The Word To Live By: 9-5-25
Phil Waggoner
Now Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of the roar of a heavy shower.” 1 Kings 18:41
The Word to live by: This happened after Elijah had the encounter with the 450 prophets of Baal (see 1 Kings 18:35-40). It was a bright, clear day, and it hadn’t rained in Israel in three years. What I want you to see here is that Elijah didn’t hear rain in the natural; he heard the Spirit of God say it was going to rain. 1 Kings 18:1-2, “Now it happened after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, ‘Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the face of the earth.’ So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab.” Notice, Elijah heard the Word of God and obeyed it. Hearing the Word doesn’t produce results; hearing it and obeying it produces results. So, Elijah showed himself to Ahab, but it didn’t rain. God had something else for him to do first, which made a big dent in all the false religion in the country. It’s perfectly acceptable, it’s not lying, to say what you heard God say. (I heard God say to me, “Jesus Himself bore your sins in His body on the cross that you may die unto sin and live unto righteousness and by his wounds you were healed,” 1 Peter 2:24. Therefore, if I was, I am. I don’t care how I look or feel. I care about what I heard God say to me. And I take the next step, big or small.) But follow the progression of all of this in 1 Kings 18:41-46. After Elijah did away with the 450 prophets of Baal, Ahab went out to lunch, and Elijah went to the top of the mountain to pray and wait for the rain. He told the servant to go look at the sky six times, and the servant came back with the same weather report, “Not a cloud in the sky.” The seventh time, however, he said, “There’s a little tiny cloud coming in from the sea.” Elijah then told the servant to go tell Ahab to put the mud tires on his chariot because it was going to rain, and shortly after that, it did. What I want you to see is that this drought-breaking downpour started as a word from God that no one could see, and then to a little cloud. Don’t despise the little things in your life; trust God to fulfill His Word, and you will see the big things.
Read through the Bible in a year: John 11:1-27; 2 Chronicles 10-11; Psalms 75;
Read through the New Testament and Proverbs: Proverbs 5, Mark 6:1-28, 2 Corinthians 7
The sum of Thy Word is Truth Psalm 119:160