HOW DO YOU HEAL A WOUNDED BODY? 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 S-1290 ●SLIDE: HOW DO YOU HEAL A WOUNDED BODY? It depends.      Injured in war?      Broken leg in car accident?      Family hurt?      What if it happens in church? Broken arm ●SLIDES: READ 2 Corinthians 2:5-11.       The context indicates that he is referring to a specific case. The word IF does not refer to a         hypothetical situation. The IF clause is in the form which assumes the truth of the statement.          "Since there is a certain person among you who ." ●SLIDE: I don’t know how you read this, BUT I READ A LOT OF PAIN in these words. THE BODY HAS BEEN WOUNDED.  People have been hurt.  PAIN IS EVERYWHERE.  AND IT NEEDS TO BE HEALED.      INDIVIDUAL²------------------³BODY  (When one hurts, all hurt.) ●SLIDE: LET’S EXAMINE WHAT CAUSED THE HURT  IN THE CHURCH. Apparently when Paul visited Corinth there was a ring-leader in opposition to him. The short, unhappy visit had been poisoned by the activity of one man. This man had clearly personally insulted Paul. Paul had insisted that discipline must be exercised upon this man. The majority of the Corinthians had come to see that this man's conduct had not only hurt Paul, but had injured the honor and the good name of the whole Corinthian Church. Discipline was exercised, but some felt that it had not been sufficiently severe and who desired to take still sterner measures and to impose a still greater punishment. Paul's plea is that quite enough had been done; by their exercise of discipline the Corinthians had demonstrated their obedience. The man is penitent and to exercise still further discipline would do far more harm than good, for it might simply drive the man to despair, and to do that is not to serve Christ and the Church, but to offer an opportunity to Satan to exert his power. This incident is specifically about a personal case which resulted in hurt and pain and ended up in formal church discipline.  I want to expand the principles beyond just hurts from discipline. ●SLIDE: EVERY CHRISTIAN WILL EVENTUALLY BE WOUNDED IN CHURCH.       READ 2 Corinthians 2:5. ●SLIDE: Anyone here have brothers and sisters? Anyone here never have a fight with a brother or sister? Every family has problems  “We always hurt the ones we love.” I had an altercation with Julie this week.  She doesn’t take care of her purse or her keys.  She is constantly losing them and I am forever encouraging her to put them up safely.  She was under a lot of pressure Wednesday afternoon.  I parked new to her car and looked in to see her purse on the front seat, and the door was unlocked!  I was angry. I came in the church and interrupted what she was doing to scold her about her carelessness.  Almost brought her to tears; but I was trying to make an impression.  Later apologized for my behavior. We live in a society where people are looking for perfect companions:  “I want someone who will love me unconditionally, never let me down, disappoint, hurt, or cause me pain.  And if you let me don’t love me unconditionally, let me down, disappoint, hurt, or cause me pain, then I’ll leave you, and find some one else who will love me unconditionally, won’t let me down, disappoint, hurt, or cause me pain.” They will look long and hard for that person.  They are doomed to disappointment. ●SLIDE: The hurt and pain which occurs in the family is bound to happen in any church family. They can be rather low level, but cause pain nonetheless       Roger being penned in by tables in nursery at Park Cities.  Remember my mother’s anger at the    injustice of what they had done to her son.  Never went back again.  Founded a church nearby. Of course the hurts can go much deeper than that. ●SLIDE: Some of you have had friends in church Betray you.  You trusted them and they turned on you. ●SLIDE: Some of you have gone through the trauma of Divorce.  And you looked to the church for help and felt dirty, left out, and ostracized--a second class citizen. ●SLIDE: Some of you were Abused in church.  The newspapers are filled with the sexual trauma being exposed now in the RCC priesthood.  Many wonderful priests who have dedicated lives to Christ.  But maybe that’s not the one you had.  Perhaps you went to a pastor for spiritual counsel and you were spiritually abused with all sorts of legalism and you came away beaten down spiritually instead of set free. ●SLIDE: Some of you were dire need and feel Abandoned by the church family which pledged to help you. ●SLIDE: Some of you experienced tremendous emotional Trauma and you looked to the church for care and support--and there was none. ●SLIDE: Some of you are Lonely.  And the church people you thought were friends just are not there. I am so sorry for your hurts.  I feel a sense of compassion as I look into your faces week after week and sense the hurts--many of them caused right here in this place. ●SLIDE: HOW DO WE HEAL A WOUNDED BODY? (wounds in individual and the church)       READ 2 Corinthians 2:6-11. ●SLIDE: 1. BE AWARE OF SATAN’S SCHEMES . Warren Wiersbe at Moody Pastors Conference - Psalm 78 ●SLIDE: 1. Sheep stink 2. Sheep need to be led, not driven. 3. The sheep are not the enemy:  Ephesians 6:10-12:  “Wrestle not against flesh and blood . . .” A. HE DELIGHTS IN CAUSING DIVISION AND DISSENSION IN THE CHURCH FAMILY. B. HE ENCOURAGES TOLERATING SIN. C. HE DELIGHTS IN HARSH DISCIPLINE WHICH OSTRACIZES, DISCOURAGES, AND DRIVES PEOPLE AWAY. D. HE PROMOTES AN UNFORGIVING SPIRIT WHICH LEADS TO BITTERNESS AND RESENTMENT. HOW DO YOU HEAL A WOUNDED BODY? ●SLIDE: 2. DISCIPLINE EXPOSES ISSUES SO THEY CAN BE HANDLED WITH HONESTLY. Heard of dysfunctional families.      Dysfunctional families communicate double messages.      In a dysfunctional family, love had to be earned.      There’s a certain amount of denial and delusion that goes on in a dysfunctional setting. Church family can be dysfunctional.  Refuse to recognize and deal with the truth.  And that brings tremendous pain and wounding. ●SLIDE: Several years ago interviewing candidates for Worship minister.  Met at his home for lunch and interview.  Asked all my questions. Turned to wife to see how she was handling ministry.  Wife began to open up and share pressures of ministry.  “Should I tell him?”  “Yes.”  Paused and them began to weep.  Story begins to come out.  Chairman of deacons making passes and sexual advances to her.  Tell pastor and he refuses to deal with it because he is so powerful, influential, and financially supportive.  She was weeping now.  Encouraged them to have pastor deal with issue or get out as soon as possible.  Don’t want to remain in that sort of dysfunctional system. Pain was incredible. CHURCH DISCIPLINE KEEPS US FROM BECOMING DYSFUNCTIONAL BY GIVING US A METHOD TO BRING WOUNDS AND PAIN OUT INTO THE OPEN WHERE THEY CAN BE PROPERLY HANDELED. READ Ephesians 4:15:  “Share the truth in love.”      Most of us have never seen this.  We have seen the truth shared in anger, bitterness, and resentment..  We have seen people refuse to share the truth. HOW DO YOU HEAL A WOUNDED BODY? ●SLIDE: 3. FORGIVENESS RESTORES RELATIONSHIP SO HEALING MAY PROCEED. FORGIVENESS removes the offense as a barrier to future fellowship. Forgiveness does not mean that the offense is forgotten or belittled. It is rather to act in grace, like that of God's, and use the ruptured fellowship as a stepping stone to a more loving fellowship in the future. ●SLIDE: One night this week with Bronwyn.  10:30 late for bed.  “Is mom home?”  “No.”  “why did you lie to me?”  “Please forgive me.  I don’t lie to you often.”  Next morning, “Please forgive me.”  Need to restore relationship. HOW DO YOU HEAL A WOUNDED BODY? ●SLIDE: 4. COMFORT DISARMS AND BRINGS ENCOURAGEMENT. We don’t know much about how to bring comfort in American society any more. Comfort deals with the inevitable disappointments of life. Imagine your ten year old struck out with the bases loaded and his team lost.  Or, he came home to tell you that he didn’t even make the team.  Or, your daughter comes in the door weeping to tell you that she failed to make the cheerleading squad.  Freeze frame.  What do you say to her?  “That’s life.”  “Better luck next time.”  “You didn’t really expect to make it, did you?”  Your ten year old was mercilessly teased on the school bus this afternoon and comes weeping in the front door.  And you say to your child, “What did you do to cause them to treat you like that?”          That 10 year old shared that story in a shelter after trying to commit suicide. Freeze Frame: Comfort is weeping with those who weep.  “I am so sorry.  I know this really hurts!”      “Thanks, Mom.” IT TAKES EMOTION TO HEAL EMOTION.      Not logic, facts, reasoning, or advice. Let me tell you what comfort sounds like:      “I have a great pain and sadness that you were hurt by . . .”      “I feel compassion for you because I love you . . .”      “My heart is filled with sorrow because of what has happened to you . . .” Comfort is filled with feeling words.  It brings love, acceptance, security, and understanding. HOW DO YOU HEAL A WOUNDED BODY? ●SLIDE: 5. LOVE REAFFIRMS AND RESTORES. I was shaken by a small news item about a 14-year-old boy who took his own life because “no one seemed to care.” He felt no love from anyone, except his dog, and in a brief suicide note written to his parents, he left instructions for the care of his dog. “No one seemed to care.” What a sharp rebuke to our lack of love -- or lack of showing our love. It is likely that the boy’s parents really did care, but distracted by the cares of everyday living, they failed to communicate their love. ●SLIDE: MAYBE THAT IS WHY THE LOCAL TAVERN IS SUCH A POPULAR PLACE. LESSONS FROM A TAVERN By Charles Swindoll An old Marine Corps buddy of mine, to my pleasant surprise, came to know Christ after he was discharged. I say surprise because he cursed loudly, fought hard, chased women, drank heavily, loved war and weapons, and hated chapel services A number of months ago, I wan into this fellow, and after we'd talked awhile, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "You know, Chuck, the only thing I still miss is that old fellowship I used to have with all the guys down at the tavern. I remember how we used to sit around and laugh and drink a pitcher of beer and tell stories and let our hair down. I can't find anything like that for Christians. I no longer have a place to admit my faults and talk about my battles - where somebody won't preach at me and frown and quite me a verse." It wasn't one month later that in my reading I came across this profound paragraph: "The neighborhood bar is probably the best counterfeit that there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give his church. It's an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality - but it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable. It is democratic. You can tell people secrets, and they usually don't tell others or even want to. The var flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers With all my heart," this writer concludes, "I believe that Christ wants his people to be unshockable, a fellowship where people can come in and say, 'I'm sunk, I'm beat, I've had it.' Alcoholics Anonymous has this quality - our churches too often miss it." Now before you take up arms to shoot some wag that would compare your church to the corner bar, stop and ask yourself some tough questions, like I had to do. Make a list of some possible embarrassing situations people may not know how to handle. A woman discovers her husband is a practicing homosexual. Where in the church can she find help where she's secure with her secret? Your spouse talks about separation or divorce. To whom in the church do you tell it? Your daughter is pregnant, and she's run away - for the third time. She's no longer listening to you. Who do you tell that to? Financially you were unwise, and you're in deep trouble. Or a your wife is an alcoholic. Or something as horrible as getting back the biopsy from the surgeon, and it reveals cancer, and the prognosis isn't good. Or you had an emotional breakdown. To whom do you tell it? We can become the most severe, condemning, judgmental, guilt-giving people on the face of the planet Earth. ●BUILD SLIDE: Or we can (1) be aware of the schemes of Satan, (2) deal honestly in the open with the issues, and (3) forgive like Jesus, and 4) comfort like Christ, and (5) open our lives and express love to those who are hurting. And we will be the people God has designed us to be on this earth. ●SLIDE: PICTURE OF DANNY HANSEN, OUR CHILDREN’S MINISTER. Danny does a wonderful job around here with our children.  Has a heart to see them know Christ. Stand if you had a child or were in Awana, or Danny’s children’s Sunday School, or if Danny counseled you about becoming a Christian. Fifteen years ago Danny and I had a falling out.  He was chairman of deacons and we did not agree on some issue.  Locked horns.  Ate lunches to try to resolve it.  Couldn’t.  Like Paul and Barnabas when they disagreed over John Mark.  And to this day I don’t know who was right in our dispute.  In fact, I’ll tell you how important it was, I don’t even remember what it was. Finally he was in my office.  “If you want me to leave, just say the word.  I will leave.”  “O.K.  I want you to leave.”  And he did.  I was hurt.  Danny was deeply hurt.  Danny left.  Went into Christian ministry. Then one day we needed a full time Minister to Children.  Bill said, “Let’s go get Danny.”  And Danny and I talked over our hurts, and forgave, and he’s been here ever since. And if Danny and I can heal our wounds and minister together for Christ, so can You. ●REPEAT SLIDES: 1. BE AWARE OF SATAN’S SCHEMES. 2. DISCIPLINE EXPOSES ISSUES SO THEY CAN BE HANDLED WITH HONESTY. 3. FORGIVENESS RESTORES RELATIONSHIP SO HEALING MAY PROCEED. 4. COMFORT DISARMS AND BRINGS ENCOURAGEMENT. 5. LOVE REAFFIRMS AND RESTORES.

ACCEPTANCE S-1717 I want to tell you a story of a lonely woman who needed awakening. She was drawing water alone from a deserted well in a valley in Palestine. It was noon and the reason she was out in the hot of the day and not the cool of the morning or evening—when all the other women came to draw water—was because she didn’t fit in—she was rejected, out cast by the women in her town. The woman struggled with a rejection which put her mentally, emotionally and spiritually asleep. Then, one day—like Prince Charming kissing Sleeping Beauty—Jesus came to town with open arms of loving acceptance and woke her up! All of us fear rejection—whether it is stepping into class on your first day at school—wondering if you will picked last on the team, or if once more your dad will tell you how worthless you are. Maybe you were petrified on a Cupid.com set up date that he might take one look, turn on his heel and go out the door! Maybe you felt green and gawky like Mr. and Mrs. Shrek going to meet your in-laws for the first time. You remember the beautiful Fiona, by spell, being changed into a green ogre like her husband. She is the lovely princess returning home with her new husband—only on the outside, she is not so lovely any more. Mom and Dad are standing at the front door the castle. Hundreds of people line the walkway, waiting for glimpse or the newly married couple. Let’s meet the parents. (Shrek Video) Sometimes we get fed up with being rejected and take matters into our own hands. “Dear Professor Willingham, chair, search committee, Whitson University. Thank you for you letter of March 16. After careful consideration I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to hire me as an assistant professor in your department. Despite Whitson University’s outstanding experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor in your department in August. I look forward to seeing you then. Sincerely, Chris L. Jensen Turn to John 4: If first time here and don’t have a Bible, perhaps some one near can share with you. SLIDE: John 4:3-4: 3 When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. Three roads led from Judea up north to Galilee: Coast, across Jordan, or through Samaria. Jews never went through Samaria – many reasons – hated enemies – different worship place—intermarried with Assyrians in 700 BC. Jesus had to go through the heart of Samaria. He had a divine appointment with a woman struggling with rejection—who needed love and acceptance. Did you know that the Bible says that Jesus has His eye on you? He knew you before He laid out the foundations of the cosmos. He is longing to accept you into His family. You might just meet Him at the well, or at dinner with a friend, or at an office party with people you are just getting to know—or in church on a Sunday morning. SLIDE: John 4:5: So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. SLIDE: John 4-6: Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 6 th hour – 12:00 noon. Jesus is hot, tired and thirsty. SLIDE: John 4:7: When a Samaritan woman came to draw water; Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" I love to see here the humanity of Jesus Christ. He is thirsty.       He made that water – and He can’t get to it.       It’s noon and He’s sweating under the hot sun that He created. And He can’t turn off the heat.       He asks a drink of a creature that He’s made. When Christ says, “Give me to drink,” He shattered her mind! SLIDE: John 4:9: The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) He was a Jew and she was a Samaritan. Tremendous racial barrier here – Samaritans were only half Jews: Jews who had intermarried with Gentiles – and Jews hated them for that. He was a man and she was a woman. Unwritten law that men didn’t speak with women in public. How did she know that He was a Jew? His physical features revealed that fact. That was obvious. People say that Jesus was of all different nationalities. No, He was a Jew. Here’s what really shook her up. A Jew wanted to drink out of her glass. None of that mattered to Christ. He knew her before the foundation of the cosmos. He was out to capture her heart: He accepts the rejected. He loves the unlovable. Already on screen: READ John 4:10: Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." What is the gift of God? John 3:16 – Gave what? “His Son”. “If you knew the Son of God and who…” Notice that the encounter starts out He’s thirsty and she’s got the water. All of a sudden she’s thirsty and He is the water. SLIDE: John 4:11: "Sir," the woman said, "You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?" “You don’t even have a bucket. The well is 105 feet deep!” Already on screen: READ John 4:13-14: Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."  Jesus says, “Look, what H 2 O does for your parched, dry mouth, my water will do for your parched, dry soul!” Let me describe the living water: A woman causes a gardening apocalypse by using the wrong fertilizer but gardening tips from Yahoo! Miracle Gro tv Ad: woman sprays miracle-gro on dying plants in the flower bed. Plants spring to life. Keeps spraying and all of a sudden the ground opens up and a poodle comes up from under the ground and begins to run around the yard. Mom: “Scruffy!” Daughter Scruffy, you’re alive!” SLIDE: John 4:15: The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water." READ John 4:16: He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back."  READ John 4:17-18:  "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." I wish I could have seen the look on His face when He said that—broken hearted with her pain. Five men had rejected her—man could initiate a divorce—never the woman. Five times she heard the words, “Clean out your closet and get out of the house.” It is no wonder she has not married this sixth guy. With her track record, he could easily be marriage failure number six. Divorce is such devastating rejection. Many find it so hard to risk love again after a divorce. Love means I am willing to open my heart again—but the thought of rejection is too much. I will not ever again risk such rejected pain. I am so sorry. Some of life’s most painful rejections come from childhood experiences: ●SLIDE #: Acceptance—Rejection Affection—Abuse Appreciation—Criticism Approval—Condemnation Attention—Ignored Respect—Ridicule Security—Abandoned Support—Betrayed In fact, write Reject over the right side: Message: “you’ll always be second best!” SLIDE: In a Rolling Stone interview, Christina Ricci, an edgy teen actor who recently starred in Sleepy Hollow, talks about self-mutilation and pain: She stretches; her sleeves ride up; there are raised round scars on her forearms, burns on the back of one hand. She later explains where each mark came from: how she heated a lighter, held it against her hand, a stunt to impress some boys when she was angry about "not looking very good." The forearm scratches come from soda tops and fingernails: "It's like having a drink," Ricci says, "but it's quicker. You know how your brain shuts down from pain? The emotional pain would be so bad, it would force my body to slow down, and I wouldn't be hurting as much. It made me calm." People are designed by God to get along with others, and being excluded, has significant effects. SLIDE:The woman at the well could have well said, “I just wanted a loving husband.” But she didn’t say that. SLIDE: She could have said, “My life’s so fouled up. I’ve had five husbands. Now, I’m living with a guy. I am hurting so badly. I am so lonely. I feel so rejected and alone.” But, she didn’t say that either. She has no intention of opening the door to her pain. She stiffens her upper lip and changes the subject. SLIDE: John 4:19: "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Some of you have endured that much hurt—and there was no one to whom you could go to help comfort the pain—so your decided never to get hurt again. I call these “Rocks.” 1-10 in G6 seminars are rocks. Don’t really enjoy holidays. Don’t get to excited about things, nor too upset. Just stop feelings. SLIDE: John 4:20: Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." Maybe she is trying to turn to God for help. Deep in the human heart is the desire for meaning and purpose and love—and acceptance with the God who created us. I have discovered that a lot of people are afraid to approach God because of their fear of rejection. We think of all the things we have done wrong. We blush with redden faces as we remember some of the shameful things we have done—and done to others. Certainly He will not accept me! I am not good enough to come into His presence—nothing could be farther from the truth. SLIDE: Fortunately, in the life of Jesus Christ we see the heart of the real God—the one with the outstretched arms of acceptance, Who died to accept us into His family, warts and all. SLIDE: John 4:21: Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.… SLIDE: John 4: 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. SLIDE: John 4:25: The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." SLIDE: John 4:26: Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."  SLIDE: Now she is awake: It is like He threw a bucket of cold water in the face. An encounter with the living Jesus will always wake us up! SLIDE: John 4:28-30: Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Ah, here’s an experience that causes a woman to leave her dishes in the sink. She literally leaves her water pots and runs into town to tell the men about the man who’s told her all about herself. SLIDE: John 4:39-40: Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. SLIDE: John 4:41: And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said, now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.’” One of my friends asked me yesterday what my sermon was going to be about. I told her. She said to me: “All women struggle with rejection around the well. “I thought I’d found the perfect man. My mom always told me to find a man who loves you a little bit more than you love him.” “I found that man. He was crazy about me. He loved children; he would be a good dad. He didn’t make enough money but everything else looked so good. “One year later we separated. I felt so rejected. “What really hurt was that I was being rejected by some one I didn’t care that much about. I was better looking, smarter, made more money, and godlier than he was (and more humble). This can’t be happening! How could this happen to me? We went to marriage counseling and I decided to throw myself into my marriage. It was no longer about me. Modeled myself after Hosea—I would love him regardless. For ten years I worked and loved and compromised to make it work. We had children now. But things just weren’t right. Something was hidden. I prayed with my girl friends for all to be revealed. Then, after 10 years I discovered that he was cheating on me. In fact, he had carried on a secret affair with a woman he was dating back when he first met me. “I went to the Bible for help and claimed this verse from Isaiah: ‘Woe to the wicked for destruction is upon them and they will be paid back for what their hands have done.’ “Christ became my husband. He was my sustainer, confidant, my very life. I was clinging to Him just to get through—like AA—one day, hour, minute—at a time. “Pictured my self as a little lamb that Jesus carried around His shoulders. (She was crying now.) SLIDE: “I survived by submersing myself in the Word of God, my intimate relationship with Him, and in my girl friends in my Bible study group.” Why did she respond so readily to Christ—because He was the only one who understood. Why did the woman at the well respond so readily at an invitation from Christ? Because Jesus knows what it’s like to be despised and rejected. ● SLIDE #: John 1:9-11: The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.  10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. “He was in the world”. Whose world? His world! “World was made by Him, and the world did not recognize Him!” “He came to his own.” Who came? The one who made it all. And how did His own respond? They didn’t want Him. He was no stranger here. For 33 years Christ lived among men; He taught - loved - died - bore sin... and the very hands that formed men from the dust of the earth were held as the creature picked up a hammer and drive nails through the creator’s hands! This was His world. Those were His men! His will! His world! He made it - it didn’t know Him - the unrecognized Christ. You say, “Poor God. He must be terribly frustrated by all of this. He loved this world. He sent His Son and look what they did to His Son.” No. God doesn’t get frustrated. Jesus Christ was a lamb slain before the foundation of the world. God knew it was coming. ● SLIDE #: John 1:9-12: Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- Accepts and welcomes the thief on the cross. How do you get to be a child of God? Born into the right family? No. Doesn’t come biologically. Notice who these children of God are. They are those who receive the Christ who died and rose again. They are the ones who affirm the incarnate Word. They receive Him, and as a result, they are born of God. The woman at the well invited some men and a whole town to come to Jesus. Your friend may well have invited you her today. You have not come here to experience a deep, rich acceptance of Jesus Christ. It may be the farthest thing from your mind. But, you felt this deep stirring in your soul. You have been rejected and alone for so long. Woman at the well only went to draw water but she came away with Jesus. Citizens of Sychar only followed to see what an outcast woman was so excited about. They came away with Jesus—and full acceptance with God and others. You can go away with Him and His opened-armed love and acceptance today. Receive Him into your life now. Only God can meet all your need and be your sufficiency in every situation. Through your relationship with Jesus Christ you hold a valued place in the family of God that no one else can occupy. PRAYER RESPONSE TIME: Have you ever thought about “Trusting your issue with Christ?” With heads bowed, raise your hand if you’ve been rejected by (give examples). Let me pray for you. Who is having a struggle in your life (examples) raise your hand. Let me pray for you. Who has been hurt (give examples) raise your hand and let me pray for you. Those who did not raise their hands but still have gone through these hurts, let me pray for you. Jesus loves you—You have a valued place in His life: even if you feel like an outcast, that’s the way it is! … 16-year-old teenager betrayed by your friends…struggling with rejection at work… lonely grandfather estranged from his children… watching mom and dad go through a divorce… The character of Jesus’ nature is to love and accept.

Saul and Jonathan: No Weapon? God’s Got This! Steven Furtick. First Samuel 13:16: "Saul and his son Jonathan and the men with them were staying in Gibeah in Benjamin, while the Philistines camped at Mikmash. Raiding parties went out from the Philistine camp in three detachments. One turned toward Ophrah in the vicinity of Shual, another toward Beth Horon, and the third toward the borderland overlooking the Valley of Zeboyim facing the wilderness. Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, 'Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears!' So all Israel went down to the Philistines to have their plow points, mattocks, axes and sickles sharpened. The price was two-thirds of a shekel for sharpening plow points and mattocks, and a third of a shekel for sharpening forks and axes and for repointing goads". This is a rip-off. We don't measure in shekels, but this is entirely too much to pay to get your goads sharpened. "So on the day of the battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand; only Saul and his son Jonathan had them". So, on the day of battle… This is bad, to be in a day of battle and not have a sword or a spear. "So on the day of the battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand; only Saul and his son Jonathan had them". I want to preach to you today from the subject No Weapon. Usually when we shout, "No weapon!" it's exciting, and it's a promise from God that "No weapon formed against you will prosper," but maybe you heard it different in the context where I just talked about how on the day of the battle, not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or a spear in his hand. No weapon. This message is for somebody who is in a war without the weapons you need for that war. I have no idea what area of your life this will apply to. My first thought goes to financial. My second thought goes to relational. My third thought goes to emotional. I think I covered everybody in those three, when I said, "You're in a war, but you don't have the weapons". If that has been you lately, and you have been thinking things along the lines of, "What the…am I supposed to do right now"? things that you have been thinking about lately, then this word is for you, because you're in a war that you don't have the weapons for. The question I want to work with a little bit today is…Where are your weapons? Every once in a while, I like to revisit a passage that was a part of my past, drag it into my present, and see if God has given me any perspective in the space between. The funny thing about this passage is it's a story I've been preaching since I was 16 years old. I outlined 1 Samuel 14… I know I read to you from 13, but I preached from 1 Samuel 14 for the first time when I was 16. What brought it back to my mind was that we celebrated our church's sixteenth anniversary last weekend. Not only that. My oldest child is 16 years old. So, now I have a kid who's at the stage of life I was at the first time I preached this passage. The first time I preached it, it had 12 points. When I preached it the first time, I said all 12 points and didn't make one. I missed the whole thing. I can see now some things God wasn't able to show me at the time because I wasn't ready to see it. Now, having a son who's 16 years old who is smarter than I am, more talented than I am, taller than I am… See, I'm not changing out any of the pictures of my family in my house from this point forward, because I want it all to be right at that last time that he came up to my nose, just so he doesn't ever think he can beat me. I have to keep that mental edge, that psychological advantage. But the passage I read to you mentions a father and a son. You might recognize the name Saul. He was the first king Israel ever had. He was the first king Israel had, and God didn't want them to have him, but they just had to have one, like that car you're making payments on for the next 76 years. You just had to have one. I'm not going to go to the person you are sitting next to. You just had to have them. Valentine's Day. When we look at the text as a father and son, it's really powerful, because you have Saul, who was the first king, and Jonathan his son, who is supposed to be king next from a human perspective, but can't be king because God has chosen David and rejected Saul, and it provides a contrast, which has been eye-opening for me to study this week. It has been eye-opening for me to study for a couple of reasons. The other day, I was saying something to one of my kids, and the Spirit of the Lord told me nicely, "Shut up". He said it nicer than that, but the way I'm saying it to you is "Shut up". What I was doing in the middle of telling my sons something was I was visiting my insecurity on them and making it a limitation that did not apply for their lives. I was kind of having one of those moments where I thought I was telling them the way things are, but what I realized in the middle of saying it was "That is the way things were for you; that does not have to be the way it is for them". And the Spirit of the Lord said, "Shut up. Don't say that. Don't speak that over them. Go scream it in your pillow. Go tell it to a counselor. Go write it down and scratch it out, but for God's sake, don't put your stuff on them. Don't weigh them down with your own unmet expectations of life so that they have to carry with them your resentment about things you didn't experience, but maybe I want them to". And the Spirit of the Lord said, "Shut up". In 1 Samuel 13, the Bible says, "There was no weapon in the hands of God's people". What a horrible place to be, to have an enemy attacking you, not just from one side, not just from both sides, but the Bible says there were three detachments that had gone out from the Philistines. You recognize the name Philistine from the famous Philistine in the Bible, Goliath, but he hasn't showed up yet. He's in 1 Samuel 17, and he gets killed by David with a little tiny stone that he didn't think could do anything to him, but he found out that when God gets behind something, it has enough momentum to kill any enemy, regardless of scale, size, or strength. Goliath hasn't showed up yet, but he's a Philistine. Also, you might remember Delilah. Yet there were Philistines all over the place in this passage…one in Ophrah, one in Beth Horon, and one in that other place I can't remember the name of, but it starts with a Z. I practiced pronouncing it, but I can't remember it right now. They're coming from everywhere against the Israelites. They're actually so strategically occupied in the land of Canaan that they have blocked off the passages by which the Israelites can move about. They've blocked off the passages in opposition to Israel's possession of the land. When God moved his people into the Promised Land, he didn't guarantee that none of their enemies would live there too. The relevance of this for us is God does not promise that he's just going to give us everything automatically. God never promised you for one moment that you wouldn't have to fight for joy through the feelings of despair. God never promised you for one moment that you wouldn't have to fight for an optimistic perspective in the face of a negative default setting. God never promised you for one moment that you would not have to fight for influence in the face of things that make you feel like, "Who am I to speak anything? Who am I to be anything? Who am I to do anything"? God never promised that. He only said it's possible, but the fact that it's possible doesn't mean it's automatic. Possible is not automatic. If I had never invited her to be on my summer impact team, she would have never fallen in love with me on the bus, and if she never fell in love with me on the bus, we never would have walked down the aisle, and if we never walked down the aisle, she could not have experienced the gift of the goodness. What I'm trying to say to you is there are some things God has given you, but you still have to go for them. Go for it! If God puts something in your heart, you will have to go for it. "But I have God's grace". You have God's grace to empower you to go for what he has given you. That's what the grace is for! Yet with the passage of time, I've come to see this passage a little differently than I did when I was 16. When I was 16, I felt like Jonathan, but 25 years later (that's a quarter of a century), I saw myself as Saul this week. I want to read you both, and I want to see which one you've been acting more like lately. Then we'll talk about that, and then the Holy Spirit will show you what he needs to show you, and I'll be out of your way. I won't bother you anymore for at least seven days. First Samuel 14 says something so interesting. "One day Jonathan son of Saul said to his young armor-bearer, 'Come, let's go over to the Philistine outpost on the other side.' But he did not tell his father. Saul was staying on the outskirts of Gibeah…" That's where he was from. He was from the tribe of Benjamin. He never asked to be king. All indications are he never fully accepted his role as king. All indications are his insecurity kept him from embracing his God-given destiny. This is the guy I felt like this week. I want you to contrast the two, because it's a very powerful picture here. "Saul was staying on the outskirts of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree in Migron. With him were about six hundred men, among whom was Ahijah, who was wearing an ephod. He was a son of Ichabod's brother Ahitub son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the Lord's priest in Shiloh. No one was aware that Jonathan had left. On each side of the pass that Jonathan intended to cross to reach the Philistine outpost was a cliff; one was called Bozez [the slippery one] and the other Seneh [the thorny one]. One cliff stood to the north toward Mikmash, the other to the south toward Geba". Verse 6 has been a source of many sermons for this preacher. "Jonathan said to his young armor bearer, 'Come, let's go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men.'" The first time he talked about them, he called them, politely, the Philistines. Now he's talking trash. "Those uncircumcised enemies of the living God". "They don't have a covenant. We do. Let's go. They don't have the God of heaven fighting for them. We do. Let's go". "'Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.' 'Do all that you have in mind,' his armor bearer said. 'Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.' Jonathan said, 'Come on, then…'" I like it when you tell me to do whatever I have in my mind, because it makes me feel less crazy. "'…we will cross over toward them and let them see us. If they say to us, "Wait there until we come to you," we will stay where we are and not go up to them. But if they say, "Come up to us," we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands.' So both of them showed themselves to the Philistine outpost. 'Look!' said the Philistines. 'The Hebrews are crawling out of the holes they were hiding in.' The men of the outpost shouted to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, 'Come up to us and we'll teach you a lesson.'" They need some trash-talking tips. This is very PG. "So Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, 'Climb up after me; the Lord has given them…'" Will give? Has given them. Is going to give? Has given them. "…into the hand of Israel". How do you know? Because they threatened us. How do you know? Because they insulted us. So, the insult (I'm just showing you this) from the Philistines is a sign to Jonathan and an invitation for what God can do: the impossible. I'm just giving you some context. "Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and feet, with his armor-bearer right behind him. The Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer followed and killed behind him. In that first attack Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre". So, that's Jonathan. He moves toward the Philistines with one weapon. And let's hear it for the armor bearer. He had no weapon. That's the one, to me, in the passage who ought to be celebrated: the one who had to climb behind this young man. A friend of mine asked me… I told him, "I'm preaching on Jonathan in 1 Samuel 14 this week, how he went over to the Philistines and said, 'Perhaps the Lord will act,' and how he stepped out, and he wasn't really sure, but he had to leave that in God's hands and do what he could do. I'm going to preach to people and tell them, 'You're in a situation where you're not really sure right now, and you have to go through a slippery, thorny place, and you have to go up, and you have to expose yourself, and you have to be willing to be seen, and you have to be willing to try something, and you have to be willing to make a move. You can't just sit around waiting for it.' I'm going to talk about how he made a move in that direction and God gave him a miracle, but God didn't give him a miracle before he moved". I'm going off on my friend, and then my friend said, "What do you think made Jonathan able to do that"? The Lord gave me on the spot an alliterated outline what made this young man able to do that. First was development. He wasn't 25 yet. Your prefrontal cortex doesn't fully develop until you're 25. So, the first thing Jonathan had going for him was that he was dumb. He was dumb enough to do something based on the assumption that God can do anything. (I felt happy when I said it.) Everybody over 25, make some noise, because your prefrontal cortex is too developed for you to step out on a "Perhaps". Your primary question is, "What if it doesn't work"? Jonathan is like, "What if it does? What if God does say yes? What if God does deliver? What if we do get a victory? What if something amazing does happen? What if this is the time? What if this does work"? The second thing Jonathan had going for him in my mind was (psychological term) detachment. To me, it's interesting that the text says, "Three detachments of Philistines". That's the enemy. They go out in detachments because there are thousands of them, but they go out separately. Detachments the Bible calls them. Well, Jonathan had a sense of detachment as well. The major world religions all coopt this term, but I'm using it in the Christian sense, because I am one. There's a sense in which Jonathan had to detach from the outcome and move forward by faith. How do you climb up to the enemy? How do you climb out of insecurity? How do you climb past what other people told you wasn't possible? One step at a time. Jonathan understands. "I know God can, and I think he might. Let's go". That is some advanced-level detachment to go, "All right. This is what I'm going to do. This is what we're going to do. We're going to go up. We're going to show ourselves. If they say, 'We're coming down to you,' we're not going up. If they say, 'Come up to us,' we'll go up, and God will give us the victory, and that'll be the sign that he has given them into our hands". There is a part of this that has to be left in God's hands. Detachment. The third thing I told my friend was desperation, because they had no weapons. He knew, "If we stay here under this pomegranate tree, we will surely die. They will surely plunder us. If we go over there, God might give us the victory, so I'm going to move toward the might". Who is this for? You need to move toward the possibility of victory. A lot of times we can't do this, because while Jonathan is moving toward Philistines, enemies, battles, challenges… While Jonathan is moving toward that, remember where his father was. While Jonathan is moving toward Philistines, Saul is sitting under pomegranates. I don't know if this will make sense, but I want to ask you. Pomegranates or Philistines? You're like, "What's so wrong with pomegranates, Preacher? What do you have against pomegranates? Pomegranate is a perfectly acceptable fruit. There's nothing wrong with sitting under the tree". I agree with you. In fact, I so agree with you that I want to show you a Bible verse about pomegranates. So, don't be sitting there thinking I'm hating on pomegranates, I have prejudice toward pomegranates. I love pomegranates as much as the next guy. They're messy, but I like them. Do you remember when the spies first went into the Promised Land, and Moses told them, "Bring back some of the fruit of the Promised Land," because they were coming out of Egypt? Remember when they came back carrying this pole full of the produce of Canaan, the fruit of what God was giving them? Do you remember it said they brought back a cluster of grapes that they had to carry between two of them because the cluster of grapes was so big? But watch what else was on that pole in Numbers, chapter 13. "When they reached the Valley of Eshkol, they cut off a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes. Two of them carried it on a pole between them…" Two of them carried it between them, and including on the pole were some pomegranates. "I really don't see the need in pointing out that there were pomegranates". Pomegranates don't grow in Egypt. This is new fruit for a new place that God is taking them by faith. So, when I saw Saul sitting under the pomegranate tree, it served as a reminder to me that he was sitting under something God gave him. He was sitting under something that represented God's promise. Take this to Bible class this week. Ask about the pomegranates. The pomegranates are not only a sign of the promise, but it's what the priests wore on the edge of their robes. There was a vestment called an ephod. You saw it in 1 Samuel 14 as well. The priest would wear the ephod with the 12 stones that represented the 12 tribes, and he had Urim and Thummim that represented the will of God. All of this is under the pomegranate tree with Saul, long after God has brought his people into the Promised Land. Can I teach you this from the Bible for a moment so you can get the background to understand what's happening in your life? Saul is not sitting in a bad place. He is sitting under something that represented the promise of God. On the edge of the robe the priests would wear was a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate, alternating…A, B, bell, pomegranate, bell, pomegranate. This pomegranate is no accidental fruit. This is not an ordinary fruit. This is not a random detail the writer of 1 Samuel gives to us to let us know. He is sitting under the promise of God, and that's a problem. It is a problem when you sit under a promise of God when God is calling you to go forward. Now, there come situations in your life… All you can do is sit under the promise of God. I can't heal my own body. I just have to hold on to the fact that my life and my days are in God's hands and that by his stripes I am healed, and he can, and even if he doesn't, he's God and he's good and he's with me, but I also have a responsibility in other seasons of my life to move toward what I'm praying for. That's so anointed what Jonathan said to the armor-bearer. "Let's go toward the Philistines". You are in a season where God is calling you to go toward something, and Saul is sitting under something with somebody. Did you notice he had one of the descendants of Ichabod with him under the tree? Ichabod was the one who was named right after the ark was captured by the Philistines, the great-grandson of Eli the priest. I know this is a lot of Bible background, y'all, but it's so significant for you to realize that where you sit, who you sit with, and what you believe about the will of God is critical to what happens next in your life. Of course Saul was sitting under the pomegranate tree. He had just been told by Samuel that God was going to take his kingdom away because he hadn't waited to offer the sacrifice. He was disappointed, literally. He had been appointed as king, and he was going to lose what he was. He had been defeated by the Philistines in chapter 15, and also, he didn't have the weapons. "Yeah, I hear you, Furtick. This all sounds good, and if I was a preacher and I knew all of these Bible verses and I had a perfect wife like Holly, like you're always up there talking about how great and how perfect she is, maybe this would be good for me too". Why didn't the Israelites have any weapons? The Scripture said there was not a blacksmith found in the land of Israel. The reason there was no blacksmith found in the land of Israel is because the Philistines knew, "If we can keep the Israelites from taking what they have and shaping it into something they can fight with, they will always be weak". Here's what had happened that put Saul under the pomegranate tree and that keeps you in states where you don't trust God, don't think God wants to hear from you, don't pray, don't believe anything can change, just stand there in surrender to the way things are and call it faith. Trusting God without moving toward is not faith. The importance of a blacksmith is something I never saw when I was 16, but I see it now, because I have a 16, and I have a 14, and I have a 10. I have three of these. I see Philistines all around my kids. Graham is going to roll his eyes when I say this, because he hates when I do it, but I see social media raising a generation. What worries me about that, church… It's not about the technology. You have to understand. The Philistines had the best technology. They had learned how to work with iron. The Israelites were still working with bronze. So, when it says they didn't have weapons, the reason they didn't have weapons… The Philistines knew what to do with iron. So, every time the Israelites wanted their farming equipment sharpened, they had to go to the Philistines, which represents the world, who are not God's people, who do not have God's Spirit, who do not have God's promise. So now they had to go to the world to get their weapons. I talk to my kids about everything that is age appropriate to talk to them about, which includes, as much as they hate it, sex. I talk to my kids about sex, as much as it's appropriate for their age, and they hate it, but if you think I'm going to let TikTok teach my kid… Yeah, I said it. If you think I'm going to leave my kid without weapons because I'm uncomfortable, if you think I'm going to let somebody teach Abbey how to twerk, and I'm not going to talk to her about what it means to be a woman… Get out of my face! Are you crazy? Do you think I'm going to send my kids into the world to fight the Devil without weapons? Not just sex. Let's get off of that. I know. That's long enough. It's emotions too. Let me ask you. How many of you have lost battles because you didn't have a blacksmith? Is this not true? It's too late when you get into the battle to get a blacksmith. "What do you mean"? It's too late until you let anger take you over, and now your little lizard brain is running the show. Now you have a little lizard driving your decisions. It's too late at that point for you to learn that "My emotions don't control me if I have the Spirit of God inside of me". See, as much as you can know that… Is that a pomegranate tree you sit under or is it an actual process in your life that produces victory? There's a difference…the stuff we can shout over versus the stuff we can fight with. It's one thing to have farming equipment. It's another thing to have fighting instruments. The Israelites had the raw material. They didn't have a blacksmith. Have you ever had to go to battle but didn't have a blacksmith? Have any of you in the room had to be a dad, but you didn't have a dad who showed you along the way how to do this? That was my dad's story. I'm in utter amazement what a good job my dad did considering the blacksmith he never had. His dad killed himself. He did good to stay alive. Then he told me… One time he said, "If you ever run into anything and you start thinking you have to kill yourself, you talk to me". He said, "I will drop everything I'm doing, and I'll take you fishing". I'm like, "Dad, I don't like fishing". He's like, "Whatever. The point is I will take you… You do not have to go that route". What was that? He was trying to be the blacksmith he never had. "Oh, that's wonderful you're telling me to just go for it. You sound like a Rocky movie, Pastor Steven. I can't put this into practice in my life". I know you can't, because you didn't have a blacksmith. When you don't have a blacksmith showing you, "Here is how you navigate this emotional state" or "This is how you take a Scripture and actually live it out," then you'll have plenty of pomegranates to sit under, plenty of good-sounding things, plenty of words, but no weapons. I am seeing people go down left and right as a pastor right now. What else is new? It wouldn't bother me if the Devil was stronger than us. I messed up and stumbled across a verse that said, "Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world". Or as Jonathan said, "Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few". If that is true, why are you losing? If that is true, why isn't it working? The Lord spoke to me. He didn't have a blacksmith. When you don't have a blacksmith, you don't have anybody to show you how to take the raw material and turn it into something that is useful in your life. That's why I want to be a better blacksmith to you, man, so I don't tell you, "Oh, you can't do this, and you can't do that". I don't want to be Saul so you sit under the pomegranates with me. Even if I take this to a level of Elijah's music… That boy just made an album on his computer in his bedroom over the last four months…an entire album. I never did that, but I've been a pretty good blacksmith to him along the way. Two and a half years ago, he didn't even know what I was doing, but I snuck a recording mic in his room. At the same time, he was saying, "I don't like my voice. I don't want to sing. I don't like my voice". Nobody likes their voice when they're 13 if they're not Justin Bieber, but I'm not trying to get you to love your voice right now. I'm just trying to put something that you have to trip over when you wake up in the morning, so every time you see that mic, you might step on it one day, and you might sing something, and then you might sing something else. I'm not taking credit, because it's his battle, but I'm his blacksmith. I need every dad in here to change your Instagram bio to "Blacksmith". If you are nothing else… I need every pastor watching this sermon to rip something off, and you can preach it later, to just change your job title and put "Blacksmith," at least for the rest of 2022, because you have to see yourself as someone who has been given the responsibility by God to shape and to form. I found myself this week feeling sorry for Saul, because he didn't have anybody to show him how to be a king. He was the first one. He had a powerful dad, but he had never been a king before. He didn't have a blacksmith. Then when I was feeling sorry for Saul, I was feeling sorry for Jonathan, because the one who was supposed to be his blacksmith was so broken he couldn't show him how to do it either. Then I started wondering about you. I started wondering: Are you in a battle without a blacksmith? Are you in a war where you didn't have the weapons for it? That was the state of Israel, and that was why Saul was under the tree, and that was why the children of God were running to the world for their weapons. Let me bring this into a New Testament context. In 2 Corinthians, Paul is talking to the church about how we fight. Not if we fight (everybody has a fighting style) but how we fight. He says that though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. We don't go to the Philistines to get our weapons sharpened. It's too expensive. We don't go to social media to get our emotional needs met. It's too expensive. We don't go to the Devil for our dopamine hit. "Please, Devil, give me some dopamine. Make me feel good for a second. Give me pleasure for a second. Make me feel something for a second". It's too expensive. You can get it from the Devil, but it's too expensive. How many of you have found out it is too expensive to go to the world to get your weapons? It's too expensive, because even if it works, it isn't worth it. That's why Paul says we don't wage war like the world does. We have to fight these battles. We have to live in this world. We have to be realistic, but we don't have to fight it that way. The weapons we have have divine power to demolish strongholds. That's in the Bible, y'all. That is the Spirit of Jesus inside of you. It is divine power to demolish strongholds. When you go to the world for your weapons, there's no power in them. When you go to the world for your weapons, it doesn't demolish strongholds; it creates strongholds. It creates dependence on the thing you are going to for the need you are trying to meet. Why would you go to the Devil for it when your dad has it in abundance when you are a child of God? So Jonathan said, "Nothing can hinder the Lord. I have a covenant with almighty God". No weapon, and he got a victory. Well, he had one weapon. The armor-bearer had no weapon. Even in that the Lord spoke to me. He said, "Quit saying you don't have any. You have one". Sometimes one is enough. I am 42 in six days. (That's right in the middle where you're not sure if that's cheerable or not.) The thing I found out is that there is only one thing in the world I know I'm pretty good at, other than loving my wife, my kids, and all that. It's not baseball, at least not at a professional level. Even when it comes to the things I do in my life today, I'm not saying I'm great at administrating. I'm not saying I'm horrible at it, but I'm not great at it. I don't say I'm good at managing people. I'm good at it sometimes. I'm good at it in certain seasons, but I can't say I'm great at it. I found one thing I can do that God's hand is on, which I'm saying is sharing his Word, in case that's not clear. I hope it's clear. I hope that's obvious that God gave me that gift. Maybe it's not. I don't know. Sometimes I wonder. I'm saying I can do this, and God uses it, and I've been doing it since I was 16. Out of that one thing God gave me… Let me tell you what the Devil will do. He will tempt you to diminish what you've been given. Out of this one thing I've given my life to do, I've been able to see God do amazing things. I've been all over the world doing this. I have stood in front of people who didn't even speak my language with an interpreter doing this. I have met people I never thought I'd get to meet doing this. I've seen people who came up to me and said their life was greatly helped doing this, yet this this that I do is talking. This this that I do is imperfect. This this that I do… Sometimes…I'm going to be honest with you…I feel like what I do is one of the weirdest things in the world: try to tell you what God thinks about stuff. Key word try. I'm figuring it out as I go as well. But out of this one imperfect, uncertain thing God has given me to do that I believe he called me to do, that I believe he graced me to do, that I stand up and do no matter how I feel about it… Out of this one thing God gave me to do, I have seen God do things. One is enough. I don't have to be good at basketball to do this. I don't even have to be good at counting to do this. There's a lot of stuff that I have reconciled to the fact that I will never be great at that, but standing in the grace God gave me and doing the thing God called me to do, this gift… I have been preaching on this boy called Jonathan for 25 years. I have preached at least 300 sermons on this one text, and one was enough. I preached it in Australia. I preached it in Singapore. I preached it in London. I preached it in Camden, South Carolina. I'll preach it in Ballantyne when I'm 42. I'll preach it, if God gives me the grace, when I'm 84. I will preach this one word, one gift, one calling, one weapon. You say, "There was no weapon". No, there was one. God has always given you something. The prophet asked the woman, "What do you have in your house"? She said, "Nothing except a little oil". Do you see that thing you almost overlooked, that thing you didn't think was worth mentioning? That was the one the miracle was in. "You mean one weapon was enough to kill 20 Philistines"? It was by faith. God likes to do it like that, because he doesn't want you giving the credit to your weapons. He doesn't want you to praise your weapons. He wants you to praise him. I don't know if it's true that they didn't have any weapons. They just didn't know where their weapons were. Can I show you something? What's your name again? Your story inspired me. Yolanda. I was thinking this might just be for you. This whole word might just be for Yolanda. They were talking about Yolanda earlier and all she has been through. I thought about telling you… Do you know where your weapons are? A lot of people don't. They just accept depression. They don't know how to worship. I'm not saying I don't feel depression. I'm saying I don't accept that as being my new default setting and the limitation of my life. We have addictions. We all have addictions. "Not me," as you scroll. You are delusional. Yolanda, I started by calling this sermon No Weapon. There were no weapons with the Israelites because there were no blacksmiths. All of the ways the Enemy kept you from getting what you should have had, and all of the ways he wants to use what you think you should have had that you don't have to keep you from doing what God called you to do… That was my message, and it said there wasn't a weapon in the hands of Israel. In the hands of Israel, that's true, but guess who did have weapons. The Philistines. They had weapons. They made weapons. They had the monopoly on metalmaking, so they were fully weaponized. That's just the way God wanted it. I'm about to show you something that blew my mind. Oh, I hope it blows your mind, because while you're sitting there thinking about what you don't have that God didn't give you… You know he has given you all things richly to enjoy, and he has given you forgiveness of your sins and salvation through the blood of his Son…all that. "I don't have any weapons". You have the Holy Spirit, the mind in Spirit, which is life and peace, to show you everything, every good and perfect gift. "I don't have any weapons". Y'all, I remind myself of the older brother in the prodigal son story, sitting in the father's house talking about, "You never gave me a goat. You give your other son, the one you really like, the goat. You don't give me a goat". The father is like, "You're always with me, and all I have is yours". This is not about resource; it's about recognition…recognizing what you already have, recognizing who you already have. "Everybody left me". Not everybody. Not everybody is gone. Not everybody is flaky. Not everybody is a Judas or a betrayer. I love how Jonathan moved toward what was too big for him with what he had. Go with what you have. If it's one armor-bearer, go with what you have. If you are already past the point in your life… See, Saul didn't have to stay under the tree either. Saul had a weapon. At the end of his life, he fell on his own sword. The weapon Jonathan won with Saul killed himself with. It wasn't about what they had; it's about what they did with it. There is somebody on your row who went through a divorce and lived through it and learned from it and moved forward, and it did not make them… I'm telling you, it hurt them. It was hard for them. They wished they never would have had to go through it. They wouldn't wish it on you, but they made it through it. It is not what happens to you that defines you. Do you need me to turn Yolanda loose with the microphone? Did you hear what she went through? And did you see her worshiping? Some of us didn't worship because we didn't get to park close enough. They were saying all of these things she went through, and she's still worshiping. You must have read all the way to 1 Samuel 14:20. I'm not sure if you did, but something tells me you did. In 1 Samuel 14:20, the Bible says that when Jonathan moved toward the enemy with his one weapon… Look at what God did that Jonathan could not do. You've been looking at what's against you, forgetting what's for you, forgetting who's for you, forgetting who's in you. When Jonathan moved forward in the strength he had, with the sword he had, with the partner he had, with the resources, the wisdom, the plan he had…not the one he wanted, the one he had…watch what God did. The Bible says, "Then Saul and all his men assembled and went to the battle. They found the Philistines in total confusion…" "But we don't have any weapons". But your enemy does. When they got to the battle, guess what happened. The Philistines, their enemies that had kept them in hiding, were striking each other with those iron swords. I just picture the Philistines sharpening their swords, not knowing their swords that they were sharpening were going to be the very instruments of their own demise. I want the Devil to know that no weapon formed against me will prosper. No weapon! The Devil has been busy, hasn't he? He has been trying to defeat you and discourage you and get you depressed, and he's sharpening the swords. He planned the attack, and he thought, "If I hit them here, if I hit them there, if I cut them off here, they'll stop coming". What he didn't know is the weapons may be in the hands of the Philistines, but the Philistines are in the hands of God. When you move toward what God has called you to, you will be surprised, and maybe the very weapon you thought was going to kill you is going to be the one God is going to use to save you. There it is. That is the prophetic word. You've been praying. You've been asking God to show you something. Some of you have been asking God to confirm, "Why am I going through this? Why is this coming against me? Why can't I get past this? Why can't I move through this? Why didn't I have someone to help me with this"? God said, "I wanted to show you what I could do". So, the thing the Enemy sharpened to kill you is going to be the thing God uses to save you, if you move toward. If you sit under the pomegranates, your faith will surely weaken. If you move toward the Philistines… I'm talking straight into the face of your fear, straight into the face of what's fighting you, in the power of God. The weapons we fight with don't come from the world. I see Isaiah 54:16 in a new light now, where God said, "Behold, I created the blacksmith who blows the coals in the fire, who brings forth an instrument for his work". Your enemy is God's instrument too. He uses all of that. Think of the thing you think God can't use. That's what I'm talking about. Think of the thing that makes you embarrassed. That's what I'm talking about. Think of the thing that is facing you from three different detachments, and that's what I'm talking about. When they got to the battle and used what they had, they found that God created the blacksmith. God will not permit anything to happen to me in my life that he will not use for his glory. Do you believe that? "Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few". I came to talk to somebody who is down to one weapon, one person, one word from God. You're moving toward some Philistines today. Who are you? Wave at me. The Lord said to tell you: the promise of Isaiah 54:17 is that no weapon formed against you will prosper. Not that it won't be formed; it's just that it won't work. The enemy was killing the enemy. The swords they sharpened to kill the people of God… When God moved, they started… I see your enemies beginning to scatter today. I see your enemies fleeing from you seven ways today. I like to picture what the Devil thought when he was prompting the heart of Judas to betray Jesus. "Oh, this is going to end it. This is going to kill the ministry of Jesus". Do you not realize the very thing the Devil prompted Judas to do set salvation in motion? He killed the Enemy with his own sword. Now, you have to put your own faith on this word, because if all you do is sit under this like it's another pomegranate, it won't deliver you, but if you can move forward on this word today…  Lord, I pray for those who are moving toward a passageway today. I don't know if it's the beginning of a new relationship. I don't know if it's the beginning of a new challenge, but they've been feeling it down deep. "I don't have the weapons for this war. I don't know what to do. I'm not literate in this. I've never been exposed to this. I'm not experienced with this". But, Lord, you have not left us without a weapon. You have given us your Word. You have given us your Spirit. You have given us your Son. We're going forward with what we have. Father, I thank you today that as this word has been preached, somebody is getting up from a pomegranate tree, walking away from Ichabod, and moving toward what they're praying for. This week, give them the courage, the instruction, the specific prompting of your Spirit to move toward something they're praying for, something they're hoping for. God, you know how hard it is to come out from under that tree. Everybody is under that tree. Everything we've known is under that tree. The ephod is under that tree. The priest is under that tree. Everything is under that tree…except you. You're calling us forward. I thank you for your presence, God, not only in this place. I thank you for your presence as we go forward toward the Philistines in our own lives. That's where we need you. That's where we need your Word. That's where we need to worship. Lord, I thank you today that your Word never returns void. No weapon. No disease, no heartbreak, no failure…no weapon. No accusation, no virus…no weapon. No betrayal, no pain, no trauma…no weapon. No weapon is greater than your Word. No weapon is greater than your Spirit. No weapon is greater than your presence. No weapon is greater than the covenant we have with you. No weapon that is formed shall prosper! No weapon! It was formed, but it didn't work. No weapon! Put it in the chat right now. No weapon. I'm going to tell you something. If God didn't give it to you, you don't need it right now. He gave you what you need for where you're going. No weapon, no problem. I have a word from almighty God!

I want you to turn with me to Mark the sixth chapter, the sixth chapter of Mark, starting at verse 14. These words, "And king Herod heard of him, (for his name (was spread abroad)"... Now this is... He was hearing of Jesus, all the things that Jesus was doing. Making the blind to see, and the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak, and even raising the dead, and king Herod heard about it. "And he said that John the Baptist was risen from the dead". They said, "You've made a mistake, his name is not Jesus, it is John the Baptist". John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, I killed John the Baptist. When Salome danced in front of me I was so taken with her dancing that I promised her anything in my whole kingdom, and she asked for the head of John the Baptist to be brought on a platter. And I regretted it. I liked John the Baptist, even though I didn't agree with some of the things he was saying, especially when he accused me of adultery. But I didn't want to have to kill him, but I had made a promise in front of all my lords and ladies, and all the heads of state, that I would give this girl anything she wanted, and she asked for the head of John the Baptist so I had to send an executioner to go and bring his head. And I know he's risen from the dead, that's the only explanation for this man that's going around the country now who's become very famous. They call him Jesus, but actually he's John the Baptist. Why did Herod say that? He said it because his conscience was killing him. All he could think about, night and day, was that head, that bloody head of John the Baptist that he had had brought on a platter because a girl had performed a sensual dance for him and gotten his passions all aroused. You know, there's a conscience fund in almost every major post office in the United States. If you've cheated the government and your conscience bothers you, you can send it to that conscience fund. All over the world little children know that certain things are wrong, wherever you find them. Who told them? Now when the wind is coming from this direction, we get the planes because the airport is right over here and they come right down low over the stadium, and it's marvelous sound effects for preaching. But conscience is the moral judiciary of the soul, and conscience does not lay down a law, but warns of the existence of a law. Think about that a moment. Conscience warns you that there is a moral law. That moral law is expressed verbally by God in the Ten Commandments. It is also expressed verbally by the Lord Jesus Christ in the sermon on the mount. These are laws. And conscience is put within you to tell you when you are breaking one. Conscience is in the heart of every one of us. There's a little red light that goes on. But there's something in your own heart and your own soul that flashes red and says, don't do that, you're wrong. And most of us go against our conscience time after time, and in a moment I'll show you how we pay for it. Because the Bible speaks of several kinds of conscience. First there's the evil conscience. Hebrews 10:22, "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water". In another place the Bible talks about the defiled conscience. Titus 1:15 defiled". You can have an evil conscience and a defiled conscience. And here is the thing that shakes me about these scriptures. The very thing that tells us when we are knowingly wrong, itself becomes debauched, like a little bell that is supposed to ring and give us a clear note, becomes cracked so that its note will be false. And it's true when you reject the voice of conscience time after time after time after time, after a while the voice of conscience itself becomes defiled and becomes evil, and gives you the wrong signals. So that you too may crash as you approach the runway of a decision. Because you see, your conscience will begin calling evil good. It'll call good evil. It'll put darkness for light and light for darkness, and it will say that bitter is sweet and that sweet is bitter. It becomes evil itself. When you go against your conscience time after time there comes a point, a dividing line, when your conscience is no longer reliable at all. In fact, it will lead you in the wrong direction. And when you've reached that point you have reached a very dangerous situation in your life. "For then would they not have ceased to be offered because that the worshipers once purged have no more conscience of sins". In other words, there is a possibility that you can destroy your conscience. The Bible talks about, the apostle Paul writing to Timothy talks about people that have a conscience that have been seared with a hot iron, like a branding iron. Your conscience seared! Your conscience has been driven away as a friend and a counselor, and comes back in the form of remorse, and comes back in so many different forms. Conscience can even be used by evil spirits. You see, God put it in your heart to help you and to guide you through life. And your conscience has told you not to tell that lie, not to go to that place that you went the other night, and you did it anyway. Told you not to disobey your parents, but you did. So you make your conscience harder and harder and harder. You see, the Holy Spirit uses the conscience to convict you of sin, and righteousness, and judgment. The Holy Spirit uses the conscience to draw you to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you say no! No! No! No! No! And after a while your heart gets harder and harder, and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder and harder. God stills loves you, God wants to forgive you. It's still not too late for anyone here, but I do know people, very brilliant theologians, who think that there's a line beyond which you can go in which you can no longer be saved. You become a reprobate, with a reprobate mind. So hardened that you cannot come to Christ. I know that the Bible says that there is a sin unto death, and I also know that Jesus talked about a sin that could not be forgiven, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that total rejection of Christ that cannot be forgiven? I think that's what it is. We're talking about something here tonight that's very, very sensitive, and delicate, and dangerous. And I know so many people that have some "Churchanity", and they go to church, and they've been baptized, but they've never really known Jesus Christ as their Lord and their Savior. And they're in danger of hardening their hearts, and hardening their conscience, until they can no longer hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. And if you can come to a meeting like this and hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ sung and preached, and it doesn't touch your heart at all, beware. Because, you see, you can become Gospel hardened. We have so much Gospel now in America on television, radio, churches. Thank God for every one of them. I don't care what they do just so they get people to Christ. But the danger is that we hear so much Gospel that it goes in one ear and out the other, and doesn't get lodged into our hearts, and we don't go deep, as Andréa Crouch was talking about a moment ago, and singing about. It must go deep until we become disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm delighted to hear how many churches in this city have Bible studies, and Bible classes, and how many preachers in the city preach expository messages, taking people right through the Bible, and teaching the Bible as they preach, because that helps the people to grow. But we have so many people that they think because they've been faithful to the church or because they have given to the church, or because they've done some good deeds, that they are going to go to heaven, and the Bible plainly says you can't go to heaven by works. "For by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast". If I could work my way to heaven, Christ would never have died on the cross. If I could work my way to heaven I'd be working from morning till night, all day long. And still it wouldn't be enough. Because I have come short of God's glory, and that's why Christ went to the cross, and paid the penalty and the price of my sins, and gave to me eternal life. And here's an interesting thing that happened when I accepted Christ, and this will happen to you. You can have your conscience resensitized, and your conscience can become the conscience of a little child again. Just, and I don't hold myself up as an example at all, of any goodness, but I can tell you this, I can do something like this or like that, or like the other thing and my conscience speaks to me immediately about little things. And I believe that a Christian walks that way, the Holy Spirit speaking through conscience, and guiding and directing and instructing. Oh, to have a conscience that is clear of all offense, the apostle Paul said. To have a clean conscience. That little light that God has put in our hearts. Now the Bible talks about a convicting conscience. "And they being convicted by their own conscience went out one by one". And of course, that's the story of the woman taken in adultery. Jesus had been teaching, and these pharisees had brought this woman that they'd caught taken in adultery to Jesus and they said, "Lord, you claim to be a rabbi, you claim to be a great teacher from God. All right, what shall we do? Shall we stone this woman? The law says stone her and kill her. What do you say"? And Jesus wrote on the ground, we don't know what he wrote, but I think he wrote the Ten Commandments, and they read the Ten Commandments, and he said, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone". They might not have been guilty of breaking the 7th commandment, but maybe they were guilty of breaking the 10th commandment, or the first commandment, or the third commandment, because not one of those religious leaders could pick up a stone and throw it, because they too were guilty. The Bible teaches that all have sinned, we've all come short of the glory of God. Now the Bible teaches also that the conscience cannot heal the wound which it inflicts. It cannot wash out the stain of the soul, it cannot undo the past, it cannot cover up your sins. That's not its business. Its business it to convict. It is the Lord Jesus Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection that saves us from our sins. Christ alone can say to our souls and to our conscience "Be still"! As he said to the angry sea very long ago. I'm asking you tonight to come to the foot of the cross and find forgiveness of all your past sins. I'm asking you to come to the cross tonight and receive eternal life. I'm asking you to come to the cross tonight while you can still hear the voice of the Spirit of God. Because you see, there's some strange passages in the Bible it talks about Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone. In other words, Ephraim is so taken up with his playthings, God said, leave him alone, don't disturb him. Let him have a good time, he's lost. The Bible says "He that hardeneth his heart, being often reproved, shall suddenly be cut off, without remedy". I do not pretend to know all the meaning of those scriptures. I dare not tread beyond the teaching of the Word of God. But I'll tell you that warning is all the way through the Bible. I remember a story that they used to tell years ago, I think dr. R.G. Lee used to tell it, about a man at Niagara. And they have a place there, and I've seen this place, it's called beyond redemption's point. And this man had been able to swim the English channel several times, so he came to America and he said, "I'm going to swim Niagara River at that point that they say you can't swim it". So a big crowd gathered and he dived in, and he began to swim, powerful strokes, a very strong man, and a fast swimmer. And he came to that place that they call redemption's point, and he waved at the crowd, and dived in, swimming. They picked his body up way downstream. There's a point there beyond which you cannot go, there's a point in your rejection of Christ, or in your neglect of Christ: a point beyond which you cannot go without endangering your eternal soul. I'm going to ask you tonight to surrender to Christ. You say, "What do I have to do"? It's very, very simple. You see, God made it so simple that the uneducated, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the educated, people of all races, all over the world can do what God asks. He just asks you to believe. And that word believe, though, has a lot in it. It means to stand on, to put your trust in, and your confidence in. Totally! And it means that you are willing to repent of your sins, which also means a change in your lifestyle, a change in the way you live. From now on God is first: not your lust, not your idols, not your work, but God. And Christ becomes the Lord of your life, and you receive him as Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to ask you to do something tonight we've seen hundreds of people do in this stadium this past week. I'm going to ask you to get up out of your seat right now, and come and stand in front of the platform and say tonight, "I'm not sure that Christ lives in my heart. I don't know whether I've hardened my conscience or not, but I want to make sure tonight by letting him come in. I want to surrender my life to him as Savior and Lord. I want to make sure of it". You get up and come right now, hundreds of you, from all over the stadium. Why do I ask you to come? Jesus said if you're not willing to acknowledge me publicly before men, I'll not acknowledge you before my father. He hung on the cross publicly for you. People were laughing at him, they may laugh at you. They were mocking him when he hung there, but he did it for you, because he loved you. Now you get up and come, and stand here quietly and reverently, and say tonight, "I want Christ in my heart, I want to know that he's there. He's spoken to me tonight. He's convicted me tonight. I've been disturbed tonight". You come and stand, and after you've come and stood here, I'm going to say a word to you and have a prayer with you. And we're going to give you some literature, and you can go back and join your friends. If you're with friends or relatives, they'll wait, or if you've come in a bus, they'll wait. Just get up and come, quickly, right now, from all over the stadium. From the choir, from everywhere. I would like to say a word to you that have been watching by television. As you already know, we're here in the liberty bowl in Memphis, Tennessee. Some 40,000 people are here tonight, and hundreds of people are coming from every part of the stadium to make their commitment to Jesus Christ. You don't have to be here in this stadium to find Christ, you can find him where you are. You may sitting at a bar, you may be in a hotel room, you may be in your own home, but you can say yes to Christ. He'll forgive all the past. I don't care how dirty and how sordid it may be, he'll forgive it because he loves you. He loves you so much that he died for you. And I hope that you'll go to church next Sunday

I Kings 18:17-40 When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is this you, the cause of disaster to Israel?” He said, “I have not brought disaster to Israel, but you and your father’s house have, because you have abandoned the commandments of the LORD and you have followed the Baals. Now then, send orders and gather to me all Israel at Mount Carmel, together with 450 prophets of Baal and four hundred prophets of the Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.” So Ahab sent orders among all the sons of Israel and brought the prophets together at Mount Carmel. Then Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long are you going to struggle with the two choices? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people did not answer him so much as a word. Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left as a prophet of the LORD, while Baal’s prophets are 450 men. Now have them give us two oxen; and have them choose the one ox for themselves and cut it up, and place it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other ox and lay it on the wood, and I will not put a fire under it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.” And all the people replied, “That is a good idea.” So Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose the one ox for yourselves and prepare it first, since there are many of you, and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under the ox.” Then they took the ox which was given them, and they prepared it, and they called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice and no one answered. And they limped about the altar which they had made. And at noon, Elijah ridiculed them and said, “Call out with a loud voice, since he is a god; undoubtedly he is attending to business, or is on the way, or is on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep and will awaken.” So they cried out with a loud voice, and cut themselves according to their custom with swords and lances until blood gushed out on them. When midday was past, they raved until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice; but there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention. Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come forward to me.” So all the people came forward to him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD, which had been torn down. Then Elijah took twelve stones, corresponding to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD had come, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD; and he made a trench around the altar, large enough to hold two measures of seed. Then he laid out the wood, and he cut the ox into pieces and placed it on the wood. And he said, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” And he said, “Do it a second time,” so they did it a second time. Then he said, “Do it a third time,” so they did it a third time. The water flowed around the altar, and he also filled the trench with water. Then at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet approached and said, “LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. Answer me, LORD, answer me, so that this people may know that You, LORD, are God, and that You have turned their heart back.” Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood, and the stones and the dust; and it licked up the water that was in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The LORD, He is God; the LORD, He is God!” Then Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.” So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slaughtered them there. ELIJAH CALLED DOWN FIRE FROM HEAVEN TO TESTIFY AS TO WHO GOD WAS. WHY DOESN’T GOD DO MIRACLES LIKE THAT TODAY? BACKGROUND There’s a little tit for tat going on here between God and Baal. More specifically, between God and Jezebel. Remember that Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord in her attempt to make Baalism supreme in Israel. From this passage we see that God not only proves himself as the only true God, but Elijah goes and slaughters the 450 profits of Baal. It’s almost as if one action deserves the other. “Mount Carmel seems to have had special religious significance. It was the scene of a contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal; the site was fitting because Carmel was disputed territory between Israel and the Phoenicians, and thus between the Phoenician god Baal and Israel’s God.” (1) While this is important, it’s not the main thrust of what is going on. Look carefully at two things Elijah said during this episode with Israel. There are two key verses in our passage to zero in on. First, Elijah says in verse 21, “If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” Then later Elijah prays in verse 37 and says, “That this people may know that You, LORD, are God, and that You have turned their heart back.” This is the whole point that Elijah is making with what he is doing. He wants his people to know and follow the Lord exclusively. To do that he is giving them evidences for who God is. WHAT KIND OF EVIDENCED ARE THERE TODAY FOR GOD’S EXISTENCE? In fact, Elijah provided four evidences for God during this event. 1.) God’s work in history (The drought) The people already knew that Elijah was the one who called for a drought at God’s word (V.36). They had three years of history with the drought testifying that God was the one controlling nature and not Baal. We have this same testimony through scripture about God’s work through 4,000 years of history reported in the scripture. 2.) A prophet’s miracles (Fire from heaven) The people saw the miracle God performed by sending fire from heaven to consume the offering (V.38). Baal could not answer because Baal was not a true god. The miracle testified that God was real. We have the record of miracles done by God in the Old Testament, and Jesus’ miracles in the New Testament. Some people wonder why God doesn’t do miracles like this today. However, God has already done sufficient works to testify as to who he is. Also, we live in an age where people are drawn to God by his love rather than miracles. Remember that Jesus did many miracles, but only a few people, who knew his love, had a true relationship with him. 3.) God answering prayer (“At your word,” fire from heaven) Notice that the miracle happened while Elijah prayed (V.36). God answered Elijah’s prayer because Elijah prayed according to God’s pre-stated word to him. Answers to prayer are another evidence that God is real. God also answers our prayers according to his will. 4.) The testimony of scripture (V.18 “Commandments of the Lord”) This refers to God’s previous revelation of himself. Elijah rebuked Ahab by saying in verse 18, “You have abandoned the commandments of the LORD.” Ahab knew of God’s word and rejected it. God’s word testifies that he is real. We have the testimony of scripture about who God is. Jesus said in Luke 16:31, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.” Believing and knowing the word of God is foundational to knowing God himself. If the word is rejected then nothing else will convince a person of the truth about Jesus Christ. EXAMINATION (V.19) “Send orders and gather to me all Israel at Mount Carmel, together with 450 prophets of Baal and four hundred prophets of the Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.” WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SAY THESE PROPHETS ATE AT JEZEBEL’S TABLE? Consider the boldness of Elijah. He wasn’t simply confronting a few false prophets. He wasn’t simply confronting 450 profits pf Baal. He was confronting the 400 other profits of Asherah also. In other words, Elijah was facing down 850 false prophets against just himself—850 to one. We’ve previously studied about Baalism. But what is Asherah? Asherah was a fertility goddess in competition with Baal. She becomes allied with Baal at one point, against the supreme God, El. The fact that Jezebel worshipped both Baal and Asherah shows how influential these false deities were in the northern kingdom of Israel. They received official sanction and promotion from Ahab’s government, through Jezebel. Obadiah, in saving 100 prophets of the Lord stands in contrast to Jezebel who provided food for 850 false prophets of Baal and Asherah. (V.21) Then Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long are you going to struggle with the two choices? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people did not answer him so much as a word. DO YOU KNOW WHAT SYNCRETISM IS? DESCRIBE. Elijah’s use of the term “struggling” signifies that the people were worshiping Baal along with Yahweh. Essentially, they were syncretists, not fully committed to God. They tried to worship both Baal and Yahweh at the same time. But God does not share his glory with anything. Whenever a person worships other things, even though we may claim to worship God, in reality, we aren’t worshipping God at all. That other thing takes us away from God. Just like Jesus said in Matthew 6:24, we will either hate the one or despise the other. Elijah is calling Israel back to exclusive devotion to God alone. (V.22) Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left as a prophet of the LORD, while Baal’s prophets are 450 men. Elijah seems to have forgotten the 100 prophets that Obadiah had saved from Jezebel. In chapter 19 the Lord revealed that he had 7,000 people who had not bowed the knee to Baal. So, he’s being a little over dramatic. But for this moment he is also being truthful. He stood alone against the 850 false prophets that were before him. (V.23-24) Now have them give us two oxen; and have them choose the one ox for themselves and cut it up, and place it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other ox and lay it on the wood, and I will not put a fire under it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.” And all the people replied, “That is a good idea.” Elijah says that the God who answers by fire would be God. Israel already had a history of God, who answers by fire. An angel with a “flaming sword” guarded the way to Eden. God called Moses to ministry by appearing as a fire in a bush. God guarded Israel’s escape from Egypt as a pillar of fire. The Angel of the Lord ascended to Heaven in fire in front of Samson’s parents when they offered him a meal. God also appeared as a fire to Solomon at the dedication of the temple. And in the Gospels and the book of Acts it is said that the Lord baptizes his people in fire. Fire is a symbol of judgment and purification. For God to answer Elijah in fire is a demonstration that Elijah was the prophet of the Lord, and the Lord was calling Israel back to covenant worship. (V.26) Then they took the ox which was given them and they prepared it, and they called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice and no one answered. And they limped about the altar which they had made. The word for limp is translated as struggle earlier in our passage. They limped between belief in Baal and Yahweh. But when they saw how Baal did not answer their prayers something began to change. (V.27) And at noon Elijah ridiculed them and said, “Call out with a loud voice, since he is a god; undoubtedly he is attending to business, or is on the way, or is on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep, and will awaken.” IS RIDICULE EVER A VALID WAY TO MAKE A LEGITIMATE POINT? ELIJAH DID IT. HOW CAN SARCASM OR HUMOR ILLUSTRATE THE ABSURD? Baal’s prophets were growing desperate in their efforts to see Baal answer. After the morning hours passing with no result, Elijah ridiculed them, but they do not turn. In fact, things are about to get worse. Prophetically speaking, there is great irony here. Elijah is painting a picture of what God is like through his criticism of Baal. He is not on the way. He is already there. He is not on a journey, he is always present. God never sleeps. This is ironic because Jesus was all these things as God in human flesh. He attended to business, took journeys, was on the way from one place to the next. And he slept. Yet, he was God, living as a man. (V.28-29) So they cried out with a loud voice, and cut themselves according to their custom with swords and lances until blood gushed out on them. When midday was past, they raved until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice; but there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention. This was an all day affair. The prophets of Baal cried out and cut themselves all day, for several hours. This was in keeping with their religious practices, to try to awaken Baal from his slumber and bring rain. But it was to no avail. There was no voice and no one answered because Baal did not exist. (V.31) Then Elijah took twelve stones, corresponding to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD had come, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” Some commentators believe that the broken altar on Mount Carmel was actually constructed by King David. But it fell into disrepair. Elijah is using the altar and stones to remind them of the Mosaic covenant. Additionally, ancient near east people’s believed that if you knew a god’s name it gave you power or control. But here, the Lord does the naming. He is the one who is in control. (V.32-35) And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD; and he made a trench around the altar, large enough to hold two measures of seed. Then he laid out the wood, and he cut the ox in pieces and placed it on the wood. And he said, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” And he said, “Do it a second time,” so they did it a second time. Then he said, “Do it a third time,” so they did it a third time. The water flowed around the altar, and he also filled the trench with water. Notice the use of the number three. Previously Elijah laid himself on the widow’s son three times. Now he has water poured three times. The imagery here is of three years of drought, so water is poured three times. This is significant because Israel had been experiencing a drought for three years. Using this much water on a sacrifice might have seemed wasteful. But something more important was going on. Baal was known as a storm god. He could bring rains. Yet Elijah is showing that God is the only true god. God can answer by fire and lick up the water that the prophets of Baal associated with their false god. (V.36-37) Then at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet approached and said, “LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. Answer me, LORD, answer me, so that this people may know that You, LORD, are God, and that You have turned their heart back.” ELIJAH SAID HE DID EVERYTHING AT GOD’S WORD. DO YOU DO EVERYTHING AT GOD’S WORD? WHY OR WHY NOT? This is the whole point of what Elijah is trying to accomplish, “That this people may know that You, LORD, are God, and that You have turned their heart back.” In fact, this is the purpose of the prophetic office, to turn people’s heart toward the Lord. Elijah’s prayer was humble and simple and only took a few seconds. Compare that to the raving of Baal’s prophets for hours on end with no result other than frustration and self mutilation. This kind of humble heart is what God responds to. (V.38) Then the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood, and the stones and the dust; and it licked up the water that was in the trench. This is God’s final word on the matter of false gods and prophets. He answered Elijah immediately with fire and the fire consumed everything, even the stones. This was a certain symbol of judgment. Fire is judgment. Nothing like this had ever been seen before. Only Yahweh is the true God. (V.39) When all the people saw this, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The LORD, He is God; the LORD, He is God!” The people likely made this confession in great terror. They were idol worshippers and the true God had just answered a solitary prayer with fire. So, they cried out in hopes that God would spare them. While the confession the people made was good, some commentators note that it didn’t go far enough. It’s one thing to declare the Lord is God, but it’s another thing to truly follow and obey him. Remember what James said. “Even the demons believe, and tremble” (James 2:19). (V.40) Then Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.” So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slaughtered them there. In slaughtering the prophets of Baal, Elijah is following the covenant law in Deuteronomy 13:9-11, which required the death of false prophets. Notice where the judgment was carried out. At a brook. Three years earlier, Elijah confronted Ahab with a judgment of no rain, then he went to hide at a brook. He was probably there for about a year. Now at the end of this episode when God is about to bring the rain back to the land, he executes judgment at a brook, and the false prophets of Baal are destroyed. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? We’ve learned that God was calling Israel back into covenant relationship with him. We’ve learned that God was challenging Israel’s idol worship. We’ve learned that false gods cannot answer or help their worshipers. We’ve learned that God answers the prayers of those who pray according to his will. INTERPRETATION What is the author’s big idea? Realize that God is truly God, and fully commit your life to him with no reservations. The Israelites at Mount Carmel had a dramatic testimony for who God was. They yelled out, probably in terror, “The Lord, he is God!” At that moment, they abandoned Baal worship and slaughtered the false prophets. God wants us to remove from our lives that which supplants our dedication to Christ or abandons him altogether. Remember that at first the scripture says in verse 20, “The people did not answer him so much as a word.” They were truly limping between two opinions. They did not want to offend God, but they also did not want to offend Baal. They had to be pushed over the edge in some fashion to make a true commitment to the one true God. Once they saw the power of God in the miracle, then they confessed that the Lord was God. The idea that Israel is God’s people is very important in scripture. God does not have any relationships with people outside of establishing a covenant. God’s covenants are how he manages his relationships. If you are outside of a covenant with God, then you have no relationship with God and cannot experience his love. Look at the response of the people to Elijah’s actions. When he challenged the people about deciding for God, it says in verse 21, “And the people did not answer him a word.” They were idol worshipers as was Ahab, who was present with them. They probably feared contradicting the king, so they kept silent. But they were waiting for the evidence of Elijah’s words. Then, when Elijah began to prepare the altar and sacrifice the people helped him restore the altar. Then in verse 30 the people, “Came near” to Elijah at his call and helped him with the altar and the water. Then, when God responded to Elijah’s prayer, they went all in by declaring, “The Lord, he is God! The Lord, he is God!” The end result was that the people captured the false prophets in verse 40 so that Elijah could kill them. Ahab himself never repented, but his people did. They went from noncommittal to the beginnings of covenant obedience. Israel had a covenant with God under the Mosaic Law, but they violated that covenant by worshipping other gods. Because of this, they were separated from God just as their king, Ahab was. So, Elijah chose things that reminded Israel of the covenant. He chose a mountain where King David may have built an altar to God. This would have spoken of the King’s faithfulness to God. Elijah reconstructed the altar according to the number of the tribes of Israel. This would have reminded them of God founding and establishing them as a people group, and as a nation. It also spoke to the covenant God made with Israel under the Mosaic Law. Elijah chose a ox, an animal used for sacrifice to bring God near to the people. He drenched the sacrifice with water, which testified to God’s curse of withholding the rain for idol worship as he said he would do in Deuteronomy 11:17 and 28:24. Everything Elijah did spoke of bringing Israel back into covenant faithfulness. God was the true God, and Israel was his covenant people. Ultimately, as we’ll see in our next lesson, God restored the rain, possibly in response to Israel’s repentance in declaring the Lord is God. APPLICATION Give God exclusive devotion over your life. What supplants or replaces God in your life? God is not one who negotiates. He wants exclusive rights to your devotion and life. If you’ve been unsure about your devotion or relationship to Christ, you can make a change right now. First, go to God in prayer, next Confess the sin of not following the Lord fully, then Dedicate your whole life to Christ, leaving nothing out Eradicate out of your life that which keeps you from exclusive devotion to Christ Remember that he is not only our Savior, but he is also our Lord. This means that he has supremacy over our lives and everything in our lives. We should live as such. Whatever is false in your life, eradicate it like Elijah did to the prophets of Baal. Remember, God does not negotiate. He wants full surrender. (1) Elwell, Walter A., and Barry J. Beitzel. 1988. “Carmel.” In Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, 1:418. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

Christian psychologist Dr. Chet Weld discusses six primary drivers that skew our self-image and lead to faulty thinking.

Learn to respond to children rather than react to children. Because when we react, we react emotionally and our emotions. Emotions are not a great key for living. You have to settle back and you have to look at things from behind that person’s eyes. Now the authoritarian parent is, “Hey, what’s wrong with you?” I mean, there’s a tone of anger. It just precipitates a boil over of some kind. Think rationally, calm down, learn to remove your sails from your child’s wind in hopes of bringing peace and harmony to the North American family. www.birthorderguy.com .

How can we identify the symptoms of grief in ourselves and others? What are some Bible principles that can help you heal today? Counselor Bobbie Rill and Dr. Deb Waterbury discuss ways to process loss.

Children say cruel things. We can't always protect our children from cruelty, but we can give them tools to cope and respond appropriately. Parents, you can help your child to be confident and kind. www.birthorderguy.com .