Posted in Reports and Essays

Here's a report I just wrote yesterday. Also, remember that on Monday I will be posting another story.

Elijah was a great man of faith. He was a prophet in the Old Testament, and he was very godly. We do not know much about his background, other than the fact that he was a Tishbite who lived in Gilead, but we do know that he served the Lord faithfully.

The first mention of Elijah in the Bible is 1 Kings 17. Elijah went to king Ahab and said, “As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.” Ahab had been very wicked and now God was judging Israel for their worship of false gods. If there was no rain no food could grow. The brooks and streams would dry up. How would Elijah stay alive?

God did not forget about his servant. He told Elijah to go to the brook Cherith. “And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.” So Elijah went to the brook just as God had told him to. He did not ask any questions or say, “But God, ravens are unclean!” or anything like that. He just trusted God. The raven brought Elijah bread and flesh in the morning and the evening, and Elijah drank of the brook. God was taking care of Elijah.

“And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.” So the Lord told Elijah to go to a widow woman’s house in Zidon. Once again, Elijah obeyed God. When he got to the widow’s house he saw her gathering sticks. He called to her and said, “Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.” But the widow woman said that she only had enough food to feed her and her son, and then they would both die.

Elijah said to the woman that she should make him a cake first, and then make some food for her and her son. He told her that her food would not run out until the end of the famine. So the woman went and obeyed the prophet of God. And do you know what? The food did not run out! God was faithful once again. Later the widow’s son fell sick and died. Elijah raised him from the dead.

After three years God sent Elijah to tell Ahab that the famine was over. God was not finished using Elijah. In 1 Kings 18 we read of the exciting account of the showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. When the prophets of Baal prayed to Baal to send fire down from heaven nothing happened. Then it was Elijah’s turn. When he prayed to the true God to send fire down from heaven the fire fell and licked up all of Elijah’s sacrifice, plus the water that was in the trench around the sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones. Then Elijah had all of the prophets of Baal killed.

When Jezebel (Ahab’s wife) heard what had happened she was very angry and said that she would kill Elijah. Amazingly, after just killing hundreds of prophets of Baal, Elijah became afraid of one woman. Of course, God would not let Elijah be killed, but Elijah ran away. He became discouraged and said that he was the only one left in Israel who had not bowed down to Baal. God told him that there were still seven thousand who had not worshipped Baal.

God used Elijah many times in his life. At the end of his life, Elijah got to go to heaven in a very special way. A chariot of fire and horses of fire came down and Elijah was carried away by a whirlwind into heaven. God rewarded his faithful servant.

What can we learn by Elijah’s life? We can learn that God will always take care of his children even if it seems impossible. We should just have faith and trust God. Elijah was no “super-hero”, only a sinner just like you and me. Yet he had faith in God and God blessed him for it. God’s children should always trust God; he will never fail us.

Posted in Reports and Essays

Here's a report I wrote for Bible class in school:

Abraham’s name was not always Abraham. Before God changed his name he was called Abram. Abram was a descendant of Shem, Noah’s son. More directly, he was the son of Terah. Terah had three sons that the Bible tells us of: Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

One day God told Abram to leave his country, Haran, and his family, and journey to a land that the Lord would tell him of. God also promised Abram that he would make of him a great nation. Now Abram might have thought, “How is God going to make a great nation out of me?” Abram obeyed God and left Haran. But we see that he did not entirely obey him. His nephew, Lot, the son of his brother Haran, went with him. So they journeyed until they came to the land of Canaan. There God promised him that he would give this land to his seed.

After a while there came a famine. Abram journeyed into Egypt because the famine was “grievous in the land.” But he was afraid that the men in Egypt might kill him so that they could have his wife Sarai (Sarai was very beautiful). So he said to Sarai, “You are very beautiful. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is Abram’s wife. Let’s kill him so that we can have Sarai.’ So when we get there, tell them that you are my sister so that I won’t be killed.” You can read the rest of the story in Genesis 12:10-20. Abram sinned, but God was ready to forgive his servant.

Much more happened in the life of Abram. God changed his name to Abraham because God said that he had made Abraham to be a father of many nations.

God continued to promise Abraham that he and Sarai would have a son, but now they were getting old, and they still had no child. One day Sarai came up with a grand plan. She told Abraham, “Look here. God is not letting me have any children. Take my maid, Hagar, and maybe she will bear you a son. In this way I will have children by her.” So Abraham did what Sarai suggested, not trusting God, but relying on his own strength. Hagar bore a son to Abraham and Sarai. His name was Ishmael.

Finally, Abraham was ninety-nine years old. God promised him once again that he would be the father of many nations. He also changed Sarai’s name to Sarah. “And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?” (Genesis 17:15-17) Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before thee!” (Genesis 17:18b) But God had other plans. God told Abraham that Sarah would have a son, and they would call his name Isaac. As for Ishmael, God said that he had blessed him, and would make of him a great nation, also. But the promised child was Isaac, not Ishmael.

Finally, God kept his promise. Sarah had a child, just as God had said. Abraham circumcised Isaac on the eighth day, just as God had told him to. Abraham was one hundred years old when Isaac, the promised son, was finally born.

But God was not done with Abraham. God told him, in Genesis 22, to take his son Isaac and offer him as a burnt offering! Abraham must have been very sad as he raised the knife to kill his son, but he must have had faith, because God had promised to him that Isaac would become a great nation, and Isaac still wasn’t grown up yet! Surely God would raise Isaac from the dead. But no, God said to Abraham, just as he was about to kill Isaac, “Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.” (Genesis 22:12)

Abraham was a great man of faith. In fact, he was called the friend of God! That does not mean that he did not sin. Not at all! We see many times in the life of Abraham failures and sins. Yet God was always willing to forgive him. God will do the same for us. I think that one of the main lessons in the life of Abraham is that God will always keep his promises, no matter how long it takes.