“There’s a New Kid in Town” | Sunday Message

Hey there, thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you.

If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org. Turn your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 17. How many of you brought a Bible with you to church? Let me see your Bible. Okay, good, good.

How many of you are reading the Bible on a tablet or a phone? Raise it up. Get out. Just get out. No, I'm joking.

It's all good. Turn in whatever your device is to 1 Kings 17. Why don't we pray? Father, bless now this time as we open your Word.

Help us to be men and women that make a difference in our culture because we need it now, perhaps more than ever. Speak to us from Scripture we ask. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Elijah the prophet. Now what do you think of when that name pops into your head, Elijah? Well, he was a miracle working prophet, wasn't he? He raised a child from the dead. He stormed boldly into the court of the wicked King Ahab and his wife Jezebel and said it will not rain but according to my word. And of course we can't forget Elijah praying in fire coming down from heaven up on Mount Carmel.

Great guy to have around at a barbecue, by the way. And not only that but Elijah didn't even die like a normal person. He was caught up into heaven in a chariot of fire and if that's not enough he shows up in the New Testament in the transfiguration with Jesus and Moses. So that's what we think of when we think of Elijah but we should also think about his humanity, his deep depression and discouragement when things did not work out. He experienced intense fear and loneliness. At times he doubted the faithfulness of God. He allowed his anger to distort his thinking and he experienced such dark depression on one particular day he wanted to die. Who was this guy Elijah? Simple answer, he was a man just like you. James 5 17 says Elijah was a man just like us or as another translation puts it Elijah was as human as we are and it's so true.

Elijah came at a very dark time in the history of Israel but God used this one man to change history and cause Israel to turn back to God and it shows how one man or one woman can make all the difference. It was dark then and it's dark now isn't it? In our culture today we have so many problems in our world, in our nation. Racial and political divides are raging.

Violent crime is off the charts and on the streets. The family is under attack. Many not only want to redefine the family they want to even redefine what a man and a woman are. And as it turns out Roe v Wade is probably going to be overturned by the Supreme Court and that is a good thing. That is an answer to our prayers but boy people are freaking out over that and because they want to continue in that path of taking the lives of the unborn. It reminds us of the passage that says in the last days things would go from bad to worse.

Listen if you have a constant diet of news you're going to be an agitated, upset, unhappy, and probably pretty depressed person. In fact you can become so distraught you might say there's just no hope. There's just no hope but there's always hope and the reason there's always hope is because God is here and just as God turned Israel around God could turn America around. So we need to pray for a spiritual revival, a spiritual awakening but listen to this. Revival is what God does for us but evangelism is what we do for God. I can't make a revival happen.

You can't either. We can pray for one. We can prepare the ground. Maybe I should say we can prepare the ground. Prepare if you will our hearts but having said that evangelism is something that I and you can do and here at Harvest we take the Great Commission seriously. Because we know it's the only thing that can turn around a man or a woman's heart is the power of the gospel.

That's why we go to places like Boise, Idaho. In fact I joked with the people back there. I said I am here to preach to all the Californians that have moved here.

And then I said I'm going to take them all back home with me and they all applauded. No one wants us but we want to continue to bring the gospel in every way that we can. But that is not the attitude of every Christian. Some Christians want to evade the culture.

If they were to sum up their position it would be isolation. But that's virtually impossible. You can't remove yourself and your children from this culture.

The culture will find you. By the way that's not what Jesus told us to do. He did not tell us that we should isolate. He told us that we should infiltrate. He told us that we should permeate. Our objective as Christians is not to evade.

It's to invade. Does that make sense? Evade, oh I'll tell you what's in that.

I don't want to talk to that non-believer. They have cooties. Remember cooties? How many of you have never heard the word cooties?

You're probably young. Well anyway back when I was in school we had cooties. You'd touch someone, you have cooties.

And so then we would write KP on our hand. You have cooties? No I don't. Why not?

Cootie protection. It somehow worked. But anyway I don't want to talk to that non-believer. They might influence me.

Yes but what about you influencing them? Jesus has called us to be both salt and light in the culture. He said you are the salt of the earth but if salt has lost its saltiness what good is it? It's like a decaf oat milk lavender latte. If you're going to order a decaf oat milk lavender latte why don't you just add the word worthless as well and then I'm with you. Or it's like a Coke that's lost its carbonation. It's gone flat.

An unsalty Christian who doesn't make a difference. So salt had two purposes back in the first century. Number one it stopped the rotting of the meat. They would rub it into the meat to preserve it. So it preserved.

And the other thing salt does is stimulate thirst. So in the culture today I'm here to stop the spread of corruption which means I speak up for what is true. I speak out against what is wrong. And I'm also hopefully by the way that I'm living stimulating in others a thirst for God. Hopefully there's something in my life, in your life, in our lives that a non-believer would see and say I want what they have. And secondly we're to be light. Jesus said let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven. So I'm there to do good works obviously but to also proclaim the gospel.

But this is not happening in many cases. And in Israel's history they were going from bad to worse and things were getting dark and it parallels our time today. They had turned to other gods. It's not that they disavowed the true God, the Lord God, but they wanted some other gods as well. They sort of wanted to have their cake and eat it too. By the way what does that even mean? You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I've had cake and I've eaten it. But you know sort of the idea of you know you can't do both. You can't live in two worlds and that's what they were doing. They had abandoned God. And if you abandon God a moral breakdown will inevitably happen. G.K. Chesterton said quote, when a man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing.

He believes in everything and anything. End quote. And that's what we have today in America. I would call it an ABC culture.

ABC. Anything but Christ. Oh I'll look at that philosophy. I'll entertain this idea.

I'll look into this other thing. But Jesus Christ don't talk to me about him. Don't open the Bible near me. It's a complete intolerance and we have this moral breakdown. You cannot have morality without spirituality. And when I use the word spirituality I mean without faith in God himself.

So they failed to do this and their troubles began. But let's not be too quick to judge them because of their idolatry. For we too have our idols. And I'll talk about that later. But an idol is anyone or anything that takes the place of God in your life. Whatever fires you up.

Whatever you're the most passionate about. That potentially is your idol or your God with a small G. So a little historical background before we dive in. In the history of Israel they had been ruled by three kings. King Saul, King David, and King Solomon. Now every one of these kings had their flaws. David was the greatest of the three. Saul had his moments where he ruled quite well. Then he did some horrible things. He was rejected, replaced by David. Solomon had a great beginning. He was so known for his wisdom people came from around the world to listen to him including the queen of Sheba.

But then he lapsed and fell into sin. But these three kings ruled over Israel but then after the death of Solomon there was a division in the nation. They had their own civil war if you will. And two kingdoms came as a result.

The northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And idolatry permeated everything. So now there's a new king in town and his name is Ahab. He married an extremely wicked woman named Jezebel who effectively was the power behind the throne. Jezebel was a full tilt idol worshiper and she introduced Baal worship to Israel. Now Baal was a God that represented the elements.

He was the God of the sun, of the stars, of the wind, of the rain, of the God of all of those things and his very name meant master or Lord. That's why it's interesting when there was a contest between Elijah the prophet and the prophets of Baal he said, Hey let's call out to God and the God that answers by fire, that's a true God. That should have been a piece of cake for Baal.

He's a fire god. Now they couldn't pull it off because Baal is not real. He was a non-existent God but Baal was the God they were now worshipping. And actually as part of Baal worship it required the sacrifice of your first born male child. So this is how wicked things had become. And then Jezebel also introduced the worship of Ashtoreth who was the goddess of sex and violence. So the people are living immoral lives with impunity thinking they'll never face the repercussions for it.

It was so bad that God said in 1 Kings 16 33, Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. We said well this is horrible but wait a second do we not still bow at the altars of sex and violence? Have you watched TV lately? Have you seen a movie recently?

Have you listened to a lot of the popular music? And offering our children to a God, what do you call the murder of innocent children in the name of reproductive rights? It's effectively the same thing. People think they can break the laws of God and not face the consequences. But God gives us this warning.

Don't be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows that will he also reap.

The boy king Belshazzar who ruled Babylon found this out the hard way. One day he decided to go out of his way to mock and ridicule God. He called for the special instruments and vessels used by the Jews and their worship of the Lord to be taken and filled with wine. And they toasted and prayed to their false gods effectively thumbing their nose at the Lord. And the Lord responded because Belshazzar looked over on the wall and he saw a hand, just a hand, writing something on the wall. What did this heavenly graffiti say? It said your number's up buddy.

Party's over. You've been weighed in God's balances and you've been found lacking. So we think oh well I've done this sin for years. I've gotten away with it. Nothing really bad has happened.

I think I can always get away with it. It reminds me of a story I just read in the paper the other day. Well not the paper. I saw it online.

I actually don't read a paper but it's an expression now. A man in Maryland was found dead in his home from a snake bite. Apparently this guy had 124 snakes in his house. It included rattlesnakes, cobras, black mambas.

All of those are poisonous. And guess what happened? One of the snakes bit him.

And then he died. So I'm not making a lot of it. I'm thinking it's sad. But if you hang around in a house with a bunch of poisonous snakes, this is gonna happen. Right? And if you continue to break God's laws and disobey him, it'll eventually catch up with you. Ecclesiastes 8-11 says, Because sentence against an evil work is not executed quickly, the hearts of the sons of men are set to do evil. Let me paraphrase that. Because you get away with something for a long time, you think you'll always get away with it.

But you won't. And this is what's happening now to Israel. Funny thing. Ahab Lader describes Elijah as the one who troubles Israel. This is your fault, Elijah. We have this drought.

We have these problems. You brought it on us. And Elijah's response was, I'm not the one who troubles Israel.

You're the one who troubles Israel. In the same way we often blame God for what we bring upon ourselves. So God brought Elijah into the scene to be a blazing light. God always has his right man or his right woman at the right time. When the people were rebelling against God, the Lord said, sent Enoch and Noah. When the people were in slavery, God sent Moses. When the very survival of Israel was at stake, the Lord sent Esther. And what do these people all have in common?

Answer. They were imperfect people serving a perfect God. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Again, Elijah was a man just like you.

He was an ordinary human being, but he took his stand. That is why I'm calling this series Elijah, The Power to Stand. Because we need more Elijahs today.

We need more men and women who will stand boldly for their faith. He appeared at the zero hour in Israel's history. In fact, nobody could have handled a couple like Ahab and Jezebel better than the prophet Elijah. You know, he followed no protocols. He made no introductions.

There was no difference to the royal presence. He didn't care about prestige and power. He just kind of walked into the court and did what God called him to do. He didn't really care about his appearance that much either. It would appear because 2 Kings 1-8 says, He was a hairy man and wore a leather belt around his waist. So either he wore a garment of hair or he himself was really hairy. Amazingly, I uncovered an image of Elijah recently that's never been seen before. There it is on the screen. Oh no wait, that's me from 1970 after I just baptized somebody. Notice the trim on the sleeves.

I'm not sure what's going on with that shirt. That was a joke. Okay.

So here's the story now. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Kings 17 and I'm just going to read one verse. This is a power packed verse. Elijah the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead said to Ahab, as the Lord God of Israel lives before whom I stand, there will not be dew nor rain these years except at my word.

I'll stop right there. Elijah flung down the gauntlet of his challenge at the very nerve center of Israel. There was a new kid in town. You wonder what they were thinking. I mean here are the king and the queen sitting on their regal thrones, dressed in their royal robes, and in comes this outback guy, you know?

All hairy and crazy looking. He makes this renounceance and walks out and someone probably said, how did he get through security? But that was the way Elijah rolled. In fact, his very name really describes his mission and purpose. The name Elijah means my God is Jehovah or the Lord is my God.

His very name was a rebuke to Ahab and Jezebel. He's effectively saying, listen, your God may be Baal, but my God is the Lord as the Lord lives before whom I stand. Your God is not alive.

My God is. Now where he came from is of note. The Bible says he was a tishbite from Gilead.

That means nothing to us what's a tishbite. Where's Gilead? But actually Gilead was east of the Jordan River.

The people that lived there were kind of rough hewn, tanned from the sun, tough people, sort of like the Australian outback. So Elijah walked into the court and he said, that's not a knife, this is a knife. That was my crocodile Dundee. How many of you remember crocodile Dundee? Great.

Whatever. Can you get the picture of just sort of a little bit of a wild man walking into this place of culture and he just lays down this message. Where did he get this boldness? Because as we explore his life, he was not some kind of a superhero.

He didn't wear a cape. He was just like you. He had his emotional ups and his emotional downs. So where did he get the chutzpah, if you will, or the courage to do this? I'm going to give you four principles of Elijah's life.

Number one. Elijah stood continually in the presence of God. Elijah stood continually in the presence of God. What does he say verse one? As the Lord God of Israel lives before whom I stand.

What does that mean? It means that he understood wherever he went, the Lord was with him. Whatever place he was in, God was there. He was not alone. You know Psalm 91 says, he that dwells in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. You have to walk pretty closely to someone to stand in their shadow.

You ever try to do that? And that meant that he was always seeking to be close to the Lord, walking closely with the Lord. And listen, when you stand in the presence of God, you will not bow before any man. That's where he got the courage.

Proverbs 28 one says, the righteous are as bold as a lion. And we need to remember that wherever we go or to whomever we speak, wherever it is, God is with us. It's true, Elijah was just one person, but he was one person with God. You ever feel that way? Like you're the only person who believes. Maybe you're the only believer in your family. The only believer in your neighborhood. The only Christian in your classroom.

The only follower of Jesus among your group of friends and you feel just out there all alone. Well maybe you are, but one person can make the difference and Elijah was that one person. And God is looking for people like this today. He's looking for ordinary people to use to make a difference, to shine their light. Ezekiel 22 30 says, I sought for a man among them who would make a wall and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land so I should not destroy it.

But the Lord says, but I couldn't find anyone. As the Lord is looking through this space we're in there at Harvest Riverside looking at you, could he find a man, could he find a woman to stand in the gap like Elijah? Chuck Swindoll in his commentary on the life of Elijah made this statement and I quote, Those who find comfort in the court of Ahab can never bring themselves to stand in the gap with Elijah.

Very true. Elijah stood continually in God's presence. He was always aware that the Lord was with him. Number two, Elijah was a man of prayer. Elijah was a man of prayer.

James 5 17 says, Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again, he prayed and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crop. So it was Elijah's prayer in private that was a source of his power in public.

And I wonder if you are a person of prayer. This verse that says he prayed earnestly means that he prayed with passion. The Hebrew word means he prayed with prayer. It's not even the words he prayed. It was the way he prayed. It was the intensity of his prayer. It was the idea that I am really not going to take no for an answer here. I am going to press in to the throne of God.

There is an indication of his intensity in his physical posture. And I think one of the reasons there is no power in our prayers is because there is no heart in them. You know some Christians today are more interested in protesting than praying.

Quicker to boycott than to understand God can literally change things through prayer. When was the last time you prayed about the problems plaguing our culture and society today? If you see it on the news then don't throw up your hands in this prayer. Let's pray about this right now.

Let's pray for God to intervene in this situation. When Peter was arrested in the book of Acts to be executed the next day, we read in Acts 12 one, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church. A lot of power in that verse too. Constant prayer. They prayed with passion. Offered for him by the church. They prayed together. Get together with fellow Christians and say let's pray about this right now.

Let's commit this to the Lord right now. Elijah was a man of prayer. The third principle in his life causing him to make a difference was he knew the power of Scripture and he acted on it.

Again number three. He knew the power of Scripture and he acted on it. Now why did he make this pronouncement to King Ahab? Deuteronomy 11 16 says this. Be careful or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods. This is a warning to Israel. You can bow down to them. Then the Lord's anger will burn against you and he will shut the heavens so it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you.

Okay. That's a warning. God is saying listen. You turn to other gods, it will stop raining.

You won't have food. And the people had bowed to Baal and Ashtoreth and now the drought is coming. So he delivered that message.

That's point number four. Elijah faithfully delivered the message God gave him to deliver. He gave that message and that's not an easy message to give.

To walk in and say you're going to have a trot. People are going to die. You've been a great audience. Good night and God bless.

Mic drop. Who wants to say that? And in the same way we as Christians love to tell people that God loves them and he does. We love to tell people that Christ can fill that void in their life and he can. We love to tell them that they can be forgiven of all of their sins and that can happen. We love to tell them that when they die they can go to heaven.

It's all true. But it's a little harder to say by the way the only way to have a relationship with God is through Jesus Christ because he himself said I am the way the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father but by me. See here's the thing that we need to remember. We can't offer God's forgiveness without speaking of repentance.

We can't offer the hope of heaven without warning about hell. We can't edit this book. You've probably heard of Jefferson's Bible. Thomas Jefferson who was our president had his own version of the Bible. He basically took a pair of scissors and cut out all the parts he didn't like.

I think it was primarily the miracles. And so it's called Jefferson's Bible. Some people want to do the same thing. Well I love this. I love that.

I don't really agree with these other things so I'll just edit them out. No it's not the way it works. He faithfully gave this message and we need to faithfully give it but we must do it with love and compassion. You know I think sometimes we make the mistake of thinking non-believers are the enemy. They're the enemy. Ah they voted for that. They're the enemy. They said that.

They're horrible. Okay maybe they've done the wrong thing but they're not the enemy. The enemy is not the non-believer. The enemy is the devil who's holding the non-believer in his control.

Paul talks about those who are being held captive by Satan to do his will. News flash. You used to be one of those people too.

And so did I. But we forget about that. But they're the enemy. No they need to come out from the power of the enemy. So we need to constantly be looking for ways to build bridges to non-believers.

And as D.O. Moody once said, the great evangelist, when you preach in hell you should always do so with tears in your eyes. So when you present the gospel to others do it with love and compassion. Colossians 4 says, be pleasant and hold their interest when you speak the message. Choose your words carefully and be ready to give answers to anyone who asks questions.

I love that. Be pleasant. Be a nice person. Don't be obnoxious.

Don't talk down to people. You're just one beggar telling another beggar where to find food. I'm not better than anybody else. Better off, yes.

Better, no. So you come with humility and tell them how Christ can change their life as well. As I've said before, if you want to win some, be winsome. And so be nice about it. Be pleasant about it. But tell them the truth because there are people that are searching.

I've mentioned abortion today. And I want to close with a voice mail that was sent to me that was transcribed. And also a letter that was sent to me. The first was a letter from a young woman named Crystal. And she writes, I listened to Greg every day when I was working at Planned Parenthood.

This is in North Carolina. I worked there for almost a year. And there was a certain sermon, writes Crystal, that Greg gave that scared me. And it hit harder than it had hit before because one day I was counting the pieces of a dismembered baby and I thought about his message. Where he said if Jesus came back right then and I was in that POC room, would he leave me behind?

So in the message I asked this question. Is there anything you're doing right now that you would be ashamed to be doing if Jesus were to come back? And here's Crystal assisting in an abortion procedure when it suddenly dawns on her the real gravity of what is actually happening. So she repented, she committed her life to Christ, she quit working at Planned Parenthood and now she is an advocate for the lives of the unborn. So that's what Christ can do for a person. But what about the woman who's had the abortion?

Is there any hope for her? Of course. So this voicemail was sent to me from this lady who said I have about a 45 minute commute to and from work and I listened to Pastor Greg's podcast and I just finished listening to one of his messages called Let's Talk About Heaven. She writes, I had an abortion back in 2010. It's been a long journey of healing. But when I finally came to the realization that the safest place to be is at the foot of the cross, I was able to experience mercy and grace and the love that God has for me. I'm getting emotional but I know there's gonna be a day when I'll be reunited with my baby and united with Jesus Christ and I wanna say thank you. Isn't that beautiful?

That's true. You see the Bible says God can bring beauty out of ashes and the oil of joy for mourning. You know Mother's Day is kind of a problematic day for some, isn't it? Depends on your relationship with your mom.

As a mom it depends on your relationship with your kids and your husband or maybe your ex-husband or all those things, right, are in play. So it's not always wonderful, happy day for many people and we think maybe as moms I've made mistakes, as fathers I've fallen short, as a son or a daughter I could have done a better job and all these things, we've all messed up. But here's the good news, God gives second chances.

So start afresh today. You can't change the past any more than you can unscramble a scrambled egg. But you can start anew and say okay today if I've done something wrong to someone I'm going to own it, I'm going to apologize for it, I'm gonna ask them to forgive me and now I'm going to try to be a better version of me. A more loving version, a more to the point, a more Christ-like version. But if you've done something you feel ashamed of or embarrassed by, God can forgive you. I mean here's this lady writing, she took the life of her unborn child but she said, and I love the way she put it, the safest place for me is at the foot of the cross where she experienced mercy and grace and the love that God has for her.

She got it right. That's it because Jesus died there on the cross for my sins and he has forgiven me of my sins and he has forgotten my sins and he won't hold them against me and there's even hope for the future. She says I'll be reunited with my baby and united with the Lord. Listen, whatever you've done, God can and will forgive you. But he won't force this forgiveness down your throat. You have to ask for it.

You have to call out for it. And I hope that some of you will do that as we close now in prayer. If you need to make a commitment or a recommitment to Jesus, you can do it right here, right now.

Let's pray. Father, I pray for everybody here, everybody watching. If they do not have a relationship with you, let this be the moment they believe. Let this be the moment they come to you and turn from their sin. Or the moment they come back to you because they've fallen away or they've had a lapse in their faith.

You are the God of second chances and third chances and fourth ones and so forth. I pray that your Holy Spirit will convict them of their sin and convince them of their need for Jesus. And as that lady wrote, find that the safest place to be is at the foot of the cross where they can experience mercy and grace. When our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, there might be somebody here that would just say, I need Jesus.

I don't have a relationship with him and I want one today. There might be somebody else who would say, I need to come back to Jesus. I was close to him at one point but I've wandered off, I veered off the path and I want to return to him today. If you need to make a commitment or a recommitment to Jesus Christ, I'm going to pray a simple prayer and I'm going to ask you to pray this prayer after me. You can pray it out loud if you like.

You can pray it quietly. But if you need to make this commitment or recommitment to Christ, pray this after me now. Just pray, Lord Jesus, I admit that I am a sinner. I've broken your laws. I've fallen short of your glory. But you said you died there on that cross for me and paid the price for my sin. And I turn from my sin now and I commit myself to you. I choose to follow you from this moment forward.

In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.org. And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest.org and click on Know God.