Elijah's appearance before King Ahab is presented as a pivotal moment where one man, empowered by God, stood against widespread idolatry and moral decay in Israel. The sermon highlights Elijah's name, meaning "Jehovah is my God," as a direct challenge to the prevailing worship of Baal, and emphasizes his role as a "stranger" and "witness" from Gilead. It explores Elijah's mission to lift a standard against the flood of iniquity, his respect for Ahab's office despite his wickedness, and his ultimate allegiance to his heavenly monarch, the Lord God of Israel. The core lesson is the necessity of living with the reality of God, acting as His representatives, and demonstrating His supernatural power in our lives to offer hope in a despairing world, underscoring that true courage stems from persistent prayer, personal persuasion of God's reality, and the practice of His presence.
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John showed me that picture of Blue Ridge. I've never had the privilege of being Blue Ridge, but there were quite some brethren there that time in that picture. John is smart. There's the Lord now. Lester Wilson. Welcome, Deutwiler. Quite a few. Would you turn with me, please, to, first of all, First Kings chapter seventeen. First Kings chapter seventeen. I think I said First Corinthians because it's on my mind. We have the privilege on every Thursday morning in Southwest Orlando of having a Thursday morning Bible study.
It's been a real joy. We have taken this over since a year ago, September, and the Lord has really blessed. We... The class has been going for some time, but they were only getting about eight or ten. For some reason, the Lord opened the door to others, or at least placed the interest there. We've been having anywhere from eighteen to twenty-five coming out to hear the word. We took last year, starting a year ago, September, a study on the Holy Spirit, a rather in-depth study, I suppose, almost a seminary-like course, really. And we have both men and ladies there, although the ladies are predominant naturally and during the day.
We're still in the Holy Spirit, but we're going to be starting our next time or the time after that on First Corinthians. So it's been much in my mind. If you ever think about that class, we'd appreciate your prayers. First of all, it's not just for assembly people as such. In fact, we have more who are not in fellowship and assembly that are. And who knows what the Lord could have this lead to someday. That would be a great joy as far as we're concerned. But we don't like to get ahead of the Lord. All right. First Kings chapter seventeen. And read from verse one. And Elijah the Tishphite, who is of the inhabitants of Gilead, said under Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be due nor reign these years, but according to my word now also turn over with me please to Isaiah chapter fifty nine Isaiah chapter fifty nine and we'll read one verse there at this time at least verse
nineteen so shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." And this is what we want to talk a little bit about tonight as we think about this great man Elijah and his appearance before Ahab. We want to look first of all at the man and his mission. and the man and his meaning, the man and his monarch, the man and his master, the man and his message, and finally the man and his moral courage.
These things which we're going to learn about this man, Elijah, as we see him appearing before, this great potentate of Israel, possibly and no doubt the most evil man, the most evil king, that Israel ever had and what Elijah did concerning him. Let's look first of all at the man and his mission. This verse from Isaiah chapter fifty-nine I think gives us a good picture of what just was beginning to take place. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.
And this figure that we have here like a flood is a graphic and expressive one. It's that of an abnormal deluge or a flood, which results in the submerging of all the land around and of the imperiling of property and life. And that's exactly what was happening in the land of Israel during that day. Only what was happening there was a picture of the moral degradation and the moral experience of Israel at that time. The pure worship of Jehovah has failed. There was none. There were seven thousand hidden away in some caves who did not dare to speak their mind.
There were a hundred prophets who had been saved by Obadiah, as you see in chapter eighteen, who were hidden in a cave and being fed bread and water. And there wasn't any worship of Jehovah going on. It was being said that As far as God was concerned, the only true God was Baal. As far as Jehovah was concerned, he was dead. In Elijah's time, this flood of evil was brought in by Satan through iniquity, through impiety, through great idolatry, which seemed to sweep the land of the cause of God off the earth.
This is what was happening. And here was one man that was being called of God to do something about it. Now in the context here in Isaiah, it's going to show us what is meant by the language of this verse that we've just read. Notice in chapter fifty nine again in verse nine. Therefore is judgment far from us. Neither does justice overtake us. We wait for light, but behold obscurity, for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noon day on the night. We are in desolate places as dead men.
We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves. We look for judgment that there is none, but for salvation, but it is far off from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us. And as for our iniquities we know them, in transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart, words of falsehood, falsehood, and judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off, for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
Yea, truth faileth. He that departeth from evil maketh himself of praise. And the Lord saw it and it pleased him that there was no judgment. You see, one of the things that was happening at this time was the fact that with the consequence of this idolatry, this turning away from God, and yet the heavens were still, it seemed like nothing was happening. There was no judgment coming upon the land. And it would seem that if God withholded his judgment, that people would just completely turn against God and say, well, nothing's going to happen to us. We just might as well go ahead and live as we please. But you can believe that when God in his mercy allows them to go so far, pretty soon you'll find when the enemy comes in like a flood, says the word, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against us.
And that's exactly what happens. For God has never left himself without a witness. And the mission of this man, Elijah, was to lift up a standard against the evil and the idolatry and the immorality that was so rampant at that time. It would be even improper to try to describe the horrible sins that were being committed by the people of Israel during that day. And God is not unmindful of what's going on. He will lift up a standard. against the situation. And the lamp of truth will never be extinguished. Mind how we need to have that kind of thing happening today.
Because so much today is happening in our land. We have going on so many things which were not going on twenty-five and thirty years ago. The standards of the church have dropped tremendously. We used to look upon divorce as something abhorrent. And today we have come to accept it by and large, even among ourselves. It seems that there is not the standard being listed out. We are not speaking about those things or speaking against them in the Word of God, as we should. I think that we that have the responsibility of sharing God's Word need to speak more stringently concerning these things.
That these are not according to the will of God. Oh, you say the young people know this or the older people know this. They don't seem to know it. We are not speaking out as clearly as we should about these things. Oh, that God would raise up a standard among us to stem the flood of iniquity that's happening even among us these days. Now, I want you to look at the man and his meaning. For having looked upon the significance of Elijah in his mission. and in his mysterious situation in which we find him. I want you to consider the meaning of his name because very often there is a lesson there to be learned.
The thing that was being said was that Jehovah was dead and Elijah means Jehovah is my God and for Elijah to appear before Ahab and for Ahab to know that this man's name is Elijah is just saying to him very strictly Here's a man that believes Jehovah is my God. You say he's dead. My God is still alive. And he is my God. So his name was very important. Israel had adopted Baal as their own deity. But Elijah's name proclaimed that the God of Israel was still alive. How aptly the name of Elijah would correspond to the prophet's mission and his message.
But notice something else. He was Elijah the Tishbite. The Tishbite. This is very mysterious, actually. We don't know too much about this, except to say that it seems to suggest from the name Tishbite that he notes the stranger here. And truly God was a stranger among his own people. And although Elijah was brought up in the land of Israel, he was a stranger because of his stand before his own people. It also tells us that he was of the inhabitants of Gilead. And we're told that Gilead means still a witness. And if ever such is one whom God takes up and uses in such a critical hour.
One who comes from a hill of witness. And when you think about this man, there are some very wonderful things to consider. Here was a man who first of all was out and out for Jesus Christ. A man who was not afraid to stand before even. the very monarch of his realm and say, you're doing this wrong, and you're going to have to pay the consequences. Remember John the Baptist was willing to stand in the midst of a very dark time in Israel. He was willing to stand up to Herod and say, you have no right to have your brother's wife. He lost his head because of it. God was with him.
God used the ministry of John the Baptist to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. Beloved, we're at a time, just like Elijah, the time of Elijah, just like the time of John the Baptist. We are very similar in our time period as to the work of John the Baptist. Why? Because very soon there was one who was to come. Beloved, I believe, as I see what's around us, and I'm sure you agree with me wholeheartedly, that the coming of our Lord is not very far off. We see things getting worse and worse every day. I was listening to a program just recently, I think it was on the Today Show, the news program, that was the third cause of death among young people, eighteen to twenty-four, is suicide today.
The third greatest cause of death is suicide. There's despair among young people are being brought up in a time so dissimilar to our teenage life that you can't even begin to compare it. And the fact that they are coming up into a world where everything seems an absolute despair, and they say, what is there to live for? How can we possibly have a life that's worth anything at all, and they take their own lives? The suggestion was that we should be more careful of listening to our young people when they suggest that they may be taking their own life. But, beloved, we need to lift up a standard for these young people. They got to see that there's a reality in Jesus Christ.
So this man was a tish-bite, denoting the stranger here. He was of the inhabitants of Gilead, a hill of witness. But he was a man who dwelt on high. Not only was he out not for God, but he dwelt on high. He was there. His whole heart and soul and mind were with his God. His whole life was taken up with God. That's important. We'll see this as we go along. And he was a man, beloved, who in the midst of fearful declension, carried in his heart a testimony of God. As far as he was concerned, God was alive, and he had the reality of it in his very life. Now we need to learn that today.
God is looking today for men and for women who will be willing to stand up for God and to be true to the word. We're going to look a little bit more at this as we go along. One of the things that I think that we have lost, that was something that was very much in the minds and hearts of God's people in a day that has passed, is that of the role that we play of pilgrims and strangers. I think of when my father used to travel quite extensively, and many of you knew him, and many times we would be without a father so you could have him to minister God's word to you. Sometimes we're two and three and four and sometimes five months, one period of time.
He was gone for eight months without coming home. And we were missing him so that indeed he might get across the message of the pilgrim and stranger aspect of Christian living. I know he spoke on it many times. But you know, material things, secularism, has come into the assembly these days to such a degree that that really we don't know what it means to be a pilgrim and a stranger. We are supposed to be sojourners down here, those who are here for a short period of time, without the idea of getting our roots down. But we have been chasing the dollar and we have been stacking up that in the background so that we have something solid in the days to come.
How consistent can that be with a life of faith? How consistent is that with being strangers and pilgrims? A pilgrim, a stranger, is one who's away from home. A pilgrim is one who's on his way home. And this is not so much the fact of whether what we have or what we don't have. It's a matter of an attitude of the heart and of the mind. How do we hold these things which God has shared with them? Do we hold them with a hard hand? Or are we able to hold things lightly? God can take them at any moment. And if He took them, what kind of despair would there be in your heart and mind if we're holding onto the things down here with a heavy hand?
I believe as pilgrims and strangers were to hold on to things lightly. I believe Elijah was this kind of a man. He tells us something about the meaning of the man. But then notice the man and his monarch. I want you to notice first of all his... his relationship to the earthly monarch, who was Ahab. Now, there is nothing good, hardly that I can say about Ahab. He was an idolater before God. He worshipped idols. Not only did he worship Baal, but he worshipped Astor. He made a temple for Baal. He made places for Astor. He made other places of worship for the gods of his wife, Jezebel.
He was a den of iniquity. He had married a heathen princess. He could be called a reprobate. He personally merited no respect whatsoever. But his office as the king of Israel did. And although you find when this man, Elijah, talks to Ahab that he's going to call him to account for his sins, nevertheless he was a man of great respect for the office that he held. I want you to see this. Look at chapter eighteen and verse eight. It says, He Elijah answered him over Daya. He said, I am. Go tell thy Lord.
Behold, Elisha is here. Here he is respecting the man to the office that he held. Now, beloved, I know we have what's known as freedom of speech in this country. We have a right to say whatever we like. Too often And I'm sure I may have been guilty of this too. Maybe you have. Of disparaging those that God has placed in the high offices in our land. We have the duty as an inferior to respect one who's in a superior office. The Lord has made this very clear to us in First Peter, Two-Seventeen, where he commands us, honor the king, honor the one who's in control.
And whether I agree with Mr. Carter or Mr. Ford or Mr. Nixon or Mr. Kennedy, I think we have a responsibility to respect that man. Why? Because God put him there. It doesn't matter how you voted in the second of November this year. God put his man, whoever he wanted, in office in the United States of America. And he did it in India. And he did it in Russia. And he did it in China. He's in control of all. He puts up the basis of men. He puts others down and places the man he wants there. And we have the responsibility of subjects to be respectful of those who are the sovereigns, of servants concerning their masters, of citizens concerning their presidents.
And I believe that we need to be respectful. I know it doesn't mean we can't have the little humor of time and things like this, but I believe that if a Christian is going to act as he should... We're told to obey the powers that be. We're told to pray for kings, for presidents, to pray for those that are in authority. And if there's any man that needs our prayers, it's President-elect Carter today. He's got a job, I'm sure, that he doesn't really fully realize the impact of what it is and what it could be. He claims to belong to Jesus Christ, and I haven't been allowed to look over the shoulder of the recording angel to say he is or he isn't. I trust that he is.
But I believe we need to hold up this man in great prayer. The freedom of our country, and maybe the freedom we have to worship, is at stake. If the Lord's coming is as near as we think it is, who knows what can take place in the next four years? Although Ahab was a man of great iniquity, this man, Elijah, was respectful of him. He could have made some nasty remark to Obadiah. Even as Obadiah was his servant and was himself a believer and a follower of Jehovah, he could have made some kind of remark. But Elijah, I marvel at the way Elijah holds his tongue in many situations.
We're going to see this as we go along the week. You know, Elijah was a man who could appear before monarchs. Make statements because of his belief in God that came to pass. But you're also going to see in the nights that follow something about the domestic aspect of this man, Elijah. Do you know, beloved, sometimes those who stand behind flat points out, a pulpit like this, and the words can just roll out, and your heart can be just thrilled. But you get them in a private situation, and you're so disappointed with the kind of talk, with the kind of action. in the home or the way children or family or wife is treated.
Beloved, there needs to be consistency both in private life as well as in public life. You know, one of the men that I always really respected so much for this, that whether he was in the home or whether he was in public, he was always the same. And that was my dear brother Robert Little, who most of you know. A man who up until the years that he died, so faithfully served the Lord and was so consistent in both his inner life as well as his outer life. And now we praise God. We need more instances of men like this. But notice not only the man and his monarch with respect to his earthly monarch, but notice his relationship to his heavenly monarch.
You find this in verse one. And Elijah the Kishpite, who was the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel liveth. Here's his heavenly mind. Here's the one he was really following. Not simply as the Lord God liveth, but it's emphasized here as the Lord God of Israel liveth. And this spoke about his special relationship. That is the Lord's special relationship to the favored Israel. Even though they had rejected him, even though he had every right to destroy them off the face of the earth. He was still the Lord God of history.
Oh, I praise God for His faithfulness. Do you thank Him every day for His faithfulness, do you? How often we have failed Him. How often He would have the right, if our salvation was even in the smallest amount based on works, how much He would have the right to take that salvation away from us time and time and time again. But he's the Lord God who cannot fail. He's the Lord God who cannot lie. He gives us something to really hang on to doing that. We have faithfulness in our God. And one of the things that this tells me with respect to his heavenly monarch was that Elijah was convinced of the reality of Jehovah.
And if there's any need today... It's not for them people to listen to my rhetoric about God or about religious things. It's not for them to hear, to see something about the fact that I am a full-time worker of the Lord or whatever. What the world is looking for in my life and in yours is to see the reality of Christ in us. To see something that's the evidence in our lives of the reality that the Lord God of Israel and the Lord God of the church live in. I ask you a question. What can you point to in your life that you can only account for on the basis of the supernatural?
What can people see in your life and mind that can only be accounted to on the basis of the supernatural? Think about that. Do you know what it was? that brought Rahab, who was called the harlot. I'm not sure she was a harlot at the time that she met the two men, the two spies, but she was one, so much so that that title, that tag is identified with her every place you find her in Scripture. What was it that turned Rahab around to becoming one of the inhabitants of that horrible, wicked city of Jericho to be a believer in God?
If you read that carefully in the chapters, chapter two I believe is where it comes into play especially. It was the fact that Rahab saw the supernatural work of God in the life of the children of Israel. It wasn't so much that they were a big nation. It wasn't so much that they were powerful. It wasn't so much that it looked like they could overpower them as the enemy. But she saw the supernatural work of God in the lives of the nation of history. She said, we feared when we saw what the Lord did through you, how he led you across the Red Sea, how he brought you through the wilderness, how indeed he enabled you to overcome those two kings.
We saw the supernatural in your life. And it created in her our great hunger. She wanted to know the true God and she put her faith in the true God. She was a believer ever before she came in contact with those two spies. She said, I believe he's the Lord God in heaven above and in the earth beneath. She gave quite a testimony for one who had never read a portion of Scripture or had never heard from the lips of a prophet of God or from someone who even knew who the Lord God was. My how the Spirit revealed himself to that woman. But he did it, beloved, through the supernatural that was seen in the children of Israel.
Beloved, this is one of the things that's needed today. That which is going to lead men and women to a reality in Jesus Christ is when they see in us the real reality of God in our very lives. Oh, I realize we're not perfect, and I realize we are not going to be sinlessly perfect. But I believe that we should be evidences in Jesus. in the sight of those with whom he come in contact. Our neighbors, our friends, our relatives, they should be able to see the supernatural of God in us. This is what indeed this man was convinced about. Jehovah was their king.
Jehovah was their ruler. He was the one with whom they had to do. And he was the one with whom they had entered into a solemn covenant. And one of the things that made this man, Elijah, successful in what he did was because of the supernatural in his life. He was just a simple man of the desert. We saw that last night. When he would walk into the court of kings, as he did right here, he must have looked very odd. I'm sure the Secret Service must have turned to one another and said, how in the world did that guy get in here? Where did he come in anyway? How did he get through our lines? And how is he able to walk right up to the king?
That in itself was the fact, I'm sure that Ahab had great area of secret service, trying to keep people from getting to him, because he knew from the past of all the other kings that had had their throats slit or a knife stubbed in their back or killed in one way or another, just in the previous seven kings that we looked at last night. And yet the Lord enabled this man to walk right through them. even with his strange guard, and walk right up to the king himself and make the pronouncement that was given him by the Spirit of the Lord. Oh, beloved, how important it is if we can find those who know something about the reality of God, who really are convinced of the reality of God in our lives, not just the fact that we've been born again.
I think this is what is meant when we talk about the life of faith. The life of faith is a step-by-step process in which day by day we begin to see the supernatural of God working in our lives. Oh, I don't mean the miraculousness of the Pharaoh. I don't mean the kind of thing that we see being spoken about today in this movement, which seems to be sweeping the world, where the only way they can live is by seeing something of a miracle, so-called physical miracle every day. they think their day is lost that shows a real sense of immaturity if a person needs to see that kind of thing every day the children of israel as they marched through the wilderness were a very immature people from a spiritual standpoint and they needed to see the manna coming down every day they needed to see the cloud every day but when they got into the promised land which speaks to us of the victorious life of possessing our possessions.
You know that the manna stops. The pillar and the cloud were no longer there. It was enough in our hearts to know that our God was the true God, the living God. We didn't have to have those kind of things. But to see God work out the problems and difficulties. I think of a woman that I read about not too long ago who had all kinds of things happen to her. Her husband was taken. Some of her children were taken. They were... in tremendous physical problems, sickness-wise. Someone said to her, well, don't you wish all these things would stop? You sure have had more than your share of your problems. Oh, she says, I hope they don't stop.
What do you mean you hope they don't stop? She said, listen, I am seeing God work every day in my life. I see every one of these emergencies come up And she says, I just sit back and I say, now God, I'm just going to sit back and watch and see how you work out this problem. I'm going to rejoice in the way you work out that situation. People seeing the reality of, and when people see the reality of God and a woman like that, they're going to say, there's something to him. We have tended to base... The reality of God in our life by the thickness of our pocketbook, by the success of our businesses, by the size of our homes and the amount of cars and the things that we have.
Beloved, I think the true measurement is what we see of the reality of God, the supernaturalness of God working in lives where it seems impossible for it to happen. Remember, our God is still the God of the impossible. And we need to learn this. We need to see this experience in every life. If life is so ordered and so laid out that we don't really need to see God at work on our lives, the world isn't going to see it working on our lives either. They're going to say, what's your life different from mine? I'm the same as you. When they see you're in a corner.
And there's no possible way, humanly speaking, to get out. And God brings you through. It's the reality of the living God. Beloved, there's nothing that fills the heart more than that. Then notice the man and his master. Oh, you say you just talked about his monarch. But look who his master was. He says, as the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand. Here's the man and his master. And Elijah was convinced not only of the reality of Jehovah, but he was convinced of a second thing. He was convinced that he was the representative of the God of Jehovah.
He was standing before us. He was his servant. He knew that he lived. He knew he was going to be sent out on a mission that was going to be accomplished by God. That he was standing there as the representative of the true God. Do you have that sense in your life today? That you are his servant? That he is working in your life? Elijah informs Ahab that although Ahab was his earthly monarch, that he took orders only from the Lord God of Israel. Beloved, that's a great thing. You know there are Christians today who have the idea that those who are out in full time are to be servants of men serving God.
Beloved, that's not so. As I understand the Word of God, we're to be servants of God serving men. And there's a big difference in that. And I would take that stand before any that I need to be, first of all, a servant of God, whose responsibility to take orders from him. in my serving of my fellow man. Beloved, that's what this man Elijah was. He wasn't a servant of men, of Ahab, who by and large was serving God. He was a servant of God, who was serving men. And he would say by this statement, before whom I stand, in whose name I approach you, in whose veracity and power I unquestionably rely, in whose ineffable presence I am now conscious of standing and to whom I prayed and obtained an answer.
Beloved, when we are the representative of Almighty God, we need to stand for God and we need to be there for the answers that people need today. I'm not a devotee of popular music. In fact, I just don't like it at all. I just can't take it. I do enjoy classical and I... a joy even above classical sacred music. But you know, when you start to read some of the lyrics that are being written today in the hearts of young people that are looking for answers, I copied one which I'd like to read to you because I think it speaks to this problem of the fact that we are representatives.
We need to be convinced that we're a representative of the God of Jehovah. From the canyons of the mind we wander on and stumble blind, through the awful tangled maze of starless nights and sunless days, while asking for some kind of clue, or road to lead us to the truth. But who will answer? Side by side two people stand, together bowing hand in hand, that love's embedded in their hearts. But soon an empty feeling starts to overwhelm their hollow lives. And when they seek the hows and whys, who will answer?
On a strange and distant hill, a young man's lying very still. His arms will never hold his child because a bullet running wild has struck him down, and now we cry, Dear God, oh why, oh why? But who will answer? high upon a lonely ledge, a figure teeters near the edge, and jarring crowds collect below, to egg him on with, Go, man, go! But who will ask what led him to his private day of noon? And who will answer? In the rooms with darkened shades, the scent of sandalwood pervades, the colored thoughts in muddled heads, reclining on the rumpled beds of unmade dreams that can't come true.
When we ask, what should we do? Who? Who will answer? Neat the spreading mushroom tree, the world revolves in apathy. As overhead a row of specks roars on, drawn out by discotheques, and if a secret button's pressed because one man has been hard pressed, who will answer? If our hope in walnut, is our hope in walnut shells worn round the neck with temple bells or deep within some cloistered walls where hooded figures pray in halls or crumpled books on dusty shelves or in our stars or in ourselves, who will answer?
If the soul is darkened by a fear it cannot name, if the mind is baffled when the rules don't fit the game, who will answer? Who will answer? Who will answer? Young people today and older ones as well are baffled in this way. And the cry is coming from every place that you want to name. And their answer is, who's going to answer? This is why we have the suicide rate. We don't seem to want to get involved. I recall reading about a lady who, she wanted to isolate herself.
She was afraid of what might happen. She had heard that if she went into a certain apartment building and lived there, she said, people will bother you. And she said, I just won't even bother to answer the door. Or she says, they'll come and they'll not. Don't worry, I'll work it out. I want my privacy. She said one woman came and someone came and knocked at the door and she asked who it was and she said, I'm just a woman from upstairs and I'm lonely. She said, well, don't bother me tonight. I'm tired. Come down in the morning when I can talk to you better. I can't see you tonight. The next morning she was wakened by someone calling her and knocking on her door and she went to the door.
They said, do you know the lady in our apartment building committed suicide last night? And the woman said, who was she? She learned it was the woman who had come to her door and knocked. She was lonely. Who will answer? Elijah was convinced that he was the representative of the God of history. that he had an answer. I wonder if we've got an answer. Supposing someone came to your door and wanted help, what would you do? Would you say, well, we've got to call Brother Willie and better have him come over and talk to this person.
Maybe she wouldn't talk to Mr. Willie. Maybe she wants to talk to you. Have you got the answer? You know, when you recognize that you're the representative of the God of Israel and you're spending time in the book and you're seeing in your life the supernatural of God working every day, you've got an answer for these people. Elijah was this kind of a man. I'm not afraid to stand before the monarch of his land who he knew would go after him and most likely want to chop off his head if he had the chance. But it didn't stop him. Oh, that we might learn this. Now, I'll put the man in his message.
You know, sometimes we need to have a message. We need to know what the message is. And here was the message from Elijah. There shall not be do nor reign these years, but according to my word. And it was a frightful prospect for Israel. The expression that you find in the word of God, the early and the latter reigns. You find this in Deuteronomy, verse eleven, fourteen, and Jeremiah five, twenty four and so forth. It indicated that there was a time in Palestine when there was a dry season for several months. And though no rain felt during those times, there were heavy dew that descended every night and took care of the vegetation. And so when they felt that Baal was the God of the dew and of the rain, God was showing who was the strong one.
This man had gone to God in prayer. and had gotten a message from God. And he wasn't afraid to develop, to give that message. He was convinced that he was the representative of the God of the universe, but more importantly there, the God of history. And he had an answer. Oh, that we would be willing to get involved with people. It's awful easy not to sometimes. You get too tired. You know, we left... Toulouse one morning about eight o'clock and drove seven hundred and fifty miles in the little Volkswagen. A twenty-hour trip, three of us in a Volkswagen with all of our luggage.
Very time-consuming, very tired. We got to Zaventem at seven at five thirty in the morning, slept for two hours and we're up for the rest of the day, thinking we're going to be sent back to the States on that day. They didn't give us a didn't get us a passage that day. We had to wait another day for a passage. And finally, we get on a plane after waiting a long time because at that time was the tide of the tour season. They did get me a passage on a seven-forty-seven. I sat right by the bulkhead door right in the center of the plane where you have to sit on an angle, you know, to do it. We had an eight-hour trip back over to New York and thinking, well, this is great, you know, we can...
get to New York and get back home. And when we get to New York, there's an hour delay because the air traffic controllers were keeping us from coming down. I was tired. They said, you know, when's your plane? I said, my plane's in forty minutes and I was a half a mile outside of the terminal. I had to run all the way into the terminal, get my luggage filing, go through customs, run about three or four blocks to catch a bus and take twenty minutes to get to Eastern. Rush into Eastern five minutes before the plane was to leave. They said, yes, we have your reservations. You've got to have a ticket written up. We'll really get it written up. While I was waiting for it to be written up, they said the plane, they mentioned the plane will not leave until eight o'clock instead of seven thirty-five.
Oh, that sounded good. At least I had a few minutes that looked like. And when I went up to the girl at the counter and she said, what do you want to take that plane for? Don't you know that you've got to make a... a stop in Atlanta and change planes in Atlanta. I said, you've got one better? He says, we've got one that's, don't you know, it's going to be a direct flight to Orlando, non-stop flight. If you just grab, just take your ticket and grab your bags and run down about three blocks to gate three and you'll get it. You know, I was tired. Seventy pounds of luggage is pretty heavy to carry about a mile. And I was almost the last one, the last of three to get on that plane. I'm at, oh, boy, I'm going to get home early.
My wife doesn't even know I'm coming. She doesn't know when I'm going to get home. She has no idea. And we got on the plane, and I sat down, and it was only one seat left at the aisle. And there were a young couple sitting beside me. And it was this way, because I was sitting at this end of the aisle, facing the front of the plane. And there was a couple sitting there, and we taxied out two hundred yards from the gate. And there we sat for four hours. while the air traffic controllers let us know that they were still in control. I was tired. I was bushed. I'd been traveling for thirty-eight hours.
Had no sleep coming over on the plane. No sleep coming up from Toulouse. I was tired. I was ready to take a good nap. They said, we're going to feed you down here on the ground because we don't know when we're going to take off. Well, that was helpful. They gave us something to drink. I got a nice can of tomato juice and drank that. And they said, we're going to bring you some dinner. I said, that's fine. So they brought me a dinner and they said, here's your meal. You know how they have specially set up. And I said, well, shall I pass it on to the end? Oh, no, you keep that. We've got a special dinner for them. And when they came back, they said, here's your kosher dinner.
I had wished I could have sat down and just took and then taken a nap for a couple of hours. It looked like I was going to get a chance to. But, beloved, I was a representative of the God of Israel. There were two of them. My, what a lovely time. My tiredness left me in a big hurry, for I began to tell him about that one who was wounded for our transgressions and who was bruised for our iniquities. And a young couple who believed only in the tradition of Judaism but had no true beliefs in their heart about the God of Israel. Who would never have come in this door to listen to me preach.
Sat there for two and a half hours. As I had a chance to share with them who the God of Israel really was. Beloved, are you ready to be used? Do you recognize that you are a representative? the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. If you're really convinced, you're going to be ready to be used of God wherever he wants to use you. This man was ready with a message. His message was one of judgment because there was no other answer for these people. They would not repent.
Although God always brings, beloved, God always brings, always brings, our warning before he brings judgment. And then notice the man in his moral courage that the unpleasant task before Elijah called for no ordinary resolution, no ordinary boldness. What was the secret of this man's great courage? May I suggest that it was the fact that he was convinced of the resources that were at his hand. The Word of God in prayer. And he could go to his God in private before he would represent his God in public.
That's the secret. If I'm going to be a representative of the God of Israel, I'm going to have to go to God in private before I appear before man in public. I'm going to have to be a man or woman of prayer. I'm going to have to be a man or woman of the Word. I'm going to have to be there. Threefold reasons, just quickly for this time to stop. Threefold reasons for the secret of this man's courage. First of all, his persistent praying. James says he prayed earnestly, even six months before he confided in his. He could stand unabashed in the presence of a wicked monarch because he had knelt in humility before God.
Secondly, his personal persuasion, his knowledge of God. Indeed, he was convinced of the reality of his Lord God, and therefore he could stand before him. And therefore, the third reason, may I suggest, is his practice of God's presence. And this is something that's sadly lacking in each of our lives today. Remember Brother Lawrence, that Carmelite brother, that's about all you could call him, he wasn't really a monk, who washed pots and pans in a Carmelite monastery. But who consciously in his life practiced the presence of God? He consciously took his mind back into the presence of God and would worship and bow before his God.
He knew what it was to practice the presence of God. If we knew more of that, we would be convinced, beloved, of his reality. We would be convinced of the fact that we were his representatives.