Alright, let's take our Bibles
and turn with me to the book of 1 Kings chapter 19. 1 Kings chapter 19. I would like to look at a passage
of Scripture that truly sets forth the glorious truth. What I'd like to look at today
is how Almighty God deals with His people when He is pleased
to call them out of darkness. Let's read verses 7 and 8. 1 Kings 19 verses 7 and 8. And the angel of the Lord came
again the second time and touched him. and said, Arise and eat,
because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did
eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days
and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. Now, this passage
of scripture is dealing with a man named Elijah. And Elijah was a very faithful,
he was a man that God had called to be a prophet. And the prophet
had been directed by the Lord to talk to a wicked king, Ahab,
And he told Ahab to assemble all the prophets, the false prophets
of Baal. And they were going to meet on
a mountain called Mount Carmel. And there was a discrepancy that
was going to be answered. The prophet Elijah had charged
the people In 1 Kings 18.21 he said this, How long halt ye between
two opinions? If the Lord be God, then follow
Him. And if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not
a word. Well, in the day appointed, Elijah met the people the 450
prophets of Baal. Elijah told them, he said, we're
going to build an altar. We're going to put the sacrifice
on the altar. And we're going to call upon
our God, your God. I'm going to call upon my God.
And the God that answers by fire is God. And the scripture says that the
450 prophets of Baal, for the sake of time, took the altar
and they cut the sacrifice up and laid it all in order. And
they began to call upon Baal and they carried on with their
religious foolishness all day, crying unto a god who couldn't
hear. and therefore couldn't answer.
And the scripture says that after they had cut themselves and all
of their foolishness, calling upon a God that they had created
in their mind, then Elijah took the altar of God that had been
torn down. And he set it in order. And he
took the sacrifice, cut it up, put it on the altar, And he prayed
this prayer in 1 Kings 18, 36, 37, Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel,
and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things
at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that
this people may know that thou art the Lord God, and that thou
hast turned their heart back again. Obviously, they had strayed
in their heart. And Elijah wanted them to understand,
if your heart's turned back, God did it, and not you. And the Lord God, who initiated
and therefore heard the prayer of his prophet, caused the fire,
according to 1 Kings 18.38, to fall and consume the burnt sacrifice,
the wood, the stones, the dust, and licked up the water that
was in the trench. Now, there's something that's
very significant about the burnt offering. It was a burnt offering.
Hold your place right there. Just turn to Leviticus chapter
1. Leviticus chapter 1. And I'd like to read verses 1
to 9. Here's the word of the Lord concerning
the burnt offering. God spoke in Leviticus 1 verse
9, called unto Moses, and spake
unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man
of you bring an offering unto the Lord, you shall bring your
offering of the cattle, even of the herd, of the flock. If
his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a
male, without blemish, He shall offer it of his own voluntary
will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the
Lord. He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering.
It shall be accepted for him to make atonement, that is, a
covering for his sins for him. He shall kill the bullock before
the Lord. And the priests, Aaron's sons,
shall bring the blood and sprinkle the blood round about upon the
altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
That's the brazen altar. And he shall flay the burnt offering
and cut it into his pieces. And the sons of Aaron, the priests,
shall put fire upon the altar and lay the wood in order upon
the fire. And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the
head, the fat, in order upon the wood. that is on the fire
which is upon the altar, but is inwards, and his legs shall
he wash in water. The priest shall burn all of
the altar to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, a sweet
savor unto the Lord." Now, the burnt offering, there were different
types of offerings. And the burnt offering was totally
for the Lord. That meant that there was no
part of that offering that was shared by the priest or by anybody. The Lord got it all. It was completely
consumed. And this offering, what it did
was it signified the complete surrender of the Lord Jesus Christ
to the Father in His willingness and ability to honor the Father
in the Father's choosing of a people to whom God was going to show
mercy. The burnt offering set forth God Almighty's good pleasure
to provide the Lamb that would bear the guilt of His people. The hands that was laid on that
head was a picture by that one that was to offer it. He was
going to give it to the priest. He'd bring it to the priest.
The one that brought it had to kill it. The priest would take
the blood and sprinkle it upon the brazen altar. And it was
cut up into pieces. And that sacrifice was a substitutionary
honor and sacrifice unto God, saying, in the one in whom this
sacrifice pictures, The Lord Jesus Christ. This is all my
hope. My hope is in God's Lamb. And the scripture says that the
burnt offering was a sweet savor unto God. So this offering that
was offered by Elijah, it was a burnt offering. And God heard his prayer And
Scripture says that God answered by fire and consumed everything. He took it all. He took everything
that was associated with that burnt offering. It was a sweet
savor to God. And it was completely consumed
by the fire of His good pleasure. Now, one would think that with
such a display of power and grace, that no man would ever doubt
the faithfulness of God to sustain him in any trial. But that doubt was exactly what
happened to Elijah. Elijah, who had been sustained
by God when there was a drought, a famine, God sent ravens to
bring meat to him every day. bread. God gave Elijah a brook
to drink out of. Then when God was pleased to
dry that brook up, God sent Elijah over and caused him to cross
paths with a widow woman. And all she had was just enough,
you know, a little bit of meal and a little bit of oil. That
was all she was going to have. She was going to make a little
biscuit. They were going to eat it and she was going to die.
The Scripture says that Elijah told her, he said, you make one
for me first, this lady and her son. He said, you make one for
me first. Here was Elijah, a picture of
the Lord Jesus. He said, you seek first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness. All these things will be added
unto you. What a beautiful picture of a man's dedication unto the
Lord. And the Scripture says that There
was always enough. There was always enough for one
more day. That would a woman, they ate
until God was pleased to end all the trials. So here we see
a man that has seen the sustaining grace of God. He's witnessed
it. But Elijah, though a prophet, mightily blessed of God, was
like all men. He was a man subject to the weakness
of his own flesh. Men think they're so strong and
stable and I've learned this and I've become such a giant
in the faith. I'm telling you Almighty God
can abase a man's pride. But here's a man that heard a
woman named Jezebel when 450 of her prophets were killed. Jezebel, having heard about the
slaughter of her gods, promised Elijah, she said, I'll tell you
this, God do so to me if I don't kill you within 24 hours. By
this time tomorrow, she said. Well, here's Elijah running scared. He's hiding in the wilderness,
complaining that he's no better than his fathers and he wants
to die. But God, who has promised, to
never leave nor forsake his own, comes to the prophet, and he's
going to teach this prophet something of his sustaining grace. But
in the midst of the Lord teaching Elijah of God's sustaining grace,
God's been pleased to teach us something also through the story
of this prophet, and it's the revelation with Elijah being
a picture, a type, he's a prophet, called of God, regenerated by
the grace of God, but he's also a picture of every vessel of
God's mercy before the Lord calls him out of darkness. Now, I want
us to notice in Elijah being a picture, he is a vessel of
God's mercy, this is the type, before God calls him out of darkness. Notice first, Elijah's attitude. Well, look where the Lord found
him. It says that he went, verse 4,
1 Kings 19.4, a day's journey into the wilderness, and came
and sat down under a juniper tree. Where is he? Well, he's like all of us by
nature. We're all in the wilderness of this world. The wilderness
of sin, the wilderness of barrenness, the wilderness of lack, the wilderness
of separation from God. Where is He? God found Him where
He was. And notice, when the Lord found
Him, notice His attitude that He had. Look at verse 5, 1 Kings
19. It says, as he lay and slept
under a juniper tree. Man by nature is not only just
sleeping as we know sleep to be, but he's dead in trespasses
and sins. You know, you get into a deep
sleep, you are oblivious to what's going on. You go to sleep and,
you know, eight hours of sleep, would seem like nothing. If you're
completely asleep, all of a sudden you're awake. But that duration,
you didn't know anything. You were just asleep. And here he was, he's lay and
slept under a juniper tree. A picture of a man in the wilderness,
oblivious. He wasn't looking for God. No
man is. No man seeketh after God. This prophet, who now is a picture
of an unregenerate, but he's a vessel of God's mercy and affection,
and God Almighty comes to him. And the Lord comes to him in
the way of an angel. That's what Scripture says. He
was asleep, a picture of a man dead and trespassing sins, He's
there oblivious to what's going on. He can't hear. He can't come. He can't do anything. And the Lord must come to him.
And the Scripture says in verse 5, here's the first indication
of God's mercy. Verse 5 says, And behold, then
an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. This angel is a fit picture and
type of all of God's preachers. Whenever the scripture says,
whenever in the book of Revelation chapter 1, whenever John was
on the Isle of Patmos, and he beheld in this vision on the
Isle of Patmos, Revelation 1, and he saw, he beheld the Lord
Jesus Christ manifesting Himself to him. And the Scripture says
he saw in his hand there were seven golden candlesticks and
seven stars. And then the revelation of what
he had in his hand is found in verse 20. The mystery of the
seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand. The seven golden
candlesticks, the seven stars are the angels of the seven pastors. The preachers, the pastors. They're
messengers. That's what an angel is. A messenger. A messenger. And the seven candlesticks
which I saw are the seven churches. So here's what happened. A messenger
comes. Now I don't know what this messenger
was. It was an angel. It says that. It was a messenger. And the scripture
says this angel in verse 5 told him to do the right thing. He told him. He said, arise. and eat. Now let me just ask
you something. You can speak for yourself in
your own heart and you can answer this for yourself. How long did
you hear the gospel? You had to have heard the gospel
to believe. But how long did you hear the gospel before you
heard the gospel? You had heard it before. I think
of this scripture right here, Acts 17. I'll just read this
for you. Acts chapter 17, verse 30 and
31. The scripture declares Paul preaching. He'd gone to a place called Athens. He was preaching at Mars Hill,
that's where he was doing it. That's where he went to all of
those monuments, you know, this God, this God. He went to the
unknown God. And Paul says, that's the God that you ignorantly worship. And he said, this is the God
I'm going to declare unto you. And then he said in verse 30
and 31, concerning the God that they ignorantly worship, the
true and living God. He said, the times of this ignorance
God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. All men, Jew, Gentile, male,
female, bond-free, all men to repent because He's appointed
a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom He hath ordained, whereof He hath given assurance
unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead. Now,
Paul was telling this group of philosophers, those that were
ignorantly worshiping God, he said, I'm telling you, God commands
all men. Now, how many are commanded to
repent? Everybody. Everybody. Because, he said, God is going
to judge all men by that man, Christ Jesus, in absolute righteousness. So, when men say, well, the Lord
never told me, that I was to repent. Yes he has. When he preaches
the gospel through his ministers, preachers. God said you go into
all the world and you preach the gospel to every creature. You tell everybody God has commanded
all men to repent. Well what happens whenever a
preacher, an angel, a messenger, a minister of the gospel comes
and preaches to men and women as they hear the gospel. What
happens? Well, the same thing that happened
right here. Look at Scripture. It says in verse 6 that this
angel in verse 5 had told him, he said, Arise and eat. And he
looked, verse 6, and behold, there was a cake baking on the
coals, and a cruise, a bottle of water at his head, And he
did eat and drink and laid him down again. Now, is that not
a beautiful picture of man's absolute ignorance and rebellion
against God? How many times, not only did
we do the same thing if we believe now, but do men and women do
even now when they hear the gospel God has commanded all men to
repent, think differently, is what he's saying, on how God
justifies a sinner by the Lord Jesus Christ. Think differently,
that's what repent means, think differently. What Elijah did
as a picture of an unregenerate, he saw the cake. Man, stand up
and preach the gospel, the bread of heaven, The Lord Jesus Christ
said, eat of him, drink of the water of life. And man by nature
says, okay, okay. Yeah, I mean, that sounds good
to me. And when he's done, he just lays
back down again and goes right back to the same action that
he had before, which was nothing. You remember when The Lord Jesus
was preaching to a group of followers in John 6, and He told them that
He was the bread that came down from heaven. That's what He told
them in John 6, 58. He told them, by eating of this
bread, by faith, by a man eating by faith his flesh, and that
is his life, his obedience, his faithfulness by faith, eating
of His flesh and drinking of His blood. That means by faith,
believing that when He died, He died for me. He said by eating
and drinking, He said a man is going to live forever. But He
told them, He told them that He was the bread of heaven. He
told them that there was some among their group, He said, that
didn't believe and that would betray Him, would leave Him. and that they were totally incapable
of coming unto Him for life except the Father which had sent Him
draw them. And when those that believed
not heard that, the Scripture says, from that time they went
back and walked no more with Him. They were satisfied to follow
Christ in the sense that He would feed them, He had done miracles,
he had provided for them, raised the dead, healed the lame, gave
sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf. And Elijah, as a picture
of a man unregenerate, did that very thing. He ate of it, but
not by faith. It was no more than a stony ground
hearer that heard it for a few minutes, you know, sprang up
quickly and rejoiced, but when the heat of persecution came,
he withered, because there was no root there. And this is what
Elijah did. Oh, but when God comes to that
same vessel of His mercy in the power of His Holy Spirit, There
is a difference in that man's reaction. Notice in verse 5,
As he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, an angel touched
him. And in verse 7 it says, And the
angel of the Lord came again the second time and touched him,
and said, Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for
thee. Now, you know, it could have been the same exact angel. that came to him. But I'll tell
you what the difference was. Whether it was a minister, in
the case of Elijah, I would say it was an angel, a created being. But the difference was when either
that created angel or the uncreated angel himself came. How many
times did the Lord himself speak to the people? And His speech
to them didn't go forth with God's quickening grace. They
heard Him. Pharisees heard Him. Many people
heard Him preach. And it had no effect on them.
Why? And that was even the Word of the Lord speaking. But whenever
God's pleased to speak to one of His own, and whether this
was a created or the uncreated angel himself or something, this
time, when this word came in power. He says, the angel of
the Lord came again the second time and touched him and said,
arise and eat. And whenever he heard that, it
was just like when the Lord spoke to Matthew in the day that the
Lord called him from his table of customs, his tax collectors. And the Lord spoke to him. He
said, follow me. And when he said, follow me, he got up and
whenever the angel, the angel of the Lord came the second time
and spoke to Elijah in power, there irresistible grace and
mercy was bestowed. came in the constraining grace
of God that a man cannot and will not resist. When the Lord
gives new eyes and a new heart and new ears of faith, now that
sinner now beholds the Lord Jesus Christ as God's Lamb, as God's
Savior. And the Scripture says that whenever
he heard that, verse 8, he arose and he did eat. and drink. He didn't just go back to sleep.
He went in the strength of that meat 40 days and 40 nights unto
Horeb, the mount of God. Now there's a wonderful phrase
there. I won't go into the depth of
it. I may take that 40 days and 40 nights and preach a message
on it and the significance of it, but I can tell you that the
word, the number 40, is a word that always speaks in Scripture,
when it speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ. It speaks of His testing,
His proving, His manifestation, the proving by God, this is the
Christ. Forty days and forty nights,
God made it rain 40 days and 40 nights upon the earth. Now
it was judgment to those outside the ark. But the glory of that
40 days and 40 nights of rain was when that rain fell upon
the ark. And Noah, his wife, his sons,
their wives, those animals, everything within that ark, the glory of
it raining for 40 days and 40 nights was that it proved the
sufficiency and the safety of those that were in the ark, in
Christ. That 40 days and 40 nights proved
God's sufficiency to keep them on. Whenever the Lord called
Moses up to receive the commandments, the 10 commandments, Moses really
went up. Scripture says that he fasted
40 days and 40 nights before the Lord gave him the Ten Commandments
on two tablets. And that 40 days and 40 nights
of fasting set forth the absolute obedience, the giving of himself,
the submission of the Lord Jesus Christ, to receive at the hand
of God the law. And he received it unto himself
and in willing submission to obey it in the stead of his people. 40 days and 40 nights, Moses
as a type of Christ submitted himself unto God. Whenever the
Lord Jesus Christ was to be tempted of the devil, He fasted 40 days
and 40 nights. He is the suffering servant.
He who was proven, tested in the wilderness, submitting himself
unto the Father and then going and being tempted of the devil
and proved himself, God proved him to be the holy, harmless,
undefiled Savior of His people. He did not succumb. to the devil. Everyone that has ever dealt
with Satan, tempted of Satan, succumbs to the temptations of
Satan, but one, the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, in Him, He said,
which of you convinces me of sin? Which of you can find sin
in me? He is the Holy Savior of His
people. 40 days, 40 nights. 40 days,
40 nights. And here's Elijah going now. He's going to go 40 days and
40 nights on a journey. That 40 days and 40 nights sets
forth the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ to sustain and keep His
people All the journey. The Lord told Elijah in verse
7. He said, Arise and eat because
the journey is too great for thee. Let me ask you this. The
journey of our life in this wilderness that we're in right now. We're
in the world, not of the world. But in this world right now,
who's sufficient for these things? Who's sufficient? The journey
is too great for us. What do we need? He told Elijah,
he said, you take that cake, and you take that cruise of water,
that cake that sent forth Christ to be the bread of heaven. You
drink that water, Christ who is the water of life. And you
eat that cake, and you drink that water. And he said, arise,
because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, verse
8, and did eat and drink and went in the strength of that
meat. He went in the strength of that
meat. He didn't go in the strength of Himself. Why? The journey
is too great for Him. He went in the strength of that
meat 40 days and 40 nights all the way to the mountain of God. All the place that He was to
end up beholding the glorious person of the Lord God Himself.
Now this picture in closing sets forth that God's dealing with
His people in their unregenerate state is always the same. They must hear the gospel. But unless they hear the gospel
in power, I heard Brother Henry, I've said this many times, he
said, I got a set of notes, and he said, I know they're consistent
with the scriptures, but if I preach these notes, if I preach the
gospel from this set of notes, and the Spirit of God doesn't
bless them in power, they're just words. They're just words.
Man will just hear them, and he'll just fall back asleep.
But, if God sends the Spirit of God, and they hear, they hear
with a new heart, in regenerating grace, God Almighty makes them
willing in the day of His power, then they follow. Then they behold
the Lord, as the only strength, the only sustainer that will
keep them from falling. He's able to keep us from falling. How does He keep us? By power!
We're kept by the power of God through faith. And that believer
knows that God must sustain him, and he puts no confidence in
himself. Because this journey is too great
for me. Oh, the beauty! of beholding the indescribable
mercy of God, to come to a vessel of His mercy, a vessel that in
Himself, just like anybody else, no different whatsoever, when
God comes to Him and speaks in power, that man, that woman hears
in their heart, they arise, they eat by faith of Christ, His flesh,
His blood, and they follow. That's what the Lord said. He
said, Hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life and they shall never perish. I pray that God bless this to
our hearts for Christ's sake, amen.