Your god VS my God [The Bride of Christ]

This is a place where we talk about the bible. Jason Ryan Smurzynski looks into the Word of the Lord and just like you, desires to know what is actually going on. The Holy Spirit will open your ears to hear the truth and your minds to understand scripture. Together we will explore portions of the Bible that you don't normally hear at Sunday service at church. The veil will be lifted and the mystery of Jesus Christ will be explained.
Your invited to be The Bride of Christ.

Check out my YouTube channel 

https://youtube.com/@darkdeserthighway?si=aWH__iPQF2Reqf6d

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hey guys, Dark Desert Highway here. And today I wanted to read a story in the Bible that challenged the people's um false gods. And it has to do with Elijah. Um we're gonna be in first Kings chapter 18 verses 20 is where we're gonna start in this story, and we're just gonna read the Bible because that's what this channel is about. So first Kings eighteen, verse twenty. So Ahab summoned all the Israelites and gathered the prophets at Mount Carmel. Then Elijah approached with all the people and said, How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Baal follow him. But the people did not answer him a word. Now in today's society, false prophets are I mean false gods are still a thing. I know a particular group of people who follow a false god. I am um really interested and I follow false religions um because it is a uh it's a fascinating um pastime, I guess you can say. And with all the strength that the strength and their thoughts and their efforts and their energy, their lives are put into their belief structures, and you know, I like to study what other people believe is the truth so that I can confront them from a understanding from a place of understanding. Like I understand because I've listened to you, and I understand because I've studied what you follow as well. And let me present my opinions to you in such a way that it's not offensive, because these people have spent their entire lives or a portion of their lives dedicated to having this false religion as a foundation for their daily life, and the best way that I've found is not to attack somebody's belief structure um in an effort to get them to in an effort to um preach right to them because my job, what I have been given, um, is an understanding of the word of the Lord, and one of the things that the word of the Lord encourages me to do is to speak and stand on my faith. So I'd like to present this to certain people groups, but um I found that walls are put up in defense of false um ideologies and false teachings. You know, everybody believes that what they believe is true. And wouldn't that be the way that you wanted it in your mind? You wouldn't want to believe that you are following a false thing, so it's truth to you. And, you know, when you put so much of your effort and your life into something, you don't want somebody coming around like a bull in a china shop just breaking dishes and throwing stuff to the ground. You'll defend what you know and you'll defend what you have, and what you have is your faith. So but the reality is that there is a true God, and the rest are false gods. They are no gods at all. And knowing the consequences of not having a relationship with the Lord upon your death, and understanding the consequences that come along with that, would which would be separation from God, because the atonement for sin has been made through Jesus Christ and his death and his resurrection, his life, his death, his resurrection. But unless I accept what he has done for me and confess that he is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, then I am still in a state of separation from him. And so when I see people touting their beliefs and ideologies, it interests me to understand them so that I could come up alongside and offer something that to challenge it, you know, because it that's what it is. So we're gonna look at a story, my God versus your God. That's what it is. So Ahab, back in verse 20, so Ahab summoned all the Israelites and gathered the prophets at Mount Carmel. Then Elijah approached all the people and said, How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Baal follow him. But the people didn't answer him a word. Then Elijah said to the people, I am the only remaining prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let two bulls be given to us. They are to choose one bull for themselves, cut it into pieces and place it on the wood, but not light the fire. I will prepare the other bull and place it on the wood but not light the fire. Then you call on the name of your God, and I will call on the name of my Lord. The God who answers with fire, he is God. All the people answered, That's fine. Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Since you are so numerous, choose for yourself one bowl and prepare it first. Then call on the name of your God, but don't light the fire. So they took the bowl that he gave them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, Baal, answer us. But there was no sound, and no one answered. Then they danced around the altar they had made. At noon Elijah mocked them. He said, Shout loudly for he's a god, maybe he's thinking it over. Maybe he has wandered away, or maybe he's on the road. Perhaps he's sleeping and will wake up. They shouted loudly and cut themselves with knives and spears according to their custom until blood gushed over them. All afternoon they kept on raving until the offering at the evening sacrifice, but there was no sound, no one answered, no one paid attention. Then Elijah said to all the people, Come near me. So after this demonstration of singing and chanting and dancing around the fire and cutting themselves and calling upon Baal to send fire to consume this sacrifice that they had prepared of a bull, um and nothing happened. He gave them plenty of chance. It was from morning until afternoon, afternoon until evening. So he gave them a good go. Look, if you can get your God to present himself in such a way that fire consumes your offering, then we'll call him God. But if I could get my God to do the same, then we'll call him God. Whosever God shows up, he is the Lord. So after all this time and effort and cutting themselves, they're bleeding on each other, they're dancing, whatever, nothing happens. Silence, nobody is even paying attention at this point. There was no sound, no answer, and no one paid attention. So the crowd had lost interest in this. That he is strong and he is the Lord, that he is alive. And people, even people who are far away, hear the stories of these things that have happened, and fear comes on them. And they because they know that a God is there. Now, I say a God, but it's only because they believe in their gods, and but what they do know for sure is that a God is there, and it and they they fear it and they tremble. And some of them turn and believe and give their life to them, in the understanding that you know, compared to everything else around me that I see, and that the things and the activities that people get involved in, and all the religions and everything, what I see is that here's something real, here is something tangible, here is something that I can put my faith in because I've experienced it. And when you experience the Lord because he is alive, there's such a foundation made. I mean, it is strong and immovable, and when people come up to you and challenge your faith, you're like, you haven't seen what I've seen, and you haven't heard what I've heard, because the Lord is alive. So after we'll go back to the story, after all the attempts have been made, from morning until the sun is going down in the evening, nothing happened. And Elijah was sitting there waiting. He gave him a he gave him a go. He he let them do whatever they could, except light the fire. That was the rule. You couldn't light the fire yourself. Then Elijah said to all the people in verse thirty, Come near me. So all the people approached him, and then he repaired the Lord's altar that had been torn down. 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 will build be your name. And he built an off altar with the stones in the name of the Lord. Then he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold about four gallons. Next he arranged the wood, cut up the bowl, and placed it on the wood. He said, Fill four water pots with water, and pour it on the offering to be burned and on the wood. So he's making it even tougher. He's like, Look, not only am I going to build an altar and put my cow on it, and cut it up into pieces and get my wood together, but I'm gonna start I'm gonna start working against myself and I'm gonna drench it in water. So fill four water parts with water and pour it on the offering that's to be burned and on the wood. And then he said a second time, and they did it a second time. And then he said, You know what? Three times, and they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar, and he even filled the trench with water. At the time for offering the evening sacrifice, the prophet Elijah approached the altar and said, Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that you are God in Israel, and I am your servant, and that your word, that at your word I have done all these things. Answer me, Lord, answer me so that this people will know that you, the Lord are God, and that you have turned their hearts back. Then the Lord's fire fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell face down and said, The Lord He is God. The Lord he is God. He is God, the Lord. Then Elijah ordered them, seize the prophets of Baal, do not let even one of them escape. So they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the weighty Kishon and slaughtered them there. So even working against himself, the offering of Elijah was consumed by fire, and it was done in front of the eyes of everyone. So that those who worshipping were worshiping Baal saw the end of all their efforts in worshiping a false god, that nothing happened. And all the people whose hearts were into worshiping Baal. Now the the prophets were slaughtered. The prophets of Baal were slaughtered, but it's the people, the people that were gathered around in the crowd. Let's go back up to the beginning. Ahab summoned all the Israelites and gathered the prophets at Mount Carmel. So it was an issue, and that's why he had to repair the altar down here. Oh oh, in verse 30, then Elijah said to the people, all the people of Israel, come near me. So all the people approached him, and then he repaired the Lord's altar that had been torn down. See, what was happening was the service and the worship of false gods was creeping into Israel, and they were no longer following the Lord, but they were going after false gods of the people that were around them. And basically what they're doing is they're worshiping fallen angels. Um, you know, and um yeah, or people, or just an idea, you know, um, but what happened happened in front of all the Israelites, and all the people who were following false gods saw that in a demonstration it was there was nothing, there was absolutely nothing to what they believed. Their false god couldn't do what our god could do, and by a demonstration, the Lord showed up, he showed up in front of all the Israelites, and I'm sure that this had an impact on the people to remind them because they were the Israelites, they belonged to the Lord, to remind them that that look, man, stop going after these false gods. Um my thing, the the the reason that that I want to start talking about this is because I see people, like I said, I follow false religions, and I see people giving all of their efforts to these false gods, and I'm I look at myself and I say, hold on a minute, they're dedicating more of their life to their false gods than I am to the real God, the one who is alive, and so it's challenging to me to see that somebody is more dedicated to a false idea than I am in my relationship with the Lord. So I I need to step up my game. I I need to I need to start getting busy where the rubber meets the road, I need to be ready to present the truth to those who don't know the truth, but in order to do that, I need to prepare myself with the truth, and I need to study and understand what has already happened, and that's one of the reasons that I'm starting this channel, is because not only am I presenting the Lord as I see him in scripture, and we're starting a discussion about the Lord and his word, but I'm also you're you're gonna be challenged, you're going to be challenged. I have a friend who says, Well, I just don't see it that way. This is not the way that I believe, and I'm like, Look, you don't make the rules. The Lord is the one who's making the rules, he sets the standards that we live by. So even if you have a different um, you know, idea about a certain topic that the Lord has spoken about, we need to change our lives to live up to his principles because he is not going to change his word to give way for our sin to be a part of our life. The whole thing is that he has set up a structure of justice. Um, the law and his word and his ways are presented in such a solid fashion that it's either going to trip you up because you don't believe that that's the way it should be, so you You stubbornly stay in your kind of in your confusion or or you stay in um in touch with the false idea. You don't give it up. You don't give it up to say, look, Lord, I submit to you, I submit to your rule, and I submit to your law. And uh instead of opposing it and keeping what I want for myself, you know, and and so I saw I started seeing that that I wasn't as dedicated as other people were to their false idols, their false gods, and you know, it's concerning, but when it comes down to a case of evidence, the Lord has shown himself to be strong, and yeah, it's we're reading it about stories that have happened thousands of years ago, but let me tell you this: that the Lord shows up in our lives, he really does, he showed up in my life in 2020, and I didn't even know he could do that because I was in touch with the Lord through his word, and I I had come to know about him as he presented himself over all of the years in the stories that he had written, but I had never had a confrontation, not a confrontation, um, I I had never had him reveal himself in my life. Well, you know what? I can't say that that's true. Because this is the third and fourth time that he has revealed himself in my life and lifted the veil. The veil over my mind, and the veil over my heart, and over my eyes, and my ears. All of so that the hidden things that are of the spiritual world, I got to experience. And so I have all this evidence of the Lord. Like Elijah had confidence in the Lord, and the Lord showed the evidence of his presence to all the people, and that had a profound impact on their life. I bet nobody went home the same that day, and so also have I experienced the Lord in my life, and I'm not the same anymore. It's changed me because he is alive, and when you get to experience that the Lord is alive, it changes you because you have to start thinking about everything with him being around and alive, right? Like, if I knew that everything that I did in secret wasn't really secret, it would change what I do in secret. Right? It would change what I do when I'm by myself when I know that I'm really not by myself. Because there's angels and there's demons and there's the host of heaven, and there's the Lord who sees everything. So this has challenged my perspective on the world that even if I'm alone, I'm not alone. Right? The record that's being kept. That that they there's there's a record because we have to be held accountable for all the things that we've done in our life. There will be a uh a time and a place where we stand and we are held to account for all the things that we've done, and that can't be done unless there's a record. So there's a second thing that I know that has changed my life, right? And I understand that everything that I'm doing is being recorded. So not only are my secrets not secret, but they are there's a record, and there's okay, so then you got to think, all right, the angels are real, right? And they're the ones that are um maybe maybe they're the ones that are keeping this record, maybe that's one of their jobs, right? But whoever's keeping the record, I don't know. But if there is a record, somebody's gotta be writing it down, right? So I lost track of what I was doing. So it's changed me. It's changed me, and now I know, okay, so now I know that somebody is watching me in the secrets, the secret evil ways of my life. You know, I'm being watched. Not only is there a record, but there's somebody recording it. So so there's an entity there that's looking at me while I'm doing this stuff. And what are they thinking about? Are they thinking that how is you know, it with all the evidence that this man has that I have, because they got to witness the revelation of the Lord in my heart and to my mind, and and you know, every time the veil got pulled back, they were interested in it. And and you know, because I'm I'm telling you, there are amazing things that are living alongside of us in our world, and now I never feel like I'm alone even when I'm alone. I keep myself, I keep myself, and I don't touch anything, I don't touch anything, and I also don't presume to do holy things. So I don't feel like just because I've had personal revelation in my life that I am some sort of manager of holy things, you know, we've seen examples in the Word where people have offered strange fire, you know. They they presumed that they were the ones to manage holy things and they decided just to involve themselves in these spiritual, you know, uh they they just went up to the Ark of the Covenant and decided to offer up fire when that wasn't their job, it wasn't their responsibility, and they presumed to interact with holy things, but you don't understand these are holy things, these are things that you need to be prepared for and anointed and have the authority to do. You can't just go doing something, but what I can do is I can raise my voice because I have understanding um of these things, but I don't I don't think that I'm like some some holy man that can do you know things uh that that can interact with with the holy things of the Lord because I am the most unholy person that you know when I look at my life, I'm not holy. I'm I barely feel like I'm a man of God. God just stood me up on my feet, and just because he stood me up on my feet and said, knock off all the crap, you know, that doesn't make me a holy man. That makes me a man who was doing all these things, but then one day met God, and now I don't touch anything because I'm terrified of him, because he is alive and he is real. So it changes us, these moments where the Lord makes himself be known, it challenges our life styles that we have. And we need to make sure that that if we are, if we do belong to the Lord, that we stop touching things that we're not supposed to touch. We need to be the ambassadors, as it says in the word that we are, the ones who bring the word of the Lord on the Lord's behalf because he has given us his word. So he's given us his word, and he's given us the faith, and he's given us the evidence, and we need to stop. Every time Israel was defeated, it was they were defeated because they were going after false gods, they left the Lord of Israel and went after false gods, and this is this is another one of those situations in the story where the people had turned to Baal instead of to the Lord, and the Lord, even in spite of the fact that the people left him and were serving false gods, he still showed up, and uh you know, and he he wants to make himself known to you so that you turn your heart to him, set down all the things that you're doing, and be holy. You gotta be holy, and that and that just means set apart. You need to be set apart from all of these worldly things because he is alive. Well, I just wanted to talk about the Bible, and I feel like we've done that. So, if you'd like, leave a comment because I'd be interested in um talking with some of you. Um, like and share, and I'll see you next time.