Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 26, 2022 | RETOLD - Elijah and the Prophets of Baal

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June 26, 2022 | RETOLD - Elijah and the Prophets of Baal · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hi everybody.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
0:06
SPEAKER_00: We're in a series called Retold.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting this morning, uh welcome to you in the College Avenue building as well and online.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: And we're retelling stories that you may have heard using flannel graph when you were in Sunday school when you were little.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: And the story this morning is the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal, arguably the greatest mono, a mano.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: No, mono on one side, and then 450 on the other.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Confrontation, the most explosive confrontation in Scripture.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: It took place.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Any of you gonna get to go to the Garden of the Gods in Colorado this year?
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow, that's great.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: Or Mount or Carmel on the coast of California, maybe?
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: So I don't get to go to either one of those places this summer, but in 25 days I'll be taking 49, mostly of you.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: I see some of you in here going with me, to the Carmel in Israel.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: And that's the setting of this story.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: And actually the hill or mountain of Carmel is actually a character in our story.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: But I'll get to that in just a moment.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: The story is in 1 Kings chapter 18.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Story you may have heard when you were little.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: They probably didn't get into the guts and the blood and the flies and the dead bodies and the smell.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: But, and we'll probably avoid some of that stuff too today.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: But I want to retell that story in such a way that you see what that story is really about.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: And feel free to open your Bible and look that up or your cell phone.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: I'll actually have most, if not all, of the text.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: The story is on one level a story of the battle between the single prophet, at least according to Elijah, he felt like he was the only prophet of God left in Israel.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: All of his friends had been killed.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: They'd been killed by this couple, Ahab and Jezebel.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Ahab was the king of the northern kingdom of Israel.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: This is 800 years before Christ.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: And for some crazy reason, he had married this woman, Jezebel.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Jezebel was the daughter of the priest of a foreign religion 80 miles away up on the coast of Lebanon, Tyre.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Her father's name was F E T-H Baal B-A-A-L, meaning the high priest of Baal.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: He was both the king and the head of the religion of Baal.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Baal was uh had taken over as the head of all the Canaanite religions in pagan religion mythology.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: And he was the storm god, he was the fire god, he was the rain god, he brought birth, he brought death, he he was he was scary.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: And Jezebel was the was a priestess of Baal's up in Lebanon.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: And for some reason, this jerk.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's be honest, Ahab crouched like a poisonous toad on the throne of Israel in 800 BC.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: And he had married uh the high priestess of Baal, brought her down from Lebanon, and she coiled beside him like a rattlesnake, and they were deaf.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: Between them they tried to kill all the prophets.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Elijah had a price on his head as the last, according to him, prophet, the last one he knew, the prophet of the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: And so that's that's the start, that's the background of the story.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh and yet, pretty soon you realize this is not a story about a battle between humans.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, Ahab and Jezebel on one side, two people on one side, and one person on the other, the gaunt prophet uh Elijah from across the Jordan River.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: This is a battle of the gods.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so Jezebel introduced Ahab, we know, to the religion of Baal, which included a lot of blood sacrifices, including humans, and she stayed as the high priestess of Baal in Israel and recruited for both of them 450 male prophets of Baal and 400 prophetesses directly under her of Baal's, I won't say wife, his girlfriend, his uh live in, his partner.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh 400 prophets of Asherah, A-S-H-E-R-A-H.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard of Asherah.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: So this is the religion, and they are paying these people, they're giving them room, they're giving them board in a time when people don't have a lot of money.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine uh the thousands of the people of the northern, the ten tribes are having to daily support a thousand people because they're a false religion.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: We complain about how our government makes us support financially things that we don't agree with.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're not the first people in history, you know, to have that happen.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: So, in effect, what you have is not so much a battle between people, you have a battle of the gods, okay?
5:34
SPEAKER_00: You have the Yahweh, and this is this is an artist's rendition of when Yahweh came, the great God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob came to Ezekiel, okay?
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And then you have Baal, this is actually a TV uh show or series from 2008, Baal, that's how you actually pronounce his name, say it with me.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Baal, and you'll hear me saying Baal, because I said Baal for about 50 years, and so it's hard to get over it.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: So Baal or Baal, the storm god, subtitled in case you want to know, there'll be hell to pay.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: And uh so you're gonna you have a battle between these gods, and that's what this story is really about.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: The question is, which god is greater?
6:19
SPEAKER_00: So I see in the first several verses that that battle gets set up, it gets arranged.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: What happens is that after a couple years of not seeing him, Elijah uh uh goes deliberately to let Ahab see him.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: And when Ahab saw him, he said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?
6:38
SPEAKER_00: That's really the best translation, someone who causes problems.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: And you'd think you'd be a little, you'd think you'd be a little more obsequious if your life was on the line, but not Elijah.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: He comes back at him and he answers, I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord, capital L-O-R-D, which means of Yahweh, and followed the Baals.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: Pagan religions have not one but many gods.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: And so the Baalim means all of the pagan gods that are part of the Baal cult or the Baal religion.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: So we got two explosive personalities here.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Actually, Ahab is more passive, his wife is the more aggressive by far.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh so Ahab is sort of a wimp compared against uh to Elijah.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Now, therefore, notice Elijah now gives a command to the king.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: It's the first of seven commands he'll give in this passage.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: All of them are followed and obeyed by people.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: He gives a command to the king, and he says, I want you to gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Here we are.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
7:50
SPEAKER_00: And the 450 prophets of Baal, and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: Wants you to gather them.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: And he's going, who are you to give a command to the king of Israel?
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that at the moment Ahab heard this, he didn't care that Elijah was giving him a command.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: He immediately thought, whoa, I love this home field advantage.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Mount Carmel, which means Garden of the Gods, this is a picture of it from above.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: It's about 1,800 feet high.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: It's a sort of a 20-mile-long mountain that rises like a beast, sort of suddenly juts out of the Mediterranean Sea, and was called a holy mountain by all the pagans in the entire Near East.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: You find it written even before this time by Pharaoh down in Egypt, saying, this is a sacred site.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: Why did they call it a sacred site?
8:52
SPEAKER_00: The answer is that it was always green.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Two-thirds of Israel is desert and gets less than five inches of rain a year.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: But all of a sudden, as you're taking your ship up north along the Mediterranean coast, you see this suddenly incredible green thing, this mountain.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: And before you know anything about weather, before back before they realized that warm air coming off the ocean, if forced to suddenly go up, is going to cause clouds and cause rain.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: And that's why Mount Carmel has the most rain of any place in all of Israel, 32 inches of year, which is still short of Topekus 38, which is as many as Seattle has.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: So, um, but still, this is the green place in a sort of a desert land.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: And uh and so they thought of it back then.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: The pagans said, oh, this must be a place blessed by the gods.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: The pagan gods must live up there.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: Baal, the god of rain and lightning and storms, this must be his home.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: Jezebel went up there, she had them knocked down the great altar of Yahweh, the altar to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that was up there, and they built these huge altars to Baal up there.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: They considered this the park or the garden, the home garden of Baal.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
10:15
SPEAKER_00: So, so um, this is home turf for Jezebel and for Baal.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm guessing that's why Habab goes, he can command me.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: That's that's just fantastic.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's that's that's really great.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: That you're uh you want to have a battle of some kind up uh on my home turf.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: So he sent to all of the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah came near, and so you can see them, uh you can see thousands of people streaming up, uh, hiking up this 1,800-foot uh uh mountain days before camping out on it.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be the most exciting uh moment of their lives, which it will be.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: And and they're hiking up, and you can see, then come the 450 prophets of Baal with their silver amulet, you know, around there reflecting the sun, because they also worship the sun.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And so, and then you can see them all parting for Ahab and Jezebel who are coming up the hill.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: And so uh they gather, and then Elijah came near to all the people who have come up there, and he said, How long will you go limping between two different opinions?
11:33
SPEAKER_00: That word's gonna come up later.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: That's why that's a very interesting word.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: We would say, How how long are you wavering back and forth between two opinions?
11:45
SPEAKER_00: But the word limping will come up uh when when the false prophets and priests start dancing around the altar.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: If Yahweh is God, follow him.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: If Baal, then follow him.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: And the people did not answer him a word.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: By the way, you want to notice something that I hadn't never noticed until uh this time I was studying it, and that is how all the people of Israel are so much like people today.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh the powers that be in the land, and all the powers that control the media in those days and communications, they're all on Baal's side.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
12:28
SPEAKER_00: They they they think that the religion of Yahweh God is boring and old-fashioned and not exciting and all that stuff.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: And the people have silently followed the powers that be, the powers of the government, and the powers that hold all the influence.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: And so they begin this story, they don't say a word.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: They are there, they expect, they're on Baal's side, and they expect Baal to win.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Notice in this story how the people slowly, gradually start to change.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: I'll show you as we go through it.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: Verses 22 and 23, then Elijah said to the people, I am the only remaining prophet of the Lord.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: As far as he knew, that was true.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: We learn in the next chapter, the Lord says, Don't be so full of yourself.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: I've got a bunch of people in caves, you know, there are others.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: But Baal's prophets are 450 men, right?
13:20
SPEAKER_00: So people are going, this is the home turf of Baal, plus it's 450 to one.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: Let two bulls be given to us.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: They, the Baal prophets, are to choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces and place it on the wood, but not light the fire.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: I will prepare the other bull and place it on the wood, but not light the fire.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: He's setting up this contest, right?
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Which you know, you know where it's going.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Verse 24, then you call upon the name of your God.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Elijah doesn't even give Baal the respect to say his name.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: And I will call upon the name of Yahweh, of the Lord.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: And the God who answers with fire, he is God.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: And all the people, now they say something.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: The reason they say something is they're going, we've got the God of fire.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is slam dunk.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And they say that's a good idea.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: For it is well spoken in some of your old translations.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Verse 25.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Now we get to the failure of the God Baal.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Since you're so numerous, you go first.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: You choose for yourselves one bull, you prepare it first, then call on the name of your God.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: Still not mentioning his name, but don't light the fire.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: So they took the bull that was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, crying, O Baal, answer us, Baal, answer us.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: And everybody's going, surely he's gonna answer.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it had to be so exciting.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: It had to be better than TV.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's watching this thing, and he got all these profits.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: But there was no sound, no one answered.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: So now we have the second stage, we're gonna find this repeated and expanded.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: And they danced, notice, limped.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: It's the same word, same interesting word.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: So I've struggled, I've I think of the old uh, do you remember the old cowboy Indian shows where the Indians, where the Indians sort of limp around the fire or something?
15:18
SPEAKER_00: It was sort of their dance.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea if that's what it means.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Or whatever it means.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: It just means they were dancing around the fire that they had made.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: And you get this funny picture of all there's hundreds of them, not just these, but notice there's also a knife here because it's gonna say that they were cutting themselves as part of this, as part of this.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: At noon, Elijah mocked them.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: He said, So after several hours, three hours probably, he mocked them.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: He said, Shout loudly, for he's a god.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't get that connection.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's daydreaming.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's an interesting word.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: The word is musing, it could mean on his cell phone, it could mean he's distracted, it could mean whatever.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: The second one is is even more interesting.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: This is the English Standard Version because they were bold enough to copy the Living Bible and give the correct translation of line number two, or is relieving himself.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay, someone someone came up and asked me this morning already, was that number one or number two?
16:21
SPEAKER_00: I said it's number two, but I mean, you know, it's a euphemism, okay?
16:26
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't get into the picturesque details, but that's actually what it says.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: And the living Bible had the courage uh to do that in the past.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: All the other translations uh avoid that.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: It's been this has been called by scholars the raciest comment in the Hebrew Bible, okay?
16:41
SPEAKER_00: But it's part of his mocking.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine the chutzpah?
16:45
SPEAKER_00: That's a Yiddish word.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine the chutzpah of Elijah doing this when he's won against a thousand?
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe he's on a trip, maybe he's taking a maybe he's on a vacation to the Garden of the Gods in Colorado.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay, or perhaps he's asleep and must be awakened.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: Four mocking lines.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: 28, 29.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: So they shouted louder.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: They obeyed his command.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: And they slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: So now you have animal blood, cow blood.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: It's smelly on our farm.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: We we killed animals.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: But you know, it sits around there in the heat, and then the flies, of course, come, and it's, and if there's guts, as there were, can you imagine the smell going on here?
17:34
SPEAKER_00: And now you mix with it human blood?
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice, 3 p.m.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Notice once again, but there was no sound, no one answered, and now it adds no one paid attention.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Shazam.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: The fire god can't produce fire.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Success of the God Yahweh.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Then Elijah said to all the people, come near to me.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Another command, and the people came nearer to him.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: These people who refused to even listen or respond to him earlier, then spoke up and said, Elijah, I like that idea of a battle of the gods.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, having seen for six hours the failure of the prophets of Baal and the failure of Baal himself, now they obey him, and now they come close to him, and then he repaired the Lord's altar that had been thrown down.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Elijah took twelve stones, and then we have this wonderful middle paragraph.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: According to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, Israel will be your name.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: By the way, this is what uh Connor talked about several weeks ago, Chaiazm.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: So you have the word altar just before this, and then you have the word stones here, and then you have the name of Israel and so forth, sons of Jacob, but at the very middle, you have the key line of all the word of the Lord had come to them.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: And God's kingdom, the word of the Lord is as powerful, is more powerful, is super more powerful than magic.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: So you have Elijah takes twelve stones.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Notice there's only ten tribes represented.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Right?
19:44
SPEAKER_00: God has always continued to look at Israel as his people as 12 tribes.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: So he takes 12 stones, and with the stones he rebuilt that altar to the name of the Lord, and then he made a trench.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: Strange, they're watching him.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: He's digging a trench.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: You don't have trenches, right?
20:00
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing, Elijah?
20:01
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
20:02
SPEAKER_00: They're making fun of him.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: He's digging a trench around the altar, large enough to hold about four gallons.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: By the way, those of you who've been with me on top of Mount Carmel, you're thinking, that is not easy ground to dig a trench in.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: So, large enough to hold about four gallons.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Next, he arranged the wood, cut up the bowl, and placed it on the wood.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Notice he does this all by himself.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna pray all by himself.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: He rebuilds the altar by himself, he cuts up the bowl by himself, he places the on the wood by himself.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Now he involves the people.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: These people who were on the other side earlier, these people who seem to be moving, becoming more and more responsive to the true God.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: He's he's he's bringing them slowly.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: His he said, fill four water pots with water and pour it on the offering to be burned on the wood.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: And the rest of the people are going, this is crazy.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: He's making it harder for himself.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: He's having fun with it, isn't he?
20:58
SPEAKER_00: Then he said a second time and they did it a second time.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: And then he said a third time and they did it a third time.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: So the water ran all around the altar.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: He even filled the trench with water.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: So he's made it even more difficult.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: And at the time for offering the evening sacrifice, 3 p.m., the prophet Elijah approached the altar, and here's his prayer.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, the most successful prayer you'll ever read in the Bible.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: A miracle-working prayer.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: What does it take to move God's hand in a mighty way that changes history?
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Notice his prayer, Lord the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that you are God in Israel and I am your servant, and that at your word I have done all these things.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Answer me, Lord, answer me, so that this people will know that you, the Lord are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: There are eight things that he says here.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Actually, there's just four, and he repeats all of them immediately.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever make fun of people who seem to have slightly repetitive prayers because that's what Elijah does.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: First, he says, Lord the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Let it be known that you are God in Israel.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: God of Israel.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: God of Israel.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: And that I am your servant.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: And that at your word I have done all these things.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: He repeats himself again.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: It's a simple prayer.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: But it's a prayer that he really means.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: He's just not blathering out words he hasn't thought about.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, answer me, Lord, and he repeats it.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Answer me.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: And finally, so that this people will know that you, the Lord our God.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: And then he says it, repeats it, and that you have turned their hearts back.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: You look at this prayer, I've stared at this prayer.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: I've noticed the fact that James, who's called Camel Knees, the greatest prayer in the New Testament, writes in chapter 5 of James that his hero in prayer is none other than Elijah.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: We never think of Elijah as a model for prayer.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: But James calls him a model for prayer and tells us to pray fervently.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: And you look at this prayer, and I see three clear things in this prayer.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Number one, if you want your prayer to be great, if you want your prayer to be effective, it needs to be a simple prayer.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: For hours, 450 people are gathered and running around, and their prayers are highfalutin, and they're flowery, and they're they're using, you know, incantations and so forth.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: But that's always what pagan religions do, isn't it?
23:34
SPEAKER_00: That's how you release the power of the supernatural.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Vada cadavera.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's it's it, and by the way, I'm I'm not gonna say the day.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but anyway, so um, so there's there's incantations and ways that you manipulate the gods, right?
23:51
SPEAKER_00: That you release the supernatural.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Not here.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: This is so simple.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: But the second thing about your prayers that needs to be like Elijah's a desperate prayer.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: Elijah's in trouble, right?
24:05
SPEAKER_00: He's got water on the altar.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: It's it's I mean, there's no certainty if Baal hasn't answered, will Yahweh answered, and so his prayer is desperate.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: Answer me, answer me, as James says.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: We're concerned about the number of people who are praying, right?
24:26
SPEAKER_00: When we have a disease or something else.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: If we can only get people in every 50 states to pray, then we can force God's hand.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm sorry, then we can move God's heart.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: That's what what we say.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: You see, pagan religions are always about numbers and incantations and saying it the right way and moving the right way.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: This is the simplest prayer you'll find in the Bible.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: It's a simple prayer, but it's also a desperate prayer, and finally it's a God prayer.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Notice he both begins and ends with the fact that, you know, what's most important here is not that I escape this with my life, not that people recognize that I'm the greatest prophet in Israel.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: The most important thing here is God that your name be praised and that people's hearts turn back to you.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: If you want to be an effective prayer, pray simple prayers, pray desperate prayers, pray God prayers and watch God move.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: And then the Lord's fire fell.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: I bet God enjoyed this part.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: God's going, oh, I can hardly wait for this.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be so fun.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: And here he is, God's perspective goes, and he goes, Whoops, I missed that little piece.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna, yeah.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: So, and and then the Lord's fire fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the the stones, wow, and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: When all the people saw it, and now they've come full circle, now they're not just responsive.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: They fell face down and said, The Lord, he is God.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: The Lord Yahweh, he is God.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah ordered them, another command, seize the prophets of Baal, do not let even one of them escape.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: So they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the Wadi Kishon and slaughtered them there.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: We leave out that verse in Sunday school.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Little boys already like their weapons too much.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: But that's exactly what happened.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: And we are in the Holy Land.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: This is God's land, this is not the land of the Canaanites, and this is not the first time that God has said you need to kill all of those people who have taken my country, my land.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: The land that I have chosen to be my own.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: And they are in my home, and I want them gone.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: So that's the story, and I have three applications.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
27:06
SPEAKER_00: And the first one I think is uh clearly, all three clearly come from the story.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Could have had four, could have had five, just got three because they're big.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: Number one, make the decision.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Make the decision, make the decision, stop limping between two opinions, pray for your children, pray for your grandchildren to make the decision.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Who is God?
27:27
SPEAKER_00: I remember you.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: This is pretty important, right?
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Just this last week, six days ago, Gallup released the latest survey.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: They've started doing surveys more often about religion in America because religion in America has suddenly started plummeting, as you probably know.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Belief in God six days ago in the U.S.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: dips to 81%, a new low.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: That's down 11 percentage points from just 10 years ago.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: It was 92%, it had been 90%, it'd been over 90% ever in the 80 years the Gallup started doing its polling.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Used to be 98% up until the 60s and 70s and so forth, and it dropped down to about 92, but now it'd been at 92%, but but uh that up till 2011, and suddenly in the last 11, 2012, but in the last 10 years, it's dropped 11%.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh another headline, uh, this might be Washington Post.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Americans' belief in God is dropping.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: Lace Gallup poll belief in God dipped to 81%, down six percentage points from 2017, just in the last five years.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Americans' belief in God drops to record low.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: This is all over the magazines and newspapers.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: Republicans are essentially unchanged, while Democrats and young people show the biggest drop.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Young people, 18 to 29 year olds today, have dropped 10 percentage points in the last five years.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: 18 to 29 year olds, by far the lowest, 68%, only 68% of them will say that they believe in God.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
29:04
SPEAKER_00: Book of Proverbs, by the way, tells us in chapter 7 and chapter 9 that a wise father takes his son down the bazaar, down into the marketplace.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: He's desperately trying to turn his naive, uncommitted child, for that's the word for a young person, the simpleton in Proverbs is the word peti, P-E-T-I, means open, as in open-minded.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to have him make a decision, and so he walks him in the market down the marketplace.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: Wise parents do this, and he shows them both sides.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, he shows them the red light district and this beautiful, sexy woman in the door of her house, saying, Please come into me.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you everything you want, and it'll be so much fun, etc., etc., etc.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Read Proverbs chapter 9.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: And the father says to his son, I know that's attractive, but you need to know that when you go back to her bedroom, it's tilted down and the back door is open, and you'll fall into Sheol.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: You'll fall into the pit of death.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: And on the other side, loudly from her beautiful mansion on the hill, shouts, Lady Wisdom.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: And she says, Come to me, I have a feast as well, but my feast will satisfy long term.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: And the father desperately is trying to get his son to make a commitment to stop limping between two opinions.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: And that's the issue with young people, isn't it?
30:26
SPEAKER_00: In a world which says that both opinions today are equally valid, young people find themselves delaying longer and longer, not just to get married, but to decide who, if anyone, is God.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: And this story reminds us that there is no more urgent decision that you and I and our loved ones need to make.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: Now, I noticed right in the middle of this, you know, a survey saying, but by the way, even of those who believe in God, only 50%, 54% of the U.S.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: adults believe in the God of the Bible.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: So you're going, God is it that 30% of them believe in.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, just some amorphous God, apparently.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: But this story is about that issue, not one, not two, but three times, Elijah raises that.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: How long will you go limping between two opinions?
31:23
SPEAKER_00: If you always God, follow him.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: If veil, then follow him.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Who is God?
31:27
SPEAKER_00: Make a decision.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: The God who answers with fire, he is God.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: People go, yeah, that's a good idea.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Then at the end, they realize the Lord, he is God.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: The Lord, he is God.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: And if you can even just get young people to say, I'm gonna test your God, I'm gonna test the job of Christianity, the God of Christianity.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: That would be a good thing to do.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Because today, the cultural influence is, you know, all about that God.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: Don't even think about him.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Ignore him.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to the exciting gods of paganism, of yourself.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: The key answer today is, of course, I keep an open mind.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about in major areas.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: He's not talking about what kind of ice cream you like best.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about, he says, in major issues.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's open mind is a mark of foolishness like open mouth.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Mouths and minds were made to shut.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: They were made to open only in order to shut.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: So we have a decision to make, and young people especially.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: Choose today whom you will worship.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Joshua said, as for me and my family, we will worship the Lord.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Make a commitment, make a decision, decide who is God.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Make that decision.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Key insight, no decision, is the no decision.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: As Billy Graham always used to say, it's the hour of decision.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: And you won't always have that hour before you.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: Second point is don't fear the frenzy of the false.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: Relax and have fun in the truth.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: There's a way that we have, just like all of the people on top of that mountain, of having a fear of the majority and a fear of those who are powerful, and a fear of the frenzy that would run around an altar and slash themselves and so forth.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: Don't fear that frenzy.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: You can find that frenzy on the television every single morning.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: You can find that frenzy in newspapers and magazines all the time.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: That frenzy is part of the reason why the belief in God figures have dropped.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: Don't fear that frenzy.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Don't let your children fear it.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Relax.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Just relax.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: Elijah's astoundingly, you know, relaxed.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: Got a price on his head.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: He could die at any moment.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't mind.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: He's giving commands.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: He's throwing more water on the altar.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: He's making fun of them, you know.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: He's going, maybe he's on, you know, shout louder, you know, because he, you know, who knows?
33:55
SPEAKER_00: He might be chatting with Jezebel on his cell phone.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: He might be, he might be, he's got a bathroom that's behind the hill.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: He may not be hearing you.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a he's on a journey.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: He might be asleep.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: So that's Elijah.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Key insight.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Notice.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Ahabs and Jezebels of the world hate.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: I laugh.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: So was it Washington Post or something?
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Said, we who are on the left have forgotten our sense of humor.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes today you do feel that there is a lack of sense of humor among those who are in charge.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Things are not funny anymore, and it's why you have all of these the comedians and others who are Christians, who are the funny people now.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: The Ahabs and the Jezebels and the prophets of Baal hate.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: The people in the middle, they fear, but the Elijas and his God laugh.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 2.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: All the nations rebel against God in anger.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: God laughs, right?
34:58
SPEAKER_00: And so you have Elijah mocking your parents.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: Let me share with you just a tip.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: To get your children, even to get your children following the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: There are three ways you can go about it.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: And you see all three of them often, especially the first two.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: First way is you can preach at them.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Take them to churches that preach at them.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: And tell them they've got to, that this is life and death, this is hell or heaven.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: They've got to become a Christian.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: They've got to follow Christ.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: And you can preach at them.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it works.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: The second way is you can plead with them.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: I think of the first one because of the personality of my personalities of my parents.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: The first one is being the father's way of doing things.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: My mother was more of the second one, the plead.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: You plead with them.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, out of love, you plead with them, please come to Christ.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like Paul in 2 Corinthians 5.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: We plead with people, be reconciled to God.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: Again, absolutely nothing wrong with us.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: The Bible preaches, the Bible pleads.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Please, please come to Christ.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful thing to do, but there's a third and extremely effective in our modern culture way of doing things.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: Preach, plead, and laugh.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: Mock.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: I love doing that, you know, with the when there was a TV commercial and my children were watching TV with me, and I did not want them to be interested in Miller Light at the age of eight.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, then I, you know, I would I would make fun of it.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: I'd make fun of you find something to laugh at.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Laugh.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: This is in his in his early days.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: This was Rush Limbaugh.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Remember how how effective he was making fun of abortion and all these other things.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: So it's just a really quick tip for parents.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: You can preach, fine.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: You can plead, sure, but you can also laugh.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Humor is a winning, oftentimes the winning weapon.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: Number three, and finally, see and share the difference.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
36:58
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between Baal and Yahweh.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: What is that difference?
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what the difference is according to Hollywood today or according to series I started watching on Netflix.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: So I saw the series, and it's about King Alfred.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: And I know about King Alfred.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: He's in my he's he's one of my ancestors, and by the way, he's one of many of you, one of many of your ancestors as well.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, the genealogy is sort of like funnels.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: They go through people who have a lot of descendants and and so forth.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: So uh King Alfred, 800 A.D., the first the first King of England, the first Christian, great Christian king of England, built monasteries, and not only was he a great, you know, warrior and leader, but he was a phenomenal Christian, and I'm really proud of him.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: I start watching this.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: And you know who the hero of this show is?
37:47
SPEAKER_00: It's certainly not Alfred.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they just they've they killed off Alfred because he's boring, because he's a Christian.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: And they made him out to be a hypocrite, made him out to be stupid, and he had no effect on the world, and you're going, oh, excuse me excuse me, I'm looking at Wikipedia here.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: You could have at least followed Wikipedia.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: But you know, it's it's it's the Danish, it's all those who worship pagan gods who have incantations, who are cutting themselves and dripping blood into each other's mouths and running around altars, right?
38:13
SPEAKER_00: That's who Hollywood thinks is exciting and cool, right?
38:18
SPEAKER_00: You know of other shows, vampire shows and so forth.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: It's always the same.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: It's those who are doing incantations and worshiping with spells and seances and so forth.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: That's really the difference, okay?
38:32
SPEAKER_00: Those people are saying you release the supernatural with spells and incantations, by performing in a certain way, by doing the right things, and here comes Yahweh saying it's not by works, right?
38:45
SPEAKER_00: It's not by a certain kind of performance, it's by faith.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: You've got to worship the right God.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: That's the key difference in the world.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: The pagan religions are all about doing, and the true religion is all about believing in God and in the Lord Jesus Christ.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, key insight: the gods of this world require your blood.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: The true God gives us his instead.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: And you find that repeatedly in all of your shows about pagan gods.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: They're always causing you to cut yourself, they're always taking your blood, but in the Bible you find that your blood is not required because God's Son has provided his blood for you.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: And all of that is in the retold story of Elijah versus the prophets of Baal.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: But there's a challenge I leave you with, and that is to make a commitment, make a decision.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: It was 1900, the year was 1900, and it was Mexico City.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: And uh Octavio Guillen, Guillen, 15 years old, was in love with a beautiful girl named Adriana Martinez.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: They were both 15.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: They so much fell in love that they got engaged at age 15.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said they make a beautiful, beautiful couple.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: And they still made a beautiful couple 67 years later when they got married at age 82 in Mexico City.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: They had been engaged for 67 years, but couldn't get off the fence, kept wavering back and forth.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: And everybody at the wedding said they lost so many good years.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: And I would encourage you to encourage those you love to make a commitment, to make a decision, to decide who is God for you, and making that decision, seeing clearly the difference between religions of works and Christianity of faith.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: Laugh out loud and draw them to Christianity.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the story.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for Elijah.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the reminder of what's really important in a world like ours that's growing in its last days ever more dark.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: Amen.