Albert Mohler - "The Battle of the Gods - Then and Now"

Wow yeah amen thank you to Chuck Lewis and joke rider in the choir and the orchestra is interesting see two conductors at once always wonder one of them just hiccups if everything goes wrong everything just gets off but it never does how glorious to be able to sing such a wonderful example of modern hymnody such a song we could just sing over and over and over and over again I was in youth choir I was in every choir and it started out that way I never knew a time as a child when I was not in one of the grated choirs as they call the meeting what grade you are in I don't think they're greater dissing choir but nonetheless I actually liked choir practice because he got to sing the songs more than once and when you when you sing them to worship sometimes you just sing them once and I get the urge I want to sing him again some of you heard - tell me tell the story my dad was a old-time Southern Baptist deacon he deked let me tell you he he was old-school and and he was an old-school dad and I praise him for it but when I was 15 I liked choir so this doesn't make any sense to me but wit being 15 doesn't make any sense but that's just that's just the way it is I guess it was an act of Southern Baptist 15 year old adolescent rebellion at the dinner table after church one day I just said I'm quitting the choir protean autonomous individualism I'm quitting the choir my dad didn't get mad he just didn't get mad he just kind of put down his fork he looked at me and said son you never joined which it was one of my first formal acquaintances with the doctrine of election and I was I was elected predestined to the choir and thus I remained in the choir we need more dads like that frankly we need more choirs like that more requires like this what a joy to open God's Word I'm going to invite you to turn with me to first Kings chapter 18 first Kings chapter 18 and as you're turning in your Bible I just want to express again appreciation especially to our board of trustees meeting here these days dr. Hall mentioned that they give days of their lives just imagine how those are accumulated over the years but ten years can mean something like 60 days which you can translate into two months which means these are men and women who give very sacrificially of their time and their energy and their conviction and so we are deeply deeply grateful why this text why this day why first Cain's 18 the passage from such a time long long ago in the year 2019 what can this text say to us we are not living in an age like this we're not living in a time in which prophets and Kings are doing battle against one another we are not living in an age in which you have the prophets of Baal and the prophet of the Lord squaring off as you see in this passage and we're not there we're not in such a time except of course we are and that will become most evident as we look to the text I'm going to read as one reading first Kings chapter 18 beginning in verse 17 and we will continue through verse 40 in verse 17 we read when Ahab saw Elijah they have said to him is it you you trouble or of Israel and he answered I have not troubled Israel but you have and your father's house because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel and the 450 prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table so Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel and Elijah came near to all the people and said how long will you go on limping between two different opinions if the Lord is God follow him but if Baal then follow him and the people did not answer him a word that if I just said to the people I even I only am left a prophet of the Lord but balls prophets are 450 men let two bulls be given to us and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood but put no fire to it and I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it and you call upon the name of your God and I will call upon the name of the Lord and the God who answers by fire He is God and all the people answered it is well spoken then Elijah said to the prophets of all choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first for you are many and call upon the name of your God but put no fire to it and they took the bull that was given them and they prepared it and called upon the name of but all from morning until noon saying oh but all answer us but there was no voice no one answered and they limped around the altar that they had made and at noon Elijah mocked them saying cry aloud for he is a God either he is musing or he is relieving himself or he is on a journey or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened and the cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and Lance's until the blood gushed out upon them and as midday passed they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation but there was no voice no one answered no one paid attention then Elijah said to all the people come near to me and all the people came near to him and he repaired the of the Lord that had been thrown down Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob to whom the Lord the word of the Lord came saying Israel shall be your name and with stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord and he built a trench about the altar as great as would contain to Sia's of seed and he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood and he said fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood and he said do it a second time and they did it a second time and he said do it a third time and they did it a third time and the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water and at the time of the offering of the oblation Elijah the Prophet came near and said O Lord God of Abraham Isaac and Israel let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word answer me O Lord answer me that this people may know that you oh Lord our God and that you have turned their hearts back then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering in the wood and the stones and the dust and lift up the water that was in the trench and when all the people saw it they fell on their faces and said the Lord he is God the Lord he is God and Elijah said to them cease the prophets above all let not one of them escape and they seized them and Elijah brought them down to the brook Keshawn and slaughtered them there well what is this text really about in Sunday school let's be honest if you experienced Sunday school as a child or perhaps you have a certain kind of story book Bible this is presented as something of a biblical superhero Elijah man of God the problem is that the Old Testament really does not allow us to see any superheroes save one god the first clue that Elijah might not be a superhero is actually found in chapter 17 verse 1 when he is introduced as Elijah the Tishbite from Tish be in Gilead there is no dramatic theme music there this is not Elijah the Great this is Elijah the Tishbite from tis be as if you need to say that a tishbite comes from Tish be as if to say you have a clue where Tish B is and Tish be little lonely Tish B that produces Tish bites is in Gilead not a place of war a place of peace you don't expect trouble from a Tishbite you probably if you're King don't ever expect to meet a Tishbite the Old Testament historical narrative we're looking at here is a biblical account by the holy spirit of what took place in time and space in history this is not a tale this is history it is the truth it's not a passage that fits very well within the sensitivities of the culture in the west of the 21st century this is a story that centers in monotheism as truth and ends in the slaughter of those who reject the one true Living God Oprah will not like this the Editorial Board of the New York Times will not like this this is not polite conversation in the salons or at the cocktail reception of the cultural elite in the academic world this is the kind of text to which they point to say two things number one this text is invented history and number two this text is horrifying theology and morality the divinity schools of the age committed to Protestant liberalism a look at this text and say we can read it with interest and then feel ourselves morally superior we're not the kind of people who believe in such things as you read in this passage and there are some who aren't exactly in the elites who feel this way Adam Hamilton is pastor of the largest Methodist Church in the United States Methodists as you well know been much in the news because of the LGBTQ array of issues and their recent special meeting of the church in their special conference by a very narrow margin conservatives prevailed largely because of conservatives from elsewhere in the world who came and refused to alter and liberalize the church's official teaching on sexuality and gender and marriage in the requirements of ministry it was as Wellington said of Waterloo a close-run thing and the Liberals will not go away it will be a continual battle but nonetheless it was one of those rare conservative victories a victory for biblical truth victory for Christian orthodoxy Adam Hamilton was not for the conservative option that was chosen by the largest number there at that conference and in a book written before the conference was held he suggested that sophisticated right minded Christians need to think of the Bible as an assortment a collection of text and then we need to think of three buckets into which we will divide those texts three buckets so imagine the preacher all the text piled up and there are three buckets he holds before the congregation one bucket he said would be filled with text that never did express God's true will that's bucket number one bucket number two text that once expressed God's true will but not longer and then text number three text that always have and always will express God's true will that is so convenient three different buckets we're gonna put the text in three different buckets bucket number one is it never belonged in the Bible in the first place this is an expressive of God bucket number two this evidently made some sense at some time in God's dealings with man but it does not bind us now and then bucket number three yeah this is the Word of God this is the part we like and face it that's what it comes down to really really really don't like mostly don't like we like these well let's be really clear here's our bucket everything is bucket number three it's all inspired of God every word of it inspired by God and that means it is not only true it's not only verbally inspired but it is meant for us so here we are we own this text so to speak I want us to see that there are five movements in this text in the first movement a hab confronts Elijah the question is who is the true troubler of Israel Israel's trouble you could understand why Israel's trouble and actually the the writer first Kings has helped us to know exactly why Israel is troubled look at chapter 16 beginning in verse 29 this is enough to tell us chapter 16 verses 29 and following we read about Ahab in the 38th year of ASA king of Judah a hab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel and a have the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria for 22 years and Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him that's an amazing statement if you are now sixteen chapters into first Kings the kings have done horrible horrible horrible things idolatrous ruinous things bringing disaster upon Israel and when Ahab the son of Omri arrives on the scene he does worse than all of them more than all who were before him and then look at verse 31 as and it's if it had been a light thing as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of jeroboam the son of nebat he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of if Baal king of the side onehans and went answered but all and worshipped him as if it had been a light thing as it's an amazing text in the scripture as if it had been a little thing for him merely to have walked in the sins of jeroboam the son of nebat you see this in first chapter 12 verses 25 to 33 you'll recall that he put up again idols and then said to Israel behold your God's o Israel who brought you up out of the land of Egypt that that's the most horrifying thing setting up these calves and then pointing Israel to them and saying behold your gods who brought you up out of the land of Egypt can you imagine a more horrible idolatry than that it's not just setting up the idols it is pointing to the idols and crediting to them the saving act of God but that's not enough for a ham it was not enough for him to walk in the sins of his father's no he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of F ba all King of the sidonians at this point Israel hearing or reading these words gets the chill down the spine there are certain names you just have to name then you recognize this is nothing but undiluted evil and trouble Jezebel when you hear the name Jezebel it is to conjure up every wrong thing you can imagine and to know that in this case a hab has married himself to her there's a political background to this Jeffry bromley for instance makes this very helpfully clear Israel was in a precarious situation with the Phoenicians Sidon a major city of the Phoenicians and so Israel had arranged a series of marriages between kings and the idolatrous Phoenicians in order to achieve peace and one of the ways to achieve peace and this goes all the way through say the 19th century with royal marriages Queen Victoria marrying off all our grandchildren that these marriages were intended to create peace because the idea is that a husband and wife will not take their two respective kingdoms to war by the way that did not turn out well as a theory throughout history but nonetheless that's what's going on here but the other thing we need to recognize is that in in the Canaanite religion and in particular in Phoenicia royal princesses were by calling priestesses of the idols so to be a Phoenician princess was not just to be from an idolatrous Kingdom but to be a Phoenician princess was to be an idolatrous priestess so they have as if it were a light thing merely to walk in the in the the way of his idolatrous ancestors instead exceeded them infinitely in his sin by marrying Jezebel and of course the passage is pretty specific about what this means Jezebel is the daughter of if Baal all king of the side dounia's again you got to hear trouble you know the name of the primary male idol of canaan it's a it's ball as a Southern Baptist kid growing up in the south which knows few diphthongs it was Bale you got the idol Bale and he got bail worshippers it's really but all but he doesn't exist so he doesn't know he's not offended no Southern Baptist Sunday school teachers are not in danger of offending but all he doesn't exist it's tough to talk about what Israel knew that we don't know simply by reading the text no it is it is there if you see it especially if you read the entire Old Testament what's going on in Canaan the particular idolatry that was prevalent in Canaan is a highly sexualized idolatry that is tied to fertility cycles that's why you have a male and a female deity and that's why you do not have to have any imagination you know which is the male and which is the female deity and things are being done among the males and among the females as fertility rights for instance the groves of what were considered to be sacred prostitution that's why Israel is told that they cannot do what the Canaanites do under every green tree that is not against a picnic in the park it's a warning against sacred prostitution you know there's something I want us to note here this is this is the context of monotheism versus idolatry and poly theism and I want you to note something and I want you to look at it not only in the scripture but think through human history the only sufficient firewall against human sexual licentiousness is monotheism the only firewall against unbridled human sexual sin is monotheism looking even across the world and in trying to just think about religion as a social or sociological phenomenon one of the things you will note is that the limitation of human sexuality and the refusal to worship human reproduction is limited to monotheists now monotheism is not enough they're gonna be monotheists in hell but it is interesting to note that if you're going to have a multiplicity of gods you're creating a multiplicity of moral options you're creating a multiple choice morality as well the first commandment you shall have no other gods before me you should know it's it's not where you have he know theism which is what many evangelicals kind of think it's when you hear God say you shall have no other gods before me it sounds like they're a bunch of gods and he says I have to be number one no that's not it is thrown language you can bring no other God into my presence but it is interesting to note that there is a temptation towards Hino theism amongst human beings pino theism is a ranking of the gods it's polytheism but there's a one god who's more of a god than the other gods and this is why you have people talking about greater and lesser gods and Cainan who's the stronger god and you see this throughout other forms of polytheism but God is not at the top of a he know theistic pyramid he is the only God and he will abide no others do not even mention nor bring the concept of some other God into his presence we need to acknowledge the logic of polytheism there is a logic there there's a utility to polytheism that doesn't come with monotheism it's the creation of all of these options and also consider these questions how can one God be the ultimate explanation for everything how can one God explain everything that's the logic of polytheism how can one God explain drought and flood you need two gods a drought God and the flood God how can one God explain reproduction no you need a male God and you need a female God how can one God account for the complexity of experienced reality so that that's why and and and also you have different peoples and if you have so many different people's being so fundamentally different having different languages and different mores when it makes sense that they actually would have different gods well how how small does a group be to need a different God well just go to India just go to India where as Peter Berger the sociologist said if you turn around you will knock over a couple of gods and pretty soon it's not only the groups it's small as they maybe will have their own God it's that eventually you say well I'll have my god but I'll have some other gods too who wants to leave anyone else and by the time you do that you're at Acts chapter 17 with Paul at Athens saying I see you built an altar to every god you know about and you've even built an altar to the unknown God because you're afraid of leaving any Idol out there are also advantages to idolatry if you're going to organize a religion there are some advantages to idolatry if one thing you can move your God around with you you can take God home with you and when someone asks you about your God you can say well there she is there he is if you just looked through the history of humanity evidently human beings have found idols relatively useful not only that they're visible you don't you don't have to have faith in an idol you're looking at it you can feel it you can carry it around with you it's manageable but also it's servable and this is we have an urge to serve not only do we have as as agustin would say and as the Bible explains being made in God's image do we have an unspeakably powerful desire to worship we have a desire to serve whom we worship and this is why people take food to idols made of stone and wood you feel like you've done something you can show somebody you've done something this is what I brought to the idol you can take care of the idol when we go to worship we don't get to say we did much that anyone can show that instead we worship in spirit and in truth for the father is seeking such to worship Him so just technically and rationally there are advantages you might say to polytheism and idolatry the problem is they are untrue they can't deliver on any of their promises and there is the way that leads to eternal destruction a hab when he confronts Elijah calls him the trebler of Israel and you know I just not having anything to do with this I have not troubled Israel but you have in your father's house because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals you call me the trouble of Israel this is the predicament of modern ministry brothers and sisters here it is this is why this text from first Kings 18 is actually perhaps the most apt description of ministry in 2019 if you preach the word the society around you is going to call you the trouble of Israel the fastest way to get in trouble is to preach the word that's why so many denominations and churches and seminaries and preachers are doing everything they can to get out from under the Word of God they'll find some way to deal with this text we got three buckets or we got we got something to do with this text which is run from it and avoid it and just say don't worry about that I will never preach that or you have the modern technique of saying let's read the text together you read it and you say yeah I know that's what it seems to say but I've been to seminary and I know better so let me tell you what scholars say and though you get in trouble if you actually preach the Word of God and you will be declared the trembler of Israel and I just want to encourage you this morning be ready to be called the trouble or of Israel and then throw it back at the one who accuses you I'm not the one who's troubling Israel you are well notice what Elijah goes on to say now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel and the 450 prophets above all and the four hundred prophets of Asherah the female deity who eat at Jezebel's table now I like Elijah already the tishbite from Tish be in Gilead who is troubling a.m. and and and here's a have the king but remember a hab has gone out to meet Elijah and Elijah will meet a hab but notice one's the king but the others given the orders he says gather Israel to me you idolatrous little oh and by the way throw in not only your prophets of all but the prophets of Asherah who are eating at your wife's table okay second movement Elijah confronts Israel in the first movement he confronted a hab but now he confronts Israel the real audience here isn't a have the real audience is not the prophets of Baal and Asherah the real audience within this text Elijah's concern is Israel and Israel doesn't come off very well in this passage notice the clarity of what Elijah says to Israel he lays out his plan he acknowledges the math1 prophet of God four hundred and fifty prophets about all and four hundred prophets of Asherah and then he indict s-- Israel and and this is one of the most bitter accurate indictment in all the scripture how long will you go on limping between two opinions don't you feel that immediately I feel that I've known people like this limping between two for that matter three or four opinions just limping what a pathetic description of Israel limping between two opinions and what are the two opinions it's not like it's an inter theological argument about the operations of the Trinity it's not that they're limping between opinions and a debate over eschatology they're limping between two opinions that has to do with who is God the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob or Baldwin Ashura you also noticed the clarity when she says if the Lord is God follow him but if Baal then follow him just a few words but just imagine the priceless clarity in that if God is God then follow him you idiots but if Baal is God then follow him you're gonna serve somebody well again here you see the basic logic of monotheism that God is God then follow him if Baal then follow him but notice the biggest indictment of Israel here Israel doesn't answer according to verse 21 and the people did not answer him a word the biggest issue the human beings could consider is thrown before them and they've got nothing to say nothing they're mute it is as if they can't even utter a sound in response to the question who are you gonna follow who you're gonna serve so I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say if you are a preacher you will have these moments you will you will have moments when you preach the word and people look at you as if you've been reading the white pages of the phonebook which I realize at the moment is an anachronism that does not well communicate what I mean to say so let me say it is like opening a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica wait a minute that's an anachronism you get the point there are going to be times you're going to preach and it will look as if there is no effect every once awhile when I was growing up the preacher would be concerned he wasn't getting any effect and he would say do I hear an airy man waking up deacons in which case no matter what he just said there be some baritone voices saying Amen he maybe just uttered heresy but being awakened and calling forth an Amen they gave an Amen it's Israel's non answer here and the people did not answer him a word that's so terrifying but then the Elijah lays out his proposal and he says here's here's what we're going to do and if God is God you follow him and Baal is God then you'll follow him here's the proposal here's what we're gonna do here is about the two altars here is about the two bowls and and here's what you notice Israel finally mutters something notice in verse 24 then all the people answered it is well spoken we didn't have anything to say before but this plan sounds good will at least say we like the plan in the third movement Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal and this is where our attention generally goes when we look to the text in first Kings 18 and as you see the text it just unfolds not only in complexity but in unfolding and unrolling energy and it is absolutely amazing this is verses 25 to 29 then all I just said to the prophets above all choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first for you or many and call upon the name of your God but put no fire to it and they took the bull that was given them and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon saying oba all answer us but there was no voice and no one answered here's something also very interesting as you're thinking about the religious impulse of humanity distorted by sin as you think about the religious confusions of the age recognize something else and this goes with that basic division between monotheism and everything else there's another there's another division between the God who speaks and the God whom you see [Music] and so here's the thing Israel did not see the one true and living God but they heard him they heard his voice he answered them and he spoke to them but the Canaanites and in this case the Canaanite religion us which includes the king of Israel and Jezebel in his household they can see their gods they just don't hear them say anything at the end of the day here's the thing we are saved because we hear God's voice not because we see him now of course we have the record in the New Testament of the fact that as John says in his prologue of Christ we have beheld his glory glory as of the only begotten of the Father but we now we do not see him we hear him in his word notice the mocking of Elijah this is I think everyone's favorite part if you are an adolescent male and your Sunday school teacher is teaching this particular part of the text this is the part that has your attention and it had the attention of the the worshippers above all and had the attention of Israel and at noon Elijah mocked to them saying cry aloud for he is a God either he is musing or he is relieving himself or he is on a journey or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened seriously you got to love Elijah you kind of love this maybe he is musing can you imagine worshiping a god who muses what your God doing created the heavens and the earth what's your gut doing he's musing he's thinking stuff probably big cool stuff got amusing God can he save you he's thinking about it dude he's musing he's musing and he goes on is that or he is relieving himself and that means you know it means what it means you know it means what it means but you have to understand how clever this is if you have a God you feed if he's eaten I mean if you want a god who's tangible guess what you're God's tangible he dropped stuff maybe he's busy at that or he's on a journey and again this gets down to the portability of idolatry the problem is where's God where's God who's got him where is he God goes on a tour then he's there and he's not here maybe he's maybe he's travelling or he's asleep and must be awakened you gotta love that too maybe he's asleep it must be awakened just think of Psalm 121 for behold he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep the one true and living God has not taken places he does not eat relieve himself he does not use he is not Moody and he does not sleep I love what Paul says in Acts chapter 17 in that very context of seeing the idolatry in Athens in verses 24 and 25 he says the God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of Heaven and Earth does not live in temples made by man nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything he doesn't need anything and you'll notice as the the confrontation unfolds they begin to cut themselves and to bleed again in the context of biblical theology this is horrifying and fascinating blood is going to be shed but in this case it's the blood of the priests it's the blood of the idolatrous priests and they're doing it in order to get God's attention that they are letting the blood flow down their bodies as they are about their menstruations trying to get the attention of Baal in order that he will speak it's a pathetic demonstration of this idolatrous insanity as if they are worshipping a God who only speak to them if they bleed for him you don't have to be really clever to get from this to the contrast with the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ we don't bleed for him he bled for us well there was no voice three fold pattern the three fold pattern comes up several times in this text they raved on and how pathetic is it that there are certain churches that use the word rave as if that's an appropriate word for worship the kind of the kind of posts rational emotional morass and you'll notice here that that's the idolaters at worship not the believers of God at worship the three fold pattern revealing the emptiness of idolatry there was no voice no one answered no one paid attention strike three there was no voice no one answered no one paid attention again we go to that distinction between searing and hearing if you want to see your God you need an idol but that one true Living God speaks the one true and living God is not seen but he is heard the gift of Revelation also explains the essence of preaching if we were worshiping a God who showed himself to us in artistic conception then preaching would be replaced with holding up a picture but instead as Martin Luther said the church is a mouth house it is a place where preachers preach the word because God will speak and actually the logic of the Reformation went so far as to be reflected in this Chapel right here if you bring someone from some other tradition into this Chapel they're going to say this is extraordinarily plain its austere where is the majesty of art where is the representation and story where is the breathtaking visual we don't have any breathtaking visuals we got walls and there's nothing on the walls the German historian Peter bleak Hall is not a believer asked this question he said why did people around 1515 want to see the body of Christ in the Eucharist but about 1525 demand to hear the word of God no one he said has produced a plausible answer to this question much less an adequate one on this point he said I admit to being as ignorant as anyone else he's talking about the Reformation he's saying why did the people who came demanding to see the mass in one decade come demanding to hear the word even this historian says that's a remarkable exchange people who for centuries had come to see are now coming to hear and he says I don't have a plausible explanation well I do it's the Word of God and when people hear it they want to hear more of it the fourth movement is Elijah preaching to Israel verses 30 through 35 as you see here then Elijah said to all the people come near to me all the people came near to him and he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down it lied just to twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob to whom the word of the Lord came saying Israel shall be your name and with stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord and he made a trench about the altar as great as would contain to see as a seed and he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood and he said fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood and as you say they did in a second time and he said do it a third time and the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water and then the sermon Elijah the Prophet came near and said O Lord God of Abraham Isaac and Israel notice this is no mere monotheism this is he doesn't say O one true God as you are worshiped by many different people in many different ways no God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word how important is that now I mean just think about this for a moment isn't that what the preacher had better pray about his preaching Lord let it be clear that this is your word let it be clear that this is your word let it be clear to God's people that I have been called to do this in order to preach your word let it be clearly your word that your people may receive not my word but your word we see a three-fold pattern here we see the pattern of authentic worship reestablish they see the Covenant restated we see the depth of the demonstration and then we see a three-fold request that you O Lord our God that I am your servant that I have done these things at your word again threefold that you are Lord that I am your servant that I have done these things at your word and then the ultimate request is that these people may know that you oh Lord our God and that you have turned their hearts back a clear a clear testimony here to the sovereignty of God God remains the sole explanation for Israel's faithfulness that's it even when Israel's faithful it can't claim any credit for its faithfulness but then of course comes the demonstration and the fire falls and the response of the people is this quote and when all the people saw it they fell on their faces and said the Lord he is God the Lord he is God so Israel goes from saying nothing to saying that sounds like a good plan to finally saying as Israel the Lord he is God the Lord he is God God is God then follow him if Baal was God then follow him not a superhero story although Elijah is held up as a model of prophetic faithfulness and courage and and we would look at Elijah and say I want to be just like Elijah in the pulpit I want to be just like Elijah in my ministry I want to be just like Elijah but you do have to read from chapter 18 to chapter 19 in chapter 19 you have Elijah hiding from Jezebel and and of course you recall the text in which he finally hears from a still small voice the sound of a low whisper he goes from Mount Carmel in this courage to Mount Horeb and his collapse into fear this is a good reminder of ministry in in ministry I don't care who you are you're going to have very few Mount Carmel moments but you're going to have a lot of Mount Horeb moments it's good to have the honesty of Elijah's story both at Mount Carmel and at Mount Horeb but you know that's not the final word on Elijah oddly enough the final word on Elijah comes from James look at the book of James chapter 5 many people don't remember that James talks about Elijah what does James have to say about Elijah look at verses 13 through 17 is anyone among you suffering let him pray is anyone cheerful let him sing praise is anyone among you sick let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up and if he has comment' committed sins he will be forgiven therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed fervently that it might not rain and for three years and six months it did not rain on earth and he prayed again and heaven gave rain and earth for its fruit you have strange word about Elijah Elijah was a man with a nature like ours now this doesn't mean that Elijah was just an ordinary man there's not a single preacher on earth it's just an ordinary man once that preacher is called by God but it does mean he's just a man with everything that it means that he's just a man Elijah was of a nature just like ours Elijah wasn't a superhero at Mount Carmel and he wasn't a super wimp in Mount Horeb he had a nature just like ours Paul speaks of this in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verse 7 when he says but we have this treasure in Jars of Clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us no real preacher is just an ordinary man but every last one of us is just a man let me ask you a question are you willing to be a trouble er of Israel I don't think I've ever quoted Leon Trotsky in this pulpit before but a statement attributed to Leon Trotsky is an assertion he made to a man he considered to be an uncommitted revolutionary he said to him you may not be interested in war but war is interested in you all right you're not called to look for trouble in ministry the trouble is going to look for you you don't have to declare yourself the trouble er of Israel if you preach the word you will be the trouble er of Israel you may not be interested in trouble but trouble is interested in you the question is when trouble comes are you willing to be the trouble er of Israel and are you willing to tell Israel the truth let's pray father we are so thankful for this passage we're so thankful for the theological clarity of this passage we are so thankful for the message that inspires us encourages us humbles us and drives us ever further into your word father may this institution raise up preachers who will be tremblers of Israel and leaders of your church willing to be troubles of Israel not looking for trouble but ready when trouble comes to preach your word in season and out of season may it be so we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord amen you

Channel: Southern Seminary

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Keywords: SBTS, Chapel, SBTS Chapel, Albert Mohler, Southern Seminary

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Length: 53min 6sec (3186 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2019