The profound significance of being a "man of God" or "woman of God," using the life of Elijah as a primary example. It contrasts worldly titles with this divine calling, emphasizing that true spiritual impact stems from a deep, personal relationship with God, as demonstrated by Elijah's unwavering faith, prayer, and obedience even in extreme circumstances. The core lesson is that ordinary individuals, like Elijah, can be used extraordinarily by God when they live in His presence and are willing to be recommissioned for His purposes, ultimately highlighting the importance of passing on spiritual knowledge to others.
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Well dear friends, I want you to take your Bibles and we are going to read the opening chapter of the second book of Kings. How far we are going to get this week in the book of Kings? I don't know at all. But in the opening fifteen chapters there are panel pictures that portray in history the great secrets of victory for us today in nineteen seventy. And as we move morning by morning and evening by evening from picture to picture, remember that history, even though it's thousands of years old, is his story of Christ and Christ's dealings with us today.
We're going back to the days of Elijah. and the days of Elisha, and we shall see that these men who had to face the same old battles that you and I have to face, learned to know God and were used of God. You know, one of the things I think we forget when we read the Bible is this, that Abraham and Sarah, I'll just pick out a couple, you know. Abraham and Sarah had the just the same life to live that you have to live. They climbed on a camel's back and you get in a, is it a Cadillac or a Chevrolet?
It's just the difference. They put on long sort of flowing robes and you put on a little less. And there we are, but the same joys, the same sorrows, the same battles raged in their lives as you have to face. And that's why these old scriptures are given to us for our learning. And there are secrets, if only the Spirit of God can lead us into these secrets, of being the men and women of God they were. They didn't have all ups, you know. There were quite a lot of downs in their life. Sarah wasn't always laughing and saying, look at Isaac.
Sometimes she was down in the dumps in her tent and she said, I don't think it's possible. She hadn't reached the stage where she could say by faith, nothing is impossible with God. And so we've got to face these facts and I want you just to live in those old days of Elijah and Elisha during these mornings and these evenings. Now shall we read the first chapter together? Two Kings chapter one. Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. And Heaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and he was sick.
He sent messengers and said unto them, Go inquire of Baal-Zebab, the God of Echron, whether I shall recover of this disease. The angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go and meet the messengers of the King of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that you go to inquire of Baal-Ze-Bab, the God of Ekram? Now therefore thou set the Lord, thou shalt not come down from that dead on which thou art gone up, but shall surely die. Delijah departed.
When the messengers turned back unto the king, he said to them, Why are ye now turned back? And they said unto him, There came a man up to meet us, and said unto us, Go turn again unto the king that sent you, and say unto him, Thus said the Lord, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel that thou sendest to inquire of Baal-zebub, the God of Echron? Therefore thou shalt not come down from that dead on which thou art gone up, but shall surely die. And he said unto them, What manner of man was he which came up to meet you, and told you these words?
And they answered him he was a hairy man, or, as the revisers changed it, a man with a garment of hair, and girt with a... girdle of leather about his loins. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite. Then the king sent unto him a captain of fifty, with his fifty, and he went up to him, and behold, he sat on the top of a hill, and he spake unto him, Thou man of God, the king hath said, Come down. And Elijah answered and said to the captain of the fifty, If, I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty.
There came down fire from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. Again also he sent unto him another captain, a fifty with his fifty, and he answered and said unto him, O man of God, thus hath the king said, Come down quickly. Deliger answered and said unto him, I be a man of God. Let fire come down from heaven and consume thee and by fifty. And the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. And he sent again a captain and a third fifty with his fifty, and the third captain of fifty went up and came and fell on his knees before Elijah, and besought him and said unto him, O man of God, I pray thee, let My life and the life of these fifty thy servants be precious in thy sight.
Behold, there came down fire from heaven and burnt up the two captains and the former fifties with their fifties. Therefore let my life now be precious in thy sight. And the angel of the Lord said unto Elijah, Go down with him. Be not afraid of him. He arose and went down with him unto the king. He said unto him, Thou set the Lord for as much as thou hast sent messengers to inquire of Baal-Zeba, the God of Ekron, is it not because there is no man in Israel to inquire of his word? Therefore thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up, but shall surely die.
So he died according to the word of the Lord, which Elijah had spoken. Jehoram reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, because he had no son. Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah, which he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? God will best the reading of his word to our hearts just a quiet moment. Loving Lord, be our teacher, and lead us by thy spirit into thy truth, and give us what we need the most, and grant that we feel thy touch upon our spirits for thy dear namesake.
Amen. So, my dear friends, over this first chapter, I'm going to ask you to write the words if you're taking notes or trying to restore them up in your mind. The simple words, man of God. Man of God. If you look down the chapter very quickly you will see how the story that we have read reveals a man. In verse six and they said unto him there came a man up to meet us. Verse seven and he said unto them what manner of man was he which came up to meet you.
And then captain after captain with fifty men look into his face on the hilltop. Verse nine, thou man of God. Verse eleven, oh man of God. Verse thirteen, oh man, I pray thee. And the man in question looks back and says, if, if, if I be a man of God. I can pray and heaven will answer my prayers and he was a prophet of judgment and fire came down, consuming the fifty. Now, I wonder if you want to be a man of God.
I wonder if you want to be a woman of God. In surprising and amazing days and around us we are jostling with wonderful men and wonderful women in our world. You cannot go far without meeting men who boast that they are simply a man of this world, a man of the world, worldly in all their attitudes and their ways. You meet other men and they're men of wealth. They've made plenty of money. You can see them all over Florida, loaded with it. Men of wealth. You're constantly meeting men of business.
stirring good fine characters in the pressure of life up to their eyes in business, men of business. Occasionally you meet a man of fame. Often you can meet a man of skill. You wonder at the skill of his hands. Sometimes you meet a politician. He's a man of affairs. And so you could go on through this list. Words good and bad and indifferent. It's just the same with the precious women. You meet a woman and she may be a woman of beauty. She may be a woman of culture, a woman of influence, a woman of courage, a woman of learning.
So you can classify men and women as you meet them. Very quickly. But would you like to be a man of God, a woman of God? Remember the story of a little boy who was asked, as so often little boys are asked, I know it because I was one. Let's see now, what is your daddy? And the little boy is expected to answer back whether daddy is a butcher or a baker or a candlestick maker or what he is. And the little fellow was asked, what's your daddy? And he said, my daddy is a man of God. Would you like your son, your daughter?
Would you like your grandchild? If they were asked the question, let's see now, what was granddad and what was the grandma to say, a man of God, a woman of God? Would you like that? Or not? This is a title, man of God. Now, who was Elisha? If you will turn to James, there's a little snapshot of him. It's very precious. James at the end of his letter writes in the last chapter, the last verses, chapter five, verse seventeen and eighteen gives us a snapshot picture of Elijah.
These are the words. Elias or Elijah was a man. Yes, it was a man of God, but he was just a man. That's all. You know, God one day said, a way back in the book of Genesis, let us make man in our image. The great Elohim, the great triune God, created man as one in his image to be put over all his creation.
I don't know if you love the picture, but I love the picture of that man who made in the image of God is set as a special creation over God's creation. You see, With this book in my hand, I cannot follow the ideas that man is just a big super beast climbing upward, bit of the old beast in him, but moving slowly higher by evolution. I believe in evolution. You say, do you? Yes. Oh, yes. My great-grandfather used to ride a penny-farthing bicycle along the streets. And now my boys get onto a modern motorbike and they go at a hundred and sixty miles an hour along the roads, if they're allowed to.
There's an evolution in the bicycle from the old two-wheeled penny-farving to the modern motor machine and bike that roars. I believe in evolution within its species. But I tell you, this book teaches a special creation. It teaches that man was made after God had fashioned this earth and filled it with vegetable and animal life. He made man in his image and set him in dominion over it all. And as man came from the hand of God, he must have been very wonderful. Made in the image of God, a tripartite being, spirit, soul and body.
the inner life of the soul, the thinking, feeling, deciding man, living in the body to the material things and living in the spirit to God's work. And yet God looked at him and said, it's not good that man should be alone. I will make, I will, create, I will build, I help me for him. And in that strange sleep and that rhythm sighed. And that taking a part of man nearest to his heart, God began to build a woman. And she brought the woman to the man, and the man saw him coming, and said, This bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman.
You can see them together in the garden, walking in fellowship with their maker in light, unashamed. The tremendous tragedy has happened. I know we don't like to face these things. We rebel at these things. Even we Christians don't like to talk about them. But every time you pull a shirt or a dress over your body and cover your nakedness, you are confessing that you're a fallen man, no longer clothed in light to walk in fellowship with God. Ashamed in your nakedness, you lightly clothed yourself. A man.
Today there's millions of them on the face of the earth. Your great nation of two hundred million souls. Think of eight hundred million Chinese people. One in every four men you meet on the face of the earth has a yellow face. multiplying, population increasing until people are so alarmed that family planning is coming to every nation in the world. You would be amazed if you came to our Jamaica to see the great big placard signs that they're putting up. Some of them startling, some of them almost vulgar in their reality to try and keep the population down.
And I'm just an ordinary man, you are just an ordinary woman. Amongst the millions, and so was Elijah. Now don't get away from this fact. Look, if you look at that verse seventeen, Elijah was a man, a man, just a man, born a little boy of a woman, growing up and playing in the villages, going to school, naughty, full of tricks, gloring in his muscle and strength. A man subject to like passions, to like nature, tears on his cheeks, laughter on his face.
And he grew up like that. Like passions as we are. And he prayed earnestly, and he is characterized by prayer. This man lived in touch with a bigger throne, the throne of God. He was a man who turned to God. He was a man in whose life God's life had way. And even though we know little about him until he just dramatically appears on the scene, marches into Ahab's palace in Samaria, this sterling man is being prepared by God, an ordinary man and yet an extraordinary man.
I wonder if you and I want this. I wonder if you would love to be called a man of God, as people see you walking the streets of the city, in your business, in your games, in your fun. Yes, playing shuffle ball, standing behind the office counter, cooking a meal, day by day in the normal things of life, people whisper. Yes, I know. I know. Truly we can say a man of wealth or a man of business or a man of culture, a woman of beauty, a woman of this, a woman of that, but a man of God, a woman of God.
I wonder if we want this or not. I tell you, in rough soldiers, many of them now fearing their lives come creeping up the hill to where he was. Every one of them admits... Man of God. The king in this palace, when he hears the news, what's happening, he says, what kind of man was it met you and turned you back when you went down to those prophets of Baal? What? That man with a hairy garment? Oh, I know who it is. For twenty-two years I've known about him. It's Elijah the fish bite. The man who came across the Jordan from the land of Gilead, the man that came stalking down into Samaria and stood before the king Ahab and said, No rain, no dew for three and a half years.
Goodbye. God. Three and a half years droughts came down upon the land. The rivers are drying up. The mountain streams are all finished. The fruit trees are just drooping. Great big cracks are coming in the land. Drought has hit the land. Israel's being brought to our knees by drought. God's withholding his tender mercy. Oh, isn't God wonderful? God gives us sunshine and rain, summer and winter. God gives us his tender mercy freely to enjoy. And men take them utterly for granted.
They never even thank God for them. Number of people in loved America today who ate their breakfast without ever just dipping their head and saying, Thank you, God, for this good food. You say, I paid for it. Yes, you paid for it. Oh, but you say the farmer went out there and he got the eggs from the chickens and he did. Yes, but if there wasn't God's mercies, none of these things would come to a so constant. Day by day we are living in God. In God we live and move and have our being. And God's interested enough to care for us in the tender mercies, but far more than that.
He's willing to give us the blessings. I tell you, I can never, never really stop chatting sometimes when I see a big prosperous man. And he says, oh, he says, God has blessed me. He's blessed me a great deal. And he talks about his wealth and his cars and his homes. And I say, don't talk such rubbish, man. Man round the corner who's got twenty times more dollars than you have, five more lovely homes than you have, far better car, and he is a poor cursing man who never thinks of God. Not God's blessing, it's God's mercy. Freely given, freely given.
His mercies are given freely to all, but his blessings aren't. New Testament shows that it's when we take Christ, we are blessed. with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. You may be as poor as a church mouse and yet greatly blessed. So this man arrives on the scene, Elijah, a man of light passion. He prayed. He prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and later that he prays that it might rain. And as in his life story we see this man of prayer, he will pray over the dead body of a little boy and raise him to life.
He will stand amongst the thousands that watch and pray until God answers by fire that comes down upon the sacrifice. Elijah, the bishop, an ordinary fellow just like Musa, just like me. No different. And yet, a man of God, do you want this? Or not? Of course, if you don't want it, well, take my advice. Run away from the Tezik mess. you don't want it run away from it it's going to hurt you too much do you want to be a man of God do you want to be a woman of God or not well I'm not talking about being a nice granny It's lovely to be a grandpa.
I've got eight kids, you know, who look up and say granddad to me. And it's quite thrilling to watch them growing. And I enjoy them. I was going to say for a few hours I enjoy them, even better than I enjoy our own children that we had twenty-four hours a day. You know, grannies, don't you, what I mean by that? You can always say goodbye to your grandchildren. See, granny and grandpa have had enough and they have to retreat. You couldn't do that when you had your own children growing up. Now, here is a man that we've got to look into the life of just a little.
Turn back with me to One King's Chapter Eighteen. First one, and it came to pass that after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying, Go, show thyself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth. Now three and a half years have passed before Ahab and Elijah have looked into each other's faces, and it's good to ask how Elijah spent that time. If you turn back just a page to chapter seventeen, you will see how they first met, verse one.
And Elijah the Tishbite, who was in the inhabitants of Gilead, away in those remote mountains across the Jordan, said to Ahab, Ahab living in Samaria, I don't know how many of you have been to old Samaria. It's a wonderful spot. It's on a sort of hillock, and it dips down to a beautiful fertile plain all the way round in every direction, and then you can see the cut hills. And this was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, and I can see Elijah, the great mountain prophet, coming over those hills.
I always picture him as a rather brusque man, a strong physique. with his hair-made garment and his girdle around him, marching along. He comes over those hills and right down through the plain and into the court of Ahab. And he says, this is what he says. Verse one, chapter seventeen, As the Lord God of Israel did it, before whom I stand. Ah, thank you, Elijah. Thank you, Elijah. This is a secret. We don't know a thing about your past, about your boyhood and your young manhood, but you've revealed this before whom I stand.
Here is a man who knows the presence of God. Dear Christians, is this the only thing that can make a victorious Christian these days in Florida? A man or a woman, a granny or a grandpa... who is living in the presence of the Lord Jesus. You wake in the morning before whom I stand. You rise from the table or at the end of the meeting before whom I stand. I wonder if you know what it is by faith to enter into the presence of one who says, I will never leave thee, I will never forsake thee, so that we can boldly say the Lord is my heaven.
I can't shut him out of my life. I can't turn the light off on the Lord Jesus. I can't shut the doors and say I'm alone and now I can live as I like. No. Twenty-four hours a day, I will never leave thee. If you're a blood-bought child of God, before whom I stand, the standing of a Christian in the presence of the Lord Jesus. As far as you know, nothing in your heart between... Lord, nothing in my life that I know that really grieves thee. I stand happily in my presence. Oh, what a secret. A secret so few today seem to enter into by faith.
All God's secrets are entered into by faith. This is the victory that overcomes the world even your faith. And from your first look of faith into the eyes of a Savior, it's from faith, to faith, the just to live by faith. And the life of faith I live in the presence of the Lord, before whom I stand day by day. He's with me in the kitchen. He's with me in the nursery amongst the children. He's with me behind the counter. He's with me in the bedroom. He's with me on the sports field. Oh, what a wonderful life. to feel that you stand there in his presence. Now he says, the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand.
No June or rain these years according to the word of the Lord. He told me to tell you this, closing the door. Of all the tender mercies that have been over Israel, day after day after day after day after day after day after day, and now they were actually turning in the hour of distress and need to bail, turning to strange gods, neglecting the living God. But here's one man who stands in his presence. Here's a man who says, I live in him. Now, dear, man, woman, do you want to be called a man of God, a woman of God?
Do you? Read on. He closes the door and is gone, gone to be looked after by God. The Lord says to him, go down to Jericho. And just there up in the hills from Jericho to a place called Cherith, verse three, get thee hence, turn thee eastward, hide thyself by the book Cherith before Jordan. I would say to any of you who go to the Holy Land, don't miss going up into the hills above Jordan, above Jericho, and seeing the gushing waters that come out of the hillside and channel down into the fertile plain of Jericho.
On the hottest seasons you can see that water gushing. It was only after three and a half years of drought that those waters began to dim and dim and dim and dry up. And as he sat there, I could see him morning and evening waiting for God to minister to his need. And if you know anything about ravens... Ravens, rather ravenous cheeky birds that love to steal things, they are known to pop into a house and steal a lady's ring or steal things. These ravens actually went right, now I think this, I'm not sure about this, I think this, they went right into Ahab's palace.
And as they laid the king's breakfast on the table, the ravens went in and took the very choice things and they flacked their way right down a little hill to the man of God. And ravens still feed some men of God, whether you believe it or not. God's got his ravens yet. To those who in simple faith expect God to minister to their need. But at last there came a time when the brook dried up, and he had to leave, and now verse nine of this chapter get thee to Zeraphat, right up on the Mediterranean coast, up by Zidon. And dwell there. I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.
Oh, I love these theirs. Go to Cherith. The ravens will feed you there. Go to Zephas. I've got a widow woman to sustain you there. Now you just think of it. Big, strong Elijah. A widow woman will grasp you. She's lost her husband. She's at the end of all her resources. Elijah, self-sufficient Elijah. But Lord, couldn't you use someone else, a widow? She's come to the end of her flower, and she's come to the end of her oil and her resources, and yet you say, I've got to go and live with her and live on her.
Oh, my. You've all heard the story of the preacher. Some of these old traveling preachers in the old days used to come in hospitality to a certain home, and then they wouldn't leave. They'd stay on and on and on and on. And you remember the story how the preacher used to get bacon and egg every morning, and one day this lady hath made, she couldn't keep him any longer, so she gave him two eggs one morning. And he looked and he said, oh, two eggs this morning. And she said, yes, we always give the preacher two eggs on the day he leaves us. And she got rid of him like that. Well, whatever modern preachers do, Elijah must have felt pretty small being looked after, first of all, by ravenous ravens, and then by this woman of Zeriphas.
So the weary months go by, and he's quietly, it seems, resting. I don't know how he spent his days. I don't know what he did during that time. But for three and a half years, the man who has revealed the will of God to a king is told to hide. Hide yourself. And now there comes the moment in chapter eighteen when he's told to show himself. Verse one, go show thyself unto Ahab. And so he comes to show himself. Oh, he's going to show himself. The man that they've searched the land for, the man that they've tried to find, the man who's got the key to the whole drought situation, steps back into Ahab's palace to look into Ahab's face and won't go into the full story.
But as he goes, will you face something? He's in for the biggest tests of his life. You know, something's got to be cut out of the national life. It's the worship of Baal. It's got to be that four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and four hundred prophets of the groves have got to be slaughtered in Israel. The land of Jehovah got to be dealt with. This man Elijah calls for a great showdown, and I don't know any story more magnificent to show the manhood of a man of like passions with ourselves.
And yet, standing in the presence of the Lord and in touch with the living God, he stands for God in a situation, and God is going to honor him simply because he stands for the truth and is honoring God. And so the situation so well known to you develops on Mount Carmel. And you can see the crowds gathering and the prophets there by the hundred and this lonely man. And the God that answers by fire is going to be the God. Those prophets, they cut themselves, they jump, they shout, they go through their various incantations, they cry upon Baal to answer by fire and nothing happens.
And then in that dramatic evening hour, at the time of the evening's sacrifice, God answers by fire. And it must have been a tremendous day for Elijah. I don't know what you know about Mount Carmel, but when I was up there it's all covered with buildings today, with hotels and sidewalks, but in those days it was just crubby, rocky, bush country, and under the burning midday sun for him to be exposed there and waiting and waiting until that dramatic hour when God answered my fire. And when it's all over, I notice that Elijah, he says this in verse forty, take the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape, and they took them.
Now notice this, I'm leaving you to judge what it means, and Elijah brought them down to the Brookishen and flew them there. Now on my first reading it almost seems to me that Elijah did the slain. I can't think he did. I don't know. It's one of the questions I'm going to ask him when I get to heaven. Won't it be exciting to get to him? Oh, I've got lots of questions for all these old Bible characters. I'm building them up. And when I've looked at the Lord for about a thousand years, I'm going to turn to Peter and Elijah and some of these others and say, look here, I have lots of questions to ask you. There's an exciting future up there for us children of God, you know. This is just the school days. Three-score years and ten.
By reason of strength, four-score. A lady's reached ninety-wonderful, but don't get to the horrid hundreds, it isn't worth it. This is the school of faith, and it's just a little shut up to the school of faith, and God is building something for eternity. And most of us, yes, most of us, are getting now to where the shadows are lengthening a bit in life, and I want to say this to you very earnestly. Dear old Elijah, that day... won a tremendous victory. The last prophet dead, and whether he slew them with his own hand or not, he climbs up Mount Carmel again. He looks into the face of Aaphne, he says, well now, he said, I think rain can come.
I'm going to pray for him. He went and prayed and put his head down in dependence. He says to his servant, go out and have a look and see if you can see the rain clouds coming. And there's the blue Mediterranean Sea. And there's the blue sky, the parched ground all the way round. Sends his servant again and again, and at last he says, I can see a little cloud the size of a man's hand coming over the ocean. This is it. I can hear, said he, the sound of abundance of rain. Ahab, get into your chariot, man. Get back before the gullies are racing with water, before the streams are all pouring. We won't get home tonight unless you hurry.
Come on. And Ahab climbs into his chariot. I don't know. I'm quite thrilled by it. This man girds himself. And he actually runs in front of that chariot. Now I wish I could just part in my Bible. I marked it down somewhere I know, but I think I'm right in saying that he ran twenty miles over the hill and valley country of Judea, of Samaria. See him, the end of this day, this tremendous day out in the open hot sun, this day of the slaughter of the prophets.
See him up in front of the horse. There's old Ahab sitting in his chariot, despondent noise, going back to me, Genselville, and running! What a day. And at the end of that day, a painted-faced lady looks out at the window and she says, I'll do to Elijah by this time tomorrow what he did to my prophet. And Elijah looks round and he says, Well, I thought I'd won a great victory, but, oh dear, I'm all alone. Lord, I only am left.
They want to take away my life. Verse fourteen, chapter nineteen. Poor Elijah. He said this several times in the chapter, verse four for the first time. Oh, Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my father's. Poor Elijah. Take away my life. Elijah, you are not going to die. Oh, I am finished. I am all through. I could do no more. It is time for me to quietly give up and die. But you are not going to die.
I haven't planned for you to die for another ten years. You've got to live. Me? Yes, you? And I'm going to take you to heaven without dying. I'm going to rapture you. Might be true of some of us, you know. This is pretty modern, isn't it? Maybe there's no need for you to look for that undertaker, that man to put you safely away, you know, underneath the ground, or burn you up or something like that. Maybe raptured at any moment. Very up to date. Yes, you're not going to die, but I've got the biggest job for you for the next ten years. What is it, Lord?
Well, you've got to be in my will. You know, you're a man of like passions with all other men. You've come to the end of your assources. You've had a breakdown. Did you know it? Breakdown. Never heard of it, Elijah, but you've got it. It's only one thing for you. Sleep, dear boy. And then wake up and angels will come and give you a good breakfast, good lunch, a good supper. Go to sleep again. Sleep and good food, rest and food and rest and food. It's the only thing. Your nerves are all on tension. You've had a breakdown. You're not seeing things as you ought to see it. Instead of being the victorious Elijah, you are now the broken down Elijah.
You're mumbling to yourself, take away my life. I only am left. You only are left. You are not left alone. The seven thousand round the corner have never bowed the knee to bear. And they weren't run by your fireworks. I've got to teach you that question. What doest thou hear, Elijah, in this cave down in the Southland? Come out. Come out and see the wind and the fire and the earthquake. And God is knocking the wind and the fire and the earth. And he stands there. And a still small voice comes, a sound of a stillness, be still and know that I am God. And in the stillness, he's recommissioned. He's told that he didn't win one convert away up there on Mount Carvel.
Not one. He cut out the awful cancer of Baal from the nation's life, but didn't win a soul. There are seven thousand people who, by the still, small voice of God's gracious spirit, are true to the Jehovah God. And you must go and teach them. You must form little schools of the prophets. You must go tramping over these hills and through these valleys for the next ten, ten years, for the greatest work God has ever given to a man or woman. And pass on what you know of God to us. And so he does. Tonight we'll see how he does it. right up to the last day of his rapture. And dear Christians, I want to tell you something in loved America.
If you are passing on to others what you know of God and know of the living Christ, you've got the greatest ministry a man and woman can ever have in this world. It may be a little Bible class on a Sunday. It may be a women's meeting. It may be a little children's meeting in your home. It may be in the sacred desk of a pulpit to give forth God's word. This is the greatest work in the world. God needs men and women of God to do. Without exception he calls us all to. Whether it's to the ones or the twos or the tons or the thousands, he calls us to the ministry of passing on to others what we know.
of the living God in Christ. And this is your ministry right through to the evening of life. Don't miss it. See him rising in the morning, and we shall see this tonight. And he says to his young understudy, God go down to the school of the prophets of the next town. I'm going with you, Master. They go and go and go and go. And you can see a full day as he ministers here and ministers there and ministers there and ministers there. Do I wish, I wish that all of you at Keswick this morning could catch the vision of the possibilities. Do you know this? If you know the Lord, there are weary, hungry, distressed, ignorant people all around you about spiritual things, and if only you could get ones and twos and threes and fours and fives and sixes.
And this could be multiplied. And you could be known as a man of God or a woman of God. passing on according to the varied opportunities you have, your knowledge of God. What a blessing the closing years of life could be for you and for me. I tell you quite frankly, looking back now over my life, I've been a jungle missionary in the Amazon jungle. I've been an evangelist in the West Indies, but I believe today the work that God has given me to do in the evening of life is the sweetest and the happiest work. It's going from group to group, little congregation to little assembly.
Throughout Jamaica, British Honduras, Barbados, the Isles of the Sea, just standing among them, little schools of the prophets, the seven thousand men who have not bowed beneath a veil and their children and their families and their loved ones. opening up the word of God and telling them just what I know of the Lord. That's all. You know the story. You cannot lift anything higher than yourself. I can't lift this Bible more than eight foot at the very most. Why? It's as high as I can lift it. And you can only lift people spiritually as high as you are.
You can only pass on what you know of the living God. And I'm going to send you out into the day to think of it. Before whom I stand, all right Elijah, go to Ahab and witness. Go to Cherith. I've got ravens to feed you there. Go to Seraphath. I've got a widow to sustain you there. Go and cut out the awful cancer of Baal. But, oh, dear Elijah, what doest thou hear? Running away with the cry of defeat upon your lips? I only am left. You are not alone.
The seven thousand. Take away my life. I've got ten more years for you. Am I not better than my fathers? Whoever said you will. God doesn't mute men because they're better than their fathers. A breakdown. You may not have had a mental breakdown or a nervous breakdown or a physical breakdown, but have you had a spiritual breakdown? Is it possible that Keswick, the great surgeon, comes and he says, opening up the inner places of your mind and your heart, I have to tell you that your spiritual life has broken down, and I've got to recommission you.
You say, me? Could he use me? all the wealth of that life could be used. Here in Florida it can be used. Florida's filled with poor old codgers sitting on the bridges trying to catch a huge fish, shuffling the balls up and down all days on in the evening of their life. Without Christ left those northern cities and it's the biggest mission field in the world. You come for that loved holiday. Don't just come for sunshine. Come for an adventure for God. For whom I stand to be an instrument, a man of God, a woman of God.
Shall we pray? Loving Lord, we are privileged to spend an hour around thy word. How many are out in the rush and bustle of daily life and have not this privilege? How many are surrounded by war and strife and want and need and danger? Thank you for giving to us these lovely settings of life. And in them may we face the fact that thy greatest longing is that we might be like David of old, like Moses of old, like young Timothy, and many more in thy word who were called a man of God.
And oh, may we treasure to be called by that name a woman of God, a man of God. Bless our study and separate us with thy divine blessing. We commend each other for thy love and care for the day with all its happenings. In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. This promise of Genesis twelve, verse seven.
In the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, unto thy seed, notice it's not to Abram, unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt, unto the great river, the Euphrates, the Canaanites, and the Kennesites, and the Catalanites, and the Hittites, and the Parasites, and the Rephians. King shall come out of thee, and I will establish my covenant between me and...
Everyone which seeeth the Son and believeeth on him... You're going to need the cassettes and you're going to need everything else. We're going to keep right on moving right now and we're going to move into the second fifteen-minute segment. And gentlemen, I want to say, while one is speaking, you want to stretch, you know, we'll be here for a while. It's a heavy time. For those of you who just joined us, it's the quest for prophetic truth.
Dr. John Walwood, president of Dallas Theological Seminary, giving the premillennial point of view. And Mr. Harold Camping, president of Family Stations Incorporated, giving the armillennial point of view. Join us. It's the quest for prophetic truth. Dr. John Walwood, president of Dallas Theological Seminary, giving the premillennial point of view. And Mr. Harold Camping, president of Family Stations Incorporated, giving the... And Mr. Harold Camping, president of Family Stations Incorporated, giving the armillennial point of view...
and yours truly be Sam Hart, trying his best to moderate here.