SPEAKER_01: 1 Kings chapter 18.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to have a look at verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: It says, and Elijah came to all people and said, How long will you falter between two opinions?
SPEAKER_01: What a great.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, I can't wait to preach this story.
SPEAKER_01: It's a banger.
SPEAKER_01: It's a clanger.
SPEAKER_01: How long will you falter or waver between two opinions?
SPEAKER_01: If the Lord is God, follow him.
SPEAKER_01: But if Baal, follow him.
SPEAKER_01: But all the people answered him not a word.
SPEAKER_01: Religion doesn't know what to say sometimes when confronted with the truth of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It has no answers.
SPEAKER_01: Then Elijah said to the people, I alone am left a prophet of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: The Baal's prophets are 450 men.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, give us two bulls and let us choose one bull for themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Cut it in pieces, lay it on the wood, put no fire under it, and I'll prepare the other bull, lay it on the wood, put no fire under it.
SPEAKER_01: You can call under the on the name of your gods, I will call on the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And the God who answers by fire, ah, fire is one of our favorite words around here.
SPEAKER_01: He is God.
SPEAKER_01: So all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.
SPEAKER_01: Let's jump to verse 30.
SPEAKER_01: Then Elijah said to all the people, Come near me.
SPEAKER_01: And so the people came near to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down.
SPEAKER_01: And Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, Israel shall build be your name.
SPEAKER_01: And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold two sears of seed.
SPEAKER_01: And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces, laid it on the wood.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Fill four water pots with water, put it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Do it a second time, they did it a second time.
SPEAKER_01: Do it a third time, they did it a third time.
SPEAKER_01: The water ran all around the altar.
SPEAKER_01: He also filled the trench with water.
SPEAKER_01: It came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.
SPEAKER_01: You might have heard him it said differently.
SPEAKER_01: The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we know that God changed his name.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Be this known this, be it known this day, you are the God in Israel, I am your servant, and I have done all these things at your word.
SPEAKER_01: Hear me, O God, hear me, that these people may know that you are the Lord God, and that you have turned their hearts back to you again.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 38.
SPEAKER_01: Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: How many know our God is an all-consuming fire?
SPEAKER_01: And the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water, because fire does that.
SPEAKER_01: Not doesn't, it's a sign of wonder.
SPEAKER_01: It was in the trench.
SPEAKER_01: Now when the people saw it, they fell on their face and they said, The Lord, he is good.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord, he is God.
SPEAKER_01: What a what a story.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to recap because I I've read it, but what I left out was when Baal's followers were trying to get the fight out and they were cutting themselves.
SPEAKER_01: They they were they they they they they they were harming themselves because they wanted something that wasn't happening.
SPEAKER_01: And Elijah, I don't know if this is godly or not, but he was teasing them, he was saying, Where's your God?
SPEAKER_01: Is he gone on holidays?
SPEAKER_01: Literally, if you read in the in the original language, if I can be a bit uncouth, his he's teasing them.
SPEAKER_01: So they're trying to call on God.
SPEAKER_01: They're literally cutting themselves the bone, trying to get Baal to answer by fire, to send fire on it.
SPEAKER_01: So in other words, they're not lighting the sacrifice, they're wanting God to come and consume it with fire from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And and so either Baal's if if Baal could get it done, his God, if if God could get it done, his God.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he said the God who answers by fire.
SPEAKER_01: So they're trying to get Baal to send down fire, it wasn't working, they're cutting themselves.
SPEAKER_01: They went all day, it wasn't happening.
SPEAKER_01: And Elijah's just sitting back, where's your God?
SPEAKER_01: Is he on holidays?
SPEAKER_01: Is he on annual leave?
SPEAKER_01: Then he says, Where's your God?
SPEAKER_01: in the original language, and I'm not trying to be uncouth, he goes, Is he in the toilet?
SPEAKER_01: I love Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where Baal was, but I can tell you he didn't answer by fire because he's not God.
SPEAKER_01: And so the altar gets destroyed, and and then Elijah goes, Okay, we're gonna do it, and and he calls on the name of God, and I'll talk more about that in a second.
SPEAKER_01: And and the Bible says, fire came down, consume the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: There's a gaping hole in the ground, and and and and God answered by fire, and God is still answering by fire today.
SPEAKER_01: Can you say amen this morning?
SPEAKER_01: And we did let me say this the fire of God doesn't come randomly.
SPEAKER_01: If you look through scripture, and I'll just touch on a few things, a few moments where the fire fell.
SPEAKER_01: We know fire fell in the upper room 2,000 years ago.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says when the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they're all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.
SPEAKER_01: There there was a there was a suddenly.
SPEAKER_01: And I I I guess today I just want to stir your faith to remind you that the fire of God is not just Old Testament typology, there is a fire that can get on the church.
SPEAKER_01: There's a fire that can get on believers, and I I want that fire in my in my world.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says in the book of Matthew, chapter 3 and verse 16, he says I uh in verse 311, and it's so there's a there's unity that brings a fire, but there's a fire of empowering.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says uh Jesus is coming, he'll baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
SPEAKER_01: If we can get fire in our church, if we can get fire in our walk with God, whatever we touch will also catch fire.
SPEAKER_01: I remember years ago, uh Bruce Donaldson and Cynthia, I'm not sure if they're here today, but they're uh a faithful part of our church and have been for many, many years, decades, and and the bushfires that went through the Adelaide Hills, it happens a bit too often.
SPEAKER_01: But I remember their house got spared, but everything on the other side of the street was black.
SPEAKER_01: It had it been it had been touched, touched by fire, and and and these fires can start just out of the spark of an exhaust or somebody uh letting ash from a cigarette or somebody just being silly, but one spark can light an entire fire if the conditions are dry.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible talks in Zechariah, I'll make you a shovel of white hot coals among the sheaves.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the dry, the dry foliage.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna I'm gonna make you a coal of fire, and it's gonna be a devouring fire.
SPEAKER_01: You're a devourer on the left and on the right.
SPEAKER_01: There's something about the fire of God that if it can get on a believer, it it touches other people.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why Jesus said in Matthew 3.11, I b John the Baptist rather said it, I baptize you in water, but there's one coming mightier than I, whose sandals I'm not even worthy to tie up, whose berks I'm not even welcome to adjust.
SPEAKER_01: He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, somebody.
SPEAKER_01: I'm preaching the stuff we believe, and fire.
SPEAKER_01: Now you say, Oh, you're just trying to fire us up.
SPEAKER_01: I want fire to get on the church.
SPEAKER_01: Leonard Ravenhill said you never have to advertise a fire.
SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, we we we we wouldn't have to do paid some, we don't have to do paid Facebook promotions.
SPEAKER_01: That being said, I'm all for it.
SPEAKER_01: We've done them before.
SPEAKER_01: But but when you've got a fire in your church, people just have a habit of coming.
SPEAKER_01: I've said this here before at conferences and different things, but if this building was to catch fire right now, I mean, I'm not talking about in the spirit, I'm talking about in in in in in in in the context of certain death.
SPEAKER_01: Uh if this building caught fire, there is a fire escape there, there is a fire escape there, there's a fire extinguisher there, that'll save you for about six seconds.
SPEAKER_01: There's one over here, there's a fire escape through that door, and uh that that will get you to certain safety.
SPEAKER_01: You you walk out into the car park and every everything's good.
SPEAKER_01: So if there's a fire in here, we're gone.
SPEAKER_01: If there's a fire in here, I'm gonna I'm gonna run for that door.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna get outside the car park, and there I am, and and and we're gonna be safe.
SPEAKER_01: So the church, imagine it's burning down.
SPEAKER_01: Don't like believe for it, just imagine it.
SPEAKER_01: The church is burning down, and we're all outside checking.
SPEAKER_01: JB is everyone alright?
SPEAKER_01: And and and I'd say just go back in, check one more time if you wouldn't mind.
SPEAKER_01: And uh if there's any church troublemakers, bring them as well, see if they'll help.
SPEAKER_01: Just kidding, just kidding.
SPEAKER_01: So so so we're all getting out.
SPEAKER_01: But if this building caught fire, I can tell you what else would happen.
SPEAKER_01: McIntyre Road would become a traffic jam, all the cars are gonna stop, all the people from the houses on the other side of Milne Road, they're coming out with the mobiles, they're filming it, it's going on Instagram, it's going on TikTok, it's going on Facebook.
SPEAKER_01: People are filming.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because fire has an attractiveness to it.
SPEAKER_01: If you see a fire, like if you're a dude and there's a fire and you've got a fire poking stick, you're just gonna poke it.
SPEAKER_01: There's just something about fire that's intriguing.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we we love fire, we sit by fire, we fire warms us, fire's fascinating.
SPEAKER_01: You can sit and watch fire for ages.
SPEAKER_01: It's just interesting.
SPEAKER_01: But fire has a it demands a response.
SPEAKER_01: Either you've got to get away from it or it compels you, depending on where you are.
SPEAKER_01: So so if there's a fire where you are, you gotta go.
SPEAKER_01: Man, if we can get the fire on this church, we gotta go.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says Samson lit he lit foxes' tails on fire, 300 of them.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how you'd do that.
SPEAKER_01: Samson did some wild gear, like he killed a thousand people with the jawbone of a donkey, of all of the weapons that you think, man, that could really work.
SPEAKER_01: The jawbone, I would have gone with the leg or the, but he used a jawbone, killed a thousand people, and he was a he was a wild man, but he lit 300 foxes' tails together.
SPEAKER_01: And one translation, actually, I think it's a commentary or paraphrase, it says, they ran through the city with a sense of urgency.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because their tails were on fire.
SPEAKER_01: I my prayer this year is that God would light some tails in this church and we'd have some people that would go.
SPEAKER_01: It's been a bit too much study.
SPEAKER_01: There's I'm just in a season of waiting.
SPEAKER_01: It's unbiblical.
SPEAKER_01: Go.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna take time out.
SPEAKER_01: What do you people are going to hell and we've got Christians so fattened up and they're sitting back going, you know, I just need time out.
SPEAKER_01: I'm burnt out.
SPEAKER_01: You're not burnt out.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, get going, go for God.
SPEAKER_01: Do something anyway, I've got to calm down.
SPEAKER_01: I'll start speaking.
SPEAKER_01: I just need time out.
SPEAKER_01: That's usually code from taking time out from God, and it's got another word.
SPEAKER_01: Apathy generally is what that is.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have time.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to have your rest, you gotta recover from weariness, but man, I don't need time out.
SPEAKER_01: We got one shot of winning our city to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I I don't have time to quit.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, anyway, I feel like the room's getting all moving right along.
SPEAKER_01: We've got a discipleship class coming up in a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: I'd love you to be part of that.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to advertise a fire.
SPEAKER_01: Fire gets on the church, we go, but if the fire's on the church, it compels people to come.
SPEAKER_01: Every revival, all the great revivals, they ended up in these great buildings because they grew and grew and grew.
SPEAKER_01: But when they first started, no one knew where they were.
SPEAKER_01: During the Welsh revival, they would say the pubs were turning into prayer meetings, and and uh you you'll find like if you go to Europe, England, soccer is is is the religion, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, repeat after me, dear Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Come into my heart.
SPEAKER_01: You are the one God, I repent.
SPEAKER_01: But it's it it's it it's people's gods.
SPEAKER_01: And during the Welsh Revival, if you go to the pubs uh or the different clubs or the different grounds, it'll it'll have the table of who won the soccer for those years, the three years of the Welsh Revival, it just says revival, revival, revival.
SPEAKER_01: Because the soccer stadiums were used for church, they became churches.
SPEAKER_01: But people would say, How do I find a premier?
SPEAKER_01: And they say, just get on the train, you'll know when to get off.
SPEAKER_01: Get on a train, get off, get into prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Or because a guy called Evan Roberts said the Holy Ghost is coming soon, the Holy Ghost is coming soon, the Holy Ghost is coming soon, that fire fell.
SPEAKER_01: I want that fire, it's an empowering fire.
SPEAKER_01: Man, man, I I don't want to just have the word, I I I want the spirit, and and you put the word and the spirit together, and then you get the fire of God on somebody, we make a difference for the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: I would love you to just say uh a hearty amen this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Another another time you see fire is when Moses is minding his own business and suddenly a Christmas tree catches fire.
SPEAKER_01: I remember as a kid, there was a talking Christmas tree at the mall in Perth.
SPEAKER_01: My mum took me as a kid.
SPEAKER_01: I've always looked back and found that terrifying.
SPEAKER_01: Talking tree, tree shouldn't talk, but this tree talked and it caught fire.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses, he saw the fire, uh, wasn't burning up the tree.
SPEAKER_01: Now that that might seem like a trivial thing, but for Moses, he knew, therefore, that fire wasn't being sustained by anything natural, it was a self-existent fire.
SPEAKER_01: And oh, hallelujah, Bradley Griffith.
SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a supernatural fire, and and and it when you're on fire, it doesn't eat you up because it doesn't depend on you, it depends on him.
SPEAKER_01: And so, wow man, I don't even know what I'm trying to say.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just having a good time saying when that fire gets on you, it'll bring direction because here that fire said, I want you to go, tell Pharaoh, let my people go.
SPEAKER_01: And so Moses took his shoes off, he's standing on holy ground.
SPEAKER_01: It's a fire of purpose, but it's never insignificant.
SPEAKER_01: Then fire comes in response to prayer.
SPEAKER_01: When Solomon dedicated the temple, the Bible said in it says in 2 Chronicles 7 uh verse 1, it says, when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven, consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
SPEAKER_01: But he finished praying, so I went back a chapter, and I want to read what did he pray?
SPEAKER_01: And if you read uh 2 Chronicles chapter 6, I'll just give you a thumbnail.
SPEAKER_01: He's praying and declaring there's no God like God, like the Lord in heaven on earth, who keeps covenant, shows mercy, faithful to his word.
SPEAKER_01: He declares that behold, heaven and earth can't contain you.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, he's dedicating a temple.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, God's bigger than this temple, he's bigger than our church, he's bigger than our buildings.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we should never walk around and go, Revival City's the only church.
SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes that can grow, and we in people and go, we we sort of walk around like we're the we're we're the only good thing.
SPEAKER_01: And and I I'm pretty committed to this thing, but I thank God He's bigger than our church, and right across this city, God's moving and doing supernatural things.
SPEAKER_01: I talk to different pastors right around town, churches are growing.
SPEAKER_01: There's fire, there's increase, God's moving.
SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah! Can you shout amen?
SPEAKER_01: And and so he says, You're bigger than this temple, but you chose to dwell with this people, and he prayed for peace, he prayed repentance, he he asked for forgiveness and and he's praying over Israel's sins and praying for the drought, he's praying for foreigners, which we should pray for in a world right now where this country's funky on immigration and and and we don't, you know, politically people stand in different places.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible's very clear about the attitude of a Christian to foreigners, and I don't want to get people mad.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not here to tell you who to vote for or what policies to embrace, but we're called to go into all the world.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that that we should embrace aliens, and that that that's not an unkind word, it's just the Bible word.
SPEAKER_01: That means somebody from another land.
SPEAKER_01: Let's embrace them, and and so let's be a church that loves all people, all nations, and and so that's the stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, that's the stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I'm getting happy today.
SPEAKER_01: I gotta calm down.
SPEAKER_01: There's another 75 minutes in this sermon.
SPEAKER_01: And and so he starts praying for all those things, and then the Bible says, when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down.
SPEAKER_01: Consume the burnt sacrifice, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I want a prayer life like that, Bradley.
SPEAKER_01: I want a prayer life like that where God comes with fire, he answers by fire.
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember when we were young back in the 90s?
SPEAKER_01: How many were Christians in the 90s?
SPEAKER_01: It was fire, everything.
SPEAKER_01: Every conference was a fire conference.
SPEAKER_01: There was fire conference, then there was catch the fire conference.
SPEAKER_01: That went well, so they did it a second year and called it catch the fire two.
SPEAKER_01: Catch the fire three was like most third instalments.
SPEAKER_01: But but then then I remember going to World Harvest Christian Center, there was Fan the Fire.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we there was Run Run with Fire.
SPEAKER_01: There there was Acquire the Fire, there was Ignite the Fire.
SPEAKER_01: I preached at a conference called Branded by Fire.
SPEAKER_01: There were so many fire conferences, then they got a bit weird.
SPEAKER_01: People started coming.
SPEAKER_01: The the the you know the people bring it got got strange, so pastors backed off, you know, a little less fire conference, and then we had quench the fire conference, no fire conference, and then for about 20 years was leadership conferences, and then somebody went, we actually we've lost the fire somewhere here, and so now we're talking about fire again.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, send your fire, let the fire of Pentecost fall.
SPEAKER_01: And so the fire of God, I want the fire of God in this church.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want us to just be talking heads and pundits, and I want us to carry something when you when you pray for someone.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we pray, Father, heal them today, please, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: No, let the fire of God burn this thing.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't plan to talk about this, but there's a guy called John G.
SPEAKER_01: Lake.
SPEAKER_01: Has anyone ever read about John G.
SPEAKER_01: Lake?
SPEAKER_01: John G.
SPEAKER_01: Lake was this story, it is wild.
SPEAKER_01: He he he was in South Africa, and someone came to, or in Africa somewhere, I don't exactly know where.
SPEAKER_01: And and uh I know his ministry was based in South Africa, but he was all all around.
SPEAKER_01: But someone brought uh a person to him who had a a typhoid sore on his stomach, and and and the saw was so infected that if I was to give graphic detail about what they had to do, it's pretty full on.
SPEAKER_01: And so they basically had to keep it clean, otherwise things would fester.
SPEAKER_01: It was a bad sore.
SPEAKER_01: And he lifts up the guy's shirt, puts his hand, his bare hand, and he says, Father, I blast that curse of hell, and he says, burn it up by the fire of God.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm preaching old school Holy Ghost this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Does anyone still believe in that stuff?
SPEAKER_01: It still works, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: He says, blast it by the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: He pulled his hand away and the saw was completely gone, but there was a a painless burn mark, the shape of his hand, left where the saw was.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to carry a bit of that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you, but if you're sick, let's not go to our God if you feel it today.
SPEAKER_01: How about we go?
SPEAKER_01: Let the fire of God consume this thing.
SPEAKER_01: It's a consuming fire, it'll consume sickness, disease, lack, brokenness, depression, anxiety.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you, but I hope we can come back to being the people who want the fire.
SPEAKER_01: Send you fire.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what you said, but I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01: It's the deepest amen I've had in a long time.
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, just give me a second.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying usually I say it to be funny, but that is my introduction.
SPEAKER_01: I was just trying to give a picture of what the fire is.
SPEAKER_01: So what happens is Israel, uh, there's a showdown on Mount Carmel, Ahab and Jezebel had normalized Baal worship.
SPEAKER_01: Jezebel, honestly, she was something else.
SPEAKER_01: She's a bit like she's a bit of a, you're a bit of a bad, bad girl.
SPEAKER_01: Look, there's a reason why Jezebel is not the number one most popular name for children.
SPEAKER_01: I've never had, I've never had an expectant mother come up to me and say, Oh, Pastor, we're expecting.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, What are you having, a boy or a girl?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, we're having a girl, what are you gonna name her?
SPEAKER_01: Jezebel.
SPEAKER_01: The Jezebel controlled Ahab and they normalized the worship of Baal, and the prophets of the Lord were being silenced.
SPEAKER_01: And Elijah just had enough, and so he he he, by God's divine setup, orchestrated a confrontation where people would have to have a clear decision to either accept or reject the name of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So the Bible tells us in this story that he did four things, and then the Bible says, then the fire fell.
SPEAKER_01: Before the fire fell, he did four things.
SPEAKER_01: And these are four things that I would love you to look at today.
SPEAKER_01: The first he rebuilt the broken altar.
SPEAKER_01: He created a place for God to do that.
SPEAKER_01: The altar! In the old testament.
SPEAKER_01: Is it an altar?
SPEAKER_01: So to speak.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually just in the carpet.
SPEAKER_01: It's in the space between the front row and the save.
SPEAKER_01: It gets set apart for the things of God.
SPEAKER_01: People get saved at this altar.
SPEAKER_01: People get filled with the spirit at this altar.
SPEAKER_01: I've cast demons out of people at this altar.
SPEAKER_01: I've hit the ground on that altar.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I know that carpet.
SPEAKER_01: Quite well.
SPEAKER_01: Other people have been under the power of God at this altar, and my dad fell on them.
SPEAKER_01: And uh traumatizing for the poor person.
SPEAKER_01: But I've been in secular venues where they open the altar, and places that we use for unrighteousness became holy ground.
SPEAKER_01: But the altar, oh man, I'm feeling what I'm preaching today.
SPEAKER_01: But the altar is the seedbed for everything that we do as church.
SPEAKER_01: In ministry, the altar was a place built.
SPEAKER_01: All the altars have been commanded to be broken.
SPEAKER_01: There was no altars in the land.
SPEAKER_01: Jezebel wouldn't have it.
SPEAKER_01: He rebuilt the altar.
SPEAKER_01: And he's saying this is the place where God's going to do something because the altar is the seedbed for transformation.
SPEAKER_01: We have an altar here.
SPEAKER_01: It looks different.
SPEAKER_01: But the altar, there's an altar of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Something's on that altar.
SPEAKER_01: Is it God?
SPEAKER_01: Is it your career?
SPEAKER_01: Is it your finances?
SPEAKER_01: Is it your social life?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to bring condemnation, but I've got families in our church who'll see you for you know a few months and then sport comes and you're off doing that and we won't see you for six months and then come back.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the wrong thing's on the altar.
SPEAKER_01: You say, oh, but what do you are you saying that it's wrong to play sport?
SPEAKER_01: I think it's wrong to put that above being in the house of God.
SPEAKER_01: They say it's a it's a it's it's a one in two million chance that your kids, like zero, no, sorry, let me try again, 0.02% chance that your child will become a professional athlete, but it's a 100% chance that they'll stand before God.
SPEAKER_01: And I I do think we have an obligation.
SPEAKER_01: Sure, back them in, but let's prepare them for the judgment day, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, it's getting too serious this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'll get back into the new covenant in a moment.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, what I'm saying is absolutely right.
SPEAKER_01: It's absolutely right.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm not the champion athlete that I could have been.
SPEAKER_01: Because we all know that I had a career on a tangent.
SPEAKER_01: But the altar is a place where things go to die.
SPEAKER_01: The fire fell on the altar, and in this case it was a sign and a wonder, but it was also the fire of God's vindication and judgment.
SPEAKER_01: That fire fell on the sacrifice and not on everybody around it.
SPEAKER_01: It consumed that.
SPEAKER_01: Because when we put our junk on the altar, he'll consume the junk.
SPEAKER_01: He won't consume us.
SPEAKER_01: But I I wonder how the altar is in if you're the church, I'm the church, how's our own altar?
SPEAKER_01: That's where self goes to die.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody came for encouragement this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Die to self.
SPEAKER_01: Your kids will never be athletes.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you can hear those amens, but just remember that was only about 30 people.
SPEAKER_01: So when you're preaching and it's going all right, you go, can I have five more minutes?
SPEAKER_01: And like there's like 20 or 30 people that cheer.
SPEAKER_01: And so to the preacher, it sounds like everyone's all in.
SPEAKER_01: But I always remember there might be 20 or 30 people that cheer, but there's about 350 that are like, we want to go home.
SPEAKER_01: But the altar is something that we have to rebuild.
SPEAKER_01: As a church, I want to make sure we always open the altar.
SPEAKER_01: Worship flows from the altar, prayers sustained by the altar, sacrifice is consumed at the altar, encounter happens at the altar.
SPEAKER_01: Now, things can happen not at the altar, but we must have an altar rebuilt in our church.
SPEAKER_01: We've got to rebuild the broken altar because then the fire will fall.
SPEAKER_01: The altar's a place where we do business with God.
SPEAKER_01: Can I ask a question?
SPEAKER_01: I don't need you to shout or just by the showing of hands, how many people could tell, including salvation, but how many people could say, God, well, firstly, put your hand up if you got saved at the altar.
SPEAKER_01: Give me a wave.
SPEAKER_01: How many people got baptized in the Holy Spirit at an altar call?
SPEAKER_01: Give me a wave.
SPEAKER_01: How many got healed at an altar call?
SPEAKER_01: Give me a wave.
SPEAKER_01: How many got delivered at an altar call?
SPEAKER_01: How many know that the altar is where things happen?
SPEAKER_01: How many plan let you're looking at somebody who I I I take myself very seriously, as you know.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that I'll never get to a point where I'm too cool for the altar.
SPEAKER_01: I meet some people, they walk to the altar, have their coffee.
SPEAKER_01: I was in a meeting two weeks ago, Planet Shakers Conference.
SPEAKER_01: Nathan Morris, who's a powerhouse.
SPEAKER_01: I want to get him here at some point.
SPEAKER_01: And he's him moving in the Holy Ghost, Pastor George.
SPEAKER_01: And I was sort of sitting, standing where you were, and he was sort of going up there praying, and I could see him walking this way.
SPEAKER_01: So I, where you are, I just did this.
SPEAKER_01: Literally in front of him, I just went.
SPEAKER_01: He looked at me smiling.
SPEAKER_01: I he I knew exactly what he was thinking.
SPEAKER_01: And if someone did that to me, I wouldn't mind, not yet, though, because I'm in the middle of a sermon.
SPEAKER_01: But but if if he that includes you, Paul Flammy.
SPEAKER_01: So if but but he boom, the power of God touched me.
SPEAKER_01: I never want to get to a point where I'm too cool to lay on the floor to get touched by the anointing.
SPEAKER_01: People think that maturing in God is walking around like an adult before God.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, well done, God.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: I still want to be childlike in my face.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, would you touch me?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus would be for me.
SPEAKER_01: He drew a line of separation between that altar and the heresy of Baal or the things of this world or the spirit of Babylon or spirit of Antichrist.
SPEAKER_01: He he duck he did a a a line in the sand, so to speak.
SPEAKER_01: There was separation.
SPEAKER_01: And church, I don't I don't want to get in here and get up in everybody's face and and try to be too like we're not legalists, we're a grace church.
SPEAKER_01: Legalism does more damage than so many things.
SPEAKER_01: But there is something about, as believers, there being not a line of condemnation or a line of pride or but a separation from the life we once lived.
SPEAKER_01: When we get saved, we we shouldn't look like the world anymore.
SPEAKER_01: In the early church, the Bible says that they they saw them and said, You're acting like Jesus, you're walking like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So at Antioch they were first called Christians because there was something different.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like when the church tried to be too much like the world, I don't think we reach the world.
SPEAKER_01: I just think we deliver a product that isn't us, and it certainly isn't as good as what the world can produce.
SPEAKER_01: And so I think we are so much better to just be who God's called us to be.
SPEAKER_01: But what does that look like?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we used to growing up, man, we we we were taught godliness and the fear of God.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember one time at youth, this and you know, it was a different time, but a friend of mine, I'll never forget it, came to the altar and he was wearing a hat.
SPEAKER_01: And you would have been there, Joe.
SPEAKER_01: It was Lee Eden, and and Joe Geeling was uh was saying, Okay, very, very kind.
SPEAKER_01: She says, Okay, Lee, we're in the presence of God, take your hat off.
SPEAKER_01: Made him take his hat off to pray for it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I apologise wearing a hat there, but you know, if you wouldn't mind taking that off, I'm a bit offended by it, you two, Damo.
SPEAKER_01: No, you we're actually a hat-friendly church.
SPEAKER_01: We're we're we're hat welcoming.
SPEAKER_01: But it but now it's a fashion in those days, it was a it was a little bit different.
SPEAKER_01: But I grew up in some of that, and some of it was pretty hectic.
SPEAKER_01: But I feel like sometimes the pendulum swings to such grace that we're not, and I'm not talking about the true grace of God.
SPEAKER_01: We preach grace, teach grace, believe grace, walk in grace.
SPEAKER_01: Grace is an empowering, grace is a justifying power of God, but but but I still would preach that there's a healthy balance between grace and godliness.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says, see, and I'm gonna teach on this because God's been speaking to me this week, but but the Bible says in 1 Timothy 4 verse 8, godliness is profitable for all things.
SPEAKER_01: There is a there is a blessing that comes with godliness.
SPEAKER_01: And I I want to encourage us as a church, if we want the fire of God to rest upon us, there is a separation.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's not uh let's be irrelevant, it's not let's pursue God by creating rules that aren't even real, and legalism has done more damage probably than any other thing in the life of a church.
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is we recognize that, so we go, how do we do well?
SPEAKER_01: And then we don't preach this stuff at all.
SPEAKER_01: But the truth is, maybe some of us, it's still got to be a line between living for God and being at the world.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, it says he poured water on it.
SPEAKER_01: Now I didn't say this at the beginning, but they were in the worst drought in history.
SPEAKER_01: What's the most precious commodity in the world?
SPEAKER_01: Water.
SPEAKER_01: So before the fire would fall, there was extra sacrifice, and water's not the ideal conditions for fire.
SPEAKER_01: It's both a sacrifice and he's making this even more difficult.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he wanted to make sure there's no shadow of a doubt that there was a coal under that altar.
SPEAKER_01: He filled that trench.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a perfect picture right there that you go through that trench of water and step into holiness.
SPEAKER_01: That's what baptism does.
SPEAKER_01: You step out of one life, you step over, you leave your old man behind you.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that.
SPEAKER_01: Right there.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Bring water.
SPEAKER_01: And then really, if God didn't come through, there's no plan B.
SPEAKER_01: And the fourth, he called on God.
SPEAKER_01: Right there, he released his faith.
SPEAKER_01: It might be new to our church.
SPEAKER_01: You'll hear me preach faith a lot, you'll hear Pastor Jonathan preach faith a lot.
SPEAKER_01: He released his faith.
SPEAKER_01: And and and his prayer wasn't emotional.
SPEAKER_01: I don't even know how loud it was, but I do know it was grounded in the faith that he had in a covenant keeping God.
SPEAKER_01: And in verse 36 of 1 Kings chapter 18, he says, It came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Or if I could just paraphrase, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Let it be known this day.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody say this day.
SPEAKER_01: You are the God in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: I am your servant, and I've done these things at your word.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody calls on the God of Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the miracles that God did for Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: Supernatural.
SPEAKER_01: Supernatural, he calls him to be the father of many nations.
SPEAKER_01: The miracles that Isaac saw by the hand of God.
SPEAKER_01: And the miracles of Jacob or Israel.
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying, God, you've done it then.
SPEAKER_01: You did it then from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_01: He's acknowledging God's power, God's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: Saying you did it before.
SPEAKER_01: You can do it again.
SPEAKER_01: He says this.
SPEAKER_01: He says, let it be known today.
SPEAKER_01: Let it be known this day.
SPEAKER_01: He's not just the God of the past, he's the God of now.
SPEAKER_01: What does it say in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 8?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ, the same.
SPEAKER_01: Yesterday, today, and forever.
SPEAKER_01: Faith declares today.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 11, verse 1 says, now.
SPEAKER_01: Faith is.
SPEAKER_01: So by faith.
SPEAKER_01: It's a faith story because he literally stood in an atmosphere completely set against him.
SPEAKER_01: God of Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: God of Isaac.
SPEAKER_01: God of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Do something this day.
SPEAKER_01: And then that fire.
SPEAKER_01: The water's gone, the trench is gone, the sacrifice is gone, the stones are gone.
SPEAKER_01: That man, that steak wasn't just medium rare, it was well done.
SPEAKER_01: You need a chainsaw to cut that thing up.
SPEAKER_01: Gone.
SPEAKER_01: A smoking hole in the ground.
SPEAKER_01: You got Baal.
SPEAKER_01: Oh God! Baal! Would you come?
SPEAKER_01: Oh Baal! Cutting themselves.
SPEAKER_01: I was just going, is he in the loo?
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't think we should ever be mean.
SPEAKER_01: But it gives you an idea of what God thinks of religion and religious attempts.
SPEAKER_01: He's got it really.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe God's on holidays.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe he's up in the Gold Coast Dream Whoop.
SPEAKER_01: God answered by fire.