Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. The famous writer said, whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life. If you continue to believe as you've always believed, you will continue to act as you've always acted. And if you continue to act as you've always acted, you will continue to get what you've always gotten.
If you want different results in your life or in your work, you've got to change your thinking. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.
Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. I'm just about certain that none of you have ever heard of James Allen. He never achieved any fame in his life at all, and he died at 48 years of age. He wrote 19 or 20 books, most of which no one ever read or ever heard of. But he did write one book that was discovered after he had died. And it was the second book he had ever written, and he had actually written that he didn't think very much of the book because it wasn't very good. And that little book was discovered after his death and sold millions and millions of copies.
He lived in the early nineteen hundreds in England, and as far as we know, he was not a Christian. But this little book that he wrote was based on a single part of one verse. Of the Bible. Open your Bibles to Proverbs, 23 and verse seven. Proverbs, 23 and verse seven.
Just the first part of the verse. Solomon writing. And Solomon wrote these words. He said, For as he thinks within himself. So he is. That's the verse that he wrote the book of. For as he thinks within himself.
So he is. One of the things that Alan said was that he now realizes the most important thing about any single one of us is our thoughts. He wrote in that book, A person's mind may be likened to a garden which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild. But whether cultivated or neglected, it must and it will bring forth fruit. If the useful seeds are not put into the garden, an abundance of useless seeds will fall upon it and will continue to produce their fruit. And then he used another verse and said, Whatsoever a man should sow, so should he reap.
It's interesting that. What this became for James Allen. James Allen is now universally viewed as the father of modern positive thinking. The whole movement called Positive Thinking Among People is attributed to this book.
By James Allen. David Jeremiah's remarks on it was this. He said, Maybe you've heard something like this. Whatever your mind can conceive and your heart can believe, you can achieve. And in fact, not only have you heard that, but just about a week or two ago, my wife and I were watching a Hallmark movie and that exact line was used in the movie. Whatever I thought it was interesting, whatever you can conceive, that if you believe it, you'll achieve it.
He said, Or maybe you've heard it this way. You think your way to success and many other such ideas. But this is not what the proverb is teaching. We do not have the power to think things into existence.
No matter what anyone says. The view of thinking, this view of thinking is ungodly humanism. But to understand that our thoughts are powerful, that's not humanistic at all.
It's very, very biblical. The Bible teaches us that our thoughts are important and that we cannot change our lives unless we change our thoughts. He said, What we do with our thinking determines what we become. We are not what we think we are, but what we think we are. An anonymous writer said, Whatever you hold in your mind. Will tend to occur in your life if you continue to believe, as you've always believed, you will continue to act as you've always acted. And if you continue to act as you've always acted, you will continue to get what you've always gotten. If you want different results in your life or in your work, you've got to change your thinking.
The last couple of weeks, I've been talking about this short series. It's all in your head. And the reason that I wanted to talk about it was that my experience has been that so many Christians live defeated lives. And there are all kinds of anguish. Sometimes it's pervasive defeat. Sometimes it's long periods of defeat. They're depressed, filled of anxiety, overcome with guilt or fear.
And I wanted to try to figure out why is this? And so I started the first week and said that God's God said, I have given to you as a Christian everything you need. Pretending to life and godliness, everything I've given you everything you need.
There's not one thing I withheld. In fact, even went further with the Ephesians. He said, I have blessed you with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, every single one I've given to you. So we can't say God hasn't supplied what we need. And that first week I said Peter said, what we need to do is to gird up the loins of our mind.
And we need to be diligent. And how we think about being a Christian. And then last week, I said we make these great choices in life. And if you want eternal life, you have to choose to put your faith in Christ. That's at a point in time you choose, you put your faith in Christ and you have eternal life. But if you want to have a wonderful life, you have to make two more choices. One and both of them are in Romans 12, one and two. You have to choose to give your life to Christ.
Jesus would say it this way. If you want to find your life, you're going to have to lose it. And you have to choose to not allow the world to conform you into its mold, but to renew the way you think. So that you can be transformed into the image of Christ. And I want to pick that up today and I want to add a couple more thoughts to it before we close this series. And the first one thought that I want to add is this. I don't know if you realize this, but our thoughts can destroy our faith.
Our thoughts can destroy our faith and not, I don't mean for some of us, I mean for all of us. Open your Bible is the first Kings. I'm turning your Bible is the first Kings chapter 18. First Kings chapter 18.
And the context of chapter 18 is fine in 17 one. And we are introduced to a very special human being. It says, Now, Elijah, the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, he's the king of Israel. As the Lord, the God of Israel lives before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither do nor reign three years except by my word.
That's the last thing in the world a king would want to hear. Ahab is a pagan king, king of Israel. And he hears this from Elijah. And so Ahab does not like Elijah. And Ahab decides I'm going to hunt Elijah down and get him. The best way to get rain will be to get Elijah. But God protects Elijah. So we end up in Chapter 18, verse one. And it says it came about after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year and said, Go show yourself to Ahab and I will send rain to the face of the earth.
So that's the scenario. I want you to think about this. Everybody in Israel, especially in power, they hate Elijah. And he's this lone prophet of God. And now after three years where the king's hunting him, God says, Now go and present yourself to the king. And Elijah does it. That tells you about two things, his faith and his courage.
He's willing to do this. So we get to verse 17 of 1 Kings 18. And it came about that when Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, Is this you? You troubler of Israel? Troubler of Israel is not really a good translation. It's a Hebrew idiom. It's a he's making an insult.
Maybe I'd say it in English. Is this you? You snake in the grass? That's what Ahab thought of him. You troubler of Israel. You brought this on.
We have extreme famine in the land. It's all your fault. Now, watch his response. And he said, I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father's house have, because you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and have followed the bails. You brought this about.
That's on you. Now, remember, he's speaking to a king who would like him to be dead and he's all by himself. But he speaks it. I want you to remember his courage and his and his faith. He then goes on and says, I've got a plan for you. He says, Now then, send and gather to me all Israel at Mount Carmel, together with 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel. That's Ahab's wife's table.
That's my plan. I want to get everybody together. Now, Bill, you read that often in the scriptures, I think it's actually Al, but we'll call it bail because that's the way it's usually said by us. But Bill shows up 89 times in scripture and then Asherah shows up about 50 times.
These are part of the pantheon of the Canaanite gods. Bill is a big time God. Bail worshippers. And there's something funny about all this. If you knew about Bill, it makes it funny. Bill is one thing. He's the fertility god.
If you're going to have a baby, you've got to go through bail. But he's also the god of storms. Remember this, he's the god of storms. Now, remember, there's been a drought for three and a half years, but he's the god of storms and Asherah. Asherah is Bill's sister and wife.
OK, and it's a very demented type of thing, but she's more secondary than bail is. No doubt about that. So Ahab sent a message among all the sons of Israel and brought the prophets together at Mount Carmel. And Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If there is a god, follow him. But if it's Bill, follow him.
I love this. The people would not answer him. They wouldn't give an opinion. Isn't that people? You want a commitment?
I don't want to make a commitment. I mean, maybe it's God, maybe it's Bill. We'll just stay in the middle for a while. Then Elijah said to the people, I alone and left the prophet of the Lord, but Bell's prophets are 450 men. Now, remember, that's interesting. The odds on this are Bell has 450 prophets, Asherah has 400, and God has Elijah. So it's 850 to one.
All right. And remember that the 850 have the king behind him, the military, they have everything behind him. Elijah just has God behind him. So he goes on. He says, Now let them give us two oxen and let them choose 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 oxen laid on the wood and I will not put a fire under it. Then you call in the name of your God and I will call in the name of the Lord and the God who answers by fire.
He is God. And now all the people said, That's a good idea. OK, so you're going to up two offerings to God. So Elijah said to the prophets of Bill, choose one ox for yourselves and prepare for it. Prepare it first for you are many and call on the name of your God, but put no fire under it. And then they took the ox, which was given them, and they prepared it and they called on the name of Bill from morning until noon, saying, Bill, answer us. So it's about six in the morning, about noon.
So you get about six hours and they're praying over bail at 450 guys. Bill, answer us. Now, remember, Bill is the God of storms and all you wanted to do is give you some rain.
This is a pretty easy way to work. That's why Elijah picked it, I believe, or God did. He says there is no voice and no one answered. So they leaped about the altar, which they had made. Maybe there's not enough dancing. You know, maybe we need to be more active. We need to stir them. Let's just jump through to get active in this thing.
And so they do that. It came about at noon that Elijah mocked him and said, call out with a loud voice, for he is a God. Either he's occupied or gone aside. Maybe he's on a journey or perhaps he's asleep and need to wake him. Come on, guys, you're not loud enough. I mean, you don't know where he is.
He might be out of time today, you know, but come on, let's see what you got. It said so they cried with a loud voice and they cut themselves, according to their custom, with swords and lances until blood gushed out on them. So now they're screaming and dancing and cutting themselves, imploring Bill, the God of storms, to give them some rain. Actually, in fire, in this case, you'll see what I mean with the rain in a minute.
So they do it. It says that it came about when midday was passed, they raved until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. There's no voice, no one answered and no one paid attention. Then Elijah said to all the people come near to me and all the people came near to him and he prepared an altar for the of the Lord. He said, which have been torn down. There were no altars for God. He said, let's build one, he said. Elijah took 12 stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Israel, to whom the word of the Lord came and said, Israel will be your name. And so with the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord, which he and he dug a trench around it, large enough to hold two measures of seed. So he dug a deep trench around it. And I think, well, you put a trench around an altar that we're going to have by fire. He arranged the wood and he cut the oxen pieces and he laid it on the wood. And then he said to him, fill four pictures with water. And this water, because it's Mount Carmel, likely came from the Mediterranean Sea because there's not a lot of water in the land.
They haven't had rain in three years. So he said, fill four pictures with water, poured on the burnt offering and on the wood. It's like, well, you don't want to put water. You don't want to douse the wood.
You put it all over the ox and all over the wood. So they did it. He said, oh, by the way, would you do that a second time? Do it again. Then he said they did it a second time. He said, would you do it a third time?
So they do it a third time. It says the water flowed around the altar and filled the trench. So everything is soaked three times. Now the trench is full of water.
All right. Now that's about it. So now remember, he's calling down for fire. It says the water flowed around the altar, also filled the trench, and it came about at the time of the evening offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, this is always said, oh, Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. Today, let it be known that you are the God in Israel and that I am your servant and I have done all things according to your word. Answer me, said, oh, Lord, answer me that this people might know that you, oh, Lord, are God and that you have turned their heart back again. That's all he did.
No dancing, no long time. One short little faithful prayer. Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering in the wood and this notice and the stones and the dust and lift up the water and which was in the trench. The fire consumed the oxen, the wood, the stones of the altar, all the dust and all the water in the trench. It was more like it's just gone.
It's just a charred pit as soon as he does it well. So when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces. You got to love the people. They didn't need much convincing today. They all fell on their faces and they said, the Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is God. Just what I now watch, and Elijah said to them, seize the prophets of Baal, do not let them escape. And so they seized them and Elijah brought them down to the brook of Kishon and he slew them there. Four hundred and fifty men. He killed them all. One guy. No one stopped them.
No one could do anything with them. Now, Elijah said to Ahab, and I imagine right now Ahab's nervous. I got to believe this.
You see what this guy just did? I don't think the four hundred and fifty walked down a single file and said, I'll wait my turn. I don't think it happened like that.
I think they were forced down by God. And so he says to Ahab, which is quite interesting. He said, go up, eat and drink, for there is the sound of the roar of heavy shower coming. And Ahab went up to eat and drink.
But Elijah, he said, went up to the top of Carmel. So he's climbing the mountain to the top and he crouched down on the earth and he put his face between his knees. Notice his humility. He just pulls himself and pulls it.
No braggadocious idea here at all. He's a humble man. And it said to the servant, go up now and look to the sea. So he went up and he looked. So he must be at a certain altitude. This guy has to climb up to the top.
He climbs up the top, looks to the Mediterranean. There's nothing. He said, OK, go back. He does it.
He goes back down. There's nothing. Go back seven times. No one ever gives credit to the servant. Seven times that wherever this guy is going, he's gone up, taken a look and got nothing. Seven times Elijah says, keep going. Came about on the seventh time that behold, a cloud as small as a man's hand is coming from the sea. And he said, go up and say to Ahab, prepare your chariot and go down so that the heavy shower does not stop you. It's going to rain so hard here, you won't be able to make it in your chariot.
You better get going now. And it came about a little while. The sky grew black with clouds and wind.
And there was a heavy shower. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. That's where that's where his the palaces.
That's where Jezebel was. And it says, and then the hand of the Lord was on Elijah and he girded up his loins and he outran Ahab to Jezreel. Now Ahab is on a chariot.
Oh, and by the way, Jezreel is 17 miles. So he's on a chariot going 17 miles and Ahab runs by him like a roadrunner cartoon. You know, he just goes right by him. And what you're thinking when you think of this story is this is incredible. This is one man against the king, a country, 850 prophets. And this is one man of faith and courage. Now watch. Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah and said, So may the gods do to me even more if I do not make your life as one of them by tomorrow at this time. And he was afraid and he ran for his life. Why? Yeah.
What happened? All right, 850 prophets, a king that's been after you for three years, all the military that the king would have at his disposal. He has all this success. And a woman says to him, I'm going to get you. And he panics. Now, I'm not diminishing women.
They are frightening. But the real point is the problem for Elijah is not Jezebel. What's the problem?
It's between his ears. Let me ask you just a question. Power, Jezebel, pagan woman or God. Now, who has the most power here?
Billions and billions and billions of times more power, trillions and trillions of times more power. You see, who has power? He's not thinking about that. He's thinking about she's threatened me. Oh, my goodness.
She's going to get me. Now, I understand a little bit about his dilemma here. I mean, if you think about what he has gone through here, I think that there's no question. He's he's find himself in a really unique and difficult situation.
He's had the greatest experience of his life. Also, I think you'll see later, he isolates even himself from everybody else, even his servant. And when you get isolated in your own thoughts, it's not good. Thirdly, it's also likely he was physically and emotionally exhausted. I imagine. Just imagine when he went through just the run to get the Jezreel. And then he gets lost in the same thing you and I get lost in.
It's self-pity. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.
At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.
That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.
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