Mt. Carmel

Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click the donate button, or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory.

And I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, Elijah prayed according to the will of God. Have you ever wondered, how did Elijah come up with this contest that he conducted here on Mount Carmel?

Did he have a couple of extra shots of espresso that morning and was feeling kind of macho and said, let's go for it? No, the secret is in the prayer itself. He said, let it be known that I have done all these things according to your Word. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, in the days of the prophets in ancient Israel, the Israelites often wavered in their faithfulness to God.

Was God really in control or should they worship Baal instead? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress looks at the dramatic moment when Elijah solved the Israelites' dilemma by calling down fire from heaven. Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.

Dr. Jeffress? Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Back in 2023, I was privileged to host a tour to the Holy Land with about 500 of your fellow Pathway to Victory friends.

It was a spectacular week. Well, over the course of that week, I delivered eight messages at various sites, and my presentations are featured right now on Pathway to Victory. Today, for example, you'll hear my presentation from Mount Carmel. On our return from Israel last year, I was inspired to craft a new book for you.

It's a picture book of sorts, a coffee table book, if you will, but it's much more than a photo album. Each picture from Israel is paired with commentary from me so that you'll fully understand the importance of these biblical sites, and each page is designed to help you understand and even experience the power of the cross. My book is an exclusive production of Pathway to Victory.

It's called The Power of the Cross. It provides a natural and winsome way to share your Christian faith with others, and when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, I'll see that a copy is sent to your home right away. In fact, when you respond today, I'll also include a brand new booklet called Three Days that Changed the World. This brochure illustrates the hour-by-hour account of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We'll say more about these resources later in the program, but right now let's travel to a place far away so that we can reflect on the power of the cross. This is one of my very favorite sites on our trip to Israel, Mount Carmel, because it's a scene of one of the most dramatic events in the entire Old Testament. I have kind of a sentimental feel for this because my very first sermon I ever preached when I was 15 was from the passage we're going to look at today. I've always been drawn to the character Elijah. You may have read my book, Choosing the Extraordinary Life, which is about Elijah, and the reason I've been drawn to him was Elijah wasn't some spiritual super figure. He didn't live a flawless life. He had his moments of doubts.

He had his moments of disobedience. James says he was an ordinary person just like you and me, but God used him in an extraordinary way because of one thing, Elijah discovered the power of prayer. And we're going to look today and see how Elijah unleashed God's power through prayer and how we can do the very same thing. The story is found in 1 Kings chapter 18.

Let me set the stage for you. The land of Israel had been infected with the worship of Baal and Baal's consort Asherah through the evil influence of Ahab and Jezebel, and Elijah appears out of nowhere. We don't know who he was, his background or anything, but he comes on assignment from God to warn Ahab, and he says, because of your disobedience to God, it's not going to rain for three and a half years. And it didn't rain.

For three and a half years, there was a drought in the land. And then in 1 Kings 18, Elijah appears again and he says, it is going to rain, but first we're going to settle this matter once and for all. Who is God? And he said to the Israelites who were assembled right here on this mountain where we are, he said to the Israelites, it's time to quit hesitating between two opinions.

Make up your mind. If Yahweh is God, serve him with all of your heart. If Baal is God, serve him with all of your heart.

We need to do the same thing today. We need to make up our mind who we really believe is God. Is your God the real God? Serve him with all of your heart. If your God is money, sex or your work, go ahead and put all of your effort into that, but don't be a double-minded person.

Make up your mind. And Elijah said, let's settle once and for all who is the true God. So he said to the prophets of Baal who were around here with the Israelites, he said, now you construct an altar and you call on your God to consume the sacrifice with fire. And then I'll make a sacrifice and I'll lay it on the altar and I'll call on my God Yahweh and the God who answers by fire. He is God. Everybody said, well, that sounds like a pretty good idea.

Let's do it. Verse 26. Then they, the prophets of Baal, took the ox which was given them and prepared it and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, answer us. But there was no voice.

No one answered. And they leaped about the altar which they made. And it came about noon that Elijah mocked them.

And he said, call out with a loud voice, for he is a God. Maybe Baal is occupied or gone aside. You know what that word occupied means? Literally means gone to the bathroom. Maybe Elijah's down there in that stall or Baal's down there in that stall going to the bathroom.

That's why he can't hear you. He was poking fun at them. He was ridiculing their God. Have you ever heard, oh, we ought to have respect for everybody's God? No, we shouldn't. We ought to laugh at false gods.

They are false gods. That's what Elijah did. Maybe he's occupied. Maybe he's on a journey.

Perhaps he's asleep and needs to be awakened. Well, this infuriated them more. And so they cried with a loud voice and cut themselves according to their custom with swords until the blood gushed out on them.

And it came about when midday was past that they raved until the time of the evening offering. But there was no voice. No one answered.

No one paid attention. And then Elijah said to all the people, come near me. And so they came near to me. And he repaired the altar, which had been torn down. And then he arranged the wood and cut the ox and the pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, now I want you to take four pitchers of water and pour it. Douse the sacrifice with the water. And then for dramatic flair, he said, do it a second time.

And do it a third time. And they did so until water was running off the altar. And then Elijah, in contrast to those prophets of Baal, didn't perform any antics.

He didn't cut himself. He simply prayed a simple 62-word prayer. Listen to what the prayer was. And Elijah prayed this prayer. O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant.

And I've done all of these things at Your word. Answer me, O God. Answer me that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God and that You have turned their heart back again. And immediately the fire fell from heaven and it consumed that animal sacrifice.

How do you explain that? Why did God answer Elijah's prayer so dramatically and instantaneously? I want you to notice if you're taking notes, three principles of powerful praying that explain why God answered Elijah's prayer.

First of all, approach God with confidence when you pray. That's what Elijah did. He came near to the altar and he invited the people to come near the altar for the power of God would fall. Why did he draw near to the altar of God? Because he had been invited to the altar of God. You know, Ephesians 3 says that you and I have access to the altar of God.

We have access to the presence of God. Elijah understood that. He approached God with confidence. Secondly, Elijah prayed according to the will of God. Have you ever wondered how did Elijah come up with this contest that he conducted here on Mount Carmel? Did he have a couple of extra shots of expresso that morning and was feeling kind of macho and said, let's go for it?

No. The secret is in the prayer itself. He said, let it be known that I have done all these things according to Your word. God had instructed Elijah to do exactly to do exactly what he did.

We don't have a written account of that instruction, but Elijah was clear God had instructed him to do this. And that gives us confidence in our praying. Do you want your prayers to be answered? Then pray according to God's will. Let me just clear something up here that so many people misunderstand. There is no blanket promise anywhere that God's going to answer every prayer we utter.

And that's a good thing, by the way. 1 John 5 14 says, this is the confidence we have before Him that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. By the way, saying we're praying in God's will and we're asking for something if it's according to Your will isn't a cop-out to say, God, if you really can't pull this off, we'll give you an out. You can just say it's not your will. No, God's will is not a fence to keep good things from entering our life.

It's a fence that protects us from bad things entering our life. You know, I keep a prayer journal. I look back over some of the things I prayed 20 and 30 years ago and God said no to.

I am so grateful He said no. I can look back and now see it would have been a disaster had God given me what I wanted at the time. But there are some things we pray that we know are God's will. When we pray, for example, for our protection from evil, we know we're praying according to His will.

1 Thessalonians 4 3 says, for this is the will of God, our sanctification, that is that you abstain from sexual immorality. When you pray that God will keep you morally pure, you can know you're praying according to the will of God. When you pray that God gives you boldness in sharing the gospel with an unbeliever, you can know you're praying according to God's will. When you pray for God to give you the spirit of forgiveness towards somebody who has wronged you, you can know you're praying according to God's will.

Well, Pastor, what about those things I don't know about whether it's God's will or not? That's where you pray in faith. You know what it means to pray in faith? It doesn't mean to try to conjure this positive attitude in your mind, kind of like the little engine that could. Remember the little engine that could?

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. A lot of people think that's what praying in faith means. It means conjuring up this positive image that God's going to do what you want Him to do. I think God will, I think God will, I think, and if you say that long enough and loud enough, God's going to be forced to do what you want Him to do. That's not faith, that's presumption.

Real faith in praying means boldly asking God for what is in your heart and then quietly trusting in Him to do what is best for you and for His glory. That's what Elijah did. He prayed according to the will of God. And thirdly, focus on glorifying God.

Make that the focus of your prayer. That was true of Elijah. He said, oh Lord, let it be known today that you are God. Answer me, oh Lord, answer me that this people may know that you, oh Lord, are God. You know what Elijah's name meant?

It means literally Yahweh is God. Elijah's whole purpose in life was to prove to an unbelieving world that there was only one God worthy of our worship. And when you make that your life focus, you can know that you are praying according to God's will. Now, what most people don't realize here on Mount Carmel is Elijah didn't pray just one prayer. He prayed two prayers. There was this public prayer that had a dramatic answer. But that wasn't the only prayer.

That wasn't the end of the story. Remember the chapter opens with a divine promise. God said, go show yourself to Ahab and I will send rain.

Hadn't rained for three and a half years. Yes, God had swooped down and consumed the sacrifice, but no rain had come. And so, we see the second prayer which is a private prayer that Elijah offers here on top of Mount Carmel. Elijah went up, verse 42 says, to the top of Carmel. He crouched down on the earth and put his face between his knees and he said to his servant, now while I'm praying, you go up and look toward the sea. So, the servant went up and looked and said, nothing, no clouds anywhere. And so, Elijah said, go back. He said it seven different times.

So, it came about in a little while that the sky grew black with cracked clouds and wind and there was a heavy shower. We saw the principles for powerful praying in Elijah's public prayer. Notice the practice of powerful praying that Elijah demonstrates in his private prayer.

First of all, this is so simple. Pray privately. Pray privately. Now, does that mean you should never pray publicly?

Of course not. There are times to pray publicly. Jesus, even though He said, go into your closet when you pray, there are times He prayed publicly when He fed the five thousand.

When He raised Lazarus from the dead. There's a time for public prayer, but most of our praying ought to be in private. My friend David Jeremiah says, our prayer life ought to be like an iceberg. You know, only one ninth of an iceberg is visible above the water.

Eight ninths of it is below the water where nobody sees it. So, should it be with our prayer life. I hope you have a place. For Elijah, it was Mount Carmel. I hope you have a private place you can go and meet with God. When I was in high school, I had a private place. It was in a park, of course, across the street from our high school in Richardson, Texas. I'd ride my bike there every morning and take my living Bible and read the Word and pray before school. And then when Amy and I married, we had a ball field right by our house that I would go out and pray at right now. My place of prayer is at the couch, right by the couch in my office. The point is, there's a specific place I meet with God regularly.

Do you have a place like that? Pray privately. That's what Elijah did. Secondly, when you pray, pray honestly. Elijah went up to the top of Carmel and he crouched down on the earth.

Literally, he spread himself out over the earth. The point is, when Elijah prayed, it wasn't one of these little, now I lay me down to sleep prayers. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. No, he was pouring out his heart. This is something he was begging God to do.

C.S. Lewis said it best when he said, when we pray, we shouldn't pray for what we think should be in our heart. We ought to pray for what is actually in our heart. Philippians 4 says, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication. Let your requests be made known today in everything.

Do you need a raise in your salary? Ask God for it. Do you need the healing in your body? Ask God for it.

Do you need a relationship that's been broken to be reconciled? Ask God. That's what praying in faith means. Boldly asking, but quietly resting in His divine will.

Thirdly, pray specifically. That's what Elijah did. You know, in James 5, remember the verse, the effective prayer of a righteous person does what?

Accomplishes much. And as Exhibit A of that, he used Elijah as an example. He said, Elijah was a man with a nature just like ours. But he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it didn't rain. And then he prayed again and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.

The point is, Elijah prayed for specific things. You know what the problem is with most of our prayers? We suffer from an acute case of blessitis.

You know what blessitis? Oh, Lord, bless this, bless this, bless this, bless, bless, bless, bless, bless. How do you know if God's blessed something or not?

You really don't know. It's just a general kind of way of praying that I think bores God as much as it bores us. We ought to be specific in our prayer.

Tell God what is really in your heart. I've kept for years a prayer journal in which I just take a legal pad and I draw a line down the middle and I label the top on the left-hand side, my request, and then the right-hand side, God's answers. And I keep a record of the things that I'm asking God for. And then I record the answers.

If it's yes, no, or how God answers those requests. Two benefits of a prayer journal like that. First of all, it keeps me focused in my praying.

I don't know about you. Maybe you're more spiritual than I am, but when I pray, I can let my mind wander so quickly it just amazes even me. I lose focus.

I start thinking about this or that or some meeting I'm going to have or somebody I'm mad at or just something, you know. I have to stay focused in that prayer list. Keeps me focused on what I'm asking God for.

But you know what? A prayer journal is a wonderful thing to be able to look back on and to see God's faithfulness to you in times past. To see how God has miraculously intervened in your life. Pray specifically. That's a secret to practicing powerful prayer in your life. And then finally pray persistently.

That's what Elijah did. He didn't just pray for one time for the rain to come. He prayed one time, nothing happened. He prayed a second time. He ended up praying seven times before the cloud came and the showers poured down. Just imagine what would have happened if he gave up after the fourth time. Well, this isn't God's will. Or the fifth time.

Even the sixth time, he would have missed God's blessing. Jesus said it this way. In the Greek text, it doesn't say ask. It says, keep on asking and it shall be given to you. Keep on knocking and it shall be open for you.

Keep on seeking and you shall find. Remember Luke 18 one, Luke says, Jesus showed his disciples a parable to show why they should pray at all times and not lose heart. We're to pray at all times. Not only when the answer seems easy and obvious, but when it seems impossible.

Be persistent in your prayers. That's what Elijah did. And that's why God answered.

You know, A.J. Gordon, one of my favorite quotes about prayer is this, you can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you can never do more than pray until you have prayed. One of our tour members I see over here somewhere, we were having dinner with her and her husband the other night, and she told me she had grown up in the church of Adrian Rogers, the late pastor of the Bellevue Church in Memphis. And I was reminded of a story Adrian told me and a couple of other people one day after a meeting that really illustrates the importance of prayer. When Adrian was in Bible college in Florida, he would preach at different churches on the weekend to earn some extra money. And one church he preached at, couldn't afford to pay him anything, but they gave him a burlap sack filled with oranges. And so he took that burlap sack filled with oranges, took him upstairs to his apartment and put him in the closet and kind of forgot about him. One day he was studying and he looked out the window and he saw the neighbor boy climbing the fence and reaching over into Adrian's yard to steal an orange from his orange tree. And when he looked around, saw nobody was looking, he took the orange, put it in his overalls and scampered off. Adrian said he got a big kick out of watching that, just thinking about what was going to happen when that boy bit into that orange. What he didn't know was it was a sour orange. He had taken an orange from the wrong tree. And Adrian said, you know, if that boy had simply walked up the flight of stairs, knocked on my door and said, mister, could I have one of those oranges from your tree? I would have said, son, you don't want one of those oranges, but come in here. Let me show you.

I've got a closet filled with more oranges than I know what to do with. And they're all yours if you want to have them. Adrian said he had not because he asked not. Fact is the devil cannot keep God from answering your request, but the devil can keep you from asking.

I think if there are going to be any regrets in heaven, it's going to be when we see what could have been ours, the gifts God wanted to give us. If only we had had the faith to ask. You have not because you asked not. Prayer. It's the secret to unleashing God's power and living a truly extraordinary life. Sometimes we have not because we ask not. And I hope today's message, delivered on location at Mount Carmel in Israel, inspires you to ask God for his provision.

Do that in faith, because God truly wants to hear from you. Well, our trip to Israel last year had a profound impact on me and the hundreds of others who joined our Pathway to Victory tour. In fact, I was inspired to create a brand new book for you called The Power of the Cross. This is an exclusive production of Pathway to Victory.

You won't find this book anywhere other than right here. What I've done is provide you and your family with my favorite photos and images from Israel. But it's much more than a colorful photo album. Along with the pictures, I've provided personal comments that guide you on a journey. It's a journey of the last seven days and the life of Jesus. When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, I'll make sure you receive a copy with my thanks for your partnership. After you're finished reading The Power of the Cross, you'll want to find a prominent place in your home to display it. In addition to my book, I'll also include the booklet I've mentioned earlier, The Power of the Cross. I'll also include the booklet I've mentioned earlier called Three Days That Changed the World.

This tells the hour-by-hour story about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Please be generous as you consider the impact of your donation. I'm the voice of Pathway to Victory, but you're the one who gives flight to this daily program.

David? Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. When you support the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, you're invited to request The Power of the Cross. It's a beautifully illustrated coffee table style book that you can display in your home for years to come. To request your copy, call 866-999-2965, or go to ptv.org. And when your gift is $75 or more, we'll also send you a brand new CD and DVD teaching set called Live from Israel, eight powerful messages by Dr. Jeffress from the Holy Land.

Join Dr. Jeffress as he describes the biblical events that took place at each featured location. Again, call 866-999-2965 or visit ptv.org. You could send your request by mail. Write to P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. That's P.O.

Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. Before he ascended into heaven, Jesus commanded his followers to share the gospel message with all the nations. And next time, we'll look at the remarkable conversion of the very first Gentile who accepted Jesus. Join Dr. Jeffress at Caesarea by the Sea. That's Friday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Imagine waking up to the sight of Alaska's majestic coastline or spotting wildlife from the deck of a luxurious cruise ship. Experience these unforgettable moments on the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska with Dr. Robert Jeffress.

Relax with us in Alaska, and I guarantee you'll come home spiritually and physically refreshed. To book your spot on the 2024 Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska, go to ptv.org. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway partner, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click on the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.