First Kings 19, the Bible says, And Ahab
told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and
withal how he had slain all the prophets
with a sword.
Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying,
So let the gods do to me and
more also, if I make not thy life
as the life of one of them by
tomorrow about this time.
And when he saw that, he arose, and
went for his life, and came to Beersheba,
which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant
there.
But he himself went a day's journey into
the wilderness, and came and sat down under
a juniper tree, and he requested for himself
that he might die, and said, It is
enough now, O Lord, take away my life,
for I am not better than my father's.
And as he lay and slept under a
juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him,
and said unto him, Arise and eat.
And he looked, and behold, there was a
cake made upon the coals, and a cruise
of water at his head.
And he did eat and drink, and laid
him down again.
And the angel of the Lord came again
the second time, and touched him, and said,
Arise and eat, because the journey is too
great for thee.
And he arose, and did eat and drink,
and went in the streets of that meet
forty days and forty nights, on the whore
of the mount of God.
Go back to verse number four, if you
would, please.
1 Kings 19, 4, it will be our
text.
The Bible says, But he himself went a
day's journey into the wilderness, and came and
sat down under a juniper tree, and he
requested for himself that he might die, and
said, It is enough now, O Lord, take
away my life, for I am not better
than my father's.
And tonight in 1 Kings 19, we'll preach
on this simple subject.
What do you do when you've had enough?
Thank you very much.
You may be seated.
Let's bow our heads in hearts and pray,
and ask the Lord to bless our time
together tonight.
What do you do when you've had enough?
Now, my father, I do pray that you
would help me tonight as I preach the
word of God.
I pray that you would help these, my
friends in this congregation as they listen.
Give us attentive hearts and listening ears to
the precious word of God tonight.
And I pray, Lord, that you would do
something in our hearts that my sermon cannot
do.
Thank you, Lord, for the good music tonight.
Thank you, Lord, for the fun that we
can have, for the fellowship that you've blessed
us with.
We've had many activities throughout the day.
And, Lord, we still have a good bit
of an evening before us.
But remove all that from our mind at
this time and help us to focus in
to the blessed word of God.
Speak to us now, we pray, in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
In 1 Kings 19, we have an unusual
portion of Scripture simply because it follows one
of the greatest revivals in all of the
Bible in 1 Kings 18.
Now, I'm sure you'll remember 1 Kings 18,
because as a Bible college student, you have
heard many, many sermons on 1 Kings 18,
on Elijah, when the fire of God fell
there atop of Mount Carmel.
Matter of fact, when I was in Bible
college, we had a Levangel come through, and
he preached one day on the hot, caramel
Sunday.
And so I've heard probably just about every
title of every sermon that could be preached
from the text of 1 Kings 18.
But one thing's evident.
No matter who preaches it, how it's preached,
and what they title their message, I'll tell
you one thing.
It was a wonderful revival that turned the
hearts of an entire nation of people back
to the God of the Bible.
I want you to notice, if you would
please, the very last verse of 1 Kings
18, verse 46.
1 Kings 18, verse 46, the Bible says,
And the hand of the Lord was on
Elijah.
Now, that's the prophet we're going to be
dealing with tonight.
And the hand of the Lord was on
Elijah, and he girded up his reins and
ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.
So it doesn't take somebody who is an
A-plus student in a Bible college to
figure out that here's a man who had
the power of God.
How do you know that, Brother Locke?
I'll tell you how I know that, because
the Bible said that he did.
It said that the hand of the Lord
was upon him.
Now, it doesn't say that simply because God
ran out of words.
It says that because here's a man who
believed God.
It says that because here's a man who
spit in the eye of the world, spit
in the eye of the devil.
He turned his back on sin, and with
all of heaven behind him, he stood in
front of 850 prophets and said, Now, let
me show you, good boys, what my God
can do.
And here is a man who performed miracles
because he had the power of God.
But I'd like to remind you, no matter
how old we've been saved, no matter how
spiritual we may think that we are, no
matter how much Bible knowledge we have, and
no matter how full our heart is of
the Word of God, there are going to
be discouraging times in our life.
And here is a man that the Bible
arrogantly says in chapter 18 and verse 46
that the hand of God was upon him.
He had just been removed from an old
-fashioned, heaven-sent, heartfelt, holy-ghost, sin-killing
revival, and all of a sudden, because of
one wicked woman by the name of Jezebel,
he gets upset, he closes his Bible, he
packs his dirty duds, he throws them over
his shoulder, and he had closed it out
of town, and he stared to death over
one wicked woman.
And I believe I've met a few women
like that in some of my meetings.
But nonetheless, here is a man who had
the hand of God upon him, had the
power of God upon him, but we find
him sitting under a juniper tree, sucking his
thumb, wishing that God would kill him.
Now, you may tell me, how in the
wide world can a man go from chapter
18 to chapter 19 so quickly?
I believe I'll show you tonight.
Look, if you would, please, at verse number
1 of 1 Kings chapter 19.
Several thoughts tonight, and we'll be through and
be done.
The Bible says, And Ahab told Jezebel.
That was the queen of Iran, by the
way.
Ahab and Jezebel were the most wicked king
and queen that Israel ever had known, and
they are the ones that took them back
in to idolatry and spiritual bondage.
And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had
done, and with all, how he had slain
all the prophets with a sword.
Then, when she heard this, then Jezebel sent
a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the
gods, notice he's a pagan, that's a little
god, so let the gods do to me
and more also, if I make not my
life as the life of one of them
by tomorrow about this time.
So he's sitting down by a brook, having
himself a good time, a little Bible study,
and all of a sudden, across his little
PDA, all of a sudden, he gets this
little email.
And the email says that Jezebel is going
to chop your head off.
He is upset at what you have done
to all of the prophets of the grove
and the prophets of Baal.
He fed those prophets, the Bible said.
They ate at her table.
They were her friends.
He paid them high dollars to be a
bunch of liberals and god-kickers and Christ
-injectors and Bible-kickers.
They didn't care anything about the God of
the Bible, but she loved them.
And now she found out that they're all
dead.
They were all taken down to the Brook
Kishon.
The Bible said that he slew them there.
He chopped their heads off and the blood
was flowing.
And by the way, Lester Orloff said, that's
the first non-profit organization you'll ever read
about in the Bible, amen.
He took them down there and he killed
every single one of them.
And the Bible says that when Jezebel found
out about it, she got in a tither
and she got in a fancy.
She started batting them little Max Factor eyelashes.
And she said, I'll tell you one thing,
I'm going to kill him.
He's dead.
I can't believe he has done this to
our nation.
And so she emailed him, sent a messenger.
You understand the context.
And he finds out that this lady wants
to kill him by that very same time
the next day.
And if she doesn't succeed, she is so
much against him that she said, I made
a little pact with the gods of the
land and the gods of the world that
I serve.
I'll let them do to me and more
also what you did to these prophets if
you're not dead and I don't have your
head on a platter by this time tomorrow
afternoon.
Now notice what your Bible says, please, in
verse 3.
Don't miss it.
Very important.
The Bible says in 1 Kings 19, 3,
notice the first little phrase, and when he
saw that.
I want to give you three simple problems
tonight that Elijah had that caused him to
be in the discouragement and the despair and
the bondage that he found himself in.
I want you to write down number one.
Elijah had a problem with his faith.
Now that may sound funny to you, and
honestly it sounds very funny to me because
in the chapter before, he had all the
faith in the world.
You remember, ladies and gentlemen, that Ahab said,
okay, we're going to have ourselves a little
contest.
Now you talk about home court advantage.
He was on their turf.
He let them go first.
He had a king and a queen against
him, an entire group of rebellious Israelites against
him, and 850 Satan worshipers against him.
Now friend, he had all of those folks
against him, but he knew God was on
his side, and that's all that mattered.
And you and God are a majority, and
the Apostle Paul said, if God be for
us, who can be against us?
And the obvious biblical answer is no one
at all.
And so he stood there at the base
of that mountain, and he said, you fellas
can go first.
And the Bible says that from early in
the morning until midday, probably about 6 to
12, something like that, these fellas were crying,
oh bell, hear us.
Oh bell, hear us.
And the Bible says, but there was no
answer.
I'll tell you why.
Because there was no bell.
And so they were hollering, hear us please,
hear us please, hear us please.
Now here's what your Bible says.
Man, I love this.
I like Elijah.
He had a backbone.
He wasn't one of these, you know, jellyfish
type of a preacher that was scared to
preach on sin.
You know what the Bible says?
And at midday, Elijah mocked them.
Man, I like that.
I mean, he mocked them.
He put a little straw in his mouth.
He looked at them fellas and said, hey,
what's wrong with your God?
Is he sleeping?
Is he on a journey?
Is he getting something to eat?
Maybe his beeper went off.
Maybe he's on the other line and he's
not paying attention.
Hey, where's your God?
And that made them even more angry.
And the Bible says that they began to
pray and they began to prophesy.
I mean, they were screaming and hollering, the
Bible says, until the time of the offering
of the evening sacrifice.
That's 6 o'clock in the evening.
And these people had been screaming like a
bunch of wild banshees and running around like
a bunch of chickens with their heads cut
off.
And they were screaming and hollering and yelling
for 12 solid hours.
And the Bible says that they cut themselves
with stones.
They cut themselves with knives.
They cut themselves with lancets.
They jumped around.
The blood was gushing out.
They were babbling and hollering and yelling and
acting crazy and foolish like a bunch of
little nursery babies.
And nothing happened.
Well, you know what the contest was all
about.
They cut up the bullets.
They put the wood there on and put
no fire under.
And the God that answers by fire, let
Him be God.
And all the people shook their fists in
the air and said, it is well said.
It is well said.
And so they prayed, they prophesied, they preached,
they hollered, they yelled, they did everything they
could for 12 hours and there was no
answer.
And all of a sudden, Elijah said, now
let me show you what my God can
do and you believe anything you want to
about that Bible sitting in your lap tonight.
I don't think he doubted Jehovah God for
one moment.
He knew God could send fire anytime He
wanted to.
And so he got down.
And what 12 hours of praying could not
do for a false God, 64 words to
the thrice holy God of the Bible got
done just like that.
And the Bible says the fire of God
fell out of the sky.
It licked up the sacrifice.
It licked up the bricks.
It licked up all of the water.
You study your Bible, you will find there
was 12 gills of water that was poured
over that thing.
And there had been a drought for three
years and water was the most precious commodity
of the day.
And so here this water was all licked
up.
It was licked up in the trench.
Everything was burnt up.
And more than that stuff being burnt up,
the hearts of the people melted.
And they fell on their faces and they
had a revival and they said, The Lord,
He is the God.
The Lord, He is the God.
And those people were revived and they saw
God as they had never seen Him before.
As the God that can send fire.
The true God of the universe.
And that's when He took those prophets down
there and killed every one of them.
And you'll be hard pressed.
You'll be hard pressed to show me anywhere
in 1 Kings chapter number 18 that is
faith wavered.
He was a man who believed God to
the fullest in chapter number 18.
But he finds out that one wicked woman
is out to get him.
He finds out that one crazy lady by
the name of Jezebel wants his head on
a platter and the Bible says right here
in verse number 3, And when he saw
that...
Now wait a minute.
In chapter number 18 he did not live
by his sight.
He lived by faith.
He believed God.
He trusted God.
He relied on God.
But the moment things got fixed and the
moment the money ran out of the bank,
if you will, and the moment it seemed
like God was hiding Himself, he went from
living by faith to living by sight.
He took his eyes off the God of
the Bible and put them on his circumstances.
And that was his first problem.
And the Bible does not say that he
trusted in God and he fell on his
face and said, Lord, deliver me from these
circumstances.
The Bible emphatically says, When he saw that,
he had a problem with his faith.
He began to be a man.
He was a prophet.
A man with a power of God who
began to live by sight and not by
faith.
Now here's what the world says.
The world says, Seeing is believing.
But that's not biblical.
The biblical mindset is this.
Believing is seeing.
We do not understand and then obey.
We obey so that we may scripturally understand.
That's why the Bible says in Hebrews 11,
6, For without faith it is impossible.
Not improbable.
Not some can, some can't.
It is impossible to please God.
For him that cometh to God must first
believe that He is and that He is
a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
The book of Habakkuk, the book of Galatians,
and the book of Romans all say three
times in the Word of God that the
just shall live by faith.
And here's a man in chapter 18 who
believed God.
I mean, he had faith.
I mean, I'm not talking about mustard seed
faith either.
I mean, this guy had watermelon faith.
He believed God.
He said God's going to send the fire.
There's no doubt about it.
I'm not going to doubt.
I'm not going to waver.
The fire is on its way.
I can feel it burning my brow right
now.
And guess what?
The fire came and God was glorified.
God was uplifted and God was honored.
But in the very next chapter, when one
little thing went wrong in Elijah's life, he
stopped living by faith and began living by
sight.
You know, it's a very easy thing to
do as a child of God.
The problems get against you.
You look at the newspaper.
You go to your box and maybe you're
expecting some money when you're in Bible college
and then you've got a bill that seems
to be just insurmountable.
There's no way you can get through this
year.
There's no way you can get through this
semester.
And a lot of times we're just like
the children of Israel.
You know how I know that?
Because God pays every bill right on time.
And by the way, you won't have an
unpaid bill that belongs to God.
He takes care of your bills.
He takes care of your health.
He takes care of your family.
He takes care of every little incidental need.
And the very next month when the bills
come and the school bills do and you've
got to put gas in the car and
groceries in your belly, we're just like the
children of Israel and we forget all about
the blessings of the month before and we
fall out of pieces and we quit living
by faith and we begin to live by
sight.
When I was coming up here today from
the airport and I was listening on the
radio and this guy was talking about Noah's
Ark.
And you know, out in Turkey and the
mountains, Turkish mountains, wherever it is, whatever it
is.
And here's what he said.
He said, you know, he was a liberal,
he was a skeptic.
He said, you know, he said, I would
believe the Bible if they actually found that
big wooden boat.
Well, that's what the man said.
I would believe the Bible if they would
actually find that big wooden boat.
Now, I'm going to tell you something.
They could find the big wooden boat and
they could park it over in a trailer
park behind my trailer and it would not
increase my faith one bit.
Because I don't have to have the boat
to believe God.
I've got a Bible to believe God.
And if the Bible says God will take
care of me, then I promise you God
will take care of me.
Now, by the way, if they ever did
find Noah's Ark, I thought about this too.
Then Benny Hinn and one of these other
crooked birds on television would get a couple
of splinters of it and try to sell
them for about $25 a piece.
I've got a splinter of Noah's Ark.
It will be your point of contact for
the floods and the storms of life.
And if you send me $29.99, I'll
send you a splinter of Noah's Ark.
Hey!
I don't need a splinter of Noah's Ark.
I need to get my nose out of
the newspaper and put it in the Word
of God and learn to trust and believe
and rely on Almighty God.
And here's a man who began to look
at his circumstances through freshly eyes, through human
eyes, rather than through the all-seeing eye
of the God of the Bible.
And his first problem was a problem with
his faith.
Now, if you want to have a miserable
summer, if you want to have a horrible,
wretched summer, you just look at all the
circumstances, you just look at all the problems,
and you just look at everything in life
through your eyes rather than simply trusting in
God.
Hey, if God said He'll take care of
you, I promise you, friend, God will take
care of you.
Both physically, financially, emotionally, spiritually.
When are we going to learn as God's
people to simply trust in God?
I said that one night in the church.
Matter of fact, I thought maybe I was
even preaching this message.
And I preached, and all I said was
this, God's people need to learn to simply
trust God.
And a man came to me after the
service, and he said, Brother Locke, I understand
what you mean.
He said that that sounds just real simple
and real generic.
Duh!
It's supposed to be real simple and real
generic.
It doesn't have to be hard to believe
God.
God promised in His Word that He would
meet our every need, and therefore, He'd be
a liar if He did not.
And I know what my Bible says in
Titus 1-2.
God cannot.
It's not that He will not.
It's that His character will not allow Him
to.
God can not allow Him Therefore, I do
not need to go through life with the
bifocal problems and circumstances on, but I need
to not see the problem.
I need to believe God in the problem.
So His first problem was the problem of
faith.
But go back in your Bible if you
would please.
I want to show you something else in
verse 3.
And when He saw that, that was His
faith wavering, He arose, now notice this, and
went for His life and came to Beersheba,
which belonged to Judah, and left His servants
there.
You probably know the outline already.
Number one, He had a problem with His
faith.
Number two, He had a problem with fear.
He was afraid.
I mean, He was afraid of Jezebel.
And you can imagine.
I mean, here's a lady who had a
lot of gun power, if you will.
Here's a lady who had armies and militaries
and tanks and the whole nine yards.
Here was a lady that could annihilate Him.
But yet, in the chapter before, when He
was right with God, when He was filled
with the Spirit, if you will, when the
hand of God was pressing mighty upon Him,
He was not afraid of anything.
He wasn't afraid of eight hundred and fifty
wicked satanic prophets.
He wasn't afraid of Ahab.
He wasn't even afraid of Jezebel.
He wasn't afraid of all those Israelites that
could have run His scrawny little neck.
He was not afraid because He knew God
was on His side.
But the moment things began to fall apart
in His life, and the moment He quit
believing God, which, by the way, was the
main reason He had to destroy all of
our discouragement because He quit living by faith,
and that's where all of our discouragement stems
from, when we stop trusting God and we
get out of the Word of God and
we begin to see our problems ourselves rather
than believe in God.
That was His first problem.
And because He had a problem with His
faith, He now has a problem with fear.
He's scared to death, and the Bible says
He gets Himself up and He runs out
into the wilderness afraid that Jezebel is hot
on His trail and she's going to kill
Him.
Dr. John R.
Rice told a book one time, obviously for
the story of the Lord and here's what
he said.
And I've never been to the Bible in
Canada, but I trust what the man said.
God be there.
He said there are three hundred and sixty
-six fear not in the Bible.
Now, that's a lot of fear nots.
Three hundred and sixty-six fear nots in
the Bible.
That's right, sometimes thirty-nine count.
He said the reason there are three hundred
and sixty-six is because there is one
fear not for God's people for every day
of the year and God's doing an extra
one for leap year just in case.
And I'm going to tell you some friends,
we don't have to fear.
You think I'm going to live in constant
fear of the liberals and the modernists and
the ACLU?
I'm not worried about that crowd.
I'm not worried about what that crowd thinks
about me.
I can care less what anybody thinks about
me, much less the liberals and the modernists
and the devil's crowd.
And we get so uptight about the things
of life.
We fear so many things.
We fear that, you know, we're not going
to be accepted by certain people.
You know, we fear that God's just not
going to come through as if he's come
to the place where he's failed us and
left us hanging and dry before.
And here's a man who had some fear.
God's people need not fear.
God's people, the Bible says, have not been
given the spirit of fear but of awe
and of power and of a sound mind
according to the Bible in 1 Timothy.
And we do not have to fear the
storms of life and the hardships and when
the bottom falls out and when the trials
and the temptations come, there's no need to
fear and there's no need to waver or
faint just simply believe God.
You remember the Apostle Paul in Acts chapter
27?
Here he was out on a boat being
tossed around like a toothpick in a bathtub.
I mean, this guy had some problems.
By the way, one of the big reasons
they had those problems and one of the
big reasons that they were in that storm
is because the Apostle Paul jumped up on
the deck of that ship and said, fellas,
I told you you should have never loosed
from creep.
And their first problem was they wouldn't listen
to the admonition of the man of God
and oh, how many times I've talked to
people in churches who get in the shipwreck
of life because they won't listen to the
old fuddy-duddy preacher in the pool pit
because they think they know more than the
preacher and they think they know more about
the Bible than God did when he wrote
it.
But the Apostle Paul said you should have
listened to me but since you didn't I'm
going to teach you a little lesson.
He got out there and I mean, he
was trying to encourage those people.
They were just about jumping off the sides
of the ship.
They were scared to death.
All the prisoners were going to have to
be set free.
And the Apostle Paul stood up and bowed
his back and said, fellas, just quiet and
I'll teach them.
He said, there stood by me this night
an angel of God whose I am and
whose I serve.
And he told me that there'll be no
loss of any man's life on this ship
only of the cargo.
And here's what the Apostle Paul said.
Brethren, men, I believe God.
You know, if we could live by those
words right there, we'd have a whole lot
of our problems licked hands down.
You'd have a whole lot better summer, mister,
ma'am, if you would just live by
those few words, I believe God.
By the way, people that believe God, people
that are Bible believers are the outcasts of
society.
You believe what you want to but the
farther we get into this thing as far
as serving the Lord and the deeper in
the cesspool and the tides of iniquity that
America goes, we're going to look more and
more like the oddball every day, every hour,
every week, every month, and every year.
And they're doing their dead level best to
shut us up every single day.
But I'm not who I want to be.
I believe God.
And as Peter said, hey, we're going to
obey God rather than man.
And here was a guy who had a
problem with his faith.
He just didn't believe God the way that
he should because of problems.
And because he didn't believe God, now he's
fearful.
But he's scared.
He's like a little boy huddled up under
that juniper tree and he's shaken and he
wants to die.
Now notice what he says.
Here's an interesting thing in verse 4.
But he himself went a day's journey.
So he left his servant and he said,
you've got to stay here.
I've got some business to do.
But he himself went a day's journey into
the wilderness and came and sat down under
a juniper tree and requested for himself that
he might die.
And said, it is enough now, oh Lord.
Take away my life for I am not
better than my father's.
Number three, he had problems with failure.
Elijah honestly believed he was a big fat
failure.
I mean, just a complete zero with a
circle rubbed out.
He thought he was a nobody.
He said, Lord, I'm going to tell you
something.
He said, the generation before me was a
bunch of losers.
He said, He said, And he said, I'm
no better than the losers before me.
He said, my father's didn't accomplish anything for
God.
And he said, I am no better than
my father's.
Now, here's an interesting study for you sometime.
There are four men in the Bible.
I'm not going to have time to preach
on them.
There are four men in the Word of
God that sat down under a tree.
And several of those, I believe, if my
memory and Bible study serves me correct, were
juniper trees.
Now, I want you to study this sometime.
It's interesting.
The four men who sat down under a
tree were all discouraged for several reasons, but
all four of them had one thing in
common.
They were physically worn out.
Now, I know we all think we're peripheral
super people sometimes, and I'm bad about that.
Like, I can just go, go, go, go,
go, and never ever stop.
But I'm going to tell you something.
The time the devil is going to hit
you most this summer is when you're physically
worn out.
When you're tired.
Now, I know we like to have fun,
and I know we like to fellowship, and
I know you spiritual folks like to play
all night and read your Bible all night
and stuff like that, but you're going to
have to have some rest this summer.
You're going to have to learn to sleep
and learn to regulate your time, and you're
going to have to be disciplined, have some
character, and get on a schedule because the
devil will not shoot at you when you
are doing your best and your finest and
you're at your strongest hour for Christ.
He's going to get you when you're under
the juniper tree.
He's going to get you when you get
a phone call or an email or a
letter.
He's going to get you when something goes
wrong, when your chappers won't listen, when the
teens are just eating on your nerves so
bad you just want to beat them all
up.
And I mean, he's going to get you
when you're tired.
So get your rest.
We're not super people.
God doesn't expect us to be super people.
I know these folks, they say, well, I'll
tell you one thing, I just never sleep.
I always live for God.
Well, the Bible says the Lord gives us
beloved sleep.
And I want to be one of His
beloved, and I like to think that I
am, and so I need some sleep every
night.
And I know when my body gets physically
tired and I get mentally worn out, that
is when the devil fights me the most,
and that's when the temptations come down the
bowling alley, friend.
And so be careful because here's a man
who began to struggle with his faith.
He began to struggle with fear and struggle
with feelings of failure because he was physically
worn out.
He had been in a revival meeting that
exhausted him.
He had run for a couple of days,
then left his service, ran for several more
days into the week, and he sat down
and he said, God, I'm so tired, I
don't even want a love offering this week.
Just heal me and take me to the
kingdom of God.
And he got to the place where honestly,
Elijah, honestly believed that he had never accomplished
anything for God.
Now, I do not believe that God wants
us to go around with our, you know,
lips dragging.
He doesn't want us to go around with
our mouth hung over like a bunch of
old dirty shoelaces and be mean and sour
and look like we've been sucking on lemons
and sour persimmons and drinking vinegar through a
PVC pipe and stuff like that.
He doesn't want us to be like that.
He wants us to enjoy Him.
He wants us to be excited.
But you know, sometimes God does put us
in a corner and He gets us to
the place where He heats up the fiery
furnace hotter than it's ever been heated before.
He puts us in the mouth of the
lion's den with a starving, hungry lion.
And sometimes He gets us to a place
where we're backed in a corner, our hands
go up, and we have to realize before
we can ever be used of God that
we are nothing and without Him we are
big failures.
And we need the power of God that
I preached on the other night.
And we need the Word of God.
And we need our rest.
And we need the times when God breathes
upon us and we need and gives us
seemingly new life and revival.
That's what revival's all about.
That's what my ministry is all about.
Not going around selling a bunch of Bibles
and selling a bunch of tapes.
Whoopee!
Big deal.
You know, they're going to all burn up.
No big deal about selling tapes.
My ministry is to go around the country
and see people saved by the grace of
God and those that are saved see them
revived and see them encouraged.
Man, I was reading the other day with
a good pastor friend of mine a couple
of weeks ago in our tent meeting.
We got up one morning and we decided
we were going to read the story of
Joseph.
And we were reading about Joseph and things
like that and the Bible says that when
Isaac found out well, found out that Joseph
was still living.
You know what the Bible says?
And his spirit revived within him.
That is what my ministry is consumed with.
That last week that this week and that
all summer long your spirit would be revived
within you.
Hey, for without me Jesus says John 15,
5 the end of the verse you can
do nothing.
And it means just as much that tonight
as it did when the ink pen of
inspiration ran out at the end of that
verse.
We need him or we are failures.
You're not going to be able to lead
all of your campers to Christ this summer.
You're not going to be able to meet
all of their needs and answer all of
their questions and counsel them all hours of
the night.
And there may be times when you get
to the place where you throb your hands
and say there's no way I can do
this.
You're exactly right.
But the God who is in you can
give you the answers can give you the
strength can give you the help.
And Elijah was backed into a corner and
he realized that he could do nothing without
God.
And back when there was a turn in
the story and when God put Elijah in
that spot and when God showed Elijah how
feeble he was and how great the God
of the Bible is he then and only
then could restore him and begin to use
him in a wonderful way.
And there's two things that God did for
Elijah.
I want to show them to you quickly.
Look in your Bibles if you would please
at verse number 5.
In verse number 5 the Bible says and
as he lay and slept under a juniper
tree behold then an angel touched him and
said unto him arise and eat.
And he looked and behold there was a
cake baking on the coals and a cruise
of water at his head and he did
eat and drink and laid him down again.
And the angel of the Lord came again
the second time and touched him and said
arise and eat because the journey is too
great for thee.
And he arose and did eat and drink.
Now notice this.
And when the strength of that meet forty
days and forty nights under Horeb the mount
of God.
Here he is sleeping under a juniper tree
and an angel from heaven flutters down out
of the heavenlies wakes him up and says
you're tired you're weary you're exhausted physically, emotionally,
spiritually mentally the whole nine yards you need
something to eat.
And so the Bible says that there was
a cruise of water at his head and
there was a cake baking on the coals
by an angel.
Now I suppose it was heavenly spring water
angel food cake I don't know but it
was from God and the Bible says that
he ate that food that he took a
great big gulp of that water now here's
what the word of God says man I
love this and he wept in the strength
of that meet for forty days and forty
nights.
Now I'll tell you something some of your
mothers and grandmothers can cook and it may
be a heavy meal but I ain't never
pardon the English had a meal that stuck
with me for forty days and forty nights.
I've not had meat that stuck with me
for forty five minutes ladies and gentlemen I'm
going to be honest with you here's a
man who was fed by God he had
problems number one with his faith he had
problems number two with fear he struggled with
problems of failure but God did two things
to revive his spirit number one very simply
he gave him some food God gave Elijah
some food he fed him with a substance
that God knew would get him forty more
days and forty more nights down the spiritual
journey God gave him met him exactly where
he was he took him just like he
was and in the midst of his feelings
of failure in the midst of his lack
of faith in the midst of his fearfulness
and frustration God gave him some food for
the journey and I will tell you this
summer and I preached on it already this
week a little bit or this past week
and so I'm not going to belabor the
point but I'm telling you you know exactly
where I'm going tonight you've got one thing
that is your substance this summer you've got
one thing that's your substance 24 hours a
day 7 days a week 365 days a
year I'm telling you that substance is not
the newspaper that substance is not a television
set that substance is not your friends it's
not your family that substance is the food
of the word of God and if we're
going to go forty more days and forty
more nights and if we're going to go
forty more years and on and on and
on and serve the Lord then when we
get discouraged and when we do have a
lack of faith and when we do have
much fear and when we do struggle with
frustration and failure and soul and so forth
and the world the flesh and the devil
is beating and knocking down our door we
need to be fed with the food of
the precious word of God and oh how
sometimes we neglect the very thing that can
bring us another day and another night on
the journey I mean we substitute everything for
the one thing that can really help us
and there's nothing wrong with fellowship and with
your friends and there's nothing wrong with getting
counsel from Brother Duffy from some other preacher
from a family member from mom or dad
there's nothing wrong with wanting help from other
folks but I tell you we have a
world that is overrun with psychology pills pain
panic and counseling simply because we have neglected
the blessed food of the word of God
I quoted the verse the other night I'll
give it to you again it might help
you to write it down Job 23 12
Job said I have esteemed that means I
love respect, reverence I have esteemed the words
of thy mouth more he said not on
the same playing field but more than my
necessary food and God gave him Elijah the
food that he needed and every day of
our life we have the food that we
need to continue on the journey but I
want to show you something interesting last year
I think it was last year yeah matter
of fact the Robertsons and I were in
a round robin missions conference up in Michigan
and I was kind of just going through
a little bit of a personal trial myself
and I was reading my bible and I
came across this chapter and this was a
message that was developed out of a burden
on my heart and I had never seen
this before brother Duffy and I tell you
it just really really spoke to my heart
and my favorite sermons that I'm privileged to
preach are those that the Lord first really
does something in my heart and just steps
all over my toes about and then I'm
able to get in the pulpit and preach
not from knowledge not from memory but just
from a burden and I tell you this
portion of scripture right here really picked me
up in a down time emotionally in my
life and I want to show you what
the God of the bible showed me look
at verse number 9 would you the bible
says 1st Kings 19 9 and he came
thither unto a cane that's Elijah and he
lodged there and behold the word of the
Lord came to him and said unto him
what doest thou here Elijah and he said
I have been very jealous for the Lord
God of hosts for the children of Israel
have forsaken thine covenant thrown down on thine
altars and slain by prophets with a sword
and I even I only am left and
they seek my life to take it away
it was a little bit of an exaggeration
because we'll not have time to get there
but in verse 17 we find out there
were 7000 people that had not bowed the
knee and so he's having a bit of
a pity party notice what the bible says
in verse 11 and he said go forth
and stand upon the mountain before the Lord
and behold the Lord passed by and a
great and strong wind rent the mountains and
breaking pieces the rocks before the Lord but
the Lord was not in the wind and
after the wind an earthquake but the Lord
was not in the earthquake and after the
earthquake a fire but the Lord was not
in the fire and after the fire a
still small voice now here's Elijah you've got
to imagine something dear friend here's Elijah who
had just come out of a red hot
revival meeting got discouraged ran was just all
discombobulated in his heart God fed him God
took care of him he wanted to get
right and God says go to this cave
he goes to this cave he spends the
night in this cave and the morning rises
and at about dawn God says get up
and go to the top of the mountain
I'll show you something so he gets up
he gets all ready he shaves he goes
up on top of the mountain has his
coffee and his devotions and all of a
sudden the bible says that a great wind
passed by the mountain now we're not talking
about just a little little breeze just blowing
across Lake Chautauqua we're talking about locomotive power
wind I mean ripping the trees over and
rending the rocks just about to blow him
off his foundation about to blow his toupee
right off his head and he's up there
and he's just blowing back and forth and
the bible says that the Lord was not
in the wind and so after the wind
the bible says there was an earthquake I
mean things begin to quake and things begin
to shake all over the place and I
mean he's standing there in the very hill
that he's standing on and the wind is
about to split wide open and the trees
that were being bent and blown over by
the wind are now being sucked up by
the ground and the rocks are cracking all
over the place and then the sky is
turning a different color and everything is getting
sucked into the earth and he's getting a
little bit scared and he's thinking this is
the great power of God but the Lord
was not in the earthquake no wind no
earthquake the presence of God was nowhere to
be found and then the bible says there
was a fire now I don't know about
you but if in chapter number 18 just
a month or so earlier in my life
I came out of a holy ghost revival
meeting where God came down in great consuming
fire I would then think this must be
the great power of God and it licked
up the rocks it began to shoot through
the sky with like lightning bolts of fire
it began to burn up the cedar trees
and he said surely this is the great
magnificent power of God but the Lord was
not in the fire and after the wind
and after the earthquake and after the fire
the bible says and then there was a
still small voice write this down number two
as we close you see he struggled with
faith with fear with feelings of failure so
God gave him some food to help him
go on we've got the food of the
word of God but number two God gave
him some fellowship you see here's what I
had to learn the hard way you see
whenever I came across 1st Kings chapter 19
a lot of times we look for God
to do the magnificent in our life we
look for the supernatural phenomena and we look
for the fire for the earthquake for the
floods and for the wind we look for
everything to be all discombobulated and torn to
pieces that's how we believe God works but
you know I've learned something the devil can
imitate wind the devil can imitate an earthquake
the devil can he can make a lot
of noise he can start a pretty big
ruckus in a lot of churches I've preached
in and the devil can even imitate fire
but dear neighbor you hear me and never
forget I told you there's one thing the
devil old slew foot himself can never imitate
and that's the still small voice of your
God and there's going to be times when
fellowship with family just won't cut it friend
when fellowship with a friend fellowship with a
spouse just won't cut it you're going to
have to have fellowship with a king of
kings and lord of lords and that's why
your bible says in James 4 draw a
line to God and he will draw a
line to you and God didn't have to
scream at him God didn't have to yell
at him he just kind of got down
beside him put his arm around him and
whispered in his ear in a still small
voice listen I'm through there was a man
who visited years ago in Florida a very
very large church it was around Easter time
resurrection Sunday and they were having a large
large Easter type of a resurrection passion play
whatever you call it and they had went
to great expense and they had done this
for several years they had went to great
expense with all of the lights and the
fog and all of the script all of
the actors and everything but the main part
of the program was religious if you will
wax artifacts wax statues wax little things that
almost look like a wax museum on the
platform and the wax figurines depicted the birth
through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus oh
it was a phenomenal program I mean people
sat on the edge of their pews on
the edge of their seats with bated breath
I mean just a couple of thousand people
packed in this great big Coliseum like church
and they just sat there and they listened
and they watched as the lights would come
off and it almost seemed to make the
wax figurines come to life they had one
of the birth of the Lord Jesus one
of his early miracles then they had when
the Lord Jesus was rejected by Pilate and
the rest of the crowd being scourged and
then they had one of him on the
cross and oh what a gruesome depiction it
was and then they had one of just
a tomb all by itself with a stone
all over it and then the next one
was a light and a strobe light that
was blinking on the inside of the tomb
and the Lord arisen again and then it
was a very moving moving program well after
it this guy stood around for a while
and he just kind of wanted to see
how things were run he wanted to look
at the wax figurines and so after about
an hour after the service was over everyone
had just about dissipated everyone was just about
to go home and he was there and
the pastor was leaving and the janitor was
there locking up waxing the floors mopping getting
cobwebs and things like that well this gentleman
decided to walk up front and just kind
of stand at the bottom of the platform
as a large building kind of wrapped around
he was just looking at all the wax
figurines and boy he was just amazed but
he was really drawn in to the one
of the crucifixion oh what a gruesome picture
what a gruesome wax sculpture it was of
the Lord Jesus with a crown of thorns
upon his head and the blood just trickling
down his face and his body was opened
and bloodied and bruised and raw and it
was quite obvious that he had gone through
great torture and his head was bowed and
the way that most of the lights were
off in the auditorium it cast a shadow
across the face of the Lord Jesus and
this man went around to this side and
boy he got up on his tiptoes and
bending around and looking all over the place
trying to see what the facial expression was
like he just wanted to see what this
wax sculpture man had created for a face
of the Lord Jesus there on the cross
and he went over to this side and
he looked he just looked all over the
place and by this time the janitor had
walked up close behind him and as this
man was trying to see the expression on
the face of the Lord Jesus the janitor
snickered and walked up behind him tapped him
on the shoulder and said sir if you
want to see the face of the Savior
you're going to have to kneel before him
I'll tell you something friend if you want
to know God if you want to fellowship
with God and if you want to see
the face of your Savior you're going to
have to kneel before him and that's what
you do when you've had enough every head
bowed please every eye closed