| History is important! It can teach many things about right behavior and practices and wrong behaviors and practices and their
consequences. God wants us as Christians to know our history. He wants us to know about the lives, the challenges and the walks of faith that so many have lived before us. God purposely
writes in His word, the Bible, about all that He teaches us and gives us examples to live by through His prophets and His faithful followers. He gives us both the Old Testament and the New
Testament for our growth and development as Christians. God encourages each of us to hold on to His promises even in difficult times as others have done in the past. The heavenly rewards
are as He has promised us and as He shows us in the lives of His saints in the past and in the present.
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| Handout for the Sermon
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Elijah:(meaning = God {Elohim} is Jehovah or God {Elohim} Himself or Jehovah is my God {Elohim})False prophets and false
gods had come into the land and into the King’s house. This meant that the people following these false prophets were turning away from God. So, Elijah was called by God to speak and
do things which would bring the people back to God. At one point in this role, God had to deal with Elijah thinking he was the only one left worshipping God, his fear of mankind and his
disbelief.
1 Kings 17:1 – 24, 1 Kings 18:1 – 46, 1 Kings 19
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Elisha: (meaning = God {Elohim} is Salvation} He was working on his father’s land, preparing to take on the role of
a prophet, and to follow behind Elijah not knowing what God was going to call him to do. He was not thinking of what people thought of him, but what God thought of him. He spoke hard to
kings and soft to people based on what they needed to hear or do. Fear did not dictate how he operated.
2 Kings 2 - 6
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Jeremiah: He is also called the “weeping prophet”. He was called out of the priesthood to become a prophet by God.
Remember that a Prophet is one who speaks for God and by God. In Jeremiah’s case, the message he spoke was not liked by the people nor by other “so-called prophets,” because he called
them out for their faithlessness in their lives and in their relationships to God. In doing this, he told them of the destruction that would come, if they did not mend their ways. He
was not allowed to marry. You would think the people would be grateful to know that they were missing the mark in their lives with God, so that they could change. This is not the case
here. They beat Jeremiah, arrested him, and left him in a pit. His own family turned against him.
Question: How can you make it? Answer: with God being your source. The final act was to
exile him to Egypt, where according to oral tradition he was stoned by the Jews that were there. Jeremiah is the author of the book of Lamentations.
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