If you would turn with me to
the Old Testament book of 1 Kings chapter 18. 1 Kings chapter 18. While you're turning, let me
say in way of introduction that we have before us the story of
when the children of Israel gathered at the foot of Mount Carmel and
Elijah. The solitary prophet of God came
forth to defy the 450 priests of a false little G God by the
name of Baal. There are four groups of people
found in this story, and they represent, for the most part,
four groups that still exist today. First, ever since sin
has come into the world, There have always been those who want
nothing to do with God. They want nothing to do with
God's Son. They are their own God, and they
live only to serve themselves. And then secondly in our story,
represented by Elijah, we find a single-minded, devoted, true
child of God. There are some of you here this
morning that have a true love for God, a true love for Christ. You're thankful for His redeeming
grace. You're grateful for His pardon
of sin. And out of love for Christ, you're
a devoted servant to Him and His cause. Then thirdly, we have
the 450 false prophets of Baal. There are many in our day who
have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. There are many in our day who
have a zeal for God, but it's not according to knowledge. Actually,
in most cases, it's nothing more than a zeal for religion. And then the fourth group, And
the majority of folks in our story belong to this fourth class
of people. They were a people who had not
fully committed to worship Jehovah. They also worshipped Baal, the
god of Jezebel. And the majority of these people
were half-hearted. lukewarm followers who served
both God and Mammon. Now in 1 Kings 18, verse 21,
Elijah the prophet makes this statement to all who would hear
him that day. How long halt ye between two
opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him.
And the people answered him not a word. It seems from reading
this chapter that pretty much all of Israel was halting between
two opinions. There are many today that are
still halting between two opinions. And you might find it interesting
to know that the Hebrew word for halt in verse 21 means to
limp. I thought that's very appropriate.
They were limping between two opinions, like Mephibosheth. You and I, by nature, due to
a great fall, are lame on both of our feet. Before Christ reveals
Himself to us, we just limp around, don't we? limp around between
divided opinions of who Christ is and what he's done for sinners.
And no man, no woman, no sinner can walk with any confidence
and assurance if they're limping between two opinions. So how
do you know if you're not halting between two opinions? Well, let
me ask you some questions. Are sinners saved by grace through
faith in Christ and by the work of His perfect righteousness?
Or are they saved by works of self-righteousness by something
that they do by their own self-serving hands? These are two opinions. Both can't be right. Just can't
be. Many are halting between trusting
and serving God Almighty and His Son, Jesus Christ, while
others are limping along, serving self in a self-consumed world. And I have to ask, how about
you? These are two opinions that are opposed to one another. Both
simply cannot be true. You can't do both. Do you believe
that you're saved by a decision that you made? You'd be amazed
how many folks believe that. Do you believe that by your free
will that you exercise that God has saved you? Or do you consider
yourself saved by the power and purpose of God? Not by a decision
that you made, a choice that you made, but by a sovereign
decision and choice that God made to save you before the world
began. These are two opinions. You cannot believe both. And
there can only, common sense should tell us, that there can
only be one true sovereign. If there are two, then neither
are supreme. And in order to be redeemed, we've got to have
the right thoughts of God. But the truth is never changed
by our opinions. Now, in order to be redeemed,
our thoughts, our beliefs, and our opinions of God must be according
to truth. Why? Because they that worship
God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. There are still
these four classes of people found in the world today, like
those on Mount Carmel. First, there are those who make
no profession of faith in God or in Christ. They have no interest
in God or the things of Christ. They're without Christ, having
no hope, and without God in this world. Then there are those who
are on Jehovah's side. They follow Him. They love Him. He's their everything. And then
there are those who trust in an ideal of God, but have believed
a lie that they can somehow, themselves, by doing something,
appease God. You can't do it. You cannot do
it. And then fourthly, there are
those who belong to the fourth class, men and women who are
wavering, double-minded, and undecided. To those of you that
fall into that category, I ask you this morning the same question
that Elijah asked. How long will you halt? How long will you limp between
two opinions? Now the actual word translated
opinion in this verse means divided in mind. If you have a marginal
Bible, you may notice that the word opinions here could have
just as well been translated as thoughts. So the real question
is, how long will you halt, how long will you limp between two
divided thoughts? How long will you be divided
in your mind? I think about what James said.
He said a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. And
then James said, draw nigh to God, and He'll draw nigh to you.
Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. And I have, I think, four points
to give you, and I'll try to give them to you as briefly and
quickly as I can. But I want you to think about
these things. I would have you to first notice the distinction
between these two opinions. There's a division, there's a
distinction between these two thoughts. What are they? The
worship of God and the worship of Baal. Now, the gospel, when
preached, actually demands a verdict. Elijah's message did. He said,
if the Lord be God, follow Him. But if Baal, then follow him.
There's but one God, dear friends. And to those of you that have
heard the gospel, it is written, unto thee it was shown, made
manifest, revealed, that you might know the Lord, He is God. There is none else beside Him. And you cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve God and mammon. The Lord Jesus told us that very
plainly. And you cannot be of two different
opinions on who Christ is and what He's done for His elect.
Well, we preach Christ in Him crucified. What does that mean?
Well, a lot of folks don't know. But it means that we preach Jesus
Christ as God. And we preach that only He, the
God-Man, could pay the debt of sin for His elect. We said this
in the first hour and we say it often, and I don't mind saying
it again, God cannot die, man cannot satisfy, but Christ the
God-man did both. And that is our only hope of
being redeemed. No redemption apart from that.
Now did you notice the last part of verse 21? It says, and the
people answered him not a word. Folks who are straddling this
fence of trying to serve both God and mammon, they don't like
to talk about it. Usually they'll get upset. They'll
accuse you of judging them. They'll accuse you of pressuring
them. To those of you who are halting, I'm asking you this
same question that Elijah asked, because I love you. I care about
you. I want you to know Christ. I
want you to be saved. I want you to have eternal life. I want your sins to be forgiven. I remember so well Brother Mahan
giving me advice as a young preacher years ago. I'll never forget
it. He told me, he said, preach for
a verdict. I'm not sure I understood what he meant at that time, but
I do now. You see, gospel preaching is
not just throwing some ideas and doctrines out for men to
pick and choose. The gospel asks for a verdict.
Let me give you an example. What think ye of Christ? Whose
son is he? The Gospel declares that men
and women are born in sin, born condemned, born dead in their
trespasses. What's your verdict on that?
What's your opinion of that? Do you believe that or do you
not? Do you take sides with God against yourself? Chosen sinners
must be born again in order to be reconciled to God. What's
your verdict on that? You've got to be born from above,
friends. You've got to be given life from God. God must speak
to our hearts, which are of our nature like the earth was in
Genesis 1, without form and void and full of darkness. And God
must command the light to shine out of darkness, to shine in
our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We were talking about it in the
men's meeting. I'm more consciously aware that
if God doesn't do a work of grace in a man or woman's heart, they'll
never be saved. This is an act of God's divine
revelation, divine intervention into the lives of a sinner. All
that God might interrupt Himself into your life and save you by
His grace. Yet, at the same time, sinners
are responsible to believe God's Word. When the called men of
God in the book of Acts preached the Gospel, they didn't say,
well, you ought to consider believing. They didn't say, you ought to
make a decision to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the right thing to do. They didn't say, if you want
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, Let go and let God, did
they? No, they simply said, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That sounds
like a command to me. There's also a great unspoken
word in that statement. What is it? If you don't believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will not be saved. But preacher,
you say all the time that no man can come to Christ, no man
can believe that he might have life unless and except the Lord
God drawing. You can't. You can't. Lazarus was stinking dead. Stinking dead. When the Lord
Jesus cried, Lazarus come forth. And Lazarus, he didn't have the
ability to come. He didn't have the will to come.
Why? Because he was dead. And that's
you and I. That's a picture of you and I.
We're dead in trespasses and sin by nature. But when the command
from Christ came, the power and the life and the ability and
the will to come came with the command. Now I want to be as
plain as I can. You are responsible to believe
the gospel. You're responsible to trust in
Christ. And some are always going to
say, well, if God is sovereign, if God saves whom He will, if
God has mercy on whom He will, if God has compassion on whom
He will, if God hardeneth whom He will, then why does He yet
find fault? For who hath resisted His will? And you know what? The answer
is always the same. Who art thou that replies against
God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the
potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel
unto honor and another unto dishonor? Why do so many who are faced
with the doctrine of election and the sovereign choosing of
God always look on those doctrines and teachings with a negative
view? When folks hear the doctrine of election and God's sovereignty
and saving a sinner, they naturally assume, I suppose, that since
they did not first choose God. And by the way, if you didn't
know that, let me tell you that. We love Him because He first
loved us. We choose Him only because He
chose us. Only because He gave us life.
And as I said a moment ago, gave us the power and the ability
to come with the command. But folks, they hear the doctrine
of election and they just automatically assume that they're vessels of
wrath fitted to destruction. But isn't mercy God not giving
us what we deserve? And isn't grace God giving us
what we don't deserve? I deserve wrath and condemnation. I don't deserve love and eternal
life. If I did, it wouldn't be grace.
God is a God of mercy and grace. So here's an interesting thought
for those of you who think that way. Maybe you're a vessel of
mercy. Maybe you're a vessel of mercy.
Have you ever thought about that? Well, God has crossed your path
with the gospel. That's a good sign, isn't it?
By the foolishness of preaching, God saves those that believe. You can't throw the responsibility
of believing or not believing back on God. The Lord Jesus said,
I tell you, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. It's a responsibility. There's
a consequence involved. The responsibility is on you.
And there's a great responsibility to believe and there's a great
consequence if you don't. Paul said in Romans chapter 14
verse 12, so then every one of us shall give an account of himself
to God. And those who refuse to bow to
Christ will give an account of their unbelief to God. How dreadful is the thought that
I would one day stand before God and God would ask me, why
did you refuse my beloved son? Perish the thought. Just because God is sovereign
does not mean that a sinner is not responsible for believing
the gospel. And I think sometime, We who
hold the doctrines of sovereign grace have an attitude of, well,
if God intends to save me, He'll save me. If I'm one of God's
elect, I'll be saved. That's a dangerous place to be.
We better be careful what we blame on God. He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the
Son shall not see life. But the wrath of God abideth
on him." That's something that those who preach universal redemption
don't tell you about. It's a serious consequence for
unbelief, the wrath of God. Secondly, I want to bring to
your attention that there's a time involved in this matter. Elijah
said, how long? How long? How long will you halt
between these matters and issues of life and death? And folks
will tell you that you can't put a time frame on when God
might save a sinner. You're right, I can't. But God
does. God does. I don't know where
folks get the idea that God has nothing better to do than to
stand outside your heart's door and knock. Won't you please let
Him come in? Please, let me come in. Oh, I'm
telling you, I don't know where folks get such Ideas and he'll
knock on your heart for years until you decide to let go and
let God save you There's no scripture in the Bible that supports that
way of thinking the scripture says this now is the accepted
time Today is the day of salvation Boast not thyself of tomorrow. God doesn't command you to do
anything tomorrow Nothing tomorrow. He commands you to do it right
now God gives no one any assurance of tomorrow. The scripture is
very clear. The psalmist wrote, teach us
to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Psalm 90 verse 12. Now, I wish
that we had the time to go through this whole chapter. I would advise
you to read it sometime in your leisure. But in our story, it's
important to understand that not a drop of rain had fallen
for three and a half years. Israel's crops were parched. Their cattle were dying or dead. Three and a half years, no rain.
Their farmland had turned into a desert. The Lord sent this
famine. as He sends all families throughout
the Scriptures. And it was a sign of judgment. God had sent this trial. God
had caused this affliction. And shouldn't that reality, when
you think about it, shouldn't that reality make their halting
more ridiculous? They still wouldn't make up their
minds. And to those of you here this morning who, on one hand,
desire to serve the Lord, but you just have too much love for
this world and the things of it to fully commit to Christ,
I have to ask you, how long? How long? How long will you limp
along? Some of you have been churchgoers
for years. While some of you have wiped
many tears from your eyes when you heard the gospel of God's
sovereign grace. Many of you have heard numerous
sermons on the mercy and the grace of God found in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Over and over again, many of
you have heard how the Christ was made to be sin so that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And you've been
reminded time and time again that there's only one mediator
between God and man, and that's the man Christ Jesus. And you've
been taught that there's only one way that a sinner can be
justified and God remain just, and that's in Christ. And you've
heard time and time again, for years some of you, how salvation
does not come by a work of righteousness that you do, but by a work of
righteousness that Christ did for His elect. Some folks say,
well, I don't want to make a false profession. You won't. Not if
you truly desire to be saved. Because the same God that saved
you can keep you. Kept by the power of God. Don't
ever doubt God's ability to save and keep you. He's God. He's
God. Beside Him there is none else.
Peter said that the believer has an inheritance incorruptible,
undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for them who
are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
It's not our faithfulness that keeps us. See, if you believe
that, then you'll never have any hope or assurance. Because
we're unfaithful. Let's just be honest. It's Christ's faithfulness that
keeps us, that saves us and keeps us. And how absurd it is for
us to limp along this way. Thirdly, how do we know if we
have an undivided opinion, if we have undivided thoughts and
beliefs? Well, don't throw anything at me yet. We know by our actions. If God be God, follow Him. If Baal, then follow him. It is your actions that prove
your opinion and thoughts and beliefs to be true. Our actions
do not save us. I'm not saying that. But following
God certainly proves that we're trusting in him alone to save
and keep us. The action of coming to hear
the gospel faithfully will not save you. but the preaching of
the Gospel and having faith in Christ will. And you've got to
come and hear. You're following the Lord, supporting
the Gospel, faithfully serving the cause of Christ won't save
you, but it certainly proves that God has saved you. It's
strongly believed in our day that all opinions are right. I get so tired of that. anymore,
there's no right or wrong as long as you're thoroughly convinced
and fully believe that your thoughts and opinions and beliefs are
right. Do you feel good about being right? That's okay. We
live in a day where folks believe that there's no right or wrong
answers. Two plus two equals five. As
long as you feel good about it, no big deal. In this world, in
this day, there's no winning or losing. We don't keep score. Everybody gets a trophy. No wonder
people are halting between two opinions. There's no distinction
anymore between right and wrong. There's no distinction anymore
between winning and losing. Everybody knows God. Everybody
loves Jesus. Everybody's saved. Jesus loves
everybody. Well, that's the only way God
can be fair, they say. God's never claimed to be fair.
I can't find anywhere in this book where God claims to be fair. But I can find where He claims
to be holy. And He will not. He's just and
righteous and He will not and cannot by any means clear the
guilty. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. There are winners and losers.
Some win Christ and others don't. Some are made right or righteous
and others aren't. And if you believe that God be
God, I'm telling you, follow Him. Follow Him. Let your actions be consistent
with your opinion and your thoughts of God. If God be God, friends,
God is God. There is no other. You know,
God has a claim on you as creatures that He created. We belong to Him. We don't belong
to ourselves. We belong to Him. God has the
right to demand obedience and worship from you. He's the sovereign
creator. If you ever see that God be God,
you'll bow and obey. God's got to show you. And yet
you're responsible to believe it. So again, I must ask, how
long will you halt between to opinions. You know, if you're
between two divisions or opinions and thoughts, you're not on one side or the
other, are you? Well, something to think about. Between you and
God is a great gulf fixed so that you cannot pass. That gulf
has got to be bridged. There's only one mediator between. between God and men. There's
only one way that that gulf can be bridged. It's the appointed
mediator, the man Christ Jesus. Only one mediator between. And
He bridges that great gulf and gap between God and man. So,
how long will you halt between? If God be God, follow Him. But
if Baal, then follow him. And let me say this in closing,
I give a final appeal to you who are halting between two opinions. Some of you are still halting
and wavering. Some of you are still being double-minded. That day on Mount Carmel, the
prophet of God said to the people that the real God would answer
by fire. That's why I want you to read
this chapter. I wish we had the time to look at it. But look
at verse 24 here in Kings chapter 18. Elijah told the prophets of Baal,
and he said, and call ye on the name of your gods, little g,
God, and I'll call on the name of the Lord, capital L-O-R-D,
and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and
said, it's well spoken. That's a good idea. Let's do
that. You know the rest of the story. The false prophets of
Baal called upon Baal their god, but he didn't answer. Do you
know why he didn't answer? Because he's not real. He doesn't
exist. He's a false god. And Elijah mocked them in verse
27. And he said, maybe he's talking
to someone. Maybe he's on vacation. Maybe
he's asleep and you need to wake him up. Look at verse 28. And they cried aloud, and they
cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till
the blood gushed out upon them. These folks were zealous, but
it wasn't according to knowledge. They had a form of godliness,
but they denied the power. And it came to pass, verse 29,
when midday was passed, they prophesied until the time of
the offering of the evening sacrifice, and there was neither voice nor
any to answer, nor any that regarded. But when Elijah, when he offered
that sacrifice upon Mount Carmel, The fire of the Lord fell upon
that sacrifice and it consumed the burnt sacrifice, it consumed
the wood, it consumed the stones, it consumed the dust. It even
licked up the water that had been poured in that trench abundantly. He on purpose just kept pouring
water in that trench. And when all the people saw it,
they fell on their face and they said, He is God. They no longer halted between
two opinions. They said with one mind and heart,
the Lord, He is God. He's God. Friends, God still
answers by far. The Word of God says in Hebrews
10, verse 27, that with those who believe not, there will be
a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation
which shall devour all of Christ's adversaries." Are you an adversary
of Christ? I pray not. With those who trust
the Lord Jesus Christ, it will be quite a different outcome. Now listen to me on this. Give
me a minute. When the fire of God fell upon
Mount Calvary, something very different happened from that
which occurred on Mount Carmel. The outcome was much different
on Mount Calvary. when God the Son, the Holy Lamb
of God, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world,
when He was offered as the sacrifice for sin of His people, when the
holy wrath of God fell on our substitute, when the holy judgment
of God extracted payment for sin from Him, when the holy justice
of God sought satisfaction for all the sin of all the elect
throughout all time. The sacrifice was not consumed.
Just the opposite. The wrath, the judgment, and
the justice of God was consumed, and it was extinguished upon
the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the God-man offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, and God was satisfied. The wrath of God exalted itself
upon Christ. Christ said it's finished. That's
the same as saying God is satisfied. The Lord Jesus could have said
God is satisfied, it means the same thing as it's finished.
That's the Gospel. That's what all believers know
to be true. So my question to you is this. Do you believe the Gospel? It's
really not hard to distinguish between the two opinions. Oh,
may God give you the grace and faith to trust in Christ, lean
on Him, depend on Him, and thou shalt be saved.