The story of Elijah is about 3,000 years ago.

He's a prophet of God, and he's up against the politicians.

And it's always the prophets versus the politicians.

And it happens in the setting of the ancient nation of Israel, which is still a nation today.

So we go back 3,000 years, and what's really curious about the nation of Israel is that

God had a particular plan for it. It's the only nation in the history of the world

that God tells us these are their borders and boundaries.

God establishes the nation of Israel,

and it was his plan that Jesus Christ, God, would come into human history,

into the nation of Israel, that he would die and rise as our Savior

for our sins in the nation of Israel,

and that from Israel, the good news of Jesus would go out

from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Well knowing this

Satan was doing everything he could in these seasons leading up to the first coming of Jesus

to stop and to thwart this plan of God.

And so what we see in that day is that the nation of Israel, God's people, are under attack.

And just to give you some indication,

the nation of Israel has always been under attack.

It's surrounded on all sides by enemies.

It's a very small nation. It's about the same size as New Jersey. And so when you

read the Old Testament and you hear about the prominence of the nation of Israel,

it's the size geographically, roughly, of New Jersey and today

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