Next Mountain [Part 1]

Allen Wright, pastor, Bible teacher, and author of his latest book, The Power to Bless. It might be a little bit longer than you thought. It might be a little more uncomfortable than you thought. It might be a little more frustrating than you thought. It might be that you feel like you've been in traffic. It might be that you're just ready to get out of it. But there's going to be a point where it feels like you pull back onto the main road, and you're full speed ahead, arrow headed in the direction that God has pointed.

What a word! 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, Second Wind, as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now, a copy of Pastor Alan's book, Lover of My Soul. This can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Allen Wright. Are you ready for some good news? With God, the valley isn't a detour nor a destination. It's preparation for the next mountain. We're going to look at the story of Elijah, who has a mountaintop experience at Mount Carmel. And then in the valley, on the other side of it, becomes strangely depressed and has to learn to set his eyes for the next mountain.

We're in a series on perseverance. I've called it Second Wind, like a runner who experiences that moment where it seems like he or she's just run out of energy. The muscles begin to freeze up.

The breath doesn't seem to be there. And something happens physiologically where an athlete can catch a second wind. And there's something like that in the spirit that I think we all need as we are coming through this long year of pandemic. And some people suffered greatly. Some have had major inconveniences. But all of us are tired of it. And we're tired of just the weight of everything being so different. And what I want to show you today from Elijah's story is that you can go through difficult times where it looks like maybe you've gotten off of the path, but you're actually still on it in God's plan.

And he can give you the energy that you need to take the next mountain. Well, my wife got stuck in construction traffic this week. It was over on Metalark, which they decided a few years ago that in Winston-Salem, Metalark Drive, they were going to expand this street. So they have started the construction. And she's creeping along at about two or three miles an hour when she saw a very strange sight that caught her eyes. It was the backside of a construction sign. And that backside of the sign in huge letters had our name right, W-R-I-G-H-T, right across the back of it. And Anne, who is quite sensitive to the ways the Lord will speak to us, thought, Lord, what's my name doing on the back of a sign?

Well, it had her attention. And all these different construction signs, but just one of them had the name right on the backside of it. So she's creeping along, creeping along, and they're going so slow that when she gets to the other side, she's able to look back and see what was on that construction sign. And it was this type of arrow that's not really indicating a detour exactly. It's not like you're going to detour and go way out of your way.

It's just that you've got to swing out wide to the right for a little bit and then you come back. But the arrow on the sign is pointing in the same direction that you were heading. And just in seeing the sign, she just felt the Lord speaking to her.

And she came and she shared it with me and she shared it with some of the leadership for the Awakenings Women's Ministry, that there might be a word in that picture. And I bore witness to this, that picture, that what we've been through and what maybe you feel like you're going through is something that at any moment it feels like I've gotten off the road a little bit. I don't feel like I'm exactly on the road in the way I'm supposed to be.

But the arrow in God's mind is still pointing in the same direction and you're still going to get there. It just is different. It's just a little different route than you thought. It might be a little bit longer than you thought. It might be a little more uncomfortable than you thought. It might be a little more frustrating than you thought. It might be that you feel like you've been in traffic. It might be that you're just ready to get out of it. But there's going to be a point where it feels like you pull back onto the main road and you're full speed ahead, arrow headed in the direction that God has pointed.

What a word. She's just driving down the road, the back of a construction site that says, right. Okay, God, I see you've written my name down there. Now what do you got a message for me? The message I think is not just for Anne or for me, I think it might be for any of us who are emerging with some of the weariness and some of the worry that has come out of pandemic. Are we going to be able to keep going in the right direction? And the answer from God today and Elijah's story is absolutely.

And I want to show you that it's very possible that the feelings that you have. Feelings of weariness, exhaustion or even depression, that those feelings do not mark the reality, that the arrow, the direction, the purposes of God, that's what marks your life. So the purposes of God are going to prevail. The story of Elijah is astounding. He is a character that is a historical figure who is so deemed to be like a bigger than life figure in the mind of Israel that he's expected, he's expected back and he appears in the transfiguration with Moses and Jesus. He is one who is used supernaturally in such a dramatic way that some of the most extraordinary miracles in the Bible happened through the prophet Elijah. Well, Elijah has this particularly powerful experience on the top of Mount Carmel, where all the prophets of the pagan deity Baal have come gathered together, 450 of them, to have a sort of showdown, a sort of competition with Elijah.

And the battle is going to be demonstrated in this. Two altars that are put out there and the agreement is whoever's God is the real God will consume the altar with fire. Baal's prophets cry unto the Lord, they lacerate themselves, and Elijah mocks them. He says, well, where's your God?

Maybe he's sleeping. And in one of the funniest passages of the Bible, Elijah says, well, maybe he's using the bathroom. You know, where's your God?

It doesn't do anything. And then Elijah stands up there, douses the altar with water, just showing off in this big showdown, and then calls upon the name of the Lord and the Lord consumes the altar with fire. And all the 450 prophets of Baal are defeated and it is made clear that God, the Lord, Jehovah, Yahweh, is the only true God. And you would think that King Ahab, having seen this, who's married to his pagan wife Jezebel, would go home to Jezebel, the queen, and say, Jez, listen, I saw it with my own eyes at Mount Carmel. The Lord Yahweh, Elijah's God, he's the true God, and we do not want to mess with him. We need to just follow Yahweh.

But instead, we pick up reading at 1 Kings 19, verse 1. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Elijah had been miraculously fed by ravens, prayed for there to be no rain and there wasn't, had a miracle of never-ending flour, raised a widow's son back to life, defeated 450 prophets of Baal. It was like, this is a cosmic mandate for Elijah.

This is proof positive. And Ahab, instead of going to his wife and saying, let's worship the Lord, he has been wed to this pagan wife. And instead of saying, let's get rid of the Asherah poles and let's quit all this Baalian worship, this is the unrivaled God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead, Ahab is like a mouse of a husband and he whimpers to his woman and he says, look at everything that Elijah has done. And he is whimpering and whining to his Jezebel.

Instead of taking to his knees in wonder, he whines his calls to his consort until she takes up his cause. That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears.

You've believed it in your mind. Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like. For any woman who has searched for true love, what you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of the five love languages says, the incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy his embrace, revel in his love.

After all, it's a match made in heaven. It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. 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. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Now these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month. 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. Verse 2. Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, So may the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow. When sin entered the world, so did shame.

And no sooner had Adam and Eve eaten the forbidden fruit than a voice slithered into the garden and said, Look at yourselves. You're flawed. You can't be loved or accepted as you are. You need to cover yourselves. You need to hide yourself. You aren't enough.

You aren't good enough. So they began to cover themselves and humanity began the practice of hiding. There's so many ways that we pretend, so many ways that we try to cover ourselves up, pretending to be what we're not, maybe hiding and masking our pain and anxiety of shame with a substance or an activity or some tantalizing sin. But for many, and I've been in this camp more, it is to cover up by proving that I'm good enough.

And so, look, here's Elijah. He's done it all, and yet he's in this vulnerable moment because he's done it all in a voice of shame manifested in Jezebel that we're going to see says, essentially, you did it and you did it seemingly all your best and all you could do, and yet it wasn't enough. And I think it's really important to recognize, beloved, that there is a kind of shame and anxiety that can come after our greatest moments of success, even our most godly, mountaintop experiences. I've found it to be the case, and I see it not only here but other places in Scripture, that there is a kind of effort from the devil to come against those that have had great moments with the Lord, this voice of shame. And it means that there's really no pinnacle that you can reach where you're suddenly immune from the spiritual battle. There's not a place where you've accomplished enough or even seen enough and done enough in Christ where you're immune from the voice of shame that comes against you. And this picture of Jezebel, this picture of shame, a controlling type voice, often people speak of the Jezebel spirit, whether there's a particular kind of demonic spirit attached to this, I don't know, but there's an attitude, there's a way of being that you can see in Jezebel. She lives by vows.

This is what I'm going to do. I will get them no matter what. She lives by her idols. Her determination is demonic. She can't let it go because she's just controlled by a hell itself. She's bound and determined. She domineers her husband. She tries to snuggle in close to leadership so that she could exert her influence, and she's after Elijah. Well, hearing about these threats, this is the great Elijah, and this is the moment where you would think Elijah would essentially say, who is this woman?

What does she think? I have just defeated 450 prophets of Baal. I've just seen the Lord supernaturally come down in fire. I'll call fire down on her also. Who cares about one woman's threat? You'd think that this is the way he would react.

So it's really strange at verse 3 to see, then Elijah was afraid and he arose and ran for his life. Forget her, Elijah, she's a flea. She's a nothing. She's a pagan.

She's just a blustery voice. Relax. Go take a vacation down by the Dead Sea. You've put in some really good quality prophetic ministry.

Take a few days off. You deserve it, but whatever you do, Elijah, don't be afraid of this woman, but instead this prophet that James says in his epistle is the model of faith whose prayers could change the atmosphere. Instead of having strength in this moment, Elijah feels all the faith drain out of him as if he didn't even know the Lord. And instead of taking his shame and exhaustion to God, he decides that he's going to deal with it in isolation. Look at this, verse 3.

He was afraid, arose, ran for his life, came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and look at this, and left his servant there. When he most needed fellowship, he least wanted it. One of my mentors, Gordon Dalby, a best-selling author, once wrote these words. The effort to hide the truth of your inadequacy and bear your shame consumes you and sabotages your destiny. When all your, listen to this, when all your energies focus on an enemy, you have no energy or vision left to discern and fulfill the calling on your life. The enemy thereby defines you.

Hell, therefore, could aptly be described as trying to bear your own shame, as living a lie, forever sandbagging against the rising tide of truth, an eternally exhausting distraction from your holy destiny. That's what happened to Elijah. And I think it's just, it is, in a profound way, reassuring to me to know that anyone, no matter how godly, how gifted, how experienced in the Lord, or even how many miracles that he's seen, anyone can reach this kind of discouragement in the heat of spiritual battle. Here's what he did, verse four. He himself went a day's journey into the wilderness. He's isolating himself. And he came and sat down under a broom tree, and he asked that he might die, saying, it's enough now, oh Lord, take away my life, for I'm no better than my father's.

And he lay down and he slept under a broom tree. What's going on here? The voice of shame says you gave it your best and it wasn't enough, and there's still something else you gotta do. If you make an idol out of a certain goal or a certain kind of success, the devil will use it against you. The fact of the matter is that all of us, no matter what milestones we reach, we're on a journey.

And it's vitally important just to stop here and just let this sink in. No accomplishment will ever be great enough to set you free. No particular performance, no particular merit or award or amount of money will ever do it. You'll never prove yourself to everybody.

You'll never be so popular that there won't be somebody that criticizes you. And the way out isn't through greater and greater caramels. The way out we're gonna see is different.

Allen Wright. Today's good news message titled The Next Mountain. The best is yet to come, as is the conclusion of this teaching.

It's in our series Second Wind, and Pastor Alan is back with us in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears.

You've believed it in your mind. Now experience it in your heart with Allen Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like. For any woman who has searched for true love, what you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of the five love languages, says, The incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy his embrace, revel in his love.

After all, it's a match made in heaven. It's Lover of My Soul by Allen Wright. 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 these are the final days this offer is being made available to you this month. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Back here in the studio to share Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day. And boy, we left it on a cliffhanger here. We do have the best yet to come, I think, of this teaching as we conclude. What's our parting good news thought for the day as we hang on? Well, I think sometimes the great temptation of life when we've had a great victory like Elijah did at Mount Carmel is to think that, well, I've already experienced the height and then as soon as any other accusations, as soon as any other obstacles, as soon as any tribulation comes along, we feel particularly despairing. But what if, like with Elijah, there's another mountain, you know? What if there's another journey that's maybe even better than what was before? And I think that's the way God wants to encourage us.

We can become, if Elijah would become depressed, so could we. But listen to the Lord say, arise and eat for the journey ahead of you is a great one. There's still a great journey in front of you. Take heart, feed on my word, feed on all my grace, God says. He's got much more for Elijah and he's got much more for us. I am so eager for Christians, especially for the body of Christ, to experience this joy that can come, this strength that can come simply for having persevered. And to have a second wind means that God has something great for the body of Christ. And so if he has something great for the body of Christ, I think there's a move of God and it's going to begin with us individually. So I'm blessing our listeners that you would be like Elijah and that you'd see that there's another mountain in front of you. There's another great destination, a great journey in front of you. And may God give you, as he did Elijah, a second wind.

Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.