Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 17:4-8
Check out the Goats & Birds at farm in Smithville. Harmony Lane
https://harmonylanefarms.com/
Happy Father’s Day and WELCOME: to Central Church of Christ, a people called out by God to Show His Love, Tell His Story, and Be His Family. As a church family, we are in the process of selecting new Elder’s, Deacons, Ministers and reaffirming existing ones. This message on Father’s day is perfect for what we are hearing right now. Dad’s we are notorious for carrying around a lot of tools. Nothing is a better tool to have in your dad toolbox than trust.
I Kings 16:29-33
“In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria over Israel twenty-two years.
Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.
He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria.
Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him.” I Kings 16:30-33
1Kings 21:25 says “There was never a man like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, urged on by Jezebel his wife.”
We’re told that he built a temple to the pagan god Baal in Samaria. And that he erected Asherah poles for the worship of that goddess (who apparently was worshipped as both Baal’s mother AND his wife).https://www.worldhistory.org/Asherah/
“To whom will you compare me or count me equal?
To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?
Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bow down and worship it. They lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place, and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Though one cries out to it, it does not answer; it cannot save him from his troubles.” Isaiah 46:5-7
Chely Wright’s Country song title Jezebel teaches us that a Jezebel definitely isn’t a name to be respected.
https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/5093817/Chely+Wright/Jezebel
Namberry.com – “not exalted”
Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab in the Hebrew Book of Kings, has long had a bad girl reputation. But in the modern secular world, this is somewhat mitigated by the feminist perspective of her as a strong woman, the power behind the throne. Previously avoided as a baby name, Jezebel is now, along with the also previously avoided Delilah and Desiree, coming into use, helped by its relation to other ‘bel’ name such as Isabel and Bella.
Pasted from <http://nameberry.com/babyname/Jezebel>
1Kings 21:25 says “There was never a man like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, urged on by Jezebel his wife.”
“From the Deuteronomist’s viewpoint, Jezebel embodies everything that must be eliminated from Israel so that the purity of the cult of Yahweh will not be further contaminated.”
From <https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/how-bad-was-jezebel/>
Now Elijah the Tishbite was a prophet from the settlers in Gilead. “I serve the Lord, the God of Israel,” Elijah said to Ahab. “As surely as the Lord lives, no rain or dew will fall during the next few years unless I command it.” – 1 Kings 17:1
“Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.” James 5:17
“What’s the difference between a raven and a crow?” asked my son. “Ravens have seventeen wing feathers with the end feather called a pinion, in contrast to crows having only sixteen wing feathers.” I answered.
I continued, “Therefore, it’s just a matter of a pinion.”
From <https://punstoppable.com/the-raven-puns>
“The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.” 1 Kings 17:6
Now this is odd for several reasons:
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- 1st Ravens don’t generally like being around humans… they avoid us if at all possible.
- 2ndly Ravens were unclean birds. God’s people were not allowed to eat them, nor offer them in sacrifice.
- 3rd The food of ravens has usually been dead for a while. They eat road kill. They were scavengers. They’re kind of like vultures. Who would want to share their food?
- 4th Even if we wanted to share their food, Ravens would never share. They don’t even share their food with their babies.
When commenting on this passage, Clarke wrote:
“(God) could not have employed this means without working a variety of miracles at the same time, in order to accomplish one simple end; and this is never God’s method: his plan is ever to accomplish the greatest purposes by the simplest means.” Adam Clarke
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/acc/1-kings-17.html
“It is often supposed that when people stop believing in God, they believe in nothing.
Alas, it is worse than that.
When they stop believing in God, they believe in anything.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/44015-when-men-choose-not-to-believe-in-god-they-do
ROMANS 3:23 says: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”
Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.’”
She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family.” 1 Kings 17:13-15
2 Chronicles 16:9 says “… the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him…”
“Trust in yourself and you are doomed to disappointment
Trust in money and you may have it taken from you;
But trust in God, and you are never to be confounded in time or eternity.” D.L. Moody
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/662599
“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists AND that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Hebrews 11:6
INVITATION SONG: God is calling the Prodigal
