Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church, located in Kernersville, North Carolina. This is our fourth installment in the life of Elijah with our uh campfire story series and If I had a title today, it would be this. I was overwhelmed.
But God overcame. You know what's interesting, we have seen some wonderful things in... 1 Kings 18. Here's Elijah going against eight hundred and more prophets and. Baal and everything else and the whole scene on Mount Carmel.
Um really it's just almost you talk about a campfire story. That's it, you know, it's like a movie scene, I hope. When we get to heaven, we'll be able to see these things somehow, some way. And maybe if we have the mind of Christ, we'll already see them. I don't know.
But imagine what that looked like that day. As we dug into 1 Kings 18, we talked first about a confrontation with apathy, just to review for you. And here Elijah looks at the people and says, listen, if God's God, serve him. And if Baal's God, then worship him. But you're going to have to make a choice.
And then we talked about a contest for fire. And it was Elijah saying, it wasn't about starting fire. Any man can start fire. It's about getting fire from heaven. And then we talked about a conflict with false religion, and these prophets cut themselves, danced around, made a lot of noise, did a lot of things, but no real fire.
From heaven. And then we talked about a change that was needed, and that's when Elijah jumped in and repaired the altars. that had been broken down. And you and I are the altars now. And we have to get our lives right.
And then we talked about a call to Jehovah and the prayer that. Um Elijah prayed to God. Never ask God to send fire. He just asked God to show himself. And that should be our prayer.
And then we talked about a complete purge, how we took those prophets and killed them all and said, there's no chance of them coming back to haunt us anymore. You've got to confront sin and you've got to deal with it. And then we saw a confidence. in the promise. God said, I'm going to send rain, and I want you to go tell them.
And now we had the whole fire falling from heaven. Then Elijah knew that God had told him that and He had confidence in that, and then we dealt with a cloud of hope. And he kept sending back his servant, even though the servant couldn't see anything and there was no rain. Finally, he said, keep going back, and then he saw that little cloud of hope. Boy, what a victory.
From victory to victory. God sends down fire. God sends down rain. Wow. And today we're going to begin in 1 Kings 19.
we see a crisis of faith. You know, if you think about it, In chapter 18, Elijah stood alone on Mount Carmel against 450 prophets of Baal plus another 400 prophets. Calling down fire from heaven, God sends rain from heaven. What a miracle. But in chapter 19, Jezebel threatens him.
And now he's in defeat. That he just watched God. Send down fire from heaven. And he just watched God. send rain after years of drought.
But you get one woman mad at you. And he is running to the cave. In chapter 18, it was a victory party. In chapter 19... It was a pity party.
In chapter 18, he was alone. In chapter 19, he felt. Hello. He thought he was the only one left trying to do right. He was dejected, demoralized, and as our song that they just sang, he was discouraged.
It's amazing how fast he went from victory. to defeat. You know, you think about how fast he went from confidence in God. to crisis of faith.
Now, maybe you're here today and you would be at a stage in your life where you're just on top of the mountain, you're at Carmel. God's sending down fire. You're feeling great about things. And may I say, good for you. But you might be like some of us that there come seasons of life.
that you get discouraged. Just could be a few that are in this building. Maybe maybe many. That are going through a bit of what we would call a crisis of faith. Oh, you believe God, you know God's real, but.
I'm just really confused. and to what he's doing. What discouraged Elijah? I want to answer that question a little bit before we go any further today. You know, I've been in ministry and I've been in leadership many years.
I've served as youth pastor, music director, bus director. Choir director. I was a full-time evangelist. I've been a full-time pastor now. I've coached sports teams and Let me tell you something.
I have seen discouragement and I have felt discouragement. And why do leaders and caregivers? who people who are trying to serve Christ. People who have seen fire fall down from heaven. People who have seen God send rain when there was drought.
Why do we get discouraged? I believe there's a few underlying reasons, and I just want to show them to you today. Maybe a little different from the other part of our series, but let's just be real today. We all have some difficult weeks. We all have difficult seasons.
I want you to notice, number one, I believe, why Elijah got so discouraged. Number one is unfulfilled expectations.
Now, I want you to look at verse 4, and we have it on here, but the Bible says he went a day's journey into the wilderness. He finds out that Jezebel has sent word she's going to kill him. And by the way, this is a woman who had killed the prophets before him, as he had said.
So he takes a day's journey and he goes into the wilderness. And by the way, in the Bible, it's never really a good thing when you end up in the wilderness. It's always talking about a time of drought in a person's spiritual life. And notice this: he came and sat down. Under a juniper tree.
He went a whole day to go sit under a tree. And he requested for himself that he might die. And said, it is enough. Can I ask you something? If he really wanted to die, why didn't you just stay there and let her kill him?
He spends a whole day trying to get away from her, and then he says, I want to die. If you're serious about that, why don't you just stay put? Why don't you just go to Jezebel? Let her do it then.
So sometimes you and I say things. That we don't really mean. And by the way, I want you to know in your life, sometimes people say things, and sometimes you even say things to yourself. that you don't really mean. He finds himself sitting under a tree Discouraged, down, exhausted, and he says.
It's enough. No more. I want you to notice unfulfilled expectations. First, there is disappointment in people.
Now, look at verse 10. I want you to see how Elijah became disappointed with the people. And this is all under unfulfilled expectations. You and I shouldn't have expectations on people and ourselves and things, but we do. And I want you to notice in verse 10, as God comes to him and he says, Hey, why are you here?
What are you doing? Look at verse 10. He says, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts. In other words, God, I've been jealous for you. I've been trying to stick up for you.
Notice what he says. For the children of Israel. Have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword. Here he is, disappointed in the people of God. Have you ever been disappointed?
And the people of God? You know, I wonder: have the people of God ever been disappointed in you? You know, we find as we serve God that people will hurt you. People will talk about you. People will twist the truth.
People will spread rumors that aren't true. People will see things one way, and many times people will see what they want to see. People are plain out going to disappoint you. You believe them and they lied. You depended on them, they never showed up.
You counted on them, but they let you down. You didn't think they would ever tell anybody, but they did. You thought because you were family that they wouldn't treat you like that.
Sometimes people mess up, sometimes people blow it. And I'm here to tell you. If you get down every time you're disappointed by people. You're gonna be down the rest of your life. Second.
Not just disappointment in people. Why did Elijah get discouraged? Because of unfulfilled expectations. The people let him down, notice secondly, disappointment in ourselves. This is a big one.
In verse 4, he says this statement, For I am not better than my fathers. It's enough. I can't take this anymore. I'm not better than my fathers. I can't live up to that.
It's enough. When he says it's enough, he means this: that I can't take it anymore. I feel like I should be able to take it, and I don't even like it that I feel this way. But it's enough. I can't take it anymore.
Maybe you have found yourself at some point in your life where you just can't take it anymore. It's not just expectations from others that distress us. It's also. self-expectations. We push ourselves to do more, to try to be better.
We pressure ourselves, we try to serve people and make them happy. And may I say this? It probably agitated Elijah that he was this discouraged. And the fact that he was discouraged discouraged him. Everything that had happened had discouraged him, but now that he was discouraged, he was discouraged that that had made him discouraged.
Have you ever, this might not make sense to some of you, but it does to some of you. It's bad enough that you got discouraged, but then when you see that you are discouraged, you're discouraged that that made you discouraged. And then that discourages you even more. Because of disappointment in our selves. What you notice third is disappointment in circumstances.
You know, verse 4, he makes this statement. He sits down and he says I'm gonna die. And what are you saying? I wanna die here instead of Jezebel kill me. He said, It's enough.
Notice now, O Lord, take away. My life. You know, the only reason Jezebel was after Elijah is because the people of God had allowed Ahab. To do the things he did. They had allowed Ahab to lead them in the wrong direction.
They had allowed Ahab to create the culture of this country. They had allowed the prophets to be killed. They had actually joined into it. Listen to me: here's what I'm saying: Elijah had not caused this problem, but he's the one bearing it now. And you know, sometimes you're going to find yourself in circumstances in your life that you feel like you're bearing something that you didn't even start.
You didn't even create it. You didn't ask for it. It's their fault. Why am I the one running for my life? Hey, all the people of Israel that did wrong, they weren't running for their life.
Elijah simply does what God told him to do.
Now he's the one they're trying to kill. This all started off because Ahab comes to him and says, We're in a drought because of you, Elijah. And Elijah says, No, it wasn't me, it's you. Here's a guy that keeps getting blamed for everything. Have you ever been disappointed in circumstances?
What the company did to you, what your job did to you, what your family's done to you, what they've said about you. How things have worked out in your life, what your mate did to you. What your children have done, what they haven't done. I don't know about you, you don't have to look real far to understand why this guy got discouraged. Unfulfilled expectation.
Notice number two, unrealistic comparison. You know, it's interesting in verse 4 when he says, I am not better than my fathers. What is he saying here? He's comparing himself. He is saying, you know what?
They might have been able to bear something like this, but I've had enough. This is all I can do. And can I tell you sometimes I struggle with this and maybe it's just the nature of a pastor. But sometimes I struggle because I compare. And usually, when I compare, I don't add up, I don't compare to who I'm trying to compare myself to.
You know, if you expect more of yourself than God even expects from you, you're going to be in trouble. You know, the Bible says the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. It doesn't say the giant strides or the giant leaps. You know, all God wants you to do is to take one step at a time. But for some reason, sometimes you and I expect ourselves to leap ahead in the Christian life.
Living under conditions of worth, like you're not worth much if you don't do much. God doesn't love me as much if I don't accomplish, if you live under that, you're going to constantly find yourself under a juniper tree. And may I just say this?
Social media can really impact you. And I have, listen, I I I told my wife a while back, there's just There's a few preachers I had to quit following. I'm going to be honest with you, because it discouraged me. Because things look one way in social media and you're like, man, huh? I'm pitiful.
I'm not accomplishing anything compared to them. Man, they're everywhere doing everything, and everybody's getting saved, and they're still fishing and golfing every day. How is this working out? They got a church three times my size. They're always posting at the golf course, posting hunting, and posting this, and posting traveling here, and on vacation here.
And I was like, I haven't gone on vacation, a real vacation, in a couple years. It's like, what in the world? How are they doing this? And I'm just trying to have my devotions and I'm already discouraged. Listen, you're going to see people and you're going to follow their life and you're going to think it's one way and it's going to look a certain way.
And before long, you're going to get discouraged with your life because you don't think it adds up to their life. And I'm here to tell you: listen, you're going to end up under a juniper tree and you're going to be discouraged the rest of your life if you buy into this unrealistic comparison. God gives us plenty of verse. I don't have time today about how we shouldn't compare ourselves with each other. Number three.
unmerited conflict. In verse 2, the Bible says, Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also if I make not thy life. as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time. And when he saw that, He arose. went for his life.
Okay. He saw a message from Jezebel. And this is a conflict he didn't start. He didn't want. And you're going to find yourself at times in conflicts.
That you don't even feel like you started, you don't feel like you know what, but I'm going to tell you something: nothing can get you more discouraged. like conflict with people. When you find out people are mad, people are talking, whatever the case might be, let me tell you something: nothing discourages me more as a pastor. Than that. And here's what's interesting: he just saw God send fire from heaven, rain from heaven, but when he saw one letter from her, he ran.
It's amazing what conflict can do to you. You know, you might feel criticized just because you've excelled. Many times, as with expectations, our problems with criticism is not just with other people, but it's within ourselves. If you don't have strong confidence and security in your worth in Jesus Christ. Then every conflict is going to make you feel like God doesn't love you.
And you look at me, I've had to learn this the past few years. I've had to learn this. that sometimes you can't control what people do. Your worth is in Christ. More I would say to that, but for time today, number four.
What discouraged Elijah number four is unnerving loneliness. I think this was a kicker. Look at verse 10. He tells God, Listen, I've been jealous. Israel's forsaken thy covenant.
They throw down thine altars. Notice this at the end. And I, even I only, and left. And they seek my life. to take it away.
Look at verse 13 here, just this part. He says again, And I, even I, only am left. They seek my life.
So he's repeated himself twice.
So this is a big deal to Elijah. This is something that was on his heart. And here's what he thought: I'm the only one.
Now, here's what's interesting. You find this, you'll find that when he ran after Jezebel sent the letter, the Bible says he left his servant at an area and he went on to the area of Judah there in the wilderness under the juniper tree.
So the fact that he said, Here I am alone, yet he had a servant.
So he had a servant, he wasn't alone. He had somebody on his side. But he had gotten from zero to a hundred. I'm the only one left. I'm all by myself.
And maybe sometimes you feel that in life. You know, it always hurts me as a pastor to think that sometimes, and I know that people can sit in a good-sized church like this and be lonely.
Some of you are sitting in this room and there's all these people here. and you feel lonely today. And trust me, I'm the pastor of this church. And I feel lonely sometimes. sitting right in a service.
Wondering if anybody cares. And I know how that goes. And listen to me, here's what I want you to understand. Satan wants to make sure you feel like you're on your own. And I don't know about you.
Here's what I do. When I feel like I'm all alone, I tend to withdraw from everybody.
So we end up alone because we've caused that. No, I just felt alone.
So if I, and here's what happens: if we withdraw ourselves, we feel like, well, I'm lonely because I controlled it. If I just don't reach out to people, if I just go do my own thing, then at least when I'm lonely, I feel like that was my decision. I don't feel like I'm the victim of it, but dear friend, I'm here to tell you: when you feel lonely, the object sometimes is we try to withdraw ourselves. We don't feel like people love us or accept us or have reached out to us.
So we withdraw from them, and then we look and we get madder at them and more frustrated with them. And the actual truth is, we're the ones that have really withdrawn. Loneliness. Elijah complained that he was the only one. Yet who ran away and sat under a juniper tree by himself?
Anybody here ever run away to a juniper tree and then complained about being lonely? I guess it's just me. There might have been one other person. Thank you, Megan. Thank you.
At least somebody identifies with me. All you others know you have no problems in your life. Number five. is unrealized exhaustion. This is a big one.
Elijah had just faced 800 prophets. on the top of a mountain. He had literally prayed for God to show himself, dealt with a whole day of this. It had been three years of drought. He watches God send fire from heaven.
Then he has to take these prophets and kill all these prophets. Then he has the pressure that now, after what he's done, and now we've shown who the real God is, now there's still no rain. And so now the man of God feels this pressure, tells Ahab, listen, I hear the sound of abundance of rain, although there was no rain. And then the servant keeps coming back. Hey, there's nothing.
All this exhaustion, all this spiritual output, and all this working at VBS every night, and all this helping with the children's ministry. And I'm going to help at this ministry, and I'm going to sing in the choir, and I'm going to get involved in this, and I'm going to help teach a Sunday school class, and assist in a Sunday school class, and I'm going to fill in over here at this class and help with the children, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to go out with the kids on a Sunday night and help Brother David. And before long, I want you to please get this.
Sometimes there is so much outgo. that you and I can get real spiritually exhausted. Yeah. Five, I want you to notice first there's physical exhaustion. And this is what Elijah was dealing with.
All three, listen to this. Notice first. And as he lay and slept under the juniper tree, he's tired. Behold, then an angel touched him and said unto him, Arise and what? Eat.
He's hungry. He hadn't had nourishment. He hadn't been fed. He's so discouraged that he's not eating. He's not drinking.
He's not taking care of himself. Look at verse 6. And he looked, and behold, there was a cake bacon on the coals, a gluten-free, low-carb cake sitting there on the coals. I don't know about you, I'd rather have some krispy creams than a Coke, but here it was. A cake bacon on the coals and a cruise of water at his head, and he did eat and drink and laid him down again.
So he's hungry, he's tired, he is more tired, he is more physically exhausted than he realized. He had just fought two huge spiritual battles, and it takes it out of you. Verse 7: And the angel of the Lord came again the second time and touched him and said, Arise and eat. Notice this. Because the journey is too great for thee.
Physical exhaustion. You know why he got discouraged? If nothing else, he was just tired. And I encourage you today: listen, sometimes your frustration and discouragement sometimes can just simply be: you are worn out. You've overdone it, you've done too much, there's been too much output, and not enough in.
to your life. Secondly, there's emotional Exhaustion. Look at verse 4. He requested for himself that he might die. And said, it is enough.
What is this? This is a sign of emotional, this means. Negativity in his mind had taken over. His body is tired. And by the way, when your body gets tired, your mind can.
can begin to think things it should never think. You know what Psalm 23 verse 2 says? He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. The verse did not say he restored my mind or my body. It said he restored my soul. That's spiritual exhaustion.
So there is physical exhaustion, there is emotional exhaustion, and then we have third spiritual exhaustion there in Psalm 23. He restoreth my soul. So here's what was going on. Elijah was tired physically, which made him tired emotionally, which then attacked him spiritually. No wonder he was discouraged.
And may I say, no wonder you might be discouraged. You might have been fighting a battle at work, fighting a battle in your house, fighting a battle in your marriage. I mean, it's been one thing after another. Man, you're trying to cling on. You've been fighting kids and you've been trying to raise your kids, and they're going one way and they're causing havoc and different things.
And man, you're fighting this battle and that battle and that battle. And then you come to church and you're fighting so many battles that you're just so worn out. And then you feel like people don't care, so you withdraw yourself from them.
So now you're physically tired, emotionally tired, spiritually tired. You're lonely. You're disappointed in yourself. You're disappointed in people. You're disappointed in what's happening.
Can anybody hear me today? Yeah, maybe right. Isaiah 40, 31 says, But they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. Last is uncontrolled fear. He was just scared.
In verse 10, he says, They seek my life to take it away. Verse 13, he says, Even I only am left. They seek my life to take it away. Look at verse 3. And when he saw that, he arose and went for his life.
Let's just be honest, with everything else going on, he was scared. He this this woman had killed prophets And he was scared. Which brings me to this, let me just give you some quick lessons before we go home. Number one is this, faith does not exempt us from fear. Just because you're a person of faith doesn't mean you're never going to face fear.
Let me give you the second one. Satan always attacks after spiritual victory. Elijah had just had two major spiritual victories. And can I tell you something? You have a major victory in your life spiritually.
Watch out, Satan's coming. And usually Satan tries to fight you before and after. Just ask our teenagers. on our missions trip. Hey, blow a tire, air goes out, okay.
Then we finally leave.
Now we got a lot longer wait now and bus breaks down again and everything's broken down. Every bus we touched broke down that week. Even buses that we didn't touch broke down that week. But we can fix them. I'll tell you why.
When I went on the side of the road, we went down and For Jacob Young, and me and my wife were heading down there. We found that fender, and thank God we did, and all that. And I found pieces. I grabbed everything I saw on the side of the road. We could put together three buses with all the parts that I have.
They're not front.
Now, I did get our fender, and I got pieces of the fiberglass that went on, and I got a mud flap and a frame. But man, I got pieces of buses everywhere. I just grabbed everything, didn't know what came off, kind of a thing. Man, we got stuff that wasn't even bus parts I put in that van. I don't know what we all grabbed.
Can I tell you something? Satan knew the victory we were going to have that week.
So he started before and then he jumped right in. right after. And that's what he's going to do to you. Listen, if you've... All of you probably have seen times in your life where it seems like things go so well, and then all of a sudden, like, what happened?
Satan always attacks you after a spiritual victory. Notice thirdly, spiritual highs are normally followed by emotional lows. Hey, you have a good church service. People are testifying. People hit the altar.
You have a good church. Can I tell you something? Get ready the next day. Spiritual highs are often followed by emotional lows. That's why Hollywood people and actors and musicians and all this stuff are so prone to discouragement and depression and all these different things.
You know why? Because there's such an emotional high with what they do, and then there's letdown after that. And their life just feels like more of a letdown because they might sing in a concert two hours, but they might have two or three days between another concert. And how do they get back up to that emotional high? And I'm here to tell you: Satan knows when you have a spiritual high, he's going to attack you immediately.
Number four is this: we cannot allow our emotions to be controlled by what we see. And I'm going to deal with this, but... Here's what's interesting. In chapter 18, He sends the servant to go look for rain, and the servant keeps coming back. There's nothing.
And what does Elijah do? He says, Well, keep going. I know you don't see it yet, but I believe I've got faith. It's going to happen. Keep going.
So he's telling the servant: listen, you need to have enough faith to keep looking. And then we get to chapter 19. And what does he say? I'm the only one left. What do you mean?
So in chapter 19, Elijah is being controlled emotionally by what he sees. In chapter 18, he's trying to convince his servant not to be controlled by what he sees. In just one chapter, now he's on the other end of it. Let me give you this. Last, faith is weakened when our discouragement blinds us from our hope.
You know, in verse 4, when he requested for himself that he might die, why would anybody want that? And why would a Christian want that? And why would somebody that's a servant of God, why would they want that? I'll tell you why. Because he'd lost hope.
Everything that I had just mentioned, all these things had all equated to there's no hope.
So the same Elijah who calls down fire now just wants to die. The same Elijah that saw God's send rain from heaven now wants God to take him home.
So let's see God's response, and we'll let you go today. I want you to notice first thing is this. And this is kind of, we've heard it all. Let me give you just a couple quick lessons. Number one is this, remember God is always there.
Now look at verse 9. And he came thither unto a cave and lodged there, and behold, Here he's withdrawn, he's hiding. The word of the Lord came. to him. And he said unto him, What you doing here, Elijah?
Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kirkwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192. or via the web.
at Kerwin Baptist Church.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin Broadcast today. God bless you.
