Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 19, 2023 | Beating Burnout - Emergency Treatment

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February 19, 2023 | Beating Burnout - Emergency Treatment · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Well, good morning.
0:02
SPEAKER_01: You got the second team here today.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: Connor's down in Florida with uh celebrating the hundredth birthday of his wife's grandfather.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: And I see, I thought I saw Jim Friel here today.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Hey, how you doing?
0:19
SPEAKER_01: And next week.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what'd you say?
0:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: So you're about to hit 100, right?
0:27
SPEAKER_01: And aren't we throwing a party next Sunday after second service?
0:31
SPEAKER_01: So, hey, Connor goes to Florida to do it.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to go to Florida.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do it right here in this building next week.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: Now you've already seen, I uh by the way, for those of you that don't know, my name is Jim Congden.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm pastor of missions and leader development here.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: So I love that missions video we showed.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: And because I'm personally involved and the church has supported Jews for Jesus heavily, uh, and I'm supportive with that.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: And I was down there in LA with him for several days last week.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: I want to show you a video.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: This is a significant year for Jews for Jesus.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh, watch this short video uh about Jews for Jesus.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Jews for Jesus started as a slogan, but by 1973, it had officially become a thriving evangelistic ministry.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Jewish people with a passion to share the good news that our Messiah has come.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: Over the last 50 years, Jews for Jesus has proclaimed the gospel in some of the biggest Jewish communities around the world, from South Africa to Budapest, from New York to Jerusalem.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: We stand as living proof that it is possible to be Jewish and believe in Jesus.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: And by God's grace, tens of thousands of Jewish people across the globe have now identified.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: That's why this year, during May, June, and July, Jews for Jesus will be sharing the message of liberty and messiah to 20 different Jewish communities all at the same time.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: This will be the most comprehensive global outreach we've ever conducted.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: With hundreds of missionaries and volunteers sharing the good news across the world, and we can't do it without it.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: Most Jewish people still have never heard the message that takes their Messiah, the very one who came to set the captives free, to fulfill the true need of Jubilee.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Will you join with us to declare liberty to those embodied, to bring good news to the poor, to bind out the brokenhearted.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Together, we can reach the Jewish people with the good news of the year of Jubilee.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: So that's uh that's a testament to the wonderful mission support that Topeka Bible Church gives to different missionary outreaches around the world.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: And I I have one more.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, I'm the pastor in missions, this is what I do.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: So this on Thursday, the Thursday 11 days from now, okay, next week, Jim Friel 100 years on the Thursday after that.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna throw a bash here on Thursday night for Janet McClanahan, who has worked, who's TBC, homegrown missionary.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: By the way, I don't know, is she in here?
3:45
SPEAKER_01: No.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: So um I think she's in Sunday school this hour.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: So she's come back recently from Brazil, retired after 60 some years of education, seminary, and so forth down there.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna have a party to celebrate her 62 years.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the head of the seminary where she taught, and where she was sort of the uh grandom for decades.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: He's flying up, and I think Arnon and Jessica coming up from from uh okay.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: So she was is this picture not on here?
4:18
SPEAKER_01: Are we not seeing pictures anymore?
4:20
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
4:22
SPEAKER_01: Hi we got a problem?
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there it is, got it.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, because I wanted you to see, I was down there and she served me ice cream, and that was that was that was awesome.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: So, anyway.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, please come.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh, this uh I I have crowns here because um this woman's gonna get crowns in heaven, and uh let's honor her in 11 days Thursday night here, Janet McClanahan.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: And she's just an amazing woman.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: All right?
4:54
SPEAKER_01: Missions, missions, and missions.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: And now, so I get the assignment of preaching the first and third of the four weeks on burnout, okay?
5:07
SPEAKER_01: And um I thought Connor, who did a phenomenal job, by the way, in 1 Corinthians, in my view, um, was wise to pick um to do a break, a four-week break, on something we discussed, whether anxiety is a huge topic today in America, as you can imagine, and all the related topics of uh clinical depression, uh suicidal tendencies and so forth, but a lot of those fit uh in under the broad spectrum of burnout.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: Burnout is when the flame of your life, uh, whether it's in your marriage or uh whether it's in your job or whether it's in your church ministry or whatever it is, where the flame of your life begins to sputter in that area and then finally go out.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: For one of a variety of reasons, and I'm gonna share with you one of the main reasons today.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: And so I'd like you to turn in your Bibles to emergency treatment for burnout, 1 Kings chapter 19, verses 1 through 18.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: Emergency treatment for burnout.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: Uh the background of this uh story, for this is uh one of the most interesting stories in the Old Testament, is uh 1 Kings chapter 19.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: And it takes place in the northern kingdom of Israel.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: The kingdom of Israel has split in about a thousand BC.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: This is 800 BC, 200 years, after the golden age of David and Solomon, and we've come to a place where the ruler up north, that's the blue area, the kingdom of Israel, capital is Samaria, the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah, uh occasionally has good kings during these years.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: The northern kingdom did not have one out of 19 good kings.
6:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but the worst king of all is Ahab and Jezebel.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: And they are on the throne right now, and opposing them is one person.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: And that person is so significant that as I sat down thinking about this uh a week ago, I I wrote down my first words are when this world has passed away and we're in the new heavens and the new earth.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: One of the things on your to-do list and mine will be finding and getting to know uh the great heroes of the Bible.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: Right?
7:16
SPEAKER_01: David, Joseph, Daniel, Esther, Ruth, Mary, Joseph, and so forth.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have a lot of time to locate these uh heroes and get to know them.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: And one of the names on everybody's to-do list of a person to get to know, meet, and talk to will be the name of Elijah, because there's no more dramatic character in the 2,500 years of biblical history than the prophet Elijah.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: I picture him as tall and bony with a chin strong enough to crack walnuts, and we know that every day when he got up, he didn't go to his closet and select between different outfits.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: There was one outfit he wore every day, and it was a goat skin with the hair left on it and a ragged leather belt.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: He obviously wasn't a clothes horse.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: But uh, but he was uh he was a prophet of God, and he was an incredibly uh bold and brave prophet of God.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: Uh rumors were whispered about Elijah that he had raised a dead boy.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: That would be uh raised a boy from the dead.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: That's the same as raising a dead boy, I think.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: So that he so and and that starving and that when he was starving, birds brought him food.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: And those rumors would be true.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: Those things really happened.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: In fact, here's how great Elijah was.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: That years later, when the Son of God came to earth and Jesus was performing miracles and speaking with authority, the word of God, people pointed to him and said, That's Elijah, come back from the grave.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: That's gotta be Elijah.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus himself, when he went up on the mount and was transfigured and had the glory, decided to, you know, bring back, you know, uh uh the future into the present.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: It was Elijah who was standing next to him, Elijah and Moses.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: And there's a connection between those two, as you'll find out today.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus' own brother, when he was writing his book and decided to tell us we needed to pray like we mean it, when he picked out a model for prayer, picked of all people, it's a surprise, he picked the prophet Elijah.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: He said Elijah was such a man of fervent prayer that he prayed that it wouldn't rain for three and a half years and it immediately stopped raining, and then after three and a half years, he prayed that it would rain and it started raining again.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: He said, You need to pray as fervently as Elijah.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: In other words, if you make a list, and I dare you to make a list of the top ten characters in the Bible, I did, and you'll find that Elijah has to be on that list.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: You and I are gonna want to make an appointment to see him when we're in the new heavens and new earth.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: Now, opposing him, as we turn to verse 1 in 1 Kings 19, is a man named Ahab.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't know who it was, but a hundred years ago he said Ahab was the vile human toad that squatted on the throne of Israel, and next to him was the poisonous asp of uh of Jezebel.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: You have to be careful how you say that.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: So stop that.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: But here's the point is that Ahab was the most evil king of Israel, it says, of all the 19 kings.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and he was the very worst.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: Now, Jezebel, uh, who's the second name here?
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna take us back to chapter 18.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: Jezebel is not a local girl, she's not an Israelite, she's a foreign girl, she's one of those girls from the coast up north, about 70, 80 miles from Tyre and Sidon, Phoenician.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we know from archaeology that they knew makeup.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: Israelites didn't, Israelite girls didn't wear makeup, so she knew makeup, so she so uh, you know, she was a she was a hottie from what we call Lebanon today, and uh and she didn't worship the God Yahweh.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: In fact, she was the daughter of not only the high king of Tyre, but he was also the high priest of Tyre.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: His name was Fbaal, and he was the priest, the high priest of Baal, and she grew up in the temple of Baal, and she became the high priestess of Baal and Ashtarith, his consort, his wife.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: And so when Ahab proposed to her, because she had makeup, and no, I mean, I don't know, she was a hottie.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: I picture her, though, as having some red lipstick, which he'd never seen before, so his heart's fluttering, and when he invited her to marry him, I'm the king, she did, she said, you know, I'm gonna move down to your boring backwater country from my beautiful coastal town on one condition, that I get to bring my 450 prophets of Baal, and we'll keep them in the palace, and my 400 priestesses of Asterith, and we'll keep them in the palace, and we'll feed them, and I'm going to do my best to convert your country from the weak worship of Yahweh, I am, to the worship of Baal, the rider of the clouds, the god of thunder and lightning, fire and rain.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: That's who Baal was.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: He was the rider of the clouds.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: He made Thor look like a choir boy, right?
12:16
SPEAKER_01: He was the rider of the clouds, the god of thunder and lightning, fire and rain.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to convert them.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: So she came down and she put out a contract on all the prophets of Yahweh and killed a whole lot of them.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: And and they and all the people of Israel, you talk about crazy taxes, had to support these people, had to feed 950 false prophets every single day.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: They were in the palace of Ahab and Jezebel.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: And and Jezebel's life, she would have been easy, peasy, lemon squeezy, except for one man, except for this bony backwater prophet named Elijah, who wouldn't back down.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: The prophet of I am Yahweh.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: Elijah publicly defied her, proclaiming that Yahweh, I am, was the true God of lightning and thunder, fire and rain, the true writer of the clouds, and that this God, Baal, couldn't squeeze out enough raindrops to grow even one zucchini, and he was going to prove it.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: And so he prays out loud that the rain will stop, and he defies Baal to make it rain again.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: And the rain stopped, and there was drought for three and a half years, making Jesse real mad.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: So she sends out hitmen to get them, to get him, and he instead walks right into the palace there in Samaria and stands in front of them and says, I defy you, I challenge you to a battle of the gods, which she thinks is good stuff.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: And he says, We'll do it on your home turf on Mount Carmel and where you think Baal lives, you know, close by.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: And um, and uh and you call all of Israel, you invite everyone, come one, come all, bring your prophets up there, bring your priests up there, and we're gonna have a battle to see who can light a fire.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
14:09
SPEAKER_01: So she's all excited.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: This all happens in chapter 18, we're in chapter 19, verse 1.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: This is the day after, all right?
14:15
SPEAKER_01: And you know how the story ends.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: That that they all come up there in the morning.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: I preached in this last summer.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: We did uh you know stories of the Bible, but I'm not so stupid as to believe any of you remember that.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: But um, so we go back to the Super Bowl victory, and that's about all.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Um or loss if you're from Philly.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm sorry, that wasn't nice.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: I I like Philly.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: So um, so the story as you as you remember is Elijah goes up there and he challenges them.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: Elijah, Elijah says, You guys, you all you prophets, you guys do your best to get Baal to light the fire, light the sacrifice, and so forth.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: And so they cut themselves and these prophets and priests, they all dance around and they go crazy and they call out and they do it for hours and they have no luck.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: And then finally Elijah comes up and he prays a simple prayer to God, and what happens is in this battle of the gods between Yahweh, I am, and Baal, the so-called storm god, is that they're in the i on the top of Mount Carmel, this strange mountain, which seems like a mountain uh of magic because it's always green, whereas the rest of Israel is dry.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: So they thought that Baal lived up there and watered it.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: So what happens is the prophets and priests all dance around and cut themselves and it doesn't work.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: Elijah prays, fire comes down and lights up and burns not only the sacrifice, but burns the water they poured on it, the waterlogged altar, and burns up the stones and everything else.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: And that's the day before, and all of the people go, Yahweh, he is God, Yahweh, he is God.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: And so Jezebel has stayed down in the palace, so Ahab goes down, by the way, at the end of it.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: Elijah, and you need to know this about burnout.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Elijah is at the very, very, very, very top.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes leads to burnout.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: Elijah is pumped.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: God answered his prayer in front of the entire nation.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: He's positive, the whole nation's now going to turn back to God.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: He turns to Ahab and he says, I'm now gonna pray for rain.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: You better turn your chariot before the roads get muddy and ride as fast as you can, whip your horses to get them back to Jezreel, your where your capital, one of your capitals, 25 miles away.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: And then Elijah is so jacked that he he says, and I'll race you.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: And he runs in front of the chariot all 25 miles back to Jezreel.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: And you go, Elijah, why would you run to Jezreel?
16:33
SPEAKER_01: Because that's where your mortal enemies are.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: They put out hitmen on you.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna go after you.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: And Elijah, I think, would say this.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: He would say, Hold it.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, didn't you just see what happened?
16:43
SPEAKER_01: Didn't you see how it's proof that in the battle of the gods, it was a fair fight.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: And I am Yahweh, beat the god Baal, and I defeated Ahab and Jezebel.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: And the nation all said, Yahweh, he is God, Yahweh, he is God.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: This whole thing has changed.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: You're talking yesterday.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Today, I mean, they're gonna throw me a Super Bowl parade tomorrow or next day, I bet.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: This whole thing's turned around.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna get the northern kingdom to merge again with the southern kingdom.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna we're gonna go back to the temple of God, we're gonna worship Yahweh.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: This is fantastic.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: And he's running all the way, and he goes back to Jezreel, and he's probably exhausted, and he's but he's he could not be happier.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: And Ahab goes back and tells Jezebel what happened.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: And Jezebel sends a message.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: And you can imagine that Elijah has rented an apartment and he's just crashed on his bed, and he's just reliving the wonder of that day.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: And it's a messenger.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: And the messenger says, I'm a messenger from Jezebel.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: And Jezebel says, May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I don't make your life like one of them.
17:49
unknown: Shh.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: She says, She's threatening his life out of reprisal for him killing, because what happened is they took all the prophets, those 450 prophets, and they killed him.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, the previous day, they said, You guys are false prophets, and and they executed him.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Jezebel is not ready to give up.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: And she says, You're gonna be dead within 24 hours.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: Now we get to the key verse.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: It says, and in probably in your Bible, it says Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: And as a result, this passage is always preached nowadays, almost always preached nowadays.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: No, always preached nowadays.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: And the books say that Elijah, who's so brave and such a man of faith up to this point, suddenly was scared, suddenly became a craven coward, and he ran for his life.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: But if you'll notice in your NIV or your other modern Bibles, there'll be a little asterisk, and down at the bottom of the page it'll say, or Elijah saw.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: Now I grew up with the King James Version, because I'm, you know, back at Abraham Lincoln's day or whatever.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: And um and the and the King James Version said, and Elijah saw.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: And then uh, and then ran south, you know, for his life.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: We went for his life down south.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: But Elijah saw.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, so he saw what?
19:21
SPEAKER_01: And so what you do in this little my seminary moment, I'm sorry, I'm gonna tell you that little seminary moment, this because this entire passage and the entire message of this passage depends on one word, and it's a word over which there is a textual argument, whether the word is feared or saw, you have to decide whether or not you want to preach this passage as a brave, courageous prophet being suddenly cowed and terrified by a bad woman, because that's how it's preached today.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, the whole story is even the bravest man in the world, when one bad woman says something to him, he'll just collapse into a mud puddle.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, that's how it's preached.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: So this is either a passage about how Elijah, uh, the fearful prophet, the scaredy cat, uh, or what I'm saying is Elijah was a broken prophet.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: My my view is going to be, as you'll see, that Elijah, uh, that there's nothing, uh, I mean, it makes no sense to think that well let me tell you how let me tell you how the text goes.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: So here's what you do.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: When you're studying a text of the Bible, when you're studying an original word, what happens is you look at all the text on one side and all the text on the other.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: You go, wow, we have two major, we have two major translations here that are very different.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: What's the history of those translations?
20:39
SPEAKER_01: Well, what you what you then find out is that uh the he saw comes from the original word in the text, which was viar, V-A, uh, W A, which is and Yar-A, which is to see, and he saw.
20:53
SPEAKER_01: That's the Hebrew original.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: In other words, that's what we know the text said at the earliest part.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: And uh and but that's a harder translation, isn't it?
21:02
SPEAKER_01: Because what in the world, what do you mean, Elijah saw?
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Okay, he saw what?
21:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh but the he feared the is the Greek and other ancient translations and recent translation, numeric standard NIV, ESP, CSV.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: It's easier translation.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: But the but uh so you say, well, now which one of these translations best explains how the other one came to be?
21:27
SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you what I think actually happened.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: So that so in 4500 BC when the story was written down and it read An Elijah Saw, uh, they read that until 250 BC when the Greeks down in Alexandria, Egypt, you know, in the exile, they said, we need to translate this uh into Greek because that's the language we speak.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: So 70 of them, you've heard of the Septuagint, 72 of them got together, and as they were translating it, they came to this verse and they read Anti Elijah Saw.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: And some of them said, That's really weird.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: And Elijah saw what?
21:58
SPEAKER_01: And then some of them who knew Hebrew pretty Well said, Well, you know, there's a really similar Hebrew word, Vieraf.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: We just changed that little bit.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: I think maybe a scribe early on wrote this word down wrong.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
22:09
SPEAKER_01: Fearing explains better what Elijah now did, is he ran down south.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: He was scared for his life.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: And nobody thought to say, how, what do you mean Elijah was afraid?
22:19
SPEAKER_01: For three and a half years, Jezebel's had a contract out on his life.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: He walked right into her courtroom and he challenged her to this duel.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: On top of a mountain the day before, he went up alone, all alone, he and God against 950 prophets, 450 of whom were the hitmen sent out to kill him.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: We've never seen any lack of courage from him up till now.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: And you're saying now a messenger comes to the door, hands him a telegram saying within 24 hours you're dead.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: And this guy who knows that 450 of her hitmen have just died, and he's always been brave up till now, suddenly is going to collapse.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: Nobody apparently said that.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: And so those uh by majority rule, the those 70 translators changed it in the Greek translation to he feared, and they decided to translate it that way.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: And then Jerome, when he did a Latin translation in 400 AD, he did the same thing.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: And it and uh and then but you get to King James in 1500, and his translator said, you know, we need to go with the real Bible, we need to go with the earliest translation.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: And he saw.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: What did he see?
23:26
SPEAKER_01: We're not sure, but let's go with the original.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: And the new King James picked that up in the last century, and that translation worked up until about 1950, and then the modern translation said, we'll go with he feared.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the translation that best explains how the other one came to be is an original translation of he saw, which makes no sense.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: Because an original translation of he feared does not explain how it would ever get changed to he saw.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: As um uh let me just summarize it this way: if feared was the original, no one would change it to Saw, but if Saw was the original, that explains the change to fear.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: So what did fearless Elijah see?
24:07
SPEAKER_01: And Ron Allen, professor at a number of seminaries and an Hebrew scholar, puts it this way: Elijah was not afraid, he was broken.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: He had expected to bring about a great revival that would eradicate Baal worship and reunite Israel under the pure worship of Yahweh.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: When Jezebel instead ordered his execution, he saw the truth.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: That he was just one more prophet who was helpless to save Israel.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: Broken and burned out, he just wanted to die, but at God's hand, not Jezebel's.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: So he ran.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: So he ran.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: And he ran south.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: When he came to Beersheba in Judah, that's down south, he left his servant there while he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: Here's a map again.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: He's fleeing from Jezreel.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: It's 90 miles south.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: If all he wanted to do was save his life, all he had to do is step over that middle yellow line, and now he was in the southern kingdom of Jehoshaphat, and his life would be spared.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he he would be out of Jezebel's reach.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: But he keeps going another 30 miles down to the southernmost town in the southern kingdom, that's Beersheba.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: He leaves his servant there and he heads another uh day into the wilderness.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: Why?
25:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, you're gonna see.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: He came to a broom bush, sometimes translated as a juniper, and he sat down under it and he prayed that he might die.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: He didn't want to, he didn't want to escape death.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to die, but he didn't want Jezebel to get some kind of a public victory.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: So he'd fled her and he said, I have had enough, Lord, he said.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Take my life.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm no better than my ancestors.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm just another prophet who did his best, who did his dead level best to stop Israel from its plunge into destruction, the destruction that you have forecast ever since the days of Deuteronomy.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: I thought I had it made for the last three and a half years.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: I have defied Baal, I've stopped the rain, I've tried one-on-one, group on group, to convert people back to your holy worship.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: I find that even on the top of the mountain, when you give me a great victory, and the people shout out, Yahweh, he is God, Yahweh, he is God.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: That everybody seems to forget about it right away, and nobody's turning back to God, and I am just as much a failure as any of my predecessors.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: There's no reason for me to live.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: One of the four indicators of clinical depression and suicidal tendencies, they say, is when there is a huge gap between your goal and your expectation and reality.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: When the facts of faith and the facts of God and the facts of your expectations since God seems to work in a certain way, when that doesn't match up with the facts of reality in your life, suddenly discouragement can set in and depression and burnout, that flame that was so bright just a few days ago.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: Suddenly, it happens all of a sudden, doesn't it?
27:18
SPEAKER_01: You're a Christian school teacher, you started the year with this goal that you were going to, you were gonna do better, you were gonna, this class was gonna come around, and you find that it's not working.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: It's second semester, and it's and and you're no better than your predecessors, or you're a Christian wife, or you're a Christian husband.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: And the marriage is not what you thought it would be, but you're determined.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, you've set your face, you are gonna hang in there, and you are going to be a godly wife or a godly husband, and you are gonna, you know, be kind and gracious and faithful and keep your mouth shut when it needs to be shut.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: And it's been a year, two years, three and a half years, and and it seems like nothing has changed, and that flame that was so bright at the beginning is now sputtering and it's near to being out.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: Or perhaps you're serving in a church.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: You're in Christian ministry.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, at my age, pastors come to consult me now because they're sure I've seen it all.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: And I have seen a lot because I've experienced this kind of burnout in work, in marriage, as a as a you know, minister, and so forth, and in all these ways.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: And they come to me and they say, look at, listen to this story.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: And I say to them, Wow, that's the worst story I've ever heard.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: And then I think in my mind, well, other than mine, you know.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: But but this happened, it's happened to you, I would guess, uh, in your workplace or in your marriage or in your church ministry, and you felt like just quitting, like Elijah feels.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: And you can understand why he feels that way.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: He's not suddenly scared for the first time in his life.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: He's a fearless prophet who's broken because the distance between his expectations or aspirations and reality is so great that it's crushed his soul and quenched his spirit and put out his flame.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: And so we read that he lay down under the bush, expecting that maybe God would kill him, but God doesn't execute him.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: All at once an angel touched him and said, Get up and eat.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: He looked around and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals and a jar of water.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: First catered meal he's ever gotten in his life.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: He ate and he drank and he lay down again.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: Instead of killing him, God gives him some sleep and some food, some R.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: So he got up and ate and drank.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: Two days' vacation.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: Strengthened by that food, he traveled 40 days and 40 nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: There he went into a cave and spent the night.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: Just for a moment, remembering that it was Moses and Elijah standing on either side of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: Remember that it is those three characters who spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness without food.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: Moses on Mount Sinai, when he was getting God's revelation, went up there.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: Now, Elijah heading there to Mount Sinai 40 days and 40 nights, and Jesus, 800 years later, the same thing.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: By the way, just uh just to show you uh the direction that um I thought I could get that to move.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: But uh anyway, so you can see that he left Jezreel and Elijah no doubt went by what's called the Via Maris, very famous ancient highway, the sea highway, went down south, cut over to Beersheba, the southernmost town in Israel.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: And now, normally uh today, hikers, uh for hikers, it's a 14-day, two-week hike from Beersheba to Mount Sinai, but uh this prophet maybe because of burnout or for whatever reason, it says it takes him 40 days and 40 nights, but he gets back to the place where it all started, where Yahweh revealed himself to Israel and to Moses and gave him the law and introduced him to the pure worship of Yahweh.
31:54
SPEAKER_01: And this is this is what Elijah says, and you know, I need a new vision of God, man.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: No longer does he want to die.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: But it says there Elijah went into a cave.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: Although, by the way, it's really interesting that in the in the Hebrew text it says he went into the cave and he spent the night.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: He goes, the cave.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: And you look back in Exodus, and remember where Moses said to God, I would like to see you personally.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: And so God says, Well, come up to this rock, and he set him on a rock, and then he put him into the cave, into a cleft of a rock, and then God says, God walked by and showed him his backside, whatever that means.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: And then it said, and I'll cover you with my hand till I have passed by.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: Notice those words.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: And the question is, is this the same cave as Moses' cave?
32:41
SPEAKER_01: I believe it is, and I'm not the only one who does.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: So he's back there where it all started in 1400 BC.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: This is 600 years later, and we read, And the word of the Lord came to him saying, What are you doing here?
32:56
SPEAKER_01: I once preached a message on the strange questions of the Bible.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, Jesus saying, How many fish have you caught?
33:02
SPEAKER_01: You know, these questions, they're not very nice questions, you know, but but God knows the answer to those questions, but it's to it's to make you say it out loud.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: And Elijah says, I've been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: The Israelites have rejected your covenant, tore down your altars, and put your prophets to death with a sword, and I'm the only one left, and now they're trying to kill me too.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: That's why you want to die.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: I've tried, says Elijah, but I'm done.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord said, Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: This the Lord is, I am Yahweh here.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: And then, oh, notice the words pass by, same words as with Moses.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Remember where the glory of the Lord passed by?
33:45
SPEAKER_01: Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.
33:51
SPEAKER_01: After the wind, there was an earthquake.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: So God's repeating the incredible things that He did on Mount Carmel, that he's done before, these gigantic things, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: And this very, very famous verse, after the fire came literally a gentle whisper, the voice of a gentle stillness, but we know it because King James, hundreds of years ago, translated it as a still small voice.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: And everyone in this room has heard that line before.
34:24
SPEAKER_01: A still small voice.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: And uh and and for the only time in the Bible, normally when God speaks, his voice is always loud.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: It always, the last time he was at Sinai, all the people said, you know, we're covering our ears, it's so loud we can't stand at Moses.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: Go up in the mountain and talk to God alone.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: This is too scary.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: It's the only time where you have a quiet voice.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: And when Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face, like Moses did.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: He didn't want to die, seeing God.
34:51
SPEAKER_01: And he went out and he stood at the mouth of the cave.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: And then a voice said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah?
34:57
SPEAKER_01: Second time.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: And he replied, Uh, Apparently you didn't hear me the first time, God, but I'll just repeat myself.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: I've been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: The Israelites rejected a covenant, and they all put up prophets to death that I'm the only one left, and now they're trying to kill me, too.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord said to him, Go back the way you came.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: I'll leave 7,000 in Israel, every knee that has not bowed down to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: Elijah learns that he's not alone.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: What a story! I submit it's not a story of Elijah being afraid.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: Or God would have said as he does hundreds of times in the Bible, be not afraid, be courageous.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: He says it to most of the great characters of the Bible.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: He says it to everyone who's afraid.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say it to Elijah because Elijah's not afraid, but what Elijah is, is he's broken.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: And that's why God speaks so gently to him.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: And that's why God gives him three amazing blessings.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: Blessings that you need if you're anywhere close to burnout at your work, in your home, at church, in your ministry.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: Because you'll notice that Elijah was physically restored by the Lord.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: His body gets sleep and food.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, he is spiritually revived.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: He receives a new vision of God and he's mentally realigned.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: He learns that he's not alone.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: Listen, if you're close to burnout at some venue in your life, some place where your expectation was so high, where the flame was burning bright, but that flame is sputtering, or maybe close to going out.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: If you're like um Jimmy Stewart, remember in uh It's a Wonderful Life?
36:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, where he had worked so hard for Bedford Falls trying to save it from evil.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: Remember, he'd done everything he possibly could.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: Very much an Elijah figure, it seems to me.
37:10
SPEAKER_01: And then it turned out it hadn't worked.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: And he was, you know, the Bedford Falls was gonna fall into the clutches of evil.
37:20
SPEAKER_01: And he broke and he quit.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: That's burnout.
37:26
SPEAKER_01: That's Elijah.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: I say that for those of you who are more familiar with Jimmy Stewart, and it's a wonderful life than the Bible, but but but you know that that story helps me too.
37:35
SPEAKER_01: I picture Jimmy Stewart, you know, stumbling over the icy streets the way Elijah stumbled down to Mount Sinai, taking 40 days for a journey that today I could you could walk in 14.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: And you say, what do you need?
37:55
SPEAKER_01: What's emergency treatment for burnout?
37:58
SPEAKER_01: When your aspirations were godly aspirations, and your expectations were high and holy, and they seem to be fueled by God Himself, who was working on your behalf, and then all of a sudden the whole thing falls apart.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: It can happen that quickly.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: You can fall into a clinical depression, you can fall into suicidal tendencies in seconds when you least expect it.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: If you're close to burnout, I think this passage leaves us with three emergency treatments.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: Number one, look to yourself, get some rest, eat better, go to bed.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: Number two, look to the Lord, go back to him like Moses, like Elijah did.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna start over.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go back to where it all began.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: Reconsider your your Christian life and start over with God as if you'd never met him before.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: And run to him and pray to him and ask him to show you himself.
38:58
SPEAKER_01: Ask, say, Lord, give me a new vision of yourself, and maybe God will do for you what he did for Elijah.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: Elijah expecting roars and powers, the things he's seen before, and all of a sudden God surprises him with a gentle breeze, with a soft whisper.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: Get a new vision of God.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: And third, look around.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: Get a companion, realize you aren't alone.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: Don't go off and stay at home and stop coming to church and quit your job or quit your marriage and walk away, as God says.
39:30
SPEAKER_01: You know, go back the way you came, but find a companion.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: And in the latter part of this chapter, the Lord mentions several companions that Elijah should go to.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: And in the next chapter, we find he's finally got a bosom buddy.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: His name is Elisha, and for the rest of his life, he has Elisha by his side.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: Find a companion, find a friend who maybe has been there before.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: It was sort of happenstance, but um a friend who was on Jews for Jesus Board, the president of Dallas Seminary, has had bugged me uh a number of times to watch a video, and I just watched it this weekend.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: He said, You need to see the video of Tommy Nelson.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: Some of you have done studies by Tommy Nelson, pastor of Denton Bible Church, you've done studies on Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon and so forth.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: You need to watch what he came and said in our chapel at Dallas Seminary.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: You need to go onto our website and watch it.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: And so I thought, well, that might have some relationship.
40:34
SPEAKER_01: And to my utter astonishment, it did.
40:37
SPEAKER_01: Tommy Nelson, when he was at the height of his ministry, in a split second fell into what turned out to be a clinical, almost suicidal depression.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: And to my astonishment, as I watched this, to my astonishment, Tommy Nelson at the end said, There are three things that you need to pay attention to if you're where I was.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: He said, you can burn out.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: You need to know that it's not, it has nothing to do with your spirituality.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: Burnout, you can be the most spiritual, courageous person in the world, and you can burn out.
41:11
SPEAKER_01: He said, you can burn out doing what you love.
41:13
SPEAKER_01: I would not have believed it, but it's true.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: This is a photo of him speaking at Dallas Seminary not long ago.
41:19
SPEAKER_01: The first thing I would tell you if you're close to burnout is rest.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: Rest.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: I had to learn to rest.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: Second, he said, God took me to the very end of myself, to the end of all my talent, all my training, all my everything, until all that was left was him.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: A new vision of God.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: And third, and he said, I had to find someone else who had been there, someone who'd been completely burned out, someone who'd been depressed.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: I had to get a therapist, I had to find a friend.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: And I found that there were a lot of other Christians who had burned out as well.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: And those are the three points I'd like to thought, I can't believe that.
42:01
SPEAKER_01: 1 Kings 19 says the same thing.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: There's a bodily issue.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: Get some rest.
42:07
SPEAKER_01: Look to yourself.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: There is a spiritual issue.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: Go back to God, but start over with Him.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: Get a new vision of God.
42:15
SPEAKER_01: And third, find a friend, find a companion.
42:19
SPEAKER_01: Don't go hide out and then tell everyone that you're all alone.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
42:26
SPEAKER_01: Father, thank you for this practical story from long, long, long ago about a person that it's hard for us to relate to, but we admire.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: We're not at all like Elijah, but we see here that he was a man, as James says, with like passions as we have, and uh similar burnout.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: And I ask for a second, Lord, that you would look down upon this place, and I mean Mulvaine and College Avenue and online, and you would look at those with gentleness like you did with Elijah, upon those people whose flame is getting low.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: And I ask that you would be as gentle with them as you have been with your saints down through the years.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: Comfort them.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: Give them rest.
43:23
SPEAKER_01: As you promise you will, being a good shepherd in Psalm 23.
43:28
SPEAKER_01: In green pastures by still waters.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: Give them a new vision of yourself.
43:35
SPEAKER_01: Give them a friend.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
43:39
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
43:41
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.