1 Kings 18:17-18 (with help from Roger)

This is the first sermon I’ve written.  My brother Roger was a great help.  Any comments are welcomed.

God Bless

Tim

1 Kings 18:17-18

 

“When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is that you troubler of Israel?”  and he answered, “I have not troubled Israel but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the LORD and followed the Baals.”

 

     In every generation and in most churches any person who declares the entire truth of God’s word will be considered a trouble maker.  But we should not fool ourselves into thinking that this attitude against God’s messenger is somehow different, or separate, from the attitude toward the message itself. One cannot say that the message is fine while the messenger is a trouble maker. In such circumstances, any trouble that one feels is trouble inflicted by the message which, if the messenger is truly God’s messenger, is the Word of God.  So to reject the messenger is, in fact, a rejection of God in such a case.  Elijah was telling the truth. And the word of God has a way of exposing the truth… a way of bringing to the surface those things we would prefer to keep buried.  If God’s messenger, Elijah, had been more like one of our seeker sensitive pastors, one of those prolific TV stars who grow mega churches by watering rocky soil with deceptive honey, rather than plowing it with God’s word,  Ahab might have found Elijah quite an agreeable fellow.  Brothers and Sisters, we must not think that we are, in any sense, not in danger of the same foolishness as Ahab whether we are a false messenger, or we are a hardhearted hearer.  To assume this is not possible of us is to place ourselves in direct danger of becoming what we say we will never become.

 

Elijah was a trouble maker because he declared the truth of God to a people who did not want to hear the truth of God.  This same story is played out again and again in scriptures.  In the New Testament we can start with John the Baptist.  He was beheaded for speaking truth.  Then there’s the story of the first martyr of the Church, Stephen.  Acts 7:54 we discover that Stephen spoke the truth and the people ground their teeth at him.  Then, to deal with this trouble maker, they stoned him to death.  What about Paul?  Listen to how he was rewarded by the people for speaking the truth of God’s word; “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews forty lashes less one.  Three times I was beaten with rods.  Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea.  On frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and in thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” 2 Corinthians 11:24-27. (Not all this was persecution at the hands of people.) Paul was eventually killed for speaking the truth.  Every where Paul went people wanted to harm and or kill him.  Why?  He spoke the truth of God’s word.  What about Jesus?  He most certainly told the full truth.   We know what they did to Jesus for speaking the truth.  He was crucified and it was the people who called themselves God’s people that made sure He was crucified.  It was the ones who considered themselves God’s people who did not want to hear God’s word.  Even from God’s own Son.

Are we such a people today?  Are the people of this local body no different from the people who stoned Stephen and Paul or crucified Christ?  Is it possible that we still have people claiming to be God’s people who do not want to hear God’s word?  It is time for some serious & honest self examination.  Remember what David said in Psalm 139:23 and 24 “Search me, Oh God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked (idol) way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” The word for wicked there is o’tseb and literally means idol fashioned.  In other words if I have made for myself an idol and placed it above You make this known to me so that I may repent and walk in Your light.  Have you made idols and placed them above God?  Is your comfort an idol to you?  I am not speaking of physical comfort but of spiritual comfort.  Would you rather hear how good you are and how much God loves you than to have the light of God’s word shown upon your evil deeds by God’s messenger so that you may repent?  If a man came to this pulpit and declared the truth contained in God’s word would we accept that word, repent, and thank God for sending us a man bold enough to proclaim the truth?  Or, would we have secret/private meetings among the leaders and discuss how we could best be done with such a man, such a trouble maker?

Of course we would say, ‘We accept the truth of God’s word.  God is our God and we have no other gods before Him.’  This is exactly what the people of Israel proclaimed before God when Joshua told them the choice they had.  Either to serve the one true God who brought them out of Egypt or serve other gods as their fathers did before them.  To the person they said: “far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD and serve other gods.” Joshua 24:16.  It was not that far from them at all.  Indeed this was their persistent sin.  They repeatedly turned to idol worship and false gods.  Every prophet God sent His people would be treated horribly and eventually, for the most part, killed by them.  Remember this is not some pagan people who had never heard God’s word.  This was Israel, the keeper of the sacred text. 

 

Is it so hard to understand why they refused to hear?  I can tell you why.  Because God gave them over to their foolish and sinful desires.  All the prophets (save Jonah) reveal this to us.  Let us consider Isaiah.  When Isaiah was commissioned in chapter six God says: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  Isaiah responds with: “Here am I! Send me.”  God tells him to go but then he says something we might consider unusual.  God says: “Go and say to this people: Keep on hearing but do not understand, keep on seeing but do not perceive.  Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed.”  That sounds like God does not intend to allow the people of Israel to repent.  Is this possible?  Does God stop people from understanding?  O man what do you have that has not been given to you?  Even your understanding is a gift from God.  Do not think more highly of yourselves than you should,  for this is our great error today.  We think ourselves educated and discerning when we are poor, ignorant and blind.  We are in greater need of God to open our eyes then the tribesman who has never heard the gospel of Christ.  Why?  Because we have heard and have neglected so great a call, all for the sake of our idols. 

What kind of message do we want?  Because that is the message we will find for ourselves. Itching ears will always find a way to be scratched.  If you want someone who will scratch your itchy ears, that is exactly what you will get. Our ears will be satisfied at the cost of our souls. We will have someone who will never declare the truth of God’s word but will simply placate our desires to feel good about ourselves.  God is going to give us exactly the kind of preacher we desire.  Is it possible God sends men to some congregations for the soul purpose of giving them over to their corporate sinful desire to never hear the full truth of His word?  Thus leaving them in their sin and doomed to eternal damnation for the most part.  This is not to say that every person of that congregation is doomed.  No, there may very well be a remnant, a handful of true believers who will yet see the glory of God.  I, for the life of me, do not understand why God keeps them there or why they stay.  Except that perhaps on that day when the others say, Lord, Lord did we not do all these miracles in your name… then Jesus will say, depart from me you who practice lawlessness, I never knew you.  It is possible that the few saints who remained in that congregation will be one method by which God will prove how very much the others deserve hell and are without excuse.

 

Don’t make me feel guilty! Tell me I’m an alright guy and God loves me just the way I am.’  But friends, if God’s love is satisfied with sinners, sinners like us, just as we are, why on earth would He take such great pains, the pains of the cross, to make us new creatures?  If God loves all sinners equally, how is it that some will spend eternity in hell?  Is it possible to eternally punish someone you love?  It is time to turn from our idol made to resemble God and worship the true God.  If you worship God you must worship Him in His totality. Wrath, Justice, Righteousness, Holiness, and Love are just a token of who God is.  Worshiping a God who’s only attribute is love is to worship a false god.  Yes our God
is love as we are told in 1 John chapter 4.  But He is so much more than that.  Yes His love is perfect.  So is His anger, so is His punishment, so is His hatred.  My dear people it is impossible to love and not hate.  If one loves justice one must hate injustice. If one loves humanity, one hates inhumanity. So yes if our God does love He indeed hates.  As it is written Jacob I loved but Esau I hated (Romans 9:13).  Is it possible that you or I could one day have that written or said about us?  I fear it is possible for many more of us than we realize.

 

You will argue; ‘But I accepted Jesus and made my profession of faith on such and such date at such and such time at such and such place. I am saved!’  Don’t be fooled.  A profession of faith NEVER saved anyone.  One is not saved by a profession of faith but by possession of faith.  Saving faith can only be given by God.  I have no doubt that there are those among us this morning that are of the family of God.  Adopted in and joint heirs with Christ.  I am just as sure that there are tares among the wheat this morning.  That there are some here, and perhaps the greater part, that are lost and headed straight for hell.  The sad part is they are deluding themselves into thinking they are OK and headed for heaven.  They have never seriously contemplated their eternal fate.  They have never seriously looked at the condition of their heart and soul.  I am convinced that if you do not think you deserve to go to hell you are most probably headed there.  Do not over inflate your own righteousness and do not lower God’s righteousness to meet your expectations, which fall far short of God’s requirements.  The consequences are eternal. 

 

 

Have you not read Matthew chapter 7 where Jesus says; “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘LORD, LORD,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to Me, ‘LORD, LORD, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:21-23.  These are people who even at the judgment still think they are saved.  And why not?  After all they did great things for God while on this earth.  They prophesied and did mighty works.  In the original language the term mighty works refers to miracles.  How many of you have performed miracles lately?  Me either.  But you know who did?  Judas Iscariot who was sent out with the 12 by Jesus.  Jesus called him a devil.  Matthew chapter 10 tells us that Jesus called the twelve together and “gave them power and authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out,  and to heal every disease and every affliction.”  Then Matthew gives us the names of the 12 people Jesus gave this power to and sent out and Judas is listed in verse 4 and called the one who would betray Him.  What great and mighty things have you done for God?  If you are like me you must answer with an honest and convicting nothing.  Do not think yourself a righteous person because by God’s standard you are not.  You can only enter heaven based on another’s righteousness.  Someone else had to live the perfect and holy life required by God but impossible for you to achieve.  How do you obtain the righteousness required for entry into heaven?

You can’t obtain it for yourself.  It is given freely to those God has called.  Jesus loved His bride so much He left the praise of angels for the profanity of man.  He who created food and never knew hunger went hungry for His bride.  He who created water and never knew thirst went thirsty for His bride.  He who never experienced physical pain was beaten and hung on a cross in place of His bride.  He who never knew separation from the Father was forsaken by His Father for the sake of His bride.  He who never sinned took upon Himself the sins of His bride in order to love her eternally and be with her eternally in heaven.  Christ spoke scorching hot words against sin. And sin every single sin is the act of ignoring God’s word. Christ, the Son of God, paid the penalty for hard hearts and closed ears. And it is Christ who opens ears and softens hearts. The law of God is our school master….it is a teacher. This teacher does not seek to reform sinners. This teacher kills sinners. The Law drives sinners to the place of their
death. It drives them to the place of the cross. The law empties us of all our pretenses. It strips us naked before God, just as Christ was naked upon His cross. The law has never justified a single sinner, though it has condemned all sinners. But at the cross, the condemned are put to death in the person of God’s Son. At the cross, God’s justice has been served. There upon that Jerusalem hill, wrath and mercy met, side by side, like the lion and the lamb. He is calling you to this Gospel….to this Good News. His law asks you how you can escape the wrath to come. And if the heart of the sinner is not softened by God’s law, it will be condemned by God’s wrath. But the law of God breaks the hardened heart. And the cross, God’s provision for sinners, makes that heart to live again through Christ.  Now to him who is able to save to the uttermost, those who trust in Him, be all glory, honor and praise now, and forevermore.

Amen