So why don't you turn there? And as you do, I'll mention as I had last week that I've been really looking forward to teaching through this chapter.

It's one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. And the reason it's one of my favorite chapters in the Bible is

because it deals with discouragement and even despair after Elijah calls fire down from

heaven which we saw last week in chapter 18 in this contest with Ba'al and the prophets

of Ba'ao.

And so I decided to do something a little bit different tonight for our study and put a

title on this expositional teaching, and the title is going to be the cause and the cure for

discouragement. By way of introduction, I hope this is the sound too over the top, but this is one of the most astonishing passages that's recorded in the pages of Holy writ. And the reason I say that is

because this is Elijah who prayed that rain would not come down, and for three and a half

years no rain came down.

And then he prayed that fire would come down and immediately fire did come down.

And now this prophet, Elijah, who prayed that rain wouldn't come down and fire would come down,

finds himself down.

And it's hard for me, personally, to wrap my mind around how it is that someone like Elijah

could find himself in this place of discouragement and despair.

And this on the heels of slaying the 450 prophets of Ba'al, a tremendous and miraculous victory. And so we see him tonight running for

his life, now that he has this contract out on his life, and we see him almost pathically

under a broom tree. And this incredible man of God, prophet of God,

is asking God to take his life. What does it take for a man like this to come to this place?

What in the world has happened to the prophet Elijah?

I mean this is a man who had been so amazingly and mightily used of God and we see him tonight in a place that many of us

never want ourselves to be in. But the thing is, is that like many of us, and really like the best of us, it's the

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