SPEAKER_00: It is good to be back with you all today, and I am excited about uh this message that God has um wanted me to share as part of this series on the voice of truth.
SPEAKER_00: The voice of truth.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've been looking at characters in the Bible like Daniel, like Jonah, and looking at the situations that they were in and what God was doing in them and through them.
SPEAKER_00: And we learn a lot about God through his interactions with people.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons why he does what he does, because he reveals some things about his nature uh by how he does what he does.
SPEAKER_00: Uh today I want to um uh add another log to this fire as we're talking about being voices of truth.
SPEAKER_00: Voices of truth.
SPEAKER_00: This is such an important time for each of us to really look at where we are in our hearts when it comes to truth.
SPEAKER_00: Do we actually believe that there is truth?
SPEAKER_00: And if there is truth, well, what is that truth?
SPEAKER_00: And do I believe that truth and have I committed my life to it?
SPEAKER_00: The reason why I say that is because obviously, as believers, we know the word of God is not just ultimate truth, but eternal truth.
SPEAKER_00: Like it does not change.
SPEAKER_00: But in our society today, there are a lot of things that are changing in culture.
SPEAKER_00: Things are being redefined.
SPEAKER_00: Things that were not allowed 20 years ago are not just allowed, but encouraged today.
SPEAKER_00: I remember being in a seminary class around 2000 or 2000, 99, 2000, somewhere, and had a class on the rise of postmodernism.
SPEAKER_00: And the idea of postmodernism is that there is a period of time called modernism where there was like this search for truth and things like this and uh identification of truth.
SPEAKER_00: Postmodernism is like we're we're past that now, and it's like you just believe whatever you want to believe.
SPEAKER_00: And and that the nature of truth changes to where it's more subjective, where your truth is different than my truth.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like there are there's some that there's a a bandwidth here where maybe there are things that you have experienced in life that have taught you to believe something that's different than my experience.
SPEAKER_00: From that regard, what's true for you might not be what's true for me.
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, when we're talking about eternal truths, we're talking about God making people in his image male and female.
SPEAKER_00: Those are truths.
SPEAKER_00: But now, even though there was a time where that was embraced and accepted, now even that is challenged.
SPEAKER_00: And when we begin to challenge whether that's true or not, that they're only male or female, when we move that line, then that line opens up to all kinds of other things.
SPEAKER_00: I was uh with my daughters at a park, um, I think it was about last year.
SPEAKER_00: I have three daughters that are 11, 8, and 6.
SPEAKER_00: And so because uh we were trying to trying to give my wife a break, she does homeschool, so give my wife a break, I'm gonna take the kids to the park, and they can just run around free and you know, do whatever they need to do.
SPEAKER_00: But when they go to the park, it's an opportunity for them to meet new friends and things like that.
SPEAKER_00: So I was looking at a couple of girls um who had these headbands on with these uh with these pointed ears on them, and they had these tails, little furry tails, attached to their the back of their waist.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, okay, well, yeah, that's cute.
SPEAKER_00: They think they're they think they're foxes.
SPEAKER_00: I I remember when I went to uh the the zoo in Australia.
SPEAKER_00: My parents took us to Australia as a kid to go to the zoo on vacation.
SPEAKER_00: And uh when we're in the military, we can do these these hops.
SPEAKER_00: Because we can get on these C5 planes and everyone's flying ten dollars a person, no matter where you want to go, right?
SPEAKER_00: So we went vacation to Japan one one summer, Australia another summer, Korea another summer.
SPEAKER_00: We're just hopping all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: But when I came back from Australia, specifically my experience with the zoo, I pretended to be a koala bear for about two weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Now the thing is, I knew I wasn't a koala, I was pretending.
SPEAKER_00: Kids pretend to be animals all the time, right?
SPEAKER_00: These kids at this park, it was a little it was a little different.
SPEAKER_00: So I was talking with their grandmother, who was who they're who they were there with, and as we're just talking everything and you know, talking about our faith and Christianity, oh, you're Christians, or now we're talking about the Bible and things like that.
SPEAKER_00: And she expressed to me that her two granddaughters actually believe that they're real life foxes.
SPEAKER_00: And she can't say anything to them about that because the agreement with her and her daughter is that if you talk to my kids to tell them that they're not foxes, you won't see your granddaughters.
SPEAKER_00: So here, so she's expressing this burden that she feels having a biblical worldview of you know of what children mean and grandchildren mean, and you know, and so she's expressing this tension of they're not foxes.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to tell them, I want to be the voice of truth, but if I do that, it will cost me.
SPEAKER_00: That's a tough situation for that grandmother to be in.
SPEAKER_00: And so she wanted me, so I was praying for her and praying with her right there on the spot, like we're praying, like Lord Jesus, you know.
SPEAKER_00: You know, right?
SPEAKER_00: So it's not like we can't do anything, but sometimes prayer tills the soil, prepares the ground, prepares the hearts, and moves things forward in ways that we might not know.
SPEAKER_00: But we have to learn to depend on that.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And if and sometimes we don't instead of praying, we try to force it, and then stuff goes bad, and we're like, they can't handle the truth.
SPEAKER_00: No, they couldn't handle either the timing or the way you said it or things.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot to it, right?
SPEAKER_00: So as we're looking at being voices of truth, there are several things at play here.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, the world seems to be going further and further and further away from the acknowledgement of truth and then the embracing of all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: And then if you say something about it and speak up about it, that you're the one with the problem, not the right.
SPEAKER_00: So now grandma's the one with the problem instead of the kids thinking that they're foxes.
SPEAKER_00: Like there are there are bigger issues here, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um if people believe that they're foxes.
SPEAKER_00: I saw a live interview, I wasn't there live, where a woman believed that she was a wolf.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy was talking to her, like asking her different kinds of questions, and like, and so um, like this is a real thing.
SPEAKER_00: This is a real thing.
SPEAKER_00: And and when we see those kind of things, we see a a degree of lostness specifically about identity.
SPEAKER_00: You and I know that the word of God tells us that in Christ we move from being uh children of darkness to children of light, like being children of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's an identity thing.
SPEAKER_00: So for someone to believe that there's something different than how they were born, not just from a gender perspective, but also from a species perspective?
SPEAKER_00: Like you're a different species?
SPEAKER_00: Here's where that gets really, really bad.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus didn't die on the cross to save foxes.
SPEAKER_00: At some point, you see, at some point, how do you talk to someone who believes that they're an animal about sin?
SPEAKER_00: You ever talk to your pet, your dog about sin?
SPEAKER_00: You ever talk to him?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, if you do, that's supposed to be a private thought.
SPEAKER_00: That's supposed to be a private thought, right?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Hold on.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, Jesus wasn't preaching to animals.
SPEAKER_00: So here's my point.
SPEAKER_00: Like this, this is not just about, oh, well, she thinks she's a fox, it's not a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: No, it is a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: Because now we're looking at a salvation issue, how can you be a child of God as a fox or a wolf?
SPEAKER_00: Or you see what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: When when when we when the line moves as culture wants to redefine it, there it opens up problems to, I mean, bigger doors to bigger problems, you get further and further away from what the word of God is saying.
SPEAKER_00: And so if we're going to be voices of truth today, um, it might not be like our character that we're gonna look at today.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna look at Elijah, right?
SPEAKER_00: Elijah was a prophet in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It was really known for his relationship with speaking to Ahab and Jezebel and speaking the truth of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: But not all of us are gonna be speaking to national leaders.
SPEAKER_00: But there are gonna be uh opportunities for us to speak to people who are in our circle of influence, whether they're family, whether they're friends, whether they're coworkers, whether they're neighbors, whoever it is, these topics are gonna come up.
SPEAKER_00: And we have been called to be the voices of truth.
SPEAKER_00: So one of the things I want to do in our time together uh this morning, as we look at Elijah, is to pull out some observations of what Elijah experienced and to see how that might apply to us today.
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the similarities?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, clearly there are some differences, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but there are also some similarities.
SPEAKER_00: So let's let's dive into this because as we look at this, we're gonna see some scriptural support, advice, encouragement on how to be voices of truth, how to endure as voices of truth, what we can expect, and perspectives that we can have that can help us stand when culture is shifting and culture is moving.
SPEAKER_00: Before we get into first Kings chapter 17, where Elijah first comes on the scene, we have to look at the end of chapter 16 just for a brief moment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, most of chapter 16 says this this person was king, they did evil.
SPEAKER_00: When they died, their son became king.
SPEAKER_00: When their son became king, he did evil.
SPEAKER_00: When he died, his son became king.
SPEAKER_00: When his son became king, he did evil, and when he died, his son became king.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so that's part of what's happening in chapter 16.
SPEAKER_00: And we get to Ahab, the son of Omri.
SPEAKER_00: So Omri did evil in the sight of God, and when Omri died, Ahab became king.
SPEAKER_00: So Ahab is the king that's going to be a part of our story.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look and see how he starts and why it's important for Elijah to be called by God to speak a message to him.
SPEAKER_00: So at the end of chapter 16, it says this Ahab, son of Omri, began to rule over Israel in the 38th year of King Asa's reign in Judah.
SPEAKER_00: So Israel was the northern kingdom, Judah was a southern kingdom, and typically when they're talking about different people, they say, Well, when this person became king in this kingdom, it was at the same time of this person's reign in the other kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what how they write the history.
SPEAKER_00: He reigned in Samaria 22 years.
SPEAKER_00: But Ahab, son of Amri, did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, even more than any of the kings before him.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Ahab is not just doing evil.
SPEAKER_00: He like broke the record for wickedness and evil.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: He did more, and then as though it were not enough to follow the sinful example of Jeroboam, a previous king, he married Jezebel, the daughter of King Ethbal of the Sidonians, and he began to bow down and worship in the worship of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Jezebel in Sidon, they worshiped Baal.
SPEAKER_00: Baal was a fertility god, Baal was a god of agriculture, Baal was a god of rain, Baal was a god of all that stuff that had to do with like growth and multiplication and things like that, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's important.
SPEAKER_00: And so one of the reasons why God did not want his people to marry outside of their group in other countries is because other countries worship other idle gods.
SPEAKER_00: And if they married them, they would bring those into the people of God and lead them astray.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he didn't want that to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, so that's why the that's why the text says it the way it says it.
SPEAKER_00: If it wasn't bad enough that Ahab did more evil than Jeroboam, he married Jezebel from another country who worshiped Baal.
SPEAKER_00: And then he brought the worship of Baal into the nation of God's people.
SPEAKER_00: First, Ahab built a temple and an altar for Baal in Samaria, which was their capital.
SPEAKER_00: Then he set up an Asherapole, which is another idol, idolic uh idol worship uh relic.
SPEAKER_00: He did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, more than any of the other kings of Israel before him.
SPEAKER_00: That's Ahab.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Now we need a messenger from God.
SPEAKER_00: So now we roll right into chapter 17, verse 1, it says this.
SPEAKER_00: Now Elijah the Tishbite of Tishbi in Gilead said to Ahab, As the Lord the God of Israel, lives before whom I stand, there will be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord came to him and said, Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cheris, which is the east of Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so picture this scene of you've seen some of these movies where you have ancient Middle Eastern times, big old palace, and the king is sitting on his throne, maybe have a queen right there, and you got people who are dancing, and you got the guards and the whole court of people just hanging out.
SPEAKER_00: You got this big old aisle right down the middle.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine those big doors open up, and this old guy from a country town called Tishbah comes walking in, and nobody knows him.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have his genealogy, we don't have his credentials, we don't have his education, we don't know anything about him except that his name is Elijah from a country town called Tishbah.
SPEAKER_00: He comes up, he walks up to the king and said, There's not gonna be any rain, not even dew in the morning when you wake up.
SPEAKER_00: No water until I come back and say so.
SPEAKER_00: And he drops the mic and he walks off like this.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So it's like, well, who's this guy?
SPEAKER_00: Like this guy is crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, we need to beef up security.
SPEAKER_00: That never should have happened.
SPEAKER_00: That never should have happened, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then and then number two, who's this crazy guy talking to us about there not gonna be any rain?
SPEAKER_00: Because we worship Baal, and Baal is in charge of the rain.
SPEAKER_00: Baal's in charge of the water, Ba's in charge of agriculture, so we we're not even worried about this stranger who we don't even know because we worship Baal.
SPEAKER_00: Then three years goes by with no rain and no dew.
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, what was that fella's name again?
SPEAKER_00: Well, where where is he?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to know.
SPEAKER_00: As a voice of truth, what I really love about a part of this verse that we might have overlooked is what is all of Elijah's credentials?
SPEAKER_00: It just says, now Elijah the Tishbite of Tishbe in Gilead.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: That's his whole biography.
SPEAKER_00: That's all we know about him.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why that's important.
SPEAKER_00: Because in our world today, in our society today, people act like they can't believe what you're saying unless you are credible.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you are an expert, unless you have some expertise, some background.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, it is so much a part of our culture today that that it is so normal if there is something uh controversial uh on on social media that you want to talk about.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what the topic is, people put at least one sentence of their credentials before they comment.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, maybe something is on there about the medical field and somebody says, I've been a nurse for 30 years, and this is what you ever seen that?
SPEAKER_00: They say, This is my or or you have some people who have like the the weakest credentials ever.
SPEAKER_00: Uh my dad's sister's best friend's cousin is a doctor.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, that's like, no, just skip the post.
SPEAKER_00: Skip the post.
SPEAKER_00: Don't put that stuff on there.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And maybe even you've done it.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe even you felt like I have got to tell people what my experience is so that people believe me.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why this is so important.
SPEAKER_00: Because that is not what's happening in this text.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what's happening in this story.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah doesn't have to say, listen, I've been in ministry for 30 years, I've been a prophet for 25, and I have not ever missed one prophecy at all.
SPEAKER_00: I went to the school of prophecy, I graduated with my PhD in prophecy, so this is why you need to listen to me when I say there's not gonna be any rain for three years.
SPEAKER_00: There's none of that.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why this is important.
SPEAKER_00: Because as a voice of truth, you need to know that your only credential is knowing God and speaking his word.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: That's your authority, that's your credit, your credit, that that's it.
SPEAKER_00: But the world is gonna say, well, you're not a doctor.
SPEAKER_00: The world might say you're you're not a lawyer, the world might say, Oh, you don't even have kids, you can't even speak about somebody else's kids.
SPEAKER_00: The world will try to imagine those kind of those courtroom scenes where one side brings up a witness, right?
SPEAKER_00: A witness that's for their case.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you're the other side, you're trying to shoot down up witnesses' credibility so that what they're saying gets dismissed.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so uh you say that you were a witness to the car accident.
SPEAKER_00: Uh yes, I was right there.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I noticed that uh you're wearing glasses right now.
SPEAKER_00: Uh were you wearing glasses when you saw the car accident?
SPEAKER_00: Uh well, well, no, not that day.
SPEAKER_00: I rest my case.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: They try to shoot down the credibility, but but if the person saw the car accident, there's things that they can say because they're still a witness.
SPEAKER_00: You see?
SPEAKER_00: Our culture is gonna try to look to see if you have expertise or experience in what you are talking about.
SPEAKER_00: And the fact of the matter is, when we're speaking the word of God and the truth of God, you don't have uh human credentials and human expertise in the thing God might be calling you to speak.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't stand on that like Elijah did, then it could cause you to be insecure about what you're saying, and worst case scenario, you don't say it at all.
SPEAKER_00: The same doubts they have about you and your experience, you might have in your own mind.
SPEAKER_00: There are things that might be happening in the medical field, in politics, in government, in your local community, in your national or or even the global scale, and God can be speaking something to you straight from the word about what the truth really is.
SPEAKER_00: And you can't go, well, I'm not an expert in that.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, you don't have to be an expert.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be an expert.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to be a veterinarian to know the difference between a dog and a cat.
SPEAKER_00: I know what a dog is, I know what a cat.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to be, well, what veterinarian school did you go to?
SPEAKER_00: None, but this is a dog, and this is a cat.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how can you be so sure?
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me right now?
SPEAKER_00: Right, that's the world we're in, and I'm telling you, don't let the world's emphasis on human credibility and credentials cause you to doubt your authority when you're speaking the truth of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So as a voice of truth, truth can stand alone, truth can stand on its own, and truth doesn't need you to have a long resume in order to say it.
SPEAKER_00: Truth doesn't need to have you for you have a whole whole long resume in order for the truth to be the truth.
SPEAKER_00: So I just like that.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I I find interesting is that there's always this kind of um battle in this area.
SPEAKER_00: Even in the New Testament, uh, some of the apostles, uh Jesus' disciples, kind of faced some of the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: In Acts chapter 4, we see where um people were kind of criticizing them and saying in verse 13, now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and they perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished.
SPEAKER_00: How are they speaking so clearly?
SPEAKER_00: How are they speaking with so much boldness that they didn't go to any of our schools?
SPEAKER_00: They were astonished, and they recognized, good on them for recognizing, but they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's the authority.
SPEAKER_00: You see, that's the authority.
SPEAKER_00: And you have got to be settled with that personally, that this is my authority.
SPEAKER_00: I've been with Jesus, this is my authority.
SPEAKER_00: I am a child of God, I know the word of God, speaking the truth of God.
SPEAKER_00: And it's based on that that I'm not budging, I'm not moving.
SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't go to medical school, but I still know the truth.
SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't go to law school, but I still know the truth about this issue and this situation.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to allow you to cause me to doubt what I know to be true in God's word.
SPEAKER_00: You may have changed, but this word has not changed.
SPEAKER_00: And because this word has not changed, my position hasn't changed.
SPEAKER_00: Well, because my position hasn't changed, I'm not changing.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready for the next point?
SPEAKER_00: So look at this.
SPEAKER_00: We gotta see.
SPEAKER_00: Ahab represents the direction the culture is moving, and Elijah represents the word of God that refuses to move with it.
SPEAKER_00: Ahab represents the direction the culture is moving.
SPEAKER_00: Culture always moves and with the winds of change, and different people get into positions and politics and influences and the law system and all kinds of things, and education system, and want to change stuff, and they want to go this way.
SPEAKER_00: But but Elijah represents the word of God going, No, you can you can go over there if you want to, but no, this is this.
SPEAKER_00: Has always been true.
SPEAKER_00: This will always be true.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm standing with this.
SPEAKER_00: So then we see in this verse.
SPEAKER_00: Verse uh verse one again.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah the Tishbite says, As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives before whom I stand.
SPEAKER_00: Go to that slide where it's in yellow.
SPEAKER_00: Before whom I stand, there should be neither dew nor rain.
SPEAKER_00: Now wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00: I thought you're standing before Ahab, the king.
SPEAKER_00: Physically, yes, but spiritually, he's standing before God.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's why he can say what he's saying, because he knows that as he's standing there, he, even if there's no one else physically with him, he knows he's not alone.
SPEAKER_00: The same person he is speaking for, he is speaking with.
SPEAKER_00: I am standing before God as I'm speaking to you.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where this idea comes from of standing with God and standing for God.
SPEAKER_00: That when you are when you are the voice of truth, you have to got to know that God's presence is with you.
SPEAKER_00: It's very troubling to try to speak God's truth without an awareness of God's presence because you need God's presence for the boldness to speak the truth without changing it.
SPEAKER_00: You need to know he's with you.
SPEAKER_00: So you got to know what he actually said.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just go by hearsay.
SPEAKER_00: You can't stand on the truth and say, Well, uh, Pastor Nate said such and such.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Nate might have brought it up, but you've got to read it or for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I put these scriptures on here.
SPEAKER_00: You can read it for yourself and then go home and study it.
SPEAKER_00: Go home and read it.
SPEAKER_00: Go home and talk to God about it.
SPEAKER_00: Talk to God about the parts you have you have trouble uh understanding, or even have trouble believing.
SPEAKER_00: And the Spirit of God will help you.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's how you get rooted in the word for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be a Christian for 30 years to be able to open up the Bible and to hear God speak to you and teach you from His Word.
SPEAKER_00: He gave you His Word as His child, and He gave you His Spirit so you can understand it.
SPEAKER_00: You can have conversation with Him about this.
SPEAKER_00: So even as I'm talking about being a voice of truth, it's not just about the content itself.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just about saying what you know God is saying, but you got to know that God is with you because when you face the resistance, when you face the rejection, when you face the criticism, when you face the accusations that you're being hateful because you disagree with somebody's lifestyle, you got to have peace when God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: And no, listen, I hear what you're saying, but I'm not moving.
SPEAKER_00: Well, isn't that hate speech?
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: This is love speech, and love speaks the truth, whether you like it or not.
SPEAKER_00: As the God of Israel before whom I stand.
SPEAKER_00: As I'm saying what I'm saying, it's his message, and he is with me when I say it.
SPEAKER_00: He is with you when you speak it to your family and your friends.
SPEAKER_00: He's with you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: When Elijah went up there and said, Look, it's not gonna rain until I come back, God said, Hey Elijah, you better run.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's about to go down.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it ain't time for you to come home yet.
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to go over here by this brook because since it's not going to rain, stuff is about to dry up.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna feed you.
SPEAKER_00: I made specific provisions for you at a brook, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so you shall, uh verse 4, you shall drink from the brook, and I've commanded the ravens to feed you there.
SPEAKER_00: So he went and did according to the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He went and lived by the brook cherith that is east of the Jordan, and the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
SPEAKER_00: So so here's several things that are happening here.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, the issue of the rain is because Baal worship was connected to the rain, it proves to everybody that Baal is not in charge, that Baal is not real, that Baal has no real power.
SPEAKER_00: So for three years, they might have initially thought Elijah doesn't know what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna pray to Baal, we're gonna be fined.
SPEAKER_00: But after three years of no water, not even dew on the grass in the morning when you wake up, they're like, wait a minute, right?
SPEAKER_00: We're talking to Baal and Baal's not helping us out.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever God, Elijah's God is, must be the one really in charge.
SPEAKER_00: But now we got a problem.
SPEAKER_00: We got a problem.
SPEAKER_00: So all this time, God has told Elijah, I want you to go to uh to this brook, and I've got some ravens who are gonna be doing DoorDash just for you in the morning and door dash in the evening, and you're gonna be all right.
SPEAKER_00: And then the time comes for that to for that to transition, and the time comes for now Elijah to go to speak to Ahab.
SPEAKER_00: Now the three years are over.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah's gonna come to Ahab and say, Listen, all right, now it's about to go down, it's it's it's a it's about to rain.
SPEAKER_00: But before that happens, here's how the conversation goes.
SPEAKER_00: The conversation goes this way.
SPEAKER_00: When Ahab, uh 1 Kings 18, verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah said, Uh, I haven't troubled Israel, but you have.
SPEAKER_00: And and your mama.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he that's kind of what he didn't say that specifically, but that's kind of what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He says, You have troubled Israel and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the bails and the worship and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: See, the voice of it, it was not popular for Elijah to say to Ahab, what Ahab, what he just said to Ahab.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Ahab says, You are the troublemaker, and Elijah goes, No, player, that's not me.
SPEAKER_00: No, that's you.
SPEAKER_00: That's you because of your disobedience, because you violated what God has told you to do.
SPEAKER_00: That that's you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't don't don't call me the problem because I'm bringing up the problem.
SPEAKER_00: The voice of truth, the voice of truth is speaks when it's unpopular.
SPEAKER_00: And when the voice of truth speaks when it's unpopular, sometimes it also means that that the voice of truth is going to be seen as the problem for bringing up the problem.
SPEAKER_00: Grandma would have been seen as a problem for bringing up the problem that your kids are not foxes.
SPEAKER_00: Mom would have said, Why are you not letting my kids just be themselves?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you causing a problem?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you?
SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, they're not foxes.
SPEAKER_00: How is it that I'm the problem?
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what Ahab is doing.
SPEAKER_00: We haven't had any rain for three years, and and Elijah, it's your fault.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah's like, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't even have a job right now if you've been obeying God.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you never, I would have been fine over in Tishba, but I'm here because you've been acting a fool and God's trying to tell you to get your act together.
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes we need the voice of truth.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta speak with something popular.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and sometimes there's a voice of truth, especially our culture.
SPEAKER_00: Now they're gonna call Christians who stand on God's word, you are the problem.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not the problem.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even gonna believe I'm the problem.
SPEAKER_00: You are the problem.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: What you're you're what you're believing is not true.
SPEAKER_00: What you're allowing is harmful, what you're saying is not true.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm speaking the voice of truth based on God's word, based on what I know is his design.
SPEAKER_00: And I know it's uncomfortable for you, but what you cannot do, and what I'm not gonna believe, is that I'm the problem for bringing it up.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But calling you the problem is gonna be an intention to push you back and to silence you because no one wants to, it doesn't feel comfortable being called a problem.
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna be a silencing technique, right?
SPEAKER_00: You are the problem.
SPEAKER_00: So I wanna end by saying this.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot more to the story.
SPEAKER_00: There's Mount Carmel.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah says, when Elijah's talking to Ahab, he's like, look, get out, you have 450 prophets who've been worshiping Baal, bring all of them.
SPEAKER_00: The 450 prophets of Baal, the 400 prophets of Asherah, bring them all.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have a showdown.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna put a bull on a sacrifice, I'm gonna put a bull on a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: And whoever God responds by fire, that one is the real God.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to make a decision.
SPEAKER_00: The voice of truth calls to make a decision.
SPEAKER_00: But also the voice of truth, it doesn't try to just start arguments.
SPEAKER_00: The voice of truth doesn't try to win arguments, the voice of truth tries to point people to God.
SPEAKER_00: And so Elijah's like you, you, you, you, you all go first.
SPEAKER_00: They prayed and prayed and prayed, they cut themselves and all kinds of stuff, try to pray to Baal to bring fire down on this altar to burn up this bull, and nothing happened.
SPEAKER_00: And then Elijah prayed and fire came down and consumed the entire altar.
SPEAKER_00: That was the turning point for people.
SPEAKER_00: That was the turning point where eyes began to open up.
SPEAKER_00: But of course, Jezebel, who brought the Baal worship, didn't like it.
SPEAKER_00: And Jezebel said, Um, I'm gonna kill Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah's like, no, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Elijah took off running.
SPEAKER_00: He sat down under a tree and he was depressed for a while, feeling the weight of being the voice of truth.
SPEAKER_00: And God sent an angel, strengthened him, and encouraged him, and helped him move on to continue doing what God has called him to do.
SPEAKER_00: These are just some observations from Elijah's story about what it means to be the voice of truth.
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna be popular.
SPEAKER_00: When you call out the problem, you might be called the problem.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna be easy.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but but when you kneel before God, you can stand before anyone.
SPEAKER_00: That's not my quote.
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember where I heard that from.
SPEAKER_00: But that's where Elijah stepped upon the scene.
SPEAKER_00: He had a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: He he he was tight with God.
SPEAKER_00: So when he said what God said, it was okay with him to let the chips fall where they may and let God uh take care of him and trust him and cover him to continue his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: As voices of truth in our culture today, I will tell you, well, there was a moment where Elijah felt like he was by himself, but he wasn't.
SPEAKER_00: There's about a hundred other prophets that had been hidden in caves from Jezebel.
SPEAKER_00: He felt like he was alone, but he wasn't, he wasn't.
SPEAKER_00: He was the only one standing up there against those 450 prophets, he was by himself.
SPEAKER_00: Although there are other prophets, those prophets weren't saying anything.
SPEAKER_00: Although there are other Christians, not all of them are gonna speak up.
SPEAKER_00: Can't be mad at them.
SPEAKER_00: Can't let let that discourage or deter you.
SPEAKER_00: You say what God tells you to say, you believe what God tells us to believe, and you stand on what God said.
SPEAKER_00: We're not wavering.
SPEAKER_00: We're not here for that.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus comes back, he's gonna find people who have held on to the truth of who he is, of who God is, and of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna take us back home with him.
SPEAKER_00: We you can clap.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'll pause these if I just laugh.
SPEAKER_00: It's always a good time to clap, you know.
SPEAKER_00: So I want us to I want to take a moment, I want to pray for you because it's it's it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: In our country, we have some difficult days ahead.
SPEAKER_00: We ain't seen it yet.
SPEAKER_00: We have some difficult days ahead to stand as believers in Jesus Christ on the truth of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Stuff is going to get crazier, stuff is gonna get dark, but we have been called to be the light of the world.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: And we have the power of the Holy Spirit and the presence of Christ within us.
SPEAKER_00: That's and that's huge.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I thank you.