SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the North Iron Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to take the gospel from the upper peninsula to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this message will inspire and encourage you in your faith journey.
SPEAKER_01: Enjoy our Elijah series where we learn truths from the story of Elijah in 1st and 2nd Kings.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Glad you're here with us.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to grab your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: If you need a Bible, you don't have one, raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: We have a great version for you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're new to God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: We're right in the middle of a series called The Story of Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be in 1 Kings chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: In just a moment, 1 Kings chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: If you're having trouble finding it, uh it's going to be in the in the 500s more than likely.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: It's right in front of 2 Kings, if that helps you any.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
SPEAKER_00: But we're glad that you're here and we're going to study God's word just for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: As typically what we do, if you're new here, not only do we declare who Jesus is through singing, we're actually singing scripture, declaring what he's doing in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: That's important for us.
SPEAKER_00: We're celebrating transformation in our lives and the attributes of God and his promises.
SPEAKER_00: But also we believe that God's word is alive and active.
SPEAKER_00: You need a physical Bible, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: I know all of my notes and everything is on the phone.
SPEAKER_00: That's really convenient, but it's also important to have a physical Bible and use it as a tool.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that God's going to speak to you.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to be, again, 1 Kings chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking at the prophet, Prophet Elijah this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Want to say thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Would you guys welcome all of everyone who's online onto Nogden Lance?
SPEAKER_00: We have people in the Republic, Manistique, all over the UP, Munisine.
SPEAKER_00: We constantly get uh texts and information from people who are, hey, we're with you.
SPEAKER_00: We're meeting in a small group in our city.
SPEAKER_00: Please bring North Iron to our city.
SPEAKER_00: We get those kind of requests all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And we're we're glad that you're you're with us.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we know that the Lord's going to speak.
SPEAKER_00: We love the internet.
SPEAKER_00: It it it pr it it moves the kingdom of God forward in a powerful, powerful way.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, my name's Mark Broberg, and I'm uh the lead pastor here along with my wife, Jennifer.
SPEAKER_00: Would you also uh welcome John and Naomi Brett uh Brady, sorry, not Brantley, Brady, they are former pastors at Northiron.
SPEAKER_00: So we're so glad that they're here.
SPEAKER_00: I think they're in the back there.
SPEAKER_00: John, do you want to pastors like to sneak in, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: They don't like to be recognized, and so uh, so I I just uh I like to like to pull the cord a little bit there.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we honor you guys.
SPEAKER_00: We're so thankful.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the place we are because of of your leadership, and we're so thankful across the UP.
SPEAKER_00: We know that God's gonna do something powerful, and it takes generations of leaders and pastors and people to come together uh to accomplish such things.
SPEAKER_00: Let me start off.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're at a an apex or a pinnacle this morning with the story of Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: And please forgive me if I accidentally say Elisha.
SPEAKER_00: He is also a prophet that we find in the next chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes uh whoever came up with those two names, uh they didn't they didn't uh have me in mind as Mark Broberg.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so you'll hear me.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people were confused uh the first week I spoke because I was going from Elijah to Elisha.
SPEAKER_00: But we're talking about Elijah this this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 18 is the pinnacle of the story of Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: As we talked about in the past, we've been in this for a couple weeks now.
SPEAKER_00: Everything leading up, all the trials, all the concerns, all the things that are going on as God has raised up Elijah to bring a message to the northern tribe of Israelites about their relationship with God is coming to a climax as we find in chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: This is the moment where the people of God are going to have to decide if they believe God is real and he is worthy of being worshiped, or they will continue their worship of false gods.
SPEAKER_00: It's a moment of conviction, it's a moment of verdict, it's a moment of decision making.
SPEAKER_00: And as I was kind of diving in for the last couple of weeks, this this passage of scripture, again and again and again, I was reminded, and you'll hear me say these kind of things all the time, it's really following Jesus comes in the almost mundane, small decisions of your lives that will always lead to a large decision in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to serve God or not?
SPEAKER_00: You've heard me say there is no half measures when it comes to serving God.
SPEAKER_00: You're either all the way in or you're all the way out, and that's what's happening in chapter 18.
SPEAKER_00: Our families are affected, our towns are affected, our streets, our schools, our businesses are all affected by the decision-making process or the lack of decision-making process.
SPEAKER_00: Either one, it is a decision.
SPEAKER_00: You make the decision or you decide not to make a decision, it's still a decision that affects everyone around you.
SPEAKER_00: Richard uh Doug Dale, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: AJ read my notes.
SPEAKER_00: In 1874, Richard was working at a prison in upstate uh New York.
SPEAKER_00: And he was there just to kind of keep an eye.
SPEAKER_00: He was a sociologist, just walking through uh the American prison system that was relatively new.
SPEAKER_00: America was going through a transformation, all kinds of people were coming into America, laws were being established, and the justice system was convicting people and putting them in prison.
SPEAKER_00: And so we had individuals that were kind of going throughout our prison systems, just making sure that we were doing the right thing by these inmates.
SPEAKER_00: He started to study different individuals that he found had a connection with each other.
SPEAKER_00: That's not so much even that they had the last name, but he kind of stumbled into this kind of criminal family that he didn't know existed because of the prisons that I believe there was nine prisons that he was uh going from in uh to and from in upper state New York.
SPEAKER_00: And he started to recognize that a lot of these inmates had relationships with each other, and he started to study those people who who were cousins and brothers in our prison systems, and he found that they all went back to the 1700s of one Dutch immigrant, his name was Maxim Juke.
SPEAKER_00: And Maxim wasn't the kind of person you would definitely pattern your life after.
SPEAKER_00: He was, as they say, he was lazy or a bum or an alcoholic.
SPEAKER_00: He uh had 11 children uh with multiple, multiple, multiple uh uh women.
SPEAKER_00: He was a womanizer, and because of his decisions in life, may they be small or large, a majority of his family, they studied five generations, were all in prison or honestly lived horrific lives.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what happened after five generations, uh, 310 pulpers or or people on welfare or people in destitute, 400 drunks, 190 prostitutes, 150 criminals, seven murderers, all from one man.
SPEAKER_00: Then Richard took, in contrast to another individual that did not live too far from him, that took a different path in life.
SPEAKER_00: His name was Jonathan Edwards.
SPEAKER_00: He was a theologian, he was a pastor, he was the starter of the first great awakening in the 1700s uh in America.
SPEAKER_00: He also looked at five generations uh of those that came after Jonathan, 13 college presidents, 65 college professors, 75 military leaders, 80 public servants, 60 authors, 60 doctors, 30 judges, 100 pastors, 100 lawyers, three US senators, one vice president.
SPEAKER_00: Fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: Small decisions always lead to large decision decisions.
SPEAKER_00: And you've heard me say it, and it's been a focus even here in my ministry at North Iron.
SPEAKER_00: And you've heard me say this, pastor say this a lot, and you I'll say it in various ways, but when you when you have to make a choice in life, when it comes to your family, if you want to change the family, you change the man.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard me say this statistic.
SPEAKER_00: If a if a young person, a child, or a teenager comes to know who Jesus is, there is a 3.5% uh chance that the rest of his family will serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: If a single mom comes to church, there's a 17% chance that your children will serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But if a husband or a father comes to church leading his family, there is a 93% chance that they're going to serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's staggering.
SPEAKER_00: And it comes down to choices.
SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to choices, you have to make that choice.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of men I come across who just simply don't want to make any choices.
SPEAKER_00: They just want to skate through life, they just want to not ruffle anyone's feathers, they they just want to be a nice guy.
SPEAKER_00: But when you have to make a choice and you don't make it, that itself is a choice.
SPEAKER_00: I'm leading up to something here that is going to happen with the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The king is about to make a choice.
SPEAKER_00: The people of Israel are about to make a choice, a major choice in their life, but they made a lot of small, inappropriate choices to get to this large choice that they're having to make.
SPEAKER_00: You say, well, Pastor Mark, I'm I'm kind of just, yeah, I'm that guy.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to ruffle any feathers.
SPEAKER_00: But you need to understand that that in this life, you are probably, though you know it or not, making a choice to worship something.
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing that you need to understand.
SPEAKER_00: That all humans are worshipers.
SPEAKER_00: It's a part of your DNA.
SPEAKER_00: You're making a choice to either worship God or not worship God.
SPEAKER_00: This is where the people of Israel are.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Pastor Mark, I'm not a worshiper.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that that that the word worship really comes to the word worth?
SPEAKER_00: Like you worship whatever you ultimately find worth in.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we worship that thing.
SPEAKER_00: You can you cannot stop being a worshiper.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to point to something that's how you're created.
SPEAKER_00: Worship is worship.
SPEAKER_00: I find this one thing.
SPEAKER_00: If I don't have this one thing in my life, let me tell you, I'm not gonna be happy, I'm not gonna be able to find my identity, I'm not gonna be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: And so we we we tend to ultimately point our lives to whatever we find, this ultimate worth in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: An idol ultimately is something that has taken on ultimate worth for you.
SPEAKER_00: John Kelvin says that the human body is an idol factory.
SPEAKER_00: We're always pointing to something.
SPEAKER_00: It might, and here's the thing that I I come to realize ultimately, those idols in our lives they represent good things sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, Pastor Mark, I'm not out, I don't have a statue in my backyard, and I'm not out there worshiping that thing.
SPEAKER_00: But listen, those those things that we worship oftentimes are good things in our life.
SPEAKER_00: Money is a good thing, but we we worship money as the primary form of security.
SPEAKER_00: Like, Pastor Mark, I don't know if I have enough money for retirement.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Mark, I don't know if I have enough money for rent.
SPEAKER_00: Like those are real issues in our lives, and oftentimes we find our places, we find ourselves in places in a lack of security.
SPEAKER_00: Or or family is that ultimate fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Mark, I need that that ultimate family, that image of family.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna be alone in my life.
SPEAKER_00: It'll bring satisfaction, fulfillment, and so you become this bitter thing.
SPEAKER_00: Either you don't have that, you've not obtained that, or you have a family and it's not a great family.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, I want a new family.
SPEAKER_00: And you find your fulfillment and satisfaction in that idol of family.
SPEAKER_00: That's where you find your worth, or maybe it's your identity in your accomplishment.
SPEAKER_00: Even as your pastor, I would, I, I would, I would, I put too much emphasis or worth on being a good preacher or not.
SPEAKER_00: And if I didn't preach good, it would wreck me for the whole week.
SPEAKER_00: Now I just don't care.
SPEAKER_00: I care.
SPEAKER_00: A little bit.
SPEAKER_00: This is where the people of Israel are at.
SPEAKER_00: Who are you gonna worship?
SPEAKER_00: Now you remember the context of what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00: The people of Israel, the kingdom is split.
SPEAKER_00: There's a civil war.
SPEAKER_00: We have the tribe of Judah that have their own set of problems, but the people of the northern tribe of Israel have not served the Lord well.
SPEAKER_00: They've had 19 consecutive kings who have led them astray.
SPEAKER_00: Even their current king, ultimately, who kind of is the pinnacle of things going wrong here.
SPEAKER_00: He he even has this kind of pseudo halfway measure with God, where we he knows the history, he understands that they're the children of God, he even names his two boys under really God-honoring names in a way, and yet he goes and marries the wicked witch of the West, Jezebel.
SPEAKER_00: Can you see kind of this half-measure in his attempt?
SPEAKER_00: And she brings in this worship of all these foreign gods.
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine we talked about this a couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: They had multiple, multiple, multiple gods for every need that they had.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was the God of sex or power, uh, riches, prosperity, of weather, whatever they felt in need in, they would create this God of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: It was a general term for whatever there were they were in need of.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jezebel comes in with her prophets, serving false gods, and we come to the place where Elijah, through circumstances, is brought before the king.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's ready.
SPEAKER_00: The test is about to happen on the top of a mountain.
SPEAKER_00: And so we find in 1 Kings chapter 18 when Ahab, speaking of the king, Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?
SPEAKER_00: You gotta ask the question, who is the troubler?
SPEAKER_00: Like, do you have a a troubler in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Someone who can who represents the right thinking or the presence of Jesus or the wisdom of God in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a troubler in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Someone who will come to you, and this is one of the great purposes of the church, that you would be walking with Jesus alongside men and women of God who would rattle you every once in a while and say, Do you not understand what scripture says in the way that you're leading and making decisions and choices for yourself and your family?
SPEAKER_00: Like one of the most disappointing things, heartbreak in my life, is seeing people surround themselves with a party of fools.
SPEAKER_00: Where they don't listen to either God's word or the leadership and the authority of the church, but they go their own way thinking my path is better than their path.
SPEAKER_00: They simply take themselves away from the presence of God through small choices.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes, if people don't like what they I say, I'll find that they'll go to someone else and they'll go to someone else and they'll go to someone else until they can find the justification for the sin in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: That's the beauty of pain, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, ah, I hope he stops preaching soon.
SPEAKER_00: My back is killing me.
SPEAKER_00: Pain is an incredible thing, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: It's an indication, is it not, that something's wrong in your in your system, in your in your body.
SPEAKER_00: It's an indication that something needs to be fixed or tuned or slapped or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But there's something wrong in your system, and yet we spend all this time trying to litigate or manage or take away that very pain which is the alarm going off in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And we do that with people even around us.
SPEAKER_00: Pain's a beautiful thing, it's an indicator that something's not.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know in in when you get leprosy, one of the most horrific things about leprosy is you do not feel pain anymore.
SPEAKER_00: That the disease eats away at your nerves and you become numb.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that that leprosy is a a not a sign of but a representation of sin in your life?
SPEAKER_00: And yet we oftentimes come into the presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit speaks to us, maybe even in the form of a metaphorical pain, like the guilt or the shame or the conviction of sin in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And after a while of ignoring that, it's like we have spiritual leprosy where that conviction is gone.
SPEAKER_00: That is the ultimate level of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And you can see, even in our society today, people who would say, Man, I'm just gonna live my life the way I want to live my life.
SPEAKER_00: That's the ultimate level of painless sin.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a sign that the conviction of God has left your life.
SPEAKER_00: You need a troubler.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're in the room.
SPEAKER_00: I need to be rattled.
SPEAKER_00: I need to be making moves towards the presence of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I need to listen to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The word troubler here means pain in the hind end, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: In Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: The king says, Oh, the canker sore is here.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah answers the king and says, I have not troubled Israel, but you have.
SPEAKER_00: Your decision and your father's decision.
SPEAKER_00: Because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed false God.
SPEAKER_00: So therefore, Elijah says, it's time to make a choice.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to make a choice.
SPEAKER_00: So he gathers all of Israel to meet at Mar Mount Carmel, and 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 other prophets, all serving false God, who eat at Jezebel's table, had to be a large table, show up.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture goes on.
SPEAKER_00: So the king sent all the people of Israel together, the prophets together at Mount Carmel, and Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you need to underline this in your Bible?
SPEAKER_00: How long will you go limping between two different opinions?
SPEAKER_00: How long will you limp in life?
SPEAKER_00: How long will you have half measures or halfway?
SPEAKER_00: Instead of going all the way, you're kind of just on the fence, really serving God or not serving God.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a decision almost every morning.
SPEAKER_00: You get up and you just kind of slowly drift and walk away from God, limping through life.
SPEAKER_00: So Elijah asks a question to the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So if the Lord is God, then follow him.
SPEAKER_00: And if Baal is God, then you should follow him.
SPEAKER_00: How long are you going to go limping between these two gods?
SPEAKER_00: You've heard me talk on a multi it's it's kind of been my my soapbox as of late, right?
SPEAKER_00: All paths to God.
SPEAKER_00: Are you tired of me talking about this stuff yet?
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm tired of hearing it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm tired of seeing influencers and people wrestling with this ideal and almost like they're preaching a different gospel and doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: They are, in that you can just choose whatever path you want to go on.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if you're you're Muslim or Buddhist or Mormon or Jehovah's Witness.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually everyone's gonna go up their trail on the mountain and they're gonna reach the pinnacle of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: We can take different paths, but we're all going to reach God at some level.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, everyone, that is demonic garbage.
SPEAKER_00: It's garbage.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't really even have that big a problem with pagans.
SPEAKER_00: I have problems with heretics, Christians who twist and muddy the gospel and live lives that are convenient to them.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Mark, there's just you know, I'm a good person.
SPEAKER_00: I can just get to God however I want to.
SPEAKER_00: How convenient for you?
SPEAKER_00: At least the Muslims have dogma, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: At least they radicalize.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we blaspheme God with half-lived lives, limping through life instead of making a choice to serve the true God.
SPEAKER_00: Like, why even be here?
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's the part I don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: Like, be all the way in or don't be all the way in.
SPEAKER_00: I I heard Matt Chandler, he's a pastor, I believe, in Texas.
SPEAKER_00: He he made the statement, he said, church is a terrible hobby.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh man, you said it.
SPEAKER_00: Like, why come and fight in the parking lot?
SPEAKER_00: Why come and fight with a bunch of people where you're gonna come in and I'm gonna talk to you for 45 minutes and make you feel bad?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we got donuts, I get that, but you can go to Huron Mountain Club.
SPEAKER_00: Or bakery, sorry.
SPEAKER_00: You can't go to Huron Mountain Club.
SPEAKER_00: You can't.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you live in Skany, they got a back door up there somehow.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how they make it, but anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Forgot what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Church is a horrible, a horrible hobby.
SPEAKER_00: It's like Halloween.
SPEAKER_00: You go get dressed up, right?
SPEAKER_00: Put a mask on, get some lame candy, and you go home.
SPEAKER_00: It's a horrible, like I I sometimes I get nervous about this where people are more in love with the movement of North Iron instead of being in love with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because we accomplish a lot of incredible things here.
SPEAKER_00: Serve people, love people, lives are transformed.
SPEAKER_00: I I can understand why people would fall in love with what we do, but you need to fall in love with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the church is so important, and it's not because I'm in charge of church that it's important, it's it's Jesus created of like-minded community people who move the kingdom of God forward through conviction because we believe Jesus is who he says he is.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we work so hard in what we do.
SPEAKER_00: And I can't emphasize the importance of making a decision to be a part of a church.
SPEAKER_00: Join North Iron or join another church.
SPEAKER_00: There are plenty around everyone.
SPEAKER_00: North Iron isn't for everyone, but man, do something.
SPEAKER_00: Just don't show up every once in a while.
SPEAKER_00: Start volunteering.
SPEAKER_00: I promise your life will change just because of the fact it won't be about you all the time.
SPEAKER_00: At least one day a week, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Give generously, get into branches, which is our small groups, or start sharing your faith, go on forward trips, be passionate about who Jesus is, consume his word, and I promise your life will change.
SPEAKER_00: So Elijah goes to the people and he says, Listen, choose God or choose Baal, which is it going to be?
SPEAKER_00: And the people did not answer crickets at everyone.
SPEAKER_00: So Elijah calls, has a plan.
SPEAKER_00: He calls the people up.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You call upon the name of your God.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, he calls the prophets of Baal up.
SPEAKER_00: You call upon the name of your God, and I'll call upon the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is God, and all the people answered.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a pretty good idea.
SPEAKER_00: Which is interesting that he chooses fire because the Baal that they're dealing with, you understand it hasn't raised rain for three, three, three years, is the God of rain.
SPEAKER_00: And so Elijah says, Whatever is consumed by fire, he will be the God.
SPEAKER_00: And so we find that the prophets begin to get together.
SPEAKER_00: Guys could hit that next slide for me.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: And they took the bowl that was given them and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, Oh Baal, answer us.
SPEAKER_00: But there was no voice, and no one answered.
SPEAKER_00: And I love that it's this is in here again, and they limped around the altar that they had made.
SPEAKER_00: And so they began to pray and wail for God, their God, to show up.
SPEAKER_00: And I love this next portion of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's my love language.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah started mocking them.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure he was in a lawn chair, just sitting back.
SPEAKER_00: Cry louder.
SPEAKER_00: For he is a god, and maybe maybe he's daydreaming, maybe, maybe he's doom scrolling on on Facebook.
SPEAKER_00: Or listen, maybe he's just gone.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you serve a traveling God.
SPEAKER_00: He's on a journey somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: We we find he says that in the next portion of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Or or or listen, maybe, maybe he's on the John.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's relieving himself.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe he's just he's just sleeping.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he needs to be awake.
SPEAKER_00: And they went on again praying, and they cried aloud, and they cut themselves to try to get the attention.
SPEAKER_00: And as midday passed, they raved until the time of the offering of obligation, and there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention.
SPEAKER_00: So let me tell you a couple things about false gods.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the first one that false gods require, they require dancing to please them.
SPEAKER_00: And again, I know none of you are out in the backyard dancing before a stone god somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: But you're still in need of the same kind of interaction.
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is you're trying to get the god of money's attention.
SPEAKER_00: So you're dancing hard.
SPEAKER_00: Dancing hard.
SPEAKER_00: Trying to make it happen.
SPEAKER_00: Or you you need the attention of your friends.
SPEAKER_00: So you dance before that idol, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you dance for your family from this thing to that thing to this thing to that thing, this thing, trying to create this idealistic image of the perfect family.
SPEAKER_00: You're still dancing.
SPEAKER_00: All false gods require dancing, and all false gods always push you towards destruction.
SPEAKER_00: I just I need more money, so I'm gonna cut myself in this job in a way.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes metaphorically, listen, some of you actually do cut yourself, but a lot of times we do it metaphorically in our families with money, with sex, whatever we're we're worshiping, dancing, and destruction.
SPEAKER_00: And so we find that Elijah says to all the people, Come near.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Do it a second time.
SPEAKER_00: And they did it a second time.
SPEAKER_00: Then he says, Listen, I want you to do it a third time, and they did it a third time.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is drenched in water.
SPEAKER_00: And the water ran around the altar and filled the trenches also with water.
SPEAKER_00: And at that time, Elijah the prophet came near and said, O God, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are the God of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that these people may know that you are the God that they need to worship and serve, and that you are turning their hearts back to them.
SPEAKER_00: And then it says that the fire of God came down and consumed the burnt offering, the wood and the stones, the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trenches.
SPEAKER_00: And all the people saw.
SPEAKER_00: When they saw it, they fell on their faces and they began to worship.
SPEAKER_00: What's interesting here, I think I told you this a couple weeks ago, that Elijah's name actually means the Lord is God.
SPEAKER_00: So when they're worshiping, they're actually mouthing the words of Elijah, his name.
SPEAKER_00: Not worshiping Elijah, they're declaring who God is in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord, he is God.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you a couple things about false gods again.
SPEAKER_00: False God always require this incredible strenuous effort, and yet the true God is known by grace through faith.
SPEAKER_00: We see this again and again and again, where most all, I would say all world religions, I don't know them all, but all, in my opinion, all world religions ask for you to act.
SPEAKER_00: That if I do what I'm commanded to do, then I'm accepted.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is the only one that doesn't the opposite, where you're accepted and then you obey.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, false gods mutilate you, but the true God mutilates himself for you.
SPEAKER_00: Again, the opposite, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: In Luke chapter 9, there's a really fantastic story of Jesus in Samaria, and the Samarians are rejecting him, and the disciples say to Jesus, hey, just like in Elijah's day, Jesus, why don't you call down fire and consume all these Samarians and show them that you are truly God?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: He rebukes them and he's like, no, you guys are getting it wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to be the one that sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus isn't Elijah calling down fire, he's the sacrifice who will receive the fire of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, false gods are ultimately powerless.
SPEAKER_00: The true God answers by a miracle.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest miracle is not fire falling from heaven, but Jesus raising from the grave.
SPEAKER_00: That's the greatest miracle.
SPEAKER_00: It would be, and I would love to walk through a split Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: That would be an incredible miracle.
SPEAKER_00: Or if Lake Superior just disappeared one day.
SPEAKER_00: No, that wouldn't be great.
SPEAKER_00: I take that back.
SPEAKER_00: But wouldn't it be great if we saw those kind of over-the-top miracles?
SPEAKER_00: But you need to understand that the greatest miracle has already happened, and that is the resurrection power in your life, in my life.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest miracle, as I look out to some of you, is seeing a changed life.
SPEAKER_00: Where the resurrection power resides with inside of you, and it begins to change your heart and the way that you think, and you find yourself as you're following Jesus, you're just not the same person as you used to be.
SPEAKER_00: That's the power of the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And lastly, false gods lead us to a soul drought.
SPEAKER_00: The true God pours it upon us with living water.
SPEAKER_00: I like how Tim Keller says it this way: Jesus is the only God that if you find him will satisfy you, and if you fail him, will forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: So after this incredible miracle on this mountaintop, we find that as the people are worshiping God, that Elijah starts to pray for the drought to cease.
SPEAKER_00: It hasn't rained for, I believe, three, three years, six months.
SPEAKER_00: And he keeps on sending out his servant.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to go to the cliff, look out over.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see any clouds?
SPEAKER_00: He comes back, he goes, he comes, he goes back.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually he comes back, he says, I think I see a cloud the size of a fist, Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah gets up and tells the king, listen, you better get back.
SPEAKER_00: Because your chariot's gonna get struck, because the Lord's returning the rain.
SPEAKER_00: Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain will stop you.
SPEAKER_00: And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain.
SPEAKER_00: And the king rode and went to Jezreel.
SPEAKER_00: And the hand of the Lord, I love this part.
SPEAKER_00: You remember all the limping that's going on?
SPEAKER_00: And the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he gathered up his garment and ran before the king into the entrance.
SPEAKER_00: He outran the chariot.
SPEAKER_00: I think God's just showing off at that point.
SPEAKER_00: The whole point of this morning comes down to the decisions of your life.
SPEAKER_00: The small decisions to be a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There's no half measure.
SPEAKER_00: The world would want you to think that that is an option.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is just like this buffet.
SPEAKER_00: I could take a little bit of Jesus, I can take a little bit of Eastern religion, I can take a little bit of this, a little bit of this, and like build a bear.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna build myself a savior.
SPEAKER_00: It's not what scripture says.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is the only one and true God.
SPEAKER_00: And either you serve Him or you don't.
SPEAKER_00: There was a radical missionary movement in the 1900s called One Way Missionaries, where at the turn of the century the world started to open up not only for travel but missionary work, and so there were areas that were unreached with the gospel, still true today.
SPEAKER_00: And missionaries would sell everything that they had, they would buy a one-way ticket to whatever destination they were going, and they would pack everything that they had in a coffin.
SPEAKER_00: They would pack their coffin because they're never coming back.
SPEAKER_00: A young man in in Scotland who was a pastor was inspired to follow Jesus to the South Pacific.
SPEAKER_00: To an island in the Hebride area.
SPEAKER_00: It's no longer called that, but at the time that was the chain of islands in the South Pacific, mostly cannibals and headhunters.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, they had killed and even eaten some of the missionaries that had gone to this island prior to A.W.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Milney.
SPEAKER_00: AW said it's okay because he's already died to everything in his life.
SPEAKER_00: And so he literally packed his coffin, took a boat to this island, and lived his life along with his wife.
SPEAKER_00: For the rest of they never came home again.
SPEAKER_00: It was difficult.
SPEAKER_00: Tribes were Fighting each other, there's a lot of tribal warfare, a lot of death, a lot of disease.
SPEAKER_00: And then the the presence of Jesus began to work on the hearts of the chiefs of these, I believe there's nine islands that string together.
SPEAKER_00: And one by one, the tribes began to dedicate themselves to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Thousands of people got saved because of A.W.
SPEAKER_00: and his wife, who dedicated themselves to the advancement of Jesus in their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: In 1924, A.W.
SPEAKER_00: died.
SPEAKER_00: He never came home.
SPEAKER_00: And his tribe buried him.
SPEAKER_00: The marker on his stone said this.
SPEAKER_00: When he came, there was no light.
SPEAKER_00: And when he left, there was no darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have been limping.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to limp anymore.
SPEAKER_00: The consequences of life have shown that you're limping.
SPEAKER_00: You haven't surrendered everything to him.
SPEAKER_00: There is no half measure.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you have to be perfect.
SPEAKER_00: But you have to dedicate yourself fully to him in all things.
SPEAKER_00: When you do that, and when the people around see you do that, it changes everyone's life.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know what area of life you haven't surrendered, but I want you to stand with me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to close.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to pray with you.
SPEAKER_00: Those in Lans, Antonogden, your campus pastors are coming.
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray over you.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to open these altars for prayer and worship.
SPEAKER_00: But some of you need to make that decision today.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm making a step towards you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I'm not sure how I'm going to make all things work out, but Lord, I'm going to surrender all of my life to you, and I'm going to believe in your promises, believe in your word, believe in your healing.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I'm going to start to lead better in the choices for my family, for my community, for my business, for my government, wherever you are, God has positioned you and placed you, and you need to make a decision to move towards Him this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's speaking.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to pray with you, Father.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you see all these hearts, you see all these lives, Lord, you know, you know every every portion of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, there are areas, there are people who are holding back.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, that you would reveal yourself much like you revealed yourself to the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Father, that we would take a step towards you, that we would surrender our lives to you, Father.
SPEAKER_00: You're worthy.
SPEAKER_00: You gave your life so that we could have life that demands something of our lives, Father.
SPEAKER_00: So right where we're at, Jesus, I ask that your Holy Spirit would flood like living water into people's lives, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And as we move forward to worship you, Lord, we ask this in your holy and precious name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us for this message.
SPEAKER_01: For past sermons, a giving link, and more, check out the footnotes below or visit our website at northiron.church.
SPEAKER_01: We hope to see you soon.