Elijah Calls Down Fire [Part 3]

Alan Wright, pastor, Bible teacher, and author of his latest book, The Power to Bless.

When something bad is going on, the Christian doesn't let his or her mind go to a place and say, oh no, it's because I'm a bad person and I'm under the judgment of God. No, it means instead that you're in a world and in this world there's trouble, but praise God, he's overcome the world and you have in your life nothing but the love of the Father for you now and forever. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Miracle Man, as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I'd like to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer.

Contact us at PastorAlan.org, that's PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860, that's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here's Alan Wright. This mountain where Moses had met with God and the people weren't even allowed to touch the mountain because it was too holy and Moses was meeting with God. This mountain where God put Moses in the cleft of a rock and all the greatness of God seen. But that's not what Elijah needed at the moment. Elijah already believed in the greatness of God. He had seen God do great things.

What he needed was something altogether different. It is possible to have seen the greatness of God and even be used by God for great things and feel distant from Him. Elijah, you've experienced some very dramatic things, that's wonderful. But a walk with me, the Lord is saying, isn't about you having a Mount Carmel every day. It's about you being close to my heart and me speaking to you. Knowing that God is powerful and awesome is important, but that doesn't heal your heart.

Something more intimate is needed. After the earthquake, a fire, verse 12, but the Lord was not in the fire and after the fire the sound of a low whisper. Some translations have said a still small voice. A little whisper and when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave and behold there came a voice to him and asked the same question.

What are you doing here Elijah? So God got his attention with a whisper. You know, partly this is just a good strategy because if you want to get somebody's attention, sometimes you're just going to get it better with a whisper. It reminded me of an old trick I used to use when leading kids at camp and stuff. And we'd do a little song that would lead, you know, trying to get ready for getting them quiet so they could listen to a message. In the old days we'd do this song called Whose Side Are You Leaning On?

And you ever heard of that? Whose side are you leaning on? And then old kids would get up and be like, I'm leaning on the Lord's side. And then they'd go, I lean, I lean, I lean, I lean. And they're all leaning on the Lord's side. And then we'd be like, whose side are you dancing on? Dancing on the Lord's side. And then they'd just all dance out, dance out, dance out, dance, you know.

And then we'd get to this point and this is the trick. Whose side are you shouting on? And there's nothing that elementary age boys like to do more than shout. And so they go, I'll shout, I'll shout, I'll shout, I'll shout, I'll shout it on the Lord's side. And just let them shout.

And then you come to this thing. Whose side are you whispering on? Whispering on the Lord's side. And then they go, I'll whisper, I'll whisper, I'll whisper, I'll whisper, I'll whisper. And then we go, whose side are you sitting down on? You just trick them into listening to you.

Farley, he just wanted to get Elijah's attention, his power in a whisper. Whispers the voice of comfort. If a mother's baby's crying, you'll never help the baby by shouting at the baby. But a whisper, a lullaby, comforts. Whispers the voice of closeness. So it's like if Ann and I were in some busy event out in the downtown area and the crowds are out and she's on one side of the street, I'm on the other.

If I needed to get her attention, it'd be like Ann, Ann over here, Ann. You've got to have a louder voice because you're not near each other. But if we were just at a restaurant having dinner with friends and there's some noise all around the restaurant but you're nearby, you're like Ann, could you pass the salt? But if we have our own dinner, quiet and intimate, maybe a quiet place with candlelight, then your voices go lower, right?

Or closer. And then that evening and speaking to each other from our pillows, you might whisper. In other words, it's the language, the voice that you use when you're close to someone. And a whisper is the voice of intimacy because you whisper secrets. That's really in many ways what makes a relationship intimate is there are things that I tell you I don't tell other people and it's not meant for other people.

It is a whisper because I want you to know that there's a uniqueness to my love for you. And God has an intimate voice. And that's odd, but that intimate voice of God, that whisper in many ways can be more scary than any other manifestation of God. And yet in it is the nourishment that we need because we're made for intimacy with God. We are as God's children on the one hand, we are the people who have become enthralled with His glory and awe, and yet there's a mystery of being a child of God where we are also those children that have had intimate communication from God and a relationship with God so that we're very close to Him as our Father. And this is an unusual thing to be able to hold these in the proper tension, to know His greatness and in that sense to be in awe of Him and to know His closeness and like He is our Father. He's like, makes me think of, you know, like you'll watch somebody who just won the Super Bowl and a hundred million people are celebrating the celebrity of the quarterback and then he goes and picks up his two-year-old child and the child is unimpressed with the Super Bowl victory.

But he's very interested in the rough face of his daddy or just wanting to be hugged or do something silly with him because what is important to him is not that my dad is the Super Bowl champion, but that he is my Father. And I just have both of these things that went on in me all the time with God. I am in awe of His greatness, this one who is greater than anything I could imagine and I'm in awe. You're proud, you're His heir and you're a co-heir with Christ and there is a part of what Christian life is all about where you can feel the heartbeat of God and hear His whisper and you are simultaneously impressed by His holiness and yet you are so warmed by His love that you're just a little child in His arms. And that's what Elijah needed. He needed to know the closeness of God because sometimes when you go through the most difficult seasons of life when you so want God to shout, when you so want God to fix every problem, I'm telling you sometimes what God does instead is a greater miracle.

He comes and whispers to you. I've told the story often but I think back and love to tell this miracle story that during one of the hardest seasons of our lives, now many years ago, several things came together to make it very difficult and the greatest problem of which was Ann's little sister Mary had received an unwelcome diagnosis of cancer that no one could have imagined that a young woman with four little children who's never smoked has lung cancer and so it advanced too far and it got into her bones and she bravely fought and the ministry of the church and the prayer and became the consuming focus of all of our lives asking God to heal her in this earth and this cancer that eventually took her life it was also busy trying to take away our joy and consumed every bit of our lives. It's just one of those times. In this same season, not long thereafter, Ann was in a terrible car crash where somebody ran a stop sign full speed, hit her car, overturned it, our baby girl and one of our nieces was in there. At first when I saw it, I thought perhaps they were dead and gone and God spared their lives and went therapy for her leg that was injured. Ministry was challenging and difficult. We were understaffed.

We had a very difficult season and who amongst us hasn't gone through seasons like that? That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Until now, the hardcover book has only been available through retail sales but this month, Alan Wright Ministries wants to send you the book as our thank you for your donation. When you give this month, you'll not only receive the bestselling book but you'll also receive a free five-session video course in which Pastor Alan teaches how to bless and covers content not found in the book.

The video course includes a detailed study guide perfect for personal growth or small group discussion. Take your gift today and discover the power to bless. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. Now we are in our final days of offering this special product. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. In the midst of praying for Mary and her treatment and our hearts hurting for her, in the midst of that, we had a guest come, a friend and mentor, Jack Deere, to come and do some meetings here and teaching. And he brought with him a friend of his, a parishioner, a businessman from Texas named Carl Greer. And the reason he brought Carl is because we were learning a lot about ministry and about how God speaks to us. And Carl had a wonderful gift in which he could really hear wonderful encouraging things from the Lord and share those with people in ministry.

It was a beautiful, beautiful prophetic gift that he had. And Carl came and ministered, and we actually had, we'd never done this very much, but we actually had Carl just stand up in church, and the Lord just spoke to him, and there were several people. He just said, if I could share a word with you, and one was for my wife, and he shared with her that he felt like the Lord had shown him that God had seen Anne in times of prayer, and he described kind of this time of prayer that she had in her life, and Anne knew it was from the Lord. And so we loved Carl, and we loved Jack, and during this period of time, Anne was just reaching out looking for ways to strengthen her own spirit, and one day we were in the Christian bookstore, and Anne walked over, and she pulled off a random book off the shelf. It wasn't a book that was on display. It wasn't a book that they even had more than one copy of, just a book in a long shelf with just hundreds of books in the Christian bookstore, and she pulled it out.

It was by a man named Ken Guyer, who does have some best-selling books, but this was not one of them. And she hasn't, in my knowledge, read any of Ken Guyer's books, and she pulled off this book by Ken Guyer called The Reflective Life. She walked over to me, and she said, I just want to get this book, and I just said, well, okay, honey. I said, but you know, I know you normally, you like to, you read other scriptures, you like Christian novels and stuff, but you don't read many books like this, Christian Living. She said, I know, I just feel like I want to get this book, and I said, well, you know, we got a ton, a million books at home, you know, but you know, and she said, I really want to get this book, and so I was like, you know, like coming from me who just buys books, because I like the cover of it even. I mean, I just love books. So she buys this book, and she comes home, and she starts sitting there in bed at night reading this book, and it's nourishing her as much as any book that I could ever remember nourished her. And she would read me excerpts, just I'm trying to fall asleep. She said, just listen to this. And it was good, but it wasn't nourishing me like it was nourishing her, but it was really touching her, and she just was immersing herself in Ken Guyer's The Reflective Life.

During this season, this very difficult season. It was a book about learning to hear God's whisper, really. Anyway, after Carl came, and he went back to Texas, and I wrote Carl, I said, thank you so much for being here.

Your ministry was beautiful in our midst. I said, be sure and send me, you know, your receipts and such, and Carl wrote back a week or so later, and he sent a nice note to us, but it came in a package, and the note said, you know, I've been praying for you, Ann. It said, and the Lord just put on my heart that there's a book that might really bless you. And inside the package was Ken Guyer's The Reflective Life.

And we know there's almost zero chance of that happening. We knew immediately that God was sending this book, not because she needed the book. She already had the book. But God was sending a whisper. The Lord nourished me during that season. I liked to play the piano, and I'd quit playing. You know, I'd preach, and I'd preach the gospel with fervor, but my soul was sad, and I just quit playing the piano.

So I was talking to a friend and a mentor, Gordon Dalby, on the phone, and we would talk sometimes and pray, and we prayed, and he said, and he said, while we were praying, he said, I got a picture in my mind. He said, I think it might be from the Lord. He said, I don't know if you play the piano or not. It's probably just a cymbal, he said, but I just saw you sitting at a piano, and you had your hands there ready to play, and you wouldn't play. And so I think the Lord's just saying, go ahead and play.

And I said, Gordon, I do play the piano, but I haven't been playing it. And the Lord whispered to me that I know you're sad, but praise me. You'll be nourished by it. You know, if ever there was a time in Elijah's life where you might want God to shout like he did at Mount Carmel, what he really needed was the whisper of God. I'm telling you what God wants to do for you in those times where you might feel aimless or confused is not show up in an earthquake, a tornado, or a fire and maybe not fix everything in your life, but come to you with such gentleness like a mother would to her baby or even the way a bridegroom would speak to his bride, the language of closeness and comfort and intimacy, the whisper of God. Oh, that we could have ears to hear. This goes far to explain why Paul prayed over and over in one way or another, Lord, help us to hear. May the eyes of our heart be enlightened to know. Maybe it's why Jesus said to him who has ears, let him hear. Maybe our prayer should be let the distractions all fall away.

We clamor for the big and the busy. God may be there most powerfully in a little whisper. He's good. He loves you so much. He really does. And the times that I've really come to know the love of God, it's been like a whisper after all of the big and busy. And one way or another, I hear God say, I love you, child. And that changes everything. Okay, blackmailers, you're in it and I made it good.

Please don't roll my yard again. And please everyone remember that God, when He comes to you, will not come with blackmail threats. If you will just do this, this, this, and this, Alan, then I'll bless you. And know God comes to remind us that you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Because Jesus Christ came as the one who was sinless to take our sin so that anyone who trusts in Him would not be under condemnation. So God's voice to His people is not one of condemnation.

Jesus said it plainly, I came not to condemn, but to save. He's the healer. He is the deliverer. He is God with us. The Holy Spirit is the comforter and the greatest teacher in the world.

Oh God, speak to your people for the sound of your voice is sweet and good. And He turned Elijah's attention towards a new season of his life. He said, go and return on your way, verse 15, to the wilderness of Damascus.

It's 300 miles to the north. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria, and Yehu, the son of Nimshi, you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha, the son of Shaphat, of Abel, Mahala, you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. What is he doing? He is moving Elijah into a brand new season in which now, instead of it being about Elijah's mighty works, it's about an impartation to the next generation. Just a whisper. And suddenly life makes sense to the great prophet again. God's whisper is beautiful, and that's the gospel. Allen Wright.

In our conclusion of this teaching, Elijah calls down fire today. It's in the series Miracle Man, and Allen is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and our final word today. Ever feel like something's holding you back, as if you lack an important key that could change everything?

Is there someone you love who seems stuck? You'd like to help them, but how? What's missing? Blessing. We all need a positive faith-filled vision spoken over our lives. You can learn how to embrace the biblical practice of blessing through Pastor Alan Wright's new book, The Power to Bless, which quickly became an Amazon number one bestseller after its recent release. Until now, the hardcover book has only been available through retail sales, but this month, Allen Wright Ministries wants to send you the book as our thank you for your donation. When you give this month, you'll not only receive the bestselling book, but you'll also receive a free five-session video course in which Pastor Alan teaches how to bless and covers content not found in the book.

The video course includes a detailed study guide perfect for personal growth or small group discussion. Make your gift today and discover the power to bless. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. Now we are in our final days of offering this special product. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. So Allen, if you could recap, how is judgment, how is this a piece of good news? What this means for us, Daniel, is that, yes, Elijah, we see a picture of him calling down fire in God's judgment because there is judgment against sin. There is judgment against rebellion against God and all of the selfishness of humanity.

But Jesus took that judgment. So when you're a Christian, it means you don't have to live in any fear or condemnation. It means that really justice is now on your side because Jesus has made you justified. And you're declared to be His righteousness. And when you experience, I guess the takeaway, we're seeing that you experience God's grace like this, it just changes everything in your life. You see your whole life differently. You're changed by such love and mercy. Jesus took the fire so that it wouldn't be called down on us. Today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.