Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 69 from your hardback hymnal,
hymn number 69, Safely Through Another Week. Let's all stand
together. Safely through another week,
God has brought us on our way. Let us now a blessing seek, waiting
in His courts today. Day of all, the week the best,
emblem of eternal rest. Day of all, the week the best,
emblem of eternal rest. While we pray for pardoning grace,
through the dear Redeemer's name, show thy reconciled face, take
away our sin and shame. From our worldly care set free,
may we rest this day in Thee. From our worldly care set free,
may we rest this day in Thee. Here we come, thy name to praise. Let us feel thy presence near. May thy glory meet our eyes while
we in thy house appear. Here afford us, Lord, a taste
of our everlasting feast. Here afford us, Lord, a taste
of our everlasting feast. May thy gospels joyful sound,
Conquer sinners, comfort saints. May the fruits of grace abound,
Bring relief for all complaints. Thus may all our Sabbaths prove,
Till we join the Church above. Thus may all our Sabbaths prove,
till we join the church above. Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to be looking at a passage
of scripture in 1 Kings. 1 Kings chapter 18 and 19. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we ask that
you would send your Holy Spirit in power, that you would open what no man
can shut, and that you, Lord, would shut what no man can open. We pray that you would open the
hearts of your people give them faith to find their rest and
their trust in their Sabbath, thy dear son, who has accomplished
the keeping of thy law and the satisfying of thy divine justice,
Lord, that we might find him to be our all and find him to
be in all. Lord, we're not able, To understand
we're not able to see, we're not able to believe, our ability is not. We pray that you would be merciful
to sinners, and in the ability of Christ, that you will bless
us with thy presence. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. You have your Bibles open to
1 Kings. I want you to notice a phrase, a question actually,
that the Lord asked the prophet Elijah. And I hope this morning
that he will burn this question in my heart and in yours. Because like Elijah, like Elijah,
we are so prone to run to Sinai for protection. We just are. It's our nature. We take our
eyes off of Christ. We look to the law as the hope
of our salvation. And here's what our Lord asked
Elijah. in 1 Kings chapter 19 at the
end of verse 9, what doest thou hear, Elijah? Elijah, what are
you doing here? And look at the last part of
verse 13, what doest thou hear, Elijah? Oh, I pray that the Spirit of
God would ask each of us that question every single time that
we take our eyes off the Lord Jesus Christ. for all our salvation,
all our justification, all our sanctification, all our righteousness
before God. And we are so prone. Our unbelief
is so prevalent. It's the sin that doth so easily
beset us. My hope this morning is that
the Lord would say to you and to me, what doest thou here? What are you doing here? In order to understand where
Elijah is, we need to go back to chapter 18, a very familiar
story. I'll just tell you the story
briefly. Ahab, the wicked king of Israel,
leading the people into idolatry. His wife Jezebel, the real power
behind this very weak, wimpy king, And the prophets of Baal
are running the land and God raises up Elijah to challenge
them and calls them to Mount Carmel and says to them, let
us each make a sacrifice to God. Let us each build an altar. Let
us each put our sacrifice on the altar and the God that answereth
by fire. He will be the Lord." And they
said, it sounds good to us. And so the prophets of Baal,
they built their altar, they cried, they prayed out to their
God, they cut themselves until their blood flowed, they danced,
they begged, nothing happened. Elijah, A man of God. Oh, he's so stalwart on Mount
Carmel compared to where we're going to see him in chapter 19. He's such a powerful voice. And he mocks these false prophets. And then he tells them to build
his altar. And he takes the bullock and
he cuts them up and he puts them on the altar. And he says, bring
four barrels of water. And he pours four barrels of
water over the sacrifice, over the altar. He says, do it again.
They did it again. He said, do it again. They did
it again. They brought twelve barrels of
water, saturating the sacrifice. Elijah prays to God and the fire
of God falls from heaven and consumes the sacrifice. And as
soon as the sacrifice is consumed, the fire is quenched. What a
glorious picture of what happened on Calvary's cross. The fiery
wrath of God. For our sin was consumed by the
sacrifice. The God that answereth by fire,
he shall be the Lord. And that's what he did. He quenched
his fiery wrath in the sacrifice of his own dear son on Calvary's
cross. What a glorious picture and what
a man of God that we can look up to Elijah and say, boy, I
wish I could be so bold as that. Well, in chapter 19, Ahab told
Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and with all how he had slain
the prophets with the sword. Elijah took the 800 prophets
of Baal and commanded his servants to put them to death, and they
did. They killed every one of them. You know, when the Lord
is pleased to teach us the truth about Christ, All other gods
and all other gospels and all other persuasions are put to
death by the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. It's
just the truth. I'm so encouraged when I hear
someone who says they believe the gospel confess that what
they used to believe was blasphemy. I'm encouraged when I hear someone
who confesses their faith in Christ to confess at the same
time that what they used to be was an idolater. They didn't
worship the God who is. Coming to Christ is not the tweaking
of your doctrine. It's not just a correction. It's a whole new birth, and all
the old gods are slain in your sight. That's exactly what happened. But now what's going to happen
to Elijah? Elijah wasn't afraid of Ahab,
but he's afraid of his wife. He's afraid of Jezebel. And he
runs, he runs out of Judah. And then he has a pity party. He says, oh God, how inconsistent
Elijah is. He's crying out to God and he's
saying, oh God, I stood up for you and I'm the only one in all
of Judah that had the, all of Israel that had the faith to
believe you and here I am suffering at the hand of this woman. Not just like us. You know, the
first thing that the Lord does when he's pleased to bless us
with his presence and with his grace, like an expert swordsman,
he tries that experience with fire. He puts the sword into the fire
and he tempers it. We saw last week from 1 Peter,
Beloved, think it not strange concerning these fiery trials
that should try you as though some strange thing had happened
unto you, but rejoice. It happens that way. Every time
we have an experience of of grace, the Lord follows that experience
up with a trial. He's tempering the grace. He's proving the grace to be
what it is. Peter goes on to say, greatly
rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness
through manifold temptations. These things are necessary and
they are often brought on the heels of a glorious experience
of grace. The best example of that is what
happened to our Lord. As soon as he came out of that
water, as soon as he was baptized, God the Father spoke audibly
from heaven. God the Holy Spirit descended
like a dove. What an experience. John pointed to him and said,
behold, there he is. That's the Messiah. He's the
Christ. He's the Lamb of God. He must
increase. I must increase. Follow him.
And as soon as that happened, the scripture says, and the spirit
drove him immediately into the wilderness to be tempted of the
devil. Isn't that our experience? The
disciples, oh, what a glorious time they had, the night before
the most horrifying day that they would ever experience, when
they gathered together with the Lord and celebrated the Passover. They had no idea what was going
to happen that night and the next day. But there we are. Mondays still come on the heels
of Sunday, don't they? And the Lord tries that which
we hear and that which we believe in the trials of life. Two things he's doing, he's tempering
that experience and making it to be real. And the other thing
he's doing is reminding us that we cannot live off of yesterday's
grace. We are in need of manna every
day. Give us this day, Lord, our daily
bread. Elijah reminds me in this experience
of myself, he reminds me of Peter, who stood that night against
a legion of Roman soldiers and drew his sword and was prepared
to die for Christ, taking off the ear of one of the soldiers. He wasn't aiming for his ear,
he was aiming for his head. The guy just happened to move
in time to lose only his ear. And then just within a few hours
after that experience, he caved in to the threatenings of a little
girl. Isn't that just the way we are?
Lord, I'm in need of your grace all the time. Elijah, what are
you doing here? What are you doing here? Come
back. Come back to where you were before. Come back to that hope that you
had in Christ. And what Elijah's done in chapter
19 is he's run out of Judah, he's crossed the Jordan, he's
went through the Sinai, and he's at Mount Sinai. That's where
he's at. He's at the mountain of the law.
Isn't that what we do when trials and troubles come? If the Lord
doesn't cause us to flee to Christ, we will flee to the law. We will
think, you know, there's something I can do to fix this. There's
something that I can do to make this better. There's something
that I can do to change and to obligate God to somehow bless
me. And we're just prone to it. We
run to Mount Sinai and the Lord says to us, what are you doing
here? This is not the place you need to be. Now the good thing
is Elijah could not die and the scripture says in chapter 19
that he was at Horeb, which is Mount Sinai, it's the same mountain.
And the only thing that protected him on Mount Sinai is the same
thing that protected Moses when Moses went up on Mount Sinai.
You remember when the Lord put him in the cleft of the rock?
Where do we find Elijah? He's in a cave. He's inside of
a rock. The only thing that's going to
protect you and I from the threatenings of the law is to be found in
Christ. Not having our own righteousness
which is of the law, but that righteousness which is by the
faith of Jesus Christ. And that's where Elijah's at.
He's at Sinai, looking for some comfort, looking for some hope.
looking for some answers to this trial that he's in the middle
of. And he's gone to the wrong place. The Lord's not going to
let him die there. The Lord sends him all the way
back to Judea, crosses the Jordan, gets back into the promised land
before he's caught up in a fiery chariot. And Elisha takes his
place. But isn't this so? Oh Lord, would
you probe my heart? With that piercing question,
every time I take my eyes off of Christ, would you send your
Holy Spirit in power to say to me, what are you doing here?
What are you doing here? Why are you not resting in Christ?
Why can't you go back to Carmel where you were? Why can't you
come with me? I'll take you back. I'll take
you back. What are you doing here? And so Elijah, in verse nine,
and he came thither unto a cave and lodged there, and behold,
the word of the Lord came to him and said unto him, what doest
thou here, Elijah? Why'd you come back to Sinai? There's no hope here. This mountain
has nothing but threatenings. The mountain of the law can't
help you. Your works can't help you. Your improvements aren't
going to fix things. You've got to come back to Carmel
where the sacrifice, where the wrath of God is consumed by the
sacrifice. That's where you have to be.
Come back, Elijah. You're in the wrong place. And he said, I have been very
jealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have
forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain
thy prophets with the sword. And I, even I, only am left,
and they seek my life and take it away. You ever felt that way? Oh, nobody understands what I'm
going through. My troubles are worse than everybody
else's. You know, I'm just left here
all by my poor little self. Isn't that the way we are? That's
my experience. Just thinking that, you know,
I... And God said, go forth, Elijah. Now he's in a cave. The only
thing protecting him is inside of a rock. Go forth and stand
upon the mount. Behold the Lord. Behold, the
Lord passed by, and a great strong wind rent the mountains and break
in pieces the rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in
the wind. What do we do when we find ourselves
in these fearful trials, these fiery trials where we think that
we've been left alone and we're all by ourselves and we're running
back to the law in order to try to get some answers for our problems?
And then what do we think? Boy, if I just, if the wind of
God's spirit would just blow upon me in power and I could
feel something and have an experience, then everything would be okay.
We want something experiential. We want something inexplicable,
miraculous to take place in our lives. And the Lord sent the
wind and rent the rocks, but the Lord was not in it. You see,
when we're looking to an experience, a feeling, then we're going back
to Sinai. We're looking to something other
than Christ. The only solution is to look
to Christ, to find in Him our all in all, to flee to the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ, to say, Oh Lord, give me your Spirit,
reveal to me the grace and glory of thy Son in my heart through
faith, increase my faith. That's what I need. And after the wind, an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. Oh Lord, just shake the ground
that I'm on. Shake it all up. Change everything.
Fix it all. Change my circumstances. Isn't
that what we want? We're going back to Sinai. The
answer to our problems is not having our circumstances changed.
Christ is the answer to our problems. His glorious person, His presence,
the power of His Spirit revealing Him in our hearts. He's the answer. Elijah went back to Sinai. There's
no answer there. There's no hope there. And so
after the wind and after the earthquake, God sends a fire.
and after the earthquake, a fire. Oh, Lord, just consume all these
enemies. You know, Peter and John, when
they were in Samaria, what did they say? James and John, the sons of thunder,
you know, Lord, just send fire down from heaven and consume
them. Isn't that what we want? Lord, just consume these troubles
and these problems that I have. It's going back to Sinai. We
want God to do something in our experience or in our circumstances
and we fail to realize that what He needs to do for us and what
we need Him to do for us is to reveal in our hearts through
faith by His Spirit the glorious person, the love of Christ to
be shed abroad in our hearts. That's the answer. He's the answer. What are you doing here? How
many times have you been there? How many times have you done
exactly what Elijah is doing? Every day! Might God be pleased
to say to you and me, what are you doing here? That's not where
you need to be. That's not the answer. It's not the solution. Christ
is the answer. But the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire, a still small voice, be still and know that I am God. Oh, you and I live in such a
rat race culture, don't we? I mean, it's just go, go, go,
do, do, do. There's no end to it, is there?
No wonder we don't hear the voice of God. Number one, we went to
Sinai, which we weren't supposed to be there. And number two,
we're looking for an experience. And number three, we're not still
enough to hear the voice of God. And it was so, when Elijah heard
it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle. Oh, like those seraphim that
were hovering over the throne of God, who had had six wings,
and with two they did hide their face. Oh, Lord, you're too glorious
for me. Lord, I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. He wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the
entering in of the cave. Behold, there came a voice unto
him again and said, what doest thou hear? God's gonna speak to Elijah. Elijah is going to be encouraged.
He's going to go back to Judah. The Lord is going to take him
home. This experience that this man
of God had is consistent with my experience. I said, I've been very jealous
for the Lord God of hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken
thy covenant, thrown down thine altar, and slain thy prophets.
He censors him the same thing the second time. He's giving
the same answer. Oh, poor me. And I, even I, only
am left, and they seek my life to take it away. And the Lord
said to him, go. Return on the way of the wilderness
of Damascus. And when thou comest, anoint
Haziel to be king over Syria. He's going to have to go back
through the desert. That's where we are, isn't it? We're not going
to get to the promised land until we get through the desert. It's
a dry and thirsty land that we live in. If Elijah's experience is your
experience, let me encourage you. It's going to keep being
your experience. You're not going to get over
this problem. You're going to keep going to
Sinai. You're going to keep looking
for the fire. You're going to keep looking for the wind. You're
going to keep looking for the earthquake. You're going to continue
to take your eyes off of Christ. It's not going to change. Why? Because we're in this wilderness.
This is not a one-time experience to fix this problem. This is
our daily walk. Coming to Christ. To whom? Coming. Constantly coming. This sin problem that we have
is not a temporary problem. And there's not a one-time fix
to it. It's our pilgrimage here in this world. It's why we have
to keep hearing this, isn't it? It's why we have to keep hearing
the gospel, to remind us. You see, this thought that, well,
I can fix this problem and then we're not going to have this
problem anymore, that's going back to Sinai. It's self-righteousness. Verse 16, and Jehu, the son of
Nimshes shall thou anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha
the son of Shaphat of Amalolah shall thou anoint to be prophet
in thy room. And it shall come to pass that
him that escapeth the sword of Haziel shall Jehu slay, and him
that escapeth the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet, yet,
Elijah What you thought about yourself and your experience
is not true. You think your experience is
different or worse than anybody else? It's not true, Elijah.
For I have left me 7,000 in Israel, all the knees which have not
bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. These
are the same sufferings that your brethren experience throughout
all the world in every generation. Every one of us here have this
same experience. What are you doing here? Oh Lord,
keep asking me that question. Every time I look away from Christ,
Ask me that probing, convicting question and cause me to come
back. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you for your word and we pray that you would make it effectual
to our hearts. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. I don't have Jackson's.