The Bible Study Podcast, episode 209. Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of the wilderness.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. Last week we started a study, probably a three-part

study in the wilderness, and we talked about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. And we're

using the wilderness both literally, but also sort of symbolically for those times in our lives

when we are not in paradise. And so another place that I want to look at where the wilderness appears

is someplace that we actually talked about about six months ago, and that is in the ministry

of Elijah. For those of you who were not with us when we did the study on Elijah, way back

in episodes 180, I think is right around the time that we started that study. Elijah appears as a prophet of God, and his story is predominantly told in First Kings.

And in First Kings 18, we get a very interesting account where Elijah, basically, who feels

that he is the last of the prophets of God, because the people of Israel, the northern kingdom,

have started to worship Ba'al, and they have started to worship him instead of God.

And so he has a contest.

And so basically at this point, he challenges the prophets of Baal, which is the true God.

And so they get two burnt offerings, and they put the wood and the altars together, but they don't provide fire.

And then they pray and call fire down from heaven.

The prophets of Baal, hundreds of them praying all day, nothing happens.

And Elijah showing off a little praise, and even though he has wet the altar down

with water three times, the altar, the offering, the wood is all consumed by fire that falls from

heaven. So when we talked about this back six months ago, you may recall that the next step for Elijah

is not, as you might suspect, a victory parade, even though he has shown beyond a shadow

of a doubt that God is God and that God is the true God and and Baal is the false God, he has gotten himself

in trouble with the King of Israel. And so we get First Kings 19. Now, Ahab told Jezebel, and Ahab is the king,

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