Elijah's life demonstrates how even faithful servants can experience profound emotional distress and breakdown, particularly after intense periods of ministry and facing threats. Following his victory on Mount Carmel and subsequent flight from Jezebel's threats, Elijah succumbed to fear and despair, wishing for death under a juniper tree. This highlights that emotional and mental sicknesses, like physical ones, can affect anyone, regardless of their spiritual standing, and are often triggered by stress, shock, or perceived failure. Ultimately, God met Elijah in his distress, showing that divine understanding and care are available even in moments of deepest despair, and that recovery is possible.
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Shall we turn over to First Kings chapter nineteen. First Kings chapter nineteen. Read the text we read this morning and we'll be going over to the book of Job, the first chapter. You sure you might turn to both before we start reading and then you'll have them ready when we turn to. First Kings chapter nineteen. And Ahab told Jezebel for all that Elijah had done, and with all harm he had slain all the prophets of the sword. Then Jezebel sent messengers unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.
When he saw that, he arose and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belonged to Judah, and left his servant there. But he and his son went the 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 said, It is enough. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers. For his train to begin, a verse, the opening verse, and the one in verse four. In verse one he's fleeing because Jezebel said she was going to kill him.
So after running about a couple of hundred miles away down into Judah, he sat down under the juniper tree, and he said, Lord, take away my life. Well, Jezebel could have taken care of a little bit of business back there in Jezebel. I don't know why I want the Lord of Judah to say to Jezebel. But anyway, it just goes to show how confused a rider seems to be. And this morning we were speaking on people with emotional disturbances. Sometimes they do get confused about certain things. You mentioned this morning things that bring on breakdown, nervous breakdown, neurosis and things of that nature. It could be brought on by an accident.
You didn't mention that this morning, but many a nervous breakdown can be traced to an accident. I could mention them right here, and I will because she's not good enough. But Peggy Bishop, Mr. and Mrs. Bishop were here when the word started, and she took a group of ladies over to Cordill to listen to a man over there, who was one in the party, I think, of the Valky Indians. And... On the way back, she made the wrong turn to decide a curdeal, and so she decided to back up. And as she did, a man in a car, a soldier, drunk, he came over the hill, and he crashed into that car, and how a half, a dozen of them, or not killed, we'll never know.
And it was a terrible crash. In fact, one of the ladies who was here this morning, I was here tonight. She was in it. But you know, Peggy never got over. And about a year later, she had a fearful breakdown. She came out to my apartment one morning and she had an overcoat on. I don't know who's it was. It wasn't worded. It dragged down to her ankle. And her hair was uncoated. And I never saw her look so terrible. And she looked at me so pitifully. Mr. Thumb's all along with me. And she was in that for a year. Now that was caused from an accident.
And that's how it'll sometimes accident or these nervous disorders get started. There are about fifty some different types of nervous disorder. Then again, shock. And I can give you a note in case of this. How a person can have a breakdown by shock. Some of you know the ophthalmologist here, the name of Mr. Coleman, Dr. Coleman. Two or three years ago, his son was killed. Do you remember that? And his wife went into a shock, and she went fully out of the tent. So you have things that cause these nervous breakdowns. And that's almost always why a neurologist or psychiatrist will inquire into your background, to see if there's anything in your background to bring on a situation of this kind.
And you can think of also a knowledge of one's own in them. Some people, when they discover what's wrong with them, they have an emotional upset that only adds to their problem. One can think too of constant strain, people being under the constant strain. I think one of the most pathetic things I've read and heard about is about the airmen in England that fought off the German Luftwaffe, and there were just about a couple of hundred, if you will, in that, British airmen. and they're the ones that Winston Churchill spoke about, their finest hour. Those men were in the air night and day.
They would come down for a mission, instead of resting, they were given something to pick them up, and up they'd go. Back, and when I was in England, twenty-some years ago, there were three hospitals then, and they housed only these airmen. that would never be any better the rest of their life. Their mind and their nerve were so shocked, they were under such a shock. They'll never be the same. They'll be there till they die. Because of the constant strain of day after day, day after day, that's why Winston Churchill wrote that book, their finest novel, those few hundred men saved Britain.
and they shot down the German bombers, because these were Pythoclan, they shot down the German bombers until the Germans lost, so they had to call it on. But it was in the hands of those men, night and day, under power of some kind of intoxicant, and they were able to keep going, they didn't keep going. Now you have the cause of many breakdowns. A constant day after day straight, And finally the nerve snapped, and that's it. Also, I think some know this. The lady is good. It can be caused. I've known this happened from childhood.
Mrs. Hollingsworth became a schizophrenic after the birth of their last child, the Smith personnel. Sometime, it changed the life. These are things that bring about nervous disorders, nervous breakdown. heredity can cross. You'll go back into your life. Has your father, mother, or any on either side been subject to nervous disorders, then there's a good likelihood you'll be touched with it too. And so when you stop to think of these nervous disorders and how wonderful that God should sing aloud to people in his word, and I don't think there's any experience in any life, But what you can't find a parallel or something similar to it in the Bible, so we may get how God treated that situation.
How did God handle Elijah? What did he do with Job? Well, that's the thing. And here is Elijah, how he fled from Jezebel. He was filled with fright up to this moment. Why he was He was brave. He was brave. He rebuked the King Ahab. He thought nothing of death. All he thought about was his God and his zeal for his God. But here's something happened. After those three and a half years' drought, and he realized that his ministry was the cause of it. He said the heavens wouldn't give way.
And three and a half years ago, only God knows how many people died. how many animals, and how many birds and that died as a result of that awful, awful drought. And it was through his ministry, and he must have thought about what he was doing to the will of God. This was God's judgment upon Daedalism, idolatry. Then that final showdown, as we mentioned last Sunday night on Mount Kama. And now... He runs ahead of Ahab's chariot to the gates of Jezreel. And Ahab went in to see Jezreel.
What was this report? Did he say, my, you ought to have seen what happened up on that hill. How Elijah's got this? To soon the sacrifice. And Elijah's got set the range. Look at these wonderful shards. No. He didn't glory in our... and Elijah's God. Or in the rain, his melancholy story was this to his wife. Elijah killed all your priests and all your prophets. And she got so mad as that's when she said, our own gods are concerned.
She said in verse two, then Jezebel sent the messenger unto Elijah saying, So let the gods do to me. and not also if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by the model of a descent. Why should she swear by her gods? Her gods had proved her infancy. Her gods didn't even exist. Her four hundred and fifty priests called upon her gods, and they didn't answer because they didn't exist. And here she said, in the name of these gods, I'm going to do the same. I like it. I'm going to keep it. She had no God.
They couldn't come to her sister. They couldn't, in any way, having to do Elijah's death. Here was a threat that I don't think Ahab would have carried through. Because Ahab didn't tell her, do you know how all the people turned away from daylady and turned back to the God of Israel? Why, all the people, they're going to say the living God. And his life on the throne even was in jeopardy. What could he do with all the people of Israel turned back to their God? Elijah was saved. They wouldn't stand by and see their hero, Elijah, slain by the Queen.
But his will pray. She says, I'm going to give him. I'm going to kill him. I'm going to give him. I've been alive. He heard that he took off. His personality reverence. And he suffered. the keenness of the action. For around three and a half years, everything was wonderful. He was enjoying his God. He was in the wilderness of God. He was carrying out the mind of God. But nature can only stand so much. And then it snaps. And this was the straw that snaps the nerves of a night.
He turned and he fled. He turned and he fled. And so these are some of the things that bring about a nervous disorder. You know people who have nervous disorders, they're always in the room having fears. Fearing something that doesn't exist. Fearing something that is not the fact. Here is Elijah and he said, I want to die. Well, Elijah, you're not in the will of God in asking for that. God does something better for you. You never will die. But he thought he would. And nervous people generally think things are going to happen.
They're afraid of this. They're afraid of that. They're possessed with apprehension. That's typical of nervous people. They figure what's going to come upon them. The possible bridges they may have to cross. I mean, living in a constant dread of the future. Dread of the future. Yes, and they'd read a lot in the past, dear. They'd think about the past. Possibly Elijah would have left and said, My, if I had only been able to have stood there, I'd be fine, Jezebel, how different things would be. Why, it's possible, I could have led the nation.
I would have led the leader. I could have gotten those seven thousand or five thousand leaders there. I could have followed them through me. That would have been an oath for a great revival in Israel. God's all gone now. I ran away. He couldn't have thought of many things. He'd only stayed. And that's what people do. They think of what might be, what might be, what might be. Well, this is it. God understands. He said later on to this prophet, because he came to his sister, as we'll see next Sunday morning, how God graciously, kindly, lovingly, and understandingly took care of his overlocked prophet.
God knows. He knows our faith. He remembers the river thus. He knows that. None was even the hairs of us dead. God knows when nature gives way. And God doesn't forsake his own death. He comes to the resistance. How wonderful to have a God like this. You know, we just start to think of emotional trouble, mental fatigue. If your mind is sick, And I'm going to use the word sickness. See, Father, I said this morning, mental sickness or mental fatigue, nervous disorder is just a sickness, just like in Leah.
When a person is mentally sick, he's sick all over. If you have a broken leg and you're healthy, your legs are not troubled, you can enjoy a lot of things. You can sit down and read the book and enjoy it. You can enjoy plenty of things. You've got a sick body or broken neck. But if you've got an emotional situation, if you've got mental fatigue, you can't enjoy anything. Not even your own love. You just don't want to have any desire for anything that you want to have desired. That's the dream. For a person behind a sick mind, everything's sick.
Everything's. I'll tell you, the Lord Jesus Christ, in with something, not only of physical pain, he speaks of what happened to his body with wounded and broken upon the cross, but he also speaks of my soul, my soul, my soul. His soul has made an offering for sin, his emotions suck. Then he speaks of my spirit. My spirit is over a fern within me. You want to quote other texts. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered on the cross, spirit, soul, and body.
When he died on the cross, his sacrifice took him. All man's suffering is mentally, spiritually, physically, emotional. He knew where it was. How sad that the Lord Jesus Christ had been set They used it, considerable. Yes, the Lord Jesus knew something of estrangement from God. The loneliness. My God, my God, why has thou, this day to me? You know, loneliness is another thing that represents the situation with people with emotional disturbances.
They feel lonely. Why, among people, may be found to be, but they're lonely. They feel alone. They feel cut off. Many a time, Mrs. Hollingsworth, when I've been there, when I've gone there, she's been very happy. The next day, she's just the reverse. When I go over, it's shot. Sometimes I'm not going to go anywhere, but I know where she'll go. I said, Geneva, what's the trouble? Oh, she said, it's off. Just one of those. She said, I can't get through anybody. There's a war between me and my husband.
There's a war between me and my children. I just can't get through them. I'm in trouble. I just can't get. And that's herself. No, no, no, she sees no Elijah fell. Holy, sister, I owe them that. I owe them that, my God. I'm the only one that's left. They've killed all your prophets, and I only am left. No, Elijah, you should have said God only instead of I only. Because God has reserved seven thousand and haven't found the need to bathe.
Elijah, you're not of those. That's one thing you can bring home to those who are suffering mental fatigue, and emotions of other sorts. You are not alone. Here and there are over this world and around the industries of men and women just like you suffer. And God knows that it's only in that condition. God knows that yet they suffer loneliness. So few seem to understand. So few seem to realize that what they're in are now hurting. This is what Elijah went through.
God needs the true inner meaning of our hearts. He believes that, and He answers that. He sees what that person is going through. He sees their very inner emotion. He realizes their state, how helpless they are. And God immediately hears that groan and cannot be us. And he answers that prayer, as he did with the light. So now we're going over to another one over in Job chapter one. Job chapter one. It's another situation that seems strange and hard to take in.
For God, this man told a different character than Elijah, and I want to give you a little brief summary of what I thought about in summing up the characteristics of Job, and the next Sunday we'll say something about Elijah's own characteristics, showing you the different kinds of people who can be afflicted with nervous disorder. For here you have Job, he was a man of love, he was a man of wisdom, he was a man of worth. Yes, he loved his God. Not only so, God says concerning Job, he's our perfect, He's an upright man. There's none like him in all the earth.
Now he must have been wonderful, though. A sterling character. Perfect, upright, broad peering, and evil, hazy. This was good. And finally, he had executive ability. This man was solid. This man lived, he did. And yet, see what happened. This tolerant of the man, this man that stood dead in soldiers, soldiers above all the folks in that part of the world at that time. The man in the East has some brilliant characters. But he was the greatest, the definite article there. God said he's the greatest of all the men of the East.
Well, notice how great he was in chapter two. After all these things happened to him, I suppose you know what did happen to him. How the blows fell and his possessions were destroyed, the crops were destroyed, the herds were destroyed, the buildings were broken down and thrown away, his family of ten children, seven sons and three daughters, they were killed. His health went. He sat on that ash heap outside that Oriental city, scraping himself with a punctured You have what they call elementalisotions? In other words, figs ulcers or figs that are boils, always like carbuncle, oozing out from his cracked skin.
And here he sits down with a potcher outside the Oriental city, where they've brought the heated ashes from the fire blazer. And Dool tried to find some heat at night, and there he sat with his potcher trying to scrape himself. What a critical sight. How did he take the beginning of all these things? Well, it tells you. Notice verse ten of chapter two. When his wife told him in verse nine, Then said his wife unto him, Just thou still retain thine integrity, curse God and die. My, that's something, isn't it? He lost his wife. And a wife, as critical as that, was unsympathetic.
He didn't lose much. and she told him to curse God and die. Now notice his rebuke. But he said unto her, Thou speaketh of one of the foolish women, speaketh. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God? And shall we not receive evil? It always did Thou sin with his lips. How brave Job walked. And recently, Or just before this, when all these various calamities came, he says, The Lord gave the Lord had taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Was he a strong man? I should say, made us speak. And he went into the presence of God, and he worshipped. That's what the Bible tells us. He went into the presence of God and he worshipped. My, he was a stalwart for them. And when a person worships, they're in the mind of God. When a person worships, they're saying, It's not my will, but thy be done. And after all these things he tells you, He says, The Lord, they, and the Lord have taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. The Lord, not my will, thy be done.
And then He turns and rebukes His wife. Then he gets a visit from some of his close friends. Notice what happened in verse eleven. Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that must come upon them, they came, every one from his own place, alive as the Chivanite, and do that the Shuhite, and so far the Nehemiah. For they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. When they lifted up, their eyes afar off, and they knew him not. This certainly is not joke. This is not joke.
They knew not. They lifted up their voice and went. And they rent every one his mantle and strangle dust upon their heads toward him. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights. and none speak a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great. He sits there for seven days. He just sits, he moans, he groaned. He's stripped of everything. Even his husband thought, his comfort is calm, as he thought.
What went on during that seven-hour period? Joan Bisting, my, when he heard the bad news of what had happened, he took it bravely like the incoming wave. He stood up again, and that wave of sorrow did not knock him off his feet. He faced it on bravely. But then the sight and the undertow was coming back, and that took him out into the depths of the deep. Many people meet news, bad news, sad news. They meet at grave. You wonder sometimes how they stand up. You have to admire their courage.
How they take this blow of grief. This message is solved. They take their stand and they act like giants. Then they begin to reflect. And they begin to think, was God after all, true? Why did he let that happen? Why should I have to suffer like this? And they get bitter. The younger troll sweeps them up. Many a time I've been a funeral, and I've seen people make that tragedy great. I've also visited them later to find them bitter.
They've turned against them. Some of them have suffered his emotional disturbances become. Now, this is Job, verse one of chapter three. After this, open Job's mouth and cursed his day. That means his birthday in the Bible. He curses his birthday. Isn't that something? For the day he was born. You have his cursing of his birthday, laments his birthday, and verses two to nine.
I want you to notice the little word let. I went down these verses yesterday and underlined the little word let, and there are sixteen of them. Notice what he says about his birthday. In verse three, let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, there is a mankind conceived. Let that day be darkness. Let not God regard it from heaven. Neither let the light shine upon it. Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it. Let a cloud dwell upon it. Let the blackness of the day terrify it. As for that night let darkness seize upon it.
Let it not be joined unto the days of the year. Don't let it be marked on the calendar. Let it not come unto the number of the months. Don't let that night be solitary. Let no fool's joyful voice tumbled in. Let them curse it that cursed the day, who are ready to raise up their mind. Let the stars of the twilight around be dropped. Let it not look for life that had none. Neither let it see the dawning of the day. Why? Why do you lament your birth? joke, verse ten. Because it shut not up the doors on my mother's womb, nor did sorrow from my nights.
And then he began to do something else. He renounced his infancy. Childhood, verses eleven to twelve. Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the valley? And why did the need for bed me? For why the best that I should suck? For now should I have been still and been quiet. I should have slept. Then have I been at rest, with king, counsellors of the earth, with full desolate places with themselves, or with princes that had gold and filled their houses with silver. Whereas the hidden untimely birth there had not been, as infants which never saw left, there the wicked ceased from troubling, there the weary the oppressed.
where the prisoners rest together. They hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and the greater there. And the servant is free from his master. Here he laments his infancy. And here he also, and he'll notice he mentions this. Had he died then as a child, he would now be enjoying the quietness of the grave. He would be resting with kings and counsellors, princes, prisoners and slaves. Oh, he says, I wished I'd have died as a babe. Why should I live to go through all? Job, are you forgetting all those happy years? And remember, Job's about seventy years of age from this house.
Here an anxious manhood, verses twenty. And wherefore is life given to him, that is, me in misery, and life unto the bittering soul? which long for death, but it cometh not, indeed, for it more than for his treasure, which rejoice exceedingly on a jab when they confine the grave, why is light given to a man whose way is his disease away now, a man now, and whom God hath hath hath his lamenting his manhood. And he said, says verse twenty-four, For now I'm sorry and coming from what I ate, and not at all means are poured out like the waters.
For the thing which I greatly feared has come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is coming to me. I was not in safety. Neither had I addressed. Neither was I quite yet troubled here. Here's Job. I have a different picture. We noticed him before. How brave he was. What a stall. with a giant, a man of faith. And he took all those blows. The Lord gave, the Lord had taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord, and he worshipped him. So he did in his wife that he did. You're one of the fools. Why, shall we not receive the hand of the Lord?
Shall we not, as well as evil? Well, he forgot the goods and the evil possessed. There are two characters, Job before and Job after. In other words, Job had a complete reversal of personnel. He passed through a brief, enormous upset when the language here makes that very clear and clear. Something happened drastically for Job to say what he did. Here you see the difference. Now it is something. And his three friends come to see him. And they couldn't put up with him.
They tried to tell him, Job, you're responsible for this. You did something to cause it. And they tried their best to convince Job that he was responsible. The worst thing you can do to anybody suffering a nervous breakdown. Tell them they've got it off. They're responsible. In many cases, they have nothing to do with it. something slipped up. Then the old woman has saved, wiped and paid for her family, despising herself, neglecting herself for the sake of her family, until she died. Couldn't do any more. And she suffered a nervous disorder that put her by for months.
Sometimes the mind was a thing. You couldn't blame that woman. Duky called, and you couldn't blame those airmen. They were being guilty. They loved their country. They paid a price. And so these friends come to Job and they try to heap it on. No one calls them a liar. No one calls them a hypocrite. No one said you're just some righteous Job. They didn't understand God's dealings with Job. And the unsaved world don't know the first letter of the alphabet. about the reasons why some things happen to Christians.
They don't understand the mind of God. They don't understand the will of God. They don't understand why things like this come into the life of a Christian. The only thing you can do is look at the end total of what happened. Dear poor Job, life of failure, lost faith in his friend, If you read them later on, I'd love to go through the book of Job and read it, because I'd love to see the way he snapped back and gives them some answers. He's a miserable, comfort as I know. And he tells them all. He was sharp enough for that, because they were trying to condemn him.
And he knew he wasn't guilty of the things they accused him of. But finally, as I say, going through the depths of this, his life was a failure. He lost faith in his friends, these three friends, he says your positions are no value. He lost sight of the love, promises, and purposes of God. He lost sight of all that. And he had restless nights and horrifying dreams. He said, in the morning I wish you one night. Night I wish you. Morning. Joe's taken up for themselves. Here is Joe going through the flow of a nervous breakdown.
You go back now to Elijah. Isn't it amazing? You find these two men mentioned in the New Testament, Job and Elijah, in the very same book, in the very same chapter, and God sums up the lives of these two men. It's a wonderful thing. Over New Testament, chapter five of James, we quoted that and taken up our message on Elijah. Chapter five and verses seventeen and eighteen. It says, Elijah is a man of light passions with us. And he prayed that it might not rain.
That rain not for the space that three and a half years. And he prayed again. And rain came. Yes, God sums up his life between true prayer. And that mistake he tells us in that passage, because he speaks of the effectual verbal prayer of a righteous man, a veil of touch, and he draws attention to a light. Elijah was a man of prayer through it all. What about Job in that same chapter you find in verse, let me see, in verse eleven of James? He speaks of the patience of Job.
Here. heard of the patience of Job on how God was long-suffering. Now we have the two things. Prayer characterized a life here. Patience characterized Job. If there are two things that those who are passing through disorders emotionally and mentally, if there are two things they need to have or do, or practice, it's these very two, prayer and patience. Prayer and patience. It's hard to pray sometimes. Although the days are so long, patience, when will the end come?
When will the blind fly up and let the sunlight in? When will this load lift? When will I get delivered? When will I win, or win? That's the lament of a person in a nervous race. That's wonderful, isn't it, to know this, that both recovered? And both had happy endings. Elijah didn't die at the hands of Jezebel, neither did he die an actual death. He didn't die at all. God swept them to heaven in a chariot of flame. Joe had a wonderful end. Elijah had a wonderful end.
And what about Joe? He had a wonderful end, too. Read it in chapter forty-two. God gave him twice as much as he had to begin. He lost ten children. God gave him ten more. And God gave him twice as much as he had to do. Joe, what do you think now? Oh, yes, please. sun shone on your home and your farm and your business. For men here, you were a happy man, and you had all those lovely children, all those buildings, all that property and all those flocks, those backs, fields of great cattle.
They were wonderful. And Job, you passed under a plow, didn't you? Yes, nobody thought about that. Look what I have now. I've got ten more, sir. So I went about, how did you get twice from them? The first ten were in heaven. They were Christians, as you speak of them today. God said, I've given you ten more. And you get twice as much in every respect. Job had a happy end. And God rebuked his three friends that they didn't understand God's Jesus. And Job turned around and prayed for his three friends in the last chapter.
For the subject, the very man that they had persecuted, the very man that they criticized, turned around and prayed. Wonderful. How you see the end of these two men. Both of them had wonderful life. Elijah, you had a wonderful life, didn't you? Up to the time when Mount Carmel, Oh yeah, they were wonderful day. God was with me. What about that great you had? You know, when you fled from Jezebel, you went away down in Judah, you sat under the beautiful tree, ask the Lord, take your way.
You know better than your father. After all, who told me you were better than your father? You might have had no pride there, Elijah. all of the fulfillment forget it. He said, everything's all right now. I'm back in fellowship with God, and he went and started a school for prophets to teach the prophets of God. Then the end came God after a month of Elisha, the Giza, etc. A child of fire came down and swept him into the glory. And you see him in Matthew seventeen, sitting with Moses. there on the month of transfiguration and Jesus cranched in the midst.
You see him, future glory. Elijah moves on the month of transfiguration and Jesus cranched in the midst. Both of them had glorious scriptures, didn't they? But I have to think of it. Through it all was one thing Job never let go. Even in those darkest days those bitterest moments. He says, I know that my Redeemer lived, that he shall stand in the latter days upon the earth, and after my flesh will destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall not, I shall, she wrote.
Yes, what did you do if you had your life to live over again, Job? As you look back on it from eternity, well, After I listened to the thousands and thousands and thousands of God's people who told me here in heaven, what a blessing they got out of my experience on earth when they read my story, I think I'd go through the same thing again. It was such a blessing to many people. Elijah, would you like to go through your experience? Yeah? What a comfort it was to so many people. who had a nervous break like I had.
Yes, I think I'd go through it again as horrible as it is. My experience recording the Bible was a blessing to so many. You asked me about the little experience I had and recovered from. Would you go through it again? I'd like to say yes. But I'd have more people. that I could never have helped before, and didn't help. I didn't look upon people with nerves as being in, having a problem, being indifficult. I didn't recognize nerves. I thought, that's all nonsense. But I tell you, after I had my little spell, I changed my mind.
I knew exactly. Someone gone through far more than ever, I looked at it. But I had enough. And I believe to this day, if I hadn't had that little break, I wouldn't be here. I'd have had a heart attack. And I'd have been involved. I couldn't have kept up the pace. Like Brother Eduardo had five heart attacks. I know the pace he kept, if I kept the same pace. And I know my heart would have given up if God hadn't said, I'm going to slow you down. There's a breakdown. And he did. My health's recovered than that of the last year, and it's been for many, many years.
And I'll give you the secret of some of that next morning. They'll all be there. And so I asked you tonight, are you a Christian? They say to me, if it were through something like that, they don't know how to go through that. Some of God's people don't know hardly anything of hardship. But sometimes God does. He picks up one person, makes a preacher out of you. He picks up another person, makes a patient out of a sufferer. They'll all get the reward in that day. And God shall give to every man, according as his works shall be. When you come to Christ, I hate to think of going into eternity without deceiving.
The worst kind of torment is mental torment. The worst kind of power is mental power. And that's what the unsaved are going to experience. Forever and forever. Hell is going to be an eternal, insane desire. A place of people, suffering men, as the Lord Jesus Christ said to the man in the sixteenth of week. Son, remember thou in thy lifetime. You had your chance, you missed it. And now mental salt, mental anguish, mental torment, whatever anguish.
Thank God that Christian may have a touch of this hair. He'll never have a tear. Your line will never be as bright or as keen as it will be in that day. Your body will never be as free from pain as it will be in that day. No anguish, no pain, no wrinkles, no sighing, and no sighing. What a day that will be. What we're going to suffer for twice, listen to your meddling. It's right here. Then our suffering days of old, that's when the suffering of the sinner begins. So if you are no trice, come, if you are a Christian, do not these two men that pray.
Wake upon God. Be patient. There's a lesson there. You appreciate that lesson when you learn it, and the prize that comes after it. So we pray. Our Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come before thee. We ask thy blessing upon thy word, and it is easy to use it. We thank thee for those, Father, who have stood the test. They trusted thee in God that delivered them. We pray that it might please thee to bless any who are suffering from any emotional disturbance, or any mental fatigue.
God bless them. May they know somewhat of thy presence. Those of us who enjoy good health, help us to appreciate it. Next to our salvation, we thank thee. for good health. May our people here tonight benefit from the experiences of Elijah and Job. With this intent, thou dost put their accounts, their stories, their histories, and thy precious works. We ask it in our Savior's name. Amen.