Brady, thank you for that song.
That's great. Bless my heart. So good to see
all this morning. I am so tickled that the Lord
has sent you a pastor. You know, it's a miracle that
God would send people his message through frail men. We have this
treasure in an earthen vessel, that the excellency of the power
may be of God, and not of us. If you wouldn't, I want you to
turn back just for a moment there in Risicred in James chapter
five. You may say, why would he read
that passage? He talks about us being patient,
grudging on each other. And he says, look to the prophets, I can't
find the verse, as an example of patience and suffering. And then he mentions one man's
name. In verse 17, he mentions Elijah's
name. We know it's Elijah because of
what Elijah, God did to Elijah. I want you to see here, he was
a man subject to like passions as we are. He was a sinner, like
us. He was a frail man, like us. God used him in a mighty, mighty
way, but in his, we're gonna look at today, he became discouraged. He became depressed, he was cast
down, and he got out and got alone, but the Lord never left
him. He said he prayed earnestly.
Well, back in the last part of chapter 6, it says, the effectual
fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Now, we know
there's only one that's righteous, and that is Christ, but Elijah
was righteous in Christ. He was a man subject to like
passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain,
and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and
six months. He prayed it wouldn't rain. It
didn't rain. And you know when it rained?
When God told Elijah to pray. For three and a half years, he
never prayed that God send rain, because he didn't. You imagine
how dry and dead things got in three and a half years. No rain,
nothing's going to live, everything's just going to wither up. Why
is this? Why did God bring this upon the
nation of Israel? Because of their sin against
him. Turn back to 1 John chapter 19. We're looking at verses 1 through
8. Before we do, let me give you just a little lesson so you'll
know kindly what was going on here in the context. The one who ruled Israel now
was a man named Ahab. Ahab was a very wicked, selfish
man, a spineless man, always giving in to his wife Jezebel. We find out back in chapter 16
where it talks about Ahab being raised up and being the king
over Israel. And it came to pass as it had
been a light thing for him, Ahab, to walk in the sins of Jeroboam,
the son of Nebat, that he took a wife, Jezebel, the daughter
of Ebal, king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and
worshipped him. She led away Israel. She did.
Her influence upon Ahab turned them away from God and God raised
it up. It's just like, it's almost like,
I think it's in chapter 16, where Elijah just appears. Here's Elijah,
like John the Baptist. God sent him. And he sent him
to Ahab. And he said, it's not gonna rain. Till God says it's gonna rain.
He said, you're the fault, you're the reason. God's gonna withhold
his blessings. And you know what? What did God
do with Elijah? He gave his message. God said,
I want you to go up here by the brook Cherith, and I want you
to hide yourself. They tried looking for him and
couldn't find him. If God has his gospel hid in
his servant's head, you're not going to find him. You know,
all this was judgment upon Israel because of their sin. Well, how's
God gonna take care of Elijah? Believers are affected just like
unbelievers are in this world. When it didn't rain, he said,
you go up here and there's a little brook running down through there.
You sit there by that brook, just you and me alone, and you
sit there, and I'm gonna send the ravens. I've commanded the
ravens to come feed you. And you drank water from that
brook. Well, eventually the brook dries
up. Why did it dry up? It hadn't rained. But you imagine,
how are you going to get something to eat? Well, here the wings
are flapping. Ravens are not known for carrying
food. They're known for devouring food. But the Lord used them to feed
him. Now what? He stays right there until God
tells him what to do. He said, now I want you to go
over to Zarephath. You know where Zarephath is?
Jezebel was from, her father was the king of Zion. He's going
to send his servant to the very city she was from. And he said,
I've commanded, as he commanded the ravens, I've commanded a
widow woman to take care of you. And when he gets there, this
poor widow woman, it's her and her son, He says, what are you
doing? She says, I'm gathering some
stuff. This is going to be me and my son's last meal. He said,
you go ahead and make me a cake first. He said, that little bit
of flour you have in that barrel won't never go out, and the cruise
of oil won't never stop till God sends rain. So he provided
for him by the brook. He provided for him at the widow's
house. And while he was at the widow's
house, her son died. And he raised that son. from
the dead. Most believe that that son that
was raised was the servant of Elijah. I'm not sure, but that
makes a lot of sense to me, it does, to understand. But now,
what is God going to do now? He's getting ready to send rain,
but before he'll send rain, something has to be dealt with. It's called
sin. He said, you call all them prophets,
all them 450 false prophets. We're going up on Mount Carmel.
And we're going to each one build an altar. We're going to each
one put a sacrifice on it. You can pray to your gods as
long as you want to pray to your false gods and pray that he would
send fire down from heaven and consume that sacrifice. So you
know what they did? They're praying to a dead god.
don't exist. And they prayed and they jumped
up and down, they cut their flesh, they make all kinds of noise.
And you know, Elijah, he mocked them. He said, maybe he's asleep,
maybe you need to wake him up. And someone said, he said, maybe
he's gone to the restroom. Maybe you need to speak, maybe
you need to holler. And he did all day. What do you
think happened? Nothing. And they had torn Elijah's
altar down and he rebuilt it. put a sacrifice on it. He said,
cover it with water. I always wondered where they
got the water. It ain't rained three and a half years. And they
put four barrels of water on that sacrifice to make sure that
there was no fire in there. And Elijah prayed just a simple
prayer. He said, God, you imagine all
these people standing there. What's going to happen? God's
going to display his power. He said, God, that these people
may know. that you're God, you're not some
false God. And you know what? At that split
second, the fire fell. I believe you could have seen
people standing with their mouth open. God revealed his glory and he
revealed who's God. You know what he did with them
450 prophets? He took them down by the creek
and he slaughtered every single one of them. And then God sent rain. And now
we come to chapter 19, so you get the picture. how the Lord
has used Elijah. The Lord has raised him up for
this purpose. And it says in Ahab told Jezebel,
his wife, all that Elijah had done. And with all how he had
slain all the prophets with the sword. Can you imagine what he
said? You're not going to believe what
I saw today. I seen something I'd never seen before in my life.
I seen a man pray and God heard him. and set fire down and consumed
the sacrifice, that's the atonement, that's the substitute. And he
said, that's not only it, you know the 450 prophets of yours,
Jezebel, every one of them's dead. Every one of them's dead. Now what I want you to see is,
can you imagine how this is going over with her? She thinks she
runs everything. She don't like it when things
don't go as she's planned. And he told her what had happened. Well, then what did she do? Then
Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, so let the gods
do to me more also. If I make not thy life as the
life of one of them by tomorrow about this time. She said, by
tomorrow at this time, you're going to be a dead man. She even swore, she said, the
gods do to me just like you did to them if I don't kill you by
tomorrow. She threatened him. But in doing
that, she gave him a day to get out of town. But this was her
plan, this was her objective. Verse three, and when he saw
that, he arose and went for his life, came to Beersheba, which
belonged to Judah, and he left his servant there. But he himself
went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down
under a juniper tree, and he requested for himself that he
might die. And he said, it is enough. Now,
oh Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my father's.
And as he lay and slept under the juniper tree, behold, an
angel touched him and said unto him, arise and eat. And he looked,
and behold, there was a cake baking on the coals and a cruise
of water at his head. And he did eat and drank and
lay down again. 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 drank and dwelt and he went in the strength of that
meat 40 days and 40 nights into Horeb, the Mount of God. God has taken care of Elijah
by the brook at the widow's house and he took care of him when
he stood a lone man before all those men, before all those false
prophets. and it made, Jezebel made this
woman mad. Just that name, it's still down
through history, you know what we think about who would, somebody
may have, I don't know, but to name their daughter Jezebel. Something I noticed here, that
no amount of judgment that God brought changed either Ahab or
Jezebel. You think what this man, this
man saw this and it never affected him. It never touched his heart.
It never moved him. And when he told her what happened,
it never moved her. It never changes her. The goodness
of God leads a man to repentance, not the judgment of God. And they didn't change. They
just get harder. Only sovereign grace can change
a person. They were not moved to repent
because of what God had done. They may think about it for a
little while and things bother them just for a little bit, but
they seem to get over it. How did Elijah wind up here in
the middle of the desert? That's the question. How did
we wind up like this? There's things that happen. You notice there it said in verse
3, when he heard, she sent a messenger to him and she said, this is
what I'm going to do to you. It didn't say when he heard that.
It said when he saw that. What did he see? He saw something with the eye
of the flesh. He didn't see by the eye of faith. And it's not what she heard,
but it's what he saw. How many times do we see things?
We imagine things. I can just picture in his mind
maybe her coming after him. I never thought about this before.
This man who had such courage, now he's so afraid by what he
saw. Instead of looking to Christ
in faith, all they can see is this woman trying to kill him. Fear hath torment. Fear. Perfect love casts out
fear. Jezebel was real. Her threats
were real. But she couldn't touch God's
servant. Unless he allowed it. This man we're going to see,
he prays that God may take his life. And this man is one of
only two people in the scriptures that ever went to glory without
having to die. But he's pretty low. He's pretty
low. The heart of a king or the queen
is in the hands of the Lord and he turns it whichever way he
wants it to go. Jezebel means it for evil, but
God means it for good. God's gonna teach Elijah, and
I pray to God by his grace that he would teach us something from
this right here. As I said, he saw, I thought
about Peter walking on the water. He said, Lord, is that you? And
he said, yeah. He said, would you bid me to
come to you on the water? And he said, well, come on. And
on acting upon what God said, upon his word, he got out and
walked on the water. But you remember what happened.
When he took his eyes off of the Lord, and he began to look
at the wind and all the waves, and he said, how can I be doing
this? But see here, that's what he
was seeing. Instead of looking to Christ, and he began to sink
back. Everything in the world, everything
inside of you apart from grace will make you and force you to
turn your eyes away from Christ and turn it to something else.
Elijah was a man, as I've already mentioned, just like us. He became
depressed like we do. This man had stood before 450
prophets and never flinched an eye. He believed God. But now,
This same man, he's running for his life. I thought about Samson. When
the Lord departed from him, he said, Samson said, I was like
any other man. And it seems like here, for a
little while, the Lord had left Elijah alone to teach him something. I know he says, I'll never leave
you nor forsake you. But I can admit and to confess,
I know that there's times it's like he was, it seemed like he
was nowhere to be found. It seemed, now he was there,
but it didn't seem that way. It didn't seem that way to Elijah.
This man. Many people have the notion.
That when God gives you faith to believe, you will never be
cast down or ever discouraged again. They call it, I guess,
the higher life. We still have something called
an old man. He's not improving and we're
not trying to improve him. He just seems to get a little
older, a little wiser. I've said before, you've seen
people that was hateful in their 30s, now they get to 75 or 80.
They've not changed, they're just in an older body. But God, you know what? He has
to teach us that. Over and over and over again,
inside of us dwells no good. Who's going to deliver us from
the body? of this death. What are we to
learn from this text? Romans 15.4 says, now listen,
whatsoever things were written aforetime, here in 1 Kings 19,
they were written, this was written, this was written and recorded
for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures
might have hope. Because when you get so low,
you think, here's one of the things you think, nobody had
ever been this low. No one's ever felt what I've
felt. What are we to learn? When we begin to run, he's running,
he's running for his life. It's always down. He said he
went down to Beersheba. Dan in Beersheba, Dan is the
father's place north. Beersheba is the father's south
you can go before you, they call it the gateway to the desert.
And when he got to the end down at Beersheba, he told his servant,
he said, you stay here. He ran and then he got alone.
You know what? We need each other. Well, the
scriptures say, exhort one another daily what's called the day,
lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Elijah's all alone. He don't
even have his servant. He said, you stay here. I can
imagine the servant say, well, where are you going? I don't
really know. He's going to the desert. David said, why art thou
cast down on my soul and why art thou disquieted within me?
And then he answers his own question, hope in God. For I shall yet
praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God. When we get down and defeated
and discouraged, we run away. And we don't want to be alone.
I just, I don't want to talk to anybody. I don't want anybody
talking to me. He said, this is where I'm going.
And he goes down there and finds a juniper tree. And he sat down
under it. I believe God provided that juniper
tree just like he provided the plant for Jonah to get up there.
Just a little bit of shade in this barren, barren place. And this one that stood before
so many, showed no fear, is now afraid of what one woman has
said. What one woman. He's terrified. The things that we think that
we are not afraid of, can cause us much fear. You remember when
Peter denied our Lord? Our Lord had just went to the
Gethsemane and he comes down and he told the disciples, all
of you is going to betray me. Peter said, not I, Lord, not
me. And he denies him. He said before the clock crows
two times, you're going to deny me three times. Who was it? It
was not a man standing there with a sword pulled out. It says
it was a damsel the first time. Then the second time it was a
little maid. She walks up and she said, I think you're one
of his disciples. No, no, no, I'm not one of his
disciples, because if they find out I'm one of his disciples,
they're liable to kill me. If he had not told them in the
Garden of Gethsemane when they come to take him, he said, who
did you come after? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.
He said, well, if you've come for me, you've got to let them
go. That's substitution. And they took him and let them
go. But Peter says, I don't believe
you. And he began to cuss and to swear,
just like a sailor. I don't know him. I don't know
him. Why did he do that? The Lord
left him alone to himself for just a few minutes. He says,
rise and pray, Peter, lest ye enter into temptation. Peter
said, I don't need to pray. I can go to sleep. When we run, we always run into
the desert. And he leaves his servant, and
he goes a day's journey into the wilderness. You know how
far it was from Jezreel to Beersheba? It's over 100 miles. But you only just walked 100
miles, much less run 100 miles. And then I'm not sure how far
a day's journey is into the wilderness. He had already ran out. He had
outrun Ahab. When he told him it was going
to run, he said, you better be going. And Ahab got in his chariot,
and Elijah outrun Ahab in a chariot. Then he walks 100 miles. He's
exhausted. He's wore out physically and
mentally and spiritually. He's down. No life here. All that's here
is loneliness and despair. And here in this barren place, he probably got to the place
he just said, I can't go any farther. And he just sat down. Sat down. What am I going to
do? I'm here all alone. Under a juniper tree, a tree
that God had provided for his servant. And under this shade, he requested
for himself that he might die. And he said, it's enough. I've
had enough. I'm just tired of it. And that's
what he said. He prayed. This man who prayed
it wouldn't rain and prayed it would rain, he said, Lord, just
take my life. Can a child of God get this low? I'll give you an illustration. I know most of you have heard
either, some call it William Cooper or William Cowper, but
I love to read and listen to his songs. You know, he served
in, he was put in an insane asylum at one time. And I think while
he was in the asylum, he met a man who told him about Christ.
And he come out and he met his dear friend, John Newton, and
they became friends. But Mr. Cooper, he wrote songs
like this. There is a fountain filled with
blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that
flood lose all their guilty stains. God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps on the
sea, and he rides upon the storm. Judge not the Lord by feeble
sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind every frowning
face, behind every cloud, he hides a smiling face." You know,
it sounded like a man who went through something. And he did. And here, he sits down, and he
just lays down, and went to sleep. I don't know why it is, but I
think it just is. When we get tired, cast down,
you know what? I want to just get along somewhere,
leave me alone, and let me go to sleep. Maybe I can just forget
about it for just a little while. And he lays down and goes to
sleep. This is God serving out here in the middle of the desert. Asleep, yeah, that's where he's
at. I thought about the disciples
when our Lord was praying. And he comes the third time and
he said unto them, sleep on now. Take your rest. It's enough. And basically said, y'all go
ahead and sleep. I've got this. I'm going to take care of it."
And he did. And he did. But when he was cast down, laying
here asleep, says the angel came to him. He didn't shake him. He didn't pull out a rod and
start beating him and say, you sorry good for nothing thing.
Wake up from there, you slothful. No, he just shook him. Wake up,
Elijah. He speaks in a still, small voice. He says, wake up. Wake up. It's
okay. It's wake up. And he woke up
and there was food on the hot coals. They'd been burning for
a while. And he makes a bread, and he
puts it on the coals that Elijah didn't make. God sent this bread,
just like he commanded the ravens, and he said, arise and eat, Elijah.
I can see him getting to pick it up and start eating it, and
he starts drinking him some water. You notice he never even gave
thanks. And then what does he do? He
lays back down. The Lord didn't rebuke him for
laying down. He needed rest. He's wore out. But he didn't
leave him there because Elijah's work is not done. But he sent an angel. Are not
his angels all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them
who shall be the heirs of salvation? In Revelations, we know that
the angels are They're those that he sent to his churches,
they are his messengers. And I thought how many times
you get down and God would speak to you through a message sitting
in a congregation or watching something or reading something
and God would speak to you through that word and give you grace
to believe it and you know what, you feed upon it. And say that's
just what I needed. I'm gonna lay back down. But when we get cast down, our
Lord always comes to us in our lowest hour. And he laid down
and slept under the juniper tree, and it says, behold, then an
angel touched him and said, arise and eat. He was hungry and thirsty. And then, as he's laying there
asleep, He didn't go off and leave him. I thought about Naomi
in the book of Ruth. She goes to Moab with her husband
and two sons. And both her husband and two
sons both die in Moab. That's a pretty desert place.
And you know when she left the desert place? When she heard
that God had visited his people and given them bread. Christ
is the bread. He's the one we feed upon. But
Elijah, he's still laying there by the tree. What's he going
to do? Is he going to leave him there?
No, he's not going to leave him there. If he did, that's where
he would have laid. He would have laid right there
and died. But said the angel touched him the second time. Oh, the amazing love of our Lord
that he touched him. And he said, like he did before,
I'd like you to rise and eat. And he said, the reason to rise
and eat this time, you're too weak for the journey. You need
to eat something. There's work that needs to be
done. Your work's not finished. You're not going to die. You've
got work to do. And he touched him and he rose. He said, Elijah, your work's
not finished. You know who I also thought about?
I thought about the disciples. You imagine being in their shoes.
They never did really grasp his crucifixion and his resurrection.
They just didn't, no matter how many times he told them. And
you know, they heard on the Sunday morning, the women came and said,
he's risen from the dead. Oh, we don't believe it. That's
just women talking. They didn't believe it. You know
what Peter said? I'm going fishing. Basically,
I'm going to the desert. I'm going back to what I used
to do. I know I can do fish. Well, how's he going to make
a living? I don't know if Christ is risen or not. I'm going back
fishing. I'm going back fishing for a
living and I think there was five other disciples that went
with him. And our Lord, in his mercy, he
walks out on that shore. He said, have you caught anything? No, we ain't caught a thing.
But that's us, ain't it? We think, we got it all figured
out, we got a boat and a net, and all of us have been fishers
all of our life, and we can't catch nothing. He says, well,
just cast it on the other side of the ship. And you know, it's kind of ironic,
the scriptures tell us exactly how many fish, I think it was
152. God knows how many he's got, how many elect he has, and
they start pulling the, The fish into the, up on the bank. And
you know what they find? Our Lord's standing there and
he's got a bunch of coals with something to eat on it. You wanna see what's coming down? Are you hungry? I prepared something
just for you. And you know what he told Peter?
These men are getting ready to do something. In less than 50
days, this man, Peter, that's denied him. This man that's gone
back fishing, he's going to stand on the day of Pentecost, and
5,000 people will be saved. You got something to do, Peter. And you know what he told Peter?
He said, Peter, he said, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Elijah rose and did eat and drink. And he got up and he knows what
he needs to do. He's got to go 40 days and 40
nights to the mountain before him. And he's going to go in
the strength of that meal, of that food that God gave him. Sometimes he gives you something
and you chew on it for a long time. And you receive strength. The strength that God gave Elijah
was for service. He didn't lay back down and go
to sleep. He said, this is what I want you to do. He commanded
him. We feast upon the bread from heaven that we might use
our strength for him and for his glory. You know how they partook of
the Passover? in the land of Egypt. Why do
they eat the Passover? Because of the subsidy. They're
feasting upon the sacrifice. And he said, you have your loins
girded, your staff in your hand, we're leaving this place. They needed strength for the
journey. I can't think of anything else
more great or more precious than Jesus Christ and him crucified.
You never get tired feasting upon him. Mr. Spurgeon said, the Lord feeds
and refreshes our souls that we may afterward use our renewed
strength in the promotion of his gospel and his glory. I pray that God in his grace
would teach us some lessons from his word.