Elijah calls upon God, and God sends fire down from heaven, burns the sacrifice, the wood, and the stones and licks up the water in the ditch. Then Elijah builds an altar of stones, digs a ditch around it, puts the sacrifice on the top of wood and calls for water to be poured over his sacrifice three times. The prophets of Baal call upon their god all day long to rain fire from heaven to no avail. We next see Elijah as the central character in a face-off with the prophets of the false god Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:17-40). And when we are in God’s will, He fulfills all of our needs, and His mercy to us never runs short. The lesson for the believer is that, if we walk in fellowship with the Lord and obey Him, we will be open to His will. Miraculously, the widow’s barrel of flour and jar of oil never run out (1 Kings 17:8–16). As the drought and famine in the land deepen, Elijah meets with a widow in a neighboring country, and, through her obedience to Elijah’s request, God provides food enough for Elijah, the woman, and her son. Warned by God, Elijah hides near the brook of Cherith where he is fed by ravens. Elijah prophesies a drought to come upon the whole land as consequence for Ahab’s evil (1 Kings 17:1–7). We first meet Elijah in 1 Kings 17:1 when he suddenly appears to challenge Ahab, an evil king who ruled the northern kingdom from 874 to 853 BC. Elijah knew both the power of God and the depths of depression.Įlijah, a prophet of God whose name means “my God is the Lord,” came from Tishbeh in Gilead, but nothing is known of his family or birth.

He alternately demonstrates victory and defeat, followed by recovery. At times he was bold and decisive, and at other times fearful and tentative. Elijah’s ministry marked the beginning of the end of Baal worship in Israel. The prophet Elijah is one of the most interesting and colorful people in the Bible, and God used him during an important time in Israel’s history to oppose a wicked king and bring revival to the land.

Bible study on elijah