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Episode 005 - The Mountains of Wonder · The Holy Wonder Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker A: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Holy Wonder Podcast, a place where the sacred meets every day and wonder is never far away. Before we begin today, let's take a quick rewind of where we've been for recently we sat with Job in his suffering and we heard him wrestle with a God who seemed silent. Then we went to the upper room at Pentecost in Acts chapter two, as the Spirit came with wind and fire and changed the world forever. And last week we went all the way back to the time of Noah, a man who was blameless in his generation and who saw the wonder of God's patience in the days of the flood.
• 0:37
  Speaker B: Today we leave the flood waters behind and head for the mountains. Someday the fire falls, our prayers are answered, doors are open, and God's hand is as plain as the sunrise. Other days we can't find God anywhere. We pray and it feels like our words hit the ceiling. And that silence is louder than any trouble in front of us.
• 0:55
  Speaker A: Today we'll walk through 1 Kings chapters 18 and 19 and stand with a prophet named Elijah on two very different mountains. In chapter 18, we'll join him at Mount Carmel. We'll see heavens open. Hundreds of false prophets cry out to BAAL from morning until evening, and nothing happen. Then as Elijah prays, fire falls from heaven because there's no doubt who sits on the throne and who demands Israel's allegiance.
• 1:22
  Speaker B: Then comes chapter 19. That same prophet who stood so boldly is now running for his life, sitting under a broom tree, asking God to let him die. He travels to Mount Sinai, the place where God once met Moses in thunder and smoke. And this time there's wind, then earthquake and then fire. But God is in none of them. God is the still voice that drowns out the noise of this world. So how does a man go from Carmel to that cave?
• 1:47
  Speaker A: Today we encourage you to settle in. My name is Neal Mathis and I'm here with my co host, Andy Yant. After a short break, we'll dig in. It. Sam. Foreign. Hi Andy.
• 3:14
  Speaker B: Good morning, Neil.
• 3:15
  Speaker A: We talked about this in the intro. It's time to go visit the mountaintops. And this is a wonderful moment in scripture to examine highs and lows of life. Now, Andy, you and I can profess to knowing this. I'm sure most of our listeners will profess to this. Life is not all ways just built on flat ground where the journey from A to B is linearly smooth. We want it to be. And what we find is that there are peaks and valleys, and sometimes the peaks are a lot Easier to get to than we thought. Sometimes the valleys are a lot easier to get to than we thought because life is just full of moments that these two chapters represent. Great success and terrible failure. Can you at least reminisce a little bit about how easy it is to go from one extreme to the other in your life?
• 4:18
  Speaker B: It happens. It happens every day. Sometimes it seems like. But I don't think we can appreciate the blessings in each if we don't go through some tough times. Even in those valleys, when we look back, there's blessings there. We don't see them like we probably should, and they're hard to realize that they're there. But without the tough times, how do we learn? How do we get tougher? How do we know how to endure when things get tough the next time?
• 4:43
  Speaker A: I love it. As a coach, it's easy to only reflect upon the wins. But maybe the most valuable lessons are found in the losses.
• 4:54
  Speaker B: I think so.
• 4:56
  Speaker A: Life is this constant journey of ups and downs, peaks and valleys. But over the course of a life, I think most of us would believe that they even out and that for the peaks you have valleys, and for the valleys you have peaks. And over the course of a lifetime, there's a steady back and forth, give and take. And you learn from both of them, like you just said.
• 5:22
  Speaker B: I think so. I think sometimes we just have to take a deep breath and realize the moment we're in is not going to be the moment we're always in.
• 5:30
  Speaker A: It's wonderful. I wish Elijah would have had that practical advice before these two chapters, because he is the living proof that even God's most faithful servants are not immune from the feelings attached to the wonder of a literal peak and the despair of a valley that follows it. He is suspended between heaven and earth. And in that suspension between heaven and earth, he learns the most valuable lessons about God. What God can do not just for me, but for a nation. And then what God does for me privately, personally. We started our podcast with a list of our three most awe inspiring moments and we've made it through your first. I guess technically we made it through your third choice and second choice. And we're on my middle choice today, Elijah and Mount Carmel and Mount Sinai. So here's what we're going to do today for everybody listening at home, we're going to examine through Chapter 18 and the Miracle of Mount Carmel. First, there are a couple things that are worth pointing out. First and foremost, the events occur in what we would call the Northern kingdom of Israel. Now, following Solomon's death. His son Rehoboam was not a very wise king, Andy. And when given a chance to bring harmony to the kingdom of Israel, he caused division. A man by the name of Jeroboam led 10 tribes, and they established the northern kingdom we call Israel. The two southernmost tribes of Judah and Benjamin stayed aligned together. And so from that point on in Jewish history, you see these parallel kingdoms alongside of each other. Well, seven generations after that split, a man by the name of Ahab becomes king of the northern 10 tribes. And First Kings, chapter 16 describes him starting in verse 29. It says that he is the son of Omri, and he began to rule in Samaria for 22 years. It says in verse 30 that he did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, that's the one who split the kingdom. He took for his wife a woman by the name of Jezebel. She was the daughter of the king of the Sidonians. And he went and he served BAAL and worshiped him. He erected an altar for BAAL in the house of BAAL which he built in Samaria. And he made an Asherah, which that is a female fertility God of the Canaanites. Ahab, it says in verse 33 of First Kings, chapter 16, did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.
• 8:37
  Speaker B: What a legacy.
• 8:40
  Speaker A: What a legacy. In fact, there are verses in scripture that define people, right? We talked about this with Job. Righteous, blameless fears. God shunned evil. Write that on my headstone today. What about this one?
• 8:56
  Speaker B: He's a polar opposite.
• 8:59
  Speaker A: Very
• 9:00
  Speaker B: wrong reasons. He's famous.
• 9:02
  Speaker A: Famous for all the wrong reasons. I love that I would use the word. He is notorious. A lot of people know the story of Ahab and Jezebel. It carries through a little bit in the New Testament. We've been studying on Sunday mornings here at Fountainhead through the Churches of Revelation. Something at one point, you and I will dig into here on the podcast, and there's a scene in one of them where it describes a false teacher as a Jezebel. Most of us probably don't use that term anymore, but our grandparents probably used the term for a woman who was in any way, shape, or form you want to describe it, not righteous. Look at that Jezebel. So both Ahab and his wife create a lasting legacy of awfulness that just doesn't ever leave them. It's there. And they are the main movers of the political world that Elijah lives in. You get to the very next chapter, chapter 17 and verse one, and we meet the main character of our story, Elijah the Tishbite. And he tells Ahab that there will be neither dew nor rain for an indefinite period of time. Except it's by my word. You don't get too many moments in scripture where right and wrong are so easily compared, where they're just drawn up next to each other like two boxers at a weigh in before a fight with their fists drawn in each other's face, saying, give me your best shot, I'm going to win. But that's the setting of this story. And there's some cool little hidden things behind the scenes that I think are worth pointing out. Baal, which I think a lot of people listening to how I pronounce that and are probably going to say, oh, you mean baal. We may bounce back and forth a little bit because we know a lot of people think, well, I've learned and I've taught it, and even I was learned to taught to call it baal. But that baal, that false God of the Sidonians, was actually, this is ironic, Andy, to be the God of thunder, the God of storms, the rain God and the God of fertility, because rain brings forth what crops that grow? Fertility brings forth a generation and a people. Asherah was the female version, corresponding idea for the Canaanites. So God's judgment is an attack upon Baal's existence, or what we would say non existence. For Israel has put their trust in a false God of the storms who provides. Yet all along, who is the God of the storms who provides Yahweh. And Elijah stands here as the prophet of Yahweh versus the king of baal. And that's the setting of the story that gets so much of our attention. It's a wonderful thought in my mind to think that is a great parallel or complementary picture of our world today. Right and wrong are so clearly opposed against each other, Andy. And we do live in a world where it feels like the extremes of right and wrong are more and more divisive. And we could dig into any one of the cultural topics that address that. But that's another podcast on another day. But you know of what I speak. I think our listeners know of what I speak. And we live in a society here in, you know, north central Tennessee that is not immune to, hey, there's a right way and a wrong way. There are clear divides between right and wrong. How we live, how we raise our families, how we interact with people. And so there are real principles that are going to come out in this story that are not just always right and always wrong, but are how you know what's right and how you find what's wrong. And self examination and national examination kind of sit parallel to each other. We're not immune to saying that our country and our society are broken, but we're also not so broken that there's not good to be found in it. That's the message of 1st Kings 18 and 19. There is good. It just might be hard to see because there's so much vocal bad the prophets of BAAL said at the king's table that gives them authority. The prophets of God were hiding in a cave. Does that mean they have less authority? No, just means they might have less influence. But God's going to stand up on Mount Carmel and his influence is going to be wielded. So before we really dig into it, a question worth considering. Andy does the volume of a message determine its right or wrongness?
• 14:22
  Speaker B: No.
• 14:24
  Speaker A: I'm curious if you can remember a moment in your life, and maybe our listeners can too, where the more wrong a person got, the more loud they got and the more they had to defend the wrongness of something, the more defensive they got and the righteous person who stood opposed to them. If it's willingly or just haphazardly, they didn't have to raise their voice because the righteousness was with their message.
• 14:54
  Speaker B: The word does the speaking. If it's a spiritual debate, we don't have to raise our voice, we just have to open the book.
• 15:01
  Speaker A: I like that. What about all of our other conversations we turn TV on?
• 15:08
  Speaker B: We remember the same thing in those Facebook arguments and non Facebook arguments.
• 15:13
  Speaker A: Oh, I don't watch TV much anymore, partly because I don't have time, but the occasional chance I have to turn television on if it's sports related or if it's news related. Do you know what's always on television? An argument. And I'm assuming that the most well compensated entertainers slash commentators on television, probably even across social media, are the ones who are loudest in their arguments, not the ones who are correct in their arguments. I could be mistaken on that because I'm obviously pulling this from anecdotal knowledge, but I don't want to be the loudest. I just want to be the most righteous. Not so that praise will come to me, but so that God is seen through the righteousness of what I do, who I am, the things I say. With this podcast, I have one simple thing in mind. I want it to declare God's glory so that he is praised, not so that you and I are praised for sure. And any praise that is projected towards us, I want to defer to God. I am grateful if you home listening are like man, I can't wait to hear Neil and Andy again. I don't want to discourage you from wanting to join us, but I want you to want to join us because of what you learn about God, not what you learn about us. And if we're painting a picture of who God is, let that be glorified. Let that be glorified. And my thinking about choosing this as an awe inspiring moment to me is because it says more about God than it says about Elijah. It says a lot about Elijah, but it says more about God. We referenced that in our introduction and now I think it's time for us to reference it here.
• 17:10
  Speaker B: Can I interject one thing real quick?
• 17:12
  Speaker A: Go, please.
• 17:14
  Speaker B: The parallel as we were talking. Elijah doesn't set a time that it's not gonna rain. God didn't tell him. He doesn't say, we don't know what's going on. We just know it's not gonna rain. Job didn't know how long he was gonna go through suffering.
• 17:29
  Speaker A: Oh, very good.
• 17:30
  Speaker B: And God's timing is always right. We have no idea what may happen, when it's gonna happen, or how long it's gonna last. But God does. And his timing is right. And that patience is something that I lack most of the time. But we need to understand God's timing is always right.
• 17:46
  Speaker A: You know, that actually would connect to Noah, to Noah. I see no reason to believe Noah knew how long they'd be on the ark. And we could probably have connected to Pentecost. Jesus told the apostles to go and wait. Did he tell them when the Spirit was coming? I don't remember reading any verse about in seven days, in six days, in five days, in 41 minutes and 25 seconds. Maybe the patience of God is a characteristic of the righteousness of God. He's not just long suffering, but he does things at the right time, in the right place, for the right reasons, to the right people.
• 18:24
  Speaker B: Whenever it happens is the right time.
• 18:26
  Speaker A: Whenever it happens
• 18:27
  Speaker B: in our minds. But it's the right time. I mean, to me, Noah didn't even know when the flood was going to happen. So the waiting and the building and. Do I need to speed up? Do I need to I mean, he didn't know. He just knew what God said and he did it.
• 18:41
  Speaker A: I wonder how anxiety or how anxious that could have made him. I don't have it done yet. I don't have it done yet. We're not ready.
• 18:52
  Speaker B: But he was ready when God wanted him to be ready.
• 18:55
  Speaker A: Yes, I'm comfortable to admit out loud that there have been moments in my life where I've said, I'm not ready for this. But it was God's timing. And that is. That's maybe a bigger picture conversation for one day. And we can sit down and we could say, let's look at all of these events that happened on what we would call God's time, but not the hero of the story's time. How they were unprepared for the moment that God had prepared them for, and their exercise of trusting God's will did more than what their preparations would have ever done. All right, I love it. Let's get into First Kings 18. Starting there in verse one, let's look at a few things and we'll see what happens. It says, after many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah. It was the third year, so. So three years of drought. We know there is some rain coming over those three years, so we don't need to think that it's an entire, like dust bowl circumstance. But we know. We know that only at Elijah's will had rain come. And so through chapter 17, the end of it, we meet, like the widow of Zarephath, the raising of the widow's son. And there's a picture of Israel as a desolate place where a lot of people are suffering and a lot of need is present. And then it says that after those days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying, go show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth. So Elijah went. Verse 2, the famine was severe. Ahab called Obadiah, who was over his household, a man who feared the Lord greatly, who had hidden other prophets of the Lord. Keep that in your bank of knowledge till we get through the story. And Ahab said to Obadiah, go through the land, to all the springs of water and to all the valleys. Perhaps we may find grass, save horses and mules, and not lose some of the animals. In verse six, it says, they divided the land. They passed through it. Ahab went in one direction, Obadiah in another. As Obadiah was on his way, Elijah met him. Obadiah recognized him, fell on his face, says, is it you? He said, it Is tell your Lord Elijah is here. Ahab says, are you really going to send me to do that? Have I sinned that you would give your servant into the hand of Ahab? He'll kill me if I say you're coming as the Lord your God lives. There's no nation or kingdom where my Lord has not sent to seek you that tells you Ahab's circumstance. And when those kingdoms and those people would say, he's not here, he would take an oath of the kingdom or the nation they had not found you. And now you tell me, go tell your Lord. Behold, Elijah is here. As soon as I've gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will carry you. I know not where. When I come and tell Ahab he cannot find you, he'll kill me. Although I have feared the Lord from my youth, has it not been told, my Lord, what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets? How I hid a hundred men of the lord's prophets by 50 in a cave? How I fed them with bread and water in a drought, in a. In a famine where there's not a lot of bread and water to be found. And now you tell me, go tell him you're here. He will kill me. But Elijah says, no, he won't. I will surely show myself to him today. As the Lord of hosts lives before whom I stand, so Obadiah went and did what he was asked to do. He met Ahab, he told him. And Ahab went to meet Elijah. When Ahab saw Elijah, he says to him, is that you, you troubler of Israel? Elijah answers back, I've not troubled Israel. You're the one who asks. And your father's house. You abandoned the commandment of the Lord. You followed the Baals. So gather all of Israel, meet me at Mount Carmel and bring the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at your wife's table. Table. It's quite a scene. 19 verses. And it's really the precursor to the immediate action. There's some really cool, fascinating details that in those three years, Elijah, who I think considers himself to be the only one of God's servants willing to stand up to the king, he discovers that Obadiah, this guy, stands up to the king. He discovers that everywhere that Israel borders, Ahab has sent people to search for Elijah. And we discover something about Ahab. He believes that Elijah is his enemy and that all of this is because of Elijah's doing. Now we'll often look at life, and we'll draw ourselves into tribes, tribes that resemble who we are and. And what we want. And in this story there are two very influential tribes, the tribe of BAAL and the tribe of Yahweh. The tribe of Yahweh is smaller, but the quality is going to exceed that of Baal's. So there are 900 prophets. We only count about 100 in this story. Prophets of Yahweh. If I was to go play a game today, and they had nine times the quality, nine times the quantity, nine, nine times the supporters, nine times the anything I had, do I count my odds? Very good. To win that game, Andy.
• 24:36
  Speaker B: Usually not.
• 24:38
  Speaker A: Usually not. But because quality matters over quantity, because the righteousness of Yahweh's prophets exceeds the righteousness of Baal's prophets. What do we think is going to happen at Carmel? I hope we think this is an unfair fight.
• 24:59
  Speaker B: God will prevail.
• 25:00
  Speaker A: I hope we think that it is true that those of us who have studied the story know that it was an unfair fight to begin with and that Ahab lost the minute he did what?
• 25:10
  Speaker B: Challenge God.
• 25:11
  Speaker A: That's right. That's right. Just showing up is Ahab's defeat. But there's something about Elijah challenging this circumstance, setting the stage so that God can win, that reminds me of Job's story. You remember God was the one who said to the accuser, have you considered my servant Job? There's none like him in this moment. That kind of rings true here also. Have you considered Yahweh? There's none like him. And Israel had not considered Yahweh as they should. And they're about to learn the same lesson. Job's friends and Job's world needed to learn that the God of Job and the God of Elijah is more powerful than the circumstances of this world. Now when we get into verse 20, the real story begins. There's a question in verse 21 that really is the. And we'll call it this. It's the thesis statement. It's the question that needs to be asked. It's the answer that's demanded. Elijah asks Israel, how long will you waver? The people don't really respond, Andy, because their hearts were divided, their kingdom was divided. And I think we get the picture that it's either God or baal, but Israel probably wanted to have a little bit of both. And whoever could provide what's best for them is what they wanted. That is ultimately the thing about idolatry that we miss. An idol worshiper is not a person who only worships Something other than God. An idol worshiper is the one who worships anything alongside of God. And our idols that we are so immune to seeing are sometimes the ones we place alongside of our God. The things that take our time, the things that take our devotion, the things that take maybe things like our money, those can become idols. The things that take God's place, that can be something that is by itself not bad, not trying to take God's place, but it does. It can be a job, it can be a team, it can be a person. In this moment, I think we can see a nation who God had protected and provided for, who put God on a shelf alongside of something who had not protected them and had not provided for them. And Elijah's question is not, hey, who do you know? Who do you love? His question is, who are you going to throw away? And are you going to throw away baal? Because there's a choice. And you either go God's way or you go Baal's way. Stop wavering between the two and taking a couple steps one way when it's what gets you best, and a couple steps the other way when you think it's what gets you best. Just take one path. And their non answer is an answer because they don't want to pick one way or the other. They're a lot like the Christians in the New Testament in Laodicea. They're lukewarm, they're not hot, they're not cold. They're really not useful at all. What are they? They're something that's being spit out. There's something that's being almost thrown away, something that. That's good for nothing unless they're willing to do what? Repent, Change, Fully devote themselves to God. So the challenge at Mount Carmel is not, hey, whose are you? Challenge at Mount Carmel is whose are you at all times? And it's a testament to genuine, wholehearted devotion to what you believe in, not just what you believe in. Right now. This is the peaks and valleys connection. Can we be faithful to God through our peaks and our valleys? Can we remain constantly committed to his will if it brings us success in this world or it brings us failure in this world? Can we take the road even when it goes through places that don't feel well? Can we do that? And can we believe that, as the New Testament says, that all things work together for good, even when all things are not good? That, to me, is the key to all of this. How long will you waver? How long will you waver because your Two opinions are not equal. Your two destinations are not equal. Your two paths are not equal. So stop trying to walk both of them. Just walk the path God puts you on.
• 30:28
  Speaker B: So if Elijah appeared to us today, would he ask that same question?
• 30:32
  Speaker A: I think so, but I think he would. Instead of the idol we put on our shelf in our house,
• 30:40
  Speaker B: carry it in our pocket or hold it in our hand, carry it
• 30:42
  Speaker A: in our pocket. Absolutely. They would be the excuses we make to never miss a ball game, but maybe miss worship. He would say, how long are you going to waiver which opinion matters most? And the BAAL that has a, you know, affiliation to an ancient Sidonian false God in our life is just the Tennessee Titans, Kentucky Wildcats. Yeah, it would be crazy to follow the Titans right now. Yeah, they're not very good, but that's what they would be. It could also be our bank account. It could be our children and what we want for them and the sacrifices we'll make for their college career that we will not make for their eternal home. All of that feels very relevant. The story is showing us the power of God, and we can stand in awe of that. But the circumstances are very relatable to 2026. And if there's one thing we take away from this, we're the crowd. We're not Elijah.
• 31:59
  Speaker B: Yeah,
• 32:00
  Speaker A: God is still God. I would say Scripture is the prophet speaking and we're the crowd. How long will you waver 2026, between two opinions of a world that says me and a God that says me also? Which one gets your attention? Because the world says I want it, and God says, I want it. The world says, I deserve it. God. God says I deserve it. But only one, only one will truly have it. This is the moment where we could dig into a whole nother realm of discussions. But I want to go through the story a bit, and it's a familiar story that we've set the stage for. So a couple things that are worth pointing out here. In verse 36 and 37, the prophets of Baal cry out from morning to noon. Because the challenge Elijah makes is this. Let's make an altar. Let's sacrifice an animal on it, and let's pray to our God. And the one who answers is the one we'll worship. I'm fascinated. I would love to know the mindset of the prophets of BAAL who had never seen him do anything like this, who had no real evidence that their God could work miracles. I would love to know if there was one of them that was like, hey, Guys, this thing will work.
• 33:21
  Speaker B: We're in trouble.
• 33:22
  Speaker A: We're in trouble because if Yahweh answers, we lose. I know that belief is a strong thing. I know that belief and faith can push a person to believe what seems practically impossible. But none of my belief in God is based upon what's impossible. None of my belief on God is based upon what might happen. It's based upon what has happened. And I might not have been an eyewitness to it, but it has been proven by eyewitnesses who I trust that the God who can is the God who will. He might not today, but he will one day. They had no evidence of that, Andy. No physical evidence whatsoever. And they went into this challenge as blinded as so many people in our world go into their challenges to God's goodness.
• 34:13
  Speaker B: For sure
• 34:14
  Speaker A: they believe in something. They just believe it in something that's broken or something that's non existent. And they would look at us and say the same thing about us. But they don't have the history, they don't have the eyewitness accounts. They don't have the substance to stand on. They don't have the fathers of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Noah and Job. They don't have the apostles. They don't have the eyewitnesses to Jesus account. They just live on this idea of right and wrong that's not based upon a being who's right and wrong. It was just based upon their wishes and their wants of right and wrong. And my wishes of right and wrong would probably sound a lot like the prophets of baal. God's wishes of right and wrong sound a lot like Yahweh. They always have been. And these are the standards of right and wrong. And they always have been. So Elijah sets this challenge. They spend all morning and guess what, Andy? BAAL does not answer. Are you terribly surprised?
• 35:14
  Speaker B: I'm not surprised.
• 35:15
  Speaker A: I don't think anyone should be.
• 35:17
  Speaker B: I don't know if they were surprised.
• 35:19
  Speaker A: I would love to know the answer to that.
• 35:21
  Speaker B: I'm assuming they would be surprised somewhat. But had they ever seen anything that had happened before?
• 35:27
  Speaker A: No evidence. No evidence suggests they have their theatrics, their kind of cultic ritual of cutting themselves. I picture them kind of dancing around the altar and yelling out these repetitive things. It's not fooling anybody.
• 35:45
  Speaker B: It's dramatic.
• 35:46
  Speaker A: It is. It pulls the attention away from the realness of God into this kind of showy, fakey image of what you, God want you want God to be. I've always pictured that the prophets of BAAL are kind of like the prophets of Rome and the prophets of Greece that built gods in their image because that meant they were being worshiped in some way. Where you have Yahweh, who built us in his image, and by our very creation, worship is demanded. So all that's there. Then Elijah says, okay, it's my time, and we can look through the text. We can see something. In verse 30, Elijah says to the people, come near to me. I truly believe that's because after a period of time, this whole scene got boring. You know, the prophets of BAAL had their chance and nothing happened. And you can picture the crowd, which we're not certain how big the crowd was. I've always pictured tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people. But I'm not sure we would ever be able to prove who was there and who wasn't there. If it was just the leaders of the households, I would tell you that makes sense. If it was every single one of them, I also would believe that's possibility. Elijah says, come near, and the people came near to him. And look at what it says he does. In verse 30. It says he repaired the altar of the Lord, because what state was the altar of the Lord in?
• 37:15
  Speaker B: It had been thrown down.
• 37:16
  Speaker A: It had been thrown down, more than likely replaced with an altar of Baal. And it says that Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, israel shall be your name. Now my hyperlinking brain connects back to Moses doing 12 stones on Mount Sinai to Joshua commanding them to take 12 stones out of the Jordan river and to make a monument to tell your children, hey, God delivered us. There's something beautiful about that imagery that'll come up again in a minute. It says he built an altar in verse 32 in the name of the Lord. He made a trench about it that would contain two seahs of seed, which a seah was about seven quarts. So it's a trench that contains an amount of water that's not insignificant. He put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, laid it on there, and he said to them, fill four jars of water. Pour on the burnt offering. And he asked them to do it three times. So how many times did they pour water on the altar?
• 38:21
  Speaker B: 3 times.
• 38:22
  Speaker A: 3 times with 4 jars. 12 jars of water were poured onto there, appearing again. Right. Each jar of water can represent each tribe of Israel. And at the time of the offering, Elijah came near. And look at what he does he doesn't prance. He doesn't cut. He doesn't do anything to bring glory to him. There's no theatrics. He just prays. O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel, I am your servant, and that I have done these things at your word. They're not my word. They're at your word. Then verse 38. The fire of the Lord fell, and it consumed the offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. And all the people saw it, and their response is immediate. They fall on their face. They say, the Lord, he is God. And Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of baal. Let none of them escape. Something about this that sticks out to me is the totality of the message. There is no doubt, Andy, which God is real and which God is a fraud. And there's no doubt illustrated in the story about which path they should follow. This wavering between two paths gets you nowhere, because only one God answered, because only one God is real. That speaks to something about God that I think is worth saying today. He's jealous. And I think we kind of struggle with what that word means because we think of jealousy as being petty. But the jealousness of God is not based upon something petty. It's based upon something important. Your soul. He's jealous for your soul. It was made in his image, and he wants it to be remade in his image. He's jealous. Right. And anything that gets your attention, anything that corrupts, is a pretender, is a fraud. And your soul that was made in his image is being corrupted to look like theirs, like Genesis 6. I'm sure that gives him regret, like Jesus in the temple. I'm sure that angers him. You know, look. Look at what you've done. A righteous anger, and I can't help but think it has to be colored with a bit of sadness.
• 40:49
  Speaker B: His jealousy is rooted in love where ours is rooted in pettiness.
• 40:52
  Speaker A: It is. And I've used this phrase before, not on the podcast, but in a sermon. I've talked about my relationship with my wife, and she's mine, and you can't have her. She's mine, and I will fight you for her. And I would expect every husband to say that, my children are mine, and you can't have them. They are special to me in a way yours never will be. Over my dead body will you hurt them. They're mine. You can't have them. And to Think that God looks at us that way. Feels right to me. We're his. We always have been. And like he said to Jeremiah, you know, before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you. As David says in Psalm 139, the days of my life were written in a book before anyone saw them. God has known us before anyone or anything knew us and had a plan in place for us before anyone or anyone else had a plan for us. I think this jealousy is rooted in, like you said, not this pettiness of what I get out of it, because God gets nothing out of his relationship with us that he doesn't already have, but in this desire to provide for us what we can't provide for ourselves in this circumstance. It's the rain. They thought BAAL was the answer to rain and future and children and all of that. And the first commandment out of Israel at the Mount Sinai was what? You shall have no other gods before me. No one else brought you out of Egypt. No one else provides for you manna and quail. No one else is the father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am. And that jealousy is not a poor reflection upon a petty God. It is a beautiful reflection upon a God who made you in his image. You are his image bearer everywhere you go. And when you worship these idols, you corrupt his image that you carry because you give his image away to something cheap. These prophets of BAAL probably considered themselves to be the image bearers of baal, but they were really supposed to be the image bearers of Yahweh. And his righteous anger at them is illustrated in that last verse. They seized the prophets and they slaughtered them. Same Hebrew word used often in the slaughtering of a sacrifice. They sacrificed them on the altar. It feels brutal, but it's proper righteous recompense. These men who had, well, we assume men, these prophets who had led Israel astray from the God who was jealous. For them, a lesson had to be taught that this is what happens when you trade the image of God for the image of man. That feels, I think, to a lot of people, icky. You know, that's the jealousy of God we can't stand. But the jealousy of God is found in the patience. Once again, we're connecting back to a theme we're in. We're in awe of God's patience, right? It's been true in every one of our stories,
• 44:02
  Speaker B: and it wasn't planned that way.
• 44:03
  Speaker A: But it's
• 44:04
  Speaker B: everywhere.
• 44:05
  Speaker A: Everywhere. And we live in the midst of that now. God's patient with us because we are, like I said, we're the crowd. We're the ones who are wavering between two opinions. Do we live worldly or do we live heavenly? We're the ones who become the prophets of the false idol. And if on the day of God's judgment, you're the prophet of the false idol, your outcome will be the same as those. Because this is lowercase moment, day of judgment for Israel. Not eternal day of judgment, but lowercase day of judgment. God's judgment arrived and those who bowed down in his presence were given grace, forgiveness and motivation. Do better. And those who defied him paid the ultimate cost. It feels so relevant to our life right now, so relevant to a world that feels caught between two sides. A right that was always right and a right we want to be right. And the right that we want to be right is usually wrong. And the right that's always been right was right for generations for a reason. For a reason. You look at our society and you look at how much, I'm going to use the terms, how much mental illness, how much anxiety, you look at how much struggle we have with identity. And not all of those things are connected to removing God from our society. But I think removing God from our society and replacing it with the idols of people is a key contributing factor to the wildfire spread of it. We just have forgotten who we are. And we were always supposed to be children of Yahweh. And even politically and socially, you can look at America and a place that was founded because they wanted to escape religious persecution to practice their worship of God in the way the Bible said isn't really defined by that anymore. You know, The America of 2026 is self seeking, grandiose. Tell me how awesome I am. I don't truly think that's the principles that founded our nation, but it will be what dooms us if we're not careful,
• 46:32
  Speaker B: unfortunately. So
• 46:33
  Speaker A: every great kingdom of this world did that. Fell. Fell because of internal conflict, not external. They destroyed themselves from within. And if we're not really careful, we might do the same. But maybe we can learn this lesson from Israel. When we waver between two, you pick the right one, salvation, you pick the wrong one, you get slaughtered in a creek. I would rather live righteously and godly than be slaughtered at a creek. I think most people would say that. So the story is coming to an end and it's this wonderful great victorious moment. And Elijah's a part of it. And I don't want to project anything, anything we can't but how could he not feel a sense of accomplishment there? How could he not feel a sense of, I've done something good. I've made life better. I've been this messenger of God to a people who didn't want to hear it, and now they've heard it. How could he not be just living just his best life right there? Like, look at what's happened. This is emblematic of the Mount Everest highs of our life. This is winning a big game. This is marrying the right person. This is bringing that healthy child home. This is the promotion at work. This is all of that tied up into one right. And it's emblematic of all of them. You righted the wrong. You corrected the ship. You stood for what was right. Elijah has every reason to sit here and say, man, I'm pleased with what happened. I'm grateful for what happened. And you would think if you were completely naive to the story, that his next big event carries that through. But Andy, we know the story, and we know that from his mountaintop moment, he's about to reach his worst valley. It. It's a sad indictment upon us as human beings that we can go from highs to low so quickly, but it's an honest evaluation of who we are.
• 48:46
  Speaker B: And it's still true today.
• 48:48
  Speaker A: Absolutely. We still do
• 48:49
  Speaker B: it today.
• 48:50
  Speaker A: You know, as a coach, I've often seen that our best victories are followed by our worst defeats. I've often found when we. We know we're better than the team we're playing, that we succumb to the arrogance of that. I have found that in my own life, when my accomplishment overshadows God's accomplishment, even if it's just in my own mind, that pride, it comes right before a fall and a very necessary one. So we're about to take a break because we've studied through 1 Kings 18. I'm amazed at this story. God's power is revealed. Elijah's bravery should. Should be honored. Israel's common sense, at least they came to their own senses like they saw it. And there's something about them recognizing who God is in that moment that we should praise in the face of God's. I would call it his genuineness. He is genuine there. When BAAL is proven to be a fraud in the face of God's genuineness, they made the right decision. And I'm hoping that that kind of parallels the New Testament, that the coming of Christ, every knee bows, every tongue confesses, and that there is something about being in the presence of God that is undeniably fear inducing. And the good kind of fear, the awe and wonder that this podcast is built upon in the presence of God, my natural inclination is to bow down.
• 50:31
  Speaker B: That's when they saw it. They didn't wait, they didn't go home, think about it and talk with their spouse. When they saw it, they did it.
• 50:37
  Speaker A: They didn't. There's no, there's no, hey, let's make a committee. Yes, they saw it and it was obvious. And I hope that we see the wonder of God's work in our life so that we respond the same. I love this story and I wish, Andy, that our podcast ended right now. I wish we said, hey guys, that is Elijah's mountaintop story. That's what we're in awe in. Let's run from it now and use it to make our life that way. But there's more to the story and after a short break, we're going to come back. If you want to take time now to go ahead and read through 1 Kings 19, that sets you a couple steps ahead because Elijah's story is not done, neither is God's, and there's still more to talk about. Thank you for listening and after a short break, we'll be right back. Sam. Welcome back, everyone. It's time for us to finish the story of Elijah's mountaintop experience. We studied through the wonder of God's power in First Kings 18 earlier and now we're going to switch gears. We're going to look at just one more chapter ahead in your Bibles, First Kings 19. But we're going to see Elijah have a very different experience. This one's going to remind us of Job and Noah and the patience of God for us in particular his faithful, who sometimes lose sight of that. In First Kings 18, Elijah has a mountaintop experience that all of us would like to replicate. God is victorious. He is the prophet who delivered God's message. All of Israel says, yes, yes, we were wrong, now we're right. The outcome of that was not just the, I would call just the reconnection of God's relationship with Israel, but the drought, the famine ended and the rain came at the bottom part of chapter 18, verses 41, down through 46. But you get to chapter 19 and the story doesn't give us a timestamp on it. So I've always assumed it's fairly immediate. Andy, there's no real jump forward in time. It says that following the events of chapter 18, that Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, which tells Me two things. She was not there for this great mountaintop showdown, but also that he was a part of Israel who said, the Lord is one, the Lord is God, that he who had wavered back and forth saw what God did. And so I'm going to choose to believe that he was a part of that group of Israel that did what?
• 54:27
  Speaker B: Bowed down and immediately realized what was going on.
• 54:30
  Speaker A: And so there's a possibility here, and Scripture is silent on it. We don't get all the context clues and all the matter of fact details. But I think there might be something here in her anger is not just at Elijah, it's at her husband and of course the God of Israel, that her reaction to what happened is because you've made me look foolish not just to the people of Israel, but in my own household. And she certainly seemed to wield some influence because it was her, I would call her endorsement of the prophets of BAAL that got them a seat at the king's house. And while he might have been, he might have already been inclined to be an idol worshiper, she seemed to be like the steroid shot that took his idol worshiping to its potential. So Ahab told Jezebel all that had done and had happened and had been seen, how he had killed the prophets with the sword in verse one, and it says that she sent a messenger to him. So we know there's at least some time passing for a trip back. And a messenger from the king and queen, definitely from the queen to Elijah. And she says in this message, so may the gods do to me. And more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow. A timestamped threat, you got 24 hours is a real wake up call. I have never been threatened to that extent. I'm not certain how my response would be. I'm not surprised that Elijah, a man made like you and me, is fearful of a threat on his life. But after all he's seen and all he's done, his response surprises me. Andy says in verse three that he was afraid. What's he afraid of? Is he afraid of her? Maybe. Is he afraid of dying? I hope not. What's he afraid of? Well, he's just afraid of life. And he arose. Verse 3 says he ran for his life and he went south. Mount Carmel is northern Israel. If we're looking on a map, if you wanted to say kind of mid north, that's fine. But it's closer to the ocean, kind of near the western side of the Territory definitely west of the Jordan river. And he flees south. He's running from the power base of Ahab and Jezebel in Samaria, and he comes to Beersheba and he left his servant there. And then he travels another day's journey into the wilderness, still heading south away from them. Sits under a broom tree and asks God to die. He says, this is enough. I'm done. Lord, in verse four. Take away my life, for I'm no better than my father's. We could unpack this for days. I think eventually people would stop listening to the podcast, but for just a minute. Andy, what's going through your mind now? To see a man who was so recently at such a peak of not just his influence, but God's power, like he's the living, breathing prophet of God and God sent fire from heaven and all of Israel repents. You'd think that this would be like the highest of highs. How does he so quickly get to the lowest of lows? I'm just curious, is there anything about that that seems confusing? Anything about that that like peaks something that you're like, hey man, we got to really talk about that.
• 58:40
  Speaker B: It's shocking, I guess, is the first thing. And then I guess from our standpoint, disappointing. But it just reminds us that he's still human. Yeah. And what you said, what would we do? We don't know what we would do, but he's human. And you would think, I mean, it had to be pretty immediate after what had just happened, that his faith would be at the peak. I mean, he would, he would not have any wavering. But at this point, he's afraid. He's human.
• 59:12
  Speaker A: I tried to look at some of the commentaries and there's not a consensus on what time period people believe has happened. I tend to believe, like you did, that there's not a big time difference between Mount Carmel and now, hey, I'm done. Just take my life. We're just, we're done. I think your disappointed word is where I sit the most. Elijah's not ordinary, you know, he's not, he's not just a preacher at a, you know, a mid sized congregation in a mid sized southern town. Like he stood in front of, like we talked about earlier, a giant crowd of Israel, the results of what God has done. He. He's been exposed to God's care. The widow of Zarephath raising that child like, this is not a guy who, this is the response I expect. I know that life can be overwhelming, but there's not a steady stream Here of loss after loss after loss after loss. It's not like he's waging some war for the soul of Israel. And yeah, he had a victory five months ago and he's had losses in four, four months straight. He's coming off of his greatest victory off this demonstration of God's power. Where his faith should be at this, I'm going to use this term at its strongest, at its best. This is not the moment where doubt and despair should be creeping in. And that it does. It almost feels like a heel turn in wrestling. You know, I watched wrestling just a little bit when I was a kid, and I remember these guys that were heroes would all of a sudden become villains. And I'm like, well, no one saw that coming. Kind of feels the same way here. He's almost villainous. Like,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker B: well, he uses, I mean, the word waver the chapter before.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker A: And now he's wavering.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker B: He is wavering.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker A: He is from one path to the complete opposite. And in all intents and purposes, to us, it almost looks overnight. I mean, we know it's not like you can see some time occurring, but what explanation can we have for this other than he's human?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker B: And we don't know if it was two days or two months. But you would think the event in chapter 18 would last for quite some time. With your faith and your desire to please God and your faith in him to protect you,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker A: I mean, you'd think we'd be like celebrating that every year on Mount Carmel. I have never made a trip to the Holy Lands, and of course the circumstances over there are always unstable. But if I make the chance, Mount Carmel is on my list. It's like a non negotiable. I'm standing on top of that mountain and I'm looking, and I know this from anecdotal research, that there's a spot near the top of it where you can kind of look and you can see out in the Mediterranean and you can see what that servant saw. Not a cloud forming, but you can be looking in the same direction he was looking. It's not rare that I am surprised by someone. I tend to try and feel, you know, that a person can disappoint you as much as they please you. A person can. We're just humans. Elijah is not supposed to be human. Moses is not supposed to be human. The Apostles are not supposed to be human. They are superhumans, are they not? We treat them that way. But this is the epitome of how human even God's servants are.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker B: And I think, and this is off topic a little bit, so forgive me, but I think we also need to realize that the opposite can be true. People that we may look at that we think there's no hope. There's always hope and there's always that potential that they have to be what they need to be for God. And just as Elijah did a 180, other people can do a 180 the opposite way towards God.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker A: Well, this is the Saul of Tarsus story, right? The villain who becomes the prophet in our story, the prophet becomes the villain. And I'm grateful that Elijah's heel turn is not fully formed. That as opposed to being an out and out villain, he's just an out and out
• 1:03:58
  Speaker B: normal human for a
• 1:03:59
  Speaker A: normal human being for a few days. Yes. So maybe a great lesson for all of us is your mountaintop and your valley of despair are not what define you. They're part of the journey that defines you. And there's a comedown from the mountain and there's a rise up from the valley that's a part of everyone's journey. And Elijah, this great hero of faith, who is eventually going to be taken up into heaven, into God's presence by a whirlwind, basically a fire, a chariot of fire. Like this incredible scene was still made in the image of God like you and me, and still a person who had the vulnerability of doubt and the I don't know what I want to use and the potential for great actions of faith. And hopefully today that's maybe what most connects us to him, is that in the first story in chapter 18, we're definitely the crowd. How long will you waver? And in chapter 19, we're him. But the question is still the same. How long will you waver? And the power of God that we wonder at in chapter 18, that we're in awe of, we're in the presence of that wonder is illustrated in the patience of God here as this story unfolds. Because God does not answer his prayer there with, okay, sure, there's something else. So notice what we do. It says at verse five that he laid down and he slept. And an angel touched him and said, arise and eat. There was a at his head, a cake baked on hot stones. I think in that point, think of like what we would picture, like a loaf of bread and there was a jar of water. He ate and drank, he laid down again, angel came second time, he ate and drank again. And for 40 days and 40 nights he traveled southward once again to what is called here in the ESV in most translations, Horeb, the Mount of God, we call it by another name also Mount Sinai. The journey was similar to what Israel had done. They came out of Sinai to Canaan. He was leaving Canaan to go to Sinai. And in both of these moments, the place where they leave is a place where God has sent them. And the place he's going is a place where God has sent him. And so the purposes of God in our peaks and valleys is still present. And the journey from our first moment of faith to our last moment of faith in this world will always be the journey God sent us on. And sometimes it sends us to peaks, and sometimes it sends us through valleys, but it always sends us where God is going to be. So when God sent Israel from Sinai to the land of Canaan, he was still going to be with them. And he led them and he was there with them as they crossed the Red Sea, or the Red Sea, the Jordan river, as they crossed the. As they conquered the land of Canaan. And God is still with Elijah even when he leaves God's people to go by himself to the mountain of Oreb, to the mountain of Sinai, to the mountain of God. So a lot can be said about where we're going, how we're going, who we're going with. But for the sake of time, I really want to talk about what happened at Mount Sinai. Let's do this. Let's go to verse nine. Let's pick up a little bit. When Elijah makes it to the mountain, he came to a cave and he lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him there and said to him, my favorite line in this whole story, what are you doing here, Elijah? I have found myself asking that question of people and asking that question of myself. Andy, what are you doing here? How did we get here? In those moments, it can be difficult to be very self reflective. But it also can be possible. I. I'm not certain, not certain that God asked him that question. Needing a response now, Elijah's going to give one. But it serves its function, even when it's rhetorical. Today, I think it's worth answering the question, what are you doing here? Neil? How did you get here? Why did you get here? What are you going to do with this?
• 1:09:03
  Speaker B: I think we need to ask that question fairly often,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker A: maybe every day, at least once. What are you doing here? How did you get here? Is kind of in that, what are you going to do while you're here? And what's this going to teach you? About where you're going tomorrow. I think all that's there. You have verse 10. Elijah speaks. Now, remember his mindset. It's not, from what we can tell, in a good place he was fearful. Maybe by this time that fear has subsided a bit. But he speaks and he says, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel, have forsaken your covenant. They have thrown down your altars. They have killed your prophets with the sword. And I, even I only am left. And now they seek my life to take it. Now, I'm curious, Andy, how many mistakes are in his statement right there? There's a couple.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker B: It's a couple,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker A: right? Have the people of Israel forsaken the covenant? Yes, they did. But what did they just do at Mount Sinai or not? Forgive me, Mount Carmel.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker B: They bowed down immediately. Recognized.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker A: That's right. If you're going to say they've forsaken the covenant, maybe right after Mount Carmel is not the time. You do that. Okay, what about this one, right? They throw down the altars. Yeah, we saw evidence of that. They killed prophets with the sword. Okay, sure, Obadiah hid them, that's right. But that line, I'm the only one left. I'm not buying it. I'm not buying that Elijah is in his right mind when he says that. I'm buying that he, like all of us, when we spiral, has lost sight of what's true. That's. That's the danger.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker B: What we want to believe instead of what's real.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker A: We believe what we want to believe. Because when we fall into that valley, who do we not want to blame?
• 1:11:11
  Speaker B: Ourselves.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker A: That's right. We want to stand up and say, well, I'm the only one. But very rarely are we the only one. It could be true. It could be true. You could be the only prophet standing on Mount Carmel. You could be. But you're not the only prophet, not them. You're not truly ever by yourself. And when despair kind of overtakes us, we feel very isolated from what's actually true. And we do this, we make up our own false, false truth. Right? Well, it's true. I'm the only one. So just let's write off Israel, find somebody else. I can't do this anymore. This is language of compromise. This is language of, I would use the term selfishness. This is language. We hear a lot in 2026. What have you done for me lately? What's best for me? I really struggle. I've struggled for now, probably half decade or so. With the shift in younger generations of which I'm now starting to leave, I'm squarely in that middle age generation now. Andy.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker B: The slippery slope.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker A: The slippery slope of you're young until you're not. Then all of a sudden you're like, whoa, I'm not. But I've spent a lot of time around young people for the last five years as a school teacher and as a coach and left youth ministry right about the time that that was happening. And I'm not convinced that teenagers are any more selfish than they've ever been. What I'm convinced is the adults are still that selfish that we're not leaving behind our selfish teenage years to become mature adults who are like, okay, now it's time to be selfless. We don't trust institutions like we once did. We don't say things like I regret that I have yet but one life to give for my country like the famous American patriot Nathan Hale did. We are so, so selfishly and self centered in our motivation. I'm going to do what's best for me. I'm not going to do what's best for us. And I, I have really struggled with that. I don't have an answer for why it's happening. I don't have an answer for how to fix it. I feel like I'm drowning in a world where everyone is just inevitably going to do what's best for them. And we've, we've just missed the boat. It's just, it set sail, it's just, it's gone. And I hear in his look, I'm the only one left, so I'm not going to fight anymore. I hear that in phrases I've heard from young people. Why should I care if they don't? Why should I commit if they won't? Why should I sacrifice if they don't? And the thing that scares me is I don't just hear that from teenagers, I'm hearing that from adults and I'm hearing that from people who are taught that selflessness is the key to your faith. Jesus would say things like, if you want to be first, be last. If you want to be great, be a servant. And that feels lost on our generation. I hope I'm just kind of being a little pessimistic and I'm certain, certain that there are people of every age that are selfless to a fault. But if you asked me to indict what's wrong with our society today, I would say we look in the mirror way too much and we project Only what we want and we give to only what we think matters. And our trust of us has been replaced with our trust of me. And I think our big cry to why that's not fair is just like Elijah's cry to why that's not fair. God, look around. I've done my best.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker B: We look in the mirror, but we see what we want to see. We don't give an honest reflection of our life or what we need to do to get our life.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker B: Where it needs to be. Because of that selfishness, we, we don't always want the truth. We want what makes us feel good.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker A: That's very, very good. What would be the selfless response from Elijah? So Jezebel says, I'm going to kill you by tomorrow. How about ride your animal to her palace and say, all right, here I am. That would be the Mount Carmel moment, right? That's the living embodiment of take up your cross, right? Literally walk to your death. And that's what Jesus did. And I know that that's a standard that we're not going to meet. The what would Jesus do Bracelets are not fair because you're not the son of God. You don't see tomorrow like he does. You just see today. So I've always thought the idea is what would Jesus have me do? Makes more sense. If my life is what you demand, may I give my life. If my protection of myself, may I give protection of myself by protecting others. I don't think everything has to be the full self sacrifice, but I do wish some things were. I wish that was the sword he said, I'll die on. That is a hill I will lose my fight on because I'm not afraid of you. And I'm blown away that he couldn't say that. Then all he says is, no, I'm afraid I'm the only one. No one will defend me. The cause is dead, right? He just, he just gives up. And it's. It, it's shocking. It, it's that heel turn. We talked about that. No one, I don't think anyone sees it coming. And if we're not careful, it can be what we do. And I think that's a real lesson I want us to leave with today. There's lesson upon lesson upon lesson. But to be the hero of your story means you might have to lose. Because to be the person God wants you to be, your life might have to be the sacrifice. And to be the sacrifice puts you in the best company of all time. Because that's what Jesus Was he was the living sacrifice we're called to be that purposefully went to the altar, that didn't fight it, but went to it knowing he was going to die? And does it change our thinking of Elijah as a person if chapter 19 isn't the mountain of Sinai, but it was the Mount Zion? And he went to Jerusalem, or he went to Carmel, or he went. Or he went to Gerizim, which was in Samaria. And he said, I'll take your threat because you can't win. Even if you kill me, you can't win. And if his words there echoed like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and it was like, you might kill me. You might. I'm not going to bow down to you. I'm not afraid of you. How different would we think of him if this chapter changed locations and his cry was not, I'm the only one. I'm afraid. I'm the only one. But I'm not afraid, or you kill me, 20 more will take my place. How different do you think, Andy, would we think of this story?
• 1:19:57
  Speaker B: It would be different for sure. But I think the human element of Elijah is relatable. It's. It's hard to be Daniel. It's relatable to be Elijah. One thing that stands out to me with this is he tells God he's ready to die, but he's running from death. Sometimes we are running from things, but the way we're going about it, we're actually running towards it. And he's afraid of dying by Jezebel, but he wants God to take his life. And I think that shows his state of mind, that when we get in that state of mind, we're not thinking clearly. And that's where, you know, just take a deep breath. It's okay to take a minute, take a day, whatever you need to figure out, where am I? Where am I going? What I need to do to get there.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker A: I don't think I begrudge his fear of death. I don't particularly welcome the process of dying. I don't want to get sick. I don't want to be in a fiery accident. I don't want that. But I'm shocked at the despair that you kind of hear from him. I'm the only one left. I'm afraid. It's almost like he's saying, I'm tired, I'm done. I hear the words behind it. I give up. I think that's what I'm most like, just disappointed. We come back to
• 1:21:32
  Speaker B: that because after chapter 18. You're not expecting to flip the page and get this?
• 1:21:37
  Speaker A: No. And I will. I will. 100%. Amen. This is Elijah in just the human being. Not Elijah the prophet, not Elijah the great messenger and a great hero. This is just Elijah the person. And it feels so awe inducing to me because I can walk these shoes or forgive me, I can walk these steps in those shoes. And I can relate to great mountaintop moments where you're like, this is awesome. And then I can relate to super low moments, and I can see the steps along the way that got me there. I've. This soccer season was not the crowning achievement of my coaching career. And I made a huge mistake. And I can't remember if I've said it on the podcast or not, but I'll repeat it. This year, I cared more about winning than I did the lessons we learn about what's the right way to play and what's the right way to treat your teammates, and what's the right way to interact as a representative of your school. And I didn't ignore those things. I just put them behind winning. Andy. And guess what? This is the least successful season in my history of coaching at that school by winning percentage. And when I put us first, our glory, I learned a very valuable lesson that I messed up. I want. I want us to see that this does not define Elijah as a person, just as I'm grateful that this will not be the season that defines me as a coach forever. Because your high moments and your low moments are not the full picture of your life. The full picture of your life is both of them. And then all the moments that sit between, all the moments that sit between
• 1:23:40
  Speaker B: the valley of this soccer season will help you get to the peaks of future soccer seasons, because you're going to learn from it.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker A: That's my hope. You
• 1:23:46
  Speaker B: were a good coach before. You're a good coach during
• 1:23:49
  Speaker A: who didn't feel like it. This year.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker B: It. It happens. And that's the same thing with Elijah. It. I mean, God was with him the entire time, but he went sideways for a minute. But God was always there and back to soccer. You were a good coach before you got sideways on something. Didn't mean the season was a loss. It just means it was a learning experience.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker A: So much. And at the end of the day, I may be the one that learns the most from it. And I hate that I can't repay that in actual game experience for the seniors that graduate. But I can guarantee you, from day one of next season, there will be Things that are very different because of lessons that were learned this year. Down to the simple things, like who cleans up the soccer balls as we leave practice and where we sit on the bus. And like the simple things that seem to not matter, matter. Now, with Elijah's story and kind of connecting all of this back, this does not define him as a person. God doesn't strike him down like he asks. God says, no, no, no, no, no. I've got a message for you. And that's where we get you. Look at verse. Let's do this. Verse 11. Lord says to him, go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by. There was a great and strong wind that tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks. But the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper, the Hebrew actually says a thin silence. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and he went out and he stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him, and it said, just like it did earlier, what are you doing here, Elijah? And Elijah once again kind of repeats what he said earlier. I've been very jealous. The God of hosts, the people of Israel, have forsaken your covenant. All of these things he repeated earlier, I am left alone, and they seek my life. And the Lord said to him, go. And I think you get this idea of go back. Return by the way of the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, anoint a man by the name of Hazael to be king over Syria, and Jehu the son of Nimshi to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat. He shall anointed. He shall be anointed to be the prophet in your place. And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death. And the one who escapes the sword of Jehu shall Elijah put to death. And I will leave 7,000 in Israel whose knees have not bowed to Baal and whose mouth has not kissed him. Something about these words resonate so deeply today. Elijah, what are you doing here? You're not listening. But more than that, you're not paying attention to the world around you, much like God's response to Job out of the Whirlwind. The answer is not okay. Here you go. The answer is no. No, no, no, no. Here's what I'm doing. You know that. That those chapters in Job where he says, where were you when this feels like a spiritual, like sits alongside of it, not necessarily successor to it, but definitely complement to it. Hey, get up and go do your job. Do what I appointed you to do. I am putting this guy on this throne and this guy on that throne, and this man is taking your place. And there are thousands, thousands who you have not noticed, who are exactly what you are to me. My servant amongst idol worshipers and a world that feels lost to you. They. They have been noticed by me. I want to make sure that this is seen, because I think this is really true, that there was all this noise around Elijah, noise that came from Israel, noise that came from Ahab, noise that came from Jezebel, just noise. And that noise was deafening. It was like constantly. It feels like just a. I can imagine him as like an older person at a concert. It's like, how do I escape the noise? So he ran away. And when he got to the mountain where God was thinking, well, God will just take care of it, there's still noise, right? Thunder and earthquakes and fire. But in all the noise, where's God? He's in the voice, in that whisper, that thin sound. That's where God is. That's where God had always been. In the truth of a word well spoken, that is God's will, that doesn't have to scream and yell and shout. There is power and there is purpose. And in this moment, Elijah, who thought God was only in the fire, hears that God is in the evening. God is even in the silence, in the whisper that drowns out all the noise. Today I think to myself that the God who answered by fire also answers by whisper. Because power and patience are not rivals. They don't conflict with one another. They flow from the very same character of the God who made us. And the one who can be a booming voice from heaven also can be a whisper. And both of those reflect his power. Because in a crowd, sometimes God has to show his power. But to you and me, maybe what he needs to show most is his gentleness. Because we're discouraged. And the world that seems so loud is not louder than him when he's the one we hear instead of them. I love so much about this, and like we said earlier, we could spend hours talking about this, but the details that seem so simple to me is that God's not in the noise. You want him to be in the noise, right? But at Mount Sinai, God was in the silence. That speaks louder than the noise. Then the grand show and the grand gesture and the peak. Right, the peak. God is there for the peak, but God's also there in the valley. And his whisper in the valley was as powerful as his fire from heaven on the mountaintop. And both of these things are genuinely impactful for Elijah. One is his, I would call it the crowning achievement of his life, but the other is maybe the crowning achievement of his future life. Because what does he do at the end of chapter 19? He gets up and he goes and does what God told him to do. He finds Elijah, he brings him with him. He finishes this part of his life training his replacement. Who would learn to trust God also. I think about our life, and you and I, we sit here and we're both squarely middle aged with children who are either mostly grown or getting there. And we're thinking about the future already. And we're thinking about the world we leave in the hands of our children like you. Just how can you not? And the world you leave for them. You know, we do that simple ways. We create wills and testaments. We, we build trusts to be able to protect them if something does happen to us. We bring them to church, we teach them the Bible. We, we've watched our, both of your sons and my two oldest children, we've watched them become Christians. We've invested in that and seen that happen. And we're now maybe more like Elijah in the cave than we want to admit. We're now still with mountaintop moments, I hope in front of us. Maybe the 10,000th subscriber to the podcast one day will be a mountaintop moment for us. Who knows, I would just be happy that we could say one day, 10,000 people had heard it. We might be more like the cave where it's, hey, there might be less in front of you than there is behind you, but what's in front of you is still important. And you've got to learn the lesson that the highs and the lows, God is always there. And the message of the high is God's power. The message of the low is God's patience. And somewhere in between, you become God's servant. You demonstrate God's power through how you overcome. You also give and demonstrate God's patience when you give in. And I think that's the beauty of Elijah's story. For the God who was with him on Mount Carmel is the God who was with him on Mount Sinai. And the power of God at Mount Carmel is also the patience of God at Mount Sinai and the servant of God who shared in his victory at Mount Carmel shares in his victory at Mount Sinai because God is the same. He is the God who guides and directs and points people to a decision. What are you doing here? Are you bowing down to me in the presence of my power? Are you listening to me? From the words of my patience? Elijah does both. And this epitome of who we are is found in who he was. He's maybe, maybe. And we could argue this till the sheep come home, but it's true. He's maybe the most human of all of God's heroes.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker B: It appears that he's much more human than we probably think about sometimes, because when you hear his name, you don't think about the cave.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker A: No, you don't.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker B: The entire time, God's still with him. God has a plan. And at the end, at this part of the end, he follows God's plan and he goes back to what he knows he should do and does it.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker A: I'm going to put his New Testament parallels Simon Peter from my point of view. Great highs, Pentecost, walking on the water at the Transfiguration. Really rough lows, too. Denying Christ, you know, like, running away at the crucifixion. He. He doesn't have a real clean record when it comes to interactions with, like, the Jew and Gentile conversions. Like, like, like. Yet God is with him through his highs and his lows.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker B: Jesus asked him, do you love me? He did it three times, not twice, but he repeated that same question. So there's another similarity.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker A: And I always like the, the, the, the. When God repeats himself for our sake, you know, I'll repeat myself sometimes because I just forget. But God repeating himself, hey, do you love me? Three times. Hey, what are you doing here? Two times, you know, and I think maybe you could, without being dogmatic about it. You could kind of hear the line from chapter 18, how long will you waver in? What are you doing here? Why are you wavering? Why did you pick here, Elijah? You were supposed to be there. And I'm leaving today. Even more appreciative of this story, I, of course, put it on my list of moments where I find great awe. And I am in awe of God's power. I'm in awe of God's patience and how in one man's life, and we would call this maybe even a short window of his life, all of that is illustrated to its maximum potential. Because the patience that God did not have for Israel, he had for Elijah, the power that God gave Israel is manifested in a whisper at Sinai. And so both sides of who God is come out. When you see both sides of Elijah, the God who brings you to the mountain is also the one who guides you through the valley. I'm going to leave today's discussion thankful for that because I will have a peak and a valley in my future. And I hope my peak is Mount Carmel worthy. And I pray that when my valley is Mount Sinai, that whisper, that whispers what I hear too. So I'm leaving today, Andy, in a way that I count as a true blessing. Being able to talk about this is very self. I guess we'd use the word self, introspective. Like I'm putting a mirror up to my own life and maybe even a magnifying glass. And being like Neil, you need to be reminded of this more often. And I, I would love one day to be thought of as a person who could have stood up Mount Carmel, you know, But I'd also like to be thought of as a person who learned my lesson at Mount Sinai. I'm going to have peaks and valleys. You're going to have peaks and valleys. Everyone who's listening today is going to have peaks and valleys. And hopefully we learn the lesson Israel and Ahab and Elijah learned at our mountaintop and in our lowest trench because we need it as much as he did. We spent a ton of time today talking about Elijah and Ahab. Andy, did we miss anything? Overlook anything? There's got to be some just nugget of wisdom I know you have that you're leaving for right now. Anything before we tell everybody goodbye?
• 1:39:26
  Speaker B: I think we covered it pretty well. The one thing that stands out to me is we are human. Elijah was human. There's going to be peaks and valleys, but God's still with us. And God has a plan. We have to persevere and keep going and keep our eyes on the prize.
• 1:39:39
  Speaker A: Yep. You know, we didn't look at it, but like our journey to Mount Sinai, we might be on that part of his story right now. We might be in that 40 day journey and we're somewhere between the peak and valley. So maybe we're on our way down. Maybe we're sitting around and waiting while everyone else is making a fool of themselves. And God hasn't quite appeared yet. So our peak isn't present but somewhere. I think we're kind of in his story somewhere. And so I hope that today that our study of this story has been good for you. I hope that you're a repeat visitor to our podcast and I hope that we will be able to guide you through a study of another story sometime soon. We'll be back next week with Andy's number one awe inducing moment in scripture. We're going to go back to almost the beginning. We're going to talk about the Garden of Eden, if I remember correctly, Adam and Eve and a theme that has been recurring.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker B: Patience.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker A: God's patience. There is so much that we can explore then and I hope that you'll join us. My name is Neal Mathis and I'm with Andy Yant. This is the Holy Wonder podcast. We're thankful that you have taken the time to listen today some really cool news. We are now on just about every one of the major podcatching websites that you can find. So if you follow us on Apple Music or you follow us on Spotify or YouTube, wherever it is, I'd encourage you to subscribe. I'd also encourage you to go check out our website, theholywonderhub.com not only are our podcasts there, but written articles and you can get on our mailing list there. And so every time a new podcast appear, every time a new article appears, maybe even just a Bible study that we put out there, you'll receive information about that. First, I hope that today that this has been a blessing for you and I hope that you leave encouraged as always. If you have any questions, don't be afraid to reach out to us. You can find us on social media and if you want to be a part of this conversation, we would love to have you join it. We're thankful for you and we hope that today you live in awe and of all of God's wonder. Thank you for listening. Goodbye. Sam. Sa. Sam. Sa. It.