A Beacon in the Darkness

Through the years of ministry, I've done hundreds of weddings, but no doubt the most unusual wedding that I ever did was in a cave And no, I did not pastor in prehistoric times Actually a gentleman and his fiancee came to me one day in my office and asked if I would perform their wedding ceremony So I had some questions. I usually ask people to determine whether or not that's appropriate and And everything was fine and come to find out he was the the head of the Spelunkers and cave rescue team in Mercer County and as we got into the the counseling sessions Told me that they wanted to be married in a cave now my idea of that was we would go He said it was at the base of Easter River Mountain there in Mercer County And so I my idea was we'd go and there'd be a big you know wide mouth open Opening in the the mountain there and we kind of step under that and do the wedding and it would all be good Well, when we got there. That's not what I saw We gathered in a parking place where we were told to meet and they pulled out caving outfit They said to wear you know old clothes. They put out caving outfits. They had all of us put on Of course, there was a wedding party. There were expert cavers that went with us to help guide us and so forth even a news team from WVVA photographer and and a News reporter with us and that we put these these caving suits on miners Lamps the hard hats with the lamps and we walked up a path and They said this is where we enter the cave and I'm looking around I don't see any entrance and all of a sudden he points to a hole in the ground Just big enough for a person to get into and you know what I'm thinking Alice in Wonderland and going down the rabbit's hole And so we got there and sure enough one by one we slid down feet first in that hole and it opened up into a room that was large enough for all of us to stand up and gather We got the miners lamps on and so forth and then that that expert caving team took us on a 45 minute caving experience I wondered I thought we were here to do a wedding But we're we're walking at times we're crawling on our hands and knees at times actually crawling on our stomachs a couple of tight spaces We we went down one cliff with ropes. I mean it was quite the caving experience a first for me We finally got to a place where the cave opened up into a huge room With a river running down through the middle of it. It was absolutely gorgeous And that was where we did the wedding. I'll never forget at the end of the wedding They brought up extra lights to set in certain places and it was really quite an attractive setting for the wedding After the wedding though they said before we hike back out 45 minutes Let's all gather here where we know where each other are and let's turn off our lamps and When we did I have never felt or seen such scary Suffocating darkness Now maybe there are those of you who are cavers you've been in caves and you understand that Certainly gave me a greater appreciation for our miners, but I had never experienced that kind of darkness It was amazing in that kind of darkness the difference that even one light would make This morning I want to begin a series of messages on a man who lived in a time of incredible darkness in fact one of the darkest times in all of Israel's history his name is Elijah and His story begins in first Kings chapter 17 So open your Bible please to first Kings chapter 17 when I think of Elijah I think an image comes to mind and that image is of a beacon in the darkness I'm not talking about a candle. I'm not even talking about a miner's lamp I'm talking about a lighthouse kind of beacon that just cast its light deep into the darkness We all are called to be lights in the darkness God has called all of us to be beacons Remember what Jesus said in the sermon on the mount let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven Paul told the Philippians that they lived in the mids in chapter 2 He said you live in the midst of a crooked and perverse Generation among whom he said you shine as lights in this world God has called each of us as his children followers of Christ to be beacons in the darkness So over the next three months or so we're going to discover how God used Elijah to be a beacon in the darkness in his dark day and God willing we will also see what we can learn about being beacons in the darkness in the culture in which we live as well Today however, I want to basically introduce Elijah to you and so I want to begin this morning with an overview of Elijah's life Before we jump into that if you're in first Kings 17 follow with me as I read just one verse verse 1 And Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead said to Ahab as the Lord God of Israel lives Before whom I stand there shall not be due nor rain these years except at my word Now what to introduce Elijah to you this morning most of you are probably familiar with Elijah Maybe some not so much, but we need some context for this series of messages We need to understand the kind of darkness and the kind of light that Elijah was shining and so we need a little bit of background How I want to introduce him to you is by calling attention to three Features of his life that really helped us to understand how he was a beacon in the darkness the first feature of Elijah's life I want us to note is that Elijah was a beacon. He was a remarkable figure He's best known for the contest with the prophets of bail on Mount Carmel But there is so much more to Elijah's life He is fed by Ravens at a Brook where God was hiding him. We'll look at that next week There is a miraculous Provision of food on a day-to-day basis for the family that he stays with next that family son dies He raises him from the dead no mention of that having ever occurred yet in the Bible But Elijah raises that young boy from the dead. He calls down fire from heaven He's caught up to heaven in a whirlwind and a flaming chariot of fire. I mean, he's just a remarkable person He suddenly appears and then will move back into obscurity It's one of the the trademarks of Elijah's ministry three times that is said that he suddenly appeared to King Ahab And then just kind of justice suddenly was off-seen It's not like he's a court prophet or he's a prophet that's continually ministering to a group of people He just suddenly appears delivers a message then he's gone. It's kind of an unusual prophetic ministry From the time of his ministry the office of the prophet is now prominent in the Old Testament in fact Elijah develops and grows the the school of the prophets which was started by Samuel early in earlier in the Old Testament The New Testament has more to say about Elijah than any other prophet I don't know if you knew that or not, but more than any other prophet Do you remember when Jesus was transfigured on the mount of transfiguration took Peter James and John with him to the top of this mountain And he was transfigured shown in all of his glory as he will appear when he comes at his second coming There were two people that appeared with him on that mountain from heaven Representatives of the law and the prophets so that they could converse with Jesus on the top of the mount of Transfiguration as to how Jesus would fulfill the law and the prophets The representative of the law a no-brainer that's got to be Moses Representative of the prophets boy, you got a lot more options there Isaiah Jeremiah Daniel, but no it was Elijah It was Moses and Elijah that appeared with Jesus there. He is a beacon his light shines brightly Throughout both the old and New Testament. So Elijah was a beacon. It's important to know that about him But it's also important to know secondly that Elijah was a beacon in great darkness Elijah lived in a period of Israel's history that was a very very Dark time probably the darkest period in Israel's history up to this time The Bible describes and you're familiar with some of this history But it's important to get a little bit of this background the Bible describes it after King Solomon The nation of Israel split into two nations The northern ten tribes kept the name Israel, but they established a new Capital in the city of Samaria The southern two tribes Judah and Benjamin took the name Judah for their country and they kept as their capital the city of Jerusalem And of course there's where the temple was the worship center the legal political center of the nation Now because the northern kings of Israel did not want people going back to Judah to the temple the first king Jeroboam established two idolatrous worship centers for the nation of Israel Israel would have 19 kings before going into captivity to Assyria Not one of them was a good king all of them were wicked not one of them went back to the God of Israel, but they all worshipped idols in those idolatrous worship centers the king that Reigned in Israel during the reign of or during the ministry of Elijah was King a Hab His father is introduced to us back in chapter 16 if you'll look at chapter 16 in verse 25 Notice this summary statement of omrie's reign Omrie did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did worse than all who were before him So Ahab's father omrie has done worse. He's more evil than any king in Israel before him But then we're introduced to Ahab look at verse 29 In the 38th year of Assy King of Judah Ahab the son of omrie Became king over Israel and Ahab the son of omrie reigned over Israel in Samaria 22 years now notice verse 30 Now Ahab the son of omrie did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him So in other words the Bible's telling us he was worse than his daddy his daddy was worse than anybody before him and Ahab takes it to a whole new level And one of the ways he takes it to a whole new level is found in verse 31 And it came to pass as though he'd had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam Son of Nebeth that's the first king that started those idolatrous worship centers that wouldn't enough for him That he took as his wife Jezebel the daughter of ethbal king of the Sardoneans and he went and served Bale and Worshiped him then he set up an altar for bail in the temple of bail Which you had built in Samaria and Ahab made a wooden image or an asherah pole is the literal translation Ahab noticed this Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him So Ahab is not only himself an idolatry and a wicked wicked king He marries Jezebel who was the daughter of a king that we would know as the area of Phoenicia or side and tyrant side She brought with her their gods the gods Bale and asherah Bale was a fertility god was supposed to give Fruit and crops to the land through rains and so forth Asherah was his female consort and together those two formed one of the most wicked Immoral religious systems that mankind has ever known It was full of all kinds of immorality Jezebel brought that with her and Ahab embraced it and made it the state religion of Israel That's why this is probably the darkest time in Israel's history up to this point I mean going from Omri to Ahab and Jezebel was like going from Jesse James to Bonnie and Clyde It just got worse and it was an awful dark time It is into this scene of incredible darkness Horrible evil and idolatry that Elijah bursts onto the stage No credentials offered no introduction given he just walks into the palace of Ahab and Delivers this startling message there will be no rain for three and a half years except at my word And evidently turns around and walks back out One person J. Oswald Sanders describes it this way like a meteor he flashed across the inky blackness of Israel's spiritual night He was Like a lightning bolt out of heaven that lights up the sky and dispels the darkness He was the strong beam of a lighthouse plunging its light into the darkness He's a larger than life character. He's a beacon. He's a beacon in great darkness And he seems to be this larger than life character and if that's what you think Then we definitely need this third feature of his life Elijah was a person just like us. It doesn't sound like us It doesn't sound like us at all. I mean, how are you supposed to relate to a man Whom William Peterson called Daniel Boone Robin Hood and Superman all rolled up into one How are you supposed to relate to a guy like that? I? Mean this is a man who lived in the wilderness wore animal skins This is a man who as I mentioned earlier brother by the Brooke Carreeth Will be fed by ravens Who are birds of prey? This is a man who every where he goes Miracles follow whether it's the provision of food for the the family that he's living with in Zarafath or the raising of that widow's Son from the dead calling down fire from heaven. He after that on Mount Carmel Outruns a habs chariot 17 miles back to Jezreel And then he's taken to heaven in a whirlwind on a chariot of fire I mean this doesn't exactly sound like the kind of guy you'd want to work out with in the gym It doesn't sound like the kind of person you'd like to sit down and talk with your problems about you know over a cup of coffee and Starbucks He just doesn't sound like one of us But in case we're thinking that that this is one of those biblical Epoc kind of characters that is way beyond us He belongs in a marvel movie not not the not our lives How do we relate to this guy if you're thinking that then you need to listen to what James says in James chapter 5 and Verse 17 He says this Elijah was a man with a nature like Hours and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three years and Six months notice the Bible is clear that Elijah was just like us We hear all those things he did we read of all of his exploits We look at his unusual ministry and we think I cannot relate to that guy But we're going to see that he was a man who had fears doubts and discouragements Just like we do we're gonna see that as we trace his life That he had some amazing things happened, but he also had some very common things some failures in his life he battled with depression Really he battled with depression So we're gonna see that he's just like us and that's good to see because when we read these kind of stories In the Bible it's easy to think that you know Elijah is the hero and Elijah is not the hero God is the hero of the story Elijah is just like us and when I realize that Elijah is just like you and he's just like me and yet you see these amazing things Happening by the power of God it gives me the hope That ordinary people like me can depend upon an extraordinary God and see God do great things That's what we're going to see in Elijah's life ordinary people who know and serve an extraordinary God God is the one who's the hero in every story of our lives as well So Elijah an overview of his life he was a beacon He was a beacon in great darkness, but he was a person just like us So what does all that have to do with us? How does that apply to you and your life and your home and your job and your neighborhood? How does that apply to me? Well, I want us to see next some observations on being a beacon how How Elijah's life can apply to you and to me? I think first of all it should be obvious to all of us if we look around us we live in a day of darkness There has never been at least as far as I know from a little bit that I know about history a Darker time in our country than right now I Don't know that you've ever been a darker time in this world than right now You know if you follow the news at all that the Supreme Court seems to be perched on the verge of overturning Roe v. Wade and we ought to all as believers in Christ and the sanctity of human life be prayed that they indeed do But the vitriolic response of the majority of people in our culture Against that and the reframing of the issue as an issue of women's health Really when what we're really talking about is the destruction? The taking let's say it the murder of human life even though it is preborn To reframe the issue away from what it really is to try to say you who who are against abortion Don't believe in providing women equal health care. That's not it at all and yet we live in such a dark world a dark culture that people can't see that I remember back in 2015 June of 2015 When the Supreme Court ruled on the Obergefell decision legalizing gay marriage I was just beginning a series on marriage a Messages on marriage in our church in Princeton and I I remember standing up the day after that decision or the week after that decision Sunday after and and telling our congregation we have just seen a damn burst And we're going to be flooded with all kinds of immorality I did not even realize seven years ago That now the LGBTQ plus agenda would be forced down our throats that it is being foisted on us every part of our culture seemingly has quickly adopted that agenda and For those of us who believe the Bible Who believe in the virality and the truth that the Bible teaches about relationships and particularly about marriage? There may well be a price to pay for those convictions in the future and we'd better be willing to face it now and say am I willing to pay that price? I remember saying to our congregation I will never change preaching what the Bible says about those issues So if that's called hate speech someday and I get thrown in prison take care of my wife for me I think we all must realize that we live in a very dark day and We need to know where we stand and we need to know what costs we're willing to pay for the truth of God's Word We live in a dark day. Do we not all of the mass shootings just in the last two weeks all of the violence throughout our culture and the hypocrisy of Hollywood entertainment stars who decry all of that When they are the ones producing all the violence and filth and immorality that is stoking our culture To embrace a philosophy of violence We live in a very dark day and you can just go down the list all the corporate greed and deception scandal even church scandals drug and alcohol addictions coming more and more at us from every part of society I've mentioned the violence and the immorality and the entertainment industry pluralism Relativism that our culture just swept away with the idea that there are no absolutes no absolute right or wrong no absolute truth When the Bible teaches clearly that there is absolute truth and it is found in God's Word We are living in a dark day worldwide terrorism human trafficking persecution Ethnic cleansing of complete ethnic groups in certain countries of the world persecution of Christians martyrdom We live in a day of darkness Now when we look at all of that I don't know about you when I when I see the news that I about stop watching it Because it is so discouraging It can make us fearful to step out of the warm lights of our home and even worse It can make us fearful to go beyond the warm confines and walls of our churches Into a culture that badly needs a beacon of darkness in that light We should not curse the darkness and turn away from it We need to be deacons to be beacons there are good deacons here as well But we all need to be beacons of light in this deep culture dark culture that we live in that's the second truth I want us to see observation about being a beacon God wants you to be a beacon God wants you to be that lighthouse that is offering guidance and Protection God wants you to be the person whose warning of danger most of all God wants you to be that person and me to be that person Who offers the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ to a world that is Groping in darkness to find some kind of meaning and purpose and hope and fulfillment in life God wants you to be a beacon. I believe it's it's true now that it's ever been God is looking for people who will boldly shine the light a beacon for him in the hallways of our schools the hallways of our office buildings and our hospitals and our government buildings and our factories and our homes and our corporate headquarters and you go right on down the list God is looking for beacons in this day of darkness and he wants you to be one of those deacon beacons He wants me to be one of those beacons God wants us Well, what does it take to be that kind of beacon? What does it take to be that kind of light? Casting the strong beam of a lighthouse into the darkness of our age Elijah shows us verse one tells us what it takes the requirements Being a beacon requires four things. I just want to go through these quickly with you They're all found in verse one of chapter 17 If we're going to be beacons in a dark day just like Elijah was first of all it requires a dependence on the power of the spirit Notice the introduction we have to Elijah now Elijah the Tish bite of the inhabitants of Gilead I want to stop right there The very place he came from shows extremely humble origins Tishby evidently was a village in the region of Gilead But it is so obscure. We've never found where it is no archaeologist or Bible scholars even really know where Tishby was We do know a little bit about Gilead Gilead was a rocky Wild mountainous region The people were rugged and tough They were not polished they were not sophisticated So Elijah was not chosen because he was wealthy or highly educated or Successful or had a charming personality There's nothing wrong with any of those things, but they do not guarantee that God will use us They are not the credentials God is looking for You can present to God all of your Qualifications All of who you think yourself to be all of maybe the advantages of life that you may have had and God says that is not what I'm looking for that is not the key to being used of God It is not natural ability. It is not natural advantages. It is the power of the Spirit of God Twice in Elijah's life there will be others who will say of him We were looking for you, but we were not sure where to find you We thought the Holy Spirit may have taken you and moved you to another location Interesting that twice that would be said of him It was testimony to the fact that people recognized this is a man that moved at the voice of the Holy Spirit This is a man that lived by the direction of the Holy Spirit This is a man that lived in the power of the Holy Spirit and did you know the Bible commands that we do the same thing Ephesians chapter 5 verse 18 It'll be on the screen for you Ephesians 5 18 says this by way of command and do not be drunk with wine In which is dissipation but command be filled with the Spirit Now I believe the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit comes to indwell every Christian at the moment of salvation and remains there All of our time on this earth. He doesn't come and go. He resides but he takes up in a bison presence with us But this is different being filled with the Spirit literally and I don't have time to develop this from the Greek wording here or from the Example being drunk with wine, but basically to boil it all down being filled with the Spirit means to be under the control of the Spirit To be under his control So how do I know if I'm under his control? His presence is always with me He maintains in a biting presence always so what does it mean to be under his control? Well, you see really it just means and I heard this exact expression I think brother Jerry may have said it in Sunday school this morning to unleash the power of the Spirit That's really what we're talking about here You see the Holy Spirit is always there ready to give us whatever we need to live for Christ and to serve him and to do whatever he wants us to do But we can block that work of the Holy Spirit in two ways one is by sin the others by unyieldedness That's why the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 4 that we should not grieve the Spirit if you read that context It's talking about all different kinds of sin So we grieve the Holy Spirit we make him very sad whenever we sin whenever we disobey God and whenever we sin or disobey God that blocks the Spirit who is present with us from exercising his power his control over our lives The second thing that blocks his control is unyieldedness First Thessalonians chapter 5 and I believe it's verse 17 that says Resist not the Spirit The Holy Spirit wants to control our lives sometimes we resist him Why because we want to be in control of our own lives? We want to be we want that famous word today that well autonomy We want to make sure that we have the right to claim our own personal decisions chart our own way in life Get our own way and the Holy Spirit is all the time saying I want to be in control of your life So if we are totally yielded to the Spirit of God and we deal with sin by confessing it then we are under the control of the Holy Spirit It seems sometimes that we feel I'm just an ordinary obscure Untalented person just like Elijah It sometimes seems that we feel that way and that God's looking for special people talented people people who have it all together I'm reminded of a story I read about a little boy that was Doing a fundraiser and he was out selling pencils in the neighborhood Two pencils for five cents and he walks up to this house as he had other houses a lady came to the door And he said hi. I'm raising money for a new project. We're building a 30 million dollar hospital And the lady just kind of smiled and said it's gonna be a lot of pencils And he said oh, I'm not doing it by myself. There's another boy across the street. He's helping me sell pencils too I think sometimes we feel like that little boy, don't we? special about us and we feel like we're selling two pencils for a nickel When we got to raise 30 million dollars to do the work that God wants us to do sometimes I think the the evangelization of the world missions the the Opportunity to glorify Christ in this world even to live the Christian life seems so far beyond our abilities And it is But thank God we have someone helping us sell the pencils We have someone who is with us at all times who offers his control He is there and if we simply will deal with sin regularly as we should in confession and Get out of the way just yield to the Holy Spirit. He will fill us with his power. So Being a beacon means first of all a dependence on the power of the Spirit not on any natural advantages you may have a Dependence on the power of the Spirit the second requirement For being a beacon is this a clear stand for the living God Being willing to take a stand for God and his truth and his word Regardless of what it costs us you see Israel was fascinated with this new religious fad of bail And as I described just in brief terms I could not describe in this audience the kind of worship system It was without becoming inappropriate But as I briefly described what it was you could probably imagine why people would be quick to embrace this kind of religious system And Elijah bursts onto the scene with this statement in verse one as the Lord God of Israel lives Now that was a slap in the face to Ahead A habit turned his back on the Lord God of Israel and said I'm gonna worship bail in Asherah And Elijah's first words out of his mouth as the Lord God of Israel lives There's only one God in Israel. That's the Lord Jehovah and he is the living God That was the first thing he said he took a clear stand For God did you know that even Elijah's name is a declaration of That bold stand for the living God I'm gonna break it down for you. It's made up of two Hebrew words and A pronoun at the end of the first one that together means something very important The name Elijah begins with the letters EL which is L It's the abbreviated form of the name Elohim Which is the most common name for God the creator God in the Old Testament The little letter I on the end of it in Hebrew means my it shows possession and so Eli means my God and then JAH is an abbreviated form of Yahweh or Jehovah the covenant name for God in the Old Testament and So you take Elijah's name, you know what it literally means in the Hebrew my God is Jehovah His very name made the declaration that he made to Ahead I come in here as the one who is Elijah my God is Jehovah and I'm telling you it is as the Lord God of Israel lives that I'm bringing you this declaration today Now the reason I want to Talk about this for just a moment is because we live in a day of pluralism pluralism basically is the philosophy that all options Deserve an equal hearing It basically teaches along with relativism that there are no absolutes There is no moral absolute there is no real truth that you can say this is true and that's false Everybody gets to determine their own truth boy Have you ever heard that expression every time I hear it? I want to throw up Because the Bible talks about the truth Jesus says I am the way the truth and the life No man comes to the Father but by me there's one way to heaven It's through Jesus Christ and his death on the cross that is the truth and Regardless of what the culture says, oh wait a second. You're not being very tolerant Every religion deserves an equal hearing My friend there is truth and in this day of darkness and confusion We need to stand for the truth of the living God and his word people treat choosing religions like choosing a new car Whatever works for you just do it just choose that that's your car that's your car I get to choose my car people to say that's the way it is with with religious truth You choose your truth you choose your religion I get to choose mine and nobody has the right to tell anybody else that they're wrong You know it really is like choosing a car you know in the 20s You get the hot red sports car right and then the 30s the kids are coming along so you trade that in for the minivan and Then in the 40s you're you're beginning to reach the peak of your earning power and so you trade in the minivan for the the big SUV And then in your 50s all the kids are grown in God's seat That's when you get the four the four door silver sedan, you know and Then you get to your 60s and you're back to the hot red sports car You get to choose whatever works for you Now it make that may go okay with cars. That's all right But it doesn't go that way with truth and it doesn't go that way with a relationship with God and In this pluralistic age that is so dark and confused Where we're being told you have to have tolerance for everybody except Christians Our very name just like Elijah's name declares who we are You know the word Christian comes from a Greek word Christianos It's the name Christ and then the ending Ianaus means follower of Our name communicates who we follow we follow Jesus Christ We as Christians are followers of Jesus Christ and this world needs to hear that not bail worship not asher our worship that we Follow Jesus Christ. He is the truth We need a clear stand for the living God in order to be beacons in the darkness of our age But thirdly we need a focus on answering to God notice what Elijah says next He says as the Lord God of Israel lives before whom I stand I Love that statement. You know what it communicates? It's a technical expression in the Hebrew for standing before royalty for being granted an entrance into the presence of a king of royalty Elijah recognized that every moment he walked on planet earth he was standing in the presence of God The ultimate king of the universe He understood that his commission was from God his message was from God He was serving God and he would answer to God his whole ministry is as though he was Standing in the presence of God he believed he was and he was My friend I Believe that accounts for his boldness I believe the reason he could be so bold in his declarations before the king and not fear is because he realized there was a king higher than they have And that was God the king of Israel He's the one before whom I stand I've been granted an entrance into his presence I kind of see Elijah having the boldness of a Clint Eastwood You know with that gravely voice walking into a have been saying okay a have make my day Or maybe the draw of John Wayne a have Be careful pilgrim I don't know what kind of boldness he had before a have but I do know this I Know that his boldness was rooted in the keen awareness that God sees all and That we given account to him and so our lives our ministry everything we do is in his presence We stand before him Look quickly at these verses we're gonna scroll through them on the screen Proverbs chapter 5 in verse 21 Says for the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord and he ponders he God ponders all His paths God knows and watches and observes all of our paths he brews for 13 says this and There is no creature hidden from his sight But all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give Account Elijah lived with that in mind we need to live with that in mind as well Second Timothy 4.1. I love this because it's addressed to a young pastor This is the last Challenge that Paul will give to Timothy before Paul dies and I love the way he phrases that he says I charge you there for Here it is before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and dead and his appearing and his kingdom and The thing he would charge him with was preach the word But he told him he reminded him you will give an account for what you do before God and Knowing that whatever you do in life is not only seen by God and pondered by God It will be rewarded by God if it's done for his glory and in obedience to him knowing that Constantly remembering that will cause you to have a boldness that Eclipses any fear of man I'll never forget Hearing an interview by Rick Warren on the Larry King live show Larry King was interviewing Rick Warren the pastor of Saddleback Church in California Good Southern Baptist Church and Rick Warren was being grilled about his stand. This was several years ago right after the Supreme Court decision about gay marriage He was being grilled about his opposition to gay marriage and Larry King was just going after him after him after him and finally Rick Warren said here Larry King. This is it. This is the bottom line. I fear what God thinks more than what you think That's it. That's it. That's where it is. That's where we have to draw the line. We realize that we stand before the living God and so that is required then the last feature or last requirement for a bold Uncompromising stand for God in the day of darkness is a firm faith in God notice what he says at the end of the verse He says there shall not be doomed or rain these years except at my word What is he doing making that kind of declaration how dare he make that prediction? There'll be no rain But I'll tell you this was not just some kind of wild statement Faith is always rooted in the promises of the word of God and you know what? God had made a promise back in Deuteronomy We're going to put it on the screen for you. The Deuteronomy chapter 11 verses 16 and 17 look at what God promised the people of Israel before they ever went into the land He said take heed to yourselves lest your heart be deceived and you turn aside and Serve other gods and worship them in that exactly what is happening in Elijah's life But notice what God says if you do this next verse says what God will do lest the Lord's anger be aroused against you and he shot up the heavens So that there be no rain and the land yield no produce and you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord God is giving you God had told the people exactly what would happen if you go after false gods I'm going to keep the rain back. So Elijah's not making some bold prediction, you know, just to shot people He's taking God at his word Faith always takes God at his words rooted in the promises of God. It's also rooted in the power of God Bale as I told you before and we'll flesh this out a little bit more next week Bale was supposed to be the fertility God meaning that he gave Crops to the people through the rains that would come in the spring and produce fertile soil Well Elijah believed that only God could do that Only God had that power. We'll see more about that as we go along In James chapter 5 and verses 17 and 18 this is said by James about Elijah Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months So you see Elijah first of all praise about God fulfilling his promise and trust God to do what he said knowing who God is before he ever goes into a And then notice what the rest of the verse says in verse 18 and he prayed again and the heaven gave rain the earth produced its fruit We'll see that later in chapter 18 A firm faith in God is rooted in the word of God and rooted in the power of God Some of Satan's most effective tools today are fear worry and discouragement And if you're suffering from any of those you need to cast yourself on the Lord Trust that he will do what he says he will do what he will do what is best claim the promises of his word to work through you to work in you to meet your need to move hearts To give the strength and direction and power that you need trust him be a person of firm faith in God It is in this way that he lied just strides out of nowhere Into the palace of King Ahab and onto the pages of Israel's history to shine his light as a beacon in the darkness God is still searching for people like that He wants you to be like that and you to be like that and you to be like that and me to be like that He wants us to be that person Who is shining like a beacon in the darkness But we will not be able to do it Unless we have a dependence on the power of the spirit a clear stand for the living God A focus on answering to God and to firm faith in God May God grant That we will be that kind of people and don't forget God had been working those characteristics Into Elijah's life long before he appeared before King Ahab So passionately pray and submit yourself to the work of God in your life To be working those same characteristics in your life the same four features that we saw So that when the time comes in the moment in the crisis for you to shine your light It will penetrate the darkness With the beacon of light As it from a lighthouse May God help us to be those kind of beacons in our dark age Would you pray with me please Father, thank you for Elijah All that he has to teach us about being a beacon in the darkness I pray Father that we will be willing To let you do the same work in our hearts and our lives That you did in Elijah's life So that we can stand not unkindly not ungratiously but boldly For you and your truth in this dark age regardless of what it costs us We ask in Jesus name Amen