Chris Skoglund (Pastor of Recreation & Family Ministries), "Do You Recognize Him?.
1. After a long time, in the third year, the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land.” 2. So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab.
Now the famine was severe in Samaria, 3. and Ahab had summoned Obadiah, his palace administrator. (Obadiah was a devout believer in the Lord. 4. While Jezebel was killing off the Lord’s prophets, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water.) 5. Ahab had said to Obadiah, “Go through the land to all the springs and valleys. Maybe we can find some grass to keep the horses and mules alive so we will not have to kill any of our animals.”
7. As Obadiah was walking along, Elijah met him. Obadiah recognized him, bowed down to the ground, and said, “Is it really you, my lord Elijah?”
8. “Yes,” he replied. “Go tell your master, ‘Elijah is here.’”
9. “What have I done wrong,” asked Obadiah, “that you are handing your servant over to Ahab to be put to death? 10. As surely as the Lord your God lives, there is not a nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to look for you. And whenever a nation or kingdom claimed you were not there, he made them swear they could not find you. 11. But now you tell me to go to my master and say, ‘Elijah is here.’
15. Elijah said, “As the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve, I will surely present myself to Ahab today.”
16. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. 17. When he saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?”
18. “I have not made trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals.
30. Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. 31. Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.” 32. With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. 33. He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”
34. “Do it again,” he said, and they did it again.
“Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. 35. The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.
36. At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37. Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
38. Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
39. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”
(I Kings 18:1-5; 7-11; 15-18; 30-39 NIV)