Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 29th, 2015 | Route 66 - 1 Kings

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March 29th, 2015 | Route 66 - 1 Kings · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is Paul Sunday, so we're celebrating the triumphal entry of Jesus on this day on the church calendar, and usually I will depart from whatever series I'm doing to cover uh one of the stories.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's covered in all four Gospels.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: But as I was thinking about uh the I was thinking about our series and where we've come to, uh we're doing, in case you're just visiting, uh a road trip to the Bible.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're doing 66 Sundays on the 66 books of the Bible, and we have arrived at the book of 1 Kings, and frankly, all the kings in 1 2 Kings uh pointing down road.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: They're pointing toward Palm Sunday, toward the Jesus who will ride into the capital city of Jerusalem.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's appropriate for us to stay in Kings, talk about the kings, and look at their flaws and look at how they point toward Jesus.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And our title this morning of 1 Kings is Gods and Kings.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is no God but the Lord.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you will recognize uh that to three months ago a movie came out in Hollywood called Exodus, Gods and Kings.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I did not recommend this movie to you because you remember about a year ago I recommended the Noah movie to you.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm still paying for that.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Exodus was even worse, and frankly, the title was ridiculous.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you could say there were gods, but not kings.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's only one king, but it's a perfect title for the book of 1 Kings, where there are multiple gods and multiple kings.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so let's uh dip into prayer, and then I want to tell you about the single major issue that I want to talk to you about this morning.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Father, uh, we are uh struck by the multiplicity of gods and the multiplicity of kings and rulers in this world.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we recognize that your Bible takes us in a different direction toward a single God who will one day rule on earth.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so we would ask that as we look at the kings in 1 Kings, that you'd guide our thinking today and help us to come up with something that'll help us in our daily life this week.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to tell you about I want to tell you a story on myself, which as you'll be able to tell at least by the end of the message if you're still awake, is not all that complimentary to me.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a couple of months ago, actually eight weeks ago.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is Super Bowl Sunday.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I find myself in South Africa.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm with a friend, uh David Brickner, he's the uh director of Juice for Jesus.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: We look at each other uh on the day before Super Bowl Sunday and we say, whoa, we can't miss the Super Bowl.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: See, South Africa, you need to understand, thinks of itself as a modern nation, but it's it's actually just a dark backwater because it doesn't value NFL football.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's into things like rugby, you know.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so they don't even show the Super Bowl on TV.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: They don't even acknowledge that the game between Seattle and New England is the single greatest thing that's going to happen on that Sunday.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So David says, you know, um, we're paying good money at this hotel.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go talk to the manager and see if somehow he can wire my TV, get a connection somehow so that we can watch it.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I say, now we have a the game is going to be at our time, 1.30 in the morning to 5.30 in the morning.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we have a really important meeting at 8.30 in the morning.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we look at each other and say, no problem, who cares?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: The Super Bowl's that important.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So he actually gets that done, and at 1.30, unable to have slept at all ahead of time, so excited, we go to his room, we snack all night, we prop our eyelids open with toothpicks, and we watch that game, which ends just horribly with the disgusting New England Patriots getting an interception at the goal line to upset my Pacific Northwest Seattle team.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, other than that, so uh we grabbed a couple of hours of sleep, and then we looked at each other over coffee, multitude of coffee cups the rest of the morning as we're in this important meeting.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And but never once did we ever say, what a mistake, because it wasn't.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, here's the interesting point I want to make is you reveal by your behavior and the choices you make what's really important to you, right?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what you really care about.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what we really cared about was the Super Bowl.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: If it had been the only thing better than the Super Bowl in the year, by the way, happens to be the NCAA attorney, which uh March Madness, which is going on right now.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna tell, I'm not saying that I'm addicted to sports or anything.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I would never say that.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I will just tell you that it is revealing that I care deeply about such things.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk to you today about what you care about and what all of us care about and what our hearts are bent toward.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a title again of my message is Gods and Kings, and the subtitle is There is No God But the Lord.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have a study sheet, grab it, and you'll see that the key verse, in my view, is 1839, which, let's read it together.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: When all the people saw it and said, Yahweh, he is God, Yahweh He is God.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Key chapters in this uh book, three chapters, 8, 12, and 18.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: We'll look at the first and third.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Overview.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: The book begins with King David's death and his son Solomon mounting the throne.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Stop.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: There are three kings of the united kingdom of Israel.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: The first was Saul, the second is David, and the third is Solomon.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, David's was the golden age of Israel.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: He brought Israel in about 1100 BC to 970 BC.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: He brought them to the zenith.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then Solomon inherited that, and wow, we really had a golden age.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: People came from all over the world, Queen of Sheba and others, to see this golden city.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the three kings of the United Kingdom, but then the kingdoms split.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we read here, early on, Solomon's humble and wholehearted for God, and during his reign, Israel grows to her greatest size and glory.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: The wisdom he shows and the temple he builds are the talk of the ancient world.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: But Solomon's success, wealth, and pagan wives seduce his heart away from Yahweh, and the wise king becomes a fool.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: The king with a divided heart ends up leaving behind a divided kingdom.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And for the rest of the book and the rest of the Old Testament, we watch Israel's feuding north and south drift farther and farther away from the true God and true worship in Jerusalem.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, just as 1 and 2 Samuel are really one book of Samuel.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: The two books of Kings were originally just one book that traced Israel's fall from its golden age to its sad exile and Babylon.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of this book?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: To explain to the perplexed exiles why they are there.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: So again, what we have in Kings is we have the nation dividing in chapter 12.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: It splits, you have a north, ten tribes, Israel, you have a south, Judah.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: That north will continue on.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: This split happens in 913 BC.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: They'll continue on until 722 BC.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then Assyria comes from the north and captures them, and we call it the seven lost tribes of Israel.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: No idea where they went.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Judah hangs on until 586 BC, and then Babylon comes and takes them.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: They will eventually come back to the land.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the story in kings of the divided kingdom, and this book tells us that the reason for the division is because they failed, they failed to worship God alone.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: My subtitle again, There is No God But the Lord, and that's where they blew it.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now there are five themes.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's on the back of your sheet.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: This will be my sermon title or sermon theme, really, for this week and two weeks from now.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Next week, Easter, and two weeks I'll finish.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: This morning I'll take the first two points, God and worship.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the other two weeks, I'll take the latter three points.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the five themes or lessons from these books are first, God, God, there is no God but the Lord.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Two, worship, God insists that we worship Him only and truly.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Third, obedience, God rewards obedience, punishes disobedience.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, forgiveness, God forgives sin.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And fifth, promise, God is as good as his word.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, all five of these themes are the five themes of one of the great chapters of the Bible that you've never heard of.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Kings 8.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, turn to this chapter.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a long chapter, well over 60 verses, and it's about something called the dedication of the temple.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's the highlight of Solomon's reign.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: He brings the Ark of the Covenant, which you've heard of, God's presence.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: He brings that into the newly made temple, which the Jews today call the first temple.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus' day, it's called the Second Temple.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we have the dedication of the temple.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: We have a long prayer by Solomon.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: We have sacrifices and so forth.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And very quickly, I'll just recommend to you that you read this chapter this week.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you're looking for something to do for a quiet time, read this long chapter with your study sheet.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've appended the verses relating to the five themes from chapter 8, next to each point.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'll just summarize them very briefly right here.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Theme number one, there's no God but the Lord.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon prays in verse 60 that all the peoples of the earth may know that Yahweh is God, and there is no other.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: All right?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's no God but the Lord.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's Solomon's heart, that's Solomon's prayer at this point in his life before he backslides.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, worship.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: God insists that we worship him only and truly.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: The chapter starts in verse 1.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: At that time, Solomon assembled the elders of Israel before him at Jerusalem in order to bring the Ark of the Lord's covenant to its place, to the inner sanctuary of the temple, to the most holy place.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he did that.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like you driving in western Kansas when the fog comes down and you can't even drive.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way it was at this point.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord just filled the temple with his glory.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: The priests couldn't even see where they were.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he was worshiping the Lord from the heart and correctly and truly.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Third obedience, chapter 8, 32 and 61.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: May you judge your servants, King Solomon prays, condemning the wicked and providing justice for the righteous.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let your hearts, he says to the people, be completely devoted to the Lord our God to walk in his ordinances and keep his commands.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, forgiveness, 1 Kings 8.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: When your people, O God, sin against you, for there is no one who does not sin.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is he right about that?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, is that that's right?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're willing to admit that momentarily in front of everyone.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you would say that's true?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: You guilty sinners, you and you and you are angry with them and hand them over to the enemy.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when they come to their senses and repent and return to you, may you hear in heaven, may you forgive your people who sinned against you.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And fifth promise.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: This one book of Kings that's divided into two.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take number one and number two this week.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take the other three in two weeks.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you may have all may have already occurred to you that number one, God and number two, worship simply are a repetition of the first two of the Ten Commandments.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: That there's only one God and you shall worship no other gods, and you should not make any idols for yourself.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it could be said, Old Testament theologians say that if you collapsed, if you vacuum packed the entire Old Testament into one sentence, it would be the sentence, There is no God but the Lord.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: So Solomon's prayer in chapter 8, verse 60, all that all the peoples may know that Yahweh is God, there is no other, is not only his heart, it's the heart of heaven.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's God's desire, it's God's plan.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that there is only one God in earth and on heaven, and it is Yahweh.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if the name Yahweh weirds you out a little bit, go with the translation that says, so all the peoples of the earth may know that Jehovah is the true God.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: There is no other.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yahweh's actually more accurate to the Hebrew.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: King James Version, some of you may have that, that all the people of the earth may know that the Lord is God and there is none else.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: The second point, worship.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: God insists that we worship him only and truly.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, 1 Kings 8 is this incredible highlight.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's the spiritual peak of Solomon's life and of Israel.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: But we find that just 10 chapters and a hundred years later, everything has gone to hell.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Everything has gone downhill.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: No longer is Yahweh the great God of Israel, no longer is he worshipped as the only God.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: There is another God who has come on the scene, and this God is now predominant in Israel, and his name is Baal, or as we often say, Baal.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: You've heard of Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's Baal are the first four letters of Beelzebub.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: We tend to think what a weird idol, and only crazy people would ever kneel down and worship a statue made of metal or stone or wood.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Why would they ever worship a God like this?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, to be honest, Baal and Yahweh have a lot in common.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, Baal's name means Lord.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is the Lord.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Remember in college, or I was in college when the Beatles sang, My sweet Lord, my sweet.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: A random friend goes, they're Christians, they're Christians.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: She said, You haven't listened to the chorus yet?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hari Krishna, Hari Rama.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, but the word Baal means Lord.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, in a sense, they have a similar name.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Which doesn't mean a thing, does it?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: They also had similar worship spots.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Both Baal and Yahweh worshipped in a temple.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yahweh had the disadvantage.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: His temple only had one temple in Jerusalem.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Baal had temples in every town.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they had a most holy place as well, in which there was a pedestal and the golden idol of Baal.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem temple.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: It had an invisible God and a box.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And on mountains they both had shrines on mountains.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: You had altars of Yahweh on the mountain, and you also now had little shrines of Baal on every mountain.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the psalmist.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: For that reason, there's a famous Psalm, Psalm 121.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I lift up my eyes unto the hills.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: From whence comes my help?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And his answer is not from the top of the mountain, not from Baal.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, my help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is interesting, though, isn't it?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: My name Kong Don is an English name from Cornwall.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Kong means king, Don means hill, king hill.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Kings and gods love to sort of make their castles on hills.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: But beware lest you worship hills.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love mountains as much as anyone.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: But we have the Lord of heaven and earth.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: So Baal and Yahweh have a lot in common as well in their power and in their gifts.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: They both, according to the myths about Baal, he gave rain, he gave lightning, he gave prosperity, he gave food, he gave children, he gave sunshine.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: So they were competing, but but by 870 BC, guess who's winning?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Baal is winning.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Man, just like you stop here a minute and you say, okay, this doesn't relate to me at all, Jim.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't care.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not gonna go to a third world country and kneel down and burn incense in front of some God.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me ask you this.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: When you ask, what is an idol?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Who is your God in the Bible?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: You suddenly find that the word expands.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it suddenly includes idols of the heart.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that what I love the most, what I think about the most, and what I live for qualifies as a bale in my life.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Tim Keller's a pastor in Manhattan, New York.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Started the church has just exploded.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: It had a hundred churches around New York now.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was interviewing a magazine here recently, and I really liked what he said to the interviewer there in New York City.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Everyone has a God, we just don't use the term.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I like to show secular people that they're not as unreligious as they think.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're living for something.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: For amb he says, and I'm quoting his whole sentence, for ambitious driven people here in New York City, it's often a career.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I tell people, this is very much your religion.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: What you love the most is what makes you what you really are.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So your career, your money, any number of things can be your idol or your God.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is an idol?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Who is your God?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: What I love the most, what I think about most, what I live for.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what they were living for back in 870 BC, they thought, they thought that Baal was the key God.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Baal was in charge now because Baal had installed his high priestess on the throne of Israel.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Her name was Jezebel.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: She'd come from the north, from Phoenicia, and King Ahab had married her.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: She was the daughter of the high priest of Baal.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so by marrying her, we read that Ahab had now done what was evil in the Lord's sight more than all who were before him.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he had some pretty bad scumbags before him.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So Ahab was really, you know, a bad guy.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he'd married just Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Notice the last four letters, king of the Sidonians, and then proceeded to serve Baal worshiping.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria, his capital city.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he also made an Asherapole that was Baal's consort or wife, a goddess of sex and violence.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And God has gotten so sick of this by its happening, he's so sick of being shoved off the throne of Israel completely that he sends a cruise missile into Israel by the name of Elijah.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this cruise missile crashes into the throne room in Samaria and says, points a crooked finger at Ahab, Elijah, this crusty, you know, hair-disheveled, weird sort of a guy who says, as the Lord God, as Yahweh, God of Israel lives, there'll be no dew or rain during these years except by my command.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, wow, a weather report, big deal.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Baal, remember, was the God of rain.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: When the thunder rolled outside, mothers said to their children, that's Baal speaking.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: When the lightning flashed, they said, You've seen the lightning bolt in Baal's right hand.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's Baal shooting the fire.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: When the rain came, they said, That's the gift of rain and prosperity from Baal.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so for Elijah to go in and say, There's going to be no rain, they go, To Shah, we've got the God of rain.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: But he's exactly right.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: For a whole year it doesn't rain.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: For a second year it doesn't rain.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: For a third year it doesn't rain.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: The animals are dying, there's no crops, they're beginning to freak out.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ahab grabs hold of Elijah three years later and says, You're destroying Israel.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Elijah says, Oh contraire, kinda, he doesn't really say that.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, you are the destroyer of Israel, he says.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to summon all Israel to meet me at Mount Carmel along with the 450 prophets of Baal.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: You have 450 prophets of Baal, Jezebel brought them down, you're feeding them at the White House every single day.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're charging all of all of the country here to feed your false prophets every single day and house them.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to bring all of them, I want you to bring all the people of Israel.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have a battle of the gods on Mount Carmel.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I can just hear Ahab now going, fantastic! Mount Carmel, that's my home court.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've got home court advantage because Mount Carmel is close to his palace, and Mount Carmel is a very Mount Carmel is one of three places in the world that I've been, that I've led tours to and so forth, that I feel that my backbone crawls.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I feel when I'm at Mount Carmel, the same way I feel at Delphi in Greece, that I just I've, and at Banyas in northern Israel, uh Cesare Philippi, I feel, I just feel like there's magic or demons there.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's very, very strange.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way everybody felt back then.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh looked up the coast and he used to be in a ship going up the Mediterranean and he'd see desert, desert, desert, desert in Israel, and all of a sudden you'd see this green mound rising out of the Mediterranean, 1800 feet high for 20 miles, solid green, everything else brown.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: It looked like the back of some giant.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Called it a holy mount.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Phoenicians considered it to be a temple to Baal, just the mountain itself.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So Elijah's going, they're gonna have the battle of gods on your home turf.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Mount Carmel, and you understand why.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: When the clouds come out of the Mediterranean, they immediately hit that and they drop their water there, and that's why it's always green.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it but you could just you go there and you sort of, when you're standing on that mount, I've been there many times, you you've you just feel spirits in the air.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's no wonder Ahab goes, bingo, I'm gonna bring everybody I can.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're destined to win this battle.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so everybody can picture them all traipsing up the side of Mount Carmel, and here come the 450 prophets of Baal, resplendent in their gorgeous robes with that big medallion around their neck that reflects the rays of the sun, and whoa, part the waves.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Here comes Ahab and the retinue of servants, bringing up Ahab, who I like has been described as a vile toad squatting on the throne of Israel.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's accurate in a way, in that I I as I read the stories about Ahab, I think he was out of shape.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think he ever went to the why.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: His wife, Jezebel, she worked out every day.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: She's she was the leader, she was, she was, she was scary.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: But Ahab, you know, so and Jezebel didn't even come up.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't even come and she didn't bring her prophetesses, but here comes Ahab, okay?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems unfair.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: You got all the people, you got 450 prophets, you got Ahab on one side, and who do you have on the other?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: You have this gaunt guy that has not figured out, you know, the whole tight pants fad or any of that stuff.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's he's just he's so old-fashioned, you know, and he hasn't, you know, hasn't shaved maybe in a while.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: His hair's a mess, and he's all alone.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Don't feel sorry for him.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't feel sorry for himself.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, is he really alone?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew of this text gives you a hint.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the Hebrew, this story is exactly 452 words long.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: 450 over here.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Elijah.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: God.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now Elijah begins, and he says, How long will all of you people hesitate, or literally limp between two opinions?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: How long is the fence?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a great question to ask everybody, isn't it?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people ride the fence.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: There are people that say, you know, I'm gonna make a decision later in life about God.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm older, I want to have, I want to have fun, I want to live life now.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: You ever notice that those people always end up falling off the wrong side of the fence?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Robert Frost talks about coming to a fork in the road.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Who's the sports guy?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yogi Barra said, when you come to a fork in the road, take it.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, and or there's the politician who asked, what's your opinion on this?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, some of the people are for this side, and some of the other people are for that side, and I'm for the people.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and Lijah's not that kind of guy.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You need to somehow, you need to make a decision in life.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody needs to make a decision.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: How long will you hesitate?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: If Yahweh's God, follow him, if it's Baal, follow him, but the people didn't answer a word.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: You will oftentimes hear on television, movies, and so forth, all religions are pretty much the same.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Really doesn't matter so you can kind of embrace them all.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: I uh recently finally got through a book I've been struggling with for some years, A Bestseller by Bruce File, Abraham, a journey to the heart of three faces.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: He goes to the Mid East and he travels around, he meets Muslims, meets Jews, meets Christians, and so forth.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the burdens of this book is that, you know, we all are sort of the same, which is why it's so hard for me to get through it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: I put it down about a dozen times.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because the fact of the matter is the brilliant French apologist is right, John Warwick Montgomery, the characteristic most fully shared by the religions of the world is their incompatibility with one another.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: C.S.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis was right in mere Christianity.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: All religions are kind of the same on the circumference.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Love people, feed the poor, be nice.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: But that's just the circumference.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Where they are different is at the heart.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And until you realize that you can't become a believer, you can't become a child of God until you realize, well, the heart of the religion is so much different.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: The heart of Christianity is Jesus Christ, and it has nothing to do with what I do for God, it has everything to do with what He's doing for me.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, you can see that in this story.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can see these uncommitted people who can't make a decision.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can see the people who are who have decided they're gonna bring Baal down.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Elijah says, you guys go first, cut it, cut your ox, cut your bullock apart, put it on the altar and call down fire.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: No problem.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Baal does.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: So they cut it apart, put it on the altar.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: You've seen the movies.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and and nothing happens for an hour, for two hours, for three hours, four hours, for five.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had a deer or anything else that you've cut up or anything and seen how the flies start coming?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is just my imagination, but don't you think after four, five, six hours, that thing smelled and it was just like moving, you know, the flies.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I just had to share that.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's not in the Bible, but I mean, can you imagine how gross that was?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when verse 27, and by the way, they are limping around the altar.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, no accident.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and all of a sudden you have you have Elijah doing something very politically incorrect.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: This would never be allowed on television today.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: You do not make fun of other religions.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: You respect them, but look what he does in verse 27 of 1 Kings chapter 18.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: He actually mocked, he does something you don't hear about in the Mideast either.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: He ridicules.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: At noon, Elijah mocked him.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Shout loudly, for he's a god.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: His hearing aid is out.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's thinking it over.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's on a cell phone with Jezebel.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's wandered away.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is called the most rybald, rude, off-color version, by the way, in the Old Testament, because literally, if you have the English Standard Version right there, it says uh perhaps he's on the potty.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what does the ESV say?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps he's relieving himself.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Actually says that.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, parents, you know, if your kids have weird ideas or your kids or you're scared of a kid, the best thing to do is not to get red in the face, spank them, yell at them.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Best thing is just to make fun.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sit in front of a TV sometime, make fun of commercials.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find it after a while.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: They'll do the same thing.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, practice your sense of humor a little bit.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: So Elijah does that, and then he says, um, perhaps he's on the road, perhaps he's sleeping and will wake up.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: He took Salman X, he can't get up.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: So they shout loudly, they cut themselves with knives and spears till blood gushed out of them.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed how Baal, how all false gods require that you do, do, do for them.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, that you shed your blood for them.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Think Islam.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the true God comes down to earth and sheds his blood for you.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: So all afternoon they kept on raving until the offering and the evening sacrifice, no sound.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then Elijah said to all the people, Come near me.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they approached him and he repaired the altar and he takes the stones and he puts water around it.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: These things are not gonna help with the fire.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: But he does it anyway.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then comes the time, 3 p.m., and Elijah approaches the altar.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: God, let it be known that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that at your word I have done all these things.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Answer me, Lord, answer me so this people will know that you, Yahweh, are God, and that you've turned their hearts back, and Yahweh's fire fell.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, the dust.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: It licked up the water that's in the trench.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when all the people saw it, our key verse of the book, they said, Yahweh, he is God.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yahweh, he is God.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that the Lord is absolutely determined for everyone everywhere to know that he is God?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: For every knee to bow and every turn to confess one day that he is God, that you have to make up your mind about that, but God's mind is made up about that.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let me chat with you in the last two minutes about something you may not have thought about.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: The word idolatry, more than any other word by far, is the word used in the Bible to represent defection of your heart from God, desertion of your heart from God, idolatry.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not one of those third-world Filipino whatever kneel down and put incense in front of a statue.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think strange verse at the end of 1 John in the New Testament?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Out of the blue, what's it doing there?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: The last verse of the book, dearly beloved children, keep yourselves from idols.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's not talking about statues.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't a temptation then.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know what he's talking about?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about idols of the heart.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Son of man, these men, my people, have set up idols in their heart.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Repent and turn away the idols in your heart.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: John Calvin was right.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: The human heart is a factory of idols.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them are good.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Good things.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that they seem to have kind of shoved Jesus Christ off the throne of your heart.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean by good things, health.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Your health.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your security.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Your popularity, your family, your children, your spouse, your career, your house, your garden, your car, your money.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how good it is.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord says in Exodus 24, my name is Yahweh, and I will not allow an idol to sit in my place in your heart.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: God is absolutely determined for you to know that He hates and will eventually destroy all competitors, His place on the throne of your heart.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: You say, How do I know whether something is an idol in my life?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you three options, three thoughts here that I've come up with.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, you spend more time and energy on this than you do on Jesus.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, you find more delight and happiness in it than you do in Jesus.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Ow.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, eight hours a week watching that certain TV show, but eight minutes a week talking with God, reading his word.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Third, you can't imagine giving it up.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Life just wouldn't be worth living, someone told me, if I had to give up that pleasure.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: God says there's one thing I want to leave you with from this book of 1 Kings, and that is I'm really serious about the fact that there's only one God in the universe.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: The universe is not big enough to allow for two.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: I am that God.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I will not allow you to worship any others.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you, is your heart mine?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, I thank you for this story.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: More than a story, history.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: More than history, a convicting lesson to our hearts of how badly and how deeply you want a relationship, a personal relationship with us that is so so affectionate and so intimate that we would say that there's absolutely nothing more important to us than our relationship with your Son Jesus Christ.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he is our Lord.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Our trust, our fears, our affections are entirely and primarily set on him, and nothing else is even close.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: We love you, the Lord our God, with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength in Jesus' name.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming.