SPEAKER_00: 250 years ago today, July 7th, 1776, is really arguably when the process started.
SPEAKER_00: The Continental Congress had been arguing and waffling for several months about whether or not they should pursue some form of reconciliation and some sort of reaching out an olive branch as it was sometimes called to the mother country to reestablish connection with that, with the monarchy there, or if we should pursue revolution.
SPEAKER_00: And so there was a great deal of back and forth and pursuing either what was referred to as the middle way or complete a complete break from the country.
SPEAKER_00: And the 13 colonies could not decide on what to do.
SPEAKER_00: No one even addressed the full question until June 7th of 1776, whenever the delegate from Virginia rose to the floor and made this resolution.
SPEAKER_00: He said, resolved that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiances to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.
SPEAKER_00: It became known as the Lee Resolution, named after Richard Henry Lee, who proposed the motion, and this did something very significant for our country.
SPEAKER_00: No longer could we, uh as a uh the Continental Congress, could they sit and let the matter hang undecided.
SPEAKER_00: Once the resolution was made, a decision had to follow.
SPEAKER_00: And so eventually a vote was required and ultimately a declaration was demanded.
SPEAKER_00: What Lee did that day for the Continental Congress was he forced a choice.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know about you, but I I have seen many examples in my own life as well as in the culture around me that prove we have trouble deciding.
SPEAKER_00: We have trouble choosing, we have trouble committing.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the reasons why marriage is uh not, this rate of marriage is not as high as it used to be.
SPEAKER_00: The reason why 30% of people don't really think that kids are that important.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you if you remember or not, but kids are a commitment, right?
SPEAKER_00: And a significant one.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have trouble committing, we have trouble choosing, but God caused us to choose.
SPEAKER_00: And so several thousand years prior to Lee's resolution, another individual stood on top of a mountain in Carmel and offered another choice to individuals who had not yet decided.
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to look at his story today and hear the call of the demand to choose from his own voice.
SPEAKER_00: His name was Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: He was a prophet who lived under a king named Ahab.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Ahab, you may recognize his name.
SPEAKER_00: He was a spectacularly spiritually spineless individual.
SPEAKER_00: He lived under the rule of God in the northern kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: He knew what was right, and yet he could not carry it out.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, whenever you read scripture, you see that he named his kids after biblical truths.
SPEAKER_00: One of his children was named Ahaziah, which means owned by God.
SPEAKER_00: Another one was named uh Jehoram, which means Jehovah is exalted.
SPEAKER_00: And so this individual, Ahab, knew what was right, and yet because of his marriage to the pagan Jezebel, wasn't able to execute it.
SPEAKER_00: He, like the people, were waffling, and they followed him into this state where they would give Jehovah his due.
SPEAKER_00: They would honor the feast and the festivals in their own way, and yet on the side they would constantly turn to the Baals of the land and worship there.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the 450 prophets of Baal all had a seat at the table, uh, metaphorically speaking, for the government in the northern kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And so the people of Israel were caught between two opinions.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Elijah, this didn't set well with him.
SPEAKER_00: And so whenever he spoke, whenever he preached, whenever he wrote, whenever he encountered one of these political officials, he would tell them the truth.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know that people don't like it when you tell them the truth when the truth doesn't set with what they're doing?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm kind of the same way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I don't care much for whenever people tell me the truth.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't, I didn't, um, I didn't tell Kim I was going to do this.
SPEAKER_00: I need to pay her a quarter for every sermon illustration she winds up in.
SPEAKER_00: This past week, I I was having not a good day.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll just leave it at that.
SPEAKER_00: I was having not a good day.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone ever had not a good day?
SPEAKER_00: I was having not a good day, and I was, I was, well, the rumor was I was cranky.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it was true or not, but I I hear I hear I was.
SPEAKER_00: And so I go to the office to take care of some business, and and you know what she does?
SPEAKER_00: She turns on worship music and plays it in the background as soon as I said that.
SPEAKER_00: What a dirty trick.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't sell well with me at the time because it it hurts, right?
SPEAKER_00: Whenever people challenge us, it's not fun.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what Ahab.
SPEAKER_00: Ahab knew who Elijah was when Elijah he came and he appeared before Ahab.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what Ahab says: he says, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?
SPEAKER_00: Why is he the troubler of Israel?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's not allowing Israel to conduct its business the way Israel wants to conduct its business.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, you're in this room and like there's a troubler in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Your grandmother is a troubler, your father, your mother is a troubler.
SPEAKER_00: You got a friend who is a troubler, and they're a troubler because they're telling you the truth, but you don't want to hear the truth.
SPEAKER_00: We've all been there, and our instinct is to refer to them as the troubler.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, Elijah's not the troublemaker, he is the troubleshooter.
SPEAKER_00: He's there to help them with a major problem.
SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that as a theocracy, as God's people, living under covenant, especially living under covenant, they were obligated to live a certain way as a nation.
SPEAKER_00: And yet here is Ahab and his Phoenician wife Jezebel, who are leading the people away from the worship of the one true God.
SPEAKER_00: So Elijah came near and told the people, he insisted, he's talking to Ahab, he says, I'm not the troubler, you're the one who has led the people away from Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And then he comes near to the people and says, How long will you go limping between two different opinions?
SPEAKER_00: If God be God, if the Lord be God, follow him.
SPEAKER_00: But if the beah, but if the Baas be God, then follow him.
SPEAKER_00: And what's happening here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Elijah has called for this Congress, for this continental Congress of leaders in the land, and he is now pointing out the fact that they are living in contrast to the covenant that was established by their fathers with the God who provides for them and challenges them now to make a choice, to stop waffling and to choose, and it's a reasonable choice, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Look, if if if Baal is God, then you go worship him.
SPEAKER_00: But if Yahweh is God, then you go and you worship him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for me, I see this approach to evangelism, and there's a part of me that doesn't like it.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not the kind of guy who's going to go up to someone on the street and say, hey, listen, if Allah's God, then you go worship him.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I that's not my approach to evangelism, because what I want to say is Jesus is God, Yahweh is God.
SPEAKER_00: Let me explain to you why that is.
SPEAKER_00: Now go and worship him.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not Elijah's approach.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah's approach is, well, it's the same approach that Moses offered, it's the same approach that Caleb offered, essentially saying, look, if you don't think that Yahweh is the actual God, if you think the gods that he conquered and laid waste to are better than him in some way, then go and worship him.
SPEAKER_00: But if but if Yahweh is the one true God, then you should be dedicated to him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is he doing this?
SPEAKER_00: Why is he even opening the door up to this second choice?
SPEAKER_00: He's doing so because sometimes the greatest grace that God can extend to us is allowing us for a season to live with the choices that we're making.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've been there.
SPEAKER_00: I've had to live with choices that I've had to make, and they have taught me very valuable lessons.
SPEAKER_00: I think this may be what Jesus means in Revelation when he says, I just wished you were hot or cold.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you would get on one side of the spectrum, then we could talk.
SPEAKER_00: Because once you get on this side, like we know you've you've declared a spot, and once you've declared that spot, we can work with that.
SPEAKER_00: But it's the waffling, it's the lukewarmness, it's the inability to choose.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah's calling them out of that.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, look, if God's God, then you go and do what God says to do.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is uh this isn't the Lee resolution, this is the Elijah resolution.
SPEAKER_00: He came and challenged the people.
SPEAKER_00: If the Lord be God, here he is at verse number 21.
SPEAKER_00: Uh people uh he challenged people, how long will you go limping between two opinions?
SPEAKER_00: If the Lord is God, choose him, worship him.
SPEAKER_00: The idea here of limping is, of course, as the as the word implies, it has the idea of someone who's like on unsteady feet, kind of leaning this way and leaning this way, and bumping into the wall over here, and then bouncing over here.
SPEAKER_00: The image is very clear.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah says, You got to stop that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's the response of the people on hearing this challenge?
SPEAKER_00: Look at the end of verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: And the people did not answer him a word.
SPEAKER_00: Now that sounds very much like our culture.
SPEAKER_00: That the best way to avoid an argument is just to sit silently.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow we've come to believe that uncertainty, uncertainty seems to be the highest virtue of our age.
SPEAKER_00: That you can just assume that you don't know and it's not a big deal, and then and and you don't need to decide because everyone can decide for themselves what to do, and it's not really a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: And the highest level of intellectual assent is to come to a place where you say you don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Which is kind of weird when you think about it, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Agnosticism is a fine place to stop and check your map, but it's a terrible place to start receiving mail at.
SPEAKER_00: Agnosticism is a fine place to stop.
SPEAKER_00: Like I've got no problem with doubt mingled with faith.
SPEAKER_00: We see examples of it throughout scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus accepts it, he acknowledges it.
SPEAKER_00: You and I don't know everything.
SPEAKER_00: Our doubts cause us to grope towards the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm cool with that.
SPEAKER_00: But you can't live in that doubt without moving and reaching forward towards something.
SPEAKER_00: And, and more importantly than that, you can't reside in that doubt as though it's just the place you're just going to live out the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00: Sooner or later you have to choose.
SPEAKER_00: The idea of agnosticism, not knowing, not choosing, not believing is uh the idea of not knowing.
SPEAKER_00: It's the alpha prohibitive, uh, alpha uh a before the word no.
SPEAKER_00: It's like I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's okay, you don't know, but there is an answer that should be sought.
SPEAKER_00: I've got a lot of respect for people who recognize that they're agnostic for a season.
SPEAKER_00: I've got a real problem with people who live in agnosticism as though they are some sort of enlightened individual who have who's learned how to live in the middle way.
SPEAKER_00: No one can live in the middle way.
SPEAKER_00: Some people do this because of evasion.
SPEAKER_00: They're just trying to avoid the difficult question in their own life and in the lives of others.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the moment you pick a God, and if you love someone, then you have to encourage that person to follow the God that you love, who loves you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that's just how Christianity works.
SPEAKER_00: And then also in my own personal life, if I pick God and and the Jehovah, and I understand He's written to me and He's telling me how I should live my life, like there are, I mean, there's responses that are required for that.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, sometimes I want to evade.
SPEAKER_00: Other times I just I just want to be inclusive.
SPEAKER_00: I want to draw people in.
SPEAKER_00: And I like there's this push inside of me because I want to be accepted and liked, and I want everyone to feel comfortable, that I just want to say, hey, you know, it's really no big deal.
SPEAKER_00: But then the Spirit of God speaks through me and says, no, it's a very big deal because there is a truth, there is a reality, and the word of God pierces me and tells me that there is a truth.
SPEAKER_00: There is a reality.
SPEAKER_00: There is a God.
SPEAKER_00: This idea that there's this mountain that we're all kind of climbing, and you choose to approach from the south, and I choose to approach from the north, and my road goes this way, and your road goes that way, that analogy might be one of the most arrogant statements ever uttered by any human anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Because the only way to be able to state this is how reality works, the only way to argue that this is the mountain that everyone around me is climbing, is to assume that you have climbed to the top of the vista and you've taken it all in and you understand it.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty arrogant whenever you challenge the writings and the beliefs of billions of people by your own opinion.
SPEAKER_00: You must choose.
SPEAKER_00: Agnosticism is a fine place to stop and check the map, but it is a terrible place to set up a mailbox.
SPEAKER_00: This is exactly what Elijah's doing.
SPEAKER_00: He is saying that no more of this pluralistic, you know, reaching to the left and right and waffling and trying to find some way to live between these two, these two incompatible world systems.
SPEAKER_00: Jews.
SPEAKER_00: So Elijah comes up with this plan.
SPEAKER_00: He says, here's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go to the top of Mount Carmel and we're gonna set up two altars.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to see whose God responds.
SPEAKER_00: And the message, the scripture tells us, the people say the message was well to them.
SPEAKER_00: They say it's well said, this works for us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's put the challenge out and see whose God is actually God.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at what happens in verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: And they took the bull that the that was given to them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, the idea of when we think of Baal, you may think of uh Zeus or, you know, one of the pantheons of Greek or Rome.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, the idea, the word Baal is a generic term for God or spiritual leader.
SPEAKER_00: They had a baal for everything.
SPEAKER_00: At some point there was a baal who was the god over weather, but the truth is they had a ba'al for everything.
SPEAKER_00: If you had uh a problem with your crops, there was a ba'al for that, if you had a problem with your health, there was a ba'al for that, if you had a problem with your family, there was a ba'al for that.
SPEAKER_00: If you had a problem with a neighbor who was getting on your nerves and you needed them taken care of, call ba.
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, that's more sophisticated than the way you and I think today, because we think to ourselves that it's all secular, that it's all physical, that there's really nothing in the world underneath us, and that's just foolishness in the highest order.
SPEAKER_00: They recognized that there was a warfare, that there, that there was, that there were consequences to the way that we lived our life in the pursuit of things that we worshipped, and there were a lot of different things that could be worshipped.
SPEAKER_00: So they took this animal and they they were prepared it to sacrifice for for Baal and they called out to him from morning to evening, Oh, Baal, answer us.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the next phrase.
SPEAKER_00: You might would expect the author to say, but Baal did not answer.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what the author says here.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he says, But there was no voice, and no one answered.
SPEAKER_00: You know why he phrases it that way?
SPEAKER_00: Because there was no Baal.
SPEAKER_00: This was a false God.
SPEAKER_00: This was a a deity that was never going to respond to them because, as God says under the prophet Jeremiah, he has no mouth to speak, no hands to lift up, no feet to carry him about.
SPEAKER_00: He's just an idol, he's nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't worship idols of that kind anymore, but we do, of course, it's well stated repeatedly that we do have our own idols of worship, and they're just as empty.
SPEAKER_00: They cannot speak.
SPEAKER_00: We call out to them, and yet, in response, there is no voice and no one will answer.
SPEAKER_00: Money cannot set with you whenever a loved one is lost.
SPEAKER_00: Politics won't be there whenever a marriage falls apart.
SPEAKER_00: Acceptance, our pursuit of affirmation from others will disappear whenever the season of your life turns to depression.
SPEAKER_00: Those are false gods who cannot do what the one true and living God can.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: And they limped around, scripture tells us, and they limped around the altar that they had made.
SPEAKER_00: The idea of limp here, it's the same Hebrew word passa.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same one that Elijah had used when he says, How long are you going to go limping around between two opinions?
SPEAKER_00: In some translations, it's it's can it's translated in some versions of your Bible, it's translated as dancing.
SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty good analogy, the word, uh pretty good translation.
SPEAKER_00: The word was sometimes used to describe dancing in some form.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but if you guys noticed some of the dancing on television, doesn't it look a little bit like limping now?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not going to imitate it because I got no rhythm at all, but that's what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: They're they're dancing, they're attempting to gain the attention of the deity by performing before him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is significant because this section of scripture right here really gives meat to the skeleton of this idea of praying to false gods and reaching out to false gods.
SPEAKER_00: Because look, we all make requests, right?
SPEAKER_00: We're all praying to something.
SPEAKER_00: We're all turning to something, we're turning to our money as a God, we're turning to our career as a God, we're turning to some other spirit as a God, we're turning to an angel as a God.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, like you've got to be careful.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're turning to a saint as a God or to to making a request, or maybe maybe a dead loved one, right?
SPEAKER_00: Scripture has no room for those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: The the scripture has only space for us to turn and place our hope and request in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, he's the best.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you ever go anywhere else?
SPEAKER_00: So they request.
SPEAKER_00: That's that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: It's what you would expect to happen at this point, but it's the next two things they do that tell you that what they're serving cannot serve them back.
SPEAKER_00: They dance, they go about limping between two opinions.
SPEAKER_00: This is a way of performing for the deity, trying to get its attention, trying to get its affirmation.
SPEAKER_00: We do this as well, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We try to perform for our gods.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we post what we do on social media because we're trying to get acceptance.
SPEAKER_00: It's why we go to work.
SPEAKER_00: And nothing wrong with a good work ethic, but whenever that work ethic becomes a worship effort, then soon you find yourself trying to appease a God who's never going to give you what the deepest desires of your heart, because the deepest desires of your heart are not to pay a light bill.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's there, it's got to be paid, but that's not the deepest desires of your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And they go about dancing, seeking that acceptance.
SPEAKER_00: Look back at verse number.
SPEAKER_00: Number 28.
SPEAKER_00: And they cried aloud, and they did what?
SPEAKER_00: They cut themselves after, and to make sure we all understand that this wasn't a new thing.
SPEAKER_00: This is just what they did after the custom that uh with swords and lances, and so this is like pretty significant.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of pouring blood gushing out upon them.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're covered now in blood.
SPEAKER_00: This is also what the what the uh the deity requires.
SPEAKER_00: Not just not just dancing, performance, but cutting, self-mutilation.
SPEAKER_00: For some gods, some of us have worn our fingers to the bone.
SPEAKER_00: For some gods, some of us have emotionally wrecked ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may be in the room or watching online, like you you literally cut yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You you you you're pulling on your hair because you're trying to get a sensation that mimics feeling, and because of the depression and the anxiety and the emotional distress in your life, you are literally self-destructing.
SPEAKER_00: That is that that is not that tells you that that is not the kind of God you should be serving.
SPEAKER_00: Because the truth is the kind of God that you and I serve doesn't require for us to bleed.
SPEAKER_00: He himself is the one who bled for us so that we don't have to.
SPEAKER_00: I I love how Tim Keller puts this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, you can identify a false God whenever you see the dancing and whenever you see the cutting.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty good, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: And I I've danced.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going through the season in my life where like I realize I've been dancing, trying to perform, to earn things that aren't going to matter while leaving the glory of God set to the side.
SPEAKER_00: That's idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: And God has a way of dealing with idols that are pretty severe and direct.
SPEAKER_00: Pretty good reason, husbands, why you do not need to idolize your wife.
SPEAKER_00: Pretty good reason why, wives, you do not need to idolize your husbands or your children.
SPEAKER_00: Because God has a way of dealing with idols that is severe, and you don't want God dealing with that idol the way that He dealt with Dagon in the Philistine temple.
SPEAKER_00: So we have look at verse 29.
SPEAKER_00: Midday passed.
SPEAKER_00: They reveled until the time of the offering of the oblation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you if you mark your Bibles, why don't you go and just mark that phrase there?
SPEAKER_00: It's going to appear twice.
SPEAKER_00: And when we see repetition, we want to mark it to see, to say, okay, what's happening here?
SPEAKER_00: Why is this significant?
SPEAKER_00: Does anybody care what time of day this was happening?
SPEAKER_00: Didn't matter, did it?
SPEAKER_00: And yet it's it's included in the text here.
SPEAKER_00: This would have been, some of you are going to get it immediately, this would have been about the ninth hour, or in our clocks, it would have been around three o'clock.
SPEAKER_00: And yet there was no voice, no answer, no one paid attention.
SPEAKER_00: What a final epitat to this dialogue between these worshipers, these very passionate, fervent worshipers.
SPEAKER_00: You can be passionate and fervent and be dead wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Passion does not equal correctness.
SPEAKER_00: They were dead wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah pointed it out, verse number 31, uh verse number 27, that very, very famous passage of scripture where Elijah said to them, in the middle of all of that, he he he turns on the sarcasm.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I love Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: It gives me permission to be sarcastic sometimes because he was sarcastic.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I can do it.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, crawl it a little louder.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe your uh your God needs a little hearing aid work, and uh, you know, and maybe he's uh he's just busy right now and and he'll be back in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00: Just keep ringing the phone, or you know, he could be, you know, he could be in the bathroom and no one ever takes their phone into the bathroom.
SPEAKER_00: I'm ad-libbing a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: No one ever takes their phone to the bathroom, so maybe he's going to relieve himself.
SPEAKER_00: So you guys just you know keep calling, calling a little while, which is exactly what they did.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the more they called, the more the silence echoed back at them.
SPEAKER_00: Not the kind of God that we serve.
SPEAKER_00: The kind of God that we serve answers even whenever there is silence, there is answer in the silence, in the still small voice.
SPEAKER_00: We see this happen with Elijah in in opposition to their pleading and bleeding.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah prays just one simple prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Watch what he does here.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 31.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see how he sets this up.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah took 12 stones according to the numbers of the 12 tribes of the sons of Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: Why would he do that?
SPEAKER_00: Why would it matter?
SPEAKER_00: Because these people were part of the 12 tribes.
SPEAKER_00: They had left the worship of the one true God, and he is setting up an emblem to say, you all used to be one thing.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't Jerusalem and Dan, it wasn't Jerusalem and Bethel, it wasn't Jerusalem and these idols in the north, these cows in the north and the south of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: You all used to be one thing.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that when God brought us out as 12 tribes?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that, and he's also in the middle of this, he is saying, and it could be that way again.
SPEAKER_00: He's this is how he's building a bridge from their heritage straight up to the current time and the decisions they should be making.
SPEAKER_00: According to the twelve tribes of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be your name.
SPEAKER_00: And with the stones on top of this, he built an altar to the name of the Lord, the one true God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, real quick here, notice he says that he built an altar.
SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew word there is the idea to restore.
SPEAKER_00: In other parts of the Old Testament, it's translated to heal.
SPEAKER_00: What's he done?
SPEAKER_00: He is he has healed the altar.
SPEAKER_00: He's reconstructed something perhaps that used to be there in prior days.
SPEAKER_00: He's reestablished it.
SPEAKER_00: He is saying, look, the old ways work if you go far enough back.
SPEAKER_00: The old ways don't work if you only go back to the 80s or the 60s or the 50s.
SPEAKER_00: But if you go all the way back to the beginning, the old ways work if you go back to the origin of the nation.
SPEAKER_00: And there he built the stone and he built it to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't use the old altar.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't repurpose the old way of the worshipers of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: He brought something pure and restored back to the worship of God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that our God works that way.
SPEAKER_00: That he didn't just reform me, he restored me.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't take the old parts of my life, right?
SPEAKER_00: He didn't build something new out of that and cause me to need to slowly restore myself to a place of rightness with him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus died for me and the altar was restored.
SPEAKER_00: That's good news, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: So he pours down water, not just a little bit of water.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't just spritz this thing.
SPEAKER_00: He dug a trench around it.
SPEAKER_00: He poured 12 buckets of water, and then he brought uh water not just uh uh one time he brought it, he brought four buckets three different times again for the twelve tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And so the entire altar was just saturated.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know that it's difficult to light wet wood?
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, this is a tough place to start, but here again, there is a deep truth that sometimes desperation is the blank canvas that God prefers to start with.
SPEAKER_00: Someone in this room needs to hear that again.
SPEAKER_00: Because, like, that's the spot you're in, and you know you're needing to choose and commit, but you're so frustrated and you're so tired and you're so weary and you don't know why.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm here to tell you because so frequently desperation is the blank canvas that Jesus chooses to start with.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what he's done.
SPEAKER_00: He's uh by the guidance of the Spirit, Elijah's put himself in a no-win situation.
SPEAKER_00: So that whenever God wins, there's no question that he is the one true and living God.
SPEAKER_00: And again, look at the very next verse here, verse 36.
SPEAKER_00: And at that time of the offering of ablation, there it is again, Elijah the prophet came near and said, O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.
SPEAKER_00: Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.
SPEAKER_00: What beautiful mercy is this.
SPEAKER_00: One simple, small prayer, one like no cutting, no bleeding, just turning to God and praying these words, and immediately the fire fell.
SPEAKER_00: It lapped up the offering, it lapped up the altar, it lapped up the water, and everything was absorbed.
SPEAKER_00: I am so very grateful that at the cross, when the fire of judgment fell, everything was absorbed.
SPEAKER_00: It was all just lapped up.
SPEAKER_00: God didn't leave anything behind for me to wrestle over.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus paid it all.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's, as we get ready to wrap things up here, I want to spend just a moment looking at this prayer because I think this is a significant place for us to see that when we turn to the one true God, when we stop waffling between two opinions and we turn and focus our attention on the one true God, then we find a freedom and liberty that can only be experienced through that kind of declaration.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way that the what I'm saying to you is in the same way that the Lee Resolution opened the door to, yes, a lot of war and a lot of struggle, but to a freedom that the world had never experienced before.
SPEAKER_00: Period.
SPEAKER_00: That that's that's what, like if you're looking for the reason why this country is an enigma, why America is such a great place to live, it is because of freedom.
SPEAKER_00: And that the people it was there, and the mantra of that period of time was simply this: that we're not declaring ourselves separate from Great Britain.
SPEAKER_00: We are stating a fact that is already true.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's in the writings of Jefferson, that's in the writings of Franklin, that's in the writings of Lee, that they weren't making independence, they weren't creating freedom from Great Britain.
SPEAKER_00: They were simply stating a fact that was already true.
SPEAKER_00: This prayer does that at a spiritual level.
SPEAKER_00: It states facts that are already true.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the kind of prayer I'm going to suggest to you is the kind of prayer that rings the doorbell of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Look here what he does.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever you look at the prayer, you notice that Elijah does four things.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, he says, Lord, do this because number one, you are God.
SPEAKER_00: You're God.
SPEAKER_00: What's he saying?
SPEAKER_00: You're the only one who can do it.
SPEAKER_00: And in doing it, you're proving who you are.
SPEAKER_00: What if our prayers were focused more on that?
SPEAKER_00: To say, God, here's my request for you.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to respond to me because you are God.
SPEAKER_00: You're the only one who can.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to prove who you are through doing this.
SPEAKER_00: My pursuit is to show people that you are God.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, do this, he says, because I am your servant.
SPEAKER_00: You are Lord, Lord, Yahweh, you are God.
SPEAKER_00: Do this.
SPEAKER_00: Show them that you are God and that I am your servant.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one who's obeying you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one who's following you.
SPEAKER_00: What if our prayers were to be focused less on trying to manipulate God and bend him to our own will and more on trying to assume our place within his plan as a servant?
SPEAKER_00: Do this because I am your servant.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, do this because I am following your word.
SPEAKER_00: People, Lord, people don't understand why I'm doing this.
SPEAKER_00: People don't understand why I'm not panicking.
SPEAKER_00: People don't understand why I've chosen to go this way whenever the broadway seemed easier.
SPEAKER_00: Would you, would you show them, would you, would you reveal to them that I'm following your word?
SPEAKER_00: And fourthly, do this because I am pursuing your glory.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know like you don't see the word glory there in that second verse, the back end of his prayer, but I'm going to suggest to you that mercy is glory.
SPEAKER_00: That the thing that separates our God from every other God, the thing that makes him reveals his glory so magnificently is the mercy that he shows to us.
SPEAKER_00: Here in the prayer where Elijah says, the reason that we're here, the reason that all of this is going on, the reason, God, that I know you're about to let fire fall and completely annihilate this offering is because you are calling the people back to you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, someone might look at this story, in fact, I've heard it treated as such, and look at the story and say it's all about judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Well, not according to Elijah's prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about judgment, it's about glorious mercy.
SPEAKER_00: What if our prayers were centered more in this tone to the one true God?
SPEAKER_00: You are God, I am your servant, following your will and pursuing your glory.
SPEAKER_00: What a difference that would make.
SPEAKER_00: That we are no longer waffling between two opinions, trying to fix it ourselves, trying to resolve it ourselves, trying to turn to the government.
SPEAKER_00: Our attention is focused exclusively on the work and will of the one true God.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I think Jesus would say about this moment here?
SPEAKER_00: This series is all about what would Jesus post?
SPEAKER_00: What might he say about June 7th, 2026, and the 250th celebration of the Lee Resolution that forced a choice?
SPEAKER_00: You know what I think he would say?
SPEAKER_00: I think he would say, the Lord, he is God.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord, he is God.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one, the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He is it.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one true God.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that you can trust.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who does what no one else can or would do.
SPEAKER_00: You can choose him and you should choose him.
SPEAKER_00: We should burn the bridge behind us and stop waffling and halting between two opinions, between the gods of this age and the timidness that comes from trying to bridge the gap and to be this person of both worlds.
SPEAKER_00: We we can't live in that world.
SPEAKER_00: We have to choose one.
SPEAKER_00: We have to choose who we're going to worship.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah calls us to to choose God because He is the one.
SPEAKER_00: When we look at Scripture, like He He's the one who has set Himself up and showed Himself to be the only God worth turning to in our time of need.
SPEAKER_00: See that hour of ablation that we talked about, the hour of the offering of the ablation, ablation, is the third hour, and it's repeated twice, and I don't think it's accidental that at that time, at that hour, on the day of the crucifixion, people hear Jesus call out, Eli, Eli, Lama, Sabothanai, and they think he's calling out for who?
SPEAKER_00: I think he's calling out for Elijah, and of course he's not.
SPEAKER_00: He's calling out to his father, and the very next words, according to Luke, were his very last words there at the hour, uh, at the hour of abilation.
SPEAKER_00: It was the very last words whenever he said, It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: See, at the cross, you know, here the altar that Elijah presented was completely consumed and lamped up there at the cross, Jesus gave himself fully for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: What other God would even come close to living with us in any way that showed friendship or family love as he has done and then to turn and to give himself for us for our sin on the cross, there is no other God.