The It would be easy to think that a great spiritual triumph would be catalytic, that there would be continued victories that follow.

But in the Bible we read about many people whose

great victories were followed by times of deep despair. What can we learn from

their trials? We'll find out today on Truth for Life.

Alistair Begg is teaching from First Kings.

We're studying the opening end of the spectrum to highlight them

to an unhelpful and even an untrue degree. But the scriptures possess a

tremendous balance when it comes to these things.

And while many of us may have been tempted in addressing the record of the life of

Elijah, to make sure that we portrayed Chapter 18 in all of its success, as it were in

glorious Technicolor, we may have decided that we would just excerpt chapter 19 because the tremendous success of 18

is more than matched by the defeat of 19.

Scripture, however, makes no attempt to conceal or to excuse the blemishes or the faults or the failures of its heroes.

That in itself is one of the pointers to the very infallibility and inerancy of scripture,

the divine record which God has left to us. The contrast

revealed by the chapters 18 and 19 of First Kings are clearly presented and

in considering them we learn something of God's character

and we learn also of the frailty of God's servants and in this case specifically Elijah. In chapter 18 we could

quickly summarize it we see Elijah introduced to us as the man of prayer we see him as an individual of great humility, we see him clothed in power

as he goes on his journeys from there and triumph is written all over the 18th chapter of First

Kings.

How remarkable it is then to simply glance down less than a paragraph and find that we are here confronted by this mighty servant of God now displaying the fact that he was frail as well. In 18, he manifests his bravery

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