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Preached February 20, 2008 at Longview Missionary Baptist Church
I am a both/and kind of guy. Do you want cookies or pie? That is an either/or question. My preference is both cookies and pie. That’s part of my problem.
America is both/and when it comes to spirituality. There is a blending and melting pot effect among religious world views. For example, there are Christian Yoga groups. Nothing wrong with having a group formed around some affinity like biking or hiking. But Yoga is an eastern religious practice. It has been brought into our culture through New Ageism neo-paganism. Yet some Christians want to blend the two. They argue they are only embracing the stretching exercises and not the mysticism associated with it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. It is kind of like going through Muslim purification rituals, wearing robes and turbans, assuming the posture of Muslim prayer including bowing toward Mecca, and then saying “Oh, well I’m really praying to Jesus.”
In America, one of the celebrated values is relativism– the idea that we can all just get along and we can swirl beliefs and practices together, just so long as no one gets too serious about their faith publically.
We hear this all the time in the media. New Age, Paganism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism are all viable options set next to Christianity. Then of course there are the purely secular religions of humanism and materialism. Humanism and materialism have done more to infiltrate and corrupt Christianity than anything else.
Religious pluralism and religious relativism are great temptations we face. The pressure to compromise is enormous.
Elijah is confronting Israelites who had compromised. They had not totally abandoned Yahweh (at least in their minds). But at the same time they had at least tolerated and at worst embraced Baal worship.
Dale Ralph Davis explains why the Israelites had fallen into spiritual compromise:
1. It carried the appeal of royal sanction. Jezebel was a devout Baal and Asherah worshiper. She hosted 850 heathen priests in the palace. It was en vogue and stylish.
2. There was an appeal to tradition and history. It was culturally relevant. They moved into Canaan, where Baal was worshiped before they arrived.
3. Baal worship offered an appeal of relevance, an ability to touch felt needs. Baal was believed to send forth lightning, fire, and rain. He gave grain, oil, and wine. He could revive the dead, heal the sick, and give you a child.
Note how similar 9th century Israel and 21st century America are.
1. Religious pluralism is the rage. Alternate religious philosophies are celebrated and embraced. The religions of humanism and materialism are the chief means of worship. (Isn’t the government after all sending you a rebate check to help stimulate the economy. Go and spend it. Worship at the altars of Walmart, Best Buy, Sears and Dillards).
2. Cultural diversity is the mantra of our society, especially in the field of education. Children are indoctrinate to numerous religious practices from a variety of cultures, all in the name of diversity. While it is good to learn and know about other cultures, in many places, it has moved beyond mere education and information to discipleship.
3. Pragmatism is the name of the game. What ever we need to do get ahead and gain advantage.
Elijah, standing on Mount Carmel nearly 3000 years ago, poses a question we need today: “How long will we waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him. If not, follow someone else.
We will worship someone or something. That much is certain. All people are religious people. We have an innate desire and compulsion to worship someone or something. Even atheists have a religion. They may not worship God, but they worship something, whether it is science, or reason, or humanity, or self.
We have room in our hearts to serve only one god. There is not space for two or more. Even in polytheistic religions, one god is worshiped as supreme. At the pinnacle of your heart, where there is room for only one and nothing else, what resides there? That is your chief god. That is your supreme god you serve.
We are called to commit to the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God who sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins. It is Him or someone else. That is the choice. We can go on pretending we are serving him all the while we have competing allegiances. But God will suffer no rivals. And it is impossible to set another along side him.
Elijah’s call echos in our ears today. Who are you committed to? Who are you serving? Where do your loyalties lie? It may be easier if there are many who join with us in serving the Lord. But we must commit to serve the one true God even if no one else will.
Who are you serving? Commit to the Lord.
Preached February 13, 2008 at Longview Missionary Baptist Church
Introduction
The manager of a minor league baseball team who was so disgusted with his center fielder’s performance that he ordered him to the dugout and assumed the position himself. The first ball that came into center field took a bad hop and hit the manager in the mouth. The next one was a high fly ball, which he lost in the glare of the sun—until it bounced off his forehead.
The third was a hard line drive that he charged with outstretched arms; unfortunately, it flew between his hands and smacked his eye. Furious, he ran back to the dugout, grabbed the center fielder by the uniform, and shouted. ‘You idiot! You’ve got center field so messed up that even I can’t do a thing with it!’
Blame is a fun game to play isn’t it? It is much easier to point fingers at others than to take responsibility for our own actions and choices.
A man angrily jumped out of his car after a collision with another car. “Why don’t you people watch where you’re driving?” he shouted wildly. “You’re the fourth car I’ve hit today!”
Our spiritual lives seem like that sometimes. When heaven seems closed and God seems silent and distant and our souls are parched, we blame the preacher for not “feeding the flock.” Or the music ministry because the music isn’t worshipful enough. Or the Sunday School teacher or class. Sometimes we even blame God. When we drift far from God and everything is dry and barren, we point to everyone and everything else, except ourselves.
There are two reasons for spiritual dryness:
1) God is allowing us to experience a difficult season in our lives to cultivate our character. In this case, it only seems that God is absent and distant. He is strengthening our patience and endurance and after a season, we can look back and see how he has worked in our lives.
2) Another reason is that we have drifted away from God and he is allowing us to experience the consequences of our actions. While God may let us drift for a while, eventually God comes knocking down the door.
Israel has been experiencing drought– physical and spiritual– for three years. Elijah showed up and announced to Ahab that it would not rain. And then Elijah disappeared off the radar screen. People were looking for him, but he was not to be found. God’s prophets are in hiding and no one is proclaiming the word of God openly to the people. It is a dry time. No rain water and no living water coming down.
But now, Elijah has resurfaced. God has brought him out of his exile and is now bringing him to confront Ahab. Meeting Obadiah, Elijah orders him to tell Ahab he is back. Ahab gets word and comes after Elijah.
1 Kings 18:16-20 (ESV)
So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him. And Ahab went to meet Elijah.
[17] When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” [18] And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. [19] Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”
[20] So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel.
Ahab’s first word to Elijah is one of contempt and animosity. He calls him a TROUBLER OF ISRAEL. The word troubler means to disturb or stir up.
It is used in the book of Joshua in a very famous passage. Perhaps Ahab had this episode in mind when he called Elijah a troubler.
God delivered Jericho into the hands of Joshua and the Israelites. But he gave them a stern warning.
Joshua 6:18 (ESV) But you, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it.
In other words, it is going to be bad news if the Israelites do not obey God and instead keep things that should have been destroyed.
Joshua 7:1 (ESV) But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. And the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.
This is bad news for Israel. They go into battle against Ai, and they lose. They lose badly. Joshua, frightened and confused, cries out to God. God answers him and tells him that there is sin in the camp. They search and discover Achan’s sin. Joshua confronts Achan.
Joshua 7:25 (ESV) And Joshua said, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.” And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones.
So Ahab sees Elijah, and he calls him a “trouble-maker.” Elijah is blamed for no rain. He is accused of bringing harm on the people. It is insinuated that Elijah is not a patriot, is not a supporter of the crown, is not a friend to the people.
Ahab is doing something that is common among many people. When God begins to rebuke or judge people because of idolatrous and wicked choices, people get angry and start pointing to others. We blame others for our sins. We get angry at God when he righteously judges.
But Elijah turns it around immediately. “I have not troubled Israel– you have! This is your fault.” Drought was upon the people because of their sin. Spiritual drought as a form of judgment comes upon us when we:
1. Abandon the Word of God.
Neglecting the Word of God will dry our souls. We wither and begin to dry when we are not nourished when God speaks into our souls through his word.
2. Abandon the Worship of God.
When we turn from the Word of God, we will start being infused with another message. We start looking for spiritual nourishment from other places. In Ahab’s case, it was from Baal. He abandoned the worship of God to worship Baal.
3. Abandon our Witness for God.
Instead of leading Israel to God and setting the pace for worship, Ahab became an evangelist for Baal.
This is why trouble came. Ahab and Israel were suffering because they forgot the Second commandment.
Exodus 20:4-6 (ESV) You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. [5] You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, [6] but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
God will suffer no rivals. If we follow in Ahab’s footsteps and Abandon the Word of God, Worship of God, and our witness for God, we will soon experience chastisement. And if we do, there is no one to blame but ourselves. When people come and complain to me that God seems far away and they don’t seem to get much out of church, I want to check these three areas of their lives. You see, when we are in the Word, when we Worship, and when we Witness, there is no deadness. There is life and vitality.
Preached February 6, 2008 at Longview Missionary Baptist Church
Introduction
We all have limits.
Money we spend, activities we do, entertainment, work… Thing we will and will not do.
When it comes to obeying the Lord, do we have any limits? When we grow in our faith, we are going to be pushed and challenged. And at some point, we will reach a place where we have to make a decision– obey God fully or pull back and disobey him.
● After three years, God tells Elijah to go and appear before Ahab. We learn in 18:10, Ahab has been pursuing Elijah everywhere. And it is not for a friendly chat.
● Sometimes, God will call us to do extremely uncomfortable, dangerous things.
● Elijah has been so conditioned though in 1 Kings 17 with his experiences at Cherith and Zarephath to trust God when he tells him to do something.
● Obeying God take courage. Or to say it another way, obeying God means we have to trust God when he directs us.
● Every act of obedience carries some level of risk.
● Obadiah & Ahab
○ Ahab is selfish and cares nothing about the people. His great concern is making sure he doesn’t loose his livestock.
○ Obadiah is providing for 100 prophets of God. At great personal risk and sacrifice.
● Obadiah & Elijah
○ There is more than one way to serve the Lord.
- Elijah was bold, confrontational, intrusive.
- Obadiah was also bold, but he worked within the system to make a difference.
○ Elijah and Obadiah both served the Lord in their own way.
○ Obadiah feared the Lord. This dictated his actions.
- He saved 100 prophets, at great risk and cost to himself.
- Jezebel was trying to kill the prophets.
● Like Elijah, we need some believers who will confront the culture and work from the outside in.
● Like Obadiah, we need some believers who will engage the culture and work from the inside out.
● All believers are to fear God and choose to obey him in and out of the culture.
● Obadiah sees Elijah in the distance. Elijah has a mission for him. Tell Ahab he has returned.
● Obadiah is nervous. He knows this may not go well for him.
● Obadiah had been faithful to God, stuck out his neck, and wrecked Jezebel’s plot to kill off the prophets. Surely he had done enough.
○ Do we limit our obedience to God? Do we think “I’ve put my dues in? I’ve done enough? Surely someone else can do this part!”
● Simon Robinson comments: “Surely he had done enough for the cause. Wasn’t there someone else who could replace him as the risk-taker now? When he hid the prophets, he had a sense of being in control; he could hide them, feed them and cover his tracks. However, if he were to tell the king that Elijah wanted to meet him, he would have no control over the possible outcome.”
● Elijah assures him that he will in fact be right where he tells him he will be.
● Obedience is never the easy choice.
● Obadiah goes and tells Ahab.
● This sets up one of the most incredible moments in the entire OT.
Application
Proverbs 29:25 (ESV) The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.
There are three levels of obedience I see in this passage. Each level brings some measure of risk and some level of commitment required.
Level 1: Personal Conviction
Obadiah feared the Lord.
Level 2: Private Action
Obadiah aided the prophets.
Level 3: Public Declaration
Obadiah announced Elijah to King Ahab.
How far will you go when it comes to obeying the Lord? Are you drawing boundaries or limitations on your obedience?
Following the Lord may cost you and may be dangerous. Obadiah came to a cross-roads and had to make a choice. He chose to serve the Lord. It was tough and frightening, but ultimately he chose wisely.
Obadiah and Elijah both served God faithfully, in different ways. You don’t have to be a radical prophet living in the wilderness to serve God. You don’t have to quit you job. You don’t have to disengage from society and live in the wilderness. But you do have to be willing to do anything God asks of you.
Will you fear man, and fall short of obeying God?
Or will you fear God?
Proverbs 14:26-27 (ESV) In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge. [27] The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death.
Preached January 30, 2008 at Longview Missionary Baptist Church
When a human being is born, we call that person an infant. An infant is one who is by definition immature, or not fully grown. We reserve that term for adults or “grown-ups.”
Spiritually, we must mature and grow as well. God uses a process to help us grow from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. This process follows a predictable, regular pattern. This is generally how God works. It is his Modus Operandi or M.O. in our lives.
Five steps in the M.O. or process:
1) Command– God reveals his will to his people and commands us to be or do something.
2) Promise– A promise is connected to the command.
● Promise can be positive or negative (ie– blessings or cursings)
● Promise can be stated or implied
● Promise can be temporal or eternal, physical or spiritual
3) Faith– The response of the person God reveals his command and promise to is one of faith. Biblical faith has two aspects to it:
● Belief
● Obedience– it is not genuine faith until there is obedience.
● Comparing Paul and James together we see this clearly.
Paul in Romans 4 tells us that Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. James tells us in James 2 that faith without works is dead, and Abraham was counted righteous by what he did.
4) Fulfillment – When we respond in obedience, God blesses us and fulfills his promise to us.
5) Repeat– the process is then repeated over and over again because this is the process of maturity, and we all must continue to mature spiritually.
We see this M.O. at work in three scenes in 1 Kings 17.
Scene 1: The Brook Cherith (1 Kings 17:1-7)
● v 1– Confronted Ahab and Jezebel
● vv 2-3 – Sent by God to Cherith
○ Command
○ Sometimes, God doesn’t want us to be in the lime-light. Sometimes he calls us to back-corners, and back-waters just to sit still and be quiet for a little while.
● v 4 – God promises to take care of Elijah.
○ Remember a drought is on, which will bring a famine.
○ God promises supernatural resources to care for Elijah.
○ God’s direction includes God’s provision.
○ Even when God gives us an order that doesn’t make sense, we can trust him.
● v 5– Elijah goes.
○ He has to believe God will do what he said he would do. Follow it up with action.
○ God’s promises often hinge on our obedience.
○ What if Elijah did not go? No provisions. Even though it was strange to go to the wilderness, that is what God said to do.
○ We must not forget our part.
● v 6 – God keeps his word and the promise is fulfilled.
○ We must trust God one day at a time.
● v 7 – Eventually, the brook runs dry. God then gives a new command. The process is about to repeat itself.
○ God sends ever increasing challenges to our faith to make it grow so we can mature.
Scene 2: To Zarephath (1 Kings 17:8-16)
● vv 8-9a – God now commands Elijah to go to “enemy” territory.
○ Zarephath is 8 miles south of Sidon and 13 miles north of Tyre, in the domain of Jezebeel’s father Ethbaal.
○ Gentile land, heathen land, idol-polluted land.
○ God is going to teach two important lessons though:
- Baal failed this woman. Baal was the god of the storm and fertility. Yet she is about to starve to death. Yahweh will take care of her though.
- God is judging Israel. Luke 4 tells us there were plenty of widows in Israel, yet God chooses to give mercy to a heathen widow in Zarephath. Don’t presume on God’s grace (Israel) and don’t limit God’s grace.
● v 9b – God promises the widow will take care of Elijah.
● vv 10-14 – Elijah acts on faith and obeys, but this time it is more difficult. The widow protests.
○ Faith is now challenged. Not easy.
○ Elijah doesn’t back down. Faith must often be persistent.
● vv 15-16 – God takes care of Elijah and the widow. God fulfills his promise.
○ When we obey, others often experience blessings too!
Scene 3: With the Widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:17-24)
● The widow’s son dies and she is left grieving.
○ She is confused. She was doing what God wanted her to do, and now this happens.
○ But God is helping to grow her in her faith.
● v 19– Command– Elijah tells her to bring the boy
● Promise– the implication is that Elijah will take care of it.
○ They believe God can and will do something about this.
● Faith– the woman brings the boy to Elijah
○ Both Elijah and the woman exercise faith, asking God to act on their behalf.
● Fulfillment– God raises the son.
○ The woman declares her faith (converted)
● And though the text doesn’t tell us, we know God will continue to work in the life of the woman.
● In Chapter 18, the command comes once again to Elijah to go back to Ahab. The process repeats itself
Conclusion
Command >> Promise >> Faith >> Fulfillment >> Repeat
This is how God works in our lives. The key for us is to exercise faith in God and obey him whenever he commands us.
Preached on January 23, 2008 at the Wednesday Prayer Service
Introduction
Who here likes public speaking? What would you say if I told you you had to appear before the president of the US and confront him? Would you want to?
There is a great scene in the film The American President with Michael Douglas as the president and Annette Benning as a lobbyist who is opposed to some policy promoted by the President. She is in a meeting with key White House advisors and loudly arguing with them and begins insulting the president. What she doesn’t realize is the President has come in the room behind her. When she realizes the president is there, she melts in shock and embarrassment and immediately turns from a loud, bold advocate for her cause into a stammering, humbled person who cannot look the president in the eye.
It takes more than just a little courage to stand up and confront a powerful person with an unpopular message.
Yet this is exactly what Elijah did with King Ahab.
● Baal was the Canaanite god of weather and fertility. It was believed Baal was the source of food and water.
○ That is why he was worshiped by Ahab and Israel.
○ They were looking for prosperity.
● When Elijah confronted them, he was striking right at the heart of this pagan practice of worship.
○ God, through Elijah, was announcing that He alone, and not Baal or any other god controlled the rain and the crops.
○ God had already established the way to have prosperity. Deuteronomy 28:1-6, 15, 23-24
● Elijah specifically mentions that no dew would fall. The Jezreel valley was well watered because of the dew. This is the place Gideon was in when he laid out the fleece.
● Because of the sin and hardness by Ahab and the nation, they suffered drought for 3 ½ years.
What kind of man was Elijah? How could he do this thing?
James 5:17-18
● Elijah was a man just like us. Nothing extraordinary about him. He was pretty ordinary.
● What made him significant? He was devoted to the Lord and spent significant time with him in prayer.
● Elijah’s only qualification is that he wanted to do the Lord’s will.
● God delights in using ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
○ You don’t have to be important, influential, or intellectual to be used by God. All you need to do is to commit your life to the Lord and seek to do his will each day.
○ You don’t have to be extraordinary, just obedient.
● James shows us the secret to Elijah’s power was prayer and a cultivated relationship with God.
● Will we be Elijahs who have cultivated such a close and personal relationship with God that when the time comes we can boldly stand up and confront the sin in our culture.
● God sent a warning to Ahab in the form of the drought. All around us there is a drought of morality, truth, and holiness. Will we be a prophetic voice in our day to call people back to the Lord?
● You don’t have to be extraordinary. Just obedient.
