continued

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to reign there.

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Sometimes they were bringing people back to God, other times they were taking their people

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away from God and they forgot the things that God told them.

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The northern kingdom became the kingdom of Israel.

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And so this was the offshoot, you could say.

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And some of the tribes were with that northern kingdom of Israel.

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Now they set up their own capital city in the city of Samaria, the city of Samaria,

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and they actually created their own place of worship in Samaria and one other place.

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And it says they even created golden calves, just like Aaron back in the Exodus, and they

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use the exact same phrase, these are the gods that brought you up out of Egypt.

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And the reason they did that, they didn't want their citizens traveling back to Jerusalem,

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because if I go worship in Jerusalem, maybe I'll respect the king of Jerusalem and want

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to be one of his subjects again.

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And so that's kind of this situation that we're in.

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Now King Ahab, was he in the northern or the southern kingdom?

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He was in the kingdom of Israel, so his capital was in Samaria.

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And these were the kings who most often were taking people away from God.

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In fact, if we go back just a few verses to chapter 16 and verse 30, notice what it says

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about Ahab.

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It says, now Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord, more, more evil

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than all those who were before him.

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He did more evil than all the other kings.

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And he continued with this false place of worship.

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And in fact, we don't have it on the screen, but a verse or two later, it says that he

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married, he took as a wife Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Sidon.

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And that was a pagan country where they were steeped in, you know, false gods and worshiping

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Baal and other false gods.

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And they were encouraging the people of that northern kingdom to not worship the true God

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anymore, but to worship these Baals.

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And so because of that, God sent a message to this king in Samaria and he sent it through

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this prophet Elijah.

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So back to chapter 17 and verse 1, Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead

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said to Ahab, this is the message, as the Lord God of Israel lives, I believe God lives,

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says Elijah, before whom I stand, I'm serving this God of heaven.

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And then here's the message, there shall not be due nor rain these years except at my word.

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So here comes this before now unknown prophet, and he shows up in the king's throne room

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and he says, God says, it's not going to rain, there's not even going to be due because of

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this way that you are leading people away from God.

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Now this was a strong message here because Jezebel and their northern kingdom were worshiping

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the god Baal, or the gods of Baal, which is the god of fertility, the god of growing your

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crops.

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What do crops usually need to grow?

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They need some water, they need some rain.

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And so these Baals are the god of the rain and the god of thunder.

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And so Elijah is proclaiming that this power of Baal is being wiped out, is being negated

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by the true God.

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The dominion of Baal is being overtaken by the power of the true God.

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And then just as rapidly as Elijah shows up, notice the next verse, then the word of the

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Lord came to him saying, God sent him another message, go and tell the king this message.

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And then here's part two, the word of the Lord came to him, here's the second part,

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get away from here and turn eastward and hide by the brook Cherith, which flows into the

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Jordan.

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And it will be that you shall drink from the brook and I have commanded the ravens to feed

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you there.

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I don't know exactly where that is, but again, many people that line down the middle is the

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Jordan River and people think it's one of these valleys, one of these wadis they're

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called, a creek bed that sometimes have water and sometimes don't, that flows into the Jordan

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River.

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And perhaps this is one of the places that people think it may have been.

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It's not too bad when the rain is falling, looks like a place that you could hide, it

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looks like a place that you could be.

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And yet what happened?

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Notice it says Elijah went and did according to the word of the Lord.

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You know, I think that's good advice that we should all live our life according to,

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to do according to the word of the Lord.

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So he went and did according to the word of the Lord for he went and stayed by the brook

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Cherith which flows into the Jordan.

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Elijah did what God said and then God did what Elijah said.

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It says the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening

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and he drank from the brook.

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This is a fascinating thing.

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I need to pause on this picture for just a moment because there's a young lady in our

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church that if you ever see her, she often has a little notebook and she's drawing pictures.

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And I asked Miss Bethany if she could draw a picture for this sermon about Elijah being

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fed by the ravens.

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So Bethany, thank you so much for drawing this picture.

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But think about this concept.

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God said that the ravens were going to feed this prophet.

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The ravens were going to bring bread.

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What would a bird usually do if it had some bread?

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It would eat it itself.

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It's not going to carry the bread to some random guy down in a river valley.

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The birds would usually eat it themselves and ravens, if you look at scripture, they're

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listed in those unclean birds and so God is using these unclean birds to feed this holy

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prophet, to feed this prophet of Israel who's hiding out, who's resting.

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And so where Elijah is, God is taking care of him.

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He's giving him water from the brook, just as he said.

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He's feeding him through these ravens, just as he said.

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And yet a fascinating thing is happening here because Elijah, up to this point, he seems

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to have been a man of action.

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God said, go to the king's palace.

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All right, king, it's not going to rain.

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Go to the brook.

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Elijah goes to the brook.

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But now he's called to sit and to wait.

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He's out of the fight, you could say.

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There's this king and wicked queen who are leading people away from God and Elijah was

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called just to stay and just to sit.

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We often don't like to wait.

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How many of us like to wait?

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If we're driving down the road and we see those lights ahead of us, oh, traffic.

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Oh no, and maybe we start looking for alternate routes or I just missed the exit of the shorter

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route, whatever it is.

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We don't like to wait for traffic.

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We don't like to wait at the grocery store.

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There's so many options of food and you can fill up your cart, but then you get to the

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checkout line, oh, got to wait.

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If you're like me, often we're doing it ourselves, but sometimes there's two or three lines and

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you get in the line and I always pay attention.

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Okay, I would have been behind that guy in the blue coat.

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Which line is moving faster?

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Oh, you got there first.

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I should have gotten in that line.

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Oh, okay.

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I chose the right line because we don't like to wait.

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We think about technology.

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We think about the internet.

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We have access to almost any bit of human information that has ever been invented and

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we can find it in just a few moments on our phone or whatever else, but if it takes more

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than 30 seconds to come up, oh, got to wait so long to find this ancient information.

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I see some people here that I'm pretty sure remember dial-up internet.

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Does that ring a bell, those sounds of your computer trying to connect, ba-dong, ba-dong,

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ba-dong?

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It took like five minutes just to connect to the internet, let alone trying to download

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a page.

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We don't like to wait.

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And throughout, oh, encyclopedia, you got to look it up and hope that that entry is

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in there.

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But throughout scripture, God's people are often called to wait.

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Think of Abraham.

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God told him that his descendants were going to be like the number of the stars.

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That didn't happen right away.

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It took a long, long time just for Abraham to have a child, let alone a nation of children.

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And then those descendants, those people of God were in bondage in Egypt and they cried

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out for a redeemer, for someone to free them, and they were promised that it was coming.

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And then even when Moses was born, when he was placed into that basket and he was lifted

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out by Pharaoh's daughter, it was still like 80 years before that deliverance finally came.

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We don't like to wait.

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And then those people of Israel, as they were given throughout the Old Testament, these

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sacrifices which were pointing forward to a coming Messiah.

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And yet it was centuries and centuries before John the Baptist could say, behold, the Lamb

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of God who takes away the sins of the world.

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And it's the same thing in the New Testament.

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Jesus told a parable about a wedding that was going to take place symbolizing this return

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of Christ.

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And there's these young ladies, these ten virgins that are waiting for the bridegroom

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to come.

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They're waiting.

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And how many of them fall asleep?

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They all fall asleep, all ten of them.

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Now there's five of them that had some extra oil, had spent time preparing for that, but

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all of them fell asleep.

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And then as we live in our world today, we often talk and preach and share and believe

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that Jesus is coming again, that Jesus is coming soon, we say.

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And yet Jesus is coming soon, and yet we still are here and we still wait.

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So the question is, how will we wait?

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Will we still trust God as we're waiting?

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Because that's what Elijah had to do.

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He's waiting there by that brook, but that immediate action of no rain begun to yield

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the obvious results.

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Now here in Georgia, we anticipate, you know, when the heat of summer comes and it doesn't

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rain and the weatherman will get on TV and say, we are in a, we're in a drought.

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And that's exactly what happened in verse seven.

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Verse six, the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in

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the evening and he drank from the brook, just as God had said.

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But then verse seven, and it happened after a while, we don't know how long that was,

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after a while the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.

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We anticipate a drought.

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I like to go hiking.

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Sometimes we'll hike to a waterfall, Foster Falls or Keone Falls or different places.

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But in that end of summertime, those waterfalls are just a trickle.

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And you can imagine Elijah there by the brook, he's getting bread from the ravens, he's drinking

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all he wants, but after a month, maybe he can tell that that brook's a little lower

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than it was.

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And after three months, you can see the watermark and you can see how much less water there

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is.

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And after six months or nine months, that flowing brook is now just a little trickle

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and those deep pools are now starting to grow stagnant because this drought is taking place.

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So think about this for Elijah.

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Elijah was exactly where God had told him to be.

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He followed God's plan exactly.

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God said, I'm going to feed you, I'm going to give you water to drink.

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Elijah was exactly where God had told him to be.

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And yet still, the brook dried up.

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In fact, it's in essence, it's partially Elijah's fault from the New Testament, from James chapter

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five, it says Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed earnestly that it

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would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.

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So it's his very prayers that in essence caused that brook to dried up.

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The promised blessing went away.

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Now God had provided for him longer than others, but his own prayers had led to this situation

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and now the brook had dried up.

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Have there ever been times in your life when you are absolutely certain that you're doing

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exactly what God calls you to do?

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You're following his every leading and yet still bad things happen to you.

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You get that report from the doctor of the disease or the illness, whatever it might

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be, that relationship with friend or family or spouse, whatever it is, it's just not healing.

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It's not getting any better.

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That job that you thought you had, it didn't pan out the way that you hoped it would.

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You move to a new place and all the hopes and the dreams that you thought you had, it

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doesn't seem to be coming to fruition because the brook is drying up.

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That's what happened to Elijah.

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He was right where God sent him and the brook dried up.

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That sometimes happens to us, but notice what happens in the very next verse, verse 8.

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Verse King 17 and verse 8.

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It says, then the word of the Lord came to him.

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It's not going right.

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The brook is drying up.

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There's nothing to drink even though he's exactly where God said.

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So he's in this tough situation, but he begins to see that God had not abandoned him.

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God had not forsaken him.

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Even in a dry and dusty desert, the word of the Lord again came to Elijah.

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We see that in verse 8.

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We see verse 5, he did according to the word of the Lord.

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Verse 2, the word of the Lord came to him.

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When he's in the man of action, God's word is coming to him.

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When he's in this place of waiting, things are drying up.

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God is still with him.

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We recognize that God remains with us.

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Let's turn over to Isaiah.

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Keep your finger on Kings.

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We're going to come back to it.

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We're going to look at two passages in Isaiah that are very close together.

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Isaiah 44 and verse 3 is where we'll go first.

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Isaiah 44 and verse 3.

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Notice God says, I will pour water on him who is thirsty and floods on the dry ground.

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And then it says, I will pour my spirit on your descendants and my blessing on your offspring.

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So God's not just talking about physical water, a brook flowing, the faucet that we turn on,

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the H2O that we need to live.

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Yes, he's going to pour that out, but it also says, I'm going to pour spiritual blessings.

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I'm going to pour my spirit.

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When you're hungering and thirsting for righteousness, God has promised to pour his spirit upon each

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one of us.

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When we think we're in a dry and dusty place, God is going to pour his spirit upon us.

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Now look back, just one chapter, Isaiah 43 and verse 1 and following.

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It says, but now, thus says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, and he who has formed you, O

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Israel, fear not, fear not, for I have redeemed you.

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I have called you by your name.

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You are mine.

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Notice the next verse.

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When you pass through the waters, I will be with you and through the rivers, they shall

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not overflow you.

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And when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch

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you for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

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God has promised that he is going to be with us even when it seems as if we are in a desert,

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even when it seems as if our brook is dry drying up.

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If there's a flood, if there's a fire, God is with you.

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When we're in action, God is with you.

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When we are in a time of waiting, God is with you.

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God is going to be the protection, the shade over us to protect us and to keep us safe.

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There's a gentleman named Rudy Bouvet and he owns a restaurant in California and it's

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a restaurant called Le Great Outdoors.

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Yes, it's actually L.E., Le Great Outdoors.

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And when these fires begin to blaze, he began to wonder, what can I do to help?

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So he called in all of his cooks and they began cooking breakfast burritos, sandwiches,

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rice and chicken, whatever they could make.

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And they said, we've got to get this food to people that need it.

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People in the community realized what they were doing and began to donate money to help

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provide this.

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Okay, we've got the food, now what?

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So these employees, they put these foods in containers into their backpacks and they jumped

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onto mountain bikes and they began to ride to where the firefighters were stationed,

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where they had their camps, where they were taking care of fighting the fires.

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And so Rudy and his team began to provide this food to those who were helping, those

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who were in need.

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The next day, they're like, bikes aren't getting us far enough, so people brought their motorcycles

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and they put the food on their backs and drove it to where these first responders were helping.

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And then in his restaurant, as money began to come in, he continues to provide free food

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to first responders and to the thousands who have had to evacuate from the fires.

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Even in a tragic situation, there can be blessings of hope and pictures of God at work.

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And that's exactly what happened in the story of Elijah.

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As the ground is drying up, as the brook dries up, as we go back to first Kings, we see what

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the word of God told Elijah to do.

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And we're not going to get into this whole story, but verse nine, then the word of the

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Lord came to him saying, verse nine, arise and go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon

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and dwell there.

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See I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.

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So he sends Elijah to this pagan nation, the nation of Sidon.

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Who did we say was from Sidon, the daughter of the King of Sidon?

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Queen Jezebel, wicked Queen Jezebel, who's leading God's people away from the God of

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truth.

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And yet God sends Elijah to a widow, to an old lady in, I don't know if she's old because

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she's got a younger child, but a widow in Sidon in that same land, in that same region

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to provide for him.

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And if you want a little reading assignment for this afternoon, read that story because

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that woman says, yeah, I'll give you some food.

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It's the very last food that we have before we're about to starve.

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She provides for Elijah, but God provides for that widow and they're able to survive

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the rest of that drought and other miracles take place as well.

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But you can read that story.

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God sends his word to Elijah and provides for him through providing for this widow.

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Wherever you are, remember that God is there.

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God will provide.

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If you're in a season of life where you are in action serving God, God's with you.

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But maybe you're in a season of life where you're waiting and you don't like it and

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you're tired of it and you're getting bad news.

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You can recognize that God is with you even in that circumstance.

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Now I got to come back to this story that we started with because Pacific Palisades

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were on fire.

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Aaron and his 83 year old father-in-law, Ron, were evacuating.

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The car door came where Andrew was and said, get in the car.

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He took them to safety.

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But there's one other aspect of this story because Aaron, the young man and the driver

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of the car, Andrew, they exchanged contact information.

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They texted a few days later and they realized that both of those homes had been destroyed

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by the fires.

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Both of them had been burned.

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But Andrew, along with his text, he sent a picture.

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I'm not sure if you can see that clearly, but there's two cats and behind the bed there's

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a dog.

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He sent that picture.

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He said, yes, my home burned down, but the cats are safe.

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The dog is alive.

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And then he said this, it's a glimmer of hope among the ashes.

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Neighbors had come and saved these pets at the same time he was saving the life of someone

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else.

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Neighbors had come and made a difference and given a glimmer of hope among the ashes.

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And we may think that our world isn't ashes, but we can remember those verses that say,

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fear not, for I am with you.

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And if you're in a season of drought, God is with you.

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And if you're in a season of action, God is with you.

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And we can remember and recognize that no matter what is going on, God is with us and

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he takes care of us.

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Let's bow our heads for a prayer.

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Dear God, an opening story here about an incredible person who stood up for you, even as the nation

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around him was moving in a different direction, moving away from God.

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That one man, Elijah, was willing to speak truth into the world around him.

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And you were with him when things were going good and you were with him when for a moment

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things were going bad.

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And we recognize that you are active in each one of our life as well.

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Be with us, guide us, help us to live for you.

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In your name we pray.