Well, it's a delight to be here
to see y'all. I haven't seen you
in a while. Lindsay asked me if I was going
to take off my coat, and I said, yeah, I'm going to take off my coat. I was driving up here this morning, saw the building, and I thought
of Don. And the first time I saw him
preach, I was in my 20s then, and he was younger than me by
about four years. Say, well, you remember that
white suit? Here was this great big strapping
fellow wearing a white suit. I never will forget that. Preaching
at Rosemont Baptist Church in Winston-Salem. Herbert Wilson
was the pastor then. Long time ago. And there was
a time that I was in this pulpit, I think it was, and I'd turned
40 or so and my eyesight was going, but I didn't want to wear
glasses yet, so I bought some of those little cheap granny
glasses. And so to read the text, I put on my glasses and Don about
fell off the pew. He had that huge cackle of his. And there was a time that He
was playing golf in Cherokee, and I don't know who was driving
the golf cart, but Don flew through mid-air, broke his arm up here.
And I told him, I said, I can get somebody else to preach for
you. He said, no, I'm gonna preach. He was in awful pain. But he
preached anyway, did a good job. He always did a good job when
he preached. He was a dear buddy. And we had
a lot of great times worshiping together. just being goofy kids
from Winston-Salem. He was a wonderful friend, well-missed. But as you can see by the color
of my red hair, it's red no longer. It won't be long before we'll
be reunited. Won't be long. 1 Kings chapter 19. I appreciate Lindsey reading
the text, so I don't have to read it. But one of the beautiful things
about the Bible is that though sin is never excused
because there's no excuse for sin, it is always honestly accounted
for and faithfully recorded in Scripture. There is a notion in religion
that once a person accepts the precepts of religion and puts
them into practice that he becomes endued with a kind of power to
overcome sin and has willpower to keep himself from fear and
temptation. Well, that's not true, but it's
a common belief. I was thinking of a story of
Wayne Robinson many years ago when he was one of the many times
when he was almost saved in those tent meetings out in backwoods
in North Carolina in the mountains. They have those tent meetings
a lot. He thought he got saved, but this was during the 60s,
and the girls were wearing miniskirts, and Wayne was having difficulty.
And so he went to see a preacher, and he said, you know, I don't
know what's going on. He said, I know I'm supposed
to be saved, he said, but all these girls are wearing these
miniskirts. I'm having problems with that. And that preacher
says, well, if you ever get saved, you won't have a problem with
it. Amazing how people lie, isn't
it? Sin is honestly reported in the
Word of God. And every one of the sinners
reported are saints. Almost all of them, anyway. Anyone who knows Christ also
knows that such thoughts that you can overcome sin are disgusting
and diabolically delusional. No one can doubt the authenticity
of Elijah as exemplary of a prophet that served the one true God.
This man prayed and the Lord shut up the heavens for three
and a half years. So great was that event, our Lord used it
to teach electing grace in Luke chapter four in his first message
back home. Many widows were in the days
of Elijah when he shut up the heaven for three and a half years.
At the end of that period, he threw down the gauntlet and challenged
the Ersat prophets of Baal in chapter 18 of this passage to
prove and to show once and for all that their granite-hewn God
wasn't God at all. And when the true and living
God made himself known with fire from heaven, Elijah sliced and
diced over 450 silly soothsayers who were all on Jezebel's payroll.
There could be no question of Elijah's boldness before God
and men. He was a bold character. And
now in this chapter we find this magnificent warrior, tail tucked
between his legs, fleeing for his life because this crazy female
named Jezebel has gone postal on him and he's scared to death. He is saying he'd rather be dead
than face that scorned wench. He did not speak in heavenly
terms of departing as Paul did, to be with the Lord, but rather
he begged to be relieved and released from his troubles and
fears. James was true when he said of
Elijah, he was a man subject to like passions as we are. He was not special. He was not an example of a transformed
or rehabilitated or reformed humanity. He was real and genuine
and subject to the fears and frailties that attend the human
creature. This is not an anomaly in the
life of the child of God. Great courage may be shown in
a moment. And a moment later, the same
courage can turn to fear and trembling. We have but to consider Simon
Peter denying the Lord three times just hours after he had
proclaimed his unshakeable allegiance to Christ. And yet again, when
he folded like a cheap wallet before the Judaizers at Antioch
and absented himself from the fellowship of those saved by
grace to align himself with the circumcision, Scripture's true,
it says, take heed lest when you think you stand, you fall. As in every case, we must remember
the overriding scheme of this whole thing is divine providence. Wondrous thing that providence. Shelby and I were talking about
this just a little while ago, providence. Most of the time doesn't feel
good. But all of the time it is good. Providence. My dad died. My mom didn't have a way to ride
to church. Her neck was stiff. She'd given
up her driver's license. She couldn't look over her back
to see what was behind her. So she asked my little brother,
who didn't go to church. Now he's heard the gospel since
he was a tot. Would you take me to church? And he said, yeah,
Mom, I'll take you to church. And him and his wife started
taking her to church. And the Lord did something for
him. We were standing outside by Dad's Buick one night, and
I said, Myron, I said, if God had asked you, would it be all
right to kill your daddy to get you under the gospel? Would you
have said yes? He said, probably not. I said,
that's why he didn't ask you. Providence. Behind all this is
providence, this thing with Elijah here. In every case, we must
remember that Elijah's steadfastness served to glorify the grace of
God, and his timidity and fear will serve to glorify God. The steps of Elijah are not haphazard. He was reacting as a frail human
being, but every aspect of his story was to glorify the grace
that sustained him on the mountaintop, and the same grace that sustained
him in the valley of despair. It was grace that sustained him
when he faced seemingly insurmountable odds against the organized and
well-oiled machine of Baal's horde, and it was grace that
sustained him with sustenance and direction in the hour of
his greatest distress. On Carmel or on Horeb, Elijah
could accomplish nothing of himself. In both cases, he was shut up
to the grace of God to keep him and sustain him. And so it is
with every one of us today. This account is about the gospel,
you see, as all things in scripture are. And it's a sure success
that the gospel will have in a world gone haywire. and haywire
with religion. God has never and will never
leave himself without a witness nor will he ever forsake his
elect. Till time ends there will be men who will be declared in
the gospel and there will be a church to hear and receive
the message. Anyone who names the name of Christ whether they
know him or not finds themselves under attack from individuals
as well as global governmental consensus. The account before
us assures us that there is nothing new under the sun. We were talking
about this last night. It's just, we have those things,
those things in our pocket books, in our pockets that tell us what
happened 15 seconds ago in Saudi Arabia, for heaven's sake. Well-reported, but same stuff. Same stuff going on. This is the course laid out for
the gospel and will continue until the Lord returns and reveals
the global consensus is but kindling for the fiery pit and the fear
often struck in the hearts of believers but a way to bolster
the confidence of the infidel until God lays the axe to the
root and kicks out the stops and the entire vainglorious mausoleum
tumbles to the earth in ruin when our Lord returns. Jezebel's
threat. I don't know whether you ever
had a woman mad at you, but it's not a pleasant experience. Any
man says it is, is lying to you. We're tough, we're strong. We
grew up fighting. Me and Donna grew up on the south
side of Winston-Salem, and the only way you got somebody to
listen to you was to beat them up. And that's the truth. And
whoever could beat you up, you served, and whoever you could
beat up, served you, and that's the way it went. We're fighting,
but I tell you, a woman gets mad at us and we're just putty.
It's true. I'd rather face an army of hellions
than have her be mad at me, or any other woman for that matter. Jezebel threatened. How sincere
her threat was, I don't know, but I know she wanted to kill
Elijah. Though God will in time grant Elijah's request and take
him to glory in a flame of fire, there is much left for Elijah. Many steps ahead for Elijah before
he finishes his code. He has some things to learn and
some things to teach us. And he has a young prophet to
train that will someday take his mantle and do great things. Sovereign providence will bring
all these things to their appointed end. Elijah, after asking for
death and taking refuge under a juniper tree, is fed twice
by an angel. This is done to give him strength
for a journey that he didn't even want to take. He's going
to Horeb. He's going to Sinai. He will be supernaturally sustained
for forty days and forty nights until he's brought to see things
as they are and as they will be. The specific number of days
is used to reveal that this was a time of trial, a trial of faith,
a testing and a revelation. The flood was 40 days and 40
nights. Moses on the mount receiving
the law was 40 days and 40 nights. Our Lord tempted by Satan was
40 days and 40 nights. The trial of faith will make
faith to be revealed more precious than gold. after the patience
has made her perfect work. That this takes place on Sinai,
this wind and this earthquake and this still small voice. That it takes place on Sinai
is no coincidence. This entire episode has something
to teach us about the law and about grace. On Sinai, where
Elijah had taken refuge in a cave, still desiring to end it all
and be released from his troubles and cowering under the threat
of Jezebel, he hears the word of the Lord. The Lord said, what
are you doing here? Why are you here? Now, if Elijah
had given the answer, was really in his heart, he wouldn't even
have talked about being jealous for God's glory. He said, I just
want to die. But he did talk about being jealous for God's
glory. The Lord's question to Elijah, he knew the answer. Elijah didn't know the answer,
yet. But the question is to bring
Elijah to confession to face the truth. For Elijah, he is
out there out of fear and believing that he's the only servant left
in God's earth. Even though he stood stalwartly
against the prophets of Baal, he's the only one left. You ever
felt like that? I tell you, I get a lot of calls
from people. People out in the middle of nowhere. Got a call
from a lady that lived in New Hampshire, and she says, is there
any grace work anywhere where I live? And I looked and looked
and looked, and I found one about 200 miles from her. But she was old. She couldn't
travel. She said, I feel all alone out here. I feel like I'm
the only one that believes anything. You ever felt that way? I think
every believer in the grace of God has had a little bit of that
in their life. He said, I'm the only one left.
I'm the only one. Now this may seem to some degree
like a little bit of a pity party, but unless you've been in the
midst of a bunch of religious nuts ready and willing to put
you out of business, unless you've experienced the difficulty of
raising the banner of Christ when you're the only one in the
room who believes the truth. Don't be too hard on old Elijah.
Verses 11 through 13 tell us the lesson that Elijah is to
be taught. And he said, go forth, stand
upon the mount before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by
in a great and strong wind, rent the mountain and break it in
pieces and rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind.
And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire a still small voice. The first lesson learned
is that wrath and judgment and punishment do not affect the
heart. They affect the flesh, but they
don't affect the heart. They didn't effect Jezebel. She saw some serious business
from God in judgment. She saw fire come down from heaven.
She saw her whole religious outfit destroyed, destroyed. She had been dealt a heart and
devastating blow. Her God had been revealed to
be ineffectual, powerless, feckless, and a pitiful laughingstock.
The true God had manifested Himself in power and brought her paid
for profits. They're decimated carcasses now.
Her response is what? Thou art God, I will worship
you. Her response was, I'm gonna kill
your prophet. I'm gonna kill your prophet. Judgment didn't
do a thing for her. Now, the Lord said that about
His own people. He says, if I punish them more and more, they'll just
rebel more and more. The gospel is not about judgment
of you. The gospel is about judgment
of Christ when He made Himself an offering for sin. He was judged. Judgment only made her angry.
Secondly, Sinai is no place to hide. It's no place to hide. The law is never, never will
be a place of comfort. The poet said, I cannot go to
the law, nor hope, nor comfort from it. The old psalm said,
that mountain said with a frowning face, this mountain is no hiding
place. Thirdly, Elijah could not be
about the business of God while on Sinai, and neither can you. The gospel doesn't operate on
the mountain of the law. So at the end of this account,
Elijah is sent away from Sinai. And finally, while hiding in
fear and having given up all hope, God reveals the gospel,
the best place to be. for any of us as we live in this
world is at the end of our rope it's the best place for us to
be because I know this about us if we're not at the end of
the rope we'll come up with all kinds of ways to do things ourselves
and look to ourselves but if we have no hope we'll be like
Jeremiah and Lamentations. When I remembered this, I had
hope. What did he remember? God's mercy
is new every day. Everything else had fallen apart
for him. The Lord told Elijah to go to the mouth of the cave.
He showed him three things, a tornado, an earthquake, and a fire. These
three elements bring about great destruction. He said the wind
blew down the mountains and split the rocks wide open. The earthquake
and the fire After showing these three phenomena, each ends with
the declaration that the Lord was not in any of them. He was in that fire in chapter
18, wasn?t He? He sent the fire down to lick up all those elements.
He said He wasn?t in any of them. And we know that the Word of
God, that He uses these things, these elements, to reveal Himself.
Just prior to this, the Lord let it be known that He was God,
and He was God by sending fire to consume the sacrifice. What
does it mean when the Lord was not in the wind, and not in the
earthquake, and not in the fire? It has to do with the capacity
or in what character the Lord reveals Himself. The elements
are generally employed to represent God of justice, the God of justice
and the God of judgment, but are not a full revelation of
who God is. For they don't deal with His mercy and with His grace.
They don't deal with what glorifies Him. What glorifies God? One
thing glorifies God, that is the salvation of the elect by
the substitution or death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That glorifies
God. That's clearly stated in Scripture.
When Moses said, show me your glory, he said four things. He
said, I'll make my goodness pass before you. I'll proclaim the
name of the Lord before you. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion.
I'll be gracious unto whom I will be gracious. That glorifies God. And you're not going to find
that in a whirlwind. You're not going to find that in an earthquake.
You're not going to find that in a fire of destruction. Where
are you going to find that? There's just one place to find
it. You've been privileged to sit under a man for so many years
who just kept on hammering it home every time he got in his
pulpit. You know, that's true. He'd screw
himself down in this thing and away he'd go. It was always the
same message over and over and over again. It's the gospel alone
is the thing we have in this world, in this hour, in this
moment to glorify God. To glorify God. It is that which
most honors Him. He is seen in mercy and grace.
He is said not to be in the wind and the earthquake and the fire
because he does not reveal himself in judgment to his elect. No, it's a whole different story.
The gospel is good news, that there is no wrath against the
elect, rather only the expression and exhibition and execution
of mercy and grace revealed entirely in the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I love the gospel. I love to
preach it because it speaks to life. You know that? Gospel doesn't
speak to death. Now we know, Paul said, we preach
the gospel to dead men. We do. But it doesn't speak to
death. Doesn't speak to death. What
is the language of the gospel? Thirst. Dead people aren't thirsty. But if you're alive, you understand.
And that's something you can grasp. God uses that element
of the flesh to teach us something about the spirit. You know what
it is to thirst, but I don't know if you're thirsty. People
say, well, everybody needs Christ. Ask them. Everybody don't need
him, but the ones who need him have him, I'll guarantee you
that. Hunger, do you know what it is to be hungry? I'm told
that after I leave here today, I'm going to sit down to a feast
of lasagna. Okay. Because I'm already a little
hungry. Now, if I hadn't have said that,
you wouldn't have known I was hungry. Would you? The gospel says come. Come. You know you can't come. You're
dead and trespassing. How can you come? But the gospel
speaks to that. Come. Believe. Trust these things
that only speak to life. This is good news. This is the
golden spiel. This is the gospel. The good
tidings of good things. This is that still small voice
that came after the thunder and after the lightning and after
the wind. It was the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord
says, comfort ye my people. Speak to their heart. And the whirlwinds and the earthquakes
and the fires, they don't afford comfort. They make you afraid. Gospel ain't gonna make you afraid.
Then came this still, small voice. And know through chronology,
after the wind, after the quake, after the fire, then comes the
small voice. The gospel comes to the lake after the judgment
and after the justice has been executed on the substitute. But the gospel does not come
in a noisy, earth-shaking manner. Many years ago, a dear friend
of mine, many of you knew him, Henry Husky, he sort of slipped
in on a Wednesday night. One Wednesday night to hear me
preach, because several of his family members were members of
the church. And afterward, he told his sister, he says, well,
he's a good teacher, but he ain't much of a preacher. And what
that meant was that what he'd been used to was somebody would
get up and holler and carry on for about two or three hours,
screaming and hollering. He thought that was what preaching
was. Well, he came, kept coming, and pretty soon started showing
up on Sunday morning, and he started showing up on Sunday
night, and a couple years later, I baptized him. He confessed
the Lord, listening to the teacher, who wasn't some loud preacher. Still small voice, that's the
way the gospel comes. Are you thirsty? Any man thirsty? Drink. Are you hungry? Eat. Can you believe? Do so. With the command comes the permission. Are you thirsty? Our Lord said, my sheep hear
my voice. Hearing, dead people don't hear. Dead people don't
see. My sheep hear my voice, and they
follow me, and I give unto them eternal life. When Elijah heard
the voice, he covered his face, covered his face, put his mantle
around his face. Everywhere in the scriptures, this is done
to clothe the eyes from seeing God's glory, because it's too
great for us to see. Lord, show me your glory. Well, I'm gonna
put you in the rock. I'm gonna put my hand over your eyes so
you can see my hinder parts. You can't see what I am doing. That's what that means. That's
what that means. We can't see what God's doing
right now. He may be doing something in
here we don't even know about. Now, if I was back in my old
religion and I saw you have a sour look on your face, I might say,
well, God's doing something for that person. But I don't know. I don't know whether he is or
not. But I know this, the gospel's never heard with impunity, I
know that. It'll do something to you whether I see it or not.
And I'm not looking for results. It's not my end of the business. The gospel will show you God's glory and
you'll cover your eyes. Too great. When Elijah was sent
off to Sinai and went to anoint these two kings in Syria and
Israel, that was to assure Elijah that Ahab and Jezebel's days
were numbered. Go anoint another king in Israel
and another king in... Wait a minute. How about Ahab? What about Jezebel? Their days
are done. Don't worry about them. You go out there and preach.
Go out there and do what you're supposed to do. Elijah need not
fear for his life anymore. because a new king was going
to take the place. Finally, in grace, the Lord showed Elijah
that though he seemed to be alone and all the world was against
him, God said, there's 7,000 out there. I have 7,000 who have
not bowed their knee to Baal. How come I know that this thing's
not over? Because we're still here. We still got the gospel. There's some of God's sheep out
there. Where are they? I have no idea. Will I see them? I don't know whether I will or
not. And I know this, that what I have to say and what you have
to say when you talk to folks about Christ speaks to life. And you never know. God gives
life. You'll find out about it. I think
it was Oral F. Barnard used to say, Christ is
in you, he'll leak out on you. He'll leak out on you. I appreciate
the opportunity to preach to you. It's been a blessing to
see your faces. God bless you, brother.