A New Season: Pray for Rain

Series: A New Season
“Pray for Rain”
5/2/10
Intro
 We are serving the Lord now in a new season
 A new season requires new direction, and a new approach to the same old stuff
 Not only are we breaking greed but breaking the seat of disobedience to God.
 A new season isn’t new if you are doing the same things over and over again
 Not only are giving everything as a people but God is calling us to pray for Rain.
 The spiritual rain that only He can send
Obj
 The same God that said it wasn’t going to rain for 3 years in 1 Kings 17 is the same God 3 years later that said it was going to rain again and to prepare.
 God is the author of the faucet of blessing in our lives.
 He can turn the spout on or off, and if you continue to follow God and His ways the spout stays on
Ex: the kids play with hose and leave the water on, but the nozzle is off, but water is available when ready to shoot
Elijah the prophet of God is called to stand before King Ahab
1 Kings 18:1-2 NLT
 Go present yourself to King Ahab and tell him I am sending rain.
Vs 17 Is that you, the troublemaker of Israel?
This is a great story of God revealing Himself
1 Kings 18:18-21
 How long will we waiver between 2 opinions?
 Will you trust God for yourself, or allow your mechanical irrigation to satisfy you?
Ex: Ashley says that people instead of trusting God trust in trees, bricks, metal.
 Instead of trusting God people would rather trust their money, their Homes, or what they drive
Psalm 20:7
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.
 Whatever is pleasant and easy isn’t necessarily the Lord
 Please don’t wake up one day and realize that you have been worshipping a false God
Remember…
1 Timothy 6:10
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
 Elijah stood against 850 pagan prophets
 You take your bull prepare it, but don’t set fire to it
 I will take my bull prepare it, but not set fire to it.
 You call on the name of your god and I will call on the name of the Lord
The God who answers by fire is the true God, they agreed.
 From morning till evening the pagan prophets called on their gods.
 Their god, Baal, most popular Canaanite god, often made in the shape of a bull, representing strength, fertility, and reflecting lust for power and sexual pleasure
 Sounds like same demon entities that are worshipped today.
 How often we as Christians have trusted the same junk, being made to think that it is ok.
God loves to set your bull on fire! God mocks and laughs at the gods of this world
 Elijah began mocking as these pagan prophets danced around their sacrifice like a bunch of Indians calling on a pagan princess to appear
 Elijah mocked by saying “you’ll have to shout louder, surely he is a god,
 but maybe he is daydreaming, or going to the bathroom,
 maybe he is on vacation or a long trip or asleep and needs to be awakend.
 They shouted louder, danced harder, cut themselves with sword and knives until their blood gushed out
 But still no sound, no reply.
Then Elijah called them over to him
 He built an altar out of 12 stones, dug a trench around altar to hold 3 gallons water, and piled the wood and the sacrifice on the altar
 Fill 4 large jars with water and soak the altar and sacrifice, 3 times until the water filled the trench
 When things look impossible in the natural, that is when God gets the credit
1 Kings 18:36-40
 The fire always falls on the blood!
 God revealing himself was part of the process for the rain to return to the earth.
 Water wasn’t so easy to come by to soak the sacrifice
 But God was saying, use up what you have because I’m about to set it on fire
 Drought is there for God to reveal Himself to you in a greater dimension
 Drought is there to make you thirsty for the rain of Heaven
 Drought is there so that when the rain comes you can’t say you did it on your own
 You must say it is only the because of the Lord, the one who answers by fire, He is God.



 About time we allow the fire to fall
 Let the wood hay and stubble in our live burn, God come and set it on fire
 That we might be firebrands for you,
 People that have been tried in the furnace of affliction, but have come out not even smelling like smoke.
 Furnace of affliction is what purifies your faith
 Kill the junk in us that is not of faith, not of you, but the spirit of this world, the flesh, the devil.
 Power, status, appearance or material possessions, anything that causes us to depend on anything other than God himself
 When crisis hits these things can’t answer your problems, only Jesus can.
When the fire falls that’s a reason for the rain to come
1 Kings 18:41-45
Remember why it didn’t rain, Israel, through King Ahab was promoting idolatry, and intermarrying women from pagan nations, the people God detested
Vs 44 I saw a little cloud the size of a man’s hand rising from the sea
James 5:16-18 NLT
Seeking God and turning from your ways through repentance is what is going to get you there
Get to the top of Mt Carmel
Start seeking, asking, knocking and don’t stop till the blessing comes
Start praying for Rain, the rain makes the crops healthy and the fruit sweet.