1989, Tiananmen Square. The Chinese communist government said we're going to crack down On democracy. Y'all remember this? And they did. And it was brutal.
And there's one person. Picture. Kind of an iconic picture that came out of that time. Do you remember this? It's a man, because the Chinese government sent all these tanks in.
It's one man standing and there's a line of about 20 tanks in front of him. And I saw a meme one time that said this. I love this. It's that picture. One man, you see him?
There's a big line of tanks and it says, but what difference can one man make? What difference can one man make? One man stopped a line of tanks. Let me ask you something. What difference can one sold-out man or woman of God who loves Jesus, what difference can that make at your workplace?
Hey. What difference can one young man or one young woman at your school who loves Jesus, what difference can that person make? A lot. What difference can one sewn out Born again, follower of Jesus Christ, making the political system. A lot of difference.
Every time I read the story of Elijah, I remember that meme: What difference can one man make? But I want you to listen to me. You decide you want to make a difference for Jesus in your workplace or your school or your family in his culture. That's okay. But you're going to come up against some Seriously.
Cultural issues. Same issues. Same dynamics. Did Elijah? had to stand against.
Remember, Elijah the prophet lived about 900 years before Jesus, and the same dynamics he stood up against are the same dynamics you and I are going to stand up against today if we're going to be modern-day Elijahs for the Lord Jesus Christ.
So turn, if you would, to 1 Kings 2. Chapter 18. As you turn to 1 Kings 18. Again, we just got back from Israel. One of my favorite places in Israel is to stand on the top of Mount Carmel.
And to stand at the very spot where this took place. I took this picture a couple years ago. That's me holding up my sword, just like Elijah's holding up his sword. It's when I had that beautiful beard until somebody told me I had to shave it. But that's a.
When I read this story, this is probably where that took place. 1 Kings 18:1.
Now it happened after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the face of the earth. Remember, we've been following the story of Elijah. There's a multi-year drought going on, no rain. And God says, Now go to King Ahab. Verse 17.
When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, Hey, is that you, troubler of Israel? He said, I'm not troubled, Israel, but you and your father's house have, because you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and you have followed the Baals.
Now then, here's what Elisha does. Elisha says, King, 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's table.
So Ahab sent a message among all the sons of Israel and brought the people, the prophets, together at Mount Carmel. And Elijah came near to all the people and he said, How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God, Follow him. But if Baal, follow him. But the people did not answer him a word.
Then Elijah said to the people, I alone am left of the prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men.
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 don't put any fire under it. And I will prepare the other ox and lay it on the wood, and I'll not put a fire under it.
Then you call on the name of your God. And I will call on the name of the Lord, that is Yahweh, and the God who answers by fire, He's the real God. All the people said that's a good idea.
So Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Choose one ox for yourselves and prepare it first for your many and call on the name of your God, but put no fire under it. You see what's going on? We're going to offer a burnt sacrifice, but don't set it on fire. And then they took the ox which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, answer us. But there was no voice, and no one answered.
And they leaped about the altar. which they had made. It came about at noon that Elijah mocked them and said, Call out with a loud voice, for he is a God. Either he's occupied or gone aside or he's on a journey or perhaps he's asleep and he needs to be awakened. And so they cried with a loud voice and cut themselves, according to their custom, with swords and lances until the blood gushed out on them.
When midday was past, they raved until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice, no one answered, and no one paid attention. Wow. In this story. There are three characters.
First character is the people, the crowd, the nation of Israel. That's one character. The mass of people. Secondly, there are the priests or the prophets of Baal and Asherah. The Bible calls them prophets.
They also acted in a priestly function. They are false prophets of a demon God named Baal and a demon God named Asherah. That's the second. character. You got the people.
You got the priests of the prophets. And then you got a third character, and that is the prophet Elijah. But let's look at the first character and that's the people.
Well, here's what had happened. If you read this, you'll think that, okay, they had stopped following the true and living God, Yahweh, and now they're just following a demon, false God named Baal and Asherah. That's not what happened. What had happened was they embraced syncretism. What they said is We'll worship Yahweh when it's convenient.
but will also worship these demonic pagan gods. We'll mix a little Yahweh and a little Baal and a little Asherah. We want to cover all of our bases, and so we're going to worship God and other gods. That's syncretism. They drove around on their chariots with the coexist bumper sticker on the back of the chariot.
We all believe in the same God. Let's all get along. All roads lead to God. That's what they had embraced. That's the people.
And Elijah asks them a very interesting question in verse 21. Do you see this? He says, How long will you hesitate between two opinions? Do you see that? That Hebrew word, hesitate, literally means to hop.
Here's what he's saying. How long y'all gonna hop between God and... Paganism. I want a little bit of Jesus on Sunday morning. But I'm going to live like hell Saturday through, you know, Monday through Saturday.
I'll be at church on Sunday morning and worship Jesus, but I'm going to hop over here and hang out with my buddies at the strip club, because that's just what guys do. And Elijah says, how long are you going to hop between the true and living God and these pagan, wicked, demonic gods? It's the American Church right there. And um look throughout history Satan has tried to destroy God's people in two ways. No double?
And mixture. Here's what I mean by murder. Satan gets so mad at the people of God, he wants to just outright slaughter them. As what's going on in Nigeria right now. Satan has been H's Christians in Nigeria, and so he has slaughtered tens of thousands of Christians.
He's done that throughout history. Here's the problem. That never works. I don't understand what it is about Christianity. The more you slaughter us, the more we grow.
And so Satan will then shift tactics and he says, Well, if murder doesn't work, I'll use mixture. I'll mix Jesus. And I'm going to serve Jesus on Sunday and live like hell for the rest of the week. I'm going to serve Jesus Christ when it's convenient for me, and then I'm going to serve the world when it's convenient for me. And I'm going to tell you something: mixture works.
I'm going to tell you right now how I know it works. We are an international church. We have people from all around the world that come and worship at Cross Assembly. Here's what I've seen happen. I have seen people, this isn't an isolated case.
I've seen this happen a lot of times. People who come to our church. They'll move to America. They come from countries where, if you follow Jesus Christ, you could be slaughtered. They come from countries where saying, I belong to Jesus, that could get you killed.
And they stand strong for Jesus in those countries. And I'm going to tell you this phenomenon: I've seen. I've seen many of them come to America and start coming to our church. And they get caught up in the American culture. They start watching our shows.
They start adopting American values. They get into all kinds of pornography and mess. And I'll look around and say, hey, where's so-and-so? Oh, he done come to our church anymore.
Well, that's not what church is he going to?
Well, he doesn't really go to church at all.
Well, you stood for Jesus in a country where you could get your head chopped off, but you can't stand. You know what happened? Satan mixes him with our culture. That's exactly what's happening right there.
Now I'm dealing with a little bit of jet lag today. I'm a little bit tired and a little bit grumpy, okay?
So take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt. If you want to know, Am I getting sucked into this mixture thing? Jesus and Jesus and paganism, Jesus and this wicked culture. Chad, how do I know? Let me see your playlist on your phone.
You have a worship song on your playlist right next to a raunchy song that talks about sex and glamorizes sex and wickedness. You have gotten sucked into this mixture thing. Is this microphone on? Because y'all are just staring at me this morning. I'm just telling you, there are signs that show us whether we are standing for Jesus Christ alone or if we like these people are now hopping between two opinions.
I'm gonna tell you something. Maybe in the other religions you can do that. You can't do that in Christianity. Bible makes it very clear. You're going to follow Jesus, you're going to follow Jesus.
Let me give you some verses here. Joshua 24, 15. Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. Make a decision. But as for me and my house, what church?
We will serve thee, Lord. 2 Chronicles 16, 9, for the eyes of the Lord. Move to and fro throughout the earth that he may strongly support those whose heart are what? Completely his. Jesus says this in Matthew 12, 30.
If you're not with me... You're against me. And I think the most Stunning rebuke of the people of God is Revelation 3:15 through 16, where Jesus says to the church, He's talking to the church. He said, I know your deeds. That you're neither cold nor hot.
I wish you were cold or hot, but because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I vomit you out of my mouth. You see what Jesus is saying? This let me play Jesus on Sunday and then live like Jesus, that makes me sick.
So Elijah brings the people. And he says, how long y'all gonna play this game? You can serve Yahweh? Or you're going to serve the pagan gods. You want to serve the pagan gods?
Fine, go serve the pagan gods. But stop saying that you belong to God. You can't play both sides of the fence on this. You have the people. Second character is The priests.
Or the prophets of Baal. Would you listen to me? Baal and Asherah don't just go away. They come back. Generation after generation under different names.
Do you understand what I'm saying? Satan is not an innovator, he's a duplicator. He will bring back the same demon gods generation after generation. We may not call them Baal and Asher, but they're Baal and Asherah, just repackaged.
Now you can get mad at me if you want. But Baal and Asherah have been repackaged in the American culture, and we call it the left. That's not a political statement. That's a spiritual statement. Because there are so many similarities between the worship of Baal and Asherah and what I see on the left today.
The modern left is the 21st century manifestation of Baal and Asherah. Let me give you some examples. Baal and Asher. That religion entailed child sacrifice. Did you know abortion?
It is a It is a litmus test and it is a sacrament on the left. You can't say I'm against abortion and belong to the left. They'll kick you out. You think it's any coincidence that Baal and Asherah are into child sacrifice, and today child sacrifice defines who the left is? Another part of the worship of Baal and Asherah, it was a highly sexualized religion.
Look at verse 26. It says the priests, the prophets of Baal and Asher. Do you see verse 26? It says they leaped on the altar. That Hebrew word for leap can also mean to dance.
Ray Pritchard, a great Bible scholar, says, implied in this is our sexual gyrations, sexual dancing. They're twerking, they're sexualized. That was part of the bell in astral religion. It's a lot like what you'd see at a Super Bowl halftime show or a Katy Perry concert or a Taylor Swift concert. It's sexualized dancing.
I'm gonna tell you something. Sexualization defines the left. LGBTQ, that's my identity. You're defined by your sexuality, just like the worship of Bel and Asherah. Let me tell you another similarity.
Do you see this in verse 28? It says that these pagan priests, these pagan prophets, even begin cutting themselves. They mutilate themselves. A mark of pagan worship throughout history has been mutilation. They called it mutilation back then.
We call it gender-affirming care today. You can call it whatever you want, it's the same thing. And so that's why I'm saying Baal and Asherah, the worship of Baal and Asherah has not gone away. It's taken place today. We have just repackaged it.
And that's why I cringe. When I hear a commentator call the left the progressives. They're not progressives. Progressives imply moving forward. They are regressives.
They're taking us back 2,900 years to pagan worship. They're regressive, not progressive.
So let me ask you. Which one are you? Are you part of the crowd, the people who you're hopping between two opinions? Are you part of the pagan priests, the pagan prophets that have adopted a wicked, demonic value system? But you have a third character.
He's my faith. I love him. The prophet Elijah. Look at verse 30.
So, you understand what's happening? They got this altar they built. The bull's on the altar, wood's on the altar. They've been crying out for hours and hours for Baal to send fire down. Nothing.
They're dancing. Nothing. Cutting themselves, nothing. They're finally exhausted. And in verse 30, it says, Now Elijah said to all the people, Come near to me.
So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. Elijah took twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of the son of Jacob to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, Israel shall be your name.
So, with the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold two measures of seed, and then he arranged the wood. and cut the ox in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, Phil. Four pitchers with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood. And he said, Do it a second time.
And they did it a second time. And he said, Now do it a third time. And they did it a third time. And the water flowed around the altar. And he also filled the trench with water.
At the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet came near and said, Now keep in mind. They've been praying for hours, the pagans have. Hours. Here's what Elijah says. Um verse thirty-six.
O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that you are God in Israel and that I'm your servant, and I've done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood. And the stones and the dust, and lift up all the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, The Lord He is God, the Lord He is God.
Then Elijah said to them, Seize the prophets of Baal and do not let them escape.
So they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slew them there. I love Elijah. I want to be an Elijah. Don't I'm seriously don't you church? You know, there are a lot of things I could say about Elijah.
Let me give you a couple traits about him that I love. Number one: Elijah did not fit into his culture. Verse 17, look back at that. When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, Is that you, O troubler of Israel? Read something from Chuck Swindahl this past week or two weeks ago.
Swindahl said this: that word troubler. is also used to describe serpents in Israel. Ahab sees Elijah and he says, Is that you, old snake in the grass? It's your fault that we have this drought. It's your fault that the nation is messed up.
It's what the world says about us Christians. Did you know that? No, we've got about maybe a three-year reprieve. For the last couple years, I've been told it's the Christians' fault. Christian nationalism is the problem.
If you Christians just sit down, shut up, and start making so much trouble, we could get on with it as a nation. You Christians Would stop showing up at school board meetings and saying you don't like it when your daughters have to change in front of young men in dressing rooms if you just shut up. We can all get along with each other. It's your problem. Elijah says I ain't the problem.
You're the problem. We live in such a messed up world that those of us who call evil, pardon me, call good evil, we're considered the bad guys, and the people who call evil good, they're the good guys. And Elijah said, I ain't the problem. Church, you didn't listen to me. The problem with America is not Judeo-Christianity.
That's not the problem. And yet the world's saying the same thing about us. Elijah did not fit into his culture. Verse 32, it says, Elijah. Rebuilt the altar of the Lord.
Do you see that? Now, here's that's very labor-intensive. You go to Israel, you got these giant limestone blocks. Elijah, one man, takes time to build an entire altar out of limestone. That is labor-intensive.
You'd have been easier for Elijah to do. To say, I'm just going to use the altar these pagans have been using, and I'm going to call down fire on that altar. He didn't do that. He's only built my own altar. Do you know what he's trying to say?
He's saying, I don't want anything to do with paganism in my worship. I want to worship the true and living God. I don't want to blend my worship and pagan worship. Won't you listen to me? Cross assembly on Sunday morning.
The worship time is not the prelude to the sermon. The worship time is not entertainment. The worship time is when we draw away from the world and we say we're going to come into the presence of the true and living God. And it may not always be trendy, it may not always be cool. When y'all saying, How great thou art a few minutes ago.
I was caught up into the third heaven. I was reminded of being a child, nine years old, getting saved. When we sing those kinds of songs, there's something about God's people coming together and worshiping God in God's way, not the world's way, that brings an anointing upon the house.
So this ain't entertainment. And I'm not your personal playlist to stop sending me songs you think we ought to be sending. All I want is for God's people to come into the presence of God and worship Him. He didn't fit along with the culture. Another way I can see that Elijah did not fit in with this culture.
Look at verse 36. It says Elijah, do you see this? Came near. Came near what? If you look in the context, it came near the altar.
Here's what's happening. There's now a mass of people. Who've been trying to hop back and forth between God, pagans, God, this world, God. And it says Elijah came near. You know what that means?
He stepped away from the people. and step toward the altar. Church? Maybe it's about time. We stepped away from the world.
And step closer to God. You follow Jesus. You will not Fit in. There will always be something different about you. You step closer to Jesus.
You, by necessity, will be stepping away from this world. Are you with me on this? Look, we like precious Bible promises.
Some of y'all have calendars. Every day, you know, you do a new calendar, and oh, here's the beautiful Bible, precious Bible promise for today. Y'all know what I'm talking about? I think that's great. Can I give you a precious Bible promise?
Here's what Jesus said. They hated me, they're going to hate you. There's my precious Bible promise for you for today, okay? They hated Jesus. Hey, Jesus didn't fit in.
You're not going to fit in. Here's how the writer of Hebrews puts it. Hebrews 13, 12.
So also Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates to make his people holy by means of his own blood.
So let us go out to him outside the camp and bear the disgrace he bore. You know what that author is saying? You're going to have to make a decision. You're always going to try to fit in with this world system? That's fine.
But you're not gonna fit in with Jesus. You get close to Jesus, you follow Jesus, you serve Jesus, you walk with Jesus. You're going to be stepping away from the crowd. and stepping toward the altar. You're not going to fit in.
I'm going to keep saying it until somebody gets it. I saw a picture, it was a picture I saw a little while back. I think it was a Duke football game, and they they were there at the Duke Stadium. And there's this huge section of just Duke. I guess it's the home section.
Everybody's wearing these Duke blue devil shirts. Dark blue with white. Duke Shirts. And then sitting in the middle of that section. There's one guy that had a bright red NC State shirt on.
And I looked at that picture and I said, I wonder what kind of grease that guy took. I bet they teased him, they yelled at him, they fussed at him. Because he's wearing a bright red shirt. In a sea of blue. When you get saved.
You are covered in the blood of Jesus. You are wearing a bright Red shirt in a sea of blue, and you're surprised when they tease you, make fun of you, say you don't belong in this world. You don't belong in this world, you're on the other team. And so Elijah, what I love about him is he didn't care. He just didn't fit in and he didn't want to fit in.
Secondly, Elijah had a great sense of humor.
Okay, I want you to see this. Look at verse 27. Parents and kids, I'll be sensitive here, but verse 27. It came about at noon. that Elijah mocked them.
You know what I mean? He's just laughing at him. These are demon-possessed demons, and he's laughing? How can you laugh when you're surrounded by demons? See, some of y'all are so afraid of demons, Satan, Nephilim, tribulation, the great whore of Babylon, the dragon coming out of the ocean.
You're scared. He wasn't scared. He's laughing. And then he says something. He says, a prophet's ability.
It's been several hours. Nobody's answering. Call it a bit louder. Because he's a God, maybe he's occupied or gone aside. In Hebrew, that can mean Maybe he's sitting on the toilet.
Elijah literally says to these demon-possessed prophets, these demon-possessed priests, shout a little louder. He's in the bathroom, he can't hear you. I just um I look. I understand. We need to be careful when we talk about Satan.
We don't, I get it. But you know church, maybe we need more happy warriors in this culture war. That don't let's take things seriously. But let's not be so scared. Does this make sense to anybody?
Um maybe it's time for us. To start to understand that, no. Greater is he who is in me. Than these demon-possessed people that are out in the world. But maybe we start understanding that.
And we start having a little bit of a sense of humor. I've shared this story with you before. I love this. Smith Wigglesworth was a great Pentecostal pioneer. And I guess late 1800s, early 1900s, he was preaching a crusade at a particular place.
And he said, I could just feel the demonic oppression. I knew I was under attack. He said, after preaching that night. I get back to my hotel room. He's telling somebody this story.
He said, I'm asleep. And in the middle of the night, I hear something in my room. He said I woke up and I looked in the corner. Room is pitch black, and in the corner he said, Satan is sitting in the corner of my room. He said he had this weird demonic smile.
He's describing this to this person. He said, I sense the spiritually demonic, awesome, wicked power. You know, God is an awesome God. God has no opposite, but there is power in the dark side as well. He said, I could sense this.
I see this. He said, I cannot describe to you the demonic nature of that grin as he's smiling at me. And this person's eyes are wide. He said, Oh my God. He said, What did you do?
Smith Wigglesworth said, I looked at him for a second and said, Oh. It's just you and I rolled over and went back to sleep It's kind of what Elijah is doing here. Ah. It's just some demon-possessed prophets, and he laughs and he makes fun of them. Elijah didn't fit into that culture.
Elisha had a wonderful sense of humor. Number three, Elijah was a man of prayer.
So keep this in your mind. There's frenzied for hours. These prophets are screaming, crying out, cutting themselves, dancing around, and there's nothing. When they're done, they're like, we give up. Nobody's going to answer by fire.
Elisha says, my turn.
Now, I want to read. Keep in mind, he's going against guys who've been praying for hours. I want somebody to just time right now. uh how long this prayer is you ready All right.
Some somebody time it. Look at Elijah's prayer, verse 36. Elijah says, 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 these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their heart back again. Verse 38, and then the fire fell.
All right, how long is that?
Okay, nineteen seconds. Pagans have been praying for hours. Elijah prays a 19-second prayer. and firefalls. Do you know what Jesus says?
In Matthew chapter 6, verse 7, when you're praying, don't just keep repeating the same phrases and get worked up into a frenzy. Faith and frenzy are antithetical. In fact, I'll give you another verse. Jot this down. Ecclesiastes 5:2 says, God is in heaven and you are in earth.
So when you pray, let your words be few. Look, I believe in praying for hours. I mean, Jesus did that, he would pray all night.
Okay. But you don't need to help God along with your praying. When you have an intimate walk with God, A 19-second prayer can make the fire fall. Y'all know who Joseph Prince is? I don't agree with everything he said, but I like Joseph Prince.
He's a megachurch pastor in Asia and thousands and thousands of people, great man of prayer. He said, I was walking through the mall a little while back. And somebody recognized me. He said, You're Pastor Prince. He said, Yeah.
So you preach to thousands and really hundreds of thousands when you look at this online stuff. He said, Yeah.
He said, My mother. has cancer. Can you pray for her healing? He said, absolutely. Come here.
He put his hand on that purse's God heal this man's mom of cancer in Jesus' name. Amen. That's it. I thought you'd like start slobbering and shouting and yelling and Drinks with all? And Joseph Prince said the same thing.
My prayers don't have power. God has the power. My prayers just tap into the power of God. And Elijah just says a very simple prayer because he knows God and walks with God. He was a man of prayer, and that prayer brought down the fire.
And let me give you one more thing about Elijah. Elijah was bold. He's not scared. You don't see him being scared. In fact, in this passage, Elijah speaks eight times.
Every time he spoke in Hebrew, it's a command, it's an imperative. He commands them to do this. He commands them to do that. Why do I pray every single week? Hazach!
You know what that means? Be bold. Because if you're going to be an Elijah in this generation, you can't be a coward and you can't be a wimp. You gotta be bold. Church, I'm running out of time.
The American church reminds me so much of this crowd. Hopping from Going to church on Sunday. and being just like the culture. Serving Jesus Christ when it's convenient. When it's not convenient, I want to hide my Christianity.
Standing up for Jesus Christ, unless I'll get some grief and then I won't. Elijah says The bad group. Same thing I want to ask you. How long are we going to keep hopping? Between the world and this world system and try to make the world happy, how much time are we going to spend?
How much energy are we going to spend hopping from opinion to opinion? Why don't we just decide I'm going to follow Jesus Christ and let the chips fall where they may? But but you listen to me. In this Pagan? Demonic Bail out.
Ashra saturated culture. You follow Jesus? It might cost you tenure. It might cost you your job. It might cost you your family.
It might cost you everything.
Well, Chand, if finally Jesus cost me everything. Then what do I get in return? You get Jesus, that's what you get. And he is wonderful. I have served him for the last several decades.
There's nobody like Jesus. He loves me like nobody else loves me. He is my Savior. He is my Lord. One day He's going to call me home to be with Him.
Yeah, you may lose a world, but you get Jesus. Open Doors USA tells the story of a man in the Assam region of India. It's been the 1800s. He was from the Garo tribe. I think it's like northeastern India, a very remote part of India.
The man's name was Noxeng. And not sing heard the gospel. And gave his life to Jesus. Shortly after Noxing gave his life to Jesus. The wicked pagan chief of that area.
called him into his hut. And said, I've heard you've You've turned your back on our Ancestral religion, you're following some weird God named Jesus. He said, I am. He says, I'm telling you right now. You better renounce your faith in this weird Jesus guy.
Knox seems to say, no, I can't do that. I've decided to follow Jesus and there's no turning back. And according to this story, The chief Had Not Singh's wife and two sons arrested. and brought to him. He said, I'm going to give you one more chance.
You don't renounce Jesus, I'm going to kill your family. He said, I can't do that. And that Chief. slaughtered. his two sons and his wife right from him.
The chief said, now what do you think about that? You have no family left.
Now you renounce Jesus. He says something like this. Even though nobody's going to go with me? I'm still going to follow Jesus. There was a missionary Indian missionary named Sandhu Singh that heard this story years later.
And he wrote Assam. He named the tomb Assam because it was the Assam region. And he took the words of that man who decided once and for all to stop hopping between two opinions and decided to follow Jesus Christ. And he wrote a song based on that man's story and says, This, I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back.
Though none go with me, I'm still going to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back. Hey, would you stand me now? This might be a good Sunday. To think about Elijah's question.
How long will you wafer? How long are you gonna hop back and forth? But before the fire hits Before persecution comes, we got to get it through our head: am I going to serve Jesus or this world? Just like Elijah. Put an offering On that altar.
and a fire consumed it. I pray, oh God. That this little song that we sing right now will be our offering that we place on the altar. And that this song will rise. To your ears, O God.
And be a beautiful sacrifice to you In Jesus' name. Raise your hands. And raise your voices. And let's lift this song. to Jesus as a sacrifice.
I have desired. To follow Jesus I had decided to follow Jesus I have decided to follow Jesus no turning back No turning back Though none go with me still I will follow Though none goes With me still I will follow Though none go with me Still I will follow No turning back No turning back My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus My cross I'll carry till I see Jesus Cause I'll carry till I see Jesus. No turning back I'll follow him. If you're here today or you're watching online, I just feel led to say this. There aren't a hundred ways to God.
All religions are not the same. There's one way, his name is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God's Son. He came into this world. God placed upon him your sin, your rebellion, your wickedness.
Somebody's going to have to pay for your sin. Either you're going to have to pay for it or somebody else is going to. And 2,000 years ago, he paid for your sin. He was buried and he came back to life. And now, if you'll turn from your sins and turn from this wicked old system and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will save you and forgive you and take you to heaven when you die. And if you've never turned your life over to Jesus, wherever you're at right now, let's all bow our head. And you can say this out loud or you can say this in your heart. But this is the only way to salvation. Save to Jesus, Jesus, I am a sinner.
I don't deserve to go to heaven. But Jesus, I believe you died for my sins. You paid the price for my sins. Say this to him. I believe you were buried.
And I believe three days later, God raised you from the dead. You're alive right now, Jesus.
Now say this to him, Lord, I turn from my sin. I turn to you. Please say this to him. Please forgive me of all my sins. Come and take control of my life.
And when I die, take me to heaven. In Jesus' name, amen. This is so important. Whether you know it or not, what you just did is the most important decision you'll ever make. I want you to look right up here.
We got a little QR code, or we got a little text thing. If you'll do that QR or text cross to that number, we're not going to ask you for money. We're now going to send you some materials to help you grow in your walk with Jesus Christ. That is so vital.
So, if you did that, text to that, we're going to send you some stuff. Say it again. In these final days, We don't need wimpy Christians. who don't want to offend people. We need some Elijahs.
And some Elijah X in our church right now. Which is why every week I speak the same thing over you. Because I want somebody to get it. Look, we say sticks and songs will break my bones, but words will never hurt us, as if words don't have power. Words do have power.
And I believe there's power. When I speak this into you, it's the same thing that was spoken into Joshua millennia ago. I say to you what God said to Joshua before he took on giants and demons and Nephilim. Gaza. They are marts.
I tie a rope. They are ahead. He Ibecha! Adonai Eleja? Behold, I'm not going to be able to do it.
Which means cross assembly be bold Be strong. Man, y'all don't be afraid and you don't be terrified of anything. Why? Because the Lord of heaven's armies will be with you this week everywhere you go. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we pray.
Amen and amen. God bless you, beloved. Let's go change this world with Jesus Christ. God bless you. Yeah.
